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2. Contact the Rev Catherine Hicks, Rector 5. Latest Newsletter-the Parish Post (June, 2018) 6. Calendar 8. What’s new on the website 10. Latest Pentecost Sunday Bulletin (June 10, 2018 11:00am), and Sermon (June 3, 2018) |
Block Print by Mike Newman
Projects
| Green | Ordinary Time | Jun 3-Oct 31 | |
3-Minute Retreats invite you to take a short prayer break right at your computer. Spend some quiet time reflecting on a Scripture passage.
Knowing that not everyone prays at the same pace, you have control over the pace of the retreat. After each screen, a Continue button will appear. Click it when you are ready to move on. If you are new to online prayer, the basic timing of the screens will guide you through the experience.
Daily meditations in words and music.
Your daily prayer online, since 1999
"We invite you to make a ‘Sacred Space’ in your day, praying here and now, as you visit our website, with the help of scripture chosen every day and on-screen guidance."
Saints of the Week, June 3 – June 10
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3
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The Martyrs of Uganda, 1886 |
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4
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[John XXIII (Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli), Bishop of Rome, 1963] |
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5
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Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz, Missionary to Germany, and Martyr, 754 |
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6
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[Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945] |
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7
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[The Pioneers of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil, 1890] |
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8
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[Roland Allen, Mission Strategist, 1947] |
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9
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Columba, Abbot of Iona, 597 |
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10
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Ephrem of Edessa, Syria, Deacon, 373 |
June 3, 2018 Pentecost 2, Proper 4
From left to right- Torrential downpour, Sermon included a look back of Robert Kennedy, Coming to church, Patting "Sweetie",Micky Mouse Cake, Day lilies growing in the graveyard.
The Week Ahead…
June 6 – 10:00am, Ecumenical Bible Study
June 6 – 5:00pm – 6:30pm, Village Dinner. A cookout – hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, potato salad, coleslaw, and strawberry shortcake!
June 10- 11:00am, Pentecost 3, Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Sunday, June 10 Readings and Servers
Village Harvest June 17
Please bring dish washing liquid and cleaning supplies for the distribution this month.
Anything but Ordinary! Ordinary Time
Basically, Ordinary Time encompasses that part of the Christian year that does not fall within the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter.
Ordinary Time is anything but ordinary. According to The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, the days of Ordinary Time, especially the Sundays, "are devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects." We continue our trek through the both the Gospels of Luke and John- through parables challenges, healings – some great stories and teachings.
Lent is about preparing people to live as disciples of Jesus. Easter Season is about giving especially the newly baptized or confirmed time to focus deeply on the doctrinal foundations of the faith and on discerning the Spirit’s calling and gifts for ministry, culminating in a celebration and commissioning for these ministries at Pentecost. The Season after Pentecost is about seeking the Spirit’s guidance and supporting one another as we undertake these ministries in Christ’s name.
While there are parts of Ordinary Time through the year, we think of Trinity Sunday until Christ the King Sunday or up to Advent as the Sundays of Ordinary Time.
Lectionary, Pentecost 3, Year B
I. Theme – The pervading role of sinfulness
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
Old Testament – Genesis 3:8-15
Psalm – Psalm 130 Page 784, BCP
Epistle –2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Gospel – Mark 3:20-35
Today’s readings explore the pervading influence of sinfulness that makes humans stand in resistance and opposition to God. In Genesis, we learn the meaning of human sinfulness from the story of Adam and Eve’s disobedience. Paul encourages the Corinthian Christians to trust in the eternal power of God. In the gospel, when his opponents declare that Jesus is possessed by Beelzebul, Jesus warns them of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Commentary by Rev. Mindi
We enter this season after Pentecost, after Trinity Sunday, in which (at least in the mainstream Protestant tradition) there are no special days until Reign of Christ Sunday just before Advent. We begin this time with the story of the man and the woman hiding from God in the garden. The man explains his shame, his hiding by scapegoating the woman, who in turn explains herself by scapegoating the serpent, and the serpent is punished by God. As part of the curse of the serpent, humanity is separated from relationship with the creatures of creation. No longer will human beings and animals live in harmony; there will be predators and prey, a need to defend oneself against the wild creatures of the world. We often read this passage and recall humanity’s fall, but there is a sense that the model of harmony in the garden is disrupted among the rest of God’s creatures as well. This harmony is symbolically seen again upon the ark in the story of the flood, where miraculously somehow the animals don’t eat each other or the human beings who are caring for them. We are reminded that God’s intention for creation was harmony between man and woman, between human beings and God, and between humanity and the rest of creation; but through our greed and desire, we have distorted God’s intention, and it is God who must reconcile us through Christ.
Psalm 130 is a song of hope in God, having patience in God’s deliverance. We may have sinned, but God forgives, and God will save, as long as we hold on to hope.
Mark 3:20-35 tells of Jesus’ homecoming after he called his first disciples and the reception he received. People had begun to talk about Jesus and were spreading some rumors and tales, including that Jesus was possessed by Beelzebul. Jesus’ own family wants to bring him home and stop this “madness,” this “nonsense,” of Jesus’ ministry and healing and preaching, but Jesus declares that Satan can not cast out Satan; therefore Jesus, who is doing good works, cannot be possessed by a demon, for what he is doing is the complete opposite of what demonic forces would do. Demonic forces would destroy, bring pain and anguish and despair; Jesus brings restoration, healing, joy and hope. When Jesus’ family calls out to him and the crowd informs Jesus of this, Jesus reminds them that whoever does the will of God is Jesus’ family–for we are all children of God, we are all Christ’s brothers and sisters, when we do the work of God, bringing healing, hope and restoration to the world by sharing God’s love.
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 proclaims that we live by faith, not by sight. What can be seen is temporary–what we have made, what we have done–but what cannot be seen, God’s intention for us, is eternal. We must hold on to hope and know that God will restore us, God will reconcile us, and God will heal us. Everything we experience on this earth is temporary, but what we cannot see, cannot perceive, cannot fully understand is eternal–that God’s love endures forever.
When we look back upon the creation story, we recognize the story of God’s intention: a world created in relationship with God, a world in which human beings are in relationship with creation and with each other. In Genesis 3 that relationship is distorted by human beings; but we see glimpses of God’s intention breaking through all throughout Scripture. We see it in the story of the flood and the ark and the rainbow; we see it in the Psalms; we see it in Revelation. We see places where humanity continues to insist on their own way, one in which people are scapegoated and leaders are given too much power over people, where people who do not make good leaders are made into kings and the poor are oppressed. And when God’s intention begins to break through, as in Jesus’ ministry, we still resist. We want our own way. We want to have and others to not have–because we believe we have worked harder, we have earned it. We fail to see that God’s intention is not rivalry but relationship. We fail to see that God’s intention is not survival but harmony. We fail to see that God’s intention is not being right, but doing right. We fail to see that God’s intention is not insiders and outsiders, but all of humanity as God’s children, brothers and sisters of each other. This is what God’s intention is for humanity and the world, what God’s desire is for us: that we be part of Christ’s family.
Lincoln’s "House Divided Speech", 1858
"If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South.
Have we no tendency to the latter condition?"
Lincoln gave this speech June 16, 1858 at the Republican State Convention in Springfield, Illinois. A speech that, under normal circumstances, would have been an acceptance speech for the Republican U.S. Senate seat nomination actually was a bold attack on the divisive issue of slavery.
Lincoln hoped to use a well-known figure of speech to help rouse the people to recognition of the magnitude of the ongoing debates over the legality of slavery. Our Gospel this week contains the phrase, "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come."
The "fifth year" refers to Kansas-Nebraska, the act that was focal point of the debate on the expansion of slavery in 1854. The violence in this area foreshadowed that of the Civil War.
The speech just came a year after the Dred Scott decision. In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks — slaves as well as free — were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permiting slavery in all of the country’s territories.
The "house" refers to the Union — to the United States of America — and that house was divided between the opponents and advocates of slavery. Lincoln felt that the ideals of freedom for all and the institution of slavery could not coexist — morally, socially, or legally — under one nation. Slavery must ultimately be universally accepted or universally denied.
This speech, given two-and-a-half years before South Carolina would become the first state to secede from the Union, foreshadowed the coming storm of the Civil War. Although Lincoln lost the election to Stephen Douglas, his eloquent political arguments put him in the national limelight and paved the way for his election to the presidency in 1860.
Pew Research – Key findings about Americans’ belief in God
"In recent years, the share of American adults who do not affiliate with a religious group has risen dramatically. In spite of this trend, the overwhelming majority of Americans, including a majority of the religiously unaffiliated – those who describe themselves, religiously, as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” – say they believe in God or a higher power, according a new Pew Research Center survey conducted in December of 2017.
"The survey of more than 4,700 U.S. adults finds that one-third of Americans say they do not believe in the God of the Bible, but that they do believe there is some other higher power or spiritual force in the universe. A slim majority of Americans (56%) say they believe in God “as described in the Bible.” And one-in-ten do not believe in any higher power or spiritual force."