Greedy Tenants
Reconnecting: Potluck—This Sunday, April 3rd!
We’ll gather after worship for a potluck meal. Everyone should plan to bring a main dish and either a side dish or dessert to share. We’ll provide drinks and all utensils. Really hope you'll join us! Please let us know by Saturday what you’ll bring here.
Greedy Tenants
This week's Gospel reading is a hard one. Here, Jesus shares a parable with ominous affect upon a group of greedy tenants. The owner of the vineyard cleans house and installs new leadership. It is violent: the tenants kill the owner's son and they in turn are destroyed; stones crush people. It sounds more like The Godfather than God the Father.
But there is great risk to our faith if we turn away from these challenging stories. If we avoid them, they create ambivalence in our hearts and minds about whether God is as good as we thought.
God is as good as we thought...even better! And whenever and wherever Jesus acts, it is to bring about the Kingdom of God where justice, mercy, and love prevail. Jesus is not offering a contradictory picture of God, nor is he intending to confuse his followers. Rather, he is engaging in an epic struggle on their behalf and describing the cost of liberating them from oppression--a cost that he will bear himself.
Parables like these are especially important and it's good to explore them together. I look forward to being with you on Sunday to do that.
Steve Engstrom+
Seeking: Nominations for Vestry
Redeemer’s Vestry is seeking nominations for a female member to fill a 1.5 year vacancy. If you know of someone you can nominate, or you yourself would like to serve, please write to Steve Wishart at steve@redeemerannapolis.org and he can fill you in on the details.
Seeking: Teachers' Assistants for Children's Formation
As a community, we are all called to aid in the growth and raising of our youngest members and we commit to it as a church when we engage in the sacrament of baptism. Currently, we have four teachers rotating in our one Children's Formation class. We'd like to expand to two classes broken up by age 5 through 2nd grade and 3rd through 5th grade. We need four to eight volunteers to assist our teachers and abide by our policy of two adults in every children's class. This role is simple and really requires nothing more than showing up ready to help! Prayerfully consider if this is a way you could engage our young believers. Contact Karissa Simmons at karissa.simmons@redeemerannapolis.org.
Good Friday Service: April 15, 6:30PM
Easter Saturday Service: April 16, Noon, on Zoom
Picture credit: Jose Alfonso Sierra on Unsplash