Scriptures and Reflection Questions for May 29

Scriptures and Reflection Questions
Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A
May 29, 2011

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary
Year A
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How to use this page:

Print this and read a different passage each day and think about it.  Some questions
are offered to help stimulate your reflection.  You'll find your experience of worship
on Sunday will be intensified.

For a method to read and pray with the scriptures you might try to use the ancient
practice of Lectio Divina (Divine Reading).  We've written some instructions on
how to use Lectio with the Sunday Scriptures at the following link:
http://www.stpaulsfay.org/id272.html
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Collect

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our
understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in
all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that
 we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and
 the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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The Lessons

Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21
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Acts 17:22-31

Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious
you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the
 objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, `To
an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth,
does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as
though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath
 and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth,
and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where
they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and
 find him-- though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For `In him we live
 and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said,

`For we too are his offspring.'

Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold,
 or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While
God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere
to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in
righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance
 to all by raising him from the dead."

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Paul speaks to a Greek audience in the Areopagus in Athens and make a connection
 between the "unknown" god and the God Christians proclaim as the one in whom "we
live and move and have our being."  How might you make connections with those who
may be agnostic, atheist, or devotees of another religious tradition.  Where can
 you, like Paul, find common ground as you witness to your own faith?

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Psalm 66:7-18

Bless our God, you peoples; *
   let the sound of praise be heard;

God holds our souls in life, *
   and will not allow our feet to slip.

For you, O God, have proved us; *
   you have tried us just as silver is tried.

You brought us into the snare *
   and laid heavy burdens upon our backs.

You let enemies ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, *
   but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.

I will enter your house with burnt-offerings and will pay you my vows, *
   which I promised with my lips and spoke with my mouth when I was in trouble.

I will offer you sacrifices of fat beasts with the smoke of rams; *
   I will give you oxen and goats.

Come and listen, all you who fear God, *
   and I will tell you what God has done for me.

I called out to God with my mouth, *
   and high praise was on my tongue.

If I had found evil in my heart, *
   God would not have heard me;

But in truth God has heard me *
   and has attended to the voice of my prayer.

Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer, *
   whose love has not been withheld from me.

                                   The Saint Helena Psalter

__________

Have your had a time that you felt like was a testing from God?
What happened?
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1 Peter 3:13-22

Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer
for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not
 be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to
make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that
 is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear,
 so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ
may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should
be God's will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins
once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He
was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went
and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey,
when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in
which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which
this prefigured, now saves you -- not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as
 an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities,
and powers made subject to him.

__________

What grabs you attention in this rich passage?

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John 14:15-21

Jesus said to his disciples, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And
 I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.
This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees
him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

"I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world
will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.
On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They
who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love
 me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

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It's all about love.  Jesus tell us to love him, and to keep the commandment to
love one another, and we will be loved by Jesus and by the Father.

What does this mean to you?

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The Rev. Lowell Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, AR

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Our Rule of Life:
  We aspire to...
     worship weekly
     pray daily
     learn constantly
     serve joyfully
     live generously.
 
www.stpaulsfay.org
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