Romans 4:13-25 Good News Translation (GNT)   13 When God promised Abraham and his descendants that the world would belong to him, he did so, not because Abraham obeyed the Law, but because he believed and was accepted as righteous by God. 14 For if what God promises is to be given to those who obey the Law, then faith means nothing and God's promise is worthless. 15 The Law brings down God's anger; but where there is no law, there is no disobeying of the law.   16 And so the promise was based on faith, in order that the promise should be guaranteed as God's free gift to all of Abraham's descendants—not just to those who obey the Law, but also to those who believe as Abraham did. For Abraham is the spiritual father of us all; 17 as the scripture says, I have made you father of many nations. So the promise is good in the sight of God, in whom Abraham believed—the God who brings the dead to life and whose command brings into being what did not exist. 18 Abraham belie...

Genesis 17, our Bible story for next Sunday, Lent Two   1 When Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.  2 And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.  3 And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying,  4 As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.  5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.  6 And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.  7 And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. Poor Abraham, God help him, he is coming up on a hundred years old now and God is still tea...

In our Tuesday morning Bible Seminar for the Epiphany Season we learned about the Apocrypha, talked about all of the books, read the complete texts of the shorter ones, synopsized the most interesting stories that were too long to read in our seventy minute sessions, read passages from others.  For the Season of Lent we shall be having a look at some of the New Testament apocryphal books. There are dozens of them, including gospels, acts, epistles, apocalypses, and others. Our focus will be on noncanonical gospels, learning of their existence, and reading from the more prominent ones. For example, many scholars count the Gospel of Thomas, which predates the canonical gospels, nearly as important for scholarship as the four canonical gospels. And the same with the so-called Q Gospel, which is a modern construct of all the verses that are not in Mark but are common to Matthew and Luke. The Gospel of Peter is interesting, and so is a fragment called Secret Mark. And there are many oth...

Viva! Last night the FSU channel aired a program about Chaco Canyon, New Mexico and the Pueblo culture that lived there from about 900 to 1150 A.D. Like the Mayans, the people of Stonehenge and others, they were an archaeoastronomical civilization with incredible knowledge of the skies and the orderly movements of bodies in the cosmos. The Chaco people constructed buildings oriented to the solar and lunar cycles, apparently with spiritual meaning and used for religious observances. Their structures were the largest buildings in North American up until the nineteenth century. The Pueblo people connect themselves to the Chacos by oral legends and myths. Why the Chaco people left the area is not known, but speculation is they suffered a drought of some half a century beginning about 1130 A.D. There are archaeoastronomical sites around the world where once resided large civilizations, all of whom have vanished. Considered with the Roman Empire, the ancient Greek cultures, the Assyrian Empi...

Let Us Pray At 9:15 a.m. tomorrow we begin our Sunday morning discipline that will go the five Sundays in Lent. Sunday School will broaden to become also our Inquirers Seminar for those who want to learn more about Christianity in the Episcopal Church, including those who are interested in being confirmed by the bishop when he visits us on May 13th. Rather than starting with the scandalous and titillating tale of Henry the Eighth and the wives he courted, married and murdered, we shall learn how to figure out what Episcopalians believe. Not the catechism. Not the creeds. Not the thirty-nine articles of religion. Not the writings of a theologian. But simply by paying attention to what comes after the dialogue: The Lord be with you. And also with you. Let us pray. You can't do Anglican theology from the outside looking in. You have to be there. See you! TW+

From lightning and tempest; from earthquake, fire, and flood; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death, Good Lord, deliver us. * We had Morning Prayer most Sunday mornings when I was a boy. The minister officiated the service not at the Altar as he did on First Sunday, when we had Holy Communion, but from his chair up front in the chancel, facing to the side; and he spent most of his time on his knees at the prie-dieu, the prayer desk.  Speaking from personal knowledge and experience as one of the species, boys are impatient with religion that goes on overly long, and the dreaded thing that stirred ultimate impatience for this particular boy usually happened to my surprise upon coming into the church on a Sunday morning in Lent: the prie-dieu was up front in the center of the aisle facing the Altar, and had suddenly become the Litany Desk. It signified that religion would go on overly long on the knees this morning. Very much overly long. E...

Kyrie eleison Lord, have mercy. Kyrie eleison. Christ, have mercy . or Christe eleison . Lord have mercy. Kyrie eleison. With the twentieth century liturgical reform, it has become the practice of the Church to shift during Lent from singing a Song of Praise at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word to singing or saying the Kyrie eleison, as though the Kyrie were penitential. It is not, not necessarily so. The Kyrie has a history that predates Christianity’s taking it up in worship. In ancient Roman times people in the streets would cry out “Kyrie eleison” as the emperor, or perhaps some other worthy person, passed by or made his way through the crowd. Not a fawning, crawling, groveling plea, it’s a hail, a salute of honor and respect. Before the liturgical reform, the Kyrie eleison was a required part of the opening liturgy when the Decalogue was not said. Much, most or all of our liturgy comes to us from or through the Roman Catholic Church, which has online web...

There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God. (Ecclesiastes 2:24, KJV) One will have to give account in the judgment day of every good thing which one might have enjoyed and did not. (The Talmud) Therefore last night pancakes were served at churches throughout Christendom.  In our years at Trinity, Apalachicola, Jimmie Nichols always took great pride and joy in making a ticket selling contest of the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper. He liked to issue everyone in the parish a stack of tickets to sell to family, friends and neighbors. If you didn’t sell your tickets, Jimmie expected you to buy them yourself. Jimmie always sold dozens of tickets, and promoted the event such that on Shrove Tuesday evening, Benedict Hall, the parish house, was jammed with townsfolk, coming and going, visiting and eating. The kitchen was crowded with cooks and servers. It was...

Delightful weekend visiting St. Marys, Georgia to baptize Virginia Carolyn Boyle, daughter of Forbes & Emily Cramer Boyle and granddaughter of Bill & Carolyn Cramer. We had room 300 at the Spencer Inn B&B, third floor in this comfortable 1792 hotel with a modern elevator and scrumptious breakfast.  Sunday morning dawned threatening stormy, windy and chilly, so the service, which was to have been in a lovely pavilion on the river, was moved inside. Looking out our room window at a cloudy sky over the trees and above the cross atop the Roman Catholic Church across the street. Sunday afternoon was beautiful and we toured the town, basically from one end to the other, one side to the other, visited the open 24/7 chapel of Christ Episcopal Church and chatted with a parishioner who was there practicing her Ash Wednesday reading. From there we wandered round the town’s old cemetery, old graves including a sea captain born in London in the 1700s, Civil War grave markers, an...

Sanctify a Fast Joel 2 Blow the trumpet in Zion;    sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,    for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near— 2 a day of darkness and gloom,    a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains    a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old,    nor will be again after them    in ages to come.  [ 3 Fire devours in front of them,    and behind them a flame burns. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden,    but after them a desolate wilderness,    and nothing escapes them.  4 They have the appearance of horses,    and like warhorses they charge. 5 As with the rumbling of chariots,    they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of ...

Theophany of God the Beloved Son Last Sunday after the Epiphany O God who, before the passion of your only-begotten Son, revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 2  ... Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, * one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, ...

When Better Automobiles Are Built Buick Will Build Them A Navy friend forwarded me an email circular about old times, that remembered fender skirts on cars. Fender skirts were a PITA when a flat tire had to be changed on the rear of the car, but they streamlined and beautified a car and were a prestigious sign that you had moved out of the low price field. You had to move up to an Olds or Buick, Hudson or Mercury to boast fender skirts. Juniors at the University of Florida the Spring 1956, Jerry and I decided to buy a car. Being 20, not yet 21, I was not eligible for automobile ownership in Florida, but Jerry was a Navy veteran 23 years old.  We shopped used car lots in Gainesville, both new and used car dealers. That was the week my car shopping hobby became a life long obsession. The most appealing car we found was a 1941 Packard 110 or 120, a dark green sedan, good condition with add-on air conditioning installed in the trunk and vented into the interior through the shelf spac...