St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Port Royal, VA
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, who are still here, and we honor with gratitude the land itself and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.
Summer splendor
A Wild Sunday! A downpour in the morning that probably affected attendance. Brad Volland, our organist called in sick but two in the choir, Denise on piano and Larry on guitar filled in the prelude and offertory. The offertory was an impromptu trio with Denise, Larry and Ken. We may want to call on them again.For such little practice they did well. YouTube audio stream failed but we posted separate videos here of the key points. Catherine’s sermon was a high point!
I.Theme – How we carry out our work in the world
"The Sower" – Van Gogh, 1888
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
Old Testament – Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm – Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14 Page 672 or 673, BCP
Epistle –Romans 8:1-11
Gospel – Matthew 13:1-9,18-23
This week the emphasis is how we play our stories in the world.
The New Testament readings provide guidance on reacting to Jesus ministry and work with our own. It is empowered by the spirit to be about the spirit. We must be careful to seek that world – the world according to the spirit and not the flesh
Those whose lives are motivated and powered by earthly goals and passions, no matter how "good" they may be, are in opposition to God. Those who offer the Gospel to the world often seem to squander so much of their time and resources with little chance of a return but we can be assured that Jesus has invested in each one of us as his disciples. We become life giving to each other as God has been to us.
Perhaps here the sower is anyone who tells the good news. Growth represents receptivity. It could be you or me. It could be God. It could be Jesus. The sower scatters his seed generously and seems to waste so much of it on ground that holds little promise of a rich harvest. Those who offer the Gospel to the world often seem to squander so much of their time and resources with little chance of a return but we can be assured that Jesus has invested in each one of us as his disciples. He too seemingly squandered his time with all sorts of people, outcasts of all hues and yet the harvest has already been a good one. Surely a great encouragement for us all!
For Paul if we promote God’s teaching and goals as agents of God then we are acting according the spirit. If we look selfishly to our own then we are not.
Are we brave enough to step out of our comfort zones? Do we hold on rather too tightly to our resources, making sure we have something in reserve for the proverbial rainy day or should we imitate the sower in our own generosity?
The sower seems to lead to the idea that disciples are not always the chosen. It seems that these will often be the most unlikely candidates; the people that the world does not rate, the goats rather than the sheep, the tax collectors and the prostitutes rather than the respectable. These are the ones that will go ahead of the religious leaders of the day into heaven! And what of the disciples? Is there hope for them too? Time and again they are found wanting in understanding, in faith and in courage but the encouraging thing for all of us is that Jesus doesn’t give up on them. In fact, he continues to invest in them, even to the point of entrusting the future of his mission to them. The disciples will bring others to Christ
It may take time for results to appear as Isaiah seems to say. It’s the environment that causes the sowers crop to eventually turn into bread as Isaiah says. God will make the peoples’ religious lives fruitful, as he has done for their land.
God’s presence is shown as powerful, gracious, and life-giving in the Psalm. The dangerous features of nature are pacified, and the rest of nature comes to life with joyful exuberance. God’s presence is shown as powerful, gracious, and life-giving in the psalm. The dangerous features of nature are pacified, and the rest of nature comes to life with joyful exuberance. As with the sower’s seeds, results don’t happen over night and patience is a must. As Walter Bouzard writes about the Psalm, “The motion of the psalm from quiet, expectant waiting to a summons for the creation itself to join the choir of praise suggests that the journey from expectation to exaltation is just that — a journey. Many of us, perhaps most of us, find ourselves somewhere in the middle of the journey.”
“The Sower” – Jean Francois Millet
For three years Van Gogh (1853-1890) single mindedly pursued his calling to the ministry, first as a student of theology and then as a missionary to the coal miners in Belgium. Deeply moved by the poverty surrounding him, Van Gogh gave all his possessions, including most of his clothing, to the miners. Van Gogh admired Christ’s humility as a common laborer and “man of sorrows” whose life he tried to imitate. The church came to see Van Gogh suffering from excessive zeal and he did not preach well. He left the church in 1879. “I wish they would only take me as I am,” he said in a letter to Theo, his brother. He wrote,” I think it a splendid saying of Victor Hugo’s, ‘Religions pass away, but God remains’. He saw Jesus as the supreme artist By 1880, he had abandoned a religioous career and turned to art helped by brother Theo. In the next 10 years, he would move 10 times, his life characterized by periods of depression and periods of a sort of mania.
The sower was inspired by Jean-François Millet’s ‘Sower’ from 1850 which was inspired by the Matthew 13. Van Gogh had tried several times to produce a serious painting on the same theme and then abandoned it. Van Gogh’s early work comprises dour portraits of Dutch peasants and depressing rural landscapes
1. Projects
Notebook paper for Caroline Promise, due July 16
2. Pentecost 7, July 16, 2023
Lectionary for Pentecost 7
Commentary for Pentecost 7
Vanderbilt Visual Lectionary
The Sower – VOICES
Scripture to Painting
Animated version
Van Gogh’s Sower
Van Gogh’s Sower background
Van Gogh’s Sower and Stewardship
Mary Magdalene, July 22
Summer Films
It’s Butterfly time!
Anything but Ordinary! Ordinary Time
Like any story, a parable is a window into the mind of the author. People describe only what they can imagine; and imagination depends on what a person has seen, heard or read about. In this case the agricultural image of sowing seed indicates the rural perspective of both the speaker & original audience.
The parables were a favorite teaching device of Jesus. People loved the stories that Jesus created and told. His stories were drawn from every day life, from the simplicities of every day life. Jesus did not use theological abstractions as the Apostle Paul did. By telling a story, Jesus created pictures of those abstract ideas. The abstract idea became concrete and visual.
Jesus wanted his original twelve disciples to begin thinking in the logic of parables, in the symbolism of parables, in the possibilities of the parables. Jesus wanted his first disciples to look for and find the “heavenly meanings to his earthly stories,” and Jesus wants us contemporary disciples to do the same.
In this first parable of Jesus, he chose the most common of experiences from the everyday lives of people: “seeds, sowers, hard paths, rocky soil, thorny soil, good soil.” These were as common as scenes as possible, but in the commonness, Jesus saw illustrations about God and his kingdom. In the soil and the sower, Jesus saw signs about how God works in this world.
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One of the best illustrations of the Parable of the Sower, this week’s Gospel from Matthew 13, is Van Gogh’s The Sower with Setting Sun from 1888. Look at it—a seemingly simple, rural summer scene of a farmer distributing seed. But look again at the composition and colors—the painting is unique in that the sower is almost overshadowed by the huge sun in the center and the ploughed earth.
Van Gogh had a special interest in sowers throughout his artistic career. All in all, he made more than 30 drawings and paintings on this theme. The sower in particular was a figure that Van Gogh saw in terms of representing the eternal cycle of agricultural life, of honorable endeavor and tradition, and symbolized these qualities to the artist.
Van Gogh studied to be a priest so his pictures often include religious themes. Color always provided a particular meaning for Van Gogh. Here, Van Gogh used colors meant to express emotion and passion. He assigned the leading roles to the greenish-yellow of the sky and the purple of the field. He painted the sun in his favorite color citron, a very intense yellow, which made up the sun and was used in pure form without being mixed. This is the color of God. The bright yellow sun looks like a halo, turning the sower into a saint. Here he has created a great orb of light, from which short precise brushstrokes radiate outwards so that the whole sky becomes bathed in golden rags
Videos about the painting
The bottom line is that there have been some improvements since the last time we did Season of Creation. The increase in emissions has been reduced. People and enterprises are taking this subject seriously The need for reduction in emissions has been addressed by countries, companies and many levels of government
At the moment we’re heading for a temperature rise of 2.7 celsius by the end of the century assuming countries make good on their promises. Progress in reducing emissions doesn’t mean we can relax time is running out if we’re to avoid the worst effects of climate change. 2.7 is much worse than 1.1 now and the 1.5 goal made in 2015 in Paris.
Our goal is a Net Zero position by 2050. Net zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) that’s produced and the amount that’s removed from the atmosphere. We have a long way to go by 2050 to get to our goals where we are balanced – Net Zero.
1 The rate of increase in emissions has slowed somewhat since 2005
From C2es.org “ We estimate that U.S. net greenhouse emissions are now 17 percent below 2005 levels in 2021. Electric power sector emissions have fallen nearly 36 percent (2005 – 2021) as a result of a shift from coal to natural gas, increased use of renewable energy and leveling of electricity demand Transportation sector emissions fell almost 9 percent, while industrial sector emissions fell by a little more than 4 percent over the same period.”
Along the way, the US will achieve a 29-42% reduction in GHGs in 2030—a meaningful departure from previous years’ expectations for the US emissions trajectory but not enough for the US to meet its pledge under the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions by 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030.
In the real world, global coal use has been flat, if not slightly declining since 2014.
Clean energy costs have fallen dramatically, solar is 90% cheaper in the last decade. Wind is 66% cheaper, batteries are 90% cheaper. Electric vehicles are about 14% of new vehicle sales globally now, and upwards of 20% in places like China and Europe
Some global issues such as deforestation is looking better in the US. Deforestation? Actually the size of America’s forests has been basically stable since 1910 – Despite the fact that the country’s population has tripled since then. Wildlife extinctions? 99% of the species placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act have been saved, though there’s still more work to do to get them off the endangered species list entirely. Climate change?
2. 45 countries in the world including the United States the UK and most western democracies are in fact cutting their emissions or are planning to do so
US 100 percent clean power by 2035 and slashing 2005 climate pollution levels in half by 2030. America has actually cut its total amount of carbon emissions more than any other country in recent years.
As of 2022, about 75% of global emissions are covered by countries that have committed, at least on paper, to get to net zero emissions by the middle to late 21st century, and that includes countries like China and India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, as well as of course, the U.S., the EU, and others.
America’s air quality has dramatically improved in recent decades. Since 1980, carbon monoxide emissions decreased 75%, lead went down 99%, nitrogen oxides went down 72%, and sulfur dioxide went down by 93%. The result: air so much cleaner that research suggests it may have actually extended our life expectancy.
3. Disclosures from companies
In March,2022 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a statement outlining proposed rules that would require publicly-held companies to provide climate risk data and greenhouse gas emissions to regulators and investors. Companies would also be responsible for reporting annually on progress toward their targets
Example – Alphabet (Google)
Alphabet is the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy, which includes
more than 50 projects totaling 5.5 GW of renewable energy projects under contract
worldwide. This accounts for an annual deficit of approximately five million tons of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. By 2030, Alphabet plans to become the first major company to operate full-time on carbon-free energy. It plans to do so by continuing to invest in renewable energy generation and storage technologies that can also benefit other businesses
4. Virginia
Virginia Clean Economy Act, mandates that Dominion Energy, switch to renewable energy by 2045. Appalachian Power, which serves southwest Virginia, must go carbon-free by 2050.
Almost all the state’s coal plants will have to shut down by the end of 2024 under the new law.
Fredericksburg – In 2019, City Council passed the 100% Renewable Energy Resolution, which committed the City of Fredericksburg to have 100% renewable energy power municipal operations by 2035
5. Climate change is being included in budgets. You need to allocate resources
The Oslo Norway Climate Budget, was put forward for the first time in 2016. A climate budget is a governance tool. It structures and organizes how we can get from climate target policies and words to action and results. It also makes all parts of the administration in Oslo a stakeholder to the climate goals. Our climate budget, which is measured in tons of CO2 emissions, is fully integrated in the municipal budget.
6. Consultants
Climate Ready America is a proposal for a nationwide system of climate support services to help communities do their part to address climate change. It creates a civic infrastructure that will partner with the federal government to leverage and support the climate mitigation and adaptation programs of federal agencies and other organizations, helping those tools reach the ground.
Project Drawdown – Drawdown refers to the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere stop climbing and starts to decline. This is also a company in San Francisco. Central to the project is the compilation of a list of the “most substantive solutions to global warming.” The list of 100, which encompasses only technologically viable existing solutions, was compiled by a team of more than 200 scholars, scientists, policymakers, business leaders, and activists and is now online.
7. Laws
Inflation Reduction Act – The IRA directs nearly $400 billion in federal funding to clean energy, with the goal of substantially lowering the nation’s carbon emissions by the end of this decade.1 The funds will be delivered through a mix of tax incentives, grants, and loan guarantees. Clean electricity and transmission command the biggest slice, followed by clean transportation, including electric-vehicle (EV) incentives. It could lower U.S greenhouse gas emissions from 30 to 40 percent by 2030
8. Human adaptation to climate change. At the current rate of warming, human adaptation has actually been working out pretty well so far. In fact, according to WMO, over the last 50 years, the number of disasters globally has increased by around 400%, while the number of deaths has fallen by two thirds.
Sunday, July 16th is the deadline for St Peter’s to collect 8.5”looseleaf, hole punched notebook paper for Caroline County school children, to be distributed by Caroline’s Promise on Saturday, July 29th. Our goal is 200 packs of 8.5×11 looseleaf notebook paper, 3 hole punched . There is no specific quantity (200, 500 sheets, etc) to purchase. Most of them have been 150 sheet packs
[As of July 9 we have collected 37 packs of notebook paper. One week to go. ]
Bring your donation to church and place it in the back pew. If you’d like to make a monetary donation toward this project, write a check to St Peter’s and put Notebook Paper/Outreach on the memo line.
We have frequently partnered with Caroline’s Promise for school supplies. (Last year it was markers). Caroline’s Promise works to help young people in Caroline County to succeed by providing a healthy start and future, one of their five promises. You can read more about Caroline’s promise at
this link. https://www.carolinespromise.org/
Their distribution July 29, 10am-12pm
Caroline Middle School
13325 Devils Three Jump Road
Milford VA 22514
Beginning 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.
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Gospel and Sermon – Rev. Catherine Hicks
Post Communion Prayer and Blessing
Closing Hymn – Lord of all hopefulness
Sermon, Proper 9, Year A 2023
Zechariah 9:9-12; Psalm 145:8-15; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Before the jail in Caroline County closed several years ago, several of us led a Bible study there once a month. As part of our training, we took a tour of the jail and got to see how the prisoners lived. We were allowed to go into a part of the jail that wasn’t being used, so that we could see how the prisoners lived.
Each cell clustered around the large common area holds four people. The bunks are metal. There is a clearly visible toilet in each cell, offering no privacy. The prisoners spend a great deal of time in their cells. At certain times of the day, they can come out into the common room, unless there has been some disturbance and they are locked down. Getting outside means going into an area with a high fence topped with barbed wire, where there is room to walk, but not room for anything else.
And for prisoners who cause trouble, the solitary cell to which they are confined is separated from everyone else, completely silent and windowless, completely isolated from the outside world.
Periodically, throughout our lives, we find that we are maybe not in an actual jail cell, but in some circumstance in which feel that we are being held captive.
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I.Theme – Lifting our burdens
"Bearing a heavy weight together" – Komarno, Slovakia
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
Old Testament – Zechariah 9:9-12
Psalm – Psalm 145:8-15 Page 802, BCP
Epistle –Romans 7:15-25a
Gospel – Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Sermon by Amy Richter for this week
“Come to me, all you that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
It didn’t help that she was already late for the meeting. Rushing past the sexton who was putting the recycling out, she had her own arms full as she tried to get the back door of the church open. Juggling her lunch bag, laptop bag, and pocketbook, she tried to pull the door open. She knew that in the humidity the door would often stick, but this time, it just wouldn’t budge. Not wanting to set anything down, she just pulled as hard as she could, hoping the door would budge and she could still make it in time. No such luck. She gave up and noticed the sexton was watching.
“Did you pull as hard as you could?” he asked.
“Yes, I gave it everything I’ve got.”
The sexton smiled and said, “No, you didn’t. You didn’t ask me to help you.” He walked over, took her bags off her shoulder and said, “Now try it.” The door came open on the first try.
