Sunday School, June 8, 2025 The Day of Pentecost C

Sunday School, June 8, 2025  The Day of Pentecost C

Themes

Pentecost is a celebration of the birthday of the church

Song:  Sing Happy Birthday to the Church

You will need about 1988 candles for the number years

What is one of the first signs of life when a baby is born?

A baby begins to breathe.  The baby’s lungs start working and we know that a baby is alive because the baby is breathing.

Breathing is a sign of first life or birth.

Pentecost is a celebration of the birth of the church and this was known because of the signs of its birth.

The sign of the birth of the church was the presence of the Spirit of God.

Spirit means “breath” or “wind.”  You cannot see breath or wind but you know that they are there.  You can see the leaves of the trees move when the wind blows on them.

Unseen “breath” or “Wind” became the name for God who is presence but not seen.  God’s Spirit became known within the community of people who followed Jesus.  Jesus died, he rose and he left this earth but he promised to leave his Spirit with his friends and with anyone who wanted to simply discover God’s presence in their lives.

Pentecost is when a rally happened in Jerusalem and people gathered and realized that even though Jesus was gone, His Spirit was still in them and gave them power and energy to do the same things which Jesus did.  God’s Spirit was discovered within their hearts and they had power to preach good news, to practice healing and good health, to share with one another and to love one another.  They also received the ministry of letting all of the people in the world know about how close that God was too them because of God’s Spirit.

Pentecost is a celebration of the discovery of God’s presence in all people and how we can all be different and yet still live together in love and peace.

We can celebrate Pentecost best by taking time to discover the Spirit of God in our lives and in the lives of other people.  We can honor the Spirit of God through peace, love, caring, forgiveness and sharing the Good News of Jesus.  Jesus came to show us how close God is to us.  The Spirit is proof that God is close to us now and that we can know ourselves to be sons and daughters of God.

Pentecost Sermon (use harmonica or Pan Flute)

Do you know what kind of instrument I have in my hand?    It’s called a harmonica?  And do you know how this instrument is played?    It’s played by putting it up to my mouth and blowing.

  How is this instrument different than a whistle?    A whistle usually makes just one sound, but this harmonica can make many different sounds.

  It is a reed instrument.  If we open up the harmonica, we can find many differ little pieces of thin metal and they are different sizes.  Some are short and some are long.

  When I blow air across the short ones a high sound is made.  When I blow air across the long ones, a lower sound is made.

  So if we blow in the correct way, we can play many different notes and different kinds of music.  A harmonica is not like a whistle because a harmonica can make many different sounds.  And we can play many different songs with the harmonica.  We can even bend the notes and make it cry….or we can make it sound like a train.

  What is it that makes the harmonica play.  It is blown air or wind that comes from the lungs.

  Did you know that one of the ways that we talk about God is to call God, the Holy Spirit.  The Special Spirit.  The Special Wind or Breath.  Can you see Wind or Breath?  Well we can see clouds or we can see our breath when it’s cold.

  But we don’t actually see the Wind or Breath.  We know Wind and Breath are here because we can feel and see the movement that is caused by Wind and Breath.  When you blow on a Wind mill, you can see the wind mill turn.

  So today in when we celebrate the Invisible presence of God who is everywhere, just like wind and breath. 

  And we celebrate the fact that God’s wind or breath is within us blowing us…or playing us, just like I blow air into this harmonica to play the different sounds to make music or noise.

  We cannot see God Spirit…But God’s spirit is blowing through us and playing us as music.

  So we need to see ourselves as God’s musical instruments.  All different sizes and shapes, ages, with different appearances, different abilities and gifts.  God enjoys that we are all so different.  Because we’re different God can play lots of different songs through us.

  And what kind of music does God’s breath or Spirit play through us?  We call that music love, joy, peace, faith, self-control, gentleness, patience and all of the other good things that God wants to do through us.  How many of you want to be God’s instrument today?  Do you want the Wind or Breath of God to be blown through you today?

  Today, we remind ourselves that the Breath or Wind of God, the Holy Spirit is filling us today to help our lives be like a beautiful song for God today.  So today we let God the Spirit play a beautiful song through us.  Amen.

Gospel Puppet Show

Day of Pentecost

Characters:

Dovey the Dove

George

Dovey: (singing) Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you.  Happy birthday Christian Church.  Happy birthday to you!  And many more!

George: Why did you sing Happy Birthday to the Church Dovey?

Dovey:  Well today is the Day of Pentecost and the Day of Pentecost is the Birthday of the Church.  Let’s see the church is 2019 minus 33 equals 1986.   Happy 1986th birthday to the church.  But who’s counting?

George: Obviously you are counting.  We are a pretty old group of people.

Dovey:  Yes, you are one of the oldest and long lasting organizations that ever existed.

George: I wonder why the church has lasted so long.  Do you think that the church will still be here after I die?

Dovey:  Well George, you’re not going to die for awhile but yes the church will be here after you die to have more birthdays.

George:  How do you know Dovey?

Dovey:  Well, because even though you are a member of the church, the church is really not about you.

George:  Well, what is the church about?

Dovey:  The church is about Jesus Christ.  His message of love was so wonderful and it created so much excitement in people they called his message Good News or Gospel.  And Jesus said if we just keep sharing this good news to each new group of people who are born then this message will live forever.  This is why the church will continue to have birthdays forever.  Do you know what Pentecost means?

George:  Do I have time to Google it?

Dovey: Goo..goo…goo…Google it?  What’s that?

George:  It’s like a big storage brain outside of me where I store all of the information of the world and maps.  Google maps can even tell me where to go.

Dovey:  Well, I’ve got a built in Google maps and GPS.  Did you know that my family has been making a nest and laying eggs in the same tree for more than a hundred years.  I’ve got GPS in me that automatically tells me where to go.

George:  Wow, where did you get that?  That’s better than Google maps.

Dovey:  God made me this way and God the Holy Spirit is everywhere like a divine GPS system.  But the Holy Spirit became better known to everyone on the Day of Pentecost.

George: So what does Pentecost mean?

Dovey:  It means 50 days after Easter and it is the day when the Holy Spirit became known to the friends of Jesus.

George:  What happened on the Day of Pentecost?

Dovey:  Well, the Holy Spirit was discovered by the friends of Jesus and they were happy and joyful and they found that the Holy Spirit helped them to tell the Good News about Jesus in every language.

George:  So the Holy Spirit is like a great Google translator?

Dovey:  I guess you techies might say it that way.  Yes, the Holy Spirit is the wonderful personal energy of God’s love with us to help us to continue to tell the Good News about Jesus so that the church will continue to have birthdays into the future.

George: Wow!  Pentecost and the Holy Spirit are exciting.  But where are we going to get 1980 candles for the birthday cake?  Oh well, at least we can sing Happy Birthday.  Sandra, can you hit it on the piano and help us sing?

Everyone:  Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you.  Happy birthday Christian Church.  Happy birthday to you!  And many more!

George:  Do you think I can have some chocolate cake for the church’s birthday party?

Intergenerational Family Service with Holy Eucharist

June 8,  2025: The Day of Pentecost

Gathering Songs: Every Time I Feel the Spirit; Butterfly Song; Lord, Be Glorified

Liturgist: Alleluia, Christ is Risen.

People: The Lord is Risen Indeed.  Alleluia.

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: Every Time I Feel the Spirit, (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 48)

Refrain: Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart, I will pray.  O every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I will pray.

1-On Pentecost day, the Spirit came.  The people praised with joyous tongues.  The Spirit came to everyone.  Jews and Gentiles, all the same. Refrain

2-God’s Spirit lives within the church.  He gives us gifts to build us up.  God’s Spirit fills us with his love.  O blessed Spirit, heavenly dove.  Refrain

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Litany of Praise: Chant: Alleluia

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

All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ-- if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 104

You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; * and so you renew the face of the earth.

May the glory of the LORD endure forever; * may the LORD rejoice in all his works.

I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; * I will praise my God while I have my being.

May these words of mine please him; * I will rejoice in the LORD. Hallelujah!

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.

Philip said to Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.  "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you."  "I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."

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 Song: The Butterfly Song, (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 9)

If I were a butterfly, I’d thank you Lord for giving me wings.  If I were a robin in the tree, I’d thank you Lord that I could sing.  And if I were a fish in the sea, I’d wiggle my tail and I’d giggle with glee, but I just thank you Father for making me, me.

 Refrain: For you gave me a heart and you gave me a smile.  You gave me Jesus and you made me your child.  And I just thank you Father for making me, me.

If I were an elephant, I’d thank you Lord by raising my trunk.  If I were a kangaroo, you know I’d hop right up to you.  If I were an octopus, I’d thank you Lord for my fine looks and I just thank you Father for making me, me.  Refrain

If I were a wiggly worm, I’d thank you Lord, that I could squirm.  If I were a billy goat, I’d thank you Lord for my strong throat.  And if I were a fuzzy wuzzy bear, I’d thank you Lord for my fuzzy wuzzy hair and I just thank you Father for making me, me.  Refrain

Song:  Spirit of the Living God

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.

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:       Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast. 

Words of Administration

Communion Song:        Spirit of the Living God, (Renew # 90)

1          Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.  Spirit of the living God fall afresh on me. Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me.  Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

2          Spirit of the living God, move among us all; Spirit of the living God, make us one in love: humble, caring, selfless, sharing— Spirit of the living God, fill our lives with love.    

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: Lord, Be Glorified (Renew!  # 172)

1- In our lives, Lord, be glorified, be glorified, in our lives, Lord, be glorified today.

2- In our homes, Lord, be glorified, be glorified, in our homes, Lord, be glorified today.

3- In our church, Lord, be glorified, be glorified, in our church, Lord, be glorified today.

4- In your world, Lord, be glorified, be glorified, in your world, Lord, be glorified today.

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Aphorism of the Day, May 2025

Aphorism of the Day, May 31, 2025

Deconstruction is the dissolving of specific and precise and "intended" textual meaning into the pleroma of other textual contexts.

Aphorism of the Day, May 30, 2025

The biblical record involves writers telling in story form how they believe the invisible Plenitudinous Divine becomes apparent.  It is also the story of the continuing fluctuation in specific human contexts of the Divine as invisible becoming apparent becoming invisible becoming apparent in an endless interpretive ping pong experience.

Aphorism of the Day, May 29, 2025

It is difficult to leave the "totemic order" of one's birth community and ease of departure depends upon how the chief values were imprinted upon one's existence by the mentoring elders.  If the imprint was not done with behaviors consistent with the chief values, there can be a failure for the mentee to embrace the "old" ways.  Failed mentoring can lead to a rejection of the old order by the next generation.  Disenchantment can also happen when new problems do not find adequate resolutions with "old answers," and a new paradigm is needed to address the new problems.

Aphorism of the Day, May 28, 2025

Weather forecast can be spot on, partially right, or totally misses, proving that statistically approximate prediction cannot make things happen on anyone's schedule.  Experience should build within us actuarial wisdom while maintaining the humility that such statistical approximate predictions do not make things actually happen.

Aphorism of the Day, May 27, 2025

It's important to know when people are using dream like image language as if it were everyday commonsensical language.

Aphorism of the Day, May 26, 2025

Perpetual visionary language breaking into everyday commonsense reality and the language and logic which pertain to it can be the "break" which disorders or disorients because one may want each order to be the exact opposite of what they are.  The dream like visionary person wants such dream like states to be one's reality, and one then takes on commonsense as the morally wrong reality of life even though it is actual since it does not and cannot add up to one's disrupting visionary reality.

Aphorism of the Day, May 25, 2025

Life is living in the sea of what actually is happening as described by those who are are experiencing life.  So much is happening toward us at any given time that what we say is happening only reflects the words which derive from what aspect we focus on.  Certainly harm demands our focus and would seem to be definitive of all with it seeming chewing up the scenery effect; still the omni-experience is predominant and we look to the whole to exert a healing effect, a dissolving of the intensity of pain effect, upon any particular event or cluster of events of harm.

Aphorism of the Day, May 24, 2025

To imagine a baby acting like an adult with communicative language is imposing language upon an infant that it does has much like we anthropomorphize animals as well.  But there is other interactive communicative behaviors taking place which partake of body coding textuality.

Aphorism of the Day, May 23, 2025

Language is our inexact filtering system for what is outside us and inside us and we inherit, copy, and expand the particulars of these filter systems.  Language stands in the place of what we experience outside and inside us without being either.  So one might say that language is a para-reality, something which arises alongside of reality in a delayed interpretive response to experiencing what is other to language but only pragmatically known/manipulated through language.

Aphorism of the Day, May 22, 2025

In the middle of trends which seem be pre-disposing us to some horrific outcomes, one hopes that the reservoir of evil in a cosmic system experiences some psychical cataclysmic discontinuity with current patterns which birth new directions with the preponderance of more care for all.

Aphorism of the Day, May 21, 2025

Baffled baffler, baffles bafflingly to others baffled.

Aphorism of the Day, May 20, 2025

Living is a language art more than a science since it requires the integration of so many discursive practices to continually negotiate reality as becoming in time.

Aphorism of the Day, May 19, 2025

We live by trying to improve our actuarial knowledge of what probably might happen.  Some probabilities are more likely because of cyclical certainty, like morning and night.  Others involve more possible outcomes and so wisdom is needed to martial efforts to get intended results through controlling as many cause and effect variables that one has the ability to manipulate.  We, however, can never eliminate the unknown new upon which is based the experience of surprise.  "I didn't expect this, or I didn't want this," happens each day on grand and small scale.  Small scale unexpected, usually go unnoticed because they have a higher degree of benign ordinariness.

Aphorism of the Day, May 18, 2025

Experiences of serendipity or positive fate could be the most apparent proof of an invisible Connector doing some intimations of connecting. 

Aphorism of the Day, May 17, 2025

Is binary only a linguistic mathematical construction?  Isn't there an endless nano-numerical continuum/gap between zero and one?

Aphorism of the Day, May 16, 2025

People get infected by language because we are host carriers of the same.  We in turn become those who infect others with how language products come from us.

Aphorism of the Day, May 15, 2025

The Bible is less of a seamless linear telling of an epic story and more of a collage of writings, edited, re-written, and redacted over many years and put in a singular "final" edition.  There are common themes but approached in as many ways as there are writers in their context specific writing occasions.

Aphorism of the Day, May 14, 2025

From having developed our language capacity, we retro-project about the infant state of having consciousness without having language ability.  The words of Jesus refer to this as perhaps the wisdom given to infants, a life without language, as it were.  We do perhaps hauntingly retain traces of the "bliss" or the "terror" of such life without language, however we do so by using language.  We project "sentient" existence, or having a qualitative consciousness upon animals, who do not have "our language" ability.  Who is to say that all sub-atomic nano-existence doesn't have sentient existence as the life of magnetic living life within all life?

Aphorism of the Day, May 13, 2025

A human person is essentially the location for language to occur.  Within each person who enters the world in a pre-coded linguistic environment where language is rampant, many events occur of catching language like a infecting virus that takes hold within the hosting human subject of language as a parasite.  Language takes over the human subject and spreads exponentially because the parasitic language finds a perfect host in the human subject.  As language takes over the human subject, the human subject becomes part of the human army of those who continue to infect each other in and through language.

Aphorism of the Day, May 12, 2025

Language is the para-reality for all human reality that can be known.

Aphorism of the Day, May 11, 2025

The relationship between wisdom and language?  Wisdom is when one uses the language products of speech, thinking, writing, and body language deeds in the best possible ways especially the ways of love and justice.

Aphorism of the Day, May 10, 2025

Is any group actually universal enough in practice to be "catholic," i.e. pertaining to universal relevance to every human being?  Some groups are limited by the merits of the participants pertaining to skill sets required to perform, like professional sports.  Professional sports teams can't be open to "catholic participation" even though they could be "universally enjoyed."  If from a historical event, a group's discover of what is their root value results in their proclaiming that everyone should embrace this obviously superior value, then such a practice of that value can become coercive and not winsomely irresistible.  Gunboat colonial Christianity often was a coercive "catholic" expression.  "If you are not Christian, then you should be Christian in the way that we want you to be Christian."  In our age of a smaller world with many different Christian expressions, and many different religions, and with those who believe that science and reason in practice express the interior rules which do not require adherence to because we cannot help but follow the "law" of gravity and other unavoidable laws of nature, each group needs to be humble about their actual ability to be "catholic."  Everyone's groups including scientists can have catholic invitations for all to become a member, but every group should practice humility about all being able to comply with the group requirements for membership, except science.  Why? Scientists believe participation in the natural order of things is not voluntary; we comply to the laws whether we think we are doing so or not.  What we can all be catholic about is hope, namely, a future which makes the past and the present very tentative because the future opens up the present and the past to be falsified by integration into new syntheses.

Aphorism of the Day, May 9, 2025

The emphasis on "unity" by New Testament writers is an indication that dealing with differences within those who professed to follow Jesus were pronounced.  When does differences become disharmony rather than the harmony of differences?  Can one view harmony as something akin in music to a Jackson Pollack painting?  Are there non-traditional ways to appropriate harmony?  Who gets the right to declare Pollack's work as "not art," or John Cage compositions as "not music?"  Or the Gospels of Mary and Thomas, as "non-Christian?"  Ex-communication, condemnation, and censorship as a strategy of dealing with differences are "administrative" decisions.  Galileo is proof that people condemned by the church can be right.  New thinking regarded to be faulty because it is different from "my familiar" thinking is proof that creative advance often is designated as "heresy."

Aphorism of the Day, May 8, 2025

The linguistic Flood of Christianity is the super poetry of Christ as all and in all.  Once Christ is the omni-linguistic presence, God as Word has taken over the human universe.

Aphorism of the Day, May 7, 2025

St. Paul, the earliest writer of New Testament writings, did not see Jesus but he was told by Peter that there were mass sightings of the Risen Christ, which happened closer to the death of Jesus than his own personal sighting.  One might ponder the many apparitions reported for the Virgin Mary and contrast them with many fewer documented "seeings" of Christ.  Serendipity in sightings does not lend itself to anything but reporting them as unique social/psychological events which foster endless "theological" interpretations of these events, but also have resulted in some "orthodox" control about "official" meanings of them.  New Testament writings might be reporting of the "para-normal" which is to say that the substantiality that we affirm for physical existence include the "substantiality of a different nature" of what happens from within for persons who see from within in substantially different ways.  It does no good for a parent to deny that one's young child saw an angel or boogie man at night.  Empirically one has to admit that a child said such a sighting occurred.  Sorting out the meaning of such a sighting for the child in order assist the child to get some more sleep is what a parent might do.  Post-resurrection theology may be about sorting out the meaning of the kind of "seeing from within" which characterize the people who have come to base their lives upon those reports of those original "sightings" of the Risen Christ as well as weaving those reports with how people understand their own different sightings which have very individual morphology.

Aphorism of the Day, May 6, 2025

What may be possible in language may not be possible in the physical world of empirical verification.  Jesus is impossibly a lamb and shepherd in biblical writings, a possibility in poetic and metaphorical writing, but logically impossible in empirically verifiable actuality.  Such obvious distinction should be an eye opener as to how to read the Bible.  Read it more as a poet than a scientist.

Aphorism of the Day, May 5, 2025

The Gospels represent a series of revisions on how various authors decided it was propitious to persuade regarding the communal practices which centered around experiences of the Risen Christ.  Writing was motivated by how to build effective communal identity and promulgate the teaching.

Aphorism of the Day, May 4, 2025

Life consists of the consistent revision of the traces inherited in language in the new now which results in leaving more traces for future revision.  There are many biblical language traditions as well which get added too throughout history and the collateral effects of the biblical language are hard to quantified, even if the biblical language traditions only are dissolved within the greater actual reality of all language products having happened.

Aphorism of the Day, May 3, 2025

We can be language users and know it without knowing the ontological status of language, namely, that language is co-extensive with Being.

Aphorism of the Day, May 2, 2025

We can posit consciousness before knowing language but we have to do it using language to refer retroactively to its priority to language, and by the way, priority to language, is also language.

Aphorism of the Day, May 1, 2025 

In the self known beginning of me, was actually the retroactive advanced language user me activating a parafunction of language, memory to revisit traces of when I first came to language use to recognize memorial traces of me having been many years before I became aware of having been.

Quiz of the Day, May 2025

Quiz of the Day, May 31, 2025

Of the following, who did not have a marvelous birth story?

a. John the Baptist

b. Isaac

c. Samuel

d. David

e. Samson

Quiz of the Day, May 30, 2025

Which is the only Gospel to record the Ascension event of Jesus?

a. Matthew

b. Mark

c. Luke

d. John

Quiz of the Day, May 29, 2025

Which prophets/leaders of the Hebrew Scriptures lived in exile?

a. Isaiah and Daniel

b. Nehemiah and Daniel

c. Ezra and Nehemiah

d. Ezekiel and Daniel

e. c and d

Quiz of the Day, May 28, 2025

Which of the following saints influenced Dante's Divine Comedy?

a. Hildegard of Bingen

b. Mechthilde

c. Thomas Traherne

d. Bernard

Quiz of the Day, May 27, 2027

"The Spirit and the bride..." phrase occurs in which book?

a. Song of Solomon

b. Ezekiel

c. Zephaniah

d. Revelations

Quiz of the Day, May 26, 2025

Augustine of Canterbury was a member of which religious order?

a. Franciscan

b. Benedictine

c. Augustinian

d. Jesuit

Quiz of the Day, May 25, 2025

Which of the following is not a metaphor in a parable of Jesus?

a. mustard seed

b. sower

c. knife

d. pearl

e. fishing net

Quiz of the Day, May 24, 2025

Which two Gospels have two accounts of the multiplication of the fish and loaves?

a. Matthew and Mark

b. Matthew and Luke

c. Mark and Luke

d. Mark and John

e. Luke and John

f. Matthew and John

Quiz of the Day, May 23, 2025

Marcion of Sinope is not known for

a. approving the creator God of the Hebrew Scripture

b. establishing one of the earliest collections of "New Testament" writings

c. presenting a collections of Paul's writing

d. presenting a Gospel with similarities to Luke's Gospel

e. being designated a heretic by Irenaeus

Quiz of the Day, May 22, 2025

Which of the following ideas did not have influential origin in Zoroastrianism?

a. angels, demons, and devils

b. messianic prophet

c. final judgment and resurrection

d. dualism of good and evil

e. chosen people

f. baptism with fire

Quiz of the Day, May 21, 2025

What order of ministry was Alcuin?

a. lay person

b. deacon

c. priest

d. bishop

Quiz of the Day, May 20, 2025

What color is associated with Lydia?

a. red

b. blue

c. purple

d. green

Quiz of the Day, May 19, 2025

According to a dream of Paul, a man from where gave him an invitation to come?

a. heaven

b. Ephesus

c. Corinth

d. Macedonia

Quiz of the Day, May 18, 2025

Where does a voice from the throne declare, "I am the Alpha and the Omega?"

a. Ezekiel

b. Jeremiah

c. Revelations

d. Jude

Quiz of the Day, May 17, 2025

How many U.S. Supreme Court Justices are on the Episcopal Calendar of saints?

a. 1

b. 2

c. 3

d. 4

Quiz of the Day, May 16, 2025

Which is not true about the so-called "Gnostic Gospels?"

a. the writers did not consider themselves heretics

b. at one time some were considered "canonical"

c. they often refer to special or secret knowing

d. they all rejected the validity of Hebrew Scriptures

Quiz of the Day, May 15, 2025

Where is "new Jerusalem" found in the Bible?

a. Revelations

b. 1 Thessalonians

c. Romans

d. 1 Corinthians

e. two of the above

Quiz of the Day, May 14, 2025

Why did Paul rebuke Peter?

a. Peter assumed his experience of Jesus made him the preferred leader

b. Peter was opposed to allowing Gentiles into synagogue membership

c. Peter's hypocritical behaviors during a assembly of Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus

d. Peter's three denials of Jesus

Quiz of the Day, May 13, 2025

Which of the following is not true regard the Acts of the Apostles?

a. it presents chiefly ministries of Peter and Paul

b. it is a companion book to the Gospel of Luke

c. it seeks to reconcile the missions of Peter and Paul

d. it was written before the letters of Paul

Quiz of the Day, May 12, 2025

Who had a dream vision about permission to eat snakes, alligators, and lizards?

a. Paul

b. Peter

c. Barnabas

d. Agabus

Quiz of the Day, May 11, 2025

Tabitha is a woman who was healed through the ministry of whom?

a. Jesus

b. Peter

c. John

d. Paul

Quiz of the Day, May 10, 2025

Who is Gaius?

a. a companion of Paul

b. a prefect mention in Acts of the Apostles

c. a recipient of a Johannine Epistle

d. a leader in the Philadelphia church

Quiz of the Day, May 9, 2025

What biblical prophet was thrown into lair of wild beasts?

a. Jeremiah

b. Elijah

c. Samson

d. Daniel

Quiz of the Day, May 8, 2025

The book of Daniel wrongly stated the successor of Nebuchadnezzar to have been

a. Cyrus the Great

b. Darius the Mede

c. Amel-Marduk

d. Belshazzar

Quiz of the Day, May 7, 2025

The famous handwriting on the wall in the book of Daniel was in what language?

a. Hebrew

b. Assyrian

c. Akkadian

d. Old Persian (cuneiform) 

e. Aramaic

Quiz of the Day, May 6, 2025

In what book of the Bible is Jesus both lamb and shepherd?

a. Hebrews

b. Revelations

c. John

d. 1 John

Quiz of the Day, May 5, 2025

Which King of England had a madness liken to the temporary "madness" of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon?

a. George I

b. George II

c. George III

d. George IV

e. George V

f. George VI

Quiz of the Day, May 4, 2025

Belteshazzar was another name for

a. Shadrach

b. Meshach

c. Abednego 

d. Daniel

Quiz of the Day, May 3, 2025

Which New Testament writers do not refer to Jesus as the "Lamb of God?"

a. writer of the Gospel of John

b. writers of the Synoptic Gospels

c. writer of the Revelation of St. John the Divine

d. writers of Johannine Epistles

Quiz of the Day, May 2, 2025

What saint referred to Jesus as "our great Mother?"

a. Ignatius

b. Julian of Norwich

c. Anselm

d. Augustine

e. Thomas Aquinas

Quiz of the Day, May 1, 2025

Why do Philip and James share the same feast day?

a. they died on the same day

b. they were patron saints of the same church in Jerusalem

c. they were companion disciples

d. their relics were brought to Rome on the same day

Revealed and Deprived Divine Apparency

7 Easter   C  June 1, 2025
Acts 16:16-34   Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14,16-17,20-21 John 17:20-26   

 

Lectionary Link

Today is the Sunday after the Ascension, and the Ascension appears in the Gospel story to explain the disappearance of Jesus of Nazareth into his future state to be known as the Risen Christ in his invisible state but still effective presence within the interior lives of people.

The Bible could be called the story of people trying to explain the experiences of both Revealed and Deprived Divine Apparency.

Modern Science takes the Divine out of Divine Apparency, by studying only that which is apparent to the senses and the many apparatuses that are used to register, measure and test what we as humans are experiencing. Modern science is the method of statistical approximation so as to enhance our actuarial wisdom on how to best interact with our environments. Since the many experiences of the divine and what might be called the para-normal, or even the aesthetic do not conform to the scientific requirement controls of consistent replication, the divine or the transcendent is regarded to be unreliable scientific knowledge, even if such human behaviors are significant for sociology, anthropology, psychology, which do not have the reductive limitations of the natural sciences. So, the Divine cannot be erased from human experience if we include in the realm of the observable human behaviors the many interpretations which humans have given to describe and explain human behaviors, which include interior events deriving from the interior states and coming into language, in descriptions which do not conform to the laws of nature as known in science.

The practice of pitting science against human phenomenon which does not comport to eye-witness accounting or replication is a denial that human beings are multi-faceted and multi-discursive beings who know how to shift between scientific codes to aesthetic, mythical, dream, and "spiritual" codes within their unified being. But when religious persons try to insist that mythical accounts have the same empirical reality as a scientific or eye-witness historical account, then incredible confusion and misrepresentation of religion takes place. The experience of wonder and the uncanny of what we might call the aesthetic Sublime need not be incompatible with being full-fledged feet on the ground scientists.

Scientists themselves in their methods have the humility to not imply the reduction of all human experience to the scientific method and the discourses of scientific laws, because they know that scientific laws are not causatively absolute, but statistically approximate. This means that they are tentative, opened to be falsified in the future by a better explanatory law. Early science and Enlightenment thinkers adopted a "machine" or "clock" view of the universe, that is, God designed the universe running like a clock and did not intervene in the running of the clock or the machine. And the consistency of the machine discovered by reason and science was proof of the non-meddling great Maker. When a transcendent cosmology was denied by scientists, they held to the "uniformity of natural causes in a closed system," meaning there was was no outside interference from a transcendent and non-existent divine being.

As our cosmologies have become more horizontal, and denying of the vertical given that there is no up and down in our vast universe, there has arisen the humility of not knowing the edges of the horizon or lots that escapes our observation and ability to examine. What we cannot know is called the Negligible. We know it is there but we don't know how it specifically effects what we observed. This view was stated in a scientific theory called "Chaos Theory." The Wholly Negligible, that is what we don't know except as the Great More than we know, is the realm of myth and sacred traditions.

Human beings break up the pure continuity of uninterpreted Wholly Negligible with stories. It is unavoidable for humans with language to make up stories to give meaning within the morass of everything that is. And indeed, one might say that science is one such "story" form for explaining the meaning of our lives.

The biblical story is what we call sacred tradition with many stories to impart meaningful insights in the various context specific situations of the many writers who have been added to the community text book.

The biblical accounts are insights about the revealed and deprived divine apparency. Human experience include "pinch me" delicious occasions of all sorts from the perceived synchrony of good things happening in timely ways to the many occasions of the the sublime which brings the confession of the divine being apparent. Biblical writers wrote about how the divine was apparent to them and how to foster relationship patterns to practice a state of ready awareness for the divine to be apparent, sort of like the expression, when I pray, coincidences seem to happen.

But biblical accounts are also full of trying to understand what I would call the deprived divine apparency, as in what happens in the experiences of woe, pain, loss, misfortune, and the experiences of terrible mistiming causing human suffering. There are times when the weakness of God, or even the absence of God seem poignant as when the Greater Order of All seems to bend to the harsh results of things that happen in a system where true freedom is abroad.

Sacred tradition deals with Revealed Evident Divine Apparency and Deprived Divine Apparency and everything in between. Why? Sacred tradition is presented as an art of living with the potential continuum of what might happen to human beings.

The Hebrew Scriptures provides the story of divine apparency with the metaphor of a covenant between the divine and humanity, reinforcing that fact that human behaviors and choice truly effect the outcomes toward excellence or the mediocre. Moses and the Law is one of the highlight stories of how the divine was made apparent to people, and the Hebrew Scriptures are accounts of how people have lived with fidelity or failure in this covenant with the Highest.

The New Testament is a story about how the Divine became intensely apparent in the person of Jesus Christ. It is a story about the temporary deprived apparency of Jesus in his death on the cross. It is about the return of his revealed apparency in his post-resurrection appearances. Further it is about the deprived apparency of Jesus in the story of his disappearance that we highlight on this Ascension Sunday.

The Ascension of Jesus is a story about the seeming absence of Jesus and this could be interpreted as a deprived divine apparency. But the Ascension as the explanation of the apparent absence of Jesus became the occasion for the revelation of divine apparency in the experience of the Risen Christ through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Another phase of divine apparency was articulated.

In the oracle of Christ found in John's Gospel, the members of the Christ community articulated their new identity in knowing themselves following the witness of Jesus as a unique child of God; members could express their identity as children of God and being one with Father, in a universal divine family. This oracle is presented using the genre of prayer, reinforcing the New Testament notion of a heavenly Christ interceding for humanity.

The New Testament is a collection of stories of sacred traditions of people who came to believe that following Jesus, they too were children of God and were commissioned to live with each other with the Risen Christ, the Eternal Word being the patron of their fellowship association. The New Testament writers told their origins stories of Jesus and the apostles who were commissioned to proclaim how the divine was apparent in the lives of all, following the professed example of Jesus. The stories in the New Testament are varied because the actual life situations of the followers of Jesus were quite diverse. The writer of the Revelation of John the Divine indicates conditions generating a hope for an imminent apocalyptic intervention as a visionary method of coping with the oppressive situation for the writer and the writer's community.

Followers of Jesus too had to live with experiences of when life circumstances presented both seeming divine apparency and deprived divine apparency. The writer of Revelations expresses it differently than do the writers of the other books, but they wrote about their experiences upon the continuum of when it seem the divine was apparently poignantly favorable, as well as when suffering seem to represent a deprived divine apparency.

The issue of divine apparency or deprived divine apparency is still an issue for us and our world. We are called to live the Gospel of Christ who represents God who comprehends the human experiences of enhanced or deprived divine apparency.

Let us embrace the witness of Jesus Christ who gave us an example to live with all, and to do it together, assisting each other come what may. Let us also commit ourselves to promote and spread the art of living as initiated by Jesus Christ. Amen.