You're invited:
St. Andrew’s Day Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan
St. Andrew & St. Margaret of Scotland Anglican Church is holding a Kirkin' o’ the Tartan and Evening Prayer service on Saturday, November 30, 2024 at 7:00 PM. November 30th is St. Andrew’s Day. St. Andrew, one of Jesus’ 12 disciples, is the Patron Saint of Scotland. These ceremonies have both parochial and civil meaning, dating back to 18th century Alexandria. The service will include a blessing of Scottish tartans, a bagpiper, Scottish fiddling (members of the Scottish Fiddling Society), and other Scottish music. It will be followed by a reception with Scottish foods and beverages. Wear your kilts and bring your tartans if you have them! The church is located at 402 E. Monroe Avenue, Alexandria, VA (1 block off Mount Vernon Avenue), 703-683-3343, www.standrewandstmargaret.org.
Excerpted from a Sermon of The Most Rev. John T. Cahoon, Jr., Rector of St. Andrew & St. Margaret of Scotland, Metropolitan of the Anglican Catholic Church, Sunday next before Advent 1998
We know God through the actual things he allows to happen in the world. We find out what our relationship to God is about by looking at everything that happens to us and trying to see patterns, threads, webs of meaning.
We are trying to figure out the plot line of a drama God is both writing and directing. The drama is the series of events through which God tries to let us know that he loves us and that he wants to save us and make us grow up and finally take us to heaven.
The idea that we know God through what happens is the basic theological insight of the Hebrew Bible. Other religions might look for God in mystical experiences or in beautiful explanations of the universe, but the down-to-earth Hebrew people looked for God in history -- in what happened -- both in their history as a nation and in their own individual lives. The pattern of God's activity at both the private and the public levels of history is exactly the same.
God did not reveal himself to the Jews as an abstract philosophical principle like goodness, or justice or love. God revealed himself as the person who dominates the flow of what happens. After the time of Moses, when the Hebrews talked about God they identified him as "the one who led us out of Israel." They believed they saw God and his purposes most clearly in the Exodus -- their miraculous escape from slavery in Egypt.
The prophet Jeremiah wrote in the seventh century B.C. -- six or seven hundred years after the Exodus -- about as far away in time from Moses as we are from the High Middle Ages. In the intervening centuries Israel had made it to the Promised Land; engaged in wars; demanded that God give them a king; split the kingdom in two; and then seen the northern kingdom overrun by pagans and the southern kingdom in immediate danger of being conquered by Babylon.
God had remained faithful, but the people and their kings had disobeyed him, and the ugly realities of the previous seven centuries of their national history were the result.
Like most of the Old Testament prophets, Jeremiah alternately scolds and offers hope. He is, in the proper Biblical way, pessimistic about human beings but hopeful about God. What he writes in today's lesson holds out the promise that God will provide a cure for the ills of Israel's past history within their future history.
First he promises Israel a good king. Israel had had to put up with century after century of bad kings. That was God's way of reminding them that they should never have asked for a king in the first place. The good king would have a proper pedigree -- he was going to be a descendant of King David -- a righteous branch of David's own family tree.
The king would be righteous toward God in his own life, and his personal qualities would let him rule with justice and proper judgment in the public sphere. And Jeremiah goes on to make the astounding promise that what God will accomplish through this king will be so great and so powerful that it will make the Hebrew people forget about the Exodus.
What he will do is to reconcile and reconstitute all of Israel -- bring back together all of the chosen people who had been scattered to the four winds. So they won't any longer say, "The living God brought us out of Egypt." They will say, instead, "The living God brought us all back together so we could live with him in our own country."
As Christians -- inheritors of the promises God made in the Hebrew Bible -- we know that God made Jeremiah's prophecy come true in Jesus. He is the descendant of David; he is the good king; he has led us out of bondage to sin and death; and he has brought all of his chosen people -- Jews and Gentiles alike -- from all times and all places together into one body which is the church. We will live together forever in our own true country which is heaven.
The righteous branch is the one who gathers people together for God. After he fed five thousand people with a bit of bread and fish, his disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers -- the number of the twelve tribes of Israel. It was at least as much because of the baskets as because of his miracle that the crowd looked at Jesus and said, "This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world."
All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee
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Services & Events
Women’s Weekly Prayer Seminar – The Diocese is sponsoring a Weekly Women’s Prayer Seminar via Zoom. It will be taught by published author Bonnie Shannonhouse. The idea of the seminar is to teach as many women as possible the art and practice of prayer, to build a community of prayer warriors, and to foster a greater sense of community in the Diocese. For more information and a link to register, please go to the Diocesan homepage at dmas-acc.org.
Sunday Services, 7:45 AM, 9:00 AM, & 11:15 AM (for online participation for the services go to: https://www.facebook.com/saintsofscotland)
Sunday School, 10:30 AM
Nursery 9:00 & 11:15 Services
Vestry Meeting, Monday November 25, 7:30 PM
Wednesday, 12 noon, Holy Communion and anointing for healing, (for online participation for the service go to: https://www.facebook.com/saintsofscotland)
Thanksgiving Day Service, Thursday 10:00 AM
Saturday, November 30, 7:00 PM, Kirkin of the Tartan and Evening Prayer with bagpiper followed by a great reception with Scottish foods and beverages. Please attend and invite your family, friends and neighbors. See first item in e-letter for an easy way to do this.
Current list of needs for MaRIH crisis pregnancy center
MaRIH Center with its all volunteer staff provides help to mothers-to-be and mothers in need. Please provide some of the items that are needed.. (You can leave the donations where the food for the food bank is collected on the pew in the undercorft.)
Especially Needed
In Bold and with an asterisk are a critical need.
Diapers (sizes newborn, *1, 2, 3, *4, *5, & *6)
*Lovies
*Baby wipes
*Diaper rash ointment
*Baby shampoo
*Baby blankets
*Baby bottles
*Bibs toddler
*Formula: Simulac Advance Formula
Formula: other but not recalled
*Wash clothes
*Hooded towels
*Fall Winter clothing: 3-6 mo, 2T
*Winter coats 2T
*Grocery gift cards
Food Bank Needs
Please help this month with a food donation if you are able. Those we help feed are very thankful for the food we provide to them each month. Please also buy low sugar cereals (and not the kid's types that have lots of sugar). Current needs include the following:
canned meats (chicken, corned beef, spam)
peanut butter
jelly
tuna
canned vegetables (corn, green beans - (regular and low sodium)
individual fruit cups (low sugar)
canned fruit (low sugar)
canola or vegetable oil (48 oz)
boxed cereal (low sugar) and instant or old fashioned oatmeal (18 oz or 42 oz)
pasta (regular and gluten-free):
instant potatoes
single serving fruit juice
macaroni & cheese
soups: Chunky or Progresso,noodle soup; chicken broth, cream of mushroom
coffee, cooking oil, flour, sugar
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St. Andrew & St. Margaret of Scotland
1607 Dewitt Avenue
Alexandria, VA 22301-1625