Pentecost 13 2023

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

And blessed be God and forever.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Almighty God.

All of the hearts are gone.

And from you no secrets are dead.

By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

And we may perfectly love you.

And we're willing to make you name it.

The Lord be with you.

Also with you.

Let us pray.

Grant, most merciful God, that your church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples to the glory of your name.

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 chapel with Mr.

Alex in the back.

Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.

He said to his people, Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.

Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and in the event of war join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor.

They built supply cities, Pitham and Ramses for Pharaoh.

But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.

The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor.

They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed upon them.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Sheprah, and the other Pua, When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see them on the birth stool, if it is a boy, kill him.

But if it is a girl, she shall live.

But the midwives feared God.

They did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.

So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, Why have you done this and allowed the boys to live?

The midwives said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.

So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong.

And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.

Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, every boy that is born to the Hebrews ye shall throw into the Nile, which ye shall let every girl live.

Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman.

The woman conceived and bore a son.

And when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months.

When she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and plastered it with vitamin and a pitch.

She put the child in it and placed him among the replaced it among the reeds on the bank of the river.

His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her attendants walked beside the river.

She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it.

When she opened it, she saw the child.

He was crying and she took pity on him.

This must be one of the Hebrews' children, she said.

Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?

Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Yes.

So the girl went and called the child's mother.

Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.

So the woman took the child and nursed it.

When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and she took him as her son.

She named him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water.

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

If the Lord had not been on our side, if the Lord had not been on our side, when he had Israel up against us, then would they have swallowed us up alive?

And their ears came before us.

Then would the waters have overwhelmed us.

And over us.

Then would the raging waters over us.

Blessed be the Lord.

We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowl.

Our help is in the name of the Lord.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

For as in one body we have many members, and not all members have the same function.

So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.

We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, prophecy in proportion to faith, ministry in ministering, the teacher in teaching, the exhorter in exhortation, the giver in generosity, the leader in diligence, the compassionate in cheerfulness.

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

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is?

And they said, Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

Jesus said to them, Who do you say that I am?

Simon Peter answered, Well, you're the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

And he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

The gospel of the Lord.

The big question for the day is who do you say that I am?

And I don't know if it's occurred to you.

We have four Gospels, and if you've read them even just at the surface level, they're not all the same.

Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, they're similar, but they're a little different.

Let me just share with you a couple, and you may decide they don't make much difference to you, but uh there's a reason to do this.

In Matthew, Jesus gets up and he gives a sermon on the mount, right?

That's what we read, Sermon on the Mount.

But in Luke, he gives a sermon on the plain.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit.

In Luke, Jesus says, Blessed are the poor, period.

Maybe that doesn't make much difference, but it's different.

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, first week of Holy Week, first day of Holy Week, Jesus goes and he drives the money changers out of the temple.

And John, he does it in chapter 3.

Maybe he did it twice.

I don't know.

But what I want to suggest to you is there's four Gospels, and this verse, to me, this question, this reading says, why stop at four?

The real question is, who does Jim say Jesus is?

And who does Renata say Jesus is?

And who does Mike and Kathy and Lewis say who do you say that Jesus is?

There's not just supposed to be one.

There's supposed to be as many gospels I would put forward as there are people, because we all are going to do it a little different.

The question is, though, when presenting your gospel, whether through what you say or how you present yourself or where you choose to stand, what identity do you give truth to?

This is like very convicting, honestly, to hear, which takes me right into that long reading from Exodus.

This is a story about, for lack of a better word, colonialism and civil disobedience.

You probably know the Moses story, but pay attention, there's two women named here, which is extremely rare culturally.

Shifra and Puh get their names read because they did something.

The Pharaoh says, kill the baby boys as midwives.

Keep in mind this whole story hinges on prejudice.

The Egyptians are afraid of the Israelites.

They think they're barbarians, like slightly humanoid, but not quite full.

Sounds like colonization, doesn't it?

And then these two ladies, they don't obey the Pharaoh.

And they tell the Pharaoh, well, you were right.

These Hebrew people, they're not like us.

They just pop babies out left and right before we can even get there.

They lean into the Pharaoh's own cultural prejudice to exonerate what they've done.

Right?

And what they've chosen to do.

Do you see the line in front?

They do this because they fear God.

And I don't know if you realize that the Pharaoh declared that he was a god.

So I don't want to over Christianize this, right?

Because obviously they weren't listening to Jesus, but who Does Shifra and Pua say that God is?

They say God is somebody who does not delight in killing babies to appease a Pharaoh.

Whether his name is Pharaoh or Jim Crow.

They risk their lives doing this.

Right?

They risk their lives.

And ultimately, in the end, it works out.

You read the rest of the story, and Pharaoh has this awful edict.

You're going to kill the baby boys.

Moses gets put in the basket, and then here comes the really great part, right?

Pharaoh's own sister doesn't think Pharaoh's a god because she disobeys him too.

She adopts Moses as her own child and raises him in the palace.

I don't think as American Christians we often find ourselves, well, maybe I'll just speak for myself.

I don't know that I've often found myself in this circumstance.

I don't know that I do.

But I do think we often find ourselves in a circumstance where we are, frankly, questioned what we will give witness to without realizing that we're there.

I got invited yesterday to do this thing that was very much not a thing I wanted to do.

There's this thing called Texas Impact, and it is part of the Interfaith Coalition downtown, and their goal really is to work with different houses of worship throughout the city, not just Christian ones, to help people get out the boat.

And so they asked for Bishop Monterosa to go, and he said, why don't you have some deans, some of the deans go?

So there's two other guys who know a lot more about this than I do, and then there's me.

So I'm in this panel with three other people, and I'm just going to tell you, I vote.

I do, I vote quietly, and that's kind of what I grew up with.

And they asked me, like, hey, what's the what's voting like in your denomination?

And keep in mind, there's like three other people that are like brilliant and cool, and and and like then there's me, right?

So so it was like an interesting fetus thing to be able to say, like, yeah, as an Episcopalian, uh, we have the biggest democratic.

I want to make sure I get this right.

We host the biggest democratic election in the world every three years.

This is true.

The General Convention of the Episcopal Church is the biggest democratic election in the world.

Happens every three years, there's more than a thousand delegates.

That's how big it is, right?

In person.

Democratic election.

I didn't grow up just uh Episcopalian.

I actually grew up in a different tradition.

And what political engagement looked like for us, honestly, is that we brazenly endorsed candidates based on how they stood on two issues.

Two.

And we said, go ahead, take our nonprofit status away if you want to, Uncle Sam, because we know these two things are right.

That's happening.

I listened to my peers going next to me.

Uh one of them is the pastor at Brentwood Baptist, which is a historically black church.

Right?

He's still there, he's been there 43 years.

Uh historically black church in Houston.

He said, Here's how we do this.

In our new visitor packet, we put a voter registration slip because people need to vote.

I thought, well, that would never occur to me to do that.

Just wouldn't occur to me.

That would feel really political.

I talked to one of my peers who's speaking today, Victor Thomas.

He's the priest at St.

James in the Third Ward.

And I said, Victor, like, I don't really know exactly what I'm doing here.

Like, what are you gonna say?

He said, Well, yeah, this is great.

He said, Here's what I'm gonna say, because St.

James, historically black church, has been a polling place for like 50 years, and we got shut down four years ago.

They wouldn't let us be a polling place.

So people came to St.

James on foot to vote, as they had done for years and years and years.

And then, because we weren't a polling place, the next place they could vote was like three and a half miles away.

And Victor said, Well, here's what I'm giving witness to.

That's called voter suppression.

And Mike, that may not be happening in Clear Lake, but that's happening here, and I'm your colleague, and you need to say that.

Yeah, so so um so so there I am, right?

Uh on this on this panel.

And uh the lady next to me is is a member of the Sikh tradition.

Uh we we usually say it's Sikh in English, but but it's pronounced Sikh.

And and she was the first female Sikh judge elected in a nation.

And she says, here's how we did that.

We got an app, this is true, there's this app, that tells you you can look up by a name whether somebody's voted in real time.

Now it didn't tell you who they voted for, but you can look up and see whether Jim and Beth have voted.

So she'd say, Jim, I want to remind you to go vote for me today.

And he'd say, Of course I'm going to, and she'd text back and say, But you haven't yet, so go do that.

I thought, wow, that's really uncomfortable.

But I want you to hear, that's kind of what's happening with Shifra and Pua, right?

They're they're saying, this is uncomfortable, and because we fear God, we're gonna do that.

And I know I'm talking about elections, I know I'm talking about that, but I think we all get, like, as a group of people, and this is part of our gift as American people, right?

The way we affect change in the Third World is that we vote.

And I like to do it quietly.

And I do, I like to do it quietly because I grew up in a place where it didn't happen well.

And the guy next to me reminded me, the Lutheran bishop uh uh of the ELCA, he said, you know, one of the problems that we do is that we were afraid to talk about politics, and actually the gospel is all about politics.

The thing we're not supposed to do is talk about partisanship.

And I think he's right about that.

I think he's right about that.

And I think whether we're talking about the polls or how we comport ourselves in daily life, and I do comport myself in daily lives in a lot of ways, but because of what I'm wearing, bear witness to who I say Jesus is.

And when we identify ourselves as people of faith, we're doing that too.

So the question is, who is who do we say Jesus is by how we vote, by whether we vote, by how we drive, by how we treat baristas at Starbucks when we're in a hurry.

I mean, this is just regular old stuff, and people in the Bible do this over and over and over again.

And we're in that group.

And then there's this part about Peter, right?

And we all get, if you if you grew up Roman Catholic, or if you know about the Roman Catholic doctrine, this is a story called the primacy of Peter, and this is the doctrine in which Peter becomes the first bishop of Rome and becomes the Pope.

You're Peter on this rock, like pointing at you.

Of course, Jesus could have been pointing at a rock, like we don't know, right?

Like there's no, we don't know, right?

But on you, I'm gonna build my church and the keys, right?

I don't know if you've seen the Vatican City flag, it's got the keys, that's the key to heaven and hell, and Peter has those keys, right?

And so a lot of us have used the story that way, like, oh look, that's just like the doctrine of the Pope.

But I want to suggest to you, like, that it's not really applicable to them at the time, because there wasn't like Rome.

Peter was like living there, right?

So I want to maybe give you a different angle about how we do this, how it is that we bear witness to Jesus, and I've got good news for you.

I don't think we always have to do it right.

Peter says this interesting thing.

He says, You're the Messiah, the Son of God, and Jesus says, Hey, great, like that didn't come from you.

You got a wild idea, and it didn't come from you, and follow me.

On wild ideas like that, I'm gonna build my church.

Sometimes we think Peter really just was a laudable individual, but have you read the story?

Do you know what happens with the guy?

Now, the rock he's gonna build the church on, do you know what he does on uh on Monday, Thursday?

The rock does what?

Denies him one, two, three times.

Here's good news.

If you think you're not worthy to serve God as a rock, you probably are.

Right?

The rock he built the church on denied him three times.

And listen, I don't think Jesus was put off by that.

We talked about rocks five weeks ago.

Remember there was that parable of the sower, where the sower throws out the seed and some falls on the path, and some falls in the rocks, and some falls in the thorns, and some falls on the good soil and grows, right?

The seeds that fall on the rocky soil, they shoot up real fast.

They get some wild cockamane good God ideas.

And they don't have great roots, so they wither.

Sometimes we might think those people bless their hearts.

They just never follow through.

But they also do something.

So this is an interesting thing to think about.

Maybe Jesus is not put off by rocky soil, maybe not.

Maybe, sadly, like I mentioned last week, we get perfection wrong because we think perfection means we have to be right instead of we try to get it right.

So, what if the church is built on rocky soil, like we get an idea that's greater than ourselves, and we go forward, and maybe we don't always make it, and God's not mad about that.

Because over time, if enough of us did that, you know it would happen.

We would break those rocks.

One tiny little root hair would slip into that rock, and in geologic time, it wouldn't take long to break it.

Now, in human time, maybe, but in geologic time, that's how rocks get broken.

They get broken by tiny little root hairs.

Sometimes I think we hear this story and we can extoriart ourselves.

I mean, maybe, but I don't think that God wants you to come to God in shame or guilt, because um, psychologically speaking, that's not healthy.

It's just not.

Instead, maybe there's an opportunity to say, I may not have to get it perfect.

I may not have to get it perfect.

But what could I do?

What could I do?

I could tell the pharaoh this story.

Yeah, like you're prejudiced against these people, and and and you're right, and that's why they have all these babies.

Um I'm probably not gonna be in that position.

Because I'm not a midwife, uh, among other reasons.

But I might be in a position where people drive through our food distribution and I give them voter registration cards because I can't.

Because I can't.

They have to take them from me.

I can put them in the food.

Will they fill them out?

I don't know.

And is that gonna change the world?

I I don't know if it's gonna change the world tomorrow, but as I mentioned, uh, more and more I think God is probably playing the long game, and we don't like to play the long game.

We like to be the bedrock foundation that you can build a cathedral on instead of realizing that actually there's something great about rocky soil, and there's something great about the ways that God can terraform the world slowly.

But here's the thing about it.

Um and Paul says this really well present yourself as a living sacrifice.

And by the way, sometimes we think sacrifice means you kill a thing, and it doesn't.

The word sacrifice means you make something holy, you set something apart.

So in my mother's china cabinet, there's a whole thing of vessels that are set apart.

We don't use them every day.

And when we do, it's like a special thing, right?

So uh this is a great reminder.

It may not be something you do every day.

Is there something you can do that's set apart so that you can present yourself as a sacrifice to God?

And maybe if you voted in an election you didn't want to.

Maybe it's you encouraged your friend to just vote without telling them how they had to do it.

Or maybe you just took your time and looked somebody in the eye when they were scanning your groceries, because that happens about once a day for most checkers.

Right?

Most people, you've seen them, you've maybe been one.

You do this while they're checking your groceries because they're just there to serve you.

But they're human beings.

Those are people that we don't often see, and I know that sounds like a small sacrifice, that's fine.

The kingdom of God is built on small sacrifices.

Small ones.

There's all kinds of soil in the world, and sure, I do wish I was the good soil and that I bore a harvest 60, 30, 100 times bigger.

But I would say at the end of my priesthood and at the end of my spiritual journey, if I'm asked who do I say Jesus is, I don't want my answer to be nothing.

Because I didn't say it.

Anyway.

And I like thinking through, and I like getting it right.

And I also like doing something instead of God.

Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Priest.

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of the Earth, for all that is me.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only God, eternally, God, life of the light, we don't have to be the father, remove all the things of the partner, I don't know how to call it to bear.

I don't think.

And it's easy to have the five.

We would need to error.

We would do one.

We don't want to look for the method of the dead.

We look for the resurrection of the dead and the back of the world of common.

Father, we pray for your holy Catholic Church.

That we all may be one.

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 Kay, our bishops.

In the diocesan cycle of prayer, St.

Cornelius Church, Plant, Belton, St.

Francis's Temple, St.

John's Marlin, and St.

Joseph's Salato.

For Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury, for the priest in our community, for Mike, Craig, and Jim, and for all bishops, priests and deacons.

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

That they may be justice and people on the earth.

We pray for our parish and our veteran.

For our kingdom and our clearly and minister of everyone.

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

Have compassion on those who suffer from any grief or trouble.

Give to the departed eternal rest.

We praise you for St.

Thomas the Apostle and your saints who have entered into joy.

May we also come to share in your heavenly kingdom.

Let us give thanks for our blessings and pray for our own needs and those of others, especially those in our parish prayer lists 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 and all whom our intercessions are acceptable through the Spirit and who lives and reigns forever and ever.

Amen.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So let us confess our sin against God and our neighbor.

The hatred that divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class, father forgive.

The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own.

Father, forgive.

The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth.

Father, forgive.

Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others.

Father, forgive.

Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee.

Father, forgive.

The lust which dishonors the bodies of women, children, and men.

Father, forgive.

The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God.

Father, forgive.

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.

So be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

And before we do the peace, I'm going to ask you to be seated, because today we are going to get to do a lovely induction for our daughters of the King.

So I'm going to ask our new daughters to come stand in the center.

If you're a veteran daughter of the King, you're welcome to come up and support on the wings.

And there's a service we do of admission.

So you'll get to hear more about the Daughters of the King as we do this service.

It is my privilege to present Alicia Baker, Janelle Goshczyk, Mary McFarther, Susan Schroyer, Janie Barnhart, Graciella Cavello, Deborah Rice, Janie Prestigamo, and Goon Frame as candidates for membership in the Order of the Daughters of the King.

So we're gathered here in the sight of God and before this congregation to admit these women into the Order of the Daughters of the King.

We commend them to your earnest prayers, that they may have grace to fulfill the invitations of the order, and that their labors may be to the glory of God and to the welfare of God's people.

So for all of our new candidates, and for everybody else, this is good to hear.

The Daughters of the King is an order for women whose mission is the extension of Christ's kingdom, especially among women and girls, through prayer, service, and evangelism.

Do you desire to become a member of the order of the daughters of the king?

Do you promise to faithfully live into the two rules of the order, the rule of prayer and the rule of service?

To offer your support to the clergy for the good of the parish and the extension of God's family.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, I receive and admit you as members of the Order of the Daughter of the King.

Everybody watching, your answer is going to be, we will, if you're so willing.

Will you support these women in their ministry of prayer and service?

We will.

Now, our daughters wear a cross, that's a sign of their order, either as a pendant or a pen.

So I'm going to bless these crosses and then offer them out to our new members.

Bless the Lord these crosses, and grant to your servants now admitted into this order such an abundance of your grace that they may wear the sacred symbol and the spirit of humility and with devotion to the service of the King of Kings.

Amen.

So each of you accept and wear faithfully the cross of the order, remembering the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, take up your cross and follow me.

There's a prayer for our new members.

I think if we all do it together, everybody will hear it.

Almighty God, help me to pray so faithfully that I may draw near to you and learn your will.

Help me to serve so joyfully that others may be drawn to you.

May your Holy Spirit guide me each day, that all I think, do, or say may be pleasing in your sight.

I ask it for the sake of Jesus Christ, whose cross I wear.

Amen.

And then there's a larger prayer for all the daughters.

I invite you to join me if you've got uh got this before you.

O eternal God, you have sent us Jesus to teach us things pertaining to your heavenly family.

Give your blessing to our order, wherever it may be throughout the world, that we might be a blessing to the world you created in love.

Grant that we, your daughters, ever may discern your truth and bear the cross throughout our growth in earthly life.

Give us strength to overcome temptation, and the grace to work to spread your kingdom and to gather your scattered sheep within your fold.

Pour out upon us the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit, that we may always remember it is your work we are called to do, that all we think, do, or say may be pleasing in your sight.

Amen.

May your love, O Lord, help the daughters live lives of love.

And may your holiness lead them to be examples of virtue, that they, being strengthened by your Holy Spirit, may pray and serve you all their days through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

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

Amen.

Okay, now we are going to install and announce our new officers.

So we get a two for one today.

So uh Ellen.

Okay, do you want to read all of our new officers?

Our new president is James Lynn.

Hawthorne.

Kathy Reinghold is Secretary.

Carrie Powell will be our treasurer.

Bonnie Ryan will maintain the prayer list.

And Jamie Tolman will do the care cards.

So we're also gathered today to install the elected officers of the St.

Bridget's chapter of the Daughters of the King.

That's the order here at St.

Thomas.

And as in the presence of God and each other, let us hear covenant with God and with one another to do the things we believe God would have us do and to try to do well whatever we attempt.

Let us offer ourselves to God that God may continually work through us.

So this is especially directed to the officers, and your line's gonna be, I will with God's help.

Officers, you have been chosen by these your friends to serve in a position of responsibility.

To you comes the call of leadership.

Upon all rests the obligation of cooperation.

Receiving now the responsibility placed upon you, will you agree to devote yourselves to the task that your office demands, continually seeking to be used by your Lord Jesus Christ?

With God's help.

That's really important with God's help.

Okay, um, to all of our members.

As members of the Order, your duty in this coming term is to cooperate with the officers you've chosen and to work together to fulfill the rules of prayer and service here in this congregation and beyond.

Beyond a promise of prayer and support and cooperation, offering your best efforts.

I'm going to ask for your loyalty to the mission of the daughters of the king, and your line is, I will with God's help.

Okay.

May God richly bless you and all your efforts to the glory of God's name for God's own sake.

Amen.

So lovely word.

If you've ever been to a funeral at St.

Thomas, these ladies put on the hospitality, sometimes for people they've never even met.

And I've done now 200 funerals.

And I have never been a group of people that have such outrageous hospitality as the women that you're looking at here.

And that is like one of those lovely things, ways in which we represent God with offensive, generous hospitality.

These are the women who are praying for you.

So if you ever say, I have a prayer request, can I get on a prayer list?

These are they, along with me.

I know I'm like a son of the king, but we're in this together, right?

So uh we don't normally do this, but um in thanksgiving and recognition of your service, I think it's appropriate that we platform.

And blessings as you continue to administer.

Uh thanks, ladies.

And now for everybody else, I'm gonna ask us to stand together.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

Hey, thanks for worshiping with us at St.

Thomas today.

Uh, if you're new to us or haven't done this before, there are some little cards in the room right behind the one you're sitting in called the Narthex, and they say welcome.

And we'd be tremendously grateful if you fill one of those out and put it in the blue basket.

And you can decide if I call you or not.

If you don't want to call, you won't get one.

But we'd be really grateful if you fill one out.

And thank you for joining us today.

Um, there are several announcements I want to call to your attention.

Many of them you'll find on a little handout that's also out there in the Narthex.

It kind of gives you an idea of what we're doing for the month.

Uh, today there's a couple of things.

The first is the blood drive.

And look, not everybody can.

If you can, please, please consider it.

Right?

It's like one of those things.

I don't know how to fix, I don't know how to fix the Russian-Ukraine situation, but I know they need my blood.

And and I'm in 10 days I'm able to give it again.

So when you're able, whether it's here or somewhere else, please, please, please give blood.

Um, the other thing that's happening this afternoon is a pool party, and thankfully it will be indoors.

So low chance of heat stroke, I think.

Uh that'll be at 3.30.

And you can still sign up on the link so we get enough uh heads up to get food, or you can just show up.

It'll be at from 3:30 to 5.30 at the Emler Swim School.

A couple things that are happening this week.

Um, we've just started a Tuesday evening Bible study.

It's be reviewing the book of 1 Corinthians for the rest of the year.

Um, and if you missed the first week, you're okay.

We haven't actually started into the book.

We'll we'll we'll slowly ramp into that.

So if you come this Tuesday, you won't have missed out on much.

Um and again, this will be a 14-week study into 1 Corinthians Tuesday nights from 6.30 to 7.30.

The other thing we're starting this week as part of our fall programming on Wednesday morning from 9 to 10.15, and we do record all of these, and there's a Zoom option in case you're traveling or you have a work meeting or something.

Uh, on Wednesday morning 9 to 10.15, we're starting a class that's an appreciative inquiry into world religion.

So, for example, this week we'll hear about how it is we're going to do this, and then next week we'll start by studying Judaism, and then we'll move on to some of the other larger world religions.

Again, from an appreciative angle.

So, what you will not hear in this class is here's how they're wrong.

And if you do, like I quit because I didn't get it right.

So the goal is here's what the way of life looks like so that we can appreciate it.

So that will start this Wednesday from 9 to 10:15.

Um, many of you are very faithful servants with the Galveston County Food Distribution and the Food Bank.

And normally we would have one next Saturday, but because it's Labor Day, their offices are closed.

So if you had marked your calendar for next Saturday, just unmark it.

We'll be back October the 7th.

We'll be the next fresh food distribution in the parking lot.

Um, we're doing a couple of things next week that are worth hearing.

Uh it's a little tough week as we go back to school that our school is not back in session because we have closed it.

So it is really important to us, to your vestry, to everybody in the building, I think, that we're faithful stewards of this property that we have so that we can support ministry that our community needs.

So the way we want to do this is figuring out what our next most visible ministry we're gonna sponsor is.

And you'll see on that sheet or in your e-news, we're having some conversations around that.

The first opportunity is next Sunday between services, and then there'll be one in the morning and one in the evening on Monday.

If that doesn't work for you, let me know.

There's also, because we want every voice that has something to say included.

There's also a form you can fill out in the email and send that in in case you can't be present at a meeting.

But of course, our goal is that we leverage our assets to do what the community needs, right?

And that we take very seriously.

So here's the good news: you don't even have to be willing to do your own idea.

It could be really cockaming.

It could be, and uh, we'd like to have it anyway.

Like we would like to have it because we're in the idea gathering phase, and then we'll put the pen to paper a little bit later in September and start figuring out how we're gonna how we're gonna grow into this new ministry that that we think God is calling us to, even though we don't know what it is yet.

Um so again, you'll you'll see that on the handout.

The other thing that uh I'm really happy to announce to you uh we have our new organ scholar here.

So this is uh JP Schauben.

Did I say it right?

Yes, it's okay.

So here's JP, and JP is going to be helping us all year as our organ scholar.

He's a student at U University of Houston, right?

Um, studying organ, and uh is going to be uh leading our working with Garmin to lead congregational singing here and playing our preludes and postludes as we go throughout the year.

And JP is here just in time because our choir starts in two weeks.

Now we have sorely missed the choir all summer, right?

They are so fantastic.

It's like one of the best things about the 1030 service.

And maybe you'd like to be in the choir.

So we always accept folks who are so inclined, and Garmin's about as good as it gets.

Everybody in Houston agrees.

So if you want fine choral instruction and somebody who is faithful and thoughtful to boot, there's your guy, and the choir is this amazing community.

So um talk to Garmin if you're interested, because practices actually happen on Sunday mornings, sometimes on Thursday evenings as well, kind of an either-or, and that'll be starting, as I mentioned, their first time will be the week after Labor Day, September 10th.

So there's still time to think about singing in the choir.

Uh last thing I want to mention, and because it's because it's a deadline, um I've told you a couple of weeks ago that uh we had a parishioner that gave a targeted gift to build a memorial garden out here that's gonna include a St.

Francis statuary.

And you can inscribe the name of a pet that you'd like to remember on that pedestal.

And I kind of need to know if you want to do that for the first round like tomorrow, uh, because they're building this statue, like sculpting it, and they're gonna sculpt the names into it.

There'll be other opportunities to add names down the road, but the first go deadline is tomorrow.

If you've never heard of this or you don't even know why we would do it, I'd be so happy to talk to you about it in person or email because it really is a lovely gift and a lovely offering for us to remember people and pets who have been part of our family.

Uh so continue to walk in love.

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

And of your own.

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.

But because the church invites you, it is Christ.

He invites you to meet him here.

Our service continues on page 369 of your red prayer book.

Page 369.

Let us give thy thanks 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.

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

By your will they were created and have their being.

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, and we turned against one another.

Have mercy, 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 law, to open for us the ways of freedom and peace.

By his blood he reconciled us.

By his wounds 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 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, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, Take, eat.

This is my body, all that I am, which is given to build you up.

Whenever you eat bread, remember me.

Likewise, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks to God, and said, Drink this, all of you.

This is my life force, given to nourish your own.

Whenever you drink wine, remember me.

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

Lord God of our parents, of Shifra and Pua, God of Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, Keturah, of Isaac and Rebekah, of 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, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.

Accept these prayers and praises, 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.

And now, as our Savior Christ hath taught us, we are bold to pray.

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 the day our holy 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.

Hallelujah.

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

Hallelujah.

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

Almighty and ever-living God, we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the body of your Son, and heirs of your eternal kingdom.

And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do.

To love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord, to Him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit, beyond our glory, now and forever.

Amen.

May God give you the grace never to sell yourself short.

Grace to risk something big for something good, and grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but the truth, and too small for anything but love.

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.