Emmanuel Episcopal Church

Follow Us in Photos - the Greening of the Church 2012

Homily for the First Sunday after Christmas - The Twelve Days of Christmas

Christmas 1C 2012

Isaiah 61:10-62:3 
Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7 
John 1:1-18 
Psalm 147 or 147:13-21

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

Merry Christmas!  Our celebration of the Lord’s birth continues. 

While presiding at a wedding for two friends during the Christmas Season, I explained to them that since their wedding was taking place on the fifth day of Christmas they would need five golden rings.  As you might expect they had only brought two rings with them and seemed perplexed by my statement.  I then waived the requirement and, to the delight of all, moved forward with the service!

I confess that I have been generally opposed to re-gifting, that was until I received those four calling birds. . . .

Growing up, before heading off to Midnight Mass we would always go to my aunt’s for the Christmas Eve spaghetti dinner. She had lovely china plates of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and it was always a surprise to find out at the end of the meal which plate and its particular gift we had received for the requisite singing of The Twelve Days of Christmas after the meal.

Many years later I discovered that this rather silly song with its catchy tune was a teaching device written during an age of religious persecution.  Using coded language (not unlike that which might be found in the Book of Revelation, written during another age of persecution), The Twelve Days of Christmas was a tool or mnemonic device to teach the faith:

Service Bulletin for the First Sunday after Christmas

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Homily for Christmas Eve 2012 - God's gift to the world

Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

First of all, you children can relax.  Santa is coming!

For the past 20 hours or so, the bi-national North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), operated by the United States and Canada, has been tracking Santa around the globe.  This service actually began back in 1955 by CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command, and was taken up by NORAD when it replaced CONAD in 1958. 

It’s no easy feat to track Santa.  In fact, according to NORAD’s website, more than 1,250 Canadian and American uniformed personnel and Department of Defense civilian volunteers donate their time Christmas Eve to answer the thousands of phone calls and emails that flood in from around the globe.  

And don’t worry that you may miss being able to call our NORAD friends who are stationed in Colorado; they will be available at 1.877.HI.NORAD until 3 a.m. Mountain Standard Time.  I believe that’s actually 5 a.m. our time. 

But their website does make two things very clear: (1) Santa visits all homes around the world wherever boys and girls believe in him and (2) Santa never enters those homes unless the children are asleep, but our NORAD friends have observed that if the children are awake Santa has been known to circle back to leave gifts when they are actually asleep.  If you will sleep, I have some really great news for you, by NORAD’s counting a couple of hours ago 4 billion gifts have already been given.

Secondly, Santa is not the only one coming or giving gifts tonight.  God is coming and God is giving the best gift of all: the gift of himself neatly wrapped through Mary in our humanity, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Service Bulletin for The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Eve 2012

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Christmas Eve Music at 10:30 pm Tonight

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent - My soul doth magnify the Lord

Luke 1:39-45 (46-55, the Magnificat)

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

Today we go with Mary early in her pregnancy as she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth. 

Two extraordinary things have just taken place.

First, you will recall that Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah, a priest offering incense in the sanctuary, was visited by the Angel Gabriel and informed that Elizabeth would conceive a son named John who would prepare the way of the Lord. 

Not surprisingly this was a shock to Zechariah, for Elizabeth was up in years and thought to be barren. How could this be, he asks, and is told that he will be unable to speak until his son is named at his circumcision.

Secondly, Gabriel then announces to Mary that she too is going to have a baby boy.  He will be called Jesus and will be given David’s throne and reign eternally.  Mary also wants to know how this can be, as she is still a virgin.  She isn’t rendered mute, however.  (We can only surmise that God reserves this extraordinary punishment for clergy, where talking too much has always been an occupational hazard.)

Service Bulletin for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

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Bishop Hollerith’s 2012 Christmas Message

Transcript of Bishop Hollerith’s 2012 Christmas Message video
Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia
December 18, 2012

Grace and peace to you from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

As I sit here seven days before Christmas, I find that my reflections today are very much colored by events in Connecticut this past week and that terrible, terrible tragedy of the death of children and teachers. It reminds all of us of a couple of things.

The first is that evil is real. Evil in the world is a force that is a reality. And it is a force that we are sometimes powerless over. We are vulnerable as human beings and, despite all our technology and all our knowledge and ability, there are times when our vulnerability is obvious before events we cannot control.

There is a darkness to the world. Isaiah talks about that darkness – that there is a darkness before us, that the people sit in darkness. I’m reminded of a quote from W.H. Auden, “Nothing can save us that is possible. We who are about to die demand a miracle.”

We live with an idealized vision of what Christmas is like. But in reality, the world in which Jesus came, was born into, was a world where suffering, violence and death was very, very much a part of the context of the people to whom he came to be with.

I’m reminded of Herod and the slaughtering of the innocents shortly after Jesus’ birth – the slaughtering of the innocent children of Bethlehem. That’s the world into which Jesus came. It is the world in which we live.

There’s an attempt, I think, at times to explain these things using the intellect, using science or using some aspect of wisdom to say why these terrible things happen. But I think we know, deep down inside, there are no easy answers to this.

Our response – the church’s response – especially at Christmas, is simply to talk about the one who comes to save us, to bring light to the darkness. I’m reminded of the book of Job, where Job is consoled by his friends who try to give him various arguments as to why he has received such suffering from God.

But ultimately none of those explanations satisfy Job. The only thing that speaks to Job is God’s presence. The fact that God would come and speak to him directly. And it’s that presence that gives Job meaning and hope - the presence of God.

At Christmas, God says to his creation, I’m willing to experience what you experience, to feel what you feel, to think what you think, to laugh as you laugh, and to suffer as you suffer. I am willing to draw you and the whole world to myself. It’s so simple and so elegant. A birth, a gesture of insignificant proportion and yet one of infinite consequence.

This holiday season, I hope you will keep in your prayers all those in Newtown, Connecticut, who are suffering from deep loss and grief. And that you will pray as well for this country, as we learn to heal from what has happened and as we come to terms with the issues we have in our society that causes these things to happen.

I pray that we as Christians will remember that what we have to offer is not only ourselves together as community, but also this great message of the one that has come to redeem the world. “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Those that have lived in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined. For a child has been born for us. A son has been given to us. Authority rests upon his shoulders and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:2-6)

God’s blessings to you.

Service Bulletin for the Third Sunday of Advent

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Annual Meeting Elects Three New Vestry Members

At the Annual Meeting on Sunday, December 9, the congregation elected Richard Camp, John Geyer, and Charles Williams to the vestry of Emmanuel Church.  We thank them for their willingness to serve and thank Vic Millner and Beth Coles for their three years of service as they roll off the vestry this month.  A tip of the biretta to all who brought food and worked to make the day lovely!

- Father Chris

Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent - I thank my God every time I remember you

Philippians 1.3-11

Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying

“I thank my God every time I remember you.”

As we gather today for this eucharist and the 2012 annual meeting of this parish church, I note the uncanny timeliness of our lectionary readings.

No matter what’s going on in our lives individually and collectively, the appointed readings have a way of reaching down through centuries and across diverse cultures to address us directly, personally. 

At times our readings confront and correct.  At times, they comfort and console.  But at all times, if we have but ears to hear, they connect with us and remind us of what is truly important, truly real, truly saving.  And of what is not.

“I thank my God every time I remember you.”  

Paul begins with thanksgiving, with eucharist, I give thanks, a note of joy and rejoicing that reverberates through the letter even unto the conclusion in the fourth chapter. Some may remember that the word “joy” or “rejoice” is found in the Letter to the Philippians some sixteen times.

You may recall what was going on in Paul’s life when he wrote this letter.  He’s in prison, again, probably in Rome, possibly Caesarea or Ephesus.  And it is not Club Fed.  He’s facing the real possibility of his death, about which he has ambivalence, for if he dies he will be with the Lord and if he lives he will be able to continue proclaiming the Gospel, for “living is Christ and dying is gain” (1.21). 

As he tosses between life and death, Paul sees so much that is good and lovely and true and bids us “rejoice always and again I say rejoice” (4.4).

Paul knows and wants us to know this: God is good—all the time and all the time—God is good.

Do we know that truth?  Is that the truth in which are lives are firmly anchored?

Service Bulletin for the Second Sunday of Advent

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Chatham Concert Series Opens Fifth Season at Emmanuel

By Susan Paynter

On Saturday evening, November 17, Emmanuel hosted the fifth season opener of the Chatham Concert Series and post-concert reception.   Playing to a house of about 75, the ever-popular Rainier Trio and returning Clarinetist Alex Jones presented a program of Romantic European and Contemporary American chamber music.

Making up the Rainier Trio are the series’ Artistic Director Kevin Matheson on violin, his brother Bryan Matheson on viola and Brenda Wittwer on piano.  Alex Jones plays first clarinet for the Pittsburgh Philharmonic.

The foursome began and ended the program with romantic masterpieces. A trio by German composer Carl Reinecke began the program.  The final piece was a quartet by Viennese composer Walter Rabl: his Opus 1.  Interestingly, the Reinecke trio was written in the composer’s 79^th year, and the Rabl composition (the opus number is a hint) was written at the beginning of Rabl’s career.  While one was a veteran and the other a novice, both composers were writing at peak performance.

Peak performance is also what the musicians brought to the music.  The Matheson brothers are always a delight.  Both are top performers technically and artistically, but to watch them is to see the differences: Bryan plays in a straightforward, matter-of-fact style and Kevin in a more emotive fashion.  Differing styles aside, when you close your eyes their strings marry so beautifully, their combined sound is so rich, strong and complementary that it seems to spring from a single source.

Sandwiched between the Europeans was the music of two contemporary American composers: Peter Schickele and Rick Sowash.  This writer’s preference was for the less complicated more soulful Sowash.  It was his Daweswood Suite, written while Sowash was composer in residence at Ohio’s Daweswood Arboretum.  Inspired by the budding, blossoming and bearing of the trees there, Sowash wrote this lovely meditation on the endless cycles of life.

The musicians performed beautifully on both.  The Schickele may have been more demanding, and Jones, Wittwer and Kevin Matheson managed it with great skill.  The Sowash seemed (undoubtedly deceptively) to simply flow organically from the four instruments of the Matheson brothers, Wittwer and Jones.

Brenda Wittwer must be the other musicians’ dream pianist.  She plays with grace and precision and -- though capable of great flourish -- she never upstages.  She plays in concert with the other artists.

This was a return engagement for Alex Jones as well.  He was back by popular demand, and there’s no surprise there.  Does any instrument exceed the clarinet for versatility of mood?  With Jones’ skill (and lung capacity!) and with this particular program, attendees had a chance to hear this wind instrument put through its emotional paces. 

The Chatham Concert Series has an important and charming tradition.  As often as possible, a young music student is invited to perform one piece.  It’s not only valuable performance experience for the student; it’s a gift to the future of fine art music in Southside Virginia.

The student performer this evening was Chatham resident Trevor Percario, 11.  Trevor attends Epiphany School and is a piano student of Susan Barrett via Chatham Arts.  He played J.S. Bach’s Minuet in G Major and did an admirable job.  Bravo, Trevor!

After the concert, attendees enjoyed a reception in the social hall.  Music lovers were able to chat with the musicians, friends and neighbors over drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

Emmanuel Church is pleased to serve, along with Chatham First, as venue and facilitator of the Chatham Concert Series.

The next concert will be held on Friday evening, January 11.  The program will be “Music for Flute, Harp and Strings: Celtic to French Impressionism,” featuring Roanoke Symphony Flutist Julie Hickcox and Greensboro Symphony Principal Harpist Helen Rifas.  Also performing: the Matheson brothers’ Classic Strings Duo.