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Block Print by Mike Newman
Projects
St. Peter’s Gardens, Part 2
From "God’s Garden" by Dorothy Frances Blomfield Gurney (1858-1932)
We asked people to submit pictures of their gardens recently. The truth is that people love to share the products of their gardens with others – flowers and fruit. What do these gardens look like ? Why are people so passionate about them ?
This week we spotlight a garden from Dave and Carolyn Duke:
New this week – See the Duke Garden
See last week’s garden from Cookie and Johnny.
Gardens are another example of our community together. They bring people together over the produce, flowers and beauty they create. They bring people together in the process it takes to bring them into fulfillment. In many cases, a seed or a sprig is shared which prospers over time. They bring people together even talking about the critters that take from our gardens! Beyond that it is a sense of wonder and amazement how seeds you can put in your hand grow to be fruits and flowers.
Gardens figure prominently in the Bible. Gardens were prevalent during Bible History, when they were often enclosed within a wall of earth or stone, or a hedge, and guarded by a watchman as protection against animals and thieves. Frequently used as places of worship and prayer (by the righteous, and by pagans), gardens were also used as a spiritual analogy for God’s blessings upon believers, or for the unbeliever’s fruitlessness. Gardens were sometimes used as burial places, a somewhat appropriate irony, since the dead are like sown seeds with the potential of new life e.g. "Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!"
They can be sorted out in four functions and related to a Bible verse:
Don’t see your pet ? Upload a picture. Update 8/25/2013. "Cherry’s Sweet Mini" has been added. Update 8/29/2013. "Roxy" is now part of the kingdom.
Prayer requests – Add a name to the prayer list here.
Sunday, August 25, 2013 (full size gallery)
September 1- 11:00am, Holy Eucharist, Rite II
September 1- 12:00pm, Coffee hour
This Sunday at St. Peter’s – Servers, Readings
Lectionary this week -"The Way up is Down with God" – Luke 14:1, 7-14
"Feast of Simon the Phrarisee" – Peter Paul Rubens (1618-1620)
I love David Lose’s comment on this passage -“If there was ever a gospel reading that invited a polite yawn, this might be it. I mean, goodness, but Jesus comes off in this scene as a sort of a progressive Miss Manners.” He later backs off of it
Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. And so this, and all reported encounters with religious authorities, are going to clarify and sharpen the division between Jesus’ vision of right now, right here, being the time and the place for the realization of God’s Kingdom, and the authorities’ anxiety to keep social peace as defined and enforced by the Roman occupiers
He is invited to dinner by the big cheese – “house of a leader of the Pharisees”. Jesus does not seem to be invited for the hospitality of it, but for the hostility of it. The setting seems hostile. Sabbath controversy stories in chapters 6 and 13 had both ended with pharisees on the defensive (6:7; 13:17). Chapter 11 had ended with the pharisees "lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say" (11:54).
Thus Jesus is not being watched closely to see what they might learn from him. He is being watched closely to assess just how much of a threat he really might be. He is being tested outside of the admiring crowds. Jesus is watching them very closely in order to make observations about human conduct. He wanted to contrast their kingdom of ritual with the kingdom of God emphasizing mercy and radical inclusion.
The word pharisee can mean "to separate". The Pharisees were a group of people who separated themselves from the riffraff of society. They sought to live holy and pure lives, keeping all of the written and oral Jewish laws. Often in the gospels, Pharisees are pictured as being holier-than-thou types, the religious elite. They felt that they had earned the right to sit at the table with God. They criticize Jesus because he doesn’t separate himself from the "sinners and tax collectors."
The Gospel is sandwiched between two other situations. Just before the Gospel Jesus heals a man with dropsy and defended that Sabbath healing. He may have been the bait
There are two main scenes here with advice:
1. Going to banquet sit at the lowest place so you can move up rather than forced down
In Israel, the meal table played a very important role, not only in the family, but in society as well. When an Israelite provided a meal for a guest, even a stranger, it assured him not only of the host’s hospitality, but of his protection Also in Israel (as elsewhere), the meal table was closely tied to one’s social standing. “Pecking order” was reflected in the position one held at the table
Jesus knows that most people would want to take the place of honor. What is interesting is that those who put themselves forward to take the highest or most dignified place might be removed not to the second place but to the lowest place
And, Jesus takes pains to show that this "demotion" is really an experience of humiliation. Rather than seeking to put ourselves forward, we are to wait until we are invited up to the honored position.
When the guests jockeyed for position at the table, Jesus spoke to this evil as well (vv. 7-11). While they believed that “getting ahead” socially required self-assertion and status-seeking, Jesus told them that the way to get ahead was to take the place of less honor and status. Status was gained by giving it up. One is exalted by humbling himself, Jesus said.
Note that Jesus is not criticizing the system but how people operate within it.
His exhortation is to pursue humility, a concept with significant status connotations. Humility was very rarely considered a virtue in Greco-Roman moral discourse
Humility doesn’t mean being passive. Letting others walk all over us Jesus shows by his life that being humble didn’t mean being passive, but, when necessary, it meant taking out the whip and driving the self-centered bullies out of the temple.
There is a balance between being humble without self-degradation or shame o letting others "walk all over" us vs. deliberately putting ourselves above others through self-exaltation or arrogance
Exaltation depends too if you are doing the exalting or God Raising up and exaltation belong to God; recognition of one’s lowliness is the proper stance for human beings. The act of humbling oneself is not something for its own sake, but for the sake either of God or of Christ .Jesus advises a strategy of deliberately and consciously living beneath one’s presumed status in order to receive even greater honoring later.
Some scholars speculate that this teaching would particularly apply to Luke and his first readers as they were higher status Gentiles, and the mixed-status Christian communities would require them to live beneath their comfort zone. God would later recognize and honor their accepting of lower social standing.
Here is a paradox indeed. The way up is down. To try to “work up” is to risk being “put down.” Those who wish to be honored must be humble and seek the lowly place. Those who strive to attain the place of honor will be humiliated
2. If you are the host, don’t invite who can in turn invite you and be repaid but invite “ the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” and be repaid by God
Richard T. Pratt Cushions
Editor’s note -The cushions are on the chairs opposite the lecturn on the graveyard side. Eunice discovered the writing on these cushions.
Richard Turner Pratt 1886-1988 lived a long life serving on the St. Peter’s Vestry for 75 years and was the senior warden for 48 years of those years. At the time of his death he was "senior warden emeritus." He also served as a trustee. His second wife Helen was elected the first woman on the Vestry August 22, 1967. The picture to the left was taken in 1984 at age 98.
He earned his degree at VPI and then a masters at the University of Chicaco. In 1911 he married Courtenary Tayloe Crump,daughter of Judge Beverley Tucker Crump and Etta Tayloe Crump and in 1963 he married Helen Graves Black. Pratt represented Caroline County during the 1922-23 term in the Virginia House of Delegates. After that , he lived in Fredericksburg for 20 years and owned and operated Virginia Sales and Service, a General Motors dealership and then retired to Camden.
While this was known what wasn’t known (or forgotten) was the stitching on these cushions as shown above which was discovered by Eunice, August 18, 2013.
Here is the log in the Book of Remembrance concerning the gift:
The symbols on the cushion are the Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. From Revelation 22:13 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." Typically, they refer to both Jesus and God. They have been used as symbols since the time of early Christianity. This phrase is interpreted by many Christians to mean that Jesus has existed for all eternity. The phrase "alpha and omega" may signify that God is eternal.
Notes from the account book of John H. Bernard of "Gay Mont" with reference to St. Peters Church, Port Royal, Va.
Editor’s Note John Hipkins Bernard (1792-1858) was the grandson of late 19th merchant, John Hipkins. Hipkins built up considerable wealth through an import/export business in Port Royal. In 1790 John Hipkins purchased a 700-acre tract of land on the east side of the Rappahannock in Port Conway. The cost was the then a considerable sum of 2,000 pounds. The couple built a home there, called it Belle Grove, and had four children, one of whom was born in 1792 and named John Hipkins Bernard in honor of his grandfather. It was Hipkins who built Gay Mont in the first 10 years of the 19th century. John Hipkins Bernard and Jane Gay Robertson were married in 1816, and he renamed the home from Rose Hill to Gay Mont in honor of his wife. Gaymont picture above in 1939 would have been recognizable to Bernard.
John Hipkins Bernard and Jane Gay had twelve children (although five died in infancy). John Hipkins Bernard served in the Virginia House of Representatives from 1815-17, then 1822-23, and he became a state senator in 1828-31.
Gay Mont was built up over the years through several purchases by John Hipkins, his son-in-law, William Bernard, and his grandson, John Hipkins Bernard. The total amount of land purchased amounted to 2,120 acres in 1819, the acreage noted in the Caroline County tax documents from that time until the time of John Hipkins Bernard’s death in 1858.
He owned three properties in Port Royal, two on the same street as St Peter’s – Lot 3 Riverview Cottage (no longer standing) and Lot 10 other side of St Peters 1830 , between St Peter’s and Riverview. He was a big supporter of the Episcopal Church during his lifetime.
The account book entries concerning St. Peter’s were provided by later owner of Gay Mont, Jim Patton. Much of church financing at that time was through subscriptions from interested individuals.
Receipt signed by Philp Lightfoot dated July 21, 1816 “rec’d of John H Bernard $100 for the church in Port Royal [Proposal 1816- proposals for building brick church 46×38 wtih subscriptions received until Jan 1, 1817]
June 1821 pd Parson Wilson for 1820 – $10.
June 1822 pd Parson Wilson for 1821 $10.
Aug. 1828 pd Parson Wilson for 1828 $10.
April 30, 1836 – Subscription to the church, $100,
May 25, 1836 – Bishop Moore, $10. (Helen Struan Bernard, later Mrs. Philip L. Robb, youngest child of John H. and Jane Gay Robertson Bernard was the first little girl to be christened in the church the day of its consecration May 15, 1856 by Bishop Moore)
January, 1839 – Pd. to W. Gray for stove in church, $10.
April, 1839 – for bell at church, $15.
September,1839 – for pew in church, $30
September, 1839 – for organ $100. Check to William Gray
October, 1841 – painting the church – $97.12
Mar. 22, 1856 – to William Friend subscription for 1856 $20.00
Thereafter until death of JHB in 1858 he paid his subscription, raising it every few years until the last few when it was $50.