Week 26:

Your blogger/ co-mentor was absent. I missed the discussion, but I have the collect composed by the group:

Collect for Waiting (relating to Psalm 62)
Caring and merciful God,  You hold us in Your hands.  Give us patience to confront life's uncertainties and strength to trust in you, so that we can see the promise in the world that is waiting and yet unknown, so that we may fulfill your plan.  Amen.

Side Note:  This week, EfM central asked for a group status report with this question:

What would your group like to share with us about their work with this year's theme of becoming spiritually mature Christians?

I wrote:

My co-mentor and I are heartened by the enthusiasm of this year’s group for the ways that study, theological reflections, and our own worship practices have dovetailed.  Our worship now typically continues into “check – in” through a related question.  Study materials keep reminding us that “belief” means more than “opinion,” and that habits of worship and study knit belief (“beloving”) into our daily lives. 

 

Week 25: 1,2 Timothy and Timothy Sedgwick

Present: JK, BL, LL, JM, SR, SS, ST. Absent; SC

Dinner was provided by Jeff, worship by Bill, connected to a reflection on how any good funeral service should also be like any good service.

Theological reflection brought us the anecdote of a rival who's found to be doing something shady.

Week 24: Shrove Tuesday

Present: JK, BL, LL, JM, SR, SS, ST.   Away:  SC

As some of us ate pancakes from the Shrove Tuesday meal, Jane reminded us that "shrove" and "shriving" concern confession and absolution.  She asked us when we first experienced the Ash Wednesday service.  The imposition of ashes was surprisingly important to us.

Answering questions drawn at random from a deck of cards, we found that "shriving" was a theme in all the readings.  

Surprises? That Phillippians is the earliest source we have to express the doctrine of the Incarnation, that Christ was "present from the beginning."   Bill found the theme of "striving" (rather than arriving) in Phillippians and in what he heard from us about Diogenes Allen's chapter on Sin.

We discussed Allen's idea that "original sin" is a matter of orientation away from God, gradually turned through education, liturgy, and experience.  We discussed how the doctrine of original sin is not universally accepted, a point of difference with the Eastern Orthodox Church.  

TR
Everyone could identify with Scott's experience, and we arrived at an image derived from an anecdote by storyteller Carmen Deedy, whose father was the first Hispanic man to join a factory in Decatur.  Men black and white were all friendly to him, but both sides watched to see which restroom he'd use, the one marked "White" or the one marked "Colored?"   Cultural examples seem to laud the courage to choose a single right choice.  But the prayer book seems to give equivalent choices.  Jesus often refused to accept false choices offered him by challengers, such as the crowd ready to stone the woman found in adultery.  His answers seem to transcend the choices in ways that create "a third" thing, bonding opposites and God.

Collect for Choice Making
God who made us all, who refused the false choice of justice and mercy when facing the woman caught in adultery:  Give us the vision to discern wise and creative choices beyond the doors we see before us, so that we may grow into a more mature understanding of Your ways.  Amen.

Next week:  Jeff brings food, Bill does worship, and Lynne will bring the TR. 

Week 22-23: Systematic Theology, Ezekiel, Sacraments

Present: SC, JK, JM, SR, SS, ST.   Away:  BL, LL. 

Susan provided sandwich fixings and cookies.  Scharme brought a Psalm for worship, and a related question:  When have you had to think to yourself, "This, too, is a child of God"?    

For our discussion of readings. we brought out the index cards with questions such as, "What raised discomfort or doubt in you?"  "What issue of today was raised in your reading?" and "What did you feel was the main point?" Many comments converged on the effect that communion has on us.  Susan made a summing-up statement, that EFM makes us all more comfortable with ambiguity.

Our TR took off from the last chapter of John, where Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do ye love me?" We used three different translations.  We found many resonances, starting with liturgical repetitions, and including the observation that Jesus asked Peter this question once for each denial of Jesus.  

We took as our final worship the collect for the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, prefigured in the gospel reading. 

Next Week
We'll buy pancake suppers for dinner and meet upstairs by 7 pm. Scott will bring the TR.  Jane will bring worship, along with butter and syrup!  Scott will bring coffee.