Stanley Cup Review I

Pittsburgh took Game 1.  Game 2 will be played on Wednesday in Pittsburgh.

The Penguins must address offense.  They went somewhere around 35 minutes without a shot on goal.

Pittsburgh's first goal should not have counted.  Crosby got away with giving an elbow to the face of a Predator, kept the puck alive, and led to that goal.  The Pens Captain should have been in the box.

Momentum shifted greatly early in the opening period.  Nashville should have had the first goal.  I looked at the video multiple times and I swear that the Predators were on side, which meant that the ruling should have been a good goal.

Wearing one of my WBS sweaters, I was delighted to see "Babys all Grown Up" have success.  4 of the 5 Pens goals were scored by former WBS players I have seen play in NEPA; Bonino with 2 while Guentzel and Sheary each had 1.  And then there's Matt Murray.  This man is quickly becoming one of the best NHL goalies!  He kept his team in the game.

I successfully picked the winner of this game.  I think Nashville takes Game 2 and ties the series before it goes to Tennessee.

Lord Stanley's Cup

I'm torn.... Nashville vs Pittsburgh...

In theory I love the thought of a team winning their first championship.  I want to root for the Predators.  But there is something amazing about watching these Penguins play and recalling days when I as a STH in Wilkes-Barre saw them play in the AHL.

That said, for sake of predictions, I'm going Nashville in 7...

G1 PIT   G2 NSH   G3 NSH   G4 PIT
        G5 PIT   G6NSH   G7 NSH

And yet I'll be rooting for the Pens, even if the Pittsburgh version looks wimpy next to the WBS Penguin.

On a side note, can you imagine what must be going on in Montreal?  The Canadiens management must see this playoffs as a bad nightmare.  They said P. K. was no good.  The fans loved him.  The management and the coach thought otherwise.  Therein is no longer coach.  Subban is now loved in Nashville and could bring them a cup.

I'm looking forward to a good series!

Epistle 0611 Reflections

The Epistle
                                    2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

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Not much to look at here from the perspective of preaching.  There are a couple of interesting little nuggets though.  The invitation to greet with a holy kiss at some point came to be seen in connection to the sharing of the peace which is exchanged in the Eucharist.

It is also interesting to see from this text that "The Grace," used in the BCP mostly in the daily prayer services, is in fact scriptural.  It is interesting to remember in fact just how many of the liturgical texts are actual quotes of Scripture.

This short text also could give us the occasion to talk about living peacefully and joyfully with our neighbors.  And oh the directions we could go with that!  I can just hear that question from the Gospels rearing its head again: "And who is my neighbor?"

                   Father Tim+

A17 VII Easter

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Sunday 28 May ’17

Seventh Sunday of Easter

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 The Readings

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

My wife and I had an interesting discussion recently that came to mind again as I read the Epistle for this Sunday.  It was centered around a single question: “Which is the greatest of the sacraments?”  If an observer of our conversation would have simply looked for a short answer, that person would think that my wife and I had different answers to that question.  Her response was Holy Communion.  My response was Holy Baptism.

St. Peter proclaims in this Epistle that is before us that “Baptism now saves you.”  This is the simple reason why I say that Baptism is the greatest of the sacraments.  Our very salvation, indeed our very entry into the Kingdom of God, is through the waters of Baptism in which we are brought to eternal life by none other than Jesus, the first to enter the waters, the first both to die and to rise from the grave to eternal life.  Apart from this sacrament of initiation into the life and mysteries of the Church, there is no Christian sacramental living. The other sacraments of the New Covenant are all rooted in being joined to Christ in Baptism, being clothed by Christ with the wedding garment that makes us worthy to enter the Kingdom of God.

So why did my wife say that the Eucharist is greater?  She did so because of her concerns of what does Baptism mean to an infant who is brought to the sacramental waters?  In most instances, candidates for Baptism have not chosen to draw near and receive this sacrament.  But at the Altar, Christians intentionally draw near, desiring to partake of the Sacred Body and Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For Christians, this moment is the sacred moment to which the Word of God and the Sacraments of the Church push us, knowing that here we encounter Christ to the greatest depth that we shall experience in this life and in this world.  Nothing shall top that moment until we stand before Christ in the fullness of the Kingdom and behold him no longer veiled in bread and wine and no longer known to us by faith.

The difference between my response and that of my wife lies at the heart of frustration over sacramental living that comes through often veiled in humor.  You have all heard jokes, I’m sure, the line:

How do you get the mice out of Church?

Baptism and confirm them!

We laugh at that.  We make jokes, covering our frustration with humor, about the Church’s significance in the life of some persons as:

“Hatch, Match, and Dispatch.”

In the face of that reality, we who are the Church need both to quote this Epistle and the promise that Baptism does save us, and then to lay out what it means to be baptized, and what it means to be saved by Baptism.  We need to do this, for there are far too many who simply rely on their Baptism as an act accomplished in the past while giving little thought or attention to living as one who is baptized today.  We need to remember that Baptism is not complete when we walk away, or are carried away, from the sacramental waters.  If we are baptized, whether as infants for whom the vows were made by someone else, or even as adults, who chose to receive the sacramental waters of life, the fact that we are baptized means precious little if day by day we do not live as Christians, if we neglect the Eucharist and the other sacraments of the New Covenant, if we absent ourselves from the life of the Body of Christ which is the Church.

Do you know when our Baptism is completed?  I have heard some attempt to drive Christians to daily live out their Baptism who say that it is completed in our death.  I have heard others say something close to this; that Baptism is completed in our resurrection on the Day of Resurrection when Christ shall call the faithful from their graves on the last great day.  But even these answers, I believe, miss out on something.  Even in the Kingdom of God, when sin and death shall be no more, we will continue to be the sons and daughters of God.  And how is it that we have been adopted by God to be children of God?  That adoption began in Holy Baptism.  And as we shall never cease to belong to God, indeed our Baptism shall never be complete.  We will always, both here and in the Kingdom to come, walk as ones dripping wet in the baptismal waters in which Christ has saved us and claimed us as his own forever.

This awareness fixes our eyes on Christ, as it should.  Note here that I said it is Christ who has saved us, and is saving us even now.  When we speak of Baptism, or the Eucharist, or any of the Sacraments, as saving us, we are referring to the means of salvation.  But remember that in these means of grace, there is a savior.  His name is Jesus, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.  If we remember Baptism, but forget Christ, our Baptism is meaningless.  If we regularly partake of the Eucharist, but fail to seek and see Jesus, our communion is not to our benefit but to our judgment.  If we do not see Jesus, we would be better not to come to this Altar.  As I once heard a brother priest of mine say once: “If this isn’t Jesus, I can eat better bread and drink better wine at home.”

But this is Jesus!  It is he alone who saves us.  It is in him that we fix our hope.  Today, therefore, let us remember that it is not the sacraments that save us.  We are saved by Christ, who in the sacraments saves us, completing in us what is lacking, pouring out upon us daily the gift of eternal life.  And in that remembrance, let us ever strive, not just on Sundays, but every day, to walk dripping wet as if we just left the font and were born again as children of God who never forget Jesus, the lover of our souls, who longs that we might love him as he has first loved us.

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Father Timothy Alleman

Rector of The Church of the Holy Cross

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Gospel B 0604 Reflections

The Gospel — Option 2 of 2
                                                   John 7:37-39

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

_  ---———---———---———---———---———---  _

This Gospel for Pentecost makes more sense to me when I recall my wife's Orthodox Christian tradition.  In the Christian West, red fills the day.  Everything centers on the flame of the Spirit.  But in the Christian East, the color of the day and indeed of the Holy Spirit is green.  The theme is not so much fire and flame as it is growth and life.  And what is necessary for things to grow and live?  Chief among these is water.  In this Gospel, Jesus promises to give an abundance of water that will sustain life.  What a beautiful promise that is on any day, but certainly on the Feast of Pentecost, the commemoration of the coming of the life-giving Spirit of God who builds us up, completes what is lacking in us, and brings forth growth in the Kingdom of God, fruits of the Gospel of Christ.

                   Father Tim+

Alternate Epistle 0604 Reflections

Liturgical Note:
   If Acts 2:1-21 is read as the Lesson,
        Then 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
            is read as the Epistle of the Day

                                    1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

_  ---———---———---———---———---———---  _

This reading speaks powerfully of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  It reminds us that we individually need one another, and the fullness of the Body of Christ which is the Church.  We have received in abundance the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  But it is important to remember when we say that truth that we are referring to the collective "we."  Each Christian has gifts, but not all of the gifts.  In the ordination prayers in the Eastern Rites, in the Orthodox Church, the bishop prays for the one being ordained, asking that the Spirit would complete what is lacking.  We would do well to expect this in Baptism as well.  And how is it that the Spirit completes what is lacking in us.  Chiefly this is done by rooting us in the Church.  And when we are rooted therein, we become aware that we are a member within the whole, that our contributions, gifts and talents, are and ought to be complimentary to one another.

The reading stops short of the fullness of that message, which is unfortunate.  If we were to read on, we would find a beautiful discourse about the members of the body needing others.  The eyes can see, but cannot touch, or hear, or walk, or smell.  In short, they cannot be anything but an eye.  The same is true of the hands, and the ears, and so forth.  They all need each other.

We all need each other!  Pentecost reminds us of this truth.

                   Father Tim+

Alternate Lesson 0604 Reflections

Liturgical Note:
   If Acts 2:1-21 is read as the Epistle,
        Then Numbers 11:24-30
            is read as the Lesson of the Day

                                           Numbers 11:24-30

Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.
Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, "My lord Moses, stop them!" But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!" And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

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Moses at last receives some help.  He had been carrying the burden alone.  But now God gives the Spirit to others that they might carry the burden and give relief to Moses.

But two men who were among those so called didn't show up.  Why they didn't is a mystery.  Perhaps they were hiding.  Perhaps they were overwhelmed and didn't feel qualified.  But God knows where they are, and how to find them.  Thus when the Spirit was distributed among those called to take up the mantle of leadership and discernment, God finds them, and they act accordingly.

In the midst of this grace-filled moment, certain of the people become disturbed.  Can we relate to that?  Have we ever asked "Why them?" of anyone to God?  I dare say we all have.  And when we do, how we need to hear Moses reminding us to rejoice in the outpouring of God's Spirit, not only on those we rush to affirm, but also in those whom we are tempted to question and even find offense for words that are above all of God.

                   Father Tim+