Lent 2 2024 Charles Graves

Blessed is the Lord who forgiveth all our sin.

God's mercy endureth forever.

Let us give thanks to God for all the gifts freely bestowed upon us, for the beauty and wonder of your creation in earth and sky and sea.

We thank you, Lord, for all that is gracious in the lives of women and men, revealing the image of Christ.

We thank you, Lord, for our daily food and drink, our homes and families and our friends.

We thank you, Lord, for minds to think, and hearts to love and hands to serve.

We thank you, Lord, for health and strength to work and leisure to rest and play.

We thank you, Lord, for the brave and courageous who are patient and suffering and faithful in adversity.

We thank you, Lord, for all valiant seekers after truth, liberty, and justice.

We thank you, Lord, for the communion of saints in old times and places.

We thank you, Lord.

Above all, we give you thanks for the great mercies and promises given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

To you be praise and glory, with you, O Father and the Holy Spirit, now and forever.

Amen.

Let's continue to pray together.

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are over, all desires know, and from whom no secrets are hid.

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.

This is the first and the greatest commitment.

But the second is like unto it.

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

On these two commitments hang all the law and prophets over the sea of the team.

Let's pray.

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy.

Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways.

Bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your word, Jesus Christ your Son.

That with you in the Holy Spirit lives and reigns one God forever and ever.

Amen.

As you may exceed, our children are invited to children's chapel in the back with Mr.

Alex.

A person who is faithful has abundant blessings, while one who is in a hurry to be rich will not go unpunished.

The one who shows favoritism is no good over a piece of bread will the woman or man do wrong.

A person with a covetous eye hastens toward riches and does not know want is on the way.

The woman or man who rebukes another person will find favor afterward more than one who flatters with the tongue.

Anyone who robs a mother or father and says, That is no transgression, is a companion to a vandal.

A greedy person stirs up strife, while the woman or man who trusts in the God who provides will be well provisioned.

The word of the Lord.

If a widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn first to show devotion to their own family and make repayment to their parents that this is pleasing in God's right now.

And whoever does not provide for their own, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever of the word of the Lord.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Now there gathered around Jesus Pharisees, some of the biblical scholars who had come from Jerusalem.

And they saw some of his disciples were eating bread with common hands, meaning unwashed.

So the Pharisees and all Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands as fists, observing the tradition of the elders.

Also, when coming from the market without washing, they do not eat anything.

And there are also many other traditions that they have taken on, washing cups, pots, and bronze kettles, and beds.

Now the Pharisees and the biblical scholars asked Jesus, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with common hands?

And Jesus said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written, as people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

And in vain do they worship me, teaching human teaching as commandments, abandoning the commandment of God and taking on human tradition.

Then Jesus said to them, Well do you all spurn the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition?

For Moses said, Honor your mother and your father, and the one who curses mother or father will certainly be put to death.

But you all say that if anyone tells mother or father, Corbin, an offering to God is whatever of mine that would have supported you, then you all no longer permit doing anything for a mother or father, making void the word of God through your tradition that you've handed on, and you do many things like this.

Jesus called the crowd again and said to them, Listen to me, all of you, and understand.

There is nothing outside a woman or man that by going into them has the power to defile.

The gospel of the Lord praise you, Lord Christ.

Amen.

So I am the Reverend Charles Graves.

I have the great joy to serve as the college campus minister uh for Houston Canterbury, which is the campus ministry of the Episcopal Church at uh U of H, Texas Southern, and UH downtown.

Uh I am also always one for a shameless plug.

So if you happen to be an alum, friend, parent, uh, affiliate of one of those schools, especially, please come talk to me.

I I would love to talk.

I'd love to talk with you all anyway, but um, especially then, please do make a point to come and visit with me after when you get a chance.

Now, I'm delighted today to get to be with you all today, and I I was uh a little bit surprised to learn that you all are using the the women's lectionary this uh in this season, which is which is a delight.

I have um shared it with my students as well, and and it is just wonderful.

And so I'm I'm excited to get to uh to preach with you all, and especially on a little bit of a different text than we would otherwise be hearing at this time.

So, one of the really interesting things about the women's lectionary, beloved, is that uh there there are, you may not know, a number of passages throughout the scripture, including in the gospels, that actually appear nowhere in our normal Sunday lectionary.

So you only get those snippets of the scripture if you follow the daily office readings of the Book of Common Prayer, which I assume you all do every day anyway, but in case you don't, uh, it's a good Lenten practice, by the way.

Um, but in case uh if that's not a part of your practice, you wouldn't get these texts.

And that includes our uh the entirety of our Old Testament reading from Proverbs, the entirety of our uh reading from 1 Timothy today, and the middle verses of our um of our gospel today.

So I'm really gonna share with you all a little bit from the 1 Timothy and from our Gospel today, that are particularly poignant, especially because we don't normally hear them.

So we get in in our gospel, uh you get we kind of uh are bookended by portions that you may have heard before, right?

The the uh conversation that Jesus has with the religious leaders, now it's a little bit, it's translated a little differently than we normally get, but this conversation with the religious leaders might be a familiar one to you.

This conversation Jesus has, where, you know, they say, why, the the religious leaders say, why don't you, why don't your disciples, you know, wash their hands?

Why don't they follow the ritual practices uh that we followed that were part of uh most, not all, but most uh sectors of Jewish practice at that time.

And so he gets in this, so Jesus gets in this conversation about with them, uh, really about the practice of faith versus the faith that, if you will, abides in our hearts.

Right?

So we get that conversation.

I'm not going to share with you very much about the hand washing part, because it will actually come up in the lectionary later this year, so I won't spoil it for you.

But I want to talk about this section about Korbin.

Korbin.

I had not come across that word, and really this is the first time that I had had the opportunity to spend much time with it, and I was fascinated to learn more about it, which means that you get to hear about it too.

Korbin was a term, a Hebrew term, uh, that meant, it just meant an offering or sacrifice to God.

Now that often was uh that could be that could have been an animal, a pigeon, a lamb, we're told uh in other parts of scripture.

It could have been money, it could be, it could be um some produce from your field, anything that was an offering made to God.

And you went to the you went to the temple and you you offered your sacrifice to the priest.

Uh and and that was uh a sign, an important sign of your devotion to God.

And it was often and it was offered uh in uh remission, if you will, and forgiveness for the sin, for the forgiveness for sin at that time.

Right, and and so we have this idea of korban, korban.

And now that itself is relatively standard, but the conversation that Jesus has here is this idea of what does korban or what does that offering to God really mean to you?

When is it, when is it just a when does it become just a physical sign versus when are you actually making an offering of your heart and your soul and your spirit?

Now, one of the any any tradition, any sort of human tradition, any religious tradition for that matter, can be abused in some way, can be misused in some way, right?

And this was no different in that time as in this time.

And so Jesus kind of addresses a particular misuse that occurred at least from time to time in that place.

Now, this practice of the misuse of Qurban, the misuse of this offering, is actually not attested very much in sources at that time, either early Christian sources or for that matter in Jewish texts of that time.

And I really did a lot of digging on this one.

And there really is not a whole lot of attestation to this particular misuse, but it most likely occurred at least periodically, and that's why Jesus speaks to it here.

And so this idea, so there was the idea that you made an offering to God, right?

There was also this belief, and you hear it actually in both of the readings today, that it was the responsibility of anyone, frankly, who were who were young enough and able to be able to work and provide for themselves and for others, to do so, particularly for their uh for their older uh parents, relatives, um, aunts, uncles, loved ones uh who needed it.

And so and and so there came this idea that the misuse comes in where sometimes what people would do is uh if they, for one reason or another, didn't want to uh to to give to that you know parent or or relative, I I know none of y'all have issues with family members, so you know I know you don't have to worry about that.

Uh but in the event maybe that you had a family member you weren't fond of uh and and you didn't want to do your do in that way, what some people would do was say, Oh, I'm I'm making uh an extra quotabund, an extra offering to God.

And so it's like, oh, okay, I'm not gonna, I don't have to provide for that relative, because I'm just gonna give extra to the temple.

Right?

Does that make sense?

That makes sense?

So so Jesus is addressing this particular idea, right?

And he says that what you're doing when you do that, for those, for those who have engaged in that kind of practice, what you're doing is making yourself try to look extra holy before others, right?

Look how much money I'm giving to the temple treasury, look, look at this great sacrifice that I'm making.

But you're using that to cover up that you're not actually doing what God commands of each of us, which is to care for those in need, especially our families and our loved ones.

Everybody follow me here?

Good.

So Jesus tells us that when we do that, right, we're missing the whole point of what God commands us to do.

We're not really following the in in their time, we're not really following the laws of Moses, right?

Moses commanded us, and God commanded us through Moses to honor thy father and mother, right?

To honor uh those who came before you.

And it was interpreted in that time more broadly to mean uh elders, whether they were your direct relative or or not, right?

You're not honoring uh that commandment, and you're doing, you're you're really using God, fictitiously misusing God, to try to do that.

I'm I'm glad we don't live in a world where anybody misuses the scripture or misuses God's word to do any bad to anybody else.

It's good that we don't have to worry about those things.

So when we do that, we so here so that's what we learn, right?

That when we do that, we're missing the point.

I I want to I want to take us for a moment through 1 Timothy, right?

Because we get a little bit more of that idea.

It actually follows directly from where we just uh left off, or almost directly in terms of idea, from where we left off.

Now, oddly enough, the entirety of 1 Timothy chapter 5 is not included in our Sunday lectionary.

1 Timothy 5 · chapter mention

In fact, almost half of the letter of Paul's letter to Timothy is not included in the Sunday lectionary.

And Timothy is a short book, there's only six chapters.

You could, you know, you could you could easily read it in an afternoon or you know, split it up in a in a couple days.

And I really would recommend that, because you get a really beautiful view of the uh early church in that time.

And again, wonderful Lenten practice, right?

Take some time and read through 1 Timothy.

You could do it, split it up, you know, take a day each day of this week and spend some time with 1 Timothy.

It would be a wonderful, wonderful thing to do.

Uh and so in this book, in this chapter, the entirety of 1 Timothy chapter 5 focuses on the care of widows, right?

1 Timothy 5 · chapter mention

So we move from we move from the care of parents in the gospel to the care of widows in our New Testament reading.

Now, there's this a little bit of context, right?

It was considered that there were, you have this odd line that I that I got kind of hung up on all week.

I said, be sure to honor widows who are really widows.

What is that?

I just imagine the Lena into the mic at that moment.

Right?

What does that mean?

Right, there's uh other in other places it's probably a little uh it's it's translated with a little bit more context.

Be sure to honor or care for widows who are in the most need.

Right?

So here's here's where that here's where that comes from.

There were considered to be kind of you know two categories, two broad categories of what were considered widows in that time.

Now, uh, if you kind of know, actually, throughout both Old Testament and and New Testament scripture, one of the really common threads is that widows were almost always considered to be among the most vulnerable population at that time, right?

Especially uh those widows who were older, especially those widows who didn't have children, especially those widows who didn't uh who were not wealthy, right, who didn't have the financial reserves to be able to care for and support themselves, right?

And you get you get threads all the way through through Hebrew scripture, all the way through the Gospels, and and well into well into the epistles and through the New Testament.

All sorts, I mean there are dozens of widows who are chronicled all throughout scripture, and one of those threads that you get is how how often widows were frankly mistreated, abused, left behind, and so it was so important.

So the early church took on one of its most important responsibilities was to be sure that all the widows in the community were cared for.

Right, that all the folk in the community they could, who were, who were the most marginalized, most abused, most left behind, most forgotten about, wouldn't be forgotten about.

And so we get in 1 Timothy chapter 5, it's really almost an instruction manual about how to care for the widows in the community.

1 Timothy 5 · chapter mention

And there's there's further down in the chapter, you get some instructions like, you know, you want to make sure to add these kind of widows to the list.

And, you know, you might have a second category of those who were a little bit less, um, who were, you know, may have a little bit less need, and so you can put that in kind of a second category, and here's how you here's how you manage uh the pastoral care list, if you will, right?

And and one of the one of the really fascinating things is that in, actually in the piece that we heard about today, uh in Paul's letter to Timothy, he says, not only make sure to care for the widows who are the most in need, but that it's the responsibility of those who are a little bit less in need to do everything they can.

That is to say, it's the responsibility of everyone to contribute everything they have, everything they can toward that effort, toward the effort of care for self and care for one another.

And that even the widows who are the most, who have the least monetarily to offer, if it will, even those who have nothing but a coin, they can offer to the community too.

And he said, for those widows, they have the most important offering, and that's prayer.

That's prayer, the responsibility to hold one another and hold the community up in prayer.

I'm I'm blessed to come from a praying mother and a praying grandmother and praying great-grandmothers and to come from a whole community of folk who were prayer warriors, amen.

I I come from a whole lot of folk, a whole lot of women who taught me what it is to be a person of faith because of their faith, because of their dedication, and because they were determined, no matter what, that they were gonna follow the Lord.

They weren't gonna let anybody, they weren't gonna let any level of marginalization, discrimination, any level of trouble get in their way from following the Lord and from helping others to follow the Lord too.

We got some widows who were some prayer warriors in the scripture.

Now, you wouldn't, it's funny, one of the things that happened because they were widows was that folks would would just assume, oh, okay, you know, I'm just gonna, you know, pass a, pass a coin their way, do whatever, a little bit.

And these widows were like, no, I'm I'm in charge of this thing.

All right?

You had some, think about some of the widows that you had in Scripture.

People like Saint Anna, who we hear about in Luke chapter 2, who, at the presentation of Jesus, is described as a prophet who proclaims her testimony of who she is and who Jesus is going to be.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

You had some widows like the nameless one who Jesus talks about, who gave her last, who gave her last coin to the treasury, and he says, This widow, her offering is greater than all the others, because she gave all that she has unto the Lord.

And there's another widow you may or may not know about.

Her name is Mary.

Right?

Her name was Mary, and Mary's the moment that I find that so powerful in this way for her is that at that very moment where she stands weeping at the foot of the cross, that the last thing, or one of the last things Jesus says in that moment to her as woman, behold your son, looking at the beloved disciple John, and then he looks down to John and says, Behold your mother.

You got a new family.

Mama, you're not left alone here anymore.

Mama, you're not, you're not gonna be cast aside.

No, you got you got a new family.

Forever and forever.

That even we to this day will continue forever to sing and praise her name.

We got some, we got some powerful folk in this scripture, and we got some widows who knew whose heart was in the right place.

And it was calling it was to call the whole community to have their heart in the right place.

Now, one of the things that this scripture teaches us, I won't go on too long, but one of the things that this scripture teaches us not only is how important it is to have not just our physical, but our spiritual hearts in the right place, but what it means to take this time, especially during this time of Lent, to reflect on ourselves and to see is our is our individual heart, is our communal heart, our spiritual heart, our church heart, our society's heart in the right place?

Is our heart guiding us in the right direction?

Or do we fall into that trap like some of the folk who were misusing that idea of Corbin, of using our religious tradition, our association, using who we are, our status in all kinds of capacities, to make us look good.

Beloved, one of the things that that I find fascinating is so I mentioned at the beginning, I'm a college campus minister, right?

Which means that I spend a lot of time with young adults.

I spend a lot of time with young adults talking about faith, talking about the church, talking about the world, talking about their beliefs, talking about society.

It's really fascinating.

It's one of the things I love most, frankly, about my job.

And one of the things that I find when I talk to young people about their idea of the church, sometimes it's not real great.

You may be surprised to hear that.

If you when I talk to students, especially those who identify as less religious or non-religious, about what church sees and represents to them, if I could put together a big word cloud, right?

Some of the some of the biggest words, and I'm not, I'm talking about Christians broadly and in general, and all stripes and types of Christianity are words like judgment and hypocrisy and and uh you know, uh, frankly, homophobia and and transphobia and all sorts of things where where what shows up to young folks, to frankly, to Gen Z, uh, young folks in in high school and college and in young adulthood is that uh what they see of all different branches of the church is that we don't always stand for what we say we do.

That we don't always seem to mean what we say, that sometimes we we have these beautiful, long and eloquent prayers, and the spirit that they see isn't always behind it.

Uh one of the things that, one of the misunderstandings I find often between kind of the church, the churches that I visit all the time and the young folk that I spend my weeks with is that sometimes in the churches, this there's this belief that young people don't want to participate in church because they don't want to be, they don't want to be held to account.

They don't want to, because they you know because this perception often in churches that you know that church would you know hold people to hold young people to account for for their sort of misbehaving ways, right, and that and that young folks don't want to be associated with that.

Beloved, I wouldn't tell you it's the opposite.

Young folks are holding us to account, holding the church to account, right?

Telling us that we gotta stand for what we believe we stand for.

Every time, beloved, when when I spend time with young folks, one of the things uh that our ministry does is that we are very closely connected with the LGBTQ plus uh community, and and especially a lot of the work that we have done recently is to help provide support for that community in places where it's been uh taken away, in places where that community has been uh marginalized and discriminated against.

And one of the things that I hear most when people uh encounter our ministry and people encounter the Episcopal Church is that they say things like, you know, I've never, I've I've been around Christians all my life, and I've never heard of a church that could love me before.

I've never heard of a church that could love me for who I am before, my friends for who they are before.

I've never heard of a church that actually treats people with kindness and love like this before.

It's one of the most powerful and most beautiful and most devastating things I have ever heard.

This Lent, we're called to be a people to remember where our hearts are, where our communal hearts are, and where we are failing to live into that calling that God has for us.

Where we talk a big game about caring for the marginalized, about caring for young people, for the discriminated against, caring for fighting racism and sexism and transphobia and discrimination, and sometimes our grand hopes don't always line up, and I'm just as guilty of this as anybody else.

Where is our Corbin, our offering to God?

Maybe not what we ought to be.

One of the best things that we have this opportunity to do, beloved, in this Lenten season is to re-examine, to put this mirror of faith, put this mirror of Christ up to ourselves and say, Lord, we can do better.

We know we can do better.

Let's take this time to rededicate, to focus on those places where when we turn around and in a few weeks, when we meet the Easter season, we meet the great resurrection of our Lord, we can say, Thanks be to God.

We can be a better people than we've been.

Thanks be to God, we can be a church in a new way that loves truly and deeply and fully, that fights even more deeply against the forces of discrimination and evil that abide this world.

We can be a church so deeply involved, engaged in the communities of those in need in our world that folks turn around and say, Oh my God, I've seen those people everywhere.

What church do they come from?

And you can say, you know, I go to St.

Thomas the Apostle, it's right there down the road.

You ought to come and visit.

I get to experience that all the time in campus ministry.

Young people say to me, Wow, we've seen you out there doing work with the LGBTQ community, doing that uh anti-racism work, doing the work for those who are in need in your community.

Wow, I've never seen a church do that before.

And I say, great, well, we're Houston Canterbury, you ought to check out the Episcopal Church.

Beloved, this opportunity, this opportunity in Lent to lean into that time of Lenten repentance, refocusing, turning around is so joyful.

It's so beautiful because it gives us this opportunity to focus on where our hearts are.

And we get to go deeper into relationship, into our love of God, into our love of Christ, and we get to find sort of springs of joy that we had never realized.

We get to focus on our prayer like those widows and find depths like wells of water abiding in our spirit that we never knew were there.

So my invitation to you this Lent, beloved, is to take that time, not just on your physical, but on your spiritual heart.

Take that time and focus on those scriptures that you hadn't gotten a chance to see or hear about and take some time and really pray.

Pray and ask God, where are those places where my heart's not in the right place?

Where my heart's not lining up with my actions, where my spirit is not always guiding me in the right way, or where I'm not following the guidance of my spirit.

And beloved, may this Lent be a joyful one.

May it be one that nourishes your heart, your mind, your soul, and turns your life and this church and this world inside out.

Amen.

We believe in one God.

Help us to set our mind on you.

Your world is aching freely.

Make us a good steward of your creation, Lord.

Grant our president and our leaders in their courts and Congress compassion and wisdom.

Your church is reaching for you.

Help us to extend our reach to all whom you have and you love.

They bend under the weight of their lives and rejoice in your life giving.

Be love.

Enable us to bring them your healing and fullness of life.

Let us confess our sin against God and our neighbor.

Almighty and most merciful Father, we have feared and strayed from thy ways like all sheep.

We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.

We have offended against thy own laws.

We have left undone those things which we ought to have done.

We have done those things which we ought not to have done.

But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us.

Spare thou those who confess their faults.

Restore thou those who are penitent according to thy promises declared unto humankind in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life.

To the glory of thy holy name.

Amen.

God forgives you.

Forgive others.

Forgive yourself.

Amen.

A tradition of the gospel, which is not always a tradition of the elders, is that that worked.

So God has left our past behind so we can live into a holy future with one another, and so we say with one another in joy and hope, that the peace of the Lord be always with you.

If you're new to us or haven't done this before, we have a little card in the room right behind the one we're in right now.

We call it Little Room that Artex.

It says welcome.

And we'd be tremendously grateful if you filled that car out.

And look, if you don't want to call, don't check that box.

You won't get one.

If you want to call, check that box and you will.

But we would just love to have a record of your visit, and thanks for worshiping with us.

And I have to admit, you don't normally get such a fine homily.

So I just want to share, if I can, that campus ministry for me was about doubling down on religion and social control.

What I learned in campus ministry is premarital sex leads to dancing.

So how different it is to have somebody not only with our students, but with us, open up the scriptures not in a way of social control, but a way of living into grace.

Can you imagine if your college had been formed by that?

So thank you, Charles.

Appreciate you.

Alright, I'm not going to preach you a second sermon, but I'm wearing the wrong color, aren't I?

Does anybody know what the proper color for Lent is?

Purple.

You know what's the original color?

Burlap?

I'm not joking.

It's burlap.

It's the season of repentance.

Do you know what the prayer book says about the proper colors for any Sunday?

There are two.

Gold or white.

All the rest is human tradition.

Why am I wearing red?

Because it's heart awareness.

It's hard awareness.

And we've asked you all to wear red.

And I just want to mention to you as a public service announcement.

That's not the medical PSA.

The PSA, right, is unique to men.

The other PSA is a public service announcement, which we understand that heart disease is the number one killer, but we don't always recognize that we can have heart disease without knowing it.

So I'm just going to share with you, I know a guy who ran a marathon and swam a marathon and has heart disease in his early 40s.

That's me.

And I have more plaque in my heart than 90% of the people my age, despite being a high endurance athlete.

Sometimes we know this in the ether and we forget.

Talk to your cardiologist and your doctor.

Healthy diet, healthy exercise, I mean they're great, but they don't always solve your problems.

So, public service announcement.

God loves you so much, God wants you to take care of this body.

So do it.

Okay.

A few other announcements to call to your attention.

First of all, you're going to see on the way out today our own Girl Scout troop selling cookies.

Now, look, those cookies are not more blessed than other Girl Scout cookies, except they are, because it's a blessing to them.

So this is our troupe who is selling cookies to do the adventurous that they do.

So just notice them.

And whether you buy cookies or not, it's always really great to say we love having you here.

Because we do.

Tomorrow, lovely opportunity tomorrow that I've been trying to get for years, and it just fell into my lap.

Father Thomas Calliandro, who is both a scholar, he has a PhD, he's also a Greek Orthodox priest on Galveston Island, will be here from 6 to 7 p.m.

in the sanctuary to talk to us about the Orthodox tradition.

Now, many of us aren't aware that there are many different Orthodox traditions, like the Serbian, the Russian, the Greek, just to name a few, Antiochan, and that they actually have a very different and distinct theological history from our own.

So just to be provocative, the Orthodox tradition does not believe in a fall.

And that changes quite a bit of what their spiritual practice looks like.

You're probably aware that Orthodox folks use icons, not statuaries.

So Father Calyandro is going to talk about the history of the Orthodox tradition, gonna talk about uh some practices, and what's great is he's gonna do it in English.

Because if you went to the Greek Orthodox tradition, you'd be all in Greek for two hours.

So he'll be here tomorrow night from 6 to 7, if that appeals to you, to help us appreciate and respect our Orthodox sisters and brothers.

Um I also want to raise up to you a couple of lovely things.

So last week we were able to celebrate a truly glorious pipe organ donor, Gala, and that there were many, many hands involved in organizing more than we could have thanked.

And of course, also thanking you all for supporting it with your time, with your energy, and with a palpably beautiful spirit in the room.

And we've also looked at the books and we're celebrating that we raised more than$55,000 for the pipe organ in a night, which is pretty lovely.

Yep.

And we're also celebrating not only the quantity, but then yesterday we had several folks involved.

Uh I'm afraid I'm gonna miss somebody.

I'm gonna try anyway.

Uh Herb Meyer, Hal Snap, Louis Delgado, Bob Ketchum, John Leedy, and Rob Puckett.

Does that does everybody?

We're here for Aquas removing the old bath insulation in our attic so that we can re-insulate and start begilding our organ chambers.

So in the next two weeks, the insulation company is going to come.

In the next couple of months, we're going to build the chambers that hold this instrument so they start so that they can properly uh reverberate and resonate, right?

You can't just put it up there.

It has to sort of have the right acoustical uh backsplash to make it out here properly.

Uh so uh your support of the organ gala is helping us to start laying these pipes.

So thank you for that, and you'll see that, and thanks, uh gentlemen, for your work yesterday.

Uh, a few other things uh just to name briefly.

Um in the last eight years, I have sent out to you a meditation every day during Lent.

So that's 46 days, ends on the day of Easter, so 47.

Um, I'm not doing that this year because I don't want to clog up your inboxes.

So I've moved that to an online site called Substack.

It's free.

There's no charge to do it.

Um, if you subscribe to Substack, you get the same email you would have without me sending it to people who don't want it, if that makes sense.

You'll find a link to that in the key news.

If you're not sure how to get on it, I'm happy to give it to you.

If computers aren't your thing, I'm happy to print it out.

Because some people just, you know, reading that is their penance.

So um if if if you want it, uh that's where it is this this year.

It's a it's a discipline for me to do it, even though it takes me all year.

So um uh that's that's sort of a change coming uh that this year that you can, and I'll and you'll there'll be no emails tomorrow from the regular Enix, right?

It only comes from Substack here on out all the way through Easter Day.

Last reminder is that next Saturday is our next fresh food distribution with the Gallaston County Food Bank.

So if you're interested in helping with that, hey, it may rain.

Last time it rained, we were under the portacochet, it's fine.

Uh takes a little longer, but that's okay, right?

Slow justice is still pretty darn good.

Uh so if you're interested in coming, you don't have to sign up.

We show up at 7.30.

We're pretty much done by 9.30 or 9.45.

And just as a reminder to you, uh, we offer in general more than 55 pounds of fresh produce to more than 450 people in the last year's average.

Uh, which I think is a pretty good way of being the gospel.

So thanks for supporting that.

And if you're available next week, those are our times to continue to walk in love, as Christ first loved us and gave himself for us in offering and sacrifice to God.

This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.

It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more, so come.

You who have much faith and you who have little.

You who have been here often, and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.

Not because the church invites you, it is Christ, and he invites you to meet him here.

Our service continues on page 340 of your red prayer book.

Page 340.

Let us give thanks unto who our Lord God.

Right in our bound in duty that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father Almighty, everlasting God, who dost bid thy faithful people cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast, and fervent in prayer and in works of mercy, renewed by thy word and sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which thou hast prepared for those who love thee.

And therefore, with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we Lord and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee and singing.

Of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son, Jesus Christ, to take our nature upon him, and to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption.

He made there a full and perfect sacrifice for the whole world, and did institute, and in his holy gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that, his precious death and sacrifice until his coming again.

For in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, and when he given thanks to thee, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Likewise, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.

And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink this, all of you.

This is my blood, the renewed covenant which is shed for you and for all for the remission of sin.

Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me.

Wherefore, O Lord, and Heavenly Father, we like people do celebrate and make with these thy holy gifts which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy son hath commanded us to make, in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension, and looking for his coming again with power and great glory.

And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us, and with thy word and Holy Spirit to bless and sanctify these gifts of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the body of thy dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness to accept this, our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, whereby we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies.

Grant we beseech thee that all who partake of this holy communion may worthily receive the most precious body and blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, and be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction.

And also that we and all thy whole church may be made one body with him, that he may dwell in us and we in him, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

By whom and with him and in him, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end.

Amen.

And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

These are the gifts of God, and we are the people of God.

Let's pray together.

Almighty and ever-living God, we most heartily thank thee that thou dost feed us in these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us, and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people, and are also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdom.

And we humbly beseech thee, O Heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory world without end.

Amen.

If you would enter into the wilderness, do not begin without a blessing.

Do not leave without hearing who you are.

Beloved, named by the one who has traveled this path before you.

That is what this journey is for.

I cannot promise this blessing will free you from danger, from fear, from hunger or thirst, from the scorching of sun or the fall of the night.

But I can tell you that on this path there will be help.

I can tell you that on this way there will be rest.

I can tell you that you will know the strange graces that come to our aid only on a road such as this, that fly to meet us, carry comfort and strength, that come alongside us for no other cause than to lean themselves toward our ear, and with their curious insistence whisper our name.

Beloved.

Beloved.

Beloved.

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be with you this day and remain with you always.

Amen.