Pentecost 7, July 12, 2015 (full size gallery)
A wonderful week with 4 days of Vacation Bible School for 10+ children. It is exhausting for the adults but a rich adventure for all. In 4 days – 4 Biblical verses, 3 stories, 2 songs, many games, many crafts. You can check the story with pictures and descriptions from all 4 days. That week connected with this week – the children made bean soup ("rainbow soup") over 4 days with recipes for clients who will come to the Village Harvest. This was Becky’s idea and a wonderful contribution to VBS and Village Harvest.
We had 40 in the church service on a slightly overcast day after more than 2 inches of rain on Sat. The grass and flowers still had droplets of water
Alex Long V read in his booming voice, a return to being a lector. He explained later it comes naturally since in his profession he has to speak to over 200 without a microphone. He and Elizabeth celebrate a wedding anniversary this week along with Kelly and Dominic. Congratulations!
Two of the Vacation Bible School children sang a song ("This is the Day") at announcments they learned from the week. They were obviously very pleased about their effort.
We thank those who brought food for the Village Harvest this week – tuna, peanut butter, elbow macaroni. In particular Joe and Susan. This will go into about 25 bags we provide that is loaded with fresh produce that Johnny buys from the Northern Neck Food Bank
Johnny reminded people to sign up for the gleaning mission trip on the week of July 20. In addition, he provided 8 ears of corn for everyone today, a repeat from last week. Thank you ! He also had on his corn tie. Cookie and Eunice meanwhile spent time straightening the closet in the Parish House upstairs.
Bill announced the ECM picnic 5pm at Reynolds Pavilion on July 25. Men should give their $5 to him for sides but are responsible for bringing a main dish they cook
The sermon states at the beginning "We’ve lost our peace.But ultimately, God’s grace is what we need if we long for God’s peace. God’s grace is sufficient for us."
The sermon taken exlusively from Ephesians helps us to enter into God’s grace.
We ask for God’s blessings.
"To bless something can mean to
–"request God’s divine favor for something"
–"bestow some benefit upon something,"
–"to protect or to guard from evil"
"In their commentary on Ephesians, Verhay and Harvard point out that blessing God was, and still is, “familiar as a form of thanksgiving in the Jewish community, familiar in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the liturgies of the synagogue, and in the prayers of the home” (page 41).They go on to say that “this formula of praise could accompany every action of the pious Jew from awakening to sleeping” (page 42). "Now I love this idea—I’m thinking about how revolutionary it would be if I spent my day acknowledging God’s blessedness and sovereignty in the situation at hand."
"The beauty of this way of praying is that over time, God becomes not only the God who created the universe and keeps it from descending into utter chaos, but God also becomes our closest companion throughout the day, a companion who is the source of our every blessing, a companion who keeps the chaos in our lives at bay, a companion who is with us as we do the dishes, and a companion who is with us even in the worst and most desperate times in our lives"
"With God as our closest companion during our waking and even our sleeping hours, we can catch a glimpse of and maybe even feel for ourselves what it would be like to be holy and blameless before God in love, instead of being caught up in those daily worries and distractions and giving in to those constant temptations to be full of fear or to become divided from one another, temptations that are simply a part of what it means to live in this world."
And then the writer says that “with all wisdom and insight God has made known to us the mystery of God’s will as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.” "When we step into the center of grace, God pours out love and mercy on us, washes us clean and fills us with the Holy Spirit so that we can live in goodness, so full of praise to God that the entire world can see what God has done for us, so that we can be clothed in God’s spirit, and reach out in love to the world.John Calvin said that “prayer is the chief exercise of faith.”
"So in the week ahead, exercise your faith through your own prayers of praise and thanksgiving, remembering that God has already gathered us up into the center of God’s love, and that, in the fullness of time, God plans to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth."
Canon Lance Ousley, Diocese of Olympia on the lectionary
The refrain from Psalm 24:1 reminds us that none of us are self-made. In the midst of our own creation God blesses us, and that is all of us. Yet in much of what we read for this Sunday we hear overtones of conquest, power-grappling, vengeance, and pride. All of these conditions of the heart make it hard to be good stewards, let alone to show one’s faith in Jesus Christ with one’s life.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said in a sermon: "The whole concept of stewardship is basic for an adequate understanding of the essence of the Christian gospel."
It is this basic idea of the absolute ownership of God that forms the background of this message. When an individual accepts this idea, the whole emphasis of his life changes–the emphasis is not placed on what he OWNS but on what he OWES. . .We come to a deep and abiding sense of God’s ownership of all that we possess, and realize that God has entrusted us with the use of what we call possessions without giving up God’s ownership.
King’s statement echoes the words of Psalm 24:1, and they shine light into the darkness of a selfish culture in need of redemption from its self. Herod’s own voracious epicurean indulgence of people and things turns in on him as both his (brother’s) wife and his daughter manipulate him into serving John the Baptist’s head to them on a platter. While Herod knew in his heart that beheading John was not the right thing to do, he was overcome by thought of being shamed by not keeping his open-ended promise to do anything for Herodias that left him in this social dilemma. The right thing would have been to stand firm on the promise of God in the face of his honor-shame culture.
What might it look like if we all stewarded the knowledge of God’s love for us that is most simply evident in the fact that God has made us? This is the social dilemma that our "self-made" culture poses to us today. With the abiding knowledge that God has created us all in love, we are instilled with the knowledge that we are blessed. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul states what God has done for us through Jesus Christ giving us an even deeper understanding of our blessedness and the blessedness of the whole world. With this understanding we can more freely bless others and find more blessedness ourselves in being a blessing. Too bad Herod didn’t know that we are blessed to be a blessing to others. Otherwise he might have stood firm on the blessings of God, instead of living in the anxiety of continually having to prove himself to those around him.
Good stewardship is founded upon the knowledge of our own blessedness, which flows from the knowledge that we are God-made and not self-made.