St Martin's Church from the Cloister Garden

This is a Great Time to Join the Prime Timers!

We are a Christian Education group at St. Martin's for Episcopalians aged fifty and above. If you are near the Parlor in between the 9:15 and 11:00am services, come on in, you are invited! We follow a course of study based on the Revised Common Lectionary, the three year cycle of readings from the Bible you hear at every church service. Next week's readings are right here, at the bottom of the page.

Prime Timer Good News!

A Prime Timer tradition is hearing what others are up to, and charging a dollar for the privilege! We donate the money we collect to charities supported by the church. Marty describes his Mom's adventure with a new glasses prescription. It takes six months but has a happy ending!!! Elisabeth sees their sixteen year old grandson "acting like he used to" coming out of a particularly rebellious phase.

Compassion and Healing

Today's readings are about compassion and healing. George Laigle is the Prime Timers leader as we read and discuss the New and Old Testament with a story about Jesus healing a leper, a warrior who gets leprosy and is healed after accepting the advice of a slave girl, Paul using an athletic metaphor as a model for for spiritual discipline and finally a Psalm praising the Lord for all his good works.

Jesus heals a leper in Mark 1:40-45 who asks for Jesus to heal him. Class is concerned about why Jesus does not want the leper to talk about this miracle. The obvious answer is that he does not want people to get distracted from the message of grace, forgiveness and redemption by concentrating on physical healing. Then again it is quite amazing how people simply touching Jesus cloak are healed. After this miracle Jesus can no longer heal in the open. People start coming to him for healing.

Leprosy figures in two of our readings today. Today it can be treated with drug therapy and the leper colonies of old are not needed. Leprosy, or Hansen's disease, causes disfiguring skin lesions and in ancient times lepers were separated from the community out of fear of contagion. Naaman, in our reading from 2 Kings is a great warrior who comes down with leprosy. He learns of the prophet Elisha, in Israel, who can cure the disease. With a note from his King and lots of gifts Naaman gets a note from a Elisha's messenger telling Naaman what to do to be cured. Naaman is upset because Elisha did not come out personally and cure him! Naaman's servants finally set him straight, after all, didn't you come to be cured!

Paul is still working on the Corinthians as he uses preparation for an athletic contest to illustrate that faith requires discipline. Although athletes work hard to win a crown of leaves that will wither and die, the crown of salvation will last forever.

Elisabeth then read Psalm 30 for us, praising the Lord for all the things he does: (Ps 30:2) " O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. "

Reiki healing is a technique of Japanese stress reduction leading to healing. It is a form of laying on of hands related to Jesus' ability to heal. From our class notes Bruce G. Epperly and Katherine Gould Epperly have written in Reiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus (Kelowna, B. C., Canada: Northstone Publishing, 2005):

“Healing was the heart and soul of Jesus’ ministry. Long before the emergence of whole-person medicine in the West, Jesus, the Jewish healer, saw human beings in terms of their original wholeness. For Jesus, body, mind, and spirit interpenetrate one another seamlessly. Social relationships shape not only our faith, but also our health. Jesus knew that a change in one area of our lives can transform every other aspect of our lives. Jesus believed that God’s intimate love for the world is reflected in the divine desire to respond to suffering in all of its manifestations.”

Murray gave a short prayer to conclude class.

Lectionary readings

The Readings for Sunday, February 19th are from Lectionary Year Two, Last Epiphany B, "Glory on the Mountain": 2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 and Mark 9:2-9. The text this week is from the New Revised Standard Version.

2 Kings 2:1-12

¹Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. ²Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here; for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.’ But Elisha said, ‘As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.’ So they went down to Bethel. ³The company of prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, ‘Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I know; keep silent.’

⁴ Elijah said to him, ‘Elisha, stay here; for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.’ But he said, ‘As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.’ So they came to Jericho. ⁵The company of prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha, and said to him, ‘Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?’ And he answered, ‘Yes, I know; be silent.’

⁶ Then Elijah said to him, ‘Stay here; for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.’ But he said, ‘As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.’ So the two of them went on. ⁷Fifty men of the company of prophets also went, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. ⁸Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, until the two of them crossed on dry ground.

⁹ When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.’ Elisha said, ‘Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.’ ¹⁰He responded, ‘You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.’ ¹¹As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. ¹²Elisha kept watching and crying out, ‘Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’ But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

Psalm 50:1-6

A Psalm of Asaph.

¹ The mighty one, God the Lord,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
² Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God shines forth.

³ Our God comes and does not keep silence,
before him is a devouring fire,
and a mighty tempest all around him.
⁴ He calls to the heavens above
and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
⁵ ‘Gather to me my faithful ones,
who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!’
⁶ The heavens declare his righteousness,
for God himself is judge.
Selah

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

³And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. ⁶For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Mark 9:2-9

² Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, ³and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. ⁴And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. ⁵Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ ⁶He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. ⁷Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ ⁸Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

⁹ As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

NRSV