"Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me." (Matthew 10:40)

Prime Timers is a Christian Education group at St. Martin's for Episcopalians aged fifty and above. We are following a course of study based on the Revised Common Lectionary, the three year cycle of Bible readings used throughout the Anglican Communion and by many Protestant denominations worldwide. Next week's readings are right here, at the bottom of the page! You are invited to join us in the Parlor near the church offices, Sunday after the 9:00am service, 10:15am to 11:00.

Statue of Jesus with no arms or legs in the garden outside the Parlor where the Prime Timers meet. This reminds us that we are the arms and legs of Jesus.

Prime Timer Good News!

A Prime Timer tradition is hearing what others are up to, and charging a dollar for the privilege! Currently we donate the money we collect to the Amistad Mission in Bolivia, helping underprivileged kids. George tells us he finally has a prospect for the ranch he is selling around Bastrop, Guest Jack just finished relocating his wife's Mother, who is 98, into a new place and Marty gave thanks for his Mother, who is only 92!

Blessed Three in One

George Laigle led the Prime Times today while our leader Carol Hartland is away. This is Trinity Sunday and our readings reinforce the theme of God in three Persons. The majority of our Lectionary readings start at the beginning, literally, with Genesis 1. God gives us dominion over the world, then in Psalm 8 we thank the Lord for all he gave us. Paul's letter to the Corinthians asks us to get our lives in order, as did Rev. Levenson's sermon this morning. For the Gospel reading we have the Great Commission from Matthew. After the resurrection, with the eleven remaining disciples still with some doubt even as the risen Christ comes before them, Jesus gives them the command to make disciples of all nations. Are there any Christians who haven't had doubts at one time or another? One of the strengths of Christianity is it's ability recognize doubts and doubters as parts of our spiritual journey.

George is reading a book by Baptist Minister David Platt called Radical. Rev. Platt his the pastor of the Church at Brook Hills, a four-thousand member congregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Rev. Platt leads a program of total commitment to the Bible. George says it really shakes things up, click on the link above to check it out for yourself!

We accept the concept of the Trinity although it is never explicitly stated in Scripture! God the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier echoes in today's Lectionary readings. George tells us about wrestling with the idea of our being created in His image! Think of all the people you know or have seen, how do you get a single image from that? Then he mentions God as nothing, no thing, and our being unable to grasp completely the concept of God. Marty mentions how God appears in many forms in the Bible, in some Bible stories as someone walking along side of you, then we have Moses and the burning bush, sometimes its a voice from the clouds, etc. It is up to us to implement the Great Commission, welcoming all into our fellowship of holy mysteries!

Herbert O’Driscoll is a former urban Cathedral Dean in Vancouver, B.C., and former Warden of the College of Preachers, Washington National Cathedral. He has written:
“We do not think about the Trinity so much as experience it. Only then do we understand. And here is the paradox, that we understand the Trinity most when we realize that we do not understand.”

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

Lectionary readings

The Readings for Sunday, June 26th are from Lectionary Year One, Proper 8-A, "Rewards of Discipleship": Genesis 22:1-14; Psalm 13; Romans 6:12-23 and Matthew 10:40-42. The text this week is from the New Revised Standard Version.

Genesis 22:1-14

¹After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ ²He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’ ³So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt-offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. ⁴On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. ⁵Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.’ ⁶Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. ⁷Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘Father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ He said, ‘The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?’ ⁸Abraham said, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.

⁹ When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. ¹¹But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ ¹²He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’ ¹³And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt-offering instead of his son. ¹⁴So Abraham called that place ‘The Lord will provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’

Psalm 13

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

¹ How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
² How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

³ Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
⁴ and my enemy will say, ‘I have prevailed’;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

⁵ But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
⁶ I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Romans 6:12-23

¹² Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. ¹³No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

¹⁵ What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, ¹⁸and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

²⁰ When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. ²²But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Matthew 10:40-42

⁴⁰ ‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’

NRSV