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, and 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 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. Carol celebrated the life of Dorothy Chernosky, the mother of Lynn Swaffar, who passed away at 94 years. Carol attended the funeral service at St. Mark's Episcopal Church.

Donn gave thanks for the wonderful weather we are having in Houston.

Celebrating the Saints

Donn Fullenweider conducted class on this All Saints Sunday. Our New Testament reading was the story of Lazarus raised from the dead by Jesus. A perfect story for All Saints Sunday! Here in one story you have so many of the Christian biblical themes. Jesus wept! He is human, he feels the families pain. Some of the Jews are impressed by this, but others are skeptical. If this man could make a blind man see, why didn't he keep Lazarus from dying? When Jesus asks for the stone on the grave to be moved, Lazarus' sister points out how he is four days dead and it might smell pretty bad in the tomb. O ye of little faith! And Jesus doesn't simply raise Lazarus, he asks his father, God, to show the crowd so that they may believe. Unbind him! Let him go! The fact that this story involves an outright miracle brings the question of faith and resurrection front and center. Do you believe this happened? Did Jesus recognize that Lazarus was in some kind of coma and that he might recover? If you explain away this event, what are you really explaining away? Donn reminded us that it is human nature to doubt.

Donn asked us what we thought of the story, and people who were at the 9:00am service kept referring to Rev. Levenson's powerful sermon. He made a point of how the Bible is not just about happy times, it is honest, sometimes brutally so, about the events in Jesus life. Certainly if Jesus were an all-powerful entity he could have foreseen that Lazarus was desperately ill and would die without some kind of intervention. John 11:32 "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." And Jesus wept, he was deeply moved, and he asked God's help.

Resurrection is important to our faith, the Nicene Creed we recite every Sunday ends with "...and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." We celebrate All Saints Sunday the same weekend as Halloween. In Mexico, Donn described being at a celebration of the Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos. This is a remembrance of family members who have passed away. People pray, dress up with skull faces and bring memorabilia of the dead, quite a colorful event! Carol mentioned an EFM (Education for Ministry) event where they had a Day of the Dead event.

Elizabeth recounted a wonderful story of how she came to visit the grave of her grandmother. Originally she could not bring herself to participate in a family tradition of placing flowers at the family grave site. When her mother passed away she was so upset she could not attend the funeral service. Then a year later she was convinced to visit the grave site and it changed her life! Now she takes her grandchildren at Christmas and Easter to place flowers. The children can play, its a moving and simple gesture that connects her with her ancestors and the new generation all at once.

The communion of saints, after all, refers not just to those who passed away but to all Christians, living and dead, in heaven and even in purgatory! The spiritual message of All Saints Day is that we are all not too far away.

We then read from Revelation 21:1-6 where the boundaries between the living and the dead are removed. Revelation 21:6 "He 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..."

Donn closed class today with a short benediction.

The Readings for Sunday, November 8th are from Lectionary Year Two, Proper 27-B. "Simplicity and Generosity"

The Old Testament Readings are Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17 and Psalm 127. The New Testament readings are from Hebrews 9:24-28 and Mark 12:38-44. The text is from the New International Version.

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17

¹One day Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, "My daughter, should I not try to find a home for you, where you will be well provided for? ²Is not Boaz, with whose servant girls you have been, a kinsman of ours? Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor. ³Wash and perfume yourself, and put on your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don't let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. ⁴When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do."

⁵"I will do whatever you say," Ruth answered.

¹³So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. ¹⁴The women said to Naomi: "Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! ¹⁵He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."

¹⁶Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. ¹⁷The women living there said, "Naomi has a son." And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Psalm 127

¹ Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.

² In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep to those he loves.

³ Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.

⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth.

⁵ Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate.

Hebrews 9:24-28

²⁴For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. ²⁵Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. ²⁶Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. ²⁷Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, ²⁸so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Mark 12:38-44

³⁸As he taught, Jesus said, "Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, ³⁹and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. ⁴⁰They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely."

The Widow's Offering

⁴¹Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. ⁴²But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

⁴³Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. ⁴⁴They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on."

NIV