Sunday School, February 7, 2021 5 Epiphany B

Sunday School, February 7, 2021   5 Epiphany B

Themes:

Understanding Health

How many times do most people get sick in their lives?

If we live a long time, we get sick many times.

Sometimes it happens several times in a year.

A strong healthy child can have ear aches, strep throat and pink eye all in a month.

We get colds and we get the flu.

There are other kinds of sickness, like from an injury.  If we fall and get a sprain or a broken bone, we have to spend a longer time to recover.

We also have sickness that happen that not everyone can see.  We can be very sad and we can feel sick in our inside feelings.  If we don’t get enough to eat we can feel sick.  If we don’t get enough sleep, we can feel sick.  If we don’t drink enough water, we can feel sick.  We also can have allergies that sometimes make us feel sick.

So, we get sick and better many times in life.  And sometimes we have a sickness that stays with us for our entire lives like an allergy.

If we get sick and better many times in our lives, what is the meaning of health?

Jesus is known as a person who healed.  But the people who Jesus healed, still got sick again and again and eventually they died.

So, what does health and healing mean for Jesus?

Jesus healed the insides of people.  He healed their thoughts and their feelings and the deepest place inside of them, he healed their hearts and spirits.

And when your spirit is healed you have health, now and forever.  You have health even after you have died, because you have the promise that God is going to preserve and save your life.

Jesus also healed by starting a community of people who loved and cared for each other.  This is the greatest meaning of health.

Think about how you can health even when you can get sick many times in life?

Health is about how we care for each other and how God cares for us in this life and the next.    Health is knowing that God cares for us in this life and in the next and for now God gives us people who care for us and for the health of our hearts, souls, minds, feelings and our bodies.

Jesus is a healer because he showed us as persons and as a community to live in the most healthy way.

Sermon:

Today, we have read a story about how Jesus healed the mother-in-law of Simon Peter.  And if we read all  the stories about Jesus, we will read about how Jesus had the gift of healing.  He healed people with many, many problems.

  Jesus did have a special gift of healing.  To be able to help someone get well, is a very important gift to have.

  And even though you and I may never be able to heal people in the same way that Jesus did, we can learn to heal people in some very important ways.

  Did you know that an empty stomach is a great sickness?  Did you know that many men and women and children in our world do not have enough to eat?  So, if the people who have more than enough food help feed those who don’t have enough, then we are helping to heal the empty stomachs in our world.  People who don’t have enough to eat really feel sick.  And so we can help heal them.

  We can heal in other ways too.  When someone is hurt and crying, we can heal them by being kind to them.  When we make them feel better, we are helping to heal them.

  When people are fighting with each other, this too is like a sickness.  If we can help make peace and help to make people friendly with each other, then we can be healers, even though we are not doctors.

  When we can make people happy, give them joy and hope and faith, then we are helping to heal their lives.  Every person needs hope.  Hope means that we feel like we are going to live forever because we feel like God is inside of us in our hearts.

  And when we have this feeling that God is inside of us in our hearts, we call it salvation or health, or Good News.

  Jesus was a great healer because he was able to give people hope.  And when Jesus came back to life, he showed us that death isn’t the strongest thing in life.

  Today, we come here to celebrate the hope that Jesus has given to us.  And we also come here to remind each other that we are to help Jesus heal the people in this world who need to have hope and joy and faith.

  Jesus was a great healer and he was not even a doctor.  You and I can do many good things to help heal people as well.

  Can you help Jesus in healing this world?  You can by loving your neighbors and being kind to one another.  This is how we can help heal the many problems in our world.  Amen. 

Intergenerational Family Service with Holy Eucharist

February 7, 2021: The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Gathering Songs:  O Be Careful,  Alleluia, Give Thanks, Into My Heart, Do Lord 

Song: O Be Careful (Christian Children’s Songbook # 180)

O be careful little hands what you do.  O be careful little hands what you do.  There’s a father up above and he’s looking down in love so be careful little hands what you do.

O be careful little feet where you go. ……

O be careful little lips what you say….

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

People:            And Blessed be God’s kingdom, now and forever.  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

Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

First Litany of Praise: 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

Liturgist:   A reading from the Prophet Isaiah

The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.  Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 147

Great is our LORD and mighty in power; * there is no limit to his wisdom.

The LORD lifts up the lowly, *  but casts the wicked to the ground.

Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving; * make music to our God upon the harp.

  

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

Liturgist:

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.

Jesus left the synagogue at Capernaum, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

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.

Offertory  Alleluia, Alleluia, Give Thanks, Hymn # 178, in the Blue Hymnal

Refrain: Alleluia, Alleluia, give thanks to the Risen Lord, Alleluia, Alleluia, give thanks to his Name.

1 Jesus is Lord of all the earth.  He is the King of creation.  Refrain

2 Spread the good news o’er all the earth: Jesus has died and has risen. Refrain

3 We have been crucified with Christ.  Now we shall live forever. Refrain

4 Come, let us praise the living God, joyfully sing to our Savior. Refrain

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 God.”

All become members of a family by birth or adoption.

Baptism is a celebration of our 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 up 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.  And sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbors.

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: Into My Heart  (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 126)

Into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart Lord Jesus.  Come in today, come in to stay.  Come into my heart Lord Jesus.

Into our church, into our church, come into our church Lord Jesus.  Come in today, come in to stay.  Come into our church Lord Jesus.

Into our homes….

Into our work…

Into our lives…

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: Do Lord (Christian Children’s Songbook,  # 42)

I’ve got a home in glory land that outshine the sun.  I’ve got a home in glory land that outshines the sun. I’ve got a home in glory land that outshines the sun, way beyond the blue. 

Refrain: Do Lord, O do Lord, O do remember me.  Do Lord, O do Lord, O do remember me.  Do Lord, O do Lord, O do remember me, ‘way beyond the Blue..

I took Jesus as my savior, you take him too.  I took Jesus as my savior, you take him too.  I took Jesus as my savior, you take him too, ‘way beyond the blue.  Refrain

Dismissal   

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

People:      Thanks be to God! 

    

Yogi Berra Spirituality: Life is 90% mental and spiritual; the other half is physical

4 Epiphany B  January 28, 2018
Deut. 18:15-20  Ps. 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13   Mark 1:21-28

Lectionary Link

One of the Cosmic themes of the Bible is the battle of good versus evil, and the protagonists are God versus the Devil.  This battle is waged and recorded in the salvation history of the Bible.  It is expanded to tell about Lucifer as a prideful fallen angel, who then is able to become the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  He tricks Adam and Eve to take two small bites for a man and a woman but one giant leap for all of humanity in the eviction from Paradise forever for them and for all of us.

And so disharmony ensued within the conditions of freedom as evil seemed to reign and the devilish forces continuously disrupted harmony from being the rule of the diverse orchestra of everything in creation.

Adam and Eve were not the champion heroes against the serpent; who would be that hero?  Patriarchs, Moses, David, the prophets, and other leaders arose to teach and promote order for a world that suffered from disharmony.  How could harmony be restored?

The general failure at achieving harmony through all of the godly manifestations of ministry in Israel created the longing for a hybrid hero; someone like David but greater than David.  When God's people spent so many years in exile and under occupation, the intensity of the expectation for this Messianic hero grew.

And how did the early church understand Jesus of Nazareth to be such a Messianic hero?

St. Paul wrote that struggle was not with flesh and blood.   It was not a matter of having armies and weapons of war.  St. Paul said the struggle was with the principalities and powers of darkness in high places.  In other words, the battle was an interior one.  Life begins with winning the battle in spirit and in the mind.

Do you remember the mathematics of the famous Yankee player and manager Yogi Berra?  He said, "Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical."

What Yogi was trying to say with his funny math is that it is mind over body; it is learning how to be interiorly at peace and in order so that one can with self control and finesse make one's bodily life perform what needs to be performed.

How did the Gospel writer relate the ministry of Jesus to this belief that life is 90 percent psychological and spiritual?

The exorcism accounts indicates that an encounter with the Risen Christ through power of the Holy Spirit is an inside job.  The deep prayer of the Psalmist is the deep prayer of everyone and not just of the severely disturbed: "Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me."  

The stories of exorcisms are accounts of Jesus as a people whisperer, whispering people to having a clean and renewed heart and spirit.

What a terrible designation to have, to be said to have an "unclean spirit."  That's saying you are rotten to the core and not worthy to be among people.

Jesus is the Mr. Clean of the spirit.  He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.  He is the anointed one, because he is the one who anoints us with Holy Spirit to clean our inner lives and allow us the freedom of self control.

And with self control we can practice the love of God and the true practice of fellowship in loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Let us seek Jesus, the people whisperer today.  Let us allow him to baptize us with God's spirit to help us win the interior battle against all of those principalities and powers of selfish darkness.

And let us be commissioned by the People Whisperer, to go forth and whisper people living in fear and anxiety into the peace and calm of Christ.  Amen.

Aphorism of the Day, January 2021

Aphorism of the Day, January 31, 2021

It is one thing to say God is beyond words, and while one is doing that one is using the words, "God is beyond words."  So one deconstructs oneself even while uttering this.  Another way to express what we might call mystery and mysticism is to admit that having Language or Words means that words always refer to things which are not words and so words seem to be the threshold between words and what words are referring or pointing too.  And if we think that we can escape "words," we need to admit that the entire context of of being here or there is already pre-coded by language.  By language, we reflect reflexively upon the language experience of humanity.  One needs to be careful about thinking one has "escaped" language while language is omni-present in pre-coding our human existence.

Aphorism of the Day, January 30, 2021

The way to read the Gospels is to discern the presentations of liturgical practice, teaching, and doctrines of the early church in the narratives about Jesus.  The Gospels represent a later stage than say the writings of Paul,  of a more institutionalized organization which arrived at the genre of the Gospel to embed the undergirding Christian practices in various phases and places of Christian communities.

Paul Aphorism of the Day, January 29, 2021

The main issue in life is the know the relationship between one's inner life with one's outer life to be characterized with such designations as love, creativity, fellowship and the like.  When one's interior life is so confused that it prevents such outcomes in our exterior life, one realizes that the taming of the interior is required.  The interior might be known as a very wild place because of early childhood trauma causing dissociative disorders or the brain chemistry may be chronically unable to allow interior peace.  It could be that Jesus as a people whisperer, was able to appeal to the Me Underneath Everything In My Body, and resurrect the image of God within.  And the result is to know a profound Peace which can begin to heal all of the scars that have plowed deep grooves in one's memories which have determined the hurtful practices of one's life.

 Aphorism of the Day, January 28, 2021

The Gospel literary function of the exorcisms of Jesus is to present him as triumphant over principalities and powers in the cosmic battle of God versus Satan, who is seen in the salvation story, as one who is given permissive freedom to cause havoc in the world.  Jesus, is seen as the hero to face the one who creates havoc in the exterior world but also in the interior world of people who can be continuously threatened by the accusing voices and misappropriated desire which leads to addiction/possession by unworthy compulsive forces.  Jesus as the Risen Christ/Holy Spirit is the Higher Power to give people freedom from addiction and "possession" due to warped desire.

Aphorism of the Day, January 27, 2021

In classifying mental health disorders, that is the behaviors which seem to indicate an interior disordered life, with disordered being defined by community standards of appropriate public behaviors, some of the Gospel communities had the diagnosis of "unclean spirit," or "demons," to define the disorders of the persons who were disturbing the community norms for how to interact and behave.  Some can view Jesus as a "demon zapper" bringing instant soundness of mind to people.  Certainly, we wish we had access to a pan-healing demon zapper to instantly cure all of the varieties of mental health disorders which trouble us today in our world.  One can also understand the exorcism stories as post-Pauline wisdom instantiation of the spiritual life being against the disorienting "diabols" inside of each person which contribute to the inability to peacefully unite our inner lives with how we manifest our outer lives in word and behaviors.  We know that "healing" of any sort is never "final" since our bodies still have death as a teleological event.  Our bodily and mental lives are going through continuous states of relative health and unwellness.  If we appropriate Jesus simplistically and literally as a superhero demon zapper, it can perpetuate the untruth that "complete" health is a static state that one achieves, rather than the truth of life including varieties of states of health/disease in the progression of time.

Aphorism of the Day, January 26, 2021

One can use themes of "medical anthropology" to analyze the presentation of people who had degrees of severe mental health disorders.  Exorcisms of "unclean" spirits by the people whisperer Jesus are included in the synoptic Gospels, but not in the Gospel of John. Does this mean that in the context for the writing and editing of John's Gospel, exorcisms had become an "unfamiliar or unacceptable" spiritual mental health "treatment?"

Aphorism of the Day, January 25, 2021

In a public health system which had as a diagnosis as condition as "unclean spirit," one would be regarded as persona non grata, especially at public gather of worship.  Jesus, people whisperer, was able to turn one designated as having an "unclean spirit," into one who had the unclean removed.  It is always good to get a Public Health system negative label on oneself removed.

Aphorism of the Day, January 24, 2021

The call of Christ might come in the form of creative advance in one's life which does not just involve one own benefit but the benefit of others.  The call of Christ happens when we check our egos at the doors for the benefit of other people in our world to be able to experience and share good news for their lives.

Aphorism of the Day, January 23, 2021

A call of Christ is both event and and a way of life.  You can have the call of Christ as a way of life without having dramatic Damascus Road calling "events." 

Aphorism of the Day, January 22, 2021

It could be that Peter, Andrew, James, and John were thrilled to be delivered from the "tedium" of commercial fishing as their daytime jobs.  The call of Jesus gave them the impetus to "leave" the family business whose gifts were perhaps untapped by simply throwing the net and hoping for a catch to sell.  The call of Christ can provide a way out of the drudgery of what one might be stuck in.

Aphorism of the Day, January 21, 2021

Sometimes a vocation or a call is reduced to a specific religious ministry or vacation.  This can end up in the neglect of the general call to be upon a holistic path of transformation, a continual repentance, in the renewing of one's mind.

Aphorism of the Day, January 20, 2021

Jonah is a story about a man who was called to do something that he did not want to do because it was way outside of his comfort zone and required that he live beyond his own limited "exceptionalism."  Jonah believe in the exceptionalism of his Torah based identity and why would God offer that benefit to the foreigners of Ninevah?  The lesson is that God calls us beyond our own biases because of God is love, and such love is for everyone, meaning we owe the best of love to everyone.

Aphorism of the Day, January 19, 2021

Can you imagine St. Peter before he was crucified in Rome thinking, "Wow, I've come a long way from tending nets on the Sea of Galilee?"

Aphorism of the Day, January 18, 2021

The call of Christ made fishermen public speakers and travelers to places far beyond the shores of the Sea of Galilee.  The call of Christ is a spiritual awakening which holistically changes ones entire life in manifold ways.  It really can be a "life make- over."

Aphorism of the Day, January 17, 2021

Sometimes the "call" to do things get over-valued in light the the always already call to "general" virtue like love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, and kindness.  The manifestations of such virtues are always specific in situational deeds and so they are not theoretical.  Let no one think that they don't have a call.

Aphorism of the Day, January 16, 2021

In church history, the emphasis upon "heroic" calls of the remembered saints has covered up the importance of the quotidian call for everyone to be kind.  Paul wrote that one could be heroic and yet miss out on the most important thing, love.

Aphorism of the Day, January 15, 2021

The words of the call of Jesus were: "Follow me."  If one wants to do an analysis of one's values, one should ask, "who am I following?"  The authorities whom we privilege reveal the ones whom we are following, both politically and spiritually.  Whose teachings have caught one's attention as being worthy of making one a devoted follower?  If one can answer that honestly, one knows the nature of one's calling in life, and how one is constituted toward the actions determined by one's values.

 Aphorism of the Day, January 14, 2021

Often when studying the call of God from the Gospel stories, we focus on the first and initial call.  An initial call is only one event in time; what about the necessary continuity of the call because a call is only an introduction when "people start speaking."  The continual relationship in time as a continuing call is more important than one mere milestone.

Aphorism of the Day, January 13, 2021

Historically, the notion of a call from God or a "vocation" became seen as pertaining mostly to the clergy and the religious of monastic communities.  Call and vocation came to regarded as something heroic based upon what one had to give up from "normal" pedestrian life to respond to the harder requirements of the call to poverty, obedience and chastity.  One of the results of the liturgical movement was the recovery of the "lay apostolate" and the recognition that the baptismal calling is an equal grace-filled calling that results in different articulations of that equal call of God.  Epiphany is a season of highlighting the call of God, really to everyone, based upon the inside job of the image of God being within everyone.  Everyone has the call, but not everyone realizes and actualizes the call.  Very few are struck to the ground with Damascus road call experiences, many are realize the call in a beautiful sunset or a sleeping baby.

Aphorism of the Day, January 12, 2021

The season of Epiphany includes the theme of the call of God.  The Gospel provides "call stories" about how the disciples came to follow Jesus.  One's call involves the dynamic of projecting our love on mentors and ideals that are icons of who we want to be in the future to surpass ourselves in excellence.  When we find traces in people and words of what we are not yet, the "call" happens as a lure to our transformation.

Aphorism of the Day, January 11, 2021

Nathaniel was amazed that Jesus saw him from a distance when he was under a fig tree.  What message do we send from a far when there is no one intentionally "watching" us?  Are we sending the "kindness of strangers" message when no one is looking?

Aphorism of the Day, January 10, 2021

Baptism might be understood as a "rite of passage," signifying the interaction of a person within a community as the acknowledgment of the baptized becoming coded passively and actively with the "grace markings" of the community's best practices, namely, being loved by God, forgiven, set on a path of the repentance and learning to love one's neighbor as one's self.   Such grace markings comprise the social ontological change which happens to the baptized.  The baptized and the community of the baptized are different after the baptism because each has surpassed their former states of becoming.

Aphorism of the Day, January 9, 2021

Some are used to presenting baptismal grace as sort of causatively and mechanically attached to a "water rite" in the church.  Why not see baptism as an event of reconnection of the original grace of creation which never has left the world with new discoveries of it in time?  In wanting to put God's grace "in control" of church bodies, we can reduce grace to canon law and church administration.

Aphorism of the Day, January 8, 2021

One can view baptism as a time specific causative occasion when grace moves upon the baptized, or one can see baptism as an individual in community event when the realization of the goodness grace of creation is re-realized by the community as a manifestation of the prevenient grace of values of the social ontology of the community being imprinted again in an actualizing event of inculcating the future church.

Aphorism of the Day, January 7, 2021

When a baby enters the world, we can say that such a little being is an "unfinished" being.  There are many events to look forward to in the becoming more "finished" as a person, as a mature person.  What does being finished or mature mean?  With the community of faith, it means growing to be more Christ-like, and this growth process never ends.  Baptism, no matter when it happens, carries with it the "community social programming values:"  love God and neighbor as oneself and respect the dignity of every human person.  These are the values of being "more finished" in our lives.  Baptism is an important confirming graceful gateway into these sublime and totally worthy teleological values.

Aphorism of the Day, January 6, 2021

Baptism in its essence is the acceptance between a person, the fellowship and God of a covenant of identity.  In this identity one is saying, "I belong to God in Christ, and I belong with the fellowship of those who confess the same."  Together the baptized and his or her fellowship are hearing the voice of God say, "You are my beloved children, with you I am well pleased."  This is the event of esteem for the fellowship of Christ.

Aphorism of the Day, January 5, 2021

As we practice baptism, it is a covenant ceremony, an initiation event signifying that one is undergoing a process of mystification, sanctification in the belief that Christ is is in one as the hope that one is being propelled to surpass oneself in excellence in a very open future.  There is nothing superstitious about the rite itself even as it does posses the ingredients of how the social ontology of the church functions.  In community, one becomes different through baptism by virtue of the baptismal meanings beginning to constitute how one understands one's own identity and how others understand one's identity.  A difference between the baptism of Jesus and ours is this:  Jesus was baptized as an expression of his full solidarity/union with humanity, the significant hominization of the divine.  We are baptized to celebrate the possibility of progressing in divinization/godliness to grow in the God-identity aspect of our lives.

Aphorism of the Day, January 4, 2021

Kenosis is how the "emptying of God into Jesus" is poetically described.  The Plenitude of Everything that Is has reductive representation is what is most excellent in human form.  Christians have a hard time dealing with Christ as the Cosmic unlimited being and Jesus as the one who accepted all of the limitations of living in his particular context and setting, even as he did it with superb excellence.  Kenosis is expressed as "solidarity" with human life and one of the human things people of faith were doing during the time of Jesus was to get baptized by John the Baptist.  Jesus too was baptized by John as an act that is understood as another occasion of kenosis in the life of the eternal Christ-Word in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Aphorism of the Day, January 3, 2021

To treat the star of Bethlehem as an actual "drone hovering star," is to miss the metaphorical meaning of the wisdom story of the early church regarding the validity of God-experience of "foreigners."

Aphorism of the Day, January 2, 2021

The magi story includes a "drone" star, that is, a star that can move and hover like a God-directed drone.  It is the divine GPS before there was GPS.  The magi were representative of Gentiles in story form of God-fearing seekers who like the Psalmist found that the heavens "declare the glory of God," in a general way, but that glory can lead one to the birth site within oneself of the Christ nature.  Incredible how so many have sacrificed the mystagogy of the early church to assert that such an event could have been empirically verified, assuming the early church mystics did not know the difference between poetry and commonsense.

Aphorism of the Day, January 1, 2021

It is good year to lean how to be magical magi.  In magic, one does not seek outside intervention; one manages the focus on quick changing referential frames of foreground and background to direct the eye to what one wants others to "see" and "not see."  As maturing people in emotional intelligence, learning to direct intentional focus is part of the magic of managing life.  We can let the overwhelming reality of the bad and evil, like the pandemic dictate our behaviors, or we can with artistic rhetorical finesse "see" other things that can inspire behaviors of faith based upon the yet unseen outcomes of hope.

Quiz of the Day, January 2021

Quiz of the Day, January 31, 2021

Which Gospel does not have accounts of exorcisms?

a. Matthew

b. Mark

c. Luke

d. John

Quiz of the Day, January 30, 2021

The Venite is which Psalm?

a. 100

b.  23

c.  95

d.  1

Quiz of the Day, January 29, 2021

Which of the following was a "big" issue in the Corinthian church?

a. eating food that had been sacrificed to idols

b. entering the temple of a deity

c. re-baptizing Jews who had been baptized by John the Baptist

d. whether women were allowed to marry

Quiz of the Day, January 28, 2021

The philosophical school called "Thomism" derives from whom?

a. Thomas the Apostle

b. Thomas of the Mar Thoma church of India

c. Thomas More

d. Thomas Aquinas

Quiz of the Day, January 27, 2021

Who of the following did not have a recorded disagreement with St. Paul?

a. Cephas

b. Barnabas

c. John Mark

d. Demas

e. Silas

Quiz of the Day, January 26, 2021

Which of the following is not true?

a. Timothy and Titus were proteges of Paul

b. the letters of Timothy and Titus are deutero-Pauline

c. Titus was required to get circumcised

d. Paul circumcised Timothy

e. Timothy had a Greek father and Jewish mother

Quiz of the Day, January 25, 2020

Which of the following is not true about the conversion experience of St. Paul?

a. it was on the road to Damascus

b. Saul saw a flashing light from heaven

c. Saul heard a voice

d. Saul fell off his horse

e. Saul's companions heaven a voice

f.  Saul lost his sight

Quiz of the Day, January 24, 2021

Who wrote the words of "O Little Town of Bethlehem?"

a. Samuel Seabury

b. Jonathan Edwards

c. Phillips Brooks

d. Isaac Watt

e. Charles Wesley

Quiz of the Day, January 23, 2021

Which of the following is not included in the Pauline spiritual armor?

a. sword of the Spirit

b. breastplate of righteousness

c. belt of truth

d. helmet of salvation

e. shield of faith

f.  spear of love

Quiz of the Day, January 22, 2021

Jesus did not say the kingdom of heaven/God was like

a. a mustard seed

b. leaven in dough

c. sorting out the catch of a net

d. baking a loaf of bread

Quiz of the Day, January 21, 2021

Which is not a condition for the seed which was sowed in the parable of the sower?

a. dry ground

b. rocky ground

c. thorns and brambles

d. good soil

e. seeds exposed to birds

Quiz of the Day, January 20, 2021

Which of the following is not true about Cyrus the Great?

a. he was the Emperor of Persia

b. his empire succeeded the Babylonian Empire

c. in Isaiah he is called a messiah

d. he was overthrown by Darius

Quiz of the Day, January 19, 2021

The Week of Christian Unity occurs between which two feasts?

a. Martin Luther King, Jr. and St. Paul

b  Martin Luther King, Jr. and Peter

c. Martin Luther and Pope Gregory I

d. St. Peter's confession and St. Paul's conversion

Quiz of the Day, January 18, 2021

Where did the confession of Peter regarding Christ being the Messiah occur?

a. Capernaum

b. Caesarea Philippi

c. Jerusalem

d. on the Sea of Galilee

Quiz of the Day, January 17, 2021

Where is the holy place for the Samaritan Torah based community?

a. Mt. Hermon

b. Mt. Gerizim

c. Shiloh

d. Mt. Tabor

Quiz of the Day, January 16, 2021

Jesus was said to be a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek; who in Hebrew Scriptures is associated with Melchizedek?

a. Moses

b. Levi

c. the king of Salem

d. Abraham

e. a and b

f. c and d

Quiz of the Day, January 15, 2021

What is the tetragrammaton?

a. four consonants in Hebrew

b. the Holy Name of God

c. the representation of the name of God in script which is not pronounced by most Jews

d. a Hebrew word that has been translated as "I am"

e. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, January 14, 2021

Of the disciples, whose mother-in-law was healed by Jesus?

a. Andrew's

b. James'

c. Simon's

d. John's

Quiz of the Day, January 13, 2021

What "heresy" was Hilary of Poitier known for opposing?

a. docetism

b. donatism

c. Arianism

d. Marcionism

Quiz of the Day, January 12, 2021

In which Gospel can one find Nathaniel?

a. Matthew

b. Mark

c. Luke

d. John

Quiz of the Day, January 11, 2021

According to the Gospel of Mark, what did Jesus do after his baptism?

a. cleansed the temple

b. preached on the banks of the Jordan

c. went into the wilderness to be tempted

d. called the first of his disciples

Quiz of the Day, January 10, 2021

Which Gospel does not have an account of the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist?

a. Matthew

b. Mark

c. Luke

d. John

Quiz of the Day, January 9, 2021

In which of the following pairs can be found reference to the "grapes of wrath?"

a. Genesis and Revelation

b. Psalms and Isaiah

c. Isaiah and Revelation

d. Ezekiel and Revelation

Quiz of the Day, January 8, 2021

The town of Cana is associated with which sacrament?

a. baptism

b. Eucharist

c. ordination

d. confirmation

e. reconciliation

f.  matrimony

g. unction

Quiz of the Day, January 7, 2021

Which New Testament book contains a critique of seven churches located in seven cities?

a. Jude

b. Acts of the Apostles

c. Epistle to the Romans

d. Revelations

Quiz of the Day, January 6, 2021

Which of the following is true about an Orthodox Christmas?

a. it happens on January 6th

b. it happens on the Feast of the Epiphany

c. it is determined by fealty to the Julian Calendar

d. the discoveries of Galileo caused the different dates for Christmas in churches

Quiz of the Day, January 5, 2020

What book of the Bible includes the most listings of the faith heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures?

a. Psalms

b. Acts of the Apostles

c. Genesis

d. Hebrews

Quiz of the Day, January 4, 2021

What is another name for Mt. Sinai?

a. Tabor

b. Herman

c. Horeb

d. Nebo

Quiz of the Day, January 3, 2021

In which Gospel does Jesus say, "unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood...?

a. Matthew

b. Mark

c. Luke

d. John

e. not in a Gospel but in 1 Corinthians

Quiz of the Day, January 2, 2021

What is the meaning of the name Abram or Abraham?

a. Father

b. exalted or lifted up father

c. father of many nations

d. father of a multitude

Quiz of the Day, January 1, 2021

The practice of circumcision derived from

a. the creation covenant
b. the covenant with Noah
c. the covenant with Abraham
d. the Mosaic Law