Author: John Thomas Frazier

Readings for Gregory of Nyssa (March 9, 394)

Psalm 119:97-104 Wisdom 7:24-28  John 14:23-26 

“Though she [Wisdom] is but one, she can do all things, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets.”  (Wisdom 7:27)

These words from the Wisdom of Solomon really work for the story of Gregory of Nyssa. “Gregory was a man enchanted with Christ and dazzled by the meaning of his Passion. He was born in Caesarea in Cappadocia (Turkey) about 334, the younger brother of Basil the Great, and, in his youth, was but a reluctant Christian.” (Great Cloud of Witnesses for March 9)

Sometimes however, the best people for an important position are the people who really don’t want it. “His brother Basil, in his struggle against the Emperor Valens, compelled Gregory to become Bishop of Nyssa, a town ten miles from Caesarea. Knowing himself to be unfit for the charge, Gregory described his ordination as the most miserable day of his life. He lacked the important Episcopal skills of tact and understanding, and had no sense of the value of money. Falsely accused of embezzling Church funds, Gregory went into hiding for two years, not returning to his diocese until Valens died.”  (Great Cloud of Witnesses for March 9)

I think we are what we experience.  Significant events in our lives can change us, hopefully for the better.  “Although he resented his brother’s dominance, Gregory was shocked by Basil’s death in 379. Several months later, he received another shock: his beloved sister Macrina was dying. Gregory hastened to Annesi and conversed with her for two days about death, and the soul, and the meaning of the resurrection. Choking with asthma, Macrina died in her brother’s arms. The two deaths, while stunning Gregory, also freed him to develop as a deeper and richer philosopher and theologian. He reveals his delight in the created order in his treatise, On the Making of Man. He exposes the depth of his contemplative and mystical nature in his Life of Moses and again in his Commentary on the Song of Songs. His Great Catechism is still considered second only to Origen’s treatise, On First Principles.” (Great Cloud of Witnesses for March 9)

Again, “[Wisdom] renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets.”  (Wisdom 7:27)  I studied Gregory while in Seminary but have not read some of the material mentioned above, but I plan to.  I also often refer to the life of Moses when advising people to depend on God to act in their lives, especially when they are at the water’s edge.

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to and through the saints of God and then ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John

Eucharistic Readings for the Second Sunday of Lent: Year A

Genesis 12:1-4a  Psalm 121  Romans 4:1-5, 13-17  John 3:1-17

“He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” (John 3:2)

Why then do we need to go any further?  If we can see clearly that someone is doing things that only a person whom God is working through can do, why ask any further questions regarding proofs?  And if God is the source of the “what” that is being done, we already know the answer to why.  It is because God loves us.

Nicodemus comes to our Lord Jesus “by night.”  This darkness of night may also allude to his ignorance. He comes to Jesus in his not-knowing and his not believing even though, self-admittedly he says “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.”  Nicodemus and his cohorts do regard Jesus, knowing, as he says, “for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”  Some theologians will say it is not about doing.  But even Nicodemus recognizes the signs that Jesus is “doing.”  But the doing is from God. Yes, God made us human being not human doing. I have said that many times.  Our doing however must come from God acting through us, using our hands and feet and mind and words to the glory of God.

God is God of heaven and earth. Nicodemus (and we today) ought to know this.  Jesus tells of things earthly and heavenly.  And he says, “If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” (John 3:12)

Our Lord Jesus’ mission is to save the world.  Perhaps the most famous statement in the New Testament is  John 3:16; “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Our Lord Jesus makes us aware of an invitation from God to live joyfully in eternity, to have life and have it abundantly.   We do this by believing.  But believing in this sense means living out our lives in truth and love. 

I really liked the words of the Reverend Helen Van Koevering, rector of Saint Raphael the Archangel Episcopal church in Lexington, Kentucky as she writes in Forward Day by Day for today, “When we follow Jesus we learn to respond to life with generosity, reconciliation, acceptance, compassion, and encouragement.  GRACE.”  Thank you Helen.

Being our Lord Jesus’ hands and feet and mouth and mind is more than just saying what we believe; we must demonstrate what we believe through acts of caring, hospitality, and doing for others, putting others before ourselves.  In living this way we accept the invitation from God to join the company of heaven in eternal life as promised by God.  For those who believe and live it out in godly ways may not perish but have eternal life.

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to and through the saints of God and then ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John

Readings for Perpetua, March 7, Lent

Psalm 124  Hebrews 10:32-39 Matthew 24:9-14 

“But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.”   (Hebrews 10:32-32)

(Edited and reprinted from year)

I strongly suggest that you read all of Hebrews 10: 32 – 39.  It was so fitting for Perpetua and also for us today as we profess our Christian faith.

Today we remember Perpetua, who with Felicity her former slave but later sister in Christ and others, who were slaughtered in an arena in Carthage, North Africa, on 7 March 202. There are many details in her story but there are three pieces that I want to share with you in this pondering.

First, she was the 22 year old mother of an infant and hoping to be baptized soon. She already assumed the title Christian which is why she was on the death row of her day.  Even with her old grey haired father coming to her in her prison and on his knees begging her to just say she was not a Christian, she would not deny being a follower of Jesus.  How many of us would do that?

Second, in the account of her torture and death she handed off her journal to a person who continued to record her ordeal.  This is how we have it today.  It is thought by many that this person was Tertullian, Christian Theologian and writer.  My fascination here is that Perpetua had the forethought of ensure her story was told even when she knew she would not be able to tell it. How many of us today would do that?

Third and last, as Perpetua and Felicity were being slaughtered, and after Perpetua had already been injured and thrown by what she called a wild cow and having her clothing ripped away, she quickly gather herself together and then attended to Felicity, comforting her and telling her to “maintain your dignity even if we are attacked by that wild cow or whatever it is.”  I can imagine the look on Felicity’s face realizing that Perpetua is forgetting that they had already been attacked.  Further, Perpetua’s attention to decency and comfort to Felicity quieted the jeering crowd.  They wanted to see people screaming and running for their lives. What they saw was a woman who stared down her oncoming slaughter.  I can imagine her thoughts being that she might be killed but she will not be entertaining. Finally, when they were ordered to be killed by the sword, a bumbling young soldier could only kill Perpetua with her own hand guiding him. How many of us could do that? 

This 22 year old young mother is one of my most favorite heroes.  She chose Jesus over family; she told her Christian story and passed it on to be told for future generations; and she respected the dignity of all human beings including her own.  How many of us can do that?

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to and through the saints of God and then ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John

Daily Office Readings for Friday after the First Sunday of Lent: Year 2

Psalm 95 [for the Invitatory] 40, 54; Psalm 51 Gen. 40:1-23; 1 Cor. 3:16-23; Mark 2:13-22

“Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”  (Mark 2:18)

I can still remember my parents asking me if my friends went and jumped off a cliff, would I do it too?  Peer pressure and new fads and even old traditions sometimes should be called into question.  Because “it has always been done that way” doesn’t mean it should always be done that way. Everybody does something a certain way and it becomes expected that all must do it the same way.  This moves into the food we eat, the clothes we ware, and all other social trends we are peered into.

There is something to be said for “dare to be different.”  This is especially true if one has set down and really thought about habits and practices.  In our Episcopal Church, Holy Communion was a once or twice a month practice before the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. After that, and ever since, every Sunday is considered the Feast Day of our Lord.  Wasn’t it always?

In this Gospel reading, Levi (Matthew) is invited to “follow” Jesus.  He did.  He quit what he had always done to do the Lord’s work.  When opportunity knocks…

Enough cannot be said about pondering over decisions before acting.  Let us again review Pascal Blaise who said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”  I would say then, that after pondering over a practice (or anything), all activities around the practice may also have to be changed as well.  My ponderings and daily exercise program requires me to rise early in the morning.  Therefore I have had to adjust my sleep habits in order to accommodate this schedule.  In this same Gospel reading for today our Lord Jesus says, “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”  (Mark 2:22)  My new wine of blogging and working out would not work in the old wineskin of going to bed at 10 or 11 pm.

When we sit in a room alone and ponder, we often come up with new ways of looking at life.  When we do, we modify our practices (if we are smart), not according to what everybody else is doing, but what really works best for us.  This applies to all positive possibilities of life.

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to and through the saints of God and then ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John

Daily Office Readings for Thursday after the First Sunday of Lent: Year 2

Psalm 50;  Psalm [59, 60] or 19, 46 Gen. 39:1-23; 1 Cor. 2:14-3:15; Mark 2:1-12

“Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and take your mat and walk”? (Mark 2: 9)

Even today, in most cases, medical science is not able to restore nerve tissue that enables a paralyzed person to walk again when that nerve has been severed. So forgiving others, while not impossible, is the easier of the two.

Forgiveness can be taught in the family but often a household will tend to see the incident the same way and forgiveness is hard to come by.

The below is corrected from the previous Ponder blog;  and, my sincere apologies to Joanna Walters for naming her as the shooter.  She actually reported the story for the Guardian.

Maybe forgiveness begins in the church with corporate pardon. The classic example of this is the Amish community of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and the milk truck driver and their school house. On 2 October 2006, 10 Amish girls were shot in their school house by Charles Carl Roberts IV who took hostages and shot eight out of ten girls (aged 6–13), killing five, before committing suicide in the schoolhouse.

Five died and five survived – and their families immediately bestowed their forgiveness.” (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/02/amish-shooting)  Also, On the day of the shooting, a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls was heard warning some young relatives not to hate the killer, saying, “We must not think evil of this man.” Another Amish father noted, “He had a mother and a wife and a soul and now he’s standing before a just God.”  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Nickel_Mines_School_shooting)  The point is, the Amish community has a Church that really practices what it means to forgive for healing.

We should practice forgiveness individually.  But perhaps it starts in our spiritual families. The continual reading, studying, discussing and, above all, praying and practicing, forgiveness will help all of us to at least look at the healing power of forgiveness. But folks, you have to want it.

Maybe forgiveness of self and others is the first step to nerve regeneration. Maybe, just maybe, our Lord Jesus had it right all along, “Your sins are forgiven, stand up and take your mat and walk”?

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to and through the saints of God and then ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John

Daily Office Readings for Thursday after the First Sunday of Lent: Year 2

Psalm 50;  Psalm [59, 60] or 19, 46 Gen. 39:1-23; 1 Cor. 2:14-3:15; Mark 2:1-12

“Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and take your mat and walk”? (Mark 2: 9)

Even today, in most cases, medical science is not able to restore nerve tissue that enables a paralyzed person to walk again when that nerve has been severed. So forgiving others, while not impossible, is the easier of the two.

Forgiveness can be taught in the family but often a household will tend to see the incident the same way and forgiveness is hard to come by.

Maybe forgiveness begins in the church with corporate pardon. The classic example of this is the Amish community of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and the milk truck driver and their school house. “On 2 October 2006, 10 Amish girls were shot in their school house by Joanna Walters in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.  Five died and five survived – and their families immediately bestowed their forgiveness.” (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/02/amish-shooting)

We should practice forgiveness individually.  But perhaps it starts in our spiritual families. The continual reading, studying, discussing and, above all, praying, about forgiveness will help all of us to at least look at the healing power of forgiveness. But folks, you have to want it.

Maybe forgiveness of self and others is the first step to nerve regeneration. Maybe, just maybe, our Lord Jesus had it right all along, “Your sins are forgiven, stand up and take your mat and walk”?

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to and through the saints of God and then ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John

Daily Office Readings for Wednesday after the First Sunday of Lent: Year 2

Psalm 119:49-72; Psalm 49, [53]  Gen. 37:25-36; 1 Cor. 2:1-13; Mark 1:29-45

“In the morning, while it was still very dark, he [Jesus] got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”  (Mark 1:35)

Whether you believe our Lord Jesus is God Incarnate or the Son of God apart from God, you must take note of Jesus’ life of prayer.  The praying referred to in the passage above is tucked between healings.  On one side, before he prayed, “he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.” (Mark 1: 34)  On the other side, after he prayed, he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons. (Mark 1: 39)  This work of healing and casting out demons was fortified by prayer.

In these acts of prayer our Lord Jesus is teaching us the power of prayer as well as the importance of prayer. The Mystic, Evelyn Underhill, writes “We pray first because we believe something; perhaps at that stage a very crude or vague something.  And with the deepening of prayer, its patient cultivation, there comes – perhaps slowly, perhaps suddenly – the enrichment and enlargement of belief, as we enter into a first-hand communion with the Reality who is the object of our faith.” (Lent with Evelyn Underhill p.17; taken from The School of Charity)

You and I are products of God’s prayer.  God began creation by praying.  God’s words were “let there be” as witnessed in the opening of Genesis. With such words all creation was called into being.  The same “Word” that called all creation into being took on human form and dwelt among us. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” (John 1: 1- 3) 

Everything about us comes from prayer, God’s prayer. We are prayer.  Therefore we surely ought to be praying.  God still prays.  In fact, we never initiate prayer to God.  Given that God prays first, when we pray, we are always responding to God. This is true even when we think we are asking for something for the first time.  God is always ahead of us knowing our need before we ask.  Thank You Lord Jesus.

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to and through the saints of God and then ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John

Readings for John and Charles Wesley (March 3)

Psalm 98 Isaiah 49:5-6  Luke 9:2-6 

“And now the Lord says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the sight of the Lord, and my God has become my strength”  (Isaiah 49:5)

Today we remember the Wesley brothers, John and Charles.  But I am going a bit deeper.  Susanna Wesley, their mother, really deserves the credit.  “Under their mother’s tutelage, all of the Wesley children were schooled each day in six-hour sessions, always begun and concluded with the singing of Psalms.” Although credited with starting Methodism, the denomination was actually started after their deaths. The formal separation of the Methodists from the Church of England occurred after the deaths of the two brothers in London. (Great Cloud of Witnesses for March 3)

The below is taken from: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_Wesley) concerning the life of Susanna Wesley:

Susanna experienced many hardships throughout her life. Her husband left her and the children for over a year because of a minor dispute.

To her absent husband, Susanna Wesley wrote:

I am a woman, but I am also the mistress of a large family. And though the superior charge of the souls contained in it lies upon you, yet in your long absence I cannot but look upon every soul you leave under my charge as a talent committed to me under a trust. I am not a man nor a minister, yet as a mother and a mistress I felt I ought to do more than I had yet done. I resolved to begin with my own children; in which I observe the following method: I take such a proportion of time as I can spare every night to discourse with each child apart. On Monday I talk with Molly, on Tuesday with Hetty, Wednesday with Nancy, Thursday with Jacky, Friday with Patty, Saturday with Charles.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_Wesley)  I had read before that Susanna had spent at least an hour alone with each of her children.  As a result, many of them grew up to be very successful.  Some died as infants. She had nearly twenty children but did not let that stop her from giving quality time to each.

While this day is dedicated to John and Charles Wesley, I wanted to show the source of their greatness, their mother, Susanna Wesley.  As Isaiah says, they were formed in her womb and her God has become their strength. (Isaiah 49:5)

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to and through the saints of God and then ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John

Daily Office Readings for Monday after the First Sunday of Lent: Year 2

Psalm 41, 52; PM Psalm 44 Gen. 37:1-11; 1 Cor. 1:1-19; Mark 1:1-13

“Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locust and wild honey.” (Mark 1:6)

Now the locust pods from which John ate was a pod-bearing tree of the family that includes the honey locust, swamp locust, and carob. Family: Leguminosae.  For many years I thought John was eating grass hoppers.  I used to love telling John the Baptist stories to children and hearing them say “yuk” at the thought of eating wild grass hoppers.  It wasn’t until I visited Israel that I learned that the locust pod with honey was what John was eating.  John was an outsider, and a vegetarian it seems.  He dressed rough even by the standards of his day.  What’s important about John the Baptist is that he emptied himself in order create space for what God wanted. A cup or a glass or a bowl is no good to us if it’s full.  Only an empty vessel is good for holding the food or drink we need.

There were so many people of power in John’s day that were full of themselves. And God knows who is receptive to the Word of God. Listen to the opening of chapter 3 of Luke again, “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”  (Luke 3: 1 – 2)

Notice that while so many were full of themselves with their human titles, John was away from all that, living in the wilderness, free to go and announce the coming of our Lord Jesus.  The wilderness was not so far removed that the word of God could not reach him.  The same is true today.  Each and every one of us should have some “alone” time.  Remember the quote from Blaise Pascal,   “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”  John sat quietly off to himself eating his sweet cereal and pondering about the Good News he was about to bring to the world, to us.  We must look past how his life was ended in human terms.

We might look at his dress and food and consider him impoverished.  But I’ll bet he was happier than most of his day.  Jesus would later come to say “don’t worry about what you will wear or what you will eat.  “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25)  John did not consider himself poor.  He had all he needed, and so do most of us. What we really need is some quiet, alone time.                                                                                                

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to and through the saints of God and then ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John

Eucharistic Readings for the First Sunday of Lent: Year A

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7  Psalm 32  Romans 5:12-19  Matthew 4:1-11

“It is written.” (Matthew 4:1-11)

God writes the Ten Commandments to Moses for the freed Israelites, of which, the first four are about our relationship with God.

All of the written laws are written in a language and our lord Jesus responds with those written words about our relationship with God. We are to have the deepest love we can for God.

Jesus reduces the Commandments to two and later writes something in the dirt regarding the woman caught in adultery.  (John 8:6 – 8) “Afterwards, he [Jesus] straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” (John 8: 10-11)

We, Episcopalians have been called the “People of the Book,” perhaps because of our fondness of our Book of Common Prayer. There was a time when Confirmation classes required Confirmands to remember the Outline of Faith or the Catechism (p. 845 of the BCP). The Catechism is a series of questions and answers that covers the range of what Episcopalians are supposed to believe.  The bishop, when he or she comes on the big day, would ask the questions and the Confirmand would answer. The teaching rector would stand back nervously hoping the Confirmands would answer all, or most of them correctly.  Having some of it memorized today is still maybe not a bad thing.

Our Lord Jesus’ response can also be reduced down to His twin commandments of Love the Lord your God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.  This Commandment is reminiscent of the first part of the Jewish “Shema,” that is “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all strength.”  (Exodus 6:4-5)  And to this, our Lord Jesus adds “and love your neighbor as yourself.”  Personally, I like the words of the Gospel of John where our Lord Jesus says for us to love our Neighbor as He loved us.  And remember, He loved us all the way to the cross.  I like saying “I trust in the Creating Word through the Holy Spirit of the Incarnate Word, in whom we live and move and love and have our being, and to whom we must give an account.”  This is my creed.

So much is written that we could quote, especially in our times of challenge. Whether the source is the Bible or the Prayer Book, or a combination of both, or words that you have crafted for yourself as I have, latch onto something that will anchor you to right behavior as Jesus did. He said “it is written,” and thus thwarted evil.  Even if you write it, you will be able to say, “For, it is written.”  

Another “written” saying I have is:

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to and through the saints of God and then ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John