Class Note:
No Class January 29 due to the 59th Annual Parish Meeting.

Etching by Jan Luyken (1649-1712) from the Bowyer Bible in the Bolton Museum, London.

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. Returning Prime Timer Lynn celebrates her second child's upcoming marriage. Lynn told us originally it was just the two of them, but now Lynn is invited!

Fishers of Souls

George Laigle led the Prime Timers in another exploration during the season of Epiphany. Jonah (yes THAT Jonah) is called by God to proclaim to the citizens of Nineveh that they are about to be overthrown. Nineveh is a large city and to Jonah's surprise the people repent, and God decides not to punish them! Class is interested in the size of the city. If you can walk three miles an hour and do it for three days of lets say 10 hours a day, then Nineveh would be ninety miles across! That would make it larger than Houston! This led to "how it was before cars" and how French towns were laid out so that it took no more than an hour to get to the farmland, and how California missions were set five miles apart to make room for the vineyards and farmland to support them.

Well, describing the past is a class fascination. Lynn described how ancestors of hers worked on the first oil pipelines laid by Texaco, hard work done with mules and shovels, with pipe set six feet underground. George described growing up south of Houston before air conditioning, waking up covered in sweat. Marty grew up in New Jersey, where it only gets semi-Houston hot in July and August. He remembers his parents getting a window air-conditioner for their bedroom.

The reading from Mark is Jesus telling the fishermen to (Mark 1:17) "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." The fishermen leave just like that and class is fascinated by this. Was Jesus one very charismatic person, or was it the compelling call from God? Many stories in the Bible are about people reluctant to take the call, believing they are not worthy. Moses is a good example of this. Jonah is himself a reluctant messenger. In the story of Samuel and his father Eli, Samuel continually mistakes the call of God for the call of his father Eli. On the other hand maybe being a fisherman was not that great a job and the men dropped it in a minute to engage in an exciting adventure.

We discussed the difference between Lord and Jesus. George thinks people have trouble with the concept of the triune God: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Someone's child prays to Jesus instead of God. Class believes this is quite ok, better that she is praying! Many people have no idea about the concept of prayer. Charles points out that all religions have a God, but different people that introduce you to Him.

Thomas Kane, Associate Professor of Homiletics and Liturgical Practice at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, wrote in Inhabiting the Gospel: “As we listen to the story from Peter’s and Andrew’s viewpoint, as their prayerful listening gradually enables us to grow into the story, it can remind us of all those times in the past when God’s love has touched and filled us with an unspeakable hope. Indeed as we turn this story over in our hearts again and again, it happens now. We are Peter. We can hear that call ‘Follow me.’ Right now we are the ones being called.”

Murray gave a short prayer to end today's class.

Lectionary readings

The Readings for Sunday, January 29th are from Lectionary Year Two, Epiphany 4-B, "Teaching with Authority": Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 and Mark 1:21-28. The text this week is from the New Revised Standard Version.

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

¹⁵ The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. ¹⁶This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: ‘If I hear the voice of the Lord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.’ ¹⁷Then the Lord replied to me: ‘They are right in what they have said. ¹⁸I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. ¹⁹Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. ²⁰But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.’

Psalm 111

¹ Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
² Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them.
³ Full of honour and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures for ever.
⁴ He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds;
the Lord is gracious and merciful.
⁵ He provides food for those who fear him;
he is ever mindful of his covenant.
⁶ He has shown his people the power of his works,
in giving them the heritage of the nations.
⁷ The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy.
⁸ They are established for ever and ever,
to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
⁹ He sent redemption to his people;
he has commanded his covenant for ever.
Holy and awesome is his name.
¹⁰ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practise it have a good understanding.
His praise endures for ever.

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

¹Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. ²Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; ³but anyone who loves God is known by him.

⁴ Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘no idol in the world really exists’, and that ‘there is no God but one.’ ⁵Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords— ⁶yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

⁷ It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. ⁸‘Food will not bring us close to God.’ We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. ⁹But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling-block to the weak. ¹⁰For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? ¹¹So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. ¹²But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. ¹³Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.

Mark 1:21-28

²¹ They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. ²²They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. ²³Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, ²⁴and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ ²⁵But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ ²⁶And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. ²⁷They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ ²⁸At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

NRSV