Easter 6 2021

Hallelujah, Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed.

Hallelujah.

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.

And also with you.

Let us pray.

O God, you've prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding.

Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises which exceed all that we can desire.

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

Amen.

While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.

The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extoling God.

Then Peter said, Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?

So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Then they invited him to stay for several days.

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

Reading from Psalm 98, we will read responsively by the half verse.

The right hand and the holy arm of the Lord have secured the victory.

The Lord has made known this victory and has openly shown righteousness in the sight of the nations.

The Lord remembers mercy and faithfulness to the house of Israel.

Shout with joy to the Lord, all you land.

Lift up your voice and rejoice and see.

With the harp and the voice of song.

With trumpets and the sound of the horn.

Shout with joy with the soul before the Lord.

Let the sea make a noise and all that is in it.

The lands and those who dwell therein.

Let the rivers clap their hands.

Let the world swing out with joy before the Lord, who is coming to judge the earth.

In the righteousness shall the Lord judge the world.

And everyone who loves the parent loves the child.

By this we we know that we love the children of God.

When we love God and obey his commandments.

For the love of God is this that we obey his commandments.

And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world.

And this is the victory that conquers the world.

Our faith.

Who is it that conquers the world?

But the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

This is the one who came by water and blood.

Jesus Christ.

Not with the water only, but with the water and the blood.

And the Spirit is the one that testifies.

For the Spirit is the truth.

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

The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to John.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Jesus said to the disciples, As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.

Abide in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

I've said these things to you, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

I do not call you servants any longer because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I've made known to you everything that I've heard from my Father.

You did not choose me, but I chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.

I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Apologies in advance for the bulletin scarcity.

We'll resolve it.

Have no fear.

We'll use the books when it's time in just a bit.

This is important to hear.

This is not the sixth Sunday after Easter, but in the church, Easter is not one day, it is 50 days.

The next season will be Pentecost.

So you have to pretend this is Easter Day and it spreads 50 days.

And the purpose of this long period is for us to enter into increasing revelation, increasing life practice as to what the resurrected life is all about.

And it may seem a little bit asynchronous to you that we're hearing events in the book of Acts that happen after the day of Pentecost, which is two weeks away.

We're hearing what is to come now so that we can connect that with the resurrected life, which is our invitation now.

If you've read the book of Acts, there's a lot of different titles.

Sometimes it gets called Acts of the Apostles, but I want to suggest to you that's a little bit of a misnomer.

The Apostles actually aren't that important.

The book is really the Acts of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles happen to believe and understand.

And here's a general trajectory of the book if you've read it before.

People have strong traditions and they have a strong sense about who God loves and who God loves less.

So what they do is sort of like what they do with an Olympic jumper.

They put a bar and they say, This is it, and then the Holy Spirit jumps over that bar.

So they decide that they're going to raise the bar a little bit higher, and then the Holy Spirit jumps over that bar.

And then they raise it some more.

And then the Holy Spirit jumps over that bar.

On and on throughout the book.

Last week we got to hear about a guy who had two strikes against him.

He was from Ethiopia, which meant he didn't look like them.

And he was a eunuch, which meant he was disabled.

Does God love that person the same as God loves you and me?

The answer last week is yes.

This week the bar gets higher.

There's these people who aren't circumcised.

Now, look, just think about that symbolically for a second instead of literally.

These are people who aren't practicing the religion and the requirements they're supposed to practice.

Those could be Christian folk, they could be Jewish folk.

They could be people who aren't Christian at all.

Does God love them as much as God loves you and I?

The Holy Spirit jumps right over it.

And the prayer for today in Easter life is that we believe it and that we don't call it a one-off, that we say that's not just a once and done.

That's the life we're invited to live into.

And spiritually, the question for us as we live into Easter is to go ahead and keep raising that bar.

Don't quit and say, okay, I get it.

You keep raising that bar and let the Holy Spirit jump over all of your fears and doubts, because the assurance in the book of Acts is the Spirit will do it.

There is no bar that is too high for the Spirit to hop over.

Once upon a time, I had to take something we call the clergy bar lovingly.

In the Episcopal Church, it's called the General Ordination Exam.

It's uh 21 pages of essays spread out over four days.

This is where they evaluate whether we know stuff as clergy or not.

At the end of it, you get back a sentence that basically says you passed or you didn't.

I was glad I passed.

But all I got was a sentence.

One of the questions in the clergy bar had to do with whether or not people who weren't Christian could use your sanctuary.

Specifically, the question said, and I know I'm gonna tread on your toes, but I don't mean to.

This is what the test said.

The local mosque has burned down, and the folks at the mosque have asked if they can meet in your church.

And what's your answer?

And we talked about this in a Sunday school group at that church, and uh one of my really, really good friends uh said something like, Well, of course they could use the church, but not the sanctuary, because the sanctuary has the reserved sacrament.

That's what's in the tabernacle under that red candle.

Those are what we call the holy leftovers, the bread we don't consume and the wine we don't drink.

That's where they go, right?

And they're holy because we keep them.

Listen, that bread wasn't good to begin with.

It's not gonna be bad in a couple of days.

They said, you can't let Muslim people use your sanctuary because it would defile the reserve sacrament.

And the book of Acts says, How can you defile grace?

The thing about grace is it is undefilable.

That's how good grace is.

You can't defile it.

That's what happens in this story.

These are not Jewish people, these are other people.

I don't know who other people are in your life.

Think of the worst ones.

That's who the Holy Spirit falls on.

And Jesus tells us again this week.

We got to hear last week, I'm the vine, you are the branches, abide in me.

He tells us that the way we do that is by keeping this command to love one another.

I want to talk about that a few different ways.

I'm really, really grateful for a couple of folks that taught me that love is so much more than how I feel.

Most of my life, that's where I've rested, that it's supposed to feel really authentic to be the most loving.

And I've got to tell you, I taught high school math for a couple of years, and this was really strange because the students I felt the greatest pull to were sometimes the best students with the best attitudes and the best handwriting who always turned their work in on time.

Figures that I liked those kids because that's what I wanted them to do.

But from time to time, there were these kids who were sloppy, they violated the uniform code.

I mean, I had to send them to the principal once or twice a week because they didn't have their shirt tucked in or they didn't have a belt on, their handwriting was awful.

And some of those kids, strangely enough, I felt this really strong natural gravity towards, and I couldn't explain it.

We can't always explain how we feel, and here's the good news: love isn't about how you feel.

Love's about what you practice, regardless of how you feel.

And you know this is true if you've been married for more than two years.

Because if love is just about how you feel, there ain't anything left after two years.

You gotta have something that's gonna get you through low times so that the feelings can hopefully return.

We can't always control how we feel, and the good news is you don't need to.

The commandment to love one another is not a commandment to feel a certain way, it's a commandment to practice a certain way.

And maybe the practice is just that we continue to show up.

Now, Jesus says greater love has no one than this, that they lay down their life for their friends.

And sometimes that's literally a call.

Literally, folks like EMTs and firefighters and police officers are called to lay down their life on behalf of people they haven't even met.

And of course, we law that sacrificial giving.

Most of us are not going to be called to do that.

But I want to suggest to you that what Axe and Jesus have in common is a figurative way of laying down our life.

Because the truth is, if people have to believe like you believe, then they're not your friends anyway.

They're your clones.

Jesus is inviting us to lay down the bars we set for other people so we actually can be friends.

Jesus is inviting us to make room for somebody else, even and especially if they're different, because that's what friendship is about.

Loving you for who you are, not for what you do to me.

And that's tough.

Sometimes I'd rather just go ahead and give my life.

I'm going to be honest with you.

I feel like it might be easier because you give your life and it's over.

You did it one time.

But when you have to make room for somebody who's different from you, you've got to do that like all the time every day.

And that's the command.

That you show up and you make room for other people.

Some of you know this.

The Episcopal Church was my last stop.

I started out in something called the Independent Christian Church, which is like the Church of Christ with a piano.

We were liberal.

And then I moved on to that's a real thing, by the way.

Then I moved on to the Baptist Church, and then I moved to the Presbyterian Church, I went to a Methodist seminary, I went to a Roman Catholic seminary, I went to a Lutheran seminary, and I worked in the United Church of Christ.

And when I got here, I knew this was the place for me because Episcopalians, says Bishop Walterstorff, are not unifi, I've got to use this right, are not unified in doctrine.

We're unified in worship.

We're not uniform in what we think.

We're unified in our mission.

That is to say, the Episcopal Church says, you don't have to think the same thing for us to be a community.

In fact, it might be better if we don't all think the same thing, because then we'd have room for each other.

And what's glorious is when we don't all think the same thing and we come together to worship the same God by loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

And there's something great, and this is why it's tough because of COVID.

There was something great for me about kneeling at a rail with a 70-year-old woman with double pearls and white gloves on my right, and a refugee from Burma on my left, who became an Episcopalian in a refugee camp, and on her left was a guy who I don't even think wanted to go to church.

He just wanted the free donuts that came after the service.

And we all drank from that same cup, and we made room for each other at the rail because that's what God does.

God makes room for each and every single one of us at the rail.

And the great news is it didn't even matter why you're here.

Grace is good for you no matter what you think about it.

And Jesus invites us to love one another that way.

Now it's Mother's Day.

And we realize many of us have had wonderful mothers.

But I think we also realize not all mothers are good.

And not all mothers in our lives have had their own children.

Let me speak to that.

I've got a son whose mother was not good.

That's why I adopted him.

These things happen.

I've got folks that have mentored me and given me room in my faith life, and some of them never had any kids, and they were my mothers, and some of them were men.

Mothers do this incredible thing in their body.

They make room for a baby who is different from them.

And not only do they make room, they send nourishment.

And I don't know how this feels because I didn't do it.

But when my little daughter was in my wife's belly kicking, I don't think it was always comfortable, but it was a call that there's somebody different in you that you are growing.

And so even the kicks were a sign of this relationship.

One of my mothers was the first priest I served under, who was a man.

Because his door was always open, and I could go in and sit down and complain, and I could say, we shouldn't be doing this, and this is wrong, or this is a thing we should do.

And he always made room and said, That's good.

Have you read this?

Or, oh, that's good.

And you know, sometimes we change what we did.

I don't think always because he wanted to, but he wanted to nourish me.

And it was lovely.

I've been lucky that my own mother taught me really the definition of what it is, and I mean this, to practice what is noble and right and life-giving.

That is my mother.

And we often disagree about things like faith in politics.

I probably shouldn't tell stories about my mom because um she could hear them.

But this is actually the thing that my mother has taught me the best about Jesus' lesson today.

There came a day, and reminder, I grew up in the independent Christian church, which is like Southern Baptist but more conservative.

There came a day when my mother visited a church where I was a minister.

And I should tell you, some of my peers, their mothers are Episcopalians, like they are, and they come and worship together all the time.

And it's always been weird, you know, because well, I just knew this isn't what my mom was wanting from me.

One day she told me that.

She said, This is not the life I imagined for you.

And I see God's grace in it.

For you and your people, and I'm proud of you.

That's what it means to lay your life down.

That you look at your neighbor or your mother or your sibling or your children, and you're able to say, This is not what I imagined for you, and God's grace is there.

And I give glory to God for that grace, which is not what I imagined.

That's the kind of making room.

That's the kind of laying down our life.

The things that we were sure our kids needed to do, or that our parents needed to be, so that we can make room for God's grace, which is always greater than we could imagine or ask for.

And that's the resurrected life Jesus Christ invites us to live into as a church, as human beings, as children and parents.

This is what it means to enter into the vine.

Here's the promise of grace that we get to hear, you know.

If we abide, if we abide in the vine, we'll bear fruit to the world.

But you know, God's grace is so much greater that if we abide in the vine or not, God's grace will always ripen in our lives anyway.

This is the words of the poet Renier Rilka, if you know him.

Hidden.

Faith is ripening.

That is the promise of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts.

One more word about Mother's Day.

Most of us don't realize that Mother's Day as a national holiday has its roots after the Civil War.

When mothers from the North and the South looked at the loss of their children, their husbands, and fathers, and said, We're going to have reconciliation so that this doesn't happen.

Radical reconciliation.

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty.

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.

Let us confess our sin 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 have mercy upon you.

Forgive you all your sins and deliver you to abundant living.

Amen.

A special welcome to our visitors and guests.

If you have not done this before, on the tables out there in that little room behind us called the Narthics, there are cards that say welcome.

And we'd be tremendously grateful if you'd fill one of those cards out so we have a record of your visit.

And thank you for worshiping with us today.

Just a few announcements to call to your attention.

You'll notice that there are several uh studies that are starting up on Sunday morning.

Uh last week our bishop uh Andy Doyle was here talking about ways that we can understand the cross.

So we met this morning.

We'll be doing that again next Sunday.

Uh we're in the middle of a book study called Sisters in the Wilderness that meets on Wednesdays.

The great news about both of these studies, if you cannot make it in the time allotted, that we save them to our YouTube channel so that you can see them later, especially if you're having trouble falling asleep.

Or you can uh write questions and interact with us remotely, and so we really are able to use technology to connect people with a variety of schedules.

So if that's of interest to you, you'll see uh more information in our weekly news.

Um, but you can also grab me with an email call or at the door.

Um This work that we're doing continues, and it's really, really fabulous uh to see each week the care that's given to this wonderful asset that we have that we use not only for services but also for community groups.

Like the Houston Symphony League Bay Area is meeting here on Wednesday.

They're a regular group that we host, and uh the fine stewardship we're taking of our facilities supports groups like that.

So thank you for your continued generosity with the capital funds.

Out here, you'll see that probably another week we'll get done with the Narthics and then the bathrooms, and by the end of May, we'll have finished this phase of our construction.

Um the church has never looked so good.

So thank you.

Thank you for that.

Um I also want to call to your attention uh something really, really important to me, which is that it's been uh 14 months since we've had this been living into this pandemic, and um, I would be most grateful.

I don't have an end point on this to have time with you in your home, in my home, and the office, but I would like to just continue to reissue this invitation to connect with you personally in what I call a non-essential clergy visit.

And there's not a limit to these, um, but the point is just to be connected.

It's been a long 14 months, and uh the connection and the community that we have are the things that I treasure the most.

So please take me up on that offer again in person, email, uh call, and grateful to have time with you.

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

And I have you I shall you my dear boss, if you have to love each other.

And of your own have we given me.

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.

Our service continues on page 372 of the red prayer book or in the bulletin.

The Lord be he with you and also make you lift up your hovers.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is truly right to glorify you, Father, and to give you thanks for you alone our God, living and true, dwelling in light inaccessible from before time and forever, fountain of life and source of all whole goodness, you made all things and fill them with your whole blessing, you created them to rejoice in the splendor of your radiance.

Countless throngs of angels stand before you to serve you who night and day, and beholding the glory of your presence, they offer you who unseasing praise, joining with them and giving voice to every creature under him, then we acclaim you and glorify your whole name as we sing.

We acclaim you, holy Lord, glorious in power.

Your mighty works reveal your wisdom and love.

You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our care, so that in obedience to you, our Creator, we might shepherd and serve all your creatures.

When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death.

In your mercy you came to our help so that in seeking you we might find you.

Again and again you called us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation.

Father, you love the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior.

Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us, yet without sin.

To the poor, he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to prisoners freedom, to the sorrowful joy, to fulfill your purpose.

He gave himself up to death, and rising from the grave destroyed death and made the whole creation new.

And that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for the one who died and rose for us, God sent the Holy Spirit, God's own first gift for those who believe to complete Jesus' work in the world and bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all.

When the hour had come for Jesus to be glorified by you, his Heavenly Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

At supper with them, he took bread.

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

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.

And when he'd given thanks, he gave it to them and said, Drink this, all of you.

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

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

Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption, recalling Christ's death and his descent among the dead, proclaiming his resurrection and ascension to your right hand, awaiting his coming in glory and offering to you from the gifts you've given us, this bread and this cup, we praise you and we bless you.

We praise you, we bless you, we give thanks to you, and we pray to you, Lord our God.

Lord, we pray that in your goodness and mercy your Holy Spirit may descend upon us and upon these gifts, sanctifying them and showing them to be holy gifts for your holy people, the bread of life and the cup of salvation, the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ.

Grant that all who share this bread and cup may become one body and one spirit, a living sacrifice in Christ to the praise of your name.

Remember, Lord, your one holy Catholic and apostolic church, redeemed by the love of your Christ.

Reveal its unity, guard its faith, and preserve it in peace.

Remember Michael, our presiding bishop, Andy, Hector, Jeff, and Kay, our bishops, and the diocesan cycle of prayer, St.

Mark's Houston, Trinity Baytown, and Trinity Houston, the priests in their community and in our own.

Mike, Craig, Jim, Bill, and Lillian, and all who minister in your church.

Remember all your people and those who seek your truth, especially Chris, Sean, Jerome, Eric, and Lee.

The congregation is invited to name your own thanksgivings or petitions silently or aloud.

Remember all who have died in the peace of Christ, and those whose faith is known to you alone.

Bring them into the place of eternal joy and light, and grant that we might find our inheritance with all the saints who have found favor with you in ages past.

We praise you in union with them and give you glory through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Through Christ and with Christ and in Christ, all honor and glory are yours, Almighty God and Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, foreverend.

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.

Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

Hallelujah.

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

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

And I invite you to receive bread or a blessing by coming to the aisle closest to your right, coming down forward and returning to your seat on the far side.

Let's pray together.

Eternal God, Heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ.

And you have fed us with spiritual food in the sacrament of his body and blood.

Send us now into the world in peace.

Grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Do not pray for an easy belief.

Pray to be more faithful followers of the risen Christ.

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, but for faithfulness equal to your opportunities.

And the living of your faith will be no miracle.

You will be a miracle.

Every day you will be a living sign to the world of resurrection, of God's grace, unending compassion.

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be evident in your life this day, and remain with you always.

Amen.