Sunday, October 5, 2014 (full size gallery)
A low turnout of 33 especially for coffee hour. This was not one to miss, however! It was a spectacular fall day, bright sunshine and a nip in the air.
The aftermath of Charter Day/St. Francis blessings colored the day. We had the St. Francis statue in the church window which was raffled off at Coffee Hour. We collected $107 on Sat. and another $43 today for $150 raised which will be used for our new food ministry, Village Harvest. Bill Henderson was the winner despite Johnny Davis many, many tickets. (And we delivered it after Coffee Hour!). We are going to supplement this ministry taking up soup donations for the rest of the month on Sundays. Please contribute a can
Godly Play was only 5 boys but they had a fun time looking at the Noah story and seeing how all parts of the story were needed.
We celebrated Andrea and Ken’s 21st wedding anniversary. Andrea contributed the chicken, rice and potatoes Jamaican style to coffee hour along Crystal’s ham and turkey sandwiches, Andrea’s cookies and Catherine’s cupcakes.
Catherine’s sermon was on focusing on God and our legacies. Thre readings are here.
"We all get caught up in the work God gives us to do, but, be warned, one of life’s greatest temptations is to make the cares and occupations of this life the be all and end all of our lives, our only reason for living, without any thought for God. "
"The tenants in the parable put their focus only on what they could gain for themselves by tending the vineyard. It was all about them and their gain and glory to the extent that they too became full of murderous hatred. "
"Are you caught up in what lies behind you? Are you resting on your laurels? Maybe you’re stuck in the quicksand of all the regrets that you have about all that has happened in your life. Maybe you’re caught up in that bumper sticker philosophy, “he who has the most toys when he dies wins?”"
"So how do we focus on God in our lives?
"So, God puts trust in us and gives us autonomy in how we want to tend our vineyards and work in them. In the parable, the landowner plants the vineyard and then goes off to another country. The landowner doesn’t micromanage the tenants. Instead, the landowner puts trust in them to work well and to produce an abundant harvest and to give the landowner what is owed to him.
"Work hard in the vineyard God has given you, produce an abundant harvest, do it for God’s glory, and like Paul, in all that you do, “press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
This week’s lectionary commentary by Canon Lance Ousley of the Diocese of Olympia:
"Our stewardship and our lives are a reflection of where we place the priority of living in relationship with God. God’s hope for us is to be set free from false pursuits and empty promises of the priorities of materialism and power-positioning. Living in right relationship with God orders our lives according to God’s peaceable kingdom. In God’s kingdom we live in right relationship with our neighbor as an expression of our priority relationship with God, producing the fruits of righteousness and justice. Our readings for this week center on the priority of our relationship with God above all else, ordering our lives according to God’s kingdom.
"The reading option from Isaiah 5 lays out the blessings that God has bestowed upon God’s people to establish their unjust actions in relationship to God. The blessings and expectations are presented as fruit worthy of God’s blessings. To God’s disappointment the fruit produced was in contrast the the blessings that God had planted in Israel. This fruit of "wild grapes" was a disordering of their relationships, failing to make God a priority and expressing this priority in relationship with others. The consequence of the fruit of unrighteousness is retraction of the blessings through their lack of stewarding the blessings of their relationship with God and others. At the end of the pericope we hear the indictment, God expected justice and righteousness, but saw bloodshed and heard cries. It is clear what God expects from us and that God calls us to steward relationships with justice and righteousness through the blessings we have in our lives.
"Paul establishes his worldly achievements to illustrate to the Philippians and us the futility of their value in comparison to having a relationship with Christ and living into the abundance of Christ’s resurrection and our share in it. Paul’s encouragement here while proclaiming his credentials is a nuanced statement about the motivation behind his actions. Before knowing Christ, Paul’s life was governed by a relationship with the law, for the sake of the law (and selfish bragging rights in power positioning). But in coming to know Christ and being in relationship with him, Paul’s motivation to live in righteousness was to reflect the priority of his relationship with Christ in faith. It is then through the "surpassing value of knowing Christ" that Paul stewards righteousness in all his relationships and encourages us to do this also.
"In our Gospel lesson this week Jesus exposes the religious leaders for their failure to live with God as the priority in their lives reflected by the lack of their righteous actions in regard to those whom God loves. The parable of the tenants in the vineyard shows their priority of materialism and power-postioning over producing the fruit of God’s kingdom in relationship with God. With no other gods before God, our stewardship is directed to produce the fruit of God’s kingdom in our world which is characterized by justice and righteousness. The bottom line is that when we put God first in our lives, we live to make God’s desire for all people a reality with all that we are and all that we have. This stewardship expresses our love for God for the benefit of God’s kingdom being established on earth as it is in heaven. Really, it is all a matter of proper priorities.
"How do you steward your relationship with God, does your life produce the sweet fruit of God’s kingdom in the world or the bitter Grapes of Wrath?