All Saints' Sunday


The Beatitudes

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Matthew 5:1-12

Martyrdom of 10,000 Christians

DÜRER, Albrecht

1508

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

Vienna

Austria

 

Notes:

"The contemporaraneity of Jesus' Beatitudes in general and of the Persecution Beatitudes in particular is suggested in a Newsweek [April 16, 2001, p.50] cover story, which in a review of the astonishing worldwide growth of the church in the last century notes: "What many U.S. Christians fail to realize is that when Asians convert to Christ it requires enormous courage. Converts typically are ostracized by family and neighbors -- and often targeted for persecution...For most Asians, however, what makes Jesus attractive is his identification wih the poor and the suffering." The cultural climate of the earliest Christian centuries was persecution; it is gradually becoming so again. (Bruner, p.183)

 

http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=20201030438408598&code=act&RC=46272&Row=17

 

At the center of the crowded scene, dressed in black, are two characters who walk placidly, apparently unaware of the horrors around them: one is Dürer's self-portrait (holding his signature), the other his friend and humanist Conrad Celtes, who had died a few months before the execution of the painting.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrdom_of_the_Ten_Thousand



Dürer's gruesome scene depicts scores of Christians meeting a violent death in a rocky landscape, providing a veritable compendium of tortures and killings. The oriental potentate in the blue cloak and turban who is directing the action in the lower right corner of the picture, would in Dürer's time have been perceived as a reference to the threat of Turkish invasion, because of the seizure of Constantinople in 1453. In the centre of the painting is the rather incongruous figure of the artist, holding a staff with the inscription: 'This work was done in the year 1508 by Albrecht Dürer, German.' The man walking with him through this scene of carnage is probably the scholar Konrad Celtis, a friend of Dürer's who had died just before the painting was completed.

https://www.wga.hu/html_m/d/durer/1/06/6martyr.html

 

 

 

 

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others.

If you have that awareness, you have good manners,

no matter what fork you use.

~ Emily Post

 

 

 

To become truly great,

one has to stand with people,

not above them.

~ Charles de Montesquieu

 

 

 

 

 

Reject!

Ray Yoshioka … in Tokyo

 

"For some reason the US would not accept Ray’s passport photo. 

Junna has to try again to get a more serious one which is not easy to do with our happy Ray!”

(from Robin Sakamoto)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The droopy plant I inherited from Margie Sterlin is blooming!

Margie would be proud.

 

Yum!

 



 

 

People who come here (Washington) either grow or swell.

~ Alan Simpson

 

 





November 1, 2020   Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

                 Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 26)

                All Saints' Sunday

             

Previous OPQs may be found at: 

     http://www.dotjack.com/opq.htm

 

 

 

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Revelation 7:9-17

Agnus Day, by James Wetzstein

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

 

 

Voting Election 2020 GIF by #GoVote - Find & Share on GIPHY

 

 

 

NewPanda

Happy and Safe Halloween!

 

 



Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (Proper 26)
Joshua 3:7-17 with Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37 or
Micah 3:5-12 with Psalm 43
1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
Matthew 23:1-12

All Saints Sunday
Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12




Joshua 3:7-17

The Lord said to Joshua, "This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses. You are the one who shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, 'When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.'" Joshua then said to the Israelites, "Draw near and hear the words of the Lord your God." Joshua said, "By this you shall know that among you is the living God who without fail will drive out from before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites: the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going to pass before you into the Jordan. So now select twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap."

When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were in front of the people. Now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. So when those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, the waters flowing from above stood still, rising up in a single heap far off at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, while those flowing towards the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people crossed over opposite Jericho. While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan.

with

Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37

O give thanks to God,
   for God is good;
for God's steadfast love
   endures forever.

Let the redeemed of God
   say so,
those whom God redeemed
   from trouble
and gathered in
   from the lands,
from the east
   and the west,
from the north
   and the south.

Some wandered
   in desert wastes,
finding no way
   to an inhabited town;
hungry and thirsty,
   their soul fainted within them.

Then they cried to God
   in their trouble,
and God delivered them
   from their distress;

God led them
   by a straight way,
until they reached
   an inhabited town.

God turns rivers
   into a desert,
and springs of water
   into thirsty ground,

God turns a fruitful land
   into a salty waste,
because of the wickedness
   of its inhabitants.

God turns a desert
   into pools of water,
a parched land
   into springs of water.

And there God lets the hungry
   live,
and they establish a town
   to live in;
they sow fields,
   and plant vineyards,
and they get a fruitful yield.

or

Micah 3:5-12

Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets
   who lead my people astray,
   who cry "Peace"
when they have something to eat,
   but declare war against those
who put nothing into their mouths.
Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision,
   and darkness to you, without revelation.
The sun shall go down upon the prophets,
   and the day shall be black over them;
the seers shall be disgraced,
   and the diviners put to shame;
they shall all cover their lips,
   for there is no answer from God.
But as for me, I am filled with power,
   with the spirit of the Lord,
   and with justice and might,
to declare to Jacob his transgression
   and to Israel his sin.

Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob
   and chiefs of the house of Israel,
who abhor justice and pervert all equity,
who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong!
Its rulers give judgment for a bribe,
   its priests teach for a price,
   its prophets give oracles for money;
yet they lean upon the Lord and say,
"Surely the Lord is with us!
   No harm shall come upon us."
Therefore because of you
   Zion shall be ploughed as a field;
Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,
   and the mountain of the house a wooded height.

with

Psalm 43

Vindicate me,
   O God,
and defend my cause
   against an ungodly people;
from those who are deceitful
   and unjust
deliver me!

For you are the God
   in whom I take refuge;
why have you cast me off?

Why must I walk about
   mournfully
because of the oppression
   of the enemy?

O send out your light
   and your truth;
let them lead me;
   let them bring me
to your holy hill
   and to your dwelling.

Then I will go
   to the altar of God,
to God my exceeding joy;

and I will praise you
   with the harp,
O God, my God.

Why are you cast down,
   O my soul,
and why are you disquieted
   within me?

Hope in God;
   for I shall again
praise the one,
   who is my help
and my God.

1 Thessalonians 2:9-13

You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was towards you believers. As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you should lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God's word, which is also at work in you believers.

Matthew 23:1-12

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father — the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted."