Sunday School, October 31, 2021 23 Pentecost B 26, Eve of All Saints'

 Sunday School, October 31, 2021  23 Pentecost B 26

Themes:

All laws are not equal in importance.  For example, it is more important not to kill than not to jay walk, even though both laws have special use. 

A religious man wanted to hear from Jesus about which laws of the 601 laws were the most important.  Jesus said, “Love God and love your neighbor as yourselves.”

If we work to please God and do what is fair to our neighbors all of the time, then we will be keeping the most important laws.

Some time we might like to replace religious laws for the more important laws.  For example, if some people made an animal sacrifice to keep a religious law, would that stand in place of having to tell the truth?

If we come to church because we think that it is a religious law for us, do we think that we can lie and steal because we have gone to church?

The practice of less important laws cannot replace the practice of the greatest laws.

The saints are those who became famous models for us because they were successful at keeping the law to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  If that is what we are doing in our lives, then we are learning how to be saints too.

Sermon

  Today is All Saints Sunday and in our lessons from Holy Scripture we have read about read about the law.  We read the charge that Moses gave to the children of Israel.  He told them that when they went into the Promised Land, that the Law was to be the crucial identity of their lives.  Today, we believe with the advent of the T-shirt, clothes became the billboard for textual messages of all sorts.  In our day, a T-shirt allows a person to literally wear their language.  But what is our relationship to the text that we wear.  What textual message could I wear that I could live up to?  My T-shirt could read, “I am a gray and balding older man.”  Well, that would be true.

  Long before textual T-shirts, the people of the Hebrew and Jewish faith have worn their texts.  Part of the prayer costume for Jews includes phylacteries.  These are leather boxes with the text of the Torah written within them.  They are strapped around the head and on the wrist.  They literally are the worn text of the Torah and they fulfilled this command of Moses:   “Bind the words of the commandments as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead.”  In a very symbolic way the writing of the commandments worn on the hand and the forehead state the principle that the commandment cannot remain a dead letter upon the page; the commandments has to take control of one’s thought life and the commandments have to be internalized into our hands, into our actions and body language.

  What can happen instead of the Torah living in our minds and in our actions?  We can replace justice and fairness by devising a series of religious ritual behaviors to stand in place of actually doing justice.  So, it became a practice to make the religious sacrifices of the prescribed animals and that kind of religious behavior was done, while the orphans and the widows went without food.  So prescribe religious ritual behavior became a substitute for living a life of justice, compassion and care.  Ritual behavior is easier than justice.  It is very messy business to try to bring justice to everyone.  Clergy are happy with ritual behavior; the ancient priests of Israel could get some of the best cuts of meat for their own tables with the prescribed animal sacrifices.  Clergy can fund the church and their jobs with prescribe obligatory religious and ritual behavior; okay so you’re not perfect and justice is not realized in society, but just come, give your tithe, make your confession, receive your absolution and go to Mass, and you get a clean slate.

 

 On All Saints Day, we confess Jesus to be the Saint of Saints.  Jesus is the Law of all Laws.  When one speaks in generalizations about faith communities, one would say that the Torah or the Law is central to Judaism.  But what is central to Christianity is Jesus Christ.  In Jesus Christ, the message of God does not come on stone tablets as written laws; in Jesus Christ, God comes as embracing the entire personhood.  What is greater?  Writing or Personhood?  Even though language and writing are what make human beings the unique creature, the appearance of God in a human being bespeaks a belief that human beings can only access that which is greater than human life, through human life.  Our belief in Jesus Christ is a belief that God does not just communicate through writing on stone tablets; God embraces the entire human experience as a way for us to know and celebrate the fact that being human, also means recognizing that life involves a recognition of life that is more than human.  It is the more than human life of God that comes to us in the Jesus Christ.

And what it reveals to us is that in a world of time, we are always invited to be More than we are right now.  We are always invited to surpass ourselves in excellence.  Believing in God means that we believe in the immensity of the quantity of future occasions of existence and those future occasions invite us to further invention, further creativity, further excellence.

  The future will likely change the details of human law of the past.  Why?  Because love always requires the details and strategies of love to be worked out in new situations.  We write laws and will continue to writer laws in new situations because love and justice are not fixed states of what can ever be permanently attained.  Practicing love and justice is never completed; we have to keep at it again and again.  As much as the founders of our country believed in their laws that “all people were created equal” they were blinded to achieve that in their actions as long as they accepted tacitly the practice of slavery and the subjugation of women.  Our founders preached a beautiful law and justice but at the same time, they did not fully realize law as a full completion of the work of justice.

  This never finished work of love and justice is perhaps the chief reason that Jesus settled for the summary of all of the law into just two laws; love God and love your neighbor as yourself.  St. Paul did a similar reduction when he said that love fulfills the law.

  Does this mean that love and law are opposed to each other?  Of course not.  Law is the strategy that love and justice need to be actually practiced.  We write laws as approximations of what good and just living means in actual practice.  And how do we know?  Well, you ask people; and people will tell you when they think something is fair or just in how they are treated. 

  All of the written laws can be reduced to love because love is not just having the law written as text on a T-shirt.  Love is not placing little boxes of Torah on your forehead and hand.  Love is when my hands perform deeds of kinds; love is when my thought think thoughts of kindness.  When our body language performs and acts deeds of love and kindness, then we become living law.  We become the law of love and justice.

  And who is it who was the perfect example in life of law and justice?  It was Jesus Christ.  He was the living law.  He was God’s law in Person.  He was love and justice personified.  And on All Saints Sunday, who do we call saints?  We call saints those who embodied love and justice in their very deeds.  These were not people who gave us legal texts on how we should live; they were people who showed how to live by the example of their lives.  They were “living laws.”

  So on All Saints Sunday, we are invited to personify the law and the justice of Christ.  We can be articulate and brilliant in legal reasoning, but law is most effective when we see it in practice.  Children are perhaps the most impressionable when they cannot speak and when they cannot read.  So in the first three years of their lives they are formed mostly by the people who model what it is to be human for them.  Parents and mentors are the living law for the impressionable children.

  But we never lose our childlike impressionability; we forever have this need to be impressed.  And what are we most impressed by?  By the living practice of love and kindness.  We are impressed when we experience justice and fairness.

  All Saints Sunday is a time to celebrate those who lived love and justice with their lives.  It is a time for us to embrace what is saintly in life.  It is time for us to internalize love and justice and let love and justice be lived through every word and deed of our lives.

  Today, we sing the song of the saints of God, and we pray, “God help me to be one too.  God help me to be love and kindness in word and deeds.”  Amen.

 

Intergenerational Family Service with Holy Eucharist

October 31, 2021: The Twenty-Third-Sunday after Pentecost and Eve of All Saints'

Gathering Songs: When the Saints; O Come Let Us Adore Him, Jesus Stand Among Us; God Is So Good

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.

Song: When The Saints Go Marching In

When the saints go marching in, when the saints go marching in.  Lord I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in.

When the girls go marching in…..

When the boys go marching in….

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your gift that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service: Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for 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 book of Deuteronomy

Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

   

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 119

5  Oh, that my ways were made so direct * that I might keep your statutes!

6  Then I should not be put to shame, * when I regard all your commandments.

7  I will thank you with an unfeigned heart, * when I have learned your righteous judgments.

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 of the scribes came near and heard the Saducees disputing with one another, and seeing that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?" Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Then the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that 'he is one, and besides him there is no other'; and 'to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,' and 'to love one's neighbor as oneself,'--this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." After that no one dared to ask him any question.

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon:  Fr. 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 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 for the Offertory: O Come, Let Us Adore Him (Renew # 1)

O come, let us adore him; O come, let us adore him; O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

We’ll give him all the glory.  We’ll give him all the glory; we’ll give him all the glory, Christ the Lord.

For he alone is worthy.  For he alone is worthy.  For he alone is worthy, Christ the Lord.

We’ll praise his name forever.  We’ll praise his name forever.  We’ll praise his name forever, Christ the Lord.

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.

The Prayer continues with these words

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:  Jesus Stand Among Us (Renew # 237)

1-Jesus, stand among us in your risen power; let this time of worship be a hallowed hour.

2-Breathe the Holy Spirit into every heart; bid the fears and sorrows from each soul depart.

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: God is So Good (# 31 in  All the Best)

1-God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He’s so good to me.

2-He cares for me, He cares for me, He cares for me, He’s so good to me.

3-I’ll do His will, I’ll do his will, I’ll do his will, He so good to me.

4-He is my Lord, He is my Lord, He is my Lord, He’s so good to me.

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God! 

The Gospel of an Adverb

22 Pentecost Cycle B Proper 25 October 24, 2021
Jeremiah 37:1-9  Psalm 126
Hebrews 7:23-28 Mark 10:46-52

Lectionary Link

Today, I would like to focus upon the Gospel of an Adverb?  And what adverb is that you might ask?  The adverb, again.  And this comes from Bartimaeus, Son of Timaeus' request, "My teacher, let me see again." Bartimaeus, means son of Timaeus, so note how the writer or editor translates the Hebrew meaning of the name.

Let me see again.  Again is an important adverb in life because it states the reality of time.  Similar things happen in time over and over again.  The sun rises again and sets again.  Repetition is a fact of life.  Repetition in liturgy and worship is called ritual.  A ritual is the repeating of similar pattern or action or ceremony for the purpose of teaching and reinforcing identity within a community.

Again is a very important adverb in the New Testament.  Why?  Resurrection is about living again after we die.  Receiving the Holy Spirit is about being born again after having had a first birth into the world.

Repentance is about the continual renewal of the mind to progress in spiritual and moral growth.  Repentance is acting again in a different way because one has began to think again in a different and better way.

Bartimaeus wanted to see again, which means that he was not blind from birth but he had lost his sight.  He mourned his impairment and loss of sight so much that he caused a public disturbance when Jesus the wonder worker was known to be passing nearby.

The Bartimaeus story is the Gospel story of the entire Jesus Movement.  The followers of Jesus were those who could see life again in a different way because of an encounter with the Risen Christ through a spiritual awakening.

The word, "again" carries with it two different qualifications of our experience in time.  It carries with it the meanings of sameness with the past, and difference with the past.

Again means that there is a sameness of the human characteristics of what we have done in the past with what we are doing now.  But again, also means that every moment and occasion is new and different from the previous moments.

The question of the Jesus Movement and the question of repentance, is how are we different or same in comparison with what has gone before.

Addictions and bad habits represents the sameness with the past.  If I drank too much alcohol yesterday, then today, I will continue to drink.  So, the negative aspect of the word again, is the negative aspects of repetitions which can build up to become the bad character and bad habits of our lives.

The essence of a person is not to be an addict, a liar, or a sinner; but with the continual repetition of addictive behaviors, lying, and sinning, we can allow our originally blessed personhood to become reduced to our worst repetitive behaviors.

The Jesus Movement, complimented the repentance movement of John the Baptist, by the evidence of the higher power of the Holy Spirit to interdict spiritual blindness with new sight, to interdict addiction and bad habits with the power and freedom to make new and different choices.  To receive power to begin to build new habits and character based upon repetitions of good behaviors.

Let us embrace the positive side of the adverb "again," today.  Let us do things again, differently, progressing to surpass ourselves in excellence.

Many people do not come to the rituals of the church because they are bored by what they regard as vain repetitions.  Many people need their rituals to be entertainment so that they are not bored.  Some people think that they need drums and aspects of popular culture to make their church rituals relevant and interesting to them.

I believe to live the born again life, to see again in life, requires that we live in deliberate and intentional attentiveness.  Too many people are bored because in pride, they believe that they have exhausted the relevance of biblical knowledge and the traditions of the church.  People can be bored because they have become lazy in habits of their mental and spiritual practice.

Rather than be bored with what we think we know about Jesus, God and the church, let us be restless today like Bartimaeus.  Let us be uncomfortable with our state of blindness and cry out for more spiritual sight.

And like the prayerful song we pray today:  Open my eyes that I may see, visions of truth thou hast for me, open my eye, illumine me, Spirit Divine.  Amen.

Sunday School, October 24, 2021 22 Pentecost, B proper 25

 Sunday School, October 24, 2021   22 Pentecost, B proper 25

 

Themes

How does everyone do the work of a priest?  A priest is one who prays for others.  In the life of Job, we are told that Job’s fortunes turned when he prayed for his friends.  The lesson of Job shows us that we need to turn everything that happens to us into prayer for others.  Why?  Because the things which happen to us also happen to others.  It means we share common life experiences with each other and so when we have a hard time, we should not just feel sad for ourselves we should also remember that there are other people who will have a hard time as well.  And if we turn our experience to the opportunity for prayer, then we will not feel sorry for ourselves, but we will have faith to believe our lives are connected with other people.

So let us remember our lives are given to us to pray for each other and so in our prayer we act like priests.

The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that Jesus was the best priest of all because he shared our lives and he prayed for us and he continues to pray for us.  Jesus knows how we feel because he lived through some very difficult times.  And so he understands us.

The Gospel story is about Jesus healing a blind man and giving him his sight.  The Gospels tell us that Jesus is the Light of the world and because of his teaching he helps us to see better how we should live.  Education is like light and receiving our sight.  As we learn more we can see how to do more things and live better lives.  Our ignorance is like blindness and as we learn more we receive new sight.

Jesus came to help us to learn more and see our lives better.  We are like Bartimaeus because we are always asking Jesus to open the eyes of our understanding so that we can understand what we should do and say.

A sermon on Seeing

  I want for us to pretend for a while that we cannot see.  Let’s close our eyes and pretend that we are blind, just like the man Bartimaeus.

  When you close your eyes, everything is dark, isn’t it?  Can you imagine living like this all of time?  How could you play?  How could you watch the television?  How could you get dressed? How could you eat?  You and I would have to learn how to do things in special ways if we were blind.

  We might have to get a seeing-eye dog to help lead and guide us to the right places.  People who are not able to see are heroes.  When they learn how to adjust to being blind and keep their hope and their happiness they inspire us to be thankful and also they teach us to live with faith and hope in our lives.

A person who is blind teaches us to never give up at trying to live well in our lives.

  So even though the blind man Bartimaeus had lost his seeing, he did not lose his faith and his hope.  He had more faith and hope than the other people who could see.

  And he had faith and hope to ask Jesus for a favor.  And even when people tried to keep him away from Jesus, he only cried out with more faith and more hope.  And Jesus did a great favor for him.  He helped him to see again.

  I hope that you and I never lose our ability to see.  But in our lives we sometimes will lose some very important things.

  But let us remember that when we lose important things, there are some things that we never have to lose:  We never have to lose faith, or hope, or love, or friendship.  And if we never lose faith or hope, we will be able to know that God is always close to us.

  Can you remember today, always to have faith and hope?  No matter what happens?  These are special gifts from God that we never have to lose.  Amen.

Family Service with Holy Eucharist

October 24, 2021: The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

Gathering Songs: Open Our Eyes; I Want to Walk As a Child of the Light,  Jesus, Name Above All Names; May 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.

Song: Open Our Eyes, Lord   (Renew! # 91)

Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus, to reach out and touch him and say that we love him.  Open our ears, Lord, and help us to listen, open our eyes Lord, we want to see Jesus.

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People: And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; 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 book of Job

And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money and a gold ring.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 104

I will bless the LORD at all times; * his praise shall ever be in my    mouth.

I will glory in the LORD; * let the humble hear and rejoice.

Proclaim with me the greatness of the LORD; * let us exalt his Name together.

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.

Jesus and his disciples came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stood still and said, "Call him here." And they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take heart; get up, he is calling you." So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man said to him, "My teacher, let me see again." Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People: Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon:  Fr. 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: I Want to Walk As a Child of the Light, (Renew # 152)

1          I want to walk as a child of the light; I want to follow Jesus.  God set the stars to bring light to the world; the star of my life is Jesus.  Refrain: In Him there is no darkness at all, the night and the day are both alike.  The Lamb is the light of the city of God: Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.

2          I want to see the brightness of God; I want to look at Jesus.  Clear Sun of righteousness, shine on my path, and show me the way to the Father.     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 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.

The Prayer continues with these words

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:  Jesus, Name Above All Names, Renew! # 26

Jesus, Name above all names, beautiful Savior, glorious Lord,

Emmanuel, God is with us, blessed Redeemer, Living Word.

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: May the Lord (Sung to the tune of Edelweiss)

May the Lord, Mighty God, Bless and keep you forever, Grant you peace, perfect peace,

Courage in every endeavor.  Lift up your eyes and see His face, Trust His grace forever. 

May the Lord, Mighty god Bless and keep you for ever.

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God! 

  

Can We Convert Empire Christianity to the Gospel of Jesus?

21 Pentecost b P.24 October 17,2021

Is. 53: 4-12 Psalm 91:9-16
Hebrews 5:1-10 Mark 10:35-45

Lectionary Link

The trio of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are perhaps three of the most famous philosophers in history.  Plato was so influential that the philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead wrote that the Western philosophical tradition is but a footnote on Plato.

The Platonic influence began long before the rise of  modern Europe.  After Alexander the Great conquered the world, a form of the Greek language became the lingua franca for the world, especially for business and administration, a sort of "dumbed down" version of the classic Greek language of Plato and Aristotle.

It is difficult to separate the Greek philosophical approach to life from their language and so when the New Testament was written in common Greek language, the habits of Greek thinking became evident in how Jesus Christ was presented to the world.

In many ways, the Hebrew Scriptures present God in sometimes fickled human emotional terms.  The God of the Hebrew Scripture gets angry, changes his minds about destroying people and the whole world, seeks to test Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son, bargains with Abraham about destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, and the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is said to be a very jealous God, wanting the exclusive devotion of people.

The God of the Hebrew Scriptures was not as fickled as the gods and goddess of Greek mythology but certainly there were presentations of God found in the Hebraic religion that seemed to make God, all too human.

The life of Jesus was a different kind of human presentation about God.  How so?  By presenting God in the human form of Jesus.  One does not have to present God as angry and jealous, if God actually appears in a human person like Jesus, who does very human things like getting angry in the temple, like rebuking religious leaders, like weeping at the grave of Lazarus, like eating, praying, resting and the message is, if God is to be better understood by human beings, then God has to appear in bi-lingual person of Jesus to speak the nature of God within human language and experience.

But the divine cannot be too compromised by appearing in the person of Jesus, and this is where the New Testament writer understood the inner, the divine, and the cosmic side of Jesus.  The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrew is an out and out Platonist.  How so?  Plato believed that the physical world was but the shadow of the Realm of the Forms.  The realm of the forms for the Epistle to the Hebrews is also called the heavenly.  In the shadow realm of the physical world, Jesus was not a priest.  Jesus was not a conquering king using armies to set Palestine free.  In fact, when the letter to the Hebrews was written Palestine was under attack by Roman armies and by the time the Gospel of Mark was written the physical Temple where the priests had presided was destroyed.  So the shadow priesthood of the Temple priest was over and Jesus was this cosmic eternal priest after the pre-historic appearance of God to Abraham in the person of Melchizedek.

Sometimes we may not be aware of how pervasive Greek civilization and philosophy was in the formation of the presentation by the early church Jesus of Nazareth.

For St. Paul and for the majority of early Christians, Jesus was known first in an experience of the Risen Christ, through the Holy Spirit.  So the Jesus of the writings of the New Testament is a Risen Christ experience, put in the shadow physical form a narrative of the life of Jesus.  But the events in the narrative life of Jesus, actually were presentations of the heavenly ascended Christ.  Each event of Jesus recounted had a inner spiritual teaching purpose.

The stories in the Gospels use the disciples as persons who were unenlightened about the spiritual significance of Jesus, and so they were presented as those who were bound to physical meanings.

The disciples understood the notion of a king in a very literal way.  If Jesus is a king, then we want to be nobility in his kingly court when he takes over Palestine and begins to rule. 

Jesus was not an earthly king; he was not an earthly priest, he was not an earthly shepherd; all of these were shadow metaphors for the spiritual meaning of the life of the Risen Christ.  The life, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension were points of identity for the people who actually never saw Jesus.  Paul, like most of the followers of Jesus, professed the mystical experience of identity of being crucified with Christ, being raised to new spiritual life with Christ, and ascending with Christ be be seated with Christ in heavenly places.  These are not my words; they are the words of St. Paul.  He wrote about the spiritual experience of the Risen Christ within the early Jesus Movement.

What do humans aspire to in the world?  They often want to be great.  They want to be first.  "Jesus, if we follow you, why can't we be great and first?  It is very human to want to be first and great.  So, if you are king of the world, and we're your followers, shouldn't we share in your greatness as king of Palestine and the world?"

The teaching oracle of the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark which were being presented during the time of a crushed homeland and destroyed temple were words about seeing things spiritually, and not literally.

We find this method to be difficult because we have been a part of what I call Empire Christianity.  We have lived in the world, where Christians have had majority status and therefore lots of clout.  When we have power and might, success and triumph, we are tempted to over-identify the kingdom of God with our being on the "winning side."  We can see so many Christians acting as dominionist; those who believe they have a God-given right to dominate the environment and the world.

But this is not the Risen Christ; this is not words and the message of the life of Jesus as presented in the Gospel.

If we have the blessing of power, knowledge and success in our lives today, how can we adapt the Gospel to our lives which was written mainly for oppressed people?

I believe that only way to save us from the cruelties of Empire Christianity, is to be people who use power, wealth, and knowledge to help the poor and the marginalized people, some who have been marginalized by Empire Christianity.

I believe the Gospel words of Jesus Christ challenge us about how we have been living in Empire Christianity.  If we are not helping the poor and the marginalized to full dignity in our society, then we have not had the spiritual awakening and the inner conversion to the Risen Christ, the one who was proclaimed by St. Paul and the early Christians.

The Gospel words of Jesus today are calling us to work to make the "last in society, first in dignity and honor."  This is the high calling of Jesus, and our failures are frightening and the task is daunting.  Let us be a part of converting Empire Christianity to the use of wealth, power, and education for the equal expression of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all of God's children in our world.  Amen.