Monthly Archives: June 2012

Summer Take Away July 1, 2012

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Summer Takeaway

Summer Take Away – July 1, 2012

Happy 4th of July!!!

Theme:  Do Not Be Afraid!!!
The First Reading:  Lamentations 3:21-33
Lamentations is a short book of laments, or woes, probably written in Palestine after the fall of Jerusalem in 587.  Lastly, it reveals complete trust in God and our desire to turn in the direction of God (repentance), bringing light into darkness. 

William Butler Yeats, in his famous post World War I poem, “The Second Coming”, wrote of the fear if the center cannot hold.   It is the same fear known to those revolutionary war soldiers, I imagine, as they fought so courageously for our freedom those hundreds of years ago.  It is the same fear God’s chose, the Israelites knew, when their beloved home for God, Jerusalem, collapsed and they were sent into exile.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Will God’s mercies endured?  Is God’s faithful love exhausted?  Not likely.  But, this doesn’t mean we don’t have times when we feel helpless, deserted, alone, and incapable of holding on.  Left to our own devices, the centre cannot hold and fear creeps in.  So, we search for the Lord, who sometimes seems so distant, so far away. Our God is a good God.  We search, we wait and the Lord comes.  The Lord does not reject. Our God enters in and disarms our fears.  Instead, may we trust in God.  Put our hope in our good God. 

The Gospel:  Mark 5:21-43
This is a rich story, with Jesus active in teaching, preaching, and miraculously healing that evokes anxiety, desperation, deep hope, belief, fear and the possibility that in Christ all will be well.

Jesus is ministering along the Sea of Galilee, where he practices most of his ministry.  In the crowds approaches a desperate leader, the president of the synagogue (most like our senior warden or a seasoned verger).  His name is Jairus. 

As is typical of Mark’s writer, suddenly Jesus is interrupted. A woman, who has been suffering from a bleeding disorder for 12 years, scared for her life, now at the end of her rope and ready to try anything, reaches out in the crowd.  She believes if she can just touch Jesus’ robe, she will be saved.  Reaching out in faith, she touches Jesus’ robe.

We’re reminded that her salvation is restoration to society, inclusion in her community where a woman, alone, suffering from illness is ostracized and excluded.  Her touch brings about immediate healing. 

Jesus is always in our interruptions.  Have faith in our fears.  Believe in the power of Jesus touching our lives. 

Now, we’re not certain if Jairus is an interruption.  But, Jesus is in a huge crowd and stopping to make individual interviews could well be considered an interruption, or a saving act.  Jairus’ daughter is dying.  In fact, while Jesus is ministering to the woman, we learn that Jairus’ daughter is dead. 

Jesus says, “do not be afraid; only have faith.”

Withdrawing from the crowd, fully emerging himself in Jairus’ grief, Jesus brings hope.  He journey’s to the house, and enduring ridicule and disbelief, taking the hand of the child, he restores her to life.  Immediately, she is up and about the business of a 12 year old girl.  They are not seeing a ghost.  Rather, they are witnessing the miracle of Jesus saving.

The word for “save” in Greek, is often the same word used for “make well”.  In Christ, we are made free of fear, made well, called to live in “shalom”, to go in peace.

This week, may we ask:  How do our fears stop us from having faith?  What does faith mean?

This week, practice letting Jesus interrupt you.  Practice interrupting Jesus.  Reach out to Jesus.  Trust in the miracle of his healing.

Let us pray:  Loving Lord, how good you are.  Lord, how near you are to us – so near that we may always reach out to touch your strength and love – so near that we may always talk with you, be comforted by you, breathe through you, be enlightened by you, find peace in you, and gain spiritual nourishment from you.  Grant that we may belong wholly to you.  Thank you, Lord.  Amen. 

Men’s Beer, Burgers and the Bible! Yes, Men, BBB is back!

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Due to our Capital Campaign, I have had limited time to organize our BBB for this summer, but we cannot go all summer without our beer, burgers and Bible. So, I invite you to join me for two evenings of good food, good company, a fine brew or two and a chance to look at how the Church began as we study the Book of Acts together.

The Book of Acts was written by the author of Luke’s Gospel as a sequel that tells how the disciples and especially how Peter and Paul left Jerusalem to share the Good News of Jesus to people far and wide. I will draw on the recently published Jewish Annotated New Testament, which is a New Revised Standard Version of the Bible with footnotes written by rabbis and Jewish scholars explaining first and second century Jewish traditions and beliefs as well as what the rabbis have taught across the centuries and what passages have been misinterpreted for Anti-Semitic purposes.

We will look at the first disciples, how they lived, what risks they took, how they shared their faith, the challenges they faced and where they found their inspiration to create the largest and most powerful religion in history. We will seek wisdom to help us live as contagious Christians today.

Sign up for one or both nights. RSVPs are essential. We need to hear from you by July 9, if you can attend on Wednesday, July 11 from 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. or by July 16, if you can join us for Wednesday, July 18 from 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.   We will gather out on the terrace behind Church Hill Hall, the St. Thomas’ Church Office. Dress is casual.

Please call Anita Burke at 215-233-3970 ext. 121 to RSVP or email her at: aburke@stthomaswhitemarsh.org The cost is $15 per session. Dinner is catered. I will personally select great European beers. Please start reading the Book of Acts in advance and bring your Bible. Feel free to sign up and bring a friend or two. Attendance is limited to the first 20 persons to register. No shows must pay so that we can reimburse our caterer.

Marek

Summer Take Away June 24, 2012

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Summer Takeaway

Summer Take Away – June 24, 2012

 Theme:  Calming our Rough Waters

 The First Reading:  Job 38:1-11

The book of Job comes from Wisdom literature.   Job is a father of 10 children, and a successful farmer who encounters a series of troubled times brought on by Satan’s doing.  Job is left poor, childless and ridden with disease.  Tormenting Job, three friends accuse him of sinning so deeply, his suffering is well deserved.  Righteous and faithful, in his sorrow, Job asks the eternal question, “why me?” 

 God answers him out of the whirlwind, “Who is this darkening my counsel with words lacking knowledge? Prepare yourself …Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?  Who pent up the sea behind closed doors when it leapt tumultuous from the womb, when I wrapped it in a robe of mist and made black clouds its swaddling bands; when I cut out the place I had decreed for it and imposed gates and a bolt?” 

 What does Job know about the power of God in our lives?  Job apologizes for questioning God’s ability.  In the end, having endured insurmountable suffering and rough waters, God restores Job’s good fortune, his wealth, his health, and he is blessed with 10 more children.  God is who God is, and God does what God will do. 

 If God is great and God is good, then why do the innocent suffer?    This is the ultimate question.  We want the definitive answer and yet:   we don’t know.  Here’s what we do know:  in the horror of hurt and heartbreak, in the darkness of distress and the turbulent waters of unrest and injustice and unexplained wrong, there is God.  God is not the maker of evil.  God is the calm in the storm, the light at the end of the tunnel, the hope everlasting, the still, small voice, the brightness conquering evil, a bold promise of love that wins eternal, the redeemer of brokenness, sadness and evil, all taken to the cross in Jesus Christ, hung out to die, and placed in the tomb only to burst forth with the promise that in the end, and over and over again God wins with hope and love. 

 We may doubt and question God and our faith when times are tough.  Go ahead.  God can handle our turning away.  God doesn’t desert.  God has faith in us.  Go ahead, ask God the hard questions.  Get mad at God.  At some point, we’re just going to trust that turning toward the comfort of God’s love is so much better than storming around lost in anger and defeat. 

 What do we learn from Job?  Keep the faith, even when we fail to understand! 

What to practice with God this week?  Ask God the hard questions.  Why?  What?  How?  Where?  Then ask God, to be in your life.  Open your heart and mind to see God working in your life.  Then ask God, what do you expect of me, God, to believe completely?

The Gospel Reading:  Mark 4:35-41

Jesus has been really busy teaching and preaching along the shores of theSea of Galilee.  He’s familiar with the area.  This is where Jesus grew up.  Not far isNazareth, his home town.  Every day the crowds grow greater and greater.  They’re coming from everywhere, up and down from Galilee, along the Jordan River, down toJerusalemandBethlehem.

Over time, Jesus begins to teach in parables:  stories about everyday life that reveal to us the truth of God’s abundant power and love in our life.  After a while, Jesus withdraws to be with his disciples, the Twelve who he has selected to help him in his work.  Explaining the parables to them, he describes theKingdomofGod, so far as they were capable of understanding it.

Now, it’s night and Jesus is getting tired, and so are his disciples.  Taking Jesus with them, they get in a boat to cross theSea of Galilee, leaving behind the crowds.

This isn’t all they leave behind.  Crossing the Sea takes them into Gentile territory.  On the other side is theterritoryofGerasenes, and a man possessed by an unclean spirit.  Either way, Jesus is crowded to the point of exhaustion on one side, destined for a tangle with evil on the other, and what happens.  Right in the middle of the sea, a gale stirs up and waves break into the boat, causing another storm.

Jesus is in some rough waters, all around.  What does Jesus do?  He takes a nap.  He puts his head down and falls sound asleep.

The disciples are frantic.  Capsizing their trust, fear is drowning them.    So, instead of crying out, help, paniced, they awaken Jesus, accusing him with,  “don’t you care that we’re drowning?”

When has that sinking feeling gripped you so desperately?  Fear is a powerful motivator for survival.  Fear isolates, angers and leads to mistrust.  When we’re in the storm, we can’t always trust so completely in the miracle of Jesus’ saving grace in our lives.  But, Jesus is the ruler of all nature.

Calmly awakening, Jesus stills the storm; or the whirlwind, as it’s called in Job.  In fact, his actual words are, “be muzzled.”  Then he asks, “have you no faith?”

Marks gospel is characterized as a gospel of misunderstanding.  The disciples fail to understand the full presence of Jesus as healer, and miracle worker.  Throughout Jesus’ short ministry, he pushes to help his people trust in God’s grace.  In next week’s lesson, again, as Jesus miraculously raises Jairus’ daughter from the dead, he’ll question the faith of the bystanders.  Then, Jesus goes home toNazarethand is amazed at their lack of faith.  Later, again on the water, his disciples are dumbfounded when he walks on the water.

When our world is twisting and turning in a whirlwind of turmoil,  our ability to truly trust becomes even more compromised.  So, we don’t wait for the storms of life to learn about trusting in Jesus.  We practice trusting in Jesus every day, in calm waters and sunny, bright days.  Then, when the storms come, we are better prepared for Jesus’ presence.   He hears our cry and stills the storm, bringing peace to our chaos and celebrates our joy.

This week practice naming the storms in your life.  Write them down; those places where turmoil, chaos and confusion generate genuine fear.  Practice asking Jesus to help you trust him in your fear.  Practice visualizing Jesus actually putting a muzzle on your fears.  Rest with the calm of peace.  Open up yourself to the brightness of God’s grace.

A prayer from Basil of Caesarea (330-379):

Steer the ship of my life, good Lord, to your quiet harbour, where I can be safe from the storms of sin and conflict.  Show me the course I should take.  Renew in me the gift of discernment, so that I can always see the right direction in which I should go.  And give me the strength and the courage to choose the right course, even when the sea is rough and the waves are high, knowing that through enduring hardship and danger in your name we shall find comfort and peace.  Amen. 

 

 

 

 

 

Please bring canned food this Family Worship Sunday July 1

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Jesus says, Love your neighbor as yourself.  Let’s help our neighbors by assuring they are fed.  Please bring canned or boxed food each Family Worship Sunday.  Place your food donations in the container as you come into church.  During worship your donations will carried to the foot of the altar to be blessed.  Then, the food will be delivered to the Mattie Dixon Community Cupboard in Ambler to assist the more than 5,400 families annually.  The Cupboard needs healthy boxed and canned foods, including:
*canned fruit
*canned chili
*canned green beans
*jars of jelly
*boxes of macaroni and cheese
*boxed rice

Questions?  Sean Martin has kindly agreed to lead this ministry.

St. Thomas’ Farewell and Thanks from Michael Altopp

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Farewell to the AltoppsIn 1 Corinthians 12, Paul writes: The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink….God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. You are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

To the clergy, staff, vestry and committee leaders of St. Thomas: How you have blessed our lives! We have learned and grown through the Chorister program, Church School Program, Christmas Pageant, and Worship and Arts committee. You provided Whitney with countless opportunities over 5 years to learn and grow in her ministry: to try new things and stretch herself creatively as she developed the wisdom, patience and maturity to lead a congregation on her own. Additionally, St. Thomas’ has been our home—these open spaces our park, the circular road a track where we run and ride bikes, the hill in front of our house the best sledding in the area. Our lives are rich, and I thank you for the support you gave to help us live on this beautiful campus. You are the body of Christ.
To the older generation of St. Thomas: You know who you are. You are the ones generous of spirit and overflowing with kindness and patience toward our family. Kindness—I think of the baked goods on holidays, the invitations to come over and swim, and the “Sure, I can come over” when you received an emergency, last-minute babysitting call. And patience—the smiles and warm handshakes at the Peace, and the words of support and encouragement even when there was more than a little restlessness from the front pew where we sat. You are the body of Christ.

To my contemporaries at St. Thomas, those raising kids alongside ours: We have eaten meals, sung songs, played games and taken trips together. You have taught our kids about God, and taught us about living in community. When Whitney and I were in a bind, you answered the call with “Sure, I can come over and baby-sit,” or “Sure, I can pick the kids up from school.” Our children have grown up together—in choir, at Second Steps, in Church School, confirmation class, youth group, summer camp, family game nights, birthday parties and sleepovers. If it takes a village to raise a child, then I am thankful to have villagers like you. You are the body of Christ.

To the kids and young people of St. Thomas: I was talking about you in the previous thing I said to your parents. Now I’ll talk to you. You are awesome. For those of you who were in my Church School class, thanks for putting up with me…especially when I made you sing one of my songs or shoot a video. I had a blast and I hope you did, too. But most of all I hope you learned something about the Bible, and began to feel God’s presence in your life. The same goes for all my Christmas Pageant stars. You helped minister to the whole church when you brought the Nativity story to life. You are the body of Christ.

The founder of Boy Scouting was a man named Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell. After Baden-Powell’s death, a letter was found in his desk that he had written to all Scouts. It included this passage: “Try and leave this world a little better than you found it.” I was reminded of these words as I thought about our imminent departure from the place we’ve called home for the past 5 years. It is my sincere hope that we leave St. Thomas’ a little better than we found it. I know that we are leaving here better people than when you first found us. And that is because of you, and God’s work in you and through you. You are the body of Christ. And you are the heart of St. Thomas’.

Michael Altopp, 6/17/2012

Whitney’s Final Sermon at St. Thomas: June 17, 2012 – 2 Corinthians 5:6-17

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By The Rev. Whitney Altopp
What do you really want, beyond your likes and dislikes?  My spiritual director reminded me of the power of this question as she sat opposite me just this last week.  She’d asked me this question before, perhaps months or even years ago.

What do you really want, beyond your likes and dislikes?  This question cuts through the murky choices that float through my head, it scrapes the glittery surface of those things that look like gold and reveals what is really underneath.

What do you really want, beyond your likes and dislikes?  It is the question that Paul is answering in his second letter to the Corinthians.

The beauty of this question is that it takes us to a deeper and truer place within ourselves.  The world promises satisfaction and fulfillment from our likes and dislikes.  Commercials and marketing is built upon this premise.  Our conversations with friends and family often center around our likes and dislikes.  But God wants to hear us say what we really want, beyond our likes and dislikes.

This question was extremely helpful during my time of discernment over these last couple of years of what to do with the restlessness that was growing inside of me.  I had my likes and dislikes, but they weren’t strong enough to hold a major vocational decision.  I needed a bigger question and my spiritual director gave it to me: What do you really want, beyond the likes and dislikes? In hearing Paul’s words as found in 2 Corinthians, I found my answer: I want to please God.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul makes it plain.  He really wants to please God, whether he is here on earth or in eternity, it really doesn’t matter to him the location.  Whether it is in goodness or through hardship, he doesn’t really care.  Being on earth or eternity is about likes and dislikes.  Goodness and hardship is about likes and dislikes.  What he really wants, beyond likes and dislikes, is to please God.  He is joyful in this desire because he is certain that what he wants is what God wants.  His desire to please God is God’s desire, too.  And thus he feels confidence in longing for this.  He feels confidence that what he really wants will be fulfilled because God will help him.  This concept of God helping him reminds us of the words of the Baptismal Covenant.  The Baptismal Covenant is filled with promises that those who are going to be baptized make for the first time.  Those of us who have been baptized reaffirm these same vows.  Each of us says it with the following response, “I will, with God’s help.”  We say these vows with confidence and joy because we know that God will help us with these things because God wants them to.  And we can boast about the times that it has actually happened, because it was through God’s faithfulness that they did happen.  We boast not about ourselves, but about God’s work in us.  We cannot believe what God actually does with our desire to please him.

If you return to the middle of our passage for this morning from 2 Corinthians, you hear Paul’s eagerness to help his readers realize that, although pleasing God is beyond likes and dislikes, the reality of this world and our situation in it is what we have to work with.     Paul’s desire then begs a second question: How am I going to do that?  How am I going to live out my desire to please God in the world that I live in?  Because how I do it in the here and now is the basis on which I will be judged.

Paul is reminding the church in Corinth that right here and now is the opportunity for us to please God.  This is the only means that we have and it is the basis on which we will be judged.  But don’t lose heart, because Christ will help us fulfill this expectation.  The remaining distance between our best efforts and God’s expectation is completed by Christ.  Whether we fall short of the mark by one inch or miles, it is Christ who fills the gap.  And so we live with boldness and confidence in our desire to please God, because God will complete our desire and fulfill it beyond our expectations.  And the reverse is true.  When we reach our final judgment, when we offer our excuses for why we couldn’t hold on to our desire to please God, they will fall short.

 

Imagine with me, if you will, sitting before God and having the following conversation:

 

I say, “God, I wanted to follow your teaching, but the issue was so complex I didn’t know how your teaching would apply.”

 

God says, “I would have made it clear if you had tried to follow my teaching.”

I say, “I wanted to pray, but there wasn’t enough time and I didn’t know the right words.”

God says, “If you had set down for prayer, I would have given you the words and I would have created enough time for prayer.”

I say, “I wanted to resist evil, but did you see how big it was?!  I knew that I couldn’t do it.”

God says, “You can’t do it.  But I can.  I simply needed you to make yourself available.”

I say, “Yes, but the momentum from the evil was so strong and it was carrying me.”

God says, “Do you not remember that I calmed the storm on the sea?  I’m stronger than the momentum of evil and wrong.  I was there for you.  I simply needed you to believe that and trust me.”

I say, “Okay.  Proclaiming your good news through word and example…I didn’t even know where to start on this one.”

God says, “I would have shown you how to do that.  I just needed you to start somewhere.”

Dear blessed St. Thomas’ congregation, I don’t even want to finish this imagined conversation.  I can see where it is going.  And I expect that you can to.

A wise person told me once, “Whitney, you can have as much of Jesus as you want.”

How much of Jesus do I want?  How much of Jesus do you want?

You can have as much of Jesus as you want.

Paul wants all of Jesus.  He wants Jesus’ life and death and resurrection.  He knows that new life in Christ follows death in Christ and so he will take it all.  For in Christ, we are a new creation.  The old way of knowing ourselves has passed away and we have been made new.  We no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died for us.  The world might look the same to the untrained eye, but EVERYTHING has changed.

This is the gift made known to us in baptism.  Anna and Irvine, in Noah’s baptism, he has been made new.  He might still look like the adorable little boy that you brought into the church with you, but, as you’ll hear in the words of the sacrament, he will be sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  The same is offered to you Adrienne.  Although a grown woman, your new life begins today.  The water of baptism reaches into and through you, through all of the years that you’ve already lived, and makes it new.

One of the things that I love about the Apostle Paul is that he understands the transformational love of God so deeply.  As one who persecuted Christians and orchestrated their deaths, we would think, even expect, that he was forever burdened by the memory of these horrible acts.  But Christ has made him new and freed him to live a life in service to God, freed him to devote himself to pleasing God through sharing the goodness of God with as many people as he can.  One can’t devote themselves to such service if he or she is burdened by the errors of the past.  Paul is living proof that someone might look the same on the outside as they did before, but through the death and resurrection of Christ, he is made new.

This is a truth that we cannot remember or realize on our own.  We must encourage one another in this truth.  Me, you, we have been made new in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Each of us has been given this fullness of Jesus.  We can have as much of Jesus as we want and we have been given all of Jesus in our baptism.  May we, as baptized people, find the strength to live anew, to live beyond our likes and dislikes and take all of Jesus, so that we might live for him.  AMEN.

Summer Take Away June 17, 2012

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Summer Takeaway
Theme: seeing

This week, our readings lend themselves to how God calls us to do God’s work in the world with all that we have. God’s ability to see in us what we don’t see in ourselves is what gives us the strength to do all God needs us to do.

We celebrate Whitney Altopp’s call to serve with St. Stephen’s, Ridgefield, Connecticut and give thanks for her valuable ministry with the life of St. Thomas’. We will miss Whitney a great deal. And, we are sad to say goodbye to someone we hold so deeply in our heart. But, God has called her to go and use the gifts she has learned with St. Thomas’. We are a better people because of Whitney. God has strengthened us through Whitney’s ministry.

The First Reading: 1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13

“God does not see as human beings see; they look at appearance but Yahweh looks at the heart.”

Well, clearly God has something else in mind rather than the kingly image we tend to hold. Earlier in the reading we’re reminded of great king Saul, the first king of Israel, a great military leader. Saul looked kingly. He was a handsome man, in the prime of his life and he stood head and shoulders taller than anyone else (1 Samuel 9:2).

Eventually, however, Saul failed to listen to God, failed to honor God’s commands as instructed through the prophet Samuel. So, Samuel was sent by God to find another king. Today’s lesson is the story of David’s anointing.

Jesse is a father of eight sons. Samuel is introduced to each and every son. God looks upon every one and rejects the first seven. David, the youngest, a sheep herder, gentle, with ruddy cheeks, fine eyes and attractive, a gifted musician, and said to have written many of our Psalms.

God sees past David’s outward appearance to what was truly in his heart. We learn of David’s great kingship. David does not rule without difficulty. His reign, however, is made strong through the Spirit of God which seized him, gripped him, on the moment of his anointing (1 Samuel 16:13).

God sees in us what we do not always see in ourselves. God looks at our heart.

This week, ask: What does our world tell us about how to see one another? What does God see about us? What do I want others to see about me?

This week, practice: How do you want to reveal to others the Spirit of God that is within your heart.

 

Summer Take Away June 17, 2012

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Summer Takeaway
Theme:  seeing

 This week, our readings lend themselves to how God calls us to do God’s work in the world with all that we have.  God’s ability to see in us what we don’t see in ourselves is what gives us the strength to do all God needs us to do.

 We celebrate Whitney Altopp’s call to serve with St. Stephen’s, Ridgefield, Connecticut and give thanks for her valuable ministry with the life of St. Thomas’.  We will miss Whitney a great deal.  And, we are sad to say goodbye to someone we hold so deeply in our heart.  But, God has called her to go and use the gifts she has learned with St. Thomas’.  We are a better people because of Whitney.  God has strengthened us through Whitney’s ministry. 

 The First Reading:  1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13

“God does not see as human beings see; they look at appearance but Yahweh looks at the heart.” 

 

Well, clearly God has something else in mind rather than the kingly image we tend to hold.  Earlier in the reading we’re reminded of great king Saul, the first king of Israel, a great military leader.  Saul looked kingly.  He was a handsome man, in the prime of his life and he stood head and shoulders taller than anyone else (1 Samuel 9:2). 

 

Eventually, however, Saul failed to listen to God, failed to honor God’s commands as instructed through the prophet Samuel.  So, Samuel was sent by God to find another king.  Today’s lesson is the story of David’s anointing. 

 

Jesse is a father of eight sons.  Samuel is introduced to each and every son.  God looks upon every one and rejects the first seven.   David, the youngest, a sheep herder, gentle, with ruddy cheeks, fine eyes and attractive, a gifted musician, and said to have written many of our Psalms. 

 

God sees past David’s outward appearance to what was truly in his heart.  We learn of David’s great kingship.  David does not rule without difficulty.  His reign, however, is made strong through the Spirit of God which seized him, gripped him, on the moment of his anointing (1 Samuel 16:13). 

 

God sees in us what we do not always see in ourselves.  God looks at our heart. 

 

This week, ask:  What does our world tell us about how to see one another?  What does God see about us?  What do I want others to see about me? 

 

This week, practice:  How do you want to reveal to others the Spirit of God that is within your heart. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outreach Fund Grant Requests 2012

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The St. Thomas’ Outreach Fund, established in 1987 by parishioner Bob Fernley, makes annual grants to help “jump start” new outreach programs.  Many successful outreach initiatives have been initiated with seed money grants from the Fund’s income.  Grant requests are reviewed and recommended by the Outreach Committee and awarded by the Fund’s Board of Trustees.  Parishioners interested in submitting grant requests, should contact John Kepner 215-858-3414 for further information about grant criteria and how to submit a grant request. Requests for 2012 grants are due by July 31st.