Nov. 10, 2013 (full size gallery)
A glorious fall day with definely fall weather in the low 50’s with brilliant sunshine with some wind.. Fall finally came to Port Royal this week. As the ECM fall cleanup day was on Nov. 9, it was perfect timing. Their labors yielded 5 truck loads of leaves. (Others were scattered around this Sunday with the wind.) This past Sunday a group went to the Circle of Faith at Caroline High School remembering two high school students who had died within the last month.
This was Stewardship Sunday with Ken Pogue becoming stewardship chair. He felt like "torch had been passed to a new generation" and he promised to make stewardship a year long activity. Since he is only in his second year at St. Peter’s he said he wanted to get to know people better. He wants to sustain the love and charity already present at St Peter’s to go beyond what we already do.
Catherine used her sermon to echo the Old Testament and Paul using the metaphor of the "Resurrection Parish." "Believing in the resurrection means that we live in hope, even in the face of the great discouragement…So we live in hope—hope of being transformed, beginning here and now. As St Paul says in Romans, “be transformed….so that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Because today is the day that we are handing out the pledge cards for next year, I’d like to consider how we live in hope of resurrection as a parish in the ways that we use our finances."
This week is Susan and Kimberly’s birthday. Kimberly will actually be celebrating next weekend with a bonfire.
We had a special litany this week to remember veteran’s day ("a Litany for The Armed Forces from The Royal Army Chaplains’ Department") and the veteran’s in the service were recognized.
Finally, Godly play concluded after the service with a pile of leaves for the children to jump in.
The lectionary this week is about conflict, specifically dealing with adversaries:
-Job vs. 3 friends
-Psalmist vs. those who are deceitful
-Paul vs. those in church misinterpreting Paul’s view on end times
-Jesus against some Sadducees
The readings are here
Jesus dealt with the Sadducees in the Gospel who did not believe in the resurrection.The Sadducees understood this world to be the only world in which God would act as a keeper of covenantal promises. There was no hope for God’s ultimate justice. Jesus he takes a silly legal argument of the Sadduccees dealing with marriage and emphasizes that human institutions, such as the entire patriarchal structure, will be set aside at the time of the resurrection. It will be a new life
Job had to deal with reverses -his ten children are killed. He loses all his wealth. And he becomes ill with a painful skin disease.
The hope is in tranformation according to the sermon" "We Christians read this passage from Job with Jesus in mind—Jesus, our redeemer, who will stand alongside us and rescue us and transform us—and so we have hope, as Job did, that ultimately, we will see God…Believing in the resurrection means that we live in hope, even in the face of the great discouragement. God restores Job’s health, makes him twice as rich as he had been before, and gives him ten more children.
The key is finding something of strength whether God, prayer or Jesus teaching on resurrection and/or grace and not give into worry or fear so to have your confidence shaken. We need to be grounded so to avoid tempation shifting us away from our beliefs.