Aloha Friday Message – July 5, 2024 – What are YOU looking at!?

July 5, 2024

2427AFC070524 – What are YOU looking at!? ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

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    Ezekiel 2:4 c -5 – “Thus says the Lord God.” 5 Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.”

Psalm 123:2 – Listen to it ⇒HERE (↔ Music Link)
2 As the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
until he has mercy upon us.

2 Corinthians 12:9 b– 9 but he said to me,] “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Mark 6:3-6 – 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son* of Mary and ♪brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took ♫offense at him. 4 Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” 5 And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. 6 And he was amazed at their unbelief.
*Son – huios ♪ Brother – adelphos  ♫ ἐσκανδαλίζοντο   eskandalizonto – to scandalize, to impede by tripping or stumbling, to be offended, made indignant, caused to distrust, disbelieve, disapprove.

   Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. I want to begin today at the end. The end of the Mass, that is. I want to specifically address those persons who are frightened by the words, “LET US PRAY.” This usually is the first thing we hear after Communion. It is referred to in your missals as “Prayer after Communion.” We must assume that this is an alarming invitation. So many people are so upset by its approach that they leave the building immediately after they have received their portion of The Body of Christ.

If this is a habitual practice of someone you know, please assuage their fears, and encourage them to stay until they have the opportunity to receive the benediction and dismissal at the end of Mass. This study might be something you could share with them. You see, the benediction (“Bow your heads and pray for God’s blessing.”), and the dismissal (“Go forth and proclaim the Word by your lives.”) are very important parts of the Mass that bring it to conclusion. Leaving early is a great way to tell God, “I don’t have time for you. I’ve got to get out of the parking lot before the rest of these laggers. I have a brunch reservation at the club, and Father’s homily went a full 16 minutes!” ʻŌmea, is that really what you want to tell Jesus immediately after sharing fellowship (koinonia) with his adelphos? One could argue that those last few elements of the Mass are the best parts because they are so personally enriching. If we don’t want to share in the BEST parts, is there really much point in being there for anything that precedes them?

We gather together in a special place, a building we call “the church,” to receive the blessings of Word and Sacrament. Now, most people will get up from their seats in the theater when the final frame of the movie is shown, and most people will gladly skip sitting through the Credits. If you were one of those who learned to stick around for the credits after watching Shrek, you know that there’s some really good stuff there, and it’s well worth our time to stay and watch. NEWS FLASH! The prayers after communion, the benediction, and the dismissal are not the credits! Those three things are the closing moments of what should be the most important hour of our 167-hour week.

DON’T SKIP THEM!

Now, what is a Prophet, and what does God mean when he says, “they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.”? The Old Testament word for prophet is nabi (nabiy’) {nah-bee’}. There are some disagreements among scholars about the origin of that word, but one that is well-accepted is that this noun comes from the verb noba’ meaning to “bubble up,” “boil over”,” as in “to pour forth an abundance of words,” such as those who speak with divine inspiration. It is by and through the power and inspiration of God that a prophet speaks, and a prophet can’t help but speak when and what God commands any more than a pot of boiling water can stop bubbling. And that is the key. Those who have Divine Inspiration are True Prophets. The converse is that those whose “inspiration” is self-generated are the False Prophets. How then can we tell the difference? If we look at the verses following Jesus description of wolves in sheep’s clothing, the answer is clear. (See Matthew 7:15)

The answer is, “by their fruits you will know them.” And here’s where we run into trouble because these days there’s a lot of fake fruit on the table. The fake fruit comes to us through the tireless work of the Prince of Lies, the Devil, and he uses a few seeds of Truth and a ton of manure to raise a crop of bad advice. We are admonished to be wary of false Prophets, hucksters, and con artists. BUT, we are also admonished to be aware of things that are right, and true and spiritual. Are we looking at the host, the Body of Christ and the Precious Blood of Christ, or are we just looking at a cookie and a drink? What do we see?

   I can answer that. We see what we believe. We hear what we believe. We believe what-we-do-not-know if we believe that seeing the Living Christ raised above the altar is NOT the True Jesus, alive and whole. When we read from the Prophets during the Liturgy of the Word, we hear the Voice of God telling us how to Live and Love as he commands – and he commands us to Live and Love in the same way as he Lives and Loves for each of us. What do we see when we see that Life, that Love waiting there for our spiritual nourishment?

Belovéd, have you ever bought a carton of grapes or a sack of plums and discovered when you opened them at home that there were rotten fruits in your purchase? The store might tell you “buyer beware,” and they could be right. Don’t we usually check the products before we put them in the basket? Do we take home all the dented cans? What are we not looking at? Come to think of it, in Mass, what are we not looking at? God uses many, many signs and wonders to attract our attention. If we claim we want to please him by obeying his Will, then we need to be watching for those signs and wonders. Sometimes they may seem too subtle for us to detect; but that only happens when we are not watching closely enough. That’s why we ring some bells at the epiclesis (↔ Video Link!) so that we’ll LOOK at the miracle before us.

In that passage from Psalm 123 (I hope you listened to the music link. It was a tough one to get right.), it mentions servants who carefully watched the hands of their “bosses” when serving guests to the household. The boss and the servant would devise and carefully rehearse nearly imperceptible gestures that would signal what the boss wanted the servant to do so that it appeared they readily anticipated and completed every command. This was of great benefit to the boss as it showed s/he had a supreme ability to choose and control the best of servants. It also was of great benefit to the servants because it demonstrated the superior ability of the boss to train the servant, and therefore elevated their service to the level of exceptional. They watched. They learned. They responded as expected. What are we watching? What do WE see? Do we see the Lord God stretching forth his hand of Blessing to bestow his Mercy on us? Are we attentive enough to be able to welcome his Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, And Eternal Salvation?

Let’s consider that movie-watching we mentioned above. Perhaps more than a few of us can remember the ending of the first Star Wars movie, Episode IV: A New Hope. Toward the end of the film, Han Solo and Chewbacca suddenly rejoin the battle just in time to knock Darth Vader’s ship off course before he can destroy Luke Skywalker’s X-wing fighter. Obi-Wan Kenobi – who sacrificed his life to allow his compatriots to escape – speaks to Luke from “The Force” to tell Luke to trust his instincts. Luke turns off his ship’s computer and somehow sends two torpedoes into an exhaust port on the Death Star. The Death Star explodes, thereby saving the Rebel Base. Obi-Wan’s voice reminds Luke that The Force will always be with him. The movie ends with Princess Leia giving Luke and Han medals (and promotions!) for their heroism. We know now that the Empire has suffered a setback, but there is still much to do. Now, does any of that ring a bell? If so, let’s imagine that about 10% of the people in the movie theater get up and leave right after the destruction of the Death Star so they can get out of the parking lot and over to Pizza Hut before the crowd. Years later, these same people bought the Blu-Ray disc and watch this movie multiple times, but always stop watching and eject the disc right after the Death Star explodes. Does that make any sense?

What makes even less sense is that many of us can follow and discuss that entire story line, but cannot relate to the Liturgies of the Word and Eucharist. I find it incredible that there are still so many people who believe in The Force, or hope for the coming of United Federation of Planets. My Hope is built (↔ Music Link) on nothing less than Jesus’ Love and Righteousness. Belovéd, you know why! That hope is REAL because at any moment of any day I can tell Jesus Your Grace is Sufficient for Me. (↔ Music Link) The Apostle Paul understood that well. No matter what happened to him – some of it quite painful – he accepted the fact that he could endure every pain – including what he called a “thorn in his side” – for the surpassing Love and Peace in which he was held by Christ Jesus. He even asked Jesus to take that thorn away, but Jesus denied his request and showed him an even greater Mercy than deliverance. He showed him Fellowship (koinonia) in and through the Holy Spirit.

The Apostle Paul accepted this extra-ordinary Gift – not with resignation, but with the Wisdom of Gratitude. That sort of Gratitude comes only in uniting our lives with Jesus’ Life. That, in turn, is accomplished only but remaining in constant Fellowship with Jesus. Like the servants in ages past, we must [1] find and cultivate the Joy of knowing Jesus as Lord and Master, [2] then we carefully learn to watch for, and respond to, all the signals and miracles he shows us during that fellowship, and [3] we must eagerly lean forward in to the future and continue to prepare for and respond to any and every opportunity to intensify that Fellowship.

“But it’s so hard, and Mass is so BORING, just the same thing over, and over, and over.” Of course it’s hard! Jesus himself told us we would regain every gift freely given to him, and would be blessed 30-, 60-, and 100-fold – with persecutions (See Mark 10:30) – AND Eternal Life! ʻŌmea, that is definitely not boring – unless, that is, you think it will be boring to spend eternity hearing the Angels and Saints say, “Let us Pray,” or seeing the indescribable and unimaginable Glory of God attended by myriads and myriads of Angels ministering to him. Adelphos! I want a seat right at the threshold of that Throne Room, so I can watch and listen, and then, afterwards, listen and watch! Recently we discussed the approach to religion based on “Well-maybe-it’s ….” That’s what the people of Nazareth were experiencing when Jesus visited there. “Who is this guy? And where does he get off talking like this? He spent years living here with us (yes, that was right after they all got back from Egypt, uncle Jonathan), and now suddenly he thinks he’s a Prophet! There hasn’t been a Prophet in Judea since Ezekiel – not even that nut-case Yôḥānān ben Zkaryah.”

You see, Belovéd, in those people we recognize the adage “Familiarity breeds contempt.” Jesus himself was astounded by their lack of faith. They found him offensive. They had more important things to do with their lives than wait around from some local-boy to show off with some sort of magic trick. One wonders if they actually ever learned that they completely missed out on an Ocean of Grace (← Please follow this link for more information.) That immeasurably immense expanse of Grace is completely available to anyone and everyone, and it is more-than-sufficient to restore every soul ever conceived since Adam and Eve. How is that possible? What’s good for The Apostle Paul is good for us as well, so we look to our Eucharistic Lord at the Altar and declare with The Apostle Thomas, “My Lord and my God!” because that is who we see. For The Apostle Paul, that reality dawned with Jesus’ answer to his prayer. The thorn would stay. The Power of Mercy would increase. The Hope of Eternity in the presence of God would always thenceforth be a reality. All of that would come from seeing Jesus as he is.

Let us lift our eyes to our God waiting joyfully, lovingly, expectantly for his Mercy! The better we watch, the more we shall see. The more we see, the deeper we are moving “further up and further in.” We stand outside the Walls of the Eternal City now, but our pilgrimage is always “further up and further in.” As soon as we can see and understand that such is the case for all earthlings, the greater our perceptions of the value and importance of koinonia will become. What do we see? We see ourselves Standing in the Need Of Prayer, (↔ Music Link) traveling Home, and we are looking at the Lord God Most High (El Elyon) standing next to the Lion of Judah, both smiling with great Love, Peace, and Joy that we have at last seen our Hope made real. We are looking at heaven, Belovéd, and that’s exactly what EVERYone is created to see.

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 – June 28, 2024 – Winning a spot in the Final Four

June 28, 2024

2426AFC062824 – Winning a spot in the Final Four

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.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

    Wisdom 1:12-13 –
12 Do not invite death by the error of your life,
or bring on destruction by the works of your hands;
13 because God did not make death,
and he does not delight in the death of the living.

Psalm 30:3 –
3 O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.

2 Corinthians 8:15 – 15 As it is written,
“The one who had much did not have too much,
and the one who had little did not have too little.”

Mark 5:41-43 – 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Blesséd be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Those of you who read these essays often will know that I have zero interest in sports as participant or observer. Our topic today mentions “The Final Four,” but has absolutely nothing to do with any sport, especially the “March Madness” variety. The Final Four described here is something heard most often at the beginning of a Tent Revival or a Parish Mission. It will be presented as part of God’s Absolutely Perfect Plan. We’ll also be bringing in some famous Guest Authors to contribute to this topic. Hopefully by now you’re dying of curiosity to find out what this crazy old man is going on about here (wow! 3 prepositions in a row!)

Our first guest is someone who was part of my inspiration for learning to play guitar – Hank Williams, Sr. who declared “I’ll never get out of this world alive.” (↔ Music Link) As the Cowardly Lion said, “Ain’t it the truth!” (←video link!) Of course, there’s also that old saw about “Only two things in life are certain : Death and Taxes. And I’m not that sure about death.” If you’ve looked through today’s Key Verses, you have probably figured out that the main theme is death. But, what does that have to do with The Final Four?

Years ago, when there used to be such things as revivals and Parish missions, the opening topic somehow boiled down to The Last Four Things (hence, “Final Four), and those four things are easy to remember: Death. Judgment. Heaven. Hell. Like the basketball final four, there’s only one spot left at the end for both teams. One team is the winner; the other team is the looser. Both of them have a spot in The Final Four. That’s a good example of how it turns out in life, too. Some of us will be winners in the end, and some will be losers. Either way, all of us have to go through the first two phases of Death and Judgment. Those are two things that happen in this life, in this World. The other two things – Heaven or Hell – are the result, the outcome, the choices made in the first two things. Every earthling, every flower, rock, tree, fish, goat, river, sea, puddle, tiger, swan – all of creation goes through the same thing at the end: The End. It’s true no matter how much we deny it. Big Daddy’s going to die and so are we.

Sort of.

Hopefully a special word/phrase just popped into mind: YOLO-F. Yes, we are all going to live forever in either Heaven or Hell, but the only way to get there is to die first in this life, in this World. “I’m too busy! I haven’t got time to die!” Surprise! Everyone has time to live as well as A time to die, (↔ Learning Link) a time for everything under the sun. There is at least one short passage that explains where death originated. Some of you might not have access to this, so I’ll put the whole thing here. It’s from Wisdom 2:21-24 –
21 Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
for their wickedness blinded them,
22 and they did not know the secret purposes of God,
nor hoped for the wages of holiness,
nor discerned the prize for blameless souls;
23 for God created us for incorruption,
and made us in the image of his own eternity,
24 but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his company experience it.

“But wait! We don’t belong to the Devil’s company!” Oh, yes we do! Remember, the Earth is Satan’s domain; even if we belong to Christ, we are still predisposed to sin and death. God can, and will, abandon us to what we want, what we choose. If we choose God, then all goes well. If we do not, well, none of us really want to go there even if we consistently choose it as our YOLO-F preferred choice. One of my favorite writers, and our first Guest Author, is Emily Dickinson. I’m going to insert her poem …
Because I could not stop for death: (↔ Learning Link)

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed Us –
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –
And there is also Dylan Thomas’ Do not go gentle into that good night (↔ Learning Link)

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

We’re all going to get there, so do we go quietly as if we’d forgotten time altogether, or shall we go out ranting against being forced to go? The answer to that seemingly “deep question” is perpetually simple and one which we cover often in these pages:

CHOOSE.

Look at the first Key Verse. What happens if one’s lifestyle looks more like a death-style? God will always give us what we need, correct? Sometimes, though, he lets us have a taste of what we want – sours the milk so to speak – in the hope that we will repent and go back to him. There is a point in our lives where the opportunity to repent is G-O-N-E-gone! That is at the point of the first of the Final Four – Death. God does not need new angels, and he doesn’t turn our departed loved-ones into angels when they die. It doesn’t work that way. When we die, we instantly collect the wages we have chosen in our lives – eternal Joy or eternal Despair. Given the fear of death many people allege having, one wonders why they forget that God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. That would mean we have forgotten we are created in the likeness and image of God which is to say God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity. Why would we want anything less than sharing Eternal Life in the Presence of El Shaddai-Olam? If we would not choose that Eternal Life for our loved-ones, then why even pretend we love them?

If you love someone who is on the brink of losing everlasting life, hold them tight and tell them “DON’T DIE! REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL!” Remember the Big Blue Button? (← Memory Aid) Here’s another way to look at it, and why you don’t want your loved one to die. Tell them this:

“If that elevator will be going up, the instant you die, you will see an Angel coming up to you to take you by the hand and lead you to the Chariot that will be carrying you home. (↔ Music Link) If the elevator will be going down, in the instant your soul leaves your body, you will see the blackened hand of a demon reaching up from below the Earth to grab you by the heel and drag your soul straight into Hell.” Yes, ʻŌmea, the idea is to simply scare the Hell out of them. The Road we take ends at the front gate of Home. This World is part of the Road, not part of Home. (↔ Music Link)

The Psalmist told us O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit. Quick review on Sheol and the Pit: Sheol – the place of the Dead, sometimes called Hell or Hades; it is the first step into the afterlife. The Pit – a trap, a place of destruction, a place of thanklessness, despair, and a place without hope or joy or peace or praise, or any good thing because it is a place without God, a place where only our wants are gathered but never fulfilled and nothing we need can be gotten. God will give us that if we choose it. Yes, he will! The other option is to choose him. There is always Death until the new Heaven and New Earth are presented – gifted – to us. With every Death, there is Judgment. With every Judgment, there is the Reward of our choosing. The final Spot in the Final Four is incontrovertible – it is Heaven or it is Hell.

Last week we mentioned manna and its relationship with “the bread come down from Heaven.” God gave the sinners who were wandering in the desert what they needed so that, when they were ready, they could enter into the Promise of their Fathers. What would happen if they didn’t eat the manna? They would die. What would happen if they took too much? It would rot, and they went hungry. What would happen if they obeyed God’s instructions about gathering and using manna? They were fed and lived. When God gives us Gifts, all his Gifts are Good and all of them are entirely-sufficient. Now, think about the Bestest Gift God ever gave you. Got it? If we accept that remarkable Gift, and use that Gift as he commands, then we show him our choice for the gift of YOLO-F. You may be tired of hearing this for the past 20 years, but WHY WOULD WE WANT ANYTHING LESS?!?!? Repent and Believe the Gospel!

We’re going to go just a bit farther and look at the Gospel because it is one of several places where we find words in Aramaic: He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” The word koum is similar to the Hebrew word qum: to arise, stand up, stand. Belovéd, close your eyes, take a slow deep breath, and hold out your hand so Jesus can take it as he tells you to stand. Stand in his presence, stand in his Love, stand in his Light, as a lamp stands on a lamp-stand in the center of your Life.  (↔ Music Link) You will know the same happiness the little girl knew, the same incredulous joy her parents knew, and the same wonder and awe the Disciples in the room with him knew. You will have and intimate knowledge of God, knowledge which includes joyful obedience and leads to lasting happiness. TRUE happiness is not in having what we want. It is found only in wanting what we have. ʻŌmea, we have God – in Christ Jesus – through the Unity of the Holy Spirit. Do not invite death by the error of your life, or bring on destruction by the works of your hands. There is no need to want anything, or especially anyone, else. We’ve chosen our Spot in the Final Four. Look for me. I’ll be along shortly, because I am …

Going Home

I’ve been going Home
for a long time now,
remembering how good it was
to be with You there.
One good poet told us
we could never go back Home.
So be it, but
what about going Home?

Going isn’t being there;
it’s only getting there.

I’m on my way Home, now.
Don’t know if or when
I’ll ever get there,
but having You, and Home,
in the back of my mind
makes going Home more
important than getting Home, or,
even what I’ll do if
I finally make it. Home.

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 – June 21, 2024 – Lock Down That Storm!

June 21, 2024

2425AFC062124 – Lock Down That Storm! ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

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.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

 Job 38:1, 10-11 (GNT)[1] – 1 Then out of the storm the Lord spoke to Job.
10 “I marked a boundary for the sea
and kept it behind bolted gates.
11 I told it, “So far and no farther!
Here your powerful waves must stop.” (See above link for full context)

Psalm 107:28-29 –
28 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he brought them out from their distress;
29 he made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.

2 Corinthians 5:17 – 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

Mark 4:36 – Leaving the crowd, they took Jesus with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him.

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. After sailing through Lent and Eastertide we have “suddenly arrived” at the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time. When we look at the Gospel, we might think this is a familiar story; it is, in a way familiar, but probably not the story we think it is. This is not the account of The Apostle Peter stepping out of the boat to walk across the water to Jesus who has walked at least halfway across the Sea of Galilee – walking across the water! – to catch up with his Disciples.

As you can see, every Key Verse for today has something to do with the sea – even the reading from 1 Corinthians because walking on the water was certainly something new! Here’s a little illustration about walking on water. In the Bible only Jesus and The Apostle Peter walked on the water, but this image (↔ Click Link) sorta-kinda makes it look like there might be a third. “Skin for skin! A man will give all he has for his own life.” – Satan. Job 2:4

Moral of the story: When the situation calls for it, we will walk on water.

The third was … Ivan Givaldo.

Well, yes, of course I’m being silly. This Great Escape happened in that strange and chaotic event in Pamplona – the running of the bulls. Some folks (mostly guys) try to escape by jumping into the water. As you can see here, that may have limited success, because the chaos is following close behind. In fact, one of the things most of us can agree upon when considering the effects of chaos is that chaos seems to be just half-a-step away most of the time. Believe it or not – and this is absolutely true – less than a second after I hit the period in the previous sentence, the electricity went off! Talk about great (sic) timing! All of us have chaotic moments in our lives. Mostly they stir up fear because they are unexpected and unpredictable – which is why chaos is chaotic. Sometimes the chaos in our lives pushes us into grief and sorrow, sometimes anger, or worry, or doubt. Scary stuff that – doubt. The doubt caused by chaos urges us to let loose the sea-anchor and ride out the storm facing into the wind, like this:

“Facing into the wind? That doesn’t make any sense.” The purpose is to keep the bow facing into the wind and waves so that the boat will not capsize. Why would I put something in this essay about a sea anchor? Because often times the best way to deal with chaos is to face it head-on. Curling up in a corner like a whimpering child is probably a close antithesis to that. There’s another aspect of this that we could attribute to the Captain of our ship –

He can master chaos better than anyone and we are never alone in facing the dangers of chaos because HE is always with us. Take a look at that first Key Verse. What does it tell us? Hopefully you have used that link to see all 11 verses in this passage. God and his servant, Job, are speaking to each other. Job’s friend, Elihu, has been extolling God’s majesty and power. Elihu then asks Job if he can do any of the things that God can do. (See Job 36-37, fascinating stuff!) Next, the Lord himself speaks to Job from within a whirlwind and asks him the kinds of questions we saw last week – can you make a flower, can you lay out the foundations of the Earth, can you put the Sea where it belongs and hold it there by your own authority? I can!” Now, let’s think about that last bit which is our Key Verse from Job for today. God Most High – El Elyon, Almighty God – El Shaddai, the Eternal Everliving God – El Olam, the God of The Fathers, stopped chaos with a Word: BECOME! The Lord commands it, and it is. God controls the weather from the first command of Creation – “Let there BE …!” And immediately, chaos is vanquished! Now, put a pin in that thought and hold it in place as we turn to the Key Verses from Psalm 107. This Psalm begins “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so …” In the Key Verses above we have something that sounds a lot like this account in the Gospel of Mark.

In our Gospel, we see persons who are redeemed, saved from the storm, by a single word: BECOME. Jesus was, incredibly, asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat as it is tossed about in the waves and filling with water. The panicking Disciples cried out to him, “MASTER! WE’RE GONNA DIE!!” Jesus woke up and REBUKED the Sea and said Siōpa – Silence! Pephimōso Put a muzzle on it! Look what the Psalm says: Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out from their distress; he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. He put the Sea in its place … just as God his Father had done when he said “Let there be!” Chaos was Mastered by the Master of Peace – God, made flesh, still all the same  El Shaddai-Olam. Now we begin to understand that this is not only an account of an amazing miracle by Jesus, but also a parable about the absolute Truth: Jesus is the Lord God, the master of all Creation!! Belovéd, he chastised the Disciples for their lack of faith, for failing to understand that he held God’s authority because he is God. Now, look at this:

There is a similar meme that asks, “Lord, why are you taking me through troubled water?” He replied, “Because your enemies can’t swim.” Same-same, yes? We’ve all heard the adage, “If God will bring you to it, God will take you through it.” Do we really believe that, I mean, really-really? I DO! Because it has happened to me. You have probably experienced that in your life as well, que no? And what happens when El Shaddai-Olam saves our skin? You know the answer! EVERYTHING CHANGES! So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! When we are in Christ, we share in his victory; we are more than conquerors; (↔ Music Link) we are his chosen ones. We are his Disciples, as were the other men in the boat with him. There were other Disciples in other boats during that squall, and they too were fearful of the chaos that threatened to cost them their lives. We don’t know who, or how many, or why they were with the boat from which Jesus commanded the wind and waves.

Everyone who had been in that storm which came up so suddenly was as dumbfounded as Jesus’ Disciples when – just as suddenly as the storm came up – a dead calm settled across the entire expanse of the water! No sign of the storm remained! In its place were only wonder and awe. Jesus looked out over the water and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” These are words of command. Click HERE (↔ Music Link) to hear a Hymn about this. I sang this often in Sunday School at Corona Presbyterian Church in Denver. Let’s fire up that little movie screen we all have on the inside of our forehead and watch as the people in the other boats – you know, the ones that did not hear Jesus’ command against the chaos – and let’s try to imagine which would be more terrifying: Being caught in a terrible storm and in imminent danger of drowning, or being suddenly sailing on calm waters in a gentle breeze. Jesus’ Disciples asked each other, “Who is this guy?!?!” The folks in the other boats might have asked, “Wha-a-a-a-t just happened?” I confess it reminded me of the Israelite’s first reaction to the manna. Remember? “Manna” means “What’s this?” Well, another question we should probably be asking is, “What do we do when suddenly plunged into chaos?”

How about turning to The Word in Isaiah 30:15 c –    in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. Do we ever feel like the Poor Wayfaring Stranger (↔ Music Link)? Could we Trust God enough to allow him to be the Healer of My Soul (↔ Music Link)? On that movie screen we used a moment ago, see a baby bird hatched the morning after that storm. A baby bird eats only what it is given. It refuses nothing because all that is given to it is given for its good. The baby bird eats and grows without concern for the taste, texture, or value of the food it is given; and, it does all this without having to know why its parents feed it only that which is good. I cannot recall ever seeing a baby bird spit out what it was given, can you? Isn’t God a bit like that Papa Bird who gives us only what is good for us? Isn’t God a bit like that Mama Bird who covers the baby during the storm and protects it from the chaos? And at times, Adelphos, are we a bit like a baby bird that spits out what God provides and then says to him, “Get offa me! I feel trapped and smothered!”?

They took Jesus in the boat just as he was, tired, probably hungry, exhausted after teaching all day; so tired, in fact, that in the midst of chaos (which he knew in advance), he fell asleep in the back of the boat. The Disciples asked, “Master, don’t you care that we’re about to die here?” Belovéd, have we the F.A.I.T.H. to believe that God – HE who made the seas full, but only just full enough – really does care if we are terrified of the chaos we see in the evening news every day? Do we have the courage to know that in Christ all things are made new? Can God really calm the storm in my life, in your life, in our lives, and in the lives of those who don’t even know God is working RIGHT NOW to save them? “O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!” Believe it or else, (↔ Learning Link) ʻŌmea. When trouble comes knocking at your door, just say, “Jesus, can you get that for me?” When the storm of chaos whipped up around us by the Foe threatens to pull us under, just say, “Jesus, please Lock Down That Storm!” Isn’t it True, Belovéd, that God always has and always will be (↔ Music Link) our Help, our Hope, our Home, our Peace, and our Joy? Joy is always the first product of Love, and God IS Love. Be calmed and Trust God.

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

 

[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT)  Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible

Aloha Friday Message – June 14, 2024 – There’s an APP for that.

June 14, 2024

22424AFC061424 –

There’s an APP for that.  ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

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    Ezekiel 17:24 –
4 All the trees of the field shall know
that I am the Lord.
I bring low the high tree,
I make high the low tree;
I dry up the green tree
and make the dry tree flourish.
I the Lord have spoken;
I will accomplish it.

2 Corinthians 5:10 – 10 For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.

Psalm 92:12 –
12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree,
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

Mark 4:26-27 – 26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him. We do want to know him, don’t we? After all, he knows us better than we know ourselves, and since he created us to know him and to love him and to serve him, oughtn’t we too “come to know him?” Of course, we all know the answer to that; we must put everything we have into knowing him more and more even though we understand that we can’t really completely know or understand the God of all Creation. In fact, sometimes we find ourselves mighty frustrated by our efforts to know him and to love him and to serve him. In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, source of the Shema, we read in verse 5 – You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. How? Many times when we talk about the Majesty and Power of God we hear the word “ineffable” – beyond description, undefinable, exceeding our capabilities of perception. There is more to God than we can handle, more than we can understand, more than we can appreciate, and way more than we can imagine in our puny earthling brains.

But there you have it; we’re earthlings (remember, made from dirt?), and from the very Start, we always try to figure it out for ourselves. I’m sure all of us know at least one person who has invented their own image and likeness of God and used that image to come up with their own religion, their own explanations of what’s what. Joseph Campbell found extraordinary success by gathering together mythologies and “belief systems” from the most ancient cultures to the most modern gurus and “life-influencers.” Often some of us (alright, me in particular) grouse about “CAFETERIA CATHOLICS” (especially politicians, sports and cinema celebrities, and even clergy!). These self-professed Catholics have their own formulae for fitting God into the box they create for him. As if! We’re going to look into some of those pathetic DIY “spiritualities” and see if God has a way to work outside our boxes.

“Oh, I’m a very spiritual person! I believe the Universe returns to you exactly what you put into it.” Cool. But by now, you and I know that is like a broken pencil – pointless and therefore useless. There are some very spiritual persons who take a little astrology, a smidgen of Buddhism, maybe a dollop of Ancient Druid Magick, and blend it all together to create rituals from their personal intentions and appetites. The resulting phantasmagoric pish posh apparently makes them feel happy because they will self-righteously defend their ignorance by redefining Truth: “What’s true for me may not be what’s True for you.” Come on! Really!? Is it ever possible that there is more than one Truth? (↔ Learning Link for “As Frank Peretti has said,”) Belovéd, we know there is only One Truth (at least we’d better know!), and that Truth is knowable. Learning the Truth is worthwhile and doable. Believing the Truth is actually easier than believing our made-up baloney sandwiches. (If we’re going to live on baloney, why not make a meal of it?)

But those of us who know the B.I.B.L.E. also know that whatever goes on, into, out of, or next to our lives, God has an Absolutely Perfect Plan (THE APP) for ALL of it. Where we get tripped up so often is when we look at that APP, and say something like, “Hm. I really think he meant that little part there should look more like (rustle, biff, bop, ka-ding!) THIS! Our Key Verses for today are chosen to counter that sort of nonsense. The Prophet Ezekiel authored the first of our Key Verses. This is the Period of the Exile when King Nebuchadnezzar captured and deported the King of Israel, Jehoiachin, and Ezekiel is describing how God’s Absolutely Perfect Plan will ultimately restore the People to their homeland and their Temple. But, first he will allow everything he had given them to be destroyed and desecrated. Nevertheless, the restoration will be directed and accomplished by God, not by them. God will do what needs to be done (as he has done, and will do, eternally). They made up their own way to worship and it was false. It was sinful. It was deadly, because … the price of sin is death. God uses the images of trees to convey that he alone can choose what to restore and where and how it will be restored. Then, he follows up with I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it. ʻŌmea, if God created all the universe with just a few words, then we should be able to understand that what God speaks happens. Everything from radiolarians to roses exist because of him. Could any of us make either of those?

Who can make a flower, (↔ Music Link) or the dewfall, or a caterpillar, or a mustard seed, or a walking fish, sunshine, rainbows, polliwogs? Who can make manna, win a battle with only 300 soldiers fighting against a vast army, heal the lame and mute and blind? Who can give us seed for sowing and bread to eat? Who can anoint a Conqueror as an implement of Peace? Who has given us YOLO-F and allowed us to choose where we spend it? Shouldn’t we be following The Shepherd of Souls (↔ Music Link) instead of our own grimy imaginings?  How do we share the Gospel, the Seeds of Truth? Adelphoi, there’s an APP for that! Our assignment is to gather the seeds and then sow them. And just where are these seeds? In the manual for the APP of course – the B.I.B.L.E. And how do we control what those seeds do? We don’t! It’s in the manual: “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” There’s no DIY hack for that, no genius solution to turn baloney into fillet mignon. I mentioned recently the “well-maybe” reasoning – “well, maybe it works like this instead of that.” Hear what the Prophet Isaiah had to say about that:
Isaiah 45:9-10 –
9 Woe to you who strive with your Maker,
earthen vessels with the potter!
Does the clay say to the one who fashions it, “What are you making”?
or “Your work has no handles”?
10 Woe to anyone who says to a father, “What are you begetting?”
or to a woman, “With what are you in labor?”

I remember a time in Washington Park in Denver watching a man fixing the playground carousel. He pulled some odd-looking tool out of his tool-bag and I asked him, “What’s that for?” “Oh,” he said, “it’s to make little boys ask questions.” The lesson I learned from that response is still one of the most important things I ever learned: Stupid questions deserve stupid answers. Now, before that big breath you just sucked in causes your baloney sandwich to explode with “There are no stupid questions! Every question is a learning opportunity!”, I’ll just ask you to decide whether or not it makes sense for the clay in the potter’s hands to protest and question the potter about his intent, or arrogantly suggest a better way to use that clay. How about asking a mom in labor, “Whatcha doin’ there, Mama?” Yet, we don’t mind one little bit about opening our God-box and saying, “What’s going on in there? That’s not what I had in mind!” In my mind’s eye I can see our Father in Heaven just shaking is head. I can also see him reaching for the Operators’ Manual and pointing out the Shema … again.

“Maybe it’s like …” Nope. It’s like – 12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Just like that low tree made high, God will do what is right and in accord with his Absolutely Perfect Plan, not mine, not yours, not ours, not theirs – only God’s. I want to quote one more thing from Fr. Jim Sichko’s Mission, #60MIN4JESUS. (↔ Learning LinkS) “Where the world sees failure, God sees future. Trust that God will provide it, then wait for it quietly.” Do we, can we, believe and trust God when he tells us I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it?

By now I am confident you understand that that old maxim “Let go and let God” is more than just a clever turn of phrase. It’s actually a warning to avoid Do-It-Yourself Religion which leads to Do-It-Yourself Salvation. Ain’t happening, adelphoi. Another old adage that sticks with me is “There is an answer for every question in the universe. Unfortunately, many of those answers make no sense whatsoever.” That’s where we sometimes jump right into the sausage grinder and come out baloney. We say, “God’s answer makes no sense. That’s not what I wanted at all. God didn’t get it right, this time.” O-o-o-o-oh, brothers and sisters! Talk about not making any sense! We are clay, shaped by and for the potter. WE don’t tell the potter, “I don’t want to be an amphora! I want to be a teacup.” Why are we clay? DOH! God used the clay he created to form the earth from which he made earthlings, and he made earthlings so he could fill us up with his treasures. 2 Corinthians 4:7 – 7 But we have this treasure in clay jars, (↔ Music Link) so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. In earthen vessels, “whom all the world cannot contain comes in our hearts to dwell.” (↔ Music Link) Does that make any sense? Of course it does! It’s in the APP. 1747AFC112415 – DDIY (←Follow this link) and you will find more information about DDIY – Don’t Do It Yourself. One more quick illustration – dew.

Can we make the dewfall? You’ve heard about manna, so here’s something to think about. Exodus 16:13c-14 – … in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14 When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. Then Jesus told us: John 6:51 – 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

The Bread from Heaven comes upon us quietly, evenly; it refreshes us and renews us in the same way that the dewfall renews and refreshes the land. In the first Epiclesis in the Canon (Eucharistic Prayer 1) and the remaining three Eucharistic prayers we hear the Priest pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit on the gifts we offer – the bread and wine. He says, “Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall.” This recalls for us the manna [1] in the desert – quiet, mysterious, not overbearing, not weighty, always just enough, never leading to a surplus, but always refreshing, invigorating, and nourishing. Can we make manna? No. Can The Bread of Life be confected at the Altar? Yes. And it becomes Holy as quietly and effectively as the dew comes to water and nourish the land. God does everything in his Absolutely Perfect Plan – every day, all day – for us because he Loves us. All he wants from us is to share the Bread and to leave the baloney and all the condiments away from it. He wants to feed us what we need more than he wants to give us what we want. Whatever there is we need, there’s and APP for that. whatever there is we want might come along to us – if it’s in his Absolutely Perfect Plan. Rejoice in what we have. Count the blessings, (↔ Music Link) and let God be God – One Truth, One Bread, One Body, One Love Released. (↔ Music Link)

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.

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

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

Heaven’s Joy Expanded

Heaven is now your home m’ita. See you soon!

 

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

[1] Hebrew: mana See Psalm 78:24 and Exodus 16:15 – man`ə in the manner of “What is this?” Israel ate of the manna for 40 years until they ate the first fruits of the Promised Land.

Aloha Friday Message – June 6, 2024 – All in the Family

June 6, 2024

2423AFC060724 – All in the Family

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.
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    Genesis 3:12-13 – 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”

Psalm 130:3-4 –
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered.

2 Corinthians 5:1 – 1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Mark 3:31-35 – 31 Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters* are outside, asking for you.” 33 And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” *adelphoi – brethren

May Peace always be with you and may God bless you, Belovéd! Right off the bat, let me say this has nothing to do with Archie Bunker!

Nobody is going to sing “Those Were The Days.” Today we begin with our Key Verses from the Gospel. We start there because of that phrase “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside.” A great number of people cite that as “proof” that Jesus had siblings, children of his Mother and foster father. It works like this:

The Greek word used for brothers  as well as brothers and sisters is “adelphoi.” This Greek word for brother – “brethren” (singular ἀδελφός adelphos; plural ἀδελφοί adelphoi) can be translated as a sibling – male or female. It can also be understood as a brother, whether born of the same two parents or only of the same father or mother or a person who has the same national ancestor, belongs to the same People, or a fellow countryman., and – of course – a member of the same religious community, especially a Christian community. The problem in understanding this arises when one presumes that “brethren” refers only to biological siblings. The counterargument is usually “the word refers to cousins, nephews, other close relatives, and even fellow citizens.” The response to that is that Greek has specific words for each of those relationships, and if it were true that the persons with Jesus’ Mother were not siblings, the writer would have used those specific terms. That is another presumptuous conclusion. Let’s take a still-closer look at Scripture.

Matthew 13:55-56 – 55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56 And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?” Note the names (without surnames) mentioned here. To help sort this out, let’s look at John 19:25 – Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. In the same part of the Crucifixion narrative in Matthew 27:56 we read – 56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. The sons of Zebedee, we know, were the men Jesus named “the sons of thunder,” James and John. OK, flip back to Matthew 13, and we can see that among James and Joseph and Simon and Judas, two of them are cousins of Jesus and offspring of the woman The Apostle Matthew calls “the other Mary.” (See Matthew 28:1 and CCC 500) Most non-Catholic commentaries will list some of these chaps as the “half-brother of Jesus.” In addition, in Matthew 23:8[1] we read that Jesus tells the Disciples to avoid the appellation “Rabbi” because they have only One Teacher, and they are all equally brothers and sisters (adelphoi). This “warning” is understood in light of Luke 14:11 – 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. To wrap this up, we need only look at what Jesus himself said in Mark 3:34-35 – 34 And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Yes, indeed, that is how the Family of God is formed!

Whenever we do the will of God, we are adopted into the Lord’s family, and we discover how sweet it is to call our Teacher, our creator, our Almighty God and cry out “Abba, Father!” (↔ Music Link) Just for a moment, let’s close our eyes softly and sing along with that hymn while considering the intensity of the Apostle Thomas’ declaration “My Lord and my God! And, just as we also inwardly rejoice at being just one of the billions of Jesus’ Brothers or Sisters, let us acknowledge that the Family of God (↔ Music Link) will be The Family Forever (yep, that’s YOLO-F).

Jesus told his followers (including us) that to be a part of the Family of God, we must do the will of God. That has always been hard, because all of us are born under the authority of The Prince of the Air, Satan, who is also the Ruler of Earthly Systems and has dominion over everything Adam was given to subdue for the use of Man because Adam gave away his coregency with God in order to exalt himself. What this means is that some members of the Family of God, some of our own adelphoi, are not under God’s dominion, but Satan’s! Though Baptized and endowed with the Holy Spirit, they countermand the will of God by exalting themselves. These modern-day adelphoi behave in the same ways the Apostle Paul warned about: Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers; every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, vaunted pride, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness; they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters; insolent, haughty, gluttonous, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.

They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die – yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them. (See Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 5) To that list we must shamefully add murders of millions of innocents – babies, elders, political enemies, ethnic pogroms, and intentional destruction and failure of stewardship for our only home, Earth. ʻŌmea, that is not how The TRUE Family of God BEHAVES, because such behaviors are not the will of God! They are the will of The Foe of God, and when we act in those ways, we become the prodigal child, the errant brother or sister, that refuses to accept the responsibilities – as well as the immense powers – that come with being adelphoi.

Unless.

Unless we repent and believe and Live the Gospel. How does that help? Well, let’s go back to that passage from Genesis. When Adam was caught out, what did he tell God? “It’s not my fault! It’s this woman you gave me. She’s the culprit here, not me!” Belovéd, does that sound like repentance to you? Me, too. Not even close. Eve’s excuse wasn’t any better. “That sneak of a snake tricked me! I thought that since he was so beautiful he’d help me. Then this oaf, standing right beside me watching, took a bite, too.” Have any of us ever wondered why no one said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have acted like that.”? And so it was that the first Community of God set in motion all that is going on in this bruised old world of ours. I’d like to ask you to call to mind that L O N G list The Apostle Paul put together in Romans and 1 Corinthians. Does any of that ring a bell with you? I’d guess we would all say “yes, it does.” There’s something important that we must remember about that list. The Apostle Paul is telling us that if our adelphoi in Christ act like that, they are not really our brothers or sisters in Christ.

Check out 1 Corinthians 5:9-11 – 9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons — 10 not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. 11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister [adelphos] who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one. “Are we just supposed to shun people like that, refuse them fellowship with us?” We can partially answer that with 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 – 14 Take note of those who do not obey what we say in this letter; have nothing to do with them, so that they may be ashamed. 15 Do not regard them as enemies, but warn them as believers. [adelphoi].

This flies in the face of the current globalist DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) recommendations for “anything goes” morality – if it feels good, do it. That’s right back in the pocket of exalting self over other. Someone out there is saying I’ve got it backwards. “Being kind to people by letting them be ‘who they truly are’ is elevating them, not us.” Nah, when we give people permission to defy the will of God, we are giving our own hearts and mind permission to do the same. “See? I’m just like you. It’s not our fault. THE DEVIL MADE US DO IT!” That might work for Flip Wilson’s Geraldine, but it’s a no-go in The Family of God. What to do, what to do, what to do?

Psalm 130:3-4 –
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered.

You’ve got that right – repent! And believe and Live the Gospel. How about a quick comparison? Let’s recall Absalom, third son of David, killer of David’s first-born son Amnon, also tried to claim the throne as leader of a revolt against his father. His name means, “my father is Peace.” For the crimes he committed, he would not repent. He ended up hanging by his hair in a tree so that one of David’s Men of Valor was able to strike him dead. How about another of David’s sons, Solomon? His name means “Peace.” He was the son of David by Bathsheba (one of David’s biggest failings as a husband, king, and father), and the third king of Israel. He was the wisest man that ever lived, but made the very unwise choice of being disobedient. He had 700 wives, 300 concubines, thousands of chariots, charioteers, and horses, and was led to worship other gods to appease his wives. He did not repent. He died in his sins. His father, David, repented and “slept in Peace with his fathers” and in Peace with God. Absolom and Solomon lived lives of unrepentant disobedience. David lived through many battles for good and succumbed to many battles with evil, but he always repented. Because of that, we now have a King on the Throne of David who is King Forever – Jesus, the Christ of God. We are part of The Family of God that Lives in the Eternal Tabernacle, the sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, nephews and cousins – all the Brethren, the Adelphoi – of the “One God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, of all things visible and invisible.” We – the adelphoi, the anawim – must not wait for Jesus’ return away from the House of the Lord (God’s family), but rather be in the Presence of the Lord in the land of the living: Psalm 27:13 – 13 I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. ʻŌmea, we joyfully wait and watch, and do that together like ʻohana [family] and as those who gladly do right instead of making excuses to exalt our lives. We cannot be the servant of all if we make ourselves “first come, first served.” Remember, to repent one mist first STOP, and then do a 180 back to God and The Family of God.

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

 

[1]  Use this link to see multiple translations of this passage. Thanks!

 

Aloha Friday Message – May 31, 2024 – Mutiny Over The Bounty

May 31, 2024

2422AFC053124 – Mutiny Over The Bounty

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 Exodus 24:7 – 7 Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”

Psalm 116:12-13 –
12 What shall I return to the Lord
for all his bounty to me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord

Hebrews 9:11-12 – 11 But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and [more] perfect tent [or tabernacle]  (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), 12 he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.

Mark 14:22-26 – (GNT) [1] 22 While they were eating, Jesus took a piece of bread, gave a prayer of thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples. “Take it,” he said, “this is my body.”
23 Then he took a cup, gave thanks to God, and handed it to them; and they all drank from it. 24 Jesus said, “This is my blood which is poured out for many, my blood which seals God’s *covenant. 25 I tell you, I will never again drink this wine until the day I drink the new wine in the Kingdom of God.”
26 Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.

*Some translations and ancient authorities add “new” here. Covenant : diathḗkē (from 1223 /diá, “thoroughly,” intensifying 5087 /títhēmi, “place, set”) – properly, a set-agreement having complete terms determined by the initiating party, which also are fully affirmed by the one entering the agreement.

John 6:50-51 – 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

E pili mau na pomaika‘i ia ‘oe a me ke akua ho’omaika‘i ‘oe, ʻŌmea! (May blessing always be with you and may God bless you, Beloved!) Ahhhh, I have looked forward to this post! This coming Sunday is The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ or Corpus Christi. It is the third and final of the major post-Easter Solemnities. The previous two were Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord on May 12, and Pentecost Sunday on May 19. Next Sunday we begin the long stretch of “Ordinary Time.” We can begin this post by explaining the title. Most of us will remember there was a book (and later a movie) called Mutiny on The Bounty. There were three successful books as well as three successful movies about that event centered on the HMAV Bounty in April 1789, while sailing in the South Pacific under the command of William Bligh. Now, what is the connection between a historically famous and historical act of defiance, and a Solemnity honoring the Real Presence of Christ? I hope by the end of this you will not think I’m crazy.

Just as a refresher, here’s an image of the HMAV Bounty. There are plenty of stories about the “Tall Ships,” the era of stupendous naval battles, nefarious pirates, and dauntless explorers. Some of the tales passed down through the centuries are dramatic and fanciful. The great ships that were committed to these adventures were marvels of craftsmanship, ingenuity, and daring. There is much debate to this day about the events surrounding the fate of The Bounty. It seems incredible that crew members who participated in the mutiny were committed to an idea that Bligh was unfit for command and listed evidence of his harsh cruelty to his crew. It’s a bad rap that has very thin evidence historically. Still, the mutineers rebelled against what they believed was intolerable and assented to what they believed was justifiable. They knew they could be severely punished for their failure to conform to the “Laws of the Sea.” There were standards of conduct for Commander and Crew, and each thought the other had failed to live up to those standards. Here, then, is the connection which comes from our Key Verses from Psalm 116:12-13:

12 What shall I return to the Lord
for all his bounty to me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord

We can see that the word “bounty” is also the name of that ship. If you click on the link for that passage you will see three different words in the position of “bounty” – bounty, benefits, and goodness. In this → collection of the same passage at Bible Hub → (Psalm 116:12), we also see precious blessings, bountiful dealings, good, rewards, great good, acts of kindness, and so on. The gist of it is, “How can we give recompense to God for all the great and wonderful Gifts he has given us?” I’ll give you the short answer: We can’t. What we can do – at the very least – is try, try, and try again to be and to do better. If this connection still seems a bit tenuous to you, let’s go back to the mutiny momentarily and ask, “Why was (is) mutiny a punishable crime?” One of those “rules of the sea” was that the ship’s commander was always the ultimate authority on board. His due was to be respected-as-ranked regardless of his personal qualities. There were specific remedies for “lousy commanders,” but they were much milder (and less effective) than mutiny. The mutineers decided that their recompense to the commander was to ditch him at sea. Bad guys deserve bad endings, we might say.

Now, a short detour to present-day realities.

Many of us have heard in recent years of a Pew Research Center survey (see summary) finding that a bit less than ONE-THIRD (31%) of Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Nearly half (43%) believe that it is the Church’s position that this error is actually the Church’s teaching! About one-fifth (22%) disbelieve the action of transubstantiation is actual even though they know that’s what Scripture, Apostolic Teaching, and the Magisterium profess in the Catechism of the Catholic Church – CCC 1374: The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.” In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.”

“This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” When we say we do NOT believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, that is NOT what the Church believes, teaches, and requires as what is due to God in Christ Jesus. It is essentially mutinous to say, “I don’t care what the Church wants be to believe. I can only believe what I can believe! You cannot tell me how to worship! I know what you want, but I don’t want what you want; I want what I want!” Very dangers words indeed!! That’s basically the same argument used by Lucifer.

The Worship of God is what we offer with the utmost sincerity and honor as is his due – and his requirement. Remember, Jesus stated the two Greatest Commandments – You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the Prophets. (See Matthew 22:36-40) To Love and Obey God, Jesus tells us we must give him the reverence, respect, awe, and worship he deserves and expects. That includes participating in the Eucharist in full faith knowing that we are experiencing the Real Presence of Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. If we are going up to Communion with anything less in our hearts, we are mutineers and at risk of severe condemnation.

When we say we believe that Christ is “consubstantial with the Father,” we mean that he is of the same substance as the Father. So it is also with the elements of the Eucharist – they are of the same substance of the Christ of God – they are The Real Presence. He is indeed present to us “through him, with him, and in him” as O Sacrament Most Holy (↔ Music Link). Thus, the Eucharist is the perfect core and operating system of the Absolutely Perfect Plan, God’s own APP. We are One Body in this One Lord! (↔ Music Link) For non–Christians, this idea is absurd, even bizarre and disgusting. Even among the early Disciples of Jesus, this teaching offended many and they just said, “That’s enough! I’m outta here.” I took some time to discern whether or not to add this passage – rather than just a link to it – and I believe it’s important to plant it firmly here (another mystery). One of the Key Verses for today is from John 6. Here is that passage in context:

John 6:50-65 – 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (↔ Click Link for full content)

This is the revelation of the Mystery of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. If I TRUST what God tells me, I believe Scripture, know it comes to us through Apostolic Tradition, and is presented to us through the Magisterium of the Church. (See more on TRUST below) We can believe it, or not. In my case, it’s sort of like “believe it or else.” The “or else” for me would be to contradict what I see in Scripture:
TABLE:

τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου
touto estin  to*  sōma mou
this     is*     the body  of me
* “omnitemporal” was, is, will be

That is in my mind whenever I receive the Precious Body and Precious Blood (↔ Music Link). It is neither my goal nor my desire to convince you, dear reader, that this and this only is correct. I believe it is TRUE. IF you believe as I do, what I have written here should not offend you. IF you do not believe as I do, what I have written here might, perchance, offend you – scandalize you – but my purpose here is only to state my slight understanding of a Great Mystery (mystērion) of Faith. Further, after much searching interiorly and exteriorly, I am convinced that

If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions,
then the road to Heaven is paved with good works.

Not that one is saved by works, but that good works arise from the actualization of good intent – they are a product of F.A.I.T.H. in action. More than wisdom, more than religion, more than rites and sacrifices, God commands us to Trust, Love, and Obey him. On that point I want to share with you something I learned earlier this week at our Parish Mission. For those of you who are unfamiliar with that term, it is usually a guest speaker brought in to conduct inspirational instruction for a Parish Community.

Our Mission Director was Fr. Jim Sichko who can be described as “Priest, Preacher, Papal Missionary of Mercy, Evangelist, Event Planner & Sauce Maker (See www.frjims.com) He was selected by Pope Francis I to travel the world to deliver the Gospel in every corner – as Jesus commanded. Here is a very brief summary (including commentary from the Holy Spirit as he spoke) of his explanation of TRUST during #60MIN4JESUS:

T for Time – if we are to TRUST God, that means we spend time with him. I find that the more I trust him, the more time I spend with him.

R for Relationship – We learn to speak our heart and mind to God, and then we learn to close our mouth and listen. You have 168 hours a week available to be with him. Use it.

U for Understanding – God never promised he would give us everything we want; however, he does give us everything we need. Sometimes that includes pain in ways that help us grow closer to him and to each other.

S for Surrender – Let God be God, not us. It is God’s Will which we must Trust, Love, and Obey, not ours. God IS God, and we are not.

T for Try – Try to make the effort to stay reconciled with God in the Sacraments. Tell the priest whatever you need to repent. And remember, repent means to turn around, and in order to turn around you first have to stop.

When I take notes during a Homily or a Mission, it’s always a three-way conversation. There is what the Holy Spirit is telling the speaker, what the speaker is telling me, and what the Holy Spirit helps me write down as we listen. Over the past 20 or so years, not one speaker has ever told me, “Hey, you! Put that notebook away!” It is also true that often “The Healing Word” (↔ Learning Link) suggests part of the content of an MBN post. In this post, God has given me the Bounty of his love and direction so that  I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord instead of throwing my own little mutiny about his extraordinary generosity. We can TRUST in God because Jesus has paid the full price for our sinfulness with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. We are reminded of that every time we see this:

If we are unwilling to surrender to God our gratitude for the Sacrifice of his Only Begotten Son as expiation for our sins, then we are participants in a mutiny that deserves – and will receive – isolation from the source of All that is Good. Instead let us strive to join all who have gone before us marked with the Sign of Faith, and pray to Our Father, “There, with the whole of creation, freed from the corruption of sin and death, may we glorify you through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow on the world All that is Good.”

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 – May 24, 2024 – Famous Last Words

May 24, 2024

2421AFC052424 – Famous Last Words ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

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.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

 Deuteronomy 4:39 – 39 So acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

Psalm 33:6-9 –
6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
7 He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;
he put the deeps in storehouses.

8 Let all the earth fear* the Lord;             *reverence
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
9 For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.

Romans 8:12-15 – 12 So then, brothers and sisters,* we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh — 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba!** Father!”  
* Greek adelphos – brethren ** Aramaic word for “Dad”

Matthew 28:18-20 – 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him. This weekend we will celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. (↔ Music Link) This is one concept that baffles us. There is a saying, “If you have faith, you don’t need proof. If you need proof, you don’t have faith.” It seems to me that all Mysteries are like that – black or white, true or untrue, avoidable or unavoidable. If we accept the Truth of a Mystery we are called gullible or astute. If we deny the Truth of a Mystery we are called … gullible or astute. What, then, are we to do with this fundamental Mystery of Faith – One  God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity? (↔ Music Link)

Perhaps the most basic question is “How would we know?” How would we know if God is Three Divine Persons? How do we know if God is? If God’s True Name is I AM THAT I AM, and the Shema says “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One,” then I AM is One. The Catholic Encyclopedia (↔ Click Link) states: An absolute mystery is a truth whose existence or possibility could not be discovered by a creature, and whose essence (inner substantial being) can be expressed by the finite mind only in terms of analogy, e.g., the Trinity. Logically, one cannot be three; but Mysteries are not logical, and so no logical explanation is possible. We have to use another source to understand Mysteries, and that source is also a Mystery: Scripture.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us – 16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. God’s Word is inspired by God, and as such would not exist had God not decreed it. Yep. Circular logic. If we know God, we believe his Word. If we believe his Word, we know God. for that to be True, God must be Universal, and SURPRISE, SURPRISE, Moses told the Israelites that “The Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.” In our Key Verse from the Gospel, Jesus tells the Apostles and Disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Jesus has the same authority as God, so is he a “second God” who is Holy and Worthy of Praise? (↔ Music Link)

No, that is a heresy; in fact that supposition might fit into a number of the many heresies that plagued the Church over the past 2000 years. I refer to this kind of heretical supposition as “superstitious knowledge.” The folks who come up with this baloney (mostly men!) claim to possess knowledge imparted specifically to them as unsurmountable proof of their convictions which are rarely (if ever) actually “inspired by God.” In other words, their “guesses” about the nature of God are based on no substantive reality. It’s kind of like saying a clock tells time “because maybe the rays from the sun move the hands on the clock.” Should we all claim to be agnostic then? Is God so unknowable that we shouldn’t even try? Who can answer that for us? The answer is – and is not – surprising.

God – our Triune God – can answer all the questions we have. Let’s take a look at Romans 8:26-27 – 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Christ has the authority of God over Heaven and Earth and there is only one God with only one authority, and that God is the Holy Spirit who intercedes with the Father and the Son on behalf of all Believers. The Apostle Paul begins this proof by pointing out the testimony God has given to us about himself in Romans 1:18-21 – 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; 21 for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.

“The Truth is out there,” and in our hearts and minds as well. We only have to look and see. I’m going to hop in the Wayback Machine to 2012  for a bit where I wrote about radiolarians.

Here’s what my heart and mind tell me: Whether you’re talking about Intelligent Design and Irreducible Complexity or Random Systematic Evolution and Natural Selection or “In the Beginning, God…” it all comes down to “How do I know God exists?” I personally see and feel the evidence of His existence which he has placed before me. I recall a time at Huntingdon College during my Junior Year when for the first time I saw a radiolarian through a microscope. The one I saw looked a lot like this one:

One type of radiolarium

This is a living microscopic protozoan called a radiolarian (↔ Learning Link). Well, it was alive once. The one I saw was fixed and stained on a microscope slide. There were others like it on the same slide, and other radiolarians that were quite different. There are so many different kinds of these things that one wonders how they were ever given names. And there are people who devote their lives to finding, studying, and classifying these amazing microscopic critters that end up as part of the plankton soup that runs the oceans. When I saw it, I recall saying, “I don’t see how anyone could look at this and not believe in God.” Now someone else can look at the same critter and say, “I don’t see how anyone can look at this and not believe in Intelligent Design.” Or even, “I don’t see how anyone can look at this and not believe in the power of evolution.” What’s the common factor in all of those statements of belief? Give yourself a few seconds here to think up an answer.

<<<<<<PAUSE>>>>>>

Yes, you are correct. None of those statements say, “I don’t see how anyone can look at this and not realize it created itself.” Did it evolve? Some think so. Did the Id of Creation make it? Perhaps. Did God do that? Probably; but, I only say probably because it is only one radiolarian. When I know there are bazillions of them just within a mile of the coasts of Kauai, and then think about how many are in the entire width, breadth, and depths of all the saltwater oceans of the world and have been there since the time oceans first existed, I see something bigger and better than Intelligent Design, or Evolution; I see Creation, and that is the beginning of the dawning light. Remember I said (See the previous post at 1222AFC060112), “If you, as a human being, take on any part of the ‘Is God Real’ question, you ultimately end up buying into the entirety of the Mystery of Faith” earlier in this post? That’s one first-part and there are about as many ways to find a first-part idea as there are radiolarians in the sea. The evidence for God and his Creation are everywhere. From the inside of our bodies, to the entirety of the ocean, to the immensity of the universe. The evidence is there. God is not the Universe (nor is it the other way around). God is in the Universe and in everything that is in the Universe (including you and me), but he is separate from everything in and of the Universe. How do I know? The Bible tells me so. (↔ Music Link) “Yeah, but who can believe the Bible? What kind of argument is that?” It is precisely the kind of argument The Apostle Paul warned us about in Romans 1. In fact, if you can find a good Bible study about the book of Romans, get it! We’re going to close with the best evidence God gave us to help us understand that he is God and we are not.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba!** Father!” John 1:12 – 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. 2 Timothy 1:6 b-7 – 6 b I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. Jesus’ Power is the Universal Power of our One God in Three Persons. He clothed the Apostles with his Universal Power by giving them a Universal Mission – to make disciples of all nations. When we believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, we are united with the Most Holy Trinity through the Rite of Baptism by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That is because For he spoke, and it came to be;  he commanded, and it stood firm. All of that brings us to the beautiful and famous last words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. How could he be with us as Emanuel unless he is here? I know, it’s a Mystery. AMEN.

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

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

 

 

Dearly Belovéd, please join with us in prayer for our Great-Niece Marie A. Johnson. A recent very serious illness has decimated her health. She is being moved to hospice. Please pray for her family – husband and son and daughter – as well as her mom, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends and all of us who have been the beneficiaries of her steadfast Love. A miracle is not out of reach. Thank you.

 

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 – May 17, 2024 – Spirit of the Living God

May 17, 2024

2420AFC051724 – Spirit of the Living God ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

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.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

    Acts 2:1 – 1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.

Psalm 104:30 – 30 When you send forth your spirit, they are created;
and you renew the face of the Earth.

1 Corinthians 12:3 b – … no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

John 20:21-22 – 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The holy Season of Eastertide is drawing to a close. This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, and therefore the Birthday of The Church. It’s a very familiar story – or at least it certainly should be – and so today we’ll skip the descriptions of that miraculous event, and just talk about what the Holy Spirit has to do with these posts, the coming celebration, and why I hold it in such high esteem.

If you read these messages regularly, you know I keep a list of favorites.

  • Favorite Psalm – 138
  • Favorite Solemnity – The Ascension
  • Favorite Gospel – John
  • Favorite Gospel verse – John 3:17
  • Favorite Old-Time Hymn – Ivory Palaces

One of the reasons I treasure Pentecost so much is that it goes back millennia to the Festivals decreed by God in Leviticus 23. (See 1221AFC052512 Pentecost for details. There is a lot of good information for you there.) Also – if you’ll go back and look at the post from 2012 – Pentecost is in the middle of the 7 Feasts or Festivals, (Shavu’ot: The Feast of Weeks or Festival of Harvest). Whenever God puts something in the very middle of what he wants or what he creates (same-same those are), it turns out to be very special and important. Pentecost comes at the end of Eastertide, and it’s a pretty long wait – 50 days like the name says – so it’s like a really big reward for that wait. In more recent times, it commemorates what is perhaps the defining moment in the history of Israel: the Giving of the Law to Moses. All those connections serve to hold my fascination with this important day in World History. Something that many of us never really think about is the situating of the event. Everybody is involved. No occupational work, a full day of celebratory rest – much like Shabbat (the Sabbath). A day to honor the Lord by giving him the firstfruits of everything. As we see in our Key Verse from the Second Chapter of Acts, everyone was together in the same place. This aspect of Pentecost also affirms one of the quintessential aspects of God being The I AM – it is done as community, for community, in community, because God is community. In my heart that is just way-far cool.

Not many things are cooler than that, at least not without God’s putting it into the Absolutely Perfect Plan, and so on the Feast of Pentecost God the Father – who gives us the firstfruits of his community, Jesus – follows up with “The Lord, the Giver of Life.” You’ll remember that in Genesis 1, the Ru’ach – the Spirit or the Breath of the Lord was the Power-in-motion at the start of “In The Beginning.” Jesus had told the Apostles gathered into the Cenacle (The Upper Room) that they would receive Power when the Father sent them the Holy Spirit. Whenever I try to imagine that day, I end up grinning at their astonishment of what’s happening because it is absolutely astonishing! It started off big and then got BIGGER, AND BIGGER! The World was changed in a matter of minutes. That’s not a throw-away sentence. It’s a FACT! God sent forth the Spirit, and the face of the Earth was renewed. Wouldn’t we all want to be there in that moment? We can, you know.

Many of us will remember this Prayer to the Holy Spirit –

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy Holy Love. Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created. And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.
O God, who by the Light of the Holy Spirit instruct the hearts of your faithful, grant us by the same Spirit to be truly wise and ever rejoice in his consolation.

V. You, O Lord shall open their lips
R. and their tongues shall announce Thy praise.
V. Incline unto our aid O God.
R. O Lord make haste to help us.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Through Christ Our Lord. AMEN.

This is the prayer I always use when I sit down in front of my keyboard to get a post started. The prayer is followed by a short song, another one of those treasures from my childhood, called Spirit of the Living God. (↔ Music Link) Both of these might be prayed aloud or both silently; it is then that I know we are ready to work together. I have learned that this is an important first step, a primary objective toward the goal of ensuring that what goes into the post turns out to be the proclamation, “Jesus is Lord.” The entire purpose of these posts is to make Scripture more accessible so that, together, we give Glory and Praise to Our God (↔ Music Link) He always is Jesus the Lord. (↔ Music Link) The Apostle Paul found very clever ways to plant that seed of faith in the people who would listen to him.

One example we can cite is in Acts 17:26-28 – 26 From one ancestor [Adam] he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,
‘For we too are his offspring.’ This was spoken to a crowd of Stoic and Epicurean philosophers on the Areopagus in Athens. The first quote from the Apostle Paul is by a well-known poet of the region, one Epimenides of Crete (or another Athenian poet). Apparently it had its desired effect because some of them indicated they would like to hear more. The Apostle Paul was telling them that all their handmade gods were useless whereas the One, True, Living God was the origin and sustaining of all Life. When he also told them the account of Jesus’ passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension, some waved him off as more-than-dubious, but the others … well, they were very interested in hearing more. The second quote about being “his offspring” was from a Cilician Stoic named Aratus. In this way, The Apostle Paul led his listeners to consider that their gods (Zeus, for example) might be “shadows” of a Greater God. Whenever we reflect on the spread of the Early church through the Apostles, we see that Jesus’ promise about the Holy Spirit: “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (See John 14:25-26) the Holy Spirit is sent to us in Jesus’ name to teach and remind us of all that Jesus wants us to hear, and every word of it comes from El Olam – the Everliving God.

At this point, I am going to yield to the Spirit and close with a trio of music links. I don’t wish to overburden you with more words. There is a quote attributed to St. Augustine: “He who sings once prays twice.” Or something like that! 😉 These things are also true:

  • There is an Absolutely Perfect Plan
  • YOLO-F is the real (and only) deal
  • Jesus is Lord
  • Jesus Loves you, and so do I.
  • If you like the prayer and the music, save them for future use.

Spirit and Grace   (↔ Music Link)

 Veni Sancte Spiritus   (↔ Music Link)

 Come Holy Spirit   (↔ Music Link)

Romans 15:13 – 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.

Psalm 51:11 –
11 Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.

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

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

Sprit of the Living God   (↔ Music Link just in case you missed it)

Indeed, receive the Holy Spirit and renew the F.A.I.T.H. of the Earth!

 

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 – May 10, 2024 – Believe it or else, too

May 10, 2024

2419AFC051024 – Believe it or else, too ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

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.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

   Mark 16:6-16 – 9 Now after he [Jesus] rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. 10 She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. 11 But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. 12 After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. 13 And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. 14 Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. 15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. 16 The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned.
Ephesians 1:17-19 – 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened (↔ Music Link), you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

Acts 1:10-11 – (NIV)[1] 10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

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. I must compliment you on your excellent memory if today’s title sounds familiar. That same title appeared in a post on May 28, 2021. There may be some similarities, but overall the content is different. Readers who have been reading these posts since 2021 may remember that The Ascension is, for me, the most reassuring passage in Scripture. Why? Because it states unequivocally that Jesus is coming back in the same way he was seen going back up into Heaven. There are many other things in Scripture associated with that event, but for me and my heart they are all secondary to the assurance that he’s going to be coming back. Many in the Early Church believed that his return was even imminent – surely occurring in their lifetimes. Throughout the ensuing centuries, many “Prophets” have assured us that Jesus will arrive on a specific date.

We know better – or at least we should! “It is not for you to know the hour or the seasons …” I’m OK with that because the hour and the seasons are also secondary for me and my heart. He told us he would come back. The “men in White” told us he had been raised and will be coming back. The Church Fathers have told us he’s coming back. That’s enough evidence to convince me; but then, I have 2000+ years of history, teaching, theology, and F.A.I.T.H. under my belt. The Apostles and Disciples present with Jesus at the instant of his Ascension had only about 40 days to get used to the idea that he was leaving now and would be back “later.” To paraphrase a phrase, “We’ve been waiting over two-thousand years. What’s another couple of weeks, or centuries for that matter?” Since we don’t (can’t) know, there exists no reason whatsoever to give up Hope or be discouraged because today is not the day (or is it? Time will tell!) We all know that verse about “a day is a thousand years in God’s sight,” (See 2 Peter 3:8) so for God it could be tomorrow or the day after. I may or may not be a corporeal being when it happens. NO BIGGIE! I’ve already got a good head-start at Everlasting Life. Some of the people I know would be surprised at that. A subset of those would be convinced I was off my rocker and a smaller group would think I was just bragging – or totally ignorant. It does not matter to me. It does, however, matter to God.

It matters because if I fail to believe what God and his messengers (Prophets, Angels, Apostles, and other similarly-qualified persons), then it’s like calling God a liar. Everybody knows that’s a bad idea! Recall the words of Gabriel to Mary: “For nothing will be impossible with God.” (See Luke 1:37) Mary believed that, and so she said “Yes.” I believe it, and I, too, say “Yes nothing is impossible with God.” Again, I reiterate that we have had a lot more time to think about this than the Apostles and Disciples did. We have evidence of this just up the page from our Key Verses in Acts of the Apostles at Acts 1:6 – 6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus was so patient with them! He knew what would happen when the Holy Spirit came to them at Pentecost. They were still stuck in the Davidic image of the Messiah as a military leader that would liberate Israel from their oppressors – at the time, Rome. Jesus had told them multiple times that he would suffer greatly at the hands of their leaders, would die, and be raised up on the third day. They believed he was the Messiah, that he was the Son of God, but could not grasp the Truth of his Prophecy of death and Resurrection. We read in Matthew’s account of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:17 – 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.

Even the presence of two Men in White could not convince those who doubted. Their motto would be something like, “I did see it, but I just can’t believe it.” This reminds me of a passage in the book of Proverbs.
Proverbs 11:31 –
 31 If the righteous are repaid on earth,
how much more the wicked and the sinner! This was quoted by The Apostle Peter in
1 Peter 4:18 – 18 And
“If it is hard for the righteous to be saved,
what will become of the ungodly and the sinners?” When I first studied the Ascension back in the mid-50’s, I was using the King James Version. In that translation, the statement is “This same Jesus.” In the translation I usually use, the word “same” is not present. That’s why I put the NIV quote in this post. When I’m serving as a Lector and read that verse, I emphasize the word THIS instead of the name of Jesus – most readers will say, “This Jesus.” It comes out as “T H I S … Jesus” so that the word “same” is replaced by a brief silence, and that emphasizes the demonstrative article “this.” The absolutely undeniable FACT that it will be this, and only this, Jesus is a difference we must be aware of in our F.A.I.T.H. one might say, “Well, isn’t that kind of silly being that specific? I mean, who else would it be?” After the first 2000 years of study, I agree; but back then, “some doubted.” The Greek word – οὗτος – used in this passage is very specific and means this one, the one visibly present here, the one just named and none other than this one. There’s not another one, there’s no way it could be someone else. It will be precisely, exactly, permanently that same guy you just saw take off into the clouds. It is HE who will return to you. (See 1917AFC042619 – THIS is important for more about οὗτος (oútos) {hoo-tohs or oo-tohs} as it appears in verse 11 (↔ Click Link)

At this point I invite you to find and read 2021AFC052220 – What is doubt? Now, of course, all of us know what doubt is. I could even say, “I doubt very, very few people are uncertain about doubt.” But before that, I want to recall some “tough-guy talk.” We’re familiar with the phrase, “Believe it or not” from the long-running newspaper funnies feature Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Here’s one example. “Believe it or else” is a take-off on that catch phrase. The tough talk was a comeback, “Or else what?” The first place in Scripture that we find the answer “or else this!” is in Deuteronomy 1:32 during the Desert Wanderings. Spies had been sent up into Canaan to assess the threat of the nations they would face. In the verses before this one, most of the spies spread doubt and fear saying that the inhabitants are fierce giants. Only Joshua and Caleb believe Israel can prevail. Despite all that God had done for them to bring them out of Egypt and to protect them, they did not trust God to help them prevail against that threat. The “or else” turned out to be forty years of wandering, a whole generation dying out, and, eventually they still had to fight those people. When the Apostles who had not seen Jesus heard the accounts of those who had, they did not believe it despite all the miraculous things Jesus had already done in their presence.

Again, Jesus was patient with them, but throughout his ministry, he did not chase after those who would not believe. He allowed them to choose between belief and unbelief. For those who chose belief, they experienced the Kingdom of Heaven. Those who chose unbelief did not experience that. These are the same consequences we can earn for the same choices – believe it or else. Belief, F.A.I.T.H., is rewarded with an eternity in the presence of God. Unbelief, F.E.A.R., is rewarded with an eternity outside the presence of God. Believe it or else, or believe it or not. And, of course, it’s in the APP.

Sorry for being late with this. SOMEthing got hold of me Wednesday afternoon and I had zero energy for about 48 hours and slept for about 40 of those.

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

[1] Passages marked (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Aloha Friday Message – May 3, 2024 – Keeping His Word.

May 3, 2024

2418AFC050324 – Keeping His Word. ← 😊 PODCAST LINK

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.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.

 Acts 10:25-26 – 25 On Peter’s arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshiped him. 26 But Peter made him get up, saying, “Stand up; I am only a mortal.”

Psalm 98:3 –
3 He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the victory of our God.

John 15:9-17 – 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. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants[a] any longer, because the servant[b] does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

1 John 4:7 – 7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, in truth and love. Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea!. Here we are at the Sixth Sunday of Easter. Two more Sundays until Pentecost, and my favorite New Testament reading. More on that later. Right now we have some astonishing Scripture passages to feast on.

Today’s post could have been called, “Who do you know?” I ask you, then, do you know Cornelius?

You see in our Key Verse that The Apostle Peter went to visit a man named Cornelius, a Centurion in the Italian Regiment stationed in Cæsarea. Cæsarea was an important port at the Western shore of Israel. He was a very devout man, perhaps a convert to Judaism but that’s unlikely. He was, however, very generous in giving alms and support to Jews in his area. He had a dream in which a man in brilliant light appeared and told him to send for “Simon who is called Peter” who was staying in the house of Simon the Tanner in Joppa. That’s about 30 miles from Cæsarea. He sent trusted members of his household to bring The Apostle Peter to him.

The Apostle Peter – who had been praying on the rooftop of Simon’s house and was feeling hungry – also had a vision in which he saw a large number of unclean animals – food that was forbidden to devout Jews – and a commanding Voice told him to “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” This happened three times and each time, The Apostle Peter refused to eat what was profane. Then the voice said to him “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Just as that experience ended, the men from Cæsarea arrived, told him what Cornelius wanted, and he went with them. Meanwhile Cornelius was anxiously waiting for their return. We can imagine he would have been a bit rattled by his vision. Roman Centurions saw a lot of gruesome and dangerous things, but a brilliantly shining messenger from God was totally out of his wheelhouse! If the messenger was so spectacular, what indeed must be “Simon who is called Peter” be like!?

We can see that when he finally did arrive, Cornelius fell at the Apostle’s feet in humble homage. The Apostle Peter understood God’s message about the unclean animals. He, an Apostle of Jesus, was no longer to call the gentile profane, for God had created them to be coheirs in the Family of God. He told Cornelius to get up because he, too, was merely a mortal man like him. Cornelius was very devout, very generous and kind, but he did not know Jesus. The Apostle Peter knew Jesus and now was charged with Jesus’ command to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (See Matthew 28:19-20) “All nations” included all the gentile nations. As The Apostle Peter explained about Jesus’ Gospel and the history of his life and death, while he was speaking, the Holy Spirit welled up in all the gentiles and they were speaking in tongues and glorifying God. The Apostle Peter ordered that all of them should be Baptized as Jesus had commanded.

Now, I’ve given you a condensed version of Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 10 (↔ Click Link), but I strongly encourage you to go back and read it a couple of more times. Cornelius may have been the first gentile convert. He did not fully know or understand the God worshipped by the Jews. He did know that God expected worship, generosity, kindness, and reverence. After meeting The Apostle Peter, he did know God, and shared in the JOY of the Holy Spirit with The Apostle Peter. His life-changing “come to Jesus” moment is a serious lesson for us. It is insufficient to be “merely Christian” (See Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis ← Seriously, read this book.) All of Cornelius’ good deeds were just that, good deeds. But after he came to know Jesus and was Baptized in Jesus’ name and confirmed in the Holy Spirit, all of his goodness was given as obedience to Jesus’ command to Love.

Belovéd, as we well know, that command most definitely applies to every believer. The Apostle John reminds us 7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. We might ask, “Well, didn’t Cornelius show love in all his goodness to the Jews?” Yes, it was indeed a form of love called PHILIA φιλία (philia) {fil-i-ah}. This is a pretty familiar root-word and we see it in other words like “audiophile”, Philadelphia, and Theophilus. It is “brotherly/sisterly love,” and is usually associated with dignity and respect of and for others. The minimum number of persons required for this kind of love is two, and there is no maximum number. What Jesus calls – yea, commands – is AGAPE ἀγάπη, (agápē) {ah-gah-ee}. Agape is the LOVE that transcends all other forms. In the New Testament, this is the verb used to characterize the LOVE that God has. We’ve all heard of AGAPE love, in fact I’ve mentioned it several times in these Aloha Friday Messages. Here, however, is something new and different I learned from Father Al Rubadello many years ago:

Agape LOVE is a love that can only exist for three or more persons. It is a love that grows out of community, not self. God is LOVE and God is Three Persons. When a couple shares agape LOVE, it usually includes him, her, and God; that’s five persons. Agape love is not self-based and as so is not self-serving. Agape love carries with it no preconceptions, no prejudices; it is that kind of love that is usually called “unconditional.” Some folks think that only God can love unconditionally. I do not. My wife and kids prove it. They still love me despite the times I have not have always loved them as well as I could. (See 1519AFC050815 – Do you love me? For details, please.)

So, Belovéd, what can we say about this?: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” We’ve said several times that “as I have loved” means “in direct proportion.” We could read this quote from John 15:12 as “This is my requirement for the end-result of my Love: that you love all of each of you in exactly the same manner and degree as I have loved you.”  Again: This is my requirement for the end-result of my Love: that you Love all of each of you in exactly the same manner and degree as I have Loved you. And oh, HOW Jesus has Loved us! “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” That’s no easy-peezy sort of Love, is it? As I look at those words on the page, I am convicted of my innumerable failures – some of them monumental – to live up to that one, basic rule that underlies all of Scripture, Tradition, and Teaching: Love God and one another exactly as you have been told and shown. (↔ Music Link) That is consistent with what we heard last week about keeping our connection  with the True Vine. We know that God tells us he Loves us constantly. How often we fail to return that Love! How often we let the Foe infest our connections to the True Vine with the devouring spirits of selfishness, greed, and duplicity. Who do we know that can overcome sinfulness like that, and STILL say, “I Love you like Fod my Father Loves you?” I will show you again our Key Verse from the Psalms
Psalm 98:3 –
3 He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the victory of our God.

That victory is the victory over sin and death. There is only one way to claim that Victory, and that is to be in the Army of the Lord wearing our full armor. (↔ Music Link) We must put away all foolishness and weaknesses, all that is carnal within us. Remember what Jesus told his Disciples (that’s you and me, kiddos) “ You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” I really want to copy and paste all of Colossians 3 ← HERE, but I will instead implore you to follow that link. It will take less than three minutes to read the whole thing, If you read all the notes and cross-references, it will still take only about 15 minutes of your day, I assure you, that will be time well-spent.

ʻŌmea, we know Jesus. Jesus knows us. He has called us by name and we follow him. Jesus Loves us just as much as God, his Father, Loves him, and together they both love us as much as does the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life. We will close with part of the Second Reading 1 John 4:9-10 – 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. that indeed is worth repeating – and remembering! In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Remember this?

GOD ≡ LIGHT ≡ LOVE ≡ TRUTH ≡ WAY ≡ LIFE ≡ ETERNAL ≡ MERCY ≡ GOD (↔ Music Link – really!)

Who do we Love? Who do we know? Who is it that always Loves us first? Why? Why does HE ask us to Love precisely as he Loves? The answer is mysteriously simple. We are keeping HIS Word to us, HIS command to Love him and each other. “This is my requirement for the end-result of my Love: that you love all of each of you in exactly the same manner and degree as I have loved you and God, your Father, Loves  you and ME.” We’ve got his word on it, and we know it is worthy of our trust and obedience. Keep his Word.

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

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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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