Sunday School, March 10, 2024 4 Lent B

  Sunday School, March 10, 2024    4 Lent B

Theme:

God’s love

One definition of God is this:  God is love.  But if God is love, how does God show that God loves us.

Can an elephant love an ant?  I don’t know.  An ant might get in the ear of an elephant and tickle the ear drum.  An ant might be too small for an elephant to see.  An elephant might be so different from the ant that it might seem like a silly question to ask.  If an elephant could magically be reduced to become the same size as an ant, then the elephant might be able to let the ant know that an elephant to love and care for an ant.

God is love.  And God is great.  God is greater than us, even greater than the elephant is greater than the ant.

So how can a great God, who is love, show the people of this world that God loves us?

God reduced the divine life into baby Jesus in Bethlehem.  Baby Jesus grew up and lived with us and understood human life even better than we understand it.  God showed us that God loves us by giving us God Son, Jesus.  And Jesus did what every human eventually does, he died.  He died on the Cross.  But Jesus lived again after his death to show us that God is great enough to save and preserve our lives after we die.

God is love and God showed love to us when God gave us Jesus.

God so loved the world that he gave us his Son Jesus.  And if we see and look at the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is a path that we follow in this life.  If we believe in God’s love and in what Jesus has shown us and done for us, then we have the hope of living again after our deaths.  And that means we don’t have to live with fear in our lives.  We can live with faith and hope.  And if we live with hope we can have more fun and joy and success in our lives.

Sermon

Text:

  Do you like snakes?  Real snakes?  There are all kinds of snakes.  And some snakes are poisonous.

  There is story in the Bible about Moses and the children of Israel.  One day their camp was infested with poisonous snakes and many people were getting bitten.  So, Moses asked God what he should do and God told him to make a snake out of bronze metal and put it on a tall pole.  And when people looked at the snake on the tall pole they would get healed from their snake bites.

  When Jesus was talking to a man named Nicodemus, Jesus said, “just as Moses put the snake on the pole so that the people of Israel could be healed of their snake bites, Jesus said that he would be put up on the tall pole called the “Cross.”  And this cross would be something that everyone would know about and when they understood how much that God loved this world, they would know that God’s love could make us better.

  God love us in sending Jesus to teach us about living and dying.  About living Jesus taught us to love and care for one another.  He taught us to forgive each other; he taught us to accept God’s forgiveness when we know that we fail to do what is best and right.

  Jesus taught us about dying.  He taught us that some dying is heroic.  When a soldier dies to protect his or her country that is heroic.  When a fire-fighter dies to save a child that his heroic.  When Jesus died for us, that was heroic.

  Jesus taught us some other things about dying.  He taught not to be afraid of dying because it is only a gateway to another kind of life, called eternal life.

  Jesus taught us that we could die and live at the same time.  We die to our selfish self and let our kind and helping selves live.  When we go to school and learn, we die to our ignorant self and let a new self with more learning be born.

  So Jesus taught us that dying can mean saying good bye to bad things in our lives so that we can welcome better things and new ways to act and behave which will make our world better.

  Today, Let us remember that God loved the world so much that God gave us eternal life.  And now I want you to repeat one of the most famous verses in the Bible:  Say: John 3:16.  God so the loved the world that he gave his only Son.  Amen.

Intergenerational Family Liturgy with Holy Eucharist

March 10, 2024: Fourth Sunday In Lent

Gathering Songs:

  He’s Got the Whole World, Lord, I Lift Your Name on High, Eat This Bread, Awesome God

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

1.         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.

2.         He’s got the little tiny baby in his hands, he’s got the little tiny baby in his hands, he’s got the little tiny baby in his hand, he’s got the whole world in his hands.

3.         He’s got the boys and the girls..

4.         He’s got the mommies and the daddies..

Liturgist: Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins.

People: His mercy endures 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

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

First Litany of Praise: Chant: Praise the Lord

O God, you are Great!  Praise the Lord

O God, you have made us! Praise the Lord

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Praise the Lord

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Praise the Lord

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Praise the Lord

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Praise the Lord

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

A Reading from the Book of Numbers

From Mount Hor the Israelites set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Let us read together from Psalm 107

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, * and his mercy endures for ever.

Let all those whom the LORD has redeemed proclaim * that he redeemed them from the hand of the foe.

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 John

People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.  "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon –   

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.

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:  Lord I Lift Your Name on High, Renew! #4

Lord, I lift your name on high; Lord, I love to sing Your praises.  I’m so glad you’re in my life.  I’m so glad you came to save us.  You came from heaven to earth to show the way, from the earth to the cross, my debt to pay.  From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky; Lord, I lift your name on high!

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 the 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 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 by 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:       Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast. 

Word 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.

(Repeat during communion)

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: Awesome God, (Renew!  # 245)

Our God is an awesome God, he reigns from heaven above

with wisdom, power and love our God is an awesome God.

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God! 

   

The World as God's Temple

3 Lent B March 4, 2024
Exodus 20:1-17 Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 John 2:13-22

Lectionary Link

What is undeniable about the Bible is that it is a collection of texts, a collection words.  And it is evidence of the age when writing arose as technology of memory.  Text was a way of preserving the spoken words of people who had once been present.  A text is also an art form creating stories about people who never existed but were inventions of writers who believe that creation in writing was a way of forming community identity and passing that identity with certain values onto another generation.

The Bible like many of the classics, is revered because of the general paucity of writing in ancient times and the lack of general literacy of ancient people.  It is our task today to look at the words which convey the art of living for ancient people and who provide us not only with their words but with the example of being active language users to promote the very best of what language users should be doing.

In our appointed lessons for today, the famous ten commandments are presented to us.  These words are evidence that people in community were seeking best practices for how they could live together in the very best possible way.  In their wisdom story, they present Moses as a wise medium between the greatness of God and how that greatness could be funneled into human living.  The ten commandments assert that love and justice are the best ways to live in life.  The ten commandments are based upon loving one who perpetually greater than us so that we might then practice love as justice with each other, with parents, spouses, families, property, knowledge, truth, life.  This is accomplished by learning of impulse control, stated as "thou shall not covet."  Namely, if only God is worthy of the profundity of our desire, then from worship we learn to direct our desire to mere enjoyment rather than be driven to harmful addiction.

The appointed Psalm today is in part a poem of praise about the great insight of living in love and justice because of the discovery of the great insight of a law which was founded upon respecting first the one who is greater than us and then living with such loving respect for those who are most like us.

The words of the Bible include a narrative of judgments about the behavior of people when they failed to live up to their highest insight or for when they misused the very notion of being lawful.  If the commandments of loving God and neighbor are great, then so is the precise specification of what laws could mean in all of the specific circumstances of life, in how to wash dishes in the temple, or how to eat, or what is appropriate offerings to present to God.  Certainly every society knows about the proliferation of rules and law, even to micro-manage the cleaning up after our pets in the park.  All kinds of law are good, useful, and functional for community order, but when minor laws are treated with the same respect as the great laws of love and justice, then the priorities of the community can get skewed.  When legalism becomes the only valid use of language, the fullness of human experience is missed.

One might say that philosophy, the love of wisdom, is the great gift of the ancient Greeks to our world.  But what if such wisdom get reduced to saying that something is only meaningfully true if and only if it can be presented in a logical proposition?

When St. Paul had his life completely renovated by a mystical experience, he had to confront some contradiction regarding what was meaningfully true.  Jesus is God's Son, who is the Messiah, who died, reappeared, and is mystically known after he can no longer be seen.  What kind of heroic Messiah is this?  Compared with a Messiah like David, Jesus dying on the cross is a scandal.  Paul's experience also seemed to be logically inconsistent with the wisdom of the Greek as it came to the Roman era. This foolishness is presented in the skepticism of Pilate about to crucify Jesus: "So, Jesus, you are a King?"   St. Paul could have easily pointed to fact that the Greeks and Romans held to their law and logic even while believing in stories of gods and goddesses with quite fickled behaviors and violating all norms of empirical verification.

What St. Paul was showing is that in the mystical experience of love, law and logic must give way to other kinds of meaningful events within the life of people.  He, and others had this mystical experience which changed their lives and it contradicted preconceptions of people who were Jews and Gentiles.

St. Paul and the Gospel writers were trying to persuade regarding meaningful presence of God everywhere, which was made known through the appearance of Jesus Christ.  In the past one could intensively locate the divine in stories of the gods and goddesses, or in meeting places such as temples and shrines, or in revealed writings such as the law.  In St. Paul and in the Gospel, Jesus became known as the unique temple for the dwelling of God in human experience, so that each person could come to know oneself as a dwelling place of God as well.

This is the meaningful and mystical truth of Paul and the Gospel writers who knew themselves to be temples of the God Holy Spirit who proclaimed this as a meaningful experience for everyone.

The Gospel for us today is that if the heavens declare the glory of God, so God's glory can be declared everywhere, and especially within each human being.

This is the witness of Jesus as God's Temple in history, who became the Risen Christ who is able to make everyone today a temple of God's Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Aphorism of the Day, February 2024

Aphorism of the Day, February 29, 2024

Being spiritual in the New Testament refers to a habit of wisdom which allows one to read the world in a different way than the merely literal way.  It is a more aesthetic way of viewing the world, which does not contradict empirical verification.  The New Testament writers ask that the substantiality of other ways of perceiving the world be accepted with the respect which we have for "believing our eyes."  Poetry and science can co-exist with each mode receiving it proper use.

Aphorism of the Day, February 28, 2024

One of the subtexts of the Gospel of John is that spiritual discourse is figurative and not "literal" discourse.  Repeatedly in John's Gospel, the writer mocks the crassly literal.

Aphorism of the Day, February 27, 2024

The purpose of the law can be viewed in various ways.  Laws can be the insight of actuarial wisdom to recommend best behavioral practices for the goals of the common good of the particular group for which the rules are to be applied.  Laws can be view with the penal outcome in mind to deter bad behaviors.  Laws can become legalism when imposed structuration is applied to manifold areas of life and the relative importance of certain laws can be lost.  Picking up dog poop rules can attain the equal status of how one treats one's neighbor.

Aphorism of the Day, February 26, 2024

A chief task in life is the orchestration in the use of discourse.  When to use what kind of discourse when we are articulating values in word and deed and when we are interpreting the values which arrive to us in the texts, words, and deeds of other.  To to be confused in the use of discourse results in at best comedy, but at worst in human cruelty.

Aphorism of the Day, February 25, 2024

Ever notice how there is profound outrage for new events of oppression while the populace have been inured to situations of continuing oppression, as if, such were more acceptable?  Is common life about learning to live with the tacit hypocrisy of our own country and people while getting righteously outraged when we think we can see it in people who are not us?

Aphorism of the Day, February 24, 2024

Being located with space and time limitation feeds into the ease of liking what we know and knowing what we like.  If charity begins at home, it is too easy to only practice charity to those with whom we are familiar.  To believe in a God of all means that we are constantly challenge to love beyond our natural borders.

 Aphorism of the Day, February 23, 2024

Taking up of one's cross was a symbolic mystagogic phrase of the early church.  It did not mean that one should seek capital punishment in the Roman Empire situation; it meant, using the phrase of St. Paul, "being crucified with Christ," as a spiritual method of identity with this interior higher power source to motivate repentance, or the getting better today than yesterday.

Aphorism of the Day, February 22, 2024

The dying of states of becoming in time results in the birth of what comes after.  The death and birthing of states of the mind is the meaning of repentance in the Gospel.  The words of Jesus refer to the death of the soul life pseuche in order to experience the continual salvation of the "after life," or the birth of a more excellent orientation of one's inner life toward love and justice.

Aphorism of the Day, February 21, 2024

In our time, the way in which one can be absolved of not having love or empathy, is to refer to love and empathy as being "woke."  If one can highlight the fact that people who attempt love and empathy are sometimes preaching a standard that they themselves cannot perfectly keep, then they are "woke," and so no one should be woke.  The attempt to be empathetic and practice justice toward people who are struggling to be honest about personal identities that are unfamiliar to other people is regarded to be "woke" and therefore something bad.  The practice of justice is to find supporting ways for all persons to know the pursuit of well-being and happiness.  The common good has to include justice for those who are regarded to be minorities, which is simply a statistical designation.

Aphorism of the Day, February 20, 2023

In the words of Jesus, pain and suffering cannot be excluded from the experience of the messiah or God.  God encompasses the full range of probability necessary for the kind of freedom needed for moral authenticity.  It is oddly true that we have to be able at our human worst to authenticate the value at choosing to be our best.

Aphorism of the Day, February 19, 2024

The Gospels present in story form the disagreement about the messiah which existed within the synagogue and Jesus Movement.  Peter's misunderstanding of what was to happen to the messiah instantiates that disagreement.

Aphorism of the Day, February 18, 2024

Everything arises within the field of what probably will happen according to how happening is defined and interpreted because we have language.  Probability is a designation of what may happen in time by language users.

Aphorism of the Day, February 17, 2024

The life of probabilities is the life of freedom of not knowing the future as actual and not have certainty about outcomes requires from us continuous actuarial wisdom.  Such is based upon, given our observations of what has happened, how can we be prepared for the likely happenings in the future.  We need to be practical statisticians at all times, even without knowing statistic formulas. 

Aphorism of the Day, February 16, 2024

Since we don't always voluntarily chose extended fasts or periods of discipline, the intent behind the church offering the discipline of the season of Lent is to do it together.  Our special disciplines may be primarily private, but there are also corporate disciplines which we do together as a community.

Aphorism of the Day, February 15, 2024

Before we knew about atoms and the sub-atomic, we thought perhaps particles of dust and ashes were the smallest things which human flesh could be reduced. Humanity has longed believed in the invisible sub-microscopic using words like heart, spirit, soul, and inner being.  Language itself is mostly invisible though it has it wordy effects in what we say, write, and act out in our body language.  It is in fact with our invisible aspect of language that we come to have our identities because people in every culture know themselves beings who give names to everything.

 Aphorism of the Day, February 14, 2024

When one wants to learn something new, it often requires a change of one's normal schedule to devote time for the new learning goal.  Such is what the season of Lent is about.  Just view it as rearranging one's previous allocation of time to devote to further excellence in how one can better practice love and justice with others.

Aphorism of the Day, February 13, 2024

The presentation of Jesus in his temptation ordeal was to highlight the need for an experience of a higher power to win the interior struggles which vary for everyone because of the specifics of one's nature and nurture.

Aphorism of the Day, February 12, 2024

Temptation is both a general and specific reality.  How so?  Temptation is essentially about timing and mistiming in what we do and say, and a general vocation in life is to be in right timing with our impulse control so that "God's will" can be done on earth through us.  Temptation is a specific reality in that there are periods of time when the struggle is what we might call an ordeal and the inner forces of accusation seem to say we can't have self control.  The life of Jesus is presented with a period of specific ordeals for him to achieve the timing of his life mission.  But the general presentation of Jesus' life is about him doing things in God's time.

Aphorism of the Day, February 11, 2024

Light is a metaphor for the conversion moment in embracing a new paradigm and changing one's thought orientation in the world with attending behavioral changes as well.

Aphorism of the Day, February 10, 2024

Consider language as an inner kaleidoscope with words as the "colored sherds" to be shone through and projected as meaning in our lives.  The words have both randomness the feature of arbitrary selection but with structured limitations due to rules of syntax and grammar.

Aphorism of the Day, February 9, 2024

With incredible reflexivity in language and by language, we arrive at our identity as language users, and through language we name the interior ability to shuffle words in communicative patterns.  Our life of knowing is having awareness of being within language reflexive being.

Aphorism of the Day, February 8, 2024

The power of words within us includes the naming of the retaining of words in the phenomenon of memory.  With memory the words within us also get associated with seeing things in the exterior world and the interior picture words have the ability to double expose and create fantasia which is not possible in the external limitation.  This is what happens with dreams and interior or visionary seeing.  This does not clash with science because science has a discourse proper to itself and visionary seeing has its own discourse.

Aphorism of the Day, February 7, 2024

Visionary seeing as experiences of the sublime occur because one's interior life, which is really an inner linguistic lens through which one perceives the world, causes one to see the exterior world in an enhanced different, "enlightened" way.

 Aphorism of the Day, February 6, 2024

With the travel among the people in various locales of Jesus Movement communities one could say that there was something of social osmosis in the spread of theology.  A worthy study is to look at the expressions of mystagogy in St. Paul, who wrote before the Gospel writings, and see how such mystagogy became the narrative of Jesus as a parable to provide an origin discourse for practices of the early Jesus Movement.

Aphorism of the Day, February 5, 2024

Infancy narratives, baptism, transfiguration, resurrection are the butterfly moments in the metamorphosis in the presentation of the life of Jesus.  Surely the narrative was the mystagogy of the early Christ-communities who taught an identity with the Risen Christ involving a continuous metamorphosis in spiritual experience.

Aphorism of the Day, February 4, 2024

The most basic medicine for health is food.  So to be food healthy, first one must have enough.  The first food people eat is the food of one's family and culture.  Some people are worried about getting any food at all whereas the prosperous are worried about the amount and kinds of food they eat.  Bread from heaven should be interior words which change people's actions to make sure that everyone in the world has enough to eat.  The piety of Eucharist without reference to those who are hungry, may be a pointless piety.

Aphorism of the Day, February 3, 2024

Does folk medicine work?  It does if the ill and their society perceive a better outcome than alternatives even while the big illness of death to which all of us are headed only get some temporary delays.  Life and Death are part of holistic natural cycle, except in our meaningful living interaction with life and people we get helplessly attached and so we cannot regard death to be but part of the cycle of becoming.

Aphorism of the Day, February 2, 2024 

The folk meteorology of Ground Hog's Day co-exists with modern meteorology as well as the dated traditions of the Farmer's Almanac.  People can switch between the discourses of folk traditions and science without problem.  People should also be able to switch between the folk biblical traditions and science too.

Aphorism of the Day, February 1, 2024

The creative advances in science and technology have changed the thought environments.  How has medical science changed the discussion of reproductive rights?  How did orality come to be known after writing provided a different kind of technology of memory, since it could only be known once a contrast arose.  Cultures with writing can no longer know what orality means without already having textual practice.

Quiz of the Day, February 2024

Quiz of the Day, February 29, 2024

In the parable of the sower, the seed did not fall

a. on a path

b. on rocky ground

c. on good soil

d. among thorns

e. among weeds

Quiz of the Day, February 28, 2024

According to the words of Jesus, the kingdom of God was communicated in parables because

a. it was a secret

b. the indirect method of communication was effective

c. uneducated people only understand stories

d. story telling was the prime mode of educating people in the time of Jesus

Quiz of the Day, February 27, 2024

Of the following, who delivered a man over to Satan?

a. Peter

b. Barnabas

c. Paul

d. Simon Magus

Quiz of the Day, February 26, 2024

Which two heads of the 12 tribes of Israel were not sons of Jacob and had Egyptian lineage?

a. Reuben and Asher

b. Ephraim and Judah

c. Benjamin and Manasseh

d. Ephraim and Manasseh

Quiz of the Day, February 25, 2024

Of the following, who had a dream about fat cows and skinny cows?

a. Daniel

b. Nebuchadnezzar

c. Joseph

d. Pharaoh

Quiz of the Day, February 24, 2024

A citation from what book in the Hebrew Scriptures was given for replacing Judas Iscariot with Matthias?

a. Isaiah

b. Job

c. Psalms

d. 2 Samuel

Quiz of the Day, February 23, 2024

Of the following, who was not a biblical dreamer?

a. Pharaoh

b. Joseph of Nazareth

c. Joseph son of Jacob

d. Jacob

e. David

f. Solomon

g.Nebuchadnezzar 

Quiz of the Day, February 22, 2024

Joseph was not

a. overseer of an Egyptian household

b. a prisoner who oversaw the rest of the prisoner

c. an Egyptian minister who over saw the commerce of Egypt

d. the overseer of the synagogue in Egypt

Quiz of the Day, February 21, 2024

Who sold Joseph to slave traders going to Egypt?

a. his brothers

b. the Ishmaelites

c. the Midianites

d. the Ammonites

Quiz of the Day, February 20, 2024

The Gospel of Mark begins with

a. the genealogy of Jesus through Mary

b. the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph

c. the birth of Jesus

d. the baptism of Jesus

Quiz of the Day, February 19, 2024

Of the following, who did not not do any shepherding?

a. Joseph

b. Abel

c. David

d. Solomon

e. Moses

Quiz of the Day, February 18, 2024

Which of the Gospels does not have an account of the temptation of Jesus?

a. Matthew

b. Mark

c. Luke

d. John

Quiz of the Day, February 17, 2024

Janani Luwam was 

a. Ugandan

b. an Archbishop

c. a martyr

d. killed because of Idi Amin cruel reign

e. all the above

Quiz of the Day, February 16, 2024

From Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday, the number of days is

a. 40

b. 42

c. 44

d. 46

e. 47

Quiz of the Day, February 15, 2024

Jesus did not tell a parable about

a. a tax collector

b. a Pharisee

c. a leper

d. a Samaritan

e. a refiner

Quiz of the Day, February 14, 2024

To have been shriven on Shrove Tuesday means what?

a. to eat pancakes

b. to celebrate Mardi Gras

c. to perform significant act of penitence

d. to confess and receive absolution

Quiz of the Day, February 13, 2024

Where is it written, "Surely I am too stupid to be a human?"

a. Wisdom of Ben Sirach

b. Proverbs

c. Job

d. Psalms

Quiz of the Day, February 12, 2024

Which woman of the following does not have a "song" in the Bible?

a. Mary

b. Miriam

c. Deborah

d. Hannah

e. Ruth

Quiz of the Day, February 11, 2024

The New Testament Greek word for transfiguration sounds more like what word in English?

a. change

b. alteration

c. metamorphosis

d. transformation

Quiz of the Day, February 10, 2024

Jesus met a woman of Samaria at a well.  Which of the following is not true about the well?

a. named after Jacob

b. was in Sychar

c. was in Shechem

d. it was on land given by Jacob to Benjamin

Quiz of the Day, February 9, 2024

When did the "Jacob's ladder" dream occur?

a. When Jacob was trying to escape Esau

b. When Jacob slept at Beth-el

c. When Jacob was on his way to Laban's household

d. all the above

Quiz of the Day, February 8, 2024

Who in the Bible is know as a "hairy man?"

a. Samson

b. Esau

c. Cain

d. Saul

Quiz of the Day, February 7, 2024

Of of the following, which were not twins?

a. Cain and Abel

b. Jacob and Esau

c. Thomas and twin sibling

d. Peraz and Zerah

Quiz of the Day, February 6, 2024

Which pericope in John's Gospel is regarded by scholars to be a late textual addition?

a. woman taken in adultery

b. changing water to wine

c. raising of Lazarus

d. doubting Thomas

Quiz of the Day, February 5, 2024

What biblical figure was named "Red?"

a. Joseph

b. Ruben

c. Esau

d. Ephraim

Quiz of the Day, February 4, 2024

Who is the apostle to the Scandinavians? 

a. Olaf

b. Boniface

c. Anskar

d. Wilfrid

Quiz of the Day, February 3, 2024

Of the following, which is not the wife of a biblical patriarch?

a. Sarah

b. Ruth

c. Rebekah

d. Rachel

e. Leah

Quiz of the Day, February 2, 2024

Which of the following does not happen liturgically on February 2nd?

a. the commemoration of the Presentation

b. Candlemas

c. the blessing of beeswax

d. the Naming of Jesus

Quiz of the Day, February 1, 2024

What Irish saint has a 1500 anniversary today?

a. Brendan

b. Columba

c. Patrick

d. Brigid