Pentecost 23 2021

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

Let's pray together.

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.

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

Amen.

The Lord be with you.

Let us pray.

Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your gift that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service.

Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

And a certain man of Bethlehem and Judah went to live in the country of Moab.

He and his wife and two sons.

The name of the man was Alamelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi.

And the names of his two sons were Malam and Chile.

They were Ephraites from Bethlehem and Judah.

They went into the country of Moab and remained there.

But Alamelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons.

These took Moabite wives, the names of one who was Ophrah, and the other of the name, and the name of the other, Ruth.

When they had lived there about ten years, both Moon and Chileon also died.

So that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had considered his people and given them food.

So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah.

But I only said to her two daughters-in-law, go back, each of you, to your mother's house.

May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you, in the house of your husband.

Then she kissed them and they wept aloud.

They said to her, No, we will return with you to your people.

But Naomi said, Turn back, my daughters.

Why will you go with me?

Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?

Turn back, my daughters, and go your way, for I am too old to have a husband.

Even if I thought there was hope for me, but even if I should have a husband tonight, and they are sons, would you then wait until they were grown?

Would you then refrain from marrying?

No, my daughters.

It has been far more bitter for me than for you because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.

Then they wept aloud again.

But Ruth clung to her.

So she said, I see your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods.

Return after your sister-in-law.

But Ruth said, Do not oppress me to leave you or turn back from following you.

Where you go, I will go.

Where you lodge, I will lodge.

Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

Where you die, I will die.

There will I be buried.

May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well.

If even death departs me from you.

When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with God, she said no more.

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

And we will read responsibly by the half verse.

Hallelujah.

Praise the Lord, O my soul.

I will praise the Lord as long as I live.

I will sing praise to my God by me.

Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth.

For their name is no help in them.

When they breathe their last, they return to earth.

And in that day they will prosperish.

Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help.

Who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them.

Who gives justice to those who are oppressed.

And who to those who hunger.

The Lord sets the prisoners free.

The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.

The Lord gives up those who are all hell.

The Lord loves the righteous and cares for the stranger.

The Lord sustains the orchard and the windows, the way of glory.

The Lord shall reign forever.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.

For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from the dead works to worship the living God?

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

Thanks to God.

Seeing that Jesus answered them well, he asked Jesus, Which commandment is the first of all?

Jesus answered, The first, Is here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

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

The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

There is no other commandment greater than these.

Then the scribe said to Jesus, You're right, teacher.

You've said that God is one, and besides God there is no other.

And to love God with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the exceedingness, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

When Jesus saw that the scribe answered wisely, he said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God.

And after that, no one dared to ask Jesus any question.

The gospel of the Lord.

And the second, you may not know this, is Reformation Day, hence the get up.

Because 525 years ago, we were given a gift through Martin Luther that has ultimately resulted in the Anglican Communion and a number of Reformations.

And uh I want to speak a little bit about each of these, if that's okay.

Um, if not, I guess just well, okay.

There's some pretty windows over there.

Um 525 years ago, you would have you would be sitting here listening to me speak in Latin, which probably neither of us would have understood.

And I want you to hear that neither of us understood.

Most clergy were illiterate.

And just proof in the pudding, maybe you've heard this uh magic words, hocus pocus.

This came right out of the mass.

What the priest was supposed to say when picking up the bread is hocus corpus meum, this is my body.

It's possible people in the pew didn't understand.

It's also possible the priest, being illiterate, said hocus pocus.

And you can understand if those words can turn bread into flesh, oh, that's real magic.

That's the origin of the phrase.

And of course, what Martin Luther was concerned with was whether or not this service, this gathering, was meeting folks' needs.

Even more than all of that, what Martin Luther was concerned with, and this is important as we think about all halloods, most of the 95 theses had to do with the selling of indulgences.

Now, just a reminder: the way that forgiveness has always been understood in the church is that there are two things you're meant to do when you have wronged someone.

Contrition and penance.

Contrition we get.

You're actually supposed to feel sorry.

By the way, if you don't have contrition, says the Roman Church, and to be honest, says all of us, you're not actually sorry, it's not gonna work.

Penance, of course, is fixing what you did wrong.

Leveling the scales of honor.

So if you stole from somebody, you return the principle with interest, but if you have stolen somebody's honor, you restore their honor with interest.

It was important to do both of these to fully live into forgiveness, said the church.

And of course, if you know this doctrine of indulgences, um, what the church was saying was that as long as you had contrition, you still had to have that.

Turned out that the saints, holy people, had done enough merits in their lives that the merits of the saints could substitute for your penance.

And the church, holding the keys, this is what we hear from St.

Peter, right?

Was essentially the counselor to the exchequer of the merits of the saints.

And so to get this dispensation, you made a deposit.

Money.

And this was particularly important when the Roman Church was building St.

Peter's Cathedral.

If you've been there, it's still really quite glorious, and that's because it cost a bajillion dollars.

And part of the way they raised that money was selling these indulgences, which was to get you or your loved ones out of penance.

You had not been contrite, it didn't matter.

Please hear that.

Luther was opposed to this and came up with these theses, and uh his general opposition was uh God doesn't God doesn't do this bartering system whereby one can buy oneself out of penance.

Penance is not something, actually, Luther says that God needs.

Penance is something we need.

We need to do penance so that we can fully embrace forgiveness.

Otherwise, we've made grace cheap, in the words of the Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I want to suggest to you that while we don't have this doctrine in the Episcopal Church of a purgatory, a place where you go after you die, so that you can pay for what you did wrong on earth, which by the way is a pretty decent sense of justice when you think about it.

Purgatory is only temporary.

It's not forever.

And you get to pay for what you did wrong.

We don't have that doctrine.

I do want to suggest to you that if you take forever off the table, the church is pretty right about the merits of the saints and what they do for you, because the truth is, saints, at least in our tradition, are people who are living or dead, who have pointed us to God through acts of faith, hope, and love, or goodness, kindness, gentleness, self-control.

Saints do not have to do this with their entire life, they can do it once, and it makes them an extraordinary person.

And if you review your life, I would almost guarantee you that a saint has pulled you out of purgatory in this lifetime.

Or, if you dare listen to me, a saint has pulled you out of existential hell in this lifetime.

Merits of saints change our lives.

Period.

And this is what we're going to celebrate with all halotes.

These people, living or dead, who have connected us with larger life, who have pulled us out of suffering, out of dark places, who have made God's light visible in our lives.

And that's what we're going to do, not tomorrow, which is all Saints Day, we're going to do that next week.

And I want to sit on it for a week because today is all Hallows Eve.

And if you look over here, you'll see this really interesting thing that our students at school have done in the Oaxaca tradition.

They've made these boxes and put them together, and this is called an affrenda, whereby you remember people who have pulled you out of purgatory through the merit of the saints.

Faith, hope, love, goodness, kindness, gentleness, self-control against such things, there are no law.

These are those people for our students, and I invite you to make one too and put it on the altar next week.

What I love about the Episcopal Church are saints are people dead or living.

We get squeamish about this because we think, oh gosh, if somebody's still living, they could mess up and blow their sainthood, and the answer is no, they can't.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, says the scriptures, outlive us.

Pettiness does not.

The fruits of the Spirit are eternal.

You can't blow it.

If you've done it, it lasts forever.

And we celebrate those folks living or dead next week.

When we put these pictures or tokens, or if you want to make a box, we put it on the Lord's table, and we do this for a couple of reasons.

If people have already departed, they're already sitting at the Lord's table.

And if people are still with us, they're nourishing us from God's table already with the merits of the saints.

If they've departed, we light a candle to remember, hey, this candle represents visible light, and the saints have made God's light visible.

By the way, Luther was not opposed to anything I've just told you.

Luther believed that if you were called by Jesus, you were also called by good works to do good works to make God's light visible.

And those are saints.

The scriptures tell us a little bit about sainthood.

I'm going to dally with you for just a second on the book of Ruth.

It's important to hear what's going on behind the book.

It's a cultural practice we don't really entertain at all anymore.

And it's called leverite marriage.

So let me unpack that a little bit and say how Ruth demonstrates sainthood within this tradition that thank God we don't buy into anymore.

In the ancient world, it was understood that everybody owes their parent a debt they can never pay back.

And the way you, in fact, pay back that unpayable debt is by having children.

That fell inordinately upon women because at the time of the book it was understood that there was no uh understanding of mutuality.

The man had the fully formed child and inserted it into a womb.

So the woman's job was to be a container, that was it.

They didn't understand about DNA and two people being necessary.

So it became the woman's job to be a proper receptacle for a human being and the way they pay their obligations to their ancestors that women had to bear sons.

Because only sons could carry the family name and inherit the land.

So a woman who did not bear a male child failed in the worst way.

Failed to meet the obligation to her own parents and to God.

Now I hope we figured out.

Not only is that not right, it's not fair, it's like kind of awful, but the story rests on this.

Now, from time to time, what happened, and by the way, the reason we have an Episcopal church is because this happened.

I don't know if you know Henry VIII had an older brother called Arthur, and Arthur was supposed to be the king of England, and Henry VIII was going to be a bishop, so he went to seminary.

Arthur died without an heir.

So Henry VIII married Arthur's widow.

Based on this practice, leverite marriage.

The practice goes like this.

If the firstborn son gets married, dies without having a son.

Stay with me, it's gonna sound crazy.

The next of kin, whether that's the younger brother or like your third cousin twice removed, is supposed to have conjugal relations with the widow, produce a child, and the child will be the firstborn brother that died.

I just want you to hear that for a second.

If the younger brother has a child with his older brother's widow, the child becomes his dead brother.

You may say that's crazy, and I'm glad if you say that.

I have no interest in this practice myself.

I'm a younger brother.

My brother had sons, so it works out anyway.

The other thing that you need to know is that the economic incentive was really low.

It turns out in the ancient world, the firstborn son received at least two-thirds of the inheritance, more likely 90%.

The secondborn son got the residual, whether 33 and a third percent or 10%, the other kids got nothing.

So imagine how the inheritance works.

Your dad's really rich, your older brother dies.

You're now gonna get 90% unless you do your duty and produce a kid who will be your older brother, and they get the 90%.

Low incentive to do this.

Enter Ruth.

Now, in Ruth's story, these are good Hebrew folk.

They sojourned to an alien land.

If you know Hebrew, the boys are named Mahlon and Silion, which mean weakly and sickly.

And what do you know?

Weak and sick people die the next verse later.

Here they are in Moab, and really the way to hear this essentially is that these good Hebrew boys.

Have married outside the clan.

One of them has married a Hindu and the other's married a Muslim.

The story works just like that.

Or maybe something even worse in your mind, like a Lutheran.

I don't know, whoever it's like sort of the worst religious category, these people marry outside the faith.

And the reader should be thinking this is not gonna go well, and it's really clear the book of Ruth is written to correct that perception.

Ruth is a pagan, she's a Wiccan priest.

I mean, you feel in how bad whatever she is, but she has married into this Hebrew family.

And here says Naomi, look, y'all, I can't give you a new husband.

Based on leverright marriage, the next male in the family should have a baby with Naomi who will replace weak and another baby who will replace sick.

Well, she's had menopause already.

She can't give them a new husband.

So she says, I'm releasing you.

Go back to your land and your gods and your people and live your life.

And one of them says, Cool, alright.

And then there's Ruth, who says, No.

Naomi's prospects in the story.

Naomi's prospects are begged being a beggar or being a prostitute.

And Ruth sees her mother-in-law in absolute weakness and says, the odds are low, but I'll throw my lot in with you.

And not only will I be your shield in Hebrew, but I'll throw my lot in with you, so that if it didn't go well for you, it won't go well for me.

She effectively risks not just her reputation, but her life.

Now we read this scripture at weddings sometimes, because this is what vows represent.

Consider this.

Your gods will be my gods, where you're buried, I'll be buried.

Your ways will be my ways, where you go, I will go.

I mean, the vows in the marriage ceremony basically say that, right?

For Richard, for poorer, sickness, hell.

And I want to put before you that this might be part of the merit of the saints, and it might be what Jesus is talking about.

I'm going to go to that in a second, but I want to tell you that the story of Ruth only works as we read the book because Boaz also chooses to do this.

Boaz is the guy who ends up with Ruth and they have a baby, which, by the way, Ruth gives birth to the baby on Naomi's knees, symbolically showing it's Naomi's baby.

I know this is really wacky.

Just, I mean, you don't want to do this in the delivery room.

Hey, mother-in-law, come on in, I'll have the baby on your knees.

It'll be my older brother.

This is how it works in the story.

Boaz gives up his whole future by having this child who is not his child will be his cousin who inherits all the stuff.

It only works because of that.

I wish there were men in this story today instead of women, because this is a terrible burden to put on women.

But I do want you to hear, in some ways, this is part of the merit of saints to share your life with somebody else.

And this story we get from Jesus is super famous.

We all sort of know this one.

I think, anyway.

There's two things operating here.

The scribe says, What's the greatest commandment?

And any Jewish person you talk to can answer this question immediately.

If you've ever been to a Jewish home, outside the front door is this little rectangular box.

It's called a mezuzah.

And inside of that box, rolled up on a scroll, is this verse that Jesus quotes.

In Hebrew it says, Shema Yesrael, Adunai Elhinu, Adunai Achad.

And this is called the Shema, hear, O Israel.

I read it to you in Hebrew.

I ignored the translation, because here's how it reads in Hebrew.

You will love the Lord your God with all of your heart.

In the ancient world, the heart was the center of your will, not the center of your emotions.

So the way to hear that today is you'll love the Lord your God with all your will or with all your brain.

You'll love the Lord your God with all your soul.

Your soul is not something you have.

In the Hebrew Bible, the soul is the amalgam of your being.

Your soul doesn't live in your heart, by the way, it lives in your neck.

In Hebrew.

Because if you can't do this, your soul's gone.

Your soul is your body, your emotions, your spirit.

And then in Hebrew, you love the Lord your God with all your exceedingness, which means, if there were something left over after we talked about soul, love God with that too.

Heart, mind, and strength is not a good translation.

Will, totality of being, and anything left over after that, love God with that.

This is so important if you're Jewish, you're supposed to not only put it by your doorpost, you're supposed to say it in the morning, and when you wake your kids up, you're supposed to tell them, Hero Israel, love the Lord your God.

You're supposed to say it at night.

If you've ever been to a bar mitzvah or a bach mitzvah, people wrap this around, literally, around their wrists, and they put a box on their head, and what's in the box is this scroll that's called the Shema.

And then Jesus does something really interesting, and I've mentioned this before, but here it's in the text today.

He says, the second one is the same.

Love your neighbor like you love yourself.

At first, it's helpful to hear.

Hebrew people were not so sentimentally romantic like we are.

They realize that even though our feelings are real, our feelings don't dictate our reality.

Loving God is not about how you feel towards God, it's about how you practice.

I don't know anybody, I especially know this about myself, who can control how they feel.

But I do know good folks, I'll call them saints, who can control whether their practice of love, regardless of how they feel.

That's how you hear the Shema.

Regardless of how you feel, you practice love with the Lord your God.

And then Jesus says, hey, and here's how this works.

Love your neighbor like you love yourself.

And I've told you about this ancient triangle that says, the more you love God, the more you necessarily will love your neighbor, and the more you will love yourself.

And if you ever think, boy, I'm really loving God by getting far away from my neighbor, you're deluded.

The scriptures are really clear about this.

That's what Jesus says here today.

So if you hate somebody because of their politics, guess what?

You hate God.

That's a tough one, isn't it?

Because I feel like hating people because of their politics.

And here's the good news doesn't matter how you feel, it matters what you practice.

Part of the reason we're so bad about this is because we're so bad at loving ourselves.

If you do not love yourself, you cannot possibly love your neighbor.

If you do not love yourself, whom God made in God's image and likeness and said, you are beloved and that's your birthright, you can't even love the God who created you.

That's what Jesus is effectively saying today.

The reason we struggle with loving other folk is because we're not good at loving ourselves.

And I'll tell you, I am an extremely critical person, and the person who bears the brunt of that the most is myself.

You cannot give what you don't have.

If we don't love the good gifts God has given us, when we see gifted folk, we will be jealous.

The opposite, of course, of jealousy is curious compassion.

And Jesus puts this forward to us.

Hebrews talks a little bit about this sacrifice business.

And listen, it's really important that we not take that at the surface level because ancient folk weren't silly.

Ancient folk understood blood not just as literal, they understood blood as life force.

So if you ever heard the sort of the Eastern word qi, your qi is your life force, and when you see the word blood in the Bible, that's the understanding.

It's like the spiritual essence.

What the eye cannot see goes through the blood.

And here's what the author of Hebrews is saying.

Look, if the qi of an animal is good enough to cleanse you, and think about this, animals don't go to the slaughter willingly.

They don't know what's happening.

If they do, they get rather upset.

I've seen this.

Imagine how much more so Jesus, who's willing to share his life force, who's willing to share his life force.

And that's the definition of sainthood.

We share our lives with other people.

And part of what you're looking at here is this fantastic picture from Elizabeth in England, which isn't true, but at the time they thought was.

It was believed at the time of Queen Elizabeth that during a famine, a mother pelican would prick her breast and feed her chicks on her own blood to keep them alive.

Now they don't do that, by the way, they don't.

But what I love about the image, you see, is that the mother pelican does not prick herself to death.

You know what would happen if she did.

Chicks would die.

What the mother pelican does is she shares her life.

She chooses to share her life force to nourish other people, but they all have to survive, don't you see?

This is not about martyrdom.

This is about living in community and it's about the storehouse of merit with the saints.

Some people literally do share their life.

Some people share their life when they practice love, especially when they don't feel like it.

And it's that choice that Hebrews lifts up.

It's that choice that Ruth lifts up, and it's that choice that represents the merit of the saints that have pulled each and every person in this room upon reflection out of living in purgatory and living in existential hell.

There are people who have done this for you.

I don't even know all of you, and I guarantee you, there are people in your life who have made God's light visible.

And what I love about Ruth is they don't even have to be Christian people.

Ruth is not Christian.

Ruth is not Jewish.

And that's a testimony to how great God is, don't you think?

People don't even have to think like us.

People don't even have to believe in God to make God's love visible on earth.

That's what All Saints is about.

Now I want to offer to you a couple of thoughts, practices, if you want.

I tried this last year, every day during the month of November, which is really meant to be about gratitude, and it starts on All Saints' Day tomorrow, to think of somebody a saint.

And I chose to give thanks for them on Facebook.

Um I thought two or three weeks in, like, oh man, yeah, I'm probably gonna run out of people.

I needed more time.

And I would encourage you, whether you do this on public media or you write a note to a saint and say, you probably don't even know this, but you touched my heart when you did this little thing.

Not only do I encourage that practice, because gratitude is the antidote for a lot of things, but I'd encourage you to think about the most difficult people in your life and find a time, maybe only once, when they chose to practice love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control.

Even if you don't tell it to them, find it.

If you're gonna have a meeting, it might even be Thanksgiving, with a difficult person, with a colleague, with a child or a parent, and you know that person's difficult, before you go to that meeting, find a moment when they made God's love visible in your life.

It'll change the meeting.

And then here's the next step.

We're so bad at doing this.

I'm so bad at doing this.

If you're gonna do it for somebody else, take a moment every day and think about a time you chose to make God's light visible.

If we cannot see the ways we've done that, remember we can't give what we don't have.

We are not going to be able to properly affirm the saints in our lives.

So we do it together.

We think of folks and we thank folks, and we live into sainthood this way.

It's important to remember Martin Luther King Jr.

is a modern-day saint, but I didn't want to be married to him.

Doesn't disqualify what he did.

We celebrate the ways he made God's light visible, and it's okay to be aware of the ways he didn't.

It's okay.

Some of the saintliest people in my life, they gave me a gift that cost less than$10, and they did it with such thought and care that it brightened my heart.

Some of the most saintly people I didn't even know.

But they gave me an extra moment and paid attention, and my spirit was able to breathe.

And you've done that.

You want to put your picture up on there?

I think it's alright.

Don't you see?

Don't you see?

We've been reading this book called Nonviolent Communication, and there's this really great line.

I'm gonna mess it up, but we talked about it today: a way of expressing gratitude.

This might be a third practice you do this month, but in the Sufi Islamic tradition, what you say is something like the God in me gives thanks for the God in you as made manifest in these ways.

Many of you who've done yoga know this gesture where you say Namaste.

The sacred in me select uh salutes the sacred in you.

This is a little bit weird for me.

Um, but I did see this movie called Raya and the Last Dragon.

I'm not necessarily recommending it, but it turns out dragons in the story are really good, and the way they salute dragons is not with the namaste, they go like this and they bow to show deference and to pay homage to the sacred and the dragon.

And you know, it's a really interesting thought to think that we might have this opportunity, whether we do this in the center of our will or with our bodies or both, to go to the saints in our lives, whether they're Jim McGill or Eric Ellis, whether they're Kathy Hill.

And to give thanks to God for being embodied in Kathy Hill, as made manifest in the way Kathy has touched my heart.

It's a spiritual practice that creates joy not just for Kathy, not just for me, and not just for God, but for the communion of saints on earth and in heaven.

So let's reform sainthood this Reformation Day, and let's practice saints, living into these opportunities to be extraordinary even in the small things.

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

If we believe in one God, God is made earth and earth.

All is unto me.

And his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, with the Father and the Son who is glory to glorify.

His opponent through the prophets.

We believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

We acknowledge the baptism forgiveness of sins.

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

Amen.

For the victims of oppression throughout the world, especially those who have been silenced by governments, abuse, and poverty.

For refugees and those displaced by war or strife.

For those who hunger, satisfy their physical and spiritual needs.

Mentor and guide elected and appointed officials throughout our world.

For 43 years of female clergy shining your light in the Episcopal Church.

Enable our laity, deacons, priests, and bishops to discern your work in the world and boldly join it.

Bless our day school, its teachers, staff, families, and students.

We praise you for the constant love, compassion, diligence, kindness, and guidance of spouses, siblings, parents, friends, and extended families who have put us and others before themselves.

Equip us to empathize even when we are in pain.

Protect the dignity of those who are in physical decline or hardship.

Remembering especially Ronnie, Chris, Sean, Aaron, Cynthia, Ann, Jan, Janice, Nancy, Chloe, Mary, Joy, and the celebration or petition that the congregation wishes to name at this time silently or aloud.

And lead us all to fullness of life.

Let us confess our sin against God and our neighbor.

God of all mercy, we confess that we all have us.

We have denied our goodness in each other, in ourselves and in the world we have created.

We prevent the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our remote.

We give restore and strengthen us through our Savior Jesus Christ, that we may abide in our 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 into God's family.

Amen.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

If you're new to us or haven't done this before, in the Narthix, that's the room right back here, we have these little cards that say welcome, and we'd be tremendously grateful if you'd fill one of those out so we have a record of your visit.

And thanks for worshiping with us today.

There's a few announcements I want to call to your attention, including some opportunities today.

So first, it's good to know that like 20 saints showed up on Friday night to offer trunk or treat to our school kids, and it was so full of life.

Thank you, Saints, for doing that.

And then yesterday, a different group of saints, some of them were in common, uh, put on a picnic with the best weather we've had in five months that was really, really life-giving, and they did it so joyfully, it was infectious.

And uh huge thanks to those folk who brought us together.

Turns out they did more than feed us yesterday.

They have leftovers.

And so if you're interested in some beef brisket, which freezes or refrigerates very well, or uh, I think there's two or three pork shoulders left, uh, those are available for donation after this service.

Uh, thank you, Saints, for helping uh do that and even following through today.

There's also some baked goods that are there as well that just sort of support us doing things like this.

Uh, so fantastic day with y'all yesterday.

Um, also, there's a book fair in Christ Hall, and the book fair uh really benefits the library and the school directly.

So, if you're interested in any books for folks in your life, especially kids or grandkids or nieces or nephews, they'll be open today as the last day after uh the service.

Okay, so I mentioned to you that you have this opportunity to come up anytime during the week with a photo or token of a saint in your life, and they'll go here on the altar.

If there's somebody in your life who is departed, especially in the last year, if you'll get us their name by Tuesday, you can email uh either Ellen or myself.

There'll be in the bulletin when we read the names of the departed, we light a candle, remembering the ways they made God's light and love visible in our lives, and we ring a gong as well, which just reminds us to pay attention.

And we're gonna do that next week on All Saints Day.

Technically, it's tomorrow, but it's worth spending a week on it instead of one day.

So that's this priest's thinking.

That's why we're gonna do it that way this year.

Um, a couple other opportunities.

Good to know that one of our saints wrote a grant proposal from the diocesan ECW to help women and children at Nick Worder Elementary, where 80% of the kids are on free lunch.

They wrote a grant for$2,000, and we've been awarded$10,000.

So if you see Saint Vicki Buxton, you thank her for writing that grant because we don't keep any of that money, but it's been secured from the diocese to offer to families over there.

Uh another saint in our midst, one Zach Worley, has run this pumpkin patch like incredibly well.

And not only is it beautiful decoration, but it just draws folk here and to celebrate the fall spirit.

That patch ends today, technically.

Although any pumpkins you choose to bring home tomorrow, we get all of the donation from that.

And they will be available for donation tomorrow.

So if you like baking, you know, you can bake these things and freeze them, and they last pretty much indefinitely.

Tomorrow the whole donation goes here to our scout troops.

Today we split it with the distributor.

Um, but I just call your attention today is the last time the pumpkins will be staffed, and that'll go until one o'clock.

And thanking Zach is absolutely proper.

He's hurt his back twice, like maintaining that thing, and it's just super cool.

And it provides about$7,000 to our Cub Scouts.

There's about 85 of those.

Uh, many are here benefiting directly from that in their families.

So huge thanks to Zach on that.

Um, many, you know, years years ago, we used to do this progressive dinner where people would come together for appetizers all in one spot, and then we head out to private homes to have dinner in small groups, and then we change groups to have dessert.

We're doing this again this year, and we're looking for a few more folk that might be willing to share their home.

The sign-up is gonna go out within the next couple of weeks, but if you're willing to share your home, dinner for six or seven other people, or dessert with a few people, uh, let Amy Hoff or I know.

Again, you'll see the opportunity to sign up for the actual thing soon.

And if you've got kids, don't worry.

There's folks with kids who are hosting other folks with kids.

So uh so we've got like family track ways to do this.

Uh, and and again, uh Amy or I are the people to let know if you're interested.

There's something else.

This happens to me every week.

It's probably really important.

Oh, the food distribution is this next Saturday.

So Saturday, November 6th, uh, we'll have the food distribution right out here in our parking lot from 7:45 to 10.

Um, and saints are gonna do this without me.

I'm traveling to Florida to celebrate a funeral for a family.

Uh, by the way, thank you for honoring that.

That's what we do.

We travel to serve each other.

This is like part of why we pledge here.

I want to remind you, we're also doing our pledge drive.

By doing that, you allow somebody to like travel all over the United States to serve their family.

And I can't tell you how much I appreciate being able to do that.

Um it touches my heart to go to Orlando to celebrate a famil a funeral with a family member that I don't know.

Um, but we'll be doing this thing uh from 7:45 to 10 on Saturday morning.

You don't have to sign up, you can show up for some of it or all of it, and come and go as you will, but it's a fantastic way to do some everyday saintshood.

Um reminder that our pledge drive for next year is winding down.

Uh, these are opportunities to think through how we're going to pledge our gifts, our talents, and our finances if we choose to, to the mission and ministry of St.

Thomas next year.

It's important because it helps us create a fiscal budget that's responsible, but also so that we can budget for ministry.

And as your priest, the most important thing for me is that whatever your pledge is between you and the Lord, but I do want to bless it because we always say God can do more than we can ask or imagine with our intentions.

And that's spiritually important for me and for us to do on uh November the 21st, which is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the church year.

So um, if you need a pledge card, let me know.

If you need one picked up, let me know.

Uh or you can put them in the plates, you can mail them, or I will come to your home, whatever is helpful because this is important to how to how we work here.

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 know that you're saints, and you who aren't quite sure yet, come not because the church invites you, it is Christ.

And he invites you to meet him here.

The Lord be with you.

Lift up your hearts.

Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.

It is very meet-right and 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, 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 in the confession of one faithfulness, and giving to thy church the power to serve thee as a royal priesthood and to preach the gospel to all nations.

And therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud 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 who cometh in thee, Lord, Hosen and His.

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.

He made there a full and perfect sacrifice for the whole world, and did institute, and in his holy gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that, his precious death and sacrifice until his coming again.

For in the night in which he was betrayed, he took bread, and when he'd 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'd 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 often you 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.

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, our 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, 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.

Amen.

Hallelujah, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the peace.

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

Behold who you are, and become what you receive.

Let's pray together.

God of abundance, you have led us with the bread of love and God of Salvation.

You have been able to 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 own love to the world, and continue forever in the risen life of Christ our Savior.

Rivers do not drink from 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 more joyful when others are happy because of you.

And 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.