Happy Labor Day!

Judging

 

 

1My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? 2For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Have a seat here, please," while to the one who is poor you say, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet,"  4have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

8You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 9But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11For the one who said, 'You shall not commit adultery," also said, "You shall not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

14What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

James 2:1-10 (11-13) 14-17

 

Rag Collectors

LAERMANS, Eugene

Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens

Deurle

Belgium

 

https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=20210903148220052&code=ACT&RC=56608&Row=11

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you judge another,

you do not define them,

you define yourself.

~ Wayne Dyer

 

 

 

 

There is no prejudice so strong

as that which arises from a fancied

exemption from all prejudice.

~ William Hazlitt

 

 

 

 

 

SOMEthing keeps knocking down my new hummingbird feeder!

I am not good about bringing it inside every night.

 

 

I have filled it three times now and I have yet to see a hummingbird using it.

 

 

It isn’t quite the same as when it was brand new.

 

 

Perhaps our last Painted Toe day at this location.

)))-:

 

Thank you, Adrian Stone, for such a nice lunch

at Tuscany Tavern!

 

 

 

Anna Marie Nelson and I had lunch today at Marshdale Burgers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to open your heart?

Step one:

listen.

~ Nancy Schoellkopf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 5, 2021   Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost 

                       Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

 

Previous OPQs may be found at:

 

 

 

Agnus Day, by James Wetzsteinagnusart

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Labor Day 2021 - Wednesday September 1, 2021

 

 

 

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 and Psalm 125
OR 

Isaiah 35:4-7a and Psalm 146

James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17 

Mark 7:24-37

 

 

Summary

The story of the Syrophoenician woman is one of the most misinterpreted and abused passages of Scripture today, and so the preacher must be on guard against parroting false interpretations. Jesus was not an ethnocentrist that needed his perspective widened. What is plainer in the other Gospels’ rendering of the scene is that the whole point of the episode is to display and honor the woman’s faith. Jesus’ comment about the priority of Israel is intentionally phrased in order to be offensive, but the humility she returns speaks to her single minded faith. Unlike the Jews who lorded their chosen status over the Gentiles, this Gentile woman thinks nothing of her own dignity next to the chance to receive from the Lord. Her faith far outstrips her pride.

This is the sort of faith that Israel itself needs to have in order to live up to its calling as the chosen people and get in on Jesus’ new covenant. The syrophoenician woman’s subordination of her ethnic identity to the prospect of receiving healing from Jesus is a profound challenge today, especially as various forms of “identity” have lately emerged as a sacrosanct component of the human soul. But there is nothing this woman finds more important than her faith. Her first identity is in the kingdom of God, and everything else can wait.

https://www.preachingtoday.com/lectionary/

 

 

First Reading Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23

1A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,

and favor is better than silver or gold.

2The rich and the poor have this in common:

the LORD is the maker of them all.

8Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,

and the rod of anger will fail.

9Those who are generous are blessed,

for they share their bread with the poor.

22Do not rob the poor because they are poor,

or crush the afflicted at the gate;

23for the LORD pleads their cause

and despoils of life those who despoil them.

Psalm 125:1-5

1Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion,

which cannot be moved, but abides forever.

2As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

so the LORD surrounds his people,

from this time on and forevermore.

3For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest

on the land allotted to the righteous,

so that the righteous might not stretch out

their hands to do wrong.

4Do good, O LORD, to those who are good,

and to those who are upright in their hearts.

5But those who turn aside to their own crooked ways

the LORD will lead away with evildoers.

Peace be upon Israel!

Second Reading James 2:1-10 (11-13) 14-17

1My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? 2For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Have a seat here, please," while to the one who is poor you say, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet,"  4have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

8You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 9But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11For the one who said, 'You shall not commit adultery," also said, "You shall not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

14What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Gospel Mark 7:24-37

24From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." 28But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." 29Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go — the demon has left your daughter." 30So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

31Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." 35And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."