This service is not intended to celebrate Christmas but to help each of us prepare ourselves for, and expect the coming of Christ. The word… Read More »ADVENT LESSONS AND CAROLS: AN EXPLANATION
SHOWING UP IS NOT ENOUGH
Matthew 22.1-14
Warner M. Bailey
Isn’t this just the wildest story you have heard in the Bible?
Why would those invited to the marriage feast have refused—two times—the gracious offer of the king? How could they have had the effrontery to spurn the king’s invitation, even to kill his messengers?
Why would the king have repeated over and over his invitation, patiently explaining all his lavish preparations, tempting, luring, beseeching, pleading for his guests to come?
And when it came to dealing out judgment, why would the king have punished an entire city for the actions of a few uncouth and unruly guests? It seems as if the king’s wrath as well as his graciousness have no bounds.
I am surprised that the king then would have sent out his servants into the streets to fill his banqueting hall with ruffians, street people, passers-by, shopkeepers, artisans, children, none of whom would have thought in their life-time ever to see the inside of a palace.
But the wildest aspect of this story is the final scene where one hapless fellow gets kicked out of the hall into a very dangerous punishment because he didn’t have on his wedding clothes! After all, the king’s wedding feast for his son had not been entered on his social calendar.
Here’s just the case where knowing something about the times in which Jesus lived helps us understand this parable better.Read More »Showing Up is NOT Enough
Sweet Mike and the Acolytes
By Beth Fultz, Director of Christian Education
Since our tickets were purchased weeks ahead of the Acolyte Festival in D.C, there was no turning back for our gang of nine. The National Cathedral cancelled their Annual Acolyte Festival, 10 days before our trip, due to extensive damage from the August earthquake. We couldn’t back out now, so we continued with our plans to Washington and added a side trip to Baltimore to visit St. Stephen guest organist Michael Britt. Michael lives in Baltimore and invited us to tour historic churches there and experience the Inner Harbor for food and seaside views. After a Saturday of free-wheeling around Washington D.C., we headed to Baltimore on Sunday for religious histories.
The car ride to Baltimore is a story in itself Read More »Sweet Mike & the Acolytes
Reassurance, I hope, I promise!
By Beth Fultz, Director of Christian Education
As we travel these difficult times collectively, I wonder what we have to offer each other to build up the body of Christ? With economic challenges, jobs at a premium, political polarity, families torn by divorce, children pulled between parents, loved ones seriously ill, demands by employers or coaches or sports leaders or teachers or church leaders…how do we find contentment? Reassurance. Love and respect each another.
Reassurance. That’s what I can give, I hope, to you. You are a child of God, beloved by the Almighty. We are loved despite our weaknesses, our sins, our choices, our mistakes, our lives. Can you feel it? Yes, I’m more the “emotionally-connected” Christian than my counterparts who are the “intellectual-scientific-historical-fact finding” Christians or agnostics.Read More »Reassurance, I Hope, I Promise!
“She lies like a gem in the ocean,” although her identity remains hidden on most maps. Yet thousands of pilgrims arrive each year to seek her secrets, her soul. Her rocks are as old as the earth itself and tell of a fiery, violent birth from deep beneath her shores. Legend says that the giant warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill, whom the English call Finn McCool, built the “Giant’s Causeway,” a geological phenomenon of basalt columns lining a pathway on the floor of the ocean, so he could walk from Ireland to the west coast of Scotland by way of the island of Staffa. Mr. mac Cumhaill lives in the mythology of both countries, inspired by these strange vertical columns of igneous rock. It can be seen in all its grandeur on the south side of Staffa, an uninhabited island, part of the Inner Hebrides’ archipelago, home to thousands of nesting seabirds, foremost among them, a large colony of puffins. . .surely a bird designed by committee; home also to Fingal’s Cave, made famous by the composer Felix Mendelssohn who in 1830, after a visit, composed the “Hebrides Overture.”Read More »A Place Set Apart
My summer schedule has been populated with high action, kick it in gear, activities for the children and youth and friends of St. Stephen Presbyterian. From preparing for Vacation Bible School for over 75 children – it was wonderful, to immediately transforming Parish Hall into the Garage Sale of dreams, then to the Chicago Youth Mission Trip and the absolutely dynamic results there – relationally, and finally to Music Day Camp just a week ago. I’m shaking finger at those of you giving me any credit for the summer’s achievements; I’m just a forceful presence taking many a volunteer along for the ride. None of these events were done alone; all were done in tandem leadership and youthful shepherding. You have you to thank. I am grateful that we all made this spiritual summer happen successfully.Read More »When We All Get Together
There were times, I’m sure, when Jacob must have agonized with regret over his showing to his other sons that he loved Joseph more than all of them. Yes, I can appreciate that when a man approaches old age, he treats any proof of his virility with extra special love, and certainly Joseph being a child of Jacob’s old age would qualify for that kind of attention. Yet, any of us here who has an ounce of wisdom in us can see the makings of a terribly dysfunctional family system in the household of Jacob and his twelve sons. Joseph had all the makings of an imp, a pipsqueak, a pest, a callow lad filled with all the narcissistic self-absorption that any 17 year old boy with raging hormones could inflict on his family. Jacob was the doting sugar-daddy. His older brothers could not even say, “Good-day” or “Hello” to him. Perhaps the Bible is describing a family you know well.Read More »FATHERS, TRUE; BUT ALWAYS SONS Genesis 37.1-11
WHERE THE WAVES ARE
Genesis 37.1-4, 12-28 Psalm 105.1-6, 16-22, 45b Romans 10.5-15 Matthew 14.22-33
Seeing is not always believing, especially when you look out into the teeth of a storm. Seeing is not always believing, especially when our heart is full of bitterness, anger, rage, and that sinking feeling of absolute helplessness. The disciples of Jesus had been with him many months, perhaps a couple of years, and they had witnessed his mighty power many, many times. They knew his face like the back of their hands, and yet when they saw him coming to them over the boiling waves, their last ounce of courage evaporated in the face of the storm. The whole boatload of them convulsed into the despair of overwhelming horror. They thought he was a ghost, the grim reaper, come to take them to their watery graves.Read More »Where the Waves Are–Dr. Warner Bailey, Preacher
“We know that all things work together for good, to them who love God and are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
Our trip to the Windy City, Chi-Town, Illinois, in mid-July, was punctuated with dramatic mechanical issues. However, in retrospect, these issues became side interests and financially not-so dramatic as we envisioned.
Thirty representatives of St. Stephen went to Chicago on a Youth Mission Trip. It included middle school and high school church members, college age SPITS (sponsors in training), and experienced and inexperienced sponsors – including one who just returned from his honeymoon…
Elementary Children from Kindergarten – post Sixth Grade are invited to our week long Music Day Camp. Camp costs $80 per person with a multi-family… Read More »Music Day Camp at St. Stephen, August 1 – 5, 2011
