Pentecost 18 2022

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

And blessed be God's family and forever.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

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

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations.

Preserve the works of your mercy that your church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your name.

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

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

Alex in the back.

A reading from Jeremiah.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals.

And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord.

In those days they shall no longer say, The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.

But all shall die for their own sins.

The teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant that they broke, although I was their husband, says the Lord.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, Know the Lord.

For they shall all know me.

From the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.

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

Thank you, God.

Reading from Psalms.

Oh, how I love your law.

All they all is in my mind.

Your commandment has made me wiser than my enemies.

And it is always with me.

I have more understanding than all my teachers.

For your degrees are my study.

I am wiser than the elders.

Because I observe your commandments.

I restrain my feet from every evil way.

And I may keep your word.

I do not shrink from your judgments.

Because you yourself have taught me.

How sweet are your words to my taste?

Through your commandments I gain understanding.

When people will not have a human away from listening to the truth and wonder away from listening.

Not the preacher, not the deacon bottom.

Not the preacher, not the deacon, but it's be all horn.

Standing on the bread.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Jesus told the disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.

He said, In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people.

In that city there was a widow who kept coming to the judge and saying, Grant me justice against my opponent.

For a while the judge refused, but later he said to himself, Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so she may not wear me out by continually coming.

And the Lord said, Listen to what the unjust judge says, and will not God grant justice to God's chosen ones who cry out to God day and night?

Will God delay long in helping them?

I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them.

And yet when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

The gospel of the Lord.

Did you notice that?

It doesn't say she's right.

She thinks she's right.

And she shows up until she gets her way.

And it's interesting that Jesus does this thing where he can cra contrast two people on the opposite end of political power.

There's the judge who has all of it, and then there's the widow who has none of it, because not only could women not hold property around businesses, they couldn't even really plead their case at the gate because they were non-citizens.

And curiously enough, she shows up enough, and in Greek it reads, not that she'll wear him out, but that she'll give him a black eye.

Does it mean literally she'll beat him up?

We don't know.

I've seen some angry widows, and you don't want to get in their way.

Or perhaps it means he'll get a mark of denying justice to people who frankly don't have access to it, and then he'll lose his position.

Either way, this is the message Vince Lombardi said: 90% of winning is showing up.

And we don't know if she wins legitimately or because she shows up enough that her perseverance or stubbornness, you decide which one's which, because they're really the same thing, aren't they?

Uh, turns this thing over.

And the scriptures tell us.

Actually, learn from this story because God is not like that.

Not like that.

It's a little confusing for me.

So, in order to resolve the confusion, I actually want to go a little bit backward to Jeremiah and first name that in a month we're going to talk about on Christ the King Sunday, we're going to talk about restorative justice.

This is what the church asks us to do.

Today's story is not about restorative justice, it's about distributive justice.

That is to say, do people have equal access to justice under the law?

And in this case, the answer is no.

When we read the prophet Jeremiah, he says, the days are coming when if you eat sour grapes, your teeth will be set on edge.

But Jeremiah's really clear, that has not happened yet.

I wish it were the case, but look, we still have not fulfilled that promise.

Because if you drink alcohol while you're pregnant, your child will have fetal alcohol syndrome.

Their teeth will be set on edge from your drink.

If you neglect your child the first two years they're alive, their brain will be set on edge for the rest of their life.

Not because of what they did, but because of what we did.

We have not fulfilled this command.

We have not lived in to this promise.

And Jeremiah, I think, invites us to consider that God would like for us too, if we would be so willing.

And quite honestly, we often aren't.

We often aren't willing to stand up on the behalf of distributive justice.

Because it takes time and it takes effort.

It takes showing up 90% of the time.

And I've reflected on this before as a parent, as a spouse, as a child.

You know, when you're trying to decide whether your parents, what kind of care you're going to give them, when you're putting up with your spouses or your coworkers' foibles, when you're working hard to get your kids to do their homework, the truth is I think we could probably do it ad infinitum, whatever it took, if we knew it would work.

I could check homework every day for the next 12 years if I knew it would work.

But I don't.

And that's why it's difficult.

And I think what we're hearing a little bit in the scriptures today are this reminder, and it goes a little something like this in secular terms, it is a wise person who plants a tree whose shade they will never enjoy.

And we hear that it is somebody who is faithful who shows up again and again, even if they don't see the seeds of righteousness they've sown sprout and bear fruit in their own lifetime, because the scriptures are clear.

Things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, these things work whether we see them or not.

These things are not temporal like our own bodies, they are eternal because they happen not at God's will, they happen inside of God.

And this, I think, is our invitation to think about how it is we choose to show up.

How do we show up?

And I've got to tell you that when I hear this story about this widow in the unjust judge, there's a challenge, honestly, to the way I consider what prayer looks like.

And there was a really helpful book that I read about 10 years ago called Never Pray Again.

Catchy title.

And it suggested, honestly, that maybe we could take a little bit more advocacy ourselves so we could say, God, you know, my brother is completely wrong.

Help my brother come around and change his mind so he will love me like he should.

Or we could go to our brother and say, let's work this out.

Life is too short for us to be divided because we don't have the same opinion.

So don't pray for God to change your brother.

Go get reconciled.

The book said, you know, we could pray that God will feed hungry people.

God take care of it.

Or we could go feed somebody who's hungry and have that be our prayer.

The book suggested that we could thank God for the easily beautiful things in our world.

The lake, the sun, grass.

But what do we do when we look at the naked mole rat?

Have you ever seen a naked mole rat?

It is the ugliest creature in the world.

And God says it's very good.

So perhaps a way of praying is not to ask God to fix the mole rat, but to ask God to open our third eye so that we can see the beauty of God's creative work and something that calls up our own fears of mortality.

I'd like to pray that way.

I'd like to pray that way because, truthfully, for all of the tutorials I got on prayer in church, the mystics that I've read say we don't pray to change God's mind.

We pray so that God will change us.

The Lord is not slow in keeping God's promise.

This is what we hear appears slow to us sometimes.

And it makes me think about perseverance.

As I mentioned, I think that we could, if we knew it was going to work, we could do just about anything.

But because we live in between the effects and our actions, we're not always sure.

And this is quite honestly, when I think about prayer and what it means to live in a community, one of the reasons I am so grateful for the revision of the prayer book in 1976.

Hithertofor, when we stood up to say the Nicene Creed, we said, I believe in God, the Father, the Almighty.

And you know, we changed it in 1976.

Now we say, we believe.

And look, I'm going to tell you as your priest, there's days I don't believe any of that stuff.

There's days where I'm just too upset.

Or I say, this is all gobbledygook.

And I get up and I say these words because that's what I'm supposed to do.

And somebody in the building who does believe, they carry me that day.

Because while I may not, we do.

And if I'll come back, if I'll just come back, you can call it perseverance, you can call it stubbornness, but if I'll come back, maybe the day will come where I can carry somebody else so that we can go together.

Have you ever been at a point where you just couldn't give any more?

I mean, you just couldn't check the homework again.

Or you just couldn't say, Mom, I'm moving you in your own best interest.

You couldn't have that conversation again.

Has anybody been in that spot before?

And I want to tell you this is why the we is so important.

Because without the we, we give up.

Appropriately sometimes, we give up.

But I want to talk to you a little bit about what the we looks like in community.

You've had teenage children.

I'm suspicious you've had some struggles with teenagers.

I had a struggle with a teenage child, well, for about seven years, until he wasn't a teenager anymore.

And you know, there were two meaningful things that people did here in this community during those times.

One was, hey, how's he doing?

I'm thinking of you, praying for you guys.

That meant something.

But let me tell you the prayer I really remember was when people would say, Can I take your son duck hunting so I can spend some time with him?

Can I take your son out to dinner so that we can have time together?

Can I employ your son to work in my yard?

Because I could tell he could use somebody else in his life.

I remember both prayers.

But what I cherish is the people who said, come out with me, spend time with me.

Let me help you carry the load of parenting.

I'm not the anomaly.

We do this for each other.

What we don't do is say we need to do this for each other.

I don't want to be silly and say it takes a village, but in fact it does.

We can help alleviate symptoms of poverty for a person, but the real question is what systems are creating them.

And we can't change the system by ourselves.

We can't.

We don't have it in us.

But we, we, if we continue to show up, can not only alleviate symptoms, we can transform systems until we get closer and closer to what Jeremiah has in mind, which is to say, you're not born with your teeth already set on edge because the system has changed.

I don't know if you're interested in this, but I was listening to a rather interesting book that talks about how it is, it's guided meditations on how it is that you can sort of really reintegrate parts of yourself that you've cast away.

And the book sort of mentioned this interesting idea, which is that the way we speak has been formed by the homes we grew up in.

This is no surprise, right?

This is called nurture.

But the book suggested that not only are we influenced by the formation we remember, but in fact there's a fair amount of data that suggests that our speech patterns are formed in utero.

We hear before we're born, and that influences us.

And then the book goes one more radical step.

And actually, it's up to you whether you believe this or not.

Sadly, I believe it to be the case.

It said that speech patterns are not only nurtured post and in utero, but that there is some research that says there's a genetic link, an epigenetic expression to just how we talk.

You may not believe it.

I think I do.

And that's why we need to show up for one another all the more.

If we were able to look at our neighbor at their deepest point of struggle and say, I see your teeth are set on edge from the hum and the legacy you have.

I just think we'd have a lot more empathy and compassion for each other.

And I know what I can do with empathy and compassion.

I can show up more often.

When you won't, sorry, when you won't do something, I have a hard time showing up for you again.

When you can't do something, it's a lot easier for me to show up again and again.

The way we show up.

I had a friend in Coronado who uh who shared this with me.

The way you make change is gentle pressure relentlessly applied.

It's a lovely phrase.

If you don't know Vicki Buxton, let me tell you, gentle pressure relentlessly applied.

And here's some gospel according to Vicki, because three years ago we were talking about buying backpacks for families at McWurder, and I was having a day.

And he said, you know, Vicki, sometimes I look at these families and I think they don't deserve this.

They could spend their own money much better.

And Vicki said, most certainly some of them don't deserve it, and neither do their kids deserve to grow up without it.

You talk about a persistent widow.

Literally, right?

I mean, that's the gospel of Jesus Christ, isn't it?

Maybe they don't, and their kids most certainly don't deserve what will happen to them if we don't.

If we don't.

And so I think this is our invitation as we think about the gospel, as we think about stewardship.

How are we gonna show up this year?

Where are we gonna show up?

And can we do it enough that frankly evil says, I'm tired of fighting this, you guys win.

You guys win.

Because we're going to South Africa this summer, there's a story I want to share about what holy perseverance looks like.

And look, this isn't for everybody.

Maybe you know that when South Africa was developing, they actually imported a number of people from India to do things like infrastructure work.

But people from India had to carry IDs all the time.

And if they didn't have their ID, they could be incarcerated or deported.

Now nobody checked, nobody checked the Afrikaners.

And so Gandhi went.

Gandhi went to India and he staged a rally in which he invited Indians to burn their government ID cards as a form of nonviolent protest.

And on the way to burning his own, an Afrikaner knocked him down with a club.

And so Gandhi got back up.

He picked up his ID, he started walking toward the fire.

The same officer knocked him down again.

It hurt.

He got up slowly.

And when Gandhi's telling of the story, he said, on the third time I got up, I knew.

I knew I would make it all the way because he hesitated before he hit me.

He hesitated.

Because I didn't fight back physically, but persevered in going forward, he not only hesitated, he stilled his arm and moved.

And Gandhi walked to that fire and burned his South African ID.

And the rally sort of went on.

And of course, we know that Gandhi not only sowed that seed in South Africa, he sowed it in the heart of one Reverend Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr., who in the march from Salma to Birmingham said, keep getting up, we're gonna persevere.

And yes, it's horribly inconvenient, it's horribly painful, but if we go together, this will change.

And many of you know because people watched this march on the news and they watched unarmed people bitten by dogs and sprayed by hoses, they said, this cannot continue.

This cannot continue.

The question is, how do we continue to show up?

And I want you to consider that how we show up is in fact how we pray.

It is one thing to ask God to alleviate our problems.

It is another thing to make God incarnate in our bodies, in our words, in our service, and to hear somebody in the pew across from you say, I'm having trouble, and for us to say, I'm gonna show up.

Will it work?

The scriptures tell us, even if you don't see it, it will, in fact, work.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

These deeds we do inside of God expand not only what it means to live on earth, they expand the horizons of the universe.

This, I put to you, is the stewardship that we're called to, a stewardship to distribute not only justice, but to hear justice with compassion and care.

And what I love about St.

Thomas is not only that we do it, but we codify it.

We can do more together.

And our decision is what more will we do together with our ministry, with our perseverance, or just plain stubbornness on behalf of people that are all too easy to ignore.

I don't always have the patience, but somebody else in the room does.

And then we get to trade off, and that's why we come back each and every week.

It may not be your deepest joy, but it might be your turn.

And we can do more together.

Please join me as we pray our faith, but the words are not even three, that's not what we mean three.

We believe in one.

The Father, the Almighty, maker.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ.

We believe the Father.

We believe the Holy Spirit.

He has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy Catholic and Baptist of the Church.

We believe one baptism forgiveness of sins.

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

Amen.

Father, we pray for your holy Catholic Church.

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

That your name may be glorified by all people.

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

Christopher's Fort Worth, St.

Luke's in the Meadow, Fort Worth, and St.

Luke's Stephenville.

For Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury, for the priests in our community, Mike, Craig, and Jim, and for all bishops, priests, and deacons.

That they may be faithful ministers of your word and sacraments.

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.

We pray for our parish and our vestry, that our community may be.

Give us grace to do your will in all that we undertake.

Have compassion on those who suffer from any grief or trouble.

Give to the departed eternal rest, especially Wanda Stone, Jack Tomes, the right Reverend Mary McLeod, Eleanor Stanley, Dick Benwang.

Let the light perpetual shine upon them.

We praise you for St.

Thomas the Apostle and your saints who have entered into joy.

May we all also come to share in your heavenly kingdom.

Let us give thanks for our blessings and pray for our own needs and those of others, especially Chris, Sue, Kevin, Jan, Miriam, Celia, Derek, John, Pam, Nick, and those of 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 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 to your power and mercy.

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

Amen.

Let us confess our sin against God and our neighbor.

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too little to hide, and too deep to undo.

For live what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us as the continuing power of judgment.

Set us free from the path that can be unchanged.

Open to us the future in which we can be changed, and bring us grace to more and more in your likeness and image, through Jesus Christ, the light of the world.

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.

Amen.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

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

Thomas today, especially when we have technical difficulties.

Nice to know we're just like everywhere else.

Turns out the thing just wasn't turned on.

Anyway, yep, just like everybody else.

Glasses were on my head.

Okay, uh, a couple announcements to call to your attention.

If you're new to us or haven't done this before, in the room right behind the one we're sitting in, we call up the Narthix are these cards that say welcome.

And we'd be tremendously grateful if you'd put one of those out so we have a record of your visit.

And thank you for worshiping with us today.

Um, several things going on this week, a couple that you're going to see.

Number one, on the way out, you'll see that we are celebrating 51 years of ministry by the nearly new resale shop.

This is a shop that not only generates money to support local mission, local service, including a$20,000 disbursement to Meals on Wheels that is imminently happening.

Um, but this is, if you know anybody who's been to that shop or worked there, frankly an opportunity to touch people who really need somebody to listen to them.

Our volunteers have mentored young people and old people.

They have given pastoral care to people who just wander in.

Really can't describe the goodness of 51 years in ministry, in which, by my calculation, they've given away upwards of a million dollars.

It's pretty lovely.

So we're celebrating 51 days of that, and there'll be a reception tomorrow, but you'll see a cake on the way out.

And if you know somebody who works at the Nearly News Shop, thanks for persevering during COVID because it was darn hard.

And you kept showing up.

Call it perseverance, call it stubbornness.

And here's$20,000 going to Meals on Wheels because people were stubborn in their perseverance.

Thanks be to God.

You're gonna see some pumpkins out here.

Reminder: this is supporting our scouting troops.

Uh, this is the biggest single fundraiser of the year, and these are all food-grade organic pumpkins that are grown by Navajo farmers.

So win, win, win.

If you need pumpkins, there they are.

Um also you're going to notice that our biggest visible outreach and invitation to the community, biggest invitation to the campus, is this coming Saturday when we have the fall festival.

And so we're asking for you to come enjoy it.

It's 9 to 2 on Saturday, and there's all kinds of lovely things like axe throwing and home brew and uh aerial circus and um some really great barbecue and uh a musical act.

Uh Sean Chilton's gonna play guitar for us.

So there's a lot going on, and uh, we hope you will come enjoy the party, but we'll also hope you'll support the party.

So here's a couple of ways you can do that.

There's some signs by the front door that say fall festival this coming Saturday.

Unless it gets you in trouble with your HOA, please consider taking one of those and putting it in your yard for the week.

And then we just bring it back next Sunday.

Um, a lot of people have asked, well, I have it signed up.

Can you use help?

Yes, we can.

Uh, as early as Friday at 3.

There's all kinds of setup jobs and even day up.

So it's a great way that you can enjoy yourself, but also help volunteer to get kids in sumo suits or get them in their rock climbing harnesses.

It's another way of enjoying the festival, to be honest.

Those are enjoyable things to do.

So, all hands on deck for a really enjoyable party, and of course, you can invite friends to enjoy the good festival as well.

I'm not going to be here at the festival, and this is an important thing when we talk about doing more together.

The Boy Scouts are doing their annual rock climbing training once a year.

And they picked it on Fall Festival weekend, and uh, we decided as a ministry team it's important that we have two people who can do climbing and repelling so that we can run scout troops, and I'm number two.

Uh, and so thank you for understanding that.

I hate to miss a grand party that we all enjoy, but it's permission, and what I love about St.

Thomas is we get that.

We get that sometimes we're all in this together even when we don't see each other.

So thanks for understanding that.

And I'm sorry to miss an enjoyable party, and I want to prepare you that next week, since I won't be here, we're gonna do a little different.

We're gonna do morning prayer.

And Alex is going to lead you in morning prayer and then do something unmourning prayer-like, distribute reserved sacraments.

So there'll be communion, it'll just be this week's communion, and you'll get it next week.

And just like mom's cooking, the love doesn't leave the leftovers.

So be prepared.

This is what you can expect uh next Sunday, and we'll celebrate, no doubt, a lovely party on that day.

Remind you that there's two potential trips coming up.

One is a pilgrimage to South Africa, which will be led by Garmin, and you can, uh co-led by Garmin, uh and you'll find uh information in our e-news, and we're starting to do sign-ups and deposits right now.

Talk to me if you want more information.

And I also want to lift up to you that this spring break, uh, beginning March 11th, we're going to take a family retreat to Paladuro Canyon up by Amarillo.

Um, what's it mean to go on a family retreat?

It means kids are welcome, and if you don't have any, you can still come too.

Just know that there will be some kids there.

What it means, right, is that we'll share time like meals.

We may even put on a talent show.

We'll definitely do things like ride horses together or go exploring in canyons, and we will be sleeping in tents.

You might have an RV.

We'll be sleeping in tents.

If you're interested in this at all, please uh let please talk to me further, or we're gonna have an informational meeting on November the 6th.

But this is our goal to get out and enjoy some really beautiful spots and possibly do some climbing with your trained priest.

So hopefully we will take advantage of this opportunity and enjoy one another's company.

The last thing uh I want to raise up to you, and this is a thing we don't always get to see.

We don't have green on today.

That's because we celebrated Margaret Kern's life yesterday.

Uh can I ask how many of you knew Margaret Kern?

Yeah, I mean, I think the uh the TLDR comment is that lady was a hoot.

If you don't mind me saying.

And what happened yesterday is that our daughters of the king, these are ladies who have ruled their life with study, prayer, and service, and their service being providing hospitality to people, particularly uh when somebody dies, through generous receptions.

We talk about showing up for people in need, right?

They like they always do, they did that.

But I also want you to hear whether you knew Margaret or not, because this is the thing we don't always get.

Some beautiful work happens at funerals.

We don't always think of it that way, but I want you to know the eulogy I heard yesterday was arguably one of the better eulogies I've heard in more than a hundred funerals.

Because the son got up and he said, Here is Mother's Details, here's the obituary, and then he said, Here are some stories.

And I want you to hear two of them so that you can think about what it means to celebrate life.

One of them goes like this Son was working with mom when she was about 90 years old, and windows weren't closing correctly, sliding doors were acting up.

So son was helping out, and mom walked around and said, Yeah, you're not doing it right, you need to do it this way, this way.

And son looks up at mom and says, Have you ever heard of the phrase micromanager?

And Margaret doesn't even bat an eye.

She says, You ever heard of the phrase, kiss mine?

No, I want you to hear.

That's exactly a beautiful story at a funeral because that's what you're going to remember.

The quirks, the personality, the sassaphras, if you will, right?

These are the things that allowed Margaret to show up over and over and over again.

These are the stories that let you meet a person you may never have met.

This is the ministry we do with eulogies at funerals.

I'm gonna tell you another story.

Used to go on ECW retreats, and Jan Ketchum told me that as soon as they got to the beach, Margaret would just put her swimsuit on, and that's all she wore.

And that wasn't enough.

She discovered that they were juice boxes filled with wine, and so she had wine juice boxes the whole retreat long in her swimsuit.

You may say, Mike, that's an irreverent story.

That's a holy story.

Because that's who that lady was, and we celebrate that in God, knowing that that matters and it's valuable, and that's how she showed up.

And I didn't get to tell the story.

But my last aunt on my father's side died this week, and her funeral was yesterday.

And I remember as a child the way my aunt showed up for me, and this is a story I would have shared, and maybe people wouldn't have thought it was right.

But when I was about eight years old, my aunt gave my brother and I each a book, and it wasn't the same book.

And you know that's dangerous when you got two kids.

My book was sounder, his book was a wither, a wizard of earth sea.

And I looked at the cover of that book and I was jealous.

And I cried and I pleaded for the same book.

And my aunt, I mean, do you talk about showing up?

She just sat there while I cried.

She didn't try to change my mind.

And she didn't give me a different book.

She was able to hold my disappointment and said, tell me what you think about the book when you're done.

That's how she showed up for me.

Boy, what a model that I can handle my child's disappointment without having to change things.

I can support them through it.

Through grief.

Whether I should have to or not.

This is what the saints do.

They show up.

And so on that vein, I want to remind you whether it's Margaret or it's my Aunt Sue, maybe somebody has entered larger life in your family this year.

In two weeks, we're going to celebrate those people on All Saints Day, and we'd be grateful for their names.

As we read each name who has departed under larger life this past year, we light a candle, we ring a bell so that we can include them in the communion of saints.

So if there are names, people in your life, please send them to Ellen Rai ahead of November 2nd so that we can have them in the bulletin and celebrate the full communion of sainthood.

Last word is that we are about halfway through our pledge cycle for next year.

And this is true, we can do more together.

So I encourage you to prayerfully consider your pledge and how it is that we as a congregation are going to choose to show up next year.

That's really what this pledging is about.

Where are we going to show up and how?

The same guy who told me the way we make change is gentle pressure relentlessly applied, reminded me of two other thoughts.

Number one, we give until it feels good.

And I gotta tell you, as a runner, I hated running.

I still hate running the first five miles.

And what I realized is it took me five miles to get into a rhythm where my breath was reliable and I didn't have to think about stepping.

Usually the last mile was pretty dreadful too, but the miles between five and twenty six in general were pretty nice.

Sometimes it didn't feel good because I didn't practice it enough.

So this is a reminder about our stewardship of our time.

Sometimes it's tough because we're still getting into the mechanics, and if we'll stick with it, that's where joy is to be found.

My friend also reminded me, sometimes we like to say, give until it hurts, but that's not, that's not, oh, I already said that one.

Give until it feels good is what he suggested.

But he also said, sometimes we used like to say, Oh, there's no gift too small.

We don't say that in church.

Nope.

We say there's no gift too big.

There is no gift too big.

Because even a gentle moment of compassion, God can use that to do more than we can ask or imagine.

So there is no gift too big.

Give until it feels good and walk in love.

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

And of mine.

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

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

You who have much faith and you who have little.

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

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

Not because the church invites you, it is Christ, but he invites you to meet him here.

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

Page 367.

The Lord be he with you.

I am also with you to be hovens.

We give them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our call.

It is right to give God thy thanks and praise.

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

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, in fulfillment of his true promise, the Holy Spirit came down from heaven, lighting upon the disciples to teach them and lead them into all truth, uniting people of many languages and worldviews in the confession and celebration of one faith, and giving to your church the power to serve you as a royal priesthood and preach the gospel to all nations.

Therefore we praise you, joining our voices with angels and with 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 have made known to us in creation, and the calling of Israel to be your people, and your word spoken to 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, and 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 which is given for you.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

After sufferer, Jesus took the cup of wine.

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

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

Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.

Therefore, according to his commander, Father, we remember his death.

We proclaim his resurrection.

We await his coming in glory.

And we offer our sacrifice and 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 in his blood of the new covenant.

Unite us to your Son and 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 unto your Christ and bring us to that heavenly country wherewith 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 Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever.

Amen.

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

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

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.

Therefore, let us eat the feast of Hallelujah.

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

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

And as a reminder, your left, my right, is set up for intention, that's dipping only.

Your right, my left is set for drinking directly from the chalice only.

So dippers are drinkers.

Renewed by this bread from the heavenly table, we receive you, Lord, for any fluid.

It may confirm on our hearts and offer us to serve you and our neighbor through Christ our Lord.

Praying discipleship doesn't have to be the blue iris.

It could be weeds and a vacant lot or a few small stones.

Just pay attention.

Then patch a few words together and don't try to make them elaborate.

This isn't a contest, but the doorway into thanks and the silence in which another voice may speak.

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

Amen.