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.

Season of Creation

Sunday Links, Sept 10, 2023, Pentecost 15, Season of Creation II

  • Web site
  • YouTube St. Peter’s Page for viewing services
  • Facebook St. Peter’s Page
  • Location – 823 Water Street, P. O. Box 399, Port Royal, Virginia 22535

    • The Season of Creation returns

  • Sun. Sept 10, 2023, 11am Church service – Eucharist
  • Serving:

    Lector: Andrea Pogue
    Chalice Bearer: Alice Hughes
    Altar Cleanup: Andrea Pogue

    • Lectionary link
  • Sun. Sept. 10, 2023 Pool Party at the Davis’, 2PM-4PM.

  • Tues, Sept 12, Sacred Ground Group meeting. 7PM on Zoom.

    Zoom Link Meeting ID: 854 8811 5724 Passcode: 539098

  • Ecumenical Bible Study, Wed., Sept 13. 10am-12pm, Parish House Reading Lectionary for Sept 17, Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

  • Thurs, Sept. 14, Vestry meeting, 2PM in the Parish House.

  • Thurs, Sept. 14, Holy Cross Day, Sept 14, 2023

    Coming Up – Sept. 17

  • God’s Garden —A gathering of children ages 5-9. Sunday School activities and fun, led by Elizabeth Heimbach in the Parish House, 10:30AM.
  • All articles for Sunday, Sept 10, 2023

    • About the Season of Creation – Since the 1980’s, the Eastern Orthodox Church has designated this time each year to delve more deeply into our relationships with God and with one another in the context of the magnificent creation in which we live. The Catholic Church and Church of England also recognize this season. Various churches across the United States also celebrate the Season of Creation.

    The central focus of the month is on God – God as Creator. In his letter to the Romans, right up front, Paul makes this statement. “Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things that God has made.” We know a lot about God simply by paying attention to God’s creation. And Jesus, who came that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly, used his own attention to and love of the natural world in his teachings and parables, to help the people around him find the abundant life that can become ours through him. To be with Jesus through scripture and through the bread and wine is also to see and to know God the Creator of heaven and earth.

    The goal in worship then is to deepen our understanding of God as Creator, to celebrate God’s role as Creator, and to examine and deepen and widen our own relationships with God, creation, and with one another. In particular we need to work to recover the original splendor of the earth.

    An example – Look around your neighborhood where the human influence has been positive and negative on nature. Celebrate the former and do something about the latter.

    “Jesus was intimately involved with the natural world. When he spoke of God and God’s Kingdom, he almost always pointed to the natural world: seeds, the harvest, the clouds, vines, weeds, sheep, fire, water, lilies, bread, wine. Walk out into God’s wonderful creation – and be touched by the very hand of God.”

    –Br. Geoffrey Tristram, SSJE

    Season of Creation – Water

    We have taken the five Sundays readings in the Season of Creation and highlighted a specific environmental area which we will cover weekly. (This week, water ) How is this area affecting us ? What can we do at St. Peter’s and individually to improve our use of them ? We have added related scriptures.

    Focus on water in the Bible

    1. Creation – Water is a primal force of creation . The Old Testament create story describes the earth as nothing but darkness but with the Spirit of God “hovering over the waters.”

    2. Cleansing -The story of Noah shows God cleansing the earth with a great flood. Water sometimes symbolizes the spiritual cleansing that comes with the acceptance of God’s offer of salvation ( Ezek 36:25 ; Eph 5:26 ; Heb 10:22 ). In fact, in Ephesians 5:26, the “water” that does the cleansing of the bride, the church, is directly tied in with God’s Word, of which it is a symbol. The story of Noah shows God cleansing the earth with a great flood. In John 4:10-15, part of Jesus’ discourse with the Samaritan woman at the well, he speaks metaphorically of his salvation as “living water” and as “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

    This painting represents Jesus as the truth and was painted by Troy Mulvien Mardigan, an indigenous Australian. From the artist: “The river represents Jesus as the living water. It is flowing from the foot of the cross towards new life. The flowers represent new life. He is the water of the dry land and the green land. On the top of the cross is the omega symbol – He is the beginning and the end.”

    3. Rebirth – Water is very present in Baptism. Baptism means immersion or bath in Greek. The immersion cleanses the person of sin and provides rebirth into Christian life. In both the Old and New Testaments, the word “water” is used for salvation and eternal life, which God offers humankind through faith in his Son ( Isa 12:3 ; 55:1 ; Rev 21:6 ; Revelation 22:1 Revelation 22:2 Revelation 22:17 ).

    Nicodemus understood Jesus that one must have two births to enter the Kingdom of God – one’s natural birth in which water plays a major role and the birth by the Spirit to be the supernatural birth of being “born again” or regenerated.

    4. Troublesome times – The word “water” is used in a variety of metaphorical ways in Scripture. It is used to symbolize the troublesome times in life that can and do come to human beings, especially God’s children ( Psalm 32:6 ; Psalms 69:1 Psalms 69:2 Psalms 69:14 Psalms 69:15 ; Isa 43:2 ; Lam 3:54 ). In some contexts water stands for enemies who can attack and need to be overcome ( 2 Sam 22:17-18 ; Psalm 18:16-17 ; 124:4-5 ; 144:7 ; Isa 8:7 ; Jer 47:2 ).

    5. Water a symbol of the Holy Spirit – In a very important passage, Jesus identifies the “streams of living water” that flow from within those who believe in him with the Holy Spirit ( John 7:37-39 ). The reception of the Holy Spirit is clearly the special reception that was going to come after Jesus had been glorified at the Father’s right hand and happened on the Day of Pentecost as described in Acts 2. Two times in Jeremiah Yahweh is metaphorically identified as “the spring of living water” ( Jer 2:13 ; 17:13 ). In both instances Israel is rebuked for having forsaken the Lord for other cisterns that could in no way satisfy their “thirst.”

    6. In other passages of Scripture, the following are said metaphorically to be “water”: God’s help ( Isa 8:6 : “the gently flowing waters of Shiloah” ); God’s judgment ( Isa 28:17 : “water will overflow your hiding place” ); man’s words ( Prov 18:4 : “The words of man’s mouth are deep waters” ); man’s purposes ( Prov 20:5 : “The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters” ); an adulterous woman ( Prov 9:17 : “Stolen water is sweet” ); and a person’s posterity ( Isa 48:1 : “Listen to this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel and have come forth out of the line [waters] of Judah” ).

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    Preserving Water – 6 things you can do

    1 Installing an ENERGY STAR-certified washer,

    2 Using low-flow faucets

    3 Plugging up leaks,

    4 Irrigating the lawn in the morning or evening when the cooler air causes less evaporation,

    5 Taking shorter showers and not running sink water when brushing your teeth.

    6 Consider using non-toxic cleaning products and eco-friendly pesticides and herbicides that won’t contaminate groundwater.

    Sermon, Season of Creation I, Proper 17, Sept 3, 2023

    Sermon, Season of Creation I, Proper 17, Year A 2023


    The forests of Ethiopia. Page with links to both of the stories and videos.

    “Lord, I love the house in which you dwell and the place where your glory abides,” states the psalmist. 

    Jesus, who came and pitched his tent among us, lived among us, and died as one of us, dwelt on this earth. And when our hearts are open to God, we know that God has always lived among us.  Back in the Garden of Eden, in the very first book in our Bible, Genesis, God had a habit of walking in the garden in the cool of the evening. 

    And in the closing book of the New Testament, Revelation, God once more comes and dwells among us, after ridding the earth of the evil that has held it in thrall for so long. 

    “See,” the writer of Revelation proclaims, “See, the home of God is among mortals.  God will dwell with us and we will be God’s peoples, and God will be with us, and will wipe every tear from our eyes.  Death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”  

    So we live in the time of God with us now and not yet quite fully, knowing that truly, the earth itself is the house of the Lord, for God is not only transcendent and heavenly, but also immanent,  as near to us as the air we breathe, as refreshing and as life giving  to us as the water we drink, as restoring as the rain after a long drought, and as solid as the rocky mantle that supports the soil and all of life on this earth. 

    Jesus came and dwelt among us so that we could see, with our own eyes, that God has always dwelt in our midst, on this earth, which is not only God’s footstool, but the very body of God, as theologian Sallie McFague would say.   We earth dwellers live and move and have our being within the body of God during our lives on this earth. 

    And so, when we truly open our eyes, we can see for ourselves God’s glory abiding all around us. 

    “Lord, I love the house in which you dwell and the place where your glory abides—” God’s glory, so intricately woven into the fabric of this earth and  the entire universe.    

    So we rejoice in hope, even as we look around us and see God’s glory diminished by the ways in which we abuse and mistreat one another. 

    Even when we look around and truly begin to see the ways in which we have been both intentionally and unintentionally oblivious and negligent, greedy,  and selfish in the ways in which we relate to God’s earth, still, we can rejoice in hope.

    When Jesus told the disciples that they must take up their crosses and follow him, he was hopeful.  Jesus told the disciples that the next part of his journey would be difficult, and would include suffering and death—but that beyond the suffering and death was resurrection.   Jesus  was hopeful that the disciples could see beyond the  grim predictions of the “now” into the  hope of the resurrection life of the “not yet.”  This resurrection life included the time that they were spending with him, because in being with him they were learning about what resurrection life is in the here and now.  So when Jesus told the disciples that they must take up their crosses and follow him, he was hopeful that they would do so, despite the costs.

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    Season of Creation, 2023

    We are embarking on the Season of Creation from Sept 1 – Oct. 4.

    Prophet Amos cries out: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5: 24) and so we are called to join the river of justice and peace, to take up climate and ecological justice, and to speak out with and for communities most impacted by climate injustice and the loss of biodiversity.

    “A mighty river” is the symbol chosen to go with this theme, representing biodiversity at risk. The urgency grows and we must make visible peace with Earth and on Earth, at the same time that justice calls us to repentance and a change of attitude and actions. When we join the river of justice and peace together with others, it creates hope instead of despair.

    We are invited to join the river of justice and peace on behalf of all creation and to converge our individual identities, of name, family or faith community, in this greater movement for justice, just like tributaries come together to form a mighty river.

    Prophet Isaiah proclaims “Listen carefully, I am about to do a new thing, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even put a road in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43: 19)

    Our individual actions during the Season of Creation are important. Celebrating creation, participating in cleanups, planting trees and reducing our carbon footprint are some of the immediate actions we can take.

    As the people of God, we must work together on behalf of all Creation, as part of that mighty river of peace and justice.

    May this 2023 Season of Creation renew our ecumenical unity, renewing and uniting us by our bond of Peace in one Spirit, in our call to care for our common home. And may this season of prayer and action be a time to Listen to the Voice of Creation, so that our lives in words and deeds proclaim good news for all the Earth.

    Dr. William P. Brown of Columbia Theological seminary wrote the following about creation care. “The fundamental mandate for creation care comes from Genesis 2:15, where God places Adam in the garden to “till it and keep it…” Human “dominion” as intended in Genesis is best practiced in care for creation, in stewardship, which according to Genesis Noah fulfills best by implementing God’s first endangered species act.”