Pentecost 22 2021: Eric Ellis

I greet you and welcome you to this service of praise and thanksgiving to our God through Jesus Christ.

My name is Jim McGill, and it is a great pleasure for me to be here with you.

The entire service is found in your service leaflet, and I want you to know that whether you are a member of this church or a member of another church or whatever, you are welcome to participate fully in the service, including taking communion with us a little later at the appropriate time.

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

Together?

Almighty God.

And for you.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, charity, and love.

And that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command.

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

Amen.

The congregation may be seated, and the children are welcome to go with Alex to Children's Chapel if there are any kids still here.

Alex is at the back.

No, sir, you don't qualify.

Job answered the Lord, I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?

Therefore, I have uttered that I did not understand things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

Here I will speak.

I will question you, and you declare to me.

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.

Therefore, despise myself and repent on dust and ashes.

And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job.

And he prayed, and he had prayed for his friends.

And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.

Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters, and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house.

They showed him a sympathy and comfort for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him.

And each of them gave him a piece of money and a gold ring.

The Lord blessed the better days of Job more than the beginning.

And he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys.

He also had seven sons and three daughters.

He named the first Jemima, the second Kaziah, and the third Karen Hapata.

In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers.

After this, Job lived for 140 years, and saw his children and his children's children four generations.

And Job died old and full of days.

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

A reading from Psalm 34.

We will read responsibly by the half verse.

At all times I will bless the Lord, whose praise shall ever be in my mouth.

I will glory in the Lord.

Let the humble ear rejoice.

Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord.

I sought the Lord and he answered me.

And delivered me out of all my terror.

Look upon the Lord and be radiant and let your faces be ashamed.

I called to my affliction, and the Lord heard me and said me from troubles.

The angel of the Lord encompasses the God-fearing, and the Lord will deliver them.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Trust the Lord.

Many are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord will deliver the just out of all.

The Lord will keep safe the bones of the righteous, not one of them shall be broken.

Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who make the righteous will be punished.

The Lord ransoms the life of those chosen to serve, and none will be punished who trust in the Lord.

But Jesus holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.

Consequently, he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

For it is fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people.

This he did once for all when he offered himself.

For the law appoints as high priests those who are subject to weakness, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.

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

Jesus sent disciples to Jericho.

As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside.

Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, Son of David, have mercy on me.

Jesus stood still and said, Call him here.

And they called the blind man, saying to him, Take heart, get up.

He is calling you.

So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.

Then Jesus said to him, What do you want me to do for you?

The blind man said to him, My teacher, let me see again.

Jesus said to him, Go, your faith has made you well.

Immediately he regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Take heart.

Get up.

He is calling you.

In the name of one God who is above all and through all and in all.

Amen.

I'm glad y'all didn't leave when I told you to get up.

Faith, hope, charity, and love.

Tremendous gifts from our awesome and benevolent Creator.

These are the things that shape our worship this week.

But it's up to us to open these gifts, to unwrap the presence, to be able to receive the treasure that's offered.

To open up those gifts and receive that treasure, that promise that has been given to us in the Abrahamic covenant and in our baptismal covenant.

To freely become the words that the Spirit is saying by loving the commands and desires of our Creator and clearly articulated by Jesus in his actions and words.

To surrender to God's will is what it means to be Christ-like.

And then to embrace that love that is ceaseless, ever-present, and superabundant.

A couple weeks ago I read that it was priest month or thank your priest day or something, and I was tickled because that's been the theme of our readings the last several weeks.

And today, when we hear Son of David, we're reminded of the family of David, the lineage of David, of which Jesus is part, and that Abrahamic covenant.

And then last week's reading would have been about Melchizedek, the high priest, who unifies these two lines, these two houses of priests and kings.

And in so doing, we're reminded of this union, this duality of this union, of our temporal and spiritual self.

The thing that sets us apart and makes us different.

Like Jesus, the humanity and divinity that he has.

We as humans live with a foot in both worlds.

And because that makes us different, because that sets us apart, we're asked to do something more.

And when we're talking about priests, we're not talking about Father Mike or Father Jim or the process of formation that I'm in.

We're talking about all baptized Christians.

You and me, the faithful body of Christ.

We, the church.

And it is up to us to be that conduit, that vessel, that instrument of God's grace that goes out into the world and extends an invitation for those seeking Christ to come in and to bring Christ out into the world.

Because when we bring Christ into the world, we are embodying that person of Jesus.

Healing the spiritually sick, curing the spiritually deaf and blind, and unifying God's creation.

Now, today, this is the last healing miracle in the Gospel of Mark.

And it gives us an opportunity to consider what it might be like to have these gifts in front of us, but unable to access them.

Prevented from receiving that promise that's offered.

And I can't help but get excited about the picture that Mark paints for us.

You see, there's this guy sitting on the side of the road, the son of an unclean person.

Bar in Hebrew means son, and Timaeus means unclean.

So Bar Timaeus is a son of an unclean person.

He's sitting on the side of the road in this cloud, this cloudy, fog, murky, dense thing that's so thick that it blinds him.

He can't see through it.

He's stuck on the side of the road and he's dwelling there, and dwelling means to live.

It's like he's pitched a tent in the ditch.

So the interesting thing about Bartimaeus is we don't know much about him, except that he's named.

And theologians tell us that Mark only names two people in these healing miracles, Jarius and Bartimaeus.

Jarius we know is important because the text says so.

He's an important person in the synagogue.

Bartimaeus, on the other hand, the son of an unclean person.

The only thing we know about him is that he's named specifically, so we infer that he's important.

He probably was well known by the people that heard this story, the people of the day, the first century Jew.

And he comes from this family.

Maybe it was his father that people knew, or maybe Bartimaeus is just people out there who are unclean, not Jewish.

Maybe just normal Roman citizens who worship a lot of gods.

We don't know.

But what we do know is that Bartimaeus is able to recognize the divinity of Jesus as he's moving past.

And he yells out, Son of David, he's grasping for him, he's seeking, he's trying to obtain that gift that has been given.

And initially the disciples shush him.

They tell him to get back in the ditch.

They marginalize Bartimaeus.

But on the command of Jesus, they go to Bart and they say, get up.

Grab your heart, the faith in the center of your spiritual being that gives you the courage to ask to see Jesus.

And so Bart jumps up and he throws off his cloak, the only possession that he had left in the whole world.

And he goes to Jesus and Jesus says, What is it you'd like me to do for you?

And Bartimaeus tells him.

And Jesus then says, It is your faith that has made you well.

It's not what Jesus has done.

It's what Bart has done with God's help.

Because he was able to recognize the divinity of Jesus, despite this cloudy, murky fog that was causing him to be blind, despite his unclean lineage or background or whatever it is that got him stuck in that ditch.

It was because he had the courage to embody the spirit that is inside of him, that is God-breed, and to bring that into the world, casting off his old self, leaving that cloak behind, that thing that he thought was protecting him, and embracing his faith, the protection of his faith that allowed him to be healed, spiritually healed.

This is an opportunity for us to consider what it is that's important to us in this world that we live in.

Our society tells us that there are some things that are really important in life.

Social media, whatever it is.

And many times those things probably aren't that important to our spiritual health.

They probably blind us from what is important.

They probably interfere in our relationship with God.

And it is these things that Bartimaeus casts off and leaves behind so that he can be healed by Jesus.

In a poetic sense, we can think about our lineage from Adam and Eve through the imperfection of humanity, that cloud of sin that humanity lives in, those things that interfere in our relationship with God.

And the one thing, that medicine that cures that malady, faith.

In the Old Testament, God's people are called to get up and go a lot.

Abraham, when he's called, says, Here I am.

Bartimaeus today gets up and goes.

When God calls us, we are obligated to do what we're asked.

And this is the opportunity that we're offered.

Today, to get up and go.

Our reading in Hebrews sets this up nicely because the last two chapters in Hebrews talks about faithlessness, lack of faith.

And today, chapter 7 focuses on the messianic nature of the priesthood of Jesus.

That is to say, the kingship of his priesthood, the sovereignty, the power, the authority that Jesus has.

Jesus is a priest because he overcame death, it's because of the indestructibility of the life of Jesus.

And because of that gift that he's given us through his resurrection and his ascension, that when we accept Christ as our Savior, when we are baptized believers and members of this Christian community, we also are part of this greater community.

So when we're talking about the authority of the priesthood of Jesus, we're talking about that authority being transferred to us.

And this sets up our gospel and the good news that we all have every single thing that we need inside of the center of our spiritual being.

All of the authority, all of the power necessary to help those people who are in a fog, stuck in a ditch on the side of the road, on the way of the cross.

And we are reminded that it is our obligation to offer, to include, to be Christ-like to the powerless and the vulnerable people, to authentically model Christian ministry.

Like when Jesus heals the man with thousands of demons, legion, he tells him to go home to his friends and family and to testify to the mercy of what God has done.

The woman with the hemorrhages that reaches out for Jesus on the way to heal Jarius' daughter.

He says, It is because of your faith that you have been freed from suffering.

Or the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter is possessed by demons, Jesus reminds us that it is because of her faith that her daughter has been healed.

The power of prayer for others.

The countless people in the towns, city, and the countryside of Genesareth, healed.

The prayers of the people, the prayers for others, people that we don't even necessarily know by name, those are powerful Christian activities that we participate in.

The little boy, the epileptic, who reminds us that everything is possible for one who believes.

And when Jesus asks us to bring the children to him so that he can bless them, the eyes of our hearts are opened so that we can see this blind man stuck in the ditch, surrounded by a cloud of sand.

He is now walking along the way as a decided cry.

These are the gifts that are given to God.

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

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light and light, through God from true God, begotten of May, of one being with the Father, who healed all things from A.

For us and for our salvation.

He came down from heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit.

He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified from the conscious of it.

He suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again in accordance with the scriptures.

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

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

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

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

He has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

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

Amen.

For all people in their daily life and work, for our family, friends, and neighbors, and for those who are alive.

For this community, the nation, and the world, for all who work for justice, freedom, and peace.

For St.

Thomas the Apostle's school.

For those who teach and those who learn that they may be rejoice in the knowledge of your truth.

For the just and proper use of your creation.

For the victims of hunger, fear, injustice, and oppression.

For all who are in danger, sorrow, or any kind of trouble.

For those who minister to the sick, the friends, and the need.

For the peace and unity of the Church of God.

For all who proclaim the gospel, for all who speak to the truth.

For all bishops, priests, and deacons.

For the priest in our community, Mike, Jim, Craig, Bill, and Lillian.

For Andy, Hector, Jeff, and Kay, our bishops.

In the Diocesan Cycle of Prayer, Christ Church, Madagorda, Good Shepherd Indian, Stafford, and Holy Comforter, Angleton.

And for Michael, our presiding bishop.

For the special needs and concerns of this congregation, especially Ronnie, Chris, Sean, Aaron, Cynthia, Ken, Jan, Janice, Nancy, Chloe, Mary, Joyce, and those the congregation wishes to name it this time, silently or aloud.

Hear us, Lord.

We thank you, Lord, for all the blessings of this life.

We will exalt you, O God, our King.

We pray for all who have died that they may have a place in your eternal kingdom.

Especially Fred Stone and Kara Williamson.

Lord, let your loving kindness be upon them.

We pray to you also for the forgiveness of our sins.

God of all mercy, we confess we have sinned against you.

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

Forgive us to 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 the 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.

Can we look at how to cool it off?

I I don't know how.

So, well, if any of you know how.

There will be barbecue.

I hear there's going to be some homebrewed beer.

I think there will be, and there will be music and just all kinds of nifty stuff to do.

And we get to be together.

I mean, that's a good thing right there.

So it's next Saturday from 11 to 1.

Uh the night before that, on Friday the 29th, from 5 to 6 in the evening is trunk or treat.

Bring some candy, bring your car, park in the parking lot, kids will come around trick-or-treaty, and uh and you get to have a smile on your face, uh, or some other kind of disguise.

You can wear a costume if you want, but you don't have to.

Uh your smile will not be a disguise.

I was just kidding.

Uh remember, our next food distribution will be the 7th of November at 7.45 in the morning.

Um when I retired, I I became aware that uh I got into the thinking that there was only one 745 a day.

But they still make one in the morning.

So, so uh I I promise you, I I did get up once and come, it's a great idea to do that, so come.

Continue to walk in love as Christ loves us and gives himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God.

You have got it all in, and you call not because the church invites you, it is Christ, and he is like you to the Lord be with you, and also with him, lift up your heart.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

All thanks and praise are yours at all times and in all places, our true and loving God.

Through Jesus Christ, your eternal word, the wisdom from on high, by whom you created all things.

You laid the foundations of the world and enclosed the sea when it burst out from the womb.

You brought forth all creatures of the earth and gave breath to humankind.

Wondrous are you, the holy one of blessing.

All you create is a sign of hope for our journey.

And so as the morning stars sing your praises, we join the heavenly being, and all creation as we shock with joy.

Holy, holy, holy, God of power of the heaven and earth, holy glory, O Satan.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

O Satan.

Glory and honor are yours, creator of all.

Your word has never been signed.

You call the people to yourself as the light of the nations.

You delivered them from bondage and led them to the land of promise.

Of your grace you gave Jesus to be human, to share our life, to proclaim the coming of your holy reign, and to give yourself for us a fragrant offering.

Through Jesus our Redeemer, you have freed us from sin, brought us into your life, reconciled us to you, and restored us to the glory you intended for us.

We thank you that on the night before he died for us, Jesus took breath.

And when he had given thanks to you, he broke it and gave it to his friends and said, Take, eat.

This is my body open for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, said the blessing, and gave it to his friends, and said, Drink this, all of you.

This accomplish the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you and for all, for the forgiveness of sin.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

And so remembering all that was done for us, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection, and ascension, longing for Christ's coming in glory, and presenting to you these gifts your earth has formed and human hands have made, we acclaim you, O Christ.

Die and we destroy our death.

Rise and be restored our life.

Christ Jesus coming in glory.

Send your Holy Spirit upon us, and upon these gifts of bread and wine, that they may be to us the body and blood of your Christ.

Grant that we, burning with your Spirit's power, may be a people of hope, justice, and love.

Giver of life, draw us together in the body of Christ, and in the fullness of time, gather us with Thomas and Fred and all your people into the joy of our true and eternal home.

Through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ.

By the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, we worship you, our God and Creator, in voices of unending praise.

Blessed now and forever.

Amen.

And now as our Savior Christ is for us, we are bold to say, Our Father, who art in heaven, our will be thee, thy kingdom, thy will be done, our earth that is in heaven.

Give us the safe, and forgive us our trespasses, as He forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

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

Amen.

I will bless his praise.

My soul shall glory for him so fortunately.

If you're going to be able to do it, you can't get a lot of people.

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

You have united us with Christ and with 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 will proclaim your redeeming love for the world and continue forever in the risen 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 others are happy because of you.

May the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be upon you and remain with you this day and forever.