Advent 4 St Thomas 2022

In the last three weeks, we've lit three candles on our Advent wreath for hope, for peace, and for joy.

Today we light the fourth candle, the candle of love.

With this flame, we signify the love of God that surrounds and fills us at all times.

But that we recognize in a special way in the Christmas story.

There is no greater power than love.

It is stronger than rulers and empires, stronger than grief or despair, stronger even than death.

We love because God loves us.

Loving God, as we continue this Advent season, we open all the dark places in our lives and memories to the healing light of Christ.

Show us the creative power of hope.

Prepare our hearts to be transformed by you, that we may walk in the light of Christ.

Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and blessed be God's family now and forever.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.

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

Amen.

The Lord be with you.

And with our spirit.

Let us pray.

Ever living God, who strengthened your Apostle Thomas with firm and certain faith in your Son's resurrection.

Grant us so perfectly and without doubt to believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord, and our God, that our faith may never be found wanting in your sight.

To him who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

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

Allen.

I will stand at my watch post and station myself on the rampart.

I will keep watch to see what he will say to me and what he will answer concerning my complaint.

And then the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision.

Make it plain on tablets so that a runner may read it.

For there is still a vision for the appointed time.

It speaks to the end and does not lie.

If it seems to tarry, wait for it.

It will surely come, it will not delay.

Look at the proud.

Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.

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

Please join me as we read Psalm 126 responsively about a half verse.

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, then was our mouth filled with laughter.

Then they said among the nations, The Lord has done great things for us.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord.

Those who sowed with tears, those who go round weeping and carrying the seed.

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 hand.

Reach out your hand and put it in my side.

Not doubt, but believe.

Well, we've got three things to do today.

We're gonna do two of them now and we'll see how they go.

Uh, first, it is our our uh patronal feast day is this Wednesday.

Normally you'd celebrate them later, but there's no doing that.

It's Christmas next week, so we backed it up.

We rarely get to do St.

Thomas Day being December 21st, but just to keep in mind, 57 years ago, on Wednesday, a little group of people said we want an Episcopal church in Clear Lake, and they started at a hotel that's since been blown up.

The Sunday school met in the bar.

And uh here we are, 57 years later.

And part of what we're going to enjoy this morning is music from India.

So you'll get to hear uh Mr.

Aaron here on the sitar in a in a little bit because, according to tradition, St.

Thomas was a missionary to India.

And many of you know uh when you look at our emblem, our stylized episcopal shield, that the icons of St.

Thomas are the Carpenter Square and either three arrows or one spear.

Uh the arrows or the spear, alternatively, because he was martyred, either by being shot with arrows or stabbed with a spear.

And the carpenter square, because, according to traditions, St.

Thomas was the first person to build a building for people to meet in that we call a church.

So prior to this, people met in homes.

We went to the oldest place uh on a pilgrimage in 2019 in Jordan.

It's not a building, it's actually a cave.

So, by all rights, the oldest church ever is in India.

And Thomas built it, so the patron saint of architecture.

That's our Thomas.

I want to also suggest to you uh in a few minutes that um Thomas is also the patron saint of the scientific method.

More on that in a second.

Uh the other thing we get to do today, right now, is continue in our Advent tradition.

So um, the first Sunday in Advent, we talked about the difference between what we wish for and what God hopes for.

And our invitation is to cultivate what God hopes for in our lives.

And certainly in week two, we talked about the difference between keeping peace and making it.

Very different things.

Last week we talked a bit how it is that once we share God's hopes and join God in making peace, that is where joy is to be practiced, not just found.

We talked a bit about joy being present and living our values, especially when it's difficult.

Of course, we're invited to cultivate that sort of joy.

And this week we get to talk about love.

So more on love generically than the Thomas story.

Umbe you know this already.

I think if you've been married more than two years, you do.

Uh, we often out there talk about love in a in a very ephemeral, like feeling sense, like I just love you to death.

And uh that'll work for about two years in my own experience if you're married.

And if that's all you got, it's probably done.

I hope you didn't mind me saying this because while I find marriage to be fantastic and joyful, I also find it to be quite a bit of work.

And I didn't hear this as a teenager, so I walked into the relationship thinking everything would be wonderful.

And of course, what we get, having been married more than two years, is that if you want to make it after two years, you need some other stuff.

You've got to practice love even when you don't feel like it.

In fact, especially when you don't feel like it.

Brene Brown has this fantastic quote that I return to time after time.

She says that in her research, people have said, can you love your spouse and have an affair?

And she says, Well, I don't know if you can, but I sure know you're not practicing love when you do that.

Now I want to talk about this for a second, and I'm not just thinking about marriage.

All that was my initial introduction to this other idea about love that I think builds off the joy idea I shared last week about being present.

And um, I took this course in uh something called Imago Relations Therapy, and I think it applies as much to marriage as it does to, well, the relationship I have with my kids or with my co-workers or my parents.

And one of the first things that you do in Imago therapy when you're working with couples is you try to encourage them to close the exit doors.

Think about the regular exits, right?

Infidelity, absenteeism, uh, things like deep depression.

Now you can't always close that door, uh, certainly escaping the relationship, and things like suicide.

And so what you encourage couples to do is say, look, let's close those doors so we can stay in the room together.

And there's little more insidious doors that show up in our life, and I will tell you one of them that shows up in mine.

Sometimes I'm really ready to be with my kids or with my spouse or with my family, and things don't go as productively as I'd hoped.

Like, I really want to spend time with you, and you're just not into it.

And boy, I love going to work.

I love escaping home by going to work.

This is maybe just me, but at work I'm productive.

At work, I can cross things off the list.

At work, when I show up, people are like, oh, I'm so glad you showed up.

And that is not always how it goes at home.

So there is this strong temptation to escape to productivity and to work.

Probably many of you have seen the other escape device.

You're all carrying one.

How often do I go out?

And I'm just gonna say what I see, and then I'm gonna say that I also do this.

I'll go to a restaurant on a date and I'll see other couples are doing this the whole time.

I mean, I have a table, and they might even be texting each other, I don't know.

There's a word for that, it's called escapism, right?

And so I think love asks us to close those exit doors.

Close those exit doors because, hey, sometimes love is just really boring.

And sometimes love doesn't feel especially good.

In fact, sometimes it feels awful.

Feels awful.

Sometimes, as Doris Day said, love is a terrible thing for God to ask for us.

But it is the only way.

That's her complete quote.

A terrible thing to ask, and it's the only way.

And this builds, I think, on what we talked about with joy.

See, without God's hope and without peacemaking and without showing up, especially when it's hard, how is it that we can not only practice love but make love manifest in the world?

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

And one of the things that is challenging for me is to be present when I'm bored, when I'm tired, when I'm not getting much back, and that I suggest to you is the way of love.

Now, back to Thomas.

Many of us didn't realize that Thomas actually means twin, and the gospel identifies that.

Twin.

Whose twin is he?

Well, the earliest church said he is none other than the twin of one Jesus of Nazareth.

Not biologically, but rather Thomas was so associated with Jesus that people called him the twin.

And not lovely.

Couple hundred years ago we decided Thomas wasn't a great guy and we called him the doubter, but I want to reframe the story.

What Thomas wants is something, frankly, I need in order to believe.

What they say at NASA is in God we trust, all others bring data.

Thomas wants the data.

He wants to know that resurrection is real.

Now, blessed are those who have not seen and believed, but I'm not one of those.

I want replicable data in my spiritual journey.

I do.

This story does not criticize Thomas.

Do you notice?

Jesus shows up and gives him what he wants.

I think it's we talk ourselves out of a meaningful request from God, because honestly, if there's not demonstrable resurrection in life, there's no point for me.

I just will be honest.

My faith is contingent upon replicable resurrection in this life.

And so, what does Thomas do?

Well, you know, around the time of Jesus, resurrection was really a far-fetched story for a lot of people.

So I mentioned to you before that there were all of these theories about what really happened to kind of explain it away.

Like Jesus was on the cross and he just sort of swooned.

Like he just kind of had a temporary coma, and then he woke up and everything was fine.

So he didn't really die, so everything was good.

Or, hey, Jesus had a spiritual resurrection, but not a physical one.

Or maybe you've heard this one and you can see it in Monty Python's show the life of Brian.

Um, there was a guy who looked a lot like Jesus and they killed that one, and then Jesus was like, hey guys, and everybody said, Oh, you're back.

So no sorrow happened, right?

This story is dealing with all three of those.

Do you notice Jesus walks through a wall, but you can touch him.

So he's not just a ghost.

And he's got not only wounds in his wrists, he's got the death wound in the side, like the spear to verify, right?

You get stabbed up through the side.

It's pretty hard, pretty hard to rebound on that one, right?

And later we'll have stories where Jesus eats fish, right?

So this verifies this is the guy.

And sometimes I think we limit our own faith to this idea.

And think about the word believe here.

Jesus says, Blessed are those who have believed and not seen.

Sometimes we limit our own belief to a set of cognitive principles whose boxes we check.

I believe George Washington was the first president of the United States.

Probably you all believe that.

It's a fact I checked.

It doesn't actually do a whole lot for my spirituality.

Somehow I think we do ourselves a gross injustice when we limit ourselves faith-wise to cognitive box checking.

So I want to suggest to you instead that there are several roots to the word believe in English.

I can at least name three of them that are Latin.

One of them is the Latin word vizio.

It does get translated into English as believe.

And of course, visio is a vision, a way of seeing the world, or in education terms, a schema.

Another is fidelitas, like you hear for the word fidelity, right?

Kind of like we talked about in marriage, right?

This is a thing you do.

You show up whether you feel like it or not.

Another one is fiduciary, which is a stewardship term, right?

In order to practice love, you have to be a good steward of the relationship.

This is what belief really means, these roots.

And when we believe in something enough, we can give our heart to it.

A credo, we put our heart there.

So I want you to hear this story with me in a different way.

What Thomas wants is not only to verify some historical reality, Jesus died.

I hope everybody can agree, because everybody in the room is going to do this too.

Everybody's going to die.

This is a historical fact.

It's not really a big deal.

I think what Jesus in this story is showing and offering us, Thomas is not just trying to verify that wounds will kill you.

We know that.

When I hear the story, I think, and this is like the crux of my own faith life, a thing that I need not just once, but over and over again.

I want to suggest to you that Thomas wants to touch these places of death, not so he can verify that death has happened.

He understands that.

He wants to know that there can be life around the wounds.

This is the resurrection story, you see, that the wounds have killed Jesus, but he doesn't stay dead from them.

And that there is new life even around wounded places.

So a little bit about this.

Maybe you've heard of C.S.

Lewis.

He actually is a John Milton scholar, but he wrote as a lay person some interesting quotes on religion, and here's one about love.

To love at all is to be vulnerable.

Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal.

Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements.

Lock your heart up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness, but in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.

It will not be broken.

It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

To love is to be vulnerable.

Now I hear this story about Thomas looking for life, frankly, in the middle of death events.

And I think about what it means to be in a congregation where we experience corporately tragedy.

And I think the Thomas story plays out in my own life and in my own ministry when I've seen people who have been married for 50 years and one spouse dies.

And they say, What does life look like now?

And inevitably, somebody in the parish, I hope, shows up and says, That happened to me.

And it hurt.

I thought I was dying.

And I have actually found some life.

So go ahead.

Put your hand in my side.

I find this every time I go to an AA meeting.

And to be clear, I'm not an alcoholic, but I have gone as a chaplain.

And every meeting starts with, My name is Mike, and I'm an alcoholic.

And it's not an admission of death, it's actually a celebration of life after the death of addiction.

This is what alcoholics do.

And they say, put your finger in my wrist.

Because that time where the drug dealer came into Kentucky Fried Chicken while I was eating and pulled a gun in my face and tried to kill me, and the gun jammed, I survived.

And I found life since then.

This is what happens in AA.

Sometimes people don't make it in AA because there's not another person who can say, put your finger in my wrist, and know that there is life in this addiction.

Now I'm not being silly.

God does not make people alcoholics, and God does not give people cancer to test their faith.

I refuse to believe those things.

And yet I can tell you, almost everybody I've met who has survived cancer says it was God's gift to me.

God didn't give it to me, but what came out of it was a preciousness for life I never knew could exist.

And the people I know whose faith I want to have say, the cancer does not define me, but I have found life more precious and more deep since I've had it than I ever had before.

This doesn't mean, folks, that again, God does not ordain suffering, but I do want to suggest to you that the crux of our faith is that suffering is not the end, that God is able to bring new life out of it.

Even though God doesn't cause it, God is able to redeem it, and that to me is the heart of the Thomas story.

And if you look to that window, you'll see Christine has designed it to show the wounds of Christ show up strangely as roses.

Strangely as roses.

And one of the things this story reminds me is that, frankly, what it means to be a people of faith is that we're not afraid to open our wounds to one another.

And we're not afraid to call out, I am wounded, and I need to know that there is life after this.

I don't even know if you've had a difficult teenager.

I did.

And I was lucky enough to have a few folks who said, put your finger here.

I haven't done what you're doing, but I've been wounded by that, and I found life after it.

I can tell you now, you can put your hand in my side.

Because, thanks be to God, I have found new life after the wounds of racing a teenager.

I have.

Sometimes I will tell you what I thought was a healed wound will begin to hemorrhage again.

This happens in wound care.

And this is how I know that somebody like me didn't make the story up.

If I'd made up the story, Jesus would have shown up and the stuff would have been gone.

The mystery of faith is that the resurrected Jesus brings the wounds to heaven.

The wounds never go away.

And actually, isn't that right?

Do you want the wound of grieving a spouse you've loved for 50 years to just go away?

The only way that happens is if all of your memory goes with it.

So, yes, relational pain is more than inconvenient, and of course, what it belies is the love that undergirds all of it.

And God would have us cultivate a love like that.

One that says, put your hand here.

Sometimes we don't even know.

Like this story about teenagers.

At the time of my own woundedness, there were five or six other people in the parish going through something really different.

And you know, none of us want to say that publicly because when you say I'm having a hard time with my kid, the automatic response of other people is to judge you.

Or to do this thing that we call the suffering Olympics.

You think your kid's bad.

Let me tell you mine that is not practicing resurrection, and it sure isn't making love in the world.

Nope.

That's a way of deflecting what God would have us open ourselves to.

Put my hand here, I'm bleeding with you.

Maybe we can find some new life together.

I mean, after all, at the end of the day, isn't that what evangelism is?

Telling a new person where there's life to be found.

I found life here.

We'll do it for a new restaurant.

So why won't we do it when it comes to something like making love manifest in the world?

Now, I do want to share one other thought about this with you because this showed up on Wednesday, and I think it bears repeating because not everybody was there.

In a small group, we were talking a little bit about forgiveness.

And, you know, I think step one in forgiveness is this quote from Anne Lamotte.

I really do treasure it.

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a different past.

I mean, really, forgiveness is just acceptance.

This is the hand I've been given.

But I want to suggest to you that step two of forgiveness is the kind of love making that God invites us to do in preparation for the Savior.

And step two looks like this.

I look at myself and I say, God, that abuse I got as a kid was not alright.

In fact, it was really painful and damaging.

And I wouldn't change anything about the person I am.

Because God loves the person I am infinitely, and I choose to love myself as God does.

I'm not talking about accepting life.

I'm talking about loving it warts and all.

I don't know this advent if you need to practice loving the person in the mirror and saying, I remember that skateboard scar, I remember that broken heart, and I love who I am, because God does.

Or if love invites us to say to a friend who's suffering, God, this is really vulnerable, and I haven't had the same experience as you.

But I know what it is to suffer, so put your hand here.

I don't know if love for you, this advent, is showing up again and saying, I sure don't feel like being here.

I really don't feel like it.

And I've chosen to close the exits and be with you on whatever terms you choose.

But if you're like me, you won't get it all this year, and we'll do it again next year.

And what I do know is that if we could practice making love a bit more manifest in the world, then come here Saturday and Sunday, well the Savior would find a ready welcome in our hearts.

Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of an I seeing Creed.

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, the Creator of the Heaven.

Oh, all of this.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, life from life, true God and true God, begotten by Main, of the one being with the Father, through him all things were made.

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

By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became a virgin marine, and was made man.

For our Savior He was crucified with the Christian.

He suffered death and was buried.

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

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

He will come again and glory to God for living dead, and is meant to have no way.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life, who receives the Father and the Son.

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

He has spoken to the process.

We believe in our Holy Catholic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

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

Amen.

Father, we pray for your holy Catholic Church.

Grant that every member of the Church may truly and humbly serve you.

We pray for Michael, our presiding bishop, for Andy, Hector, Jeff, Kay, and Scott, our bishops in the diocesan cycle of prayer, St.

Francis Houston, St.

John the Divine Houston, and St.

Martin Houston, for Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury, for the priests in our community, Mike, Craig, Bill, and Lillian, and for all bishops, priests and deacons, that they may be faithful to Sisters of the Bird and the Sacrament.

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

We pray for our parish and vestry, that our community may be served clearly and minister effectively.

We pray for St.

Thomas Apostle School for those who teach and those who learn, that we may be bearers of our grace to all who come through our store.

Give us grace to do your will that we undertake, that our works are found over your sight.

Give compassion to those who suffer from any grief or trouble, that they may be delivered from distress.

Give to the departed eternal rest.

We praise you for Saint Thomas, for the Apostle, and your saints who have entered into joy.

Let us give thanks for our blessings, and we pray for our needs and those of others, especially Chris, Sue, Kevin, Jan, Miriam, Celia, Derek, John, Pam, Nick, Robert, Valerie, Mona, Kay, Pat, Isabel, Terry, Rich, Billy, and those the congregation wishes to name at this time silently or aloud.

Almighty God, by your Holy Spirit, you have made us one with your saints to heaven, in heaven and on earth.

Grant that in our earthly pilgrimage we may always be supported by this fellowship of love and prayer, and know ourselves to be surrounded by their witness in your power and mercy.

We ask for the sake of Jesus Christ, in whom all our intercessions are acceptable through the Spirit, and who lives and reigns forever and ever.

Let us confess our sin against God and our neighbor.

God of all mercy, we confess that we have sinned against you, opposing your will in our lives.

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

We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done in our behalf.

Forgive, 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.

See, God practices love when we do that.

God says, Got it.

And so we get to say, the peace of the Lord be always with you.

A few announcements I want to call to your attention.

First, you're about to enjoy, as I mentioned, some traditional music from St.

Thomas's last destination, which is India.

So in advance, uh we'll voice our appreciation to Aaron Hermes.

Thank you for being here to share the sitar with us.

Sometimes we forget that before there was a pipe organ, there was a sitar.

Truly.

So I want to talk about a couple opportunities for worship that are coming up this week.

And I want to look ahead a little bit because, hey, um, these are busy times.

So today at 5 o'clock, we're having a service called the Longest Night.

And it is an opportunity, frankly, to name, uh feelings that aren't always full of feelings that aren't always full of joy and hope and peace before God.

And so it's a service of light in the middle of sometimes grief or anxiety or worry, and that's at 5 o'clock this evening.

We'll come, it'll start getting dark, and we'll we'll exit in the darkness.

Um, having having been frankly honest about where we are with God and nourished to go forward.

Um, this week, uh on Saturday, of course, is uh Christmas Eve, and there's three opportunities for worship on Christmas Eve.

The first is at 3 30, it has a spontaneous pageant, it is a family service.

The singing will be done on guitar.

If you want a costume, you show up at 3 15 and you kind of make a living nativity up here, and hopefully there's no fist fights, um, which has happened in the past.

I have adult costumes.

If you want to wear one, uh come at 315.

Uh, it is truly lovely, and I'm gonna tell you one of the things I love about it, which showed up um uh at the at the kids' Christmas pageant on Thursday.

Uh see, Mary had a little baby and it didn't quite fit in the manger, so she made it fit.

Sort of looked like giving CPR to an infant, and and he fit in there.

I don't know if he'll ever come out again.

And um, this is not best practice for infant care, but it's pretty sweet, right?

So you get to see joyful accidents like this.

Um, there will be fewer of those.

Hopefully, the advent wreath doesn't catch on fire this year.

At uh at 5 o'clock, we'll have more of a solemn traditional high mass.

Again, that's this coming Saturday at 5.

And then if you come at 9 p.m., there'll be an opportunity for special music.

So we'll get to sing particular Christmas carols.

There'll also be some solo carols as well for us and some solo pieces from the choir.

Uh and then at 9.30, it's midnight somewhere.

And so midnight mass begins here at 9:30.

If you come to the 9:30 service, we'll have champagne and chocolate following the service to celebrate, well, the birth of a baby.

That's what you do.

Um the next day is Christmas Day, so that's a week from today.

And we'll have one service only at 9.

And I've got to warn you, there won't be donuts because the donut shop's closed.

So uh one service at 9 next week.

Um, upcoming are a couple of things I think are important to know about.

Uh, one is that our next day where we're celebrating baptisms corporately is January the 15th.

But I want to roll the day back because on January 8th, we're gonna have the first of two presentations from our organ committee.

So many people have asked, hey, what's the deal with a pipe organ?

And uh I want to put this in your head now so that's not a surprise.

We'll have two meetings.

The first one will be January the 8th, 915 in the Christ Hall, and you'll get to hear all the facts about the organ.

The total cost.

Why do we need it?

What's the ministry gonna do with it?

Uh, and then on the 22nd, we're taking off the weekend from MLK Day because we we want to make this a priority.

We'll have another meeting where we get to talk about where we are with the facts, and then we will decide what we're doing with our pipe organ and our stewardship at the annual meeting.

And I'm gonna tell you now, if you don't go to those meetings, I'm gonna ask you not to vote.

Because it's not fair.

If you don't know the situation with the organ, you shouldn't vote on it.

That's my opinion.

So I I want you to make this a priority to come on January the 8th and January the 22nd so you can know all about the pipe organ and the opportunities and what we're hoping we're gonna get out of it.

And then we'll decide how we're gonna get there.

I hope this makes sense.

Um another thing I want to tell you, I want to tell you two other things that are really important to me.

One is that uh we may not realize this, but we have these tremendous scouting troops, and one of the things they like to do is make uh Christmas cards for people who are shut in or in the middle of healing.

And I just want to read to you one of these cards.

One of our scouts who doesn't know Kitty Carmen from Adam, I mean, has no idea who she is, wrote this card to Kitty Carmen.

She's 99, and I went and visited Kitty, and she opened it in my presence, which is not normal.

Here's what the scout wrote.

Merry Christmas to you.

I now know how much this world is so special to you because you are so old.

Now, Kitty laughed for at least a minute.

And you know, cards like that are just so suffused with joy.

I I I needed to tell you that because it's too.

I mean, you never I don't even know what's in the other cards.

Probably something that nice.

I hope so.

I mean, it's just really, really sweet.

The other thing that's really important for you to know, um, because you're gonna see these beginning tonight.

Many of you know the chanukhah begins tonight.

And chanukah is eight days, but our Jewish brothers and sisters begin the day when three stars are visible in the sky.

So chanukkah begins, what we would call this evening.

It'll be tomorrow for our Jewish brothers and sisters.

So that'll be about 6.03 p.m.

And what you should see is the do you know what this is called?

It's not a menorah.

Menorah belongs in a temple and it holds seven.

This is called a chanukiah.

Chanukiah because it's got nine.

You see it.

You may be wondering, why on earth does it hold nine if there's eight days of chanukkah?

And that's because you're not allowed to light the eight candles with a lighter or match.

You have to use this one in the middle.

So this is called a shamesh, and you light it with a lighter or a match, and you use it day one, this evening, to light this one, and then they burn all the way down.

Tomorrow there'll be the shamesh and two others, right?

So there'll be three.

On the last day, there'll be a total of nine candles, and they all burn down.

Usually they're gone within an hour.

You're supposed to put it in a window so that people can see you celebrating the festival of lights.

That's why I'm not lighting this one now.

It's not Hanukkah.

This is one of those few years though where Hanukkah and Christmas will have some coincidence.

I just want to give you a brief history on it and tell you what I really appreciate about it so that when you see it, hopefully you'll appreciate it as well.

What most people don't realize is that Hanukkah is not a major Jewish holiday.

In fact, it really is just the fall harvest of Sukkot celebrated two months later.

So, once upon a time, there was a Greek king called Antiochus Epiphanes, and he was the king over Syria, Palestine, and he was an aggressive evangelist, so much so he outlawed all practices of Judaism.

He went into the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem and sacrificed a pig to Zeus.

Defiled the sanctuary.

There came in 167 a Jewish uprising saying, like, no, we will practice our faith legally.

So they started the guerrilla war under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus, also called Maccabe.

And three years later, they were close to retaking Jerusalem, and they were really excited to do it in time to celebrate Sukkot.

That is the festival of Booths or Tabernacles, where you sleep out under the stars to connect yourself with your ancestors wandering in the desert.

Well, they didn't conquer Jerusalem in time.

In fact, they didn't get there until December.

They waited and postponed Sukkot that year.

When they got into the temple and started to reconsecrate it, what do you know?

There was only enough consecrated oil for one day, and it took eight days to consecrate more.

The miracle of Khanukah, Sukkot postponed, is that one day of oil made it eight days, thereby they were able to reconsect new oil and keep the menorah burning.

So that's the that's the connection you see between the chanukia and the menorah.

The menorah is in the temple, holds seven candles.

Many of you know that our Jewish brothers and sisters celebrate this by eating fried foods like lotkas in oil, right?

Some are called oil.

And there's this other thing that has nothing to do with that story that most of us associate with Hanukkah, and that's the dreidel, right?

You know about the dreidel?

That is not original.

We think historically that showed up during the times of the Spanish Inquisition when people were checking to see if Jewish people were still practicing Judaism, especially the Muranos, or if they were uh staying Christian, like they said.

So, according to the source I've read, in order to distract the people who were checking on their faith, they made up the straidel game.

And when the people spying on them left, they went back to Hanukkah.

So they made up a game to fool people who were trying to trap them from practicing their faith.

And that's the origin of the dreidel.

Now, what I most love about Hanukkah, which I think is the essence of our faith again, is that with God a little light goes a long way.

And sometimes don't you feel like you only got a little bit of oil left?

Particularly when you do things like practice love.

And the miracle is that God is somehow able to make a little bit of light go a long way.

And by the way, that's why we have an ad wreath advent wreath anyway.

It came from the Hanukkih and it came from the menorah, because hey, days are dark, and a little light goes a long way, especially in the darkness.

So uh look for the Hanukkih starting tonight.

Last thing that's great to tell you, uh, and it's one of those really lovely things about belonging to a diocese.

Um, as you know, I went um on this outdoor trip with the National Outdoor Leadership School back in April, and I thought, you know, this was such a good experience for me.

I'd like to run some programs for other people in the diocese that are frankly episcopal-based.

So I wrote a grant proposal uh to Bishop Doyle, and I found out this week that I received it.

So the diocese is empowering us to do these trips in the parish with scouts, with other clergy, with people all over the country, and they have given us a grant of$10,500 to make this possible.

So uh it is lovely belonging to a diocese that says, hey, we want to do creative ministry and uh look for some of those trips to show up next year, the first one being spring break.

Okay, continue to walk in love.

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

All things come of thee, O Lord.

This is the table not of the church but of Jesus Christ.

It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more.

So come.

You who have much faith and you who have little.

You who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.

Not because the church invites you, it is Christ.

And he invites you to meet him here.

The Lord be with you.

It is very meet right in our bound in duty that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father Almighty, everlasting God.

Because thou didst send thy beloved Son to redeem us from sin and death, and to make us heirs in Him of everlasting life.

That when He shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, we may without shame or fear rejoice to behold His appearing.

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

All glory be to thee, O Lord our God, for that thou didst create heaven and earth, and didst make us in thine own image.

And if thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to take our nature upon him and to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption.

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

When he 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 coffee.

And when he 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 will do celebrate and make with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy son hath commanded us to make, having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension, and looking for his coming again with power and great glory.

And 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 of wine, that they 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 him and 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.

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.

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

If you choose to receive by drinking directly from the chalice, that will be the rail to your right, my left.

And reminder, you can skip either and still receive God's grace by crossing your arms and receiving a blessing.

Almighty and ever-living God, we most heartily thank thee that thou dost feed us in these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us, and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people, and are also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdom.

And we humbly beseech thee, O Heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory, world without end.

Amen.

Before I offer you a blessing, I'd like to recognize the blessing we have before us.

Can I ask an Episcopalian of me to do this?

How many of you have heard a sitar live before?

Yeah, not very many.

So, um, Aaron, thanks for your ministry to us.

Really, really good.

And now take your encouragement from Christ that your joy may be complete.

We will share in the Spirit, we will find consolation and love.

Practice a ministry of humility and compassion.

For God is at work in you, empowering you.

We will welcome Christ into our hearts.

We will live lives worthy of the gospel.

We will go forth in hope and peace.

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

Amen.

Thanks be to God.