Why Don't You Join Us in the Parlor?

Prime Timers is a St. Martin's Adult Christian Education (A.C.E.) group, or an A.B.F. (Adult Bible Fellowship). We are people in the Prime of Life, age 50 and beyond, but we welcome all who come. Class meets in the Parlor near the Church Offices each Sunday from 10:15 am to 11:00. We are following a program based on the Revised Common Lectionary and you are invited to join us as we explore the same Bible readings as a large group of Christian Churches worldwide!

Prime Timers Monthly Dinner

Each month we get together for dinner at an area restaurant. This month we meet at the Nit Noi restaurant, 6395 Woodway, (281) 606-0470, on Tuesday, October 27. Please let Lynn Swaffar, (281) 495-3832, know if you plan to come.

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. Sue gave thanks for her brothers life. He passed away this week at the age of eighty. Murray reported on his brother in law, bitten by a shark in Maui. He required a hundred stitches but otherwise is fine and at age fifty-four figures his lifelong devotion to surfing meant that sooner or later he was going to encounter a shark! I think everyone in class celebrated the wonderful weather we had in Houston the past couple of days, cool with low humidity and a nice breeze!

A New Way of Seeing

Carol Hartland conducted class today with the theme of the blind seeing. Our reading from Mark has the blind man Bartimaeus asking Jesus for his sight. George asked whether Bartimaeus thanks Jesus for the great gift he receives. No one in class knew the answer off-hand, but a search of the Bible does not produce any more references to Bartimaeus. He calls Jesus the "Son of David," though and this implies that the man recognized Jesus as the Messiah. Carol noted that Bible study can find meaning in many details that are easy to miss with casual reading. Bartimaeus is a beggar who throws down his cloak when Jesus calls him. A beggar has very few worldly possessions and uses his cloak on the ground to collect alms, so throwing down his cloak to follow Jesus implies he becomes a disciple of Jesus.

The reading from the book of Job is the end of this bleak story and once again we have someone "seeing the light" of God. Job admits that he can not understand God's plans and ways and admitting this God restores Job tenfold. This story is one of the answers to "why do bad things happen to good people" that are asked of faithful people. Job loses all his possessions, his family and is struck with painful sores and boils. Even though he gets a new family, long life and wealth Lynn felt that the loss of the first family was too much. She is reading Jesus Calling, a devotional that says our relation to God is all, and everything else is idols!

Psalm 34 reinforces the theme of calling the Lord and receiving his grace, and Hebrews 7:23-28 speaks of Jesus the eternal priest, unlike mortal priests who live, serve and die. Furthering our theme of the blind seeing, Mary W. Anderson writes in The Christian Century (Oct. 18, 2003) “We disciples of Jesus have vision problems. We sometimes describe our blindness as an inability to see the forest for the trees, but that’s a benign analysis. More worrisome is the inherited blindness of each generation, which so often assumes it is the best generation of all, with no lessons left to learn, only an inheritance to enjoy. This arrogance is the root of our blindness. We still need the miracle of restored sight.”

Lynn, speaking again of her devotional reading, said "thank God for problems!" Sometimes solving problems leads to new insight. George commented "the wisdom of men is foolishness to God." This refered to our inability to understand God's plans for us.

Carol closed class today with a short benediction.

The Readings for Sunday, November 1st are from Lectionary Year Two, All Saints Day. "Celebrating the Saints"

The Old Testament Readings are Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 and Psalm 24. The New Testament readings are Revelation 21:1-6a and John 11:32-44. The text is from the New International Version, except for the passage from Wisdom of Solomon, from the New Revised Standard Version.

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9

¹But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
²In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
³and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
⁴For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
⁵Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
⁶like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt-offering he accepted them.
⁷In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
⁸They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will reign over them for ever.
⁹Those who trust in him will understand truth,
and the faithful will abide with him in love,
because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones,
and he watches over his elect.

Psalm 24

¹ The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;

² for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters.

³ Who may ascend the hill of the LORD
Who may stand in his holy place?

⁴ He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false.

⁵ He will receive blessing from the LORD
and vindication from God his Savior.

⁶ Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face, O God of Jacob.
Selah

⁷ Lift up your heads, O you gates;
be lifted up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.

⁸ Who is this King of glory?
The LORD strong and mighty,
the LORD mighty in battle.

⁹ Lift up your heads, O you gates;
lift them up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.

¹⁰ Who is he, this King of glory?
The LORD Almighty—
he is the King of glory.
Selah

Revelation 21:1-6a

¹Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ²I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

⁵He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."

⁶He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.

John 11:32-44

³²When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ³⁴"Where have you laid him?" he asked.
"Come and see, Lord," they replied.

³⁵Jesus wept.

³⁶Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"

³⁷But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"

Jesus Raises Lazarus From the Dead

³⁸Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ³⁹"Take away the stone," he said.
"But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days."

⁴⁰Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"

⁴¹So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."

⁴³When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."

NIV