Aloha Friday Message – December 11, 2020 – 2020 Advent Series #3

December 10, 2020

2050AFC121120 – 2020 Advent Series #3

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

     Philippians 4:4 – 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

     1 Thessalonians 5:16 – Rejoice always

     Isaiah 61:10a – 10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God

     John 1:6-7 – 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.

     John 1:29b – Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Today we continue with the 2020 Advent series. Back in October, I created a post called 2040AFC100220 – Think about these things and in that post was this statement: We discern what is good, and follow everything that points to the Love of God in Christ Jesus. We never, never, never, never give up Hope! We place Faith as our mast, and Love as our sail, and with Wisdom as our rudder we follow the course laid out in Scripture.

My dear friend and mentor, John Kretser, commented on that. He liked the image and contributed the thought that the Boat that holds that mast, sail, rudder, and course is our Hope in Christ Jesus. KA-CHING! There it was laid out for me just as I had hoped. As I worked on deciding how to build this series, a second set of instructions came in: BUILD IT FROM PREVIOUSLY-USED MATERIALS AND INSERT NEW MATERIAL FROM EACH SUNDAY’S READINGS. This is the second in the Series. I’ll give you links where you can go look at the origin of what you’ll see in these posts. Last week we talked about the mast – our Faith. Our Faith is anchored in the hull of our boat, and the rigging of the mast. Faith is anchored in our foundation, our hull, our soul. It’s held up with the rigging – support cables – of our knowledge of God and his Word. Faith is what supports our love of God and neighbor. To this mast and rigging we attach the Sail – Love.

Last week we looked at the way a sail works and how in our lives the Love we have is supported by our Faith and emulates the tenderness of God’s love. Today we consider another very important part of a boat, the rudder – Wisdom. Our Key Verses for today remind us to rejoice, and there is beautiful Wisdom in that. You’ll recall perhaps that we often mention “first occurrence” as an important tool in Scripture study. The first occurrence of “rejoice” comes in Exodus 18:9 – 9 Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, in delivering them from the Egyptians. The first mention of rejoicing comes at the beginning of the establishment of the Hebrews as a nation, Israel – the chosen people of God – begin their centuries-long journey as the Light to The Nations. In this we see God’s great Wisdom: His chosen people were redeemed from slavery and sent into liberty in God. All they had to do to make that possible was to love the Lord and each other. As we well know, that proved to be beyond their capacity. They disdained Wisdom and chose rebellion. In doing so, they lost the ability to steer their Nation, the People of God, toward Truth and Justice. They were like a boat without a rudder or a sail. We have a very good example of the importance of a rudder in the Letter of James. He is addressing the Jewish population of Jerusalem exhorting them to proper conduct within their community. Here’s what he says about the rudder: James 3:3-5 – 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4 Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!

There are types of boats that do not have attached rudders, coracles and river rafts for example, but even in these a paddle is used to direct the path of the boat. That is the purpose of a rudder – to provide direction – and it is also the purpose of Wisdom. Wisdom informs our conscience, helps us make appropriate decisions, and can keep us away from danger or even death. Judicious use of Wisdom requires knowing what it is designed to do in our lives as we move through what we could call the Crystal Sea of Life in God’s Love (← Check it out!). It is very important to remember that the rudder does not function unless the boat is in motion or the water is flowing past the boat from stem to stern. I was surprised to learn that sometimes the wisest thing to do is to cut loose the rudder and let the wind drive the sail toward land. There is an example of that in the Apostle Paul’s journeys here: Acts 27:40 – 40 So they cast off the anchors and left them in the sea. At the same time they loosened the ropes that tied the steering-oars; then hoisting the foresail to the wind, they made for the beach. They landed on a reef just off Malta after a harrowing 14 days at sea in a horrific storm. Paul had warned them to seek safe harbor sooner; they rejected his wisdom, lost all their cargo, all the rigging of the ship, and nearly lost their lives. The consequences of ignoring wisdom are formidable. You might remember some of these:

Proverbs 9:9 – 9 Give instruction to the wise, and they will become wiser still; teach the righteous and they will gain in learning.

Proverbs 28:26 – 26 Those who trust in their own wits are fools; but those who walk in wisdom come through safely.

1 Corinthians 1:25 – 25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Job 5:13 – 13 He takes the wise in their own craftiness; and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end.

Proverbs 1:7 – 7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

In Job 28:20-27, Job tells us the origins of Wisdom saying, “God understands the way to it, and he knows its place.” At one point in their journey from Egypt to Canaan, a sizable number – more than 20,000 – perished because they did not exercise the Wisdom of obedience. They turned to immorality and idolatry and lost their lives because of it: Deuteronomy 4:3-6 – 3 You have seen for yourselves what the Lord did with regard to the Baal of Peor—how the Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor, 4 while those of you who held fast to the Lord your God are all alive today.

5 See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. 6 You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” When they failed to follow these wise instructions, the made themselves vulnerable to oppression to their enemies.

In the history of the oppression of the Jewish People, we have the accounts of the Maccabees; they are real historical figures, and their military resistance to tyranny is well-documented. Here is an excerpt from that history:

4 Maccabees 7:1-3 – 1 For like a most skillful pilot, the reason [Wisdom] of our father Eleazar steered the ship of religion over the sea of the emotions, 2 and though buffeted by the stormings of the tyrant and overwhelmed by the mighty waves of tortures, 3 in no way did he turn the rudder of religion until he sailed into the haven of immortal victory. NRS/A New Revised Standard Version Bible/with apocrypha, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The heroic language of the Books of the Maccabees can sound inflated, but the historical facts are solid. Their importance to succeeding generations of Jews and Christians is one reason they are included in the canon of the “Catholic Bible.”

In that Bible – and all other genuinely Christian Bibles – we have the letter from James (already cited above). James addresses the question many people have: “Where and how do we obtain Wisdom?” In that letter we find the following answer:

James 1:5-7 – 5 If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. 6 But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; 7, 8 for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Now, doesn’t that make good sense? Wisdom comes from knowing God, so if we wish to know wisdom, then the wise thing to do is to know God. It is God who will design and install that rudder of Wisdom in your life! You’ve heard this before, but it bears repeating: Isaiah 30:21 – 21 And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” For the purposes of this series, we might also think of that last phrase as “sail in it.” Have you ever seen a rudder work? Let me show you one, and then I’ll have a final important question for you. I hope this GIF file will display here:

Credit KDS444 © License: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Here, then, is my question – preceded by some information leading to a summary. We started out with the idea of rejoicing – this is, after all, Gaudete Sunday we are planning for. We saw that there is Wisdom in rejoicing when the cause of our rejoicing is our commitment in the Life given to us through the Grace of Salvation in Christ Jesus. John the Baptist testified to that Power of Grace by saying, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” When sin is removed, death is removed, and that leaves only LIFE. We can pursue that life, sail through that life, enjoy that life, and extend that life by navigating with the best tool for directing that life: Wisdom, the Wisdom to know, accept, and Love Christ Jesus. Now the question (you’ll recognize it right away!):

Why would you ever want anything less than that? If you are wise, nothing else (↔ Music Link) will suffice. If you are unwise, anything else will suffice. That was the mistake Israel made at Peor, but we need only remember the words of the Apostle Paul: Philippians 1:21 – 21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. That is indeed Wisdom to support our rejoicing!

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —

at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Jesus, Savior, Pilot me!

(↕Music Link↕)

Aloha Friday Message – December 4, 2020 – 2020 Advent Series #2

December 4, 2020

2049AFC120420 – 2020 Advent Series #2

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

     Isaiah 40:11 – 11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

     2 Peter 3:9 – 9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

     Mark 1:8 – 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. (Use the link to see this in context)

May Peace always be with you and may God bless you, Belovéd!

Back in October, I created a post called 2040AFC100220 – Think about these things and in that post was this statement: We discern what is good, and follow everything that points to the Love of God in Christ Jesus. We never, never, never, never give up Hope! We place Faith as our mast, and Love as our sail, and with Wisdom as our rudder we follow the course laid out in Scripture.

My dear friend and mentor, John Kretser, commented on that. He liked the image and contributed the thought that the Boat that holds that mast, sail, rudder, and course is our Hope in Christ Jesus. KA-CHING! There it was laid out for me just as I had hoped. Today we will continue with the Sail – Love. As I worked on deciding how to build this series, a second set of instructions came in: BUILD IT FROM PREVIOUSLY-USED MATERIALS AND INSERT NEW MATERIAL FROM EACH SUNDAY’S READINGS. This is the second in the Series. I’ll give you links where you can go look at the origin of what you’ll see in these posts. Last week we talked about the mast – our Faith. Our Faith is anchored in the hull of our boat, and the rigging of the mast. Faith is anchored in our foundation, our hull, our soul. It’s held up with the rigging – support cables – of our knowledge of God and his Word. Faith is what supports our love of God and neighbor. To this mast and rigging we attach the Sail – Love. We should know how a sail works, so here – in a very limited way – is a little insight into that.

A sail “pushes backward” against the wind – it catches it across its surface and the force of the wind is transferred to the boat through the mast. When the wind is coming from directly behind the boat – coming from astern – the boat moves forward. This is “navigating downwind.” The sail is positioned perpendicular to the wind to capture the most energy. This means you move in the direction the wind is blowing. Moving in a direction other than the direction the wind is blowing requires a good deal of experience and a deep understanding of the interactions between the wind, the sail, the boat’s keel, and the water. Sailing across or against the wind is called tacking. In these procedures, it is the lift of the wind (← Check it out!) blowing over the curved surface of the sail that “pulls” the boat forward much in the same way as an airplane’s wing causes lift to get the airplane off the ground by applying the Bernoulli principle. That’s greatly oversimplified, but hopefully enough to get us started, so here we go.

Let’s start with something that is “perfectly obvious:” For the sail to work, it must be attached to the mast and rigging, it has to be open, unfurled, and the wind needs to be blowing. Maybe it’s a bit of a stretch, but Love works a bit like that as well. Take our first Key Verse for example. What tenderness there is in the shepherd who carries the lamb in his arms and leads the ewes with care! Little lambs have a lot of energy, but they also tire easily. When they are moving with the flock as they graze, the little guys sometimes get tuckered out and just can’t go any farther, so they can’t keep up with their mama. The good shepherd will pick up that little one and carry it for a while so it can rest without being left behind. As for the ewes, especially those still carrying their progeny, they must be led with care – slowly, with an eye toward safe paths, gentle slopes, adequate water, and gradually move the flock so as not to endanger their lives. When Love is spread like a sail, it gathers the wind “in its arms” and moves the boat along. A good sailor, like a good shepherd, will watch the surroundings and the weather to guide the boat with care. There is more about shepherds at 1718AFC050517 – Seeds and Sheep.

Another perfectly obvious fact is that sails are designed to work with wind. It is a renewable resource and – although it is hard to see where it is – we can see what it does. The wind moves past or over things that do not catch it. We cannot catch the wind in our hands and perhaps not even in our heart – we recall the song (↔ Music Link) by Donovan Leitch and Bob Dylan. When we catch the wind in a sail, it moves us because it moves the boat. In our spiritual boat described here, the destination we choose is toward God. I think sometimes we forget that maybe just a little. We keep asking God to come be with us, to rescue us, to change us, but isn’t it true that we need to move forward toward God? That’s difficult to do when we are anchored to sin. We need to release that anchor so we can move again. Please read that second Key Verse again. God is always, always patiently waiting for us to haul anchor and move toward him – to repent so that we do not perish. When we do that, the Wind can fill our sail. Ah-ha, I see you have confirmed you knew all along what the Wind in your sail will be: The Holy Spirit. Remember now from previous lessons that in verses like Genesis 1:2, the wind that swept over the void was the Spirit of God. In John 1:32 it is the Holy Spirit in the appearance of a dove. These are, respectively Ruach and Pneuma. We open our sail of Love and the Spirit fills it with his Power and Grace. That’s what connects us to our last Key Verse, Mark 1:8 – it is the Holy Spirit that fills our love and moves us toward God. The Spirit will always move us in the direction of God, but sometimes we either forget that or decide not “to keep the wind astern.” When we do that, we need to know some of the finer points of sailing on that Crystal Sea, and the best way to learn is to go to someone who can teach us. Our Catechisms, our Pastors, and our fellow Pilgrims help us learn how to navigate in those situations. Even simple boats require trained sailors.

The kinds of boat you’ve seen in the images in these two posts are single-mast, single-sail boats. They are large enough to carry passengers, conduct trade, withstand the rigors of tumultuous seas, and – if necessary – even go to war on a limited basis. A rudimentary boat without a mast and sail – a rowboat or skiff or a dinghy for example – depends on people-power and oars. “Everyone must row with the oars they’ve got.” (← Check it out at 613AFC033106! ) We know the life of seafarers can be harrowing, and so we also celebrate them – and all of us who navigate the waves and doldrums of the Sea of Life – with the Christian Navy Hymn, ETERNAL FATHER STRONG TO SAVE (↔ Music Link)

Now, please consider these passages regarding love, and think of them as sails that can be filled by the Holy Spirit:

Mark 12:29-31 – 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

John 13:34 – 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.

John 15:9-12 – 9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Romans 5:3-5 – 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Romans 13:10 – 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

And finally –

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a – 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —

at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – November 27,2020 – 2020 Advent Series #1

November 27, 2020

2048AFC112710 – 2020 Advent Series #1 

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

    1 Corinthians 2:9 – 9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Isaiah 64:8-9 – 8 Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Welcome to the beginning of the 2020 Advent Series. I back around the second week in November I was stewing over whether or not I should to another series for this Advent. I wasn’t sure, because I couldn’t think of a subject; I prayed about it and asked the Holy Spirit to give me a clue about what to do. As always, he came through with amazing clarity! Here’s what I mean.

Back in October, I created a post called 2040AFC100220 – Think about these things and in that post was this statement:

We discern what is good, and follow everything that points to the Love of God in Christ Jesus. We never, never, never, never give up Hope! We place Faith as our mast, and Love as our sail, and with Wisdom as our rudder we follow the course laid out in Scripture.

My dear friend and mentor, John Kretser, commented on that. He liked the image and contributed the thought that the Ship that holds that mast, sail, rudder, and course is our Hope in Christ Jesus. KA-CHING! There it was laid out for me just as I had hoped. Today we will start with that mast – Faith. As I worked on deciding how to build this series, a second set of instructions came in: BUILD IT FROM PREVIOUSLY-USED MATERIALS AND INSERT NEW MATERIAL FROM EACH SUNDAY’S READINGS. So, for you and for God, here is that first installment. I’ll give you links where you can go look at the origin of what you’ll see in these posts. I’m pretty sure that it won’t be 100% recycled material, though. Let’s get started; I’m hoping these will be quick and easy for you to read, and maybe a bit shorter than some of the heavy-duty things that have come out in the last 90 days. This opening will start each installment of the series, so already your reading burned has been decreased by about 480 words!

You probably noticed that instead of a key image, we have a boat/ship image. “Among sailing vessels, the distinction between ships and boats is that a ship is a square-rigged craft with at least three masts, and a boat isn’t. With regard to motorized craft, a ship is a large vessel intended for oceangoing or at least deep-water transport, and a boat is anything else.” You’ll be seeing boats in these posts. (follow the link to learn more). This boat has one mast. Obviously, the mast holds the sail. What holds the mast? Rigging, called standing rigging, it help stabilize the mast by running between the mast and the deck, like guy-wires on a tree or a radio antenna. The mast usually passes through the deck and may be secured against the hull of the boat at or below the waterline. The sail is attached with spars – nearly horizontal cross-members that help support the edges of the sail. Now, what is it that Faith and a mast have in common?

Faith is anchored in our foundation, our hull, our soul. It’s held up with the rigging – support cables – of our knowledge of God and his Word. Faith is what supports our love of God and neighbor. Remember our Old Friend Abraham? He had Faith that God would not tell him anything that was untrue, and that was “credited to him as righteousness.” (See Genesis 15:6) How does Faith work? Here are some examples from previous posts:

From 840AFC100308 – Faith and Wheelbarrows Think about the parts of a wheelbarrow. Handles – These are like Trust and Knowledge which are needed for Faith. Using only trust gives us a fatalistic mysticism. Using only Knowledge we end up with an academic relativism. But the positive qualities of those disparate views produces Faith. A wheelbarrow is not just handles, you need that tray, the place where you carry the load. This works like practical knowledge – it helps us roll along with the load of our day-to-day duties. To roll, though, ya gotta have a wheel (it’s a WHEEL barrow) The wheel is actually a combination of two machines. The axle is the fulcrum for the levers that make the handles. The wheel is a compound lever that rotates around the fulcrum so that the amount of force required to move a load is reduced. So let’s say that the axle is consciousness and the wheel is morality. Our morality rotates around our consciousness which includes our awareness of cause and effect. So what else is on the wheelbarrow? Well, as you might recall, there are the legs, and they have an important role, too. You don’t have to have the legs to make a wheelbarrow or to use a wheelbarrow, but life sure is easier with them than it is without them. The legs, I deem, are our family and friends. They support us, help us manage and balance our load, keep us from falling over, and keep our handles off the ground so we don’t have to do as much heavy lifting to get up and get going. And that’s the thing about Faith being like a wheelbarrow.

From 1034AFC082010 . In faith, I trust God to be God – All Right, All Powerful, All Good, All Knowing, All Present, Always and All Ways. I believe He alone is God, that everything He creates has an eternal purpose, and that His creation includes me. His Word is inviolate; it cannot be profaned or made impure. What God says is what God does because His actions are His words, and His words are perfect action.

Devotion is the personal (as opposed to congregational or corporate) enthusiastic commitment to be loyal and dedicated to a person or to religious practice(s). When we say, “I am devoted to you” we are expressing our personal intent to be steadfast and loyal, unswerving in our allegiance and any obligations or responsibilities that arise from our devotion.

So, when I combine faith, trust, and devotion, I have hope in a well-purposed future that is sustained by a commitment to focus my life’s work on the source of that hope. I have a balance. Some of you might remember an AFC Message about a wheelbarrow (AFC100308 or AFC100908 – let me know if you would like me to send you a copy) where I said that the handles of the wheelbarrow were like Faith and Trust. You need both of them to use the wheelbarrow. Drawing on that analogy, I propose that devotion is the sense of balance necessary to use the wheelbarrow without dumping everything out of it. That balance isn’t built into the wheelbarrow; it’s built into the person using it. Devotion is what makes it possible to move something that is heavy and cumbersome using a tool that is simple and practical. Devotion makes getting through life more calmly. Calm is good.

From 1604AFC012216 – Where do we look to see what sort of gift we have? Well, if actions speak louder than words, what actions show us that we are gifted? What are the things we like to do and the things we can do well? Those are our gifts. Let’s take a really easy but very important Gift that everyone reading this must surely have: Faith. Do you have faith, even “just a little, maybe?” Do not keep it to yourself. Share it! How? Be The Body of Christ? How? Age Quod Agis – do what you do – in The Body of Christ. Now, can you do that and go fishing or blowing or watch sports every Sunday instead of going to Church? Of course not. At a very minimum, to be part of The Body of Christ, you have to show up (85% of every gig is just being there for the gig). And then you need to share your gift. Paul says if you’re a foot, don’t try to be (or prefer to be) a hand; if you’re an ear, don’t try to be (or prefer to be) an eye; if you are an ear, don’t try to be (or prefer to be) a nose. Be who and what you are and, in all things, do it for the Glory of God in Christ Jesus. (See 1 Corinthians 10:31 and Colossians 3:17) That takes real Faith! Belovéd, don’t keep your Faith hidden under a bushel. No! Let your little light shine. Share your Faith, and all your other gifts.

Look back at the Key Verse at the top: God is faithful. Faith is confidence that all the good things in which we hope are true. God is the source of all that is good, so he is the source of all of our Hope. Now consider this from 1425AFC062014 – Faith and Mystery Day after day we eat and drink to nourish our bodies. What we eat becomes part of us. The food each individual eats is united with that person’s body. With the Eucharist it is the other way around. We become what we eat. Now, I know someone out there just had that old saying “You are what you eat” pop into your head; junk in – junk out, good in – good out. In Communion, we consume the Body and Blood of Christ and we are united to Body and Blood as we become – truly indeed – The Body of Christ, his Church. Everything that is less-than-divine is joined with Every Thing that is Divine: John 14:19-21 – Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.

That is communion. We do not become God, or part of God; we live in Jesus and Jesus lives in us and in our Father. We share this with, in, and for The Body of Christ. We share it with, in, and for the Love of God in Christ Jesus by the ministry of the Holy Spirit because “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?”

Please, please, please: Remember why Jesus’ commands at The Last Supper are important. Remember that – every time you receive it – as he told you to do. Be engaged, not blasé. Be aware, not oblivious. Become the Body of Christ through faith in this Mystery. Beloved, love one another, but love God most. Pray for everyone always in, as, and for The Body of Christ.

Next week we look at what’s attached to the mast.

“Faith of Our Fathers” – YouTube   (<<Music Link)

Have Thine Own Way, Lord with Lyrics – YouTube (<<Music Link)

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —

at your service, Belovéd!

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported LicenseCreative Commons License

 

Aloha Friday Message – November 20, 2020 – Are you done with that?

November 20, 2020

2047AFC112020 – Are you done with that?

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

    Ezekiel 34:11 – Thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will look after and tend my sheep.

1 Corinthians 15:28 – 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.

Matthew 25:46 – 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment*, but the righteous into eternal life. *κόλασιν (kolasin) {kol’-as-in} kólasis – from kolaphos, “a buffeting, a blow” – properly, punishment that “fits” (matches) the one punished

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Today is Friday, November 20, 2020. It is the 325th day of the year. There are 41 days left. This is a day the Lord has made, so let’s rejoice, be glad, and try not to mess it up. At 00:06, the time this post went live, I turned 74 years old. It hasn’t changed me a bit, although I wonder if perhaps this will be the year, or even the day or hour, when I will complete my last assignment and get some time off. Or is that some time on? Ah! Knowing me, it’s probably a time out! I am eager to be done with all of this, nonetheless, I will keep pounding away until I don’t have to.

How about you? Are you done with this yet? I hear a lot of people saying that these days. “I’m done with this! No more masks, no more sickness, no more politics, no more nothing.” I get it. This is tiring stuff! There’s only one problem I see with being done; well, not a problem really, just an observation. I end up asking the question, “What’s next?” (← Check it out!) This post is along the line of that post from back in 2015. It’s possible some pieces of that might end up in this piece, but I really want to focus on that Key Verse passage from Sunday’s Gospel. The 2015 post talked about how to get to Heaven; the conclusion was it is only through the Grace of God that we have any chance of getting there.

This post is going to deal a bit with how to get to Hell. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but when the promptings for this message started, I ended up with four pages of notes on that topic. Don’t worry, Belovéd, I’m not going to take much more of your time than usual, but I am going to try to make all of us think a little bit harder about that question, “What’s next?”. As long as we are in this corporeal world, there is always a “next thing.” Do you remember YOLO-F? You Only Live Once – and it’s FOREVER. Our last “next thing” is the eternal part of our lives – that Life Everlasting in the Gospel of John. We’ve covered the idea of life forever in the presence of God, and death forever in the absence of God, several times over the years. What is that alternative like, that life in Hell?

I was surprised to learn that there are folks in the past who have spent a great deal of time thinking about that. Of course, since they are earthlings, there is no consensus. One view holds that at the Day of Reward (which most folks call Judgment Day) the “bad people” will be refused entry into Heaven, be shipped off to some mysterious place, and be annihilated. This is called Annihilationism. One’s existence is cancelled; that created soul as well as the entire life it led are permanently terminated. If these souls actually do spend any time in a literal Hell, at some point God causes them to cease to exist – eternal elimination. Being denied Heaven in any form is also referred to as “the second death.” (See for example Revelation 20:14 and Revelation 21:8)

Another view is referred to as Universalism. In this view everybody has immortality – YOLO-F – and the kicker is that eventually everyone is forgiven. In Universalism and Annihilationism, all evil will eventually be wiped out, and only Holiness will remain; Hell will be empty. These theological constructs are contrary to what the Church and Christian tradition hold to be true; that is, that God does indeed have a place called Hell – not just “Sheol” or “Hades” or “Gehenna” but really truly actually eternal tortuous hellfire and brimstone. This is the point of view called Traditionalism.

In the opposing views, it is argued that it is inherently unjust for a just God to eternally punish a soul for temporal – that is for time-alive – sins. They argue that God would not submit any soul to punishment because that cancels out his victory over evil and death won for us on the Cross. How would God create a soul knowing that ultimately that soul would be assigned to eternal torment? Or, in another view, is this whole idea of suffering in Hell – or even cleansing in Purgatory – just a perverted exaggeration of God’s Divine Sovereignty? Isn’t Eternity with God supposed to be one hugely harmonious God-centered celebration of Life and Joy? Why would God leave a dab of humanity in a disharmonious, ugly, painful eternal torment? What was most surprising to me as I read through these differing viewpoints is that they all claim to be biblical! The disparity between the three viewpoints is such that it would be impossible for all three to be true, and it seems equally unlikely that two of them could be true, but if we accept only one view, what should that be? I decided that the view I could best accept and understand is the Traditionalist view of Eternal Punishment. Here’s why:

Let’s take a look at the Universalist view. Take a moment to think of  a person or a group that’s been in the news recently, a person or group that really raised your ire. Now, picture them sitting with you at the Heavenly Banquet. Now imagine that next to them you see Stalin, Hitler, and Mao in a lively conversation. Further up the table are the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John. In the other direction you spot a neighbor who was caught in adultery and decided to get out of the trouble he was in by murdering his family and committing suicide. After all the good things you did in your life to gain a place at the Table, you realize it is only by the Grace of God that you are here, so the same thing must apply to them. God indeed has the power and authority to do that, so how or why did your struggle with sin and repentance make any difference?

We can say much the same about the Nihilists’ outcomes. After being judged as unfit for Heaven, they are eliminated from Heaven and eternity in the blink of an eye. That means that all the people imagined above simply disappeared without any further reckoning for their conduct on Earth. That banishment is indeed eternal since all those deemed worthy will live forever in the presence of God. But wait, haven’t we forgotten about YOLO-F? Didn’t God create us in his image and that means we too are created to be holy and eternal? Hmmm. Blinking the evil out of the Universe might not be an option. So how about those traditionalists? What would they say?

I need to interject something here that is strictly my own point of view, one of those IMHO[1] statements. It is related to this question: When we are all called to the New Jerusalem, to live with God and his angels as resurrected citizens of Heaven, will we still have Free Will? Most Christian theology stances point to Free Will as essential to Salvation. We must choose to love and serve God. There’s no point in him forcing us to love him, because then it wouldn’t really be love. Love requires the decision to commit the act of loving, and that impulse to make that decision is an innate part of us by God’s command. When we suppress that impulse, we sin. In the post-resurrection Heaven, IMHO, there must still be the choice to love God or not to love God, to obey God or not to obey God. If we have free will, then we can use that to elect to be unholy. Nothing unholy is permitted in Heaven, so what would God do with any soul – or angel – who chose to unholy? IF there was already a Hell, and IF it were extant outside of heaven, then the disobedient would immediately proceed to Hell. That’s why there should be a hell. Now, I agree, God could just blink them back into Heaven by forgiving them again, or he could blink them out of existence by banishing them, or he could do as he has always said he would do: Condemn them to everlasting torment.

Now, early on in this post I showed you a link that said (← Check it out!). The following inserts come from that post (1546AFC111315) in 2015. Follow the link if you want to check out that context:

Jesus himself said there is a continuation of life after death. We now know it as Heaven or Paradise. Admission to eternal, everlasting, glorious life with God is attainable through a belief in Jesus that is sufficient to constitute true faith.

In addition, Jesus referred to God the Father as “God of the living and not of the dead. He is the God of the living, not of the dead is found in …

Matthew 22:32 Mark 12:27 Luke 20:38

As such God will award the righteous with eternity with him and will award the unrighteous with eternity without him. It is Christ who will be the judge. It is God who will grant the awards.

2 Thessalonians 1:5-10 – 5 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. 6 For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

Jesus told his disciples – especially those he chose to be Apostles – that there were good outcomes and bad outcomes based on how people lived.

Matthew 13:49-51 – 49 “So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51 Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.”

Now, here some object that there is no literal “furnace of fire.” We don’t know for certain how that experience of being separated from El Shaddai Olam (Almighty Ever-Living God) will manifest, but it is clear throughout scripture that it will be extremely unpleasant and unrelenting.

Jesus will send angels who are assigned to gather into two groups all the souls that ever lived (remember, we all live forever).

Matthew 13:41-42 – 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Not all of the angels will be with “the good guys.”

2 Peter 2:4 – 4 For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; (Want to know more? Try all of 2 Peter 2)

If we decide, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that there is no God, no Christ, no Salvation, and no sin then we condemn ourselves.

Revelation 21:8 – 8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

In addition, if we succeed at convincing – or even attempt to entice others to sin as we sin – then that will also bring separation from God. Jesus declares this in two of the Gospels:

Mark 9:42 – 42 If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.

Matthew 18:6 – 6 “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Yet God has planned all of this from the first Word of creation, and part of the plan is that we should choose to love him. As the Prophet Isaiah said,

Isaiah 64:4 – 4 For since the world began no one has seen or heard of such a God as ours, who works for those who wait for him! Living Bible (TLB) The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Today, I ask all of us, “Are we done with sin? Do we commit to loving God and neighbor as he commanded? Are we done with the life we have chosen to live, including the times we suppressed our consciences? Are we ready to hear God ask us, ‘ARE YOU DONE WITH THAT?'”? Well, are we? Like you, I’m doing the best I can – I hope – but, honestly, it’s not enough. However God decides to deal with those who are deemed unworthy of Heaven, I absolutely aspire to be in that other group and I absolutely do not want to be guilty of failing to warn, to coax, or to plead with and for any soul that could end up being separated from God in any fashion whatsoever. I’m done with that, and I’m (finally) done with this post. I want you to know that if you got to this point, I deeply appreciate your patience! I just want to encourage you to Take Time To Be Holy (↔ Music Link) and to remember You Can’t Be A Beacon if your light don’t shine (↔ Music Link) so that God may be all in all.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —

at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

[1] NB – this is my POV and in no way reflects the teaching of the Catholic Church, or of any other person or organization. It may or may not seem reasonable to anyone else, but is based on my 65+ years of experience studying the Word. Of course, I’m not the only person to ever think of this, so you can run a search to find out about Free Will After the Resurrection.

Aloha Friday Message – November 13, 2020 – What are you waiting for?

November 13, 2020

2046AFC111320 – What are you waiting for?

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

    1 Thessalonians 5:1-2 –  Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

Hosea 12:6 – 6 But as for you, return to your God, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.

Proverbs 20:22-23 – 22 Do not say, “I will repay evil”; wait for the Lord, and he will help you. 23 Differing weights are an abomination to the Lord, and false scales are not good.

Psalm 37:34 – 34 Wait for the Lord, and keep to his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land; you will look on the destruction of the wicked.

Psalm 27:13-14 – 13 I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

Proverbs 4:23 – 23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! May Peace always be with you and may God bless you, Belovéd! These days of confusion, anger, and conflict seems like they may go on for much, much longer. All of us are weary of COVID-19 VIRUS, politics, weather (it’s been over 80º most days here for weeks), and that “return to normal” for which we all long. If I were to ask you the question in today’s topic, “What are you waiting for?”, how would you answer?

Sometimes when people ask us that, it is meant as an encouragement to act; what are you waiting for? Go get it! Sometimes, it’s a challenge to commit to action when we’re not sure how things will turn out. Many times we have no idea why we are waiting. What do we expect will happen and when? If we don’t know what or when, or where or how or why, waiting can be pretty frustrating, even frightening. On the other hand, if we are waiting to be an aunt, or uncle, or grandparent or mom or dad, our expectation is filled with hope and Joy. We have also had times in our lives where we were waiting for what we dread – another hurricane, a trip to the principal’s office, the results of the CAT scan, or a root canal. Sometimes what we wait for seems worth the wait. Sometimes what we wait for is supremely disappointing. Sometimes what we wait for never happens. Why do we wait?

Waiting is a significant part of “the human condition.” If things happened as quickly and surely as we imagine them, life could be pretty chaotic. It’s pretty chaotic right now, and it seems like the chaos is caused by the delay of those things for which we have chosen to wait – or have been forced to wait. We seem to be caught up in the terrible power of the phrase “what if.” If we wait hopefully, waiting is endurable; if we wait fearfully, waiting is agonizing.

Much is said these days about the problem of “instant gratification. What if that happened every time we didn’t want to wait? Our lives would fill up with consequences and materials so quickly that we’d be lost in the deluge. Waiting is good for us even if it drives us crazy sometimes. The good comes from understanding what waiting is and how it works.

Waiting is an expression of anticipation – remember the ketchup commercial with the jingle “Anticipation is making me wait.”? There is the implication of expectation there, of hoping for, expecting, patiently enduring, watching, looking for, even desiring. We wait for someone or something but sometimes that is turned around; someone or something waits (or doesn’t wait) for us. Maybe the train or plane won’t wait, but maybe individual people will. The people in the service industries are said to wait on their customers, to wait tables, to wait for our demands/commands; those who wait on us often minister to us, too. So, let me ask you: Are we waiting on God, or is God waiting on us? Selah.

What did the psalmist mean when he talked about waiting? Check this out: Psalm 130:5-6 – 5 I wait* for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; 6 my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.* קִוִּ֣יתִי (qiw-wî-ṯî) {qavahti) {kaw-vaw’ti} hope for, expect, patiently endure, watch, look for, desire. How about these expressions of certainty that the Lord will be fair in all his ways?

Psalm 94:12-14 – 12 Happy are those whom you discipline, O Lord, and whom you teach out of your law, 13 giving them respite from days of trouble, until a pit is dug for the wicked. 14 For the Lord will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage;

Matthew 26:41 – 41 “Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Waiting requires wakefulness – in either sense of the word, you have to be awake to wait for someone or something, and you have to be awake to wait on someone or something. Staying awake is a requirement of the sentinel who watches and waits for friend or foe. Are we watching for the Foe, the Accuser, the Father of lies? See here: 2 Thessalonians 2:3 – 3 Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one† is revealed, the one destined for destruction. ††

†The man of lawlessness; other ancient authorities read the man of sin ††The son of destruction. (Read the full chapter to see that in context, especially about the people held in delusions at the end of times. It will take less than 5 minutes.)

There were sentinels among the children of Israel, and they watched for enemies and for allies (look up Shibboleth sometime), but they also had sentinels who warned them of enemies or allies of God. They were called the Judges and the Prophets. We have similar sentinels in this day and age – Spirit-filled men, women, and sometimes even children who warn us against our enemies and identify our allies. If and when we recognize those Prophets and Judges, we wait for them to tell us what we need to know to be safe, to find peace, to be secure. Yet, we also have this warning from one of Jesus’ foremost sentinels, the Apostle Paul:

1 Thessalonians 5:3-6 – 3 When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! 4 But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; 5 for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. 6 So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake* and be sober *γρηγορῶμεν (grēgorōmen) {gray-gor-yoo’-o-men} → literally, “stay awake”; (figuratively) be vigilantly responsible, watchful; to give strict attention to, be cautious, to take heed lest through remission and indolence some destructive calamity suddenly  overtake one.

Belovéd, does that sound like something you might have heard or experienced lately? Waiting is a great deal more than sitting around doing nothing. The waiting God expects of us is endless awareness; it is a watchfulness which includes excitement for the good things and preparation for the bad things. These are the telltale actions of Faith; we hope because we believe, we believe because we trust, we wait because we love, we love because we obey. Where there’s life (← Check it out!) there’s hope, and God expects us, waits for us, to Trust and Obey. We walk with the Lord and simply Trust and Obey (↔ Music Link). But wait! There’s more!

We also need to take a look at the Old Testament reading from Chapter 31 of the book of Proverbs. This is the chapter that describes the Virtuous Woman (← Check it out!). We’ve studied passages about Men of Valor and Women of Virtue. I remember a Radio Preacher’s sermon on the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs. One statement he made struck me as particularly and elegantly insightful. He said, “There is nothing in this world more beautiful than a virtuous woman serving the Lord.” I thought about all the difficulties women have endured for millennia because they were deemed lesser in every way because of their gender. I also recall the several “Proverbs 31 Women” I have known. You know what I have often said about women: Naturally they are not the lesser; they are certainly deserving of all equitable consideration and treatment. In fact, I argue that women are the better part of humanity. Man was made from dirt. Woman was made from flesh and bone. Better ingredients, better people. OK, so I probably sound a little flippant there, but I say that to illustrate that indeed there is little in this world that can outshine the Light one sees in a life lived with virtue and valor. And that applies to men and women, boys and girls, saints and sinners. Now how does that relate to our theme of waiting?

Belovéd, you already know the answer! It’s in the adage, “Patience is a virtue.” (See more about that in The 2016 Lenten Series) To be Good Citizens of the Kingdom of God, we need to live virtuous, valorous lives because it is those qualities which give us the faith, the discernment, the patience and perseverance, and especially the humility to WAIT. After all, what does Scripture tell us of the Father of Nations, our old friend Abraham? It says, quite plainly, in Hebrews 6:15 – 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise. And the Promise is the restoration of our communion with God.

In closing, please consider these passages:

1 Thessalonians 5:6 – 6 So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober

2 Peter 3:7-9 – 7 But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the Day of Judgment and destruction of the godless. 8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. (Use this link to read the full chapter with some very familiar statements.)

Joel 2:28-33 – 28 Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 29 Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

30 I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. 32 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. (See also Acts 2:14-24)

Now, Belovéd, isn’t that worth waiting for with virtue and valor?

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —

at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – November 6, 2020 – Using Wisdom to Light the Way

November 6, 2020

2045AFC110620 – Using Wisdom to Light the Way

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

     Matthew 25:3-4 – 3 When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

Wisdom 6:14-16 – 14 One who rises early to seek her [Wisdom] will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate. 15 To fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding, and one who is vigilant on her account will soon be free from care, 16 because she goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their paths, and meets them in every thought.

Matthew 6:10 – 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Aloha pumehana, a me ke akua ho’omaika‘i ‘oe, ʻŌmea! Warmest Aloha, and may God bless you, Belovéd! Before I get too far into this I need to ask a favor of each of you. I’m going to put a hyperlink here and ask you to share it with anyone you can. We’ve all heard the passage from 2 Chronicles 7:14 – 14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. I am asking you to pass along this link: https://www.catholic365.com/article/11824/a-prayer-for-national-repentance.html. If you have a Twitter account (I’ve never taken that step – too “sticky” for my tastes), please send it out that way and have others re-Tweet. Maybe it will eventually get to @POTUS or @realDonaldTrump. Regardless of how this General Election turns out, the only way we can be assured that we have done all we should to make things right is to carefully heed the content of this passage from 2 Chronicles. Thank you in advance for your help with this!

Let us begin our study with an appeal to seek and utilize Wisdom. Scripture teaches us that Wisdom was with God during creation, and accompanies God in all his Works. Sunday’s gospel is the story of the ten virgins – five wise and five foolish. I am trying to be ready for God’s will in all things. Being ready means you don’t just assume that when the time comes you’ll be prepared for whatever happens. You have to be paying attention to “the little things.” Jesus taught several lessons on being ready. We will hear one such lesson this weekend – the 10 Virgins at the Wedding Feast. That’s the reason for today’s Key Verse.

In this story, there are 10 virgins who are waiting for the bridegroom to return so that the Wedding Feast can start. All of them fall asleep. Five of them have brought extra oil; they are referred to as the wise virgins. Five of them did not bring extra oil; they are referred to as the foolish virgins. When the bridegroom arrived, the wise were ready to go into the feast with him because they could refill their lamps and trim their wicks. The foolish ones begged the wise for more oil. The request was not granted. Instead they were sent out into the darkness to attempt to correct their foolishness. The wise went in with the bridegroom. The foolish were locked out. Although the parable does not say it directly, we can come to a reasonable assumption that the door was locked by the bridegroom after he entered the feast with the 5 who were ready. It is very apparent in this parable that Jesus is the bridegroom and the 10 virgins represent his followers – all 10 are invited to the feast. Only 5 were prepared to continue to be in the presence of the bridegroom because they were wisely prepared. Today, we know that we must also be prepared to pray and believe our prayer when we recall Matthew 6:10 – 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

We must be prepared to anticipate God’s will (be prepared) and to obey God’s will (carry out). Philippians 2:14-16a – 14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing. 15 Then you will be the pure and innocent children of God. You live among people who are crooked and evil, but you must not do anything that they can say is wrong. Try to shine as lights among the people of this world, 16 as you hold firmly to the message that gives life. Contemporary English Version (CEV) Copyright © 1995 by American Bible Society

We must be those lights, those lamps set on a lampstand, those souls filled with Hope and Peace. Do you recall what the Apostle Paul said in Romans 15:13? He said, 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Beloved, do not let the present times confuse you with stories about “The End” or messages about foolishness, or quarrels and disputes about the stark differences between the World and the Kingdom. Find someone who needs help – be it food, or prayer, or work, or comfort, or just a smile or a thank-you – then give that which is needed and move on to the next one. If you’re not sure who to pray for, pray for everyone. If you’re not sure what to pray, ask the Holy Spirit to pray within you. As St. Mother Teresa told us, “If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.” The wise among us will not only bring that oil, but also know where to get it. Remember the foolish virgins had to go out in the middle of the night to find someone to sell them\ what they needed. We get our Light – and the oil in our lamps (↔ Music Link) – from the King who is the Light of the World.

Christians everywhere know that the Holy Spirit is actively countering the massive attacks against righteousness all across the World. If ever there was a time for us to exercise our spiritual authority, NOW IS THE TIME! (↔ Music Link) We have the authority of the Children chosen by God just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. (See Ephesians 1:2-4) How do we know we are chosen? Because we believe (John 3:16-19), and because by baptism and the Holy Spirit we are children of God as we learn from John 1:12 – 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God …

Often reviewing this verse leads to a discussion of how to survive those tests of faith we encounter so often in our lives. Sometimes things happen that we just cannot understand – like the death of a child, the betrayal of innocence, or pointless violence. These things are often difficult to comprehend even within our Christian understanding of life. This too is something about which much has been written – why bad things happen to good people (and the converse of that, why good things happen to bad people). Again, there is a short answer which is inadequate only if you don’t believe that the longer answer isn’t any different from the short answer. The short answer is, “with God all things are possible.” The good and the bad happen, but it all happens within God’s knowing of it. Victims exist and God knows the how and why of that existence. He does not produce the victim or the circumstances that result in victims. Regardless of what is happening now, we need not, must not, be victims. We can be, should be, witnesses – witnesses to the Wisdom of God by knowing we are intentionally praying “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

I have said recently that – as we watch this unique moment in history – about half of the Nation will see it as a slow-motion train wreck ending in disaster and the rest of the nation will see it as the Clash of the Titans with the few but the mighty prevailing. However we see it, it will not come to be without the knowledge AND WISDOM of God!

Belovéd, that’s good enough for everyone who is wise. James 1:5 tells us 5 If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. Now that doesn’t mean we can just sit on our tushes and wait for God to crown us with Wisdom. We may have to seek her out, but that’s OK because 4 One who rises early to seek her [Wisdom] will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate. 15 To fix one’s thought on her is perfect understanding, and one who is vigilant on her account will soon be free from care, 16 because she goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their paths, and meets them in every thought.

Put a little oil in your lamp (hint: it’s FREE in the B.I.B.L.E.), and keep it burning. We know not the day nor the hour, (← Check it out!) but the wise can see that now is the birth pangs (← Check it out!) and we can proceed with confidence because we are prepared through God’s own Wisdom.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Little clay lamps like this with a wick laid off to one side in a little trough were common in Jesus’ day. In this kind of vessel a piece of cloth or a bit of soft wood wicked-up (← Check it out!) the oil and provided light to the room. We can provide the Light of Wisdom in the darkness of this Age. Keep letting your little light shine!

A Prayer for National Repentance

November 5, 2020

2 Chronicles 7:14 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

A Prayer for National Repentance

Please use the following prayer at least once daily until 31 days after the General Election is certified.

Almighty Everliving God, we – the citizens of America – come to You with humbled and contrite hearts. We repent of our tepid faith, our poorly-developed and fruitless works, and our indifference to You and to our neighbors. We are resolved to return to You, to submit to Your Will, and to become again “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” From the doors of our homes, from the gates of our communities, from the seat of our governments, and from the depths of our hearts we return to You for You alone are compassionate enough to heal and restore our Nation. Bless our civil and religious leaders and everyone in authority – including those who develop, enforce, and adjudicate laws – so that they serve with morality, compassion, integrity, wisdom, and justice so we can all live together in Peace. We stand against those who follow the ways of evil and anarchy, threatening to destroy our Nation and to set aside the blessings and wisdom You gave to our founding fathers. We will return to serving God, Country, and family so that Your Name may be glorified. We ask this in the name of Jesus our Lord. AMEN.

 

 

Aloha Friday Message – October 30, 2020 – What’s left is Right

October 30, 2020

2044AFC103020 – What’s left is Right

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

     Revelation 7:13-14 – 13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

1 John 3:1 – 1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Matthew 5:9 – 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Revelation 12:5-6 – 5 The woman gave birth to a son, who would rule all nations with an iron rod. The boy was snatched away. He was taken to God and placed on his throne. 6 The woman ran into the desert to a place that God had prepared for her. There she would be taken care of for one thousand two hundred sixty days. (That is 180 weeks or 42 months or 3½ years.)

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow is Halloween, so I want to look at that for just a moment, and then I want to explain what that oxymoron of a title means.

Halloween is properly Hallowe’en, or Hallow Even or All Hallows Eve. It is the day before the Solemnity of All Saints, and two days before The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls). On All Saints Day – which this year happens to fall on a Sunday, November 1, 2020, we remember those who have left this life and have been favored by God to dwell with him forever. November 1 has been on a Sunday in the 20th century 12 times, and so far in the 21st century twice – 2015 and 2020. There is a full moon on 11/31/2020, and it is the second full moon in the month of November, so it is referred to as a “Blue moon.” The occurrence of a blue moon is known to be rare, hence the adage “once in a blue moon.” Because the full moon is on the thirty-first, some people associate that with increased “lunacy” (craziness during a full moon), and increased power and frequency of black arts – witchcraft and magick. Why the extra K? It’s there because Aleister Crowley – a 19th-20th century “mystic” and “occultist” (1875-1947) founded the religion of Thelema. He used the term allegedly to differentiate what he considered human-generated change that is not necessarily metaphysical. Those who dabble in (or are wholly lost in) occult crafting believe that it is possible to make use of metaphysical incantations, behaviors, signs, and symbols to manipulate spirits and nature; it is witchcraft, divination, and blasphemy. I mention this because at Halloween it is not uncommon for people to dress up in costumes that are based on witches, demons,  (including costumes appearing like Ἑκάτη, Hekátē who is the Greek goddess of witchcraft!) and monsters and therein we find a problem.

Halloween originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires, make “Jack O’Lanterns” and wear costumes to keep evil spirits from affecting them. They believed it was possible to “outsmart” these wandering spirits, so they would put on masks when they left their homes after sunset so that the evil spirits would actually believe they were also spirits. You can find out more here. It is wise to remember that witchcraft, divination, sorcery, demonic activity, and similar imitations of cultic practices can potentially be dangerous. Satan has been working for centuries to make us unaware that all of that is NOT “merely” cultural tradition. One of his favorite tricks is to tell the same lie often enough that eventually we believe it. Just remember that God is in charge, Christ has conquered evil and death, and interacting with demonic spirits is likely to be eternally fatal. Now, let’s see what God has in store for us in the Scriptures for this weekend.

What do I mean by saying “What’s left is Right?” Another word for “what’s left” is “remnant.” A carpet remnant is a piece of carpeting that is left over when carpeting is installed. Fabric remnants, food remnants, and nation remnants are all smaller parts of the whole that are left when larger parts of the whole are used (or lost) elsewhere. Here are some passages about what’s left – the Remnant. This is not an exhaustive list, and we won’t get into the speculations about the 144,000. This list, however, gives us a glimpse of what God intends for the small part of Israel, i.e., Judah in some passages, as time goes by.

Jeremiah 23:3 – 3 Then I myself will gather the remnant* of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. * שְׁאֵרִ֣ית (sheerith) {sheh-ay-reeth’} left, remnant, rest, survivors, those who had escaped.

Joel 2:32 – 32 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors [remnant] shall be those whom the Lord calls.

Amos 5:15 – 15 Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. 

     Micah 5:2-5a – This is the prophecy about God waiting until the time when “she who is in labor” brings forth the redeemer so that “then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel.”

Zechariah 8:6 – 6 Thus says the Lord of hosts: Even though it seems impossible to the remnant of this people in these days, should it also seem impossible to me, says the Lord of hosts?

Romans 11:5 – 5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.

How does the Lord “carve out” this remnant? The last small part of the whole has a certain set of characteristics which set them apart from larger part(s) – they are the ones who are righteous, the ones who are fruitful, the ones who “Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate.” They are the ones who are left because they are the ones who are Right. They are those who do more of what others do in what God has decreed in his Law. We remember that several ways.

By now these little aphorisms should sound familiar:

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO? The right thing.
Do what you know is right.
Avoid doing what you know is wrong.
Ask God to bless that choice.

That sounds easy, huh? “Do what you know is right, avoid doing what you know is wrong, and then ask God to bless that choice.” To do that successfully, we need these four actions in our lives: Seclusion for prayer, meditation on teachings, feeding on the Word and the Christ, and going forth to share the Gospel. Otherwise we decline a portion of the available Good, the Good that makes the remnant Right. We in essence tell God, “I don’t want any more blessings.” It sounds silly, but earthlings are messy like that. We interrupt the flow of blessings so we can do what we think we should and avoid doing what God requires of us. And what does he require? He requires us to repent, to believe in the Gospel, and to share the Gospel to all the corners of the World.

The do’s and don’ts in this season are the same as in every other season. As we look toward Halloween, we are invited to set aside our masks – especially the ones we think God cannot see through – and to face the reality that we are, and always will be, tempted. Not surprisingly, we are most easily tempted when we forget that we are more blessed than we can be tempted. God always provides the power to resist temptation, but we do not always use that gift; sometimes we intentionally suppress our consciences. Even if we realize that we do not have unlimited resources for dealing with the Devil, I think all of us know in our inmost self that we are overly-confident about our own power of resistance.  We are the Children of God by adoption. If we must, we will survive “the great ordeal” and wash our robes in the Blood of the Lamb. We shall live as, and be as, the Peacemakers of God. What will become of us over the next 42 months is in God’s hands. IF we are the remnant, then we are Right to be all that is left.

Our ever-living, ever-loving God gives us the opportunity to seriously weigh those decisions we often make way too lightly. We can usually acknowledge intellectually that it is pointless to try to hide from God, but in our secretly sinful lives we foolishly believe we can get away with it. We fall into Satan’s original trap: “You can be like God and forgive yourself. You don’t really need Him!” Ah, Beloved! We know better, but we fall for it anyway! That’s the best way to avoid being in the remnant that is Right. Now, I must share with you something the Lord gave me in preparation for next week.

Please use the following prayer at least once daily until 31 days after the General Election is certified.

Almighty Everliving God, we – the citizens of America – come to you with humbled and contrite hearts. We repent of our tepid faith, our poorly-developed and fruitless works, and our indifference to You and to our neighbors. We are resolved to return to You, to submit to your Will, and to become again “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” From the doors of our home, from the gates of our communities, from the seat of our governments, and from the depths of our hearts we return to You for you alone are compassionate enough to heal and restore our Nation. Bless our leaders and everyone in authority – including those who develop, enforce, and adjudicate laws – so that they serve with morality, compassion, integrity, wisdom, and justice so we can all live together in Peace. We stand against those who follow the ways of evil and anarchy, threatening to destroy our Nation and to set aside the blessings and wisdom you gave to our founding fathers. We will return to serving God, Country, and family so that your Name may be glorified. We ask this in the name of Jesus our Lord. AMEN.

And finally this:

Sharing a few things I learned this week:

  • Vote for the platform, not the platitudes.
  • Vote for the Republic, not the Republican.
  • Vote for the Democracy, not the Democrat.
  • Vote for the mandate, not the man.
  • Vote for the future, not the past.
  • Vote for progress, not propaganda.
  • Vote for the results, not the rhetoric.
  • Vote for life, not death.
  • Vote for liberty, not liability.
  • Vote for continuity, not commotion.
  • Vote for execution of plans, not for excuses for schemes.
  • Vote for the privilege to be right, not the right to be privileged.
  • Vote for the right to be free, for there is no better alternative.

When it is all said and done,
VOTE!

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – October 23, 2020 – Being Good in the Neighborhood

October 23, 2020

2043AFC102320 – Being Good in the Neighborhood

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

   Matthew 22:34-40 – 34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’† 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

    Leviticus 19:18 – 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor† as yourself: I am the Lord.

    † לְרֵעֲךָ֖ (lə-rê-‘ă-ḵā) from רֵעַ (rea) {ray’-ah} → friend, companion, fellow resident.

Exodus 22:21 – 21 You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien*, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. The term resident alien is often translated as sojourner.

Sojourner is translated from a term in Hebrew – גֵּר (ger) {gare} – and it connotes the basic idea that a person or group is residing in a community and place that is not their place of origin. Such a one is dependent on the conceded rights and privileges – the  “good-will’ – of that community as an accepted part of the whole. (See Oxford Biblical Studies: Sojourner) There is also question about how gēr should be translated into Greek (for example in the Septuagint), as προσήλυτος (prosélutos) {pros-ay’-loo-tos} – a proselyte, a convert required to participate and observe the laws and customs of the “adopting nation;” or as πάροικος (paroikos) {par’-oy-kos} – one who dwells in a place not of his or her origin, but – although accepted by the community – lives within the population while observing their own customs and rules of behavior within the boundaries of the local laws and customs.

This idea of treating strangers with dignity, courtesy, and respect was probably unique in the era during which the Jewish people were formed as a nation. The treatment of foreigners – outsiders – was (and is still) harsh. They are mocked, picked on, bullied, denied certain rights, shunned, ostracized, snubbed at every turn, and the butt of coarse jokes. Treating them with decency was quite a new and different idea. What can we learn about God’s purpose for such a rule? Let’s start with why God chose Israel to be his “peculiar” people.

As we know from Genesis 3:15, before the ink had even dried on our Death Warrant, God promised and provided for a Redeemer. There was much to be prepared to provide this Grace and that required waiting until the “fullness of times” (See Galatians 4:4 and Ephesians 1:10) to come. For millennia upon millennia before the coming of God’s promised Messiah, the Lord was preparing the Way for His appearance by teaching us earthlings all the Truth that would make understanding the Works and Power of the Messiah at the proper time chosen by God. God is Holy; therefore if God planned to live among sinful humanity, humanity must have a Way for being Holy as well. Rather than simply impose the orderliness required to achieve holiness, God chose to gradually install the framework for Salvation step-by-step until humanity could comprehend and implement into their own lives the framework of redemption prepared for them by God. This plan was the Way for restoration of Truth, Life, and Peace – the Peace between God and his Creation which was destroyed by sin.

We earthlings are incapable of accomplishing Peace through our own efforts. We soon discover that Peace is unattainable without including God as a partner in the covenantal Peace that reunites us with him. How could it be?

Peace cannot be achieved solely through human effort; yet, conversely, perhaps, peace cannot be achieved without God’s participation. Is it true that all we really need is Love? (← Check it out!) Yes, of course that is True. Is it true that the kind of love that supports Peace is in any way attainable through nothing more than human effort? No, that has never been the case, and – fortunately for us – never will be. It took the immense Love of God sending his own Son to us to be our Messiah, God’s Christ. It was the only way we could return to Holiness with and within God. In Christ we become part of his Chosen People, as described in these three Scripture passages: (Please use the links to compare the language of these texts)

     Deuteronomy 7:6 – 6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. Some translations read “a peculiar treasure,” as in Psalm 135:4 – 4 For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure. Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV) The meaning for “peculiar” is nothing at all like the way we think of it these day – someone or something a bit weird. It comes from another Hebrew term סְגֻלָּ֔ה (sə-ḡul-lāh) {seg-ool-law’} which means a special treasure set aside for only one person.

Deuteronomy 14:2 – 2 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; it is you the Lord has chosen out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured** possession.

**Περιούσιον  (periousion) {per-ee-oo’-see-on} of one’s own possession; costly, treasured, select, specially chosen; of abundant and surpassing value.

Titus 2:14 – 14 He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own [periousion] who are zealous for good deeds.

God created Adam to be a companion in the community that is God. Through sin, Adam divided that community. God immediately implemented his plan for restoration – the reunification – of that community. For all the descendants of Adam, that plan included free will – the freedom to choose whether or not we would be merciful, and just, and walk humbly in God’s presence. We might choose hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times a day, and to help us with that choice God has given us instructions on how to be Holy:

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’† 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Christ’s Law of Love is the only Way to meet the requirements of the following passages:

Leviticus 19:17-18 – 17 You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Leviticus 19:33-34 – 33 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. 34 The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

We are held responsible for treating the alien, the neighbor, the kinfolk, and the earthlings with whom we interact with dignity, courtesy, and respect; we are to Love them even if they are our enemies. Now I know some are saying, “Well, that doesn’t mean I have to like them!” Yes, I suppose that is true – we can hate the sin but love the sinner, despise the act but not the actor. We are to be separate from the World as citizens of the Kingdom, yet God requires that the Kingdom be a witness to the World so that The World will see, and perhaps even desire, a place in the Kingdom with us. That is part of being “a light to all the nations.” (See Isaiah 49:6) The Apostle Paul put it this way in Philippians 2:3 – 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. No, that doesn’t mean Christians run around perfecting their inferiority complexes. It means we suspend our selfishness and treat our neighbors – native or foreign – as beloved of God. How simple that seems as a way to be good in the neighborhood, but how difficult it becomes when we set out to employ it! Even so, there is a simple little rule by which we may succeed. We find it in Psalm 37:3 – Trust the Lord and live right! The land [your neighborhood] will be yours, and you will be safe. Contemporary English Version (CEV)

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com

Creative Commons License
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Aloha Friday Message – October 16, 2020 – Chosen for greatness

October 16, 2020

2042AFC101620 – Chosen for greatness

Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.

    Isaiah 45:5a – 5 I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no god. 

    Isaiah 44:28a – [It is I, the Lord] who says of Cyrus, “He is my shepherd, and he shall carry out all my purpose” 

    Matthew 22:20-21 – 20 Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” 21 They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. Today is Friday, October 16, 2020. It is the 290th day of the year. There are 76 days left in 2020. I think all of us will agree this has been an extraordinary year so far, and it’s likely to get even more extraordinary before 2021 opens up before us. Many of us have had a difficult year. Some of us have had a horrible year. A few of us have had a great year. ALL of us have memories of 2020 that will last us for the rest of our lives, memories we will end up sharing with our grandchildren who will pass them on to their grandchildren. In my heart of hearts I hold the hope that somehow all this chaos will be resolved; but, that little man in the right-rear quadrant of my brain keeps saying, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

     Recently we’ve mentioned the “birth pangs” Jesus spoke of when describing the “end times.” If, indeed, what we are seeing now is just the birth pangs, then the pandemonium lurking just outside the door (see Genesis 4:7) is something I don’t want to see or endure. That’s kinda crazy, because if these days are the birth pangs, and if the next item on the program is The Tribulation (with or without the Parousia), then – as a person of Faith – I should be jumping for joy because everything is going as planned, and the Day of Resurrection is in sight. The World would judge me as just plain crazy, another religious nut. You’ve probably seen this little meme before, so you’ll understand why it is very important that we do not pay attention to the World’s judgments.

We know the way God works – he does everything perfectly! We don’t do that because we can’t do that. That’s why he’s God and we’re not (despite what certain Hollywood nuts say). This Sunday, we’re going to talk about one of the guys God stirred up to do what God had planned. It’s a pretty good story. We’ll hear about Cyrus, ruler of the Medes and Persians – the same guy who defeated Babylon and returned the Jews to Jerusalem after 70 years of exile there. Here’s the back-story on that.

One of our Key Verses today is from the book of the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah’s prophesies were made the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, all of which ruled in the closing years of the eighth century B.C. (ca. 740 – 701 B.C.). What’s really cool about this prophecy is that Isaiah specifically names Cyrus, who wasn’t even born yet! Cyrus was born around 585 ± 5 BC, around 150 years later! He was not a Jew, but rather a gentile. God refers to him as “his anointed” in Isaiah 45:1 – 1 Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him and strip kings of their robes, to open doors before him — and the gates shall not be closed. ALL the kings of Israel were anointed, and Cyrus was a Gentile whom God himself anointed with his Spirit. (See 2012AFC032020 – Anointed for Good for more information). After being whupped by just about every empire in history and carted off to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, I imagine the Jews looked at this new, young military leader as just another oppressor. “Here we go again. Now what?” They seem to have forgotten that God himself had chosen Cyrus and told them “Cyrus will do what I tell him to do. Jerusalem will be rebuilt and all of you will go there.” From Genesis to Malachi, God tells his people I am the Lord over 160 times. You’d think they’d remember! Another of our Key Verses says 5 I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no god. So, what are we supposed to do with that?

(This is where I’m supposed to insert Micah 6:8 again. We should all have that memorized by now.) We should also be thinking about the two greatest commandments – love God completely and love our neighbors (including our enemies) the same way Jesus loves us. That’s God’s plan for us. It’s a pretty simple plan if you really think about it. Trouble is it seems to be “too simple for our complex minds and hearts.” The folks who manage to figure out how it works and get’r done are the folks we name as Saints. Now, of course, all of the people saved by Grace are “the Saints of God,” but the exemplary ones are those who “do small things with great love.” We are all called to that kind of greatness. We who are baptized are also anointed Priest, Prophet, and King. If we think it was amazing that God would have Cyrus named as “his anointed” 150 years before it happened, then how great is it that millennia before we came on the scene, God named us – each and every person reading this – as his anointed? If God has prepared that for us, what ought we to prepare for him? I am not a Priest like Saint Pope John Paul II, I am not a Prophet like Isaiah, and I am not a King like Cyrus; but, I am chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. (See Ephesians 1:4) I am, you are, we are chosen and anointed by God, in God, and for God. As we hear in the Eucharistic Doxology, it is our call to live this proclamation as a core value in our lives: “Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, forever and ever. Amen.”)

Everyone in our lives is affected by our anointing. For most of us, though, that’s no big whoop; that is, unless we are counting our burdens instead of our blessings. That sort of focused awareness is pretty depressing because we concentrate too much on what we don’t have and overlook everything we do have. If we are living in accordance with Christ’s Law of Love, we know, see, and understand how God’s Grace gifts us with extraordinary treasures. That kind of focused awareness gives us a predisposition to value God’s Love deeply and also inspires us to make a return on that love. God invests us – clothes us in Christ – so that when we return the love of Christ to God and to neighbor our blessings are increased. If we give whatever belongs to God to someone or something else in the World, we should not be surprised that our investing in the World does not produce spiritual blessings. Those investments only satisfy our liabilities to the law. Investing in the World is about the same thing as paying our taxes. That’s the lesson Jesus was teaching when the Pharisees plotted to entrap him by asking, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (See Matthew 24:17).Jesus told them, “Show me the coin used for the tax.” Now we recently said something about this particular coin. It was a Denarius showing the image of Tiberius Caesar, Emperor in Jesus’ day. It was a tribute tax, a way of paying Caesar for his “protection” (under his thumb!). Jesus held the coin so the Disciples of the Pharisees could see it and said, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” 21 They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Sometimes we earthlings have trouble sorting that out. Just what does belong to God? Let’s take a look at what Scripture says:

Psalm 24:1-2 – 1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, 2 for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.

1 Chronicles 29:11 – 11 Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.

Deuteronomy 8:17-18 – 17 Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” 18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.

Job 41:11 – 11 I am in command of the world and in debt to no one. Contemporary English Version (CEV)

The short answer, then, is that everything belongs to God. He made it, and it’s his to do with as he pleases. If you’ve ever received a gift that was far beyond anything you could have imagined, that’s what God’s Grace is like. He gives us more than we can comprehend or repay, so he just asks us to share a little of it with him and with our neighbors. It may look like we have a house, a car, a deed to property, a bank account, but all of those things come from God, and if they are his, we should use them as best befits their purpose – to give God the glory, the praise, the thanks, the adoration, and all the Good that flows from his generosity. We can use God’s car to take a friend to work. We can use God’s groceries to feed a grieving family. We can use God’s living room in our home to host a prayer meeting or Bible study. Whatever we have, we can use it for something greater in the Kingdom than what it is in the World. In fact, whatever we do in the Kingdom, whatever we add to the Kingdom, whatever share to the Kingdom has come to us from and through God. (See John 1:3-4) Even so, we can “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” The reason is simple: Everything belongs to God, ultimately even the things that belong to Caesar.

If everything belongs to God, then it follows that everyone belongs to God. Our life, our love, our worshiping, and honoring of God and neighbor belong to God. If we offer all that we have – body, mind, and spirit – to God and neighbor, what becomes of us and of our gifts? I believe the answer is in John 15:13 – 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. All Good things come from God, so whatever is Good in our lives comes from him, but who can repay him – and how? If we give him All That We Have (↔ Music Link), could it ever be enough? Could we give God and each other All That I am (↔ Music Link), and still come up short? We want to Love God for the Greatness of his Love, but in the Light of his Love ours is Only a Shadow (↔ Music Link). Still, I am certain you have felt moments in your life when you and God are very much in sync and you know firsthand that Great Things Happen (↔ Music Link) when God mixes with us!

Belovéd, we are chosen for greatness in and through Love. Isn’t that great?

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —

at your service, Belovéd!

Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

 

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