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.

2023 Sun July 16

Summer films

1. The Letter

Interfaith Power and Light is partnering with the Laudato Si’ movement to bring the documentary film about climate change, “The Letter,” to congregations this summer.

The Letter tells story of the Laudato Si’ environmanals encyclical letter by Pope Francis issued in 2015, through the eyes from frontline leaders battling the ecological crisis across continents. Laudato Si means “Praise be to you” which is the first line of a canticle by St. Francis that praises God with all of his creation.

Featured in the film are a variety of speakers on the topic: Arouna Kandé, a climate refugee in Senegal; Cacique Dadá, an environmental defender and leader of the Maró Indigenous territory in the Brazilian Amazon; Ridhima Pandey, a youth climate activist from India; and Greg Asner and Robin Martin, biologists studying coral reefs in Hawaii.

The film features exclusive footage from their encounter with Pope Francis, alongside the personal stories and scientific findings throughout the documentary.

Trailer
Full film

2. Sabbath

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Sermon, Pentecost 7, Proper 10, July 16, 2023

Beginning this Sunday and for the following two Sundays, we have the privilege of hearing Jesus tell four parables.    

In Matthew’s gospel, as Eugene Boring notes in his commentary, the words, deeds, and mission of Jesus have caused quite a bit of conflict with and rejection by the leaders of Israel, and right before the passage that we just heard, Jesus is even in conflict with his own family.  Jesus says that his family is not necessarily made up of his “blood kin,” as we say in the South. 

Instead, the family of Jesus consists of the ones who hear the word and then do God’s will. 

So according to Boring,  Jesus tells the four parables that we find in the 13th chapter of Matthew in order to comment on the meaning of his rejection by the leaders of Israel and the founding of the new community of God, the community made up of those people who do God’s will—not necessarily the religious leaders of the day, or even his own family.

In today’s parable, Jesus, the sower, sows God’s Word, or the seeds, out in the world, with mixed success.  Many of the seeds are lost as they fall on pathways so well-trodden that the ground is too hard to receive the seeds and so the birds eat the seeds up.   More seed is wasted as it falls onto rocky ground.  Even though some of the seed takes root, it withers away because there’s not enough soil to keep the roots moist.  Other seeds come up but get choked out by the thorns that have also grown up alongside the seed.  Finally, some of the seed falls on good soil and produces a harvest that is abundant beyond imagining. 

So someone hearing this parable might come to understand that despite all the conflict and rejection with the leaders of Israel, a new understanding of God’s kingdom on earth will take root and produce an abundant harvest.  This parable, as Boring points out, shows us the “mysterious, concealed working of God, who miraculously brings the harvest.” 

The parables that Jesus tells start in a familiar world, but as the story goes on, those listening find that their usual expectations get challenged, and new understandings begin to take shape in their hearts and minds. 

Imagine what would happen if Jesus were among us today, and wanted to tell a parable to us, to get us to consider what it means to do God’s will, to reconsider who is God’s family, and to ponder what an abundant harvest, brought about by the mysterious working of God, will look like. 

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Videos, Pentecost 7, July 16, 2023

Rain before Church!

Larry Saylor – Prelude

Gospel Matthew -The Sower

The Sermon- Rev. Catherine Hicks – a Modern Parable

Offertory – Choir Trio – “Nearer, My God to Thee”

Sunday Links, July 16, 2023, Pentecost 7

  • 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

    • Summer splendor

  • Sun. July 16, 2023, 11am Eucharist YouTube 823 Water St. Port Royal, VA 22535
  • Lectionary July 16, 2023, Pentecost 7, Proper 10, Pentecost 6
  • Ecumenical Bible Study, Wed., July 19, 10am-12pm, Parish House Reading Lectionary for July 23
  • Wed., July 19, Village Harvest, 3PM-5PM
  • School supply donation due July 16
  • July, 2023 Newsletter
  • All articles for Sunday, July 16, 2023

    • 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!

    Lectionary, Pentecost 7, Proper 11, Year A

    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.” 
     

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    Van Gogh’s Sower

    “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

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    Recent Articles, July 16, 2023

    The Sower’s background

    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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