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|
August 5, 2007 "Maintaining
Hope!" |
You Are Invited to Join the St. Martin's Prime Timers Adult Bible Fellowship!
We meet in the Payne Education Center, rooms 207-209, Sunday from 10:10 to 10:50am. The class is geared towards people aged fifty to sixty-four, but the Bible message we explore is universal. Join us, and bring a friend!
This summer the Prime Timers are studying the Prophets: Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, Lamentations (traditionally ascribed to Jeremiah), Ezekiel, Zechariah and Malachi. These prophets proclaimed God's word over several hundred years, but their message was consistent: A faithful relationship with God entails specific requirements, one of which is to do right. This week and next our prophet is Jeremiah.
Ben Welmaker is teaching the Prime Timers in July.
Prime Timers Good News
At the beginning of our class we devote time to hear our members Good News. Presenting your news requires a $1 donation to our chicken, Henny Penny. Why a chicken? As Dayton Allen used to say "Why Not!" The chicken did pretty good today, first we heard from Linda about a birthday for her 35 year old son. Then Sandy reported her grandson Joshua is now three years old! Then Don gave us the very good news that his stepson is ok after a serious illness. Lynn then actually donated money to the chicken to thank your humble reporter, (that's me), for the work I do on this website. I also heard some news about a very nice gesture by one of our local Pei Wei restaurants, but you will have to come back next week to learn about it!
Getting Through the Pain
Ben Welmaker wrapped up our time with the prophet Jeremiah today with a message of hope. The reading is in the form of a letter to the exiles from Jerusalem. In 597 BC the Babylonian armies under King Nebuchadnezzar overran Judah and Jerusalem. They carried away the King, much of the royal court and a number of the leaders and craftsmen into captivity and left the King's uncle, Zedekiah, to govern as the new King. These captives were likely taken to guarantee submission of the new king to Babylonian rule.
Jeremiah has two messages, one for those in exile and one for those left behind. For those in exile Jeremiah brings a message of forbearance and hope, our reading today. For those left behind its a different story indeed, (Jeremiah 29:17) "Thus says the Lord of hosts, I am going to let loose on them sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them like rotten figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten."
Jeremiah asks the exiles to make the most of their exile, build houses, have families, increase their numbers and don't disrespect their new homes. This recalls other instances in the Bible where the children of God are asked to have children and multiply, leading to a position of strength. Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image...28God blessed them and said to them "Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." And in Exodus 1:20 "So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous."
Jeremiah warns the exiles about the false prophets they will run into during their captivity. Ben applied this to our situation now with the example of popular TV talk shows. If a show is popular it is likely that the host is telling people what they want to hear! Is it wise to take without question a message that sounds too good to be true?
The letter suggests that the exile will last seventy years; in actual fact it was fifty-nine. Our reading concludes with the Lord promising to restore the exiles, (Jeremiah 29:12-14) "Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile."
Ben read to us a poem by David Whyte, reproduced here in the next column. Class closed with a prayer:
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart; naught be all else to me, save that Thou art. Thou my best thought by day or by night, waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. In His name we pray, Amen.
Prime Timers Contact names and numbers
Mentor
Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org
Leaders
Anne Berry
832/251-8868 H
atberry@proctor-law.com
Max Kech
713/802-0690 H
maxkech2003@yahoo.com
Marty Smith
713/464-6737 H
martys@houston.rr.com
Teachers
Richard Cruse
Chris Hershberger
Pete Seale
Ben Welmaker
bhwjr@flash.net
Outreach (inviting and welcoming new members)
Anne Berry
832/251-8868 H
atberry@proctor-law.com
Elizabeth Sleeper
jsleeperjr@houston.rr.com
Caring (prayers, follow-up w/class members who have been ill or have other needs)
Max Kech
713/802-0690 H
maxkech2003@yahoo.com
Click here for a print friendly version of this page!
Thanks to the Web Gallery of Art for the photo by Rembrandt on today's web page.
The Prime Timers dinner last Tuesday at the Houston Racquet Club, hosted by Connie Colley. Thanks Connie! It was a very nice evening.
Another view from our dinner at the Houston Racquet Club.
Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem, by Rembrandt, 1630, Oil on panel, at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
"What to Remember When Waking."
by David Whyte
In that first hardly noticed moment to which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other more secret,
moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began, there is a small opening
into the new day which closes the moment
you begin your plans.
What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans
enough for the vitality hidden in your sleep.
To be human is to become visible while carrying
what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.
You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.
Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning
window toward the mountain presence of everything
that can be, what urgency calls you to your
one love? What shape waits in the seed
of you to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the waiting desk?
The Lesson for Sunday, August 5th is titled "Maintaining Hope!"
Key Verse: Lamentations 3:26
Focus of the Lesson: Painful events occur in everyone's life. How are we to respond when such times come to us? The writer of Lamentations says that we have reason to hope in the midst of despair because of God's unfailing love and care.
The reading is Lamentations 3:25-33, 55-58. This text is from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
Background Scripture: 2 Kings 25:1-2, 5-7; Lamentations 3:25-33, 55-58
25The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul that seeks him.
26It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27It is good for one to bear
the yoke in youth,
28to sit alone in silence
when the Lord has imposed it,
29to put one’s mouth to the dust
(there may yet be hope),
30to give one’s cheek to the smiter,
and be filled with insults.
31For the Lord will not
reject for ever.
32Although he causes grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
33for he does not willingly afflict
or grieve anyone.
55I called on your name, O Lord,
from the depths of the pit;
56you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear
to my cry for help, but give me relief!’
57You came near when I called on you;
you said, ‘Do not fear!’
58You have taken up my cause, O Lord,
you have redeemed my life.
2 Kings 25:1-2, 5-7
1And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and laid siege to it; they built siege-works against it all round. 2So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
5But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; all his army was scattered, deserting him. 6Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, who passed sentence on him. 7They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah; they bound him in fetters and took him to Babylon.
NRSV
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