Sunday School, September 5, 2025 13 Pentecost C proper 18

 Sunday School, September 5, 2025  13 Pentecost C proper 18

Sunday School Themes

For children, there has been the purposely avoided the “hard sayings” of Jesus about “hating” one’s family members to be a disciple of Jesus.  Though one could present how Jesus used contradictory riddles to present his priority.

The Gospel themes chosen center around wise planning

If you want to be a good baseball player, what do you do?  You practice, you join teams, you work out.

If you want to be a good ballet dancer, what do you do?  You join a dance studio and you practice and you listen to a good dance instructor.

Life is about planning because even though the future is not here yet, we believe that we will grow and change and we have to be prepared for what we are going to be doing in our future.

Parents begin to prepare their children for what they are going to do and become from the day of their birth.  Why?  Because life is about growing and changing.  Since life is about change we have to learn how to be prepared for the changes which will come to our lives.

Jesus said that a person who wants to build a big tower has to make sure that there is a plan.  There has to be materials and a design and the workers to do the job.  There has to be enough money to afford to build the tower.

Jesus said that we want to be his disciples, then we need to know what we need to do.  We need to be smart and wise about our planning.  A disciples of Jesus is a student of Jesus.  And we never graduate from being a student of Jesus.  So we need to plan on learning about Jesus for the rest of our lives.

Smart planning for learning how to be a disciple is to learn from the most important Christian rules.  And the most important Christian rule is to love God with all of our hearts and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

If we are planning to follow Jesus as his disciple and student, we need to plan to be his student and to always be learning about how to love God better and to love our neighbors better.

Sermon

  If you are going to build a house what do you need?

  Well, you need to have some money to pay for the building supplies.  You need an architect.  You need some land or a place to build your house.  You need a builder who can organize all of the workers.  You need building supplies, cement, wood, nails, shingles, electrical wires, lights, switches, sinks, counters, and many other things.

  So to build a house you have to do a lot of planning, because what will happen if you don’t plan?  You won’t be able to finish the house.  If you try to build a house you can’t afford then you won’t be able to finish it.  Or if you choose the wrong builder the house may not be built to last.

  Jesus reminded his friends that they needed planning in their lives, planning just like someone who was going to build a great tower, or just like a general who was planning a battle.

  And Jesus reminded his friends that they were going to have many people in their lives.  Their family and their friends.  To live our lives means that we have to learn to live with people.  So if we are going to plan our lives well, we are going to have plan our lives in learning how to live with people in our lives.  And it is important to learn how to live with people in our lives, with our parents, our brothers and sisters, with our husbands and wives, with our teachers and friends.  And it is important to learn how to live with our self.

  Now why do I say we have to learn to live with our self?  We have to know our self well, so we know how to plan our lives?  If I like baseball, but I am terrible at playing baseball, should I try to play professional baseball?  No, I would not be accepted by any team because I’m not good at playing baseball.  So I have to know myself and what I am good at in planning my life.

  It is important to know how to live with other people and with our selves.  So we need to plan well.

  And the best way to do this is to learn the law of Christ:  Love God with all of your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

  This is the greatest plan of life.  And if we learn this plan in life, we will be successful in learning to live with other people and our self.

  So remember this great plan of Christ for our lives:  Love God with all our hearts and love our neighbors as our self.  Amen.

An intergenerational Eucharistic liturgy

September 7, 2025: The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Gathering Songs: Rejoice in the Lord Always, He’s Got the Whole World, Alleluia, Jesus Loves the Little Children

Liturgist: Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

People: And blessed be God’s kingdom, now and forever.  Amen.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.

And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.

Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Song: Rejoice in the Lord Always   (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 197)

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. 

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. 

Rejoice!  Rejoice!  And again I say rejoice. 

Rejoice!  Rejoice!  And again I say rejoice.

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Allow us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, since you always oppose the overly proud who do not think they need you, so you never forsake those who make there are very proud of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Litany of Praise: 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 Book of Deuteronomy

Moses said to all Israel the words which the Lord commanded him, "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 139

LORD, you have searched me out and known me; * you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

You trace my journeys and my resting-places * and are acquainted with all my ways.

Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, * but you, O LORD, know it altogether.

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God!

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.

When Jesus was speaking to the people about being disciples, he said, “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, `This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace.”

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

He’s got the whole world, in his hands, he’s got the whole wide world, in his hands.  He’s got the whole world, in his hands, he’s got the whole world in his hands.

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

He’s got the brothers and the sisters, in his hands, he got the brothers and the sisters, in his hand.  He’s got the brothers and the sisters in his hands, he’s got the whole world in his hand.

He’s got the mothers and the fathers, in his hand, he’s got the mothers and the fathers, in his hand.  He’s got the mothers and the fathers in his hand, he’s got the whole world in his hand.

Doxology

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of God.”

All become members of a family by birth or adoption.

Baptism is a celebration of birth into the family of God.

A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.

The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.  Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

(All may gather around the altar)

 Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;

You have made us in your image

And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:

Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.

And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph

And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.

Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat

  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  

  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

The Prayer continues with these words

And so, Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and wine. Bless and sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Bless and sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, "Drink this, all of you. This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death and resurrection of Christ and that his presence will be with us in our future.

Let this holy meal keep us together as friends who share a special relationship because of your Son Jesus Christ.  May we forever live with praise to God to whom we belong as sons and daughters.

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory

 is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. AMEN.

And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing,

Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.

Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.

As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.

But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.

Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Alleluia, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia.

Words of Administration

Communion Song: Alleluia  (Renew! # 136)

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

He’s my savior, alleluia.  He’s my savior, alleluia.  He’s my savior, alleluia.  He’s my savior, alleluia.

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: Jesus Loves the Little Children   (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 140)

Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.  Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.  Jesus loves the little children of the world

Dismissal:   

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

People: Thanks be to God! 

 

Aphorism of the Day, August 2025

Aphorism of the Day, August 31, 2025

Perhaps the psychological correspondence within a different paradigm for oracle is the Jungian notion of synchronicity.  Humans can experience a graceful verification of one's place within the vastness of the universe such that one projects a friendly presence as one of the many kinds of seeming intervening presences in one's life.

Aphorism of the Day, August 30, 2025

The notion of oracle is an ancient way of designating communication from extra-human sources, as if, a divine finger was highlighting within human accessible experiences some higher source of knowledge and direction for human living.

Aphorism of the Day, August 29, 2025

Naïveté in reading the Bible is to assume that the writers did not interpret their life experience even of the divine within their contexts before they wrote.  They wrote with interpretation.  The many readers of the Bible over the ages have always read with interpretation from their own life experience.  The meanings of the biblical words are not "self-evidential," even if words seem to a range of limited meanings that can be understood overtime as access to original context of writing is lost.

Aphorism of the Day, August 28, 2025

Every word and phrase of the Bible cannot be regarded to be the final theology of the church, because one cannot avoid the fact that words are interpreted as they are written and when translated and further interpreted in many ways by readers who cannot help but be "writerly readers" per Roland Barthes.  Readers are always "writerly readers" because they cannot avoid reading through the filters of their own individual life experience. Creeds, dogma, and theology should be regarded as communal algorithms for how a particular community chooses to read the Bible and inculcate the proposed values of their community for rules of living.

Aphorism of the Day, August 27, 2025

The Bible is a collection of writings over many years which through various forms of community consensus became normative for various Christian and Jewish communities and "word of God" became a value term for promulgating the significant singular status which the Bible came to have in respective religious communities.

Aphorism of the Day, August 26, 2025

In a world of nepotism and legacy privilege, we often hear the privileged scream unfair when efforts are made to give people not born in privilege get a chance to succeed.  They scream, "life should be lived according to merit manifest by the individual," even as they know that their "merit" has been given to them by the place of their birth and by the safety nets which have rescued them from their many failures.  Merit cannot be a valid argument unless all persons are given equal training to be those who obtain the status of meriting position.  The notion of "merit" cannot be viewed apart from social context.

Aphorism of the Day, August 25, 2025

Biblical writings are motivated by leaders in various times promoting community identity ideology about which they are persuaded and therefore want to persuade others to be like-minded.  People are simultaneously ego-centric and ethno-centric regarding their views, even for sincere reasons for wanting to share what is perceived as beneficial to one's well-being with their "entire world."  Of course such "beneficial sharing" can become coercive and defensive chauvinism if "one's privileged pearls" are trampled on by those who "obviously can't understand because they don't have the "Spirit,"" that is they don't have the same persuasive insight that I have.  When people are not persuaded by the same insight, it is quite easy to move to the dichotomy of right or wrong, good or bad, inspired or ignorant.  This is why it is beneficial for living together in a multicultural world, it is vital to look for common good human regard practices which can be shared beyond religious confessional communities. 

Aphorism of the Day, August 24, 2025

Even though human beings have biological restraints and limitations, they have the kind of freedom which is hard to make hard and fast rules to govern every detail of their lives.  Trying to take the law of science approach to human behavior does not work because even though there might be a limited range of human behaviors, the ability to predict precisely the timing of those behaviors is not as easy as knowing when water will boil.

Aphorism of the Day, August 23, 2025

The central feature of anthropomorphism is being distinctly human because we are language users using language to know that we are language users designating ourselves through language as persons because with language we define persons as relational beings, and since we are constrained by language as a personal medium, we poetically impute personality to everything that gets named by language users.  And if God is the trope of ALWAYS MORE and ALL, then God to be such a trope would also have to be designated through language to be a person, even the greatest Person.  Language users cannot escape poetic license, since we cannot avoid using tropes that refer to the ALWAYS MORE and ALL.  Such tropes have functionally meaning without being able to be empirically verified or falsified.  Falsification and Verification are merely functional methods within the ALL, of things being and becoming.  From the action of becoming, we abstract Being, and Having Been.

Aphorism of the Day, August 22, 2025

To profess "final knowledge" or a theory of everything is a bit presumptuous, and because we have very limited knowledge, it is presumptuous to speak about total knowledge or even a universe.  It perhaps is more appropriate to simple admit that we have contextual adequate information for the tasks of living for our particular contexts, even while admitting the reality of there always be More which can continual change our understanding of what adequate knowledge means for us.

Aphorism of the Day, August 21, 2025

In the rigidity of legalism, one finds that laws tend to be very contextual and often are made and promulgated to protect those who are wealthiest in a society, even while those who are wealthiest have means to avoid being subject to the law.  Equal under the law loses its meaning when some have the wealth to delay endlessly through legal representation while the poor get immediate penalty without adequate representation.

Aphorism of the Day, August 20, 2025

Ethics and Morals are about the art of living, not the science of causation.  We are impressed by registering causation in the natural order, so impressed that we would hope that such exact causation could be transferred to the art of living together.  The art of living together presents too many "exceptions" and the art of living involves having the wisdom to know when the exception is the preferred choice.  It is very good and normal for parents to get rest, their recommended "eight hours," but the exception occurs when infants need to be cared for in unplanned and exigent occasions.

Aphorism of the Day, August 19, 2025

Laws and rules are parallel to the attempt of taking the commonsense observations and the statistical approximate laws of science and apply them to human behavior.  Human behaviors, and human happens are not like the consistency of when water will boil; they have a randomness about them which do not submit to laws, unless one has the law of exception to deal with the unexpected.  As a matter of practice, we will not work on Sundays, but the law of love trumps such a law if someone is injured or harmed and requires the work of care.   Human laws have to include the law of exceptions happen because of exigent circumstances.  We don't like emergencies but because we know that they happen, we have to have laws of emergencies behaviors.

Aphorism of the Day, August 18, 2025

Life is about having regular rules for living while allowing for necessary humane exception.  So laws and exceptions to the same can go hand in hand.  It is good to have a designated day of rest but we still want first responders and medical personnel to work on our day of rest for the humane benefit of needy persons which on any given Sunday might be any of us.  The laws of probable occurrences is often at odds with our laws of schedule rest, even "religious" days.

Aphorism of the Day, August 17, 2025

Is the experience of the sublime accidental, random, serendipitous, always predictable, or programable?  Does one interpret the sublime using the at-hand symbolic framework wherein the experience happens?  Can one's bodily health be the accidental reason for looking for some other reason for "feeling so well?"  Is the cause for euphoria always so simple to understand?  Is it as simple as I feel good when I "win," and I feel poorly when I "lose?"  Or is it vastly more complex and unknowable in full but having relevant associative insights conforming to the human need for assigning meaning?

Aphorism of the Day, August 16, 2025

The historical rise of Mary in mythical status and the fact that she seems to have more occasions of her return known as her apparitions is significant in perhaps being a feminine corrective to the dominance of masculine "divine" emanations.

Aphorism of the Day, August 15, 2025

Resurrection is the ancient science fiction of re-cloning at the sub-molecular level of a new being of a person into that persons continuing identity in the realm of the invisible.

Aphorism of the Day, August 14, 2025

The seeming contradictory Christ-sayings, "Peace be with you," and "I did not come to bring peace but division," indicates that peace can be understood as community consensus and agreement or it can be understood as underneath contemplative peace no matter what is happening on the surface.

Aphorism of the Day, August 13, 2025

The redefinition of truth from the classical notions of invisible "goes without saying accepted common knowledge," about the divine, philosophical necessary truths, and tautological definitional and mathematical truths, happens in the Enlightenment when truth become more that which can be empirically verified and in line with agreed upon eye-witness reporting, and scientific laws.  The older totalizing truths perhaps have been relegated to feeling truths, intuitive truths, which pertain to the "truth" of aesthetic experience or the truth of the subjective experience.

Aphorism of the Day, August 12, 2025

To say biblical meanings are stable and final and self-evidential is to deny their changing relationships to people living in time where meanings are always in flux due to stages of life and changing life circumstances.  To say meanings are stable and final is to deny the reality of time.

Aphorism of the Day, August 11, 2025

One of the ways to account for division within the religious communities of the first century is to present Jesus as being a divisive figure.  I did not come to bring peace.  Members of a household will be divided against each other.  There is strange comfort in adjusting to the reality of division if one has the leader of one's own side of the division not saying, "they will come together over me," but they will be divided because of me.  All too human reality comes to text in the Gospel; all too human reality in text is actually divinely revealed if one finds it to be a poignant insight.

Aphorism of the Day, August 10, 2025

While most don't literalize the utopian visions of Isaiah about the wolf and lamb becoming friends; many still literalize the apocalyptic as predictive of future events.  The Apocalyptic is of a similar discourse as the utopian.  Both are discourses which serve people who need a vision of better life for all with harmony and justice as a way of surviving and refusing to normalize oppression which is so "loud" in their lives that it can purport to be the "truth" of life.

Aphorism of the Day, August 9, 2025

The apocalyptic functioned as visionary hope which involved a radical discontinuity in suffering situations.  A new and different heaven and earth would interdict the situation of pain soon, and this vision gave comfort for those who had to live with the suffering.

Aphorism of the Day, August 8, 2025

Hope is a visionary extrapolation from our assessment now of the traces of our lives of what we might think would be ideal or better for us in our future.  Hope can suffer from our faulty assessment facility because we can be too coded by the imperfections of our present life to even know what would be best for us?  Although hope usually assumes a utopia rather than a dystopia, in practice it can be perceptually guided by selfish self-interest.  It can be what I think is best for me without regard to what is best for the common good.  When we over identify self-interest with common good, others may and do suffer.

Aphorism of the Day, August 7, 2025

The Shadow Sublime might be called the high that people or groups get from hurting others through physical harm or verbal demeaning assaults.  That such could be "peak" experiences/entertainment for people reveals the frightening versatility of the human psyche.  It occurs in mob or crowd behaviors and so it provides individual absolution of guilt for a horrible thing to be done.  In fact, it can also rationalize the horrendous as righteous indignation.

Aphorism of the Day, August 6, 2025

Every era has the social phenomena of what might be called the Shadow Sublime, which has many forms of people getting "high" from negative appraised ideas and behaviors, which depart from acceptable legal and social standards.  The "high" which come from deep-seated conspiracy theories characterize the thrill of being an exclusively privileged one with special knowledge of the cause of social and political events.  The Shadow Sublime can occur because one is so over-whelmed by the actual complexity of life that the exclusive special knowledge gives one the "high" of having the experience of "being in control" because one has this inside knowledge.  It is an individual and social pathology that functions as an adjustment technique because actual mystery if a threat.  The certitude of such insider knowledge can result in acting out behaviors which are anti-social in nature.

Aphorism of the August 5, 2025

Having potential and not doing any work brings about a life of regretful might have beens.  Having dreams without doing anything about them limits dreaming to a narcotic function.  Having hope without faith leaves one's life in perpetual atrophy.

Aphorism of the Day, August 4, 2025

What is the relationship between faith and hope?  They both are about the future.  Hope is the vision of a better future; faith is acting now being persuaded about the immediate action toward that better future.

Aphorism of the Day, August 3, 2025

We have passed from the classical age of the general acceptance of words containing assumed self-evidential meanings immediately knowable by all, to the modern era of words being the human products which have origin and history within context, to the post-modern era where everything is but an interpretation of other interpretations.  Some people still try to live in classical and modern ways akin to an Amish buggy on a super highway.

Aphorism of the Day, August 2, 2025

Living is the art of the continual borrowing of existing traces of what we know has been and rearranging those traces with and within current human production to be traces for doing the same in future occasions.  Most of this done with seeming automatic redundancy memories without conscious regard of intending to do something "new."

Aphorism of the Day, August 1, 2025

How about starting an addiction recovery group called Greed Anonymous?  This was suggested by Ralph Nader many years ago.  Probably won't happen because greedy people are probably the last to come to an end of themselves and seek help and because they can dispense small band aid charity for tax breaks, they can convince themselves that their idolatry is really salutary.

Quiz of the Day, August 2025

Quiz of the Day, August 31, 2025

Who asked God to heed the prayers of the people who prayed toward the Temple?

a. David

b. Solomon

c. Asaph

d. the Psalmist

Quiz of the Day, August 30, 2025

The wood to construct the first Temple came from where?

a. Galilee

b. Tyre

c. Cypress

d. Syria

Quiz of the Day, August 29, 2025

Which of the following is not included in the Gospel accounts as parallel events in the lives of John the Baptist and Jesus?

a. their births

b. their baptisms

c. their ministry

d. their teaching

e. their deaths

Quiz of the Day, August 28, 2025

Which of the following is not true about the Augustinian Religious Order?

a. it was once led by Pope Leo XIV

b. it was founded by Augustine of Hippo

c. it was founded in the 13th century

d. it was founded by persons who followed circulating  the Rule of St. Augustine

Quiz of the Day, August 27, 2025

How many wives from Africa did Solomon have?

a. one

b. two

c. three

d. four

Quiz of the Day, August 26, 2025

Which of the following is not true?

a. Solomon was anointed as King before David died

b. Absalom wanted to replace David as King

c. Bathsheba's son became a King of Israel

d. Abigail's son became King of Israel

Quiz of the Day, August 25, 2025

When did the Jacob's ladder dream occur?

a. when Jacob was returning to Canaan

b. when Jacob was seeking a wife

c. when Jacob wrestled with an angel

d. when Jacob had his name changed to Israel

Quiz of the Day, August 24, 2025

Who is the best non-Christian historian of the New Testament era?

a. Tacitus

b. Suetonius

c. Josephus

d. Philo

Quiz of the Day, August 23, 2025

What did David long for and reject when he attained it?

a. a palace in Jerusalem

b. a drink of water from the well in Bethlehem

c. the advice of the prophet Natan

d. the sword of Goliath

Quiz of the Day, August 22, 2025

The fruits of Spirit are listed in the Pauline writings and the Seven-fold Gifts of the Spirit are listed where?

a. Hebrews

b. 1 Corinthians

c. Isaiah

d. Proverbs

Quiz of the Day, August 21, 2025

Who said, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's...?"

a. Paul

b. Peter

c. Clement of Rome

d. Jesus

Quiz of the Day, August 20, 2025

Which of the following is not true regarding Bernard of Clairvaux?

a. He wrote a spiritual interpretation of the Song of Solomon

b. he supported the 2nd Crusade

c. he belonged to the Cistercian Order

d. he supported a schismatic pope

Quiz of the Day, August 19, 2025

Which was not a factor in the death of Absalom?

a. Joab

b. three spears

c. long hair

d. low tree branches

e. mule

f. David

Quiz of the Day, August 18, 2025

What topic did Paul used to create havoc among his accusers at trial?

a. Roman citizenship

b. the nature of the Messiah

c. the belief in the resurrection

d. the validity of the baptism of John the Baptist

Quiz of the Day, August 17, 2025

In the writings of St. Paul, who is the Father of faith?

a. God

b. Jesus

c. Moses

d. Isaiah

e. Abraham

Quiz of the Day, August 16, 2025

What did Absalom do to humiliate his father David and scorn his rule?

a. stole his harp

b. stole David's sword

c. slept with David's concubines

d. attacked David's palace

Quiz of the Day, August 15, 2025

Which of the following is not a "sign" in John's Gospel?

a. changing water to wine

b. walking on water

c. healing a blind man

d. making a lame man walk

e. raising a dead man

f. cursing a fig tree

h. feeding 5000 people

healing of a child

Quiz of the Day, August 14, 2025

Who was involved in "coup" attempts against David the King?

a. Solomon

b. Joab

c. Absalom

d. Adonijah

e. b, c, and d

f. c and d

Quiz of the Day, August 13, 2025

Who said to call no one good except God?

a. Paul

b. Peter

c. John

d. Jesus

Quiz of the Day, August 12, 2025

Which is not true about the Song of the Three Young Men?

a. it is found in the canonical Daniel

b. it was composed by Azariah

c. it is about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo

d. it is found in the additions to Daniel of the Apocrypha

Quiz of the Day, August 11, 2025

Maacah was not

a. the name for two different women

b. a wife of David

c. mother of Absalom and Tamar

d. grandmother of Asa

e. daughter of a Geshur king

f. daughter of Absalom

e. born into a family of Judah

Quiz of the Day, August 10, 2025

Which of the following is not true about Tamar?

a. she was a daughter of David

b. she was a full sister of Absalom

c. she was a half-sister of Amnon

d. she was raped by her half brother

e. David punished her rapist with death

Quiz of the Day, August 9, 2025

The following is not true regarding Edith Stein?

a. she was a Jewish convert to catholicism

b. she was murdered in Auschwitz

c. she was influenced by the writings of Therese of Lisieux

d. she was a Carmelite

Quiz of the Day, August 8, 2025

The member of what religious order use the abbreviation O.P.?

a. Franciscans

b. Jesuits

c. Benedictine

c. Dominican

Quiz of the Day, August 7, 2025

Who was Joab?

a. the man who arranged the death of Uriah

b. the commander of David's army

c. the founder of the Joabite tribe

d. the man who told the prophet Nathan about David and Bathsheba

Quiz of the Day, August 6, 2025

The event of the Transfiguration has a heavenly voice which is found in what other event in the life of Jesus?

a. his crucifixion

b. his encounters with Greeks at a feast

c. his encounter with the Samaritan woman

d. his prayer recorded in John 17

e. his baptism

Quiz of the Day, August 5, 2025

Where were two Tabernacles erecting and functioning at the same time?

a. Hebron and Shiloh

b. Rameh and Hebron

c. Shiloh and Jerusalem

d. Jerusalem and Hebron

Quiz of the Day, August 4, 2025

What did God tell Nathan the prophet that God needed in Israel?

a. a palace for David in Zion

b. a permanent temple home

c. a walled city

d. a permanent kingly lineage

Quiz of the Day, August 3, 2025

What king of Israel got in an argument with his wife for "dancing in poor taste?"

a. Saul

b. Solomon

c. David

d. Ahab

e. Josiah

f. Asa

Quiz of the Day, August 2, 2025

Why did God strike Uzzah dead?

a. he openly opposed David

b. he tried to steady a shaking Ark of the Covenant

c. he impersonated a High Priest

d. he was a Philistine spy

Quiz of the Day, August 1, 2025

Where did David first reign as king?

a. Jerusalem

b. Bethlehem

c. Rameh

d. Hebron

Biblical Words as Oracles of Our Highest Values

12  Pentecost, Cp17, August 31, 2025

Jeremiah 2:4-13 Ps. 112

Heb.13:1-8        Luke 14:1, 7-14

Lectionary Link

The notion that what is greater than us communicates with us in specific purposeful ways for determining future actions is a wide spread notion.  Modern scientific laws are readings about the behaviors of nature that seem so consistent that they become a predicable guide to human behaviors, as practical as not keeping our hands from being burned in a flame of fire.  And we've come to rely on weather prediction for guiding our activities; but what about events which pertain to making decisions regarding our human behaviors within our own communities  and other communities in our world?

The notion of the divine as an incarnate Logos, particularly in the person of Jesus, and generally in the notion that humans cannot help but organize and interpret their world because they possess language, means that human experience is governed by what is always being communicated.  We can perpetually be seen to be talking within ourselves and to ourselves even as we talk to each other.  We can perpetually interpret our very situations as messages to read and how we read our situations determines our actions.

Because we have language, we live as sign makers and sign readers.  Human life is based upon the notion of communication itself.  And those who do not or do not yet have fully developed language abilities cannot help but be those who are read as signs by others, as in the case of parents trying to read the signs of a crying baby who cannot offer the higher signs of actually saying what is the cause of their crying.

Humanity has always been on the quest for higher knowledge to have as it were, some insider information on how to attain advantages for better living.  And so one can note the oracular features in the history of humanity.  An oracle is a communication which comes from beyond specific human control such that one can say that direction has been received or communicated from a higher source, even of divine origin.

An oracle, implies a talking or orating deity or higher source of guidance.  The Psalmist proclaimed that the heavens declare the glory of God, meaning that as poets we anthropomorphize the skies as speaking entities.  The ancient and continuous practice of astrology instantiates a "speaking sky" which reveal to humans with star reading traditions the connection of their lives with something beyond their own sense of earthly limitations.  Ancient people practiced augury, even divining the entrails of carcasses by trained readers to give directions on the battlefield and for life.

There is within the biblical tradition, the understanding of people being used as oracles of God.  The Hebrew Scriptures provide many examples of human persons as those who channels messages of God for their communities.  The prophets were regarded to be oracles of God's word, because they told us so.  "Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob.  Thus says the Lord..."  The words of the prophets were often rebukes against their people for their unfaithful behaviors.  Since the words of the prophet are known to us as written words we understand that those who collected words, edited and redacted them later were presenting their writing for inspiring community values and behavior in the various writing contexts when they were presented to their communities.  Not only were persons regarded to be oracle but the written Scriptures had a continuing oracular function within the community.

When the Psalmist writes in the voice of God using the first person, the Psalmist is presuming to know what God would want presented in the poetic, and intoned prayers of the community gathered for prayer.  The Psalmist assumed that if God used direct words to us, this is what God is saying to us.  The portion of the Psalm that we have read today is in the voice of God which means that the oracular function was known in the liturgies where the highest values, the divine values were channeled through those gifted hymnodists.

In the collection of the writings which have come to comprise the New Testament, the oracular function of sacred writing continued to be the custom of the church.  Written words in contrast to spoken words appear to have a fixity to them, even though the interpretations of them can be as diverse and changing as oral speech.  The fixity of the text gives the sense of permanence and changelessness, which give a normative sense of preservation for the oracles of God.

The written words of the New Testament are oracles about the chief oracle of God in the Christian tradition, namely Jesus Christ.  Jesus is poetically called the Logos, the Word of God, in essence, the Oracle of God to humanity.  Jesus as the oracle of God to humanity spoke and through his ministry presented the chief values for forming communities.

In the appointed Gospel today, Jesus is presented as one who reveals the human tendency to seek status and we are reminded to rely on the reward inherit in the act of doing good, whether we get recognized for it or not.  If we seek public honor without the merit of performance, then we may become vulnerable to know the humiliation of being exposed as those who want recognition without performance.

The writer of the book of Hebrews pens oracular words of what the example of Jesus inspires within enlightened community: Welcoming strangers, honoring spousal relationships, avoiding greed and the love of money, respecting leaders, and taking every opportunity to do good.

Today we have read words of Scripture which derived from many different circumstances, and they attained the status as oracles  for the values of God for people living in the communities which have received the oracular tradition of Holy Scripture.

What you and I can ponder today is our own understanding of what our highest values are for living, living well within community.  But we also ponder the oracular function which occurs in the modes of how our highest values have been communicated to us and inculcated within our community life.  Let us be thankful for the oracular phenomenon in our lives whereby we have come to be persuaded about the importance of love and justice.  And let us be thankful for our chief Oracle, Jesus Christ, whom we believe to be the bi-lingual speaker of divine things to our very human lives.  Amen.