Epiphany 4 2023

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

And blessed be God family now and forever.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Almighty God, unto the stars, and from the hearts, inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The Lord be with you.

And the Spirit.

Let us pray.

Almighty and ever-living God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth.

Mercifully hear the supplications of your people.

And in our time, grant us your peace.

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

Amen.

Hear what the Lord says.

Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

Hear, the mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring the foundations of the earth.

For the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.

Oh my people, what have I done to you?

And what have I weared to you?

Answer me.

For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery.

And I sent before you Moses, Aaron and Miriam.

Oh my people, remember now what the king Amoab divided, what Fala the son of Lior answered him, and what happened from Shidon to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.

With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves, of Ural?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has told you, O Lord, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

But to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

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

Lord, who may dwell in your tabernacle?

Who may lie upon your holy hill?

Those who lead a blameless life and do what is right.

Who speak the truth from their heart.

There is no guile upon their tongue.

They do no evil to their friend.

They do not keep contempt upon their neighbor.

In their sight the wicked are rejected.

They have sworn to do no wrong.

And do not take back their word.

They do not give their money in hope of gain.

Nor do they take a pride against the innocent.

Those who do these things shall never be overthrown.

And the discernment and the discernment.

Where is the one who is wise?

Where is the scrime?

Where is the demander of the woman?

The world did not know God through wisdom.

God decided through the foolishness of our proclamation.

But Jews demand science and Greeks desire wisdom.

But we proclaim Christ crucified.

But to those who are called both Jews and Gentiles.

Jews and Greeks.

But God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom.

And God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

Consider your own core, brothers and sisters.

Not many of you were wise by human standards.

Not many were powerful.

Not many were of noble birth.

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.

So that no one might boast in the presence of God.

He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption.

In order that, as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.

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

Thanks be to God.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him, and then he began to speak and taught them, saying, Joyful are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Joyful are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Joyful are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Joyful are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Joyful are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Joyful are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Joyful are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Joyful are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Joyful are you, if people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The gospel of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Today begins a few weeks in which we get to hear snippets from what we call the Sermon on the Mount, right?

And if it were Luke, we'd call it the Sermon on the Plain.

I read a book by a priest called Living on the Plain.

I thought it was lovely.

Yeah.

This is different though, and I want to catch you up to what's happening symbolically before we actually talk about the content.

Most of you know that once upon a time the Hebrew people were slaves for a number of generations in Egypt.

And I just want you to imagine with me, if you've grown up in institutional slavery from before you remember, it is very likely that you have no idea how you should properly embrace freedom.

So God pulls the people out.

They have a summit on top of Mount Sinai, or if you're reading Deuteronomy, Mount Horah.

Moses goes up and he gives them the Torah, which means instruction.

If you learn nothing else, it's not the law.

It's instruction.

And it's instruction to the Hebrew people.

How do you live in community with one another and with God?

Because you haven't been living that way.

Consider some of the most famous parts of the Torah, something that we usually call the ten commands.

Actually, in Hebrew, they're called the ten words.

What difference is there?

Well, for a slave, it's a command.

Here, the slave mentality is trying to be undone.

There are ten words.

And if you know those ten words, like don't kill, they represent guide rails so you don't drive off a cliff.

But let's be honest, I can avoid killing you and have no love for you whatsoever.

In fact, if I follow the ten words exactly, it might be easiest if I just didn't live near anybody, because then there'd be nothing to envy, there'd be no lies to tell, there'd be nobody to kill.

Keep in mind these are guide rails, not the actual road.

What a lot of us may not realize is that there are actually two Torahs given on top of Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb.

One is what we call the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

That's the written Torah that begins the Hebrew Bible.

But were you aware that there is another Torah called the Oral Torah?

This is a Torah that's handed down to Moses, who did not write it, but passed it down orally from generation to generation.

And it was only somewhat written down in the 12th century of our common era when printing became more available.

Otherwise, it was this was what rabbis did.

They offered the oral Torah.

What difference does it make?

I just want to give you one easy example.

Maybe you've heard the injunction, you cannot boil a kid in its mother's milk.

I'd like you to know that Hebrew is a language that has no vowels written in it.

Vowels were added a long time later under the line.

And that word milk in Hebrew is the word chalav, chait lamit, bait, but if you put different under vowels underneath it, it could very well be the word chalet, which is the word for fat.

Which one is it?

Don't boil a kid in his mother's milk, or don't cook a kid in its mother's fat.

Well, if you cooked a kid in his mother's fat, you'd have to kill the mother and the child, right?

That would be multi-generational wipe out at once, unsustainable.

That actually rule shows up a bunch of times in the Torah.

Why do our Jewish brothers and sisters render it milk?

Because of the oral Torah that has verbally been passed down, not because of the text.

By the way, I'm not saying they're wrong.

I want you to understand how it is that some words are translated one way instead of another.

If you know anybody who's orthodox, they take this as seriously, like my brother, he has two dishwashers, one for dairy, one for meat.

Two refrigerators, one for dairy, one for meat.

Two ovens, one for dairy, one for meat, two sinks, one for dairy, one for meat, and two dishwashers.

Because you can't combine the elements.

This is a common kosher or hashroot understanding.

That's the difference of the oral Torah.

What you're going to hear next week, and I need to tell you this in advance, though, Jesus is going to say in Matthew, I didn't come to change a letter of the written Torah.

Not a single letter.

What I came to do is offer you my understanding of the oral Torah so that you can get to the heart.

Don't stay on the guide rails.

Let's get you on the path.

Jesus is not going to say anything unique.

It's really important you hear this.

He's going to say the same kinds of things John the Baptist said, different rabbis said.

Jesus is not doing away with the Torah.

He's offering an oral Torah that's meant to guide you into the heart of the written Torah.

That's what rabbis do.

And Matthew does something really interesting.

The way that you read Exodus, Moses goes on top of the mountain and gives the Torah down to the people below.

There's no doubt that Matthew is trying to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of Moses, guiding people how to live with one another and God.

He's not the new Moses, he's in continuity with Moses.

But something really curious happens here.

Jesus goes up the mountain and sits down, but if you've been to Israel and we went in 2017, and our guide told us, think about this acoustically.

If you stand at the top and speak, most people aren't going to hear you.

Archaeologists would tell you the way this worked is Jesus went down to the bottom and spoke up the mountain so that the mountain could hold the words acoustically and they could be hearable.

Otherwise, you'd end up with something like in uh, I don't know, the life of Brian, if you've seen that, where uh Jesus says, Blessed are the peacemakers, and somebody says, Blessed are the cheesemakers.

And so this is really designed to say, and I want you to get this image.

Jesus doesn't stand on top, he goes to the bottom and he speaks up to people.

So I want you to hear, and the Beatitudes support this, if you ever think that faith is best lived down by being on top and speaking down to other people, you're not living into the oral Torah that Jesus offers us.

The instruction is go down and speak up to people.

Speak up to people so that they can climb.

This is not false humility.

It's saying, I am able to help connect you with God and one another, and I tend to do it on the ground, not way up here.

Jesus offers us a bunch of very pithy and memorable paradoxical statements.

I can't take all of them on, but I want to take a few of them on.

And the first one you've made.

Already heard me say, but I'm going to give an add-on this year.

So the first one is Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

All I can think of is this Zen proverb that I shared.

Once upon a time, a student went to a Zen master and said, I would like to learn Zen.

And the master said, Very well, let me pour you a cup of tea.

Put a saucer down, put a cup down, took out the teapot, started filling the cup.

Did not stop filling the cup.

It made it to the top, it overflowed, master poured out everything in the pot, and of course, most of it went onto the salsa and the table and the floor.

And the student said, Why did you waste the tea?

And the master said, You want to learn zen from me, but you're already full of your own ideas.

So what will happen when I share with you zen?

It will fall out of you and go to nothing.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, people who make room for other people.

If you're already full, you have no room for anybody else.

And maybe that's fine, but when you're full of yourself, you will live alone.

So, blessed are people who create space for others.

And the rabbi said this really well, and I want you to hang on, because this is not an anti-Semitic joke.

Whenever two Jewish people get together, there are three opinions.

The first is the thesis, the second is the antithesis, and both people leave changed with a synthesis.

The rabbi said is we what we usually call dialogue is really grandstanding in political combat, such that one of us is going to win and one of us is going to lose, and we'll go away not unified or changed.

Because they made room for each other.

This one's hard for me because I like being right.

And honestly, if um if I thought your opinion was right, I'd already picked it.

So here's the reminder, though.

Hey, it's great you've got that thought, but can you actually create space to listen to somebody else?

That's where the kingdom of God is.

Not in being full, but in creating room for other people's.

You've heard me say on a different note, spirit in the Bible can be translated really as just moving air, wind, or breath.

And so one way to hear this is blessed are those who are out of breath.

I don't think this is talking about people with asthma, but I do want to share with you this story.

I went in October back to Utah with a friend I met on my sabbatical, and we were gonna do this real deal hiking route.

That's what people said when we said we were doing, oh, you guys have a real deal.

Um let me tell you what that means.

That means you go down 1,500 feet in elevation, and at the bottom there's like a canyon full of water, and there's waterfalls, and you're gonna swim with a frame pack or wade with a frame pack, and a lot of the time you can't even just get into the canyon.

You have to like jump.

So we brought wetsuits and we thought this was gonna work great.

And um, we got in that water, and within about 30 minutes we reconsidered.

Uh because the water is 40 degrees.

Uh, my friend had acute hypothermia and like couldn't even unbuckle a buckle, and I, to be honest, was just a little bit scared of jumping like 15 feet into a body of water when I couldn't see the bottom with 50 pounds in my back.

That just didn't seem like a great idea.

So we just we decided we're gonna turn around and go out.

That meant a 12-hour day of hiking, in which we covered probably 15 miles, and the last two miles is when it started snowing.

Um, we were going up that 16-foot elevation that we'd come down with 50 pounds on our back.

And I'm a little embarrassed to say that it got to a point where I had to tell myself, just take 10 steps and then you can take a breather.

One, two.

Oh no, I'm gonna stop now.

I mean, it was like this, right, for like an hour and a half.

It was probably harder than the half Iron Man that I did five years ago.

And I would tell you, while I did not feel blessed, I sure did feel joyful.

I felt joyful because I was getting out.

Because I made the right decision not to make myself miserable on my vacation by swimming in 40-degree water.

Because I could see the top.

Because I knew we were gonna get there together.

And it's just a great reminder that sometimes making room for other people might take some work.

It might even be winded because we're working hard.

This is why I prefer what I'm telling you.

Better translation is not blessed.

The Greek word makarias really means joyful.

Joy can put up with discomfort, it can put up with inconvenience, especially when we're living into our values for it.

It was joyful to hike out of that place even before I got out.

It was joyful to be winded.

And it is joyful to make room for other people even when you don't want to.

This is what Jesus offers us.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

I mean, honestly, I usually hunger and thirst for junk food.

Junk food like you're wrong and I'm right.

Junk food like you're driving like an idiot, so you must be one.

That's junk food that I often fill myself up with, and you know what?

It isn't filling.

It's not filling.

It just encourages you to eat more and more junk food.

No.

Blessed are people who look for God's version of justice, which is very rarely about getting even.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

I don't know if you know this guy, Carl Linz.

He uh was kind of a celebrity pastor at Hillsong United in New York, and um uh his career kind of fell apart.

But uh, before that, he uh he had this really interesting thing that he put out right after George Floyd.

Um it really was the difference between being a peacemaker and a peacekeeper.

Peacekeepers usually have weapons, especially in like the Hunger Games, that's what the police are called.

They keep the peace by threatening you with abysmal punishment if you act up.

I like peacekeeping.

And the way we keep peace, right, is we build border walls and we build chasms and we say, you stay on your side of the seat.

Here's the tape mom and dad put in the back seat.

That's how we keep the peace.

Jesus doesn't say, blessed are those people.

He says, Joyful are the ones who make the peace.

What's the difference?

Or when we make peace, we tear down walls that separate us from one another.

When we make peace, we build bridges across chasms that seem insuperable, and guess what?

That will probably make you poor in spirit.

You'll probably get tired of doing that work.

And it is joyful work.

Because it's what God calls us to do.

Make peace, not just try and keep it.

Peacekeeping is about quiet.

Peacemaking is about community and reconciliation.

Jesus says this other thing that I didn't grow up in church hearing exactly right.

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you for my sake.

Somehow we forgot that last bit.

So we thought, hey, we can be really rude and obnoxious people because we have all the right answers, and if people don't like us, it's because they don't like Jesus.

No, it's probably because we're jerks, right?

I mean, that's probably why.

So blessed are you when people revile you because you do what God has in mind.

Not because you put the name Jesus on what you want him to do anyway.

This is a major turnaround.

Because I want something really bad doesn't mean God does.

So blessed are we when we act like God, and not everybody likes that.

What does revilement look like in this country?

If we're honest, not much.

Oh, I don't know why you keep forgiving that person, that may not be wise.

That's about as bad as it gets here.

And blessed, joyful are we if we'll do that.

In this way, we get to hear a little about apparent reversal of values, and this is what Paul talks about in his first letter to the Corinthians, right?

Usually we think joyful are those who are impervious to pain, because they'll never be hurt.

Paul says the message of the Christ is foolishness to the world because it totally contradicts them.

If you want to make sure you never experience pain, make sure you never love anybody else.

Because love is uncertain.

Often really painful.

Sometimes I get out of breath, like I'm poor in spirit.

No.

The cross of Christ says, no, actually, it is in vulnerability that God is to be found.

This is the wisdom of God.

I can't help but speak to Micah.

Because we talked about this in our men's study group.

It's really interesting.

Uh Micah says, God is going to contend with the people.

And the contention goes like this: Where did I let you down?

I sent you prophets, I took you out of slavery, giving you this land to call your own, I'm walking with you.

So why is it, like, how have I let you down such that you are not pursuing justice and compassion and walking with me?

And I want to say that there's a few ways we can hear this.

Sometimes we think, oh, you know, God must be really mad, and this is God's word-for-word account to my God.

The technical word is mantic inspiration, that God seizes an individual's faculties and they write down every word as dictating.

That is one way of viewing the scriptures, but I want to share very few of us in the Episcopal Church rest there.

There's other options to think about, and here's one I want you to consider.

And I don't want to make this totally based on parenting, but I think I have to.

I don't know if you've ever gone home when kid did something not great and said to your partner or spouse, guess what your child did today?

You know this one.

There's another thing that happens in parenting, at least to me, kid can treat me one way.

If kid treats mom another way, ooh, that just ratcheted up my response.

You will not treat your mother like that.

My dad said stuff like that.

I don't know if you've heard this, but I do want to suggest to you one way to hear what Micah's saying here is that Micah is really identified with God and says, How dare you disrespect your parent?

This is hurtful.

God's gonna contend with you, but don't be afraid of God's contention.

We're afraid of contention here because we think we're supposed to be uniform.

Hear this in the Jewish context where we agree we're gonna disagree and we promise we'll come back and disagree again next week.

God is raising a contention not to floor us, but to transform us.

Hey, sometimes you guys focus on the guide rails.

I want you on the road, and here's the road, according to Micah.

Do justice.

Do justly, practice justice, not revenge.

Justice.

If you know King James, it's love mercy.

This one today, RS and N RSV says love kindness, but uh John Dominic Crossman makes a great argument that you can translate this as love compassion, which really is about making room for somebody else, right?

Do justice.

Love compassion and walk humbly with God.

Humbly.

Does not mean putting yourself down.

It means being exactly who God made you to be, no more and no less.

It is false humility to say, I have no gifts.

It is false humility to say there is no good in me.

Because that's not categorically true.

That is false humility.

It is humble to say, you know, I think I've got some ways in which I can connect you with one another and with God, so I'm gonna walk down to the bottom of the mountain so you can hear it, and I can talk up to you.

That's true humility.

Jesus didn't say I've got nothing to give.

He said, I know what I've got to give, and I'm gonna go down and do it.

And that's what we're called to do.

And we don't all have to do it the same thing.

That's the point.

We get to do more together, and humility looks like saying, What are God's gifts?

What are my talents?

Where has my life taken me so that I can include other people and how I found God's saving presence in my own journey?

Knowing that they might find it differently from you, and that's a reason to rejoice, not to be worried.

These values are going to offer, I put it before you, to continue to spiral us deeper into God's will and uh God's enjoyment for us.

So that's why I want you to hear the word joyful more than blessed.

After all, you all have been around in the South.

What's it mean when I say bless your heart?

Uh maybe 15% of the time it means something sweet, but probably the other 85% it doesn't.

Now look, there's some really easy ways we can make room for other people this week, and one of them is just, hey, when somebody cuts you off in traffic, which way do you mean bless your heart?

Or can we make room for the idea?

Maybe they've got a medical emergency.

Maybe they're late for work.

Um maybe they learned to drive a NASCAR or that.

You ever been in a hurry?

I bet you have.

Did you have a good reason for being in a hurry in your mind if you did?

Can we make room for other people?

Or do we just jump straight to judgment?

Well, this is what I think the Beatitudes offer us.

And I did hear a clever preacher say one time, they're called the Beatitudes because they're supposed to be your attitudes.

That's really, really clever.

Uh but I do think affirmatively they call us out and where joy is to be found, which is not always the same place as happiness.

And joy is really helping push our brothers and sisters up the mountain instead of keeping them at the bottom.

This is how Jesus begins the oral Torah that remains with us in the New Testament.

This is how Jesus says, guide rail is great.

Now stay on the road.

And I'm looking forward to thinking about and walking the road with you more and more in the next few weeks as we continue to hear Jesus' words.

Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the 993.

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

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally God of the Father, God from God, life and true God from true God, begotten not made, appointed being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

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

By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under.

He suffered death and was buried.

On the third day, he burst again in accordance with the scripture.

He ascended in heaven and his feet at the right hand of the Father.

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

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, the first speech of the Father and the Son.

With the Father and Son, he is worshiped and glorified.

He has spoken to the prophets.

We believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the free instant dead.

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

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.

Glory and your compassion, we are our.

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

We pray especially for Miriam, Kay, Pat, Isabel, Terry, Rich, Billy, Sue, Joe, and Jan.

Lord, in your compassion, you are a prayer.

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 imagine.

Lord, in your compassion, you are aware.

And we give you thanks, Lord Jesus, for graciously restoring those who have battled and survived serious illnesses and near-death situations.

That by your help and the help of those sent to them, they may continue to serve you in this life according to your will.

We are especially grateful for those Thanksgiving would like to name.

Go ahead and name silently or out loud at this time.

Lord, in your cover.

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

Lord, in your compassion, hear our prayer.

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

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

Lord, in your compassion, and rejoicing in the fellowship with all your saints, let us commend ourselves, one another, and all our life to Christ our God.

Amen.

Let us confess our sin against God and our neighborhood.

God of all mercy, we confess that we have sinned against you according to your will.

We have denied your goodness in each other, in ourselves, and in the world you have created.

We are mad for the evil that has taken us, the evil we And the evil done on our behalf.

For the we can restore and strengthen us through our Savior Jesus Christ.

That we may abide in your love and serve only your will.

Amen.

The Almighty and Merciful Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sin.

True repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

And also with you.

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

Thomas today.

If you're new to it or haven't done this before, in the room right behind the one we're sitting in now, we call it the Narthex, are these little cards that say welcome, and we'd be tremendously grateful if you fill one out so we have a record of your visit.

Thanks for worshiping with us today.

There are a few announcements I'm going to call to your attention.

One is a little bit of a recap.

This morning, thank you.

We had a very well-attended annual meeting.

We got to hear some lovely updates on what's happening in ministry.

We approved our budget, our council reps, our vestry for the year, or actually for the next three years, and we also voted with a supermajority in favor of installing the pipe organ.

So we'll hear more about that in weeks to come.

But thank you for a lovely annual meeting.

And if you see a holy smoker, please thank them for the bacon sense that will permeate the hall for about 10 days now.

It is a lovely smell of community and fellowship.

Couple of things coming up this week.

One is this Wednesday night, we are going to go on tour of the Coptic Orthodox Church that is right off of Space Center Boulevard.

You've probably seen this for about two years now.

It's the white building with the bold domes.

And the priests there are going to give us a tour and tell us what's architecturally different and how they use it in their liturgy.

I will give you a heads up that at the Coptic Church they speak Arabic.

And there will be different things like a rude screen and an arc.

And if you don't know what those are, this is a great invitation to come learn about them and what they mean for that community of faith.

We're going to meet there at 6 p.m.

So we're meeting there.

Always great if you corporate with friends.

We're going to meet there at 6.

The tour will be done by 7.

And that's so we don't overdo their time.

So Coptic Orthodox Church.

Next week, so this will be February the 9th.

It'll be next Thursday.

Imam Ibrahim has invited us to the Clear Lake Islamic Center, and they insisted we come at 5 so that they could share food with us.

Insisted.

So I hope you will take this gesture of hospitality to heart.

It's super lovely.

They're not going to offer us like a full dinner, but they're going to offer us a cultural experience beginning at 5, talk through the Islamic Center, and then there'll be an opportunity to watch the evening prayer.

And people at the Islamic Center know this and have agreed to do this with us so that we can better understand Islam.

Now, you may not know much about Islam, so next Sunday between services, I'm going to offer you a basic introduction to Islam during the adult ed hour.

So 9.15 to 10.15 in Christal.

I'll record that and stream it because it is really good to know going in what the five pillars are, just for example, and what divisions there are in Islam between Sunite and Shi'ite and why that matters.

So if this is of interest to you, I just want to hold these up.

It's really lovely when people offer us into their sanctuaries, into their sacred spaces, and they do it warmly.

I mean, it's a really a gift in divisive times.

So I hope you'll take advantage of these two opportunities.

This coming Saturday, we're going to have our next fresh food distribution with the Galveston County Food Bank.

So we gather at 7.45 or just before, and we're always done by 9.30, and we usually serve 80 to 100 families, like a month's worth of groceries.

And just a reminder, groceries have gone up like 35% in the last year.

Half the people who come through this line live in SL Bay.

And not all in apartments.

So this is really viable ministry that we're doing.

You don't have to sign up, you can just show up to volunteer.

That's probably good for today.

Oh, offering envelopes.

There was a real issue with our supplier, so we had to go find another one.

They're out there in the narthex.

If you ask for offering envelopes, we have them, and they're either bundled out by week, by month, or by quarter.

So choose what fits you.

We had to hand count them.

Yep, we do many things around here.

So uh you'll find them in uh in the narthex, and I'm glad to say offering envelopes to find the end.

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

Oh no, I need to make this thing.

It's just good, maybe you saw.

This was given in memorial of two of our founding members, John Luker, and Levon Luther.

Um both of them died within about a year of one another.

LeBon died in uh late October.

It took three months to get it here because it was a custom thing.

So this is a gospel cover that um depicts each one of the evangelists with Jesus in the middle, and it's a memorial of John and Levon.

So I hope if you use them, you will think of them every time you see it because uh better people are hard to find.

Now what can love, as Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.

And of your own 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, it is Christ, he invites you to meet him here.

And also with you.

And 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 had given thanks to thee, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Likewise, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.

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

This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for all for the remission of sin.

Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me.

Wherefore, O Lord and Heavenly Father, we thy people do celebrate and make with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy son hath commanded us to thee.

Having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension, and looking for his coming again with power and great glory.

We most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us, and with thy word and Holy Spirit to bless and sanctify these gifts of bread and wine, that the may be unto us the body and blood of thy dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness to accept this, our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, whereby we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls, and our bodies.

Grant we beseech thee that all who partake of this holy communion may worthily receive the most precious body and blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, and be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction.

And also that we and all thy whole church may be made one body with him, that he may dwell in us and we in him through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

By humanly with him and in him, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end.

Amen.

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

Out of 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, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Hallelujah, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

Hallelujah.

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

Behold who you are and become the gifts you receive.

Loving God, we're restoring us in your image and nourishing us to the spiritual food in the sacrament of Christ's body and blood.

Now send us for people for given healed renewed, that we may proclaim your love to the world and continue in the life of our Savior.

Amen.

Sometimes we have to dare to be fools for Christ, and that means that sometimes we have to be willing to give food to some people who don't really need to reserve it.

Sometimes we have to be willing to work with some people who might even exploit us, and maybe this.

This is as close as we can come to an experience of self-impulsion, of living into the Sermon on the Mount.

It is the experience of being useless in the presence of the Lord.

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