Here are the links for Sunday:
Here are the links for Sunday:
Note: This past Sunday Zoom got over loaded and crashed. Which is why many of you could not link in. Let's hope it improves this Sunday.
Readings:
Acts of the Apostles, 1, 12-14, All devoted themselves to prayer
Psalm 27, I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.
1 Peter 4, 13-16, Rejoice that you share in the sufferings of Christ.
John 17, 1-11, I pray for them.
ROMEOS, Friday, 1:00 as usual. Welcome!
ROMEOs' Virtual JasonsDeli BYOB lunch
This is a recurring meeting, Friday, 1:00 pm
Link :
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85798571623?pwd=NmFSTW1ocVMzRGdIc0QzUGxKdHM3dz09
Meeting ID: 857 9857 1623
Password: saladbar
What's happening in Ye Olde Catholic Church
Presentation to Jesuit grads: https://corpus-blog.blogspot.com/2020/05/dr-anthony-fauci-to-jesuit-grads-now-is.html
Priest in VA upsetting the cart: https://corpus-blog.blogspot.com/2020/05/catholic-bishop-suspends-priest-and.html
Remember…..
Rosemary's Blessing:
…and life is still a constant surprise to me. We never know what will happen next, what we will see, and what important person will come into our life, or what important person we will lose. Life is change, constant change, and unless we are lucky enough to find comedy in it, change is nearly always drama, if not tragedy. But after everything, and even when the skies turn scarlet and threatening, I still believe that if we are lucky enough to be alive, we must give thanks for the miracle of every moment of every day, no matter how flawed. And we must have faith in God, and in the Universe, and in a better tomorrow even if that faith is not always deserved.
Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan
Rosemary missed our celebration this morning because Aviana had gotten sick overnight and Rosemary took her to our vet. Both are okay now.
Thanks to the Team
Music, Shonda & Ben
Readers, Hue & Brent, Deacon Mike, & Buddy, the candle blessing
Eucharistic Prayer, John Cade
The Magic Zoom makers, Mike & Ben & Becky
Final Blessing, Rosemary
Community Finances, May 17, 2020
Expenses: $350.00
Outreach: $xxx (often for Souls Harbor, Legacy, etc.)
Thanks, Everybody. Your generosity is humbling.
I am both humbled and proud to announce that we put together two of our monthly contributions to Souls Harbor, i.e., $2000 & $1500, and donated them on the Giving Tuesday recently. Yes, the amount was matched. Thanks again, Everybody.
A Special Gift:
The Ask Dr. B. Good radio show can be located on 1160 am at 8 am Sundays. Why should you listen? Everyone needs to understand what is happening in public education, especially right now during COVID. Public education must become something different than what it’s been for the last 100 years. Stay up and stay tuned to what’s happening in public education!
Readings:
Acts of the Apostles, 8, 5-8, 14-17, They laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
Psalm 66, Let all earth cry out to God with joy. (Beautiful Psalm)
1 Peter 3, 15-18, Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.
John 14, 15-21, I will not leave you orphans.
Reading 1
A Reading from the Acts of the Apostles
Going down to Samaritan city, Philip proclaimed the Message of the Messiah. When the people heard what he had to say and saw the miracles, the clear signs of God’s action, they hung on his every word. Many who could neither stand nor walk were healed that day. The evil spirits protested loudly as they were sent on their way. And what joy in the city!
When the apostles in Jerusalem received the report that Samaria had accepted God’s Message, they sent Peter and John down to pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit. Up to this point they had been baptized in the name of the Master Jesus; the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on them. Then the apostles laid their hands on them, and they did receive the Holy Spirit.
Our word for today.
The cheese factory.
Reading 2
A Reading from the First Letter of Peter
Sisters and brothers: Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks, why you’re living the way you are, and always do it with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did: he went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.
Our word for today
The Lord be with you. A Reading from the Gospel of John
Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he will provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t even know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will be in you! I will not leave you orphaned. I’m coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me, because I am alive and you are about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
The Good News of John
Please Remember these special people:
For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular, locally, Cindy's staff at Presby, Dallas and at Frisco Presby, the mother of Harper and Betsy, Kendle, working in labor & delivery; ; For Frank having hernia surgery this week; For Joe Hogan with cancer, For Loretta's aunt Alicia; For Ryan, Rosemary's nephew, who had surgery; For Bill Hammond, For Sydney; & For Sir Charlie; Shonda's mom; For Gilberto: for Michelle; For a friend, a neighbor, & a doctor, Karen, with brain cancer; For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free.; For Hue; For John O'Donnell; For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health; For Anthony & Sabrina; For a young man who is suffering from depression; John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini;
Birthdays: Sr. Mary Troy, 87, Rick Froebe, Debbie Ekes
Here are the links for Sunday:
Kitaa, Greenland
Here are the links for Sunday:
Readings:
Acts of the Apostles, 8, 5-8, 14-17, They laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
Psalm 66, Let all earth cry out to God with joy. (Beautiful Psalm)
1 Peter 3, 15-18, Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.
John 14, 15-21, I will not leave you orphans.
Remember……
ROMEOS, Friday, 1:00 as usual. Welcome!
ROMEOs' Virtual JasonsDeli BYOB lunch
This is a recurring meeting, Friday, 1:00 pm
Link :
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85798571623?pwd=NmFSTW1ocVMzRGdIc0QzUGxKdHM3dz09
Meeting ID: 857 9857 1623
Password: saladbar
Rosemary's Blessing:
We bless these women who mean so much to us:
May wisdom be in your minds and in your thinking.
May wisdom be in your hearts and in your perceiving.
May wisdom be in your mouths and in your speaking.
May wisdom be in your hands and in your working.
May wisdom be in your feet and in your walking.
May wisdom be in your bodies and in your loving.
May wisdom be with you all your days ~ to continue to lead us and inspire us.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Taken from Mother’s Day, May 10, 2020, Sr. Jean Amore, CSJ, Principal, Sacred Heart Academy, Hempstead, New York
(Adapted from Saran Primer Benediction,1636)
Thanks to the Team
Music, Shonda & Ben
Readers, John & Connie, Deacon Mike, & Buddy, the candle blessing
Homily & Eucharistic Prayer, John Cade
The Magic Zoom makers, Mike & Ben & Becky
Mother's Day blessing & Final Blessing, Rosemary & John
Community Finances, May 10, 2020
Expenses: $3035.00
Outreach: $200.00 (often for Souls Harbor, Legacy, etc.)
Thanks, Everybody. Your generosity is humbling.
Readings
Acts of the Apostles, 6, 1-7, 6, 1-7, It is not right for us to serve at table.
Psalm 33, Lord, let your mercy be upon us, as we place our trust in you.
1 Peter , 2, 4-9, The stone the builders have rejected has become the cornerstone
John 14, 1-12, Do not let your hearts be troubled.
How the cheese is made…
Reading 1
A Reading from the Acts of the Apostles
During this time, as the disciples were increasing in numbers by leaps and bounds, hard feelings developed among the Greek-speaking believers—the “Hellenists”—toward the Hebrew-speaking believers, because their widows were being discriminated against in the daily food lines. So the Twelve called a meeting of the disciples. They said, “It wouldn’t be right for us to abandon our responsibilities for preaching and teaching the Word of God to help with the care of the poor. So, friends, choose seven men from among you whom everyone trusts, men full of the Holy Spirit and good sense, and we’ll assign them this task. Meanwhile, we’ll stick to our assigned tasks of prayer and speaking God’s Word.”
The congregation thought this was a great idea. They went ahead and chose—
Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit; Philip; Procorus; Nicanor; Timon; Parmenas; and Nicolas, a convert from Antioch.
Then they presented them to the apostles. Praying, the apostles laid on hands and commissioned them for their task. The Word of God prospered. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased dramatically. Not least, a great many priests submitted themselves to the faith.
Our word for today.
The cheese makers…
Reading 2
A Reading from the First Letter of Peter
Beloved: Welcome to the living Stone, the source of life. The workmen took one look and threw it out; God set it in the place of honor. Present yourselves as building stones for the construction of a sanctuary vibrant with life, in which you’ll serve as holy priests offering Christ-approved lives up to God. The Scriptures provide precedent:
Look! I’m setting a stone in Zion, a cornerstone in the place of honor. Whoever trusts in this stone as a foundation, will never have cause to regret it.
To you who trust him, he’s a Stone to be proud of, but to those who refuse to trust him,
The stone the workmen threw out is now the chief foundation, the cornerstone.
For the untrusting it’s
…a stone to trip over, a boulder blocking the way.
They trip and fall because they refuse to obey, just as predicted. But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do this work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.
Our word for today.
And more cheese!
The Lord be with you. A Reading from the Gospel of John
Jesus said to his disciples: “Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.” Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?” Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”
Philip said, “Master show us the Father; then we’ll be content.” “You’ve been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don’t understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can you ask, ‘Where is the Father?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you aren’t mere words. The Father makes each word a divine act.
“Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. And if you can’t believe that, believe what you see—the works that I do.”
The Good News of John
SPAM??? Not in this Community!
JEWISH LITURGICAL CALENDAR
Major Holy Days
Passover: Celebrates the beginning of the Jewish nation, when the Jews came out of Egypt and began to fulfill their national destiny. [April]
Shavuot: Celebrates Moses receiving the Torah from God on Mt. Sinai. Hebrew for Weeks – 7 Weeks after Passover. Also Pentecost – fifty days after Passover. [End of May or early June]
Rosh Hashanah: Celebrates end of time when Messiah inaugurates kingdom of God on earth. [Late September or early October]
Yom Kippur: Celebrates Day of Atonement, ten days after Rosh Hashanah, and together are called the High Holy Days. [Late September or early October]
Sukkoth: Harvest festival of Jewish year, a kind of Jewish Thanksgiving Day. This one is now overshadowed by bigger celebrations but, at time of Jesus a most anticipated and enjoyed holy day of Jewish year. [November]
Dedication-Hanukkah: Festival of ‘Light’, celebrating how the light of ‘true worship’ was restored to the Temple in 2nd century BCE. [December]
About three months after Dedication-Hanukkah, the Jews were back to the first month of their year (Nisan), and their liturgical cycle started all over again with Passover. The Jewish calendar should not surprise Christians who also follow an annual liturgical cycle of holy days, with the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost.
Please Remember these special people:
For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular, locally, Cindy's staff at Presby, Dallas and at Frisco Presby, the mother of Harper and Betsy, Kendle, working in labor & delivery; ; For Frank having hernia surgery this week; For Joe Hogan with cancer, For Loretta's aunt Alicia; For Ryan, Rosemary's nephew, who had surgery; For Bill Hammond, For Sydney; & For Sir Charlie; Shonda's mom; For Gilberto: for Michelle; For a friend, a neighbor, & a doctor, Karen, with brain cancer; For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free.; For Hue; For John O'Donnell; For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health; For Anthony & Sabrina; For a young man who is suffering from depression; John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini;
Birthdays: Barb Senter & Monica Froebe
Annicversary: Jessica Bresson & Steve (8th)
The Gospel of Matthew and the Jewish Synagogue—Talk Seven
Take a deep breath; this is my final talk on the Gospel of Matthew and the Jewish Synagogue. We have walked through the gospel of Matthew, discovering that it was written as a liturgical document, created in and for the Jewish synagogue. We have seen how Matthew told the Jesus story against the background of the liturgical year of the synagogue.
We started with Passover, the first festival on the Jewish liturgical calendar, when Jews celebrated the birth of the Jewish nation.
Next came Shavuot or Pentecost. In this celebration the Jews remembered the giving of the law by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The major event of being In a covenant relationship with God was the moment they believed that these former slaves of Egypt had been given by God the law of God, known as the Torah. The giving of the Law or Torah, beginning with the Ten Commandments, was when Moses received it and read it to the people, and they agreed to be governed by these laws. Once each year the Jewish people renewed the Sinai covenant in the form of a twenty-four hour vigil, divided into eight three-hour segments. That is how liturgy functions. Psalm 119 was written for this occasion, a hymn to the beauty and wonder of the Law. Matthew presented Jesus as the new Moses, standing on a new mountain, giving the people a new interpretation of the Law. That new interpretation of the Law was the “Sermon on the Mount.” The prophet Isaiah wrote that people would know the kingdom of God was arriving, when they saw the blind receiving sight, the deaf being able to hear, the lame receiving the ability to walk and leap, and the mute being able to speak and sing. For Shavuot Matthew related stories of Jesus accomplishing each of these signs.
Next was Rosh Hashanah. Matthew brings back John the Baptist, as the stand-in for the prophet Elijah who was to prepare the way for the messiah. Like Elijah, John the Baptist was clothed in camel hair with a leather girdle around his waist. Like Elijah he was located in the wilderness and ate a wilderness diet of locusts and honey. The John the Baptist we meet here was not the one of history; here he is the new Elijah, preparing the way for the messiah.
Next was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The word “atonement” first appeared in the book of Exodus, when Moses went up Mt. Sinai to receive from God the Law of Torah, beginning with the Ten Commandments. Moses came down with two tablets of stone and found the people worshipping a golden calf they had created. Moses exploded in anger and smashed the stone tablets. When God wanted to annihilate the entire nation and start over with the descendants of Moses, Moses said, “I will go to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for you.” Atonement here was about forgiveness, being given a second chance, God being willing to carve into stone the Ten Commandments a second time. This meaning came to be the one used in the liturgy of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. For one long 24-hour day the people were to meditate on their sinfulness, before their forgiving God. The source of their sin was not “original sin”, which they had never heard of. Their sin was in the experience of comparing the person each individual knew themselves to be, with the person they believed they had the capability of being.
They believed they were created in God’s image. They were meant to share in God’s perfection and, clearly, failed in that purpose. The point in Yom Kippur, is that the status of being unclean, of being a sinner, fades away before the divine presence. We can no longer call unclean anything that God has made, nor see any person loved by God as having no worth. I added a section on how Christianity misunderstood the meaning of Yom Kippur and “atonement”, how we invented a fall from an “original sin” and required atonement through the sacrifice of Jesus. This “atonement theology”, it turns out, is not the pathway to life; the ability to give ourselves to others, in love, is.
Modern Christianity, strongly influenced by St. Augustine in the fourth century, has been built on a sense of human alienation from God. Augustine’s misunderstanding of the first two chapters of Genesis helped to forge atonement theology. We were perfect (Gen: 1). We disobeyed God and henceforth were estranged from God with Adam’s “original sin” (Gen: 2). By the end of the fourth century CE, Christianity was a legal religion in the Roman Empire. The great majority of the world’s Christians no longer understood or cared about the original Jewish worldview in which the Biblical stories had been created. They were Greek-speaking Gentiles, not Hebrew-speaking mythmakers. They saw the world not as a unity, but as a duality. Good was separated from evil. God was separate from the world. We humans were alienated from God, needing saving.
Substitutionary atonement, Jesus standing in for us, had become the cornerstone of Christian theology, and would remain so through the centuries, until this very day. Atonement theology assumes that we were created in some kind of original perfection and fell from that state. We now know that life emerged from a single cell that evolved into self-consciousness over billions of years. There was no original perfection; so, no fall from perfection. The idea of a God who, in order to forgive, requires a human sacrifice and blood offering, doesn’t hold up. And who would want to worship such a God? If the father God has to kill the divine son on the cross, as atonement theology constantly implies, does that make God the ultimate child abuser?
Our liturgy and hymns assume the definition of human life as “fallen.” Our liturgy tells us we are not worthy to “gather the crumbs” from underneath the Lord’s table. What we need is to discover a meaning in life that is so powerful that it enables us to give our lives away to others. We need to be loved just as we are, and thus be called beyond our boundaries into being all that we are capable of being. Atonement theology is not the pathway to life. The ability to give ourselves to others, in love, is.
Next was Sukkoth, the harvest festival. Matthew used a series of harvest parables, e.g., the parable of the sower who sowed seed on four different kinds of soil; and the parable of the wheat and the weeds that grow together until the harvest. For Matthew the end of the harvest had become the end of the world, and judgment was the theme.
Between Sukkoth and Dedication he told his two stories of the miraculous feedings of the multitude, which were two Eucharistic stories, not literal miracles. In between the feeding stories was the account of Jesus walking on the water. Both were new Moses stories. Feeding the multitudes: then, Moses providing manna in the desert—now, Jesus feeding as Eucharist. Exercising power over water: then, Moses holding back the Red Sea—now, a Jesus walking on water. These are not history, but Jesus stories as the new Moses.
Next is Dedication, better known as Hanukkah. In it, the Jews celebrated the return of the light of true worship to the Temple. Here Matthew placed the story of Jesus’ transfiguration, in which the light of God, the “shekinah”, was bestowed upon Jesus, not the Temple. Matthew, who was seeking to transform Judaism from being a religion of one people into being a universal religion for all people, suggested that Jesus was himself the new Temple, the new place in which divine and human came together. With that celebration, the yearly cycle of Sabbath liturgies begin ended and would start all over again.
Matthew used Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 to provide details for the twenty-four hour vigil from sundown on what we call Holy Thursday and sundown on what we call Good Friday. We saw how the passion narrative was not the report of eyewitness observers, for there were none (except some women who “watched on from afar”). Like many who recently suffered with Covid19, Jesus died alone. The passion and crucifixion was a carefully planned and orchestrated liturgical vigil with each of the eight three-hour watches of the twenty-four-hour day marked with details of the passion narrative.
The gospel of Matthew is not about God, understood as an external being invading the world to rescue “fallen” human beings, lost in sin. The Good News of Matthew’s gospel is of human beings discovering the divine that is always in our midst.
Matthew’s Jesus walks through every observance of the Jewish liturgical year, opening all of them to their universal meaning. The law of God embraces all people at Shavuot. The kingdom of God comes to all people at Rosh Hashanah. Atonement and a second chance are available to all people at Yom Kippur. The good harvest that will accompany the Day of Judgment will be universal at Sukkoth. The light of God will fall not just upon the Temple, but upon Jesus, the life in whom God can be seen, the life that invites us all to “come unto him”. It is “all of you”, not some of you, to whom the invitation is given. And, in the crucifixion and resurrection part of Matthew’s story, the barrier, that once made death seem like the ultimate human boundary, is broken open, because it is in the freedom to give one’s life away in love to another that death is transformed.
In Matthew’s last chapter (Ch. 28), the disciples have climbed the mountain in Galilee. Jesus has come out of the sky transformed—to speak to them. We have called the words he speaks the “Great Commission.” We have traditionally interpreted these words of Jesus as a missionary charge to go convert the heathen. Remember the “Crusades”; remember the missionaries to North and South America and around the globe. That mis-interpretation flies in the face of everything Matthew has tried to communicate.
In Matthew the risen Jesus says: Go to all nations, go to those you have judged as inadequate, go to the uncircumcised, the unclean, the unsaved, the unbaptized, and the different. Go to those who threaten you. Embrace them as part of the human family. Accept them as fellow pilgrims walking into the mystery of God. Proclaim to them the good news of God’s unconditional love, that embraces us all. Allow your fears to melt away; and with those fears gone, bid farewell to your insecurities, your prejudices, your boundaries. The human community has room for all. There are no outcasts from the love of God. That is what the Great Commission means.
The final promise of Matthew’s glorified Christ, on that mountain in Galilee, is simply a translation of the word “Emanuel”. Matthew began his Jesus story with the angel telling Joseph that this child about to be born would be called “Emmanuel,” which, he said, means “God with us.” Matthew ends his gospel with Jesus, once and for all, making the Emanuel claim: “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the ages.” (Matt. 28:20)
It comes down to this: Matthew is saying that extending your awareness of the presence of the holy in everyday life is what being the messiah means. That is what the Christ symbol in his gospel is all about. That is what the life of Jesus means. Matthew has painted a portrait of Jesus, who is so at one with God that he is beyond every sectarian boundary that religious people have ever tried to impose on him; he is the revealer of that life for which all finite and mortal people yearn. That is why the Christian story is meant to be a universal story. Matthew said it. Can we get it?
Shalom!
Here are the links for Sunday:
Link to our community Mass on Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7428208829?pwd=VERncTBxaWdkaFpkTUZKL3RROW81UT09
Readings:
Acts of the Apostles, 6, 1-7, It is not right for us to serve at table.
Psalm 33, Lord, have mercy upon us as we place our trust in you.
1 Peter 2, 4-9, The stone rejected by the builders has become the building stone.
John 14, 1-12, Thomas said,Wed do not know where you are going.
Where is Everybody?
Please have the attached copy of “Jewish Liturgical Calendar” handy this Sunday, as John will refer to it in homily.
JEWISH LITURGICAL CALENDAR
Major Holy Days
Passover: Celebrates the beginning of the Jewish nation, when the Jews came out of Egypt and began to fulfill their national destiny. [April]
Shavuot: Celebrates Moses receiving the Torah from God on Mt. Sinai. Hebrew for Weeks – 7 Weeks after Passover. Also Pentecost – fifty days after Passover. [End of May or early June]
Rosh Hashanah: Celebrates end of time when Messiah inaugurates kingdom of God on earth. [Late September or early October]
Yom Kippur: Celebrates Day of Atonement, ten days after Rosh Hashanah, and together are called the High Holy Days. [Late September or early October]
Sukkoth: Harvest festival of Jewish year, a kind of Jewish Thanksgiving Day. This one is now overshadowed by bigger celebrations but, at time of Jesus a most anticipated and enjoyed holy day of Jewish year. [November]
Dedication-Hanukkah: Festival of ‘Light’, celebrating how the light of ‘true worship’ was restored to the Temple in 2nd century BCE. [December]
About three months after Dedication-Hanukkah, the Jews were back to the first month of their year (Nisan), and their liturgical cycle started all over again with Passover. The Jewish calendar should not surprise Christians who also follow an annual liturgical cycle of holy days, with the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost.
Please Remember these special people:
For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular locally, Cindy's staff at Presby; For John & Connnie's good froend, Bob, who just died of cancer & his grieving wife, Judy; For Joe Hogan with cancer, For Loretta's aunt Alicia; For Bill Hammond, For Sydney & her dear Husband, Hugh, who just moved to the Other Side, & For Sir Charlie recuperating from surgery; Shonda's mom; For Gilberto recuperating from his gall bladder operation: for Michelle; For a friend, a neighbor, & a doctor, Karen, with brain cancer; For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free.; For Hue; For John O'Donnell; For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health; For Anthony & Sabrina; For a young man who is suffering from depression; John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini;
Tom and Teresa Quinn's niece, Chawna, with cancer, their granddaughter, Mikayla; plus Neva Flynn, Angel, and Diane Kreeitzer; Connie Doherty's mom and her sister, plus Kevin's cousin, Peter; For a number of David McKeon's family who are having a rough time with health issues, especially Mark Terain; for our friends, sons, and daughters in the military, including Ryan McClurg and Chebino; cure for autism from Laura Chollick; for our President.
Remembering.….
Thanks to the Team
Music, Shonda & Ben
Readers, Sandra, Mary Hall, Deacon Mike, & Buddy, the candle blessing
Homily & Eucharistic Prayer, John Cade
The Magic Zoom makers, Mike & Becky & Ben
The Final Blessing & sharers of Vows, Rosemary & John
Readings:
Acts of the Apostles, 2, 14, 36-41, Then Peter stood up and proclaimed.
Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want (a good one)
1 Peter , 2, 2-25, To this you have been called.
John 10, 1-10, Whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate….
The Brain Center
Reading 1
A Reading from the Acts of the Apostles
Peter stood up and, backed by the other eleven, spoke out: “All Israel, know this: There’s no longer room for doubt—God made him Master and Messiah, this Jesus whom you killed on a cross.”
Cut to the quick, those who were there listening asked Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers! Brothers! So now what do we do?”
Peter said, “Change your life. Turn to God and be baptized each of you, in the name of Jesus the Christ, so your sins are forgiven. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is targeted to you and your children, but also to all who are far away—whomever, in fact, our God invites.” He went on in this vein for a long time, urging them over and over, “Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture!”
That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up. They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.
Our word for today.
Brain Center??
Reading 2
A Reading from the First Letter of Peter
My sisters and brothers: If you’re treated badly for good behavior and continue in spite of it to be a good servant, that is what counts with God.
This is the kind of life you’ve been invited into, the kind of life Jesus lived. He suffered everything that came his way, so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step-by-step.
He never did one thing wrong,
Not once said anything amiss.
They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right. He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross, so we could be rid of sin—free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing.
You were lost sheep with no idea who you were or where you were going. Now you’re named and kept for good by the Shepherd of your souls.
Our word for today.
The Lord be with you. A Reading from the Gospel of John
Jesus said to his followers: “Let me set this before you as plainly as I can. If a person climbs over or through the fence of a sheep pen, instead of going through the gate, you know he’s up to no good—a sheep rustler! The shepherd walks right up to the gate, the gatekeeper opens the gate to him, and the sheep recognize his voice. He calls his sheep by name and leads them out. The sheep follow, because they are familiar with his voice. They won’t follow a stranger’s voice, but will scatter because they aren’t used to it.”
Jesus told that simple story, but his listeners had no idea what he was talking about. So, he tried again. “Listen. I’ll be explicit. I am the Gate for the sheep. All those others are up to no good—they’re sheep stealers. I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life—more of it, and better than they ever dreamed of.
The Good News of John
Birthdays this week, Cole, 11; Patricia, 74; Ron Senter, Warren Philip Wittek, 5
Anniversaries:
Bill & Patty Hammond, 52nd
Joe & Marsha Farmer, 36th
Stack & Rosemary, 15th
Please Remember these special people:
For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular locally, Cindy's staff at Presby; For John & Connnie's good froends, Bob with cancer & his wife, Judy; For Joe Hogan with cancer, For Loretta's aunt Alicia; For Ryan, Rosemary's nephew, who had surgery; For Bill Hammond, For Sydney & her dear Husband, Hugh, who just moved to the Other Side, & For Sir Charlie recuperating from surgery; Shonda's mom; For Gilberto recuperating from his gall bladder operation: for Michelle; For a friend, a neighbor, & a doctor, Karen, with brain cancer; For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free.; For Hue; For John O'Donnell; For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health; For Anthony & Sabrina; For a young man who is suffering from depression; John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini;
Alexa for Geezers:
John Cade's Homily on Matthew
The Gospel of Matthew and the Jewish Synagogue—Talk Six
For Matthew the Easter moment is the climax of his story, God’s ultimate revelation.
Before we consider the many contradictions in the Biblical accounts of the resurrection, let’s see where there’s agreement. They all say that the Easter experience forced them to see Jesus with a radically new understanding. Whatever Easter was, its effects on those who live in time and space were real, even measurable. E.g., the behavior of the disciples was changed: Those, who at the moment of Jesus’ arrest had forsaken him and run off, suddenly demonstrated major courage. They showed a willingness to go anywhere and do anything that would support the reality they had come to know. Also, following their Easter experience the disciples found they had to alter their understanding of God. The concept of the oneness of God, so central to Judaism, had to be stretched to the place where Jesus could be included in that God definition.
[In the New Testament, Paul was the first to speak of this when he said that somehow the reality of God had been met and engaged in the life of this Jesus (2 Cor. 5:19). He and others began to try to explain how it had happened that “God was in Christ.” Paul says that, whatever Easter was, God had somehow brought Jesus into the very meaning of God (Rom. 1:1-4). Next, Mark suggested that at Jesus’ baptism, God had infused the human Jesus with the divine presence and reality. Then Matthew, and soon after, Luke, suggested that God had entered Jesus at the moment of conception (Matt. 1, 2 & Luke 1, 2). Finally, John, the last gospel, suggested that there never was a moment in time or in history when Jesus was not part of the reality we call God.]
The New Testament is clear about the nature of the Christ experience being some kind of God experience, one that is transcendent. This raises a question: Can an experience be real if the explanations of that experience are inconsistent and divergent? Spong certainly thinks so, and explains it as a human language issue. There is no “objective language” or “God language.” We have to talk about our experiences of God in human language. And every word human beings speak is a subjectively understood symbol.
There is agreement in the New Testament about the reality of the Easter experience, but there’s a wide divergence in explaining that reality. The New Testament provides us with five story themes that put the Easter experience into words. There is little consistency in them.
1st Example: Paul knows nothing about the burial tradition with Joseph of Arimathea. The Joseph character is not introduced until Mark’s gospel. Mark calls Joseph a “ruler of the Jews” (Mark 15:43). Matthew calls him “a rich man” (Matt. 27:57). Luke calls him “a good and righteous man” (Luke 23:51). John calls him “a disciple of Jesus” and adds that together Joseph and Nicodemus performed the burial, and made the burial quite elaborate with “about a hundred pounds” of “myrrh and aloes” (John 17: 38-40).
2nd Example: Paul has no story of a tomb, so no one visits or finds it empty. The women coming to the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week enters tradition in Mark, though there’s no agreement about who they were, except for Mary Magdalene. Mark names Salome (Mark 19:1); then Matthew, writing with the Mark Gospel right in front of him, omits Salome (Matt. 28:1). Luke adds Joanna and “some other women” unnamed (Luke 24:10). John insists Mary Magdalene was alone (John 20:1). And did the women see Jesus at or near the tomb? Mark says no. Matthew says yes. Luke says no. John says yes; but only Mary Magdalene and only on her second visit. Of course, these inconsistencies are a literalist’s nightmare.
3rd Example: Where were the disciples when they experienced all this? Paul gives no place or setting for his list of those the Christ appeared to. Mark has a “messenger” (an angel) simply announce the resurrection and has the women tell the disciples to go to Galilee and “there you will see him.” However, Mark never describes that appearance (Mark 16:8). Matthew says it was in Galilee that the disciples saw Jesus, and he describes it in detail (Matt. 28:16-20). Luke says that appearances of the raised Christ were never seen in Galilee by anyone, only in or near Jerusalem (Luke 24). Luke adds that Jesus’ appearances continued “for forty days” and then came to an abrupt end. John says the original appearance of the resurrected Jesus to the disciples was in Jerusalem the evening of the first Easter in an upper room. He also says this experience was repeated in almost identical form eight days later (John 20:19-29). John’ also says there was another Easter experience in Galilee, but much later.
4th Example: Who was the first to “see” the resurrected Jesus? Paul says it was Peter. Mark never has the raised Christ appear to anyone. Matthew says it was the women at the tomb. Luke says it was Cleopas and his companion in the village of Emmaus. John says it was Mary Magdalene alone.
5th Example: Was the resurrection physical? Paul seems to say no. He says that “what is raised is imperishable” suggesting something that is no longer subject to death and decay (1 Cor. 15:42). He adds “it is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body” (1Cor. 15:44). Also in Paul Jesus does not rise; he is raised. So who or what raised him? Into what was he raised? Paul writes: “It is Christ Jesus who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God (1 Rom. 8:34). The implication is that Jesus was raised not back into the life of this world, but to the right hand of God.
There are three stories in the Hebrew scriptures of people being raised into God that could have supplied Paul with the image of resurrection that he appears to hold—a resurrection that is “real”, but not physical?
First, Enoch, known as the father of Methuselah and grand-father of Noah, was introduced with a line in the Book of Genesis: “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, because God took him” (Gen. 5:24).
[Interest in Enoch led to the Book of Enoch, written about a hundred years BCE. It became listed as an Apocryphal O.T. book (so not in the Catholic Bible). It was lost in the late 4th century and re-discovered in Ethiopia in the 18th century. Enoch’s story included the part that, as a reward for “walking with God” on this earth, he was said to have escaped death to live in the presence of God.]
Second, there is Moses, to the Jews God’s greatest prophet. In Deuteronomy it says only God was present with Moses when he died. (Deut. 34:5, 6). A common story was that Moses didn’t really die, but rather God raised him into the life of God.
And third, Elijah; it was said he was raised from life on earth to life in God. His story was quite dramatic. He was transported into the presence of God by a magical fiery chariot, drawn by magical fiery horses (2 Kings 2).
These three O.T. resurrection stories would be well known by Paul, and by Matthew, since they were part of the Law of the Torah, the scripture scrolls read in the Synagogue in their entirety, each and every year. Any one of these, or all three, could have shaped how the resurrection of Jesus was understood in a Jewish context.
On the other hand, we also can see the resurrection story evolving and becoming more and more physical. Mark never has the raised Christ appear to anyone; in his story the women fled in fear and said nothing to anyone. Matthew, contrary to Mark, his source, has the women grasp the risen Christ, taking “hold of his feet”. This is the first hint in the Easter narratives that ‘resurrection’ was beginning to be viewed as the physical resurrection of a deceased body. Of course, by the time this physical aspect of resurrection appeared, it was already the ninth decade, about year 82 CE, 52 years after Jesus’ death.
Luke is the gospel author who does the most to transform ‘resurrection’ into something understood as physical resuscitation. The raised Jesus can walk, talk, and eat, all physical accomplishments. And Luke has the story of the appearance of Jesus to Cleopas and his travel companion. Jesus suddenly, out of nowhere, began to walk with them, unrecognized. At the end of the story “he vanished out of their sight” (Luke 24:29). He just de-materialized! So even in the physical understanding of resurrection in Luke’s story, there was a mysterious non-physical reality.
The resurrection narratives are contradictory and confusing, but all of them were written out of the conviction that the boundary between God and the human, between heaven and earth, between life and death, had been broken in the life of this Jesus. The early followers of Jesus had tried to use words to explain what was beyond words. Their stories were later literalized in Christian history so much that ‘resurrection’ came to be seen as a literal, objective miraculous event. Claims were made that violate everything we know about how the world operates and how death functions.
A body deceased for three days came back to life. A heart that had not beaten from Friday till Sunday started to beat again. Brain cells, deprived of oxygen for at least thirty-six hours, were restored to fully functioning health. Flesh that had already begun to smell of decay, was rehabilitated. The natural world was turned upside down by the invasion of the supernatural world. Literalism produces disturbing, irrational narratives.
It’s no wonder why Christianity, presented in literalistic terms seems to more and more people in the modern world to be unbelievable! Can the resurrection of Jesus be real and yet the explanations of the resurrection be nothing more than mythical language? Should mythical language ever be literally understood? Our answers to those questions may actually determine the future of the Christianity itself.
Next week, the final chapter—a pulling together of how the Matthew Gospel was written as a liturgical document; how it was told against the background of the liturgical year of the Jewish synagogue; and how Matthew wrote it as an interpretation of the teaching and the meaning of Jesus himself.
Community Finances, May 3, 2020
Expenses: $1835.00
Outreach: $2350.00 (often Souls Harbor, Legacy, etc.)
4/28/20 we donated $1500 to Souls Harbor via N.T. Giving Day (the amount was matched that day)
5/3/20 we also donated $2000 to Souls Harbor because of a generous contribution via B.T. Giving Day (also a matched amount)
This is our best week of income in a couple of months. Very humbling. Thanks, Everybody.
Here are the links for Sunday:
