Sunday, June 2, 2013 (full size gallery)
We had 38 this Sunday on first of the month service. Before that we had 12 for "Affirming our Faith" part 2 which was all about the Eucharist. Many people are finding it fascinating learning about the meanings of the different parts of the service.
We had three anniversaries this Sunday- David and Linda Beck, Jim and Eunice Heibach and Johnathan and Odessa Davis.
This was a busy week. Rob Dobson and crew got started on the renovation of the 1st floor bathroom in Fall Hall to make it handicapped accessible. Thanks for the donation of his time and talent. Eunice reported the ECW made over $520 in Operating Clean Sweep in Bowling Green on June 1. Many people helped – Cookie and Johnny, Betty, Roger and Eunice, Jason, Nancy, and Catherine. A gallery is here. This week the ECW journeys to Ginter Garden in Richmond for their annual end of the year trip.
During the service, food was donated for the first Sunday pickup. We also concluded the donation of the fiction books 3rd to 5th graders. Elizabeth was pleased with the reults.
Coffee hour was amazing on this first Sunday. Thanks to Barbara and Susan for a banquet – chicken, chicken salad, sausage balls, fruit, pimento cheese, guacamole dip and an amazing line up of desserts. Count ’em – pineapple pound cake, keylime pie, chocolate chip cookies, and strawberry tarts. Wow!
We are trying to find people to work with FredCamp,m June 30-July 6. This will bring youth and adults to work on fixing up homes in Fredericksburg, Stafford, Spotsylvania and Caroline counties. Catherine and Becky will be providing lunches during FredCamp in the first week in July. Catherine and Ben are offering to take people to Ruby Tuesday next Sunday for their "give back." Ruby Tuesday will provide 20% of the purchase back to FredCamp.
The 17 year old cicadas are all around us. It’s instructive to understand their life cycle. When young cicada nymphs hatch from their eggs, they dig themselves into the ground to suck the liquids of plant roots. They spend several early life stages in these underground burrows before surfacing as adults. They then molt (shed their skins) on a nearby plant for the last time and emerge as adults. The ones we have have a 17 year old cycle. The abandoned exoskeleton remains, still clinging to the bark of trees.
Shedding their skins is part of their maturity and can be viewed as a metaphor for understanding the lectionary. The people were surprised over Jesus dealings with the centurion and are shedding their skins, modifying their hard beliefs.
Each of the readings this week presents God’s radical hospitality poured out to those outside the traditional community of faith. A scarcity mindset would think that there is a limited amount of grace available and would seek to hoard it, closing off the welcoming acceptance of the outsider. The sermon elaborates on these ideas of lumping the actions of few together with a whole group of people. The bulletin is here.
The reading from 1 Kings couples nicely with the Gospel texts from Luke presenting the abundance of God’s kingdom for all peoples. Kings 8:41-43 asks that even foreigners who pray toward God’s house have their prayers heard and answered. Throughout the prayer the frequent repetition of the phrase “your people Israel” emphasizes the identity of Israel as God’s chosen covenant community. The lectionary’s focus on these verses about foreigners should not detract from the fact that Solomon’s prayer understands Israel alone as God’s chosen people
This petition proclaims that even those “not of your people Israel” will hear of the greatness of the LORD and come to the temple to offer prayers. By heeding the prayers of foreigners as well as Israelites, according to Solomon’s rationale, God will cause the peoples of the earth to know and fear the God of Israel, and “they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built” (1 Kings 8:43). In other words, reverence from foreigners helps to show that, out of all the national deities being claimed by various peoples, the God of Israel is the most powerful one, and the house Solomon has built is where that God dwells.
The Gospel from Luke deals with a centurion which would have been a part of the Roman occupation force in Judea and Galilee in the first century. What is surprising is that these representatives of Roman occupation are portrayed in quite positive ways in the New Testament and here in Luke 7:1-10. They end up responding to Jesus and his kingdom message with a recognition of his identity and, sometimes, with faith.
The centurion in Luke 7:1-10 fits this surprising profile. He is a Gentile (and presumably Roman, although not all members of the Roman army were ethnically Roman), who seeks Jesus out for the healing of his slave. This oppressor of the Jewish people initiates a conversation with a Jewish healer. He sends Jewish elders to speak on his behalf to Jesus to prove that he has been a patron of the Jewish people (7:3). He has helped to build their synogogue. Then he sends his friends to keep Jesus from coming to his house, expressing confidently and with an analogy from his own role in the Roman army that this Jewish healer, Jesus, is able heal from a distance (7:6-8).
Conversely, Jesus is cast in the unlikely role of responder and not initiator in this passage. When asked to heal the slave, he goes with the Jewish elders (7:6). He responds in amazement at the centurion’s confidence that Jesus needn’t actually come to his house to heal his slave: “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith” (7:9). And finally, Jesus heals the servant, although this is not narrated explicitly (7:10).
Jesus challenges the typical response to a foreigner, an occupier, a gentile contrasts this notion by healing the Roman centurion’s slave, both one not of Israel and a slave. But Jesus doesn’t stop there he also makes a point of the foreigner’s great faith, a faith in God that is not limited to those of Israel and in fact exceeds the faith of any within Israel that he has seen. Jesus and Solomon both are breaking down the cultural walls of scarcity that seek to limit the power and grace of God.
Recognizing the innate worth of individuals is part of shedding our skin. The Gospel can even be applied to baseball with the story of Branch Rickey when he broke the Major League Baseball color barrier in 1945 by signing Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. He recongized the talent of Robinson as Jesus recognized the faith of the centurion.
Paul’s letter to the Galatians warns of a gospel "contrary" to what had been proclaimed to them. We should take note that a "gospel" of scarcity is contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so each of us as prophets in our own right through our baptismal waters should be aware of the "gospel" we project with our everyday lives.