Saturday - Balance


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Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday 3/1/17 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 Paradox always seems to hit in the most sacred of moments. Today, I am experiencing some serious conflict between what we have come here together to do this morning and the gospel passage for today. Ash Wednesday is best known for the imposition of ashes in the sign of the cross on our foreheads, but it is also known as a major fast day for the Church. A day where people give up food, sweets, meats, and all manner of other things in order to focus on God. Yet, in the gospel passage from Matthew, Jesus tells us very specifically not to make it known to everyone that we are fasting… which is slightly incongruous with putting ashes on our heads. Paradoxical? Maybe. Hypocritical? Maybe. The true question underneath this ironic situation is, “What is appropriate piety to practice?” This passage in Matthew is structured around the three major ways of the Jewish tradition to practice piety, to practice following their beliefs. First, alm...
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Stewardship Questions and Answers, Part 3

What happens if I pledge and cannot keep my pledge? We realize due to circumstances outside of anyone’s control, people are not always able to keep their pledge. We ask that if you find yourself in such a situation that you tell the priest so that we know for budgeting purposes. How many people do pledge to our church? The last pledge campaign at St. John’s was in 2014. We had 32 participants in the pledge in 2014. We are hoping that our participation rate will exceed that of 2014 this year! What is the tithe? The tithe is a scripturally based understanding of giving back to God through the church. Tithing is the practice of giving the first 10% of all your income to the church. Who decides how much we should give? You do! We ask that you take some time to pray and look at your own budget to discern how much you can give to the church. How can we support our church without money? There are many ways you can support the church without giving money. Other wa...
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Chapter 2 Pilgrimage

During her time in college, Sara Miles found herself in the midst of the war zone in Central America.  "It turned out that gunfire had a way of focusing my attention. And that I cared, passionately, about knowing the difference between the official story and physical reality." (pg 13) This is something that is becoming questionable in our society, what is the physical reality of a situation? No matter how we look at something we always bring our context, our baggage and our perceptions into the story. Any story can be looked at in a myriad of ways and in a world where people can tell those stories for a wide audience, the language used, the nuances, can be very important to understanding the story being told. What is the physical reality of our lives? What are the stories we tell ourselves? How much of a gap is there between the two?
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