LUKE 15; 11-32

THE PRODIGAL SON

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything....

17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

 

LUKE 10:25-37

THE GOOD SAMARITAN

29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c]and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on 

him."

JOHN 7:53 – 8.11

THE FIRST STONE

53 Then each of them went home, 1 while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4 they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ 8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ 11 She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_the_woman_taken_in_adultery

THE REPUBS AND ACA

“If you have people who are binge drinking or chronic drinkers, we’re hesitant to say ‘use birth control as your protection against fetal alcohol syndrome,’ because again, as I say, binge drinking is a problem,” Kelly said. “If you think you can take birth control and then binge drink and hope not to produce a [child with fetal alcohol syndrome], you may be very wrong. Sometimes these things don’t work. Sometimes people forget. Sometimes they administer birth control improperly, and you might produce a fetal alcohol syndrome baby.

“I can follow up with you more on this with a little bit more policy research, but just off the record the characterization of this question is incorrect,” she said. “It’s not the individual mandate but it’s the guaranteed provision that prohibits the denial of coverage from preexisting conditions. The problem with Obamacare is that it allows people to wait until they’re very sick to purchase insurance, which creates significant and unknown risks to insurers and then the insurance companies would pass that cost on to consumers. So the way that Terri’s plan, and then this can be on the record, the way that Terri’s plan addresses preexisting conditions is continuous coverage and portability.

I have problems getting my brain around some issues.

In the story of the Prodigal Son, we have the usual scenario throughout human history that is as prevalent today as it was 4,000 years ago.

The young aristocrat screws up and daddy takes him back, joyfully.

I have seen this fable played out scores of time on the different Law & Order episodes.

But I have been propagandized since birth having witnessed the McCarthy Hearings when I was a tot.

These bible stories meant something to me even though I was never given the full file.

L&O for instance might demonstrate rich kids screwing up and killing people and giving others terrible diseases and raping other men or women and whatever....

The stoning incident just tells me about a charge of adultery. Maybe her husband was a wife beater or failed to provide for her children or failed to fulfill his husbandry duties or threatened to kill her or whatever...

THE CHRISTIAN REPUBS

The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science, in which Storr asks dissident ideologues to explain their unusual theories, could easily have become a crass look-at-me-I’m-shooting-fish-in-a-barrel expedition. The jokes practically write themselves.

Instead, drawing upon his well-documented store of inquisitiveness about superstition, eccentricity, and idiosyncratic beliefs, Storr has delivered an accessible look at the brain’s capacity for adopting unconventional ideas. Along the way, he makes some convincing arguments but occasionally oversells the obvious. He also introduces us to a roster of vexing characters—some harmless, others quite nasty—and the subcultures in which they circulate...

“If a person’s set of beliefs all cohere, it means that they are telling themselves a highly successful story. It means that their confabulation is so rich and deep and all-enveloping that almost every living particle of nuance and doubt has been suffocated. Which says to me, their brains are working brilliantly,” Storr writes, “and their confabulated tale is not to be trusted.”

ttp://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/16/the-unpersuadables-why-smart-people-believe-crazy-theories.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/16/the-unpersuadables-why-smart-people-believe-crazy-theories.html

You might check Mediamatters.com

http://mediamatters.org/ or

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/13/danielle-martin-richard-burr_n_4958164.html or

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/uninsured-people-dont-like-or-understand-obamacare/284607/

For all right wing attacks on ACA or Obamacare or NAZICARE or whatever this law is being called in any one day on THE WEB; there are nice stories of folks like the character played by Helen Hunt who receives help from a real Samaritan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Good_as_It_Gets

And there are so many stories where mothers find care for their children and themselves as they work their lower caste jobs.

We are getting somewhere, four years after the friggin law was passed.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/01/13/us/state-healthcare-enrollment.html?ref=us

THE VINEYARD

I left out the real parable that initiated this rather drab post:

According to Matthew 20:1–16 Jesus says that any "laborer" who accepts the invitation to the work in the vineyard (said by Jesus to represent the Kingdom of Heaven), no matter how late in the day, will receive an equal reward with those who have been faithful the longest.