"Then he said to him, 'Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.' " (Luke 17:19)

Welcome to Prime Timers, the best 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, a 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 Church viewed from the Cloister Garden on a beautiful Houston day.

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 a clean report on her mammogram. George praises an honest man who found George's wife's wallet in the parking lot of a Randall's grocery store, and would not accept a reward! Lynda celebrates her mother's eighty-sixth birthday!

Mercy and Healing

Carol Hartland is the Prime Timers teacher today, as the Prime Timers explore lectionary readings centered around Luke's story of Jesus and the ten lepers. Last week the class was split due to the Children at Risk program in the Parish Hall. Lynda said this program was "excellent and appalling!" Appalling due to some of the facts. 42% of children born to unmarried couples, over 70% of black children! Houston is the center of child trafficking in the country. These disturbing trends do not result in positive outcomes.

Jesus story of the ten lepers, where all are made clean by visiting the priests but only one comes back to thank the Lord, is a reminder to us to be thankful for the good things we have. George points out how a recent news story puts more people below the poverty line, defined as less than $24,000 for a family of four. This amount of money makes you rich in most other countries! Others point out that a dollar goes much further in these countries. George comes back with a story of the pioneers who first came to this country, living in "soddies." This is a house made out of squares of dug up grass, sod, stacked up to make walls, and covering wood frames to make a roof. Sometimes if it rained a lot you might wake up to mud falling on your face! And we get upset if a thunderstorm kills the power for a couple hours and the air-conditioning goes off.

Lynn mentions a reality program where families re-create a pioneer community, no TV, living off the land, and how the teenagers felt it was a great experience. You don't actually need a cell phone or Nintendo to live! Marty feels that all these people knew this was a situation with an end date, there are TV camera's following them around so they knew that they would be famous, all this is hardly a realistic experience. One husband did not realize what his wife was really like until they lived together without all the modern distractions, and ended up getting a divorce!

On the theme of making good with what you have, the prophet Jeremiah tells the people exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century B. C to build houses and plant gardens there. Bear children and multiply! Two generations would pass before the Lord's promise of a return would happen. Jeremiah is telling the people to accept their fate.

Homelessness is a persistent problem. George mentions that around the world this is one of the most difficult issues to solve. Someone brings up the story in this morning's Houston Chronicle about Yellowstone Academy. This is a faith based educational institution serving Houston's poor in the Third ward. They believe that through education and intensive intervention poor children can transcend their circumstances and become productive members of society.

Discussion returns to the issue of the ten lepers. Leprosy, or Hansen's Disease, is just one of the skin diseases that the Bible refers to when talking about lepers. People with these conditions were outcasts, not allowed to mix with the general population. Marty tries to get the nine lepers off the hook for not praising God by figuring that even though cured they lived most of their lives having to avoid people and might not have known how to react.

Barbara Brown Taylor teaches religion at Piedmont College in rural northeast Georgia and is an adjunct professor of spirituality at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur. She is the author of twelve books, including the New York Times best seller An Altar in the World, published by HarperOne in February 2009. She says that the question among us is not "Where are the nine?" but "Where is the tenth?" "Where is the one who followed his heart instead of his instructions?"

So who are you? One of the nine or are you the one!

Carol concludes class with a short prayer.

The Readings for Sunday, October 17th are from Lectionary Year Three, Proper 24-C, "Persistence in Prayer"

The Readings for this week are Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119:97-104; 2 Timothy 3:14--4:5 and Luke 18:1-8. The text this week is from the New Revised Standard Version.

Jeremiah 31:27-34

²⁷ The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. ²⁸And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. ²⁹In those days they shall no longer say:

'The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge.'

³⁰But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.
³¹ The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ³²It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. ³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, 'Know the Lord', for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Psalm 119:97-104

⁹⁷ Oh, how I love your law!
It is my meditation all day long.
⁹⁸ Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
for it is always with me.
⁹⁹ I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for your decrees are my meditation.
¹⁰⁰ I understand more than the aged,
for I keep your precepts.
¹⁰¹ I hold back my feet from every evil way,
in order to keep your word.
¹⁰² I do not turn away from your ordinances,
for you have taught me.
¹⁰³ How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
¹⁰⁴ Through your precepts I get understanding;
therefore I hate every false way.

2 Timothy 3:14--4:5

¹⁴But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, ¹⁵and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

¹In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: ²proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. ³For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, ⁴and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. ⁵As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

Luke 18:1-8

¹Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. ²He said, 'In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. ³In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, "Grant me justice against my opponent." ⁴For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, "Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming." ' ⁶And the Lord said, 'Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? ⁸I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?'

NRSV