The First Reading: Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18
The prophet Daniel has a disturbing vision of the future, and asks a bystander within his dream for help understanding its meaning.
The Psalm:
149, page 807, BCP
The Second Lesson:
Ephesians 1:11-23
As saints of God, his people face tribulation and trial, but they are also uniquely gifted with an inheritance of God's blessing and glory beyond imagining.
The Gospel:
Luke 6:20-31
The saints of God are those who do his will and reflect his glory in the world. The glory of God is unlike the glory of the world, and its beauty never fades.
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CHILD CARE IS PROVIDED IN THE NURSERY
(Rm. 205)
During the Service
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JOINT SUNDAY SCHOOL: 10:30 - 11:30 AM
Each week, St. John's children join with our Ministry Partners:
Wellspring UCC & Grace Baptist Church
Room 207/208
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St. John's Sunday School
class for ages 2-4, Room 215
Meets the first Sunday of each month from 9:50 - 10:40 AM
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THE ADULT LECTIONARY FORUM
MEETS EACH SUNDAY IN THE LIBRARY, FOLLOWING THE SERVICE
FROM 10:50 - 11:50 AM
The Saint of the Week for Forum Discussion:
Richard Hooker was an English priest in the Church of England and influential theologian. Indeed, he was one of the most important English theologians of the 16
th
century. His defense of the role of redeemed reason also informed the theology of the 17
th
century
Caroline Divines
and later provided members of the Church of England with a theological methodology that combined claims of revelation, reason and tradition.
Scholars disagree on Hooker's relationship with what we now label "Anglicanism" and the Reformed theological tradition. Traditionally, historians credit him with originating the Anglican descriptor
via media
(“middle road’) between Protestantism and Catholicism. However, a growing number of scholars argue he was a mainstream figure in the Reform theology of his time. That said, he merely sought to oppose religious extremists (i.e., Puritans), rather than actually moving the Church of England away from Protestantism. The term "Anglican" is not found in his writings and indeed first appears early in the reign of Charles I as the Church of England moved towards an Arminian position doctrinally and a more "Catholic" look liturgically under the leadership of Archbishop William Laud.
His masterpiece is
The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
. Its philosophical base is Aristotelian, with a strong emphasis on natural law eternally planted by God in creation. At its foundation, he asserts all positive laws of Church and State derive from Scriptural revelation, ancient tradition, reason, and experience. The occasion of his writing was the demand of English Puritans for a reformation of Church government. Calvin had established in Geneva a system whereby each congregation was ruled by a commission, two thirds of whom were laymen (elected annually by congregants) and another third of clergy (who served for life). The English Puritans asserted that churches not so governed could not legitimately claim to be Christian. In replying to this stance, Hooker raised and considered fundamental questions about the authority and legitimacy of religious and secular government, about the nature of law, and about various kinds of law, including the laws of physics as well as the laws of England. In the course of his book he sets forth the Anglican view of the Church, and the Anglican approach to the discovery of religious truth (the via media), and explained how this differs from the Puritan position, on one hand, and Papal adherents, on the other.
