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St. John’s Way
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A monthly publication of Saint John's Episcopal Church ~ Ft. Washington, MD Volume 18, No. 02 March 2010

After Several Snow Delays St. Johns Finally Holds It's Annual Meeting After two cancellations, St. John’s Annual Meeting was finally held on Sunday, February 28, 2010. This season’s historic and record-breaking 56-inch snowfall finally let up long enough for our parishioners to gather after the 10:30am service and take care of annual Church business In Bayne Hall, Father Marc Britt, Rector, graced the abundance of soups, stews, chilies and side dishes bought by the members. After everyone made their way around the tables (including an extensive dessert table) and fixed their plates, the meeting began. With all the parliamentary matters out of the way, Father Britt called for the slate of candidates for Vestry and Senior Warden. Since there were no new nominations from the floor, the nominees were elected by acclamation. Tayo Akintoba and Carolyn Magnuson are the newest members to the Vestry, and Don Horton was elected the new Senior Warden. Susan Petroff signed up for an additional two years on the Vestry and Junior Warden Johnnie Jones signed up for one additional year. These new members will join current members, Doug Tower, Carol Canteen, and Robert Dash. Father Britt swore them all in. Other highlights of the meeting included remarks from the outgoing Senior Warden, Sandra Bouchelion, who reminded us of the many events and challenges that occurred during the past year. She also challenged each member by paraphrasing John F. Kennedy, "Ask not what St. John’s can do for you. Ask what you can do for St. Johns." There were several other reports. Phyllis Cox reported on the One Hundred Fifteenth Convention of the Diocese of Washington, which was held January 29-30, 2010. Doug Tower gave the financial year-end report, and Alan Ritter presented the 2010 budget. Father Britt concluded the meeting with remarks, thanked the outgoing Vestry members, Marty Stewart and Sam Foggie, and also thanked the church for his Tenth Anniversary Celebration. He said that his trip to Scotland is in the planning stages. After the closing prayer the meeting was adjourned. March Birthdays--Happy Birthday  BIRGITT BREVARD     CAROL CANTEEN CLARENCE GUNTER     JEAN GUNTER PAUL HALL                 DIANA O'BRIEN PRESCOTT STEWART

Ninth Annual Ethnic Luncheon - Enjoying Our Diversity This years Ethnic Luncheon was another great gathering of St. John’s. As it is with us every Sunday, but especially this Sunday the diversity of people, colors, foods and cultures were a joy to behold. As always, Faith Chisholm and a group of dedicated and creative members, put together a wonderful afternoon of food, entertainment and people. Mrs. Annette Walker presided over the festivities this year, which began with a warm welcome from Bea James. Steven Procter, representing St. John’s Youth Ministry, provided a wonderful piano selection, which was followed by the blessing of the food by Father Marc Britt. Then the lids came off and the smells of many cultures filled the room. As always each dishes was a treat and came with a story. This event is a "pot luck" you don’t want to miss. Colonel Norman A. McDaniel, USAF Retired, was the guest speaker. Brady Vereen and Dezi Vereen presented two poems "I Dream A World" and "Drums" and the St. John’s Choir, directed by Kathy Doyle sang "Someday". The entertainment continued with readings from Mikayla Chapman and Kristopher Chapman, and piano selections from Brady Vereen. Faith Chisholm thanked everyone for their participation and attendance and Father Britt provided closing remarks.

Additional pictures on page 4

Rev. Marc L. Britt Watchman's Word March continues our journey through Lent toward Holy Week with its observances of Palm Sunday, and as April dawns, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Vigil Holy Saturday evening, and Easter Day. We always anticipate great attendance on Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, but it tends to drop off for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil, the three most important observances of Holy Week, so important they have their own name, Triduum, the three days, each with their “proper liturgy”, a service restricted to and appropriate for that day, the way ashes are on Ash Wednesday. I’ve never been sure exactly why these services are not well attended, except perhaps that how we observe them has changed in the liturgical renewal  of the late 20th Century. Maundy Thursday’s ritual washing of feet was restored, Good Friday’s ancient servies was restored, and the Great Vigil, although always observed by the Orthodox Eastern Church, was restored by the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches, including our own Episcopal Church. All these are included in the Book of Commom Prayer 1979. Indeed, these services are the point of the season of Lent. “The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s  passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitance and fasting” (BCP, pp. 265-265). Perhaps we are confused by the reading of the “pasion gospel” on Palm Sunday, and skip right over to Easter Sunday, and think that is the observance “of the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection”, but it isn’t. Our Lord’s passion includes the mixed celbration of Palm Sunday, the institution of what we call the Lord’s Supper with it’s rite of humble service of foot washing on Maundy Thursday, the solemn service of Good Friday enthroning Jesus by way of crucifixion, and the principal celebration of the Resurrection at the Great Vigil. This year at the Vigil, the most importan baptismal occasion, we will formally bring Mikayla and Kristopher Chapman into the body of Christ by baptizing them into Christ’s death and resurrection. And of course, that celebration spills over into the Rector’s reception in Bayne Hall following the Vigil. It’s the observance of these great three days which makes the Easter Day the festival it is meant to be. I really hope this year more of you will throw yourselves into the observance of the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection “with great devotion” and participate in the great three days, as well as in Palm Sunday and Easter Day. One final word. My sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent, “Promises and Doubt”, seems to have struck a cord in a number of people. I have been urged to publish it more widely in St. John’s Way, and with Karl Boykin’s assistance, I am doing so in this issue. See you in church.

Promises and Doubt Rev. Marc Britt (Sermon - March 1, 2010) Genesis 15.1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3.17-4.1;  luke 13.31-35  The scriptures this morning present us with extravagant promises which raise all too human doubt. For that’s what promises to be fulfilled in the future and not immediately always do. God promises Abram an heir from Sarai, and no heir comes for a long time. Paul promises the Philippians and us that we are citizens of heaven, although it doesn’t much seem like it, and that Jesus will transform us to conform to his glory, but that is far off. The only one confident seems to be Jesus himself, and that is confidence that although Herod Antipas may be plotting his death, he will continue his work until it’s finished because he is sure no prophet will be killed except in Jerusalem. But do we call such confidence trust or faith? Abram is Genesis’ and Paul’s the model for faithfulness because he trusted the Lord’s promises to him and “it was reckoned to him as righteousness”. But in this passage Abram doubts the promise God gave him of an heir. “O LORD God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus . . . You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir” (Genesis 15.2-3). Abram has waited a long time for Sarai to bear him a son and nothing has happened; Sarai and he are growing older, and time is running out as far as he is concerned. He is anxious and in his anxiety he doubts. To Abram’s doubt God responds by reiterating his promise: “no one but your very own issue shall be your heir”, and bringing Abram outside his tent, God says “Look toward the stars, if you are able to count them . . . So shall your descendants be” (4b-5). Genesis compliments that Abram “believed in the LORD; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness” (15.6). Yet in the very next chapter of Genesis, Abram concurs with thus far childless Sarai’s plan to get an heir by Hagar, her slave-girl, since God has not yet fulfilled the promise (16.1-15). Not exactly what we might call a model of faithfulness in trusting God would you say? And when God reiterates the promise to give all the land of Canaan, “to give you this land to possess” (15.7) Abram wants proof, not promises: “How am I to know that I shall possess it” (15.8). But the proof comes as a dream, which is no proof. God instructs Abram “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon” (15.9), and Abram does so, cutting all but the birds in two and “laying each half over against the other” (15.10). Then in a dream, after a deep and terrifying darkness descended on” Abram, the darkness of the kavhod Shekinah JHWH, the dark glory of God, God causes “a smoking pot and a flaming torch” to pass “between these pieces” (15.12, 17), the sign of God’s promise that God should be cut in half and sacrificed if God fails to make good his promise, saying “To you and your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (15.18). But Abram never sees this promise fulfilled, for it comes to limited fruition only after the Exodus, 800 or so years after Abram’s death. And a dream is not proof. In Philippians, Paul enjoins the people there and us to “join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us” (3.17). Like Paul, they and we are to live remembering “our citizenship is in heaven” not here on earth, reminding them and us “from there . . . we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (3.20). And Paul promises that the result of faithfulness is that Jesus “will transform the body of our humiliation”, our mortal body, “that it may be conformed to the body of his glory,” his risen body, “by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself” (3.21). Well, if the Philippians did not observe that Jesus makes all things subject to himself 2000 odd

Articles, comments, letters to the editor and suggestions
can be submitted to the Church office or emailed to
karl.boykin@verizon.net
Let’s Hear From You!!!
Submissions can be left in the
newsletter box in the church office ‑ either hard copy or on CD,
mailed, or faxed to the church at 301‑248‑7838. So let’s hear
from you. Your letters to the editor/ideas/articles/comments/
information/questions can also be emailed to Karl Boykin




Looking for Something Different?
Join the graveyard committee and see some of the
history of St. John’s from a different perspective.
The committee is responsible for working with
families to choose gravesites and for arranging the
opening and closing of the graves. Duties of the
graveyard committee are sporadic; the committee
will often go for months without any tasks in the
graveyard.
If you are interested in joining this committee,
please call Jim Titus (301-292-1258) or Poss Tarpley
(703-660-8661). You will be invited to help on
the next occasion that the graveyard committee is
needed. All training is “on the job”.




St. John's Way http://www.stjohnsbroadcreek.org/ 3
Continued on page 4
4 http://www.stjohnsbroadcreek.org/ St. John's Way
years ago, and we don’t see real and tangible evidence that he
has done so either, that should at least raise some doubt. It was
already enough doubt in Paul’s time to allow the “enemies of the
cross of Christ” to worship the god of their belly and glory in their
shame” (3.18). “Their end is their destruction”, Paul says, and
that is so, but from all the Philippian Church or we can see, can
observe, our end seems to be our destruction too; for all of us die
to the destruction of our mortal bodies, and not having witnessed
the glory of Jesus’ risen body ourselves, we have no tangible
evidence Paul’s promise is true, just Paul and the other Apostles’
word for it. And that’s not proof.
This week, the only person in the scriptures not to have doubt is
Jesus and his trust and faith that neither Herod nor anyone else
will not get to kill him until he reaches Jerusalem is a very odd
trust and faith. To the Pharisees in the Galilee who warn him
“Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you” (Luke 13.31),
Jesus replies “listen, I am casting out demons and performing
cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work”
(13.32), referencing his resurrection on the third day after his
death. But Jesus intends to go on his way doing his work undeterred,
“because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside
of Jerusalem” (13.33). In his confidence, Jesus relies on the
tradition that in Jerusalem prophets have been ignored, reviled,
or killed in the past, and that he is on a divinely ordained mission
against the Jerusalem temple establishment of priests, scribes,
Sadducees, and other Pharisees, members of the Sanhedrin, who
forget the purpose of the covenant law to love God absolutely and
neighbor as oneself, to retain their subordinate political power and
authority under Rome’s aegis. But while Jesus has this confidence
and faith, we need to remember that his disciples do not. Their
faith is crushed by his arrest and death, of which he clearly tells
them and they clearly avoid or deny. Their faith arises only from
experiencing Jesus’ resurrection. Before the resurrection they
have only mistaken expectations about who Jesus is and what he
is doing.
If it is so difficult for Abram, the model of our faithfulness, to believe
God’s promises, for the Philippians who knew Paul to believe
and trust his promises made in Jesus’ name, and for Jesus’ own
disciples to believe what he clearly tells them until after his resurrection,
why wouldn’t we have doubt?
Doubt is an essential part of faith, not it’s opposite, nor its enemy.
For faith cannot be proved; we have no tangible evidence to say
faith is well founded or certain in the way we do for other things.
We never did have such proof, really. And since the rise of empirical
science in the 17th Century and it’s domination of our thought
through the Enlightenment down to this day, we are raised in an
atmosphere that demands proof. If we can’t see, touch, taste
or otherwise experience the reality of something with our five
senses, we tend to doubt it. And if we add to that the extravagance
of God’s promises, either those promised and fulfilled in
scripture long before us, of which we have no tangible experience
ourselves, or those which remain in our long future but not experienced,
like eternal life transformed in Christ Jesus, we cannot
help but doubt. And even if our faith is so strong we feel certain
of it ourselves, we have no evidence of its reality except the effect
it has on our lives, and that is indirect evidence at best.
Paul Tillich, one of my favorite 20th Century theologians memorably
writes that “the doubt implicit in . . . faith is neither the methodological
or skeptical doubt” but “the doubt which accompanies
every risk” (Dynamics of Faith, p. 20), an existential doubt, “the
doubt which is implied in faith” which “accepts” the insecurity of
the absence of tangible external evidence, and “takes this insecurity
into itself in an act of courage” (Dynamics, p. 20). Tillich says
that doubt is an essential element of faith because “there is no
faith without an intrinsic ‘in spite of’ and the courageous affirmation
of oneself in the state of ultimate concern” (Dynamics, p. 21),
by which he means that when one is concerned with ultimate reality,
that is infinite beyond empirical knowledge, the trust of faith
is a courageous affirmation of oneself as a being taking a risk.
This risk is real even for the empirical scientist who cannot prove
that only that which is empirical is real, but can only trust that it
is so, relying on sense perception as the basis of reality. Serious
doubt does not negate but confirms faith because it indicates the
risk is real and the concern ultimate, ultimate concern being Tillich’s
definition of the object of faith, whether that is the real God
or a false god, like power or money, which can become one’s ultimate
concern. Faith is a trust that God’s word is true, a hope that
this trust is well founded, and as Hebrews tells us, “faith is the
substance of things hoped for . . . the evidence of things unseen”
(11.1). Faith is not empirical knowledge; hence, it includes doubt
and exists only in spite of doubt. Abram can be the model of faith
because he trusts God in spite of his doubt, and God trusts Abram
in the midst of Abram’s doubt. We never need be afraid of doubt;
it only shows how seriously we take faith and the risk of faith.
Lent 2 - 28 February 2010
Ninth Annual Ethnic Luncheon -
Enjoying Our Diversity
St. John's Way http://www.stjohnsbroadcreek.org/ 5





St. John’s Episcopal Church Broad Creek — March Lay Minister Schedule
Date Day Season Time Service Name Position
MAR 7 Sunday The Third Sunday
in Lent
8:00 AM HE I J. Eisenbrey
T. James
P. Ritter
J. Puzon
L1, C1
L2
C2
Acolytes
10:30 AM HE II M. Stevens
A. Vereen
S. Groat
C. Groat
L1, C1
L2, C2
Acolytes
MAR 14 Sunday The Fourth Sunday
in Lent
8:00 AM HE I H. Brazelton
C. Jones
J. Eisenbrey
S. Bouchelion
L1, C1
L2
C2
Acolytes
10:30 AM HE II P. Ulrich
S. Pace
TBA
TBA
TBA
C. Neely
M. Stewart
L1, C1
C2
Readers
Acolytes
MAR 21 The Fifth Sunday
in Lent
8:00 AM HE I R. Daniels
H. Puzon
H. Brazelton
J. Puzon
L1, C1
L2
C2
Acolytes
10:30 AM HE II G. Stevens
B. James
E. Gonzalez
A.J. Gonzalez
L1, C1
L2, C2
Acolytes
MAR 28 Sunday The Sunday of
the Passion PALM
SUNDAY
8:00 AM HE I D. Horton
J. Parker
P. Ritter
S. Bouchelion
L1/C1
L2
Acolytes
10:30 AM HE II C. Day
L. Alexander
C. Neely
R. Doyle
M. Stewart
L1, C1
L2, C2
Acolytes
Verger
The Annual Meeting
(That Almost Wasn't)
6 http://www.stjohnsbroadcreek.org/ St. John's Way
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31 APRIL 1 2 3
4 5
Office Closed
St. John’s Episcopal Church
9801 Livingston Road
Fort Washington, MD 20744
First Class Mail
9-12 Food Pantry
7:30pm AA
Palm Sunday
8:00 HE I
10:15 Christian Ed
10:30 HE II
10-12 Food Pantry
7:30pm AA
8pm Easter Vigil
March 2010
9-12 Food Pantry
7:30pm AA
9-12 Food Pantry
7:30pm AA
3rd Sunday in Lent
8:00 HE I
10:15 Christian Ed
10:30 HE II
7pm Lent Course
7pm FInance
Committee Daylight Savings Time - Rember to re-set your clocks & watches
before you to to bed on the 13th, and replace smoke detector batteries.
4th Sunday in Lent
8:00 HE I
10:15 Christian Ed
10:30 HE II
Youth Sunday
7pm Lent Course 7:30pm Vestry
5th Sunday in Lent
8:00 HE I
10:15 Christian Ed
10:30 HE II
7pm Lent Course
7:30pm Maundy
Thursday
7:30pm Good
Friday
Easter Sunday
8:00 HE I
10:15 Christian Ed
10:30 HE II
Easter Egg Hunt
Holy Week & Easter At St. John's
• March 28 - Palm Sunday, 8 & 10:30am
• April 1 - Maundy Thursday, 7:30pm
• April 2 - Good Friday, 7:30pm
• April 3 - Great Vigil of Easter, 8:00pm
• April 4 - Easter Sunday, 8 & 10:30am
• April 5 - Office Closed
Lent Course - Mondays in Lent at 7:30