Easter 3 2021

The first lesson and reading from Acts.

Peter addressed the people.

You Israelites, why do you wonder on this?

Or why do you stare at us as though by our own power of piety we had made him walk?

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

The God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate.

Though he had decided to release him, but you rejected the holy and righteous one and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead.

To this we are witnesses.

And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom we see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

And now, friends, I know that you acted out in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

In this way, God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer.

Repent, therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.

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

Answer me when I call, O God, defender of my cause.

Know what the Lord does wonder for the faithful.

Tremble then, and do not sin.

Speak to your heart and your head.

Offer the appointed sacrifices.

And put your trust in the Lord.

Many are saying, Oh, what we might see, better times.

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O Lord.

You have put gladness in my heart.

I lie down in peace.

At once I fall asleep.

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God.

And that is what we are.

The reason the world does not know us is that what it is that it did not know him.

Beloved, we are God's children now.

What we will be has not yet been revealed.

What we do know is this when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

And all who have this hope in him purify themselves just as he is pure.

Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness.

Sin is lawlessness.

You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

No one who abides in him sins.

No one who sins has either seen him or known him.

Little children, let no one deceive you.

Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

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

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Jesus stood among the disciples and said to them, Peace be with you.

They were startled and terrified, and they thought they were seeing a ghost.

He said to them, Why are you frightened?

And why do doubts arise in your hearts?

Look at my hands and my feet, see that it is I myself.

Touch me and see, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

And when he'd said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, Have you anything to eat?

They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.

And then Jesus said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

And then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, Thus it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Please be seated.

This is the third Sunday of Easter.

So Easter is not a one-day event as we typically celebrate socially.

It is a 50-day event.

And the reason it has that span, I think, is that so that we can have deep dialogue with what resurrection is all about so that we can live into it now.

Resurrection is one of those things that, quite honestly, honestly, what I appreciate about the Episcopal Church honestly is the space that it's a holy mystery.

That is to say, to have one simple explanation for it will fall short, because the bandwidth of resurrection is wider than an easy point.

So I want to offer you a thought that hopefully will widen your bandwidth, knowing that no single explanation of the resurrected life is going to do.

After all, if it were that simple, well, there'd be nothing greater than ourselves to worship.

And the frame I offer to you today comes from the reading of Peter in Acts.

Peter says to the people, look, this thing that you did to Jesus that y'all did, y'all did it in ignorance.

This is so lovely to me.

Peter doesn't accuse them of being capricious or bad Christians.

Nobody was a Christian back then.

He doesn't accuse them of being faithless or evil.

He says, look, you didn't know what you were doing.

This is one of those mysteries that Jesus says himself in the Gospel of Luke on the cross.

He says, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

And this whole idea that we acted in ignorance, and I think we is important because look, the truth is, you didn't do this to Jesus.

I didn't do this to Jesus.

Human beings did this to Jesus, and it's part of our inherited story that we claim.

As human beings, we were involved in this.

And this thing we did, go with me for a moment.

We did in ignorance.

Sometimes we accept that the good thing that came out of Friday, the resurrection on Easter, we accept that it was so good it had to happen that way.

But I'd like you to make space to consider this question with me, just for a moment.

I know this could sound heretical.

What if it didn't have to be that way?

What if instead of people getting all mad and killing Jesus in ignorance, they decided to change their ways and live with him?

Oh, Mike, then it wouldn't have worked out for us.

How do you know that?

What if we took the guy seriously?

Seriously enough to follow him instead of killing him.

I know it's an unconventional question, but I want to put to you that what's behind that question is a spirituality that is so attractive and compelling to me that I'm trying to live into it because I sense the world will be a better place for me at everybody else than I do.

And of course, it's the difference between making an investment and giving a gift.

When you make an investment, when you lease something, there are strings attached.

You know this.

A lot of times when I say I'm giving a gift, I'm not being honest.

When I give a gift, it is gone.

It is no longer mine.

And if I start to fret on whether the person who receives the gift will be appreciative enough or benefit from the gift I tried to give, or whether they'll enjoy it rightly, or even use the toy the way it's supposed to be used, don't you see it's no longer a gift?

It's an investment.

We say in the liturgy, Jesus' death was for us.

It's a mystery and we can never nail it down.

But I invite you to consider one way it's for us.

Jesus was a gift to the world.

God's gift was to show up and fill a temporal, limited human body that has things like arthritis and ingrown hairs and disappointment.

And that's the gift of the incarnation.

And God gave it so freely that God said, do with it whatever you want.

And we did.

We acted out of ignorance and we wasted an opportunity to enjoy a gift.

And Jesus went with it, because that's what gifts are.

And the amazing thing about the resurrection, and the amazing thing about gift giving, is that even though it can seem really disappointing, even though people may not receive what we want to give with joy, gifts given in the Lord never die.

They outlive us.

And I put before you that's part of this resurrection mystery.

Jesus became like us to show us what it means to give.

And I said this on Maundy Thursday, and I'm still captivated with it in my head.

Giving from our hand is completely different from giving from our heart.

When we give from our hand, we give till it's empty.

When we give from our heart, we give until it's full.

One way of understanding how Jesus was for us.

He was God's gift to human beings.

First John takes that seriously.

I don't know if you heard this in the letter today.

Behold, what manner of love the Father has given us that we are children of God.

Do you notice there's not a word maybe?

There's not a phrase that says, you could strive to attain it.

Or if you're faithful with your pledge, you might make it.

First John is convinced that this is God's gift.

Being a member of God's family is a gift.

Enjoy it or not, but it's yours.

And God's so committed to it, you can use it however you want.

And it never goes away.

No matter what wounds you put in it, this is the resurrection story.

It's full of life.

This story we read today.

Two out of every three years we would hear today The Walk to Emmaus.

You know that story.

There's two folks that are real disappointed Jesus died.

Jesus shows up and they don't even recognize him.

Every third year, year B, we get this story.

Sounds a lot like last week.

Jesus shows up and he says, Peace be with you.

And you know, you only say peace be with you in the Bible when people are really scared.

And this word is not just like, hey, let it be quiet.

This is that word shalom, you know?

And shalom is this word, and in Arabic it's salaam, right?

In Arabic you say as salam alaikum, which is like saying, the peace of the Lord be with you.

It's bigger than quiet, it's bigger than happiness.

Peace is this moment in which you say, I am willing and giving you, in all the energy from the universe I can harness, I am giving you the gift of wishing you peace.

Especially when it's hard.

Shalom is not like happy birthday.

Shalom is like on your Good Friday or on your holy Saturday, God is somehow present.

Jesus says, Shalom.

And you see that the disciples are terrified.

And I put to you today, here's the frame, right?

The disciples are afraid because they've misused the gift.

And Jesus isn't worried about that.

It'd be nice to live that way, wouldn't it?

It would be nice to live that way.

I know people who live like that.

I desperately want to be them.

This is a part of resurrection we get to grow in.

Jesus says, I gave you that, it was yours, and here I am.

And have a look, guys.

There's four things this text is doing historically, because people at the time of Jesus and ever since have become really fixated on.

Did this really happen?

Like, is it factual?

And I want to talk about factuality just for a second, but what I really want to talk about is what we do with it.

So there's four ideas that were out there, and I mentioned at least one of them to you last week, so bear with me if I repeat it.

But at the resurrection event, there were a lot of sort of theories about how it wasn't what people thought it was happening.

And the first one you get, people said, oh, it's a ghost.

It's a figment of our imagination.

It's a lovely idea that exists in the world of optimism, but it's not real.

You see, the story is going to pretty good lengths to say this is embodied, like you can touch it.

There's another one called Mistaken Identity.

This is what's behind the movie The Life of Brian by Monty Python, is there was this guy called Brian, looked like Jesus, and they killed Brian, and then Jesus came out a couple days later, and they were like, they killed you, and here you are.

But you see, the story is fighting that because he's got the wounds.

He's got the wounds.

And you can touch him.

See, uh, it wasn't mistaken identity because he's bearing on his body these bits.

There's another one called swoon theory, and this is the idea that Jesus was on the cross and went into a low-grade coma.

And they took him down and he just sort of revived.

Um, Luke doesn't take this on, John does.

If you read the Gospel of John, this is why he gets stabbed in the side.

It's to convince you there was no low-grade coma.

Because when you get stabbed with a spear in your side, that's gonna do it, right?

This is definitively trying to say, our gospel writers are trying to say, this really happened, and it has a real physicality.

And of course, the last one, and this one's in the gospel themselves, is that folks say, no, they just stole the body.

Like Jesus was in the tomb and people took it and hid it.

But here on the story, the body shows up.

And what's amazing about it, right, is that the body has permanent wounds on it.

Now, this is the only story in the entire Bible in which somebody is resurrected.

You can read frequently in the Bible about people who are resuscitated.

And people are resuscitated all the time.

I used to work in a heart hospital.

Resuscitation happens when you flatline, and you know sometimes people flatline for like eight minutes.

It's a really long time.

It's like a medical miracle.

You pull onto paddles or you start CPR and they get their life back.

That's called resuscitation because you know it's gonna happen later, they're gonna die again.

I used to work at a parish in Coronado, California.

That's where the amphib base is that trains the Navy SEAL.

Part of the training is you get killed and resuscitated.

That's what it takes to be a SEAL.

I am not signing up for that.

But that's part of your training, right?

Everybody else in the Bible that dies, they get their life back, but they die again.

This is the one guy who dies, comes back, and he'll never die again.

And what's really amazing about the difference between resuscitation and resurrection is that when you're resuscitated, the wounds had better close up and disappear, or it doesn't work.

When you're mortally wounded, if that wound doesn't close up, you're not gonna get your life back.

The amazing thing about resurrection the wounds never go away.

And yet, the life around those wounds and through those wounds is greater than the wounding.

This is what I mean about giving gifts.

And this is part of what I mean about living into a resurrected life, because I can tell you as a parent, man, I could do almost anything for my kids day after day after day if I knew it was gonna work.

I mean, I could drive them downtown, I could fold their clothes, I could make their lunch, I could give them whatever thing, you know, I could do anything if I knew it was gonna work, but we live between here and there, and we don't seem to know that it's gonna work.

And here's the resurrected Jesus saying, Yeah, I can handle that wound because it's gonna work.

It's gonna work in God, because when you give from your heart, instead of from your hand, when you participate in God through the joy of giving.

That sort of gift never dies.

I get this in my head.

And I'm struggling to live into it.

Because it's hard.

It challenges the way I like to operate, which is I earn, I earn stuff, and people get gifts when they use them right.

I'm afraid of being taken for a ride.

I don't know, do I have enough love to give?

And it's one of these interesting things you continue to read and study after study is that there's only one commodity.

The more that you give, the more of it you have.

There's only one thing.

It's not corn, right?

It's not currency, it's compassion.

It's the only commodity that the more you give, the more you have to give.

And this is part of the mystery and the promise of the resurrected life.

Now, I want to come back to ghosting for one second.

I don't know if it's been your experiments, experience during the pandemic, but I've really discovered ghosting.

Ghosting is what happens, right, when you email somebody or when you call somebody and you're like, how's it going?

And you don't hear anything.

You know about that ghosting?

Sometimes I've been a ghost.

I'm gonna tell you a ghost story, which I think has a lot to do with resurrection.

I promise I'm not the hero of the story.

I'm just involved in it.

It's a gift from God, this story.

About eight years ago, I went to a conference for clergy put on by the Church Pension Group.

The church pension group was set up by J.P.

Morgan in the early 1900s so that when Episcopal priests retired, they weren't going to be impoverished.

So there's like a pension for us.

It's kind of a cool thing.

In the early 90s, the Church Pension Group, as part of their investment portfolio, they bought this little tiny startup company, maybe you've heard of, for$100,000.

It's called eBay.

And the pension group bought that and owned it.

And then they had to sell it every seven years.

That's the deal.

They have to invest themselves with these startups.

Well, you can imagine they did pretty well on that transaction.

So what they did when they sold eBay in the late 90s is they set up this program called Credo, which was designed to help prevent clergy burnout by getting clergy together from all over the country.

And I got to go on one of these.

It was a week long.

It was at an Episcopal uh camping conference center in Florida, and there were sure enough were priests from all over the United States there.

And I met this guy from the Diocese of Texas.

Now I want you to know, I grew up evangelizing to people in laundry mats, and that was pretty, you know, that's pretty severe.

I've had Mormons come to my house, man, they're always really nice and respectful, honestly.

Really nice.

I've had Jehovah's Witnesses come to my house.

I've been embroiled in theological debates, but man, I can tell you I have never had such an intense encounter than I had at this clergy renewal thing with a priest from the diocese of Texas.

I wasn't even here, but man, he was ready to stamp out heresy.

And I posed to him the same question I posed to you like, hey, what if by killing the guy we got it wrong?

Well, he didn't have the bandwidth to hold that at the time.

And I mean, oh, like, you know how you have that adrenal response that's gonna be like fight, flight, or freeze.

He's like the strongest one I've ever had in my life.

Like the hairs on my neck were standing up because this guy was after me.

I mean, he was coming after me in the name of the Lord, no less.

So I left and I thought, you know, that's that, and man, that was scary.

And then lo and behold, I ended up coming to a conference in the diocese of Texas two years later, and I saw that guy.

And I just tried to be polite, you know, avoiding, ghosting.

I just tried to be a ghost because that was the best I could do.

I made it through that week.

It was all right.

Then I moved here, and you know, we have a clergy conference every year, and there's like 400 people.

It's crazy.

I mean, there's so many people there.

And I thought, well, here I kept seeing this guy, and I'm just gonna avoid him.

Little did I know, he had made it his personal quest to um to stamp out my heresy and um talked to folks uh I didn't know yet about it.

And so there were other people in the room that were looking at me as this like tough guy for asking a question like that.

Two years after being here, after trying to ghost this guy for the sake of peace, he came, I could I couldn't get away.

He came up, he came up to me somehow.

I don't know, maybe I was in lineup at the bathroom or something.

I just I just couldn't get away.

Uh and he said, Hey, you know, um I was really inhospitable to you about four years ago.

And I'm sorry about that.

And I thought, oh, okay, well, well, that's nice.

Now I can just we put that down.

I'm gonna have to be awkward, and I don't have to talk to you anymore.

Because, you know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, you know, it was really scary.

I mean, it was really scary for me.

And um one year later, I had this lovely friend.

We were at clergy conference that said, hey, after the plenary, we're gonna come out, and I'd like you to meet some of the friends we went to seminary with, and it'd just be nice.

And you know, who can't accept an invitation like that?

He was really nice.

And I walked out, and there he was.

And I was stuck, you see, because I'd gone, you know, I couldn't say, like, oh no, I can't do this after all.

There we were.

And blood pressure going up, you know.

But I did the good priestly thing, you know.

I just I sat there.

And I didn't know what to say.

But somehow, by the grace of God, I sat there, and the most amazing thing really happened.

This guy said to me, you know, I mentioned to you last year I was really sorry about the way I showed you this thing, and I realized, I realized.

But not only am I sorry, but the more I think about the heresy you represent, the more I see an invitation to be honest and vulnerable, and that's been such a gift to me.

And I didn't know that was coming.

And then I had this choice, because you know, look, there's another opportunity for peace and closure and to move forward.

And ultimately, what I've chosen by God's grace, I don't know that I chose this by myself, is that I have a really strong friendship with that person.

And I consider him one of the people I trust the most in ministry.

And that's the story of Jesus, don't you see?

He shows up and he doesn't just say, Have a look at these wounds.

You notice he asked for some fish.

And I get part of it's because ghosts don't eat.

I get that.

But the other part is the resurrected Jesus asks us to nourish him.

And this is part of living into the resurrection.

It's not just done, it requires nourishment.

And sometimes the nourishment is the ability just to sit there and not leave.

Sometimes the nourishment is not to ghost things that are scary to us.

I'm not naive.

There's times when you gotta go.

I get that.

I just sometimes maybe we call it a little bit too early.

Sometimes we just say, I just can't do that, and we walk out a resurrection mama.

Sometimes we say, I don't have it in me, and the resurrected Jesus is hungry, and we'd be really grateful if we'd move from peace to reconciliation.

And that's part of the mystery we're invited to wade into in Easter.

It's not every time, it's just more often than we settle for.

And this is a holy mystery.

Next week we'll talk about a different mystery of the resurrection, but this one I invite you to consider what it means spiritually to give gifts, including your presence, including an ability, honestly, to sit with some wounds that are really scary.

Because the promise of the resurrection is the wounds don't overcome things like faith, hope, and love.

They hurt, but they don't overcome those things.

Courage doesn't mean you're not afraid.

Courage means you know what could happen.

You know what could happen, but you choose to put your heart there anyway.

Again, just to be clear.

I'm not talking about returning to somebody who's abused you.

I'm not talking about that.

I am saying, though, sometimes we write people off way too early when there's this miracle that by the grace of God we're invited to live in and enjoy and nourish.

And of course, the truth is this is the amazing thing about giving gifts from our heart, even if the gift is, I just sit there.

Nourishing that gift nourishes us.

And this is the joy God has in mind for us.

I want to suggest to you that we have a discipline every Easter.

The discipline goes like this: God has gifted us with being members of God's family, and I don't always like that.

Because there's people I think I'd like to put outside the family.

For good reason.

Sometimes, to be honest, I'd like to believe in hell because I don't want to see those people again.

Even if I'm the one going to hell.

This is our opportunity, is actually to cultivate our imaginations about what God's gonna do when this is all over.

God is going to reconcile us with the people we hate.

God will do that and it will be good.

Part of our spiritual discipline is to trust that it'll be good.

Part of our spiritual discipline is to grow into receiving that gift that God is going to give.

And the reason that's our discipline and our growth is so we don't have to wait.

Because life is short.

And we don't have long to brighten the path of those who walk with us on what is often a dark journey.

So make haste to be kind.

Make haste to be resurrection.

Make haste to resurrected Jesus.

We believe in one God, 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.

Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.

Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father.

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

Amen.

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

Amen.

And don't you see we stand because we're receiving God's gift.

This has been given to you.

Forgiveness, reconciliation, worthiness to approach God's presence at this table.

And so the shalom of the Lord be always with you.

And also with you.

Blessings and peace, and thank you for worshiping with us at St.

Thomas today.

If you're new to us, oh, feel free to have a seat.

If you're new to us or haven't done this before, in the little room back here that we call the Narthex with the orange carp uh the purple carpet, we have these little cards that say welcome, and we'd be tremendously grateful if you fill one of those out so we have a record of your visit.

And thank you for worshiping here at St.

Thomas today.

A few announcements I want to call to your attention.

I hope you'll take a look.

There's a tree right out here.

You can't see it through the glass, but you can maybe see it on your way.

Yesterday, the school hosted a diversity inclusion event, which is really a reason to be proud of our school, working really, really hard to celebrate the diversity that God has made in the world.

And you'll see that we've turned this tree into a prayer tree.

And people have written their prayers on ribbons or acts of commitment to live into the beauty of the world God has given us through celebrating and encouraging things like stewardship of diversity.

And this is a really old idea that every time the wind blows, it sort of flaps the prayer along.

And it's all more all the more meaningful because the word spirit in Greek and Hebrew means moving air.

So these are prayers that move in the Holy Spirit and are guiding our community into diversity and inclusion and celebration.

And you might just think some teenagers tied ribbons, but it's really a beautiful thing.

And it happened yesterday, and our school is working really hard to live into the gospel in this way.

And I tell you this so you can be even more proud of the school that you sponsor, that takes this seriously.

And they're gonna offer some events, probably two or three a year, that you're encouraged to join into to celebrate and live into the resurrected life.

A couple opportunities to advertise to you.

One is that two weeks from yesterday, uh, that's gonna be Saturday, May the 1st, is our next fresh food distribution with the Gallison County Food Bank.

That happens from 7:45 a.m.

on Saturday till 10 a.m.

A transfer truck full of groceries drives up.

We distribute it to about 450 people in two hours, and it's a great way to practice life and share nourishment to folks in our community.

And you don't have to sign up, you can just show up, and there is work for all ages to do, and it is really joyful work.

The other I want to put before you is that our bishop diocesan, Andy Doyle, is going to be with us here two weeks from today to celebrate some baptisms and confirmation and reception into the Episcopal Church and reaffirmation of confirmation vows.

If any of that interests you, let's talk about it.

The thing I want you to hear, though, is that Andy's gonna be here to preach as well, and there's a golden opportunity I just cannot encourage you too much to take hold of.

Andy is gonna be leading our adult education hour from 9 to 10 via Zoom on Sunday, the May 2nd.

And if you're worried about, oh, I don't know if I make it to church on time, we have Wi-Fi here, you can do it here.

But here's the opportunity.

Andy has said, I'm gonna show up on Zoom and I'm gonna answer whatever people want me to.

Some of you might say, Bishop, we know you're going on a sabbatical, tell us your sabbatical plan.

Some of you might want to know more about the racial reconciliation work that the diocese is doing, to the tune of$13 million.

Some of you might want to say, I've never really understand penal substitutionary atonement, and I'd like to know what you think.

Please take the bishop up on this opportunity to ask the hardest question you've got.

I trust our bishop.

He's honest, he's creative, he's vulnerable, and I just don't want you to let this opportunity go.

Because it's a great opportunity to hear from somebody other than me what they think.

Honestly, openly, through research and articulation.

This is a no-holds barred question opportunity.

What a lovely way of being in the world, don't you think?

So lovely.

So please take advantage of that in two weeks.

You'll see the link in our e-news.

And if you don't see it, let me know and I'll get it to you.

Um I think that's all I want to announce today.

Oh, no, I should tell you.

Just we're tracking.

This is like in Alabama, we would put up a sign that says pardon our progress.

We're almost there.

We think by Tuesday our reflooring in here is gonna be done.

And this is, of course, completely due to your generosity.

I mean, it was a mire miracle that that purple carpet lasted 30 years.

My carpet at home didn't even last 10.

So 30 years, this is a blessing from God, but you have helped make this truly a beautiful, hospitable space.

That's gonna be done Tuesday, and then they're gonna move out and do this room.

And this is all because of your faithfulness and generosity with the Capital Funds Drive.

What's great to hear is that we we the last three weeks we've had uh piano and violin recitals in this space because uh the acoustics are incredible, and therefore, you see, all the work we do here in ministry is community service.

Thank you for seeing that, for being good stewards of this property and sharing it with the community so open-handedly, and can continue to make sure it's beautiful and inspiring.

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

All things come of you, O Lord.

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.

He invites you to meet him here.

The Lord be here with you.

And also with you.

Lift up you who host.

We give us to Let us give thanks to those who are called.

It is time to give us.

For you alone are God, living and true, dwelling in light, inaccessible from before time man and forever, fountain of life and source of all whole goodness.

You made all things and fill them with your whole blessings.

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 name as we sing.

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 him to be glorified by you, his heavenly Father, having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end.

At supper with them, he took bread.

And when he given thanks to you, he broke it, and 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 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 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 your 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, Lord of the Streets, Houston, Northside, Houston, and Palmer Memorial, 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, Leslie, and Phil.

The congregations invited to name their celebrations 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, forever and ever.

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.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

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 in six-foot intervals, and returning to your seat on the far side.

So thou give it.

One body we one body will take.

One church your bless One name we want we pray with all our take on take a dress one for one in the beginning.

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.

The living of your faith will be no miracle.

You will be the miracle.

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

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

Amen.