It is traditional not to have a sermon on this day as the Passion Gospel reading is the most powerful lesson.
Gospel: Mark 14:1—15:47
March 24, 2024 Palm Sunday
The Rev. Marjorie Bevans
A native of northern Virginia’s horse country, she is a graduate of the University of Virginia (where she majored in philosophy) and the Anglo-Catholic Nashotah House seminary. She also studied law which led to a career in the title insurance business before her call to the ministry in the late 90s. She has been an ordained Episcopal priest for 22 years, serving several parishes in the Richmond area and for the last 12 years as Rector of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Parkersburg, West Virginia. (An interesting aside is that she did missionary work among the Inuit in Alaska.) Marjorie is theologically conservative, Christ-centered and very well versed in and focused on scripture. She embraces the traditional liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer. She believes teaching scripture-based theology is her principal calling. She spent the summer of 2022 in England at Oxford studying Christian Apologetics. She is keenly interested in children and young people and feels they have a strong, but unsatisfied, yearning for the life of faith and the spirit. She feels there are several ways to foster a deeper knowledge of God and community, including such things as small home groups and a Theology Pub where young adults can meet to learn about Christ’s teaching in a casual setting. Music is another way to reach out with special services for the young and offerings such as Taizé which is a prayerful form of music. She even uses her love of the outdoors as she did when she started a West Virginia chapter of “Holy Hikes”, a ministry of hiking and celebrating the Eucharist in beautiful places.
Marjorie places high value on pastoral care as well as community participation by her church. At her previous parish, Marjorie led parish involvement in a variety of important community support activities; for example, collaborating with town officials in establishing a Neighborhood Youth Academy, a community garden, and allowing Narcotics Anonymous to meet at the church.
One of Marjorie’s principal interests outside of her priestly duties is all forms of church and classical music. She has a trained choral voice and she told us that it was the Anglican musical tradition that drew her to the Episcopal Church in the first place. Her favorite pastimes are horseback riding and enjoying the outdoors. In fact, as a young priest, she served as chaplain to the owners, jockeys, and trainers at the local racetrack. Now she likes to hike and works out several days a week. Her husband, Bruce, is also an Episcopal priest. He serves two small congregations in West Virginia.