Pentecost 19 2023

Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And blessed be God's family.

Now and forever.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Almighty God.

All the hearts of the moon.

And from you all the spirits are here.

Bless the father of our hearts.

And by the Holy Name through Christ.

The Lord be with you.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve.

Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy for giving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior.

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

Then God spoke all the words.

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not make a wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.

For the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

For six days you shall labor and do all your work.

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance and said to Moses, You speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.

Moses said to the people, Do not be afraid, for God has come only to rest you, to test you, and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.

One day tells its tale to another.

And one night imparts knowledge to another.

Although they have no words or language.

And their voices are heard.

Their sound has gone out into all lands.

And their head is to the ends of the world.

In the deepness, God set a pavilion for the sun.

It comes forth like a bridegroom out of its chamber.

It retorces like a champion to run its course.

It goes forth from the uttermost edge of the heavens and runs about to the end of it again.

Nothing is hidden from its burning east.

The law of the Lord is perfect and revives the soul.

The testimony of the Lord is sure and gives wisdom to the end.

The statutes of the Lord are just and rejoice the heart.

The fear of the Lord is clean and endures forever.

The judgment of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold.

Sweeter far than honey, and honey and home.

By them also is your servant enlightened.

And keeping them for your reward.

Can people tell how often they offend?

Cleanse me from my seat for faults.

Above all, keep your servant from presumptuous sins.

Let them not get dominion over me.

Then shall I behold and innocent of the greatness.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

Oh Lord, my strength and my reason.

Circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew, born of Hebrews.

As to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blame.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.

More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ.

The righteousness from God based on faith.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already attained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but this one thing I do.

Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Do what the Spirit is saying to God's people.

Jesus said, listen to another parable.

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower.

Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.

When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce.

The tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.

Again he sent other slaves more than the first, and they treated them in the same way.

Finally the landowner sent his son to them, saying, They will respect my son.

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, This is the heir, come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.

So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

The crowd said to Jesus, He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.

Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the scriptures the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?

This was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.

The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized Jesus was speaking about them.

They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds because the crowds regarded Jesus as a prophet.

The gospel of the Lord.

Amen.

Please be seated.

This is our second week in a foe when we get to hear a parable of a vineyard.

So just a couple of reminders.

One is that wine is a symbol for joy in Judaism to this day.

Symbol for joy, not just wine.

The other part to remember is that the Hebrew people regarded themselves as God's vineyard based on Isaiah chapter 6.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

So you can go back and read this.

It's called the Song for the Beloved, in which Israel perceives themselves to be God's vineyard, that is, they're making joy for the world.

I want to tell you one thing first off, and if you only get one thing about from today, please take this away.

This parable has been used for about 1,500 years to harbor and reinforce anti-Semitism.

In the Middle Ages, when Christian people looked at Jewish people in spire, and in other places throughout Germany, they used this parable to inflict pogrones on them.

So please hear that not only is that inappropriate, that's simple and wrong.

This parable is not about the rejection of the Jewish people.

That's nonsense.

Jesus told the parable while it was alive.

So typically, the way I was that this parable is an allegory, and there's these penance, and they're not giving God God's due, so God sends God's Son, that being Jesus, and they kill him, so they're gonna get a miserable end.

Please hear, that is the last thing Jesus had in mind, and it should be the last thing on your mind.

And if somebody shares that with you, please feel free to say, you know, my priest says Jesus was Jewish and didn't hate Jews like you seem to.

And you can be harsh because anti-Semitism is growing in this country.

Because we recycle dead understandings of parables like that one.

So please leave that one behind if you brought it in today.

I want to suggest to you that this parable is not about some rejection of the Jewish people by God, but rather I'd like to suggest that this parable is asking us, frankly, to really consider how we view God and with the rest of the readings, how we view stuff.

How we view stuff.

We have these fantasies.

You've probably heard of Squatters' rights, and maybe you've heard of the seven-year rule where if you build a fence in your neighbor's parcel of land and you occupy it for seven years, it'll be yours.

Have you heard this before?

Good luck in court with that, right?

Um, but okay, go for it.

Uh we have really interesting understandings of prophecy, and what do you know?

That's what's happening in the story.

There's an absentee landlord.

Maybe the guys have never even met him, they're working from afar, and sure enough, it's time to give their due, and they don't want to because they've never met the guy and he didn't do any work.

So they've started to think that that land belongs, well, to them, because they work it.

And they think that so much that they're crazy.

There is no way that if you kill the landowner's child, you'll become the heir.

You understand that.

There's uncles, there's aunts, there's nieces, there's nephews, there's like a whole bunch of stuff.

These people are deranged because they've forgotten who owns the stuff.

They think they own it.

Now, I want to be really clear.

I and I don't want to be silly or simple.

I owe the deed to my house and I'm keeping it.

And I owe the deed to my car and I'm keeping it.

And I sure do believe in private property, we all do.

But I also would like to tell you, sometimes I think we get property real muddled.

Because if I ask you to whom does the earth belong, you would probably say God.

And if I ask you to whom does your stuff belong, you'd probably say God.

But if I ask you what you're gonna do today, you're probably gonna say, here's what I'm gonna do with my time.

And when I fill out my pledge card, I usually think about what will I do with my money and my time.

How funny as if we own our time.

As if we own our time.

Now we like to think we own our money, and we like to think we own our property.

But I think we're pretty clear, hopefully, at a certain age, we start to become more clear.

The time is not ours.

And the way we do property here in this country is not the way the whole world does it.

Just for example, my wife right now is in Ireland walking something called the Wicklow Way.

And it's a well-established, like a 2,000-year-old path.

It's got a trail and all that, and it's not in a national park.

It walks through people's yards.

They still own it, but you can walk through it.

In Scotland, you can camp in anybody's yard for a night.

As long as you don't burn their fields down, it's fine.

I would not like someone camping in my yard without my permission.

Because we do that different.

We talk about property in funny ways, right?

Sure, there's animals have territory, and when they're endangered, we want to protect that, but we get animals can't own land because they don't know how to extract the minerals from it.

Like they're dumb.

Only people know how to extract minerals, and that's why we own land and animals don't.

And if you know the history of how we did conquest in the United States, that's what we did to indigenous people.

You aren't productive enough, so you can't own it.

Land belongs to people who know how to extract minerals.

This is kind of how we do property.

And look, I'm not trying to call out how we do this civilly.

I just invite us to hear this parable whether we consider what's really ours.

Because most of the time I like to think everything is.

So do the people in the story.

I'm not saying you don't own things.

I'm saying that often the Sunday school answer is it all belongs to God.

We don't live that way and we don't even pray or think that way.

We say that, and then it's my time, and it's my land, and it's my money, and it belongs to me.

And the story reminds us that we are actually being called to produce a harvest that is not just for ourselves, a harvest of joy.

Does God expect money in the story?

God wants a share of the joy for people who aren't working in the venue.

What happens when we get it wrong?

Well, Paul talks about what happens when we get it wrong.

Paul talks about how his early life he was dedicated spiritually to establishing credentials of ownership.

I am staking my claim by doing all the right things.

I was zealous for the law, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees, I did this all right, and then I realized I don't get to own grace.

So I have to actually die to the concept of ownership of grace, ownership of spiritual dignity that I thought was going to be mine to possess or earn, because it doesn't belong to me.

It belongs to God.

And I think we get to hear a little bit, honestly, in Exodus of what happens when we start thinking of God as an absentee landowner.

Because honestly, I know we talk about how God's everywhere all the time, but most of us live as if God's an absentee landowner.

Most of us do.

You just tell us what to do.

Because God's scary.

You tell us we'll do it.

So we get these ten things, which you all know are the ten commandments, and you know there's this really interesting trend still going on that we should hang these in courtrooms across the American South, because that'll really teach us how to live.

And I would like to remind you of a couple of things.

You've probably heard me say this before.

They are not the Ten Commandments.

In Hebrew, these are called the Ten Words, because in Hebrew they are made of ten words.

Just like English, they have prefixes.

So if you want to say thou shalt not kill, in Hebrew, you put not next to kill, you make a compound word that says not kill, not lie, not steal.

That's how they go.

And they're never called commandments in Judaism because they're not commands.

They're words.

And what's interesting is when God's an absentee landowner, not here, not around, we can take ten words and make them commands because we've lost having communion with God.

And one of the things that I used to do when I taught world religions out in La Hoya is I would have my students come up with ten different commands.

Well, ten commitments is more like it.

What ten commitments do you think are the most valuable ways for us to live with one another and with and with God?

And what do you know?

Instead of not doing something, they come up with ten things we should do.

I want you to consider.

Because you will never kill anybody, and you'll never covet stuff you don't see, and you'll be alone.

So is God interested in you keeping the letter of ten words, or is God interested in you living in community with your neighbor?

So, what do our kids come up with?

The same things you would come up with.

Thou shalt have compassion.

Thou shalt show respect even when you don't feel like it.

Those are good commitments.

Those are actually pretty life-giving commitments.

You could probably come up with eight other ones that are really good.

And I think we focus so much on this idea of rules because deep at our core, we just think God's out there somewhere.

And we think we've been left alone to kind of run the vineyard.

And sometimes God gets in the way of the way we like to run the vineyard.

You know, like I actually hope God's gotten in your way of how you like to run the vineyard of your life.

Uh, usually we're not even delighted by it.

Usually we're just kind of upset and disappointed that God wants us to be gracious with somebody we don't like.

And this, I think, is what the parable is asking us to really consider.

How are we running the vineyard that is not ours, but that we're asked to cultivate joy in and share the joy out.

As I mentioned.

I mean, I've been filling out pledge cards for a long time.

And usually when I do it, I've actually kind of already thought about what I'm gonna do with my money, what I'm gonna do with my time.

I'll probably still do that most of the time.

I'll probably mostly still do that.

And I just wonder if it's an opportunity to pause before I do that and say, you know, God, I don't even know what you have to say about it, but what if we just paused and we did some discernment this year?

What am I gonna do with whatever time you've given me?

Knowing that my time is not my time.

Maybe that at least could be a start.

I mean, this is the stewardship question.

Whose is it?

What's it for?

Now, I do want to give you, hopefully, a nice, a nice bid here at the end, and then Jim's gonna tell us something nicer than what I did.

Jim's gonna come up and share with us just for a second, too.

Um You notice that Jesus asked the crowd, what's the landowner gonna do with the tenants?

And they answer, he'll give those wretches a wretched end, right?

Do you notice that Jesus never comments on that?

He never says you're right.

He also didn't say you're wrong.

I don't think he comments because I don't think the crowd can hear what he has to say.

Because I think they're wrong.

I think when we think that God will bring people who don't share joy with the world, who are wretched end, we're just like the folks in Exodus who, frankly, are afraid of God, like we're afraid of an erupting volcano.

And I think we're wrong.

This is a hard pit to swallow.

But I think people who hoard their wine, hoard their joy, and think it all belongs to them, I think people who do horrible things to other people, like those land-owning tenants, I think God still loves them.

So why does it matter?

Because when we live like that, the vintage we're making is just sour.

And the vintage we share with other people is not even drinkable.

And sometimes we've lived like that for so long, we've been drinking swill and mistaking it for wine.

And I think the parable asks us to consider.

Are we drinking two buck chuck?

Sorry, Trader Joe's, it's not that bad.

Are we drinking that?

Or are we drinking and producing God's wine, which is greater than us?

Jim's gonna tell us something nice now.

Jim.

I've asked Jim to share with us while he's on his way up here.

I don't know if you know this, every preacher has one sermon.

We just have one.

And we try to get it right every week, and it sounds a little different, it's the same one.

Jim told me he's got three.

And one of them he said he's got is on stewardship.

So that's what he's gonna give you.

He's gonna give you one of his three sermons.

I'm not gonna give a sermon.

I'm Jim McGill, and about half of my life ago, 36 years ago, I decided to get serious about stewardship.

Um interestingly, at that moment in my life, I had just lost my job.

And I told Beth that we needed to be serious about stewardship, and we needed to double our pledge.

It wasn't really very big in the first place, but she said to me, okay, Einstein, you have just lost your job.

We have two children, and I don't work.

How do you propose that we do that?

And I said to her, with all of the grace that I possibly could muster.

I don't know.

Well, the bottom line now is that we both tithe.

Beth and I both tithe.

That is, we give 10% of our income.

That's a tall order for a lot of people, I know, because it was a tall order for us.

But I want to key off of something that Mike said to us just a minute ago.

Since we began this, which we began in earnest with the 10% part when I was ordained, since then our lives have been full of the joy that Mike describes.

We have found more ways to give beyond the 10% that we give to the church, to the to the parish, I mean.

Uh we have found more ways.

We've been on mission trips, we give to charities and all of that.

That's in addition, and it seems like the more we give away, the happier we are, and the more we have to give away.

I I don't understand it.

I have an engineering degree, I and I'm not I'm not trying to flout engineers.

I have an engineering degree, and I know that there's no such thing as 110%.

You know, you can't give 110% because you only have half the 100%.

So I know those things up here.

But what I know in here is that the point is the joy.

That's the point.

Not that I want to have joy, I do, but but the point is not about what I want or what I have.

The point is that God wants you to be happy.

And God gives these things that we over the centuries have termed commandments, because God knows that they will make us happy.

And God knows that they are counter-human, counterintuitive to humans.

And we will be happy.

In the end of things, I think all we really own is praise.

And we get to choose where to give our praise.

Some of our praise is in the form of money, some of our praise is in the form of voice, some of our praise is in the form of prayers, some of our praise is in the form of time.

We get to decide where to give our praise.

Somebody told me a long time ago, you know, you can't outgive God.

And I thought, what is that?

And the longer I live, the more I realize that that's true.

I can outgive God.

And God, as the colleague says, is always more ready to give than we are to receive.

Join me if we pray our faith in the words of the action.

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, made for everyone in ever of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, the eternal Father.

And people have we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord before, the beast of the Father, with the Father, and glorified, be a holy Christ.

We believe in one Holy Catholic and the Solomon Church.

We look in one baptism for the existence.

We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

Amen.

The prayers of the people.

Let us pray for the whole church and the world.

We thank you, O God, for your universal church and its mission, and for calling us to serve you and among your people.

Continue, we pray, to equip us with all we need to tell others of you and glorify your name in all we do.

Lord, in your compassion, here are our.

We give you thanks, Lord Jesus, for graciously restoring those who have battled and survived serious illnesses and near-death situations, that by your help and the help of those sent to them, they may continue to serve you in this life according to your will.

We are especially grateful.

The congregation is invited to name thanksgiving silently and or aloud at this time.

Lord, in your compassion, we thank you, Lord, loving God, for the fellowship and relationships we enjoy in this gathering, and we pray that we may continue to grow in love and support for each other.

Make your presence known, we pray, with those who grieve for broken relationships and struggle to bend walls created through conflict, disagreement, and mistrust, that they may seek and find forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation.

Lord, with your compassion, hear our prayer.

Living God, we remember our loved ones and colleagues who no longer journey with us in this life.

Have compassion on all who mourn, and may the souls of the departed share in your eternal kingdom.

Lord of your compassion, hear our prayer.

Rejoicing in the fellowship of all your saints, let us commend ourselves, one another, and all our life to Christ our God.

Let us confess our sins.

Sin against God and our neighbor.

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undue.

Forgive us to me, and our hearts no longer bear.

And God has become for us to consume our judgment.

Set us free from hearts that we have changed.

Open to us to future in which we can be changed.

And grant us grace for the Lord's in the image.

Through Jesus Christ, the light of the world.

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.

So be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

Hooray for standing.

We stand before God because that works.

See, this is the time where actually the movement matters because you've been made right with God even if you don't feel like it.

So the peace of the Lord be always with you.

And also with you.

Good morning, and thank you for worshiping with us at St.

Thomas today.

If you're new to us or haven't done this before, in the room right behind the one you're sitting in, we call it an Artex, there's these little cards that say welcome.

And we'd be tremendously grateful if you fill one of those out and put it in a little blue basket so we have a record of your visit.

If you don't want to call, don't check that box.

You won't get one.

You get to decide what the follow-up is, but we would be really grateful to have a record of your visit.

And thanks for worshiping with us today.

There are several announcements I want to call to your attention.

And first, we are 13 days away from our biggest public outreach event, which is the Fall Festival, which is several years old.

In fact, it's so old we don't know how old it is, but it's pretty darn old.

And Linda is going to share with us some opportunities that we can support the Fall Festival.

By the way, if you've never been, it's just a lot of fun.

Like it really is super fun.

There'll be a circus, there'll be axe throwing and blow-up games and homebrew and the barbecue's fantastic.

There's some craft vendors, there's a book sale, and Linda's gonna tell you about a few things that are under her under her eyes.

Yeah.

Hi, I'm Linda Steisheisler.

I'm an eight o'clocker, so you don't know who I am, most of you.

But I am in charge of our fall market, thanks to the Delgados getting me recruited.

And one thing I'd like to do, and being a sharing Sunday, as it seems to be, is ask you to share your time and your goods with the fall market.

Um, we are collecting any kind of things, jewelry, furniture, well, not furniture, that's we don't have really but small kitchen goods, things that you have on your shelves that you say they're very workable, but I just don't use them anymore.

I've got a crock pot.

Anybody want it?

Um okay.

So I have made some brochures on the round table out here for general donation guidelines.

And um I've put together tags actually now this year for you to cut out and tape to the bottom of your item with a price you found maybe a comparable something on eBay or Amazon, and now you're you can set a price that you think we should ask for.

And then also, um, did you want it returned to you?

Some people have some very precious things that they'd like to share, but at the same time, if it doesn't sell, they'd like to have it back for the family or whatever.

Um, also, if you don't want to take things back, but you want to donate them to nearly new, we'll keep those for you.

So please take a look at the donation sheet.

And also, if you are an itemizer, uh you have a sheet there with the uh final total page with Father Mike has uh made for you to keep for your records.

The second thing is, and I'm stunned, I had about a dozen of these sponsorship opportunity liers out there, and I've got one left, so I don't know who took them all, but I'm glad.

This is for you to support the um different activities we have at the church going on during the festival.

And if you need one and don't have it, I know Father Mike's got the master copy, and you can email me.

I've been in the bulletin, email or text me, and I'll send you uh a sheet for you to be able to use and get back to Father Mike or myself with this donation here.

And lastly, the time.

I really need a lot of help between the 15th, next Sunday, between services and the actual uh event, the market.

And so I have my red folder out here and a sheet for signing up, and there's so many opportunities.

Gentlemen, you are welcome to help.

It's not a ladies' thing, okay?

So I have I need work between services, collecting the things you're gonna bring in to us.

Uh during the week, starting on that Monday, I can arrange with you to come up here if you want to help sort things and arrange things with me.

We can work during the day.

I'm open every day except Tuesday, it says.

Then I also have on that Friday starting at 3 o'clock, we'll do the final arrangement and and collection.

If you couldn't bring things next week, you can bring them on that Friday before the fall festival.

And then I need some people to collect money, I hope, on Saturday.

And also on Sunday, we will be liquidating what's left.

All right.

So if you're hanging around on Sunday, we appreciate your help.

So if you please put your name and phone number on here, I'll be back in touch with you.

If you oh, lastly, if you have a large donation, we've got some wonderful things like uh Captain Uh Christopher Curran has got a sail as he did last year on his uh sailing yacht that he has uh you can sign up and rent his boat for a couple of hours and take a group of you out.

Uh, Father Mike is going to donate a meal again this year.

I have a tiny house experience that I will be donating in case you've ever wanted to live in a tiny house for the weekend.

Um, and we have a beautiful clock, I think, um that's been donated, and quite a few larger silent auction items.

And we'll have one room in the hallway that used to go to the school.

We'll be using that hallway for all this.

So don't miss us next weekend uh during the festival.

Thank you.

Thanks, Linda.

And again, if you've never been to the fall festival, this is your year.

Uh it is it's really a lovely time, and the spirit of the festival, well, it's 50-something years old.

The spirit of the festival is palpable and it's lovely and generous and happy.

So uh please do look forward to October the 21st.

That's a Saturday.

Hopefully, we get weather like this, and we'll be out there from 9 to 2.

Uh, okay, a few other announcements I want to call to your attention.

Uh, it's good to go back just for a second.

Yesterday, while we were hosting a 5k race, we also ran a food distribution and fed 423 people in 97 cars, uh, which is really, really a lovely thing to do to have a traffic problem because we're feeding that many people.

Uh, and if you've never been to one of these, the quantity of food we send people away with is honestly staggering.

People probably leave with$350, I'd say, worth of groceries.

Um, thanks for sponsoring that.

Thank you for doing that.

Uh people tell us uh they don't know how, but we somehow have the best one.

Uh we give the most food, it's the best food, and the best part is they say people treat us like human beings here.

And that's that's you.

So thank you for that.

Our next one of those will be Saturday, November the 4th.

Uh, and you don't have to sign up, you can come at about 7.45, somewhere between there and 7.30.

We're always done by 9.30.

It's it's work for about an hour and a half, and then you're done.

And it really is a great way to start the day.

Um, so that was yesterday.

Today, at 4 o'clock, we're having a blessing of the animals.

So uh we always do this right around St.

Francis Day, which was Wednesday.

It's gonna be right over here in the little white gazebo in Howard Ward Park.

Now, just a reminder: I've had sheep and goats show up for these things before, and they did fine.

Um, I've also had people bring cats and take them off a leash.

Don't do that.

Please bring your well-behaved pet.

If your dog bites, bring a photo of the dog.

Uh, we can bless facsimiles, it works.

Um, it is such a sweet little thing to do over here.

I've done birds, I've done horses, I've done snakes.

Uh yeah, so it's four o'clock.

Uh, it's like a 15-minute deal.

It's really, really sweet.

And uh we get to celebrate what Francis reminded us, right?

Of course, he said animals are members of our family.

That's how we live, that's how we treat them, and that's how God loves them.

So that blessings at 4 o'clock today.

Uh on Tuesday.

There's still time to sign up for the owls trip.

You want to say anything about it, Kathy?

9:30 here on Tuesday.

You'll be going to lunch at the Post downtown and the Antieth Missionary Baptist Church.

And the Antieth Missionary Baptist Church downtown.

So if you're interested, you can see Kathy Hill, and there's still sign up, but you need to see her today, right?

Um next Sunday, between services, we're going to have an artistic class on how you can make balms, uh, which with which it's actually meant so that you can anoint maybe your cracked feet, but you can do it in prayer, or you can anoint somebody else with balm.

Yes, you're fit to do this.

You are absolutely fit as part of the priesthood of the believer to anoint other people in prayer.

And so Allie Hardick's gonna teach us how we make our own and how we can kind of pray for them and use them, which is a really sweet thing.

I will tell you, I went to the post office one day, and the the lady there had her arm broken, leg broken the counter, and and I mean, I try not to be all evangelical, but I said, Can I pray for you?

And she said, Boy, I love that.

And then I said, Well, would you take some oil?

And she said, I've never had it, but I'd love to.

So good thing.

I carry that in my car.

And she said, that was like the hairs on my neck stood up in a good way.

And so this is available to you.

This is part of our tradition.

Comes right out of the book of James that when people are sick, we anoint them with oil and we pray for them.

So we'll be doing that next Sunday between services.

The other thing I'd like to remind you of is that in two weeks from today, we'll start what we call the Inquirer's Class or sort of Episcopal Church 201.

So maybe you've been Episcopalian your whole life, maybe you're new.

Uh, this is a seven sessions designed to tell you the history of the church, how we run the, how we govern ourselves, uh, how Episcopalians tend to use the Bible, how we use the prayer book.

Um, so maybe it's been a bit since you've had that uh class, and maybe you're an expert.

That's great.

Uh, it's a really good conversation and reminder that our bishop is coming to do confirmation on December the 17th.

So if you're interested in confirmation, these are the classes that prepare you for that as well.

You don't have to want to be confirmed to come.

This is really introduction to the church, but it gives you this other opportunity as well.

Um, so you heard me say, and Jim talked about this, we are in our stewardship season, and we mailed out pledge cards.

If you didn't get one, it's probably a software problem.

I have extras, and I'd be happy to give you one.

And reminder, please do take time to think through how God is calling you to serve God with God's time that you are a steward of in the coming year.

We are going to consecrate those pledges on November the 19th.

That's the last Sunday of the church year.

I know we go through December in the secular year, but that's when we're going to consecrate the pledges.

So discern, but don't take too long, because we want to bless the pledges on December the 19th.

That's really important to me as your priest, that we bless this.

You can mail them in, you can drop them in the blue basket.

If you want me to pick them up, I'll pick them up.

I'm happy to do that.

Um, but please do spend some time in discernment about where God might be calling you in ministry in the next year, because that's what we want to do.

We want to discern that and we want to bless it.

Hey, I forgot to tell you my favorite thing about property ownership.

Sometimes this happens when I don't write things down.

If you're a parent, you know what it's like to own your children.

Because when they do something you don't like, you usually go to your spouse and say, You'll never believe what your daughter did today, right?

So again, we get property all funny.

Okay, last thing I wanted to share with you, and this is a beautiful thing.

Um, you'll get to hear this in the dedication next week.

We're formally dedicating it next week.

But on Wednesday, a stained glass window showed up that Christine and Stephen Alexander had worked on for about a year and a half.

It was given to us by the whirlies in memory of their daughter.

So, reminder, this does not come out of our budget.

This was a gift to us for us to enjoy in memory of Ella.

And you I you've never seen anything like it.

You haven't.

And we'll tell a little bit of the story next week, but please make sure you look up and see the butterflies hanging from the ceiling, too.

There's five of them, and they're gorgeous.

And and this is, I don't know if you know this, the word liturgy.

People think liturgy means the bulletin.

Liturgy means good for the pub, work for the public at private expense.

So this is liturgy.

This window was given to us.

It is for our good.

It tells the creation story, it tells the resurrection story.

Uh, and it's just a it's a stewardship member that we're celebrating this week.

So again, we'll dedicate that glass next week along with a baptism, so that's super fun to do two in one day.

Continue to walk in love as Christ first loved us and doing himself for us and offering the sacrifice to God.

All things come of you, O Lord.

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 three hundred and sixty-nine of your red prayer book.

Page three hundred and sixty-nine with you, and also with you.

Let us give things to the Lord our God.

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

Glory to you forever and ever.

At your command, all things came to be.

The vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth our island home.

By will created and have 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, so we turned against you and betrayed your trust, and we turned against one another.

Have mercy, Lord, for we have sinners in your sight.

Again and again you called 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 law, to open for us the ways of freedom and peace.

By his life, you remain us, by his woman we are healed.

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

So, Father, we who have been redeemed by Jesus and made a new people by water in the Spirit, now bring before you these gifts.

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, said 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, of Isaac and Rebekah, 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.

Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name.

Risen, Lord, remain with us to break in the prayer.

Accept these prayers and praise this Father through Jesus Christ, our great high priest, to 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 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 be free of those who trespass against us, and leave us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom of the power of the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Shall hold me, shall hold me, shall be me, shall be so much.

Grant us, Almighty God, that when we may be refreshed and murdered by the sacrament which we have received, so as we are doing through Christ our Lord.

The Franciscan blessing.

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about evil answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

God bless you with a gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

And God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that 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.