St. John’s Episcopal Church
207 Albany Avenue, Kingston, NY 12401

Sign up for news
Menu
Sign up for news

The Good News of St. John’s

February, 2024

  1. February 23rd

    The Good News from St. John’s Kingston

    LENTEN ISSUE

    This Sunday: Lent II and Children’s Activity Available

    Join us for worship for the Second Sunday in Lent when our lessons will be about Abraham’s covenant with God and Jesus’ rebuke of Peter – “Get behind me Satan!”. You can read this Sunday’s lessons ahead of time here.  And for the younger members, we will have a children’s activity available in the Godly Play Room led by Michelle Hoffman and Sara Hutton.
    ________________________________________________________________________________________

    Bad Weather? Good Question!

    Are we having worship?
    Anytime we think there may be a travel concern due to weather – either snow or ice – pay close attention to all of our communications channels: Instagram, Facebook, and email. Rev. Michelle will put an announcement out on Saturday sometime before 8:00 pm ONLY IF worship is either canceled OR we move the worship to Zoom. If there is no announcement, we will worship in the sanctuary as normal.

    Who takes care of the parking lot and sidewalks?
    We have a plowing company who comes anytime there is a snowfall of at least 3 inches. They clear the parking lot, driveway, ramp, and sidewalks. If the snow continues, however, they will wait until the snowfall has finished so they don’t have to charge us twice for more than one visit.

    However, if it’s a small snowfall or just ice, it’s up to us as a church community to make sure our entrances and exits are as safe as we can make them. There are shovels and ice melt stored in the vestibule outside the kitchen. If you’re here on one of those sorta-snowy days or if you have an half an hour to come over and make sure the ramp is clear, please do. Call or text Rev. Michelle and she can make sure you get into the building.
    ________________________________________________________________________________________

    A Lenten Space

    Each week during Lent, Rev. Michelle will post here about resources for spiritual practice and reflection – books, podcasts, websites, etc. While Lent is a specific time of our liturgical year set aside for reflection, most of these resources are not only meant for Lent. Spiritual reflection and practice are things that we are invited to at any time and any place, as we are always called to deepen our relationship with God.

    The Season of Lent is a call to reflection and to consider the systemic brokenness we encounter in the world. One of the most troublesome issues we have here in the Hudson Valley is the housing crisis. We have more people than we have the ability to house and the rental prices have risen sharply since the start of the pandemic.

    In his online Lenten course, Inhabiting the Scriptures: Finding Home in a World of Displacement, Dr. Brian Walsh asks: “What happens if we read the whole biblical witness as a story of home, homelessness, and homecoming?”  Learn more about this course here.

    This is for anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of the Bible and its relation to contemporary life. All are welcome, regardless of denominational or religious affiliation. No prior knowledge of the Bible is necessary. Each class will run on Zoom for two hours with a 5 minute break half-way through. Although the bulk of the class will consist of Brian teaching, participants will also be able to post questions and points for discussion in the chat which Brian will monitor and answer.

    Recordings of each week’s class are available to all who register. The course fee is on a sliding scale. Speak with Rev. Michelle if you would like to receive scholarship monies for this.

    List of Lenten Resources
    ________________________________________________________________________________________

    What Is Our Offering?


    Dear Ones,

    As most of you know, I’ve become a gardener. For the past several years, Ana and I have spent January planning the garden and then we begin to sow seeds in February. And this year we are not doing any of that. We’re taking the year off from planting flowers and tending a vegetable garden.

    The reasons are simple – Ana is having a major surgery and will not be able to assist with gardening chores and I am planning to be on a sabbatical during the months of June, July, and August so I won’t be around to tend to and harvest what we plant. It’s just a good year to be free of this responsibility.

    I have to admit to feeling a small sense of relief. But I also have to say that I am already missing the garden. I mean, it’s kind of like skipping Christmas. There is no planning, no anticipation. And, the gifts will be different. We have so many perennial flowers and plants so we won’t be in need of things to tend to and nurture and watch unfurl. But I feel like I’m not offering anything to this unfurling myself. So I am missing something.

    As I reflect on this, I am reminded that our sense of belonging is deeply tied to our offering, our personal participation. We get tripped up sometimes by believing that we do not belong. Yet, we can easily forget that the invitation to participate is always there waiting for us to pick it up and respond because we DO belong. In God’s economy, God’s house, we ALWAYS belong.

    Each Sunday before Eucharist, I say: “Let us walk in love as Christ loved us, and offer of ourselves a sacrifice to God.” This isn’t just about putting your pledge into the plate. This offering is your participation in the Eucharist. It’s you saying yes to God’s open invitation to the Banquet of Love. It’s an Amen. A joining-in. The offering of our presence is an acceptance of our own belovedness.

    The question is, then: What is our response? What is our offering?

    In God’s love and mine,
    Rev. Michelle

  2. February 16th

    LENTEN ISSUE

    Lent has begun: Ash Wednesday and Lent I

    This week we marked the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday. In addition to two worship services, Rev. Michelle, along with several members of St. John’s Sacristan and Healing Teams, offered Ashes-to-go to about 100 people in front of the church building during commute times in the morning and afternoon. Most of the people who come for Ashes-to-go have distanced themselves from church life for one reason or another so this yearly community outreach is very meaningful as it provides a connection to their faith even if they cannot find their way to church right now.

    This coming Sunday, as we celebrate the First Sunday of Lent, we will begin our worship with the Great Litany – a moment to specifically name all the ways we move away from God’s Love through systemic sin and lament humanity’s choices. The first Sunday of Lent is the only time during the year we pray the Great Litany, as it provides a framework for the examination of our participation in societal transgressions.

    St. John’s Upcoming Schedule

    You can always find the most updated calendar at: http://www.stjohnskingston.org/welcome/event-calendar/ 

    Feb 18          Healing Sunday, Choir Rehearsal after worship
    Feb 25          Children’s Formation available
    Mar 2            Ulster Deanery Meeting, 9-2, Holy Cross/Santa Cruz, Kingston
    Mar 3            All Ages Worship, Angel Food East Fundraiser: Mac-n-Cheese Bakeoff at Keegan Ales, 2-5 pm.
    Mar 10          Godly Play for kids
    Mar 17          Healing Sunday, Choir Rehearsal after worship
    Mar 25          Palm Sunday, Children’s Formation available
    Mar 28          Maundy Thursday Dinner and Worship at 6:00 pm
    Mar 29          Good Friday Prayer Service at 1:00 pm
    Mar 30          Holy Saturday, Easter Vigil at 8:00 pm
    Mar 31          Easter Sunday
    April 20         Vestry Retreat
    ________________________________________________________________________________________

    The Installation and Investiture of the Rt. Rev. Matt Heyd as the 17th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York

    On Saturday, February 10th hundreds of people gathered in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Ave in New York City to celebrate the installation and investiture of Bishop Matt Heyd as our new Bishop Diocesan. The diocese elected Matt in December of 2022, and he was consecrated as a bishop last May. This past year Bp. Matt has spent his time getting to know more about the people of the diocese and developing a plan for transitioning the diocese. This celebration marks his full investiture as Diocesan Bishop. Several people from St. John’s made their way to this celebration to participate in the life of our diocese. Enjoy the photos!


    ________________________________________________________________________________________

    Bad Weather? Good Question!

    Are we having worship?
    Tis the season for challenging weather conditions. Anytime we think there may be a travel concern due to weather, pay close attention to all of our communications channels: Instagram, Facebook, and email. Rev. Michelle will put an announcement out on Saturday sometime before 8:00 pm ONLY IF worship is either canceled OR we move the worship to Zoom. If there is no announcement, we will worship in the sanctuary as normal.

    Who takes care of the parking lot and sidewalks?
    We have a plowing company who comes anytime there is a snowfall of at least 3 inches. They clear the parking lot, driveway, ramp, and sidewalks. If the snow continues, however, they will wait until the snowfall is done so they don’t have to charge us twice for more than one visit.

    However, if it’s a small snowfall or ice, it’s up to us as a church community to make sure our entrances and exits are as safe as we can make them. There are shovels and ice melt stored in the vestibule outside the kitchen. If you’re here on one of those sorta snowy days or if you have an half an hour to come over and make sure the ramp is clear, please do. Call or text Rev. Michelle and she can make sure you get into the building.
    ________________________________________________________________________________________

    A Lenten Space

    Each week during Lent, Rev. Michelle will post here about resources for spiritual practice and reflection – books, podcasts, websites, etc. While Lent is a specific time of our liturgical year set aside for reflection, most of these resources are not only meant for Lent. Spiritual reflection and practice are things that we are invited to at any time and any place, as we are always called to deepen our relationship with God.

    The season of Lent arose out of the ancient Christian devotional practice of making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Most religions have a practice of pilgrimage, of course, and this particular practice for Christians was one that paid homage to Jesus and come understand why his death is central to the Christian religion – to walk where he walked, to stay where he stayed, to weep as he wept and as his disciples wept in those days immediately before his crucifixion. We continue this practice in our observance of Holy Week every year.

    To prepare for this pilgrimage, the season of Lent became a time set aside for study, mediation, fasting, confession, and prayer. And this continues to this day. We have created other events around this – like Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras – a last hurrah to indulge in and “finish off” of all the things that tempt us – and Ash Wednesday – a practice originally designed for those who were close to death, ashes were sprinkled on their bodies.

    But the season of Lent itself is, perhaps, mostly thought of as a 40 day investment Christians make in our relationship with God. We take this time to consider what gets in the way of our relationship with God and we practice doing something differently. Sometimes this means adding something to our lives.

    To get us started this Lenten season, here are three resources for your consideration:
    ________________________________________________________________________________________

    An Invitation to a Holy Lent

     

     

    A reprise of my homily from Ash Wednesday.

    Dear Ones,

    In her poem called “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver begins by asking… even demanding… our attention to the sacred. She says:
    Who made the world?
    Who made the swan, and the black bear?
    Who made the grasshopper?

    The awe Oliver expresses here are words of praise. And she continues, leading us into a more devotional prayer – noticing the beauty of this individual bein. She says:
    This grasshopper, I mean —
    the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
    the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
    who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
    who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
    Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
    Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

    Oliver brings us with her to this moment where she falls in love with this little being. And then beckons us deeper, into the truth of what it means to be beloved of God, saying:
    I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
    I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
    into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
    how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
    which is what I have been doing all day.
    Tell me, what else should I have done?
    Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
    Tell me, what is it you plan to do
    with your one wild and precious life?
    Oliver’s question is an Ash Wednesday question: Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

    This past Wednesday, I did what I always do on Ash Wednesday. I placed my thumb into the slurry of chrism oil and ashes made from the burned palms of last year’s Palm Sunday. And I “imposed” ashes on the foreheads of all those who came to me as I said the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Or, as Oliver says, “Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?”

    I reminded people of their death. And in these words, as you are reading them now, I am reminding you of your death. And I call this act of imposing ashes, this moment of reminding you of your death… a blessing.
    Yet, not too many people I know of would say that being reminded of one’s death, or of death itself, is a blessing. But it is.

    Not because we hope for heaven, a more peaceful existence than what we currently experience. But this is a blessing because most of the time we take life for granted and live in denial of the very certain, very real fact that everything/everyone does die at last. This is knowledge that we all have. But truly accepting this, is another thing. Because it’s there, in the deep acceptance, that we are invited into to truth. We are beckoned into the mystery that gives life meaning. And we come closer to God. A reminder of death is always a reminder of life. One always points toward the other.

    I don’t believe that the season of Lent is a time for us to think of all the mistakes we have made, chewing on them until our mind becomes shrouded in fog and our heart slows its beat. That is a death, for sure. But that death is not one that leads to resurrection. And we are a resurrection people. I do not believe that God wants our groveling and our painful confessions… unless they lead to new life.

    God just wants us closer. God just wants us to be reconciled to Them. So, I believe that Lent is a season of renewal. A time and space in which we remind ourselves of the truth: That we are dust. That we will return to dust. Because in this truth lies our nourishment, even our refreshment. In this truth lies our possibility. In this truth lies our very life.

    Our death is intimately tied to our life. In this, perhaps we can see that we are as fleeting as the grasshopper Oliver so tenderly holds in her attention on a summer day. And, if a grasshopper can be so loved, so are we loved. So are we beautiful. So are we beloved and whole. So are we precious and wild.

    And so, what is there to do but love? If our lives belong to God, if all of life belongs to God, then what else is there to do, but pray in this way that Oliver describes: To pay attention; to fall down into the grass; to be idle, and be blessed; to stroll through the fields of our lives; to live our one precious and wild life and find the way we are called to be opened up by God so that we don’t miss the beauty of the grasshopper. Or, more importantly, so we don’t miss the exquisite beauty of ourselves.

    To be opened up to our potential – becoming more and more reconciled to ourselves and, in so doing,  more and more reconciled to God. So that we may come to know that prayer and love are the same thing: An expression of curiosity and awe and devotion and gratitude.

    Today you are invited to a Holy Lent: a time of self-examination, is what our prayer book says; a time of repentance. Because we are called, not to death, but to life, to live this one wild and precious life and be fully immersed in its beauty.

    So if it is repentance, then let us repent of the practices and ways of being that deaden us. And if it is self-examination, then let us examine what it means to live and breathe and hope and pray and love.

    For what else is there to do? What else is there to do, my beloveds?

    In God’s love and mine,
    Rev. Michelle

  3. February 8th

    The Good News from St. John’s Kingston

    Coming Up at St. John’s

    THIS SUNDAY: Godly Play

    Join us this Sunday, February 11. Guest priest Rev. Heidi Newmark will preside and Leah Siuta will have a Godly Play story upstairs for our younger members. Stay afterwards for our traditional social hour.

    Bring Your Palms!

    Last year you received palms on Palm Sunday. Every year, we burn those Palm Sunday palms and turn them into ashes for Ash Wednesday. This way we are reminded of God’s abundant love for us revealed in the renewing cycle of creation. Please bring your palms to church on or before Shrove Tuesday, February 13. And join us that evening as we gather round the fire to pray and create ashes together.

     

    NEXT WEEK: Ash Wednesday is February 14

    The season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. We have 2 Ash Wednesday services for the people of St. John’s and all others who wish to attend: 12:00 noon and 7:00 pm. Every year on Ash Wednesday we also reach out to the larger Kingston community. Those who have been trained as Eucharistic and/or Healing Ministers assist Rev. Michelle with the distribution of ashes to the public. Ashes-to-go during the heavy commute times of 7:30-9:30 am and 4:00-5:30 pm.

    Burning the Palms: Every year we use last year’s palms from Palm Sunday to make ashes for Ash Wednesday. Please join Rev. Michelle at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, February 13 immediately next to the entrance ramp to the building for a short ceremony.
    ________________________________________________________________________________________

    The Installation of the 17th Bishop of New York


    Saturday, February 10th at 11:00am     (please arrive by 10:30)
    Join us at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (1047 Amsterdam Avenue) for the installation of the Rt. Rev. Matthew Heyd as our 17th Bishop. The service will celebrate the life of the Diocese of New York and the church’s mission to heal the world. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend. A reception will follow the service. You can indicate that you plan to attend here: https://dioceseny.org/ednyevent/bishop-installation-2024/

    Don’t want to drive or park in Manhattan? SPOTS ARE STILL OPEN! Free bus transportation is provided for those attending the Installation arriving at the Cathedral by 10 am. The closest bus to Kingston is will be leaving that morning from Poughkeepsie. If you’d like to ride on the bus, click here to sign up. There, you will receive more information about details.

    _______________________________________

    Bad Weather? Good Question!

    Are we having worship?
    Tis the season for challenging weather conditions. Anytime we think there may be a travel concern due to weather, pay close attention to all of our communications channels: Instagram, Facebook, and email. Rev. Michelle will put an announcement out on Saturday sometime before 8:00 pm ONLY IF worship is either canceled OR we move the worship to Zoom. If there is no announcement, we will worship in the sanctuary as normal.

    Who takes care of the parking lot and sidewalks?
    We have a plowing company who comes anytime there is a snowfall of at least 3 inches. They clear the parking lot, driveway, ramp, and sidewalks. If the snow continues, however, they will wait until the snowfall is done so they don’t have to charge us twice for more than one visit.

    However, if it’s a small snowfall or ice, it’s up to us as a church community to make sure our entrances and exits are as safe as we can make them. There are shovels and ice melt stored in the vestibule outside the kitchen. If you’re here on one of those sorta snowy days or if you have an half an hour to come over and make sure the ramp is clear, please do. Call or text Rev. Michelle and she can make sure you get into the building.