onewhoponders

Daly Office Readings for Monday, Proper 7 Year 1

AM Psalm 89:1-18; PM Psalm 89:19-52 1 Samuel 5:1-12; Acts 5:12-26; Luke 21:29-36

Acts:

 “Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by.” (Acts 5:14 &15)

There are two points here that I want to bring out.  First, the writer (we think Luke) feels it is important that we see that the great numbers of people are of both men and women.  It seems this Jesus movement is inclusive and recognizes the humanity of both sexes.  This is different and progressive.  These people that were added were not classed as male or female. They were all known only as believers.  This is the one real question for each of us today; do I believe?  Am I a believer?

Second, the faith of the people works to heal the sick.  They “believed” that Peter’s shadow would heal and so it did.  The power of faith cannot be overstated. What we believe makes a difference.

Faith does not make a flat world round but it will move within the human sphere and bring about improvement, in the physical and mental and in the eternal spiritual self.  If we believe God will improve the health or comfort of a loved one it will happen. However, such healing or comfort happens in ways according to God’s plan, in this world or in the next. We pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done.”  Again, this is the one real question for each of us today; do I believe?  Am I a believer?  And if I find that I am, I should assemble with other like-minded believers and become part of the great numbers.

John The Baptist:

This is the day we remember John the Baptist.  He is considered the last of the Hebrew Testament prophets by Christians.  He proclaimed the coming of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ.  His readings are: AM Psalm 82, 98; Malachi 3:1-5; John 3:22-30 PM Psalm 80; Malachi 4:1-6; Matthew 11:2-19. 

In one of the above readings John the Baptist’s words are spoken with regard to how he responded to claims that he (John) was the messiah.  To such claims “John answered, ‘No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven.  “You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.”  He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled.   He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3: 27 – 30)

John accepted his appointed vocation as herald of the coming of Jesus. We, today’s Christians, are assigned as heralds of the return of Jesus.  How are we doing?  Are we proclaiming that Jesus will increase and we will decrease?  No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. 

Ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John+

Eucharistic Readings for Sunday, June 23 Proper 7 Year C

1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a Psalm 42 and 43 Galatians 3:23-29 Luke 8:26-39

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3: 28 – 29)

I, like most Christians (knowing it or not), am a Judeo Christian.  As I study scripture I have favored a heritage that identifies more with Abraham than Moses or David. Abraham begins the origin of the Hebrew people. (Genesis 11)

While Paul plays down ethnic identity saying that we are no longer Jew or Greek, he also says we are all One Spirit in Christ Jesus. Spiritually, I walk with Abraham, the re-located mid-eastern man and his family that will become the father of the Israelites after his grandson Jacob is given that name. 

Jesus, in his human form, was an Israelite. And through Baptism and the grafting of his body and blood in Holy Communion Christians are brought into the spiritual legacy of the redeemed and saved Israelite people. So yes, we are no longer Jew or Greek, black or white, male or female, gay or straight, republican or democrat, legal or illegal citizens. Human ethnicity is surface identification but does not tell the whole story.  While it is said that blood is thicker than water, (I believe this is an attempt to hold biological families together, even when there is great discord), I say that our spiritual selves are often more binding and stronger than our blood connections.

We have Abraham, a faithful father as a heritage of heaven and Christ Jesus as the divine model of human morality and worker or our faith that has been placed in us by God to lead us and guide us.  Jesus often says our faith has saved us.  This “saved” does not simply mean cured of some illness but rather it means eternal salvation.  This is our inheritance, thanks be to God. Let us Pray:

“O God, whose wonderful deeds of old shine forth even to our own day, you once delivered by the power of your mighty arm your chosen people from slavery under Pharaoh, to be a sign for us of the salvation of all nations by the water of Baptism: Grant that all the peoples of the earth may be numbered among the offspring of Abraham, and rejoice in the inheritance of Israel; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer page 289)

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to and through God’s people.  John+

Daily Office Readings for Saturday of Proper 6 Year 1

AM Psalm 87, 90; PM Psalm 136 1 Samuel 4:1b-11; Acts 4:32-5:11; Luke 21:20-28

“When the troops came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, ‘Why has the Lord put us to rout today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, so that he may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.” (1Semuel 4:3)

The Hebrew people of that day believed that God only cared about them.  This was their God-in-a-box.  Some of us still have a God-in-a-box.  God-in-a-box is too small.  This is a God that we think we decide who God likes or loves and who “our” God does not like or love.  We manipulate our God to act in ways pleasing to us.  This box can come in various shapes and sizes.  It can be our Bible or Prayer Book, it can be the cross we wear, it can be an icon, statue or some work of art, or it can be a box large enough for us to fit in like our church.  None of these can contain God.  And our God is also the God of the other.  This all powerful God cannot be manipulated. It is we who must conform to the righteousness of God. To do this we must accept the fact that God is the God of all the earth and everybody on earth.  And, God loves everybody the same, them and us.  In praying to God, we must also pray for the other.  This is what Jesus tried so hard to tell us.

Thank you Jesus.

June 22 Alban, First Martyr of Britain c. 304

“Alban is the earliest Christian in Britain who is known by name, and, according to tradition, the first British martyr. He was a soldier in the Roman army, stationed at Verulamium, a city about twenty miles northeast of London, now called St. Alban’s. He gave shelter to a Christian priest who was fleeing from persecution and was converted by him. When officers came to Alban’s house, he dressed himself in the garments of the priest and gave himself up. Alban was tortured and martyred in place of the priest, on the hilltop where the Cathedral of St. Alban’s now stands. The traditional date of his martyrdom is 303 or 304, but recent studies suggest that the year was actually 209, during the persecution under the Emperor Septimius Severus.”  (Great Cloud of Witnesses for June 22)

Christianity is not for the faint of heart.  Like Alban, there are many Christians who have paved the way of our faith with their lives.  We stand on their shoulders.  We must remember their names and their deeds.  We should tell them to our children and to their children.  One of the readings for Alban comes from 1^st John and it reads, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”  (1^st John 3:16)

In my faith journey I have found that when I love just one person that I am willing to die for, it becomes not so difficult to add another person, and then another, and another, and so on.  I am not yet where I can say that I will die for anybody, but I do believe that I am on that trajectory.

Ponder anew what the Almighty can do. John+

Daily Office Readings for Friday of Proper 6 Year 1

AM Psalm 88; PM Psalm 91, 92 1 Samuel 3:1-21; Acts 2:37-47; Luke 21:5-19

“But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.” (Luke 21:18 – 19)

How can this be?  Jesus is telling them, and us, “You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.”  And then he says, “But not a hair of your head will perish.”  This sounds contradictory to me.

We all know our biological decay will play its hand.  We are made to wear out.  So whether our end comes by the hand or actions or other people (relatives or not) it inevitably comes. Jesus’ purpose is to inform us that we have an invitation to continue our book.  Perhaps a better way to look at our earthly life is that of a preface or introduction to a book. After this life, the book itself goes on to eternity.  We get to write our own preface/introduction.

In this passage from Luke, Jesus talks about sad endings to our mortal lives.  But implicit in this prophetic message is the idea that should this happen, we are not to lose heart.  And more than this, good people also have their earthly lives ended in accidents, in terminal illness, and in natural disasters like earth quakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes.  But we have the opportunity to go beyond these earthly endings.  But how?

There is a clue in the second breath of Jesus’ sentence, “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”  It seems Jesus is talking about something we call the after-life, the resurrection. This is the life after our mortal death.  We however, must hold on to the belief that this day will come.  All through the Christian Testament we are told of the importance of believing and the benefits of  all who believe.  So this begs the question; Will we come into the resurrection whether we believe or not?  I don’t know.  God knows.  If we do, remember that the life we are living right now is our preface or introduction to the main book and has already been written, we wrote it.  You are writing it now.

I believe two things.  I believe that there are books in heaven that have no preface or introduction, yet they thrive; they are called infant and child angels.  I also believe that there are empty books in heaven; books with prefaces and introductions but were not permitted to continue in heaven, they are called evildoers.

We want to live lives that will continue through all eternity.  Remember, by your endurance you will gain your souls.

Thank You Jesus.  John+

Daily Office Readings for Thursday of Proper 6 Year 1

AM Psalm [83] or 34; PM Psalm 85, 86 1 Samuel 2:27-36; Acts 2:22-36; Luke 20:41-21:4

“He also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.” (Luke 21:2)

The story of the poor widow putting in her last two coins is layered beyond its simplicity.  First, while she is down to her last, she gives it all anyway. She has no husband or visible means of support. She puts her trust and faith in God. She probably does not know that in fact, God in Christ Jesus is witnessing her at that very moment.  It is in this same way that this same Christ Jesus is witnessing our acts of kindness and charity, even though we too are unaware that he is watching and calling the heavenly host’s attention to our good deeds. The things we do when we think no one is watching is what gets God’s attention.

Second, she contributed to a leadership that did not really nurture the spiritual welfare of the people placed in its charge. Jesus has just finished talking about how scandalous the scribes were.  I have known many situations in various groups where when people lost confidence in the leadership or management they would not contribute to it.  They withheld their money, especially if they were poor in the first place. But this poor widow looked beyond the scribes to a greater power.  Her faith was in God, not the scribes. The temple was the only recourse she was aware of.  I’m thinking then, it’s not so much which charitable organization you give to but that it is in God’s Name that you give.  We have a treasurer who will not allow any contributions go in to deposit unless it is blessed.  She is so adamant about this that often tellers or the parish administrator will hunt me down to bless the money before it goes to the bank.

Third, she refused to be unseen. By being present with her little money she makes herself seen in the midst of the people giving what she had in the presence of on-lookers.  Just because she has no husband she will not be shunned and relegated to the back corners of her society. She makes them see her. She makes them realize that she is their responsibility as a member of their people.  It is the responsibility of any family or organized social structure to care for its members, secular or religious. She makes them see her and in some respect holds them accountable.  She is their sister and she should not be alone, or for that matter, down to just two copper coins in the first place.  Do something people!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.  John+

Daily Office Readings for Wednesday of Proper 6 Year 1

AM Psalm 119:97-120; PM Psalm 81, 82 1 Samuel 2:12-26; Acts 2:1-21; Luke 20:27-40

“Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels; they had no regard for the Lord” (1Samuel 2:12)

This reading comes up on Father’s Day week.  Eli, and all dads have a responsibility to teach children the right way to live and to honor God.  All we can do is try to teach.  We can’t make them learn. However we must realize that teaching is done all of our waking hours. There are some things we do intentionally to teach.  But young ones are watching us all the time.  So unintentional behaviors like bad language, abuse of spouse or others, laziness, substance abuse and other bad behaviors are also learned.  They watch us and they learn from us, the good and bad. 

As we dads participate in the teaching process, we are not the only ones.  Children have the other parent, other adults, peers, relatives, teachers, neighbors, ministers and so forth.  The minds of young children are soaking up everything.  As dads we have a specific responsibility to watch the other influences that sometimes contradict the good moral lessons we try to instill. 

Perhaps Eli did not pay close enough attention to the influences around his sons.  In any case God was not pleased with him and Eli was forced to witness God moving the prophetic leadership to one other than one of his sons, to Samuel.  We will find out later that even Samuel’s sons didn’t learn well and this brings about the first king of the Israel, Saul. 

So how can fatherhood best be lived out?  As a father I have learned that establishing and trying to maintain my so-called authority is the wrong approach.  Raising children is not really about me.  It is about harmony and cooperation. It is about being willing to distance one’s self, if necessary, in order to ensure harmony and cooperation. I found that being a big brother- life-coach would be the more accurate description of fatherhood.

Eli’s sons being scoundrels was not pleasing to God.  It seems God held Eli at least in some way accountable for their base and irreligious character. (1Samuel 2: 11-17)  God told Eli, “The fate of your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, shall be the sign to you—both of them shall die on the same day.” (1Samuel 2: 34)  So I ponder, if Eli knew what would eventually happen would he have done anything different in their upbringing.

Being the big brother life coach promoting harmony and cooperation must include real corrective measures for wayward deeds.  True affection must first be established so that the father child relationship is very important to the child. When this happens the child does not want to disappoint the father (or mother).  I like the emperor penguin as the symbol for fatherhood. This flightless, father bird takes sole responsibility for receiving the egg and raising the chick until mother returns.  You see, each of us is a whole parent.  Our child raising responsibilities are co-dependent not independent. Done any other way, and we raise scoundrels.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people.  John+

Daily Office Readings for Tuesday, June 18, 2019: Proper 6

AM Psalm 78:1-39; PM Psalm 78:40-72 1 Samuel 1:21-2:11; Acts 1:15-26; Luke 20:19-26

“He said to them, ‘Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  (Luke 20:25)

From this attempted trickery by the scribes and the chief priests comes a holy response from Jesus. He informs then (and us) to acknowledge money as an economic tool to be used for the material maintenance of our bodies, homes and some creature comforts. So, Jesus encourages the circulation of money as is best for the sustainment of the family and community. There is enough on this planet for everyone to be satisfied.

In the same way, Jesus is saying that money, or the human faces represented on it, or the government that makes it, or the money itself, is not to be an object of worship.  We worship God who gave us love, and hearts, and family and friends. So give back into society what society uses to maintain itself, money. But we give to God our souls, our hearts, our minds and even our family and friends.  This really brings home the meaning “All Things Come of Thee O Lord, And of Thine Own Have We Given Thee.”

Indeed we need, and should have a place to lay our heads for sleep, and a place to shower and a place to pray.  Money pays for our home privacy.  The Christian Church started out in homes. The people in whose homes they were, paid for their stay with the emperor’s coin.  So their places of prayer were paid for by the emperor’s image. I find this ironically delightful.

Today, our taxes go to pay for the welfare of public workers like teachers, firemen, police officers, post office employees, government office holders and also to feed and care for the needy.  This latter group was, and still is, the original calling of the Church.  The church is in the world to worship God and take care of the needy, the widows, orphans, the sick, and even those who say there is no God.  We are the Church.  We do not discriminate. It does take money to do this work. So we find faithful and clever ways to give to the emperor. We give to the emperor by spending it through the stores, and shops and markets and schools that help those in need. I find it very interesting that God came to us in the person of Jesus right at the point that we begin to make roads, have an exchange language (Latin) and make an exchange currency. Very interesting. Seems that God’s plan was to set things up so we could pass the Gospel on.

We give to non-government organizations as well.  We try to choose those that more directly help the poor. But it is still the emperor’s money (government made currency) that we do it with. In our parish we have a couple of AA type meetings, and we host a summer lunch feeding program for needy school children. We collect non perishable food items for a back-pack ministry for the public school closest to us. Our Women’s Bible Study raises and sends money to the Heffier project.  We have received several thank you notes from them. We participate in the local Operation In As Much chapter.  We give food items to our city urban ministry. We are not a large parish by any definition. But we realize what we have is from God and we are thankful.

We try to give back to God our hearts and souls and thanks. And we continually pray for God to guide us in every increasing and loving ways that will fulfill God’s plan of passing on the Gospel.

Let us ponder anew what the Almighty can do.  John+

Daily Office Readings for Monday: Proper 6 of Year 1

AM Psalm 80; PM Psalm 77, [79] 1 Samuel 1:1-20; Acts 1:1-14; Luke 20:9-19

“While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’”  (Acts 1: 10 – 11)

I loved the television series “Touched by an Angel.  I believe in angels and that they are always all around us. They can make themselves visible and heard when they need to be seen and heard. I think that often angels are visibly with us without us knowing who, or what they are.  In Hebrews we are told to “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.  Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:1-2)

Angels do intercede when necessary to see what kind of people we are. In Tobit, of the Apocrypha, we have this revelation.  “When you did not hesitate to rise and leave your dinner in order to go and lay out the dead, your good deed was not hidden from me, but I was with you. So now God sent me to heal you and your daughter-in-law Sarah.  I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who present the prayers of the saints and enter into the presence of the glory of the Holy One.” (Tobit 12: 13 – 15)

Sometimes they appear frightful and must calm us by saying “fear not.” And only then give us instruction. But they have the option to change their attitude when necessary to minister justice.  For example in Luke where Zechariah questioned the integrity of Gabriel, “The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.   And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.” (Luke 1:19-20)

In the situation we have today, it seems the men of Galilee just looked around and there were two men among them, supposedly people they did not know.  But they needed to get God’s plan moving. These Galileans might have stayed staring at the sky and pondered off in the wrong direction.  It was time to take action for the sake of what God wants for the world. So the angels said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven?” They needed to get moving.

So I think these God appointees work as conductors of the work to see to it that we stay on track.  How would believing that you are in the presence of angels all the time change the way you live your life? Better start changing then, because they are real and they are among us.

Ponder anew what the Almighty is doing.  John+

Eucharistic Readings for Trinity Sunday: Year C

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 Psalm 8 Romans 5:1-5 John 16:12-15

“God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5)

As I have shared before, these words are the words we use every Tuesday at our Women’s Bible Study.  So they really resonate with the ladies and me.  We open with Noon Day Prayers on page 103 of the Book of Common Prayer.  We close the opening with a final prayer petitioning God, praying, “Heavenly Father, send your Holy Spirit into our hearts, to direct and rule us according to your will, to comfort us in all our afflictions, to defend us from all error, and to lead us into all truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.” And then we go into our Bible Study.   At this writing we are starting Matthew in two weeks.  It has been a long and educational process.  We started with Genesis in 2006!  We have marched through every page of Scripture (including the Apocrypha) and have learned much.  We continue to learn. It is not how fast we learn but how thorough we learn.

God’s love is in us. Many biblical writings report this; Jeremiah 31:31-34 to what we have in Romans 5:5 today.  God has already done this wonderful thing to bring us closer to God. We just have to rely on it. As the writings say, we have God’s love through the Holy Spirit. As we learned last week (Pentecost Sunday) the Holy Spirit of God has come among us. This Holy Spirit works through the gathered community, the Church. This is why we must come together, yes, in an “organized” religion.  Jesus did not say go and do your own thing, but rather, “follow me.”

We are a creedal people.  My own personal creed is Trinitarian.  While I still adhere to our Nicene Creed I needed to fashion words that more closely articulated my personal theology. And, here it is, “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.”

I try to be intentional about worshiping God in spirit and truth. This was foretold by Jesus when he said, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” (John 4:23) This remembrance of Trinity Sunday informs us that God meets us where we are.  We may need an All Powerful God to move the waters so that we can get to safety.  We may need a companion God while on the road to Emmaus to break bread with us. Or, we may need the Great Spirit God to visit us in our dreams or in the voice of another to guide us on our way.  In all of these cases we are “on the move” with One aspect of the Divine.

This concept is fully captured in the Collect for Trinity Sunday: “Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Here is a little note about Father’s Day.  Joseph, husband to Mary, Mother of Jesus, is the best example of fatherhood I think there is.  We do not have one word from his mouth in all the Gospels, yet, we witness his steadfast obedience to God.  He keeps Mary who is pregnant but not by him.  He follows God’s instructions to take the family to Egypt and then to bring the family back to Israel again.  He is a carpenter by vocation who provides for his family and is obedient to God.  As he is a quiet man, I imagine him to be one-who-ponders also.  Maybe he is responsible for Mary using the “Ponder” word in the first place. Who knows. But Joseph was a great dad.

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to (and through) God’s people.  John+

Daily Office Readings for June 15, 2019, Proper 5: Year 1

AM Psalm 75, 76; PM Psalm 23, 27 Ecclus. 46:1-10; 2 Cor. 13:1-14; Luke 20:1-8

“Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?’ (Luke 20:4)

So the chief priests and the scribes came with the elders and asked Jesus about the source of his power.  But as usual, Jesus turned the tables on them with his own question.  Jesus asked about the source of John the Baptist’s baptism.  We get to hear their private discussion regarding how they would answer Jesus. Thank you Luke.

Even though the regular people considered John a prophet from God, the more so-called educated Temple authorities did not regard him as such.  Their fear of what would happen to them shows their true colors.  They would rather lie and say they don’t know than to admit that perhaps, maybe, God is acting in John.  Jesus understands their refusal as evidence of the cowards they are and then responds like-wise.  They will not confess to him the truth that was right in front of them, then neither will he divulge the truth about himself, at least not to them.

Some events that take place today still have no logical explanation. There is a reason such phenomenon are called miracles.  God still works through us in miraculous ways. Short of, “this is the will of God,” there are no explanations.  We must learn to be comfortable with mystery.   

Today we remember Evelyn Underhill

One of the readings for Evelyn comes from the Gospel of John and reads thus, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24)

My journaling, from which this blog comes, is all about my contemplative self.  I actively sit in quiet inviting God to enter my mind and move me in ways pleasing to God.  Evelyn Underhill is one of my major heroes. Here is some insight from her sharing:

“Evelyn Underhill’s most valuable contribution to spiritual literature must surely be her conviction that the mystical life is not only open to a saintly few, but to anyone who cares to nurture it and weave it into everyday experience, and also (at the time, a startling idea) that modern psychological theories and discoveries, far from hindering or negating spirituality, can actually enhance and transform it.” (Great Cloud of Witnesses for June 15)

So we don’t have to be monks, or priests, to enter into the mystic life.  It is available to all of us who dare to be still and know that God is God. God says through the Psalmist, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10)

Let us hear what the Spirit is saying to (and through) God’s people. John+