Sunday School, March 9, 2025 First Sunday in Lent C

  Sunday School, March 9, 2025     First Sunday in Lent C

Themes and Topics

Learning Self Control

Learning to be one’s own hero

Fasting is a practice of learning self-control

Gospel Story:  Jesus went away to a place to be alone and fast

When you feed a dog, you put the food in the dog dish and set it on the floor.  And what do many dogs do?  They immediately try to eat all of the food as fast as they can.  Now some dog owners will try to teach a dog to wait until he or she give the command to the dog to eat.  A dog owner may try to teach a dog to wait before eating.

When babies are hungry, they want their milk right away.  They don’t want to wait and if mom makes them wait, what do they do?  They cry.

Growing up means we learn how to control our selves when we have to wait for something that we need.

So you may be hungry right now, but mom says the food is still cooking and besides we’re waiting for dad to come home so we can eat together.   So even if you are hungry right now, you learn to wait so that you can eat with the rest of the family.

Learning to wait to eat is “fasting.”  It is learning how to control yourself.  It is learning to not let your desire for something make you unhappy if you cannot get it right away.

Fasting is about learning to wait and have patience so that you can learn to do things together with other people.  Fasting is about learning other people’s schedules.

When you teacher asks you to be silent and raise your hand, this is also fasting because it is waiting for your turn to speak so that you can honor the schedule of your class.

Jesus was a hero because he learned to fast; he learned to do things according to God the Father’s time.  He did not obey the voice of Satan which tempted him to do the wrong things, at the wrong time in the wrong way.

Lent is about learning how to be our own superhero by learning how to control ourselves.

Jesus was a superhero of self-control;  And we can learn from Jesus about being our own superhero as we learn self-control.  An important part of self-control is learn how to share in how we live with other people.

Lent is a season of learning self-control for the purposes of sharing the gifts and good things of our lives with others, especially those who do not have enough.

A sermon about learning to be one’s own hero

  How would you like to be a hero?  How do you think you can be a hero?  Do you have to fly like Superman, Batman and Spiderman in order to be a hero?  Do you have to save someone from drowning to be a hero?  Do you have to rescue some one from a burning building to be a hero? Doing those things would make you a hero, but there is another way to be a hero.

  And Jesus wants us all to be heroes.  How can all of us be heroes?  By being strong.  Let me see your muscles.  But the muscles in our arms are not important muscles that we need.

  We need some other muscles.  We need strength to be able to not do things that are bad for us.  We need strength to be able to do things that are really, really good for us.

  And so we need to do some training to be heroes.  That is what the season of Lent is for..it’s for doing some special training.

  Is it easier to eat four pieces of chocolate cake than to eat our vegetables?  Chocolate cake is good and vegetables are good.  And we need to be heroes by becoming strong enough to choose the right amounts of good food for us.  Say, I am strong.  I am powerful.  I will be a hero.  I will choose good food.

  Is it easier to watch cartoons on TV or clean your bedroom or do your school work?  It is fun to watch TV but when there are other things that we need to do, we need to have the power to choose to do other things to help our families and to help us get good grades at school.  Can you flex your muscles and say: I am powerful.  I will be a hero.  I will choose to do good things.

  Jesus was a hero because he learned to have power to do the good things that he was supposed to do.  When he was given the choice between doing some good and doing something bad, he chose what was good.

  You and I have to practice being good.  And how do we practice being good?  We have to build the muscles of our choosing power.  We have to practice making the right choices.  Our teachers and parents help us to make the right choices.  Even though they are not perfect; they still are able to help you make good choices.  And if we learn to make good choices, then we become powerful and we become heroes of our own lives?

  Can you learn to be a hero today?  Let’s see your muscles.  Say:  I am strong.  I can make good choices.  I can be a hero today. 

Intergenerational Family Service with Holy Eucharist

March 9, 2025 The First Sunday in Lent

Gathering Songs: On Eagle’s Wings, Just As I am, I Am the Bread of Life, Thy Word

Song: On Eagle’s Wings (Renew! # 112)

You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord, who abide in his shadow for life, say to the Lord: “My refuge, my rock in whom I trust.”

Refrain: And he will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hand.

The snare of the fowler will never capture you, and famine will bring you no fear: under his wings your refuge, his faithfulness your shield.  Refrain

Liturgist: Bless the Lord who forgives all of our sins.

People: God’s 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

Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Litany of Praise: Chant: Praise be to God!

O God, you are Great!  Praise be to God!

O God, you have made us! Praise be to God!

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

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Praise be to God!

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Praise be to God!

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Praise be to God!

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

Liturgist: A reading from the Letter to the Romans

For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 91

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, * abides under the shadow of the Almighty.

He shall say to the LORD, "You are my refuge and my stronghold, * my God in whom I put my trust."

He shall deliver you from the snare of the hunter * and from the deadly pestilence.

He shall cover you with his pinions, and you shall find refuge under his wings; * his faithfulness shall be a shield and buckler.

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 Luke

People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'" Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God,  and serve only him.'"  Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,  to protect you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up,  so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"  Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

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.

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.

Youth 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 Hymn:  Just As I Am (Renew! # 140)

Just as I am without one plea but that thy blood was shed for me,

and that thou bidd’st me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. I come!

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: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.   

Words of Administration

Communion Hymn: I Am the Bread of Life (Renew!  # 246)

Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of his blood, and drink of his blood, you shall not have life within you.

Refrain: And I will raise you up, and I will raise you up, and I will raise you up on the last day.

Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world.  Refrain

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: Thy Word (Renew! # 94)

Refrain: Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

When I feel afraid, think I’ve lost my way, still you’re there right beside me.  And nothing will I fear as long as you are near.  Please be near me to the end.  Refrain

I will not forget your love for me, and yet my heart forever is wandering.  Jesus, be my guide and hold me to your side; and I will love you to the end.  Refrain

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God! 

Prayers for Epiphany, 2025

Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, March 4, 2025

God, let this eve of Lent not be one of silly excess in taking in too much of what should always be shared with those who have no chance of excess; but let it be a time of reflecting on strategies of how we might be better in the Christ command to love God and our neighbors.  Amen.

Monday after the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, March 3, 2025

Prepare us O God for the Lenten fast, when we begin to organize our lives to attain better timing in doing the things which are healthier for us and for more people in our world because we intentionally forsake selfish ways.  Amen.

Sunday, Last Sunday after the Epiphany, March 2, 2025

God, you are great enough to accrue and accumulate all becoming; you have the memory to retain all phases of our becoming and to transfigure us with the hope of recognizable continuity with our selves in future states even beyond the life which we see.  Give us hope to believe in the light of metamorphosis which can shine us into our future.  Amen.

Saturday in 7 Epiphany, March 1, 2025

God of transfiguring energy or inner Light in time, in wisdom you have given insights about our processual metamorphosis, and in that wisdom we can be given the gift of language, not as but collections of cultural tropes and traditions of word use, but the gift of knowing Word as what is eternal and abiding.  Let such a gift of language be ours today.  Amen.

Friday in 7 Epiphany, February 28, 2025

Christ, who told us to let our lights shine, let us surface the inner light of the high insights which pertain to the love and justice for the well being and common good of all people.  As you were transfigured by love, let us also be transfigured.  Amen.

Thursday in 7 Epiphany, February 27, 2025

God, we are subjected to various phases in the procession of time and to the phase which we designate as after life;  we can only imagine an afterlife equivalent of the butterfly breaking out of a cocoon.  Grant us the hope of the reconfiguration of our life energy as beaming with light.  Amen.

Wednesday in 7 Epiphany, February 26, 2025

God whose omnipresence can be named as transfiguring processual sustaining life manifest as passing through the temporal phases of becoming; give us wisdom to orient ourselves to this train of time with faithful adjustments to what we are always becoming toward surpassing ourselves in excellence even if the scars of time seem to contradict that surpassing excellence.  Amen.

Tuesday in 7 Epiphany, February 25, 2025

God of the transfigured Christ, you remind us that phases are only temporary and we live in contrast of past phases with what is now even as it slips through our hands into what will be.  Even as with our use of language, we try to stop time, give us wisdom to reapply what we understand love and justice to have been in new ways now.  Amen.

Monday in 7 Epiphany, February 24, 2025

God, your have given us faith to deem the energy of entropy toward our seeming demise as the processual energy of metamorphosis toward the equivalent of our butterfly beings driven by an inner light; give us faith in the basic purposeful energy of life even while it is manifest in so many various phases of appearances.  Amen.

Sunday, 7 Epiphany, February 23, 2025

God, we crave the life of normal comfort when the heroic is not needed; steel our hearts for the time when the heroic is needed in the face of oppression and when we have the power give us the courage to prevent the oppression of others.  Amen.

Saturday in 6 Epiphany, February 22, 2025

Befriending God, give us perpetual the Spirit of friendship so that all differences which are used to regard one another as enemies might cease; grant us grace to be befriending people as we seek common good.  Amen.

Friday in 6 Epiphany, February 21, 2025

God, the experience of people who have called upon you has often been in the time of oppression such that the beatitudes were generated to help people live winsomely during oppression; forgive us for guilty silence when we witness representative leaders openly commit us to cruelty or abandonment of marginalized persons and nations threatened by invaders wreaking devastation upon them.  Amen.

Thursday in 6 Epiphany, February 20, 2025

God, in Christ we understand your humility to be emptied into the particular, even the particulars of our life circumstances, but that emptiness is fullness because it is connected with everything, everywhere, all at once such that what is emptied into the particular can never be separated from the All.  Give us faith to hold onto the deep connectedness even when the particular experience seems to threaten us with lonely isolation, and more horrendously, the moral bankruptcy of a nation of people.  Amen.

Wednesday in 6 Epiphany, February 19, 2025

God, we pray for a world where the heroic lifestyle of the beatitudes were not required, a world where forgiveness was not needed, a world where persecution, oppression, and hatred did not exist.  Help us not to generate the meaning of You as the requirement of our anxious dread that if things can go wrong, they will.  Give us hope to to believe that we were made good and that goodness is the normalcy to which we are are called.  Amen.

Tuesday in 6 Epiphany, February 18, 2025

Jesus, your words ask of us the impossible to not judge and to always forgive while we possess language which is the very continuous classification and appraising phenomenon of living; give us grace to be open to bless those who once have known our condemnations, and forgive those who have hurt us badly so that reconciliation might be achieved as the healing of our world.  Amen.

Monday in 6 Epiphany, February 17, 2025

God, whose kindness can seem to be a weakness when woeful people are sustained while they wreak havoc on myriads of vulnerable people even if death eventually ends them; give us faith to believe in the arc of just correction at work in the goodness of the perpetual sustaining of all things.  Amen.

Sunday, 6 Epiphany, February 16, 2025

Eternal Word, Divine Persuader and Rhetorician, expose to us how we are living lesser values by the revelation of your higher values which pertain to loving you beyond our own desires which create mere idols, and loving our neighbors who are oft messy as we are in needing perpetual patient love.  Amen.

Saturday in 5 Epiphany, February 15, 2025

Eternal Word who is God, you have imparted within us word ability wonderful and diverse to express the sublime and the mundane; give us grace and humility to recognize in our use of language we are instantiating our linguistic identity with you the Eternal Word, who inhabits anything that can be known.  Amen.

Friday in 5 Epiphany, February 14, 2024

God, who is Love, your Valentine to us is more than chocolate or flowers and it is not fickleness of affinity or desire; it is the continuous sustaining of us and all in all of the genuine freedom which comprises the probabilities of life; help us to funnel your generous sustaining love into acts of justice love for all.  Amen.

Thursday in 5 Epiphany, February 13, 2025

God of liberation, let us call our lives blessed when we are active to overcome poverty, hunger, prejudice, and sadness in our world; and let us know that it is better for us to experience such deprivations than to be those who actually cause the same for others.  Amen.

Wednesday in 5 Epiphany, February 12, 2025

God, free the wealthy from the woes of possession being what controls and possesses them; give them the joy of selling what they have and giving to the poor to follow their Christ-like better angels.  Amen.

Tuesday in 5 Epiphany, February 11, 2025

Blessed Jesus, you left us words of the beatitudes to remind us that we forever have room to grow towards what is perfect; give us strength to work to keep people from needing to know an adjusting blessedness to the conditions of poverty, sorrow, war and conflict, persecution, hunger, thirst,  and marginalization.  Amen.

Monday in 5 Epiphany, February 10, 2025

God of all conditions, help us to know how we are blessed when we are poor or bereft of the conditions which seem to define a normal standard of living; give us grace to be strongly poor with all who are poor because of the patterns of blind greed of people who do not tend to the common good.  Amen.

Sunday, 5 Epiphany, February 9, 2025

God of Hope, hope is our calling and the accompanying analgesic for our faith which does not yet see hope's utopia; and if hope is our pain killer, let the prayers and work of love and justice be what tires us out each day.  Amen.

Saturday in 4 Epiphany, February 8, 2025

God who has made us to be people persons because we are born and constituted by and with people; help us in our peopling behaviors so as to draw out of each one the best gifts for the common good. Let this continual mutual gift exchange be our perpetual calling.  Amen.

Friday in 4 Epiphany, February 7, 2025

Give ears to hear your Call O God, eyes to see your message and a willingness to heed, especially if it asks of us something outside our heretofore comfort zone.  Amen.

Thursday in 4 Epiphany, February 6, 2025

God who beckons and calls in the Mystery of what we do not yet know; let your Mystery be made known in the manifestations of love and justice to us and through us.  Amen.

Wednesday in 4 Epiphany, February 5, 2025

God, who is Wild beyond our attempts at domesticating you in presentations done mainly for the administration of people for the convenience of an imposed social order; give us insightful orientation toward everything that is happening with the appropriate filters of doing love and justice in actual ways with each other.  Amen.

Tuesday in 4 Epiphany, February 4, 2025

God, the infinite diversity of your omnipresence is the seeming negligible hum of the universe which resides beyond our range and does not give us in our smallness the ability to comprehend such greatness; give us we pray enlightened apparent intercourse with tangible and close encounters which unveil in specific events of our lives your incognito presence.  Amen.

Monday in 4 Epiphany, February 3, 2025

When O God, when will the rich be sent away empty, and the lowly lifted up?  Give us grace O God to be the underground care-givers of those who are lowly because of the neglect of the wealthy and powerful who do not subscribe to the Christ words to whom much is given, much is required.  Amen.

Sunday, The Presentation of our Lord, February 2, 2025

God our birthing parent of the Absolute Plenitudinous Past; you emptied the witness of your presence into Jesus and he was presented to his specific community in his time and place; let us be presented too to you in our specific times and places so that our humanity might be redeemed in knowing our always already connection with the inner Divinity of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Saturday in 3 Epiphany, February 1, 2025

God who empties into weakness in the actual situations of freedom when the greedy and powerful oppress the weak because they have the freedom to do so; we fear the awesome freedom which makes morality valid and enhances the experience of justice when it is realized.  Amen.

Friday in 3 Epiphany, January 31, 2025

God who has given us language to encode our existence and knowing of it; we find ourselves often encoded with the limitations of our time and place influences when we seem to be but the unthinking pawns of known and unknown habits of bias which prevent us from successful acts of charity; give us grace to expand our cultural codes to love's standard of loving our neighbor as our themselves.  Amen.

Thursday in 3 Epiphany, January 30, 2025

God, whom we are prone to forget because we are so locked into our provincial ghettos; let our rituals of remembrance be for us an invocation of your presence and blessing upon the specific rites of passage through which we transverse on our way to becoming holy humans.  Amen.

Wednesday in 3 Epiphany, January 29, 2025

God, the great expanding Container of All; all belong to you even though all do recognize such; help us to realize that we all belong together and we are challenged with living together in the best possible way for the common good of all.  Amen.

Tuesday in 3 Epiphany, January 28, 2025

God of Time and of our aging, we adopt rituals of remembering You in the times of our lives, so that among all that is lost in the process of time, we can retain community identity bearing our highest values of the love of You and our neighbors.  Amen.

Monday in 3 Epiphany, January 27, 2025

God who is the Great Expanding Container of All in Time; grant that what we add in freedom to the over-all becoming of all that is be works of love, mercy, justice, and kindness and so help to determine a better future.  Amen.

Sunday, 3 Epiphany, January 26, 2025

Good God, whom we confess that you have made us good; we confess that we have not lived up to our original goodness even to descend into acts of incredible inhumanity; we thank you for allowing Jesus to arise in our history as an example and as a grace to restore toward our original goodness and toward a hard won future holy goodness.  Amen.

Saturday in 2 Epiphany, January 25, 2025 (Conversion of St. Paul)

Holy Spirit, you are the dynamic presence of God in the process of history; through you we came to have the paradigm shift arising in the ministry of Paul, who wrote the Gentile people into the line of salvation history; give us grace to invite continuously those who have been deprived of the knowledge of their full inclusion in the family of God.  Amen.

Friday in 2 Epiphany, January 24, 2025

At some point we as language users came to call you God, or the one who used language to create by making word the flesh of existence; and from our experience of delight we have posited an original goodness even in the midst of the freedom for some things to be awful; give us grace to embrace the goodness of the good news which Jesus came to reinforce as what is the most appropriate representation of the original delight.  Amen.

Thursday in 2 Epiphany, January 23, 2025

God, whom we have come to deem as a Language Originator; with language and faith we have come to deem our existence as good, even when we have behaved badly and when the clashes in the conflicts in nature often put us in harms way; give us grace to believe in original goodness and empower us to preach the good news which was so exemplified in the life of Jesus.  Amen.

Wednesday in 2 Epiphany, January 22, 2025

God, who often seems incognito in the non-apparent; when greed and evil intent seem to have become the apparent public norm such that they have overturn values of truth, keep us faithful in the oft unseen works of kindness, love, justice, and mercy.  Amen.

Tuesday in 2 Epiphany, January 21, 2025

God of all probabilities, the presence of so many circumstances of bad news in our world cries out for the good news of healing, sight, peace, love, and the overcoming of greed with a great Spirit of generosity; grant us good news especially to those who are devastated by the bad news of their froward circumstances.  Amen.

Monday in 2 Epiphany, January 20, 2025 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day)

While violence was practiced against his people, O God, you raised up Martin Luther King, Jr., to practice non-violence in trusting that the innate naturalness of love and justice could win the hearts of those who claimed religion but practiced oppression; help us to continue in the work of Dr. King, following Jesus to bend the arc of history toward a more perfect justice for all.  Amen.

Sunday, 2 Epiphany, January 19, 2025

God, you have blessed the human community with innumerable gifts and where they are exercised with wisdom and love, they promote the common good; confuse the gifts of the powerful and the greedy O God, and let the collateral gleanings of their selfish foolishness redound to the benefit of those who are in need.  Amen.

Saturday in 1 Epiphany, January 18, 2025 (Confession of Peter, beginning week of Prayer for Christian Unity)

God, we acknowledge that Christians seem often to be persons divided by confessing a common Messiah; give us wisdom to seek the more significant unity in pursuing outcomes of love and justice for all people in our world.  Amen.

Friday in 1 Epiphany, January 17, 2025

Omni-present God, we often wish that omni-present sustenance of all were more discriminating in what is being sustained as we observe that everything that has happened has the proof of having been sustained, even by the divine omni-presence;  we ask for fearful respect for the genuine freedom which we have in shaping how our world is sustained and help us shape the world toward love and justice.  Amen.

Thursday in 1 Epiphany, January 16, 2025

God of all and in all, individualize the signs of your presence to as many a possible so that our world can survive and be sustained in peace and care for one another.  Amen.

Wednesday in 1 Epiphany, January 15, 2025

God, how can we know your signs unless we first know the codes and translations of what a sign of you would be?  You gave us Jesus as the chief sign revealer of how to be humanly best in knowing the sign of what is divinely human and what is humanly divine.  Amen.

Tuesday in 1 Epiphany, January 14, 2025

God you have given us Christly presence as the power of imagination to supplement the seeming ordinary water of life and make it seem like an extraordinary feast such that others think we drink the elixir of wine, but we must confess that we are Holy Spirited people.  Amen.

Monday in 1 Epiphany, January 13, 2025

God, we like Mary, seek for the Christ to be in the mundane of our lives akin to dealing with shortage of wine at a wedding party; and even though in rebuke of our trivial priorities, we may hear a sigh of "what does that have to do with the higher priorities of the Risen Christ," we thank you for being involved in the child-like ordinary stuff of our lives.  Amen.

Sunday, 1 Epiphany, January 12, 2025 The Baptism of Our Lord

Eternal Word of God, you are coming to full solidarity with all humans in all human experience, and we commemorate your baptism as a event of the solidarity of the divine life with us, thus affirming ways of being human as valid ways to come to know what is more than human, even God as the Great Expanding Container of Life.  Amen.

Saturday after the Epiphany, January 11, 2025

God of Water, Wind, and Fire; who cleanses, quenches, breathes life, and warms and gives light; save us from floods and hurricanes, tornadoes, and devastating fires, and bring us renewing and rebuilding resilience when we know the worst effects of being caught in harms way of nature.  Amen.

 Friday after the Epiphany, January 10, 2025

God, the Container of All, into whom we have all been initiated by being born; we thank you for specific baptism and being received into particular communities of faith so as to continuously remind ourselves that you in Jesus represent the divine with us in such complete solidarity as to allow us to regard our paths as being valid ways of affirming our relationship in and through You.  Amen.

Thursday after the Epiphany, January 9, 2025

Forgive us God of all, for wanting the name of being a Christian country, or Christian community without manifesting the basics of being Christ-like in loving you and our neighbor as ourselves.  Amen.

Wednesday after the Epiphany, January 8, 2025

Eternal Word of God, giver of language which gives us ritual process within community; you became baptized by John to express solidarity with humanity in a particular moment of time and in becoming one with us you now invite us to become one with you in your Risen State in our baptismal states of becoming more Christ-like.  Amen.

Tuesday after the Epiphany, January 7, 2025

God of Omni-Manifestations, your omnipresence often obscures specificity to be known in personal ways; we thank you for the personality of Christ who is human enough to allow us to reduce you to anthropomorphic ways to perceiving your relevance to us in our specific situations.  Amen.

The Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 2025 

God, who existed before our calendars to observe your manifestations to us; we recognize that the Christ nature came from the beginning and came in Jesus, and will continue to come as the Light which enlightens toward the surpassing goals of enlightenment to which we are called; give us grace to adjust our seeing behaviors to the light of Christ today.  Amen.

Transfiguration, a Pre-Resurrection Sign

Last Epiphany C March 2, 2025
Exodus 34:29-35 Ps. 99
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 Luke 9:28-36 

Lectionary Link

The New Testament word for transfiguration is the Greek word from which our English word metamorphosis derives.

We learned this word in elementary school when we studied the life cycles of butterflies and moths.  By appearance, an egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly seem significantly different, but in fact they are only phases of the same being.  They undergo such dramatic changes that if one did not witness the changes while they happened one might say that there is a complete discontinuity between the phases.

We in our human life cycle observe the phases of human life and they too are different.  Photographs taken at different times in the span of one's life could not be proof knowing that such pictures were of the same person.  How many babies could even be identified from their sonograms?  There is apparently significant discontinuities between how people appear at different times in our life.

One of the great mysteries of human life concerns imagination and speculation about the phase of human life that we designate as the afterlife.  We presume to be superior to butterflies.  We can note that butterflies leave their objective immortality behind in the eggs which they lay for the next generation of butterflies, but their beautiful butterfly phase does not have an afterlife, except as their wings and bodies decay and transform to something else.  Humanly speaking with human presumptions about our anthropocentric importance, we love and cherish our butterfly phase so much that we would hope that this phase of how we have been constituted would have continuity beyond the grave.

The belief in the life of human metamorphosis including post-life continuity phase or phases became articulated in the New Testament writings as the way to cope with the greatest apparent discontinuity that we know in human existence, namely, death itself.

Can death be the cessation of all continuity of a being with itself?  Will I have continuity in my afterlife with the person whom I know myself to be now?

I would submit that the account of the Transfiguration, in being identified as the Light shining within Jesus, was given as a pre-Resurrection sign in the life of Jesus as he was making his metamorphosis toward death and his re-appearances in significantly different presentations in his afterlives.  Why his afterlives?  His reappearances were different for different people, because they were tailored to the experiences of the people who experienced him in his afterlife phases.

St. Paul might be one who most poignantly wrote about the transfiguration feature of the life of Christ, or the afterlives of the Risen Christ within the lives of those who experienced one of those appearances.

St. Paul said that the Risen Christ was revealed, not to him, but in him.  This indwelling Christ was the light and the energy and the down payment proof of the future resurrection of his spiritual body.  This Indwelling Risen Christ was the energy of the metamorphosis, the transforming, and transfiguring which was happening within Paul and all who invited this indwelling Risen Christ to be known within them.

St. Paul promoted this notion of transfiguration in life in his mystagogy.  He wrote that Christ was within us as the hope of glory, that is being transfigured by the holy presence of the Spirit and Lord of life.

The mystagogy of transfiguration came to be presented in the phases of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.  The story of the Transfiguration of Jesus was a presentation of Jesus meeting two other persons who had transfiguring events on mountains, Moses and Elijah.  Moses received the law on Mount Sinai and his face shone with a glow from having been within the cloudy and blazing presence of God.  Elijah experienced the fire from heaven on Mount Carmel.  These mountain events were mid-career events for Moses and Elijah and punctuated their prophetic importance, as well as their re-appearance in the apocalyptic fervor which so dominated the religious context of the Jews during the time of Jesus.  Moses and Elijah appeared on the mount of the Transfiguration to fulfill their apocalyptic roles and affirm Jesus as the logical successor in the train of the law and the prophets.  Jesus was an ending and a beginning; ending of a phase of the law and the prophets, and the beginning of a significant new way for God to be manifestly known to more people in the world.

The Gospels present the transfiguration phases of the life of Jesus as mystical teaching for us anticipate transfiguration energy in our lives which counters the devolving process of the apparent entropy which ends in death.  Just as the transfiguration was a sign of the ultimate triumph of the inward life Jesus in his resurrection reappearances, so too, the Holy Spirit is the sign of the counter life to the entropy of death which will result in our afterlives as our future selves, beyond our selves that we know in this life.

Let us accept the hope narrative of the transfiguration as we defy the seeming demise of our earthly appearances, with vision of what the hope implant within us might ultimately be.

Jesus was transfigured, so that we too might embrace the transfigured life as proof that energy never dies, it only undergoes constant change.  Today, let us embrace with the faith of the transfiguration life and ponder what we might yet be in our future.  Amen.