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.

Is This Cana?

Archaelogists claimed in 2018 they have found the real site of Cana from John’s Gospel

A number of compelling clues suggest the site is Khirbet Qana, a Jewish village that existed between the years of 323 BC and AD 324. Excavations have revealed a network of tunnels used for Christian worship, marked with crosses and references to Kyrie Iesou, a Greek phrase meaning Lord Jesus. There is also an altar and a shelf with the remains of a stone vessel, plus room for five more. Six stone jars like this held the wine in the biblical account of the miracle.

Dr. Tom McCollough who is directing excavations at the site points to the work of first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. “His references to Cana align geographically with the location of Khirbet Qana and align logically with his movements.

Accomplishments of Martin Luther King

He promoted a vision of equal rights under the law in public accommodations and eliminating segregation throughout America, ignoring the differences in skin color

To work toward this goal, King helped to popularize the technique of nonviolent confrontations based on his reading of Gandhi, Whitman and others which combined with his organizing abilities helped to bring about successes. King’s techniques for non-violent confrontations are explored here.

During the less than 13 years of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the modern American Civil Rights Movement, from December 1955 until April 4, 1968, African Americans achieved more genuine progress toward racial equality in America than the previous 350 years had produced.

Here’s a sermon Catherine preached in April, 2018 on the 50th anniversary of his death.

Here are 10 accomplishments of his life:

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King: A Filmed Record (1970)

King: A Filmed Record … Montgomery To Memphis is a 1970 American documentary film biography of Martin Luther King Jr. and his creation and leadership of the nonviolent campaign for civil rights and social and economic justice in the Civil Rights Movement.

It uses only original newsreel and other primary material, unvarnished and unretouched, and covers the period from the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and 1956 through his assassination in 1968. The original newsreel segments are framed by celebrity narrators Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Ben Gazzara, Charlton Heston, James Earl Jones, Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman, Anthony Quinn, Clarence Williams III, and Joanne Woodward.

The movie was produced by Ely Landau and directed by Sidney Lumet in what was the only documentary he would direct in his whole film career. It lasts 1 hour 45 minutes.

Remembering Martin Luther King on his birthday, Jan 15

It was 57 years ago. Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old.

In the months before his assassination, Martin Luther King became increasingly concerned with the problem of economic inequality in America. He organized a Poor People’s Campaign to focus on the issue, including an interracial poor people’s march on Washington, and in March 1968 traveled to Memphis in support of poorly treated African-American sanitation workers. On March 28, a workers’ protest march led by King ended in violence and the death of an African-American teenager. King left the city but vowed to return in early April to lead another demonstration.

On April 3, back in Memphis, King gave his last sermon, saying, “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

King was no stranger to controversy. Though he had little experience in activism, King with a doctorate in theology was known for his speaches.  In 1955, community leaders recruited him to be the spokesperson for the Montgomery bus boycott, one of the first major protests of the civil rights era. The boycott lasted for more than a year and resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court declaring racial segregation on public buses unconstitutional.

King’s role in that boycott transformed him into a national figure. In 1957, he co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to help encourage other communities to take up the crusade for civil rights.

5 years before his asssassination, he was focusing on desegregation before the landmark 1964 Civil Rights act. He was in Birmingham on a campaign of coordinated marches and sit-ins against racism and racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama.

At the time, in parts of the country—especially in the South—blacks couldn’t eat at certain restaurants, continued to attend segregated schools (though the practice had been outlawed years earlier), and were unemployed at a rate nearly twice that of whites.

The non-violent campaign was coordinated by Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. On April 10, a blanket injunction was issued against “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing”. Leaders of the campaign announced they would disobey the ruling. On Good Friday, April 12, King was roughly arrested with others.

King was not always popular with clergy due to his tactics. The day of his arrest, eight Birmingham clergy members wrote a criticism of the campaign that was published in the Birmingham News, calling its direct action strategy “unwise and untimely.”

LINKS

1 King wrote “Letter from a Birmingham Jail in response. King’s Letter has been called one of the most significant works of the Civil Right movement. The Letter

Audio from Dr. King

Forum in Feb., 1964 on the letter 

King and the Book of Amos as reflected in the letter. King used the book of Amos throughout his career.

King’s Philosophy of Non-Violence

King Sermon – Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution

Multimedia production of the “I have a Dream” speech

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

“Fight on Amos”

Many people now read King’s classic “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (1963) in college and like the Apostle Paul, King did some of his best work in jail.

King’s Birmingham Campaign began on April 3, 1963 with coordinated marches and sit-ins against racism and racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. The non-violent campaign was coordinated by Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

On April 10, a blanket injunction was issued against “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing”. Leaders of the campaign announced they would disobey the ruling. On Good Friday, April 12, King was roughly arrested with others. The day of his arrest, eight Birmingham clergy members wrote a criticism of the campaign that was published in the Birmingham News, calling its direct action strategy “unwise and untimely.”

King’s Letter has been called one of the most significant works of the Civil Right movement. You can read it here – and was addressed to the eight clergymen that opposed his action.

In the letter King applied Amos to his situation, quoting from Amos 5:24. Amos gave his message to the Israelites in 750 BCE. Amos warns the people of Israel that the Lord is displeased with their behavior. People are overly concerned with earthly possessions, bodily desires and there is a shallow adherence to their religious values. Amos tells the people that God will soon judge them for their sins.

King wrote “But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Was not Martin Luther an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.”

He also quoted Amos in the “I Have a Dream” speech, 5 months after the above letter – Dr. King declared, “we will not be satisfied until ‘justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.’”

King had used the message of love when during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956 when white supremacists firebombed his house while he was away and an angry crowd gathered at his home. He told them to go home, saying “We must learn to meet hate with love.”

Five days later, he received a telegram from Julian Grayson, an undergraduate classmate at Crozer Theological Society who had become a Methodist minister. It read simply, “FIGHT ON AMOS GOD IS WITH YOU.”

3 saints after Christmas Day

1. St. Stephen Dec. 26

Stephen was among the earliest Christian martyrs, stoned to death for his beliefs. St. Paul not only witnessed the event but held the garments of those stoning Stephen which he regretted later on and carried a lasting sense of guilt.

2. John the Apostle Dec. 27

John, one of the Apostles, possibly lived the longest life associated with the Gospel, an author in that time and Evangelist spreading the Gospel to many in the Mediterranean area who were not of Jewish background. He is believed to be the only Apostle not martyred for the cause. He is associated with the Gospel that bears his name, 3 Epistles and possible authorship of the Book of Revelation.

3. Holy Innocents Dec. 28

The term “Holy Innocents” comes from Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 2. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, King Herod, fearing for his throne, ordered that all the male infants of Bethlehem two years and younger be killed. These children are regarded as martyrs for the Gospel — “martyrs in fact though not in will.” This can be compared to the conduct of Pharoah in Exodus 1:16. “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”

Feast of the Holy Name

The designation of Jan. 1 as the Feast of the Holy Name is new to the 1979 revision of The Book of Common Prayer. Previous Anglican Prayer Books called it the Feast of the Circumcision. January 1 is the eighth day after Christmas Day, and Luke’s Gospel records that eight days after his birth the child was circumcised and given the name Jesus.

The liturgical commemoration of the circumcision probably originated in France. The Council of Tours in 567 enacted that the day was to be kept as a feast day to counteract pagan festivities connected with the beginning of the New Year.

The Feast of the Holy Name has been celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church (usually on January 1) since sometime in the 15th century. The Lutheran church also commemorates the Feast of the Holy Name on January 1.

The early preachers of the Gospel lay stress on the name as showing that Jesus was a man of flesh and blood, though also the son of God, who died a human death and was raised by God from death to be the Savior.

The name “Jesus” is from the Hebrew Joshua, or Yehoshuah, “Yahweh is salvation” or “Yahweh will save.” Devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus is particularly derived from Phil 2:9-11, which states that God highly exalted Jesus “and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” This scriptural devotion is paraphrased by the hymn “At the name of Jesus” (Hymn 435) in The Hymnal 1982. Other hymns that express devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus include “To the name of our salvation” (Hymns 248-249) and “Jesus! Name of wondrous love!” (Hymn 252).

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Veterans & Remembrance Day, Nov. 11

“Let Us Beat Swords into plowshares” “Tragedy of War”-Michael LaPalme

Veterans’ Day, November 11  

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, World War I (called the Great War) ends.

From a Litany for Veterans by Robb McCoy-“God of love, peace and justice, it is your will for the world that we may live together in peace. You have promised through the prophet Isaiah that one day the swords will be beaten into plow shares. Yet we live in a broken world, and there are times that war seems inevitable. Let us recognize with humility and sadness the tragic loss of life that comes in war. Even so, as we gather here free from persecution, we may give thanks for those that have served with courage and honor. ”  Here is an English Veterans’ Service.

All gave some, Some gave all.

The Theology of Veterans’ Day

While the US has “Veterans’ Day” celebrating and honoring all veterans who have served, Europe and Canada has “Remembrance Day” about the end of World War I  on November 11, 1918.  The red remembrance poppy has become a familiar emblem of Remembrance Day due to the poem “In Flanders Fields”. These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I; their brilliant red color became a symbol for the blood spilled in the war.

Mark Knopfler wrote “Remembrance Day” about this day. The song and  illustrated slideshow are here .

From “Remembrance Day”

“Time has slipped away The Summer sky to Autumn yields A haze of smoke across the fields Let’s sup and fight another round And walk the stubbled ground

“When November brings The poppies on Remembrance Day When the vicar comes to say May God bless everyone Lest we forget our sons

“We will remember them Remember them Remember them”