St. Paul's Episcopal Church   Poughkeepsie, NY 12601


MESSENGER
"Making friends while serving God"

The week of January 14-20, 2019
JESUS' FIRST MIRACLE

The Church Pension Fund prints a calendar which we hang in our office. Each month it shows a cartoon, usually one  making fun of us, our quirks, our sensibilities. Last year one cartoon showed an acolyte who had grabbed the wine vessel rather than the water, and was pouring the wine over the priest's finger to the surprise of the priest. The caption shows the acolyte saying, "Gosh, pastor, it was water just a minute ago."
 
The wedding at Cana is known as the first miracle of Jesus. Jesus turning the water into wine--and fine wine at that--was not only noteworthy. It was worthy of celebration. The steward said the wine was better than the first servings, indicating the father of the bride had honored his guests with better wine later in the party. This was remarkable!
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THIS WEEKS READINGS
 
As we can tell from the dialog between Jesus and his mother, this surprised Jesus as much as anyone. He said his time had not come. Jesus is learning the truth about his identity and his capability whether he wants to or not.
 
So are we. God has prepared us to be vital parts of the Jesus movement. We may think we are not ready. Like Jesus was, we are mistaken.


 Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; 
Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11
 
        
 
 Readings for the week of Jan 14-19
 
Monday, January 14
Romans 3:9-20
 
Tuesday, January 15
Romans 3:21-31
 
Wednesday, January 16
Romans 4:1-12
 
Thursday, January 17
Romans 4:13-25
 
Friday, January 18     Confession of Saint Peter
Romans 5:1-11
 
Saturday, January 19

                          Readings for the week of Monday, January 21
 
Monday, January 21

Tuesday, January 22
Romans 6:15-23

Wednesday, January 23
Romans 7:1-6

Thursday, January 24
Romans 7:7-13

Friday, January 25     Conversion of Saint Paul
Romans 7:14-25

Saturday, January 26
Romans 8:1-8

Sunday, January 27      3 Epiphany
Hear God's Word at your local church
  PARISH  NEWS

HELPING HANDS NEEDED!
   
The Building & Grounds Committee needs your help! It has been brought to our attention that all the tables and chairs in the undercroft and Scout Hall need a good cleaning. On February 9th at 10 am, we will be wiping them all down. That' s a lot of tables and chairs!!! We could use more hands. If you' re available, please join us. Thank you.



ANNUAL CHILI & CORNBREAD
TAKE-OUT  
 

WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY  
   


FOOD PANTRY ITEM OF THE MONTH
We are asking all parishioners to please help us stock the Food Pantry. For the month of January please bring in pancake mix & syrup, there will be a basket for all donations in the Narthex.




MARK YOUR CALENDARS


COMMUNITY CALENDAR
 
                           
                     
                         JANUARY BIRTHDAYS

1    Mavis Rivera                                                12     John H. Filor
2    Bill Rhode                                                     13     Rena Mazzuto
3    Linda Santos                                                14     Edna Clarke
      Jeffrey Francis                                              15    John Jerome Mazzuto
7    Jacinto Xavier Santos-Thompson                 21    Donna Hudak
8    Abraham Joseph Foley                                 23    Carola Madrid
11  Francis McKenzie                                         25    Agnes Scarlett



The Sunday Sermon
 
       Pleasing God
 
SERMON: 1 Epiphany C 1 13 19
Isa43:1-7;Ps29;Acts8:14-17;Lk3:15-17,21-22
 
You may have heard the one about the fellow who had been up all Saturday night drinking and was staggering home when he saw a crowd gathered by the river. He wandered over to where they were standing and the crowd turned to him and a man in a long white robe, standing in the river asked the man, "Would you like to find Jesus?"
 
Thinking if Jesus needed to be found he must be lost, the man thought he might be able to help. So he slurred, "Sure," and the man in the robe took his hand, walked him into chest-deep water, and pulled him under.
 
The man sputtered to the surface only to be asked, "Did you find Jesus?" and he could only shake his head. So the man in the robe dunked him again with the same result. So he dunked him a third time and when the man came sputtering up for breath and was asked, "Did you find Jesus?" he could only say, "Nope, I don't think he's down there."
 
That's certainly not a very enlightening story.  And it's not very kind to those traditions that use full immersion baptism in their baptismal rite.
 
Molly and I were in Israel a few years ago on a trip led by a Presbyterian minister and a Jewish rabbi. We spent a fair amount of time at the Jordan River. One day we were driven to a development along the river which was basically baptism boot camp. Busloads of people were entering the spot and we saw one group of maybe a dozen, dressed in white robes, walking into the river to be re-baptized. Our Presbyterian leader observed facetiously, "Oh, my goodness, it's Six Flags over Jesus."
 
Baptism as an initiation rite is rather counterintuitive. Except, of course, that was what happened to Jesus himself. It was his official first appearance, courtesy of his cousin John.
 
It is perhaps difficult for us with our heated water and indoor plumbing to identify with the outdoor performance of the baptism rite. And we most definitely have trouble relating to people for whom water was a rare commodity.
 
The practical cleansing effect of water is easily recognizable. But the spiritual aspect of using water conveys much more about our dependence on God and God's generosity in creating a world with ample water.
 
Before we pour the water into the wine at the altar for Communion I pray, "We thank you Lord, for the gift of water." This comes from the baptismal rite and it conveys our need and our thanks.
 
It also carries us back in time to the baptism of Jesus. We can imagine being present then and witnessing Jesus praying after he was baptized, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove alighting on him, and a voice from above declaring, "You are my son the beloved, with you I am well-pleased."
 
We might react, as we've heard the story before, "Great! God is pleased with Jesus. Not terribly surprising." However we might want to take a moment to consider that when we were baptized the words were said over us, "You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ's own forever."
 
In our post-Communion prayers we acknowledge that we are living members of Jesus, that is, part of him in this time. As such we might want to recognize that God at Jesus' baptism is speaking not just for that time but for all time and that in the course of time we have become living members of Christ our Lord.
 
You can probably see where I'm going here: at Jesus' baptism God expressed great pleasure at all the baptized as they have become living members of the God's eternal Son, Jesus Christ.
 
This idea was first presented to me when the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church came to New York and to the clergy of the diocese for a day of prayer and reflection just in advance of Andy Dietsche's ordination as bishop of our diocese. She challenged the clergy to consider the idea that God at Jesus' baptism was speaking to all of us. I have since then found myself considering this concept. And I have been considering it on my own behalf and on your behalf.
 
Because there is some significance to this idea and there is much to recommend it. If God is well pleased with us then we can delight in that. But what I think is going on is God is expressing pleasure in direct proportion to our ability to live into our membership as part of the Body of Christ. God is endorsing our fidelity to Jesus' teaching and earthly life and our understanding of and acceptance of Christian doctrine. But God is certainly not endorsing our lapses, our shortcomings, our forgetfulness or our faithlessness.
 
So on the one hand this idea of God being pleased with us is most warm and cuddly. On the other, it leads us to acknowledge we're not always engaged as God would have us be engaged. But ultimately it's a grand and glorious thing, because it helps us remember how we want to live, even as we are not managing to do so in a given moment. And we know God loves us even as we fall short of being well pleasing.
 
I came to understand unconditional love by the way my parents dealt with me in my less orderly days. I was an unruly youngster, yet after every mess, after every misdeed or mishap, it was my dad who always said to me that he loved me, no matter what. This did not reduce the sting of my poor decisions but it allowed me to feel the grace of being accepted regardless. And when the notion of a God with unconditional love for me was brought to my attention in my adulthood, I felt I knew what that meant.
 
I mentioned this at my dad's funeral in 2005. In fact that was the first funeral I had ever conducted and I felt I had been preparing my dad's eulogy my whole life. I offered my thoughts on unconditional love which you just heard and after the service my brother, who was better behaved than I was, or more discreet, or both, said he'd not heard that.
 
Now I know we're dealing today with baptism and not the Prodigal Son, but I think it is significant that the errant one gets the vital message. And I think we should all consider that as we deal with the people in our lives and love them, no matter what.
We are remembering today the baptism of Jesus. When we come to that point of the service during which we recite the Nicene Creed, today we will instead recite the baptismal covenant. The covenant contains the creedal phrases that are so familiar but also ties to our memories the five commitments we often call the job description of a Christian.
 
Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?  
 
Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
 
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
 
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?  
 
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
 
These are the things we do which cause God to be well pleased with us. Let us remember that the covenant we have made and remake today is not something we offer to God in exchange or in remuneration for anything God has done for us. This covenant has far greater value. Because a covenant is offered without countermeasure. We desire and we expect nothing back. Our covenant is to do these things because we are grateful and we are trying every day to live our lives in a manner which leaves God well pleased. Amen
 
A sermon preached Dec. 13, 2019, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Poughkeepsie NY by The Rev. Tyler Jones, Rector
        

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St. Paul's Episcopal Church-Poughkeepsie
 
 

'In Service to God & You'
SUNDAY 8AM
Server:            Maria Bell

Lectors:           Rose Marie Proctor
                        Mark Goodwin

Litanist:           Pete Bedrossian
  
SUNDAY 10AM
Organist:         Maris Kristapsons
  
Acolytes:         Shawn Prater-Lee                 
  
Lectors:           Alexis Plain
                        Brooke Plain
  
Litanist:           Mark Debald
  
Usher:             Dewy Clarke
                        Mark Debald
  
Altar Guild:      Norma Williams & Mertlyn Tomlinson
Greeters:        Joanna Frang & Mark Debald
                     
 
 
 
 

THIS WEEK'S HYMNS

LEVAS-II           227                   We shall overcome

1982                 599                    Lift every voice and sing

LEVAS-II           106                   Take my hand, precious Lord

1982                 423                     Immortal, invisible, God only wise

 

 HYMN INFORMATION:  We Shall Overcome is a gospel song which became a protest song and a key anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. Most commonly believed to be lyrically descended from "I'll Overcome Some Day", a 1900 hymn by Charles A. Tindley, the modern version of the song was first said to have been sung by tobacco workers during a 1945 strike in Charleston, South Carolina. Two years later it was published under the title "We Will Overcome." Zilphia Horton, who learned it at the 1945 strike, taught it to Pete Seeger and many others. In the early 1960s, Seeger and other famous folksingers such as Joan Baez sang the song at rallies, folk festivals, and concerts in the North and helped make it widely known. Music scholars have pointed out that the first half of We Shall Overcome bears a notable resemblance to "The Sicilian Mariners Hymn", first published in 1792 and widely circulated in American hymnals. Music historian Victor Bobetsky recently wrote "We Shall Overcome owes its existence to many ancestors and to the constant change and adaptation that is typical of the folk music process."
  
 

 
 
 
 
 

THIS WEEK'S CALENDAR
January 14-20 2019
                               
MON 14
7:30am "Good Morning" AA Meeting;  

6pm Evening Prayer, Worship/Altar Guild;
6:30pm NA Meeting;


TUE 15
10am-2pm Office, Pantry, Thrift Store;
6pm Evening Prayer, Seekers group;


WED 16
7:30am "Good Morning" AA Meeting;
10am-2pm Office, Food Pantry, Thrift Shop
12:15pm Healing Service & Eucharist;


THUR 17
10am-2pm Office, Food Pantry, Small Blessings Thrift Shop; 


FRI 18
7:30am "Good Morning" AA meeting; 


SAT  19
3 pm NA Meeting "Journey to Recovery"; 


SUN 20
8am Rite I;
8:45am Lesson's Discussion
9:30am Choir Practice; 

10am Sunday School;

10am Rite II;

11:15am Coffee Hour & The Good Book Club Meeting;
                          

YOUR NEWS BELONGS IN ST. PAUL'S  MESSENGER

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