Thursday, January 21, 2010

Happy Thursday!

Thursday is a really long day. I tutor five students beginning at 7:15 am and leave my class at Brite at 7:45 pm. And my wonderful family graciously had dinner ready when I arrived at home about 8:15 pm.

Tonight I led the evening prayer service from The Book of Common Prayer. I am a non-Episcopalian leading a very high church prayer service as the first one in class to perform this practice. Well, as Dr. Brockman said, “Somebody had to be first.”

I practiced and learned what to do and what to read. Then I was asked to remain at the front after the service for the class to offer constructive criticism of my leadership of the service. They kindly kept their fruit at bay! This was not announced as part of the exercise when the assignment was given. At the very least no one (including me) was maimed, injured or offended. The comments were mostly concerning nuances of the service of which I was unaware. The members of my class are really wonderful and I am totally enjoying the class. The two priests, Father Bruce and Father Sam, are hilarious and are wonderful resources. I think it is going to be a really great semester. I turned in my first paper tonight on the topic of “How does the BCP mark the identity of Episcopalians?” I wrote the paper through my knowledge of the Lutheran Book of Worship and titled the paper “One stop shopping…”

John 4: 1-14 this is the story of the woman at the well in Samaria and her encounter with Jesus.

Jesus walks through Samaria and engages this woman in conversation by the simple request of “May I have a drink of water?”

There are so many things in this story that point to Jesus and His plan to establish God’s kingdom here on earth by establishing a “new order.” First, Jesus, a Jew, walked through Samaria. Jews and Samaritans did not even speak much less cross over the land boundaries. Then Jesus engages this woman in conversation. A Jewish man would never speak to a Samaritan woman. And then Jesus asks her for a drink from the well. She notices that he has no canteen or other container or water and Jesus has no rope to lower into the well for the water. The woman reminds Jesus that the well is deep and it will be difficult to attain water without a canteen and a long rope.

Then Jesus says tells her “I have water that is so satisfying that you will never thirst again and the well will never run dry.” She pleads for this water. Jesus then gives her the most wonderful gift of all. He gives her His identity. Jesus tells her who He is and invites her to be a part of the kingdom of heaven. She is beside herself with joy and runs to tell others of this one called Jesus so that they might receive His identity also.

When was the last time you told someone about Jesus and what He has done for you? God rains down His blessings of grace, mercy and love on us all the time. Let us not miss an opportunity to share what Christ has done for us with others. Invite others to be a part of the kingdom.

Take joy in the journey. Wear comfortable shoes, count your blessings and say your prayers. Love you all, Bruce, Gaylene, Geni and Travis.

Gcapplenotes@aol.com

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe and I believe God.

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