Mid-Week Message - March 19

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you!

This is a week of significant dates - Monday was St. Patrick's Day (did anyone wear green?) and tomorrow (Thursday) is the first day of spring and the Persian New Year (Nowruz Mobarak to my friends and family celebrating!). But when I sat down to write this e-mail and wrote the date for the first time today, the first thing that jumped into my mind is, "Today is the feast day of St. Joseph!"

There is a story about why this date sticks in my brain. My first job as a newly graduated physiotherapist was at St. Joseph's Hospital - not the one in Saint John, but the one in Thunder Bay which is a rehab hospital. And at that hospital, the feast day of St. Joseph was a bigger deal than St. Patrick's Day - there was always a tea and reception in the afternoon in the cafeteria, and all staff, patients, and families were invited to stop by to celebrate. There was also a statue of St. Joseph out front, and it was my landmark to try and describe to people where in the building I worked - our department was right behind the statue of St. Joseph.

St. Joseph was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, making him Jesus's step-father. (And, interestingly, if you were to read the genealogy of Jesus that is recorded in the first chapter of Matthew's gospel, and the 3rd chapter of Luke's gospel, it is through Joseph and not Mary that Jesus is a descendant of King David, a descendant of Jacob, a descendant of Abraham. In the biblical world, as in our time, adopted kinship is equivalent in importance to biological kinship.)

In our English translations, Joseph is named as a carpenter, though the Greek word that is translated is a bit more ambiguous - he was an artisan, but whether he worked with wood or with metal or with stone isn't clear.

St. Joseph is the patron saint of a number of groups and causes, including:  the Roman Catholic Church, fathers, workers, carpenters, married people, people living in exile, and the sick and the dying.  (This last one is why there are so many hospitals named after him.)

I think that the thing I love the most about St. Joseph, aside from the free tea and goodies I used to get when I worked at St. Joseph's Hospital, is his trust in God and his unconditional love and care for his adopted son.  When Mary told him (and his family) that she was expecting a child before they were married, Joseph's original plan was to separate from her quietly, not causing a fuss. But then he had a visit from an angel, telling him that Mary's child was the child of the Holy Spirit, and that he, Joseph, was to marry Mary, and that he would have the honour of naming her son.

Joseph doesn't appear in any of the gospel stories aside from Jesus's birth and childhood stories (the last time that he is mentioned is when Jesus gets left behind in the temple by accident when he is 12), but as an adult, Jesus is named as "the son of the carpenter." He's not "the bastard son of Mary" but "the son of the carpenter." The people in their community didn't see any difference between Jesus and the rest of the children of Mary and Joseph.

Joseph fully trusted in God, and in God's message through the angel; and Joseph loved and cared for Jesus as his very own son.  Which are both beautiful examples for us.  Would we have the faith of Joseph if we were in a similar sticky situation?  And are we able to love as unconditionally as Joseph did?

I wish all of you a blessed feast day of St. Joseph!

Moving on to announcements for this week:

• Mid-Week Lent gatherings:  we will continue this evening at 7pm in the parlour at Westfield United Church. We are watching the first season of the TV series The Chosen, an imagined account of the life of Jesus based strongly in the gospels.  Tonight we're watching episodes 2 and 3 - don't worry if you missed episode 1, we'll catch you up!

• Worship on Sunday will be at 9:15 at Summerville and 11:15 at Westfield. We'll have two scripture readings this week:  Isaiah 55:1-9 and Luke 13:1-9 and our "Call" that we are following this week is the call to Daring Justice. What might a world where everyone has the opportunity to flourish look like?  We will also have a baptism at Westfield, so an exciting day all around!

• Westfield - Lent Socials:  As Chris announced last Sunday, we are beginning our Lent Socials after worship this week.  Session will have the coffee and tea made, and people in the congregation are invited to bring "eats and sweets" to share. The schedule will be:

  March 23 - last name beginning with A-L

  March 30 - last name beginning with M-P

  April 6 - last name beginning with Q-Z

  April 13 - Session members, anyone who missed their week, or anyone who wants to share twice!

• "Yesteryear's" Fashion Show and Luncheon - Long Reach United Church and the Moss Glen Ladies Auxiliary are collaborating to put on a luncheon and fashion show. Saturday April 5, 11:45am, at the Moss Glen Legion. Tickets are $30 for adults and $20 for students - seats can be reserved by contacting Kathy Fullerton (506-763-2037). And if you have something in your closet that might fit in to the fashion show, you can contact Beth Quigley (506-763-2453). To see the event poster, you can click here.

• Holy Week Worship Schedule:  Our Holy Week services are a single story arc that follows Jesus through his final week, from his entry into Jerusalem, through his poignant goodbyes to his disciples, to his arrest, crucifixion, and death, and on to the empty tomb of resurrection. The story hold much more meaning if you are able to get all parts of the story, so you might want to mark your calendars now with the dates and times of our services.

  Palm Sunday (April 13) - 9:15 at Long Reach; 11:15 at Westfield

  Maundy Thursday (April 17) - 6:00pm at Westfield (with meal)

  Good Friday (April 18) - 11:00am at Summerville

  Easter Sunrise (April 20) - 6:30am at Brundage Point, followed by potluck breakfast at Westfield

  Easter Sunday - 9:15 at Summerville; 11:15 at Westfield

• Maundy Thursday Dinner - as is the tradition here at Two Rivers (excepting the couple of years when we were prevented by the pandemic), our Maundy Thursday service will be woven together with a meal in St. Giles Hall (lower level of Westfield United Church).  Debbie Childs will be catering a delicious meal for us again this year!  This is always a tender point of the Holy Week story, when we remember how Jesus gathered with his disciples around a table to share a meal, when we remember how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, when we remember how Jesus shared the bread and the wine as his body and blood.  We don't charge a fixed price for this meal - we don't want to exclude anyone - but there will be a basket for you to "give what you can" to help us cover the cost of the meal.  (If you would like a guideline, the meal costs us $20 per person, not including a tip for Debbie.) Over the next couple of weeks, we will be doing a show-of-hands at each church to try and get a sense of how many people to expect so that we can tell Debbie; and we will also be looking for people willing to set up the hall for the meal.

Thank You Corner - this week's "thank you" is easy. A huge thank you to everyone who made PIE Day such a success this year! On Friday afternoon, we gave away 281 mini-pies (ie tarts), each one sealed with a sticker that had a rainbow flag and the words "God Loves You!" This is one of our opportunities each year to be Public, Intentional, and Explicit (PIE) about God's expansive and inclusive love for everyone. Thank you to everyone who made or bought tarts to donate, thank you to everyone who helped package them up with the stickers, and thank you to everyone who stood out by the road and waved signs and flags and gave away free pie! (If you missed the pictures I posted of the event, you can click here to see them.)

For a closing thought this week, let me share a PIE-Day-related hymn.  Some of you may have heard that the United Church of Canada is working on a new hymn book. (I haven't shared much about it, because the dates keep getting moved back, and the shape keeps shifting.) This new hymn book will include most of our beloved songs from Voices United and More Voices, but there has also been an intentional effort to include more songs from other parts of the world (part of our goal to be an inter-cultural church), as well as more Affirming hymns.  "Queerly Beloved" is one of the new hymns that is going to be included in the new hymn book (called Then Let Us Sing) - if you want to listen to it, you can hear it by clicking here! (And I know that we don't usually sing Hallelujah/Alleluia during Lent, but feel free to sing along in the spirit of PIE Day!)

Blessings to you and yours, today and always!

Kate.

Rev. Kate Jones

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

(506) 757-2201 (office)

(506) 343-1307 (mobile)

www.tworiverspastoralcharge.com

 Pronouns:  she/her/hers

"Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?"

Jesus replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: "You must love your neighbour as you love yourself."

(Matthew 22:36-39)