Lorenzo Lotto, Nativity, 1523, Oil on wood at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Happy New Year from 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. For the next two weeks the Prime Timers will be celebrating the events of Christmas and class is suspended, but rest assured the readings will be updated!

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.

Holiday Break!

The Prime Timers are taking time to celebrate Christmas and New Years and wish everyone the very best for the season. We will be back in class January 8, 2012. See you soon.

Lectionary readings

The Readings for Sunday, January 1st are from Lectionary Year Two, Holy Name-B, "Jesus' Holy Name": Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 8; Galatians 4:4-7 or Philippians 2:5-1 and Luke 2:15-21. The text this week is from the New Revised Standard Version.

Numbers 6:22-27

²² The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ²³Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them,
²⁴ The Lord bless you and keep you;
²⁵ the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
²⁶ the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

²⁷ So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.

Psalm 8

To the leader: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.

¹ O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
² Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.

³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
⁴ what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?

⁵ Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honour.
⁶ You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
⁷ all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
⁸ the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

⁹ O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Galatians 4:4-7

⁴But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. ⁶And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ ⁷So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

Philippians 2:5-11

⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸ he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Luke 2:15-21

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ ¹⁶So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

²¹ After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

NRSV