The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, commonly called the Purification of St. Mary the Virgin: God Reigns
January 30, 2009
Today we commemorate The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, commonly called The Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin. Documented in St. Luke 2, since Jesus was Mary’s firstborn, they were required, under the Law, to dedicate Him to God by a sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or young pigeons—thereby making Him holy to God. The Church’s celebration of this dates nearly to the beginning of Christian worship and belief and is marked by discernment provided by the Holy Spirit to Simeon, an elderly man who, Scripture teaches us, was “waiting for the consolation of Israel”—a phrase that means the calling near of comfort or refreshment of the Messianic salvation, since the rabbis call the Messiah the consoler, the comforter—an early picture of the broader ministry of the Holy Ghost through the Church. Interestingly, Scripture couples this consolation to the term Israel, which means “God reigns.” The facts of the event underscore Jesus’ ministry—then and now, because neither Mary nor Jesus really required the liturgy or sacrifice performed that day. Jesus needed no dedication to God—He was God incarnate, while Mary needed no purification, since she was still a virgin. Interestingly, both submitted as a mark of obedience to God’s way among His people—truly living out the meaning of the word “Israel.” Simeon, being full of the Holy Spirit recognized the infant Christ as Messiah and gave us the words of the Nunc Dimittus, which we chant today as a mark of our own obedience—recognizing, as he did, God’s comforter, Who is still with us today in the person of His Holy Spirit. May God reign among us personally, providing the assurance of His mercy, as He did for Simeon—completing our lives in Him. Maranatha!
Annual Meeting and Vestry Retreat
January 28, 2009
The parish annual meeting was held January 4, 2009.
Listening at the Parish Meeting
Thanks to Osei Okolo and Mike Forbes
Bishop David Bena led a retreat for vestry and parish leaders in January.
Vestry and Leadership at Retreat
Nursery
January 26, 2009
Photos of children in the nursery in January 2009.
Liturgy Lesson for the Conversion of St. Paul: Commandments
January 23, 2009
Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith.
THOU shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. (1928 Book of Common Prayer, Holy Communion service)
At every Holy Communion service we review the basics of God’s Law by rehearsing the Ten Commandments or the Summary of the Law. Both are at the heart of our Faith. In today’s service, we recite the Summary, which is “Cliff’s Notes” of God’s ordinance to us, as provided by the Lord Himself. A brief summary of the Divine Law, it conveys Christ’s own condensation and instruction for Christians. First, it sets forth our duty towards God—to love Him with everything we are—our heart (spirit), soul, and mind. This means we value God ahead of everything else—including our own selves. The second part is similar—we must love our neighbors as ourselves, valuing them, being just and unselfish toward them, and desiring their welfare as we desire our own. Jesus concludes His summary law class by telling us that “…on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” meaning God’s rule and intention for us rests on our obedience to the Summary. No wonder we review them so often—they describe how God wants our attitudes to be for Him to properly bless and interact with us. This is the conclusion St. Paul came to at his conversion to the Faith—that the Law could not be kept outside a heart changed by God the Holy Ghost and the Blood of Jesus and that our Father wanted the attitudes of our hearts and not just our outward service in worship and lifestyle. In short, we cannot fool God with outward actions, but, must ask Him to change us to His own image, as captured by the Summary of the Law. Come, Holy Spirit—change our lives!
Humbling Yourself before God by Tia Weaver
January 23, 2009
Hard to do? A lot of people think so. I don’t however. Not by any means! When I think what God has saved me from—death, just to name one thing, but not just death in flesh, death for eternity. He has given me another chance to follow Him, not with part of my heart, but with my whole heart.
I did die in a way, I have died to myself. I don’t even think the same way. It’s like in the book of Esther. There came a time when she knew she could be facing sure death, but she had to get up, put on the royal robes of righteousness, hold out her hand of faith, and touch the cross our Savior had been trying to give her all along. He’s trying to reach out to you too, beloved; just take it.
During my month-long stay in the hospital and many, many months of rehab, I remember wondering Will I ever be able to bow before the Lord and publicly reverence my Holy God without anyone’s assistance or without pain? Today, I take great delight in taking a knee and bowing my head to my Deliverer. No one has to help me and I feel no pain.
In the past year I have seen several women in the parish become injured. When I would see them back in church, so early after their injuries, and comment on it to them they would just say, “Well Tia, I just thought about what you went through and yet you were here, so if you could do it so could I.” Wow, talk about humbling! Don’t ever think that what you do is not being observed, positively or negatively, and when you’ve influenced someone positively towards the Lord, it is an incredibly humbling experience.
I used to worry what people would think about me if I bowed my head every time I heard the name of Christ, or if I would take a knee during a prayer to our Lord. Now it’s all I want to do.
Your Sister in Christ,
Tia
Plodders for God
January 21, 2009
Bible Reading: “He endured as seeing Him who is invisible.”— Hebrews 11:27
Bonus Reading: Hebrews 11:8-12
Devotional writer Henri Nouwen urged people to know God personally through our Lord Jesus—a function Scripture teaches us is a function of a personal Holy Ghost. Once, at a conference on art and the spiritual life, Nouwen was seated with a woman who shared she had quit going to her church because she disagreed with its policies—a move that had little to do with Jesus and was centered on her personal desires—not the prompting of the Holy Ghost. She was not seeing the Invisible.
Henri leaned over and said to her, “All that is distraction. I don’t mean to denigrate or even dispute your complaints, but those are beside the point. The only thing that really matters is your relationship with Jesus.” What a rifle shot of counsel for us all!
He knew the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus as both Lord and Savior. Although invisible to our natural eyes and untouchable by our natural hands, He’s still with us, every day—what Scripture calls Emmanuel. Like electricity, He is invisible, but a pervasive, easily accessible power source through a personal Pentecost. We maintain contact with Him through worship, fellowship, prayer, diligent study of His Word, and listening, empowered by our indwelling, baptizing Holy Spirit. If we do, He’s central and powerful in every aspect of our lives. We seek Him and His Way, instead of murmuring and complaining among the people because we didn’t get what suited our preferences.
Numbers 16 contrasts God’s view of murmuring/complaining with standing before Him in relationship and worship. Moses was doing all he could to lead Israel out of bondage, following God’s prompting to the Promised Land. However, a coalition of complainers, led by Dathan, criticized Moses’ every move because it was not what they wanted. When Moses called the entire company to stand before the Lord with him, Dathan refused, citing the imagined wrongs Moses had done. Dathan’s rebellion and self-will cost him—and those standing with him—their lives, as the earth beneath his tents opened, swallowing them forever. Simply surrendering his will and standing before the Lord could have saved Dathan. Instead, complaining killed him—and those who stood with him in it. So it is with us—we can choose complaints and self will or surrender and relationship—death or life.
Nouwen gives us a Christian way of standing before the Lord. “Just take 5 minutes a day every day for 2 weeks to sit quietly and ask to be with Jesus, and ask for His presence. And then come and tell me what’s important.” What advice—consistency! Even though it feels like we’re sometimes just plodding along, our progress is steady, and that’s the point. God will bless our consistency, if we are in Him, not ourselves, in every step. A simple discipline—get ourselves out of the equation and focus on the Lord in consistency. Then we’ll have the perspective of God’s approved solution that Henri spoke of to the complaining woman.
In the Bible, the life of faith is often described as a walk (Genesis 17:1; Psalm 84:11; Micah 6:8; Romans 8:1; Galatians 5:25), a word in Greek that means “making progress”—one that is most closely mirrored in our term “parapet,” a term for the walkway along the top of a fortification wall. For most of us, our Christian pilgrimage involves plodding, a pace that sometimes feels unspiritual and unproductive. The dictionary defines plodding as “making one’s way slowly and perseveringly.” Taking that together with the word “parapet,” plodding can be seen as progress made from a position of safety and strength. No wonder Scripture refers to God as our “strong tower!” And we walk where He places us.
Two of God’s earliest plodders, Abraham and Sarah, trusted His promises, even though they had to wait many years for them to be fulfilled (Hebrews 11:8-12). How hard is it for us to wait even for a stop light to change?
Consider also the productive plodding of William Carey. A cobbler by trade, Carey could have sunk into a life of complaining, but, instead, became a scholar, linguist, and father of modern missions. His motto: “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.” In old age, he clarified: “If, after my removal, anyone should think it worth his while to write my life, I will give you a criterion by which you may judge of its correctness. If he gives me credit for being a plodder, he will describe me justly. Anything beyond this will be too much. I can plod. … To this I owe everything.” What wisdom.
Real Christian life, then, is a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ—not “religion,” a term derived from the Latin, meaning “rules.” Once we have a personal relationship with Jesus through the Holy Ghost, we see the details of our lives as He does. And here’s a New Year’s resolution: will we take 5, 10, or even 30 minutes a day to seek His presence? Will we commit to weekly worship and fellowship? Will we plod to stand before God—or risk separation from God in complaints instead?
God wants plodders making progress steadily from His position of strength and safety, and He sends the Holy Ghost with walking shoes for each of us. Our job is put them on and start to move.
For our prayer closets: When we relate to God as a person, we develop a personal relationship with Him—and that provides perspective to walk. Do we meet Him daily by the Holy Ghost?
Grace and peace,
Chip+
Shop ’til you drop—online—and raise money for All Saints
January 19, 2009
Whenever you shop online, be sure to visit the All Saints Anglican Church Online Shopping Mall first. You can shop at many of your favorite online merchants and have a portion of your purchase donated to the parish, at no extra cost to you.
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
January 18, 2009
January 18 – 25, 2009 is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
In his sermon today, Father Chip reminded us that Jesus prayed for the unity of His people shortly before his Crucifixion:
I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. ~ John 17:20-22 (NIV)
The theme for this year’s observance is That they may become one in your hand based on Ezekiel 37:15-19, 22-24a:
The word of the LORD came to me: ”Son of man, take a stick of wood and write on it, ‘Belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him.’ Then take another stick of wood, and write on it, ‘Ephraim’s stick, belonging to Joseph and all the house of Israel associated with him.’ Join them together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand. “When your countrymen ask you, ‘Won’t you tell us what you mean by this?’ say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am going to take the stick of Joseph—which is in Ephraim’s hand—and of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to Judah’s stick, making them a single stick of wood, and they will become one in my hand.’ I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God. ” ‘My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees.
As Ezekiel was called to reunite a divided country, Christians today are called to reconcile the Body of Christ that should be one with the Lord but is sadly divided.
O GOD, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, the Prince of Peace; Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatsoever else may hinder us from godly union and concord: that as there is but one Body and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Liturgy Lesson for the Second Sunday after Epiphany: Holy Communion
January 17, 2009
In worship every Sunday, we celebrate the Holy Communion, also called the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, or the Mass, where we partake of the Lord’s nature to feed us spiritually. We are sometimes asked why we celebrate this feast so often. It’s by Christ’s instruction to us! “Do this to have life,” He said. In obedience to Him, the ancient Church met daily to share their experiences in the Lord that day, fellowship among each other, rehearse the stories of the Gospel, and share the Lord’s Real Presence in the Holy Communion, using much the same form as we use today. They would also pray for each other and talk of how they would work for the Lord the next day. But above all, they strove to love each other, in obedience to our Lord’s repeated command, to “…love one another.” In this way, they modeled the Lord’s sacrifice of Himself and lived the Scriptural teaching that Christians would be known by their love for each other. Likewise, we should all meet as often as possible with like-minded Christians, taking the Sacrament and practicing His love among us all, as empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Religious Freedom Day
January 16, 2009
January 16, 2009 has been proclaimed by the President as Religious Freedom Day.
O God, who art the giver of all good gifts; We bless thy Name and give thee thanks for the religious freedom guaranteed to us in these United States. Grant that we worship thee, the one true God, faithfully and reverently, and that we protect this freedom for future generations, ever mindful that we enjoy liberty that many have not. We offer supplications for thy children around the world who do not enjoy the freedom to worship thee openly and freely without fear of persecution. We beseech thee to remember them in thy mercy and spread religious freedom around the world. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, who liveth and reignth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
