Pentecost 22 2023 Brad Sullivan

Let's become Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Let's put it together.

All the sides from secret perfectly lovely.

The Lord be with you.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity.

That we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.

Amen.

As you're being seated, our children are invited to children's church.

Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Nagim and the plain.

That is the valley of Jericho, the city of the palm trees, as far as Zower.

The Lord said to him, This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants.

I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.

Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab at the Lord's command.

He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Bethbear, but no one knows his burial place to this day.

Moses was 120 years old when he died.

His eye was unimpaired, and his vigor had not abated.

The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, and then the period of mourning for Moses was ended.

Joshua, son of full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him, and the Israelites obeyed him, doing as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.

He was unequal for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed at the sight of all Israel.

The word of the Lord.

We will read responsively by the half-verse.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or the land and the earth were born.

You turn us back to the dust and say, For a thousand years and your sight are like yesterday when it is past.

In the morning it is green and flourishes.

Return, O Lord, how long will you tarry?

Satisfy us by your loving kindness in the morning.

Make us glad by the measure of the days that you afflicted us.

May the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us prosper the work of our hands.

But though we had already suffered and been shamefully mistreated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition.

For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts.

As you know, and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed, nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ.

But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.

So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.

The word of the Lord.

But there is this word that exists by the silence of the Sadducees, and after an honor to the lawyer, ask the question as a teacher, which man is grace.

He said, You shall love the Lord with the father of your heart, and the father and soul, and the law of God.

May only your word be heard.

Amen.

Please be seated.

And glad to be with y'all this morning.

Mike and a team from here were at Lord of the Streets this morning.

Mike was celebrating and preaching, and I got to celebrate and preach here earlier, and now I preach with y'all this morning, and then they all got to serve breakfast to our congregation.

We are a church that uh serves folks who are experiencing homelessness.

And um, our chapel and our building is smaller than the sanctuary right here.

We can we can fit 20 people in comfortably.

And so on Sunday mornings, Trinity opens up at the church across the street in Houston, and opens up and allows us to worship there and have breakfast afterwards.

And so I'm very grateful for y'all being there and grateful for the invitation to get to preach with y'all.

Years ago, there was an episode of the prophetic TV show The Simpsons, in which Bart Simpson wrote his name in some wet concrete on the sidebar.

And he then imagined a world hundreds of years into the future, in which the people brought him back to life with bits of DNA from his uh fingers where it with the concrete where his finger had been.

And the crowd of onlookers then stood in awe as Bart showed them his yo-yo.

And they exclaimed, Things that are ordinary to him are extraordinary to us.

He will be our new god.

Sadly, Bart's magic ended there.

And we didn't actually get to see what future Springfield would have been like with Bart as their new god.

I have a feeling, however, that it would have evolved a lot of things, like school only as a temporary punishment, probably for adults, not kids, and church pretty much the same, and the masses of Screenfield dites, Greenfield Indians, um serving art at all times, ignoring important things like everything, and um it'll be really icy, and uh thank God for art, but even in real life, when people stand in for God, uh things tend not to work out all that well.

When Jesus answered the Pharisees' question about which was the greatest commandment, and when Jesus asked them who the son the Messiah was, Jesus' answers were pretty much the same.

The first commandment is to love God.

Who is the Messiah?

Not David's son, because the Messiah is God.

When we elevate a human to the place of a Messiah, we're putting a human in the place of God.

That's what happened when the people of Israel first asked for a king.

They put a human king in the place where God had been.

Remember in the first Samuel when the people asked for a king, and Samuel was really upset about the whole thing and complaining to God, hey, they're asking for a king, and this isn't right, it's terrible.

God said to Samuel did be cool.

They're not replacing you, they're replacing me.

So when people are looking for a messiah in human form, they're looking for someone to stand in God's place.

There's only one true messiah, and one true Savior as a God.

So how do we put others in God's place as a messiah these days?

We haven't yet figured out how to uh make new people out of their uh sidewalk and hands.

Um we'll not look into the Simpsons for an answer to this one.

But how do we put God and people or people in God's place, I'm gonna instead look to another bit of on-screen entertainment, this time the Barbie movie.

Yeah.

In the Barbie movie, Ken was having a very hard time with things because he felt like he was a bit of an afterthought.

Which of course he was because he was a non-Barbie girl living in a Barbie world.

And his whole life revolved around Barbie.

And then after coming to our world, Ken learned about the patriarchy.

And he was very enamored of the idea of being in charge.

So he went back to Barbie World and established his own patriarchy, Ken Dom.

No longer relegated to standing longingly outside of the Barbie dream house, waiting for her to notice him.

Ken got to live in his very own ojo dojo kacha kasa house.

And Barbie and all of the Barbies were completely subservient to Ken and all of the Kens.

Kendom was a seeming paradise for the Kens, except that they all still felt completely without worth if Barbie was not there to make them feel adored and important and powerful.

Ken was kinda codependent.

And by kinda codependent, I mean completely codependent on Barbie.

Kennan put himself in God's place, so to speak, wanting to be in charge of everything in Kendom, and underneath that desire for power and patriarchy was kin is indeed insecurity and desire for worth.

And so he was also putting Arby in God's place, so to speak, even in the kingdom of the patriarchy.

The only way he could find worth in himself was through Marby's eyes.

Guys have a need to feel worthy by being adored or important or powerful, and that doesn't just go for the patriarchy either.

All of us take part in various kinds of systems of power and oppression, diminishing our own lives and our mad rush for worth and validation.

Some don't want to lose the power they have, others want to gain the power of those above them.

And underneath all of that fighting and oppression is the need to feel worthy and the fear that deep down, what if we aren't?

If we simply look at our relationships, even without being completely codependent on others, we tend to scramble for others' approval and validation.

We tend to scramble for our worth, trying desperately to be validated by others.

But others didn't make us.

Our scramble for worth puts others in the place of God, making other people our messiahs, our saviors, but the messiah is not David's son, nor anyone else's son or daughter.

The only true Messiah, the only true Savior is God.

God is our Savior that we may believe in our own worth, that we may love and like ourselves, that we may then love and like others, no longer needing their constant approval or subjugation.

Even in our darkest places, even in our deaths, God shows God's love for us all the way and through Calvary.

On the cross, God joins with us in all of our mad scramble for worth and the terrible things we do to one another out of our fear and our feelings of worthlessness.

In the darkness and despair of Calvary, God joins with us in sin and death, and then God joins with us in resurrection, and God's death and resurrection tell us that each of us is God's beloved, in whom God's soul delights.

Perhaps truly believing that is the salvation that we need.

If we truly believe in our worth as God's beloved, in whom God's soul delights, then perhaps we might see in us what God sees in us.

Perhaps we might learn to love and like ourselves as God does.

And perhaps we won't be scrambling through our worth through power over and the approval of others.

So back to Jesus' answer to the Pharisees that the first commandment is to love God and then to love people.

How do we love God?

We know from Jesus' teaching that we love God by loving people, and that includes loving ourselves.

Perhaps then we love God by first accepting our own belovedness.

Perhaps we love God by accepting that there is something immensely lovable and likable and worthy within each of us, and that there is something so great in each of us that the creator of the universe delights in each of us.

Perhaps that is how we first love God, by accepting God's love and then loving others.

Perhaps we love God by accepting that we need no other Messiah.

For the Messiah is neither David's son nor anyone else's son or daughter.

We need no other savior because the only true Messiah, the only true Savior is God.

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty.

Grant that every member of the Church may truly and humbly serve you, that your name may be glorified by all people.

We pray for Michael, our presiding bishop, for Andy, Hector, Jeff, and Kai, for our bishops in the diocesan circle of prayer, all saints in Stafford, Calvary in Richmond, Christ Church in Eagle Lake, and Christ Church in Matagorda, for Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury, for all the priests in our community, and for all bishops, priests, and deacons, that they may be federal ministers to our Lord Jesus Christ.

We pray for all who govern and authority and hold authority in the nations of the world, for all the members of the armed forces, and for all struggle for peace and justice, that they may act with prudence and vision to plant the seeds of your kingdom everywhere.

We pray for your parish and our vestry, for our parish and our vestry.

Give us grace to do your will in all that we undertake.

Give compassion to those who suffer from any grief or trouble that they may be delivered from their distress.

Give to the departed an eternal rest that I put you shine upon them.

We praise to you, Saint Thomas the Apostle, and your saints and for your saints who have entered into joy.

Let us give thanks to our blessings and pray for our own needs and those of others, especially those we have on our prayer on our parish prayer list and those the congregation wishes to name at this time silently or aloud.

Almighty God, by your Holy Spirit, you have made us one with your saints in heaven and on earth.

Grant that in our earthly pilgrimage we may always be supported by this fellowship of love and prayer, and know ourselves to be surrounded by their witness to your power and mercy.

We ask this for the sake of Jesus Christ, in whom all our intercessions are acceptable through Spirit and who live and reigns forever and ever.

Let us express our sin against God and our name.

We are still and what has to come from us.

Set us free from the past that we cannot change.

Amen.

The Almighty and compassionate Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sin.

True repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you.

And I know this is feebleist reminder.

Hooray for standing.

Because God made you worthy to stand before God and one another.

Right?

That worked.

But the most important part of the liturgy is we stand if we can.

You might not have felt righteous when you came in the door, and God just took care of that.

And so out of Thanksgiving, we share that peace with one another.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

So we have a record of your visit.

And promise, we won't call you unless you say we want that.

So you choose the terms of engagement, but we would just be really grateful if we had a record of your visit.

And thanks for worshiping with us today.

There's a few things coming up.

You'll see many of these in the little handout out there that kind of has the calendar for the month.

And in the Wednesday e-news.

By the way, if you're not getting the e-news and you'd like to, that's just a simple word or email to Ellen or myself.

Don't talk to Ellen on Sunday.

She's not working today.

She's in the office Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.

But email either of us will get you on there in a second.

So just a few things to lift up.

The first, uh, again, we always look back a little bit.

Uh it was delightful to be at clergy conference from the Episcopal Diocese of Texas.

Today it's kind of amazing.

I'm looking in the room and I see there's five of us, clergy.

And at clergy conference, there's like 400 of us, which is a lot.

And uh the diocese does this incredible thing.

They bring in speakers from all over the place, some of which are very famous theological nerds, and some are like professional poets.

And we get to go to classes like depatriarchalizing the church or um the poetry of exorcism.

Yeah, it's just really a lovely time to be with colleagues and learn.

Well, some really interesting things.

And just so you know, what our bishop does, he brought this guy in, we got to hear him play.

He used to be the keyboardist for Chuck Berry and Elvis, and he's made a second career as a large black man going and talking to prominent members of the Ku Klux Klan.

And by showing them respect and hearing their story, many of them give their grand wizard robes to him when they leave the clan.

Now that's an interesting story, isn't it?

So, this is the kind of stuff that our bishop puts together for our mutual edification.

It's lovely.

And of course, this morning, 17 of us from St.

Thomas went up to Lord of the Streets, which, as you heard, right, Brad, so Victor, vicar there, uh, is a ministry for currently or formerly homeless men and women.

Sometimes they prefer the word yardless, it depends.

And um, I'm just gonna tell you it's really interesting preaching the gospel to a room of people who are currently and formerly homeless.

Sometimes it's really easy to say, you know, you should love your neighbor more.

And in that context, it's like your neighbor should love you more.

It's really interesting to think about where we are and what God would have us here say to one another.

So, Brad, of course, is doing a fantastic job of clear not only offering people health care and food, clothing, but also offering dignity and a worshiping community, and we got to be a part of that this morning.

So you'll get to see that opportunity.

We do it three or four times a year in general, and so the next one will probably be in February or March.

It's really a glorious way to start today.

Couple things coming up.

This week, as many of you know, there is this interesting day that happens on Tuesday.

Your kids are probably dressing up to celebrate Reformation Day.

That's it.

Reformation Day is on Tuesday.

It's on All Hallowed Eve, so reminder: Wednesday is All Saints' Day.

That's when we celebrate the saints of our lives, living or dead, folks have pointed us to God.

Reminder, we're not having Church Wednesday.

We're gonna postpone it.

It's called transferring the feast till next Sunday.

So part of our celebration will be naming those who have departed from our lives in the last year, the departed.

And um, if there is somebody in your life that you would like us to celebrate on the Lord's table with a candle and with a gong, please give that name to Ellen or myself uh by tomorrow afternoon so that we can print the bulletin and make sure we have the proper number of candles as we do this.

And look, um, this is really just about gratitude.

And there's something very holy to think that we are surrounded by a great crowd of witnesses, some of which we can see and perceive, and some of which we cannot.

Right?

So I do invite you to celebrate all saints.

And um, I don't do this every year, but if you're looking for something to do, everybody's looking for something else to do, right?

I'd encourage you to think about a saint every day of the month of November.

One person.

They don't have to be Saint Francis of Assisi or St.

Cuthbert or Saint Switherin.

They could just be your dear mother.

Or maybe your mother wasn't dear.

Maybe it was your grandfather.

Or it could be that person who just took a moment to say, How are you doing?

and they actually paused because they wanted to hear.

This is a way we can celebrate the saints and actually be informed to pattern our lives after their example.

So I do hope that you will be filled with gratitude this month and particularly as we gather next week.

This coming Saturday, we'll be doing our fresh food distribution out in the parking lot from 7:35 till about 9.30.

We're always done by 9.30.

You don't have to sign up in advance, and basically we'll be packaging food from pallets into, well, consumable sizes.

Like nobody needs 500 pounds of onions, but 10 might be helpful.

So we'll be packaging bags and then putting them in cars, and typically we feed about 400 people in an hour, which is really a lovely gift.

And then it's our fall workday, right?

So fall workday starts at 9.30, 9, 9.30.

Um, some of us won't start till 9.30 because we'll be out there, but you can do either or both.

And Herb has put together a bunch of really fantastic projects, including, I think we're planting 67 trees, if we can.

20 is like 67 somewhere.

So sounds like we'll be doing 20 trees on Saturday.

So if you're interested at all in beautifying the grounds, uh, that will be this coming Saturday, and we'll be done by yeah, so we'll serve food uh for you if you come come work and we'll be done.

We'll be done by last thing just to be mindful of is that uh we are still in our stewardship drive.

So uh I have extra pledge cards out there in the NorthX if you didn't get one.

And reminder that uh I am asking us to discern carefully what God might be calling us to contribute to our community in terms of leadership, time, service, and financially if God's calling you to do that as well.

We are going to consecrate those cards on November 19th, which means you're really close to getting the phone call of shame.

Um the phone call of shame is when the priest says, I'm so grateful you're taking your time praying and discerning.

Speed it up.

Uh I'm just kidding.

Uh no, it's actually really, really important as your priest to me that we bless these cards.

I I don't care what's on them.

I mean, I care what's on them, but what I care is that we offer them to God as an offering.

And we say, whatever's on this card is our intention.

You may, circumstances may change, but God, we do want you to bless what we've got in mind.

And we want you to do more than we can ask or imagine.

That's a holy thing to do as your priest.

So I would like all of our pledges to be in by November the 19th, so that we can do that together.

I don't like leaving people's pledges out.

Like that just doesn't feel right.

So, November the 19th.

Now continue to walk in light.

As Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, an offering a sacrifice to God.

All things come of you, O Lord.

And of your own and happy give.

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 369 of your red prayer book.

Page 369.

God of all power, ruler of the universe, you are worthy of glory and praise.

At your command all things came to be.

From the primal elements you brought forth the human race and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill.

You made us the stewards of creation, but we turned against you and betrayed your trust.

We turned against one another.

Have mercy, O Lord, for we are sinners in your sight.

Again and again you call us to return.

Through prophets and sages you reveal your righteous law, and in the fullness of time you sent your only son, born of a woman, to fulfill your love, to open for us the ways of freedom and peace.

Therefore we praise you, joining with the heavenly chorus, with prophets, apostles, and martyrs, with all those in every generation who have looked to you in hope to proclaim with them your glory and their unending hymn.

Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.

On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, sent the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, Take, eat.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, Drink this, all of you.

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

Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.

Remembering now his work of redemption and offering to you this sacrifice of thanksgiving, we celebrate his death and resurrection as we await the day of his coming.

Lord God of our parents, God of Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, and Keturah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us.

Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this table for solace only and not for strength, for pardon only and not for renewal.

Accept these prayers and praises, Father, through Jesus Christ, our great high priest, whom with you and the Holy Spirit, your church, gives honor, glory, and worship from generation to generation.

Amen.

Now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.

Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us our hidden bread, and forgive us trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Amen.

Grant us, Almighty God, that we may be refreshed and nourished by the sacraments which we have received, so as to be transformed into what we just do.

Through Christ, our Lord.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe you really can make a difference in this world, so that you are able with God's grace to do what others claim cannot be done.

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

Amen.