Sunday, January 19, 2014 (full size gallery)
Today was the Parish meeting. We had a small crowd of 31 at the meeting. Do people avoid them deliberately? The sun was bright and beaming but it was a day where you think it is colder than you think. The reports for the meeting are here.
The parish meeting was blended into the latter part of the sermon. The key phrase in the sermon was this:
"And the work that we have been given as a church is the work that was given to John the Baptist–to prepare a road for God to come to God’s people. Our ministry this year has been to continue to build roadways here in this community—roadways that hopefully will bring the people of this community closer together as all of us travel toward glory. "
Much of what was accomplished in 2013 was in two broad areas – outreach and furthering worship. In both areas, partnership and working together was the key. With Outreach it was with Caroline’s Promise, the town of Port Royal.
"The most important thing we do together is to worship together, because everything else we do grows out of the time we spend in the company of God and one another." With worship we drew on the Baptists (Rev. Charles Mumbo preaching), the baptists in Bowling Green who supplied the moon bounce for Charter Day, the Gideons (Warrington Trip’s sermon) as well as the good people at St. Asaph’s who partnered with the 13 concert. The sermon mentioned the realignment of Christian ed both for adults and children. There is still work to be done in this area in 2014.
The wardens were given gifts of cherry boxes with the Episcopal shield.
Catherine framed a question for both of them. To Eunice she asked "what would you say has been our biggest blessing this past year" and "what do you belive God is leading us toward in this coming year."
Eunice pointed to the Vestry retreat which provided directions particularly in changing Christian education (Godly play for children, events for adult education periodically and away from Sunday). Also being able to reach out into the community is a direction we should pursue in 2014.
Cookie was asked about projects this coming year with the buildings by Helmut. Cookie emphasized that the church property is like your home where do you what you can to care of maintenance and improve it, even more so since it is God’s buildings. She pointed to several projects:
1. Survey from the Pitts brothers indicate the church needs a repainting in about 3 years.
2. Parish House wall paper is peeling off. How best to cover it?
3. Parish House cabinets need attention. She has spend time at Lowe’s going over possibilties. There are also issues with storm windows.
She will be chair for the kitchen renovations committee that will work with the next junior warden.
She also emphasized the role of the long term planning committee (Nancy Long, Boyd Wisdom, Clarence Kunstmann, Cindy Fields) that meet periodically. They considered moving the power lines across the church underground in 2013 but it was too expensive.
The floor was open to other questions. Marilyn asked about the issue to keep the building at a constant termperature so to keep the organ in tune. This is an area that will have to be addressed with our organ conservator, Mark Thompson
Finally, the former bell tower , the issue of the leaning campanile was raised. Mike said that experts in Williamsburg have termed a historical structure. (We have an article about it here at the bottom of the page)
The meeting was short and concise and did not feature the reports being read. The reports were posted Friday for people to read. 7 copies were made for people with computer access.
Roger Key and Johnny Davis were elected by acclamation as new Vestry replacing Eunice Key and Cookie Davis. No other nominations came from the floor.
Last week we were given a vision of Jesus Christ as Son, servant, inaugurator of the new creation, and the one who fulfills all righteousness. This week Jesus sets off in his public ministry and begins attracting disciples. We hear John’s version of the baptism and attracting disciples as opposed to Matthew.
We hear in the voice of John the Baptist that Jesus is: Lamb of God, the pre-existant one. Jesus is the One on whom the Spirit descends and remains, the chose one evidence that he is the Messiah. The word for "remain, stay, abide, dwell" (v. 32) is one of the John’s favorite terms. It connotes the permanency of the relationship between the Father and the Son. Unlike the prophets, to whom the Spirit was a temporary gift, Jesus receives and retains the Spirit and then gives it to others, so that they too may enter that abiding relationship.
John proclaims Jesus as the lamb of God. As the Lamb of God Jesus is understood in terms of the suffering servant from Isaiah and to the Passover lamb as a symbol for the death of Christ.
In this story of the calling of the first disciples, Jesus takes the initiative by turning and asking the two disciples what they are searching for. They reply by asking for the abiding place, the permanence, they cannot find elsewhere. He responds with the surprising invitation that we also long to hear, "Come and see"
Our early church fathers also saw him clearly as the paschal lamb provided by God for the sake of the world. Jesus was understood that Jesus was God by the first Christians. Raymond Brown has written that what also seems clear is that many believed Jesus in their first hand experience to be the "one to come" prophesied in the writings of the Old Testament.
The theme of our season of the Epiphany (a season of God with us) is a season where in we are able to proclaim and speak clearly about the person of Jesus Christ and our understanding of him as followers.
As the sermon stated "John Baptist is to prepare a road, not for God’s people to return to the promised land, but for God to come to God’s people…to open up the hearts of people, preparing them for God’s intervention in their lives."
As Jesus begins his public life, we too are invited to reflect on our own unique mission. We are called to be more than servants; we are the light to the nations. As John would say it is the building of relationships so that we may "abide, stay, abide, dwell." We saw evidence of this in the Parish 2013 meeting reports and we hope to extend that in 2014.