Trinity Sunday 2023

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

Let's pray together.

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.

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

Amen.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, you've given to us, your children, grace by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine majesty to worship the unity.

Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father, who with the Son and Holy Spirit live and reign, one God forever and ever.

As you're being seated, our children are invited to children's chapel with Alexander.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Then God said, Let there be light.

And there was light, and God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

God called the light day, and the darkness he called night, and there was evening, and there was morning the first day.

And God said, Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.

So God made the dome, and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome, and it was so.

God called the dome sky, and there was evening, and there was morning, the second day.

And God said, Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so.

God called the dry land earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called seeds.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it, and it was so.

The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it, and God saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

And God said, Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.

And it was so.

God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars.

God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.

And God saw that it was good, and there was evening and there was morning the fourth day.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.

So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind.

And God saw that it was good.

God blessed them, saying, Brief, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters and the sea, and let the birds multiply on the earth.

And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind, cattle and creeping things, and wild animals of the earth of every kind.

And it was so.

God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind, and God saw it, that it was good.

Then God said, Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

So God created humankind in his image.

In the image of God he created them, male and female, he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the everything that moves upon the earth.

God said, See, I have given you every plant yielding the seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit.

You shall have them for food.

And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant of food.

And it was so.

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good.

And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude.

And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.

So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

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

The psalm for today is Psalm eight.

We will read responsibly by the half verse.

O Lord, our Lord.

When I consider your heavens the work of your fingers.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

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

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.

When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.

Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you.

Remember, I'm with you always to the end of the age.

The gospel of the Lord.

To be honest, this is an idea, a doctrine that so often we relegate to fun fact that I think we miss the opportunity to consider our invitation to live as God is.

So first, a little history, and I'm going to be all over the place because I've only got 15 minutes.

A little history.

We read this in Matthew.

Jesus says, baptize folks in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

All the historical research I've read says people were doing that before there was a doctrine of the Trinity.

That is, they were doing the thing without having like written voluminously about what it means.

So the thing happened first, and the explanation continues to unravel.

We call that in Latin lexerandi, lex credendi, that which is practiced is the thing we give weight to.

So early Christians were doing this in baptism, and we're still trying to figure out what it means, because what do you know?

It's a mystery.

And if we ever think we've totally got it figured out, we probably are wrong.

So the other thing I gotta tell you up front, there's this German romantic uh philosopher named Friedrich Schlegel, and he says uh very pointedly that language has limits and God does not.

Which means anytime we do theology, we're committing blasphemy.

Get ready for some blasphemy.

Are you ready?

But I hope, again, it will guide us to thinking through the inner nature of the Trinity.

One problem we have with the Trinity, honestly, is that I know what a father is, because I had one and then everybody else did in the room, whether they were present or not.

I know what a son is or what a daughter is.

So it's the Holy Spirit.

This is a challenge that we have.

Another challenge I would tell you is boy, we don't really do well with things like oligarchies.

I mean, at the end of the day, we want to know who has the last word, as if it's one person.

So uh to be honest, most of what we do liturgically is not super Trinitarian.

When's the last time you prayed to the Holy Spirit?

I'm suspicious it's been a bit.

You want to know why that is?

That's because about 1700 years ago there was this guy called Montanus, and he said, Hey, Jesus was the incarnation of the Son, I'm the incarnation of the Holy Spirit.

He was a popular guy, people liked him.

And then he died, and that was the end, and other people said, Boy, we're not gonna be we're not gonna be fooled for that again.

This is part of it.

We've got some charismatic, charismatic suspicion.

Another thing that we struggle with, right, like I said, is that the Trinity is not hierarchical, but we're not used to that.

Usually we think, ah, Father, that's better than the Son, because like Son comes from the Father and Holy Spirit, again, whatever that is, that's like in the third category.

That's classical heresy.

And it is something that most of us functionally do if we're honest.

Who gets to make the decision at the end of the day?

No one does.

This is the Trinity.

No one does.

We do it together or we don't do it.

That might sound really inefficient.

One thing the Bible gets over and over again, it is that God is not efficient.

It took the Israelites 40 years to take a 40-day journey.

If God really wanted it in 40 days, well, there'd have been one of those moving sidewalks to the desert, and there wasn't.

So these are just important things to call out.

One of the things we struggle with in the Trinity, again, is the limits of language.

So maybe you've heard that some people have updated the language so that it can be a little more not only inclusive, but relatable.

So uh there has been a trend for about 30 years in churches, instead of father, son, spirit, to say, okay, let's use the words creator, sustainer, redeemer.

Anybody heard these before?

Nothing wrong with them conceptually, right?

They help you get an understanding.

But did you know that that's heretical to do?

The Nicene Creed came up with two lovely ideas.

One is that the Trinity is not a mode of helping you understand God.

If we say the Father's job is this, the Son's job is this, the Holy Spirit's job is this, we've done the classic American problem.

We've defined somebody based on what they do.

Now, there may not be much more to me than what I do, but there is something.

And there is more to God than creating.

And there's more to the Son than redeeming.

So we don't want to limit God to roles.

Again, that's called modalism.

The council of Nicaea said we're not going to do that.

We still do it.

There is also something really limited.

We heard this in Genesis.

God decided to create human beings in God's image-likeness, and God created male and female.

Do you notice that?

And yet, linguistically, we say Father, Son, male, male, Holy Spirit, question mark.

Right?

So I had a Freedom Seminary.

We took a class together.

This is a little bit modalist, but it helps us kind of make the image more robust.

She made as her final project a sculpture of the Trinity that was centered in female imagery.

So it was a mother giving birth to a child with a midwife facilitating the birth.

It's kind of a lovely idea, right?

To think about the creator, the new creation, and the facilitation, right?

And it also expounded: hey, if women and men are in God's image, God is not more one than the other.

In fact, there's more women on the planet than men.

So if we were going to like play the percentages, we need to work on our language.

And this is a thing that we have to remember that language, as much as it guides us to God, can help limit God as well.

So Trinity Sunday is this reminder: hey, God would like to break out of the molds we put God in.

And I'm about to do that if I can.

You've maybe seen this diagram before, but many of you know how to do math.

So I've got this lovely Venn diagram.

Now, look, you can say the circles should be closer or not.

But this is the classical Trinitarian diagram.

If you look out there in the Northics, you're gonna mostly see this triangle.

This is like typically what we see as Trinity, but Augustine drew it thusly.

Augustine is the one who came up with this diagram.

Now, again, Venn diagram language.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

You may say this area shouldn't be as big as it is.

That's fine, but I want you to notice if you know how to read a Venn diagram, the diagram says there are things unique to the Son.

That's the green.

There are things that the Son has that the Father and the Spirit don't.

There's things the Son shares with the Father that the Son doesn't share with the Spirit.

That's the purple area.

And then there's things that they all share in common, and that's the blue area.

You may say, I don't like that, but I want you to know it's the earliest diagram of the Trinity, and it's how you read a Venn diagram.

And I want to say there's something really lovely about this, even if in some ways it causes you to cough.

What this means to me is that the son might really like rap music, and the Holy Spirit might like classical music, and the father might like project music, and they all hate each other's music, and that's fine.

It actually is fine.

The father might be into really, well, I should just say it, realistic art.

Holy Spirit might be into abstract art, and the son might like origami.

It's actually a beautiful thing to think that we don't have to be uniform to be unified.

We don't have to be uniform to be unified.

That is, consider there might even be variation in the Godhead.

And they come together.

We got to read a really long passage, the creation of the whole world, right?

And part of the reason we read it, I would tell you, is because there's that phrase, let us.

Let us.

I want to come to that phrase, but first I want to talk about the big narratives.

You notice the very first thing God does is makes light and dark.

Not the sun and the moon, light and dark.

And what do you know?

After light and dark, there's an evening and a morning, there's a day.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters would say the first thing God makes is time.

Time itself.

Hey, Stephen Hawking would say that too, right?

Time is the first thing.

And I don't know if you notice too, but on the day seven, when God looks at everything and God rests, there is not an evening and a morning.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters said that was on purpose.

We're still living in the seventh day, they say.

It's not over.

And God is resting.

And resting doesn't mean doing nothing.

To me, resting means like what happened when I was about nine and I got a queen-sized bed.

Way too big.

But sure enough, what I like to do when I rested in that bed was fill it up as much as I could.

You give a kid a small bed, look what they do, right?

They do this.

I think what God's doing is that.

And the way God does this, I put before you might be with let us.

Now, our Jewish brothers and sisters don't believe in a Trinity.

They don't.

We can't help but read this passage with the Trinitarian doctrine.

I just want to make sure you know our Jewish brothers and sisters don't believe that.

What they usually do when they hear this us, they do one of two things.

They either say this is God talking to the heavenly court, in case you're interested, there's seven sons of God according to the Hebrew scriptures.

These are like angels or archangels, including some of them are named, right?

Michael and Gabriel show up, and so does Satan.

That's one of the sons of God, right?

So maybe God's talking to the heavenly court.

The other thing our Jewish brothers and sisters do is they say, hey, um, this could be the first person plural as a way of showing royalty.

So you probably know Queen Victoria would say things like, we are not amused.

She was talking about herself.

There was no we, it was her, but because the monarch was on top, they got this plurality.

It turns out there is a linguistic convention about talking to you about a sovereign in first-person plural throughout the ancient Near East.

So this is typically how our Jewish brothers and sisters interpret it.

What I want to share with you is I think this is a really good guide for what it looks like to accept unity without giving in to the temptation of uniformity.

It's okay you do it differently.

It's okay that we believe in different doctrines, but we are gonna be unified in worship.

The question we have to ask ourselves perpetually is how are we gonna do this together?

See, one of the things Bishop Doyle said when he was here about two years ago, somebody said, Hey, Bishop Doyle, like I just don't really get how we got so off with the biblical interpretation.

And one of the things Andy said that I really appreciate is that one of the setbacks of the Reformation is that we decided we could read the Bible completely by ourselves, interpret it, and live into it alone.

I have crazy ideas.

You're hearing some of them now.

If I only had to submit to my own ideas, I could do about anything there is.

Thanks be to God, there's us.

What Bishop Doyle said is when we read the Bible by ourselves, we can end up doing things like the Holocaust.

We can end up doing things like justifying slavery or enslaving other people.

You can find that in the book if you want to.

One of the joys we have, both in American government and as a community of faith, is we're able to say, hey, Jim, that's really cool, but I don't think so.

Like, let's rethink that, right?

That might be fun for you, but that costs other people, and they may not want to do that.

So let's ask first, right?

We have this opportunity to do what we call checks and balances, and if we read the Bible alone, we can so often end up worshiping ourselves.

More often than not, we don't read the Bible, it reads us.

It reads us.

Part of what's great is go ahead, bring your ideas, and where are we together?

I told you this is probably full of heresy, but I'm gonna share it anyway.

I don't know if you're like me, but there's passages in the Bible I just sometimes I don't like.

I don't know what to do with them.

I don't know what to do when I read the Hebrew Bible and God gets really mad and full of vengeance.

I don't like it.

To be honest with you, I don't even think God's like that.

But it's there.

It's gonna sound really wild.

Like I said, all theology is blasphemy, so here it comes.

I wonder if maybe the sun gets mad.

Maybe the sun just gets mad sometimes.

But there's a difference between being mad and committing acts of vengeance that are atrocities.

I wonder if the panoply of human experience is in the Bible and it's in God, but we're supposed to consider what do we do with it.

I don't believe God kills people because they don't love God.

I don't believe it.

I refuse to.

And yet I will also tell you, as generous as I want to be, my child can send me to crazy places in my head.

Maybe God's like that.

Maybe the son has like weird thoughts.

And then the father says, I get that, son, but let's not do that.

I sure would think that's a hopeful invitation to how we are meant to live together.

And I hope you hear what's great about that idea is that there's nothing you feel that is outside of God.

The question is, what do we do with our feelings?

How do we live together?

The together part.

If you've read anything about family systems theory, Bowen theory, maybe you've heard of this great uh term they teach us in pastoral care called triangulation.

Triangulation happens when there are three of us, and hey, maybe I'm not getting along really well with Beth.

So what I do is I say, Jim, you know, Beth, she's got a lot of problems, you know.

She's mean and capricious, and Jim says, Oh yeah, you know she is.

And all of a sudden we start to get closer together, and then Beth gets further away from us.

That's called triangulation.

Right?

It's when I start to think, hey, my relationship with Jim can only work at the exclusion of Beth.

Healthy living says, let's be self-differentiated and let's do this other thing that includes some boundaries, where I say, Jim, you know, Beth is driving me crazy, and Jim says, okay, I can hear that, but I think really it would be great if you talk to her about that instead of just telling me.

After all, I'm married to the lady and I'd like to stay married to her, right?

This is this is part of what it means to live in healthy community.

Instead of us saying, let's get together so Beth loses out, we say, How do we fix it so we can live together, especially, well, when we're agitated.

There's this lovely orthodox diagram of what it means to live in Trinity even within ourselves.

It looks like this.

Now, I try to draw this, and it's not to scale, but it's supposed to be an equilateral triangle.

And in the Orthodox community, what they say is that here's where you are today, like today.

And the three vertices are your distance from God, your distance from your neighbor, and the distance from the self God made you to be.

And what they say is if you ever get closer to God, you necessarily get closer to your neighbor and to the self God made you to be.

See this diagram down here?

Notice how the centers moved over.

Like I got closer to God and I got farther away from my neighbor because they're evil, because they don't vote like I do.

They say that's garbage.

What they say is if you get closer to God, you will love your neighbor more.

They say it's the only way it works.

Which means, they say, if you find yourself hating somebody, you might find yourself hating God.

I think it's right because it's hard.

I mean, I do.

And if you really consider it, the only way this works is that triangle gets smaller or it gets bigger.

But it never changes its angles.

We are always equidistant.

If you hate yourself, you cannot love your neighbor.

How could you love somebody else if you don't love who God made you to be?

If I don't appreciate the gifts God's given me when I see yours, I'll be jealous.

If I can accept and love what God gave me, then I can accept and love what God made you to be, especially when it's different.

That's called differentiation.

And that's called Trinitarian living.

Well, I think so anyway.

A couple years ago, somebody in the community chewed me out.

I mean, actually, it haven't been years.

I've just this story.

Uh it's been years.

They chewed me out.

I was a bad priest because I had ink on my arm.

And I do.

So I was a reprobate human being.

And uh one of our members was really sweet.

She said, Mike, I don't care if you have that tattoo or not.

The lady, the guy in line behind her said, I do care that you've got it because it means something to you, even if it doesn't mean anything to me.

I think that's Trinitarian written.

It's not for me.

But I see it matters to you, and I wouldn't change it.

Because if I did, I'd be changing you.

Maybe that's how the Trinity behaves in heaven.

I hope so, actually.

And I want you to consider the implications of the Trinity.

When we choose to love each other, we're not being nice, we're being like God is.

There's a difference between being nice and doing our duty, and being God like.

When I look at my neighbor who's different from me, and I say, There is God, I'm being like God.

Maybe you've heard this great poem called God's trombones.

It was written by James Weldon Johnson during the Harlem Renaissance, and it says something like, God was lonely, I know what I'll do, I'll make me a world.

I'll make me a world so I won't be alone.

It's a beautiful poem, but I don't like it because I want to suggest to you what the Trinity uh gives us an opportunity to do.

The Trinity gives us an opportunity to do, well, what happened with my daughter?

See, I loved my daughter before she was born.

I didn't know it.

Why did I love my daughter before she was born?

Because I love my wife.

And my daughter is the icon of the love I have for my wife.

I wasn't incomplete without my daughter.

I look at her and I see the love I had and have and hope to have with my wife.

She is a picture of all the love I hope to have.

So I loved her before she was born.

What if the Trinity's like that?

What if the Trinity made the universe not because they were lonely?

Frankly, because they were already full of love for each other, and we are the icon of God's love.

Father for son, father for spirit, spirit for spirit, spirit for son.

What if we represent that?

And hey, if you've ever wondered, why does God love us when we feel so unlovable?

Well, maybe it's the same as I feel about my daughter.

Because we remind God of who God is.

I love Jesus so much, says the Father, I made Jim.

Boy, Jim, I love you because you look like the love I have for my son.

What if our love for one another could do like God's, overflow, and make some new stuff?

This is, I think, the invitation of being in a Trinity.

And what if the Trinity also reminds us there isn't just one way to do things?

You heard this part in Genesis 1.

The earth is the Lord's.

What if the Trinity started to push each other in creation?

What if?

The son said, I got a really crazy idea.

What if we made a fish that's born in fresh water and then grows up in the ocean and then swims back and lays its eggs?

That'd be crazy.

And the spirit said, We should do that.

Let's make a salmon.

What if the father said, I got this crazy idea.

Let's make a naked mole rat.

Which is like the ugliest thing in the world.

And the son and the spirit said, Yeah, that's not my kind of art, but like you do that.

Like you do that.

Of course, you don't have to go very far outside.

You can even see it from out here.

If God wanted us all to be the same, God wouldn't have made that.

It isn't the same.

None of it's the same.

There aren't two leaves on that tree that are the same.

This is part of, I think, the invitation to Trinitarian living, is to say, how can we be creative together, even if we've got different ideas?

Look, Estes Park is inspiring.

I was just there, it's beautiful.

But so is that lake.

And if we can only go to one place and find God, well, how do we even live with ourselves?

No, this is part of the Trinity.

God's out there in the bayou.

God's even in, well, Mississippi.

That's hard to believe, but God's there.

God's in Haiti.

God's in the Alps.

This is a message of the Trinity.

It's in creativity.

And one of the things that we're doing with this artist's way study that we started today is we're saying creativity is a spiritual discipline because God's created.

And since we're made in God's image and likeness, we are too, even if we resist it.

So the real question is, what kind of recreation do we do?

Now recreation sounds like play, but consider the word recreation.

Quite honestly, everything we do will recreate us one way or another.

Painting will do it.

Saying, thank you, we'll do it.

Looking at our neighbor and saying, God's not there, we'll recreate you.

It will.

The question is, are we recreated into God's identity?

Or into something less of that?

We say here, we can do more together.

And that's our tagline.

That's what the Venn diagram shows.

There's the Father, and there's the Son, and there's the Spirit.

And they're all God and they're all great and they're all perfect.

And they can do more together.

They can do more together.

You know what?

I bet the Trinity does really well.

I bet they don't talk about the third member when they're not there.

Right?

Oh, Jesus, you won't believe what the Holy Spirit did.

Well, let's involve the Holy Spirit in that conversation.

Right?

Let's iron this out.

I think that's how we live in the Trinitarian identity.

Look, we all want to do it differently.

We do.

That's a lovely thing.

Let us do it together.

Let us do it together.

Knowing that us together, it's not only going to be happier, it's going to be better than me by myself.

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

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

We believe in one.

Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally unto the Father, I begotten and name, only being of the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, he came on life of the Virgin Mary, and was made of man.

For our sake he was crucified and conscious by suffered death and prepared.

On the third day he birthed again, according to the scriptures, he ascended to heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory and judge the living dead, and his kingdom will happen.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who grows teaching from the Father and the Son.

When the Father and the Son He is worshiped and glorified, He is also Christ.

We believe in one Holy Ghost and the Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead in the life of the Lord.

Amen.

Let us pray for the 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, hear our prayer.

We pray for the leaders of all nations that they may seek to do your will for the welfare of the people they lead and serve.

We pray for those holding public office in our nation, that they may be guided by your gifts of wisdom and charity.

We thank you, Creator God, for the beauty, majesty, and abundance of your creation, especially for its manifestation here around Clear Lake.

Keep us mindful of the holiness and fragility of our earthly home and all creatures who dwell therein, that we may rejoice in being stewards and peacemakers.

O God, giver of all things, we thank you for the abundance of grace poured out upon us.

May we with grateful hearts show compassion through our thoughts, our words, and deeds for those who are hungry, homeless, neglected, abused, exploited, or in any other need.

Lord Jesus, healer of bodies and spirits, may your healing hand touch all who suffer in mind, body, or soul.

May those who attend to them use their God-given skill, wisdom, and compassion to restore them.

The congregation is now invited to name their own celebrations or petitions silently or aloud.

Trusting that you are able to do more than we ask or even imagine.

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 for all that are here today and anyone else that you choose to name silently or aloud.

Lord, in your compassion, hear our prayer.

We thank you, loving God, for the fellowship and relationships we enjoy in this gathering and 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 mend walls created through conflict, disagreement, and mistrust, that they may seek and find forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation.

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 internal kingdom.

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

Amen.

Let us confess our sin against God and our neighbor.

There are many ways to be unfaithful to what we've become through baptism, to our commitment and our obedience to God.

We offer God now our prayers of repentance.

We confess to you, living God, our failure to live as brothers and sisters and as your children.

We confess to you, loving God, that we have not loved you as you have loved us.

We confess to you, gracious God, that we have your Lord and fail to obey.

We confess to you, merciful God, our desire to own you and contain you within our doctrines and theologies.

We confess to you, God, that we do not acknowledge you as Lord of all the earth.

Forgive us and redeem us, for we have not allowed your presence to shine among us.

There are many places in which we have failed in our commitments and obedience to our fellow men and together.

Lord God, with your help, we will turn towards our neighbors and off and our friends and offer them our prayers of repentance.

The Almighty and compassionate God grant you absolution and remission of all your sin, true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The peace of the triune Lord be always with you.

There are uh first, if you're new to us or haven't done this before, uh thanks for uh taking the courage to come to a new place.

And uh we're very grateful that you've chosen to be with us today.

Uh there are some cards out here in the room right behind the one we're sitting in.

We call it the Narthex.

They say welcome, and we'd be tremendously grateful if you'd fill one out so we have a record of your visit.

And look, I'm not gonna call you if you don't check the box, please call me.

Uh so you decide the terms of engagement, and we're just glad you're here, and we'd just like to have a record that you're with us.

So uh thanks for worshiping with us today.

Uh, there are a few announcements I want to call to your attention, but first, it is the first Sunday in June.

So if you were born this fine month, I'd like to invite you forward so we can name your birthday and offer you a blessing for the coming year.

Any June birthdays?

As you're making your way up our practices, we share our name, uh, the day we were born, and either where we were born, when we were born, or both of those.

Kathy Delgado, I was born June 17th, 1951, in St.

Louis, Missouri.

Marie McNair, I was born June 23rd, 1948, in rural Wahiowa, Oahu, Hawaii.

I'm Francesca Hall.

I was born in Cushing, Oklahoma, a Chawtaw, Indian.

Oh, wait, June 10th.

Uh John Leedy, born uh June 24th, 1950, Dallas, Texas.

I'd catch him born 70 years ago on the 24th in Portsmouth, Virginia.

June 3rd, 1943, in Norfolk, Virginia.

Ellen Cook.

Oh, yeah.

Thomas Morrow, June 13th, 1964, Baltimore.

Kathy Hollowell, June the 25th, 1950, Crickowell, South Wales.

Let's ask God's blessing.

Lord God, we know that every year, every moment of our lives is firmly and gently in your hands.

Look with continued favor we pray on these, your children, as they begin another year.

Grant that they would continue to grow in wisdom and grace, and above all, strengthen their trust in your goodness and love all the days of their lives.

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Well, if you got an anniversary, we're celebrating anniversary.

So if you have an anniversary in June and you'd like to come and share, we would love to ask God's blessing on your next year.

As you're coming up, our practices, we share our names, where we were married, and when.

You don't both have to be present to win, by the way.

This is okay.

Hi, this is Jennifer and David Shelton.

We were married in 1983 in St.

John's at LaForte.

And what day?

Uh June 11th.

I'm Sue Christofferson and my husband, Roy, June 27th in Bloomington, Indiana.

Larry and Barbara Hunter married June 27th, 1964.

You want to know that for sure?

Madison, Ohio.

Madison, okay.

Bob Ketchum and my bride, Jan.

And we were married 48 years ago on the 21st in Blacksburg, Virginia.

We're Kathy and Lauren Hill, and we were married in Shaker Heights, Ohio, June 18, 1966.

And I didn't go last month, but Rebecca and I were married May 30th, 2004.

So this is our 19th.

And just to give you a lovely thing to know, Max and Carol Clazel, who've been here forever, are celebrating their 60th anniversary this month.

So really, really exciting.

So let's ask God's blessing.

Lord God, thank you for the gift and sacrament of marriage, whereby you reveal your undying, unwavering commitment for each and every one of us.

We ask God that these couples continue to keep their vows, that their vows would not only keep them, but surprise them with joy they didn't even think possible this coming year, so that we might be inspired by the love they have for one another and the love you share with us.

Amen.

Okay, uh a couple other announcements.

As always, it's really good to know things that we've already done.

So yesterday, we had a food distribution out here, and in about an hour and a half, I'm very pleased to say we fed 383 people in 88 cars.

And uh sure, it gets a little bit warm, um, but it is such a beautiful thing that you all support, and many of you put sweat equity in.

And uh Glenn reminded me, Glenn uh is a regular volunteer, and he said, you know, sometimes I get to hear why people are in that line.

Like they just frankly don't have enough money for fresh groceries.

They can buy packaged things, but they can't afford fresh things.

And this is what we do, right?

There's nothing packaged.

Meat and oranges and bok choy and uh sweet potatoes.

I mean, it's really an incredible spread, but people are driving away with like 60 pounds of fresh produce, and fresh produce is a luxury sometimes.

So it's really a beautiful thing, and many of us don't realize that more than a quarter of the people who come live in this neighborhood.

So this is a beautiful service that you're uh committed to, and thank you.

And one of the things I love about doing it is what we call social justice.

Uh Glenn does this by talking to people in the line, but also talking to people as we work together.

There's just something lovely about getting to know each other as we serve and getting uh relationships with people uh that are in the line that, hey, maybe we never would have stopped to talk to them except they came here.

And that's really a beautiful thing.

Um Vicky wanted me to tell you that you've been super great about supporting St.

Vincent's.

As you know, St.

Vincent's is really a ministry down in Galveston to people who just don't have much, and that number of people rises every year.

And Galveston has a huge number of immigrants seeking things like asylum.

So um St.

Vincent's picked up our collection on Thursday.

We're still collecting things at the nearly new, but they Vicky said that they were open-mouthed at your generosity and how you'd even gone off the list to give people stuff they didn't even think to.

So thank you for that.

Again, really proud of you guys as always.

Um, a couple other things that are coming up.

Uh if you have a graduate in your family or you're a graduate, we would like to celebrate your achievement and bless you next Sunday.

The easiest way to do that is send Ellen or myself an email that says, Hey, I graduated from kindergarten and here's where I'm going to first grade, or I just finished my postdoc and here's my new plans.

We would love to celebrate your work and bless you next Sunday, and we'll put a flyer together of where everybody came from.

Um, it's really important.

Education is something that Jesus did himself, right?

So we want to celebrate and bless the fact that we grow in wisdom and knowledge.

Um, I've got a really important community.

Oh, two other things.

Um we're coming up on an icon writing workshop.

Kara Nelson Gillette, who wrote that one over there, we call it writing instead of painting, it's uh the 13 over there.

She wrote that for us uh five years ago.

She's been here twice guiding icon retreats, and we're doing one this year with Kara, uh, July 31st through April 4th.

What we'll do is sort of gather in here from about 9 a.m.

till 3, Monday through Friday.

We share a lunch, we write this, there's some uh meditations, we pray over the icon, uh, and it is a guide and a memento of frankly a week of being together and it guides prayers that we offer.

This year's icon is going to be St.

Thomas touching the resurrected Jesus, and um Kara is asking for participants who are serious to make a deposit so that she can buy the materials and not sort of be out of pocket.

So if you're interested in the icon retreat or you got a friend, um she's asking for deposits by the end of June to help cover materials.

If you want to know more about it, I'm happy to talk about it.

You can see some of Kara's work in the chapel as well.

Not only is it pretty to look at, it's deeply spiritual to be a part of.

So um, if you've never thought about this, maybe you want to think about it.

Um other uh community request.

So uh one of our former school teachers has just had some catastrophic news that her husband has three months to live.

So this is really tough, especially when you're in your 50s.

And uh in conversation with them about what we could do to help, uh, she said, you know, look, we we um it's just my husband has a hard time getting out of the chair.

So I'm just asking publicly if you know, have, or you know somebody that's got one of those electric chairs that pushes you up, they'd be really grateful not to have a to buy a brand new one.

Right.

So again, not asking you to give up yours if you're using it, but you know, sometimes we just ask and things show up.

So looking for an electric chair to help uh to help somebody who could just really use a little bit of love in their life right now.

Uh last thing, and uh we're doing graduates next week, but um choir is winding down.

You know, in the summer, choir takes time off.

So hate to tell you this, you're gonna have to like do songs with Alex and I on the guitar of the next couple of weeks because Garmin's on vacation, but we have um been absolutely blessed, and that's the right word, by our organ scholar Ben Mater, um, who basically gives us a you know a concert every week before and after the service.

I mean, Ben, you're amazing, and we absolutely love you.

And this is sort of Ben's last Sunday.

Um Ben's gonna be moving back to New Orleans, right?

And uh Garmin has worked really hard to figure out who our next organ scholar is gonna be.

We'll announce that when it's all sort of set.

Uh but Ben, we just wanted to offer you if you'd come up, I know nobody loves being recognized, but you have absolutely touched our hearts with your beauty and yourself, and we've got a little gift we'd like to offer you and bless, and then I'd like to give you a blessing as well, if that's okay.

Okay, so here's the first thing uh that we've got is a is a little gift, and Garmin gets the credit because he's the thoughtful one.

And I'm just gonna ask, God, please bless what's in this bag to be an icon of the love that we have for Ben, his ministry to us.

And God, we sure do pray he'll carry us in his heart as he goes forward to make the world a more beautiful place.

Amen.

And Ben, a blessing for you.

Lord God, we are so grateful for beauty.

And particularly we celebrate in Ben not only beauty of spirit, but his expression of spirit and music that has touched our hearts, that has expanded our imaginations, that has helped find you in new and wonderful ways.

So, God, as much as we give thanks for Ben, we pray that you would continue to bless his growth in music, his growth in service and love, and in the composition of beauty.

And God, we sure do hope that he will carry the love from this parish with him wherever he goes next.

We ask this in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

And one of the things Ben's helped us do is realize the postlude is not background music.

It's not background music, it's worship.

And you all get it, and you sit through and you listen to it and love it, and Ben, you've given us that gift, so thank you.

Folks continue to walk in love as Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.

All things come of thee, 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, but he invites you to meet him here.

The Lord be with you.

For with thy co-eternal Son and Holy Spirit, thou art one God, one Lord in trinity of persons and in unity of substance.

And we celebrate the one and equal glory of thee, O Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

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

Who made there, by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.

And then instituted in his holy gospel command us to continue a perpetual memory of that his precious death and sacrifice until his coming again.

For in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread.

And when he given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, 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.

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

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

Whenever you drink wine, remember me.

Wherefore, O Lord and Heavenly Father, according to the institution of thy dearly beloved Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, we, thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here before thy divine majesty, with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy son hath commanded us to make, having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension, rendering unto thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same.

And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us.

And of thy almighty goodness vouchsafe to bless and sanctify with thy word and Holy Spirit these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that we receiving them according to thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood.

And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this, our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, most humbly beseeching thee to grant that by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all thy whole church may obtain remission of our sins and all other benefits of his passion.

Here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and our bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee, humbly beseeching thee that we and all others who shall be partakers of this holy communion may worthily receive the most precious body and blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with Him, that He may dwell in us and we in Him.

And although we are unworthy through our manifold sins to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bound in duty and service, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offenses through Jesus Christ our Lord.

By whom and with whom and in whom.

In the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end.

Amen.

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

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

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

Amen.

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us be free.

These are the gifts of God for you, the family of God.

Feed on them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.

Father of all, we give you thanks and praise that when we were still far off, you met us in your Son and brought us home.

Dying and living, He declared your love, gave us grace, and opened the gate of glory.

May we who share Christ's body live his risen life.

We who drink his cup bring life to others.

We whom the Spirit lights give light to the world.

Keep us firm in the hope you have set before us, so we and all your children shall be free, and the whole earth live to praise your name.

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

What we choose changes us.

Who we love transforms us.

How we create remakes us, and where we live reshapes us.

So in all our choosing, O God, make us wise.

In all our loving, O Christ, make us bold.

In all our creating, O Spirit, give us courage, and in all our living, may we become gracious even as you are.

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.