Frontpage, Aug. 18, 2019

Aug. 18, 2019 – Pentecost 10

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The Week Ahead…

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Aug. 21 – 3:00om-5pm Village Harvest with School Supplies

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. Help the shoppers gather what they need. You can still bring cleaning supplies on the day since these are not available at the Food Bank. Thank you for your contributions of both food and time. Everyone can share in making this important St Peter’s ministry happen.

Aug. 23 – 5pm Ladies Night Out at the Riverside Dinner Theatre, Fredericksburg

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Aug. 25 – 9:00am – Holy Eucharist, Rite I

Aug. 25 – 11:00am – Morning Prayer, Rite II

Sunday, Aug. 25 Readings and Servers

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Ladies Night Out – South Pacific, Aug 23.

The story for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1949 musical, South Pacific, is drawn from a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel by James A. Michener, entitled Tales of the South Pacific, which dealt largely with the issue of racism. It is considered by most critics to be among the greatest musicals of the twentieth century. The original Broadway production won ten Tony Awards, including all four acting awards, and many of its songs went on to have a life of their own outside of the musical, including “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair,” “Happy Talk,” “Bali Ha’i,” “Younger than Springtime,” and “I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy.” It inspired a 1958 film adaptation and has enjoyed numerous successful revivals, including Broadway revivals in 1955 and 2008, and West End revivals in 1988 and 2001. The original production featured Mary Martin as Ensign Nellie Forbush and opera star Ezio Pinza, as Emile de Becque.

The musical opens on a South Pacific island, during World War II, where a naive young Navy nurse from Arkansas becomes romantically involved with Emile de Becque, a French plantation owner. In spite of the dangers of the ongoing war, Nellie sings to Emile that she is “A Cockeyed Optimist.” And in “Some Enchanted Evening,” Emile recalls fondly their first meeting at an officer’s club dinner. At the same time, the American sailors are growing restless and bored without and combat to keep them active or women to entertain them in their downtime (“There is Nothin’ Like a Dame”). One sailor, Luther Billis, hatches a plan to travel to Bali Ha’i, a nearby island where the French plantation owners are believed to have hidden their women. Meanwhile, a U.S. marine, Lieutenant Joe Cable, arrives on the island undercover on a dangerous spy mission crucial to the outcome of the war. A middle-aged grass skirt seller nicknamed “Bloody Mary,” one of the few women on the island, takes an immediate interest in Cable.

Read more South Pacific….

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We plan to distribute school supplies at the Village Harvests again in August (Aug 21). Caroline Schools begin Aug. 12. Please bring them and leave them on the back pew .

We have a list of requested supplies for Grade 1 to Grade 5 by grade and item. The list is here – School Supplies 2019-2020

The most prevalent items are glue sticks, crayons and gallon size ziploc bags, requested in all five grades. Four of the five grades request these items: dry erase markers, hand sanitizer, headphone or earbuds, highlighters, quart-size Ziploc bags.

Between the Village Harvest dates is the Virginia tax holiday this weekend, August 2-4, 2019. Qualified school supplies $20 or less per item will not be taxed.

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Help us win a bench – donate your plastic bags!

St. Peter’s is signed up for a charity program that is offered by the Trex Corporation. Trex Company, Inc. is a leading recycled materials manufacturer of wood-alternative decking, railings and other outdoor items

As a non-profit organization we have the opportunity to collect plastics in exchange for a bench made from recycled plastics (it never requires painting and will last for many generations). The bench, if we are awarded one, will likely be placed near our memorial garden in the cemetery.

We are nearing the end of our six month time frame for collection (Oct. 30) and have reached the half way point on collecting 500 pounds. Please help save our environment and get a free bench in the process by bringing your plastics to church.

Our collection container is a large white box with a hole in the top, located in the Parish House hallway. You may also bag it and place it in the back pew at church and someone else will be sure it lands in that box.

Types of plastics to include are:
1. Plastic grocery/store type bags
2. Shrink wraps
3. Ziplock bags (if they are clean)
4. Bread bags (shake out crumbs)
5. Plastic bubble wrap (deflated)
6. Toilet paper/paper towel overwrap
> NO hard plastics (no bottles, straws cups, etc

Here is the link to the program

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Lectionary, August 25, 2019 – Pentecost 11, Proper 16

I. Theme – The universality of God’s invitation to wholeness and the difficulty of responding to it.

Woman set free from ailment

The lectionary readings are here or individually:  

First Reading – Isaiah 58:9b-14
Psalm – Psalm 103:1-8
Epistle – Hebrews 12:18-29
Gospel – Luke 13:10-17 

Today’s readings remind us of the universality of God’s invitation to wholeness and the difficulty of responding to it. Isaiah identifies some characteristics of the right relationship with God. The author of Hebrews reminds us that the trials we undergo, though painful, come from the hand of a loving Father who is training us in holiness. Jesus’ words and actions reveal the tension between God’s desire for healing and our need for genuine conversion in order not to hinder God’s plan.

We are all too often concerned about rules—either rules such as the Ten Commandments, which throughout tradition we have assumed were passed down from God—or unspoken rules in society, such as who is in and who is out, who gets to speak and who must be silenced. We become so consumed by rules that we forget the original reason for them. The Sabbath was a gift from God to the people, but some leaders had forgotten and made the Sabbath into following rules. Jeremiah didn’t think he could speak because he was only a boy, and only elders (being men) could speak in public, but God called him to do so anyway. God shows us time and again there is another way—when we love one another, show compassion, have mercy, and do justice for others—we are following God’s ways much more than following a list of rules. The writer of Hebrews shows us that Jesus fulfilled a rule—the rule of sacrifice—in order to break it forever. And so must we follow the rule—the law—of love, in order to break the chains that keep us from loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Read more about the Lectionary….

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Ordinary Time, Aug. 25, 2019 – “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”

Here is the scripture from Luke 13:10-17 for this week

Jesus continues on the road to Jerusalem but there is a change in venue. Jesus had been speaking to disciples and large crowds. Now, he appears in "one of the synagogues." His presence in a synagogue is his first since leaving Galilee, and he will not visit another in Luke’s gospel. The conflict with Jewish leaders he will experience then is foreshadowed this story.

Jesus enters the synagogue and he seems to be in search of something. Just before this scene, Luke records a parable in which Jesus’ vineyard owner says, “For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none” (Luke 13:7). His sensitivity is heightened as he continues to search for “fig trees” that are bearing fruit.

He enters the synagogue immediately following this parable and will heal a Jewish lady who has been suffering for 18 years. Jesus heals the woman in sacred space (a synagogue, mentioned twice) and within sacred time, namely on a Sabbath (noted no fewer than five times), and he is criticized for this breach of the law. Jesus insists that the synagogue and the Sabbath are not the only things that are holy — so is this woman’s life. He is also guilty of touching a ritually unclean woman in their eyes. Jesus isn’t abolishing the Law of Moses, but helping the people in the synagogue have a better understanding of how to apply the law.

This isn’t his first healing in Luke. Earlier, in Chapter 4, Jesus heals a man with an unclean spirit. In Chapter 6, he healed a man whose hand was withered. On both occasions, Luke describes Jesus teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, but we are not informed about the content of his teaching. On both occasions, prominent religious leaders take offense at Jesus’ actions because of their view of what is allowable on the holy Sabbath day. By the end of chapter 13, Jesus’ search will turn into lament, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…” (cf. 13:34-35).

Jesus’ rebuttal is clever, for while untying an ox or a donkey on the sabbath was forbidden in one part of the Mishnah (a Jewish book of laws), it was permitted in another. His point is that the woman is far more important than animals, yet animals are allowed more freedom on the sabbath than is the woman. This woman is a "daughter of Abraham," heir to the same promise as Abraham.

Note the story is not about his teaching or even the faith of the people. Both stories are healing stories but, more significantly, for Luke, is the controversy these healings created due to questions of Jesus’ Sabbath practices. He doesn’t argue about Judaism, or the restriction.

Read more….

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 Aug 24 – The Feast Day of St. Bartholomew

Bartholomew was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, and is usually identified as Nathaniel and was a doctor. In Mark 3:18 he is one of the twelve Jesus calls to be with him. He was introduced to us as a friend of Philip, another of the twelve apostles as per (John 1:43-51), where the name Nathaniel first appears.

He was characterized by Jesus on the first meeing as a man "in whom there was no guile.” He is also mentioned as “Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee” in (John 21:2). His day is remembered on August 24. After the Resurrection he was favored by becoming one of the few apostles who witnessed the appearance of the risen Savior on the sea of Galilee (John 21:2).

From Eusebius history, Bartholomew went on a missionary tour to India, where he left behind a copy of the Gospel of Matthew. Other traditions record him as serving as a missionary in Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, Parthia, and Lycaonia.

Along with his fellow apostle Jude, Bartholomew is reputed to have brought Christianity to Armenia in the 1st century. Thus both saints are considered the patron saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He is said to have been martyred in in Armenia. According to one account, he was beheaded, but a more popular tradition holds that he was flayed alive and crucified, head downward. He is said to have converted Polymius, the king of Armenia, to Christianity. His brother consequently ordered Bartholomew’s execution. The 13th century Saint Bartholomew Monastery was a prominent Armenian monastery constructed at the site of the martyrdom of Apostle Bartholomew in what is today southeastern turkey

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