"...Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:21)

Prime Timers is a St. Martin's Adult Christian Education group, also known as an Adult Bible Fellowship. We are people in the Prime of Life, age 50 and beyond, inviting one and all to come to the Parlor near the Church Offices each Sunday from 10:15 am to 11:00. This season we are following the Revised Common Lectionary. 2010 is a great time to jump in: our chairs are comfortable, the coffee is hot and the donuts are fresh! Come on down!

A view of St. Martin's church from the cloister garden.

Prime Timers Celebrate Good News

We celebrate our members Good News at Prime Timers with a $1 contribution to Henny Penny, our Good News chicken. Periodically Henny donates the money she collects to a charity, currently the Amistad Mission in Bolivia. Today Linda told us she just celebrated her 43rd wedding anniversary!

Chinese New Year!

Our monthly dinner organizer Lynn Swaffar is planning our February dinner to celebrate the Chinese New Year. This is the year of the Tiger and festivities begin February 14 and continue through February 28. Last year we had a good time at Vietopia restaurant on Buffalo Speedway. This year we are planning on going to Shanghai River restaurant, on Westheimer just east of Kirby. This will be after Valentines Day, come back here for details!

"The Lord has Anointed Me"

Donn Fullenweider led the Prime Timers this week as we explored the beginning of Jesus Galilean ministry and why we speak the words of Scripture out loud. He began by giving some background on our first reading, from Nehemiah. Nehemiah was a civil governor, given authority by the king of Persia to rebuild the Wall, and restore Jerusalem as a fortified city. Halley's Bible Handbook describes Nehemiah as "...a man of Prayer, Patriotism, Action, Courage and Perserverance. His first impulse always was to pray..." Our reading describes the reading of the law on the first day of the seventh month, from daybreak until noon, for seven days. The people faced down, not unlike our position of prayer, and wept as the law was re-established in Jerusalem.

Donn pointed out that women were included in this reading, it was meant for "...men, women and others who could understand." (Nehemiah 8:3) Psalm 19 praises the Lord and the law and reminds us that God's word is perfect. Note the theme of the spoken word having special power.

In 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a Paul reminds the citizens of Corinth that people have all sorts of abilities and God given talents, and you should not deny what you have in pursuit of something you don't. This addressed an obsession at the time to have the ability to speak in tongues. It seemed as though everyone wanted this, after all if you began to speak in a language you never studied it was evidence of being taken over by the Spirit of God! Once again it is the theme of words as being something special when read aloud.

Then we read Luke 4:14-21, where Jesus announces that he has fulfilled the scripture in Isaiah 61:1-2:

¹ The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,

² to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,

and Isaiah 58:6:

⁶ "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

This is the beginning of Jesus Galilean ministry, and he is being praised by the people in the temple. This won't last, see the next passage from Luke in next weeks reading below!

Donn asked the class if anyone of us was moved to change their lives due to heavenly intervention, and Lynn told us her story of coming to church kind of as a duty and then one day finding herself with a pressing problem that she was about to throw up her hands and give up on. She went to one of our Prime Timer dinners and discovered Donn was a lawyer whose specialty was just what she needed! A coincidence or a touch of heaven?

We also discussed how many people believe they don't need to come to church. After all, they say, we have a Bible and can read it for ourselves. The class believes that being part of the community of church-goers reinforces our belief through the repetition of vows and discussion of scripture.

Donn concluded class with a short benediction.

The Readings for Sunday, January 31st are from Lectionary Year Three, Epiphany 4-C "Rejection in Nazareth"

The Readings this week are Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; and Luke 4:21-30. The text is from the New International Version.

Jeremiah 1:4-10

⁴ The word of the LORD came to me, saying,

⁵ "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

⁶ "Ah, Sovereign LORD," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child."

⁷ But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. ⁸ Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD.

⁹ Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. ¹⁰ See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."

Psalm 71:1-6

¹ In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame.

² Rescue me and deliver me in your righteousness;
turn your ear to me and save me.

³ Be my rock of refuge,
to which I can always go;
give the command to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress.

⁴ Deliver me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the grasp of evil and cruel men.

⁵ For you have been my hope, O Sovereign LORD,
my confidence since my youth.

⁶ From birth I have relied on you;
you brought me forth from my mother's womb.
I will ever praise you.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Luke 4:21-30

²¹and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.

²³Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.' "

²⁴"I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. ²⁷And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian."

²⁸All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. ²⁹They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. ³⁰But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

NIV