Sunday School, June 3, 2018 2 Pentecost B, Proper 4

Sunday School, June 3, 2018   2 Pentecost B, Proper 4

God’s Law and How to use it

Laws can be very general or very specific

Love God, Love your Neighbor, Love Yourself: these are general laws.

Drive 25 miles per hours in a school zone:  This is a very specific laws.

Think about some very specific laws that you know about

Think about some very specific family rules

Think about the reasonable use of a law.

You must always clean your bedroom on Saturday mornings.

Would there ever be exceptions to this family law?

What about if you were sick?

What if you were gone?

What is a soccer match happened at the same time?

What would you think about your parents if they made you clean your bedroom on Saturday morning even if you were sick?

In the time of Jesus there were rules for the Sabbath

On the Sabbath one was supposed to rest from work.

But what counts for work on the Sabbath?

Can a farmer feed the farm animals on Sunday?

Can parents work to fix meals for their family on Sunday?

Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath.  Some of the religious leader told him that he had broken God’s law because healing was on the Sabbath when he was not supposed to be working.

Jesus said that Sabbath law was made for people to honor God and people were not made so that they could follow Sabbath laws.

Laws are good but we have to know how to use laws in the right way.

Fire fighters, police, nurses and doctors work on Sunday and the Sabbath, why?  Because healing people, taking care of people and protecting people are important.  The big rules to love God, love one’s neighbors, and love oneself can be adjust to little rules which help to make life loving, kind and fair to everyone and still honor God.

Sermon:

  How many of you have rules in your family?

  Do your rules ever get broken?

  Do your parent want you to eat the food that is put on your plate?

  But do they make you eat food if you have a tummy ache or if you are sick?  Why not?  If you are sick, then rules about eating change.  Why?  Because the rules have to change to help a person when they are sick. Right.

  Do your parents make you take a bath?  Do you have to take a bath if you are sick?  No.  Again the rules change when you are sick.

  Does a police car have to stop at a red light if they have turned on their flashing lights and sirens and if the police car is rushing to an accident?

No, the police get to break the law.  The same is true for fire trucks and for ambulances.  So there are special situations in life that make us change or adjust the rules.

  In the time of Jesus there was a law about the Sabbath.  The Sabbath was a day of rest, a day of worship.  And no one was supposed to work on the Sabbath.  But what did Jesus do?  He healed a sick woman on the Sabbath.  And the religious leader got mad at him for breaking the rule.  And Jesus told the religious leader that he was being silly about the rule of the Sabbath.  You give water to your animals on the Sabbath and that is work but you still do it.  So why is it wrong to heal a sick woman on the Sabbath?

  Jesus showed that laws are good, but they still have to used in the right ways so that they truly help people.

  What if I am playing soccer with you and there is only one soccer ball and it is mine.  So, when we play soccer, I get to touch the soccer ball with my hands.  And you say, “That’s not fair.”  And I say, “Too bad.  If you don’t want to follow my rules, then I am going to take my ball and go home.”

  What kind of rule would that be?  It would be a selfish rule that served only me.  And because I owned the only soccer ball, I controlled the game.”  That would not be a fair rule, would it?

  Jesus said that the leaders were not fair in their rules.  They made rules that were good for them and their jobs, but not good for ordinary people who wanted to know that God loved and care for them.

  So you and I need to remember that laws and rules are good, but we have to know how to use them so that they truly help us to love God and help us to love and help other people.  That is what Jesus taught us about the law. Amen

St. John the Divine Episcopal Church

17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Family Service with Holy Eucharist

June 3, 2018: The Second Sunday after Pentecost

Gathering Songs: Hallelu, Hallelujah, He’s Got the Whole World, I Come with Joy, I’ve Got Peace  

Song: Hallelu, Hallelujah   (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 84)

Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah, Praise ye the Lord. 

Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah, Praise ye the Lord. 

Praise ye the Lord, Hallelujah, Praise ye the Lord, Hallelujah. 

Praise ye the Lord, Hallelujah, Praise ye the Lord.

Liturgist: Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

People: And blessed be God’s kingdom, now and for ever.  Amen.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.

And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.

Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

O God, your never-failing providence sets in order all things both in heaven and earth: Put away from us, we entreat you, all hurtful things, and give us those things which are profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen..

Litany Phrase: Alleluia (chanted)

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia

O God, you have made us! Alleluia

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Alleluia

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Alleluia

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Alleluia

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia

O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Alleluia

A reading from the Second Letter to the Corinthians

We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 81

1 Sing with joy to God our strength * and raise a loud shout to the God of Jacob.

2 Raise a song and sound the timbrel, * the merry harp, and the lyre.

3 Blow the ram's-horn at the new moon, * and at the full moon, the day of our feast.

4 For this is a statute for Israel, * a law of the God of Jacob.

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

Litanist:

For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!

For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!

For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!

For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!

For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!

For work and for play. Thanks be to God!

For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!

For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!

For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.

   Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark  

People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

One sabbath Jesus and his disciples were going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”  Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon – Father Phil

Children’s Creed

We did not make ourselves, so we believe that God the Father is the maker of the world.

Since God is so great and we are so small,

We believe God came into our world and was born as Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.

We need God’s help and we believe that God saved us by the life, death and

     resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We believe that God is present with us now as the Holy Spirit.

We believe that we are baptized into God’s family the Church where everyone is

     welcome.

We believe that Christ is kind and fair.

We believe that we have a future in knowing Jesus Christ.

And since we all must die, we believe that God will preserve us forever.  Amen.

Litany Phrase: Christ, have mercy. (chanted)

For fighting and war to cease in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For peace on earth and good will towards all. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety of all who travel. Christ, have mercy.

For jobs for all who need them. Christ, have mercy.

For care of those who are growing old. Christ, have mercy.

For the safety, health and nutrition of all the children in our world. Christ, have mercy.

For the well-being of our families and friends. Christ, have mercy.

For the good health of those we know to be ill. Christ, have mercy.

For the remembrance of those who have died. Christ, have mercy.

For the forgiveness of all of our sins. Christ, have mercy.

Liturgist:         The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

People:            And also with you.

Song during the preparation of the Altar and the receiving of an offering.

Song: He’s Got the Whole World (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 90)

He’s got the whole world; in his hands he’s got the whole wide world in his hands.  He’s got the whole world in his hands; he’s got the whole world in his hands.

He’s got the little tiny babies. ….

Brother and the sisters….  

Mothers and the fathers…..

Doxology

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of heaven.”

All become members of a family by birth or adoption.

Baptism is a celebration of birth into the family of God.

A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.

The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.  Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

All may gather around the altar

Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;

You have made us in your image

And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:

Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.

And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph

And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.

Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat

  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  

  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

And so, Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and wine. Bless and sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Bless and sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, "Drink this, all of you. This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death and resurrection of Christ and that his presence will be with us in our future.

Let this holy meal keep us together as friends who share a special relationship because of your Son Jesus Christ.  May we forever live with praise to God to whom we belong as sons and daughters.

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory

 is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. AMEN.

And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing,

Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.

Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.

As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.

But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.

Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Alleluia! Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia!

Words of Administration

Communion Song: I Come With Joy   (Renew! # 195)

1-I come with joy a child of God, forgiven, loved, and free, the life of Jesus to recall, in love laid down for me.

2-I come with Christians, far and near to find, as all are fed, the new community of love in Christ’s communion bread.

3-As Christ breaks bread, and bids us share, each proud division ends.  The love that made us makes us one, and strangers now are friends.

Post-Communion Prayer

Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;

We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.

And His Presence has been known to us.

We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers

    and sisters in Christ.

Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the

     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,

As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Closing Song I’ve Got Peace Like a River (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 122)

1          I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river in my soul.  I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got peace like a river.  I’ve got peace like a river in my soul..

2          I’ve got love…. 

3          I’ve got joy……

Dismissal:   

Liturgist: Let us go forth in the Name of Christ. 

People: Thanks be to God! 

Aphorism of the Day, May 2018

Aphorism of the Day, May 31, 2018

As sacrosanct as we often regard the "Law" to be, the fact that it has to be interpreted in application in new situations means that the "Law" is always "political" in that it comes to the defense of a "polis" or group of people.   Laws can be used in ways to supports positions and they can be used as a polemic against "political" opponents.  Should Jesus be judged by the law for doing healing "work" on the Sabbath?  Defining "work" and implying that healing is somehow something that God would not do though a person on a particular occurrence of Sabbath shows the way in which interpretation of the law involves the politics of a particular party.

Aphorism of the Day, May 30, 2018

Kant's Categorical Imperative was to act in such a way that one could will that it be a universal maxim.  This seems to imply that there would be no exceptions.  Does this imperative not take into account the intention within a particular situation and whether the resulting act would be salutary again in a different situation?  No work on the Sabbath, except healing?  How does one maintain the general imperative of needing Sabbath Rest and yet allowing that some human activity on the Sabbath serves higher justice?  Old "Blue Laws" for Sunday in some states used to allow beer to be purchased on Sunday but not baby bottles?  Can Categorical Imperatives actually predict every future case of how it might be articulated with completely just practice?  Love and Justice can be Categorical Imperatives while being fluid about particular articulation of the same in future situations.

Aphorism of the Day, May 29, 2018

While we might use the term God's law to designate "universal and unchanging" rules of human behavior, it is not as easy as it seems.  All laws exist within societies of practice and it might be more godly to claim that God's Law is about Justice and Love.  Particular laws and ordinances arise from the attempt to articulate what justice and love look like in actual practice.  Details of cultures can arise and change which require the adjustment of laws to articulate what justice and love means in a different time than from the times when they were originally generated.  The 10 Commandments and our U.S. Constitution were generated in a time when slavery was the accepted practice.  How could such "enlightened" and even "divine" laws omit such a glaring injustice?   When St. Paul wrote that love is fulfilling the law, it could be that he was referring to the call we continuously have to make our behaviors and rules of behaviors more closely approximate what justice means for everyone.

Aphorism of the Day, May 28, 2018

Legalism is when laws are applied in absurd ways and actually hinder the common good, even in a particular situation.  Could Jesus heal on the Sabbath?  Would healing be against the labor laws of the Sabbath?  What is labor and what is rest?  What is prayer and what is not prayer?  Healing as oblationary prayer is a way to honor the intent of the sabbath.  Nurses and doctors work at all times.  Enlightened justice allows humane adjustments.

Aphorism of the Day, May 27, 2018

While Christians have argued about the Trinity for centuries, they have often forgotten that they are unified by having language as the prior condition for positing any position at all on the Trinity.  One should never forget that everything known begins to be known because we first have Language.

Aphorism of the Day, May 26, 2018

In pondering the Holy Trinity one might ponder a comparison between the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed.  The Apostles Creed embodies the early baptism formulaic command to baptize in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit after the candidate has expressed belief in the Three.  The Nicene Creed from a later period is the Creed of the Council to require belief about how the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are related.  Such a Creed derived from an effort to standardize church unity in a presentation of an "official" understanding of God.

Aphorism of the Day, May 25, 2018

It cannot be missed that the Trinity arose in the history of Christianity as an attempt to standardized the presentation of God in the midst of different presentations of meaningful understandings of God.  Standardization occurs because of success; successful but conflicting Christian communities can spill into the socio-political contexts.  Emperor Constantine saw Christian success and he saw Christian divisions and how it could and did "divide" the Empire.  Hence, the Council of Nicaea was an Emperor driven meeting for bishops to gather and standardized the presentation of Christian meaningful truths.  The result of such a standardization was the "excommunication" of large number of Christians, perhaps the majority, and it took a century for it to become more uniformly enforceable, since the "losing parties" at Nicaea had protecting governors to allow them their continued practice and promulgation of their post-Nicaea "declared non-standard"= heretical truths.  An extra-church figure like Constantine influenced the direction of the church.  One can see how the extra-ecclesiastical Constitution of the United States in protecting all religious beliefs is in fact an attempt to "repair" Nicaea as it concerns freedom of religious beliefs.  Constantine tried to enforce the "canon" law of Nicaea upon the entire population; the U.S. Constitution does not permit any "canon" law to be the law of the land.  Is Catholic, meaning "on the whole" as defined by church councils, enforceable as Universal Canon Law or would such an enforcement be the loss of freedom?

Aphorism of the Day, May 24, 2018

The writer of the Gospel of John continuously makes fun of literal interpreters, as when the literal Nicodemus thought about getting back into his mother's womb when being told he needed to be born again/from above.  In the same discourse the implicit Trinity is referred to: Born of the Spirit, God so loved the world he sent his Son.  The Trinity has come to be regarded in literal term when it should be regarded in literary, aesthetic and relational terms, when in fact, the Gospel of John indicates that all is literary, because the writer says, In the Beginning the Word was God.

Aphorism of the Day, May 23, 2018

In the history of the church one can note that we have the ability to complicate beliefs because in success parties divide and religious meanings become "administrative" truths that religious authorities feel that they need to enforce by council and so heretics are declared.  Eucharistic presence "over-explained" as transubstantiation became an administrative truth which divided the church; some believed that Christ in me and I in Christ was the Real Presence of a Real Relationship with Christ, renewed in the Eucharistic event not because one had lost the Real Relationship but simply because we live in time and living in time means that Real Relationship is celebrated in renewal events and acts.  The Trinity is another meaningful truth that became an administrational truth after the Council of Nicaea.  In its nascent form in the Gospel of John, one finds that the Trinity is the relationship between Jesus, his Father and the Spirit.  In a world of differences, it is easy to live with impaired relationship denying the sameness that we have with each other, the mutual versions we have of each other because of the ability for mutual experience to be able to be conducted between different persons.  In the practice of Jesus, the Trinity is the elevation of Relationship of Different Persons into the One Harmony of God as the chief value of life itself and thus the primary model for us to organize our human experience around.  The Trinity is a Relational Meaningful Truth; it loses something when regarded as mere administrational truth of who believes rightly or wrongly.

Aphorism of the Day, May 22, 2018

The Gospel of John is the most "Trinitarian" Gospel since in the long discourses of Jesus there are words of relationship regarding Father, Son and Spirit.  One might say that the doctrine of the Trinity relies heavily upon the words of Jesus in John which so obviously refer to a relationship occurring within God and that spills into human experience as men and women are invited to know themselves as sons and daughters of God.  The Trinity is about Relationship but hints that the unity of the harmony of differences is a more honest  presentation of the needed immanence of God than the unity of an aloof mono-Self of pure apophaticism. (Honestly, how could one even know pure transcendence existed?)



Aphorism of the Day, May 21, 2018

In the discourse between Jesus and Nicodemus, Jesus referred to earthly and heavenly understanding.  In a cosmological universe that is not a flat earth, domed sky, and highest heaven is through the top of the dome how does one appropriate the notions of earthly or heavenly, or natural and spiritual?  The heavenly must be a interior constitutions of the word lenses through which one interprets and sees one's world.  Jesus came and his words which were spirit, in the sense of reorganizing the inner word constitutions of people, brought about this experience of being born "again" or from above.  God, Spirit and Son has become a part of the dynamic heavenly understanding of God.  Ponder this as we move toward Trinity Sunday.

Aphorism of the Day, May 20, 2018

Pentecost is a further explanation as to why the early church grew and survived and flourished in the way it did.  How could an "absent" Jesus become a translatable and trans-historical reality to attract people to claim a personal relationship and personal identity with this man who was absent?  How?  The Holy Spirit was the explanation.  People came to believe that their lives were inhabited by an inner constitution with a Higher Power Personality who not only kept the Personal Traces of Jesus alive; but magnified them into a mystical experience of Identity.  When such an experience is corporate and replicating in nature, it ceases to be an idio-pathological event; it becomes an objectively confirmed community experience and the resulting behaviors are then judged by all other communities.  This means that Christians should be very concerned that all that we do should be judged by the standard of love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, patience, faith, self-control and humility.  If behaviors do not measure up to these standards, one cannot claim a genealogy with Christ or the Spirit.

Aphorism of the Day, May 19, 2018

How did the early churches understand the Day of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit?  They understood the Holy Spirit to be the future of Jesus, the Son, and God the Father known after the risen Christ was gone from this world.  Sometimes the church claims to be the "preserver" of the tradition of Christ and sometimes the efforts of preservation are over-identified with practices that have arisen at times in the history of the church, and Anglicanism has generated some of these.  But we must never forget that the Spirit is about the future of Christ, of God and about creating and sustaining love of this world.

Aphorism of the Day, May 18, 2018

Jesus said, "My words are spirit and they are life."  One could say that Word is what is truly unifying about human life.  Everyone had Word or Language even though we use language to name of world of differences.  Spirit=Word=Life is the unity of all.  Onto the big problem: translating human use of language into peaceful, loving and just outcomes for everyone.

Aphorism of the Day, May 17, 2018

In the Genesis story, creation took place by the speech acts of God: "God said, let there be ....and it came into being."  The Genesis story relates that Adam was made in God's image and what does Adam do?  Adam names things, meaning that a God who spoke Adam into existence made Adam as one with language ability to name creation.  While the story seems to indicate that God and Adam are beings which can be signified by words of language, the hidden reality is that God and Adam are all taking place in and because of there being language in the first place.  Language is the field of being and in this field is an endless crop of signifiers endlessly signifying other signifiers while the signifying agents of language try endlessly to name what is beyond signification.  Alas, beyond signification is but more signifiers.  Significations if what humans do.

Aphorism of the Day, May 16, 2018

A major disagreement between the Eastern and Western church is the phrase in the Nicene Creed, "and the son," added by the Western church.  The debate about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son has been a hot issue except for the theologically clueless not appreciating the finer distinctions of Trinitarian theology.  Though if one is being biblical one could simple quote the words of Jesus in John's Gospel.  "When the Advocate comes, whom I will send from the Father...." we could simplify the argument about what it means for the Holy Spirit to be sent from the Father according to the promise of Jesus: "I will send."  It is probably ironically all too human for us to project our disputes onto the perfect relationship of the Trinity?

Aphorism of the Day, May 15, 2018

One of messages of the Day of Pentecost is that a message of unity is translatable.  Jews from the Diaspora were in Jerusalem and they spoke the languages of the countries of their residencies but on the Day of Pentecost, they heard the message about Christ in their own languages.  It is ironic how the Western Church went to a "Latin" only policy to "unify" the church and they forsook that original policy of how the message of Christ was translatable into the languages and experiences of all people.  One can understand enforced Latin for administrative control in a growing church but the end result was a passive and spectator laity and the baptismal order of lay ministry truly was treated as the inferior order of ministry.

Aphorism of the Day, May 14, 2018

Sometimes a negative is used to explain what is regarded to be a positive phenomenon.  Leaven/yeast was used to explain the grow of the "kingdom of God."  Fire was also a symbol for what was used to explain the growth of the church, i.e., the Holy Spirit.  The early Christians themselves were rather shocked at the effervescence of the Jesus Movement and the Spirit, an unseen but creating life-affirming  breath and creating wind was the explanation for the surprising growth of the Jesus Movement.  Holy Spirit Movements have their negative counter movements in the collective mob-ism of the socio-political phenomenon of Nazism and Stalinism et al.   One must judge the fruits of the deeds and rhetoric of any movement to see the nature of the "inner spirit" of the movement whether it be truthful or lying.  Countries which had Christianity as their "main" religion have become "Anti-Christ" in the actual behaviors that took over political leadership.

Aphorism of the Day, May 13, 2018

Speaking in the name of Christ and making the name of God known was important in the writings of the early churches.  What does it mean that Jesus made the name of God known?  Does it mean that he transgressed the holy "tetragrammaton" unpronounceable to Jews who revered the sacredness of the name of G-d?  Who would dare to speak or write the name of G-d?  Is the holy transcendence of G-d mocked when Jesus revealed G-d's name to be for him, "Father" or "Daddy?"  Was Jesus encouraging the original experience of knowing G-d something akin to a young infant saying for the first time, "mama" or "dada?" An outcome of the "new birth" experience referred to in John's Gospel was to make an intimate "Daddy" confession of God and in such spiritual innocence ego is absent to trivialize divine presence or to limit G-d to the word "Daddy" when "Mommy" would also be analogically accurate and appropriate in the sense of expressing intimacy with G-d as one's generating parent because one has been generated within the Plenitude of All.

Aphorism of the Day, May 12, 2018

How does one take a religious word like "sanctify" and understand it to be functionally useful today?  Try the route of using of Thesaurus?  Sanctify means to make holy.  But what does make holy mean for us today?  Probably the way to appropriate sanctify and make holy today would be to use the words "the intensely intentional specification of something as being most highly valued such that one would organize the rest of one's life around such an intensely intentional value."  One would have to qualify such a definition by a disclaimer: "The most highly valued "thing" does not happen because of the applied energy of intention; rather the intention is drawn because of the attraction to the highly valued thing.  Sanctification pertains to being drawn in devotion to what is most highly valued which has sublime overtones.


Aphorism of the Day, May 11, 2018

When the mystical practices of St. Paul resulted in a "spiritual poetic," it resulted in hiding these practices in the Gospel narratives of the life of Jesus.  His Ascension was presented as the way in which one became "seated with Christ" in heavenly places.  Minds which externalize and demand empirical verification of the same get trapped in the confusion of missing the poetry in narrative events.  Using the wrong discursive interpretive tool for the wrong event leads to schizoidal behaviors of living by the laws of gravity while pretending in some cases they don't pertain.

Aphorism of the Day, May 10, 2018

One of the outcomes of Christianity becoming the religion of the Roman Empire and every citizen becoming passively assimilated into the church through infant baptism was the externalization of the mystagogy of the church.  St. Paul understood the Ascension as the mystical elevator of being raised with Christ into heavenly places.  With the lost of mystagogy in the church, the Ascension became the physical ascent of Jesus into the abode heaven, something like finding the opening at the top of the dome of the sky to an actual physical place in heaven.

Aphorism of the Day, May 9, 2018

In John's Gospel, it is written that God so loved the world, yet his disciples were not to love the world and they were to be in the world but not of the world.  The Johannine use of "world" refers to the orientation of a person towards the exterior world as one's primary home versus orientation toward an interior realm, the very interior life where words are born and arise to name value for everything that one experiences.  In mysticism, one tends first to the interior world of words where values are created and so one sets the orientation of one's life.  One can still love the world of the God's created order as the Christ nature loves the world in a healthful caring way.

Aphorism of the Day, May 8, 2018

Modernity has broken down religion has Folk Religion, in the sense of a religious identity unifying the practice of a larger group of people.  Cloistered community such as the Amish try to resist such a break down.  A similar religious identity maintains because it rides the coat tails of homogeneous ethnic identity where religious practice is embedded in ethnic identity.  The melting pot of America is based upon no one religious identity being enforced upon the entire country and as nomadic behaviors increase, even regional or clannish religious identity no longer attain the impact of being "folk religious" practice.

Aphorism of the Day, May 7, 2018

Oneness in diversity is Trinitarian dilemma and oneness is a topic in John's Gospel.  Jesus is One with the Father.  And the disciples are to be One as he is One with Father.  This oneness is often used in reference  to the ecumenical "scandal" (Christians divided by having a common Savior) of divided "churches," when it fact it probably refers to the disciples' oneness with God the Father.  Oneness in diverse churches can still be adhere two since diversity can be an expression of different missions which different people are called to in affirming the overall Oneness of All.

Aphorism of the Day, May 6, 2018

Personality and the event of friendship are perhaps two of the highest human experiential notions.  Since they have such high regard in human experience, it follows that the superlative case of personality and friendship is a higher order.  Hence analogically, for Christians, the Trinity is the higher friendship model among the Divine Persons.

Aphorism of the Day, May 5, 2018

How did the disciples go from being clumsily clueless about the knowledge of Jesus to the status of being able to speak in his name and be able to say like Paul, "I have the mind of Christ?"  In John's Gospel there is something akin to a graduation ceremony when Jesus says, "I have called you friends; you are no longer servants.  What the Father has shared with me, I have shared with you."  The continuing identity of the disciples with Jesus and the Father through the Holy Spirit expresses the reality of the authority of the leadership practice of the early churches.

Aphorism of the Day, May 4, 2018

The Gospel of John includes a presentation of the radical identity of Jesus with his Father.  "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father."  Sometimes we through iconography split the Trinity into spatial identities because our perception often is limited to Newtonian two planes of existence.  Poetry allows other modes of perception such that Jesus can be identified fully with the Father in ONENESS, not just because he bears the image of God most fully in human form, but because he does not ever regard himself separated from the Plenitude of All.  Jesus invites all to the experience of ONENESS or being able to regard ourselves in continuous unseparated existence with ALL.

Aphorism of the Day, May 3, 2018

Conditional friendship?  Jesus said, "You are my friend if you do what I command."  Sounds like there are strings attached but Jesus also said that he followed the commands of his Father.  Friendship is "winsome" authority because choosing to do what is good and right is not a burdensome command.  If a command was about doing something that was not in a person's well-being, it would not be a friendship.

Aphorism of the Day, May 2, 2018

Jesus said that the greater love is "laying down one's life for one's friends."   One can think of sacrificial death of fallen heroes in battle, but the life referred to here is pseuche life or soul life.  This means that a person comports oneself in thinking, feeling, choosing and acting so as to make room for another person in the significant way that has come to define friendship.  The reward of friendship does not make "checking one's ego" burdensome because friendship happens in the dynamic of people "mutually checking their egos" in the event of love.

Aphorism of the Day, May 1, 2018

"I have not called you servants; I have called you friends."  These words in John are something like a graduation ceremony.  The apprentices are made to be teachers who would also have students.  They became certified by Christ to speak in his name even so that they words they spoke could be designated as worthy of Him and inspired by the spirit.  The New Testament are collections of writings by "friends" of Christ who taught, preached and wrote in his name and so the councils of the church have designated the words as inspired.  Each is called to be an "inspired" friend of Christ, but we don't need our words canonized since the canon provides sufficient examples of universal language patterns that can find correspondences in any time.

Quiz of the Day, May 2018

Quiz of the Day, May 31, 2018

Whom of the following was not present at the Visitation?

a. Mary
b. Gabriel
c. Elizabeth
d. John the Baptist

Quiz of the Day, May 30, 2018

What do George, Michael, Joan of Arc, Martin of Tours have in common?

a. saints from France
b. patron saints of France
c. soldier saints
d. maritime saints

Quiz of the Day, May 29, 2018

Jesus referred to a "Queen of the South."  Whom was he referring to?

a. Mary Magdalene
b. His Mother Mary
c. Candace
d. Bathsheba
e. The Queen of Sheba
f.  Judah, the area of Jerusalem

Quiz of the Day, May 28, 2018

John Calvin was born Jehan Cauvin in what country/kingdom?

a. Switzerland
b. Flanders
c. Belgium
d. France


Quiz of the Day, May 27, 2018

The most famous personality of the Council of Nicaea was Athanasius.  The Council of Nicaea was a gathering of bishops.  At the time, Athanasius was not at bishop.  Why was he there?

a. to articulate the Arian position
b. he was a deacon for the bishop of Alexandria
c. he was a well-known theologian in Nicaea
d. Emperor Constantine gave him a personal invitation

Quiz of the Day May 26, 2018

Why is there a chair in Canterbury Cathedral called "Augustine's Chair?"

a. Augustine of Hippo made a trip to Canterbury
b. Thomas Becket brought Augustine's Chair to Canterbury
c. Augustine of Canterbury was the first Archbishop of Canterbury
d. Chaucer named the chair in his Canterbury Tales

Quiz of the Day, May 25, 2018

Who is known as the "Father of the Ecclesiastical History of the English Church?"

a. Richard Hooker
b. St. Anselm of Canterbury
c. St. Augustine of Canterbury
d. Venerable Bede

Quiz of the Day, May 24, 2018

According to the Book of Proverb, who calls out in the streets?

a. the town crier
b. the King's envoy
c. the Holy Spirit
d. Wisdom

Quiz of the Day, May 23, 2018

Nicolaus Copernicus was an astronomer who observed a heliocentric planetary system rather than the geocentric views that had prevailed in his times; what was his day job?

a. priest
b. doctor
c. inventor
d. merchant

Quiz of the Day, May 22, 2018

The first Book of Common Prayer was published the day after what major feast in the 1549?

a. The Epiphany
b. Christmas
c. Pentecost
d. All Saints' Day

Quiz of the Day, May 21, 2018

The biblical origin for the "Sanctus" (Holy, Holy, Holy) in the Mass is found where?

a. Genesis
b. Psalms
c. Isaiah
d. Revelations

Quiz of Day, May 20, 2018

The persons from various locations in the Roman world listed as present on the Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem were from what religious background?

a. Gentiles religious backgrounds
b. The community of John the Baptist
c. Judaism
d. Proselytes of Judaism
e. all of the above
f. c and d
g. a and b

Quiz of the Day, May 19, 2018

Which liturgy was used for the wedding ceremony of Prince Harry and Meghan held on May 19, 2018?

a. The traditional wedding liturgy from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer
b. Nuptial Mass from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer
c. Common Worship, used in the C of E, since 2000
d. A special liturgy generated for the occasion by the Archbishop of Canterbury

Quiz of the Day, May 18, 2018

The popular idiom "sour grapes" about rationalizing about not wanting something when one really did want something comes from where?

a. Jeremiah, parents' eating of sour grapes have their children's teeth on edge
b. Ezekiel, parents' eating of sour grapes have their children's teeth on edgeQuiz of the Day, c. the Psalms
d. Aesop's Fables

May 17, 2018

Which two books of the Bible make references to seven golden lamps or lampstands?

a. Ezekiel and Revelations
b. Ezekiel and Zechariah
c. Zechariah and Revelations
d. Daniel and Revelations

Quiz of the Day, May 16, 2018

Persons from which of the following location were not represented at the Pentecost event in Jerusalem?

a. Crete
b. Arabia
c. Cappadocia
d. Pamphylia
e. Ethiopia
f. Libya
g. Rome
h. Phrygia

Quiz of the Day, May 15, 2018

Whom of the following was not a son of Jesse?

a. Ramah
b. Shammah
c. Eliab
d. David
e. Abinadab

Quiz of the Day, May 14, 2018

Who succeeded Moses as the leader of Israel and led them into the Promised Land?

a. Caleb
b. Samuel
c. Gideon
d. Joshua

Quiz of the Day, May 13, 2018

Whom did God appear to in the flames of a burning bush?

a. Elijah
b. Elisha
c. Ezekiel
d. Moses

Quiz of the Day, May 12, 2018

Who is Justus and Matthias?

a. disciples who walked with Jesus
b. candidates to replace Judas Iscariot as the 12th disciple
c. lottery candidates for the position of 12th disciples
d. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, May 11, 2018

Whom of the following did not have an "Assumption" into heaven?

a. The Virgin Mary
b. Elijah
c. Enoch
d. Jesus

Quiz of the Day, May 10, 2018

How many days after Easter is the Feast of the Ascension?

a. 30
b. 40
c. 42
d. 38

Quiz of the Day, May 9, 2018

Gregory Nazianzus and John Chrysostom were archbishop of what city?

a. Rome
b. Antioch
c. Constantinople
d. Alexandria

Quiz of the Day, May 8, 2018

Who wrote, "“Our Savior is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come?”

a. Margery Kempe
b. Evelyn Underhill
c. Dame Julian of Norwich
d. Hildegard of Bingen

Quiz of the Day, May 7, 2018
What is the New Testament Greek word for "World?"

a. sarx
b. soma
c. kosmos
d. gé


Quiz of the Day, May 6, 2018

What does Jubilee stand for in the Hebrew Scriptures?

a. a holy year celebrated after 49 years
b. a year to deal with justice for property and land management
c. a year of amnesty and release of slaves and prisoners
d. a year when debts are forgiven
e. a year not currently observed on the Jewish liturgical calendar
f. all of the above
g. a and b
h. c and d

Quiz of the Day, May 5, 2018

In which Gospel can one find the most "I am" sayings of Jesus?

a. Matthew
b. Mark
c. Luke
d. John

Quiz of the Day May 4, 2018

Where can one find the phrase, "do not cast your pearls before swine?"

a. Matthew
b. the Beatitudes
c. Sermon on the Mount
d. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, May 3, 2018

Who was the chief theological opponent of Athanasius at the Council of Nicaea?

a. Eusebius of Caesarea
b. The Emperor Constantine
c. Arius
d. Nicholas of Myra

Quiz of the Day, May 2, 2018

What was the significance of "gleanings" in the Torah?

a. special insights reserved fro nazirites
b. unharvest produce and grain left for the poor to gather
c. the law of the tithe
d. the rules for Jubilee

Quiz of the Day, May 1, 2018

Whom of the following is definately not James the Less?

a. Son of Alphaeus
b. the Just
c. Son of Zebedee
d. Brother of our Lord

Why Are We Trinitarian?

Trinity Sunday b  May 27, 2018  

Isaiah 6:1-8  Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17   John 3:1-17

 Lectionary Link

Today is Trinity Sunday and therefore the topic of the sermon is obvious: Baseball.  Why? because the Trinity is too mysterious and controversial.  Just kidding. And so you won't think that my sermon is pointless, here are the points.  The words of Jesus.  The words of Paul and other New Testament writers. The baptismal formula.  The Apostles Creed.  The retroactive Trinity.  The Nicene Creed.  The Trinity for you and me.

Why are we Christians Trinitarian in our beliefs?  Mainly because of the words of Jesus both from the oral tradition and from the oracle tradition of the words of Jesus.  The oracle tradition are the words that Jesus channeled through the Holy Spirit because he gave the disciple authority to speak in his name and they like Paul could say, "We have the mind of Christ."  The words of Jesus promote the relationship between Jesus as his Father.  He taught his disciples to regard God as their intimate parent, even to be on a mommy/daddy intimate relationship with God.  To teach such intimacy of God, Jesus was the uniquely intimate Son of God who invited us to be brothers and sisters and sons and daughters of God.  The intimate relationship with God involved a conduit Person, the Holy Spirit.  And Jesus promised that this Holy Spirit would continue to be his Conduit relationship with his followers after he was gone.

The words of St. Paul, many of which came to textual form before the words of Gospel, include the relationship of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, sometimes included in a formulaic benediction in his writings, invoking the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit equally upon the lives of those in his churches.

The Trinity was crucial to the Christian Rite of Initiation, Holy Baptism.  The last words of Jesus found in the Gospel of Matthew was the evangelical command:  Go into all the world and preach the Gospel, making disciples and baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.  If you have been baptized, you were baptized in the Name of the Trinity.  These are the essential words of the Christian Rite of Holy Baptism.

Part of the early baptismal rites included questions regarding one's belief.  Do you believe in God the Father?  Do you believe in God the Son?  Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?  Each baptismal candidate responded, "I believe in the God the Father.....I believe in God the Son....I believe in God the Holy Spirit."  This question and answer format for the baptismal rite became what we know to be the Apostles Creed which is still used in question and answer form at baptism, but also at Morning and Evening Prayer as well as in the Rite of Christian Burial.  At one's baptism one confesses a belief in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  One does not make a confession about how God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit are understood in their relationship.  The relationship confession about the Trinity would come later in the history of the early churches when the Nicene Creed was generated.

Next, I would like to mention what I call the "Retroactive Trinity."  By this I mean, that if the Trinity is how God always was, how can one find the Trinity in Hebrew Scriptures?  The Jews do not confess a belief in the Holy Trinity; they confess a strict monotheism.  How can Christians claim the Hebrew Scriptures of the Jews as being Trinitarian.  Christian apologists found the Trinity, "retroactively" in the Hebrew Scriptures.  I'll give one example: The Creation Story includes the Holy Trinity.  God the Father Spoke the Words of Creation.  Jesus Christ was the Word of Creation that God the Father spoke.  And the Holy Spirit was the Breath and Wind of God which moved over the face of the abyss to cause creation to happen.  There you have it: Retroactive Trinity.  All three were involved in Creation.

Next, is the Trinity of the Council of Nicaea in 325.  One can say that it wasn't until then that the public consciousness of the Trinity was so evident.  The Trinity had moved from being hidden and implicit during the time of Jesus and the early church to becoming explicit doctrine and canon law in the aftermath of the Council of Nicaea in 325.  In the Nicene Creed we have the Trinity as an administrative, political and legal truth of the Church.  The Apostles Creed is about "that you believe in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."  The Nicene Creed is about "how you believe in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit."  Why did this become important?  Christianity was successful in the Roman Empire.  The Emperor Constantine, like typical politicians, embraced this success of Christianity, but he also was aware of the fighting between Christians.  Christians disagreed about God and about how they expressed the relationship between God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.  Constantine called the Bishops of all the churches in the Empire to gather in Nicaea to standardize Christian teaching so that disagreements would not divide his empire.  The Council of Nicaea was a heated Church Convention.  It ended with a Creed and statements of Canon Law.  In the Creed, it is state that God is Three Persons who are equally God in their personal substance.  The bishops used Greek philosophical notions to speak of God as three Persons who were equally One God.  The majority vote of bishops won at Nicaea, but a majority of Christians were "excommunicated" because of the Council of Nicaea.  The Canon Law stated, "If anyone believes to the contrary of what we have stated, let them be anathema."  This is a polite way of saying, "let them go to hell." It took more than a century for the beliefs of Nicaea to become generally accepted, because many local rulers continued to protect bishops who did agree with the teachings of the Council.

Today, we in general accept the formula of the Nicene Creed, probably without thinking about what they mean.  We probably do not appreciate the Greek philosophical distinctions used by the Church Fathers to state the relationship between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  So, where do you and I stand with the Trinity today?  When you pray, who do you pray to?  Do you give Jesus more time than the Father or the Holy Spirit?  When you pray to God, do you just assume all three?  When you meditate how do you understand the involvement of the Trinity?

How can you and I appropriate a functional and relevant understanding of the Trinity for our lives today?

I begin with John's Gospel.  In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  All things came into being through Word.  You and I are human because we are worded beings; we are language users and because we use word, we name everything including ourselves as language users.  And we name human experience.  We name the experience of God in human experience.  We can easily name God as our Father or Creator, in the sense that we know we did not self create; we came from a Plenitude of Everything.  Secondly, we accept our worded-human experience as a valid way to come to know about God.  What gives us permission to regard our human experience as a valid way to know God?  This is where God the Son is known.  God became human and embraced and validated human experience as a way to know God.  How could humanity know God if God did not permit the Divine Person to be Bi-lingual.  Jesus as God's Son is proof to us that God is bi-lingual knowing both the divine and human experience completely.  If we speak about God, the perfect bi-lingual Son is unavoidable.  Next, in our human experience we are aware of not being alone.  Space between us is not a vacuum.  There is a conduit between everything that allows mutual experience to be conducted.  How can you know me if you are not me and how can I know you without being you?  The Holy Spirit is God's Omnipresence which means that mutual relationship is conducted between us and within us.  I regard this to be the unavoidable mystery of God in human experience and this Mystery is the Holy Spirit.

Finally, why is it relevant to refer to God as Persons?  As people we define God as the greatest.  To speak about God is to use the superlative case of human attributes.  One of the highest things we think about ourselves is that we have personality.  A person is someone who is in relationship.  Being relational persons is what defines human psychology and sociology.  And if we want to speak about a great God, we believe that Ultimate relationship begins with God as a dynamic union of Personalities.  In confessing God as Trinity, we believe that love expresses perfect relationship between persons.  And we confess that Perfect Loving United Relationship begins in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And so I confess the Trinity as being unavoidable in my relationship with God today.  I hope that the Trinity will be for you today, not just a confession or church doctrine, I hope it will be your intimate love relationship with God today.  Amen.