Pentecost 17 2021

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

Let's pray together.

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

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

Amen.

The Lord be with you.

Let us pray.

O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

A prayer for the 20th anniversary of yesterday.

Almighty God, who brings good out of evil, and turns even the wrath of your children towards your promised peace.

Hear our prayers this day as we remember those of many nations and differing faiths whose lives were cut short by the fierce flames of anger and hatred.

Hasten the time when the menace of war shall be removed.

Cleanse both us and those perceived to be our enemies of all hatred and distrust.

Pour out the Spirit of peace on all the rulers of our world, that we may be brought through strife to the lasting peace of the family of your Son Jesus Christ.

Amen.

I invite our children to attend children's church with Alex right in the back.

A reading from Proverbs.

She raises her voice.

At the busiest corner, she cries out at the entrance of the city gates when she speaks.

How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?

How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

Give heed to my reproof.

I will pour out my thoughts to you.

I will make my words known to you.

Because I have called and you have refused, have stretched out my hand and no one have heeded, and because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof.

When panic strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call upon me, but I will not answer.

They will seek me diligently, but will not find me.

Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despise my reproof.

Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and be sated with their own devices.

For waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys them.

But those who listen to me will be secure and will live in ease without dread of disaster.

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

One day tells me its tale to another.

Although they have no words or language, their sound has gone out into all lands.

In the deep, God has set a pavilion for the sun.

The statutes of the Lord are just and rejoice the heart.

The fear of the Lord is clean and endures forever.

The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, much more than much fine gold.

We fear than honey.

By them also is your servant enlightened.

And there is great reward.

Can people tell how often they offend?

Above all, keep your servant from presumptuous sins.

Let them not get dominion over me.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

Excuse me.

For all of us make many mistakes.

Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with the bridle.

If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies.

Or look at ships, though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them.

Yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.

So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.

How great a force is set ablaze by a small fire, and the tongue is a fire.

The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity.

It stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.

For every species of beast and bird, a reptile and sea creature can be tamed, and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue.

A restless evil full of deadly poison.

With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

Or a grape vine figs?

No more can salt water yield fresh.

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

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asked his disciples, Who do people say that I am?

And they answered him, John the Baptist, and others Elijah, and still others one of the prophets.

Jesus asked them, But who do you say that I am?

Peter answered him, You are the Messiah.

And Jesus sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.

And after three days rise again, he said all this quite openly.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

But turning and looking at his disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, accuser, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.

Jesus called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the good news will save it.

For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?

Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

The gospel of the Lord.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, it comes out turns out that James doesn't seem to think very highly of the way we use our tongues.

So much so you notice that James says that our tongue is often set on fire with the fires of hell.

And it's helpful to know that the word hell doesn't actually exist in the Bible.

It comes to us in Greek from the word Gehenna.

In Hebrew, this is called Gehno, which means the valley of Hinnom.

That's a place.

So I want you to hear that hell is real.

It's a real place on the globe.

In fact, if you went to uh uh to on an Israel trip with us in 2017, you went to hell.

Turns out there's a really lovely Orthodox church built there.

Uh it's quite nice, actually, the church that's in hell.

Hell is just, quite honestly, the low point, the relative minimum, outside of the city of Jerusalem.

It's a very old site where Canaanites uh worshiped the gods of the earth.

Gods with names like Molech and Kemosh and Milkom.

And the way that worship was conducted in hell is that people tried to barter with gods.

And so they tried to do the heaviest, most valuable swap that they could.

They tried to curry favor from these gods with a trade.

Of course, you get the more you give, the more you get.

This was the thinking.

And the most valuable thing anybody had at the time these scriptures were written was their firstborn son.

So the way people worshiped in hell was they sacrificed their firstborn child to curry favor with these gods.

I want to suggest to you, I think that's probably a really good definition of hell, when we take somebody else's life as if that were pleasing to God.

That's probably different from the definition of hell you're used to.

But it's biblically based.

Taking somebody's life to please God.

And the extension I put before you is this you've heard me talk about this book, Nonviolent Communication, for a while, and I'm going to mention it again today.

What the author of that book, Marshall Rosenberg, suggests is that many of us like to operate on moral principles, and when somebody breaks our moral principle, what our brain likes to do is say they deserve what they get.

So if you don't follow my advice, if you don't keep this church teaching, you're going to get what you deserve.

I have to be honest, sometimes my kids have not kept my sagely advice, and I have found myself doing what the voice in Proverbs says, you're going to get what you deserve.

I don't want you to raise your hand.

You ever found those words coming out of your mouth?

You're going to get what you deserve.

Now the book of Proverbs says that's how wisdom behaves, and I want to tell you I disagree.

I think that's how shrewdness behaves.

But the definition of wisdom, as I understand it, is both knowledge, application, and empathy.

My own experience when somebody tells me I'm getting what I deserved is they've decided empathy was too uncomfortable for them, so instead they've gone to a place of judgment.

We do this as a church, I'm going to say it, when we strip the humanity of human beings because of their gender, their sexual preference, because the color of their skin, you're getting what you deserve.

And I'd like you to consider the book of James is offering to us when we say and internalize those thoughts, we are choosing to live not in actual wisdom, but the veneer of wisdom that is actually hell.

Sometimes so much.

And you deserve it.

I hope you did not grow up that way, but I did.

You deserve to go to hell is about the most opposite statement we could ever make if we believe in the good news of Jesus Christ.

We have chosen to sacrifice a human being for a principle when the gospel is all about Jesus coming as a human being in order to show us compassion.

Now, this bit about evaluation, I think, is really important because here it is, lectionary year B, and we're reading through the Gospel of Mark.

And this statement, this phrase today, which many of us have heard before, who do you say I am?

It turns out, occurs exactly in the middle of Mark's gospel.

Exactly in the middle.

It seems like Mark is suggesting this is the ultimate question of the gospel.

Who do you say that I am?

Now, you all realize that there are four gospels that made it into the Bible.

There's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and hopefully you realize they are subtly different at times.

In Luke, Jesus says, Blessed are the poor.

In Matthew, Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit.

I suppose they could be trying to say the same thing, but don't you realize they're not saying the same thing?

And they're not disagreeing factually.

What they're trying to do is accentuate different qualities of Jesus' ministry.

They're showing different qualities.

And the Gospel of Mark, I put before you is inviting us to consider that there aren't just four gospels.

Each one of us proclaims our own gospel of Jesus Christ.

Is this to say there should be a gospel according to Mike and to David and Tim?

And the question is, who do you say Jesus is?

And that's really important.

Who do you say?

How do you evaluate Jesus Christ?

And how do you represent the incarnation and the resurrection, according to James, with the words that come not just from your mouth, but from your heart?

This is convicting stuff.

Because quite honestly, I often speak on behalf of Jesus, and Jesus is not in any way present in the words that came out of my mouth.

Twenty years ago, none of us knew what to do.

And many of us in the Christian tradition said things quite honestly that represent hell.

Like 9-11 was God's punishment for the NAACP.

That's a real statement from one Reverend Jerry Falwell.

I hope you understand it's ludicrous.

I'm not calling Jerry Falwell out alone.

Many of us, for lack of any wisdom, turn to Islamophobia.

I want to suggest to you that also represents the fires of hell coming out of our mouth in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I wish I could say that we have surmounted all of that.

And sadly, if you like me are reading things like the New York Times or Gallup polls, you realize that anti-Semitism is on the rise.

I'm going to speak to that for a second because we're in the middle of Rosh Hashanah.

I mentioned to you last week, Rosh Hashanah began last Monday.

It concludes on Wednesday with Yom Kippur.

Since 9-11, anti-Semitism has grown in this country.

I don't understand it, but I hope you will join me in acknowledging that that is sin with a capital S.

And if I'm compassionate about it where it comes from, it comes from this place of judgment.

Judgment and condemnation.

And thoughts like, these people deserve blank.

I hope this is foreign to your thinking.

I hope you don't identify with this thinking.

But it is the case that my Jewish brother and my Jewish sister-in-law, on the highest, holiest day of the year in the Jewish tradition, Yom Kippur on Wednesday, need not one but multiple security guards in order to attend their synagogue without fear of violence against them.

And I put before you much of that situation comes from the hell that comes out of our mouths.

And I think the disciples give us insight into how this operates because Jesus asks them, Who do you say that I am?

And do you notice that Peter comes up with what is, we've decided is the correct answer.

You're the Messiah.

Now, Messiah is a Hebrew word and it means anointed one.

The Greek equivalent is the word Christ.

I've told you before that in ancient Israel, kings were not made with crowns.

They were made when a prophet anointed them with oil.

There have been many messiahs.

Every king of Israel was a messiah.

Saul, David, Solomon, all the way down the line.

If you're ever wondering why do we anoint people with oil when they're sick in the church, it's this tradition.

In the moment of your perceived weakness, your royalty to the community and to God.

So rather than turning our backs on you, we're anointing you to show that God's favor and presence are exactly with you and not far from you.

If you were baptized in the Episcopal Church, you are a Messiah.

Because the priest anointed you with chrism after putting water on you.

There is no question in any New Testament scholar's mind that Peter has a rather different definition of Messiah in mind when he says that that's who Jesus is.

The Messiah, like David and Saul, was expected to grow the borders of the country through military might and fervor, and you'll notice that Jesus never took up arms.

So Peter is partially correct.

He uses the right word, but he's got a totally different concept in mind.

Hence the rub.

This is why Jesus says, don't go around telling people who you think I am.

Because they're going to hear that word and they're going to map it like you do, and I don't want to be mapped there.

So don't say that.

And this is before us.

I put before you.

Who do we say that Jesus is?

And Jesus doesn't stop there.

You notice he's essentially telling Peter, you got it wrong, but I don't know if you noticed in the gospel, he didn't even look at Peter.

He looks at all the disciples.

He looks at the crowd and says, Let me tell you what it means to be my follower.

Instead of taking up your sword or your judgment or your vitriol, you choose to take up the object of punishment.

You choose to take up your cross.

Now we've watered that phrase down, at least the churches I've grown up in.

Sometimes when somebody doesn't listen to us the first time, we'll say, I'm just taking up my cross, giving you another chance.

We've decided, unfortunately, that inconvenience is what it means to take up the cross.

I'm just taking up my cross wearing this mask.

You are not taking up a cross wearing that mask.

I want to be really clear.

People were not crucified for being inconvenienced.

Crucifixion was a punishment invented by the Persians that was perfected by the Romans in a time when there was no television.

Crucifixion was the ancient bulletin board.

As many of you know, walled cities were actually quite small.

Most people lived out in the fields.

They came into the city to conduct business.

People were crucified right outside the city gates.

Only poor people.

If you were rich, they cut your head off.

People were crucified outside and left to die for days.

And the message is really clear.

This is for people who defy our imperial values.

Roman values.

You will be next if you defy our values.

People were not crucified for stealing.

You got your thumb cut off for that.

People were crucified for treason.

I'm not suggesting Jesus wants you to be a freedom fighter.

Although that has been the case sometimes.

People throughout the world have literally lost their lives for defying the values of empirical tyrannical governments.

We celebrate those people in the catalog of saints.

I want to be really clear.

I doubt that's what God has in mind for you because, contrary to some popular opinions, this is a relatively safe place, this country, to tell people you're a Christian.

In fact, it is often to your advantage to identify as Christian in this country.

What Jesus, I think, is suggesting instead, if you're going to be a Christian, which means little Christ, that's the word, we're being called to oppose values of a dominant system that strip dignity from other human beings through things like punishment and you deserve it.

I cannot imagine the grace of God being embodied in mocking somebody because they have lived outside of my values.

That seems the opposite of the gospel of Jesus Christ to me.

To mock somebody else when they've made a decision that was out of my values.

Because that's the opposite of empathy.

Most of us are not going to be called to pick up like the big cross.

We're not.

And so maybe there is this opportunity to pick up the little cross when we think about the values that come out of our mouth and whether or not we put God's name behind those values.

If you want to live in broken relationships, then you will.

But our Jewish brothers and sisters take this whole business, I'm afraid, much more seriously than we do.

You see, often when we come to Lent, we've gone into this tradition that God loves suffering.

And we're going to prove how much we love God by showing God how miserable we can be.

Please hear this from me.

If you find yourself up on top of a cross for any reason and nobody's getting life out of it, get off.

That is not the purpose of our faith.

God is not glorified in suffering for its own sake.

Not.

How often not today becomes never.

And our Jewish brothers and sisters say no.

The ten days is not giving up chocolate.

It's not about giving up wine.

It's about getting on the phone and getting on a plane, whether you've been hurt or you've hurt somebody else, and editing that draft so that we end up with some reconciliation.

You're going to hear Ken do this at the Eucharist.

Instead of reading that gong today, Ken is going to blow the shofar.

That's a ram's horn.

It predates metallurgy.

Somebody really clever back in the day realized that if you go like this inside of a ram's horn, which is hop, it'll make a trumpet blast.

Old instrument.

They blew that ram's horn in times of military conflict.

And our Jewish brothers and sisters blow that ram's horn 31 days in advance of Rosh Hashanah to remind us that there are these forces that would separate us from one another, that would invite us to live into broken and breached relationships, and that we're called to be alert so that those forces don't invade our lives.

Pay attention, says the Ramshorn, so that you don't choose to live into the breach.

Pay attention so that you repair the breach.

This sounds really military, but I want to suggest the military analogy is not between invading armies, it's about the Corps of Engineers building bridges across chasms.

And one of the deepest chasms I've ever found myself in is telling my kids, my brother, my students, my peers, you deserve what you just got.

And I would like to suggest to you that one of the ways we might choose to even pick up a little cross is when we find ourselves picking between empathy with another person and celebrating a moral principle that results in punishment and judgment to sacrifice this so that we can choose empathy instead.

So often when there's a breach in my relationship with someone else, the first piece of armor I want to put on is being defensive.

Or I know better than you.

I don't know if you wear that kind of armor around.

Sometimes we wear that armor and we'll say that's the armor of the Lord.

But here Peter's uh, when Jesus' response is quite clear to Peter, that's the armor of the accuser, that's not the armor of God.

I didn't plan it this way.

But because I'm aware through my very Jewish brother about the Hebrew New Year and the custom of Rosh Hashanah, I don't know how this happened, but I have found myself on the last week in three conversations that I dreaded.

Each one hinged around some kind of relational breach.

I don't like conflict.

I lost sleep over these things.

I was so ready to justify myself.

And I'm gonna say the Holy Spirit moved in my life.

That's the language I choose to use.

Somehow, this week, three times, I was able to walk into each one of these ruptured relationships with just enough calmness to hear what the other person's experience was and to appreciate that.

Now, what I love to do, normally, is hear their experience and correct it.

Well, yeah, you said that, and let me tell you why that was wrong.

And I have never left another human being having done that with a connection with them.

I don't know about you.

You ever really connected with somebody you tried to fix?

Many of you know I've got a math degree.

And I shouldn't have got that degree because the truth is I like solving problems, I don't like making up new ones.

I should have been an engineer maybe.

And this is a really tough thing for me in human relationships and in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

People aren't broken needing my fixing.

And I don't want to spill my heart to somebody and have them tell me how I can fix myself.

Do you want that?

I can tell you the person who wants that the least is the person I'm married to.

In fact, when I do that, it starts to get a little dangerous.

And I'm a slow learner.

I'm a slow learner.

But I want to suggest to you this really small way of picking up a cross.

That is resisting values that dehumanize people based on moral principles so that we can tell people they deserve what they're going to get.

Like you were going one mile over the speed limit, you deserve that ticket.

Deserve.

Lord Jesus Christ, may we never get what we deserve.

And isn't that what this is about?

We don't deserve God's grace.

And grace doesn't come when it's deserved, it comes when it's given.

And I'm gonna tell you, giving grace, it's gonna sound funny, but giving grace is a small cross you can pick up and carry because it resists the values we are steeped in in our culture, even our church culture.

You will never deserve God's grace.

And it isn't about that.

And anytime we start to barter with God about what we deserve, we're living into hell to go back to the book of James and the low point outside of Jerusalem.

And 20 years after 9-11, maybe we've moved forward after Islamophobia, but it breaks my heart that my brother and my sister-in-law need security guards on young kippoor so they can feel somewhat more safe.

And the gospel confronts us with this.

Why do we want to live in death?

And the psalm confronts us with this.

Above all, deliver me from presumptuous sins.

You know what that means, right?

That's when somebody does something and we make up a story in our head as to why we do it, and we decide that's the truth.

That person was falling asleep during my sermon.

It's because they hate me.

I said hi to that person and they didn't return my greeting.

It's because they're a jerk.

Those are presumptuous sins.

And they lead us to this place of judgment, and I hope God punishes you.

And you're probably healthier than people, healthier people than I am, but that's where I am spiritually.

And our Jewish brothers and sisters understand sometimes better than we do.

We don't have to settle into that way of living.

We get to rewrite the draft every day of our lives, and that these things that we're so afraid of, like breach of relationship, are actually opportunities for some deep, deep healing.

I got a quick temper, but I ask you, as people of faith, as we walk together, hold me accountable in the right way so that the words of my mouth can be honoring to our rock and redeemer.

The words of my mouth may be honoring.

Accountability is not you said the right thing and you suck.

That's judgment.

Accountability is I know what you've said and I trust you can do it.

So let's do it together.

People of faith, I know what you've said about where you want to put your heart.

Many of you are ahead of me on this journey, and let's walk it together so that we can live out of this place of hell that's based on punishment and merit and live into the grace not just with God, but with one another, that the gospel beckons us toward.

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

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

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only source of God, eternally God of the Father, God from God, light, through God, through God, becoming, and one being the Father, through him, all things we made, for us and for our salvation, he came out of heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became our hand of the Virgin Mary, and the same man, for our Savior crucified, and be suffered and buried, on the third day he rose again, in the works of the spirit, he ascended in heaven, and seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will be more to live in the heaven, and his kingdom will have going.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the life, who receives the Father and Son, who the Father and the Son, Jesus worship and glorified, Jesus the prophets.

We believe in the Holy Catholic and the Holy Church.

We are all since.

Continue, we pray, to equip us with all we need to tell others of you, and glorify your name in all that 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 their 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.

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, have your compassion, your 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 Ronnie, Chris, Sean, Aaron, and Cynthia.

Lord, in 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 deaths.

Situations, that by your help and the help of those sent to them, they may continue to serve you in this life according to your will.

We are especially grateful for.

Lord, in your compassion, hear our prayer.

We thank you, loving God, for the fellowship and relationships 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.

Lord, 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.

Lord, pure prayer.

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 sins against God and our neighbor.

Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father, in your compassion forgive us our sin, known and unknown, things done and left undone, and so uphold us by your Spirit, that we may live and serve you in newness of life to the honor and glory of your name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

The Almighty and Compassionate Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sins, true repentance, amendment of life and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

So one of them I want to put before you, Kathy, I should have asked you ahead of time.

You still have a couple of seats at your table for the LOTS.

It's full.

Okay.

I want to put before you that a week from Tuesday is the LOTS spring luncheon.

Uh spring turn to fall this year.

They've put some security protocols in place to try to facilitate that being a safe meeting, right?

And uh you may not be able to go, but this luncheon is Lord of the Streets Episcopal Church.

This is their big fundraiser of the year.

And I just want to draw it to your attention.

If you're able to go, it's at the Junior League downtown.

If for any reason you don't feel comfortable going, just know that this event is how they raise support to fund ministries to the presently and formerly homeless men and women of downtown.

And uh they work in conjunction with the beacon.

But what LOTS does that uh in addition to what the beacon does, I mean, really they have a couple different strategies of meeting this, is provides a community, a spiritual home for people.

And so we're a sponsoring parish.

Uh Kathy is represented on the Bishop's Committee, which is like the vestry of the place, and uh and they do some palpable, palpable ministry to people downtown.

So just be mindful.

Again, if you're able to go and you feel safe, great.

And if not, no, this is one of their big fundraisers of the year.

Uh yeah, Kathy made that gesture, and typically what we say is give until it feels good.

Um I mean that's right, isn't it?

Generosity comes from a place of feeling good, right?

That's what God calls us to.

God loves a cheerful giver.

Um that we hired an organ scholar named Nathan, and two weeks in, Nathan has found that this is a little bit over his head.

So Nathan is not going to be joining us.

Uh prayers for him as he goes through and hopefully finds something that's going to connect a little bit better with his schedule and time.

Uh, meanwhile, we're looking for another organ scholar again, and huge thanks to Garmin for that.

And this is Miss Jamie Rocha, who's playing the piano here.

She teaches piano to our school students uh throughout the week as well.

And Jamie is subbing so that we can start our choir season.

And uh, you know, there's this thing we get to do, you may not know this right before the pandemic began.

Our choir had just bought new robes.

This is like the first time you're wearing these robes, right?

And you might say that it's blue, but you know, in the church we can't just call things blue.

That's Marian blue.

That represents the Virgin Mary, and it shows up during Advent, right?

It's a sign of not just royalty, but her royal compassion for our Lord Jesus Christ, right?

And so I'm gonna kind of wave bless your robes and also bless your ministry because choir has just begun.

And reminder, you can join the choir.

This still happens, uh, and Garmin is exceptionally great at the choir, and we all benefit from the ministry.

So a blessing of the robes and the ministry you're gonna give us.

God, we would ask you to bless these robes, those who wear them, the beauty, the integrity, the worship that comes from their mouths, that it might guide us not only to discover your beauty in the world and in one another, but that it might draw us together as a congregation, so that we can go into the world and act more beautifully, even as our Lord and Savior calls us to do.

Amen.

Thank you in advance, choir, for your ministry both today and this season.

Um, Alex, our minister to families, has conducted a listening tour this last month.

He's met individually with various families and stakeholders and trying to figure out what kind of ministry is going to be best to go forward to serve who we have in our community.

And uh many of you have already been dialed in into that.

And there's another opportunity today.

You may say my kids are grown, so this doesn't apply to me, but please notice this is family ministry, not kids' ministry.

So Alex is having a luncheon immediately after this that will be very spread out so that we can continue to chase down what's going to be the most life-giving way we can go forward in family ministry here at St.

Thomas, both to our scouts, our school families, our parishioners, and the wider community.

If you can't make it or don't want to, it's just good to know this is what's happening.

Uh, this has been our biggest need for two or three years here is to develop our families more.

And uh Alex is doing a great job.

So please take time to express your your thanks.

And if you have uh you have any thoughts about how this can go, uh Alex, I believe you'll find to be very, very receptive.

Again, he's hit the ground running in the middle of a tough uh office remodel.

So I'm really, really proud of Alex and this offering that we're doing.

I'm probably forgetting something.

I am.

Um I mentioned to you last week in the sermon a little bit about State Bill Eight, and one of uh the people in our community has come forward.

This is an attorney who would like to educate us about State Bill Eight.

And that's gonna happen two weeks from tomorrow.

You'll see it in the e-news.

And I don't just care about this presentation because that person is my partner, uh, but also because uh learning about this bill, it's much different than I thought on social media.

And so uh I hope you will take an opportunity, whether it's through this opportunity, which is Zoom only, two weeks from tomorrow night from 6 to 7 p.m., or some other opportunity, to do your civic duty and know about the laws that are being passed and their ramifications and how you can choose to support or challenge them appropriately according to your own values.

But that is the presentation that will be two weeks from tomorrow from 6 to 7 p.m.

with Rebecca Andrews Esquire and Dr.

Timothy Brown, who uh is an eight o'clocker here retired OBGYN.

Uh they'll make very clear the definitions of this law and the potential ways it can apply both now and down the road.

Continue to walk in love.

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

I make her preserve a soul of all the needs and kindly, I lay with thee beside me, beginning with a lending, beginning with me, this all be all.

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

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

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

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

Not because the church invites you, it is Christ.

And he invites you to meet him here.

The Lord be with you.

And also in here.

Lift up your hearts.

We live unto the Lord.

Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.

We thank you, Creator God, that we live in a place where the glorious revelation of yourself is all around us.

The bayous burst with song from wind and birds and waving grasses.

The abundance of birds flying freely reminds us of our own freedom and the many ways you provide sustenance in your family.

From the depths of the ocean floor, you made room for clear lake and appointed a respite and sanctuary for your creatures.

We, like your son, our Lord, are called to drink from these oases from the Spirit to get away and rest in communion with you.

We marvel as we wander alongside pines and wildflowers along the creeks, where jumping fish dance above the lake, and pelicans, egrets, ducks, and geese eat and drink from the water's edge, and we remember that you have given us the living water to quench our thirst.

Our spirit is refreshed and our strength renewed.

We welcome the passing of seasons in broad circles of time, with anticipation of new things to come, and we recognize that same feeling of hope that encircles our faith.

Our lives are lived between sunrises and sunsets and brilliant colors, but at night the limitless stars have a way of pushing back the boundaries of our lives, and we dream of heaven and your wonder.

With all these blessings of your creation around us, O God, we come together in communities on the bayous, by creeks and lakes, on trails and marshes to receive your word, which has been sown in rich soil and grown into a fruitful crop in the body of Christ.

And so we join with saints and angels in proclaiming your glory as we say, Holy, holy, holy, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory, Hosanna and the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna and the highest.

As we gather to praise your name, we see your greatest glory, your Son, our Savior, reflected in each other's faces, and we know the magnitude of your love for us and ours for you.

On the night before he died for us, Jesus was at table with his friends.

He took bread, gave thanks to you, broke it, gave it to them, and said, Take eat.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

As supper was ending, Jesus took the cup of wine.

Again, he gave thanks to you, gave it to them, and said, Drink this, all of you.

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

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

And now gathered at your table, O God of all creation, and remembering Christ, crucified and risen, who was and is and is to come, we offer to you our gifts of bread and wine, and we offer ourselves a living sacrifice.

Pour out your spirit upon these gifts, that they may be the body and blood of Christ.

Breathe your spirit over the whole earth and make us your new creation, the body of Christ given for the world you have made.

In the fullness of time, bring us with all your saints from every tribe and language and people and nation to feast at the banquet prepared from the foundation of the world.

Through Christ and with Christ and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, to you be honored, glory, and praise forever and ever.

Amen.

And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

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

Come and eat joyfully, with the resolution and understanding that we will continue to struggle and that God will always sustain us as we sustain one another.

Come and feast your crossing with me.

Amen.

What we choose changes us, who we love transforms us, how we create remakes us, and where we live reshapes us.

So in all our choosing, O God, make us wise.

In all our loving of Christ make us bold, and all our creating O Spirit gives us Give us courage.

And all our living may we become whole.

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

Amen.

Thank you.

So I just think how the church characters are.