darkw1

May 31

[media presentation below]

GospelThink

Sunday, May 31, The Holy Trinity

JOHN 3:16-18

God so loved the world...

Prayerthoughts

a. Having eternal life is what I want. As I think of my death, what are the best ways to prepare for it?

b. The promise of God concerning his Son—everyone who believes in Him might not perish—is the most important promise that God has given to us. Have I truly made Jesus the center of my life? Go through yesterday, and determine whether Jesus was truly the center of each activity.

c. As I study my past, and the sins and faults, have I sufficiently asked for forgiveness?

d. I have placed Jesus and his thought as central to my life. In what area of my life recently have I truly noticed the Lord helping me?

e. In what area do I need to improve in my life more than any others?

f. My prayerthoughts…

Today I will read 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 and write an important thought from it.

Some Thoughts on the Liturgy

WHAT THE TRINITY MEANS

+ The doctrine of the Trinity, today’s feast, is, of course, one of our major beliefs

- three persons, one God—Father, Son and Spirit

- to understand it better and how we should think about the mystery, it might be good to look at each person separately

+ “The Father” could be an idea of the knowledge of God we should possess

- I tell the story often of one of the fourth graders at St. Joseph’s Grade School in Hays some years ago

- as we were passing each other in the hallway, I asked him “What do you know?”

- he stopped, looked up at me, and very deliberately said to me: “More than you want me to.”

- he was right

- we know a lot, that is, our minds are filled with a lot of material, but the question is: what is important for you to know as you live in this world

- obviously, many things are important, but maybe the most important deals with how you approach life, and what that means

- that’s the area of religion and God, the area of solutions to the problems of life

- as Christians, thinking of God the Father, we should be thinking of the knowledge that we should have of how God wants us to live our lives

+ “The Son” is the idea of the direction we ought to be choosing

- not only do we need knowledge of what we are doing, but we need a direction

- which comes through the choices we make

- and so, the question is: what are our choices saying about the direction we are choosing right now

- in many ways we lock ourselves into a life that is controlled by our choices

- it can easily be seen in movies if you study them from the choices that are made:

- in the fantasy movie, the close of the Harry Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Harry and his friends made choices early on as they chose to eradicate evil in the world

- we all make choices, often when we are very young

- one of those choices should be for the Christian, Jesus Christ, since if we choose him early on, our choices can be formed with his light

- and lead us to a better understanding of who we are

+ And “The Spirit” is the idea of the courage to do what is good for us and for the world around us

- it is not easy to do the right thing

- the pressures of our world can dominate how we feel and why we feel the way we do

- let’s face it: this world outside has a significant influence on us

- and we have to face it head-on

- asking ourselves whether what we are doing in whatever moment is good for us and our world

- and if it isn’t, to have the courage to change

- again, movies can be help to understand such courage

- in the movie “The Help” which is a statement of the early prejudice in our country, a young lady by the name of Skeeter Phelan wrote a book that disturbed the status quo of black maids in the South in the 1950’s

- it could have meant the end of her good reputation and the end of jobs of the black maids who helped her

- courage often costs something in our world, but the Spirit leads us to say and do the right thing

+ We believe that the acceptance of the Trinity is necessary for our spiritual lives

- the Trinity means three things that are necessary for life—knowledge of what is really important in life, direction about the way to make choices in life, and courage to make those proper choices

- we pray for that today as we think of the Trinity.

Tying Today's Liturgy with the Movie "Dark Waters" (below)
The Grace to Do Something
Mary was convinced that God was working in her life, and so she did something--she visited her cousin who needed her help. Jesus was convinced that the synagogue should be a house of prayer, and so he did something--he drove the money people out of it. Earl Tennant and Bob Bilott were convinced that a chemical corporation was polluting water, and so they did something--they took on the corporate giant and won their case.
The world we live in needs direction. When looked at as a place in which selfishness is the bottom line in most encounters, the world must have some guidance to bring a proper perspective. That guidance must be looked for and sought after if we want to amount to anything, if we want the human to be holy.
The guidance for the Christian comes from God through Jesus. Mary was able to discover it in caring for another. Jesus found it in love of His Father. Earl and Bob found it in carrying out the Christian call to "do something" in the face of wrong.
We all have the same belief as Christians. Our God has given us the doctrine and example. It is up to each one of us to follow it in our daily lives.

MEDIA PRESENTATION

Movie: "Dark Waters" -- beginning session

THE COURAGE TO DO SOMETHING

The Gospel

JOHN 2:13-17

JOHN 2:13-17

Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

Gospelthink: I was quite upset at the way some people were treating the Temple. Do I show the respect that I should show in my Church?

The year was 1998. Wilbur "Earl" Tennant traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio to visit Robert Bilott, a corporate defense attorney to complain about a problem that a local chemical company was causing on his farm in Washington, West Virginia, a suburb of Parkersburg, West Virginia. Robert did not want to listen to Earl, but since he was an acquaintance of his dear grandmother in Parkersburg, he finally listened and decided to do something. He asked his boss whether he could take the case, promising that it would be a small project. His boss agreed. Not long after, Bilott legally forced the Dupont Chemical corporation to hand over documents concerning chemicals that were dumped at Earl's farm. Dupont complied, sending him hundreds of boxes of documents hoping that he would never find anything. Bob was a very deliberate man, and going through the documents one by one, finally found reference to a chemical called PFOA or C8 that he could not find identify.

Jesus was a courageous person when he walked our earth. As part of the institution called "religion," he knew what religion ought to be. When he sensed that the institution was not doing it, he allowed his human zeal to envelop him, causing quite a stir, no doubt, among the religious leaders who should have realized what was happening. In his mind, Jesus knew that he had to do something and he proceeded to do it.

There are many people in our world that sense that something is wrong with what is happening. But there are only a few of us who really decide to do something about it. The movie "Dark Waters" is primarily about two of those people.

The first person who realized what was happening and who wanted to do something was Wilbur "Earl" Tennant. To do what he knew needed to be done, however, he needed the help of the second person who was likewise convinced that something should be done, Robert Bilott. But it was Earl's conviction that began the process.

As Robert pays tribute to him in his book "Exposure," a book about the problem, Robert says of Earl: "Earl mattered. ...Earl was a man who belonged as much to the land as the land belonged to him. I admired his instincts about the natural world and his unwavering faith in those instincts, even in the face of endless doubters."

Earl was convinced that the chemical company Dupont was doing the wrong thing in his land and wanted to do something about it. You and I live in a world that can get tied up a wrong, and sometimes we may be able to do something about it. It is our call to do it. As Jesus. As Earl Tennant. As Bob Bilott.

PRAYER

Good and gracious God, Your Son was totally committed to bringing about what was right. When I can do something about some wrong, give me the grace I need to address the problem. Be with us, we pray.

+++++

GUIDE FOR CLASSROOM PRESENTATION AND PERSONAL ENRICHMENT

Theme: When something is not right, we have to do something.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
(session: approximately 59 minutes)
1. What scene during this session of the movie is most striking? Why?
2. In Jesus's time there were many traders who took care of the animals to be sacrificed, and many of them took their industry into the temple area. Is there any comparison to our churches in our world? Yes or no and why?
3. In your opinion, are there large corporations still breaking the laws of the environment? Yes or no and why?
4. In your opinion, do large corporations do enough for our environment? Yes or no and why?
5. What is your definition of "courage"?
6. The meditation accuses most people of not doing what they should be doing. Name some areas in which we could do more than we are right now.
7. "Earl mattered." What does it mean to be someone who "matters" in our world?
8. In general, are people concerned about our environment the way they should be?