Frontpage, July 1, 2018 – St. Peter's Episcopal

July 1, 2018 Pentecost 6, Proper 8

Clockwise – Rance Rupp at St. Peter’s to help dedicate the new sign, Mouse tracks on the base of the sign, flowers by Cookie dedicated to John Faibisy’s mother Marion born July 4, Coffee hour, Communion, Back from Shrine Mont summer camp, the Belfry, summer fun with water balloons

Pictures and text from this Sunday, July 1

Check out the videos from July 1

The Week Ahead…

July 4 – 10:00am – 2:00pm, St Peter’s open for the 4th of July

July 8 – 11:00am, Pentecost 7, Holy Eucharist, Rite II

Sunday, July 8 Readings and Servers

July 4 at St. Peter’s

St. Peter’s was open from 10am until 2pm

A grand time at the St. Peter’s Port Royal July 4, 2018 celebration with many parishioners’ participation.

Links

1. Pictures

2. Videos

3. Article

Cleo Coleman’s moving rendition of Harriet Tubman.

Here was the schedule:

10:00 Ringing of the bell at St. Peter’s Church
St. Andrew’s Legion Pipes & Drums Presentation of Colors

The Pledge of Allegiance and National Anthem by St. Peter’s Choir

Welcoming Remarks

Special Guest George Mason by David Pondolfino

Rappahannock Colonial Heritage Society Colonial Dance Demonstration
11:00 Delivery of the Declaration of Independence Read by Town Crier Mike Newman. Gun Salute by Civil War Reenactors
Key Note Speaker Dolley Madison By Lynn Uzzell

The men will be selling hotdogs, watermelon, drinks and brownies to benefit St Peter’s
12:00 Special Presentation of Harriet Tubman by Cleo Coleman (inside church) followed by Harpist Recital (Riley Allam, Elizabeth Ciresi)

Patriotic Songs (inside St. Peter’s) from Thom Guthrie and Bill McCoy

Period Music by Evergreen Shade (12-2pm, outside)
2:00 Closing Procession with Pipes & Drums

All About the Declaration:

1. Religion in the Declaration

2. The Real Purpose of the Declaration

3. The Signers – by the Numbers

Keeping up with General Convention

Logo General Convention 2012
The 79th General Convention of the Episcopal Church will be held in Austin, Texas from July 5-July 13, 2018 though there are some addresses on July 4 (Bishop Curry).

1. Watch it online – Media Hub

2. Bunch of links

Here is our complete "keeping up" article

Lunch at the Trailer Park, July 9

We will be taking lunch to the trailer park at 11:30am and invite the families for fun activities. (We got a head start and cooked the hot dogs on July 4 – Thanks, Ken Pogue!)

If you would like to help prepare food, set up what is needed to serve the lunch, or be a server, contact Catherine

Children to take a trip to Maymont, Tues. July 10

Maymont is a 100 acre Victorian estate in Richmond developed by James and Sallie Dooley, who lived there from 1893 through 1925. The place remains much as they left it since it was donated to the City of Richmond at James Dooley’s death.

You can read about all the activities. The ECW went there in 2015. One activity is to enjoy the animals – Maymont is home to hundreds of animals including mighty black bears, iconic American bald eagles, playful river otters and friendly goats. Contact Catherine to signup or help.

Lectionary, Pentecost 7, Proper 9 Year B

I. Theme – The Struggle of Prophecy – God’s presence turns weakness into strength.

Duccio - Jesus Commissions the twelve

"Appearence on the Mountain in Galilee" – Duccio di Buoninsegna (1308-11)

The lectionary readings are here or individually:

Old Testament – Ezekiel 2:1-5
Psalm – Psalm 123
Epistle –2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Gospel – Mark 6:1-13

The message in today’s scripture readings is that God works through the flesh, all human frailty and weakness notwithstanding. Ours is an incarnational faith, and if we could but grasp the dynamic implications of this reality, each professing Christian could become a powerhouse of God’s activity in the world.

The prophets who became spokespersons for God all felt inadequate to the call and protested their incompetence before God. In one way or another, God stood them on their feet. Ezekiel said, “The spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet.” Paul’s very weakness served the purpose of allowing the Holy Spirit to be the power that made him God’s messenger.

Jesus, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwelt, emptied himself to become fully human. As faithful people of God, we have also found that as we empty ourselves, the Holy Spirit fills us and dwells in us. Our lives become channels of God’s grace and power. However, self-emptying is neither a popular nor a well-understood idea. The buzzwords of our time are self-fulfillment and self-attainment, and self-seeking impulses often dominate our activities. Few realize that the spiritual world also abhors a vacuum, and that God, bidden to do so, will fill any offered space with the heavenly grace, life and power to work miracles of redemption in our lives.

Even so, we are not to expect all to understand or to be receptive to our incarnational experience. Jesus fared no better than the prophets before him. Their descendants jeered and suspected him. Satan is always present, throwing up barriers to faith. Even in the wilderness, Satan tempted Jesus to doubt his calling: “If you are the Son of God…”

Likewise, the devil sabotages faith in Nazareth. Jesus came to his own home and his own people said, “Who does he think he is?” God’s enemy pulls the same trick on us when we are about to dare something for the lord. Satan whispers in our ears, “Who do you think you are?” After all, people know where we come from too, and our credentials are not all that great. So our adventure for the lord is too often aborted by our lack of trust in God’s sufficiency.

The Nazarene villagers knew Jesus as a working man, a carpenter, and gave no credence to his authority on religious matters. We, on the other hand, are inclined to regard him as a religious teacher, doubting his relevance to the modern world of business, politics and international affairs. When we hesitate to apply his teachings to practical issues, we forfeit the experience of his sufficiency to work wonders through us.

David Lose on the Gospel

David Lose was called as senior pastor of Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis in 2017.

"While there are various elements in what amounts to/a two connected scenes – Jesus’ preaching in his hometown and then sending his disciples out – there is between them a fascinating movement and even transformation in the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. By the end of these scenes, the disciples are no longer observers, they are no longer just followers. Discipleship, as it turns out, is not just about learning from and following another, but also taking on the role and authority of the one you follow.

"What I find fascinating in the first scene is the treatment Jesus receives from his neighbors and hometown friends. Why such disdain? Perhaps it’s just that familiarity does indeed breed contempt. But perhaps it’s also that we have such a hard time receiving grace from unexpected places. Jesus wasn’t what they expected a prophet, let alone a Messiah, to look like. And to accept him as such was to call into question much of what they thought they knew about the world and about people and about themselves.

"I think it’s interesting to notice what does Jesus does in response. First, he cures a few folks but then seems almost unable to do any great work of power because they have no interest in receiving what he offers. And so he then commissions his disciples to go out. This mission to announce the kingdom and share God’s love, as it turns out, will take more than just one miracle worker, it will take a team of people empowered, equipped, and sent to witness to God’s grace, justice, and mercy.

"And notice that when the disciples are sent out, they are sent out to live utterly dependent on the grace and hospitality of others. They are not to take everything they need, but to invite others into their mission…and into their lives. Which is interesting, because while Jesus had just been on the receiving end of an extreme lack of hospitality, yet he knows that the human community he is forming has at its core the interdependence, mutuality, and utter vulnerability that true hospitality simultaneously demands and creates "

The courage to begin

"All serious daring starts from within."

-Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811-1896

"It is very dangerous to go into eternity with possibilities which one has oneself prevented from becoming realities. A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it. In every man there is latent the highest possibility, one must follow it. If God does not wish it then let him prevent it, but one must not hinder oneself. Trusting to God I have dared, but I was not successful; in that is to be found peace, calm and confidence in God. I have not dared: that is a woeful thought, a torment in eternity."

-Soren Kierkegaard, Journals 1813-1855

The courage to continue

"Christians will not be asked how they began but rather how they finished. St. Paul began badly but finished well. Judas’s beginning was praiseworthy but his end was despicable. Many start the climb but few reach the summit."

-St. Jerome c.347-420

"Whatever you do you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you into believing your critics are right. To map our a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories but it takes brave men and women to win them. "

-Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882

John Wesley’s birthday

John Wesley (1703) lived and died as an Anglican priest but was a founder of the Methodists. Though there’s no evidence that he actually wrote it himself, “John Wesley’s Rule” does a fair job of summing up his life, and provides inspiration for our own:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as you ever can.

1	[Harriet Beecher Stowe, Writer and Prophetic Witness, 1896]; also [Pauli Murray, Priest]
2	[Walter Rauschenbusch, 1918, Washington Gladden, 1918, and Jacob Riis, 1914, Prophetic Witnesses]
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4	Independence Day
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6	[Jan Hus, Prophetic Witness and Martyr, 1415]
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