The Episcopal Church
of the Resurrection
1433 NW R.D. Mize Road, Blue Springs, MO
Weekly e-mail
March 6, 2021
Third Sunday of Lent
March 7, 2021

Holy Eucharist Rite I at 8:00 am

Holy Eucharist Rite II at 10:30 am
Resurrection will host in-person services this Sunday. COVID precautions will be observed with a face mask required. All services also live-streamed.




From Father David +
A REFLECTION
FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT

“Jesus…did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.” (Jn 2:25)

Jesus’s righteous anger in the temple strikes such a chord. In other Biblical passages, Jesus displayed human emotion: sorrow, disappointment, compassion, love—all the “good” or “polite” emotions. But it’s comforting to conjure up an image of Jesus turning over tables, dumping money boxes on the ground, making a whip! Wow. That type of anger we can relate to. John describes this incident not as a parable, but as an actual accounting of Jesus’s actions. No one is hurt, however. There is no physical violence to anyone’s body. And it’s notable that the infraction that most infuriated Jesus (as far as the Gospel recounts) is not betrayal, not adultery, not bearing false witness or coveting others’ possessions. It was the buying and selling taking place in God’s temple, making the sacred profane.

Who confronts the moneychangers of our time—those who set up shop in our sacred places? Dorothy Day condemned “our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.” The hibakusha (Japanese atomic bomb survivors) travel the world warning of nuclear weapons. The nascent Occupy Wall Street movement highlights the gross inequality in the United States. Survivors of sexual abuse and their families have organized to remove the profane from our churches.

There is a certain moral righteousness to anger directed squarely at the profane. The ability to act on this anger, nonviolently, can be a sacred duty.

What causes the most anger in my life?
How can I delineate righteous anger from misguided anger?

This reflection was originally published in“Ashes to Resurrection, Dust to New Life: Reflections for Lent 2012, by Colleen Kelly.
Ecumenical Lenten Services
WEDNESDAY AT 7:00 PM

Attend in-person at:
The First Christian Church
701 NW 15 St.
Blue Springs, MO 64015

or watch on-line with FaceBook Live, YouTube or Zoom

The theme this year is

"The Benefit of Community"

Each participating church will share the message on one given Wednesday.

6:00 pm  Share supper together at home as a family
6:45 pm  Log-in to Facebook, YouTube, or ZOOM
7:00 pm  Service starts, live streaming begins  

2/24  Pastor Cliff Caton; First Christian Church
3/03 Father David Lynch; Episcopal Church of the Resurrection
3/10  Pastor Sarah Pierce; All Saints Lutheran Church
3/17  Good Shepherd Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
3/24  Pastor Andrew Florio; Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church
 

Click here for Zoom  Meeting ID: 968 0661 8122    Passcode: 895606
Holy Week & Easter Services
Service Schedule
(in-person and live streamed)

Palm Sunday: Blessing of the Palms - 8:00 and 10:30 am
Holy Monday: Morning Prayer online only at 10:00 am
Holy Tuesday: Morning Prayer online only at 10:00 am
Holy Wednesday: Tenebrae at 7:00 pm
Maundy Thursday: Service only at 7:00 pm (no agape meal)
Good Friday: Stations of the Cross at 12:00 pm Noon; Veneration of the cross and Holy Communion at 7:00 pm
Holy Saturday: The Great Vigil of Easter at 7:00 pm
Easter Sunday: ONE SERVICE only at 9:30 am

No fellowship hour following services due to COVID.
.
The Diocese of West Missouri will offer live-stream services from the Cathedral visit https://www.diowestmo.org/ for times and schedule.
Renewal Works - Monday Matters
FROM FR. JAY SIDEBOTHAM +
Column dated March 1, 2021

Can God set a table in the wilderness? -Psalm 78

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. -from the liturgy for Ash Wednesday

To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness – especially in the wilderness – you shall love him.
-Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. -John Muir

In like a lion…

This date reminds us: March comes in like a lion, out like a lamb. The point is that as we go through this month, we don’t end up in the same place we began.

That is also true of the season of Lent, overlapping this lion-to-lamb month. The expectation of the season is that we will change. When we arrive at Easter, we will be different than when we polished off those pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. It’s a season of transformation.

The image used for the season of Lent is a journey through the wilderness, specifically the story of the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness. They began as slaves escaping Egypt. They wandered circuitously for forty years but ended up in a new place. They ended up a new people.

That image of wilderness only has power because we all know something about wilderness. One of my favorite cartoons shows a woman dressed in business attire standing in the great wilderness all alone. Above the drawing this title: A voice crying in the wilderness. The woman is yelling: Get me the hell out of the wilderness! Another cartoon illustrates Moses’ wife stopping the procession of the wandering tribes. She pokes her head in the convenience store and asks for directions. Clearly, her husband needed to know which way to go. Mythology has it that men aren’t good at asking for directions.

All of which is to say that Lent is a season marked by challenge, by testing. It’s why we always start the season reading about Jesus’ temptation in the desert. But it’s also a season of formation and discovery. Though it takes a while, the children of Israel end up in a different place from where they began.

Lent 2021 has its own feel this year. As we began the season, I’ve heard again and again that people feel like they’ve been in Lent for over a year, thank you very much. Since everything shut down last March, they don’t feel quite the same urgency about giving something up. Been there. Done that. The past year has been a wilderness experience, filled with wildest of beasts. A mind-boggling death toll indicates such. If the past year has been a Lent writ large, we may wonder how we will come out different than where we began when we all get back together. Some of that will be hard. Some of that will be a new creation. But we will come to a new place.

So as we move through the month of March, as we move through the 40 days of Lent, as we move through Covid-tide, what will be the things that help us come out as a new creation?The prayer book gives suggestions in the invitation to Lent we read on Ash Wednesday. Think of these suggestions as traveling instructions, leading us to a place we’ve not been before. These suggestions include the following:

  • Self-examination: A rigorous look in the mirror at where we are, what we have done and what we have left undone.
  • Repentance: It’s about the direction we’re headed, with consideration of whether it’s the direction we want for our lives, the direction we feel called to follow.
  • Prayer: In its varied forms, it’s the recognition that we rely on help beyond ourselves as we give thanks for ways that help has come.
  • Fasting: Traveling light, getting clarity about what we actually need for the journey.
  • Self-denial: Again, figuring out what we can do without.
  • Reading and meditating on God’s word: Hearing what the Spirit is saying to us.

We’re still early in Lent, definitely early in March. Apparently, we are not done with Covid-tide. So there’s time to take these suggestions to heart. Take this moment, maybe especially this week, to invite God to make something new out of your life, perhaps putting these several traveling suggestions to work.
Easter Flowers
BEAUTIFY OUR WORSHIP SPACE

Help decorate and beautify our worship space by contributing to the Easter Flower Fund.

Please note Easter Flowers on the memo line of your check or on an envelope with your donation. Your name will be included in the bulletin on Easter Day!
 
Severe Weather Awareness
Severe Weather Awareness
BE READY

It is that time of year folks for us to make sure we have a plan to deal with severe weather. I encourage checking out www.ready.gov. for advice on emergency planning. If you don’t already have one, get a weather radio and set it in a place in your home where it will be heard when it alerts you. Here is what you will find on the when you click the above link:

Severe Weather Planning
Severe weather can happen anytime, in any part of the country. Severe weather can include hazardous conditions produced by thunderstorms, including damaging winds, tornadoes, large hail, flooding and flash flooding, and winter storms associated with freezing rain, sleet, snow and strong winds.

Know your Risk
Understand the type of hazardous weather that affects you and your family where you live:
·        Tornadoes
·        Floods
·        Thunderstorms & Lightning

Take Action
Develop an emergency plan based on your local weather hazards and practice your plan.
·        Make a family emergency plan

Associated Content
·        Flood Safety Social Media Toolkit (Link)
·        Community Weather Alerts (YouTube)