Pentecost 24 2021

A reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sin.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sin, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since then has been waiting until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.

For by a single offering Christ has perfected for all time those who are sanctified, and the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord.

I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds.

The Spirit also adds, I will remember their sin and their lawless deeds no more.

Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

And therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us to the curtain, that is, to his flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.

And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

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

As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, Look, teacher, what large stones and what large buildings?

Then Jesus asked him, Do you see these great buildings?

Not one stone will be left here upon another, all will be thrown down.

When Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, Tell us, when will this be?

And what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?

Then Jesus began to say to them, Beware that no one leads you astray.

Many will come in my name and say, I am he, and they will lead many astray.

When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed.

This must take place, but the end is still to come.

For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines.

This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

The gospel of the Lord.

Next week is the last Sunday in the church year.

We call it Christ the King or Restorative Justice Sunday.

So here we are, second to the last.

The church year begins anew on Advent 1, which this year is November 28th.

And because we're coming to the end of the church year, perhaps, we get to hear these words about the end.

Now, in order to justify my master's degree, I have to introduce you to this word eschatology.

Maybe you've heard it before.

Eschatology means words about or study of the end, the eschaton.

There are a few ways that Christian folk have approached this, although I would tell you most of the ways I'm going to introduce up front are younger than 200 years old.

I mentioned to you last week, just sort of in passing, that the best-selling book series of all time is in fact the Left Behind series, not Harry Potter.

Boy, those people are missing out.

So the interesting thing about the Left Behind series, if you've read it, and by the way, you probably don't have to read it to know what it's about.

It's about the end of the world where everybody flies away to heaven.

So the plan is to get out of here as fast as you can.

However, I mentioned to you last week that when you read Revelation, not even carefully, the text reads that the New Jerusalem will be on earth and God has decided to dwell among mortals.

And so I suggest to you that a different eschatology is not the end of time or the end of the world, but rather the end of the world as we know it.

And with REM, I think the gospel would like us to be able to say it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

So I want to talk to you about eschatology this week, and I want to show you this picture of what the disciples are talking about, because we don't often realize this, and I know this isn't the best picture in choir.

I promise I'm going to get it to you as well.

Here's a scale model of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.

And what I want you to see, more than anything, is this building right here.

This is the Jerusalem Temple.

And if you see these high towers right here, this is called the Antonia Fortress.

So long time ago, this king called Solomon built a house for God to dwell in.

It was smaller than this sanctuary.

This is helpful for us to know what the thing would have looked like.

About a third of the size of the room you're sitting in was the Jerusalem temple Solomon built.

And it occupied a precinct.

You see this really big wall right here?

The temple Solomon built was sitting on about one and a half basketball courts.

When Herod the Great came around, and by the way, he's the only one who called himself the great.

Nobody else cared for him that much, to be honest.

He turned that Jerusalem temple literally into the eighth wonder of the ancient world.

Eighth wonder, like pyramids of Giza, Colossus of Rhodes, eighth wonder of the world.

He took something the size of one and a half basketball corps and built a precinct the size of three football fields.

Sorry for the sports analogies, but just want to be really clear.

This is more than a tenfold enhancement.

The way he did it, and this is going to be really tough to see, this little wall right here, this is what's called the Western Wall or the Wailing Wall.

Still exists, not part of the temple.

It was a retaining wall.

Jerusalem sits on a bunch of hills, and what Herod had to do in order to expand the Temple Mount was sort of to fill in the low spots.

And the way he did it, I mean, think how much fill it would take.

Rather than just filling in a ravine, he built an archway.

He basically built a giant bridge over a valley.

If you went in uh, we went in 2017 as a parish, but if you've been before, you can look at some of the stones Herod used to build this archway.

They're still there.

The biggest one that you get to look at and touch weighs more, this is gonna sound crazy when I tell you this, more than 200 tons.

It's so big, archaeologists aren't sure how they moved the thing.

It's not even square.

It's this very bizarre shape.

200 tons.

You've got to consider that in the ancient world, the disciples are coming from a really small village.

Nazareth had maybe 90 folk living in it.

90.

That's sort of like coming from the town of High, Texas, population 17.

The only thing I can commend to you in High Texas is the Garrison Brothers Distillery.

So if you've been there, you know what high is like.

And if you grew up in High and went to New York City before there were movies or TV, you'd have thought you'd left the planet.

The disciples might have thought that aliens built the Jerusalem temple.

That's how big and magnificent the thing was.

So you've come from nowhere and you see this thing, these three football fields, and you say, Look, Jesus.

A 200-ton stone.

And Jesus rather cavalierly bursts your bubble and says, That isn't gonna last.

Now I'll tell you that a lot of New Testament scholars would tell you that.

This passage in Mark either came right before the temple was torn down, or possibly even came right after it was torn down, because what Jesus said happened.

In the year 70 AD, the Romans entered into Jerusalem, and not only did they sort of take over the city from the rebels, they did tear down everything on top of that Temple Mount.

So all the buildings on top they raised to the ground.

And it's very possible that Jesus is saying through the Gospel of Mark this isn't the end of the world.

It's just the end of the world as you knew it.

And there's this curious phrase at the very end that is so easy to miss.

It's appropriate for the Samuel lessons, and I feel like I have to tweak it a little bit.

But Jesus does not say this is the beginning of the death throes.

He says this is the beginning of the birth of pangs.

That is to say, what seems cataclysmic, impossible to rise above, daunting and thwarting, might just be growth pains.

I often confuse growth pains with death throws myself in my personal life and in my spiritual journey, and sometimes even in congregational life.

The phrase that the Christian mystics like St.

John of the Cross use, they contrast being broken apart, which is a bad thing to be broken into pieces, with being broken open, which they insist to be the glory of God coming out of us.

That it is in fact God's desire for us to be broken open to the world.

To put it another way, perhaps.

When a tree is laying down roots, roots for growth, it's very likely that the roots are going to encounter some obstacles along the way.

Rocks, sometimes my driveway.

And I imagine it's relatively painful for these roots.

You know, modern scientists have discovered that trees feel pain and they make noise, right?

They actually scream, trees do.

This is a relatively new discovery when they're in pain.

But if you've been places, and perhaps this is true of some of the sidewalks or pavers at your own home, you can see what roots are able to accomplish.

They're able to support incredible growth.

And even more so than thinking about our driveways.

If you've been before to Yosemite Valley in California, El Capitan is a sheer granite face, and somehow trees have wound their way into that sheer face and they grow.

I mean, look, I can't speak on behalf of the pain of trees, but I'm pretty suspicious there were a lot of growth panes getting into a sheer granite face.

Roots had to hit over and over and over against first sheer granite and then into rocks and then into dust.

And if you've seen these trees, which are green and vibrant and very much alive, it's a testament that the end of the world as they knew it has resulted in this growth.

Now Jesus suggests that we often don't know the difference between the two.

And I'm going to tell you, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hands on this one, but as a parent, taking care of a parent, being a sibling, often being a spouse, I'm often confused the end of the world with the end of the world as I know it.

And quite honestly, I could probably do just about anything over and over and over again if I knew it was going to work.

I could get up every morning at blank time, make breakfast, tutor my kids, blah, blah, blah, fill in the blank, if I knew it was going to work.

I bet you could too.

The problem is we don't know.

And I think Jesus is lifting up this I don't know phase as the razor's edge between the end of the world and the end of the world as we know it.

I want to suggest to you that the readings from Samuel tell us about a world that needs to end.

So here in this story of Samuel, there's a man with two wives.

One of them is apparently infertile.

Do you notice how God gets blamed for that in the story?

Now, this is from a worldview that frankly most of us don't support that God closes and opens wombs.

Right?

But this is the story at the time, in which a woman's to meet her social value, her expectation was she had a male son.

And if she didn't, in her own culture, she was considered worth less.

That's a world that needs to end.

This woman who's barren is loved by her husband.

Her husband has another wife who's had male children.

He doesn't love her.

Do you notice that?

It would be easy to say this unloved woman is irritating this other lady.

She's not loved.

And neither one of them picked.

It's a world that needs to end, don't you think?

It'd be nice if we could pretend it were over.

I'm not going to ask you ladies to raise your hand, but I am well aware of how many people ask you, why didn't you decide to have children?

Why'd you only have two?

I don't get that question as a man.

When we adopted our first child, it was assumed it was because we were infertile.

We weren't.

When my parents got married, one of my paternal great aunts grabbed my mom at the reception to see how pregnant she was.

And then when they didn't have children for five or six years, the same lady spread the rumor that they were infertile.

Now that's a world that needs to end.

Don't you see?

That's a world that needs to end.

This woman, Hannah, who's at a double bind, right?

Her husband says, Isn't my love for you enough?

Well, the answer is no, because I don't just live with you.

I have a cultural identity.

Your love's a good start, but let's how about we change the rest of the way people look at us, right?

She goes to the priest and pours her heart out and have a notice.

The priest thinks she's drunk.

The priest sees somebody in genuine piety and confuses it with drunkenness.

That's a world that needs to end, don't you think?

Hannah goes on to sing this song.

You're going to hear it in exactly five, four weeks.

Four weeks.

It's called the Magnificat.

I don't know if you've heard the Magnificat before.

Mary paraphrases this song.

And the song, if you read it, not even very carefully, is about a world that needs to end.

A world that needs to end so that we can come to the end of the world as we know it.

By the way, we pray this every week.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The end of the world as we know it.

So we can live into the world as you imagine it.

This is the text of the Magnifica.

It's not just misogyny that needs to end.

Jesus suggests to us that we really get this wrong when we get deceived by false messiahs.

And one of the like clearest exceptions to me is that we're all supposed to think the same way.

As if discipleship and parroting had anything to do with one another.

If you don't mind me saying this, there's this thing that we've fallen into that is increasing, incredibly not healthy.

And Hebrews is going to point it out if you if you look at Hebrews, there's this ton of quotations there.

Do you notice that?

Quotations where the author of Hebrews is taking quotes from the Hebrew Bible and stitching them together to show how Jesus fulfills the quotes.

Fulfills.

That doesn't mean Nostradamus predicted in the year 1977 this thing would happen.

What it means is Jesus resonates with the story.

It's a way our Jewish brothers and sisters read the text called Midrash.

When our Jewish brothers and sisters read the Hebrew Bible, sometimes they notice there's some details that have been left out that they'd like to know about.

And what they do is they imagine how those details might work out.

Probably not everybody's heard this, but there's this idea that there was this lady called Lilith.

She was the first woman, and Eve was the second woman.

If this is foreign to you, great, because our Jewish brothers and sisters read this when they read Genesis 1 and 2.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters, when they read the Hebrew Bible, they read the text just like you got it.

But next to the text, they read comment on the text by rabbis.

Side by side.

And then under that, they read comment on the rabbis by some other rabbis.

And then on top of that, they read this stuff called mid-rash, which is like, hey, there's details missing, wonder what happened.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters read all four of those things at the same time.

What's most interesting about reading rabbinic commentary is that they never agree.

Never.

And when you read it, it's almost like they've chosen purposefully to preserve competing viewpoints.

The rabbinic commentary, this is called the Talmud, it'll say, Rabbi Hillel says the most important commandment is blank, but Rabbi Gamaliel disagreed and said the most important commandment is blank.

The only thing our Jewish brothers and sisters tend to agree on when they read the Bible is if they're going to come back next week and disagree some more.

I want to suggest to you that's what faithful discipleship looks like.

That's what it means to be unified in mission instead of uniform in identity.

Uniform in identity means to end so that we can live into the end of the world as we know it and feel fine.

And feel fine.

Because there's life in that.

It gives us some insight into maybe how it is that we leave the world as we know it, so that we can start into leaving, living into the will that God imagines for us.

There's this curious phrase about provoking one another into.

Good deeds.

Now, I've got an older brother, and I can tell you we did a lot of provoking, but uh not really ever to good deeds.

If you've got more than one child, they probably provoke one another all of the time, rarely toward good deeds.

Usually, when we provoke people, it is to do some kind of misdeed, uh, even if it's not necessarily bad.

Like we say things like, I dare you to eat this ghost pepper.

It is a strange arrangement where we decide, because you dare me, I will do something that I will have to suffer from twice.

But this apparently is the world that we teenage boys relish is uh being provoked to things that are going to hurt us more than once.

Um rarely do you hear somebody say, I dare you to live into your values today.

I mean, that almost sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it?

I dare you to practice gratitude for the saints in your life every day of November.

I dare you.

And what if in fact we provoked one another to live into our values?

Maybe that is part of the missing link between getting us out of the world that needs to end and into the end of the world as we know it.

One of the things about the Jerusalem temple that's so interesting at the time of Jesus is that Rome actually was very happy to contribute towards it because the Jerusalem temple stored all the debt records.

I don't mean like credit cards, although when you're paying more than 20% interest on a credit card note, we call that usury in the Bible.

Like that's a thing.

That's a problem.

It subjugates people, but I want you to even consider this amounts to chattel slavery, and all the records are in the high holy place.

That's a world that needs to end, I don't think.

And I want to come back to that energy in mind of trees growing on the human faith and infinity.

We do what we can.

And by the way, I want to be really clear.

God's not calling us to kill ourselves in a service.

Not calling us to do that.

Because, see, then there'd be no life in you.

But I do think there's this interesting thing that Jesus tells us over and over and over about how it is that the community tills the ground so that there can be some new roots, so that there can be some death and some growth.

And of course, growth isn't for itself, growth is so that there can be fruit, which what do you know, tills the ground some more.

I mean, really, if you think about it, if you had infinite seeds, you could terraform the ground with just the seeds.

It might take a geological time scale.

But I think God probably has all the time in the world.

So it's okay if it comes out right.

And what I want to suggest to you is that we have these moments in which we doubt the efficacy of what we're doing because we can't see it.

But the promise of the saints is that we see it when we look backward, and God sees it all along.

And every act that we do that resembles something like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, is terraforming the world.

Even if we don't see it.

To put it another way, a wise person plants a tree whose shade they will never enjoy.

You've heard this before?

This is what it means, I think, when we say we can do more together.

We can do more together.

We, even if we don't see that shade ourselves, we're terraforming the world to look more like the world God imagines for us.

And we do sometimes live in the conviction I am sweating it out for my kid and I'm not seeing the benefit.

And this is where I think as a community we're able to come around one another in vulnerability and say, and you are terraforming my heart with the care you give your child.

I don't know if you've considered that.

So often I'm stuck in a game where I'm not seeing the outcome and I'm forgetting about what my input is.

And what we get to do together is say, I see the inputs you're putting in.

The promise of the saints is that these acts are eternal, not finite, and that they expand not over not only the universe, but they terraform the world to grow the fruit that God imagines.

That's what we're called to do together.

And I don't know what version of eschatology you prefer.

I just am really convinced God's not asking us to escape the world.

I'm really convinced that no matter how it all ends, God would be really grateful if we terraform the world of God to produce fruits of joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control.

And that all of the obstacles and rocks that get in our way, well, I don't mean get in our way like we're supposed to push them aside.

I just mean that there's growing pains.

Those pains are real.

Sometimes we need a break.

And that's why we've got each other.

But we've got each other.

We can build something glorious on behalf of God.

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

We believe in one God, the Father being mighty, maker of every of all that is seen and seen.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally the Father, Lord of God, life from life, through God, became man, our one being with the Father.

Through him all things we may, Christ, our salvation, being down from heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of Heaven and will save.

For our sake he was crucified with Jesus Father.

He suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again in accordance to the scriptures, and descended from heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in the glory to the judge of the living and the dead, and take him from heaven.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord giver of life, who proceeds from 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 lie on the baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

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 and all we do.

Lord, in your compassion, hear our prayer.

We pray for the leaders of all nations that they may seek to do your will for the welfare of the people they lead and serve.

We pray for those holding public office in our nation, that they may be guided by your gifts of wisdom and charity.

Lord, in your compassion, hear our prayer.

We thank you, Creator God, for the beauty, majesty, and abundance of your creation, especially for its manifestation here around Clear Lake.

Keep us mindful of the holiness and fragility of our earthly home and all creatures who dwell therein, that we may rejoice in being stewards and peacemakers.

Lord, in your compassion, our prayer.

O God, giver of all things, we thank you for the abundance of grace poured out upon us.

May we with grateful hearts show compassion through our thoughts, words, and deeds for those who are hungry, homeless, neglected, abused, exploited, or in any other need.

Lord, in your compassion, hear our prayer.

Lord Jesus, healer of bodies and spirits, may your healing hand touch all who suffer in mind, body, or soul.

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

We pray especially for Chris, Sean, Ken, Nancy, and Rachel.

Lord, your compassion, hear our prayer.

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

Trusting that you are able to do more than we ask or imagine.

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 who sent to them, they may continue to serve you in this life according to your will.

We are especially grateful for.

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

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.

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

Let us confess our sin against God and our neighbors.

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 on 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.

Almighty God, who in Jesus Christ has given us a family that cannot be destroyed, forgive your sin.

Open your eyes and heart to truth and new life, strengthen you to do God's will and live joyfully in God's family.

Amen.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

There are a few announcements I want to call to your attention.

And first is something you didn't see on your way in.

You did not see 75 Thanksgiving bags because they already went over to McWorder on Thursday.

Now, um, those are expensive.

I'm gonna be honest with you.

They were like more than$50 a bag.

And that's why, if we didn't give them, people were not going to enjoy something we take for granted.

Those people don't even know to thank you, so on their behalf, thank you.

Thank you for giving somebody a sign, a token of God's love from somebody they don't even know.

That's the way we live into God's imagination.

Thanks for your generosity.

Uh, a few announcements to call to your attention.

There's some opportunities coming up this week.

Uh, one is uh on the little tables out there where you picked up your bulletin, there's some sign-up sheets for the progressive dinner.

So the progressive dinner is uh an event happening on Saturday, December the 4th.

We're gonna start by coming together, all of us at a large, large home for appetizers, and then we're gonna split out for dinner, and then split out again for dessert in smaller groups.

So it's a great way to get to know people who are sitting on the other side of the church, or maybe at the 8 o'clock service.

You can sign up on those sheets, you can email Amy Hoff or myself, or there's a sign-up genius in the e-news.

You can do all three if you're worried we won't get them, but uh we'll we'll make one reservation for family, even if we do all three.

But it's a great opportunity if the dates available uh to get to know folks from the church.

Another thing, oh, and the deadline for that is next Sunday so that we can pair this uh correctly.

So we've got another week to think about that.

Um, the other thing that's happening next Sunday is the consecration of our pledges.

Uh, and we're sort of winding down with our stewardship drive and getting ready to budget for next year.

Um for me as your priest, it's just really important to bless whatever pledge it is that that you've discerned you'd like to make.

We all know that life takes us in different places and sometimes up and sometimes down.

Um, but this is our best intention of what we'd like to share with the community and uh being able to say that God can do more than we can ask or imagine, that's a kernel of my faith.

So I look forward to doing that next week.

I have some extra cards out here if you didn't get one or if you need help, um please let me know.

I wanted to give you an update.

I mentioned it to you last week that um there are some folks who have put together a pool of matching funds to get our pipe organ where it goes.

Uh, it's especially important because we have a really beautiful church, and it would be nice if that were where it went.

And so we're trying to speed the work along so we can get it where it goes and hear it.

And there's a little bookmark out there that tells you, uh, right now we've had$8,000 raised to the match, which is fantastic.

We've got until January 7th.

There's a little bookmark out there that answers more questions in case you're curious.

Like, would this count toward our capital funds drive?

The answer is, of course, yes.

Um, but if if I can help you, or John Leedy can help you with any organ questions, he's our project manager.

Uh, I just left this opportunity up to you.

There's something else that's important.

One of our school parents did this fantastic thing that I hope you'll just take a look at on your way out.

In honor of Veterans Day, they invited our school community to offer photos of the veterans and their family.

And we had a Veterans Day celebration on Thursday, and those photos are still up.

Uh, so it's really fantastic to see what one parent chooses to do to uphold the rest of the community.

And of course, that's how it always works.

Uh, sometimes it's more than one.

But take a look at our school veterans because their service is incredible.

Some of them are combat veterans, uh, some of them were local veterans, but we were able to celebrate uh what these folks offered as a school on Thursday.

I think I'm forgetting something, but uh but that's okay.

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

All things come of the Lord.

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

We gift up your hooks.

It is very meat, right, and our bound and duty that we should, at all times and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father Almighty, everlasting God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, according to whose true promise the Holy Ghost came down from heaven, lighting upon the disciples to teach them and lead them into all truth, uniting peoples of many languages and worldviews and the practice of one faithfulness, and giving to thy church the power to serve thee as a royal priesthood and preach the gospel to all nations.

And therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we Lord and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory.

Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High.

Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna.

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 of 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.

He made there a full and perfect sacrifice for the whole world, and did institute, and in this 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 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 given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink this, all of you, for 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 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 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 higher sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, whereby we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and 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 whom and with whom and in whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, our 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 come, 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.

Hallelujah, Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us seek the peace.

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

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

God of abundance, you have fed us with the bread of life and cup of salvation.

You have united us with Christ and one another, and you have made us one with all your people in heaven and on earth.

Now send us forth in the power of your Spirit, that we may proclaim your redeeming love to the world, and continue forever in the prison life of Christ our Savior.

Amen.

Rivers do not drink their own water, trees do not eat their own fruit, the sun does not shine on itself, and flowers do not spread their fragrance for themselves.

Living for others is a rule of nature.

We are all born to help each other no matter how difficult it is.

Life is good when you are happy, but much better when other hap are when others are happy because of you.

The blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be upon you, those you love, and those for whom you pray this day and forevermore.

Amen.