Thursday, various
"It's not about you" or assuring self, "It's not about me" is or was a popular remark for awhile, actually before I got to say it, so I'm saying it this morning: it's not about me, except that while I'm living this life inside this body it IS about me, at least for the moment:
rest for one week
after 48 hours remove the bandage
wash the surgery site once a day with bacterial soap (I'm using DIAL, is that ok?) and dry using a paper towel
mix 1 tablespoon vinegar with 1 cup water
soak surgery site 10 minutes a day, using vinegar-soaked cotton ball
buy a new jar of Vaseline and use q-tip to apply Vaseline to surgery site twice daily
Yeah, it's about me alright. But at this age the scar doesn't matter, it'll go real nice with the electrodes that're to be installed under my ears when I go back next week.
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Maybe DIAL soap is not okay, but I remember the chief hospital corpsman who lectured us in OCS class, summer 1957, discussing what he expected the class of young officer candidates to do that upcoming weekend, our first weekend being given "liberty" to leave the naval base from 10 AM Saturday to 10 PM Sunday. He said "..., afterward, wash yourself off using DIAL soap," and he added, "Remember, DIAL soap, and in case you forget, DIAL spelled backward is LAID."
So, okay, if a medical person tells me to buy specifically surgical soap I'll go do that after our schedule for this morning, which is to drive out to Pruitt, take Malinda to the Eye Center for exam and, hopefully, an eyeglass prescription that will help her terrible vision (her right eye was blinded by the ruptured aneurysm in May 2018 and vision in the left eye is deteriorated), and back to Pruitt. They have a transport bus and offered to take her, but Linda wanted to do it, and we are at a point in life and Time where if one of us goes we both go, otherwise neither goes. The idea being Safety: Two people minding the surroundings are better than One is. In fact, one octogenarian alone is a car is not good at all.
This little surgical spot itches, I'm forbidden to touch it with my fingers, or with cloth that may transmit bacteria to the site, so must use a fresh bit of paper, like a paper towel or a Kleenex tissue, to sort of scratch it. But having scratched it I have to reapply the Vaseline.
See, I'm really not into projects that ARE About Me.
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Meanwhile, it's Thursday - - what's coming up for Sunday?
Second Sunday after the Epiphany Year B
Revised Common Lectionary
The Collect
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Old Testament
1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)
Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” [Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”
Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”
As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord.]
The Psalm
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17
1 Lord, you have searched me out and known me; *you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
2 You trace my journeys and my resting-places * and are acquainted with all my ways.
3 Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, * but you, O Lord, know it altogether.
4 You press upon me behind and before * and lay your hand upon me.
5 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; * it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
12 For you yourself created my inmost parts; * you knit me together in my mother's womb.
13 I will thank you because I am marvelously made; * your works are wonderful, and I know it well.
14 My body was not hidden from you, * while I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth.
15 Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb; all of them were written in your book; * they were fashioned day by day, when as yet there was none of them.
16 How deep I find your thoughts, O God! *how great is the sum of them!
17 If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand; * to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.
The Epistle
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.
The Gospel
John 1:43-51
Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
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There's the Collect, with its theological assertion that Jesus is the Son of God and that Jesus is the light of the world. There's the wonderful story of the Call of Samuel (from Sunday school days as a child, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth"). Psalm 139 is good, but you need to read the whole song, not just a snippet. There's a passage from 1st Corinthians that could just as well have been left out of the Lectionary. Then there's a passage from the Gospel according to John in which Jesus is calling disciples; in which we are told that Andrew and Peter are from Bethsaida, when we always thought they were from Capernaum; in which the Bible in the Gospel itself, it is clearly stated that Jesus is the son of Joseph from Nazareth (evidently, Gospel John hasn't heard the Virgin Birth story); and in which Gospel John has Jesus mention the Son of Man.
It is fairly clear that, not mentioned at all in Mark the first gospel, nor in John the last gospel, the virgin birth story was not a significant facet of early Christianity. And that's not what Jesus' life was about at all anyway.
On another topic, every time the Son of Man is mentioned in the Gospels, it's necessary to pause and contemplate which of three possibilities the gospel writer means for Jesus to mean by the term, because there are at least three possibilities: Jesus is talking about humans in general (e.g., the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath); or Jesus is referring obliquely to himself either as just an ordinary person or as being the cosmic figure in Daniel 7; or Jesus is referring to the Daniel 7 figure specifically. Usually, the context will tell us what the gospel writer has in mind. In this context, where they are already discussing Jesus as "the Son of God" and "the king of Israel," it seems to me that Gospel John has Jesus referring to himself as the coming Son of Man, but I'm always open to your thoughts (as long as you think for yourself and don't fall back on old assumptions).
RSF&PTL
T88&c