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.

2024 Sun Nov 24

Ryland’s Papyrus – Oldest Fragment of New Testament from Gospel of John

From SALT Blog for Nov 24, 2024 -“this fragment is generally accepted as the oldest surviving piece of New Testament scripture (most scholars date it to the early or mid-second century). Its text? A few broken lines in this week’s reading from the Gospel of John. Think of it! Of all the passages possible, the oldest fragment of the Gospels we have is the famous exchange between Jesus and Pilate about “the truth” — with Pilate’s notorious question, “What is truth?”, just missing making it onto the fragment.

What is truth? Pilate asks. The answer, John proclaims, is standing right in front of him: graceful, truthful, dignified, free.

The Church Liturgical Year

 

1.   (From A Pilgrim People:  Learning through the Church Year, by John Westerhoff)

•Advent

Advent is a time for hope, for dreaming of new possibilities, a time set aside to rethink  the ways in which we choose to live our lives.  Advent is a time of anticipation, of watching and waiting, and of transformation. 

•Christmas

During Christmas, we celebrate God’s coming to be with us here, to share our human nature. We celebrate because Jesus has come to live as one of us, to lead us into a new life.  Jesus will also experience suffering and death as each one of us will.   It is in the context of Jesus’ death and resurrection that we celebrate the miracle of his incarnation.

•Epiphany

Epiphany opens with the Feast of the Three Kings, and so we begin our season of journeying, as the wise men did.  Epiphany is the season of the longings of the human heart, the invitation to go on a journey led by God, a journey full of mystery, a journey over which we have no control, a journey which we cannot fully comprehend.  Epiphany is the season of revelation, as we become more and more aware of  the true identity of Jesus, the Son of God.  Our faith is deepened and strengthened. 

•Lent

During Lent we take on risks, journeying through death toward life, entering a wilderness where both God and the evil one are present.  We open ourselves to suffering.   Lent is a time of growing into our true identities, as we accept ourselves, with all of our weaknesses and shortcomings and examine our consciences.   Through penance we open ourselves to becoming whole again, and we make amends for the damage we have done to ourselves, to others, and to creation itself. 

•Holy Week and Easter

The story of Easter is the story of God’s victory, a time of consummation, when now and not yet come together through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus.  All of creation becomes new, God transforms us, and redeems the whole world.  We see that, through God’s redeeming love, we have been made saints.  God’s reign is here, is still in the process of becoming, and  has yet to be.  God is always in the process of making all things new.

• 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.  As we live our lives in the Spirit, we “explore the implications of Easter and endeavor to live into our baptisms” (John Westerhoff, A Pilgrim People:  Learning through the Church Year)   

2. Church Liturgical Year Table   

Thanksgiving

“Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.” Amen.

Christ the King, Last Pentecost, Year B

I. Theme –  Christ’s kingdom is one of truth and justice and not grounded in this world’s values of imperialism, coercion, violence, and oppression.

Christ the King - Memling

"Christ the King" – Hans Memling (1430-1494)

"Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."" – John 18:36-37

The lectionary readings are here  or individually: 

Old Testament –  Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm –  Psalm 93
Epistle –Revelation 1:4b-8
Gospel – John 18:33-37  

Today’s readings celebrate the paradoxical kingship of Jesus Christ. What does "Christ the King" mean"?

In Daniel and in Psalm 93, the Reign of God is depicted as glorious and authoritative, but also as being manifest through a person who is “like a son of man”. In Revelation this one is seen as Jesus, who is revealed in glory and honor, and whose sacrifice is seen as the primary act in bringing God’s Reign into the world. Finally, in the encounter between Jesus and Pilate, the difference between human rulership and God’s Reign is starkly shown, as Jesus explains that he claims no human kingship, but is the king of a realm that is not of this world. It is a kingdom of truth and justice though not of "this world." 

The challenge of this week’s celebration is to avoid triumphalism. We are not to make God’s Reign out to be the same as human power systems, only stronger, more dominant, and longer lasting. Rather, we are to recognise God’s Reign in acts of compassion and justice, in service and sacrifice, and in the challenge to human systems to give up their obsession with war and conquest in order to build a world of peace and love for all.

On this day, we celebrate God’s reign, kingdom, or community of faith, that endures forever, beyond time and beyond this world, beyond life and death. It is tempting to view Christ’s Reign as a conquering, all-powerful, phenomenon that will violently destroy human power systems, but that would be to misunderstand it. Rather, what the Lectionary reveals is a Reign that is not of this world, that is a completely different reality, and that works within human systems, even as it subverts them toward justice, peace and love

We know that we can glimpse something of this reign here on earth, but whatever vision we have is incomplete. What we do know for certain is this: we have a role to play. We are important. We are treasured by God. And God wants us to be part of this, whatever it is, that is beyond our understanding. Following God’s ways of love, justice, and peace, we will surely be on the path to this kingdom—as Jesus told the scribe who asked him about the greatest commandments, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

Our quest for the kingship of Christ in this world must begin by looking within ourselves. Does Christ reign over our lives and the conduct of our days? Or do we panic at every surprise, cling to false securities, dread change and worry incessantly about failures and flukes? If so, perhaps we have not enthroned in our hearts the One who cares for us intimately and longs only for our ultimate good. It is easy to point to a world run amuck. It is harder to admit that the tangled roots of systemic evils lie in our inertia or lack of belief.

One of the most poignant lines in today’s readings captures that personal culpability. As John envisions the second coming, “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.” That global lament suggests that Christ our King is present paradoxically in those whom we wound. In the bum we readily dismiss, the mousy secretary, the pompous cleric, the acned adolescent, the whiny child, the crack addict, you guessed it—in them, the King comes.

Facing that sorry lot, we wail: “If only I’d known it was you!” Salvadoran theologian Jon Sobrino poses a challenge relevant to this feast: “The reign of God presupposes the anti-reign of God, the reality of our planet today: poverty, injustice… We should look at the crucified peoples today and ask ourselves, ‘what have we done, so that they are on the cross? …and what are we going to do to bring them down from the cross?’”

May our worship remind us of this eternal, “otherworldly” Reign of God and enable us to open our hearts to receive it right here and now where we live.

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