Effective Sunday, July 10, face masks will be optional for activities and worship services in the church building, in accordance with our Session-adopted policy that masks are not required when Covid community levels are low. If at any point the Covid community level changes to medium or high, masking will once again be required in the church.
At their regularly scheduled May 2022 meeting, the NYAPC Session, in partnership with the Covid-19 Task Force, adopted an updated Covid-19 and masking policy.
Using the current COVID Community Levels established and monitored by DC Health, NYAPC’s policy is: Masks are required indoors when the community level is identified as medium or high.Masks are optional indoors when the community level is low.
While many people have waited anxiously for this day to arrive, it may come with a deep sense of apprehension for others. We fully support anyone who still chooses to wear a face mask or keep their distance.
Whether a person chooses to wear a mask or not is entirely up to them. A person who decides to continue masking may have an underlying health condition or be caring for a vulnerable relative, among a variety of other reasons. Whatever decision each person makes, and whenever they choose to make it, is entirely their own and should be respected.
This community has been a model of resilience and compassion these past two-plus years. Thank you for that. I ask that you continue to care for each other with that same measure of compassion and devotion. As we enter the summer season, I give thanks for the opportunity to walk alongside you as we trust in God’s continued presence with us.
As we move through these longest days, I want to encourage you to take intentional time to look for God’s presence in the beauty and fullness of creation and to wonder what unexpected gifts and opportunities God is offering you this season.
As a worshiping community, we will engage in two new rhythms this summer season to intentionally mark the more relaxed time of the summer. During July and August, the clergy will shift from robes and stoles to stoles only and preach from the lower chancel.
Your pastors will also be taking some alternating time away over the next month for vacation and continuing education and sermon planning.
Join us this Sunday as we continue our sermon series “Surprised by the Spirit: Unlikely, Ironic, and Surprising Stories in the Book of Acts.” I will preach the story of Paul’s incredible conversion experience on the Damascus Road in Acts chapter 9. We will explore how the grace of a living God radically alters Paul’s life and wonder where that invitation is being extended to us.
This weekend, communities across our country will pause to recognize and celebrate Juneteenth or Juneteenth National Independence Day. Officially signed into law as a federal holiday in June of 2021, Juneteenth is the oldest known US celebration of the abolition of the chattel slave system and the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in Texas.
It is an important date and part of our nation’s history. And, I will be honest and confess that Juneteenth never came up in all my classes in K-12, college, and graduate schools. It wasn’t until I was an adult living in Texas that I learned about it–something for which I am grateful and a reminder that it is never too late to learn.
In September of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation making abolition the official position of the US government and declaring that by Jan 1, 1863, all enslaved people in the states and the areas “in rebellion against the United States” would be free. In April 1865, Chief Robert E. Lee surrendered to Commanding General Ulysses S. Grant of the US Army.
While these dates are significant in marking the end of the system of chattel slavery in our country and the effective end of the US Civil War, the war had yet to conclude in parts of the Trans-Mississippi West. Fighting in Texas continued into May of 1865. Additionally, news of emancipation was slow to reach certain areas, including Texas, and did not reach some areas at all. In other places, slaveholders intentionally hid the information to preserve slavery. On Jun 19, 1865, US Brigadier General Gordon Granger and his troops landed at Galveston, Texas, confirming the news that the Civil War had ended and enslaved African Americans were now free from bondage. A significant date marking the emancipation of the last enslaved people, June 19, was soon celebrated by formerly enslaved people in Texas as “Juneteenth.” Since that time, it has been celebrated by communities across our nation. For many Black Americans, Independence Day is not July 4th but June 19th, the day the last enslaved people in the US were told they were free.
As citizens of this country and as people of faith, we recognize the importance of the Juneteenth holiday in multiple capacities. In part, Juneteenth is about telling the truth about the sin of slavery in our nation’s history. Including lamenting and confessing the ways, the church endorsed and perpetuated the lie of racial difference and the system of chattel slavery that accompanied it. Juneteenth is also about joyously celebrating African American freedom and achievement, including the beauty of Black culture and the gifts and contributions of African Americans to our nation’s life. Additionally, Juneteenth remains as a collective call to the work we still need to do to free ourselves from the shackles of systemic racism and its debilitating consequences, blocking the dignity and thriving God desires for all people.
I invite you to join us for worship this Sunday, Jun 19, at 10:00 am onsite and online as we pause our sermon series on the book of Acts to welcome our summer McClendon Scholar in Resident Rev. Dr. Judy Fentress Williams. Dr. Fentress-Williams is a Professor of Old Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary and will be with us throughout the summer to share her most recent scholarship and insights on life and faith. This Sunday, she will preach a sermon entitled “Straight Out of Haran” reflecting on Genesis 12:1-4.
As a part of our worship, we will have the opportunity to commission and pray for our Kenya Mission Team as they prepare for their upcoming travels to Njoro, Kenya, faithfully continuing our partnership with Njoro Presbyterian Church of East Africa (P.C.E.A.) to support the Orphan and Vulnerable Children Program.
God’s Spirit is at work among us and through us in so many good and life-giving ways.
This Sunday, we will celebrate and give thanks for our Sunday School teachers and graduates. In some ways this past school year was easier than the previous year as we were increasingly able to gather more often in person and be with one another at church and at school. In other ways, this year was harder as we faced frequent changes in schedules, plans, and Covid mutations and protocols.
Every month this year required flexibility, adapting, and discernment. Back in September, we were still worshipping completely online, the building was under construction, and Pastor Sarah had not yet been elected by the congregation. So much has happened since then! Throughout it all, our Sunday School teachers kept showing up and working around a variety of obstacles and unknowns. Students who have graduated from high school, college, and other programs over the past few years have navigated instability and numerous challenges to reach the finish line. To our teachers and graduates, thank you for your perseverance and congratulations on your hard work!
Join us this Sunday to celebrate these special people during worship and at a special fellowship time after worship in Triangle Park. Their names are listed above so you may thank and congratulate them yourself. If we have missed anyone, please email me by Saturday at 6pm.
Whether you join the Pride Parade or March for Our Lives this Saturday, worship on Sunday, hospitality for immigrants or the Poor People’s Campaign March, or some other witness to God’s love and justice, may you live faithfully and be fired up by God’s Holy Spirit this week.
In the days leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus promised his disciples that he would not leave them alone even though he would no longer bodily be with them. They would have the gift of God’s presence through the Holy Spirit, who would serve as a living teacher and a guide. That promise remains for us today.
This upcoming Sunday, we will celebrate Pentecost, the moment in the early church when the gift of the Holy Spirit descended in a mighty rush of wind and flame to inspire and encourage the church’s ongoing witness of the risen Christ in the world. The Holy Spirit, like the wind, is an unseen yet powerful force, which is why the Old Testament calls it ruach YHWH, “the wind, or breath, of God.” The Spirit is the “unseenness of God” working among us to bring God’s new life.
When we look around, so much can seem mired in sameness, stuckness, weariness, and humdrum. And yet, according to the prophet Joel (2:28-29) the Holy Spirit (ruach) is among us to open all of us to God’s new creative future. People young and old will dream and have visions of hope; we will be able to free ourselves from the way things are now, and we can expect the unexpected because the living God is among us, surprising us with the Spirit of new life.
There are so many ways the presence of the Holy Spirit is at work in the life of our wonderful congregation. Last week, we celebrated the accomplishments of our Community Club tutoring program students and teachers at their end-of-year celebration. This week we will mark the beginning of PCUSA Pride month, intentionally celebrating the beautiful diversity of God’s creation through the gifts of our LGBTQIA+ siblings. And throughout June, there are several opportunities to join the movement of the Spirit through service in the community. I hope you will take the time to read more and join in!
I wonder where you could use the promise of God’s surprising new life these particular days? I look forward to claiming that promise this Sunday in worship onsite and online as we engage in the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit from the second chapter of the book of Acts.
NYAPC Seeking God 