"By your endurance you will gain your souls." (Luke 21:19)

Prime Timers is a small group at St. Martin's for Episcopalians aged fifty and above. Everyone can contribute and no one knows everything, so don't worry about anything! 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. You are invited to join us in the Parlor near the church offices, Sunday after the 9:00am service, 10:15am to 11:00. Keep up to date with our Lectionary based readings at the bottom of this page!

St. Martin's altar as seen from the balcony.

Prime Timers Good News

The Prime Timers hear members Good News each week at the start of class. We charge a dollar and currently donate the money collected to the Amistad Mission in Bolivia. Lynn gave thanks for good results on several medical tests.

Prime Timers Go to Dinner!

This month our dinner get-together will be on Tuesday, November 16 at Fred's Italian Corner Restaurant, 2278 West Holcombe Blvd, 713-665-7506. This is at the corner of Greenbriar and West Holcombe. Please let Lynn Swaffar (281) 495-3832 know if you are coming so she can make the reservation.

God's Ultimate Deliverance

Carol Hartland leads our discussion of the Sadducees, Jesus and the Seven Brothers. The Sadducees are trying to trip up Jesus with a complicated "what if" involving a woman's husband dying and marrying the man's brother, or brothers as each of seven brothers marries the woman and they all die childless! "In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be!" (Luke 20:33) Jesus patiently explains that in the resurrection they are like angels, and children of God.

Class discussion quickly turns to our own obsession with things over the spiritual. Remember when houses didn't have large closets! Someone mentions going to a friends house with a large walk in closet, one side with business clothes, the other with casual. "Who has an external storage unit, or units?" Once again Jesus has pegged us. Marty mentions a museum exhibit on the Egyptian Book of the Dead. It is in the Sunday Chronicle Zest insert, the museum is currently the British Museum in London, maybe it will come here! The article makes clear that the Egyptians were not obsessed with death, but they lived in a time where most people died before the age thirty-five. If they could afford a guide to the afterlife they were the privileged people of the time, and wanted to keep their lifestyles. These "books" were customized for the owner, guiding them through the traps and obstacles to their final trial, a successful passage to the afterlife--or being thrown to the Devourer! The afterlife could be sailing with Ra the sun god across the sky, or dwelling with Osiris the god of the underworld. Or settling in the Field of Reeds, a fertile riverside land kind of like the Egypt they were leaving, but without the illness, suffering and death.

The Old Testament reading from the book of Haggai has the Lord telling people in the time of King Darius (522-486 B. C.) to rebuild the ruined temple, that He will be with them and the glory of it will be more than before.

Lynn told a story of a man who attended her Bible study class, but was not really convinced in the power of the Lord. Then one day he had an important meeting and only one clean shirt, but it was at the cleaners and the shopkeeper is telling him the shirt is not ready. The man asks Jesus for help, then asks the shopkeeper to try one more time, and lo and behold there is the shirt! After two more of these little miracles the man is convinced. Does this sound like a real story? Do you believe it? Coincidence? Make up your own mind!

Discussion turns to the Internet, and some of the horrible misinformation, foul language and anti-Christian invective you can find there. The twenty-four hour news cycle brings us pundits who come up with opinions every day, focusing on current events, with little long term perspective. It's never been so easy to add a comment to what you read, and many people do with the luxury of anonymity! With a great sea of information we all need to be fishermen, throwing out the junk that gets caught in our net!

F. Dean Lueking is pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest, Illinois. He wrote in The Christian Century(Oct. 28, 1998):

"Jesus answered evenly, speaking important truth about the earthbound nature of marriage which will give way to the greater life promised to the children of the resurrection (that beautiful phrase, lost on those with no ears to hear). He added testimony from Moses, who in the presence of the burning bush confessed the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the living, 'to whom all of them are alive.' That is who God is, Jesus says, the God in whom and for whom death has lost its sting forever.
"This quelled the Gotcha game temporarily, but it soon resumed in the Upper Room, the Garden, before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, and finally at Golgotha, where the powers of darkness no longer slunk around in the temple but slugged it out with Jesus in the battle on which hung the destiny of the world. Redeeming love won that cosmic conflict. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the cornerstone upon which the whole household of faith is built then, now and always."

Carol concludes class with a short prayer.

The Readings for Sunday, November 14th are from Lectionary Year Three, Proper 28-C, "By Endurance You Will Gain Your Souls"

The Readings for this week are Isaiah 65:17-25; Canticle 9 (Isaiah 12:2-6); 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 and Luke 21:5-19. The text this week is from the New Revised Standard Version.

Isaiah 65:17-25

¹⁷ For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice for ever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
¹⁹ I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
²⁰ No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
²¹ They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
²² They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
²³ They shall not labour in vain,
or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—
and their descendants as well.
²⁴ Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
²⁵ The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
says the Lord.

Canticle 9 (Isaiah 12:2-6)

² Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid,
for the Lord God is my strength and my might;
he has become my salvation.

³ With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. ⁴And you will say on that day:
Give thanks to the Lord,
call on his name;
make known his deeds among the nations;
proclaim that his name is exalted.

⁵ Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously;
let this be known in all the earth.
⁶ Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion,
for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

⁶ Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. ⁷For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, ⁸and we did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it; but with toil and labour we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. ⁹This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. ¹⁰For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. ¹¹For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. ¹²Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. ¹³Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

Luke 21:5-19

⁵ When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, ⁶'As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.'
⁷ They asked him, 'Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?' ⁸And he said, 'Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, "I am he!" and, "The time is near!" Do not go after them.
⁹ 'When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.' ¹⁰Then he said to them, 'Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; ¹¹there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
¹² 'But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. ¹³This will give you an opportunity to testify. ¹⁴So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; 15for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. ¹⁶You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. ¹⁷You will be hated by all because of my name. ¹⁸But not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹By your endurance you will gain your souls.

NRSV