We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, and we respect and honor with gratitude the land itself, the legacy of the ancestors, and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

Commentary

Luke- Sending out the Seventy (Gospel July 6, 2025)

This story speaks of the seventy whom Jesus sent out. Working Preacher calls it a kind of “internship,” a training time while Jesus was still with them. This story is a series of instructions by Jesus . Jesus sends out the twelve earlier in the story and gives them instructions about what they are to do (Luke 9:1-6). The mission of the seventy is an extension of the mission of the twelve. One major difference is that this is a mission in Samaria. This is a peace mission among Samaritans who were often hostile to Jews in Galilee and Judea.

Our passage today, unique to Luke, is intimately related both to Jesus’ words in 9:1-6, when he sends out the 12, and 9:51-62 (last week), where he rather harshly dismisses potential followers who have to “take care of things” before they follow Jesus. He possibly was sending out all of his followers in this lesson.

The number seventy is reminiscent of the seventy elders of Moses in Numbers 11:16-17. Just as these seventy men were destined to become the leaders of the Old Testament community, the seventy missionaries/disciples in Luke were destined to become the leaders of the New Testament community. In the Old Testament, the Lord God said that he would “take some of the Spirit that was on Moses and put it on them/the seventy that they could also bear the burden of the people.” In the New Testament, the implication is that the Spirit of Jesus would be transferred to these seventy missionaries/disciples, and that they would be equipped for leadership in the new movement of faith. It is representative of the number of nations in the world.

The urgency of the mission is emphasized. Jesus begins by using an agricultural metaphor. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” The Day of Judgment (harvest) is close at hand so there is a need to look to the Lord to supply a full complement of missioners. In Jesus’ day, people intuitively understood when the fields were ripe for harvesting. Plowing, planting, watering, caring for, weeding are all different activities before harvesting. Harvesting means that the plants are ready to be gathered in or picked off the tree or from the field. Jesus was saying that people were ready to be harvested.

This was certainly true in Jesus’ day: a myriad of people were ready to belong to the kingdom but what was needed were more workers.

The mission was the same as Jesus’ own ministry: “cure the sick” and “say to them, ‘the kingdom of God has come near to you.’”

In any case, Verses 1-11 give us a snap-shot into the life of an itinerant preacher-teacher-healer at the time of Jesus.

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Green is for Growth in Ordinary Time

Adapted from “Anglican Compass”

The color green is associated in the season of Ordinary Time. It appears in green clergy vestments, in green fabrics on the altar and pulpit, and sometimes in green hangings or other adornments. You might even choose to wear green on occasion (no obligation to do so!).

This green represents growth. Just as we see green in the growing plants of the natural world, green appointments in the church remind us of God’s creation, his gift of food for our flourishing, and his command to numerical and spiritual growth.

The Green in God’s Creation

In nature, green is the universal color of vegetation, including trees, bushes, grass, and all manner of edible crops. Scientifically speaking, plants’ chlorophyll absorbs the blues and reds in the light spectrum, leaving the greens reflected in our sight. Green is not the most common color on earth (that distinction belongs to the blue of waters and skies), but it is the color most associated with growth and the food that growth requires.

Green is the only color named explicitly in the Genesis creation account, where God gives to the animals “every green plant for food,” and likewise gives to man “every plant yielding seed” and “every tree with seed in its fruit” (Genesis 1:29-30).

Moreover, the home God made for man was a garden, which contained “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Genesis 2:9). In other words, God expressly linked the sight of green trees with the expectation of good food.

By analogy, when we see green in the church, it is a sign of the good food we will find there.

The Green in God’s Temple
The analogy between the church and the green garden of Eden is not as far-fetched as it may seem. God has always made a link between his place of worship and the Garden of Eden, both through figural symbolism and the color green.

The Tabernacle and the Temple both featured figural symbolism of plants and fruits, including the lamp stand shaped like an almond tree (Exodus 25:31-34), priestly vestments adorned with pomegranates (Exodus 28:33-34), Temple doors carved with gourds and open flowers (1 Kings 6:18), and all around the walls of the Temple were carvings of palm trees and open flowers (1 Kings 6:29).

Similarly, the design of both the Tabernacle and the Temple referred back to the Garden with strategic use of the color green. This color was achieved not through fabric, but rather through the metal bronze, which oxidizes into a green patina. In the Tabernacle, bronze appeared in many places, but most importantly as the material for the altar (Exodus 27:1-8). Thus, just as in the garden, the color green was linked to the provision of food. Green altar fabrics in churches today make the same association.

The Temple featured bronze in its great pillars at the entrance of the building, complete with capitals engraved with pomegranates and lilies (1 Kings 7:15-22). To someone entering the Temple, it must have felt utterly transporting, the green pillars like glorified trees of a new Eden.

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Pentecost 3 Proper 8, Year C

I. Theme – Our relationship with God always comes at a price

The lectionary readings are here  or individually:

First Reading – 1 Kings 19:15-16,19-21 Psalm – Psalm 16 Epistle –Galatians 5:1,13-25 Gospel – Luke 9:51-62

Today we learn that our relationship with God always comes at a price. In 1 Kings, we hear the story of how God first called Elisha as Elijah’s successor. Paul urges the Galatians to use their spiritual freedom to live in the Spirit. Jesus teaches his disciples the cost of following him.

What a familiar response we hear to the call to discipleship in today’s stories. When Elijah anoints Elisha to be his successor, Elisha begs to return home first to say farewell to his family. Elijah grants him leave. This does not seem to be an unreasonable request.

By contrast, Jesus dismisses with blunt retorts the excuses to put off following him. Why does Jesus sound so irascible and demanding? Does he really require such total renunciation of all natural and material considerations of every would-be follower? We know that most of the time we can look on Jesus’ own life as a model for ours. And he had gone exactly to this extent to serve God. He had renounced home, family and worldly possessions, even to having “nowhere to lay his head.”

Perhaps this is one of the times we are justified in interpreting a New Testament scene in the light of its historical context. Jesus knew he was on his way to death in Jerusalem. He had just been refused even basic accommodations in a Samaritan village. His message and ministry had been met generally with rejection, apathy, controversy, misunderstanding and open opposition. Time was running out. He was faced with finding a band of followers whose dedication would be equal to the task of continuing his mission after he was gone.

Nothing but total detachment from normal life would qualify them for such an awesome calling. Jesus’ disciples needed to know the urgency and the primacy of the commitment. In the passage we have read today, Jesus was in the process of sorting out the ones who could meet the cost of discipleship at that particular time.

Such detachment is not a blanket assignment for all Christians. The Church is perpetuated largely by Christians who live normal lives involving family, home, work and participation in society in general.

Some are called to religious orders or into the mission field or work among the needy. They are called to follow Jesus’ example in renunciation of natural and material attachments in order to be totally consecrated to their mission. The Church has been richer and more inspired because of their commitment.

To those of us who are not called in such a way, the example of self-denial and self-discipline remains a vital factor of our discipleship. We still have to count the cost of following Jesus. We still have to make service to God our first priority and acknowledge God as our “good above all other.” However we choose to serve and follow the lord, it is the Spirit who enables us to do it. The Spirit does set us free from being overly concerned about our earthly ties and treasures. The whole law is fulfilled as we love our neighbors as ourselves.

We know that God keeps God’s end of the covenant, even when we go astray, even when we have willfully rejected God, God cannot reject us. It is our own rejecting of God that separates us, our own clinging to worldly ways and values that keeps us from following God’s ways of love and justice. It is this failure to leave worldly understandings that built up the walls between Jewish and Gentile believers in Paul’s day, and causes us to continue to keep walls and boundaries between others today. We are called to break down those walls by following Jesus, and we are called to leave those worldly values and understandings behind.

In the spirit of the passage from Galatians, God is moving through every aspect of our personal and congregational life, bringing all of the strands together in ways that promote wholeness individual, community, and planet. We need to let go of egocentrism and self-interest, to seek the well-being of our most vulnerable companions and to express God’s love in deed and word. Such actions are bold indeed; they will cost us something, but they will also bring us more than we can ask and imagine in blessings and power to heal the Earth. Grace enables us to become large-souled persons who see our own well-being and the well-being of others as intimately connected.

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Gospel this week – Who are the Samaritans?

Research indicates Samaritans emerged as a distinct community during the Persian (550-330 BCE) and Hellenistic periods (323-31 BCE), solidifying their identity in opposition to the Jewish community centered in Jerusalem. The construction of their temple on Mount Gerizim, possibly in the 5th or 4th century BCE, marked a definitive split, establishing a rival center of worship to the Jerusalem Temple.

Mt. Gerizim.

Samaritanism shares many foundational elements with Judaism, yet differing significantly in key aspects. Their sacred text is the Samaritan Pentateuch, their version of the first five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). They reject all other books of the Hebrew Bible (Prophets and Writings) and the Oral Law (Mishnah, Talmud) that are central to rabbinic Judaism.

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Introduction to Galatians

We will be reading Galatians as the Epistle on June 22, 29 and July 6. Here is some background to Paul’s letter.

In the face of Jewish opposition, the southern region of Galatia had been fertile soil for Paul’s ministry as he traveled with his companion, Barnabas, through cities recorded by Luke in Acts 13 and 14 . However, after Paul left the area of Galatia he received news that some trouble-makers were agitating the believers . Although Paul was not completely sure of the identity of his opponents (Galatians 5:10), apparently a group of Jewish Christians, or possibly local Jews, were teaching that submission to the Jewish law was a requirement of salvation. Paul’s letter to the Galatians was a result of the challenges the Galatians were facing, but also reflected a continuing debate regarding the applicability of the Torah in Jerusalem and Antioch in Syria.

Paul’s opponents viewed adherance to the law as an integral part of maintaining and, likely, procuring a relationship with God . In order to further their agenda, the agitators attempted to undermine Paul’s authority, claim Paul’s gospel was not true, and charge that the gospel preached by Paul would lead to immorality. Paul addressed the issues of the law with various arguments.

The crucial language utilized by Paul arguing for the sufficiency of the Christian faith climaxes with “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 5:20) which naturally leads to the recognition that righteousness, which the Jewish Christians were attempting to accomplish through the futility of human effort, can only be realized by grace via faith. In other words, “Christ in me” imputes righteousness not the Law, otherwise, “Christ died needlessly” (Galatians 5:21-3:2).

Longenecker in the book The Cambridge Companion to St Paul identifies four significant Pauline points which decimate the opponent’s gospel which, of course, is no gospel at all (Galatians 1:6-7):  

1 Morality –Paul emphasizes that a morality is central to a life with Christ. This righteousness frees believers from the need to acquire significance or justification from immoral idolatries such as human performance by realizing the very thing we are striving for already exists.

2 The Law -Paul explains the entirety of the Law is fulfilled in one word: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians 5:14). In other words, through “service to others the expectations of the law are fully concretized in unrivalled fashion.” Self-giving is magnified completely fulfilling the Law in an unbridled extension of love for others.

3. Walk in the Spirit. Paul refers metaphorically to the purpose of the law as pedagogue (Galatians 3:24) which is “relieved of its duty once the child comes of age,” just as the function of the law terminated with Christ’s arrival Accordingly, Paul now directs us to “walk by the Spirit” not by the Law, for if led by the Spirit, we are not under the Law (Galatians 5:16-17).

4. Finally, Paul plunges a dagger into the motivation of his opponents by accusing them of championing teaching of the law for the purpose of self-promotion Galatians 4:17).

Anything but Ordinary! Ordinary Time

Ordinary TimeBeginning on Pentecost 2, we enter the Church year known as Ordinary Time. After Easter, Jesus’s ascension into heaven, and the coming of the Holy Spirit to us at Pentecost, we accept responsibility for being and becoming Christ’s body in the world. We are called by Jesus to live in community, our lives together guided not only by the example of Jesus, but by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
 

Basically, Ordinary Time encompasses that part of the Christian year that does not fall within the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter. Ordinary Time is anything but ordinary. According to The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, the days of Ordinary Time, especially the Sundays, “are devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects.” We continue our trek through the both the Gospels of Luke and John- through parables challenges, healings – some great stories and teachings.  

Vestments are usually green, the color of hope and growth. Green has long been associated with new life and growth. Even in Hebrew in the Old Testament, the same word for the color “green” also means “young.” The green of this season speaks to us as a reminder that it is in the midst of ordinary time that we are given the opportunity to grow. 

Ordinary Time, from the word “ordinal,” simply means counted time (First Sunday after Pentecost, etc.). we number the Sundays from here on out in order from the First Sunday after Pentecost, all the way up to the Last Sunday after Pentecost The term “ordinary time” is not used in the Prayer Book, but the season after Pentecost can be considered ordinary. 

The Church counts the thirty-three or thirty-four Sundays of Ordinary Time, inviting her children to meditate upon the whole mystery of Christ – his life, miracles and teachings – in the light of his Resurrection.

You may see Sundays referred to as “Propers”. The Propers are readings for Ordinary Time following Epiphany and Pentecost, numbered to help establish a seven day range of dates on which they can occur. Propers numbering in the Revised Common Lectionary begins with the Sixth Sunday in Epiphany, excludes Sundays in Lent through Pentecost and Trinity Sunday, and resumes the Second Sunday after Pentecost (the first Sunday after Pentecost is Trinity Sunday), usually with Proper 4. 

In some ways, it might be right to think of this time as “ordinary”, common or mundane. Because this is the usual time in the church, the time that is not marked by a constant stream of high points and low points, ups and downs, but is instead the normal, day-in, day-out life of the church. This time is a time to grapple with the nuts and bolts of our faith, not coasting on the joy and elation of Christmas, or wallowing in the penitential feel of Lent, but instead just being exactly where we are, and trying to live our faith in that moment.  

It is a reminder of the presence of God in and through the most mundane and ordinary seasons of our lives. . It is a reminder that when God came and lived among us in the person of Jesus Christ, he experienced the same ordinary reality that we all experience. And that God, in Christ, offered us the opportunity to transform the most ordinary, mundane experiences into extraordinary events infused with the presence of God. God is there, present in the midst of the ordinary, just waiting for us to recognize it.  

Only when the hustle and bustle of Advent, Easter, and Lent has calmed down can we really focus on what it means to live and grow as Christians in this ordinary time in this ordinary world. It is a time to nurture our faith with opportunities for fellowship and reflection. It is a time to feed and water our faith with chances for education and personal study. It is a time to weed and prune our faith, cutting off the parts that may be dead and leaving them behind. And we have a lot of growing to do, so God has given us most of the church year in which to do it.  

Commentary, June 22, 2025, Pentecost 2

Today’s readings focus on the understanding of how Jesus’ presence changes our lives. Isaiah describes God’s necessary judgment and promise of final deliverance and cleansing for the people. The psalmist yearns for God’s presence, especially in times of suffering. Paul writes to the Galatians of their unity and freedom in Christ Jesus. Jesus’ begins his mission to the Gentiles with the expulsion of many demons.

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Commentary, Trinity Sunday, Year C

I. Theme – The Trinity points to the mystery of unity and diversity in God’s experience and in the ongoing creative process

 Holy Trinity– Anton Rublev (1430)

The lectionary readings are here  or individually:

First Reading – Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 Psalm – Psalm 8 Epistle –Romans 5:1-5 Gospel – John 16:12-15

The first reading reminds us of the holiness and wisdom of God’s personal mystery. The second reading invites praise for God’s glory, which we hope to share through our cooperation with God’s Spirit at work in us. In today’s gospel, Jesus promises the Spirit, who will convict the world and guide the disciples into truth.

Our language about God springs from our experience of God’s activity and, at best, only points to divine mystery. Though we know that all our language about God is metaphorical and that all our most comprehensive explanations fall short of God’s essential mystery, nevertheless we continue to be lured by God’s holy mystery.

Though we freely admit that God is beyond our rational capacity, we also recognize that God is not beyond our experience. Our metaphors move from what we know best to what we experience as lesser known. Our touchstone to the mystery of the Trinity is first of all the mystery of our own self. Despite our most persistent efforts to “know our self,” there is always so much more of our self that escapes our scrutiny.

And the mystery of human selfhood spills over into our encounters with the mysterious others in our lives. Even those closest to us–our parents, children, spouses and friends–remain somehow other and surprising.

How do we know God? The question is not merely academic, but influences our deepest belief and behavior. The Trinity is not a heavenly riddle but an ongoing revelation, filling and blessing us and our days.

The Trinity, along with the Incarnation and the divine presence in history, is one of the great antidotes to the tendency of some Christians to see God as apathetic, a-historical, and unchanging in contrast to the passionate, evolving, and transitory world of time and space.

This lively God has not decided everything in advance without consulting the creaturely world, nor has the living God imaged the whole unfolding of history in one eternal, unchanging vision. The Trinitarian God suggested by today’s passages embodies loving fidelity through intimate and changing relationships with the unfolding world and its inhabitants

God is constantly doing something new, and God is constantly being revealed to us in new ways. God is still speaking through the acts of creation, which Wisdom (which also has at times been interpreted as the Holy Spirit in the New Testament) is part. Maybe even the Trinity falls short in showing us the way God is made known to us, but we have used it throughout Christian history

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An Introduction to the Trinity – what it is and what it is not

The core belief

The doctrine of the Trinity is the Christian belief that there is One God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Other ways of referring to the Trinity are the Triune God and the Three-in-One.

The Trinity is a controversial doctrine; many Christians admit they don’t understand it, while many more Christians don’t understand it but think they do.

In fact, although they’d be horrified to hear it, many Christians sometimes behave as if they believe in three Gods and at other times as if they believe in one.

Trinity Sunday, which falls on the first Sunday after Pentecost, is one of the few feasts in the Christian calendar that celebrate a doctrine rather than an event.

A fundamental doctrine

The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most difficult ideas in Christianity, but it’s fundamental to Christians because it:

-states what Christians believe God is like and who he is

-plays a central part in Christians’ worship of an “unobjectifiable and incomprehensible God”

-emphasises that God is very different from human beings

-reflects the ways Christians believe God encounters them is a central element of Christian identity

-teaches Christians vital truths about relationship and community

-reveals that God can be seen only as a spiritual experience whose mystery inspires awe and cannot be understood logically

Unpacking the doctrine

The idea that there is One God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit means:

-There is exactly one God

-The Father is God
-The Son is God
-The Holy Spirit is God
-The Father is not the Son
-The Son is not the Holy Spirit
-The Father is not the Holy Spirit

An alternate way of explaining it is:

There is exactly one God

There are three really distinct Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Each of the Persons is God

Common mistakes

The Trinity is not

-Three individuals who together make one God

-Three Gods joined together

-Three properties of God

BBC’s Trinity Page

The Importance of Trinity Sunday

Article from Building Faith – “Three Teaching Points of Trinity Sunday”

God is Love Because God is Trinity. “In the First Letter of John, we find one of the most comforting and profound claims about God, “So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is Love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” (I John 4:16). For this to be true, for God to be love, completely and perfectly, God must also be Trinity. For there to be love you need three things; the lover, the beloved, and the love or union shared between the two. Only in the revelation of God as Trinity can we see that God is love.

The Trinity Is To Be Loved, Not Solved. “Look again at our verse from First John, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” John is not trying to help us solve a puzzle; instead, he wants us to see that the Triune God has created us so that we might share in his love, that we might abide in God and God in us.

The Trinity is the Central Mystery of the Christian Faith and Life “When we are baptized, it is in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our prayer is Trinitarian in shape; for example, the collects in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP pg. 211) are addressed to the Father, through the Son, in unity with the Holy Spirit. Many of the postures we use in worship and prayer are Trinitarian; the sign of the cross, for example, invokes the Name of the Triune God. The whole of our lives as Christians is a participation in the mystery of the Holy Trinity.