Hosted each week by the Faith To Go team in the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, David Tremaine, Maya Little-Sana and Charlette Preslar, the Faith To Go Podcast highlight themes from the Sunday Gospel reading for you to take into your faith discussions and reflections throughout the week.
From NPR
Questions:
1. Have you ever experienced what the articles calls a "downward spiral?"
2. What were the events or circumstances that led to that experience?
3. What were the people or things that helped in that time?
4. Was gratitude harder to practice in this time? Do you have a gratitude practice now?
5. Can you look back now and see God moving in this experience? Where and how?
Views and Qs: Want to be happy? Be grateful.
Watch this video together and then use the discussion questions below to reflect as a family.
Discussion Questions:
1) How does gratitude make someone more peaceful and tolerant?
2) What are some ideas for “stop signs” we can create to be more grateful?
3) Where have you seen a shift towards a more grateful world?
4) What are the things you are grateful for today?
5) How might gratitude help in a tough situation?
Feast and Faith: Remembering Thanks
For this week’s dinner discussion, we are talking about how Jesus calls us to faith the size of a mustard seed, and to live out that faith in an ever deepening spiritual journey.
Prayer -
Dear God,
Sometimes our weekly path takes unexpected turns. Unexpected challenges. Surprising joys. Give us strength, wisdom, and courage to respond with humility to today's challenges. Make our hearts light to delight in joy. Guide us through this week's twists and turns.
Amen.
(adapted from Call on Me: A Prayer Book for Young People)
Discussion:
Thanking and glorifying God seems to come easiest to the people who have received most from Jesus, the ones who are otherwise ignored, scorned, untouched. As Jesus observes in the case of the anointing woman (7:47), the one who has been given much also loves greatly. Love that springs from gratitude is the essence of faith.
We do not know whether the other nine were Samaritans, but in identifying the Samaritan only after he alone is prostrate at Jesus’ feet, the narrator suggests that it is perhaps his having been noticed and cleansed in spite of his double-marginalization, his double experience of life at the edge, that creates his deeper gratitude.
There is no doubt something to be understood here about the people who live on the margins of our communities, who are treated as invisible or unlovely because of how they look or who they are or where they come from. Jesus clearly notices and loves them and calls us to do the same.
But we might also consider the parts of us that are hidden in the borderlands of ourselves where we may least want to be seen and most need to be touched. Jesus, who is not afraid of borderlands, does not mind meeting us in those places, and it may be that by recognizing him there, we will find in our deepest selves a new outpouring of the grateful love that makes well.
Questions
1. Why, in your opinion, would a “foreigner” like this Samaritan be more thankful than the “true” people of God?
2. Do we sometimes forget to thank people when they help us?
3. Is the healing that the thankful leper received at Jesus’ feet different than the healing the other nine received?
4. What is our modern day leprosy? In our culture, what is a group of people that may not be easily received?
5. Why do you think Jesus told the Samaritan that his faith is what made him well?
Final nugget – We can learn a lot from grateful people and should pay more attention to those on the margins.
Stay and Pray: A Devotion for Families at the Close of the Day Each week we feature a way for your family to reflect and pray together. For families with older children this is an at home liturgy for your family to participate in together. It is a daily devotion for families adapted from The Book of Common Prayer.
Before you begin, take a few moments to decide who will read the scripture reading and who will read the collect and closing.
Read the Psalm and Lord's Prayer in unison.
After a moment of silence, begin with the Psalm.
Psalm 111
(Read in unison)
1 Hallelujah!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, *
in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation.
2 Great are the deeds of the Lord! *
they are studied by all who delight in them.
3 His work is full of majesty and splendor, *
and his righteousness endures for ever.
4 He makes his marvelous works to be remembered; *
the Lord is gracious and full of compassion.
5 He gives food to those who fear him; *
he is ever mindful of his covenant.
6 He has shown his people the power of his works *
in giving them the lands of the nations.
7 The works of his hands are faithfulness and justice; *
all his commandments are sure.
8 They stand fast for ever and ever, *
because they are done in truth and equity.
9 He sent redemption to his people;
he commanded his covenant for ever; *
holy and awesome is his Name.
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; *
those who act accordingly have a good understanding;
his praise endures for ever.
Gospel
(read by assigned person)
Luke 17:11-19
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
Prayers for Ourselves and For Others (take this time to each offer one person/event that you would like to hold in prayer as well as one thing you are thankful for)
Dear God, tonight I ask your prayers for.......
and I give you thanks for ..........
Amen
The Lord’s Prayer
(read in unison)
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen
The Collect
(read by assigned person)
Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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