September 16, 2018, Season of Creation 3B
Ducks enjoy a St. Peter’s water puddle, St. Peter’s cross reflected in another puddle, flox, leaves turning and falling, “Fairy” mushrooms, Fall Crocus. Nature is alive!
Pictures and text from this Sunday, Sept. 16
The Week Ahead…
Sept. 19 – 10am-12pm, Ecumenical Bible Study
Sept. 19 – 3pm-5pm, Village Harvest
Bring a loaf of bread to share at the harvest. Help needed: 9:30ish, help needed to unload the truck. Many hands make light work. 1PM, help needed to set up. 3-5PM help needed for the distribution itself.
Sept. 23 – 10:00am, Living the Good News Christian Ed
Sept. 23 – 11:00am, Season of Creation 4, Holy Eucharist II
Sunday, Sept 23 Readings and Servers
Looking Ahead …
Gospel on the River – Sat, Sept. 29, 5pm at the Heimbach home
Creating nature mandalas with Karen Richardson during Christian education, Sept 30, 10am
ECW Fall Meeting – Thurs.,Oct 11. 8:30am registration The meeting will be at Epiphany Episcopal church in Oak Hill, VA. The registration is due Oct. 1. Registration Form
Stewardship – Sept 16, Distribution of 2019 Pledge Cards
Elizabeth, Stewardship message, Sept. 16, 2018
Stewardship is … “Using the gifts that God gives us to do the work God calls us to do.” No gift is too large for God’s work. We give back as we are given by God.
Pledging should be about growing your faith. As your faith grows so should your giving.
Make your pledge for 2019 and return it Sunday, Oct. 7
If you didn’t receive a pledge card in church, you can pledge online
The Commitment
A better word than pledge card is commitment card. We commit so we can give:>
- Commit to help us reduce hunger in this area, through the Village Harvest Distribution
- Commit to us to bring hope to our community,
- Commit to help us bring comfort to those suffering in sickness or loneliness,
- Commit to help us in Christian education and encourage fellowship.
- Commit so we can make a difference.
What should be our commitment to what God has given us ?
God calls us to share in God’s mission of caring for the world, using all the gifts God has given us. Our gifts includes those of treasure. Over 80% of the funds used to support and plan for ministry in a year come from pledges.
Got Questions ?
Is my stewardship defined only by the money I give to the church?
Why should I pledge ?
How much should I give ?
See our Faq
Why Give to St. Peter’s
- Giving is an act of worship along with prayers, sermons and music. Get your money’s worth of the service and give—it is a blessing to be able to do so. Moreover, give till it feels good!
- Giving allows our ministries to expand. As Scott Gunn writes at Forward Movement, “Jesus was always taking his followers to new places, literally and metaphorically… As followers of Jesus, I think we’re called to go to new places.”
- Giving acknowledges the reality is that all we have was given by God anyway. All that we are is a gift . From Deuteronomy – The Lord “gives you power to get wealth” which includes labor, influence, finances and expertise.
- Giving is part of our responsibilities in the baptismal covenant (look in the Prayer Book, pgs. 304-305). We commit our lives to reconcile ourselves to God and to one another. Lives are transformed with our gifts to change and repair a broken world as we reconcile ourselves to God. As Bishop Curry likes to say -“change the world from the nightmare it often is into the dream that God intends.”
- We freely receive from God so we should freely give back. We mess up in so many ways in our lives but grace is never held back by God so don’t withhold your gifts from God.
Connecting our Stewardship Campaign to the Season of Creation
Language from the Bible supports both the Season of Creation and our pledge campaign using the language of – planting, growth, production of fruit, and feeding.
Here’s some of our language and imagery, linking these practices, both ancient and continuing, with our common life at St. Peter’s:
- Plant: We begin with the seeds: Worship and prayer, baptism, evangelism, welcoming, pastoral care
- And the seeds soon grow: Education, communications, upkeep of buildings and grounds
- And produce fruit: Fellowship, belonging, new members, confirmation, marriages
- To feed people who are hungry in body and spirit: Village Harvest, Village Dinner, Christmas and Thanksgiving Season of Giving -welcoming community groups to our Church
- And our roots are deep: Tradition, reconciliation…
- Settled into the ground of our being: Jesus Christ
- Watered by the vows of the Baptismal Covenant – to continue in worship, repent and return, respect the dignity of others.
- Jesus said, “I am the vine, You are the branches…bear much fruit.”
- All of this depends on your gifts, regular income that provides the rector and staff; that lights, heats, and cools our buildings, that provides materials for worship, for service, for outreach.
Celebrating Hildegard -1098-1179) – musician, writer, prophetess – and saint
We celebrate Hildegard’s life on September 17.
Accounts written in Hildegard’s lifetime (1098-1179) and just after describe an extraordinarily accomplished woman: a visionary, a prophet (she was known as “The Sibyl Of The Rhine”), a pioneer who wrote practical books on biology, botany, medicine, theology and the arts. She was a prolific letter-writer to everyone from humble penitents looking for a cure for infertility to popes, emperors and kings seeking spiritual or political advice. She composed music and was known to have visions
Hildegard commanded the respect of the Church and political leaders of the day. She was a doer: she oversaw the building of a new monastery at Rupertsberg, near Bingen, to house her little community, and when that grew too large she established another convent in Eibingen, which still exists today (though the present building dates from 1904).
Lectionary, Season of Creation 4, Year B
I. Theme – Looking to future perfection and glory
In God’s time, all creation will be gloriously healed and completed. God’s time spreads over eternity, unfathomable to human beings and even at times to creation itself. And yet, hints of God’s perfect timing are visible as the earth revolves and summer changes to fall, then to winter, and then to the new life that spring brings from the heart of the earth itself. We, caught up in the seconds and minutes of our lives, are stressed and anxious, and we harm ourselves and the earth in our anxiety over the passing of time and the need to hoard and to hold on to things as they are, or have been, or through our own might, to halt the passage of time. Living in trust and in hope that God’s time will bring the raising up of things cast down, the old will being made new, and all of creation being brought to perfection, frees us to live in harmoniously in right relationship with God, with one another and with creation itself.
Ecclesiastes in Music
The Old Testament reading is the famous passages from Eccleasistes 3:1-8 used in weddings, funerals and many events. It is best known in its transformation into song.
Pete Seeger, an American Folk Singer, wrote "Turn, Turn, Turn" in the late 1950’s. It was based on the King James version of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. The song was originally released in 1962 as "To Everything There Is a Season" on the folk group the Limeliters’ "Folk Matinee" and then some months later on Seeger’s own "The Bitter and the Sweet."
The folk rock group the Byrds made it into an international hit in 1965. The idea of reviving the song came to lead guitarist McGuinn during the Byrds’ July 1965 tour of the American Midwest, when his future wife, Dolores, requested the tune on the Byrds’ tour bus. McGuinn added harmonies and the Byrd’s trade mark 12-string Rickenbacker guitar.
Focus on 5 areas of the Environment in the Season of Creation
We have taken the five Sundays reading and highlighted a specific environmental area which we will cover weekly. (This week, Climate Change.) 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. ”
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. ”
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.”
This Week – Understanding Climate Change
Article – Hurricane Florence and climate change
Article – Global Warming Primer
Article – Global Warming & Climate Change Myths
Article – Climate -Climate change could render many of Earth’s ecosystems unrecognizable
Article – Climate Change is making storms like Hurricane Florence even worse
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
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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. 23, 2018 11:00am), and Sermon (Sept. 16, 2018) |
Block Print by Mike Newman
Projects
| Green | Ordinary Time | Jun 3-Oct 31 | |
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Saints of the Week, Sept. 16 – Sept. 23
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16
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Ninian, Bishop, c. 430 |
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17
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Hildegard of Bingen, 1170 |
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18
18 |
Edward Bouverie Pusey, Priest, 1882 Dag Hammarskjold, Diplomat, 1961 |
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19
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Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, 690 |
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20
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John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia, and his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 |
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21
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Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist |
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22
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Philander Chase, Bishop, 1852 |
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23
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Thecla of Iconium, Proto-Martyr among Women, c.70 |