Frontpage, November 17, 2019

November 17, 2019

Carey’s sermon Nov 17, Carey and Catherine at Annual Convention, St. Peter’s against leaves, Cookie’s review of the 225th Annual Convention, Greeting to Carey and her mother, 5 year anniversary this week of the Village Harvest

Pictures and text from this Sunday, Nov. 17, 2019

Videos from this Sunday, Nov. 17, 2019

---

The Week Ahead…

Tues, Nov. 19- 9:30am – Village Harvest unloading

Help needed: 9:30ish, help needed to unload the truck. Many hands make light work. 1PM, help needed to set up. Wednesday, 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.

Tues, Nov. 19- 3:00pm – ECW Tea

Wed.,Nov. 20- 10:00am – Ecumenical Bible Study

Wed.,Nov. 20- 3:00pm – 5:00pm Village Harvest. Its our 5 year anniversary!

Wed.,Nov. 22- 6:00pm – 8:00pm Spanish Bible Study

---

Nov. 24 – 11:00am – Last Pentecost, Christ the King – Holy Eucharist Rite I

Nov. 24 – 11:00am – Last Pentecost, Christ the King – Holy Eucharist Rite II

Sunday, Nov. 24, Christ the King Readings and Servers

---

November Special Giving

1. UTO (United Thank Offering)

Betty Kunstmann will distribute the Blue Boxes on Sunday, November 3. Return the box or a check to St Peter’s with UTO in the memo line by Sunday, December 1.

Giving to the UTO increased across the nation in 2018. The UTO gave an additional $200,000 in grants this year. Four of the grants supported projects in the Anglican Communion.

At St. Peter’s, the Fall Ingathering a year ago was $563.32. (Spring ingathering was $325.36 for a total of $888.68 for the two ingatherings in 2018. The comparative total in 2017 was $757.09.)

2. ECM Thanksgiving

Collection begins Nov 3 and ended Nov. 17.

The ECM collected $287.50 last year for a Thanksgiving meal for 5 families, adding 2 families in 2018.

$237.77 was spent for Thanksgiving food for 5 families. They exceeded their scope in 2018 by adding 2 families this year.

---

ECW Tea, Tues, Nov. 19, 3pm

This event will be held at the home of Cookie and Johnny Davis

Last year 18 ladies came to Cookie Davis’ home to celebrate Thanksgiving, feast and fellowship and to consider ideas for distributing ECW funds for the end of 2018. They have collected about $4,000 from the monthly Village Dinners. In addition they were looking ahead to plan for 2019.

Here is the story on last year’s event with photos.

---

The Village Harvest at 5 – an appreciation

We reached a milestone  Nov. 20, 2019 – The Village Harvest, our food ministry, 5 years old

Let’s go back to its roots. Why  was it established?

The first notice of this ministry in November, 2014 said “The cost of food continues to rise and knowing that some of our Port Royal community might find it difficult to keep food on the table, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church wants to help. A new food ministry,  ‘Village Harvest’ will provide seasonal fresh produce once a month along with other  food and other supplies.  As we embark on this venture, it is our hope that we can grow it to help meet the specific needs of the community we serve.”

On Nov. 19, 2014  we attracted 60 clients and gave out 300 pounds that day. 5 years later in 2019 we are averaging almost twice that number at 112 and 4 times are much food. I have called it “Give a Little, Gain a Lot”

5 years later we have served over 6,800 clients over 64,500 pounds of food.  This year the average pounds of food per person is over 12  which at $6 a pound is worth $72. It is clearly one of our more visible and valuable outreach expressions from our church.  We are called to do like Jesus – and he fed people both physically and spiritually. Witness the stories of the Feeding of the 4,000 and 5,000.

…Read more…

---

Giving Tuesday is coming up on Dec. 3

#GivingTuesday is a global giving movement that has been built by individuals, families, organizations, businesses and communities in all 50 states and in countries around the world

We have two days for getting deals for us– Black Friday and Cyber Monday. On #GivingTuesday, we have a day for giving back. Giving Tuesday can us share what we are doing with the larger community.

Our goal last year was Giving Tuesday $1,200 and we collected $1,267.50. Thanks to all who contributed! We would like to shoot for $1,350 this year which is doable.

We are targeting the Village Harvest again in 2019 due to costs of the ministry. We are averaging $187 (average 10 months) or over $2,250 a year. Help us recover the cost and even add to our resources to do more.

* Your $10 donation would feed 6 people. Each would get 12 pounds of food or 72 pounds in total.

* Your $20 donation would feed 12 people. Each would received 12 pounds of food of 144 pounds in total.

…Read more about the Village Harvest and Giving Tuesday…

---

Online Courses for Advent and Christmas

A Christmas Carol, about the redemption of Ebeneezer Scrooge has many references to the Bible as well as Dickens’ life. We have the entire book in this course plus many ‘drop-down’ asides that cover the connections

The Messiah, A Christmas favorite, is an Oratorio. What is an Oratorio and how different is it from an opera ? The Christmas portion of the Messiah is only part 1 of the larger work. We will concentrate on its plot, it use of Bible readings as well as see and hear some great performance

Here is the link to both courses

---

Christ the King Sunday, Nov 24, 2019 

 

We celebrate Christ the King Sunday as the last Sunday of Ordinary Time just before we begin Advent. It is the switch in the Liturgy between Years A, B, and C. This year we will switch from Year C with a focus on the Gospel According to Luke to Year A reading passages from the Gospel According to Matthew.

The earliest Christians identified Jesus with the predicted Messiah of the Jews. The Jewish word "messiah," and the Greek word "Christ," both mean "anointed one," and came to refer to the expected king who would deliver Israel from the hands of the Romans. Christians believe that Jesus is this expected Messiah. Unlike the messiah most Jews expected, Jesus came to free all people, Jew and Gentile, and he did not come to free them from the Romans, but from sin and death. Thus the king of the Jews, and of the cosmos, does not rule over a kingdom of this world

Christians have long celebrated Jesus as Christ, and his reign as King is celebrated to some degree in Advent (when Christians wait for his second coming in glory), Christmas (when "born this day is the King of the Jews"), Holy Week (when Christ is the Crucified King), Easter (when Jesus is resurrected in power and glory), and the Ascension (when Jesus returns to the glory he had with the Father before the world was created).

The recent celebration came from the Catholics in the 20th century who saw some dangerous signs on the horizon…

Read more…

---

Church Liturgical Year Table

This time of year there is a focus on the church calendar as we end one year and begin another. Here is a handy table. We have a separate page that provides descriptions of the calendar details.

---

Christ the King Lectionary Sunday, Nov 24, 2019 

I.Theme –   Jesus –  A real king – bringing God’s reign of justice and mercy to earth 

The lectionary readings are here  or individually: 

Old Testament – Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm – Psalm 46
Epistle –Colossians 1:11-20
Gospel – Luke 23:33-43

This is a transitional Sunday. Christ the King Sunday signals the end of Ordinary Time and the end of our use of the Year C readings. 

The end of year readings are partially about kingship – good kings, bad kings and our treatment of them.  Jeremiah provides an analysis of bad kings – blamed for scattering the sheep and being evil. This is not just one ruler but a trend.

A secondary theme is God’s role in all of this. God will make good kings again and restore the people’s relationship to the earth and to each other. The Psalm demonstrates God’s protection and like a King defense of the people.  It is a praise psalm.  While there will be troubles, dislocations and wounds,  ultimately God will be bring peace end division. 

All of this culminates in the Gospel reading. Jesus is God’s way of ruling in this world and in the world to come.  His ruling was born out of struggle. We are there with him with criminals on either side of him.

Then we see Jesus exercising his dominion in the midst of mockery, coercion, and arrogance. His two "words" from the cross in Luke’s account enact his authority. The first (Luke 23:34) fits powerfully in the narrativep style=: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing!"

The second (Luke 23:43) anticipates Jesus’ authority as the Son of Man, conferring mercy on sinners in God’s ultimate judgment: "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."  He is there meeting the needs of those around him. 

Joining Jesus in paradise had nothing to do with dying. It had nothing to do with being raised from the dead. It had everything to do with seeing beyond the appearances to the truth, that God is victorious in the cross. It has everything to do with the thief’s realization that his own condemnation on the cross bore no relationship to his standing before God. 

He asks neither to be rescued from this plight nor revenged for his suffering. Rather, he wants only to be remembered, to not be forgotten. And how does Jesus respond? He exceeds even the criminal’s wildest expectations, declaring that today, even now, he would enter with Jesus into paradise.  In that moment, he became free. 

The Gospel is the story of how Jesus the Messiah of God brought God’s reign of justice and mercy to earth, and Luke’s account presents the crucified Messiah enacting God’s reign, surrounded by mocking, brutal violence.

David Lose writes how Jesus became a real king. "What kind of king is this, who welcomes a criminal into his realm and promises relief and release amid obvious agony? It is a king who refuses to conform to the expectations of this world, who will be governed neither by its limited vision of worthiness nor its truncated understanding of justice. It is a king who is not content to rule from afar, but rather comes to meet us in our weakness and need. It is a king willing to embrace all, forgive all, redeem all, because that is his deepest and truest nature. It is, finally, our king, come to usher us into his kingdom even as he implores us to recognize and make more manifest that kingdom already around us. 

Read more…

---