tgimmthemar2

August 27
August 27 [media presentation below] GospelThink Wednesday, August 27 MATTHEW 23:27-32 The scribes and Pharisees in general did not try to purify their interior thinking. Prayerthoughts a. The Lord condemns the filth inside us, which is primarily what our thinking is leading us to. As I study myself, say, yesterday, what are the top 3 things that I am thinking about? b. I present myself to be a certain way. Basically, am I being honest with others who see me? c. If I were living at the time of the Israelites, would I have taken part in the killing of the prophets? d. If I were living at the time of Jesus, would I have believed him, given that the religious leaders were saying that he was not what he said he was? e. There are many now who do not accept Jesus as a religious teacher; is there anything I can do to bring about a greater acceptance of Jesus in my own little world? f. My prayerthoughts… Today, I will read 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2:9-13 and write an important thought from it.
Some Thoughts on the Liturgy RELIGION MUST BE REAL + As St. Paul writes back to the Christians of Thessolinica whom he had evangelized - he wants them to remember how he preached the “Gospel of God” - and he is especially thankful that the Thessalonians listened to this Gospel not as the word of men, but as the word of God - and now that word of God is alive in people—meaning in them—who believe “now at work in you who believe” + What happens when the word of God or Gospel of God is at work in believers? - obviously many characteristics - but one of them is being brought home in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 23, from which the daily Gospel has been taken the last couple of days - that characteristic—as he lets his feelings known concerning the Scribes and Pharisees—is that religion is real and not fake - or in today’s Gospel—that a person’s inner being, namely his/her intentions are pure just as much as a person cleans the outside of his/her body - and along the same line that we don’t brag about our lack of sinfulness when it may not be true + Two things there: if religion is real and not fake, 1 – people who have the Gospel of God at work in their hearts are going to consider their intentions - that is, their thinking and work on making it as much in line with God’s way of thinking as possible - it is difficult enough to work on words and deeds, but when religion is real, you’re going to work on your thinking as well - especially in the way we judge others 2 – and secondly, if religion is real and not fake - people who are believers are not going to make false claims of spirituality when we don’t know them to be true - the Scribes and Pharisees bragged that they would have acted the way their forefathers acted - as a matter of fact, Jesus points out—yes, they are, like right now! - people who have the word of God at work in them understand that they are sinners - and that they probably would have done what everyone else was doing because we are sinners and we need repentance + A major part of our spirituality, that is, what our life is when the Gospel of God is at work in us - is that religion is not fake - it will be real, and evident in our words and deeds and especially our thinking.
MEDIA PRESENTATION Movie: "The Martian" -- final session WHEN THINGS GO "SOUTH"

The Gospel

LUKE 14:15-24

LUKE 14:15-24

One of Jesus’ fellow guests … said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the kingdom of God.” He replied to him, “A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many. When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’ But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.’ The servant went and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.’ The master then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled. For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’”

Gospelthink: You must choose to come to my Kingdom. Am I showing my choice daily?

The determination of astronaut Mark Watney to stay alive on Mars until help would come was incredible. He determined how to live and how to prepare himself for the next part of his journey. But things did not go the way that he wanted. In fact, everything that he prepared for was taken away from him--everything. He could easily have given up, and lived the final days of his life and died on Mars in despair. But his determination continued. Speaking to a beginning class of astronauts after he survived, he said to them that they had to prepare not only for the solution to the problems, but they had to expect that "at some point, everything is going to go south." The solution, he told them, had to be to accept what happened, get to work, begin again, and solve the new problems one at a time.

What do you do when you have figured out everything that could possibly happen, prepared for it well, worked it out and were ready for a happy ending--and everything falls apart? Such was the case in Jesus' story of a banquet for a large number of people. The man had everything prepared, and a happy ending was truly expected, but because people did not care to engage themselves, the banquet was ready and there was no one to enjoy it.

In a similar situation in the movie "The Martian," astronaut Mark Watney, after using the talents that he had, had accomplished the ability to stay alive until an emergency supply ship could come. But as he later told his class: "Everything went south." Everything was taken away from him.

In Jesus' story told to make the Jewish leaders of his time aware of what they were refusing, the master went into a "rage" and found a solution by filling his banquet with all kinds of people, by even forcing them to come to it. In the movie, Mark Watney went into momentary despair, but then went right back into his determination to stay alive. The important fact is that in both stories, the person in charge had an alternate plan.

We all have such moments in life in different circumstances, of course. But there are times when everything is planned, we have a good "handle" on what will happen, and suddenly things fall apart. We experience a sudden illness, a sudden death, an unexpected failed relationship, or a disturbance that destroys the normal process of living, and we react. Maybe it is a rage, maybe it is despair, but we are quite ready to give up. We must learn the lesson of moving on as best we can.

Maybe the answer lies in always being ready for the unexpected. As Jesus once said about his unexpected coming: "You must be prepared" (Luke 12:40). That is, we must always be prepared for things not to go the way they should. It might mean to have a plan A and a plan B, or some acquired secret source of action, or a simple reliance on God to help us through the situation. Ultimately, we must learn not to give up, and learn to see the Lord's activity in everything that happens, doing our best in the situation, but allowing the Lord to be in charge.

PRAYER

Good and gracious God, even though we feel prepared for some things in our lives, sometimes they do not work out. Give us the grace to never give up, and to continually trust in You to help us with the solution. Be with us, we pray.

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GUIDE FOR CLASSROOM PRESENTATION AND PERSONAL ENRICHMENT

Theme: Even though we think that everything will be okay, we must be ready in some way for the unexpected.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
(session: approximately 62 minutes)
1. What scene during this session was most striking and why?
2. In the Gospel, Jesus tells the story in illustration of the fact that many would not want the Kingdom that he was presenting. Why would people refuse to be part of Jesus' Kingdom?
3. Jesus invited the poor and infirm to his Kingdom. Why do you think Jesus paid particular interest to the poor?
4. What can a person do to help another person who is suffering despair?
5. What "major change of plans" has happened in your life so far?
6. Why is it so difficult to allow the Lord to be in charge of our lives?
7. Analysis: How would such a long time alone affect human beings?
8. Scene analysis: The Hermes crew disobey NASA to rescue Watney. Most of them seem to have lost their jobs. Should NASA have let them go? Yes or no and why?
9. Dialogue analysis: Watney--"Yes, I thought I was going to die." If you thought you were going to die, given Watney's situation, what would you do?
10. What does the movie "The Martian" teach young people?

RELIGION MUST BE REAL