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January 20, 2008 "Inspired
to Pray!" |
Its a Brand New Year, Make it a Point to Check Out the St. Martin's Prime Timers!
Prime Timers is an Adult Bible Fellowship (A.B.F.) meeting in between the 9:00am and 11:00am service at St. Martin's. We meet in the Payne Education Center, rooms 207-209. We are primarily in the the 50-64 age group, people in the Prime of Life, but whatever your age you are invited to join us.
The St. Martin's Adult Bible Fellowships (ABF's) are following a course of study based on the work of the Committee on the Uniform Series, also known as the International Lessons. Bible students around the world are using this same framework, and so can you!
Prime Timers Good News
It just takes a $1 donation to our Good News chicken, Henny Penny to bring us your good news. Currently we are donating the money we collect to the Amistad Mission in Bolivia, a Christian partnership between North Americans and Bolivians for the benefit of children in need.
Ben brings the great news that his son is making progress with chronic back pain. Anne's grandson is making straight A's and your humble web-correspondent celebrates on Monday ten years without smoking!
Inspired to Love!
Love your enemies! Our passage from Luke 6:27-36 is short but challenges us with commands much easier to contemplate than to apply in practice. Our teacher Ben Welmaker presented this as two principles, the first: turn the other cheek, love your enemies. The second: do unto other as you would have them do unto you.
Ben made the point that you are more likely to consider a point of view if you hold the person making the point in esteem. We are impressed by the words of heroes. Ben is reading The Shores of Light: A Literary Chronicle of the Twenties and Thirties, by Edmund Wilson. He is impressed with Wilson's writing, as he is with the decisions of Judge Harold Medina. As a lawyer Ben comes across the writings of the Judge. Ben told us the best thing he learned from the Judge was the ability to think and not just parrot the words of others. Ben made all these asides leading up to the point that it is Jesus, after all, who is asking us to make quite a committment.
C. S. Lewis book The Four Loves describes the love of affection, friendship, Eros and charity. In any type of loving relationship there is a vulnerability, a risk, that distinguishes it from other types relationships. Luke gives us the command to love our enemies and do unto others, but there is a distinction here between the covenants of the Old Testament: Luke expects us to use our imaginations to implement the two principles. Ben recalled being a lawyer right out of law school, (and the lawyers he sees today in the same situation), wanting to ask the senior lawyers for advice. This is not a way to advance your career! A creative solution to the problem at hand will.
Ben gave some examples of situations where "do unto others" was the answer, and some others where it should have been the answer. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where people on opposite sides sat across from each other and explained the bad things they did. This was a high point. Abraham Lincoln said of the beaten South to "let 'em up easy." Instead we got the Reconstruction and hatreds that continued for a hundred years, maybe more.
Finally, Ben read from the Iraqi Constitution. Its worth reading the Preamble of this document, "We, the people of Iraq, who have just risen from our stumble..."
Prime Timers Contact names and numbers
Mentor
Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org
Leaders
Anne Berry
832/251-8868 H
anne.berry@comcast.net
Max Kech
713/802-0690 H
maxkech2003@yahoo.com
Marty Smith
713/464-6737 H
martys47@comcast.net
Teachers
Richard Cruse
Donn Fullenweider
Pete Seale
Ben Welmaker
bhwjr@flash.net
Outreach (inviting and welcoming new members)
Anne Berry
832/251-8868 H
anne.berry@comcast.net
Elizabeth Sleeper
jsleeperjr@comcast.net
Click on these pictures to see a larger version. Then click the "back" button to return here!
This week the annual Houston Marathon made it a challenge to get to St. Martin's. It was a beautiful day, clear as a bell. Last year it was so foggy you couldn't see the top of the steeples!
Giovanni Bellini, Baptism of Christ, 1500-02, Oil on canvas, at the Santa Corona, Vicenza, Italy.
The Lesson for Sunday, January 20th is titled "Inspired to Pray!"
Key Verse: Luke 11:9
Focus of the Lesson: We long for a relationship with someone who cares enough to listen to and respond to our needs. To whom can we go? Jesus taught that we have a loving heavenly parent to whom we can persistently bring our needs and the desires of our heart.
The reading is Luke 11:5-13. This text is from the New International Version. (NIV)
5Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.'
7"Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' 8I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
9"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
11"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
NIV
Thanks to the the Web Gallery of Art for pictures of artwork depicting the Baptism of Christ.
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