Easter 2 2023

Let's pray together.

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all died known, and from you those towards heart.

Put into the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that he may perfectly love you, and workfully magnify your holy name through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Eucharistic mystery re-emphasized the covenant of reconciliation.

Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith.

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

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

Alex in the back.

Peter standing with the eleven raised his voice and addressed the crowd.

You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say.

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God, with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know, this man handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, who crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law.

But God raised him up, having freed him from the death, because it was impossible for him to be held in his power.

For David says concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced.

Moreover, my flesh will live in hope.

For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your holy one experience corruption.

You have made known to me that ways of life.

You will make me full of gladness with your presence.

Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne.

Nor did his flesh experience corruption.

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

No by the half verse.

I said to the Lord, you are my Lord, my God above all others.

All my delight is upon the godly that are in the land.

Upon those who are unfoldable.

But those who run after other gods shall have their troubles multiplied.

Their libations of blood I will not offer.

Nor take the names of their gods upon my lips.

O Lord, you are my portion and my cup.

It is you who uphold my lot.

My boundaries enclose a pleasant land.

In thee I have a will we have heritage.

I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel.

My heart is to me, I am and I die.

I have set the Lord always before me.

Because you are in my right hand, I shall not fail.

My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices.

My body also shall rest in home.

For you will not abandon me to the grave.

Nor let your only one be with it.

You shall show me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of God, and in your right hand our life forever.

By his mercy he has given us a new earth into living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials.

So that the genuineness of your faith, being more precious than gold, that, though perishable, is attested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Although you have not seen him, you love him.

And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an undescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

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

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, that is Easter day, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jewish leaders.

Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.

After he'd said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

And then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

When he'd said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

But Thomas, who was called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord.

But Thomas said to them, Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them.

Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.

Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands.

Reach out your hand and put it in my side.

Do not doubt, but believe.

Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God.

Jesus said to him, Have you believed?

Because you've seen me.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.

These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

The gospel of the Lord.

Please be seated.

You know, we get this reminder when we do a high holy day that we don't in the Episcopal Church tend to do things by the day.

We do them by the season.

So Easter Day was last week, but the season of Easter is 50 days.

Maybe that's new to think about, but I want to suggest the reason we do that is because we are invited not just to think about a neat story that happened a long time ago, but to wrestle with and embody and pattern our lives after this notion of resurrection.

Which by the way, I don't think we can cover in one week.

So here we get this core story.

Now you may think the Sunday after Easter is low Sunday.

But here at St.

Thomas, it is our paternal feast day.

This is the feast of one Saint Thomas the Twin.

You ever heard the guy called Doubting Thomas?

Yeah, I'd leave that behind.

Look, the guy's not a doubter.

Let me unpack that a little bit.

For one thing, and this community definitely appreciates this.

This is St.

Thomas, patron saint of the scientific method.

What he wants are demonstrably replicable results.

And God we trust, all others bring data.

I mean, this is it, right?

He wants to know.

Great, you saw the guy.

Let's see if it's repeatable.

Patron saint of the scientific method.

But I would have suggested something bigger than that.

You notice that it says Thomas, which means the twin.

Now, tradition says his full name is Judas Didymus Thomas.

Didymus and Thomas both mean twin.

And maybe you've heard me say this before.

The tradition is his twin was Jesus.

Not biologically, nobody said he's a paternal or identical twin.

No, no, no.

The tradition was Thomas was so entwined with Jesus that they were twins.

So we could approach Thomas as the intellectual, but I want to suggest to you we could also approach Thomas as the mystic.

This is somebody so enmeshed with the spirit of Jesus.

He was drowning without it.

I got a poem I want to read to you about that.

I read this uh just this week.

It's from Javeddin Rumi.

Maybe you know him.

This is called the intellectual.

The intellectual is always showing off.

The lover is always getting lost.

The intellectual runs away afraid of drowning.

The whole business of love is to drown in the sea.

Intellectuals plan their repose.

Lovers are ashamed to rest.

The lover is always alone, even surrounded with people.

Like water and oil, the lover remains apart.

The one who goes to the trouble of giving advice to a lover gets nothing.

He's mocked by passion.

Love is like musk, it attracts attention.

Love is a tree, and lovers are its shade.

I want you to hear that as a frame for Thomas this week.

Because there's something going on in this story that I think is all too easily dismissed when we think about the resurrected life.

Now, I should tell you, there's no doubt in my mind that John is trying to confront some early controversies within Christianity.

So maybe you've heard these before.

One is, if you've seen Monty Python's The Life of Brian, you get this one.

They crucified a look-alike.

Let's call him Brian.

And then Jesus shows up and they're like, oh, he's back.

But see, he never died.

They just got the look-alike.

John solves that problem.

You see, he's got wounds.

So it wasn't Brian, it was Jesus.

There's this other idea called the swoon theory that Jesus was on the cross and he sort of went into like a temporary coma.

He just sort of passed down.

But then he woke up.

So John fixes that one.

He got pierced up in the side all the way up into the heart.

Really hard to come back from that one, right?

So John goes to great pains to say, no, he fully died.

And then there's the stolen body theory.

I don't know if you've heard about the swan's stolen body.

Hey, the disciples took him and he's gone.

So please hear that both that one and the idea that the disciples had a vision that wasn't embodied, John takes care of.

You can touch the guy.

He's physical, he's not just a dream.

This is really important, I think, not only when we think about refuting early Christological controversies, but guiding our faith.

See, all too often, if you grew up like I did, our banner song was, one glad morning, when this life is over, I'll fly away.

This story says resurrection's embodied now and later.

Embodied in this lifetime.

Available.

Seems pretty important.

Now look, if I'd written the story, I probably would have written it kind of like Joseph Campbell would.

Jesus would have come back and he would have loaded up like Mr.

Universe.

I mean, he would have been huge, indefatigable, and those wounds would have been gone.

But here's the brilliance of the gospel.

Jesus comes back with wounds that never go away.

When Jesus ascends 40 days from Easter, he brings those wounds up into God permanently.

That's enigmatic, isn't it?

It really, I think, confronts us with a couple different ideas.

One is that, you know, when we think about resurrection, do you want the body you got now?

Most of us would say, I'd take Brad Pitt's body 30 years ago, or I'd take Kathy Ireland, or whatever.

Most people I know are not looking forward to getting this one for good.

But I want to put before you that in the gospel.

Jesus doesn't come back perfect, he comes back with wounds that never go away.

And I was thinking about that this week, you know, because at one time my little girl asked me, Dad, your older brother is three years older and he didn't have any gray hair, so why do you have this?

Well, your brother, that was the easy answer.

But I what I realized is I worked too hard for this to give it away at the resurrection.

Yeah, this was tough.

This had sleepless nights.

It had anxiety.

It had me learning what control and love and how those are different and when they met and when they didn't.

I hope God didn't take that away from me.

I worked really hard to get these crows' feet.

I worked really hard to get these creases.

Now I could go over to a dermatologist and get them filled with Botox.

I could.

I don't know if there's anything wrong with that.

But man, I worked really hard to get them.

I don't want God to take that away.

I hope you don't either.

You think about taking away your wounds.

You've been married somebody for 50 years and they die.

You've spent 50 years twisting yourselves together so much it's hard to know where you end and where they begin.

You want God to take that away from you?

I don't.

I think sometimes we believe in the wrong resurrection instead of the one that's right in front of us.

We could hear Thomas doing this thing scientifically, trying to verify Jesus died.

He wants to put his finger in the mortal wounds.

He wants to make sure he died.

Do you need proof we die?

I don't need proof of that.

I've seen it plenty.

I know what death is like physically and I know what it's like existentially.

You've suffered.

No, I think what Thomas, the mystic, is asking is I want to know at those places of mortality that there could be life there, not just death.

Life.

I don't think Thomas wants to touch the wounds to verify Jesus died.

I think he wants to verify that our faith goes somewhere, even in the middle of woundedness.

Now, what's that look like?

I celebrated a funeral for this beautiful woman yesterday, Loon Ann Spencer.

And if you didn't know her, you missed out.

Now, I don't want to give you the eulogy again, but I did perceive this woman to be my friend.

And I counted her, counted myself lucky that she extended me the same courtesy.

This was a woman with resurrection faith in so many ways.

So I'm going to list off a few of these things.

Loon Ann, when I met her, her husband Glenn was living at Autumn Leaves because he had dementia.

Now, I don't know if he had Alzheimer's.

Turns out you can't know that until you do an autopsy.

But he presented his Alzheimer's.

So I would go in the room and Loon Ann, I mean, this is an amazing thing, by the way.

Glenn didn't know who Loon Ann was, but he knew every word of the Lord's Prayer.

Clergy will tell you this interesting thing, right?

People don't know who their spouse is, but they can sing hymns out of the hymnal and they can pray the Lord's Prayer.

It seems to be the last thing to go.

So I'd come into the room, and every single time Loon Ann would say, now, Glenn, this is our priest from our church.

You know St.

Thomas, every single time without fail, and she never showed any frustration that he had no idea.

Not once.

When I found out, and it isn't just me, but this is part of my own story.

When my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Loon said, Mike.

Your mother can call me anytime she wants and put her hand in my side.

Because there is life in this.

And there's life after this.

Loon was no stranger to adversity in her family.

She had a tough kid.

And that tough kid had a tough time.

We never know why kids have a tough time.

Some just seem to.

You know, some seem to.

Loon never disparaged her kid.

She never wanted the tough time to go away.

She was grateful for her daughter, and she said to so many in our community, I see you got a tough kid.

Why don't you put your hand here in my wrist?

Put your hand in my wound.

I've been wounded and I've found life.

Loon Ann and Jesus and Thomas were not silly folk.

They didn't love people in spite of their warts, nor did they pretend they weren't there.

Loon Ann was fully aware of our warts, and she loved us because of them.

That's the resurrection story.

That's the resurrection pattern of life I hear us being invited into.

It occurred to me about six years ago.

You know, probably the hardest job in the world.

I don't even think it's aerospace.

I think it's parenting.

You know, I'm really good at taking tests, but man, to fail over and over again at something like parenting is pretty humbling.

And you know, what's really interesting is about six years ago I realized that there were a bunch of us in this community who were really Don Worried.

Of course, we couldn't say it out loud because people will judge you.

You know, when you say, my kid is going through a hard time, what people like to do is they like to say, well, it's because you're not doing it right as a mom and dad.

That's what we do instead of living into a resurrected faith that says, you put your hand in my wrist.

I don't know your deal, but I know what it's like to suffer parenting a kid.

And on the flip side of one of them, I mean, we're never done, right?

But my my big one's 22.

What would I take back?

What would I take back?

The sleepless nights?

No, that's how I know I love him.

You don't lose sleep over people you're indifferent toward.

Do I want God to take the pain away?

No, just the suffering, because those are different things.

Here in the story, we're invited to consider that we get the two wrong sometimes.

And what I love about this window, if you look over there, I mean, this is based on Caravaggio's painting, which is a little morbid.

In the Caravaggio painting, Thomas has got his fingers and it's going up into the literal flesh of the resurrected Jesus.

I mean, it's very earthy.

But what Christine did is something really lovely here.

She turned those wounds into roses.

Now, you've probably heard this little saying before that I think has a lot of truth.

Hurt people, hurt people.

You heard it before?

Hurt people, hurt people.

Well, that's the start of a little bit of empathy, because you know, sometimes when you look at somebody who's just being nasty, it starts to help you think maybe it's because they're really hurt.

Now that might be enough for the day, just to think about that one, right, if we could hold that consideration.

What I love about this window, and what I love about this story, uh said a little more theologically sophisticated, is that what does not get transformed gets transmitted.

In that window, you see that the risen Christ has transformed wounds into something beautiful.

And therefore, he is able to transmit something beautiful now.

I want to be able to do that.

I want to be able to do that with the worst of me.

I hope you do too.

This is part of the process, and I put it before you.

This is probably why we got seven weeks to think on what the resurrection's like.

It isn't enough.

Jesus did it a long time ago, long and far away.

That is not enough for me.

No, I want to do it now.

But I want to do it with you.

And this, I think, is our invitation as people of faith.

What does resurrection look like in this lifetime?

And can we be agents?

Can we be agents that transform so that we can transmit something beautiful?

Well, especially when it's hard.

Now I want to say that the resurrected Jesus, we heard it at the end.

John says he did all kinds of signs and wonders, and I didn't write them down, but you know, I've read the book.

He actually doesn't do much miraculous after he's raised from the dead.

He doesn't heal anybody.

He didn't raise anybody else to dead.

You know, the only thing the resurrected Jesus really does is he walks through locked doors.

The disciples have locked themselves in a room because they're afraid they're next.

What's the power of the resurrected Jesus?

He walks through locked doors.

I don't know if that'd be enough for you, but man, that'd be a whole lot for me.

To be able to go and unlock doors in this world that are locked because of fear and anxiety and despair.

To walk through doors in my heart I've locked off.

Because I'm afraid I'll be hurt again.

Boy, I'd like to do what the resurrected Jesus did.

I hope you would too.

Because if you would, you see, we'd be walking through more than 120 locked doors this week.

120 locked doors.

Now that's why we say stuff here like we can do more together.

See, this story is only a one-off if we let it be.

I put before you it's an invitation.

It's an invitation to think, where is God?

Now I want to give you one other thought, and this is by another Islamic mystic.

Uh if you don't know Jaladin Rumi, he's he's a mystic.

And he was Muslim.

And so is this guy, Sheikh Zahir.

And I would tell you, uh, I'm permanently indebted to one of my spiritual directors, this sweet little nun, who told me, you know, Mike, you don't always have to use words when you pray.

You could just try using your imagination.

So she suggested to me, why don't you look at the people who you dislike the most until you can imagine God is fully present in them?

Here's this line.

Now, this is gonna sound a little bit weird, so I'll try to decode it if it sounds strange.

This is from Sheikh Zahir.

Devotees and aesthetics are but alienated from everything because they are absent from God in everything.

If they beheld God in everything, they would not be alienated by anything.

Now, this story suggests to me that anytime I say God is not somewhere, I've missed God everywhere else.

I'm tempted to say God is not in that wound.

God is fully present in our wounds.

God would bring life around.

Sometimes I'm really tempted to say God is not present in my Lutheran brother or sister.

Or in the Anglican Church of North America.

When I do that, I have missed God everywhere.

That kind of prayer doesn't need words, but it does need commitment.

And it does need our openness to God showing up in surprising ways.

Remember, the disciples were surprised Jesus broke through their doors.

I hope you get a good surprise like that this week.

But I also hope, and I hope you'll help me, we'll leave the door unlocked.

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

We believe in one God, the Father of the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is me and undeed.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally God of the Father, God from God, life from light, true God, through God, the God of the name, of one being with the Father, through all things from heaven, for us, He became God from Heaven, by the Father of the Holy Spirit, He became powered for the Virgin Mary, and the most great man.

For I began to the good, and the God of the Father, it's offered death and buried, although the third day according to the heaven, and according to the Spirit, it's not good to heaven, and it's speaking to the right hand of the Father.

He will come again according to chapter 13 and the death, and it's speaking of the hand of the home.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord being glorified, who puts faith in the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son being worshiped and glorified.

He is open to the prophets.

We believe in the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

We acknowledge what factors.

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

Amen.

You know the prayers of the people are in the Eucharistic prayer.

Whoops.

Happens sometimes.

Forgive me the wound.

It is Easter.

We'll rise again.

So let's confess our sins on page six against God and our neighbor.

Holy God, creator of all that is, donor of grace, endure of lives.

Here are prayer.

There are thousands of our lives.

Deep values that separate us from one another and from you.

We can fast when we have thousands of rips to grow.

For fear of our heart and separation.

For fear of being protected when we reach out.

You call us to reconcile life.

To deal with relationships, to call us with another and with you.

Make us free, and make us new creations through the power and love of Christ.

In whose name we pray.

Amen.

So, friends, hear this good news.

The love of God is beyond measure, and you are included in that love.

Know that you are forgiven, and thus free to love and serve.

Amen.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

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

Thomas today.

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

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

And thanks for worshiping with us today.

There's a few announcements I want to call to your attention.

One is, it's really lovely when our when our uh what our service comes back around to serve us.

Uh many of you know Stephen Alexander uh took an old urn and forged it into this rose.

We put this rose up here anytime there's a new birth in the congregation.

And this time it came Stephen's way.

So Stephen welcomed his uh new grandnephew, Michael Heath Alexander, this morning.

And so we welcome a new rose on God's table today.

Uh if you see Steve, please uh not only thank him for his work, but congratulate him on the new beauty in his family.

I gotta tell you, you may not have seen this.

Um have a look at our Facebook page.

Uh we did baptisms last week, but for some reason I did one this morning.

And Dee Hicks brought her granddaughter, and they brought 24 family members.

Now I want to tell you it was a beautific vision.

Because for the first time, I think I had 50% of the 8 o'clock as African American.

And it was gorgeous to see and talk about people showing up.

Showing up for this girl.

There were 24 of them.

There wasn't even enough room to stand up here.

What a beautiful Easter vision, right?

This is what we're called to do.

I mean, it was glorious, so I'm sorry you missed it, but it was it was truly lovely this morning.

Um, a couple other things I want to call to mind.

This coming Saturday, uh, you're not too late.

I'm a little late in announcing it.

Uh, the diocese is putting together this really lovely opportunity.

Many of you knew when they sold the hospital uh St.

Luke's, they sold it for, well, quite a lot of money, which they endowed.

Like there's a billion dollars in the endowment that is dedicated to transforming community health structures.

That organization is called Episcopal, the Episcopal Health Foundation, and they're putting on a workshop this Saturday at Trinity and Galveston called In Common.

And um the workshop is totally free to go.

You can still register.

Like I said, I'm late in saying it, but um, they're gonna dedicate the morning.

There's two workshop tracks.

One is toward mental health, and the other is toward food insecurity.

And I just want to name this for a second because you've heard me say uh in general, a quarter of the people who come to our food distribution live in this neighborhood.

And I don't know if you realize this is a nice neighborhood.

It's also a food desert.

We are four miles away from a grocery store in this neighborhood.

That's the definition of food desert, right?

So uh we do our part in some ways with this food distribution.

Um, but if you have any interest in helping repair the world through food insecurity or uh through mental health ministry, I just want to lift this opportunity up.

It'll be like I said, it'll be in Trinity Galveston this coming Saturday.

I know that's short notice, um, but talk to me if you've got any other interest uh in doing that, because uh I'm planning on going there myself.

Um I also wanted to raise up to you an opportunity.

You know, every year we um we try to practice really good stewardship here, and the way we do that is through auditing our financials.

Uh, many of you know that if we were to do an external audit, it would cost us$20,000.

Uh so what we've been really grateful to have the last several years are our, well, volunteer auditors.

And I'm glad to say we have three ready to audit last year's books to help make sure we're doing good stewardship practices here in our accounting.

But we could use a couple of more.

So if you've got any interest in auditing, please let me know.

You don't have to be a CPA, although if you are, we could use that too.

Uh so I'll be out there or you'll see it in the e-news, but we are looking to get our audit of last year's books giving uh as soon as we can.

Yeah, I forgot to tell you this.

I think this is really important.

Uh I know I shouldn't go back to the sermon.

But I said this yesterday, and it occurs to me this is part of the resurrected life.

Uh, Luna Spencer was a force to be reckoned with.

She wasn't hard at all, but she was a force.

And it occurred to me, you know, the only difference between being stubborn and being perseverant is whether you like the outcome.

Yeah, that seems right.

So I hope you will be stubborn in cultivating God's vision of new life this week.

And then we can call it perseverance when it's over.

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

And love thine Lord have we given thee.

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 is Christ, but he invites you to meet him here.

Our service continues on page three hundred and seventy-two in your red prayer book.

Page three hundred and seventy-two.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is truly right to glorify you, Father, and to give you thanks.

For you alone are God, living and true, dwelling in light, inaccessible from before time, man and forever, fountain of life and source of all goodness.

You made all things and filled them with your whole blessing.

You created them to rejoice in the splendor of your radiance.

Countless throngs of angels stand before you to serve you night and day, and beholding the glory of your presence, they offer through you unceasing praise, joining with them and giving voice to every creature under heaven.

We acclaim you and glorify your name as we sing.

Your mighty works reveal your wisdom and love.

You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our stewardship, so that in obedience to you, our Creator, we might shepherd and serve all your creatures.

When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death.

In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you.

Again and again you called us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation.

Father, you love the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior.

Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us, yet without sin.

To the poor, he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to the prisoners' freedom, to the sorrowful joy.

To fulfill your purpose, he gave himself up to death, rising from the grave, destroyed the power of death, and made the whole creation new.

And that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for the one who died and rose for us.

God sent the Holy Spirit, God's own first gift for those who believe, to complete Jesus' work in the world and bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all.

When the hour had come for him to be glorified by you, his heavenly Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

Supper with them, he took bread, and we given thanks to you.

He broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, eat.

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

Remember me every time you eat bread.

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.

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

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

Remember me every time you drink wine.

Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption, recalling Christ's death and his descent among the dead, proclaiming his resurrection and ascension to your right hand, awaiting his coming in glory, and offering to you from the gifts you've given us this bread and this cup, we praise you and we bless you.

We praise you, we bless you, we give thanks to you, and we praise you, Lord our God.

Lord, we pray that in your goodness and mercy, your Holy Spirit may descend upon us and upon these gifts, sanctifying them and showing them to be holy gifts for your holy people, the bread of life and cup of salvation, the body and blood of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Grant that all who share this bread and cup may become one body and one spirit, a living sacrifice in Christ to the praise of your name.

Remember, Lord, your one holy Catholic and apostolic church, redeemed by the blood of your Christ.

Reveal its unity, guard its faith, and preserve it in peace.

Remember Andy, Hector, Kay, and Jeff, our bishops, the priests in our community, Jim, Craig, and Mike, and all who minister in your church.

Remember all your people, those who seek your truth.

The congregation is invited to share their celebrations or petitions silently or aloud.

Remember all who have died in the peace of Christ, those whose faith is known to you alone.

Bring them into the place of eternal joy and light.

And grant that we might find our inheritance with Thomas, the Blessed Virgin Mary, with matriarchs, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and all the saints who have found favor with you in ages past.

We praise you in union with them and give you glory through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Through Christ and with Christ and in Christ, all honor and glory are yours, Almighty God and Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.

Amen.

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

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

Amen.

Let's try that again.

Come on now.

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

Let's pray.

God of creation, we thank our men to our whole division, both of individuals and the faith.

Whatever of the holy country you have given us, and the physical union you will hold for your church, that we might join you who encouraged our world, and individuals have community, and the body will lie in our darkest days with the greatness of your glory.

Amen.

Keep your eyes wide open, your hands willing, your hearts generous, your ears attentive, your senses awake, your feet light, your hope alive, and your faith alight.

Go and shine wherever you may be.

Go and embrace with tenderness all of life with its sorrows and joys.

Go and know what divinity expects and what your sisters and brothers seek.

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

Amen.