Lent 2 2022

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

And blessed be God's family now and forever.

Amen.

Let us give thanks to God for all the gifts freely bestowed upon us.

For the beauty and wonder of your creation and earth and sky and sea.

We thank you, Lord.

For all that is gracious in the lives of women and men, revealing the image of Christ.

We thank you, Lord.

For our daily food and drink, our homes and families and our friends.

We thank you, Lord.

For minds to think, hearts to love and hands to serve.

We thank you, Lord.

For health and strength to work and leisure to rest and play.

We thank you, Lord.

For the brave and courageous who are patient in suffering and faithful in adversity.

We thank you, Lord.

For all valiant seekers after truth, liberty, and justice.

We thank you, Lord.

For the communion of saints in all times and places.

We thank you, Lord.

Above all, we give you thanks for the great mercies and promises given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

To you, praise and glory.

With you, O Father, and the Holy Spirit.

Now and forever.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all time is known, and from you no secrets are hidden.

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

Amen.

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ says.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commitment.

And the second is like unto it.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commitments hang all of the Torah and the prophets.

Let us pray.

Oh God, whose glory it is always to have mercy.

Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways.

Bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your word.

Jesus Christ, your son, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God forever and ever.

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

Alex in the back.

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.

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

The psalm appointed for today is Psalm 121.

We will read responsibly at behalf verse.

I lift my eyes to the hills.

From where is my help to come?

My help comes from the Lord.

The maker of heaven and earth.

The Lord will not let your foot be moved.

And the one who watches over you will not fall asleep.

Behold, the one who keeps watch over Israel.

Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

It is the Lord who watches over you.

The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

So that the sun shall not strike you by day.

Nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve you from all evil.

The Lord shall keep you safe.

The Lord shall watch over your going out and your coming in.

For what does the scripture say?

Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Now no one who works wages, excuse me, wages are not reckoned as a gift, but as something due.

To one who work without works trusts him, who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or his descendants through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

If it is the inherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

For the law brings wrath.

But where there is no law, neither is there violation.

For this reason, it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants.

Not only to the inheritance of the law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham.

For he is the father of all of us, as it is written, I have made you the father of many nations.

In the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

It's actually according to John, sorry.

Now, there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Judeans.

He came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.

Jesus answered him, Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.

Nicodemus said to him, How can anyone be born after having grown old?

Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?

Jesus answered, Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit.

What is born of the flesh is flesh.

What is born of the spirit is spirit.

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus said to Jesus, How can these things be?

Jesus answered him, Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen.

Yet you do not receive our testimony.

If I've told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world, that God gave God's only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

The gospel of the Lord.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Growing up, there was this phrase I learned in my spiritual education, you must be born again.

And that is at play in the story.

But I hope you realize by Jesus' and Nicodemus's mixed response that in Greek that phrase actually can be translated two different ways.

You must be born from above.

That's what Jesus says.

And Nicodemus mistakes what Jesus says.

He hears the second meaning in Greek, the less common one, born again.

Hence the confusion.

How do I get born again?

And Jesus wasn't talking about that.

He's talking about being born from above, which, if you know anything about union archetypes, this is the archetype of not transcendence, but transformation.

That is to say, as I mentioned two weeks ago, we have habits that we have built up over time, many of which don't go toward life.

Nonetheless, we are deeply invested in those habits.

And in order to divest ourselves of habits, it's almost like having to be reborn.

It's not like we can just say, I won't be anxious anymore, whoo, I'm all good, or hey, I'm going to change the way I speak to my mother-in-law.

Rarely does a cognitive commitment transform us.

I'm just curious, has anybody participated in a sweat lodge before?

So it's it's pretty uncommon, actually, uh, and I'll tell you, I did it by accident uh this year.

This is like very much a global cultural thing, this idea that we need renewal, that we need transformation.

So if you know anything about a sweat lodge, it can last uh, well, as long as it lasts.

In general, you want to drink a lot before you go in there because you are gonna sweat like you've never sweated before.

And if you do it appropriately, in the middle of a sweat lodge, which is a really small building.

I mean, like really small, like you're probably touching shoulder to shoulder the person sitting next to you.

In the middle is this sort of ring of stones that is called the navel of the earth.

And into the navel of the earth go igneous rocks that have been heated up, in our case, in a 50-gallon drum full of wood.

So we burned this, these igneous rocks for like two hours until they were literally glowing red.

Uh the guy was a little bit, I thought, cavalier when he threw them in the circle, because uh I was behind the circle, and if that rock kept going, um I might not have had everlasting life.

I might have perished.

Anyway, uh, they put these rocks in there, and you of course can feel the temperature go sore, and I mean sore, well north of 140 degrees.

And uh, of course, what the tradition says, and I don't know necessarily if it does it for you, but the beauty of the tradition is there is stuff in our life that we just need to sweat out.

And it doesn't mean like, oh, we just need to be anxious.

No, it means like there are there are practices, there are habits that need to actually like excrete from our pores so we can get the toxins out of us and make room for something else.

Now, I'll tell you, I found the preparation for the sweat lodge a little more meaningful than the lodge itself.

Because in the lodge, I thought, man, I'm just really, really hot.

But thinking about what it was, I wanted to sweat out because I couldn't just give it up.

This is a symbol of renewal.

I'm gonna give you another one in a second.

Um, and what's at stake in this renewal, I think, and and and one thing uh you may be different from me, that I frankly need to sweat out is probably my reading of uh the most notorious Bible verse of all.

Right?

You see it on the Super Bowl, it shows up all over the place in the world series, John 3.16.

Tell you how I normally read it.

I almost misread it in the gospel.

Because we read the words are there, right?

Normally the way I hear it in my head is God was so disappointed in the world that God sent Jesus to clean up the mess.

And if you're good enough, God might just tolerate you in the end.

I know the words don't say that.

That's how I traditionally heard it.

I'd like to encourage you to select that out.

You fill in the blank.

God doesn't put up with the world.

God loves the world.

Verse 17 says, the Son of Man did not come to condemn.

Jesus did not come to call the question in you.

Jesus came to answer the question from God.

I am here to save, not to condemn.

I think we could probably spend the rest of our lives trying to take that seriously.

And I just mean at face value.

Now you might be thinking, well, geez, Mike, it says though, that whoever believes in Jesus, you have to believe, or you won't have eternal life.

And I want to undo that.

So if you're not interested in that being undone, there's art to look at, there's a hymnal in front of you, but I am going to dedicate the next 10 minutes to undoing the harsh, uh, the harsh rendering of that phrase.

And I want to do that with Abram.

Because here in the Abram story, God makes Abram a promise.

Abram, you live in a really beautiful, fertile crescent of Mesopotamia.

I'll tell you what, I want you to go live in the middle of Podunk Canaan, where it is dry, and there are people who are culturally inferior to you, and I'll give you some land there.

Gee, God, that's great.

And not only am I calling you to go somewhere, but here's why.

I'm going to bless you.

And I hope you notice this phrase.

I will bless you so that you can be a blessing to others.

Normally we stop at, I will bless you.

So when God gives me stuff, it's because God, I've done something right, I've earned God's favor.

That's it.

But please notice that what God tells Abram is, I will bless you so that you can bless others.

It's almost as if Abram is God's satellite.

The signal comes from God and Abram distributes it to everybody around.

This is sort of the reason for blessing, so that we can be conduits of it, not so that we absorb it.

Right?

Blessed to be a blessing.

So what blessings do you have, and in what ways are you leveraging those to be a blessing to others?

Fun story about Abram, because I want you to hear this.

It comes both from the Quran and from rabbinic tradition.

It goes with what happens before the call of Abraham, and the story says, Once upon a time, Abram's dad was a maker of idols.

Terah was an idol maker, I-D-O-L, not the southern idol, I-D-L-E.

So he made all kinds of statuaries when he was an er of the Chaldees, and one day he put Abram in charge of the idol shop.

Maybe he was going to get lunch or pick up the drying cleaning.

I don't know.

He leaves.

Abram's in charge, and Abram takes a stick and smashes every single idol except one that looks like a monkey.

And then he puts the stick in the monkey God's hand.

And when Terah comes back, he says, Son, what happened?

Abram says, he did it.

And according to the Quran, this is when God said, I can work with this one.

And I hope you'll hear that.

It's not that Abram was chosen as the only one who is good enough.

Abram was the one willing to listen.

And you've heard me say this before.

Sometimes I wonder why it take so long for Jesus to show up?

And one of my favorite answers is maybe because Mary was the first woman who said yes.

Maybe for 10,000 years, every other woman, for good reason, said, no thanks.

But Mary said yes.

Could we?

To being a blessing to others.

Now there's this loaded phrase that shows up.

It shows up in our epistle, too.

Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Turns out the Hebrew is pretty ambiguous.

As who is the hymn?

Could go like this.

Abraham believed God, and God credited to Abraham as righteousness.

But actually the rabbis prefer the alternate reading because it's more difficult.

Abraham believed God, and Abraham credited it to God as righteousness, that God would bless him to be a blessing to others.

The reason that's important has to do with why we had the Reformation.

I mean the one that like ultimately stuck, the Lutheran one.

Do you know why we had the Reformation?

The answer is not indulgences.

That's only part.

Martin Luther, to be honest with you, and you can read Eric Erickson's work about this, who does like a psychological biography of Luther 400 years later.

He was tightly wound.

I mean, you talk about type A.

He was type AAA.

Like he had the Michelin star in type A.

And you may or may not know this.

Indulgences actually, in order to receive forgiveness from the church, you had to have two things.

You had to have penance making up for what you did wrong, and you had to have contrition.

If you had penance without contrition, you were not forgiven.

If you had contrition without penance, not forgiven.

Indulgences took away, can they took away the need for the penance.

They did not take away the need for contrition.

And Martin Luther was so tightly wound that he would wake up in the middle of the night at like 1.47 a.m.

and he would start sweating, and he would go to his confessor and say, Ah, Father, forgive me.

I've sinned.

I thought something I shouldn't have thought.

And the confessor would say, Go back to bed.

You just can wait till the morning.

Well, for Martin Luther, he couldn't wait.

He was desperately afraid that if he didn't confess in real time, he could die and go to hell.

And what Martin Luther most worried about is, I have to have contrition, but how do I know I've had enough?

How do I know I'm sorry enough to assuage God's judgment?

I kid you not, this is the reason for the Reformation.

Because what Martin Luther decided is I can never be sorry enough.

I can never repair through penance or sorrow infractions.

So what Martin Luther decided, and maybe you know this, is that faith is the important part and not works.

Yes, this is an age-old debate.

The works are a reflection of faith, but they're not necessary.

And look, we've been real sticky on this for a long time.

But I would invite you to consider this passage, and I want you to out Luther Luther for a second.

Because here's what Luther said Faith is a gift, and some people don't deserve it, so those people hell.

That's called predestination.

Number six is in a fix, number seven goes to heaven, right?

Because, hey, God's not going to give a gift that we can't open and enjoy.

Like God's gift is too good for us to waste it, so some people just don't get it.

I'd like you to consider, though, a different way of approaching this, and it goes like this.

If faith is a gift, and gifts are unmerited, what do you have to do to get a gift?

Nothing, by definition, right?

I'm just using regular old human logic here.

If I have to believe, is that a work?

I'm afraid it is.

So I want you to take Luther so seriously that you ignore predestination for a second.

If you have to believe, faith is not a gift to you.

It's a work.

It is contempt upon a mindset or list of cognitive principles that you check the box off, and if you miss one of them, you don't get the gift.

But listen, that's not how gifts work.

That's how wages work.

Our invitation, I think, and I could be really loopy, like there's art and there's the hymnal, but I think our invitation is to credit God with righteousness for loving a world we often find unlovable ourselves.

It is righteous of God to save us from ourselves even when we don't want to be saved.

It is righteous of us, of God, to love us in our most unlovability.

That is righteous, that God is that way.

Now, listen, I'm not a particularly good person.

I'm just going to be honest.

And yet, I know how to love my kids.

Imperfectly, but I know how to love them.

Once upon a time, my son wronged somebody, and I mean really wronged them.

And that person came to my door and wanted damages that they could not substantiate.

They were real damages to keep in mind.

But these were unsubstantiated ones.

And then the person said to me this thing on my doorstep.

I know you're a priest, and I know your congregation would be embarrassed if I told what your son did.

Now I trust you and I love you.

And the Holy Spirit showed up in me and said, My son is not an embarrassment to me and never will be.

I am disappointed that my son has done this to you, but he will never embarrass me.

If I know how to do that with my own kid at his worst, don't you think that God knows how to do that with each and every one of us in the world?

You are not an embarrassment to God, Jim, even though sometimes God is disappointed that we don't enjoy the life God has given us.

You are not an embarrassment to God, Jane Flynn.

Even though God says sometimes, I wish you'd enjoy the life I gave you more.

We know how to do this with our kids.

Surely God, who is greater than us, knows how to do that with us.

Now you might be thinking, geez, Mike, if we took that really seriously, why do we need to go to church?

I'm going to tell you as your priest, God does not need you to go to church.

God does not need you to say, I'm sorry.

God doesn't need that.

Because if God needed that from you, then God would need stuff.

And don't we say God doesn't need nothing?

God doesn't need your prayers.

God doesn't need you to forgive your neighbor.

Nope.

God loves you anyway, whether you choose to do it or not.

So why do we do it?

Because we need it.

We need to take God's love so seriously that we try to make up for it when we mess it up.

We need to be nourished at God's table.

We need that.

We need to come together in a group because by myself, boy, I can do some really crazy things.

And thanks be to God, there's enough people in the room that say, like, okay, that's sweet and all, but let's come back here.

Like, let's just take a deep breath.

We need that stuff.

I didn't know what your Latin journey is.

Part of mine is to try to realign the theology that says God is fundamentally disappointed with me, with the church, with the world.

That God puts up with us.

Now, if you've been to a funeral with me, and this has really been a turnaround, what I've come to realize as a priest, the things we miss the most are frankly not the saintly things, they're the quirks.

I don't know if anybody in the room knew J.B.

Fox.

J.B.

Fox is the grouchiest person I've ever met in my life.

J.B.

Fox used profanity like punctuation.

You would say, hey, JB, good morning.

Hell.

Now, when you're over 90, I think you can say whatever you want, right?

But I'm pretty sure JB was doing that in his 40s.

Now, I'll tell you this.

If you could withstand 15 minutes of the curmudgeon JB, what you started to realize is after that 15-second onslaught came this beautiful heart of gold.

I don't miss the fact that JB was a leader at Space Center Rotary.

I'm glad he was.

He was really generous.

He was really considerate.

That ain't what I miss.

What I miss is his grouchiness.

And I truly miss it.

Because it's who he was.

If I can love JB Fox, not in spite of his grouchiness, but because of it, imagine what God can do with you.

Now you might look in the mirror and say, God, I hate this mole.

Ugh, God, I hate that I ate out of stress.

God doesn't hate that stuff.

God doesn't hate it.

God so loves you that God thought it'd be enjoyable to be embodied.

Now, what's this business about believing and not perishing and everlasting life?

In the Gospel of John, I'm going to tell you, read any New Testament scholar you want.

Eternal life is not a quantity.

Eternal life is a description of quality of life.

As the African proverb says, God created us because God hoped we'd enjoy it.

I want you to hear how that's different.

I grew up, God created us because God was lonely.

God created us because God wanted us to worship God.

God created us so that we could be the church.

Nope.

God created you because God hoped you would enjoy it.

And enjoying the wild and precious life you've been given, that's eternal life.

And it is too precious for us to let perish because we're anxious about earning God's love.

Or being born in a state in which God is disappointed.

Now, this is going to be really wacky, but I need to say practically how do we do this?

We had a really lovely session this morning where somebody talked to us about ways we can leverage our own body and not hijack but cooperate with our vagus nerve so that we can embody some practices that we can't cognitively get to.

I really appreciate this thinking.

And I'm just going to tell you, I found myself talking to a parishioner this week and saying probably the most wack-adoo thing that I'm getting ready to tell you.

What I've really enjoyed in the last two months, and even more so in the last year, because I used to teach this stuff, is observing how people of different faith traditions pray.

So, our Jewish brothers and sisters, you may know this, when it's time to pray, nobody says, fold your hands and bow your head.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters open their hands and they look up because they are convinced that they are able to stand straight in God's presence.

I love that posture.

There are times when I need to make myself, you'll see it.

It used to be at the Sanctus.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Every priest I know does this and does this.

And since I went to the synagogue, I still do this, but I turn my head up.

You may not think you're worthy, that's fine.

And that leads me to the second one.

Does anybody do yoga?

What do they call this one?

Where I'm like this and I lean forward with my hands on my knees.

Is that the forward fold?

Or something like it?

Do you know what the child's pose is?

The child's pose is when you're on your knees, right?

And you slump and your head goes to the ground, right?

You do it to rest, right?

It's meant to be relaxing and curl your spine after work.

I don't know if you know how our Muslim brothers and sisters pray, but I want to tell you something I find absolutely beautiful about it.

It's going to take three minutes, but I'm going to do it.

When they go to pray, they stand shoulder to shoulder.

And the very first thing they do is they say, God is greater.

God is greater than my anxiety.

Would that that were so.

That is a theological truth I'm trying to live into.

God is greater than the doubts I have about myself.

God is greater than the anxiety I have about my children.

God is greater.

And then they do this really interesting thing, right?

If you know this, uh, Islam actually means submission.

And it is related to the word salam, which means peace.

Our little Muslim brothers and sisters say that it is submission to God, knowing who you are as a child of God and whose you are as God's own beloved possession.

When you can submit to those truths, you will find peace.

I think they're right.

I hope you hear me say that.

I think they're right.

I don't like the word submission because I grew up wrestling, and listen, I would rather get pinned than submit any day of the week.

But I had a good friend frame this.

You can choose to fight the weather, or you can submit to it.

I submit to weather when I put on a raincoat and it's raining.

I could choose to go unadorned.

I will get wet and likely be miserable, so I submit.

It doesn't mean I do nothing.

It means I recognize I cannot control that, so I will dress accordingly.

As a gesture of submission, our Muslim brothers and sisters pray in the child's pose with their head to the ground.

Now many of you know that on my sabbatical, I was with a group called the National Outdoor Leadership School, and I went on a 25-day hike before going on a 12-day canoe.

And listen, I can tell you, I could have run that trip so much better than my trip leaders.

We didn't leave till 10 in the morning.

It was hot.

Sometimes they ruined poems that had no traction for me, you know, because everything I say is really valuable.

So, you know, like I found myself getting frustrated that I wasn't in control of this group.

Because I was sure I knew how to do it better.

And I may have even been right, who knows?

But I will tell you that I found myself needing and benefiting, actually, from getting up in the morning and getting in the child's pose and submitting to control that was not my own.

It actually benefited me to physically get down on my knees and put my head on the riverbank and say, I submit to your plan because I can't change it.

Once I've submitted, then maybe I can enjoy it for what it is instead of what I wish I could make it.

Yeah?

I don't know if you need to get into the child's pose, but I would tell you this: if you spend the rest of Lent submitting to the idea that God loves you even though you may not love yourself, it will be a Lent well spent.

I would suggest to you that if you can envision the person in your mind that drives you the craziest, and you could get in the child's pose and submit to God's unconditional love for them, which you cannot control.

God, I really think you should hate Steve.

That's not gonna work.

If you could submit to the fact that God is delighted in them, I think it would be a lent well spent.

I put to you that these are qualities of eternal life.

Qualities.

Not fighting God's love for you.

You can spend your life doing it if you choose.

God will still love you.

You won't win.

That's the good news.

Fight God as hard as you want, but you will not prevail.

So, what if you said?

God, I don't see what you see.

I'd like to.

God, I don't see what you see, but I choose on faith to credit you with righteousness for loving somebody that I can't always love myself.

To quote another African prover.

Never take a shirt from a naked man.

You cannot give what you don't have.

If we cannot rest in God's extravagant, unconditional love for us, we have no gospel to share with the world.

We have no good news.

We have only news.

The world needs good news.

You need good news.

I'm desperate for good news.

And here it is.

God did not come to judge the world but to say it.

God did not come to judge you, but to delight in you.

And God hopes that this precious life you've given will not be characterized by the qualities of perishing, but by the qualities of submitting and embodying God's love so that you then don't you see like Abram can be a blessing to others.

We've got 32 days left in the week.

That won't be long enough.

We'll do it again next year.

And the year after that.

Whatever practice it is that you need to find this center of good news that we're so suspicious of, we read the words to and then go out and say, God's really disappointed.

God can't believe you did that?

I can't believe I did that.

Boy, I sure hope we make a little bit of progress to reading that text so seriously that this time we choose to read it literally.

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

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

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God, from true God, begotten not made, of one being with 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 became imparted from the Virgin Mary and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

He suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again, according to the scriptures.

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, with the Father in his home, he is worshiped and glorified.

He has spoken through the prophets.

We believe one Holy Catholic and Astolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world upon.

Amen.

For the holy church of God, that it may be filled with our truth and love and be found without fault at the day of your coming.

We pray to you, O Lord.

Lord, have compassion.

For all the holy people of God, for all the bishops and other ministers, for Andy, Hector, Jeff, Kai, and Scott, our bishops, in the diocesan circle of prayer, Epiphany Calvert, Holy Innocence Madisonville, and St.

Andrew's Bryan.

For Michael, our presiding bishop, for Mike, Jim, Craig, and the priest in our community, we pray to you, O Lord.

Lord have compassion.

For all who fear God and believe in you, Lord Christ, that our divisions may cease, that all may be as one, as you and the Father are one.

We pray to you, O Lord.

Lord have compassion.

For the mission of the Church, that in faithful witness it may preach the gospel to the ends of the earth.

We pray to you, O Lord.

Lord, have compassion.

For the peace of the world, that a spirit of respect and forbearance may grow among nations and peoples.

That we pray to you, O Lord.

Lord, have compassion.

For those in positions of public trust, especially Joe, our president, and Greg, our governor, that they may serve justice and promote the dignity and freedom of every person.

We pray to you, O Lord.

Lord, have compassion.

For the poor, the persecuted, the sick, and all who suffer.

For refugees, prisoners, and all who are in danger, that they may be relieved and protected.

We pray to you, O Lord.

Lord, have compassion.

For this congregation, that we may be delivered from hardness of heart and show forth your glory in all that we do.

We pray to you, O Lord.

Lord, have compassion.

For our enemies and those who wish us harm, and for all we have injured or offended, for ourselves, for the forgiveness of our sins, and for the grace of the Holy Spirit to amend our lives.

We pray to you, O Lord.

Lord, have compassion.

For all who have commended themselves to our prayers, for all families, friends, and neighbors, especially Chris, Miriam, Pat, Isabel, Terry, Rich, Billy, Sue, Joe, Jan, Sean, Joe Alice, and those the congregation wishes to name at this time, silently or aloud.

We pray to you, O Lord.

For all who have died in the communion of your church, especially Lunan and Janice, and those whose faith is known to you alone, that with all the saints they may have rest in that place where there is no pain or grief, but life eternal.

We pray to you, O Lord.

Lord, have compassion.

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

To you, O Lord, our God.

For yours is the majesty, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, now and forever.

Amen.

Let us humbly confess our sin unto Almighty God.

Holy God, Creator of all that is, donor of grace, and giver of life, hear our prayer.

There are patterns in our lives, deep valleys that separate us from one another and from you.

We confess that we have allowed those which grow, for fear of committing our parts in separation, for fear of being rejected when we reach out.

You call us to a reconciled life, to human relationships, to our wholeness with each other and with you.

Mind us, we pray, and make us new creations through the power and love of Christ, in whose name we pray.

Amen.

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.

If you're new to us or haven't done this before, in the room right behind the one you're sitting in, we call that the Narthex, there's these little cards that say welcome, and we'd be tremendously grateful if you fill one out.

If you look at the card, you get to check what the follow-up looks like, and if you don't want any, you just don't check anything.

But mostly we just want a record of your visit, and thanks for joining us today.

I have a few announcements to call to your attention, but it is the first Sunday in March.

So if you were born in March, I'd love to invite you up so that we can hear about your birthday and offer God's blessing on a new year.

And as you're making your way up, our practice is to say our name, the date of our birth, and either where we were born, when we were born, or both of those.

Yeah, sure.

Hello, Christopherson, March 9th, 1994.

Graciela, March 19th, 1941.

This is Graciela Capula.

And I lived in a little small village town called San Diego, Texas.

Uh McKenna Morrow, Mathis, and uh March 20th, 1998, right here.

Pat Underwood, born uh March 12th, 1943 in New Orleans.

Mike, I was here a year ago, February the 15th.

And last week I came because I wanted to celebrate my birthday.

So we're doing yes, thank you.

I love this church and I'm happy to be here.

I was born February the 15th, 1943.

Let's say a prayer for our birthdays.

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

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.

You'll see many of these on a little printed handout that's next to the bulletins out there.

But it is really good to know that yesterday, boy, we had some gorgeous weather in the state of Texas.

And you know what made it even more beautiful?

Is that we fed 410 people an enormous amount of groceries in about 90 minutes.

And so we do this the first Saturday of each month.

Uh, there were about 111 families representing 410 people who sort of drove through.

And uh, thanks to the help of the Galveston Food Bank and our scout, school, church, and community volunteers, we made quick work.

And so I do want to make sure you know the good work that's happening here and also invite you to play an April Fool's joke on um, well, community hunger, because our next one is April 1st, and uh you can show up at 7:45 in the morning, and we're always gone by 9:30.

And it is truly lovely service.

Um, things to look forward to.

Um this coming week is spring break, and I just want to give you uh an opportunity here two different sermons next week.

Uh one at 8 o'clock will be delivered by our family minister, Alex Hillis, and at 10:30, you're in for three.

This is the first time in like 11 years.

Garmin is gonna give the sermon at 10:30.

So I hope you will look forward to that.

And we're taking adult ed off.

So nothing in between services next week.

Enjoy the spring.

Then I want to invite you that in two weeks we are going to offer between services an opportunity for our kids to continue learning uh ways of holy etiquette that are gonna culminate in the Episcopal Prom on Palm Sunday.

But for us adults, we have a local biblical scholar, Jason Porterfield, who is going to present to us some of the insight and application from his book, Fight How Jesus Fights.

And it is a study of Holy Week.

So if you've ever been bothered by Jesus making a whip of cords and driving people out of the temple on Palm Sunday, I think you'll enjoy what Jason has to say.

The good news then is you're not called to do that.

And Jesus actually didn't do what we think he did.

So I hope you'll make time for this.

That'll be our adult ed in two weeks.

I also really encourage you, if you're able, and I know I shouldn't do this, but look, I I've said this before.

I don't know how to help people in Ukraine.

I don't.

But I know how to give blood.

And we're having a blood drive on March 26th.

So uh you will see this in the midweek news.

You'll see it actually on our website.

There's a sign-up link so you can have an appointment.

We're gonna do it right here between 8 o'clock and in the morning and 1 on Sunday, the 26th.

And if you're able to give blood, I really do invite you to consider literally sharing life with other people.

Again, that's the 26th of March.

Um, the schedule for Holy Week is already up on the website, and I know that's a funny thing, but we do plan around these things.

So if you're thinking, boy, I really would like to have a child baptized, we love doing that on Easter.

I mean, it is a beautiful, glorious thing, and uh you will see that opportunity on the website, along with ways in which you can observe Holy Week through Maundy Thursday, through Good Friday, and a few other opportunities.

So I just commend that to you on the website.

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 you, O Lord.

And of your own have we given you.

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, he invites you to meet him here.

Our service continues on page 367 of your red prayer book.

Page three hundred and sixty-seven.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to be brought up.

It is right and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast, that fervent in prayer and in works of mercy, and renewed by your word and sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which you have prepared for those who love you.

Therefore, we praise you, joining our voices with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven who forever sing this hymn to proclaim the glory of your name.

We give thanks to you, O God, for the goodness and love which you've made known to us in creation.

And the calling of Israel to be your people, in your word spoken through the prophets, and above all in the word made flesh, Jesus your Son.

For in these last days you sent him to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Savior and Redeemer of the world.

In him, you have delivered us from evil and made us worthy to stand before you.

In him, you have brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.

On the night before he died for us, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread.

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

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, and when he had 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.

Whenever you drink wine, remember me.

Therefore, according to his command, O Father, we remember his death, we proclaim his resurrection, we await his coming in glory, and we offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to you, O Lord of all, presenting to you from your creation this bread and this wine.

We pray you, gracious God, to send your Holy Spirit upon these gifts that they may be the sacrament of the body of Christ and his blood of the new covenant.

Unite us to your Son in his sacrifice, that we may be acceptable through him, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

In the fullness of time, put all things in subjection under your Christ, and bring us to that heavenly country where with Thomas and all your saints we may enter the everlasting heritage of your daughters and sons through Jesus Christ our Lord, the firstborn of all creation, the head of the church, and the author of our salvation.

By him and with him and in him, in the unity of the Holy He spirit.

All honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever.

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, 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.

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

Or to my soul to week front take with me than your skin.

Loving God, we give you thanks for restoring us in your image and nourishing us with spiritual food and the sacrament of our blood.

That we may proclaim your love to the world and continue with the life of Christ our Savior.

Amen.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

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.