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
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)
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 Alexander, Carolyn Evans Campbell, Herb Dreo, Ed 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
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
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