Fifth Sunday of Easter

Happy Mother’s Day

 

 

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Stephen gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died. 

Acts 7:55-60

 

The Stoning of Stephen

Stained Glass

19th Century

Kölner Dom

Cologne

Germany

 

"'The perfect martyr' is the epithet given to Stephen in the conclusion to the early Christian narrative of the martyrs of Vienne and Lyons (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.2.5). This essay argues that the narrative of the stoning of Stephen in Acts 6:8-8:1 does indeed depict a perfect martyr -- one perfectly suited, that is, to Luke's rhetorical purposes in the two-volume work now known as the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. In this work Luke constructs for followers of "the Way" a genealogy reaching back into Israelite traditions, and a sociology that drives a wedge between them and their Jewish contemporaries. One means by which Acts constructs a divide between "the Way" and "The Jews" is to portray the former as compatible, and the latter as imcompatible, with Roman juridical ideas. While ecclesial traditions of Jesus' death under Pontius Pilate and Paul's death in Rome posed a potential fault line in this construction, the killing of Stephen is an episode that is free from Roman juridical involvement. In Luke's telling, the death of Stephen through a stoning carried out by an unruly mob underscores Jewish barbarity, creates a breach between the church and the Jews, and brackets Romans out of the originary violence that produced the church's first martyred follower of Jesus and marked its first great expansion." (Gibson/Matthews, 124)

http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=20170511211364746&code=ACT&RC=54257&Row=1

 

 

 

 

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap

but by the seeds that you plant.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

 

 

 

 

 

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

 

 

 

 

 

Anna Marie and George Nelson invited the Boys and me to dinner.

 

 

The Boys love George!





Anna Marie (and George) fixed wonderful Spanakopita and yummy Greek Potatoes.

 



Center for the Arts Evergreen

Opening Reception

Members’ Show

Friday, May 12, 2017

Steve Sumner, Director of the Center

 

Brother Jack and I attended the opening before going to the Beer Tasting Extravaganza.

With Carolyn AlexanderCarolyn Evans CampbellHerb DreoEd Dilgarde and Shawna Gilbertson.

 

 

Annual Incredible Hops and Malts Journey

(Beer Tasting Extravaganza)

Home of Curt Harris

Friday, May 12, 2017

Brewmeister Finn Knudsen, with a well-known clown.

 

 

Fabulous Beer Maids …

But Kimra was missing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the end—

for me the beginning of life.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 14, 2017  Fifth Sunday of Easter

 

Previous OPQs may be found at:

     http://www.dotjack.com/opq.htm

 

 

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.” 

John 14:1-14

Agnus Day, by James Wetzstein

comic

 

Agnus Day appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org

 

 

 

 

 

Acts 7:55-60
Psalm 31:1-5,15-16
1 Peter 2:2-10
John 14:1-14