• our treatment of every human being is:

The Adult Christian Formation Opportunity at Christ Episcopal Church Matagorda has prioritized the bullets from the Bishop’s list and we are working through them one at a time as a part of our exercises to be better able to share the faith.

The group chose 1^st : “• our treatment of every human being is:”

Try for yourself--

Complete the following:

(extra credit for short answers using only terms a seeker would understand in their ordinary every-day sense.)

"This unique Episcopal witness is articulated through the words of our Baptismal Covenant:"

• our treatment of every human being is:

The reference materials consulted were:

Celebrant Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

People I will, with God’s help. BCP 294

Second Sunday after Christmas Day

O God, who didst wonderfully create, and yet more wonderfully restore, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, thy Son Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. BCP 162

Human Nature

Q. What are we by nature?

A. We are part of God’s creation, made in the image of God.

Q. What does it mean to be created in the image of God?

A. It means that we are free to make choices: to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God.

Q. Why then do we live apart from God and out of harmony with creation?

A. From the beginning, human beings have misused their freedom and made wrong choices. BCP 845

In the end the group found “dignity” to be too much a church-speak-usage to be of help with seekers.

The consensus is that, in common usage “dignity” is:

·        Most often associated with pride and with taking offense.

·        Considered something that people “have” or “loose” which is inconsistent with our view of humanity.

·        Is a self-possessed characteristic “my dignity” not a grace given from God.

Instead we chose “design” as a better phrasing for the world at large.

Will you … respect the design of every human being?

Weather in a ditch or in a palace, each person is designed by God for good and glory.

You can find someone in a ditch, or in misery - even self chosen misery, and leaving them there tell yourself (in the common sense use) that you are respecting the dignity of their choices.

You cannot give yourself the same false comfort (as easily) if you try to say “God designed all humans to live in ditches, or in misery, or in sin.”

So our answer was:

• our treatment of every human being is:

We respect every person as being designed by God for good and for glory. Our call is to help each other live into our design.

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The Search for Common Prayer #2

The ministers receive the Sacrament in both kinds, and then immediately deliver it to the people. 

BCP 338 & 365


I recently read a post on another list (HOBD) where a Priest described their intentional reversal of this rubric (receiving last after everyone else) as "a sign of servant leadership" I do not believe they were trying to be ironic.

I don't want to get off on a rant here, but:


1. Doesn't a good servant obey the rubrics?


2. The tradition, as understand, it was that the lowliest servant tasted the dish first, so that the least valuable slave was the one poisoned. 
eg. King's Food Taster wanted - lifetime employment assured.


3. In Church precedence the ranking person goes last, at least that is what I tell the Bishop when I walk in front of him.


4. How do I, with integrity, tell the people "This is the Body, this is the Blood" if I haven't received the truth of it in my own mouth?


5. How is my reception at the last liturgically differentiated from the reverent consumption of the remains of Our Lord in the ablutions BCP 409?


So again addressing +Andy's first bullet, 
• our particular manner of Sacramental ministry is:


Defiant of the rubrics? 
Our own damn business? 
Whatever innovation takes our whim?
Confused?
??


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The search for Common Prayer #1

Q.     What is required of us when we come to the Eucharist?

A.     It is required that we should examine our lives, repent of our sins, and be in love and charity with all people. BCP 860

Confession of Sin

A Confession of Sin is said here if it has not been said earlier. On

occasion, the Confession may be omitted. BCP 359

What is the boundary established by this rubric?

On Sunday last I visited a lovely church, in another diocese. The music was lovely, the people friendly, and the worship space was perhaps the best example of built-for-PowerPoint I have ever seen.

This was the principal Sunday service, they had a 8:00 RI and this RII at 10:30.

The theme was Stewardship. The hangings were green and the proper of the day was read, not the All Saints readings. They were one Sunday short of turning in their pledge cards, the sermon included 2 lay witnesses, and the Litany of Thanksgiving was used as the Prayers of the People.

There was no Confession or Absolution. 

I know some clergy for whom "On Occasion" means a guild or class Eucharist, but never at a principal Sunday service, that is pretty much my own position. I know others who omit the Confession in every white season.

Since the first bullet in the Bishops list is:

• our particular manner of Sacramental ministry

With regard to Confession, what is our particular manner?

Metal-coated glass mirrors are said to have been invented in Sidon (modern-day Lebanon) in the first century AD

The first mirrors used by people were most likely pools of dark, still water, or water collected in a primitive vessel of some sort. The earliest manufactured mirrors were pieces of polished stone such as obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass. Examples of obsidian mirrors found in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) have been dated to around 6000 BC. Polished stone mirrors from central and south America date from around 2000 BC onwards.^[1] Mirrors of polished copper were crafted in Mesopotamia from 4000 BC,^[1] and in ancient Egypt from around 3000 BC.^[2] In China, bronze mirrors were manufactured from around 2000 BC,^[3]some of the earliest bronze and copper examples being produced by the Qijia culture. Mirrors made of other metal mixtures (alloys) such as copper and tin speculum metal may have also been produced in China and India.^[4] Mirrors of speculum metal or any precious metal were hard to produce and were only owned by the wealthy.^[5]

Metal-coated glass mirrors are said to have been invented in Sidon (modern-day Lebanon) in the first century AD,^[6] and glass mirrors backed with gold leaf are mentioned by the Roman author Pliny in hisNatural History, written in about 77 AD.^[7] The Romans also developed a technique for creating crude mirrors by coating blown glass with molten lead.^[8]

Parabolic mirrors were described and studied in classical antiquity by the mathematician Diocles in his work On Burning Mirrors.^[9] Ptolemy conducted a number of experiments with curved polished iron mirrors,^[10] and discussed plane, convex spherical, and concave spherical mirrors in his Optics.^[11] Parabolic mirrors were also described by the physicist Ibn Sahl in the 10th century,^[12] and Ibn al-Haytham discussed concave and convex mirrors in both cylindrical and spherical geometries,^[13] carried out a number of experiments with mirrors, and solved the problem of finding the point on a convex mirror at which a ray coming from one point is reflected to another point.^[14] By the 11th century, clear glass mirrors were being produced in Moorish Spain.^[15]

Some time during the early Renaissance, European manufacturers perfected a superior method of coating glass with a tin-mercury amalgam. The exact date and location of the discovery is unknown, but in the 16th century, Venice, a city famed for its glass-making expertise, became a centre of mirror production using this new technique. Glass mirrors from this period were extremely expensive luxuries.^[16] The Saint-Gobainfactory, founded by royal initiative in France, was an important manufacturer, and Bohemian and German glass, often rather cheaper, was also important.

The invention of the silvered-glass mirror is credited to German chemist Justus von Liebig in 1835.^[17] His process involved the deposition of a thin layer of metallic silver onto glass through the chemical reduction of silver nitrate. This silvering process was adapted for mass manufacturing and led to the greater availability of affordable mirrors. Nowadays, mirrors are often produced by the vacuum deposition ofaluminium (or sometimes silver) directly onto the glass substrate.

But I am a Man of Unclean Lips

This week was a little crazy for me. I was in Phoenix, AZ for a board meeting of The Episcopal Network for Stewardship (TENS) and had some great difficulty trying to update the blog with the readings for this Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010. It seems that I am an UNworthy blog technician. After updating my webbrowser to the latest edition for internet security, I seem to have locked myself out of the easy "cut and paste" to post the week's lectionary texts. After a personal post-meeting journey for a spiritual adventure to the Grand Canyon (more on the trip later), a bout with a stomach virus which rendered me worthLESS for a couple of days, and a marathon tour de force with Bishop High for a triple dedication evening and all-day regional workshop for Altar Guild and Worship Ministers, here am I on Saturday night at 9:00pm.

The call naratives of Isaiah and Peter (in Luke ch. 5), as well as, Paul expressing his feelings of inadequacy in his call give me comfort in this time of shortcoming. Grace abounds! And isn't that really a big part of what these three texts have in common?

In the presence of God, Isaiah confesses that he would be better off with a bar of soap in his mouth along with all those in his community. Yet, he is the one that God calls, and he is the one that God cleanses and equips for this ministry to God's people. Grace.

Peter, the fisherman, questions Jesus' advice about casting the net after Peter has come up empty all night. But Peter is humbled by the straining nets found in the presence of Jesus and he falls to his knees acknowledging his lack of worthiness even to be near Jesus. But he is the one Jesus calls, and Peter is the one Jesus equips to "feed his sheep". Grace.

Paul, writing to the Corinthian church, tells of his own apostleship and reveals his own struggle accepting that Jesus would call him to be an apostle, after all he was the "chief of all sinners" as a persecutor of the Church. Yet, Paul is the one Jesus calls; and Paul is the one who Jesus blinded and then is given new sight in the light of the Resurrected Christ. Paul is the one Jesus equips to be the evangelist to the Gentiles. Grace.

I was overwhelmed in awe at the works of God's hands as I stood on the ledge of the Grand Canyon and peered into the depth of the palette of colors displayed before me. Who are we that God would share such splendor? I was speechless. I had no words to describe what I was feeling, seeing or experiencing in the marrow of my soul. But one thing I know for sure I did not feel worthy to be blessed with such a gift. But the reality is that God blesses us anyway, whether we are worthy or not. Most of us struggle, at least if we are honest with our own brokenness, with the fact that Jesus has called us to be his ministers.

Jesus calls all the baptized into this blessed life; we are the ones called to preach the Good News to those who are far off and those who are near. And Jesus equips us to push away from the comfort and safety of our personal shores into the deep water of the world to cast a net for God's Kingdom.

We don't all (and MOST of us don't) have a call narrative like Isaiah, Paul, or Peter; but we do have a call, nonetheless. For most of us that just means we need to get in the boat and push away form the shore of self-doubt; Jesus will equip us with what we need for the day's catch for the kingdom. As for me, I am a man of unclean lips and chief among sinners; but thanks be to God, Grace abounds!

The Rev. P. Lance Ousley+

There's No Place Like Home

How many of us are able to go to our home town and have people look at us in our collars without them wondering how we ever became an ordained person?

Jesus deals with familiarity that hinders his ability to do the work of God in Nazareth, even after "news about him had spread throughout the region (Luke 4:14)." In Luke's account this story follows right after Jesus returns from being tempted in the desert for 40 days. Now Jesus, again resists temptation, the temptation to embrace the empty flattery of the hometown crowd, by speaking directly to the heart of their words. In essence, Jesus lets the crowd know that it is wholly dependant faith in God that brings healing and wholeness into their lives. He points out that Elijah healed the Gentile woman in Zarephath - a non-Jew who was desperate in her dependence upon God's providence. Likewise, he reminds them of Elisha's cure of Naaman the (Gentile) Syrian army commander of his leprosy. In both cases, there were those in Israel with the same conditions, but none were able to be made whole because of their reliance on themselves and/or the limitations they had put on God's power to work in their lives.

How often do we limit God's power to work in our lives?

And how often do we look for God's healing only to come in presently demonstrative ways that limits our vision and the hope of those we are called to serve?

I wonder if this makes God feel the same way we do when our hometown folks question our credibility.

Here in Luke 4, Jesus' exposure of the truth angers the crowd to the point of an attempt to throw him off a cliff. He survives. Later he will be led to a hill outside another city and he will be crucified, revealing the greastest Truth, . . . God loves us so much that death does not hinder the Divine in bringing wholeness and healing to us in our lives on the other side of the grave.

Resurrection is the ultimate healing. Our hope is founded in this truth.

And our hope and reliance upon God in our lives in the here and now opens us to infinite blessings today that we could not see or realize without this hope. So God's power to act in our lives is far greater than we can ask or imagine. . .if only we believe.

In the end we find out that there is no place like home, home with the blessed economia of the Holy Trinity.

posted by the Rev. P. Lance Ousley
Rector, St. Thomas' Episcopal Church
Wharton, TX

I need a Greek Geek! STAT

Our NRSV lists 4 "marks" in Lk 4:18

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me

1.     to bring THE good news to the poor.

2.     to proclaim release to the captives

3.     to bring recovery of sight to the blind,

4.     to let the oppressed go free,

(the year of the Lord's favor is in v19 in both)

The Greek NT lists 5 

4:18  Πνεῦμα κυρίου ἐπ᾽ ἐμέ οὗ ἕνεκεν ἔχρισέν με

1.     εὐαγγελίζεσθαι πτωχοῖς  to bring THE good news to the poor.

2.     ἀπέσταλκέν με ἰὰσασθαι τοὺς συντετριμμένους  τὴν καρδίαν, ???

3.     κηρύξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν καὶ to proclaim release to the captives

4.     τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν  to bring recovery of sight to the blind,

5.     ἀποστεῖλαι τεθραυσμένους ἐν ἀφέσει to let the oppressed go free,

The missing line is translated in KJV Luke and, interestingly enough in NRSV Isaiah 61:1 is:

"to bind up the brokenhearted"

So, stole brothers & sisters, what did the brokenhearted do to the editors of NRSV get left out?

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