Second Week in Lent , February 24, 2013 (full size gallery)
While not as packed as the first week of Lent, the second week was equally as diverse.
Thursday was the first Feasting with Jesus class, a special offering during Lent at 5:30pm (next week 6pm). There were 6 people besides Catherine and the topic was the first century dinner that Jesus may have faced. They both discuss the typical foods and cook them too. Foods included mediterranean grain bread, cucumber salad and feta cheese, melon and pears, hummus and lentil and chick pea soup. Foods were oriented around fresh produce and milk products on a daily basis. Next week we will step it up to consider a wedding feast which will have lamb. Here is more information on the series.
On Saturday, there was a Deacon Ordination at All Saints Episcopal in Richond. We had no one from St. Peter’s who was ordained but there were three of the eight from Region One, two of whom were from St. George’s. Catherine has known Carey Chirico and Ed Jones for years there- Carey involved in children’s ed and Ed in the adult ed and EFM programs. Ordinations are like tribal gatherings with both clergy and lay descending on a church somewhere in the Diocese. In addition, the preacher had her start at Jeff Packard’s church at Christ Church. St. George’s (Jan Meredith) also planned and was a major player in the reception.
Sunday was a day of extremes. We had the 9am service with temperatures in the early 40’s dark and forboding. Only 7 people were present. Christian Ed featured part 2 of Forgiveness, "Why do we forgive" with 7 persent. 49 people came to the 11am service, one of the largest Morning Prayer services we have seen recently.
This was the first Sunday for Charles to be acolyte and he did a great job. We also celebrated birthdays for Mary Ann and Barbara. Boyd talked about the murder mystery on Ladies’ Night Out with 20 parts which will be assigned next week. This is a fundraiser for the church and sponsored by the EFM. We need to let Bill Wick know if we are coming and for the men which dish to bring.
Next week there will be fundraiser for the Notre Dame school in Haiti to create a better toilet situation. Catherine announced she had won the John Hines Preaching Award for sermon writing from Virginia Seminary. (Today’s sermon is here.) We are completing pictures for the Directory this week and next.
By the end of the service it was in the mid 50’s and had become clear. Quite a turn around and appropriate for Lent, a time of repentance.
The readings this week are about gatherings and facing the future with faith.
God calls Abraham to that special covenant relationship: “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates." Many years later, Jesus says to the group in Jerusalem – " “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”.
Both Abraham and Jesus had to face the future with faith which is an important lesson for our time. Both have a mission to fulfill.
Abraham faced disgrace – they had set out on what must have seemed to their friends and family to be a “fool’s errand” based only on a promise from God. After many years had passed, God appears to Abraham to remind him of the promise, but it seems that the years have taken their toll on his faith. Abraham says, “Sovereign Lord, what good will your reward do me, since I have no children?" (Genesis 15:2). To him it would seem that he and Sarah were stuck in what was to them a vicious circle of barrenness and mortality, which meant that they had no real future and therefore no real hope. In some way, however, God was able to break through Abraham’s fears and doubts and shame, and Abraham crossed over to faith.
We don’t really know what happened to Abraham on that starry night that enabled him to take the step of faith. But somehow, God was able to break through Abraham’s shame and doubt and fear and lead him to “trust God’s future” even in the midst of everything that contradicts it here and now. The promise allowed him to look beyond the bleakness and lack of hope.
In the Gospel, Jesus has been journeying to Jerusalem since Luke 9:51, a journey that lasts all the way through 19:28 in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus’ mention of his death there leads him to reflect on the tragedy that Jerusalem had been in Israel’s past and will be in Jesus’ future
Whatever the purposes of the Pharisees and Herod, Jesus uses the threat to make clear the nature of his upcoming death as a part of his mission. Jesus is going to die, but it will have nothing to do with the threat of Herod. Rather, his death is the completion of his present ministry. He characterizes this ministry as “casting out demons and performing cures” . Both activities are by themselves important.
The significance of casting out demons for Jesus’ ministry is given in 11:20: “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you.” Casting out demons is part of Jesus’ battle against the devil (see further 11:21-22) and thus a part of his establishment of the kingdom of God.
Performing cures is likewise a part of the fundamental character of Jesus’ mission, announced in 4:18-19 as being “to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind” (quoting Isaiah), also a statement about the establishment of God’s kingdom.
To reinforce that Herod has no control over him, Jesus adds that he will be doing these things “today and tomorrow”. Herod was not so much been a despot as a manipulator, which is a bully’s prime talent. His trade was quelling resistance and achieving a working order. Money, work, and opulence were among his weapons. Jesus’ works are human, disarmingly simple, freely given, and liberating
What is the importance of all of this ?
There is a choice but importance to see the outcome . Faith enables us to move beyond believing only what we can see to believing that God is a God who brings hope out of hopelessness and new life out of death. Faith enables us to move out of the essential hopelessness of our world and to step into the “glorious liberty” that God is bringing to the whole creation through Jesus. It is a different path, a whole new way of life that sees the possibility of new life in every death, sees the light shining in the deepest darkness, and sees hope in the midst of despair.
All this happens in God’s time. The psalm provides a sense of patience – "O tarry and await the LORD’S pleasure; be strong, and he shall comfort your heart; * wait patiently for the LORD."
Paul in the reading in Philippians provides Jesus Christ as the quintessential example for his audience to follow. All life is captured in Christ. He criticizes those who have set their model elsewhere. They “minds set on earthly things.” Instead of being guided by self-sacrificial service to others, they are guided by their own desires (“their god is their belly”). People should be heaven minded. The Philippians — and we as Christians — are citizens of Christ’s city, governed by the gospel. Paul uses the present tense, “our citizenship is in heaven,” which calls them to enact their true citizenship now in a foreign land.
The sermon continues on the concept of the "citizenship of heaven."