onewhoponders

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

Morning, Psalms 40 and 54; Evening, Psalm 51;

Genesis 40:1 to 23; 1^st Corinthians 3:16 to 23; Mark 2:13 to 22:

“Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and peoplecame 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 used to be 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 Blaise Pascal 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 change 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.

Today we remember Polycarp,  Bishop of Smyrna and martyr (February 23, 156)

 “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done” (Genesis 2:1 and 2). So, for this evening and tomorrow day my friends, Shabbat Shalom. 

What is Shabbat? Intro to the Jewish Sabbath – YouTube

Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Palestine and our schools.

As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John

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

Morning, Psalm 50; Evening, Psalms 19 and 46;

Genesis 39:1 to 23; 1^st Corinthians 2:14 to 3:15; Mark 2:1 to 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 would enable 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 should be taught in the family but often families will tend to see the incident as plain bad behavior, thus making forgiveness hard to come by. Forgiveness can be hard to come by internationally also. Sometimes cruelty can paralyze even nations who are crippled by their own ideas of what they think is “rightfully” theirs as in the Russia, Ukraine war.

Maybe forgiveness begins in the church with corporate pardon. A classic example of this is the Amish community of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and the milk truck driver attacking 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.” 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. This story can be found at: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Nickel_Mines_School_shooting).  The point is, this Amish community is a Church that really practices what it means to forgive.

We should practice forgiveness at home, in church, in school, at work, nationally  and internationally. 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. Maybe forgiveness of self 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.”

Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine, and our schools.

As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John

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

Morning, Psalm 119:49 to 72; Evening, Psalm 49;  

Genesis  37:25-36; 1st Corinthians 2:1 to 13; Mark 1:29 to 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. Prayer works people.

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. “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 to 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.

As I truly believe this, I also believe God is the God of love and peace. I want us then to respond to God’s desire for human peace asking for an immediate end to all war in the world. This might require all believers to find a deserted place, even within our own homes, and there, pray for peace.

Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine, and our schools.

As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John

Daily Office Readings for Tuesday of the First Week of Lent: Year2

 Morning, Psalm 45; Evening, Psalms 47 and 48:
Genesis 37:12-24; 1^st Corinthians 1:20 to 31; Mark 1:14 to 28:

“Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” (1^st Corinthians 1:26)

Paul must have been looking into the future and right at me when he wrote these words. In school, I was not wise by human standards, I am not powerful or of noble birth. And yet, I discern a real sense of God’s call on my life.

When I look at God’s call in the Bible I realize that there are certain characteristics that such a call consists of.  We have many calls from God in scripture: Deborah, Rebecca, Moses, Elijah, Amos, Mary, Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, and Paul, only to name a very few. There are many more in the Bible and a great many more beyond the Bible. God calls both male and female.  In every case, there are human risks involved, even human death.

God’s call is inconvenient, untimely, cost money, and is always for the benefit of others, not the one called. If you see these things in what you think you are called by God to do, then it really is from God.  But know this, You can’t really lose. God will keep you in eternity no matter what happens to you. God wins every time.

Today we remember Frederick Douglas, Social Reformer: 1895. You can read about Douglas at http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/frederick_douglass.htm

Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine, and our schools.

As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John

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

Morning, Psalms 41 and  52; Evening,  Psalm 44;

Genesis 37:1 to 11; 1^st Corinthians 1:1 to 19; Mark 1:1 to 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 of which John ate were 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 till I visited Israel that I learned that the locust pod with honey was what John was actually 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 to create some 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 human 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 of 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 also must look beyond our own current wilderness and focus on the Good News from God.

Today let us remember Agnes Tsao Kou Ying, Agatha Lin Zhao, & Lucy Yi Zhenmei: Chinese Martyrs (satucket.com).  They, like John the Baptist, suffered for their faith.

Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine, and our schools.

As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John

Gospel Reading for the First Sunday in Lent: Year B

Mark 1: 9 to 15

“And immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon Him;” (Mark 1: 10)

“Immediately” is a word that the Gospel according to Mark uses a lot.  Also there is “suddenly,” and terms like “all at once.”  Mark’s Gospel is in a hurry.  It’s got some place to go and it’s in a hurry to get there.

How we interpret the words of our Gospel has been understood differently by different denominations.  Some believe coming up out of the water means being brought back above the surface of the water; some believe it simply means stepping back up on solid ground. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit that makes all the difference however! The water works start and end, but the Spirit continues with us for life.

The Holy Spirit of God identifies Jesus as the One in whom God is well pleased. While Jesus has been the Holy One of God all alone, this baptism is used to make it known publicly to Him, to those around Him, to us even today, and to the evil that tries to thwart the will of God.

After this recognition our Lord Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness presence of evil, if for nothing else but to validate the strength of who He is.

You and I walk in that wilderness now. We have been baptized and are now being tested. As Jesus was tested for forty days, let us look at these next forty days of Lent as a time of testing. Will we surrender to evil in any of its manifest forms as made known to us in the Ten Commandments?   Most importantly, will we strive hard to obey those first Commandments that pertain to God; to recognize God, only God, not to use God’s Name in vain, and to meet with others regularly to honor God?

The wilderness in which we walk is coming after us.  No human made construct, tradition or condition can ward off the mind-bending forces of evil as it tries to undermine our love of God. We must be people of prayer. We must worship God in private and in public. This is what our Lord Jesus did as he batted back to evil every temptation he was served; so can we also.

As we have already been baptized, we must now see the heavens opening, and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon us. And this Holy Spirit of God is living and active in us always. All we have to do is follow the Holy Spirit’s lead and “immediately” bat back to evil all it throws at us. Let’s try these next forty days. Who knows, it may become a permanent way of life.

Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine, and our schools.

As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John

Daily Office Readings for the Saturday after Ash Wednesday: Year 2

Morning, Psalms 30 and 32; Evening,  Psalms 42 and 43;

Ezekiel 39:21 to 29; Philippians 4:10 to 20; John 17:20 to 26:

“Do not be like horse or mule, which have no understanding; who must be fitted with bit and bridle, or else they will not stay near you.” (Psalm 32:10)

I remember once having Morning Prayer with two other seminarians while in seminary and reading this Psalm.  We laughed as all three of us thought of people that we too would have to be fitted with bit and bridle, or else we would not stay near them.  But it was because we did indeed have understanding, and that we were loving, and so we stayed near them even when it was uncomfortable.

The metaphor of bit and bridle may in fact be a good way of looking at how God holds us close to God’s will.  We often don’t have understanding.  Often we don’t know the will of God and when God reveals just a little of it to us, we run.  We become like Jonah trying to avoid Nineveh.

I think the point of the Psalmist is that not having understanding keeps us in fear. We don’t realize the power of God’s forgiveness. We need to stay near the rough un-comfortableness of God and be patient until understanding finally comes.

There was a time in my life when I did not want one of my daughters to be pregnant.  But she was.  I could feel a prayer welling up in my gut to ask God to not let her be pregnant because she was still a senior in high school.  But she was. She gave birth to her first born.  Alex.  Alex is a gift from God to us.  I love my granddaughter so much.  So the joy that God gave me is what I needed rather than what I asked for.  I am so glad God fitted me with bit and bridle, or else I would not have stayed near God.  I had very little understanding.

Is there any lack of understanding in your life that causes you to want to move away from God? God will fit you with that bit and bridle and hold you close unless you turn and run to your own pain and peril, spiritually bruised from opposing the bit and bridle . We as seminarians learned that while this verse sounds funny, holding on to what God wants for us is as serious as it gets. Every human being has a story, or two, or more, of challenges. We need to tell these stories as did the prophets of the Bible. Our stories help others know that God holds us close – bit and bridle close. 

Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine, and our schools.

As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John

Daily Office Readings for the Friday after Ash Wednesday: Year 2

Morning, Psalms 95 and 31; Evening,  Psalm 35;
Ezekiel 18:1 to 4 and 25 to 32; Philippians 4:1 to 9; John 17:9 to 19:

“Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.” (Psalm 95:1)

We Episcopalians use the first seven verses of Psalm 95 (The Venite) as an option for our Morning Prayer. It is a beautiful Psalm that reminds us of our loving relationship with God, our Creator.

As we approach the Seventh (Sabbath) Day of our week, let us find time to just stop and ponder about our personal relationship with God. How is God calling you out for the benefit of your community, or any community?  We have a Bible full of God’s callings: God called Abraham away from his father’s house; God called Jacob to go back and face his brother; God called Moses to go back to Egypt; and on and on. And now you may notice your own burning bush. Is God saying your name twice for you to recognize the you are standing on Holy Ground?

This brings me to the last verse we use of Psalm 95. “For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.  Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!”  (verse 7)

Will you hearken to His voice?

 “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done” (Genesis 2:1 and 2). So, for this evening and tomorrow day my friends, Shabbat Shalom. 

What is Shabbat? Intro to the Jewish Sabbath – YouTube

Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Palestine and our schools.

As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John

Daily Office Readings for the Last Thursday after the Epiphany: Year 2

Morning, Psalm 37:1 to 18; Evening,  Psalm 37:19 to 42;
Habakkuk 3:1 to 18; Philippians 3:12 to 21; John 17:1 to 8:

“Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3: 13 and 14)

All of us are a continual “work in progress.”  We live and learn and hopefully build on what we have, intellectually, financially, physically, relationally, and most importantly, spiritually. These latter two come together as they relate to our spiritual connection to God. We build on our relationship with God through prayer and study, pondering about our connection to God.

The writer to the Church in Philippi suggests that as we weekly gather with those whom we trust we are also seeking more understanding in order that we might learn more together. He writes, “Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. (Philippians 3:15)  But all the while we are to keep what we have and build on it. “Only let us hold fast to what we have attained. (Philippians 3:16). 

I meet with several theological study groups during the week. We always start with prayer asking the Holy Spirit of God to be present with us and to soften our hearts in order that we might not insist on our own way but rather, be willing to accept the Truth as it is made known to us.

I have been asking us to keep the Ukrainian people in prayer. I still want that but I want us to also keep the Russian People (many of whom object to what their government leaders are doing) in our prayers as well. Being with those who are mature and of the same mind gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to correct us.  We must “press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” All we have to do is listen. God engineered the human face such that when our mouths are closed, our ears open!

Today our Church remembers Thomas Bray: Priest and   Missionary (15 Feb 1730)  check him out at http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Thomas_Bray.htm

Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine, and our schools.

As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John

Eucharistic Readings for Ash Wednesday (All Years)

Joel 2:1 to 2 and 12 to 17; Psalm 103; 2^nd Corinthians 5:20 to 6:10;  Matthew 6:1 to 6 and 16 to 21:

“But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”  (Matthew 6:3 and 4)

Here we are in Lent again.  Today starts Lent with Ash Wednesday. Many times people will come to me to proclaim what they are giving up for Lent. They let their left hand know what their right hand is doing. Often their esteem for what they are giving up borders on idolatry.  I then ask “to what charity is the money you would have used on your creature comforts, going to this Lent?” There is always a pause.  Rarely is anyone thinking, in advance, about the charitable side of doing without in order to give to the less fortunate.

We should always have our eyes set on the “why” we are doing something rather than the “what” we are doing. Lent is a Church tradition.  It is not biblical.  We are reminded by Richard Hooker (Reformation, 17^th Century Church of England Priest) that our 3-legged stool consist of Scripture, Tradition and Reason.  Tradition then is where the practice of Lent comes from. Why? It is our Church’s historic way of reconciling folk back into the fold and reminding all of us of the sacrifice our Lord Jesus made for our salvation.

Lent will not be “celebrated” with fancy sales or special ornaments.  Lent can’t be purchased or hijacked with sleighs or bunnies.  This is the season in which the Church is at its purest. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. It ends with Palm Sunday or the Sunday of the Passion which is the beginning of Holy Week, which leads us into the Sunday of the Resurrection – Easter. All of this is part of our Church Tradition.  Lent is a memory milestone wherein we remember the suffering of our Lord Jesus and reorient ourselves back to the importance of corporate worship.

The ashes on our foreheads remind us that we are dust and ashes, However, with the Holy Spirit of God imbedded in us we are so much more.  It is during Lent that we give thanks by emptying ourselves of all that is not necessary for our wellbeing and at the same time contributing to the welfare of the less fortunate who are also created in the Image of God.  And we do not do this in a boastful way.  “But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” 

Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine, and our schools.

As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John