Pentecost 12 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.

And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.

Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the Spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we who cannot exist without you may by you be enabled to live according to your will.

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

Amen.

A reading from 2 Samuel.

The king, David, ordered Joab and Abishai and Etai, saying, Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.

And all the people heard when the king gave orders to all the commanders concerning Absalom.

So the army went out into the field against Israel, and the battle was fought in the forest of Ephraim.

The men of Israel were defeated there by the servants of David, and the slaughter there was great on that day, 20,000 men.

The battle spread over the face of all the country, and the forest claimed more victims that day than the sword.

Absalom happened to meet the servants of David.

Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak.

His head caught fast in the oak, and he was left hanging between heaven and earth, while the mule that was under him went on.

And ten young men, Joab's armor-bearers, surrounded Absalom and struck him and killed him.

Then the Cushite came, and the Cushite said, Good tidings for my Lord the King, from from for my Lord the King, for the Lord has vindicated you this day, delivering you from the power of all who rose up against you.

The king said to the Cushite, Is it well with the young man Absalom?

The Cushite answered, May the enemies of my Lord the King and all who rise up to do you harm be like that young man.

The king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept.

And as he went, he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would I have died instead of you?

O Absalom, my son, my son.

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

The psalm appointed for the day is 130.

We'll read responsively about a half verse.

Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord.

Lord, hear my voice.

And let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.

If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, for there is forgiveness with you.

Therefore you shall be inferior.

I wait for the Lord.

My soul waits for you.

My soul waits for the Lord more than centuries for the morning.

O Israel, wait for the Lord.

For with the Lord there is mercy.

There is plenteous redemption with the Lord.

Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.

Be angry, but do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.

Thieves must give up stealing.

Rather, let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.

Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.

Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

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

Then the Jewish leaders began to complain about Jesus because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

They were saying, Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

How can he now say, I have come down from heaven?

Jesus answered them, Do not complain among yourselves.

No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me.

And I will raise that person up on the last day.

It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught by God.

Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God.

That one has seen the Father.

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.

I am the bread of life.

Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.

This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

The gospel of the Lord.

As I've said before, the compilers of the lectionary presume that you've read the story, so we have to fill in a few gaps.

Several weeks ago we read about the actions that David took with Bathsheba and how he then subsequently murdered her husband, named the light of God.

Perhaps this is why David felt like maybe he didn't have the moral high ground in his own family.

What's happened in the intermittent chapters is that one of David's older sons named Amnon decided he would do what his father David did with his half-sister Tamar.

That is, he raped her and sent her out.

David was silent after this.

Silent.

David's other son, this is Amnon's half-brother Abshalom, which curiously enough means the peace of my father, decides to petition his father for justice, but David won't hear him.

He literally waits days.

Absalom decides, since David won't do anything, that he's going to take justice or at least revenge into his own hands, and he murders his brother Amnon in order to try to make this situation right.

Then he has to flee from the presence of his father, who is now going to do a revenge killing, even though he wasn't going to do anything to his son Amnon.

There's some amnesty granted, but ultimately what Absalom decides to do because his father, and this is the read in the Bible, because his father will not stand up for justice as his own family, Absalom decides that his father is not fit to be king.

And so Absalom throws a rebellion which could actually have been successful, except that Absalom listens to the wrong advice.

Here in the story, David has done some mechanations and he's poised to strike.

But notice from the beginning what he says, please go easy on my son.

Hard to know really what David's motives are.

It could be that Absalom had so much prominence in the nation that David needed to say this politically.

It could be that as a father he recognized what was on the line.

Probably fair to recognize both of those along with many other possible options.

But of course, if you're a general and somebody is threatening to overthrow your country, we all understand what is the normal outcome of that event.

That's what happens.

And here we have David saying, My son, my son, but of course it's the double entendre.

He's saying, This is my peace.

What a sad state of peace in this story.

Would that it were me instead of my son.

One of the things that's happened throughout this story is that David has not really been able to correct any of his prior misdeeds.

He's not really confronted them.

He's been, quite honestly, a pretty poor parent.

Like if you would like to know how not to be a parent, I commend most of the Bible to you.

Most of the Bible will instruct you in how not to parent, and the story will describe really if you'd like to be miserable, if you'd like to make your children's lives miserable, do just like this.

I put this before you because so often we read the Bible and think these heroes are meant to be emulated, but I suggest these heroes are to be resisted.

This story describes what happens when you live in patterns of what the scripture calls sin.

And this picks up today in Paul's letter, a book that I just read is really kind of vexing me, but I want to name it.

Paul says a couple of things about speech.

Now, this is kind of like hippie pie in the sky reading at first glance.

Let no talk come out of your mouth that is not helpful.

Well, that'd be lovely.

Most of us uh recognize that would be lovely, but make no commitments toward it, just to be fair, myself included.

Paul Lasse says, it's okay to be angry, but don't sin in your anger, and don't go to sleep angry, and don't make room for the devil.

And of course, there's this great reminder the word devil isn't a real word.

In Greek, the word is diabolos, and it means slanderer.

Make no room for slander.

Well, I've got to tell you, I'm pretty good at making room for slander.

And I just read this book that is, like I said, is vexing.

It's called Nonviolent Communication.

It's written by a Jewish psychologist named Marshall Rosenberg, who has since entered larger life.

And um, the the book pricked me in a number of places, and I want to share them with you because I think they give insight, at least to me, about what Paul is trying to invite us to do as we think about resisting the pattern between David and Absalom.

Number one, anger is a choice.

Boy, I hate that idea.

Usually what I like to do is say, anger is a choice, someone chose to make me angry.

You chose to make me angry when you were lazy, when you disobeyed, when you voted for candidate Q.

But anger says, Rosenberg, is actually my choice.

That's a tough one.

Paul even says, look, you want to be angry, fine, just don't sin in your anger.

Now, a lot of times we think about sin as some kind of like ink stain on a white garment, or we think about sin as like a check the wrong box on Santa Claus's list.

But I want to remind you that sin in the Hebrew Bible, as much as it means missing the mark in archery, it also means being burdened.

In your anger, don't pick up extra loads.

And if you do, put them down before you go to bed.

Boy, you talk about a way of living that would be good news for the world.

I don't even care about the rest of the world.

It'd be good news for you if you could lay your burdens down each night and be an unencumbered the next morning.

Boy, that seems like the secret to joyful living.

Maybe it starts with this phrase.

Paul talks about unhelpful speech, and I'm just gonna out myself here about what unhelpful speech is, according to Marshall Rosenberg.

Marshall Rosenberg says, you know, we have this thing we do in English where we confuse thinking and feeling all the time.

We do things like say, I feel disrespected by you.

Of course, that's not a feeling at all, that's a judgment.

You can't feel disrespected.

You're interpreting somebody else's stimuli.

You're judging them.

In general, you're blaming them.

I feel unheard.

Well, unheard is not a feeling.

You can look at any psychologist's chart.

You won't find unheard on the feeling chart.

You'll find that on the evaluation chart.

And to be honest, I was raised to be a master evaluator.

I'm so good at it that I almost don't know what to how to ask a question outside of an evaluation.

So my wife will go swimming in the middle of her work day and she'll come home and I'll say, Did you have a good swim?

And she says, Stop evaluating me.

And I think she's right.

Because, don't you see, when we rely on, when we make this change between feeling and thinking, and when we start evaluating other people, we're picking up a pretty heavy burden.

Did I have a good swim according to whom?

Katie Ledecki.

How are you supposed to answer that?

Rosenberg also says, this is gonna bother you because it bothers me.

Rosenberg also says one of the most violent things that we do is we couch most of our speech in punishment and reward.

And we decide when we evaluate somebody whether they deserve to be punished.

And we make that evaluation based on some moral platitude instead of will our lives be more joyful.

Now, this is tough for me because the way I grew up living is it's all about reward and punishment.

In fact, if you grew up in church, maybe I should qualify that.

I grew up in an evangelical church.

And faith was all about reward and punishment.

And punishment was pretty severe.

And that was the purpose of faith.

Don't get punished.

And I don't know why we forgot to read the scriptures that say true love drives down all fear, because if you're afraid of God, you can't possibly be in love with God.

And if you're afraid of your spouse evaluating you, if you're afraid of your parents evaluating you, and we haven't entered into the fullness of love that I think Paul is pointing us to.

When we operate in the world of evaluation, we make room, don't you see?

For the Diabolos, for slander.

Slander happens any time you present me with stimuli and I interpret what you were thinking.

And then I hedge that by using the word feel.

I feel that you're a jerk.

That is not a feeling, that's an evaluation.

I've mentioned this to you before, and I will probably mention it over and over again from time to time because it sticks to me.

This is hard business, how it is that we let no unwholesome talk come out of our mouths.

And there is this Jesuit guy.

In fact, he founded the Jesuits, his name's Ignatius of Loyola, and he wrote this book called The Spiritual Exercises, and he says in the book that it is your spiritual discipline in order to court God's grace experientially in your life, that whenever somebody says something to you, that you should hear it in the best possible way.

Even if they say, I hate you.

Now that's a challenge.

How can you hear that positively?

Fortunately, you can hear that if somebody hates you, it means you've connected with them.

That sounds silly, but you know the worst communication in the world is not hatred, it's being ignored.

Consider if that's true in your own life.

It is for me.

There is nothing more frustrating for my children or other people's children or other adults than if I ask them something and they're silent.

I would much rather them say no.

Or I don't wanna.

But to be ignored, I suggest, is much more miserable than to be told no.

What we rarely do, and this is where slander comes in, is consider where somebody's coming from are curious about what got them there.

Instead, what we focus on are the facts of the words themselves.

But we all understand that communication is not factual.

And this shows up in the gospel today.

Now you see the people who are listening to Jesus get hung up on the facts.

We know his parents.

We know the facts about this guy.

They get so centered in the facts that they miss the truth.

And this is an interesting thing, you know.

Uh maybe you've heard of this guy, he's no longer with us, Marcus Borge.

He was in the Jesus seminar group, you know, the people who coded whether or not things were authentic in the teachings of Jesus by color.

What Marcus Borg says, it's so interesting because that's what he did, right?

He said, you know, we can talk all we want about the historical Jesus, but that's not what we come to church for anyway.

We come to the Jesus of faith.

The historical Jesus died.

Let me tell you folks, he did.

The Jesus of faith continues to live.

So the question is: what are we going to center our approach to discipleship on?

The dead one or the living one?

And here Jesus calls that question when he talks about bread.

Now look, I understand that many people are gluten intolerant, and that's probably always been the case to more or less degree, but you have to understand at the time of Jesus that 90% of your daily diet was a two-pound loaf of bread.

90%.

So when you talk about the bread of life, you really mean the bread of life.

There's not quinoa bread.

You know, I just want to be clear.

This is what's going on culturally.

He's really talking about the staff of life.

And it's really important to hear that we don't think people had centered their worship on the Eucharist when this was written.

Now, we tend to hear it because that is half of our worship.

Right now, reminder, the gospel is on the Lord's table because we're doing the liturgy of the word.

After the peace, it will change because we'll do the liturgy of the sacrament.

Right?

That's the Eucharist.

Before I talk more about what I think John's doing.

Eucharist is a Greek word that means thanksgiving.

And you know, hopefully we come in thankful for the lives that God has given us, for the gifts that we have.

In right one language, it is meet and right to give thanks to God at all times and all places.

But I want to tell you that that word thanksgiving is not even dependent upon us.

This is why it belongs in church.

That word Eucharist is less about you than it is about God.

God is thankful for you, even if you're not thankful for God, period.

That's the definition of grace.

You can resist God's gratitude for you, and that doesn't diminish God's gratitude for you.

That's grace.

Which makes it really different than the evaluative way of speaking I was just naming, right?

Very different.

Now, God hopes that we will choose to enjoy God's gratitude for who we are because our lives will be better.

But it is up to us.

And I want to name to you that the Eucharist, the bread of life, can happen, can happen in the liturgy of the sacrament.

And it's not just how much bread you get.

We've talked about this before.

Those wafers don't taste particularly good, and to be honest, I'm not sure they have much nutrition in them.

Although what we get out of the sacrament is that it's embodied.

We understand our bodies need food and calories to live.

So there's something very primal in this act of eating bread and dipping it in that wine.

Well, I tell my day school students here is that really what we're asking is that God's not just going to nourish our bodies, that God's going to nourish our spirits so that we can grow, so that we can be bigger people, not more petty people, so that we can engage in more wholesome talk, not more evaluation and judgment.

That's what we come back to week after week.

And the way we do it is critical, and I'll tell you, my conversion to the Episcopal Church happened at the rail.

Turns out I've been Lutheran and Methodist and Baptist and disciples of Christ and Presbyterian, the bad kind, not the good one, and a couple other ones.

And I came into an Episcopal church kind of down on my luck, to be honest.

And the first time I ever did this in San Diego was in a demographically shifted neighborhood.

It used to be relatively good, but it degentrified.

So a third of the congregation were refugees from now Birmingham and Mar, and they'd become Episcopalian in refugee camps.

The ministry of Anglican priests was meaningful to them when they literally had nowhere to go.

A third of the members of the church were people who said, I don't care that my neighborhood's been taken over.

This is my church.

I don't know if this is quite right.

I didn't do the proportion quite correctly.

There were always three or four people who I'm pretty sure were just coming to church so they could have donuts afterward because they were homeless.

So my first time I came to the rail at this really small church, there was a woman here who knelt with her opera length pearls.

She was about 80 years old.

Her hair had been done like my aunt used to do, like she'd gone to the hairdresser and put like the cap on at night, you know.

I mean, she was really dressed up for church.

And she put on her white gloves only to come to the Eucharist.

Then there was me and my son, and a woman who for whom English was like her third or fourth language, who was from Burma, who was allowed to make like a hundred dollars a week, or else she would have been sent back, who put on a lace veil so she could have the Eucharist.

And then there was this guy who was there for the donuts.

And we all drank from the same cup.

And we were all given the same bread.

The same bread, not like different kinds of bread.

I've seen that, by the way, different kinds of bread.

I hope you haven't.

It's a thing.

And I realized that when the Gospel of John talks about eternal life, that's what John's talking about.

Not talking about what happens when you die.

John's talking about how you choose to live, how you choose to live with people you wouldn't even talk to, maybe because you can't, because you don't even share the same language.

You kneel together at the rail and it converted me.

Because I'm not there, but that's where I want to be.

That place is grace.

That place is about curiosity instead of judgment.

You already heard the judgment.

I think the guy was there for the donuts, not the Eucharist.

That's my judgment.

I have no idea what church meant to him because guess what I didn't do?

I never asked.

And that was a mistake.

But he came.

Now I grew up in churches where you had to be really careful at communion, because if you didn't want it for the right reasons, it could hurt you.

I don't know if you ever heard that.

And I just want to pose to you can grace ever hurt you?

Can it, really?

Boy, I'd like to think the meanest, ugliest people in my life could use more of it, not less of it.

That's the bread of life.

The ancestors, they met their physical needs in the wilderness.

That word man is interesting.

It means what is it?

In Hebrew.

They didn't know what it was.

I don't know if you've read the story.

God sends bread from heaven, they don't know what it is.

And they ate the what is it their whole life, and they died.

And you know what?

We're all gonna perish.

The Bible's not talking about the secret to immortality.

The Bible's talking about the difference between living into God's joy that God imagines for us and doubling down on our own pettiness and misery.

And one of the ways we do that is the way we speak to one another.

I invite you to consider also, as I mentioned, I didn't think John's got the Eucharist in mind, even though we have to have it in mind.

This phrase, I am, you remember when Moses is up on top of the talking to the burning bush, and Moses tells the bush, God, I hear you want to send me to Egypt, which by the way, I don't really want to do that, but let's pretend I did.

What's your name?

Who do I tell people your name is?

Because they're gonna ask.

And God doesn't say God, you know.

I hope you realize this.

God says in Hebrew this word that some Christians say easily, but that the Bible itself is not really interested in your saying.

It starts with a wh, right?

And it means I am who I am.

John is the only gospel, and it's not written to a primarily Jewish audience, no scholar believes that, where Jesus goes around trying to say God's name in Greek, which you can't even do.

You can only really say it in Hebrew.

I am bread of life.

That is to say, we know God's presence and existence when we are nourished by the bread of life, and all of that is code speak.

All of it is.

Embodiment helps us understand the code about being nourished and having energy that we need to do things like play and grow and enjoy and be reconciled.

But if we take it so literally and just think about bread only, we're missing the invitation.

Really, what I think we're hearing is when we hear, I am the bread of life, the same thing we say, Holy Spirit in whom we live and move and have our being.

And we experience that in a shared meal.

And again, I'm coming back to the Eucharist.

I experienced God's presence when I kneeled at the rail with a lady who I was not good enough for.

This is my judgment.

She was way more sophisticated than I was, and still is.

With a lady who didn't even speak my own language, and with a guy that I've already judged up and down in my own sermon.

And that was the bread of life.

And not kneeling with this woman, who I perceive to be my cultural superior, and resisting this woman because maybe she didn't understand enough theology and English to be there.

And second guessing this guy's motivations is manna in the desert, and you'll perish if you eat that bread.

And we choose to perish.

This is what Paul says.

But we don't have to choose that.

When we're angry, we can choose not to pick up an additional burden.

And if we find ourselves doing it, we have the opportunity to lay it down.

And God hopes you'll do that.

Because God hopes you'll enjoy the gift that God's given you of life and grace and God's thanksgiving for you.

And I wonder if our conversion could be less about what happens with that bread and wine in a few minutes than living into that version of eternal life.

You realize one thing that Christian denominations can never do ecumenically.

You know what it is?

The one thing we can never do together is have that bread and wine together.

Because we we all disagree about what it means.

And here's Jesus saying, that's the manna mentality.

And what if we chose to share the bread of life?

And what if we chose to start with the way we just talk to our children, to our parents, to our peers, to people who vote differently from us.

I've already added myself a couple of times, and I'm going to do it again.

A lot of times when I'm around family members who believe differently from me, I don't want to hear what they say.

I feel like I already know it.

I've got the unique information.

They've never considered my point of view.

And of course, what I'm doing there is making a judgment that their experience is mine instead of having wonder, awe, and curiosity.

And don't you see, the story isn't just about Jesus, the one person ever.

This story is about whether or not we are Eucharistic bread for the world.

I've eaten some bitter food before.

You ever had bad food?

I didn't mean like it was spoiled, I mean just it was bad.

Set your teeth on edge.

And I don't want to sound like guilt-driven because I don't mean it this way, but I wonder the question often am I providing empty calories for the world?

Or am I providing nourishment?

Am I living into my own experience of eternal life with people radically different from myself?

Am I affirming that, in judging that as God's design for me, or am I getting caught up in judging them person by person, blaming them for my own emotions, confusing my emotions with my judgments?

And maybe the sermon is about me.

It probably is.

I'm very taken with this, you see, because I don't want to continue to perish on a day-to-day basis.

And I tell my children, I've told them over and over again, I think it's right, even though I don't always do it, you know.

This is one of the great parts about being a parent, is having these pearls of wisdom that you struggle with.

It's never too late, it just gets harder.

And I think that's right.

You know why it gets harder?

It's because when we live into patterns, we myelinate this pathway in our brain, and information travels like 50,000 times faster on the myelinated pathways.

And our invitation is to myelinate some new pathways.

Awe, curiosity, wonder, feeling instead of thinking, instead of evaluation, even just describing what's happening before us, living in the world as a documentary instead of an op-ed piece.

That would really change our interaction with ourselves and one another.

And I've got to tell you, it's gonna take some energy to do that, and that's why we're gonna come here in a few minutes.

We're gonna say, God, please, and if your gratitude for me, I'd be grateful for more energy to myelinate some new pathways so that I can live in this way of speaking, I can live in this way of thinking and feeling, and I can nourish the world with my own life.

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

We believe in one God, the Father, 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 from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

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 under Pontius Pilate.

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.

Grant, Almighty God, that all who confess your name may be united in your truth, live together in your love, and reveal your glory in the world.

Lord, in your compassion.

We pray for all who govern and hold authority in every nation, for the members of the armed forces throughout the world, for all who struggle for peace and justice, that they may act with prudence and vision to plant the seeds of your kingdom everywhere.

Lord, in your compassion.

Hear our prayer.

Give us all a reverence for the earth as your own creation, that we may use its resources rightly in the service of others, and to your honor and glory, Lord, in your compassion.

Hear our prayer.

Bless all whose lives are closely linked with ours, and grant that we may serve Christ and them and love one another as he loves us.

Lord, in your compassion.

Hear our prayer.

Lead our parish.

Source of wisdom guide us.

Source of strength support us.

We pray, Lord, in your compassion.

Hear our prayer.

Guide St.

Thomas the Apostle School, that those who teach and those who learn may rejoice in the knowledge of your truth.

That we may teach our students to love whatever is just and true and good, and that we may be bearers of your grace to all who come through our doors.

Lord, in your compassion.

Comfort and heal all those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit.

Give them courage and hope in their troubles, and bring them the joy of your salvation, especially Chris, John, Jerome, Mickey, John, Lavon, Paxton, Rick, Nick, and Martha.

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

Lord, in your compassion.

We commend to your mercy all who have died, especially Scott Richardson.

Your will for them may be fulfilled, and we pray that we may share with all your saints in your eternal kingdom.

Lord, in your compassion.

Hear our prayer.

Compassionate God, make your healing and peaceful presence known to the world.

Comfort those who mourn, strengthen those who are weary, encourage those in despair, and lead us all to fullness of life.

Lord, hear our prayer.

Amen.

Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor in the form of mutual confession.

Before God, with the people of God, I confess.

To my own brokenness, to the ways I wound my life, the lives of others, and the life of the world.

May God forgive you, Christ renew you, and the Spirit enable you to grow in love.

Amen.

Amen.

Before God, with the people of God, we confess to our brokenness, to the ways we wound our lives, the lives of others, and the life of the world.

May God forgive you, Christ renew you, and the Holy Spirit enable you to grow in love.

Amen.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

A few announcements I want to call to your attention.

Some of these are in the e-news and some don't make it.

And so the first one that probably won't make it is that yesterday, in about an hour and a half, we distributed more than 6,000 pounds of fresh food to 88 families representing 388 persons.

This is pretty fan.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

One thing that is amazing about this, and I love this about the community.

We advertise that we're doing this and that anybody who would like to help is invited.

And this is one of those things that I we don't get to put on our annual report to the diocese.

We have visitors, new visitors, every time we do this.

What a mark of health and inclusion.

Thank you for being that parish.

Something new happened yesterday that's really important.

The food bank has asked us, in addition to the demographics, like we track things like age and where people are from.

They've asked us to start tracking how many homes have a veteran and how many homes have a disabled person.

Out of 88, 10 homes had a veteran.

Out of 88, 30 homes had a disabled person.

And just asking that question would draw people into tears that somebody would even ask.

If you were born in August, can I invite you forward so that we can celebrate your birth and offer you a blessing for the coming year?

Sometimes it's all about quality, not quantity.

We get the Our custom is that we're going to share our name, the day of our birth, and either where we were born, when we were born, or both of us.

Larry Roberts.

Ann Hasselmaer, born in Baytown, Texas, August 15th.

Arlene McDonald, born in Toronto, Ontario, August 2nd.

Let's pray for our birthdays.

Lord God, we know that every year, every moment of our lives is in your hands.

Look with continued favor, we pray on these your children as they begin another year.

Grant that they would continue to grow in wisdom and grace, and above all, strengthen their trust in your goodness and love all the days of their lives.

Amen.

So this is Alex Hillis, our new family minister.

A lot of churches don't have family ministers, we do.

So welcome, Alan.

Alex is going to be supporting our children, our youth, and of course, our families as well, so that we can grow together as a larger family.

And one of the things I'm very pleased to tell you is many of you know that we've opened up our nursery at the 1030 service.

That's really designed for kids up to about five years old.

But beginning next week, Alex is going to be offering children's chapel during the sermon time, and of course, we'll all come back together as a family for the liturgy of the sacrament.

So that begins next week.

So please take the time to welcome Alex, get to know him.

You're really going to appreciate him and the ministry he's going to bring.

Thank you, Alex.

In front of you are some things that are good to name.

But like 85% of their population is on the free lunch program, not the reduced lunch.

The free lunch program.

And so we've done uh we've we've been extremely faithful as a parish.

You guys have given generously for years, and what you're seeing are some of the supplies we've managed so that their kids can start the year like your own children would, right?

These boxes are full of 146 backpacks, so kids get a backpack.

Many people uh mail school supplies directly there because for some reason grocery stores aren't doing school supplies packets this year that I know of.

We looked at like six different ones and we haven't found them.

So many people mailed them directly there.

We're taking these supplies over on Tuesday, uh, and so if you're interested, you're not too late.

The summer's gone by, kind of like that.

And um, some people like me are not really excited about school supply shopping, uh, so we can give money directly to them.

We do it through the church, uh, and the church writes a check to communities and schools to get kids school supplies.

If you've gone shopping, it's like$50.

And I know you're thinking that's expensive.

Well, when you're picking between rent and food and school supplies, it's obvious what you're gonna pick.

And that's why you are the bread of life to people who don't know you, who don't even know to thank you.

So on their behalf, I thank you for giving children the same starch you would give your own.

We're gonna bless these supplies.

Lord God, we ask your blessing upon these backpacks, upon these pencils and crayons and binders and folders, upon everything these children need to start the school with dignity and preparation.

And we ask God that these supplies would not only enrich their learning, but enrich the quality of their lives, that they would know that they're utterly loved by you, exactly like they are.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Another thing we get to do that's really fun because we didn't do this in May, is a little bit of recognition and send-off.

So at our eight o'clock service, we've had two uh students finish their high school career.

Uh, one is Aaron Williams, who is going to University of Houston, and his sister Mary.

And we also have Sophie Snap.

Uh, you can come up if you want to, or you can stand in place.

Sophie has served us as an acolyte, and Sophie's just graduated from Clear Lake High School and is going to UT like tomorrow.

Right?

Yeah.

And so uh Aaron and Mary aren't here.

Let me.

Am I missing anybody else's graduation?

Okay, well, I'm gonna give Sophie our blessing because she's our ambassador to those heathens in Austin.

And we're gonna include Mary and Aaron Vicarious Lee.

Lord God, thank you for the gift of learning.

We pray that you would bless Sophie, Aaron, and Mary as they continue their studies.

God, we pray that you would not only sharpen their minds, but open their hearts with curiosity to the awe and wonder in learning and in the world.

And of course, we pray, God, that you would simultaneously deepen their wisdom and their faith and their virtue.

Nourish them with our love and prayers that they might be a nourishment wherever they go and know that they are absolutely loved by both this parish and by you.

Amen.

We're gonna miss Sophie.

She's like an acolyte leader here, so we're happy to graduate her.

Bless you, Sophie.

Sometimes I think there's a lot going on.

And there is, and isn't that great?

Thank you for being a small parish with huge hearts and huge reach.

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

Stay today just a prophet.

It is my stall.

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.

What 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 deep and right so to do.

It is very meet right in 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 world views in the confession of one faith, 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 Lord and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory.

Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High.

Blessed is the one that cometh in the name of the Lord.

All glory be to thee, O Lord our God, for that thou didst create heaven and earth, and didst make us in thine own image.

And of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to take our nature upon him, and to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption.

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

For in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread.

And when he given thanks to thee, he broke it, gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Likewise, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.

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

This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for all for the remission of sins.

Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me.

Wherefore, O Lord and Heavenly Father, we thy people do celebrate and make with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy son hath commanded us to make, having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension, and looking for his coming again with power and great glory.

And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us, and with thy word and Holy Spirit to bless and sanctify these gifts of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the body and blood of thy dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ.

And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness to accept this, 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 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.

In the spirit of Pentecost, please join me as we pray that prayer with different language.

Dear one, closer to us than our own hearts, farther from us than the most distant star, you are beyond naming.

May your powerful presence become obvious not only in the undeniable glory of the sky, but also in the seemingly base and common processes of the earth.

Give us what we need day by day to keep body and soul together.

Because clever as you've made us, we still owe our existence to you.

We recognize that to be reconciled with you, we must live peaceably and justly with other human beings, putting hate and bitterness behind us.

We are torn between our faith in your goodness and our awareness of the evil in your creation.

So deliver us from the temptation to despair.

Yours alone is the universe, and all its majesty and beauty.

Amen.

O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

O Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace.

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

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

Come and feast.

Let's pray together.

God of truth, we have seen with our eyes and touched with our hands the bread of life.

Nourish our faith that we may grow in love for you and for each other, and nourish the world in your image.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

What we choose changes us.

Who we love transforms us.

How we create remakes us.

Where we live reshapes us.

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

In all our loving, O Christ, make us bold.

In all our creating, O Spirit, give us courage.

In 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.

Thanks be to God.

No, no, no, no.

Yeah, yes.