Sunday, February 15, 2015 (full size gallery)
A busy week during Last Epiphany for St. Peter’s!
A group of 8 went on Monday Feb. 9, 2015 to the "Picturing Mary" exhibit in Washington. It was led by Susan Tilt, the creator of liturgical garments in the Diocese. We would like to welcome her to St. Peter’s as she recently transferred here.
On Tuesday, Johnny Davis, Roger Key and Tommy Hicks cleared the banks of excess growth which saved the church a pile of money. Many thanks!
Thursday was the first Eucharist in the new Immanuel Chapel at Virginia Theological in Alexandria. On Feb. 1 we had Shelagh Casey Brown as our preacher celebrating Theological Sunday and she eluded to this service. The celebrant was the Rt. Rev. James J. Shand, chair of the Board of Trustees and retired bishop of the Diocese of Easton in Maryland. Dean Markham was the officiant. Representing a long-standing relationship with the Seminary, the Rev. J. Randolph Alexander, rector of Immanuel Church-on-the-Hill delivered the sermon. Catherine read the Epistle which was an honor.
Saturday was the wedding of Cheryl Young and Dennis Ryan. Cheryl who lives in Fredericksburg has been coming to St. Peter’s for some time. Her daughter Gretchen took piano with Nell Clark. St. Peter’s is a wonderful spot for a wedding! They left a flower for the piano in honor of the wedding.
Epiphany is short this year with only 6 Sundays so today was the last Sunday before Lent. Today was also the last day for our Village Harvest collection around chile happening next Wed.
It was certainly "chile" today. A brisk wind with a low temperature around 7 degrees (Fredericksburg) kept the wind chill factor around 0 degrees. We only had 25 in church today.
As I sat on the banks and watched the ice before the service, I was reminded of Rev. Sigismund Ware’s 1893 diary who wrote it being 10 below zero in January. On Jan 24 he reported he “walked over on the ice and called at Woodlawn.” He talked about the inability to get to Grace Church since he couldn’t get over the river.
This week are the birthdays of McKenna Long and Howard Muhly.
Jim and BJ Anderson remain in our prayers. Jim collapsed a week ago on a golf course in Texas and only now is beginning to be responsive. However, the doctors are not sure what caused the problem. He is experiencing some short term memory loss.
Terri’s aunt died this past week as did the choir director at Christ Church, Spotsylvania, Kris Massey Clifford, the latter of a rare heart ailment at age of 44. The funeral is next Friday 7pm in Fredericksburg. It’s a big loss for that church.
The sermon united the readings around a key word, loyalty. "And today’s lectionary readings give us some instruction about how we are to walk with Jesus on this challenging journey ahead…Loyalty is what we need if we are to stay with Jesus on the journey ahead, and loyalty to Jesus helps us to move through the challenging times in our own live". The readings are here and the bulletin.
The sermon looked ahead toward Lent next week "The way to resurrection will include the hard and dirty work of passing through and dealing with the suffering and evil ways of this world, and Jesus wants and needs the disciples to go with him and help him.Our temptation on this Sunday is to jump to Easter, to short circuit the hard work of Lent by telling ourselves that we are already the chosen ones.We get tempted simply to rest and even brag on the fact that God has chosen us, while ignoring the challenging work God gives us to do that will inevitably test our faith and endurance."
Lent begins on Feb. 18 with our Ash Wednesday service at 7pm, preceded by the Shrove Tuesday pancake dinner on the 17th.
Commentary by Canon Lance Ousley, Diocese of Olympia
Stewardship flows out of knowing that you are blessed. Our world is a pretty noisy place, full of sound bites and propositions to the next best thing. Our readings this week all have the common thread of listening and understanding that God has blessed us and is blessing us. To know this, we must listen to the revelation of the source of our blessings.
We stand here at the threshold between the Season after the Epiphany and Lent. There is about to be a transformation, a change that after which nothing will ever be the same again. Our readings echo this. In 2 Kings the mantle is about to be passed from Elijah to Elisha. The Psalmist refers to the consuming fire. Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are not self-made men and women, but that they have been made new by a light that has shone from out of the darkness revealing God’s loving providence in the world. And in the Gospel, of course, we have the Transfiguration of Jesus, which also transforms those who witness this phenomenon.
But there is so much more to the Transfiguration than what meets the eye in this Markan account. We often can get lost in the dazzling white luminescent clothes missing the essential and imperative element of the story. Peter jumps-in distorting the message with cultural noise suggesting they preserve the moment forever. But in the midst of the fog we hear a clear declaration and are given a divine imperative, if only we are listening, "This is my son the Beloved. Listen to him."
When we put our agendas aside, as well as the agendas of a noisy world aside we avail ourselves to listen the Jesus’ voice that simply tells us that we are loved, as he is loved. And because Jesus is loved (and he knows it) he loves us, too. It is hard to love others, if you do not know you are loved. It is hard to bless others, if you do not know you are blessed.
God wanted Elisha to know he was loved and blessed, and not to get caught up in the noisy phenomenon of Elijah’s going from him. Paul wanted to Corinthians to know how blessed they were to know and experience the glory of Christ, so they could bless others with the Gospel. And Jesus wants us all to know how much we are loved so that we may love and bless others being stewards of God’s love in the world.
Once we understand this about God, Jesus Christ, and ourselves, our lives are transformed more and more into givers of grace and love, blessing the world with what God gives us.
As we cross this threshold can we tune out the noise and listen to Jesus so that we can hear that we are blessed and respond by living in love as he calls us to live, blessing others with our stewardship of his love?