Words 1.24

 Words Twice a Week           1.24

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

Some days from the Church Calendar -

Jan 25  Conversion of Paul  He had been a persecutor of Christians, and was just riding along on the way to Damascus when “wham”, and after a bit he went to being one of the faith’s leading voices.  Would you say you have had a “conversion experience”?  When was it, what was it like.  

Jan 26   Timothy, Titus, and Silas, Companions of Saint Paul.  Everybody needs someone or ones to share their life with.  Note that while Paul was one of the leading voices, we usually hear of “Paul and Someone”.  

Jan 27  Lydia, Dorcas, and Phoebe, Witnesses to the Faith   Often given only one brief mention in one story, still these women and many more that they represent were significant in the beginning years of our faith.  And certainly there are others in this time who are doing significant things as well.  I remember Sunday School teachers, seminary professors, church members, pastors and pastor’s spouses who shared the faith with me, either directly or in acts of kindness.

Jan 28  Thomas Aquinas  One of the world’s greatest theologians.  His family tried to deter him from becoming a friar, even having his brothers kidnap him and hold him in a castle for a year, and hiring a prostitute.  He resisted and became a Dominican.  According to United Methodist/Trappist W Paul Jones, “he was able to relate faith and reason so well that his work has become the official philosophical theology of the Catholic Church.  Near the end of his life he had a mystical experience of such power that he regarded his writings as ‘like so much straw’, yet he was one of the world’s greatest Christian theologians.  He died at 49.”

And some days from the world/earth calendar -

Jan 25

+ the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, in 1924.  

+ the first solar power plant opened in Odeillo, France again, 1977

+ birthday in 1759 of Robert Burns.  Anyone interested in having a (zoomed) Robert Burns Supper?  Could you do that with a pasty or a bratwurst instead of a haggis?  (I don’t think I need no haggis!)  We could say the grace and a few of the other elements – “Welcome the Guests,” “Address to the Pasty”, “Word to the lassies”, “Reply to the laddies” – a few poems, and sing Auld Lang Syne.  Maybe it would work best for me if we put it off until Saturday (?) so as not to run into Winnie the Pooh.

+ 1947 Thomas Goldsmith patented a “cathode ray tube amusement device”, considered to be the first arcade game.  Pong, PacMan, Space Invaders, Tetris…...they were all on their way!

Jan 26

+ the first European settlers arrive in Australia.  This is kind of interesting.  The Dutch were the first to catch sight of Australia and make landfall, Jan 26, 1606.  The first real attempt at settling and colonization came with the British who landed the First Fleet of convicts and laborers and set up a camp and raised the flag on Jan 26, 1788.  

+ 1925 the birthday of Paul Newman, heartthrob, known for having the bluest eyes in Hollywood.  Favorite movie?  Do you suppose he is better known today for his movies or his salad dressing?  He said “It's been a privilege to be here.”

Jan 27

+ Giuseppi Verdi died in 1901; Mahalia Jackson in 1972; Pete Seeger in 2014.  On the other hand, Lewis Carroll was born in 1832; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1756.  I guess out of all of them I’m most familiar with Pete Seeger.  

+ 1983 three astronauts died in a cabin fire preparing for Apollo 1.

Jan 28

+ 1986 the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded.  We were glued to the screen – it didn’t seem possible.  According to wikipedia -

President Ronald Reagan had been scheduled to give the 1986 State of the Union Address on the evening of the Challenger disaster. After a discussion with his aides, Reagan postponed the State of the Union, and instead addressed the nation about the disaster from the Oval Office of the White House. Reagan's national address was written by Peggy Noonan, and was listed as one of the most significant speeches of the 20th century in a survey of 137 communication scholars. It finished with the following statement, which quoted from the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee Jr.:  We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'  

+ Fyodor Dostoyevsky died in 1881; W.B.Yeats in 1939

+ the Lego brick was patented in 1958.    We had a bunch – I don’t know if they are stored away or if we got rid of them.

+ in 1820 Fabian von Bellinghausen sights Antarctica – believed to be the first to do that.  He was the leader of a second Russian global circumnavigation expedition.  There were apparently two ships that made up the expedition and they circled the continent twice.

+ Pride and Prejudice published in 1813.  I haven’t actually read it or even watched any of the various movies or tv shows.  “Mr Darcy” is about all I know.

Jan 29

+ Robert Frost died in 1963.  First of the Inaugural Poets!  Someplace I saw a line about “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the one my gps suggested, and …..”  Have a favorite Frost poem?  It’s hard to even know where to start.  I suppose for these day Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, or maybe Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter.  We’re still 3 or 4 months to Nothing Gold Can Stay or The Pasture!  He also said “Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.”

+ The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe, was published in 1845.  “Quoth the Raven……...”

Jan 30

+ the first computer virus – Elk Croner – was created and released by 15 year old Richard Skrenta as a joke.   Ha, Ha.  

+ Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933

+ The Beatles gave their last public performance in 1969.  We thought they would go on forever.  Have a favorite Beatle – pre or post breakup?  A favorite song?  Would you say as a group they were greater than the sum of their parts?

+ FDR was born in 1882.

Jan 31

+ the birthday of Franz Schubert (1797); Jackie Robinson in 1919

+ A.A. Milne died in 1956.  We are reading chapters 6-10 of Winnie the Pooh this week! Check last week’s “Words” for the zoom link if you want to join us.  Here’s the invitation – (I think you have to cut and paste?)

Charlie West is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Winnie the Pooh

Time: Jan 23, 2021 07:45 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87923371806?pwd=QnU5cERtMW00M2lYUmhobXQzUGMrdz09

Meeting ID: 879 2337 1806

Passcode: 973394

+ Edwin Armstrong died in 1954 – he is credited with inventing FM radio

+ the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was passed in 1865.  It was ratified and adopted on Dec 6, 1865.  If only it was as easy as that.  Here’s a prayer from Celeste Wilson, participant in the Mountain Sky Conference (UMC) virtual journey of daily prayer, 

    Heavenly Father, 

    Please give us the discernment to:

    Recognize the truth, 

    Acknowledge injustice where we see it.

    Courage to stand against racism and hatred.

    Help us to know when to speak up and when to calmly listen.

    We pray this in your son's Holy name.

+ most books say Menno Simons died on this day in 1561.  He left the Catholic Church and joined the Anabaptists, who replaced infant baptism with (youth or adult) believer’s baptism. They were persecuted by Protestants and Catholics alike.  Menno pastored many of the associations, organizing into groups called Mennonites.  He provided wise and gentle leadership.  Mennonites tended to be liberal in doctrine, conservative in societal innovations, and above all devoted to pacifism.

That’s what I got for now -

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Words 1.21

 Words Twice a Week           1.21 (1.21.21!)

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

And in case you were wondering, the inauguration breakfast at the West house was buttermilk pumpkin pancakes!  With maple syrup.

Charlie’s Inauguration poem -

   On the road from where

   we’ve been to where we’re going - 

   a new beginning.

(And that’s why they asked Amanda and not me!)

Some thoughts on some of the lessons for Sunday -

Psalm 62.5-12

+ another psalm, like last week, that might have been used in a ritual by someone who has been (falsely?) accused of something.

+ insignificance of humanity, both those of high estate and low.  Put either one on a teeter-totter and they are both sitting up there in the air!  Ok – that is a bit to swallow when you look at some of the things those of high estate have done and could do.  I was just reading something about how with $500,000 a person could wreak all kinds of political havoc and that it is not that hard to find someone with that much.  And I guess folks “of low estate” can also wreak a certain amount of havoc.  Does “high estate” mean rich, or significant, or important, or ?????  Are you feeling of high estate, or low?  Probably somewhere in-between.  But let’s be clear, in God’s eyes you are of ultimate value.

+ God is powerful and kind.  For humans, it is really hard to hold those two qualities together. One writer puts it that “power without love is tyranny, love without power lapses to sentimentalism”  What kind of power do we have to enact our love?

+ Note that at least in the NRSV, vs 11 is about God (“power belongs to God”), and vs 12 is spoken to God (“steadfast love belongs to you, O God.”)  Is the psalmist “reminding God”?

+ vs 12, “God rewards us according to what we do.”  How do we think about that?  Is it simply saying that what we do makes a (cause and effect) difference, or does God really treat different people differently?  

Jonah 3.1-5, 10

+ the second half of the book – the whole bit with the whale is behind him.  This time when God tells Jonah to go and preach to Nineveh, Jonah obeys.  Not sure where Jonah started out, but he went to Nineveh, so he was a foreigner?  Or an “expert” – “someone from somewhere else”?  Are you more likely to take seriously someone from the congregation or community that you know, or someone “from somewhere else”?  Someone on tv?  On the internet?

+ Jonah preaches doom (“fire and brimstone”?) to the Ninevites.  Are there times when preaching doom is more effective than preaching grace or hope?  Do threats about climate collapse lead people to make changes?  

+ Note that there is no mention of God in Jonah’s message; no “thus says the Lord”; no “repent or…”  

+ Even though Jonah does not offer it, the people of Nineveh repent, fast, and put on sackcloth.  One writer – “Nineveh is daring, imaginative, inventive in moving beyond the prophetic word”. In vs 7-9 the king of Nineveh introduces new options for God to consider.  A reminder that God longs for conversation, for communion.  In the end, God does have pity and does not destroy.  Did the king of Nineveh change God’s mind?  And again the question, how much of it is God’s doing, how much is just  “what we do makes a cause and effect difference”?

+ The people of Ninevah fasted and put on sackcloth as a part of their repentance.  What would repentance look like to you?  Maybe it depends on what you are repenting over/about?

+ Nineveh responded as a community, not just individuals.  Is that when it makes a difference?  There was the book “50 ways to save the environment” or something like that, but also the realization that any one person’s actions are not really going to make that much difference in the larger picture.  Does one person’s prayer make a difference?

+ Reading into Ch 4, with Jonah and God sparing, Jonah’s story does not really have an ending – it causes us to put ourselves into Jonah’s character.  One writer notes the difference between the universal call of Jesus and our (and Jonah’s) desire to place boundaries on salvation.  

Mark 1.14-20

+ “After John was arrested” – not an encouraging start.  Mark is saying clearly that John was already off the stage when Jesus started his ministry.  He was not just one of John’s followers.  But what does it mean for us that our story begins “after John was arrested, after Jesus was crucified”?

+ two sections of this passage – first the time and place and summary of Jesus’ ministry, and second, the call of the first disciples.

+ “The time is fulfilled, God’s Kingdom is here” – God is taking definitive, significant action in Jesus that shapes reality from then on.  “God’s future beckons us out of the present into a life yet unrealized, unknown.”  What characteristics of this new life are you looking for?  God’s action is the motivation for repentance.  Humans do not enable God’s action; God’s action calls for/demands human action in response.

+ It is not completely clear if Jesus said “the Kingdom is near” or “the Kingdom is here”.  In the one case we might feel called to help bring the kingdom the rest of the way, in the other we would be called to live on the basis of it’s being here already.  The best work I’ve found on this is Episcopal priest Robert Farrer Capon!  He says the kingdom is something God has done and is doing and we must and can live accordingly.  

+ “Repent and believe this good news.”  What helps you believe? What makes it harder?  Just what is this “good news” in everyday terms.

+ Jesus was walking – he often seemed to be going from one place to another.  How does that fit with our tendency to stay put?

+ He calls two pairs of fishermen to follow him.  Note that he simply calls, he doesn’t “market himself” or persuade.  Why do you think they followed?  (Mark doesn’t really seem to think that is significant.)  Did Jesus go looking for fishermen or is that just who happened to be where he was walking?  If you were his “campaign consultant”, who would you suggest he go looking for?  And you have to believe that as these four looked at themselves they said “Ok, my skill set involved catching fish.”  And Jesus said, Ok, from now on we’re going to need you to expand on that.”  What does “fish for men/women” even mean?  How willing are we to be pushed beyond our comfort zone, to develop or discover a new skill set?

+ Can’t leave this thought without singing -

     O Lord, with your eyes you have searched me, 

     and while smiling, have spoken my name.

     Now my boat’s left on the shoreline behind me,

     by your side, I will seek other seas.

+ What about Zebedee?  All parents have hopes and dreams for their children.  How do you think he felt watching James and John walking away.  

+ They followed “a man they cannot understand, on a journey that will perplex and confuse them, to a destination as yet unspecified.”  Does that reflect your experience?  And note that by the end (John 14), they still don’t know where they are going.  What about us – do we have a sense of where we are going?  Have we decided on a journey or a destination?  What if next week Jesus takes a turn for somewhere else?

Charlie’s “gospel poem” of the week -

   On the road from where

   We’ve been to where we're going -

   A new beginning.

How comfortable are we with that?

Here’s a prayer -

  God of that time, and this time, and all time -

  Guide us as we live these days.

  Help us let go of things that would hold us back – 

    nets and possessions

    directions or destinations,

    resumes, references, reports,

    preconceived notions of who deserves or belongs,

Help us hold on to your hand (and Word)

as we walk toward and through

the Time of your Peace.  (That’s what I like to call “The Kingdom of Heaven”!)

That’s what I got for now -

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Words 1.17

 Words Twice a Week           1.17

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

And yes, I am not really doing anything specific about the big events of this week - Inauguration, vaccine, and such.  For me this is kind of a backdrop against which we can watch all that play out.

Some days from the Church calendar -

Jan 18  The Confession of Peter  Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say I am (or the Son of Man is?).”  They said, well, John the Baptist, Elijah, another of the prophets?  And Jesus said “What about you? Who do you say that I am?”  And Peter said “You are the Christ, Son of the Living God.”  So – what about us?  Who do we say Jesus is?  The days between the Confession of Peter and the Conversion of Paul (Jan 25) are traditionally the ecumenical Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  For a while communities would have noontime services in various churches, often with a bread and cheese lunch following. 

Jan 20  Fabian – no, not that one!  This Fabian was the bishop of Rome from 10 January 236 to his death on 20 January 250.  When Pope Anterus died and they were trying to choose a new pope, Fabian had come in from the countryside, but no one really thought anything about him.  While they were reading and considering names of various illustrious church leaders, suddenly a dove came down and landed on Fabian.  He was chosen by acclamation on the spot.  Apparently he ended up being martyred, so maybe it wasn’t that good a deal after all.

Jan 21  Agnes  Another one of the virgin martyrs.  She was a lovely young woman, but betrayed as a Christian when she refused to marry.  After several unsuccessful attempts to put her to death, she was finally beheaded, or stabbed, and died.

Jan 23  Phillips Brooks  (December 13, 1835 – January 23, 1893)  He was an American Episcopal clergyman and author, long the Rector of Boston's Trinity Church and briefly Bishop of Massachusetts.  He wrote something you know really well.  You can either look it up, or I will tell you next week!

And some days from the world/earth calendar -

(backspace if necessary, depending on when you are reading or hearing this) Jan 17

+ according to my Shakespeare a Day book, today was the day in 1604 that the Hampton Court Conference actually commissioned a new translation of the Bible, the Authorized Version (AV) aka, “The King James Version.”  Other sources just say it was during January, but it had to e one of the days, and like I say, my Shakespeare a Day book says it was Jan 17.  I just think it is fascinating that it was commissioned by Church of England leaders, translated by Church of England scholars, and indeed shaped to reflect and support Church of England practice and polity, and then it ended up for a time being a favorite version of American conservatives!  Life is just too cool.

Jan 18

+ 2021  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame reopens.  See below.

+ the first hockey association was formed in 1886, in England of all places????

+ A.A. Milne was born in 1882.  (Also in England!)  He died on Jan 31.  So in between now and then we are going to read Winnie the Pooh online.  At 8pm each night one person or family will read one chapter of the book.  If you would like to zoom-in and listen, here is the link -

Charlie West is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting any night this week -

Topic: Reading Winnie the Pooh

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87923371806?pwd=QnU5cERtMW00M2lYUmhobXQzUGMrdz09

Meeting ID: 879 2337 1806

Passcode: 973394

Jan 19

+ Scrabble was first marketed in North America.  I assume you can play Scrabble on line.  I guess if you don’t take too long you could play on Zoom!  You would all have to have your own set.  And caution – there is a “word builder” tool on the website – you put your letters in and it shows you all the possible words.  For example, I put in c,h,e,a,t and there were 41 possibilities.  Frankly, I’m not that good at scrambling letters – the puzzle in the paper each day – I can’t ever get it.

+ and birthdays – Robert E Lee (1807), Edgar Allen Poe (1809), Janis Joplin (1943), and Dolly Parton (1946).  (Huh.  I would not have guessed Janis was older than Dolly!)  So what would you do with all of that?  Read The Raven or Annabelle Lee?  Sing or listen to Me and Bobby McGee?  Watch the Ken Burns documentary on Country Music?  Quiz – which of these did not sing Me and Bobby McGee?  Kris Kristopherson, Roger Miller, The Highwaymen, Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon Jennings, The Grateful Dead, Gorden Lightfoot, Dolly Parton, or Johnny Cash?  (Trick question – they all did.  Along with me and you and a lot of other folks.)

Jan 20

+ the ACLU was founded to protect the Bill of Rights and ensure they are observed.  Sobering question of the day – how many of the 10 Rights can you name without Google?

+ It’s the birthday (1888) of Lead Belly (Huddie Leadbetter).  He did not sing Me and Bobby McGee, but he did sing Goodnight Irene, The Midnight Special, Cotton Fields, and The House of the Rising Sun.  Bob Dylan credits Lead Belly for getting him into Folk music. In his Nobel Prize Lecture, Dylan said "somebody – somebody I’d never seen before – handed me a Lead Belly record with the song 'Cotton Fields' on it. And that record changed my life right then and there. Transported me into a world I’d never known. It was like an explosion went off. Like I’d been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me. I must have played that record a hundred times.”  (Sounds almost like Paul on the Damascus Road!)  There was/is a movie.  Apparently it’s on Prime.

Jan 21

+ Vladimir Lenin died in 1924.  George Orwell in 1950.  W Paul Jones comments that Orwell made popular terms like Big Brother and doublespeak in which “lies” are simply “disinformation” and “evil” becomes “mistakes”.  Anything resonate there?  Jones goes on, “Lenin was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, who, in the minds of many betrayed the people’s dream, making real Orwell’s prophetic fears.”

Jan 22

+ The US Supreme Court handed down it’s decision in Roe vs Wade.  The matter was not exactly settled!

+ in 1943 the temperature went from -4F to +45F in two minutes in Spearfish SD.  

Jan 23

+ first class inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  It included among others, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Fats Domino, Robert Johnson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Jimmie Rodgers, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and – yes – Elvis.  In other words, the soundtrack of my (and your?) youth.

+ Edvard Munch died in 1944, Salvador Dali in 1989, two artists who seem to fit in these uncharted and troubling times.

Jan 24

+ The Apple Macintosh went on sale in 1984.  I went with Radio Shack instead.  How about you?

+ Thurgood Marshall, first African American Supreme Court justice died in 1993. Winston Churchill died in 1965. We could use both of their characters today.

Then kind of serendipitously, these two things came into my inbox on the same day this week so I thought I would pass them on -

Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep, and you weep alone;

For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;

Sigh, it is lost on the air;

The echoes bound to a joyful sound,

But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;

Grieve, and they turn and go;

They want full measure of all your pleasure,

But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;

Be sad, and you lose them all,—

There are none to decline your nectared wine,

But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;

Fast, and the world goes by.

Succeed and give, and it helps you live,

But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure

For a large and lordly train,

But one by one we must all file on

Through the narrow aisles of pain.

and

Frederick Buechner, talking about a time when his family’s life had pretty much fallen apart and his Grandmother (?) counsels them to just stick it out, to do the best they can – 

When it comes to putting broken lives back together—when it comes, in religious terms, to the saving of souls—the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best. To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do—to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst—is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own. Surely that is why, in Jesus' sad joke, the rich man has as hard a time getting into Paradise as that camel through the needle's eye because with his credit card in his pocket, the rich man is so effective at getting for himself everything he needs that he does not see that what he needs more than anything else in the world can be had only as a gift. He does not see that the one thing a clenched fist cannot do is accept, even from le bon Dieu himself, a helping hand.

Seems with all that musical stuff this week there should have been some connection to “People who need people….”

That’s what I got for now…

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Words 1.14

 Words Twice a Week           1.14

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

Some thoughts on the lessons for Sunday – that’s right, we’re hitting all four this week.

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

+ vs 7-12 are the parts of this psalm that I like best.  “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea…”  That just sings for me.

+ God knows us, and about us, from before our beginning to after our end.  Is this comforting or troubling?  The psalmist presents God as loving and caring, not threatening.

+ It can sound like this doesn’t leave much room for our own choice – one writer suggests this psalm is about God’s presence/participation (to use terms I’m big on – this could be a stewardship word!) in our lives and in all creation, more than about choice.  What do you think?

+ Preaching Through the Christian Year suggests this might be the response of someone who has been falsely accused of something.  I could maybe see that.  “As God is my witness….”

+ God has insight (vs 1-6), oversight (7-12), and foresight (13-18).  Nice.

+ the psalm is intensely personal – it has “I”, “me”, or “my” at least once in each verse.

+ vs13-18  like with Creation last week, God is/was intentional about each of us.  None of us are just random.  How do we think about this together with evolution?  Just how detailed, explicit is God’s intention for each of us?  How do you think/talk about that?

1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20)

+ another story where everything turns on the response of a youngster!  Note that Samuel is young, fresh, innocent; Eli is old, losing his sight (physical, figurative, spiritual?), tainted by his sons behavior.  

+ Elkanah had two wives (that introduces issues we don’t usually think about!), one with children, the other without.  Note that when Hannah does have one child, she gives him to God.  Is it harder or easier to give away an “only” item/child or “one of many”?  Note that Samuel is left behind when Hannah and Elkanah head home, kind of like Jesus stayed behind when his family went to the Temple.

+ it says the voice of God was rare, either directly or in dreams.  How do we think of God speaking today?  Is it rare or common?  Have you ever had the sense God was calling you, speaking to you?  If so, what was it like?

+ this from Frederick Buechner -

GOD SPEAKS TO us through our lives, we often too easily say. Something speaks anyway, spells out some sort of godly or godforsaken meaning to us through the alphabet of our years, but often it takes many years and many further spellings out before we start to glimpse, or think we do, a little of what that meaning is. Even then we glimpse it only dimly, like the first trace of dawn on the rim of night, and even then it is a meaning that we cannot fix and be sure of once and for all because it is always incarnate meaning and thus as alive and changing as we are ourselves alive and changing.

+ on the third time God calls Samuel, Eli finally realizes what is going on and coaches Samuel on what to do.

+ vs 11-20  God tells Samuel that “Eli’s line” will not continue.  Does God really punish?  It’s a big word for a little boy.

+ note that in the morning Eli does call Samuel – and asks what God said.  An awkward moment for Samuel.  Which encounter - God or Eli – would be more intimidating?

+ note that the end of Eli’s line marks the “delegitimation” of the primary priestly family symbol system on which Israel has relied.  Note how Eli responds.  How would we?  So an ending and a new beginning (with Samuel, who God does not let any of his words fall to the ground!)  

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

+ “Anything”, “Food”, “Sex” – Paul takes things (slogans) some of the folks at Corinth are saying, which they indeed may have learned from Paul himself, and “corrects” their understanding of them.  Are there slogans today – either religious or political – that get worked out or understood in different ways and sometimes cause problems?

+ some of the Corinthians came from the seamier side of life, but they have been “washed, sanctified, and justified”.  (How comfortable are we with that language?)  “You’ve been cleaned up”, Paul says, “now don’t get dirty again.”  How much do we feel we need to be washed, sanctified, justified?

+ the body and the spirit are intertwined – not set against each other, not unrelated.  How does this work out in your life?

+ one writer quotes Ernst Kasemann, (I read a couple of his books in seminary, but that was long, long ago!) saying that the body is the piece of the world which we are and for which we bear responsibility.  Eco-theologians like Thomas Berry would maybe suggest that our body is that piece of the world in which creation becomes self-aware and self-reflective.  Is this unique to humans?  Some would say “yes”, others “no”.

+ and finally, the corporate nature of Christian/human existence.  If one of us goes astray, all are hurt.  If one of us is kept from finding their full potential, we all suffer.  A good thing to keep in mind as we work to move forward as a country, as a people.  Yes, I have systemic racism in mind!  And various cultural, social, economic, political issues.

John 1:43-51  Jesus calls Philip, Philip brings Nathanael

+ Jesus goes to Galilee and “meets” Philip.  Just bumped into him?  Was looking for him? Bumped into a variety of others but it didn’t go anywhere?  Were you there?  Did Jesus bump into you?

+ Philip finds Nathanael – so not the Billy Graham scene from last week.  This is more like “Each one bring one”.

+ “Can anything good come from Nazareth” – speaking of slogans.  “Can anything good come from _____________?”  In your experience, how does that blank get filled in?  Republican/Democratic; Russia, China; the rich/the poor; indigenous/immigrant; white people/people of color?

+ Nathanael “wasn’t deceitful” – was on the spectrum?

+ in John, Jesus just knows things about people.  Like God knows us and about us.  Again, is that comforting? Intimidating?  

+ Jesus calls Philip, Philip “invites” Nathanael, but Jesus calls Nathanael into discipleship.  We might invite people to church, but they become disciples when they encounter Jesus.  How did that happen for you?  Is it something that we keep in mind?  Does it have to do with the “why” of the “what, how, why” that Marna has encouraged us to think about?

+ we have found “the one…”  How would we identify, describe Jesus to Nathanael?

+ the question in John is almost always about whether a person accepts Jesus or not. Nathanael clearly does.  Asnd Jesus says he will see angels going up and coming down, ie Jacob’s ladder.  Do we think of Jesus being Jacob’s ladder, or the place where Jacob’s ladder rests?  Is there a difference?

+ a little bit from Fred Craddock here -

  The biblical word central to the Season of Epiphany is “revelation”, for this is the time to celebrate the revealing of the Son of God.  But the companion word to revelation is “witness”, for revelation in the biblical sense is never open and obvious to everyone, interested or not, believer or not.  There is always a kind of radiant obscurity, a concealing that requires faith to grasp the revealing.  One is not permitted a controlled, managed, guaranteed, no-risk response to Jesus.  Those, therefore, who have beheld the glory become flesh cannot prove, but they can witness.

And -

  Let the preacher notice that witnessing invites, it does not argue or coerce, and certainly does not cartoon or discredit Nathanael’s initial doubt.  Faith sickens and dies in an atmosphere where doubt is laughed at.

And - 

  Those of us who regularly evaluate others by place of origin, residence, family, education, and station (to name a few!) should not find Nathanael’s response unusual.

And -

  Nathanael’s response seems too big for an individual...As “a true Israelite” perhaps he is meant to represent all of Israel?  (Craddock notes that Nathanael is not listed as a disciple in any of the Gospel or Acts lists.)

That’s what I got for now -

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