Dallas Champions Academy has the school supplies they need for their initial project; several DOK chapters donated to their effort, supplies have been ordered and are coming in. DOK members are meeting at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on Royal Lane to assemble backpacks for the students – next Tuesday and Wednesday (June 29 & 30) at 10:00 am. Then on Saturday, July 3, the backpacks will be handed out at St. Matthew’s Cathedral from 1:00 to 3:00 pm. The Rev. Virginia Holleman has signed up to help with the project at the Cathedral. If you are interested in helping with either project, please text Linda Cox at 512-750-7983 and let her know you can help. They will greatly appreciate our help!! School Supplies they will need for additional backpacks; these can be left on one of the round tables in the parish hall or dropped off at the church office,…
Christopher Thomas Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B – 6/20/21 1 Samuel 17:57–18:5, 10-16 Psalm 133 2 Corinthians 6:1-13 Mark 4:35-41 It began an evening like, and yet strangely unlike, so many, many others. We were together, we fisher-folk, entrusted with a wayward, migrant teacher, a parable seed-sower, carting him hither and yon, one group to another. “We’re not farmers; we don’t understand. But we do. But we don’t.” Let’s go here; let’s go there. Tell them this; tell them that. I’ll explain it all to you, later. It will make sense. When does later come, really? And so, that night, we set sail from what little we know out to the unknowns of our own marginality, people, and places, and things we can only begin to imagine. We set out for those margins, the places we can only imagine, for an encounter with those who are…
June 24, 2021 My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, I believe strongly that each and every one of us is ordained into our particular role of ministry in the body of Jesus Christ’s Church, bishops, priests, deacons, and laity. Each has our very specific call, purpose, and function in carrying out God’s plans of salvation and redemption, and we need (desperately) each and every one of those roles being carried out, fully and faithfully, for this great endeavor to move forward! As a reminder, as I was schooled, these roles are NOT hierarchical; rather they lie on a plane, each being specific in its own nature and function. As a congregation, we haven’t had interaction with a deacon of late, and so it bears remembering the specific call to the Sacred Order of Deacons, from the service of ordination in the Book of Common Prayer: “As a deacon in the…
Christopher Thomas Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year B – 6/13/21 1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13 Psalm 20 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, [11-13], 14-17 Mark 4:26-34 The Scandalous Journey of Grace “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see!” – John Newton, 1772 If ever there were a seed planter’s hymn, it must have been “Amazing Grace,” for what could possibly get seed up out of the dirt of earth but the sheer Grace of something outside of, beyond, me, or we, any of the best that the world might have to offer. Seed-work is hard, and toilsome, and backbreaking. Clear a field. Plow some dirt. Dig a hole. Drop some seed. Ah! That seed! The miracle of life. Where did it come from? What will it be? Who knows? Who…
June 17, 2021 I was glad when they said unto me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” Psalm 122:1 My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, It is with a mixture of great joy, anticipation, and relief that I bring to you the great good news that this Sunday, June 20, the congregation of St. Thomas the Apostle Church will finally, after a long sojourn throughout the desert of COVID-19, go into our “House of the Lord,” that place where so many of you have worshipped, and celebrated, and grieved, and lost, and found, and met God, in so many different ways, for so many years! The long winter is over; spring is finally here! And for that, we can sing our joy with the psalmist David! As of Monday, June 14, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins lowered the COVID-19 threat level to “yellow” for Dallas County, saying…
Christopher Thomas Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year B – 6/6/21 1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15) Psalm 138 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 Mark 3:20-35 I remember that day, so many, many years ago, as though it were just yesterday. Even driving into, onto the parking lot, my stomach churned with anxiety, for I had heard story, upon story, upon story, of the awfulness of that place. Oh, I had spent weeks training, sweating, for this moment, for just such a moment as this. But let’s be honest. Do you really train your way into a moment like this? I’ve come to the conclusion that conversion moments aren’t particularly “train-able.” Maybe that’s why they are conversion moments. For on that day, so many years ago, this 23 year-old, lower-middle-class, white, suburban gay kid of privilege stepped through the doors, onto the floor of something called the AIDS ward, in…
June 10, 2021 My Dear Doubters of Great Faith, Last evening, the freshly-constituted Mission/Outreach Committee of St. Thomas the Apostle met for the second time to further the process of standing in our mission statement, “Serving our community with joy, without walls,” and looking toward what avenues Jesus might be calling us, as missioners, in God’s world. As you can imagine, the possibilities are, quite literally, endless, because the need is endless. Being a small church with somewhat limited resource, how do we keep from being overwhelmed as we seek to find ways that we might make the greatest impact in a broken, hurting world? I believe that the most impactful things that we might do can be found in alliances, partnerships with organizations that are already about doing that great work in the world. For so many reasons, we do not need to reinvent systems that already exist, rather…
Respectfully submitted by Paul McCright, Clerk
St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church
Allen M. Junek Sermon for the First Sunday after Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, Year B 0 5/30/21 Isaiah 6: 1 – 8 Canticle 13 Romans 8: 12 – 17 John 3: 1 – 17 In the Name of the holy and undivided + Trinity: one God, in whom is heaven. Amen. It was a warm summer evening in New York City. The year was 1969, and the United States–and indeed the world–was emerging from one of its most politically charged and tumultuous decades. None of that mattered, though, because it was a Friday night. There were drinks to be had, bars to patron, and strangers to kiss. One such bar was named the Stonewall Inn and it had built for itself a reputation for being one of the few havens, a refuge, for the city’s LGBTQ+ population. One reason for the Inn’s popularity was that few bars in New York,…
