September 2, 2018, Season of Creation 1B
From left to right top to bottom -The Peace, Cookie Davis’ flowers, prelude violin and piano, fabric from Guatemala on the altar, Catherine’s sermon, examples of Creation at St. Peter’s, the belfry alive with the sun.
Pictures and text from this Sunday, Sept. 2
The Week Ahead…
Sept. 5 – 10am-12pm, Ecumenical Bible Study return
Sept. 5 – 5pm-6:30pm, Village Dinner
Sept. 9 – 10:00am, Living the Good News Christian Ed – Children
Sept. 9 – 10:00am, Season of Creation Christian Ed – Adults
Sept. 9 – 11:00am, Season of Creation 2, Holy Eucharist II
Sunday, Sept 9 Readings and Servers
Oct. 11 – ECW Fall Meeting. 8:30am, registration, 9:30am, meeting, 1:30pm Eucharist. Registration by Oct. 1 The meeting will be at Epiphany Episcopal church 3301 Hidden Meadow Drive, Oak Hill, VA 20171. More information
Christian Ed for Children – Living the Good News
In 2011-2012 we emphasized the lectionary for both Adult Ed and Children using “Living the Good News”. We are returning to it in the fall of 2018 for children of all ages. It has a supporting introduction on Youtube.
From their website Living the Good News is:
- Lectionary-Based
With Living the Good News, your church’s education program focuses on the same cycle of weekly readings used in your worship services; it also provides an opportunity for everyone in your education program, from Nursery to Adult, to center on the same theme, providing a "whole community" approach.At the youngest levels, the curriculum almost always (but not exclusively) focuses on the gospel reading. The Adult level always includes ALL the readings. As you go down in age level, fewer of the readings are included, until, at Primary and below, it is almost always the gospel.
Christian Ed for Adults – Season of Creation for Adults, 10am Parish House
During this four week series starting Sept 9, we’ll consider and discuss scriptures that illustrate the theme of the week, spend some time in prayer based on the theme, and leave with some ideas to consider during the week that follows.
Week 1 – Theme 1—September 9 Finding God in Creation
“God is present in and through creation. We can better understand the character of God by seeing how God interacts with all of creation. The more we know of God, the more we grow in our love for and connection to God and what God has created.”
Read more..Season of creation for adults
Season of Creation
Sept 1 – Oct 4, 2018
For Five Sundays in September we will be in this optional lectionary within Pentecost. The end of the season, Oct. 4, is the Feast of St. Francis.
Sept 1 was proclaimed as a day of prayer for creation (World Day of Prayer for Creation, or Creation Day) by Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I for the Orthodox in 1989, and was embraced by the other major Christian European churches in 2001 and by Pope Francis for the Roman Catholic Church in 2015.
The event is celebrated in many faith traditions and has a centralized website. The theme of this year’s celebration is “walking together.” As brothers and sisters in Christ, we are on a pilgrimage to better care of creation.
In walking together, we follow the role of Jesus, who walked with friends on the roads around Jerusalem. As he traveled the byways of his community, Jesus invited us to encounter God through God’s presence in creation. Whether by considering “the lilies of the field” or the “grain of wheat that falls to the earth,” the spiritual journey of following Jesus is closely tied to the everyday wonders of nature that He experienced in His earthly journey.
Why a Season of Creation ?
From The Season of Creation: A Preaching Commentary by Norman C. Habel and David Rhoads
There are many reasons! Here are seven of them:
First, because God is first and foremost the Creator of all of life. To fail to focus adequately on this dimension of God’s reality in worship is to fail to appreciate the fullness God’s work, and it is to narrow and diminish our relationship with God. Our own fullness of life depends upon our relationship with God as Creator.
Second, because we were created with the rest of nature. We came from Earth and we cannot survive without all that Earth provides. Just as Earth has creative powers, so Earth itself has restorative powers. Unless we have centered opportunities to express awareness of and gratitude for our dependence upon Earth and our relationship with other creatures, we will not be whole as human beings.
Third, because God has given us a creation to celebrate with! In recent years, much of humanity has viewed creation as a resource to be exploited rather than a mystery to be celebrated and sustained. The time has come not only to celebrate creation but to transform our human relationship to creation by worshiping in solidarity with creation
Fourth, because through worship we have an opportunity to come to terms with the current ecological crises in a spiritual way so as to empathize with a groaning creation. Worship provides a viable and meaningful way not only to include creation’s praise of God but also to engender a deep relationship with the suffering of a groaning creation.
Fifth, because a fresh focus on the wonders and wounds of creation will help us in positive ways to love creation and so care for creation as our personal vocation and our congregational ministry. Worshiping with this new awareness may well provide the impetus for a new mission for the church, a mission to creation.
Sixth, because this season enables us to celebrate the many ways in which Christ is connected with creation. From the mystery of the incarnation to the mystery of a cosmic Christ who reconciles all things in heaven and Earth, we celebrate the connection of Christ with creation. And we seek to identify with Earth in solidarity with Christ.
Seventh, because this season enables us to deepen our understanding and experience of the Holy Spirit in relationship with creation. As the “Giver of life” and the “Sustainer of life,” the Holy Spirit is the source of our empowerment, inspiration, and guidance as we seek to live in a way sustainable for all God’s creation. Being “in the unity of the Holy Spirit” encompasses our relationship with all of life. This is foundational for our worship.
What is the Season of Creation ?
The Season of Creation is an optional season for the church year. For the most part, the seasons of the church year follow the life of Jesus: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. The remainder of the church year encompasses Pentecost season (or Ordinary Time), which celebrates life in the Holy Spirit.
For centuries, our theology our theology has focused on relationship with God and our human relationships with one another. The Season of Creation focuses God’s relationship with all creation and with our relationship with creation (and with God through creation). It highlights our role in understanding and addressing address the ecological problems we face today as a part of God’s creation.
“Fun fact: planet Earth is 4.5 billion years old.
Mankind? About 140,000 years old.
Let me put that in perspective:
If you condense the Earth’s lifespan into 24 hours,
that’s one full day,
then we have been here on this planet for…
…drumroll please…
…three seconds.
Three seconds, and look what we’ve done….”
Prince Ea’s annotation for the video.
Lectionary, Season of Creation 2, Year B
I. Theme – Abundance through Water
Because of God’s graciousness and mercy, we have all that we need, and even more than we could ever ask for or imagine. In Isaiah, water is a sign of God’s overflowing generosity to all of creation. Jesus, turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana, provides more for the guests than anyone would have thought possible or even reasonable. To celebrate and to share this abundance with that same sort of profligate generosity shapes our calling as followers of Jesus.
Water is part of transformation of life (Isaiah), the promise of salvation and everlasting life. It can be associated with cleansing or generosity (as in the Gospel).
Water in Christian Life
Water is a primal force of creation and cleansing. The Old Testament create story describes the earth as nothing but darkness but with the Spirit of God "hovering over the waters." The story of Noah shows God cleansing the earth with a great flood.
Water has positive and negative sides We toured the Waterways exhibit in Feb., 2018 at the Fredericksburg Museum and brought out the dual role of water. Pictures and description of visit.
In John’s telling of Jesus’ first miracle, Jesus asks the servants to “Fill the jars with water,” and they fill them to the brim. Similarly, the Polynesian residents fill their rainwater harvesting tanks to the brim and experience a similar miracle of transformation from what could be a disastrous situation into one of good news and hope.
Water is very present in Baptism. Baptism means immersion or bath in Greek. The immersion cleanses the person of sin and provides rebirth into Christian life.
The Holy Spirit is the source of all life. It is the Spirit that moves over the waters of chaos, bringing Life. The Spirit’s presence at Jesus’ baptism is the sign that he is truly human – a human being in the image of God filled with the Life of God. Jesus fulfils God’s purposes in creating human beings. In John 3:5 Jesus answered Nicodemus, "No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit."
Focus on 5 areas of the Environment in the Season of Creation
We have taken the five Sundays readings and highlighted a specific environmental area which we will cover weekly. (This week, earth; last week water.) How is this area affecting us ? What can we do at St. Peter’s and individually to improve our use of them ?
Isaiah 55:9-10
“8 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater.”
Collect
“O God, creator of heaven and earth, you have filled the world with beauty and abundance. Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works; that rejoicing with your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness; for the sake of him through whom all things were made, your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. ”
3. Food – Sept 16
James 5:7-8
“Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. ”
4. Climate – Sept 23
Romans 8:18-21
“18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ”
5. Energy – Sept 30
Isaiah 40:28-31
“The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
30 Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
31 but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.”
Prayers for the Earth
Based on the Fifth Mark of Mission
To Strive
God, creator of the universe,
Fill us with your love for the creation,
for the natural world around us,
for the earth from which we come
and to which we will return.
Awake in us energy to work for your world;
let us never fall into complacency, ignorance,
or being overwhelmed by the task before us.
Help us to restore, remake, renew. Amen
To Safeguard
Jesus, Redeemer of the World,
Remind us to consider the lost lilies,
the disappearing sparrows;
teach us not to squander precious resources;
help us value habitats: seas, deserts, forests
and seek to preserve this world in its diversity.
Alert us to the cause of all living creatures
destroyed wantonly for human greed or pleasure;
Help us to value what we have left
and to learn to live without taking more than we give. Amen
Integrity of Creation
Spirit of the Living God
At the beginning you moved over the face of the waters.
You brought life into being, the teeming life
that finds its way through earth and sea and air
that makes its home around us, everywhere.
You know how living things flourish and grow
How they co-exist; how they feed and breed and change
Help us to understand those delicate relationships,
value them, and keep them from destruction. Amen
To Sustain
God, of the living earth
You have called people to care for your world –
you asked Noah to save creatures from destruction.
May we now understand how to sustain your world –
Not over-fishing, not over-hunting,
Not destroying trees, precious rainforest
Not farming soil into useless dust.
Help us to find ways to use resources wisely
to find a path to good, sustainable living
in peace and harmony with creatures around us. Amen
To Renew
Jesus, who raised the dead to life
Help us to find ways to renew
what we have broken, damaged and destroyed:
Where we have taken too much water,
polluted the air, poured plastic into the sea,
cut down the forests and soured fertile soils.
Help all those who work to find solutions to
damage and decay; give hope to those
who are today working for a greener future. Amen
Anne Richards, Mission Theology Advisory Group, Resources available on www.ctbi.org.uk The Dispossession Project: Eco-House
|
2. Contact the Rev Catherine Hicks, Rector 4. Sept., 2018 Server Schedule 5. Latest Newsletter-the Parish Post (Sept, 2018) 6. Calendar 9. Latest Sunday Bulletin (Sept. 9, 2018 11:00am), and Sermon (Sept. 2, 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, Sept. 2 – Sept. 9
|
2
|
The Martyrs of New Guinea, 1942 |
|
3
|
|
|
4
|
Paul Jones, 1941; also [Albert Schweitzer, Physician, 1965] |
|
5
|
[Gregorio Aglipay, Priest and Founder of the Philippine Independent Church, 1940] |
|
6
|
|
|
7
|
[Elie Naud, Huguenot Witness to the Faith, 1722] |
|
8
|
|
|
9
|
Constance, Nun, and her Companions, 1878 |