The St. Martin's Prime Timers wish you a happy Easter!

You are invited to our class each Sunday in the Payne Education Center from 10:10am to 10:50 in rooms 207-209.  Coffee and breakfast treats await you, along with some good old fashioned Bible Study. There is no class today due to its being Easter. There is plenty going on this Sunday at St. Martins and we hope you will join us!

Its Our teacher for this Sunday was our leader Skip Maryan, concluding our time with the difficult issues of the Book of Job.

Prime Timers Good News

The Prime Timers Good News chicken, Henny Penny, accepts dollars so that members can bring their good news to class. Max Kech wasn't in class last Sunday, she was taking care of her grandchildren while their parents went to Hawaii!

When All Seems Hopeless

Today Skip Maryan continued the lessons from the Book of Job begun last week by Skip Allen. Job is part of our current readings in what is known as Wisdom Literature. As Skip (Allen) told us last week, the Book of Job is about a blameless man with a family and significant wealth who loses everything, his wealth, his family and his health on a bet from God and Satan.

As Skip Maryan continues, the theme of Job could be "Here is how God's Justice Works." This leads to the Great Enigma:  how can God's justice work in the light of human suffering and evil? Is it possible that God is not almighty, that God is not just or that man is innocent?

Classical theology concluded that this relationship is never closed, its the subject of the great adversary (Satan) attempting to frustrate the creation. Job suffers and in his anguish is robbed of God's favor. He is in agony but knows he is a good man.

Woe is me can sum up the first half of Job. Psalm 22, also playing a role in the Passion, is restated. It begins: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? The Calvinists base some of their beliefs on selected lines from Job. Their ideas, now largely discredited, are based on an absolute, literal reading of the Bible. If its in the bible you must follow it explicitly, otherwise you must reject it. This absolutism is represented in this country by Cotton Mather, the Puritan preacher generally credited with allowing the Salem witch trials to occur, although he didn't participate in them.

The Book of Job becomes a book of poetry in its central section, with the literary device of the four "comforters" who discuss Job's plight at great length. Today's reading introduces one of these, Elihu, who advises Job to consider God's wonders. He asks Job to "stop and consider" the folly, impudence, and inappropriateness of his protests of innocence before God.

In the discussion, George Laigle asked if suffering is the result of worship of the God of Self. Could any of us have performed Jesus ultimate selfless act, dying for others? Skip Maryan, perhaps because he just came from the Palm Sunday service, recalled St. Francis' Stations of the Cross, reliving Jesus' crucifixion and death. Another thought came from Charles Givens, who suggested that Stalin and Hitler, two great evils, one from the left, one from the right, might well have cancelled each other out!

Skip Maryan then delivered a benediction prior to closing the session.

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Mentor

Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org

Leader

This is the Prime Timers! Photo taken on Palm Sunday, April 9, 2006. Click on either one for a larger view of the photo!

Max Kech contributes a dollar to the Prime Timers chicken celebrating her grandchildren.

The Episcopal shield, from the St. Martin's New Church stained glass windows.

The Lesson for Sunday, April 16th is titled "When All Seems Hopeless"

Key Verse:  Mark 16:6

Focus of the Lesson:  People want to believe that they will live again after physical death. What hope of new life can we find through the resurrection of Jesus Christ? The Job texts point to God as the One powerful enough to overcome death itself, and Mark's account of the first Easter gives us confidence that believers can look forward to resurrection.

The reading is Job 38:1, 4, 16-17; 42:1-2, 5; Mark 16:1-7, 9-14, 20. This text is from the New International Version^®.

1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:

4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
   Tell me, if you understand.

16 "Have you journeyed to the springs of the  
     sea
   or walked in the recesses of the deep?

17 Have the gates of death been shown to you?

Job 42:1-2, 5

1 Then Job replied to the LORD :

2 "I know that you can do all things;
    no plan of yours can be thwarted.

5 My ears had heard of you
    but now my eyes have seen you.

Mark 16:1-7, 9-14, 20

   1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"

   4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

   6 "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' "

   9 When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. 11 When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

   12 Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. 13 These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.

   14 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

   20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

NIV®