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

Easter 6, Year A

I.Theme –   We will know Jesus after his resurrection in the Holy Spirit.  This Spirit, the Spirit of Truth will abide in us as Jesus abides in us. 

 "The Advocate"  –Misioneros Del Sagrado Corazón en el Perú. 

The lectionary readings are here  or individually:


Old Testament – Acts 17:22-31
Psalm – Psalm 66:7-18 Page 674, BCP
Epistle –1 Peter 3:13-22
Gospel – John 14:15-21

This week is somewhat philosophical in the search for meaning – who will support the disciples after Jesus is gone ?

Paul goes to Athens and tries to build a common basis with Greek philosophy and Christ though Christ divinity was hard to muster with the Athenians. There is an appeal to universal wisdom.

So too does the writer of first Peter  by presenting Jesus as proclaiming salvation to the lost souls in Hades during the time between Good Friday and Easter morning.  The writer tries to ease the suffering of those at his time saying "even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed." This week brings in the Holy Spirit. 1st Peter says "He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit."

John’s Gospel tries to provide of meaning of the Holy Spirit. The readings are shifting from Jesus physical presence to the presence of the Holy Spirit which will help the disciples carry on his work.   The Holy Spirit is called the advocate, communicating the truth and to be a consistent presence with both the community and the disciple. This Spirit will abide in us as Jesus abides in us. 

The Spirit is sent in Jesus’ name and reminds us of what he taught. The spirit is the advocate – one who will support, help and intercede for them. The Paraclete (counselor, helper) comes to speak to us for Jesus. Jesus emphasizes the intimate unity of Jesus, God, the Spirit, and the believer. 


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Voices, Easter 6, May 14, 2023

From the Lectionary this week

1 Peter 3:13-14 “Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. “

John 14:15-16, 18-29 “Jesus said, ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth..”

I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.

Acts 17:26-28
From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

‘For we too are his offspring.’

John 14:1-14 – “Jesus is the dam that holds us when the levee breaks.”

From “Christian Century” – Jared E. Alcántara

“…In times of quiet desperation, Jesus says to us what he says to his disciples: I will be the dam that holds you when the levee breaks, the tunnel that brings you through to the other side when you’re stirred up, unsettled, thrown into confusion. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me.

“The disciples need to hear this. Jesus has just told them he will be with them “only a little longer.” Now he tells them he’s leaving. He will come back to get them but has to leave them first. They don’t need to worry, though. They already know the way.

“Thomas asks the same question that is likely on the other disciples’ minds. “If we don’t know where you’re going, how will we know the way?”

“Jesus’ answer has often been used as a religious litmus test, at least in North America. The way, truth, and life. To get to the Father, you’ve got to go through Jesus, like he’s some kind of bouncer standing by to vet our access to the triune God. In or out, pass or fail.

“This seems like a strange thing to say right after telling followers not to let their hearts be troubled. Don’t get me wrong: Jesus makes exclusive claims, and he has hard teachings. Even these words have an edge to them. But the first task is to discern what Jesus is saying to those who believe him in his context—before making conclusions about what he is saying to those who do not believe him in ours.

“What if Jesus wants to reframe Thomas’s questions from “where” and “how” questions to “who” questions? It would not be the first time that he answered a question someone wasn’t asking. It would make more sense after telling his followers not to let their hearts be troubled. So, you want to know the way? You have a person. So, you want to know the how? You have a person.

“Do you know anyone who has no desire whatsoever to find a path, to learn the truth, or to experience life? Now consider the possibility that all three—the path, the truth, the life—can be found in a person. That is what Jesus is saying here, and it is good news.

“When the rains come, when the waters rise, our temptation is to look for answers to our “where” and “how” questions. In those moments—in all moments—there is one who stands before us, one in whom and through whom is the way, the truth, and the life. When we do not know the way, he will transform our questions into better ones. When our hearts are stirred up, he will hold us through the storm.”

Easter 5, year A

I.Theme –   Mystical experiences from  Stephen and the Apostles about the truth and revelation of God and the foundation of the building, the church.

 "I am the Road, the Truth and Life" – Vasakyrkan, Gothenburg, Sweden

The lectionary readings are here  or individually: 

First reading – Acts 7:55-60
Psalm – Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 Page 622, BCP
Epistle –1 Peter 2:2-10
Gospel – John 14:1-14 

Today’s readings portray mystical and unitive experiences come from the challenges of life. Mysticism often provides us with a greater perspective that liberates us from self-centeredness and defensiveness, thus enabling us to live compassionately.

In the course of his inquisition and martyrdom, in the First Reading Stephen has a vision of God.  It enables him to experience his death fearlessly and compassionately. Like Jesus before him, he faces persecution with forgiveness, recognizing from his larger spiritual perspective than the utter ignorance  of his persecutors. Their actions are based on a wrong perception of reality; they experience grace as threat and resurrection as destructive of their religious tradition, rather than pathways that will lead to a transformation and expansion of their faith. Perhaps someday, Stephen’s persecutors, including Paul, who watches the stoning with a sense of approval, will experience the living Christ and truly know God’s nature. Stephen’s own forgiveness, based on his mystical experience, may create a ripple effect, opening the door to new possibilities for divine action in his persecutors’ lives.

The Psalmist gains courage through a larger perspective. Threats are  all around, danger abounds, but the Psalmist proclaims “my times are in your hand.” The gift of a larger spiritual perspective enables him to experience God’s love shining upon him.

The author of I Peter reminds his listeners to feast on spiritual soul food. They have tasted the goodness of God, and from that nurture, they are able to be “built into a spiritual house.” Growing in spirit enables us to become a royal priesthood, living by life-giving values and sharing good news by our words and actions. This spiritual priesthood is not set apart as better than others, but given the call to healing and transformation, of not only sharing good news but becoming good news to the world.

John 14:1-14 begins with metaphor to a house – In God’s realm there are many dwelling places; Jesus as the Christ prepares a place for us – a future and a hope we can rely on – that enables us to experience eternal life in the here and now. We can face persecution, aging, and death because of our faith in God’s everlasting love. The trials we face now are part of a larger adventure of growing with God.

The passage becomes complicated by the words “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” Perhaps, Jesus is saying, “I am providing a way. It’s not up to you to decide who’s in and who’s out. Look at my life and you will see the heart of God. You will see God’s love for the lost and broken. Don’t place a wall where I have placed a bridge. Don’t decide the scope of salvation, and exclude those I love.” God’s way addresses us in many ways – just as there are many mansions – and we would do well to be generous rather than stingy about the scope of salvation.

Then, Jesus describes his own unitive experience with God. Just look at Jesus and you will see the heart of God: God is in me, and I am in God.The unity of God and Jesus is a unity of vision and aim, an alignment of spirit that releases divine energies in our world.

The passage concludes with the promise that we can align ourselves with God, and then do greater things than we can imagine. What could these greater things be? Given the vision of Jesus’ life presented in the gospels, we could do greater acts of hospitality, spiritual nurture, and healing. We have powers we can’t imagine that can be released when we align ourselves with Christ’s way, letting Christ be the center of our experiences and letting God’s vision guide us moment by moment.

We are always on holy ground. We all can be mystics in our own unique ways, seeing deeply into the universe, and we can have powers to heal and embrace through our relationship with God, individually and as congregations.
 

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“I am the Gate”

Summary – I am the Gate by Debie Thomas published in “Journey with Jesus”

“In ten verses of packed metaphor, John gives us sheep, a sheepfold, a shepherd, a gate, a gatekeeper, a pasture, a sneaky band of thieves and bandits, and an even more sinister group of smooth-tongued “strangers.” At one point, the Gospel writer comes right out and says, “Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying.” No kidding!

“For me, a particular revelation of Jesus happened when I thought about the metaphors in this Gospel passage alongside <a href=Frykholm’s article about the tenacious little border church between the United States and Mexico. Suddenly, as I imagined eager, loving hands reaching through small gaps in a cold, steel barrier, as I pictured the insistent sharing of song, prayer, bread, and wine across a bleak, intractable border, the resonance of Jesus’s metaphor hit me full force. “I am the gate.” Not, “I am the wall, the barrier, the enclosure, the dividing line.” Not, “I am that which separates, isolates, segregates, and incarcerates.” I am the gate. The door. The opening. The passageway. The place where freedom begins.

“What is it in me that resists the open gate? Where in my life am I walled off, closed to change, averse to movement, risk, freedom, joy? What flock do I belong to, and whose voice do I follow most readily? What calls to me, making seductive promises I shouldn’t trust? Do I know the shepherd well enough to recognize his call? Am I willing to leave the fold in order to find pasture, or am I too complacent, scared, suspicious, and jaded to pursue abundant life?

“For almost ten years now, a group of Christians have gathered on Sunday mornings at Friendship Park, a plaza along the U.S-Mexico border wall, to share worship and Communion. Apparently, this “border church” has survived every obstacle the U.S Border Patrol and shifting United States/Mexico relations have thrown at it.

Where others see a place of crime, fear, death, and hopelessness, Fanestil [one of the founders insists that those who gather for worship and Communion each week see “a place of encounter, exchange, friendship, and fellowship.” In other words, they make it their practice to see Jesus. Jesus, the gate. Unlocked. Wide open. Inviting. Free. May we have eyes to see him, too.

“Needless to say, most of us — left to ourselves — don’t associate “gates” with freedom. We think of bars and locks and alarms and enclosures. We imagine toddler gates, maybe, or puppy training gates. Prison gates and “gated communities.” But what if Jesus is a different kind of gate? A gate that opens out instead of closing in? Not the barrier itself, but the aperture in it? A place of release? Movement? Spaciousness? Liberty? “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

Abundant Life: SALT’s Commentary for Easter 4

Shepherdess with a Flock of Sheep, by Anton Mauve, c. 1870-88, Dutch painting, oil on canvas

Link to SALT Project

Easter 4 (Year A): John 10:1-10

Big Picture:

1) This is the fourth of the seven weeks of Eastertide. The gospel readings for the first three weeks were resurrection appearance stories; the next four weeks, between now and Pentecost, will explore Jesus’ teachings about living in intimacy with God.

2) Many early followers of Jesus would have been familiar with describing the promised Messiah as a caring and skillful “shepherd”: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel each use such language, and likewise, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah contrast the divine shepherd with “worthless shepherds” who neglect, exploit, and scatter the flock. For listeners today, Psalm 23 (this week’s psalm) is likely the best-known reference to God as a shepherd, with the “rod and staff” evoking the hazards of the wilderness: the rod for fending off wolves and lions, and the staff for rescuing sheep trapped in thickets or crevasses.

3) In the passage immediately following this one, Jesus calls himself “the good shepherd” — and the Greek word in that phrase translated as “good” (kalos) means not “morally good” but rather “real and proper” or “true,” as in, “I am the true shepherd” or “I am the genuine shepherd.” And what is that, exactly? In this week’s passage, Jesus defines “good shepherding” this way: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd…” (John 10:10b-11).

4) And what is “abundant life”? As we’ll see in the weeks ahead, the abundance Jesus has in mind isn’t a life of material wealth, but rather of love and intimacy with God, like the trusting companionship of sheep and shepherd. An intimacy so close, Jesus will go on to say, as to be a kind of symbiotic communion, comparable to the relationship between a vine and its branches (John 15:5).

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Exhibition : The Lord is My Shepherd

This is from the Visual Commentary on Scripture, a web based museum on topics in scripture.

Click the link to to the exbhiti: The Lord is my Shepherd

The exhibit has a drop link (“Exhibition Menu”) to the scripture passage, commentary, an comparative commentary.

Most artworks inspired by Psalm 23 (or commissioned to illuminate it) prioritize either the pastoral side of the Psalm (as in the case of the Parma illumination) or the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ of Psalm 23:4 and its attendant imagery (as in the Stuttgart illumination).

1. Valley of the Shadow of Death, 1855, Salted paper print by Roger Fenton

2 The Parma Psalter, 13th century, Illuminated manuscript

3. Psalm 23, from the Stuttgarter Psalter, First half of the 9th century, Illuminated manuscript

Seven Miles

From Bishop Rob Wright, Diocese of Atlanta. Road to Emmaus Luke 24:13-35

“The news of the Resurrection of Jesus took some time to reach everyone. Some of his friends were so discouraged by his arrest and Crucifixion that they decided to head to a village called Emmaus, seven miles outside of Jerusalem. We understand why they wanted to run away. We understand the impulse to run away from the jagged edges of reality.

“What grabs me about this story is that Jesus was running towards them as they were running away! As Jesus walks and talks with them, they tell him the sad story. The partial story. (They hadn’t recognized him yet.).But, by the time they reach Emmaus, they see him. They get understanding. The good news of his life penetrates their sadness.

“You may not be up to walking seven miles today but go for a walk soon. Tell Jesus all your sorrow and your fears on the walk. And then just listen, open your ears, eyes and heart to him anew.”

Lectionary, Easter 3, April 23, 2023

I.Theme –   Now after the Resurrection what must we do ?

 "Road to Emmaus" , Tiffany (1912)

The lectionary readings are here  or individually:

First Lesson – Acts 2:14a,36-41
Psalm – Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17 Page 759, BCP
Epistle –1 Peter 1:17-23
Gospel – Luke 24:13-35

The answer to what we must do after the Resurrection comes in the various readings to this week’s lectionary.

In Acts,  Peter declares God had made the risen Jesus both Lord and Christ. The people respond, "What must we do?" "Repent and be baptized."  

The Epistle answers "live as the baptized"  in reverent fear of God, and with deep affection for one another from the heart.

The writer of the Psalms package was in a time illness, near death.Tthe answer is to love and praise God since God saved him from this affliction. He will worship the Lord, and praise the Lord  in the worshipping community in the temple.

The Gospel reading on the Road to Emmaus provides the fullest explanation.

The emphasis is on evangelism and mission. Two companions are on the road to Emmaus, some 7 miles from Jerusalem.  Jesus meets up with them but they didn’t recognize him.  He taught them the importance of sustaining their faith through scriptures. It wasn’t until they stopped for the night for a meal that they recognized Christ in the breaking of the bread. After the revelation of Jesus in the scriptures and in the Eucharist, the two individuals went back and shared their faith experience with the community, the Body of Christ in Jerusalem. 

What would sustain the community of faith was the Word of Jesus,  friends involved in community worship and participating with the sacraments.  They had to live out and experience Jesus through revelation.  The followers needed to open their minds and hearts to new possibilities as they fulfilled the mandate to preach repentance and forgiveness everywhere in the name of Jesus.  We need to expect Jesus outside our normal experience.


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Three Kinds of Doubt – Salt’s Lectionary Commentary for Easter 2

Big Picture:

Scripture

1) This is the second week of Eastertide (there are seven such weeks, poetically one more than the six weeks of Lent). Our primary guide for this season will be the Gospel of John: this week and next are stories of the risen Jesus appearing to his followers, and the following four weeks will explore Jesus’ teachings about faith and intimacy with God.

2) A recurring theme in the resurrection appearance stories is how early Christian communities struggled to perceive and believe. For starters, the risen Jesus isn’t recognized at first. Mary Magdalene thinks he’s the local gardener, and as we’ll see next week, the disciples don’t recognize him on the beach (John 20:15; 21:4). Likewise, in Luke, two of Jesus’ followers have an extended conversation with him (and about him!) without realizing who he is (Luke 24:13-27). In this way, both John and Luke go out of their way to suggest that resurrection means something more mysterious than simple resuscitation: Jesus has risen, and at the same time he is somehow different. Part of what’s going on here is early Christian communities wrestling with the fact that great crowds didn’t notice Jesus’ return (as they did, for example, in the case of Lazarus’ resurrection (see John 12:9)). Jesus is back, but only a few have eyes to see that it’s really him; even his closest followers need help.

3) John organizes his Gospel around seven astounding wonders that reveal Jesus’ identity and mission. John’s name for these events – “signs” – is a clue to their purpose: they’re supposed to catch our attention (even catch our breath!), drawing us toward what for John is the whole point: life with and in God. But amazement doesn’t always work that way. It’s only too easy to get caught up in the miraculous “signs” and miss the larger mission – pulling the car over, so to speak, to ooh and ahh at a road sign pointing us toward our destination… instead of moving on to the destination itself!

4) And as it turns out, this tension is a running theme throughout John’s Gospel. Jesus repeatedly scolds the crowds (and his disciples) for focusing too much on signs, urging them to move on to higher, more important matters. In the scene featuring the second sign, Jesus is exasperated: “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe” (John 4:48). A little later, he calls on those around him to take another step: Don’t fixate on how I fed five thousand with a few loaves; shift your understanding into a higher gear, and see how I’m offering you the bread of life itself – indeed, see how I am that bread! (John 6:26-35). This tension between dazzling signs and genuine faith runs through the whole Gospel, culminating in this week’s passage, the risen Jesus’ encounter with Thomas: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John 20:29). Read more from SALT