{"id":3423,"date":"2022-07-30T13:28:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-30T18:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/?p=3423"},"modified":"2022-07-30T13:28:00","modified_gmt":"2022-07-30T18:28:00","slug":"st-albans-daily-july-30th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/?p=3423","title":{"rendered":"St. Alban&#8217;s Daily &#8211; July 30th"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table is-style-regular\"><table><tbody><tr><\/tr><tr><td><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"215\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/files.constantcontact.com\/cfd132e6001\/4df93974-f15f-4560-a789-e8f74a3f7c56.jpg\" alt=\"\"><br><strong>St Alban&#8217;s Episcopal Church<\/strong><br><strong>Bolivar, Missouri<\/strong><br><strong>Saturday-Sunday, July 30-31, 2022<\/strong><br><br><strong>Picnic today (in the rain?)Baptism from several perspectives in the adult class &#8211; Rachel Held Evans<\/strong><br><br><br><br><strong>Luke 12:13-21 at Eucharist<\/strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"5\" height=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/imgssl.constantcontact.com\/letters\/images\/sys\/S.gif\" alt=\"\"><br><br><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"275\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/files.constantcontact.com\/cfd132e6001\/94eb2cc7-b56d-4cb7-89cd-0152adbe4f63.jpg\" alt=\"\"><br><br><strong>Luke 12:13-21<\/strong><br>Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, &#8220;Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me. &#8220;But he said to him, &#8220;Friend who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?&#8221; And he said to the man, &#8220;Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one&#8217;s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. &#8220;Then he told the a parable: &#8220;The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, &#8216;What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?&#8217; Then he said, &#8216;I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build lager ones and there I will store all my grain and my goods.&#8217; And I will say to my soul, &#8216;Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink and be merry.&#8217; But God said to him, &#8216;You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?&#8217; So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.<br><br><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"248\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/files.constantcontact.com\/cfd132e6001\/523417c7-29ec-4766-82fb-14858e0d98c3.jpg\" alt=\"\"><br><br>So &#8211; Did you notice that once again Jesus is being asked to DO something about a perceived wrong?<em>\u00a0(&#8220;Tell my sister then to help me.&#8221;)<\/em> Why doesn&#8217;t Jesus get into these disputes? Why does each one turn into a set-up for an unexpected response? How does this parable fit with a common Christian understanding that wealth is evidence of God&#8217;s favor? How do you feel about that photo and words from the movie, &#8220;Wall Street&#8221; and the American cultural\/political\/business view of &#8220;greed?&#8221; To what extent do you think that character might be right? Why is &#8220;soul&#8221; such a lousy translation &#8211; or interpretation of the word, &#8220;person&#8221;? What do we in American Christianity think we mean by &#8220;soul?&#8221; What does it let us escape? What might it mean to be\u00a0<em>&#8220;rich towards God?&#8221;<\/em><br><br><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"5\" height=\"10\" src=\"https:\/\/imgssl.constantcontact.com\/letters\/images\/sys\/S.gif\" alt=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"5\" height=\"5\" src=\"https:\/\/imgssl.constantcontact.com\/letters\/images\/sys\/S.gif\" alt=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"172\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/files.constantcontact.com\/cfd132e6001\/b9b9c54b-0a71-4cda-9684-42e750005547.jpg\" alt=\"\"><br><br><strong>RAIN<\/strong><br>For the first time in weeks, rain is falling in Bolivar &#8211; and in points south as well. I am immensely grateful, as I know you are as well. And it is COOL today &#8211; only 75 degrees! The birds are going nuts with delight. The grass is already trying to green up. The leaves on the thirsty little trees have opened right up! <strong><em>(So is the southern deanery picnic rained out? Nope.<\/em><\/strong><em>\u00a0It&#8217;s true that if this continues, we aren&#8217;t going to be outdoors in the way we had planned. But then we will simply be INdoors. There will be the same good food and the same fellowship.)<\/em> It&#8217;s easy to see why rain has been a symbol of the Holy Spirit &#8211; water cleanses, refreshes, relieves desperate thirst, and saves (literally) plants and animals during a period of drought. Our weather is a perfect introduction to the Adult class tomorrow!<br><br><strong>Rachel Held Evans for Tomorrow<\/strong><br>Paula Shepard will be leading tomorrow&#8217;s conversation on the first chapter of the book,\u00a0<strong>Searching for Sunday<\/strong>\u00a0&#8211; The subject is\u00a0<strong>Baptism<\/strong>. Please read it if you want to join the conversation tomorrow! (You may certainly come to listen even if you have not &#8211; but those who have read it will have the floor first!) Here&#8217;s a great quote to ponder before tomorrow: &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it matters much.<em>\u00a0<\/em>Believer&#8217;s baptism strikes me as something of a misnomer anyway, suggesting far more volition in this circumstance than most of us have. Whether you meet the water as a baby squirming in the arms of a nervous priest, or as an adult plunged into a river by a revivalist preacher, you do it at the hands of those who first welcome you to faith, the people who have -or will- introduce you to Jesus&#8230;.It&#8217;s an adoption, not an interview.&#8221; (Evans, page 8)<br><br><strong>Jennifer Smith<\/strong><br>Please be here if you are able, or send a card to express your appreciation for Jennifer as she retires. We will have a short coffee time to celebrate her ministry among us after Eucharist.<br><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>St Alban&#8217;s Episcopal ChurchBolivar, MissouriSaturday-Sunday, July 30-31, 2022 Picnic today (in the rain?)Baptism from several perspectives in the adult class &#8211; Rachel Held Evans Luke 12:13-21 at Eucharist Luke 12:13-21Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, &#8220;Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me. &#8220;But he said to him, &#8220;Friend who set [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3429,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3423\/revisions\/3429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansbolivar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}