Scripture:

John 11:33-36 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the people who had come with her weeping, he was intensely moved in spirit and greatly distressed. He asked, “Where have you laid him?” They replied, “Lord, come and see.”  Jesus wept.  Thus the people who had come to mourn said, “Look how much he loved him!”

…

11:43-44 When he had said this, he shouted in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”  The one who had died came out, his feet and hands tied up with strips of cloth, and a cloth wrapped around his face. Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him and let him go.”

Observation:

Jesus mourns with those who mourn.  The claim that he wept because of the lack of faith of the people is contrived.  We see one of the divine motivations for the miraculous in his weeping – compassion for dying, hopeless humanity.  Lazarus had died after a short illness – not uncommon in the ancient world but it is as the people said “Look how much he loved him”.  The whole family – Mary, Martha and Lazarus – clearly had a special place among His closest earthly friends.  The timing of Jesus’ arrival is too late to have kept Lazarus from dying but that is perspective of those who had only seen Jesus heal.  Jesus’ loud shout then summons the dead back to life and the purpose for all the events is disclosed – that out of compassion Jesus reversed the most final state of humankind – death.  Lazarus is dressed for the occasion in the cloths his dead body was wrapped in, but they will not remain as his covering.  Death has been unwrapped and Lazarus restored to life and health.

Application:

Never charge the Lord with being late or not knowing what is happening or has happened.  He knows.  What has died in our lives?  Is it a person – a family member or friend?  Jesus weeps with us.  Is it a hope or dream?  He weeps also.  Mourning is natural and healthy.   And though physical resurrection of people who have died is extremely rare – though it does happen – Jesus is not too late to say “Dream, come out!” or “Vision, be reinvigorated!” as He calls into the tomb of our giving up.  And when those things are restored, they may look different, wrapped as they were in the clothing of our despair.  Furthermore, those of faith may be the ones who say “Come out!” towards the dead things in the lives of others.  Ask for the compassion first, to empathize with the discouragement and grief of another and for the faith, then, to believe when another has resigned and canceled all hope of ever seeing any sign of life again from what is dead.  And we may need to take off the death cloths which were ceremonially wrapped tight around what has died it as part of assigning it a place among that which has perished.  That is, for hopes and dreams, we may need to show the mourner(s) that they are NOT dead through continued encouragement and applied faith.

Prayer:

Father, death is a part of our existence, but You have shown through Jesus that is NOT the end.  Grant us resurrection mindsets where You have granted new life; give us the faith to believe even amidst the mourners whose certainty it things staying dead is solid as a rock.  And let us unwrap what has been resurrected so that breath again can enter in.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

Luke 10:30-37 (RVS)

[30] Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.[31] Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.[32] So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.[33] But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion,[34] and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.[35] And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, `Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’[36] Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”[37] He said, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

The parable is familiar – The Good Samaritan – but what leaps out at me is the phrase. …when he saw him, he had compassion. Compassion:  oops, there’s a word that jolts me.  It’s easy for me to feel compassion for the poor, victimized folk of Darfur or for the homeless right here in Long Beach.  When I was still teaching I was very compassionate with my students – my job there was to help them and I devoted all my energies in trying to do so and felt rewarded by the very process.

I have trouble, though, integrating compassion into my personal everyday life.  The Oxford American Dictionary defines compassion as “a feeling of pity that makes one want to help or show mercy.”   Well, my actions are o.k. – I really do try to help – but my thoughts are a different matter.  Unfortunately, I’m inclined to think, “For heavens sakes, why didn’t she …” or “”I would never have put myself in that situation in the first place.”  For instance, I have a good friend of many years who has knee problems and has difficulty walking.  I feel badly for her but also a little irritated because when the problem first started the doctors told her swimming or bike riding would help, but she didn’t do either.  It’s fairly typical of her – she’ll turn to pills and psychics rather than do the uncomfortable physical things that might help.

But there I go – it’s none of my business why or why not she didn’t do those things.   The facts are:  her bad knees are impacting her life, and judgment should never enter into a situation that calls only for compassion.  What one should or shouldn’t have been done is completely beside the point.  What counts is what the person’s going through right now.

I pray over this a lot, and a light bulb suddenly lit up my mind.  Not only should I be compassionate to others, but I should also be compassionate to myself.  Yes, I make mistakes and don’t always react the way I would like to see myself react – but I’m trying to be better.  I care.   And if I start being compassionate to myself, I think it will be easier to be compassionate to others.

11/29/2009

My previous post relates how I’m being instructed to learn to be lowly, a vagabond, a peasant, hidden. And yesterday afternoon, when my “monkey mind” was bouncing around like a Super Ball thrown very hard against the wall of a small cubicle, he said simply, “Learn to slow down” (he’s also reminded me not to be impatient quite a bit lately). Lately, I feel as if I’m fighting something that, until recently, hasn’t been giving me too much trouble–my big, egotistical, arrogant Self–the part of my mind that tricks me into seeing myself through the eyes of other people, into worrying how I’ll be perceived. I don’t want to be like this; every “problem” that I’ve ever run into, it seems, has had to do in one way or another with my ego, whether inflated or deflated. Clearly, he sees this–hence the recent lessons.

I was thinking about one of the words he used the other day: b@lymah, or nothingness. And the phrase, “wisdom in emptiness” popped into my head. I knew I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t remember where. I Googled the phrase, and was reminded that it was part of Thomas Merton’s book, Zen and the Birds of Appetite. It’s comprised of essays by D.T. Suzuki and by Merton, and discusses the “Desert Fathers.” So I looked that up as well, and found a Wikipedia entry about them that contained the quote, “Sit in thy cell and thy cell will teach you all.” As soon as I saw it I remembered a single word that I’d “heard” early that morning, but couldn’t understand the meaning of–”cell.” So I gather I’m supposed to study the Desert Fathers a bit. I think.

Another thing I heard very clearly in the middle of the night sometime was “reb muwl.” “Ra’eb” has to do with hunger, and “muwl” (much to my initial consternation) means “circumcise/circumcision.” “Hungry for circumcision?” I thought. That would seem a bit, um, odd.

But then I remembered that in Hebrew the verb tends to come after the noun, and I realized that it must be “circumcise/cut off hunger”–tame my appetites, in other words. I know that it’s not just about food; I’ve been ravenous lately for things that I know damn well I don’t need. It’s been a long time since I’ve been like this, so I’m thinking of it as a test or an exercise.

Yesterday, in any case, thinking about “nothingness” (which I assume corresponds roughly to concepts of “emptiness”, which is discussed by Suzuki and Merton in terms of Buddhism and Christianity), I re-read “Wisdom in Emptiness,” and I came across the following, from Suzuki:

“Not to do anything that is evil,
To do all that is good;
To thoroughly purify the heart:
That is the teaching of the Buddhas.”

that will pollute the mind…Emptiness is not sheer emptiness or passivity or Innocence…It is Being; it is becoming. The Knowledge to do good and not to do evil is not enough; it must come out of Innocence…

(I just realized something that my friend Michael J. will have every right to call me on since I chastised him for forgetting something about Bob Dylan…In my previous post, I mentioned “Positively 4th Street.” But the song I was thinking of, of course, was “Like a Rolling Stone,” which contains the lines:

You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse
When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?)

Lowly, a vagabond, a peasant, hidden…nothingness. It’s all I want to be, if I can figure out how. And I think I finally understand what Yeshua says in the Gospel of Thomas–”become passers-by.”

451

“So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.” – Bertrand Russell

In recent months, the Catholic Church has produced a sulfuric trifecta of moral corruptness leaving a taste in one’s mouth that, in the most euphemistic of terms, can be described wholly unpalatable.

First, there were the verbal fisticuffs between Rep Patrick Kennedy and Lord Voldemort Bishop Tobin, which went something like this:

Kennedy: I support safe, medical procedures for everyone, especially with this shiny new Health Care Bill.

Tobin: Listen Fetus-Slayer-Supporter, you’re a terrible excuse for a Catholic. Don’t receive Communion, the most important part of the Catholic Mass. I award you no points, and may God have Mercy on your soul.

Then, Washington, DC’s diocese threatened to discontinue its social service programs if DC legalizes same-sex marriages.

Finally, RI Governor Sauron Don Carcieri vetoed a bill which would have allowed domestic partners, both gay and straight, to plan their partner’s funeral.

Epic spit take! These men who claim to follow the words and teachings of Jesus Christ make Christopher Hitchens look like Simon the Zealot!

Starting tomorrow, I will post my own meditations on the Gospels in which I will try to get at the heart of their meaning, plumb the depths of their relevance in today’s world, and try to give real Christians some reprieve.

“We are not illegitimate children,”  They protested.  “The only Father we have is God himself.”

Jesus said to them,  “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God an now am here.”  John 8:41b, 42.

 Jesus set out to wake them from their stupor and found some pretty grouchy people, unwilling to wake from the dream they had of themselves.  They had witnessed the miracles, the teaching of God’s love and character, yet they wouldn’t submit to the price they needed to pay to continue in the light.  Here they are claiming God as their own Father without any real awareness of what it meant to be His son or daughter.  If being physical descendants of Abraham didn’t make them his children spiritually, then calling themselves the children of God wouldn’t make it so either.  Something was missing.

“Why is my language not clear to you?  Because you are unable to hear what I say.”

They clung to their interpretations of God’s Word so hard nothing could make them hear the truth.  It’s like they had stuck their fingers in their ears and began singing,  “La, la, la, la, I can’t hear you” as loud as they could to shut out His words.  To hear meant they would have to obey.  Jesus reveals the root problem of their spiritual deafness:

“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire.  He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Ouch!  Ever hear of diplomacy, Jesus?  What are you trying to do, drive them to kill you?

Every time I read these passages it seems to me He’s actually pushing them to crucify Him.  His arguments push all their buttons without cushioning the blows.  Yet what other choice does He have?  He spent nearly three years being subtle, careful to demonstrate the power of God and rightly dividing the Scriptures so everyone who heard would see the light, and it got Him nowhere with these people.  They wouldn’t listen when He told them the hard truth of God then, to back off now would be foolish.

By calling the devil their “father” Jesus reveals their motives for not wanting to hear what He has to say.  They preferred their fantasy constructs to real truth.  The story of God held little interest to them, for what they wanted was the story in which they triumphed over every obstacle to gain personal glory and power.  Knowing truth made no difference if they weren’t going to be able to be the heroes of their own stories.  What they rejected from Christ’s teachings was the one little morsal of truth on which the rest of salvation hinged:  it wasn’t their heroic efforts or mighty deeds which impressed God but the humble realization they were powerless to do anything for themselves in this regard without Him.  Total dependence on Jesus is the only way possible for us to find salvation or freedom from death.

“Can any of  you prove me guilty of sin?”

These people who had believed in Him knew His character, work and words were above reproach…it’s why they followed in the first place.  What turned them off is their misunderstanding of the spiritual nature of ingesting the Son of God.  They couldn’t get past Jesus’ demand that they eat His flesh and drink His blood, nor did they grasp the spiritual nature of that command.  Their minds were so focused/consumed by the lies of spiritual grandeur they blinded themselves to their need for reconstruction.  Nothing will wake a person up to their condition if they continue to take the drug of pride.  It washes away the ability to see ourselves as lost to truth without intervention.

Not one of these men could prove Jesus guilty of sin.  Blasphemy was a convenient excuse to shut Him up.

Why were they so quick to pick up stones at the end of His speech to them?  They wanted to silence His voice so badly they would have used any excuse to kill Him.

In our walk with God do we shut out truths we find unpalitable?  Do we shut ourselves off from light because it hurts our eyes to look?  Are we willing to break the mirror of truth because it shows we are not the fairest in the land making a lie out of the fantasy we’ve built up about our own value?

Our value comes from the fact God loves us, sent His Son to save us; it has absolutely nothing to do with how cool we are.  The reality of those who find Christ and those who reject Him couldn’t be more different than total light and total darkness.  When we walk into the light through the power of Jesus, we see ourselves for who we really are without any airbrush tricks to soften the blow.  At this point we have two choices:  hide our eyes by running back to our dank, dark little caves or falling into the arms of the one who brings us out of such misery.  Make no mistake the end of all rejection of Christ results in misery. 

On the other hand taking our eyes off ourselves brings joy unlimited, if our focus is, of course, Jesus.  We can find no contentment with our spiritual eyes turned inward; no peace when we are worried about our own; no joy or love of life unless we turn our eyes to Jesus.  He is our peace.  He is our joy.

The Four Gospels from Little Rock Scripture Study (800-858-5434) is full of aides for the study of the Gospels.  Along with the text and a myriad of footnotes, there are charts of the coinage of the time, the Marys in the gospels, the twleve apostles, the Kings of Israel, The Roman Emperors, geneologies, the multiplication of the loaves (6 passages) and the Sunday Readings for the three year cycle.  Highligthed comments include biographies, summaries, maps, photos and interesting tidbits or definitions. 

This book would make a wonderful addition to any catechist’s library.  Check it out at the Sidney Media Library.  Call 937-498-1192 to reserve it for pick up.

This Wednesday is the first day of Thanksgiving break. Outside my window and across the street, small and swift flakes of snow descend upon a mostly vacated college campus.

Most students’ plans for break involve going home and seeing family. Mine do as well, even though home is four blocks away and fifteen minutes away for my wife and I. However, most of my time is scheduled for completing school work, papers.

I enjoy writing and researching papers. I hate picking paper topics. It is a bit like picking a voice you would like to invite into your mind for the next few months, and, occasionally, the proceeding years. If it did not feel so false, I would say it is like picking a lover. Some of these voices have been welcome. I am ashamed of many.

Like (just) a few other students I know, about this time I start drawing up a reading list for the Christmas break. I have not yet fully read any of the lists I have ever drawn up, but it does not seem to discourage me from trying.

One of the reading goals is to finish a socio-rhetorical study on the epistles Paul wrote from prison. Another goal is to read through the gospels. This is interesting as far as goals go. I have discovered that when I approach reading the gospels like this, I read them as a reflection on my education. They punctuate all my learning, so that the effects of the last year, semester, or quarter of college become obvious when I consider my current reading against my last reading. After all the exams and testing, I like to perform my own.

Scripture:

John 9:8-12 Then the neighbors and the people who had seen him previously as a beggar began saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some people said, “This is the man!” while others said, “No, but he looks like him.” The man himself kept insisting, “I am the one!”  So they asked him, “How then were you made to see?”  He replied, “The man called Jesus made mud, smeared it on my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and was able to see”

Observation:

The people had a place for this man – it was on the ground begging.  That was his “job”, his lot in life.  This was expected of him to such a degree that once he was healed, some cease to recognize him, because the blind are not healed.  And when he insisted that he was the same man, they asked how the change happened and his factual account of mud in his eye, washing and then receiving his sight described not just an opening of his formerly dysfunctional eyes, but a change in social status among the people.  For we know that blindness – as other maladies – was presumed to be caused by the sin in one’s life or that of one’s parents (John 9:2, 9:34) – so this was a work of forgiveness – as are all miracles works of grace – as well as a personal, physical miracle for the man.  He was no longer on the ground, no longer asking for alms so he might survive. 

Application:

Do we look on the afflicted or downtrodden as people who BELONG afflicted or downtrodden?   Is it the major part of their identity in our eyes?  If so, we need to know the blind can see and the lame can walk.  As much as it was this man’s lot in life to sit and beg for however long he did so, it was also people’s caste assignment to put him on the ground, under foot, so as to speak.  Is that where we think some people belong?  If so, we need to know that they will one day stand.  We need the eyes of faith that bring encouragement to the ones brought so low.  We need to get on the ground with them so that God would use us to life them to their feet and made the mud that helps them see.  Our outlook must be for restoration, for transformation towards God’s glorious purpose.  Do NOT give up on the hopeless ones, for they are not hopeless in the least. They may one day be the people God one day uses to heal US, so get over it.

Likewise, if it becomes the expectations of others that WE remain on the ground and underfoot, take heart, for God’s Son has appeared and has become the Lifter of our heads and the Healer of our disease.

Prayer:

Father, let us embrace the lowly, ennobling them with encouragement and tender treatment.  Where bruises have been their lot, let us envision them healed.  Where there is blindness, grant that we could lead them into the light.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

Even as He spoke, many put their faith in Him.

To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said,  “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

I never noticed before who Jesus was addressing in this famous passage. 

The first sentence of our quote applies to those putting their faith in Him or who came to belief and trust in His message and person.  The first phrase in the second sentence, on the other hand, begins a discussion with those who had believed Him at one time.  The rest of chapter 8 is devoted to this discussion with Jesus on the offensive and these Jews defending their defection.

Remember the Apostate verse back in chapter 6:66?  I said then and I believe now it was no accidental numbering in John’s gospel or as a reference in Revelation.  The identity of the one who becomes the man of perdition, the antichrist and beast of the end times prophecy will be one who rejects Jesus as God incarnate come to save the world from sin.  Daniel claimed he would think to change times and laws.  To change times would probably indicate years, since Daniel used the word “time” to equal a year in his prophecy, that would make sense here.  So the apostate will change history to his liking and adjust times to fit his need.  Then changing laws would be easy because there would no longer be a sense of final ultimate authority in the Word of God.  Thus he could arrange truth to his preference.

Though prophecy is not our subject, it’s good to make sure we grasp who we are studying here.  Jesus was addressing the very crowd who deserted Him earlier, if I get the reference right, which means He was reaching out to them, trying to shake them awake.  But they refused to listen on the basis that their preconceptions were tried to the limit and they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) go beyond them.  I believe their very words were,  “This is a hard saying, who can accept it?”  Meaning themselves, of course.

Since they could not accept Jesus for who God sent Him to be, they became sons of perdition, relatives to the man of perdition.  Their father was no longer Abraham or God but Satan himself, for the Accuser set out to murder the Son of God from the very beginning, according to Jesus (see 8:44), and they were simply imitating his means of conquering the world.  They refused Jesus because He didn’t come in a form to their liking, grasp Scripture to their way of thinking or bring hope for their personal glorification.  In rejecting the Son of God, they inadvertently rejected God Himself, since the Father sent the Son on the mission to earth in the first place.  To reject the messenger by default rejects the Sender of that message.

What Satan hoped to accomplish or still hopes to win puzzles me because the created cannot win against the Creator; it’s a logical impossibility.  Sin in its basic form is simply rejection of God, and since God is the originator, Creator, Sustainer and essence in all things, denial of Him is plain insanity.  Therefore we can conclude that Satan drove himself to madness by wishing for the impossible.  There is no way for him to be Creator of the universe or of himself, so there is no way for him to be God.

The message contained in the passage above, however, is about truth in its purist form.  My concept of living is to be truthful with who I am and accept the truth about others willingly as well.  Yet, if I’m honest with everyone (including me), my perception, bias and preference of what the word “truth” actually signifies doesn’t match up to what Jesus meant in His declaration above.  Truth is more and less what I believe it to be.  It cannot save us, unless we know truth as a person in Jesus Christ.  It cannot set us free unless it is accepted through the Son of God.

Looking at the parts of the statement we get a word equation of sorts, which goes something like this:

Holding to Jesus’ teaching = being His disciples = knowing truth = freedom.

So, first we have to stick to His teachings to even be His disciples, then and only then can we know the truth which sets us free.  Said another way, only submitting to the discipline of the truth Jesus teaches can we be set free from being slaves to sin and become family again.  We who sin are slaves to sin; but if the Son sets us free to be family, we are guaranteed not only freedom but to belong forever to His family, which means eternity.

Those who had believed in Jesus might have been Abraham’s descendants genetically, but they weren’t his family in spirit or character.  They plotted to kill Jesus as a heretic, something Abraham would never have done.  Their own ancestor begged for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah to be spared with heavenly messengers even though he must have been aware of the sheer evil of the place, yet his heart was given over to love for them anyway—a characteristic he learned from his Master.  Those of his bloodline didn’t possess the heart Abraham displayed.  To them the Gentiles were a scourge and the scum of the earth.  Instead of reaching out to heal they resented, grew bitter and fought their rulers.  Abraham would have befriended and eventually influenced them in some way as he did Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Jews were to be witnesses of God’s power, justice, mercy, grace and love to the world.  They failed to do any of these things by worshiping the created instead of the Creator, only in Jesus Christ did God fulfill His command to the Hebrews.  Through Him the world found the perfect example of who God is.  Knowing Jesus means we have held on to His teaching.  Knowing truth means we must know Jesus.  Being free comes from being His disciple.

Jesus no literal Son of God; OT does not support it
http://forum09.faithfreedom.org/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=4701&p=81965#p81965

Hi friends

I submit more from the OT to establish my view point that Jesus was not literally son of god:

Psalms 81:
1 A psalm for Asaph. God hath stood in the congregation of gods: and being in the midst of them he judgeth gods. 2 How long will you judge unjustly: and accept the persons of the wicked? 3 Judge for the needy and fatherless: do justice to the humble and the poor. 4 Rescue the poor; and deliver the needy out of the hand of the sinner. 5 They have not known nor understood: they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth shall be moved.
6 I have said: You are gods and all of you the sons of the most High. 7 But you like men shall die: and shall fall like one of the princes. 8 Arise, O God, judge thou the earth: for thou shalt inherit among all the nations.

http://www.drbo.org/chapter/21081.htm

So, the according to the usage of the Bible; the Clergy and the Priests are also the Son of God; nothing special for Jesus.
I think that our Atheists Agnostics would support our principled stance; out of their free will.

I love Jesus and Mary as mentioned in Quran.

Thanks

Jesus was not Son of God: Usage of Old Testament
http://forum09.faithfreedom.org/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=4701&p=81467#p81467

Hi friends

The Christians say that Jesus was told in Torah and the Gospels as son of god hence he was son of God, literally.
.
This is wrong and is against the usage of Torah and the Gospel as in them these words have not been used for Jesus exclusively but these words have been used hundreds of time for other men also and the Christians don’t admit hem as son of god. Jesus was mentioned a s son of god so it has been mentioned for others

Examples:

Exodus 4:22.
And thou shalt say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Israel is my son, my firstborn. Israel is my son, my firstborn.
Psalms 88:21-26
21 I have found David my servant: with my holy oil I have anointed him. 22 For my hand shall help him: and my arm shall strengthen him. 23 The enemy shall have no advantage over him: nor the son of iniquity have power to hurt him. 24 And I will cut down his enemies before his face; and them that hate him I will put to flight. 25 And my truth and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted.
26 And I will set his hand in the sea; and his right hand in the rivers. 27 He shall cry out to me: Thou art my father: my God, and the support of my salvation. 28 And I will make him my firstborn, high above the kings of the earth.
So, in the usage of Bible all righteous and loved – ones of God have been mentioned as son of god; nothing special for Jesus.

I love Jesus and Mary as mentioned in Quran.

Thanks

I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim

11/24/2009

Yesterday I found Steve Goodheart’s wonderful blog, http://mettarefuge.blogspot.com (well, he found mine first).

Just now I was reading his post, “Metta’s focus…”, which is about “watering the seeds of good intentions.” As I read, I heard the insistent clicking in my ear that tells me that there’s something important that he wants to say, so I looked and saw, “Talk salas mizras.” I looked it up on the lexicon; I believe it means “Talk (about) depth (tsuwlah) of the seed-place (mizrah).” He seemed to be responding to the post, but I asked him to clarify, because I wasn’t sure that what I saw, or how I translated it, was right.

“Leave mos (he uses this for “seed”, although it’s more specifically an “issue”, or seed of a man) karis lo.” “Don’t leave seed to chance (qareh= chance/accident).”

“You want me to say that?”

“Yes.”

I’ve certainly learned to do as I’m asked these days, so that’s what I’m doing.

A few minutes after he said the last part, I practically had to smack myself in the head for not knowing immediately that he was referring to the “Parable of the Sower.” Duh.

(A LITTLE LATER)
I keep wondering why he was so insistent that I say the above. I asked him if he had some specific reason. First he said, “Milla lowat” (milla=word and la’at=covered, or, I suppose, hidden). Then he said, “Issos kati” (izzuwz=powerful; qat=small thing)–”Power in small things”?

(A LOT LATER)
It turns out that I was being given a kind of “preview” of Steve’s next post on “The Law of the Farm,” which hadn’t been posted yet when I wrote this (I hadn’t read it, anyway). When I saw it, I couldn’t help laughing out loud at what a show-off he is; I think that was his intention.

Scripture:

John 8:58 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, before Abraham came into existence, I am!”

Observation:

Jesus’ declaration was the height of blasphemy to the ears of the Judeans.  In the long debate in John 8, Jesus and his nemeses were at odds on one main point – Who He was.  All the talk about the Law, about His teaching and lastly about His pre-existence (before Abraham) was all centered on His being accepted or rejected by the people as Messiah, God’s Son.  And this crowd had overwhelmingly rejected Him.  So He appealed to them, citing His relationship with the Father.  He described them as those who would murder Him, which was true.  And finally, He declares the terse statement in 8:58.  The “I AM” is the declaration “Yhwh” in Hebrew, the unutterable name of God.  It means “I am that I am”, signifying eternal existence.  The people knew exactly what He had said and proceeded to pick up stones to kill Him.

Application:

Jesus is God or a liar.  We must either bow before Him or pick up stones to throw and nail Him to the cross in cruelty as One who claimed to be something other than just the son of Mary and Joseph.  This is a turning point in one’s faith either way.   If Jesus be God, we need to treat Him as God, not as one with “just another voice” to be taken into account.  If He is not God, then maybe that is an honest reading of what He had to say.  The debate the Judeans had is still being had today though, and as believers we must be contending for the true identity of our Lord Immanuel (God with us).  He IS GOD, and He will prove it before the whole earth one day.  That’s the crux of our faith, holding to Jesus’ teaching and identity across the centuries.  God sent His Son to die in our place on the cross.  In that there is eternal life.  Pass it on.

Prayer:

Father, this is basic and it is primal.  Let us live for the Jesus Who died for us.  Let us live for Him as Your Son.  Let us speak up about Who He is and give You glory for all You have done.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

Scripture:

John 6:12-14 When they were all satisfied, Jesus said to his disciples, “Gather up the broken pieces that are left over, so that nothing is wasted.”  So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves left over by the people who had eaten.   Now when the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus performed, they began to say to one another, “This is certainly the Prophet who is to come into the world”

…

6:53-55 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.  The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him.

Observation:

It was a stunning miracle when Jesus divided the few loaves and small fishes to feed the 5000 people who had come to hear His teaching.  The leftovers alone were enough to amply feed his Apostles, as Jesus is careful to leave nothing “wasted”.  When the people saw it, they proclaimed Jesus “the Prophet”, or fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies of old.  But between this impression and Jesus’ declaration of eating His flesh and drinking His blood is a dialog highlighting the purpose of the miracles – that people would truly follow Him as His disciples, paying the cost of self-denial and not just chasing miracles.  For this was not the first time Israel had been fed bread – the manna that rained down daily during the exodus was its earlier model.  But Jesus offends the wide-eyed thrill seekers by saying the way forward is death and after that, eternal life.   It is the model of the disciple from this point on.  We must be “in Christ” by consuming the body and blood, not that practicing communion in church, say, saves anyone, but that the act of constant communion – including regularly receiving of reproof and encouragement – is the sign of a true believer, not just one marveling in the miraculous.

Application:

Do we chase signs and miracles?  It’s not that they aren’t still happening; they clearly are.  But THEY are not the point, HE is.  Far from a grousing attitude that denies the miraculous because it has settled for a mundane, joyless experience in Christ, this takes the signs for what they are – signs – things that point to something (or that advertise something), not the “thing itself”.  The sobriety of the contemplation and experience of death – death to self and then real physical death – follows closely after the woundrous joy of receiving a free meal created from nothing by God.  And even then, it’s not death that has the victory – the end result will be life eternal.  But this teaching speaks a stern word to those who are around only for the fizz of “the God show” with its laying on of hands,  dramatic gestures and speech with the end and ultimate goal for the listener to be slain in the Spirit.    God can and does use ALL that, but for something deeper inside, something that lives out each day in holy fear and deep devotion, following Jesus in carrying His cross and dying to itself daily.  THAT’s Jesus’ point, as sobering as it is.  It’s not joyless at all, but it can be quite hard and quite costly.  May we all learn it and live it before the Lord.

Prayer:

Father, we want to drink the blood and eat the body of Christ, in every way that is fulfilled in our lives corporately and individually.  Let us not chase the miraculous, but celebrate it as it makes Jesus known.  We want to truly serve You in our lives this day.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

11/22/2009

He’s in a really good mood tonight, it seems; he said something about today being a “test”–I don’t know what the test was about, but I gather I passed, because he actually made one of his rare (just because he’s so busy trying to teach me other things) jokes.

A few weeks ago, I rented “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which I love. Although I’m pretty sure that Willem Dafoe bears no physical resemblance whatsoever to Yeshua, I think that the film captures what he was really like–by turns frightened, uncertain, amazed, fun-loving, gentle, strong. (In contrast, although he begged me to watch it because he seemed to want me to know what the “Passion” was really like, I found Jesus as portrayed in that film very one-dimensional, lacking humanity.)

The book version of “Last Temptation” is wonderful, too (although in the book, in Jesus’ “dream”, Mary is killed by Saul/Paul, whereas in the film she just kind of keels over one day–if you’ve read some of the older posts in this blog, you know that I was told that Peter was actually responsible for Mary’s death).

In any case, one of my favorite parts of the film is when Jesus’ mother asks him of the “voice” that’s been calling him, “What if it’s Satan?”

Jesus replies, “What if it’s God?”

One very funny thing about the film is that the apostles all have Brooklyn accents, and Jesus, as played by Dafoe, has a midwestern accent. So his response to his mother sounds like, “What if it’s Gahd?” It just cracks me up, for some reason, and when I’m happy (which is just about all the time these days) I have a tendency to run around the house (“alone”, mind you) saying, “What if it’s Gahd?!”

So tonight, as I got into my bath after a long day of AA, fasting, and trying to figure out the “Satan” thing, I closed my eyes and saw him say, “Really Gad.” I’m still giggling….

According to Jonathan Chait, the author of The Big Con:  Crackpot Economics and the Fleecing of America, “In the conservative mind, the Ronald Reagan presidency lives on in the golden shimmering past, an ideal that Reagan’s successors must strive to approach but can never fully live up to, like the teachings of Christ.”

Although Reagan left the White House in early 1989, Chait describes how, more than two decades later, conservatives invoke Reagan with the fervor of religious acolytes, “seeking to spread his word to the faithful and beyond.”  As Chait tells it, the conservative press treats Reagan as if he remained a living, breathing presence.  They cite him almost daily, asking:  “What would Reagan do?”

Do you recall, during the debates between the candidates vying for the Republican Presidential nomination, how each candidate tried to distinguish himself from the others by claiming to be the most conservative and thus, the most Reagan-like?  In other words, WWRD has become the litmus test for deciding whether a particular issue or individual passes muster among red-state Americans.

So, take your pick:  WWRD or WWJD?

When the Washington Times listed the key lessons Americans learned from Reagan, the list included, most prominently, “lower taxes.”  In an editorial written for the Weekly Standard, William Kristol urged then-President George W. Bush to “start recapturing the Reaganite high ground of tax cuts and economic growth and opportunity.”  Any self-proclaimed conservative today aspires to emulate Reagan and cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes.

Why belabor the obvious, you say?  If you asked that question, then you’ve illustrated how narratives about the lives of public figures can be re-shaped for ideological purposes.  Because the written record, if one wishes to consult it, demonstrates the unthinkable—namely, that Reagan was far from the politician who epitomized conservatism at its purest.

True, Reagan enacted a substantial tax cut during his first year in office and “unapologetically targeted [it toward] the highest income levels.”  But here comes the gotcha moment.  “Panicked by rising deficits,” Reagan’s administration “signed on to the largest tax increase in American history in 1982 and another major tax hike in 1983.” No!  No!  No!  You say.  That simply can’t be!  But it is.  Did you really forget?

Despite the immense quantity of documentation (photographic, electronic and printed) pertaining to the Reagan Presidency, despite the constraining effects provided by the memories of millions of Americans who directly experienced the Reagan era, the life of Reagan is being re-imagined with virtually no protest.

Whether we’re progressives (who hate Reagan) or conservatives (who adore him), we nod our heads whenever Reagan is touted as the “cut-taxes-no-matter-what” President.   Still—if we earnestly wanted to ask WWRD today, the answer might not be that he’d cut taxes—at least, not if we turn to the historical record to formulate a possible answer instead of relying on today’s partly fictional account.

We have, in this re-imagining of Ronald Reagan, an example of how the collective memory of a public figure—in this case, of an American President—can be distorted (by some) for ideological purposes.

By analogy, we might wonder how much the narratives provided by Jesus’ disciples changed during the years that followed his crucifixion.  The earliest New Testament Gospel is the Gospel of Mark; most Biblical scholars assign it a date of about 70 CE at the earliest (a few scholars find evidence suggesting the early part of the 2^nd Century).  Mark’s author makes mistakes about Galilean landmarks and customs during the time of Jesus; this supports the conclusion that he never, himself, traveled to Galilee.  Scholars also generally agree that the final portion of the gospel, Mark 16:9-20, which describes the encounter between the resurrected Christ and his disciples, is a later addition.

If two decades have allowed our collective memory of President Reagan to drift in spite of enormous documentary evidence, how did three decades minimum between Jesus’ death and the writing of the Gospel of Mark affect the collective memory of Jesus’ followers?  Note also that, today, skepticism is built into our worldview.  In the early centuries of the common era, belief in demons and magic was widespread, placing few checks on narrative renderings of events.

Until quite recently, most Christians assumed that the Gospels were sources of historical information.  Nineteenth-Century critical scholarship, however, witnessed an explosion of interest in reconstructing the life of Jesus.  Theologians like David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874) studied the Gospels, intent on excavating the details of Jesus’ life.  Strauss hoped to write a historically-grounded account for his German audience.  Instead, he discovered that the Gospels contained only a few, truly historical fragments and these were so sparse that he decided it was impossible to reconstruct the personality of the human named Jesus.  The only Jesus accessible through the apostolic testimonies matched post-dated prophecies and proto-messiahs drawn from Jewish messianic literature.  Strauss’ efforts laid the groundwork for the research of later, highly-respected “life of Jesus” researchers like the Nobel-prize winning Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) who agreed with his conclusion about the irretrievability of the details of Jesus’ biography.

Strauss also realized that both supernaturalists and rationalists used faulty approaches when they attempted to construct the life of Jesus.  They read their own opinions about him into the thought-world of primitive Christianity.  Focusing on the passages that supported their views, and from these, they constructed the Jesus they wanted to find.  That Jesus was little more than the reflection of their own psychic faces, reproduced in the ancient, splotchy mirror of the Gospels.  Conservative theologians “found” a picture of the Jesus of conservativism; liberal theologians “found” a picture of the Jesus of liberalism.  Both pictures were, and remain, historically untenable.

Thanks to the research of scholars like Strauss and Schweitzer, the “life of Jesus” approach to reading Scripture was largely abandoned, although it was dusted off in the mid 1980’s and tried again by the (liberal) Jesus Seminar.

What can we learn from the Gospels?  Mostly, we find in them a record of the primitive church’s views about Jesus.  Read through the eyes of his early followers, Jesus rises from the page in the form of a visionary preacher with an apocalyptic message, the bearer of news about the immanent end of time and the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Is the absence of solid, biographical information about Jesus necessarily fatal to Christian theology?  Absolutely not.  Some Christian scholars—Paul Tillich, Gordon Kaufman, David Tracy, and Sallie McFague come to mind—acknowledge this absence and move on to develop compelling theologies in spite of it.  Nonetheless, too many theologians working today fail to acknowledge the abyss between the Jesus whose life story has been almost completely lost to history and the Messiah they claim to find in the Gospels.  Non-specialists follow their lead.

The similarity to the Reagan legacy is striking.  The press, right-wing Republicans, left-wing Democrats, and our fallible memories fail to acknowledge the abyss between the Reagan whose actual life was extensively documented, and the so-dubbed arch-conservative who “always” opted for cutting taxes.  Young people who didn’t witness the Reagan era follow their elders’ lead.

WWJD or WWRD, take your pick.  But to which J or R are you referring?  To a Jesus or a Reagan who reflects your own psychic face and who conveniently shares your opinions?  Or are you referring to a Jesus about whom you admit you know little?  Or to an Reagan whose historical record you’ve studied at least a little?

Post-moderns no longer believe that it’s possible to separate fact from fiction.  There is no such thing as “fact” post-moderns like to say; there are only “accounts” refracted through social norms and personal experience.  Perhaps.  But does this mean we should abandon the effort altogether?

There is a difference between the Gold-standard-for-cutting-taxes (wishful-thinking) Reagan and the author-of-the-largest-tax-increase-in-American-history (actual) Reagan.  There is a difference between the Christ-of-Christian-theology (speculative) Jesus and the Jewish-eschatological-preacher-about-whom-little-is-known (human) Jesus. Paying attention to the difference matters.  It saves us from mistaking the one for the other and dishonoring Truth.

And Truth, even if we can only hope to glimpse it imperfectly, is worth the effort, don’t you think?

References:  Jonathan Chait, The Big Con:  Crackpot Economics and the Fleecing of America (New York:  Houghton Mifflin, 2007); James C. Livingston, Modern Christian Thought:  The Enlightenment and the Nineteenth Century, 2^nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice Hall, 1997).

11/22/2009

This morning I went to what is now my favorite “outing”–a 7 a.m., Sunday morning AA meeting devoted to the “11th Step” (improving one’s conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation). It’s my “church.” Looking around, I noticed that I was among many of my favorite people in this little mile-square town–many of whom are chronically homeless. I know them, and they know me, and my son, and my son’s father. They are unfailingly kind and polite and thoughtful and good to talk to, and I’m glad that I’ve found a place that’s not just on the street where we can talk a little.

I spoke a little at the meeting–something about the ways in which I try to let my old self slide away from me so that my “new” (not new, really–just the self I always was, but never knew) one can emerge, and how I try to visualize myself as a feather floating on a current–the “current” being God’s will.

Quite a while ago he said, “Easy let words leave mind…love will talk for you” (echoing what Yeshua told the disciples about not thinking in advance about what they will say in Mark 13:11), and I always hope that that will happen in the meetings–that God will give me something to say that will help at least one person in the group get through the day sober, or will make some kind of difference in how things go for him or her (I’m a terrible speaker, so if I want to do any good at all, God had better do the talking).

A day or two ago he said, “Glah ala ger”–g@lah (reveal, in Aramaic) alah (lament, wail) ger (sojourner/temporary inhabitant/alien–I took this to me those without a place in the world, or the homeless). “Reveal the lament of those without a place,” more or less, I think. Part of the “plan,” I guess, and one I’m happy to do.

When I got home from the meeting this morning (wondering if my words at the meeting had been useful), he said, “Iris dab saba.” (Iyr is Aramaic for “angelic watcher”; dabar has to do with speaking/words, and tsaba means to go forth/serve. He clarified by saying, in English, “put words in mouth for you.” My angelic watcher, that is…

He also said, “Ilab adaris.” I’m not too sure about this one, but “illay” is Aramaic (he was doing a lot of Aramaic this morning, which is good, because it tends to be easier to translate than Hebrew) for “highest/Most High”, and “adar” means “to help.” Take what you will from that.

Finally, he said, “Perfect way takes…millah (word) galah (reveal).” There’s more to that, I think.

11/19/2009

Just now, I was going through old entries on this blog, looking for something, and I came across something that he said a long time ago that–given what he’s told me in recent days–now makes much more sense. He said it before he told me about what had happened between Peter and Mary, too; at the time, I just thought he thought of Peter as representative of everything the Church became–everything that saddened him. But clearly it was more than that.

Here’s the entry, from nine months ago:

…he said, “Peter made his choice freely.” I think he may have said that he hated him (and something about the denial), which surprised me, coming from him. He’s not big on hate, to say the least.

At some point when I was half-asleep he said it very clearly—“Peddling lies…keep people from God…souls stuck because people are afraid.”

What I was looking for had to do with an exchange I had a little while ago with someone about the emphasis put on the crucifixion and “resurrection” by Christians, and the relative lack of attention paid to what Yeshua taught, and how he LIVED as an example of God’s ideal for us. It made me remember some other things that he said a long time ago:

–(I asked), “You mean that it turned out that (his death) was the only way that people would remember what you had taught?”

“Joyless lesson,” he said.

–”So angry that I was used like that.”

–(part of a journal entry/blog post): Reading almost any part of the Bible always makes me think that the original teachings were completely distorted by fallible men, and that pretty much only the Sermon on the Mount/Beatitudes really say what Jesus was trying to teach. (Also, “Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul,” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”) It seems counter-productive to get caught up in the rest.

Shortly after, he said something like, “Pay attention to old words. Gave my gift and they destroyed it.” (The last sentence is one he’s repeated often.)

–”(My) death is famous but I taught all for nothing.”

Still, tonight I asked him again, just to make certain that I hadn’t missed anything, if he saw any value whatsoever in how he died. I immediately saw three words in Hebrew that turned out to be:

p@’ullah–work/recompense/reward
qalac–mock/scorn
tsa’ar–to be insignificant

I believe he meant either that his work was scorned and made insignificant, or that his reward was scorn and insignificance (I’m going with the first one, I think). Then he said, “kalas (qalac, as above) king of the Jews.”

I guess he’s covered that clearly enough.

11/19/2009

Yesterday he explained more about what he’d been telling me about Peter as his betrayer.

As I said earlier, one thing he does to reassure me that I’ve “heard”/understood something properly (and that it didn’t simply come from my own head) is to say something in Hebrew several different ways, using synonyms whose meaning I don’t know until I look them up (for a long time it was a lot of words about seeds/purging/planting; there was also a lot about lambs–and there are a lot of different words in Hebrew for all of those things, as one might expect).

Yesterday, he used at least two different words (I think there may have been more, but as he speaks–always just a few words at a time–I have to write things down so that I can remember them and go translate them–my memory is terrible, and I have little scraps of paper all over the place with bits of transliterated Hebrew written on them) for “crying out” or “outcry” (he used pa’ah and tsa’aqah, at least, and in several different sentences). But I couldn’t figure out what that might have to do with Peter betraying him.

He said a LOT yesterday, but I will just include here the things that I felt I was able to translate and understand best. One was “Parah taw pah” (para=act as leader/let loose/deceive; ta’a=deceive/misuse, and pa’ah=to cry out). (OK, it’s too much trouble to italicize each Hebrew word, so I won’t bother.)

Next was, “Watah akbah.” “Eta” is Aramaic for counsel (he’d also used the word “uwts” a few times, meaning “plan/counsel–I’ve noticed that when he uses words beginning with vowel sounds followed by “w” sounds he usually puts a “w” sound before them). “Oqbah” is “subtlety/insidiousness”. Insidious plan or counsel.

Still, I wasn’t getting it. I asked him if he could give me a Gospel passage that would give me a clue. He said, “Mark.”

“Which part?” I asked.

He said, “evos”–a word I actually recognize at this point (he’s used it a lot) as “ivver”–”blind.”

OK, the part about blindness in Mark. I don’t have that great of a grasp of which Gospel is which (although I can usually recognize John by the uncharacteristic droning-on of Jesus), so I had to look it up. Imagine my surprise when, just as had happened the day before, I was led right back to Mark 8, where not only does Peter rebuke him, but also where he says that he believes that Yeshua is “the Christ,” and Yeshua tells him not to tell anyone. (I’ve often wondered if that may have been because he didn’t see himself in that way, or because he knew that it would distract people from what he was really trying to teach–surely he knew that his claiming that was likely to get him killed). I know that the common Christian view is that he was simply trying to keep it a secret until the proper time, but I have my doubts.

In any case, that was where he directed me. And so, piecing it together, I believe he meant that Peter, because of misguided ambitions, jealousy, ignorance, or whatever, DID spread the “Christ” thing around, although he would have known just as well as Yeshua did what the consequences would be. This was what led to the “outcry” against Yeshua, and to his death. Judas may have gone to the priests, but Peter was the one who set it all in motion.

I’ve asked several times now if I’ve got it more-or-less right, and he’s said, “Yes.”

11/19/2009

Before I continue with Peter and Mary, I’ll record something that just happened a few minutes ago. I was writing a comment to someone (the author of a wonderful blog here called echoesandmemory.wordpress.com) about Yeshua letting God enter and work through him to demonstrate how God would be as a man living among us–an example for us all. Just after I wrote it, I heard that vigorous clicking in my ear that lets me know that he has something important to say, so I looked. He said, “You mabow God too.”

Mabow is a Hebrew word (meaning “enter”) that he’s used many times when speaking about that process of God (perhaps what might also be called the Holy Spirit) entering someone, as God did with Yeshua. This, however–the concept of one entering God as well–is one he hasn’t brought up before. I’m looking forward to further explanation.

Scripture:

John  4:23-24 But a time is coming – and now is here – when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers.  God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Observation:

In the twisting conversation that Jesus had with the Samaritan woman at the well, she had brought up a chief point of contention between the Judeans and the Samaritans – where are people supposed to worship?  Jesus’ reply is one of both overarching change and unification.  He proclaims it is NOW a new era wherein the place of worship is not what matters at all.  It is the heart of the worshipers that counts with God.  They must practice the duality of spiritual devotion and truthful stance.  This broke the mold of the religious hypocrites – the actors – whose main goal in “worship” was appearance – to go the the prescribed motions, hiding who they really were and what was really going on in their lives, and looking spiritual while their lives rotted into deeper sin.  They worshiped in NEITHER spirit NOR truth and Jesus calls His disciples into such an intimate fellowship with God that the light can shine upon their failings and compromises and they can find forgiveness and thus worship in the Spirit in such a way that both cleanses and renews their hearts and lives.  THAT is real worship, says Jesus.

Application:

The saying that everyone worships something is true.  Jesus’ words hear confronts the one who worships their image, their flesh or “what they look like”.  For it is a trap to think a genuflect or kneeling or any physical posture or words robotically recited is necessarily worship at all.  There are gestures and postures that are appropriate if done from the truthful heart – and that could happen in the most liturgical setting as well – but the inner person must be engaged in truthful revelation in faith, knowing that God both sees and forgives, for real worship to occur.  Where do we hide from God?  Where do we put on a religious show?  Is it before our friends and neighbors as we subtly show off our possessions or accomplishments?  Is it in our righteous deeds somehow prominently displayed so others can adore our highly developed and pointed generosity?  Or is it our practice to do the good we do, have the things we have and come before God in truthful thanksgiving (hint – it all comes from Him!) and give back all the glory in joyful surrender.  THAT worship will ennoble us with a Kingdom that is without end.

Prayer:

Father, it is our desired to be worshipers like that, to seek You with everything we are, all we’ve done and not done and find You waiting to receive our praise.  For there is no sweeter fellowship than that in the Spirit.  May we live to communicate that also, making yet more worshipers among the faithful.  In Jesus’ name, amen.