For December 15: Exploring the Teaching of Jesus

Join as us we explore the teaching methods of Jesus...

What is a parable?
Why did Jesus teach with parables?
What was his message for his early followers?
What is the message for us today?

For December 8: Exploring Jesus' Birth

Come join the discussion in the Sunday Forum as we explore the birth narratives of Jesus. 
We have four Gospel accounts of Jesus' life and ministry, and only two of them focus on his birth.  And, those two have different accounts, different aspects that they emphasize....

So, what do we do?

How are we to understand Jesus' birth from a historical perspective?

How does history intersect with our faith--and how might they 'clash?'

Join the conversation!! 
Sunday, 9:15 in the Parish Hall...

The Sunday Forum: November 24--The Faces of Jesus

The Faces of Jesus

Last week in the Sunday Forum Tony Hatch stretched our faith as he showed us several different contemporary icons of Jesus.  We were stretched because he challenged some of our traditional assumptions.  A brown complexioned Jesus challenged our Northern European Caucasian assumption.  A Native American Jesus challenged our assumption of a privileged status as those who have bequeathed the faith to benighted souls of lesser strain.  An Arab Jesus challenged us to think that the Muslim people, even the radical Islamist, is loved by God as much we ourselves. 

But then Jesus has always challenged the world’s assumptions about him and about itself.  And Tony went on to show a Jesus whose life and words inspired others to take him seriously and live again his ageless challenge to the domination systems of every age.  In our time the gross inequalities in power (wealth), nutrition, and health between the haves and have-nots of the world cry out for sanity, equity, balance: simple fairness. 

In the many faces of Jesus we touch the deep concerns of people far and wide who have found in Jesus a space where “the hopes and fears and of all the years” have been met. 

The 20^th century has seen Jesus as Liberator, and “Liberation Theology” born in Central and South American favelas energized Christian thinking far beyond its homelands.  Much earlier a similar result of the Gospel’s hope preached and sung in Christ-communities among slaves in the American south was a contributing energy to the subtle ground swell that became the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s.  In the words of Richard Niebuhr the Christ of Culture was finally able to break through his cultural restraints and become the Christ who transforms the culture that proclaims him.

This Sunday (Nov. 24) we are going to look at some of the Christological titles found in the Christian Bible in order to see how the first followers of Jesus understood him.  This is important because the way he is understood was the way he is preached and taught.

How are we to preach and teach Jesus in our day?  Does it differ from the way he was preached and taught in the first century?   In subsequent centuries?  If so, why? And how?

From November 17: Dr. Tony Hatch's Forum Presentation

Explore these questions from Dr. Tony Hatch's reflection on how our understandings of Jesus help shape the way we understand social inequality in our world.



                                                               Health Inequality

 

Global Wealth Inequality

Questions to consider from Dr. Hatch:

How do cultural representations of Jesus shape how we imagine and respond to the suffering of others?

How do accounts of Jesus’ teachings inform how we think about inequality and injustice in our time?

How can images, texts, and social facts inspire our vision of Jesus, inequality, and social justice?

"Who is Jesus?" Join the conversation!

Join the conversation this Sunday as Dr. Tony Hatch, sociology professor and member of the parish, shares his thoughts on Jesus. 

How do we understand Jesus?  Today in our lives? 
How does Jesus challenge us to look beyond ourselves?
How do our own assumptions inhibit living into the reality of Jesus' teachings?

It promises to be a wonderful conversation as we continue our dialogue around the person of Jesus of Nazareth--historically, theologically, socially, and spiritually. 

Sunday morning, 9:15 in the parish hall.....

November 10: Exploring Jesus in Scripture

There are 100 names for Jesus in Holy Scripture - who do YOU say that Jesus is?

We will explore the many names of Jesus - 

-what they meant in ancient times, 

-what his followers called him, 

-what he called himself, 

-why some of the names were so controversial 

-and what these names mean to us in our faith journeys.

November 3: Exploring God the Son

God the Son

 

In order to know someone we must spend time with that person.  After a while we can probably answer the question: What do I like about this person?  Or what are their qualities?

 

As we enter the next theme in our Catechesis, the month of November will be dedicated to God the Son.  The Outline of Faith in the back of our prayer book gives these questions and answers:

God the Son

Q.	What do we mean when we say that Jesus is the only Son of God?
A	We mean that Jesus is the only perfect image of the Father, and shows us the nature of God.
Q.	What is the nature of God revealed in Jesus?
A.	God is love.
Q.	What do we mean when we say that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and became incarnate from the Virgin Mary?
A.	We mean that by God's own act, his divine Son received our human nature from the Virgin Mary, his mother.

 

Catechism     849

---

Q.	Why did he take our human nature?
A.	The divine Son became human, so that in him human beings might be adopted as children of God, and be made heirs of God's kingdom.
Q.	What is the great importance of Jesus' suffering and death?
A.	By his obedience, even to suffering and death, Jesus made the offering which we could not make; in him we are freed from the power of sin and reconciled to God.
Q.	What is the significance of Jesus' resurrection?
A.	By his resurrection, Jesus overcame death and opened for us the way of eternal life.
Q.	What do we mean when we say that he descended to the dead?
A.	We mean that he went to the departed and offered them also the benefits of redemption.
Q.	What do we mean when we say that he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father?
A.	We mean that Jesus took our human nature into heaven where he now reigns with the Father and intercedes for us.
Q.	How can we share in his victory over sin, suffering, and death?
A.	We share in his victory when we are baptized into the New Covenant and become living members of Christ.

 

This Sunday we will explore who we at St. Benedict’s answer these questions about who Jesus is?  What qualities do we most like about Jesus and how might we emulate those qualities to others?

 

Finally, being All Saints’ Sunday, we will look at how those qualities of God have been expressed in those who have gone before.  If we have time, we will get into the “official” process for sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church and how we define that process in our Anglican Tradition.

 

See you Sunday at 9:15 to kick off another theme with a bagel and a cup of coffee.

 

~Brian