Easter 5 2021 Mike Stone

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.

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life.

Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life.

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

Amen.

This is a wilderness road.

So he got up and went.

Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury.

He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home, seated in his chariot.

He was reading the prophet Isaiah.

Then the spirit said to Philip, Go over to this chariot and join it.

So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah.

He asked, Do you understand what you're reading?

He replied, Oh, how can I, unless someone guides me?

And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.

Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter, like a lamb silent before a shearer.

So he does not open his mouth, and in his humiliation, justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation?

For his life is taken away from the earth.

The eunuch asked Philip, About whom may I ask, does the prophet say this is?

About himself or about someone else?

Then Philip began to speak, and starting with the scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus.

As they were going along the road, they came to some water.

And the eunuch said, Look, here is water.

What is to prevent me from being baptized?

He commanded the chariot to stop.

And both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.

When they came out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away.

And the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.

But Philip found himself at Azos, and he was passing through the region, and he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

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

All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to God.

My soul shall live for God, my descendants shall serve the Lord.

They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn.

Beloved, let us love one another because love is from God.

Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God's love was revealed among us in this way.

God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.

And this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.

No one has ever seen God.

If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

By this, we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his spirit.

And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his son as the Savior of the world.

God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.

So we have known and believed the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.

Love has been perfected among us in this way, in this, that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and who and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

We love because he first loved us.

Those who say I love God and hate their brothers and sisters are liars.

For those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen.

The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and their sisters also.

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

Jesus said to his disciples, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine grower.

He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit.

Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit.

You have already been cleansed by the word that I've spoken to you.

Abide in me as I abide in you.

Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers.

Such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

The gospel of the Lord.

Please be seated.

In this fifth Sunday of Easter, a minor, this is not the fourth Sunday after Easter.

Easter is an event in the church that lasts for 50 days.

The 50th day is Pentecost.

We're again invited to consider how it is that we're meant to live in, I put to you, into the resurrected life that Jesus initiated for us.

And today, like last week, we get to hear something unique to the Gospel of John, these I am sayings of Jesus.

Last week it was the Good Shepherd.

This week we get to hear it's the vine.

And this is something that we that we sort of pray and say from time to time.

Holy Spirit, in whom we live and move and have our being, is this idea that we sort of are connected as an energy and life source to God.

That is to say that God isn't with us or without us, but we are sort of moving around inside of God.

And because God is the very uh ground of all being, uh, so Jesus says today, um, when we're not connected to the ground of all being, well, there can't be any life.

And uh, this is an interesting bit I put before you is that um sometimes we we do this thing when we pray where we say, God be with us, as if it were possible for God to not be with us.

But today's scripture reminds us that is not possible in reality, that's only possible in experience.

That is to say, sometimes we might feel the absence of God, but God is never truly absent.

After all, how could we ever be away from the ground of all being and still be alive?

Jesus instead invites us today in this contemplation on resurrection, I think, to expand our awareness of God's presence, which is always true with a capital T, no matter what our experience is.

That is to say, part of the resurrected life put before us is to constantly enlarge our field of vision so that we can see God present even today when it's hard.

So a couple of thoughts on that.

I don't like what I'm getting ready to say, but I know it's true.

You know, when you prick your finger with a needle, it hurts your finger, right?

Of course not.

Your finger doesn't feel anything, your brain feels everything.

This is this funny thing, right?

That your finger has no sensation.

All of it is in your brain.

And that signal that says, ow, it's really just your brain telling you, pay attention.

Now, it's not the kind of signal we most like, but it's extremely valuable that our brain tells us pay attention.

In that sense, that experience of pain is really helpful for our body so that we don't go around losing digits or bleeding out.

It's not joyful, I would put before you, but it's valuable.

And there are often these experiences of pain, not just physically, obviously emotionally and spiritually, that sometimes we want to run away from so fast because we're sure that God has nothing to do with pain.

But I think we sometimes miss God's presence and God's call to get our attention.

Now, friends, I want to be really clear.

I don't believe that the Lord engineers tragedy.

I don't believe that God goes around saying, I'm gonna get Mike's attention, so I'm gonna give him cancer.

I don't think it works like that.

But I am positive, at least in my head, and trying to move with the part of my brain that I call my heart into the affirmation that even in those moments of seeming disaster, God has not abandoned me, even though it feels that way.

The Vine passage today reminds us that we cannot, in fact, be abandoned by God.

We can only feel that that's the case.

Now, the bulletin's funny today, because the bishop's coming at 10:30.

Uh, and so we're gonna skip through parts of that.

But I do want to tell a story on the bishop that was an interesting thing, uh, and I still remember it from about two and a half years ago, and it has very much to do with this experience, I think, of where God is to be found.

And this is a tough story, but here it is.

Um, a couple years ago, I I knew something that I thought the bishop needed to know.

It had a lot to do with the painful moment in ministry, and here I was going to call and give him some insider information so that he could know how to move tactically.

I was going to be a good informant.

So, in the middle of this pain, I called and said, Here's what's going on.

I think you should know this.

Maybe you're going to make a decision.

He listened, and at the end of it, he said, Yeah, tell me, what are you learning about yourself?

At first, I thought he was talking to somebody else, because what I expected him to say was something like, Thanks for that information, here's what I'm going to do with it.

Instead, what he decided to do pastorally is say, Hey, thanks for sharing that.

And what are you learning about yourself?

As if that was the most important thing I was going to share.

And I want to suggest to you, maybe it was, actually.

And what the bishop did for me in that moment is guided me not to run away or just do away with the pain, but to see in that moment of pain, where was I and where was God to be found.

Um therapists do this sometimes.

It's really, really annoying.

And it's very helpful.

And this I want to suggest to you if we can live with this a little bit longer, these moments of pain that are calling our attention.

And again, I don't believe God engineers them, but I'm positive God is present in them.

Here's a moment of pain in the story today.

There's Philip.

And Philip is on the road and he runs into a guy that's got two strikes against him.

Now, I don't know if you realize this.

Uh, two strikes.

Number one, he's dark-skinned.

The man's from Ethiopia.

Number two, he's a eunuch.

And maybe he wanted to be one, but I don't think so, friends.

Being a eunuch is not something most folk look forward to.

But because he was a eunuch, people looked at him and they were afraid.

They were afraid because his quote-unquote disfigurement, which again he neither earned nor asked for in all likelihood, somehow affronted their humanity.

Eunuchs were not allowed in the temple.

That's not God's rule.

That was a human rule.

Eunuchs weren't allowed in the earliest Christian community until this story.

So here is this eunuch with two strikes against him because his body has got something going on.

His skin color has got something going on.

He says, Philip, I'm reading this Bible story, what does it mean?

Philip explains it.

The eunuch takes the scripture seriously, more seriously than Philip, and he says, if that's true, what's the good news for me?

If that's really true, what's to prevent me from being included just like you?

You may be thinking, well, that's not an experience of pain.

It absolutely is painful for folks to push against our prejudice and stereotype and say, you say one thing and you treat me differently.

When's that gonna end in Jesus' name?

This is a story here.

We sometimes read it about what the Holy Spirit is doing that's new.

There's nothing new about this.

What's new in the story is somebody listened for the first time.

Somebody listened.

And here was this man who had been told his whole life, because he's got two strikes against him, that he should just be quiet and subservient and do what he was told, and now at the end of the story, he is no longer a servant, he's a brother and an equal.

You may say, Well, look, we've learned our lessons, like hell we have.

Once upon a time, I worked at a church in Coronado, and there was a traveling band that came in.

We had Bluegrass Sunday, and the people in the bluegrass band, they were really quite lovely folk, and they had a child with Down syndrome who was 33.

And he always came and sat with them back in the choir area where they played.

And it got time for communion, and I was offering the band communion.

This is just something you really ought to do.

Sometimes we don't even think to do it, sadly.

And I got to their boy and I held that communion, and he just froze.

He didn't know what to do.

He eventually took it, and then his parents started crying.

And I didn't understand this until afterward.

They told me that they'd grown up, and in the church they went to, the priest told them that since their child didn't have the proper number of chromosomes and he couldn't cognitively comprehend what was happening at the Eucharist, he couldn't have it.

And that wasn't just local practice, that was Vatican II's decision.

What are we afraid of?

We hear stories like that, and I'm just going to tell you because I this is what I do.

It's a miracle the church is even around.

And this is a story that's saying, since it is, we've got work to do.

And what are we afraid of?

Including somebody in grace because they may not understand it?

As if we do?

This is what the gospel is inviting us to consider.

How painful is it to include other people in grace that you don't want to include?

And maybe God is trying to get our attention.

Now, look, having somebody castrate you when you're a child, is that really, really different from being transgender?

You decide.

You decide.

But how could we possibly say that God is not interested in including everybody?

How could we decide that?

And if it's painful for us, I assure you, God is in the pain.

And that brings us back to what it's really like to be in the vine.

See, we could read this passage, I think, and we could say, well, look, if you don't bear fruit, if you're if you don't say the right creed, if you're not an Episcopalian, if you settled, you know, for being a Lutheran or something like that, then God might clip you off the vine.

And look, the things that get clipped, they get burned up.

But I want to suggest to you that people are not branches.

People are full of branches.

And what the gardener does for us, I think, especially in moments of pain, and this is what I love about Christine's window, is as those wounds of Christ have been turned into roses.

This is a miracle that only God can do.

God can take things that are going nowhere and miraculously sometimes give us grace through them.

I don't mean, like I said, I don't think God plans that.

I just know God can do it.

Maybe the master gardener goes around pruning those parts of us off that are dead so that the rest of us can live.

The truth is, we've all got dead branches to us.

And dead branches, you know, they just happen.

I used to have an orange tree.

In California, it grew a lot of oranges, but every couple of years it would send out these, well, my dad called them mutant branches, and they had thorns on them.

I don't know if you know this, this just happens sometimes.

And if you don't clip those branches off, the thorns will overtake the bush, and then you won't have any fruit.

So because you love the tree, you cut those mutant branches off, and then the tree doesn't waste its energy on them anymore.

Then the tree has extra energy to put in the roots and in the fruit.

God would like to trim off those self-destructive branches from us for our sake.

That's how I hear the gospel today.

And the reason I hear it that way is the most powerful part of 1 John, and I don't know how we as a church have said anything otherwise for the longest time.

1 John tells us true love drives out all fear.

My experience spiritually is that I was learned to I was taught to be afraid in church.

I was taught to be afraid of God who will throw you in a fire forever and burn and punish you and torment you because after all you're not good enough.

But that cannot possibly be the God that we worship.

Not if we read the scripture seriously.

Because if we come to God in fear, then there's no love.

That's what the scripture says.

Now, I'm not silly.

I don't think God wants to drive away your fear of putting your hand on top of a stove and having it burned.

That fear is helpful.

I think what God would like to help us do is not be afraid of God, for one thing.

And I think God would be grateful for our sakes if we would stop being afraid of each other.

I'm probably overtelling.

But I didn't hear this enough as a kid, so I'm going to say it again now.

Being married is really hard.

I didn't learn that in church.

It's hard, and it's great, and it's hard, and it's a lot of work.

And the rabbis say this really interesting thing when they read Genesis.

You know, when the first human beings ate that fruit of knowledge, what they learned was that they were naked, and somehow they decided since they were naked they were also ashamed.

And they hid themselves from one another.

The rabbis say when marriage happens, when it happens right, two people come back together and they're naked, not just physically, but spiritually, emotionally, they're vulnerable and they're unashamed.

And I think what that looks like is that the things I'm worried about with my body, with my habits, with the way my brain likes to spin around.

They're not things that my spouse puts up with.

Not as we grow in love.

They're things that my spouse says, you know what?

I wouldn't change any of that about you.

That's what it means to be naked and unashamed.

And that's what it means to love.

Is that these people that we open ourselves to they say, I see what you're worried about, and I'm not.

Not only am I not worried about that, I love that about you.

True love drives out all fear.

I'm not talking about some sort of um political correctness.

I want to be really clear.

I'm talking about the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is to love one another in a way that we drive out all fear.

And I cannot imagine why.

We've settled for this idea that God will punish people eternally for something they do that's temporal.

I can't imagine why we've chosen that.

I don't think that was God's choice.

I can't imagine why we say that if somebody does something, we need to get even and pretend like that's God's way of doing justice.

Like if somebody commits a felony in their youth, why they should always, always, always be denied access to voting.

Why people should always look at them suspiciously when they've served their time 30 years ago.

Oh, but Mike, if they did it once, they might do it again.

They might.

What are we afraid of?

I think that's what the gospel asks us to consider.

The resurrected Jesus is standing in front of us with these wounds saying, pay attention.

Pay attention.

And I think the real question of the day, and and and this is my own spirituality before you can grace ever hurt?

Can we ever participate in a sacrament?

And you know the different definition of sacrament.

Outward signs of inward and spiritual graces.

Can you ever do them wrong?

Can you ever misuse God's grace?

I mean, isn't that the definition of grace?

It always helps.

I don't know if this is uh, I don't know where you are in your resurrected journey, if this is something you need to hear for yourself, that God is looking at you in all your imperfections and loves you perfectly.

Probably we need to hear that.

I don't know if you need to hear this about members in the St.

Thomas community or people who live across the street from you, that God is looking at the imperfections of your neighbor, whether they're white, black, Latinx, Muslim, Jewish, Baha'i, nothing.

And God loves the imperfections of your neighbor perfectly.

So that you might ask God to change your vision to love as God does.

It's painful to have to redo the way we look at other folk.

But I promise God is in that pain asking us to move forward with it.

And the prayer that I put before you, this is the the embodiment of the resurrected life, is that the pruning God wants to do is for your good.

It might hurt.

Giving up power and giving up control is not always really fun for me.

But if we can trust that God is not only in the pain, but moving us toward fruit for the world, nourishment for ourselves and for the rest of the community.

If we can trust, then we start to draw closer to the love that God has for us and the ways that we can love one another.

My experience, I used to always be afraid that if I really believed somebody loved me, I would not work so hard.

I would settle back and I would be lazy.

I mean, if I really believed that everything was okay with God, there'd be no incentive for me to do good works or to do study or anything like that.

And I will tell you it's been the opposite.

The change has not been what it is that I do, the change has been where it comes from.

Instead of running on a hamster wheel of anxiety and hustling for worthiness, I just think we're invited to get off of that wheel and walk the road that leads to joy.

It's scary sometimes.

Because it's different.

But the criteria is are we making the world a thornier place?

Or are we sharing fruit?

I'm grateful that we're walking this road together.

And I hope, and I and I I say this and I mean it.

I hope that we will earnestly join in God's work of pruning one another.

And the things we're invited to prune are those things we're afraid of so that we can love bigger, more joyfully and more openly.

I'm not gonna have us uh do the baptismal covenant today.

I'm gonna have us do the Nicene Creed.

If you know it by uh in your head, that's great.

If you don't, it's in the prayer book in front of you.

That's the red book on page 358.

So please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed on page 358.

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

We believe in one Lord, who is Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten.

For us and for our salvation.

We became incarnate and virtually conscious because we have to proceed to the parts.

We have church.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

Good morning, peace, and thanks for worshiping with us at St.

Thomas today.

Uh just a few announcements to call to your attention.

Um, we do this great thing once a month where we distribute food, and um, and yesterday, even in the rain, there were still about 75 cars that showed up.

More than 350 people served.

The amazing thing was we had five children sorting this food out.

And um of their parents said, you know, this is the only thing we've heard of that will allow children to serve.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It was amazing to see the spirit of these children putting fresh groceries in people's cars.

It's incredible.

Um I want to remind you the bishop's uh gonna be here at 10:30, but he's also online at 9.

Uh, so we're having a totally open forum question and answer.

You can ask anything you want, and he likes hard questions, that's what he said.

So uh you still have the chance to take him up on that.

He's walking in the door right now.

Um, but I don't think he's gonna walk into church.

Um we're gonna start a new study this week.

There's a book called Sisters in the Wilderness by Dolores Williamson.

Um, it is a sort of the first book in what's called a womanist way of reading scripture.

If you're new to this term, this is a great way to experience it.

A womanist is a black feminist, which is different from a white feminist.

So this is a way of reading scripture, reading the resurrection as well and the crucifixion.

Uh, and we're gonna study this for about four weeks.

There's a schedule that's in your um your weekly e-news, and um it's on Wednesday mornings at nine.

Some folks can't do that, but we record it, and people uh have been doing a really good job of putting questions in.

We answer those the following week, so you can kind of virtually participate if you're interested.

Whether you join us or not, it's really a great book and an eye-opener on ways of reading and relating to God that we don't always frankly consider.

So um I raise it up to you.

Um there's been a call out from our scouts, and um we have, as you know, two scouting troops, uh a scout troop that's for girls and a scout troop that's for boys.

Now, both of these troops are going to try to earn um merit badges, culminating in the Eagle Award.

Right?

So we have girls and boys both doing that.

And uh our scouts are asking, there's like 276 merit badges scouts can earn, and a merit badge really just needs a mentor who is able to share their time and their skill with one of our scouts.

And uh, members don't have to be scout folk, they can be upstanding folk from the community, and I'm looking at a lot of you.

So you you will you will see this list in the e-news, but if you have any interest in mentoring a scout toward earning their merit badge, this is, by the way, youth ministry at its best, mentoring young people from capable, compassionate, committed adults.

Um, please just let me know or let Hal or Zach know.

Um maybe archery is not your thing, um, but maybe aerospace is.

Is there an aerospace merit badge?

I think so.

Um, which is interesting, right?

In this community, that's really interesting.

Um you can see each week we get better and better here.

So delightful that we've now put our mosaic in.

Next week, expect that we'll have um the whole Narthex done with a similar uh mosaic that's sitting over there if you're interested in seeing it.

Um, one of our parishioners donated this lovely carpet to us this past week as well.

So um I just want to thank you for your continued generosity, and it's truly fun to come in and see us being wonderful stewards of this space with both beauty and function.

Hopefully the sound continues to go well.

Bob is uh Bob's still working it out.

Um thank you for continuing to give generously uh to the Capital Funds Drive.

Last announcement I want to make sure you're here.

There's two celebrations.

One is that Christopher Curran here in the back in the bow tie is being baptized today at 1030, which is delightful.

Uh, it's really a joy to be a part of.

And the other is maybe you know this, our music director Garmin Ashby, who's kind of like a big deal in the Episcopal world because he's a member of the Royal Society for Music.

And um, he, if you've been to 1030, you know what he can do musically.

He was named this this year for the first time in like 25 years, um, a performing arts person has won this award, uh, essentially Teacher of the Year at Episcopal High School, which is a really, really big deal.

So he received that award on Friday.

So if you see him, please congratulate him.

But you know, again, this is one of the wonderful things we have in our community is somebody like him, sharing creativity and knowledge and skill uh with us regularly.

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

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 he with you and also with you who give them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord of God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is truly right to glorify your Father, and to give you thanks, for you alone are God living and true, dwelling in light, inaccessible from before time and forever, fountain of life and source of all goodness, you make 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 unceasing praise, joining with them and giving voice to every creature under heaven we acclaim you and glorify your holy name as we say.

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory, Hosanna in the highest.

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

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 rule 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 had 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 had 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 sins.

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

Father, we now celebrate the 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 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.

Alban's Houston, St.

James Houston, and St.

Luke the Evangelist Houston, the priests in our community, 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, Mark, and Leslie.

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

Bring them into the joy of eternal, 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, 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.

Christ our Passiver is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

These are the gifts of God for you, the people 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 front and returning to your seat on the far side of the pew.

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, and 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 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 and 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.