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.

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

Confession of St. Peter’s, Jan 18

Confession of St. Peter – January 18 – "Who do you say I am " 

This is not a confession of the church but relates to Peter, the Apostler ! It relates to an event in Matthew 16:13-20, Mark 8:27-30 and Luke 9:18-20. Jesus went to the predominately pagan region of Caesarea Philippi to question and deepen his disciples’ understanding of his role and theirs. “Who do you say that I am?”

Here is the Mark reading " Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him."

We discover reading the selection on Peter in Holy Women, Holy Men that we are much like him – both godly and strong, sometimes weak and sinful.

“Peter figures prominently in the Gospels, often stumbling, impetuous, intense and uncouth. ““It was Peter who attempted to walk on the sea, and began to sink; it was Peter who impulsively wished to build three tabernacles on the mountain of the Transfiguration; it was Peter who just before the crucifixion, three times denied knowing his Lord.”

“But it was also Peter who, after Pentecost, risked his life to do the Lord’s work, speaking boldly of his belief in Jesus. It was also Peter, the Rock, whose strength and courage helped the young Church in its questions about the mission beyond the Jewish community. Opposed at first to the baptism of Gentiles, Peter had the humility to admit a change of heart, and to baptize the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household.”

Sunday links, Jan 15, Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Renewal of Baptism vows, Jan. 8

Jan.15, 11:00am – Holy Eucharist

  • Second Sunday after the Epiphany YouTube link Jan. 15, 2023

  • Lectionary for Jan. 15, 2023, Second Sunday after the Epiphany
  • Bulletin for Jan 15, 2023, Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Bulletin
  • Morning Meditation , Jan 16, 6:30am Zoom link Meeting ID: 879 8071 6417 Passcode: 790929
  • Ecumenical Bible Study, Wed., Jan 18, 10am-12pm.
  • Village Harvest, Wed., Jan 18, 3:00-5pm.
  • January, 2023 Newsletter
  • All articles for Jan 15, 2023

  • Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Jan 18-25, 2023

    Theme for 2023:
    “Do good; seek justice;”
    (Isaiah 1:17

    At least once a year, Christians are reminded of Jesus’ prayer for his disciples that “they may be one so that the world may believe” (see John 17.21). Hearts are touched and Christians come together to pray for their unity. Congregations and parishes all over the world exchange preachers or arrange special ecumenical celebrations and prayer services. The event that touches off this special experience is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

    Traditionally the week of prayer is celebrated between 18-25 January, between the feasts of St Peter and St Paul.

    The readings are here.

    “Isaiah lived and prophesied in Judah during the eighth century BCE and was a contemporary of Amos, Micah and Hosea. This was towards the end of a period of great economic success and political stability for both Israel and Judah, due to the weakness of the ‘superpowers’ of the time, Egypt and Assyria. However, it was also a period when injustice, inequity and inequalities were rampant in both kingdoms.

    This period also saw religion thriving as a ritual and formal expression of belief in God, concentrated on Temple offerings and sacrifices. This formal and ritual religion was presided over by the priests, who were also the beneficiaries of the largesse of the rich and powerful. Due to the physical proximity and interconnectedness of the royal palace and the Temple, power and influence were centered almost entirely on the king and the priests, neither of whom, for much of this history, stood up for those who were enduring oppression and inequity. In the worldview of this time (one which recurs throughout history), the rich and those who made many offerings were understood to be good and blessed by God, while those who were poor and could not offer sacrifices were understood to be wicked and cursed by God. The poor were often denigrated for their economic inability to fully participate in Temple worship.

    Isaiah spoke into this context, attempting to awaken the consciousness of the people of Judah to the reality of their situation. Instead of honouring the contemporary religiosity as a blessing, Isaiah saw it as a festering wound and a sacrilege before the Almighty. Injustice and inequality led to fragmentation and disunity. His prophecies denounce the political, social and religious structures and the hypocrisy of offering sacrifices while oppressing the poor. He speaks out vigorously against corrupt leaders and in favour of the disadvantaged, rooting righteousness and justice in God alone.

    The working group appointed by the Minnesota Council of Churches chose this verse from the first chapter of the prophet Isaiah as the central text for the Week of Prayer: “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (1:17).

    Isaiah taught that God requires righteousness and justice from all of us, all the time and in all spheres of life. Our world today in many ways mirrors the challenges of division that Isaiah confronted in his preaching. Justice, righteousness and unity originate from God’s profound love for each of us, and are at the heart of who God is and how God expects us to be with one another. God’s commitment to create a new humanity “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and langXages” (Rev 7:9) calls us to the peace and unity God has always wanted for creation.

    The prophet’s language with regard to the religiosity of the time is ferocious – “Bringing offerings is fXtile, inFense is an abomination to me … When yoX stretFh oXt yoXr hands I will hide my eyes from yoX” (vv. 13,15). Once he has spoken these blistering condemnations, diagnosing what is wrong, Isaiah offers the remedy for these iniquities. He instructs God’s people to, ‘Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil’ (v. 16).

    Today, separation and oppression continue to be manifest when any single group or class is given privileges above others. The sin of racism is evident in any beliefs or practices that distinguish or elevate one “race”1 over another. When accompanied or sustained by imbalances in power, racial prejudice moves beyond individual relationships to the very structures of society – the systemic perpetuation of racism. Its existence has unfairly benefitted some, including churches, and burdened and excluded others, simply due to the colour of their skin and the cultural associations based upon perceptions of “race”.

    Like the religious people so fiercely denounced by the biblical prophets, some Christian believers have been or continue to be complicit in supporting or perpetuating prejudice and oppression and fostering division. History shows that, rather than recognising the dignity of every human being made in the image and likeness of God, Christians have too often involved themselves in structures of sin such as slavery, colonisation, segregation and apartheid which have stripped others of their dignity on the spurious grounds of race. So too within the churches, Christians have failed to recognise the dignity of all the baptised and have belittled the dignity of their brothers and sisters in Christ on the grounds of supposed racial difference.

    Revd Dr Martin Luther King Jr memorably said, ‘It is one of the tragedies of our nation, one of the shameful tragedies, that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hour in Christian America”. This statement demonstrates the intersections between the disunity of Christians and the disunity of humanity. All division has its root in sin, that is, in attitudes and actions that run counter to the unity that God desires for the whole of his creation. Tragically racism is part of the sin that has divided Christians from one another, has caused Christians to worship at separate times, and in separate buildings, and in certain cases has led Christian communities to divide.

    Unfortunately, not much has changed since the time of Martin Luther King’s statement. The 11:00 am time slot – the most common time for Sunday worship – often does not manifest Christian unity, but rather, division, along racial and social as well as denominational lines. As Isaiah proclaimed, this hypocrisy among people of faith is an offence before God: ‘even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood” (v. 15).