Wishful Thinking and Opiate of the People?

14 Pentecost,  A p17, September 3, 2023
Jeremiah 15:15-21 Psalm 26:1-8
Romans 12:9-21  Matthew 16:21-28

Lectionary Link

Two of the most famous Jewish atheists, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud had their critiques of religion.  Religion for Freud was an illusion built mainly on wishful thinking.  For Marx, religion was for oppressed people an opiate to help them bear up and tolerate the actual material condition forced upon by the powerful and wealthy who used religion as a ideology to give poor people a mental analgesic for their pain.  Another philosopher, famous for his atheism, Nietzsche, criticized the beatitudinal message associated with Jesus as a transvaluation of noble values, because the beatitudes turn the values of  human preferred conditions on their head.  Poverty?  Blessed.  Being persecuted.  Blessed.  Mourning?  Blessed.  Giving your coat away.  Blessed.   So one was to regard one's deprived conditions as a blessed and favorable state?  Nietzsche was perhaps suggesting that the values of Jesus were masochistic.  How can one declare negative conditions as being blessed or favorable and be regarded as psychologically sound?

How might we respond to these critiques?  First, we might respond by acknowledging the piercing insights of each of these critiques.  In fact, the encounter presented between Jesus and Peter in our appointed Gospel highlights these issues of the early Jesus Movements particularly for Jews who had preferred notions of what a Messiah should be.  Peter who was congratulated by Jesus for confessing Jesus as the Messiah was immediately rebuked as a messenger of Satan because he could only understand the Messiah to be a triumphant over-powering person who would establish a kingdom with superior power to set Israel free and to place his favorites as leaders in his kingdom.

What was obvious to everyone?  The Caesar of Rome was still the King of this world, so what was Jesus?  If Jesus was not a greater King David who would unseat the Caesar of Rome, could he really be the Messiah?

What was the reality for the early followers of Christ, and what is often the reality for many many people?  Many people are oppressed and beaten down by the people who are powerful and wealthy.  And if we don't realize this, it probably means that we more naturally identify with the people in power than the oppressed and the poor, and we live lives of comfort.

What most Christians in Western Christianity today have not really grasped is that the New Testament is basically written from the conditions of and for people who were oppressed and they did not have much political or economic power in their world.

The New Testament is not a book to give prosperity Christians an affirmation of their right and privilege to be prosperous; rather it is comprised of writings which I might call a program of Christ-recommended martial arts for people without much social or political power.  The New Testament writings were survival manuals for people living under the radar in private communities within the cities of the Roman Empire.

If you are an oppressed people, you have to find ways to act for survival.  Think of the slaves in our America experience or the indigenous people whom we ran off their land; the New Testament was written more for people such as them needing survival than it was for the oppressing people who colonized and who enslaved.  It is quite a travesty to see pompous, prosperity preachers of privilege claiming to own the New Testament as certifying their postures of privilege.

In Paul's letter the Romans, we can find seeds of the beatitudes, which were written over decade before the beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew came to text.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Paul is writing a program of Christ-like martial arts for persons in Rome who have no political power or public prominence. But Paul believes that they can have the witness of a profound lifestyle which can be winsome to people. How does this profound winsome lifestyle happen? It happens when one's interior life is over-shadowed and remade in such ways as to make kindness natural, when it would seem to be more natural to hate one's oppressors or compromise with their values so as to survive in the situation of being a small minority.

The Gospel dialogue between Jesus and Peter, is the dialogue of the early church for their members. "You are not called to a lifestyle where you will have positions in government on behalf of King Jesus who leads thousands of soldiers; rather you are inwardly overtaken by a Risen Christ in Holy Spirit power to provide you with a way to live like Jesus did. He did not live as one who was to lead an armed revolt against the Romans; he lived as one who modeled what it was like to let an inner God-possession put one on a path of transformation. And in living in this way, you can attract, invite, and see many initiated into this new lifestyle which derives from this inner mystical experience."

The free conditions of our world today renders a field of probable conditions. There are oppressors or seeming respectable people of power who consciously suppress people for their own gain or do it unconsciously because their social training has taught them thus. Frankly, the American Church and the Western Church, has been more on the side of those with power than it has been on the side of the oppressed. We have a cruel history of participation in the slave trade and practice, as well as being horrendous invaders of indigenous people who removed them from their land and living situations. And so we should heed the critiques of people like Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche and seek a just understanding of our relationship to the New Testament, a literature for the oppressed while we occupy our identity with parties of privilege and power.

Do we allow the New Testament to be an ideology of mere comfort to convince oppressed people to tolerate their conditions of poverty and lack of access to a fair share of the goods and services of our societies?

To Marx, Freud, Nietzsche and skeptics I would assert that it is a best part of human nature to be wishful thinkers. Perhaps within all the woe in life, we have the smiling for no reason infant retained within us as the always already occasion for new birth. We are wishful thinkers and hopeful thinker because we are oriented toward the future of something better. The Bible is part of a program of wishful thinking about our future even while being realistic about our shadow nature and the freedom for lots of bad things to happen. The New Testament happened to develop this wishful thinking program for living among people who had no political power and it became such a successful Christ-martial arts lifestyle that it caught on.

Wishful thinking programs also serve as an analgesic through the visualizations of justice being realized in practice and in punishment. Christian need not apologize for the analgesic literature of the apocalyptic with visualizations of quick and imminent interventions by future rescuing heroes. We should be quite mindful that today the apocalyptic visualization has moved into the general culture in art and cinema. The cinema versions of the future and intervening superheroes reveal that our culture are more apocalyptic in visionary art than the Bible ever was. So wishful thinking and visualization of freedom from pain and oppression is the opiate, the analgesic which all people take for the pain, the pain of knowing lots of bad things are happening to us and world at any given time.

We need not apologize for our wishful thinking or for wanting creative visualization to end pain and suffering and for the establishment of justice. But Bible readers have become a scorn for the skeptics because of their failure to defend their writings consistent with sound anthropology, the soundness of coping with life as it is.

The Gospel for the early community where the Gospel of Matthew was generated was the insight presented using the dialogue of Peter and Jesus. The message to the early church was this: "Jesus was a suffering servant; so too the followers of Jesus will be walking in the path of the suffering servant, and so it must be walked with the Christ-like martial arts of winsome living demonstrating the life of the Risen Christ."

Let us who are not oppressed and who enjoy power, wealth, and privilege not presume to think that our lifestyles instantiate the lifestyles of New Testament suffering peoples. And if we don't consciously go out and seek to suffer, what can we do?

We are obliged by the Gospel of Christ, not to be oppressor when we have power, wealth, and privilege. We are obliged by the Gospel of Christ to care for those who have known the brunt of oppression, suffering, and social persecution.

A Christ-like martial arts for those of us on side of privilege in our society is to live a life of care for those in need through direct active deeds but also in being active citizens influencing programs for the common good of the most possible number of people.

The Gospel challenge for people of privilege is to sell all that we have in terms of our personal power and greed, and use what we have to help those who do not have have access to care, compassion, and social dignity. May God grant us a Gospel path so as not to be embarrassed or ashamed of our lifestyle practices and choices today. Amen.

Sunday School, September 3, 2023 14 Pentecost, A Proper 17

  Sunday School, September 3,  2023     14 Pentecost, A Proper 17

Theme:

Take up your cross and follow me.

This was a saying in the early church.

Jesus died on the cross so that no one else had to.

The Cross of Jesus was made into a symbol for Christians.

We know that the Swoosh is the symbol for the Nike brand

The Cross is the symbol for the Christian brand.  We make the sign of the cross as a marking to indicate that we belong to Christ.

What does belonging to Christ mean?

It means that we live our lives as a sacrifice.

It means we have the power to say no to our selfish self in order to help and serve other people.

When we take up the cross of Jesus, we are asking for the power of God to control and tame our desire to live and do things just for ourselves. 

Think of examples of sacrifice:

Play video games or feed your pets.

Watch television or help mom with home chores.

Swing all the time or share the swing with a friend who also wants to swing.

Eat all your lunch or share some of it with someone who doesn’t have any lunch.

Sacrifice is the power to say no to yourself so that you can help other people.

This is what “taking up your cross and following Christ” means in our lives.

Sermon:

  In baseball, what does sacrifice mean?  What is a sacrifice fly?  What is a sacrifice bunt?  It is when you purposely make an out, so that another player can advance or score.

  Sacrifice is a word that comes from religion.  It means to offer something to God as an act of respect or worship of God.

  In the ancient time, people thought that God wanted them to sacrifice the life of an animal to help pay for their sins.

  Jesus came to show us the real meaning of sacrifice.

  He lived his life for others.  He gave up a comfortable life so that he could help the poor, the sick, the lonely people, the strangers, the children and the sad.

  So Jesus was a sacrifice for the life of others.  We know that he sacrificed his life for us when he died on the cross.

  And when Jesus said that we are to take up our cross and follow him, he means we are to learn how to live in a sacrificial way.  When we help others we are living in sacrificial way.  That is how we take up the cross of Christ.

  When you pick up your toys, you are helping your mom and dad, because then they don’t have to do it.

  When you help with house work, you are making a sacrifice.

  When you make peace with your brother or sister after you’ve had an argument, you are making a sacrifice.

  When you help others, you are taking up your cross and following Christ.

  Why?  Because God calls us to help each other, and we don’t need to have the attention all of the time, so when we share with others, we are sacrificing.

  A baseball player does not like to make an out.  But sometimes the manager asks a player to make a sacrifice to help the team win.

  Remember that many people make sacrifices for each of us every day:  Soldiers, police, doctors, teachers, moms, dads, grandmothers and grandfathers.  Many people have shared with us to make our lives better.  So too, we need to learn how to share.

  This is a lesson that we can learn from today’s Gospel.  Take up your cross and follow Christ.  And  we can do this by sharing our lives to make the lives of other people better.  Amen.

Intergenerational Family Service with Holy Eucharist

September 3, 2023: The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Gathering Songs: Lift High the Cross, He’s Got the Whole World,  Eat This Bread, Soon and Very Soon

 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.

Song: Lift High the Cross (Blue Hymnal # 473)

Refrain: Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred name.

1-Led on their way by this triumphant sign, the hosts of God in conquering ranks combine.  Refrain

2-Each newborn servant of the Crucified bears on the brow the seal of him who died.  Refrain

3-O Lord, once lifted on the glorious tree, as thou hast promised, draw the world to thee.  Refrain

4-So shall our song of triumph ever be: praise to the Crucified for victory.  Refrain

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and 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

A reading from the Letter of Paul to the Romans

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 105

Give thanks to the LORD and call upon his Name; * make known his deeds among the peoples.

Sing to him, sing praises to him, * and speak of all his marvelous works.

Glory in his holy Name; * let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.

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 Matthew

People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?  "For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

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 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.

Little tiny babies.  3. Brothers and Sister  4. Mommies and Daddies

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 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 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 Hymn: Eat This Bread, (Renew! # 228)

Eat this bread, drink this cup, come to me and never be hungry. 

Eat this bread, drink this cup, trust in me and you will not thirst.

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: Soon and Very Soon, (Renew!  #149)

Soon and very soon, we are going to see the king.  Soon and very soon, we are going to see the king.  Soon and very soon we are going to see the king.  Alleluia, alleluia, we’re going to see the king.

No more dying there, we are going to see the king.  No more dying there, we are going to see the king.  No more dying there we are going to see the king.  Alleluia, alleluia, we’re going to see the king.

Dismissal:   

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

People:      Thanks be to God! 

  

Aphorism of the Day, August 2023

Aphorism of the Day, August 31, 2023

So much of the New Testament is misappropriated by Christian readers who live in such comfort today, since it is mainly the literature of how to live under the conditions of oppression, as what I call a program of Christ-like martial arts.  The hermeneutic gymnastics of the so-called "prosperity Gospel preachers" would be laughable if they weren't such a misrepresentation.

Aphorism of the Day, August 30, 2023

How does Peter go from confessing without understanding Jesus as being the Messiah and being rebuked by Jesus for being on the side of Satan, to the hero who died upside down on a cross?  St. Paul understood the cross/resurrection dynamic as a spiritual principle of transformation or repentance which happens in time.  The Gospel narrative ironically narrativizes the cross/resurrection metaphor for engaging the power of repentance or the ability to aways be dying to one's former states of mind and taking on the new or resurrection states of mind.

Aphorism of the Day, August 29, 2023

Dying to one's self might be compared with the notion of detachment in Buddhism. Dying to one's self might be the prelude to being better available to care for others.  Detachment might be regarded as being too aloof from the needs of others as one attends to one's own "spiritual" well-being.  Any spirituality that becomes too personally quietistic and aloof from the needs of others under the guise of being a hidden care for others might be a bit delusional.  Certainly phases of living sometimes require more of a withdrawal, perhaps to learn strategic detachment so that one might attain control for strategic engagement to help others for the right motives.

Aphorism of the Day, August 28, 2023

Time means the before dies and the after is born.  How is the after different from the before?  Meta-noia is the "after mind," the "new mind," or repentance.  The Gospel words of Jesus regarding losing one's life and the establishing of the cross by Paul as a metaphysical symbol of dying to the before, or former mind set, represents a transformation process which integrates the continual loss which time implies.  Our choice is involved in what kind of "after mind" that we want.  Resurrection is the metaphor for a better "after mind," a renewal or rebirth from what is always being lost, with the hope of surpassing ourselves in excellence in future states.

Aphorism of the Day, August 27, 2023

There is the experience of Sublime as we see our focus on the particular gradually folding itself into the effect of the Great Containing Background of All.  We commit worship when we admit that the particular can never be separated from the All.  And in our reverence we confess the personality of the All because language implies personality.

Aphorism of the Day, August 26, 2023

What is the fate of ancient texts which endure in written form but whose contexts are no longer available?  One can peruse the available succession of commentaries on such texts and note the similar and dissimilar interpretations.  In the end, we use intuition born from our current context to interpret the range of meanings of ancient texts even as we try to find ways to craft correspondences for their possible meanings in our own time.

Aphorism of the Day, August 25, 2023

Subtle discursive shifts can take place within traditions.  Nietzsche said that truth was but well used metaphors, meaning with increasing popular use terminology becomes the "truth" of the people who use it, and with use the users generalize the truth to be omni-contextual, i.e. truth for every human context.  With the history of use, meaning structures attain "community objectivity," and a subtle shift happens when mystical discourse couched in narrative gets literalized into "it must have been empirically verified" happenings.

Aphorism of the Day, August 24, 2023

Child of God, Child of Man, and the Anointed were titles of Jesus found in the Gospel writings of the Jesus Movement.  Each of these titles were definitive about what followers of Jesus believed about themselves, being children of God, being very human children, and yet being baptismally anointed by God's Spirit for human purpose as children of God.

Aphorism of the Day, August 23, 2023

It is impossible to extract the present when writing about the past.  Matthew's Gospel has Jesus speaking about the church which did not actually exist during the time of Jesus.  Such an anachronism is consistent with the early Jesus movement speaking and writing in the name of Jesus in their own times and such speaking and writing were regarded to be Christ speaking and writing through the speaker and writer.

Aphorism of the Day, August 22, 2023

With what we know now, we continually need to have the humility to admit that we don't fully know what anything means yet.  The future is only going to take our current meanings and put them in the tumbler of all other meanings and generate new insights.  And some of those future insights with contradict what we think we know now.

Aphorism of the Day, August 21, 2023

If the Gospels present the disciples as not-yet-hero saints, appreciate that the authors (decades later) present them as persons in faith training in the appeal to their Gospel readers who are persons in faith training. 

Aphorism of the Day, August 20, 2023

Empathy needs the constant work of information and education.  We cannot "walk in other people's shoes" toward effective just actions unless we hear their stories and inform ourselves about how they experience their lives within their specific circumstances.  The work of empathy requires the constant process of informing ourselves better about people, especially those whose experience is different than our own.

Aphorism of the Day, August 19, 2023

Traditions based upon word meanings which purport to not let innovation or new thinking or new applications for justice to come into being, are museum traditions.  "Come and see what once was so that you will be enticed to live in the museum."  Language cannot be strait-jacketed into fixed meanings; it is as dynamic and as fluid as living experience.  We live in the motion of time and we must be open to new meanings and new applications of those meanings.

Aphorism of the Day, August 18, 2023

Paradigms, traditions, tacit knowledge background involve group assumptions of things taken for granted and they involve massive abbreviations.  Life involves the continual exposure of the hidden assumptions which constitute our personal language from which flow the language products of writing, speaking, and body language deeds.

Aphorism of the Day, August 17, 2023

Integrative thinking is based upon language use and using the appropriate discourse for the appropriate occasion.  A scientific law is not going to have language which pertains to poetry or mystical discourse.  Each person can be "imbalanced" in that one tends to use most the discourses of one's particular skillset calling, but it is incumbent to learn integration by learning the beauty of language having a discourse that fits different occasions of human experience.  And remember not to limit discourse to the language products of speech and words since body language is discourse as well as the interpretive grids used to process everything that we "see."   Seeing is discursive practice as well.

Aphorism of the Day, August 16, 2023

Jesus is presented as being in conflict with the purity codes which pertained to purification rites, the washing of hands.  One can agree with Joseph Lister on the need for sanitation but one cannot equate outer cleanliness with the bigger problem of inward cleanliness from where the springs of our words and deeds flow.  Our inner lives are collages of words, images, feelings and thankfully all of our inner stuff does not come to word or deed because of learning impulse control.  Jesus was less concerned about externally influential cleanliness rules, and more concern about how we can surf all our inward stuff toward beneficial outcomes in love and justice.

Aphorism of the Day, August 15, 2023 (St. Mary the Virgin)

St. Mary, Mother of Jesus, become the iconic feminine in the long history of patriarchalism both within the church and society even to become the most popular intercessor in the piety of the Catholic masses.  Historically, if Christ became too unapproachable because of his glorified deity, St. Mary became the accessible intercessor who had a special "in" with her Son.

 Aphorism of the Day, August 14, 2023

Faith or being persuaded about something is a "selfish" act particularly when it is exercised toward things which benefits oneself or those closest to one.  Even having faith in "eternal life" might be the expression of everlasting self-interest.  To align personal favor with common good favor is perhaps the greater task of faith.

Aphorism of the Day, August 13, 2023

When people say, "it's only words," they cheapen and limit the meaning of words.  Our entire existence is ordered because of words and so there is nothing "cheap" about words.

Aphorism of Day, August 12, 2023

When one tries to speak about interior life, one is using what is most profoundly interior about humanity, namely, having language.  Language is human spirituality; it is human inwardness.  A scientist who focuses upon the exterior field of "objects" observed and manipulated, is only doing so because the scientist first is completely constituted inwardly by having language.  Now one might want to say that there is "spiritual" genre within human language for people to speak about judgments on how best to be human language users, but let no one deny the basic spiritual inwardness of having language as the a priori.

Aphorism of the Day, August 11, 2023

We have our awareness of existing through having language, passively as infants, but actively as language users.  Word is co-extensive with living, as Word is co-extensive with the divine, as stated, "The WORD was God."  While we believe in the topography which seems to be outside us, our engagement with it happens through the language which is inside us.  It is not surprising that "topos" or topics represents the attempt to externalize internal language.

Aphorism of the Day, August 10, 2023

There is no reason to divide human nature from Nature of which it is a part.  God has arisen in the language nature of humans within Nature, as the mode of speaking about Superlative Greatness.  People may characterize Greatness in different ways even while it cannot be removed from human language in referring to the continuous inter-connectedness of everything.

Aphorism of the Day, August 9, 2023

People who believe that divine communication happens are those who believe that everything is "God-bearing" and the God-bearingness of life renders particular contextual communication.  However, the people who are most often saying "the Lord told me" are more likely people who traffic in the echoing of their ego consciousness pretending that God rubber stamps their very limited whims.  The general divine presence and the particular divine presence probably coalesces with sheerness of silence which we name as peace.

Aphorism of the Day, August 8, 2023

For those who believe in the divine selectivity of when a miraculous violation of natural law occurs, should not one also believe in the prior "miracle" of cancer not yet happening to the many people who do not yet have cancer?  Within the natural, the uncanny and wonderful can happen, but it would seem that the Gospel accounts of the "miraculous" are more about the presence of the Risen Christ before a problem situation, during a problem situation, and after a problem situation, no matter the outcome, whether the uncanny event or death itself.

Aphorism of the Day, August 7, 2023

The proverbial "acts of God" of insurance companies refer to events in nature which are not "caused" by humans and the designation figures in insurance coverage.  In a continuously creating cosmos which generates the continuous interconnection of an infinite number of entities, the field of probable acts or occurrences is massive.  Some of those occurrences involve human beings caught in harms way of events like earthquakes, wind storms, and fire.  Biblical writers use these events of being in harms ways as defining the human condition.  They also expound what it is to be persuaded about a favorable higher Presence, One with a longer duration than any event, and One on whom personal duration depends.  God's greater becoming Presence is greater than any probable occurrence with but short temporal duration, even with intermittent recurrences of the same within the field of probability. 

Aphorism of the Day, August 6, 2023

John's Gospel does not have the Transfiguration account.  The writer is content with saying Christ is the Light of the world without needing the narrative about the shining face of Jesus on the mountain.  Biblical writers chose different kinds of discourse as do we.

Aphorism of the Day, August 5, 2023

Some people read the Scriptures treating biblical writers as those who did not know the difference between common sense reality and visionary discourse.

Aphorism of the Day, August 4, 2023

Reading Scripture means study the systems of symbols within the contexts of the writers.  Too many readers accept empirical verification as the favored truth and import assumptions about modern eye-witness journalism on the biblical writers.  This negates the allegorical symbolic truths of the Bible.

Aphorism of the Day, August 3, 2020

The Gospel of John from its beginning is about Word manifestations.  Spirituality and "having ears to hear" in John's Gospel is about knowing the discursive nuances of language.  Sleep=death, blind=sight, and a host of metaphors for Jesus.  The Gospel of John is about evoking "inwardness" and not being locked into just the common sense naive realism of empirical verification.  Spirituality is about learning a different kind of inwardness as language users.

Aphorism of the Day, August 2, 2023

In reading the Bible one needs to learn the language of symbols, especially the language used to try to present Jesus as the superlative in human experience. What are the spiritual symbols in the Transfiguration story?  Elevation, Light, Glowing face, Clouds, and Heavenly Voice.  This theophany or Christ-epiphany has all the elements for how early Christ-communities were presenting their experience of Christ as their superlative.

Aphorism of the Day, August 1, 2023

Visionary events like the account of the Transfiguration can reveal how the rise of modern science in appropriating biblical accounts created a split between observing subject and the external objective field.  Dream states tend to merge the within and the without, and as such are regarded as unreliable for predicating common cause and effect sequence, and don't make for doing good science.  But such "altered" realities are accepted in the realm of art and especially modern cinema.  Artistic vision is seeing in a different way with a different purpose than what science is trying to see and record.  Artistic/spiritual seeing can co-exist with scientific seeing in the same person.  Don't discount the "super" in nature, even the "super" that is accessible in our human nature.