Thank you all for your prayers and your offers to help following my foot surgery last week. I am doing well, and getting pretty adept at navigating my house on the knee scooter. It’s so much better than crutches!
This morning on the clergy call with the bishop we talked about beginning outdoor services and eventually moving inside. I’ve been thinking of outdoor services for a while, and just ordered video camera and microphone equipment to enhance recording our services. I’m grateful to the Diocese for a grant that covered the cost of this equipment. My thinking is that we will record any services at the church and live stream them on Zoom and Facebook as usual. That way everyone can decide whether to come to the in-person service or continue to attend online. I will consecrate some of the communion kits we used at Easter ahead of time and anyone who wises to pick them up ahead of time can have Communion at home.
We will continue to follow the COVID safety protocols of maintaining physical distance and wearing masks, as many, but not all of us are vaccinated. Everyone will bring their own bread as we did at outdoor services last summer.
Please let me know if you have any concerns or suggestions as we plan for meeting outdoors.
This Sunday we will have an extended coffee hour after our 9:00 service, and our topic will be outdoor worship. I look forward to seeing you then.
Blessings,
Caroline
The remaining Sundays at 10:00 AM
This Sunday-May 2nd
at 9:00 a.m.
The Fifth Sunday of Easter
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The Collect
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
First Lesson Acts 8:26-40
This is the story of how Philip brought the Ethiopian eunuch to faith in Jesus. Early Christians doubtless loved to tell and retell this narrative. It shows how a significant foreign personage, who was apparently an inquirer into Judaism, learned about Jesus and was baptized. It also illustrates the way an important passage from the Old Testament, which tells of the Lord’s servant who suffered for others, was interpreted as prophecy about Jesus.
Psalm 22:24-30
A song of praise to the Lord, who rules over all and cares for the downtrodden.
The Second Lesson 1 John 4:7-21
This reading teaches that God’s love is made known to us through Jesus. In response we are to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but to experience God’s love and to recognize Jesus as God’s Son is to know God. Only by not loving other humans made in God’s image would we show that we do not know and love God. When we do love one another, then we live in union with God and fear is driven away.
The Gospel John 15:1-8
In our gospel reading we hear that Jesus is the true vine to which each branch must be united if it is to bear fruit. The vine and the vineyard were well-known symbols for God’s people. A living relationship with Jesus in the following of his teaching is the source of fruitful discipleship. God will cut away the dead branches and prune the healthy ones so that they will bear more abundantly.
For all those who working with COVID patients, vaccinations and vaccines.
Updating the Prayer List
Please let Deb know when a person can be removed from the prayer list. Thank you.
Spring ~ Mary Oliver
Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring
down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring
I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue
like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:
how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge
to sharpen her claws
against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else
my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,
it is also this dazzling
darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;
all day I think of her —
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.
Hannaford Fight Hunger Bag Program
Benefiting Month: May 2021
7 Elaine South
15 Betty Faella
17 Kit Morgan
18 Tim Huckman
20 Tom Forbes
28 Bob Luz
28 David Gartrell
20 Jonathan & Lois Brady
26 Grete & George Plender
30 Bob & Gabriele Wallace
