Advent 2

Come and gather, O people of God.

Let us gather at the house of the Lord.

We await the word who will lead all nations.

We await the one who will guide us in peace.

Let us in peace kindle the light of the Lord.

Rejoice rejoice shall come to thee who loving God, as we continue in this Advent season, we open all the dark places in our lives and memories to the healing light of Christ.

Show us the creative power of hope.

Prepare our hearts to be transformed by you that we may walk in the light of Christ.

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

Blessed be God's kingdom, now and forever.

Amen.

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.

Merciful God, who sent your messengers, the prophets, to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation.

Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever.

Amen!

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, and that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

A voice cries out, In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low.

The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

A voice says, Cry out.

And I said, What shall I cry?

All people are grasped.

Their constancy is like the flower of the field.

The grass withers, the flower fades.

When the breath of the Lord blows upon it, surely the people are grasped.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion.

Herald of good tidings, lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings.

Lift it up, do not fear.

Say to the cities of Judah, here is your God.

See, the Lord God comes with might.

Rand his arm rules for him, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd.

He will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

The word of the Lord.

The psalm appointed for today is Psalm 85.

We will read responsively by the half verse.

You have been gracious to your land, O Lord.

You have restored the good fortune of Jacob.

You have forgiven the iniquity of your people.

And all their sins.

I will listen, O Lord God, to what you are saying.

Truly, your salvation is very near to those who fear you.

Mercy and truth have met together.

Righteousness and peace have missed each other.

Truth shall spring up from the earth.

And righteousness shall look down from heaven.

Lord, you will indeed grant prosperity.

Righteousness shall go before you.

But in accordance with His promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by Him at peace, without spot or blemish, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.

The word of the Lord.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, see, I am sending my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

He proclaimed, The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.

I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.

I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

The gospel of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Reminder of our Advent journey that the church calls us to walk each year is that we have sort of four weeks to make room, to make room for the coming of Christ.

Making room doesn't mean just stacking up piles, it means perhaps cleaning things off.

And so last week we were invited to make room by making hope.

That's really important to hear the difference between having hope and making hope.

Today we're invited to make room not by keeping peace but by making peace.

And I want to suggest to you that peace is one of those things at least I tend to struggle with quite a bit because the word is frankly very watered down.

Especially if you're a parent.

How many of you have said, can I have a moment of peace?

By which we mean, can I have a moment of quiet?

But I want to tell you, I don't think that peace has much to do with quiet.

Our kids are really good at the opposite game, so naming opposites.

Tall, short.

Fat, skinny.

War, peace.

And of course, then peace can't just be the cessation of conflict.

If war is about destruction and imposing your will on another people, then peace must be about building something new.

And here's the real zinger not imposing my will on other people.

And I'm going to tell you, I can make room for the first idea about building something new.

But that whole bit about not imposing and subduing other people with my will, that's the advent journey for me.

See, I had another kid who in chapel, when I asked them what peace meant, she said, this is really great.

Peace is what you have after you step on a cockroach.

And that was really sweet.

You know, out of the mouths of children we get that.

But you know the problem with that image, as much as I'd like to say there's a lot of truth in it, usually if I find one cockroach, I'm pretty aware that there's going to be many, many more.

And I think the version of peace that I'm most familiar with, the one that I falsely put my hopes in instead of making hope, the ones I hope in, is the one in which somebody has is not living in accordance with the outcomes that I perceive to be in their best interest, and that's how I get peace.

I step it down.

And of course, you know, to use that little thought about roaches and how many eggs they have, many of us spend our lives trying to make peace.

And it's exhausting, of course, because you know every time you step on a roach, you're going to spread their eggs.

So I think we're meant to think about peace in a really different way.

Now, probably most of what I'm going to say is nonsense.

Just prepare yourself for that.

But you've got to see me tap dance.

Um, we get to hear this week about prophets who talk about peace, and particularly we hear about Isaiah and John the Baptist.

So remember, Isaiah is writing to people who are far from home.

More specifically, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and took away all of the people in an invasion, in a domination, in a way of making peace so that they would not rebel.

He took away everybody who was literate.

He left behind illiterate farm folk who wouldn't be able to raise much of a resistance.

He took all those literate people and he carried them away from Babylon, more than a thousand miles away from Jerusalem.

The way they got there, there were no roads.

They went through the desert.

Literally the desert, where if you didn't know where the oases were, you could die.

They didn't just take young, super fit military elite.

Remember, literate people didn't have to be young.

It was a long, impossible journey.

You ever try off-roading in a car?

In a Toyota Prius?

So imagine how much harder that is when your wheels are made out of wood.

These people were far from home.

They were far from peace.

And Isaiah says, look, God's going to return you home.

Actually, maybe even introduce you to a home you didn't even realize that you were missing because you never had it.

People had been in exile so long that many of the original ones had died, and their children grew up hearing, this is not where we live.

But they had no schema for getting back.

Not just because there were grandpas to bring back, but now there's grandmas and their animals and their small children.

And Isaiah says, and you hear this at the beginning of the Messiah, right?

Every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and high place made low.

And of course, what that's doing is taking a sinusoidal curve and flattening it out.

It's making a super highway.

It's making I-45 in 50 years from now, whenever they finish it, right?

Not only will there be a way home, but it will be one that everybody can travel easily and readily and in safety.

And this is the different kind of image.

You get to hear this.

God has a really strong arm.

Did you hear that in Isaiah?

A strong arm.

You know what I like to do with strong arms?

I like to beat up cockroaches.

What God likes to do with a strong arm is gather all of the lambs.

Got me thinking that my left arm was the strongest it's ever been.

I mean stronger than when I was an NCAA wrestler, stronger than when I swam a marathon.

It was the strongest when my daughter was three, because that's the one I held her with.

That's a different image for peace, isn't it?

The strength of arms supports those who need carrying.

John the Baptist shows up today and says exactly what Isaiah said, but he doesn't just say, hey, those places will be leveled.

Notice, he actually changes the quote.

John's in the desert.

He's in the dry places, and he says, in these places it's going to be leveled.

And notice, John doesn't just say there'll be a superhighway.

He says there'll be baptism for the forgiveness of sin.

You notice that?

I want you to think through this because uh sin in Hebrew has got two meanings, and usually we focus on the first.

The first one is an archery term, and it means you aim for the bullseye and you miss.

So sin means missing the mark.

By the way, it doesn't mean like the seven deadly sins of gluttony and sloth.

It means you miss.

Of course, the worst thing you could do if you wanted to be a good archer is stop shooting.

Right?

Oh, I missed, I quit.

No, you're supposed to recalibrate your aim and shoot again.

But you know the second meaning in Hebrew for sin is burden.

And John says, you got a long journey home.

So let's put those burdens down.

Not only will there be a super highway, but you won't have to carry all of that weight.

If I were honest with you, I probably lose more sleep over the burdens I carry than having broken particular moral laws.

The burdens I carry.

A lot of those burdens have to do with fake peace.

I'll have peace when this person I'm in a relationship does what I know is best for them.

If you're a parent, I think you understand what I'm talking about.

If you're a spouse, I think you understand what I'm talking about.

It's the difference between peace and submission.

Those are different things.

So here's something kooky I have to tell you, because many of us learned this when we were in high school.

Once upon a time there was this guy, Sigmund Freud, and he said that we've got this fundamental problem.

You know what this is, right?

The problem is we all have this self.

And I hear this a lot in spiritual circles and discipline.

The problem with people is that they have too much ego.

You ever heard that before?

Or egotism.

You know that?

Like that's a bad thing, right?

I've even heard Christian monastics quoted as saying, we're supposed to experience ego death.

Well, you know, that's totally wrong.

Sigmund Freud said, and this is right, in Greek the word ego, echo, it means I am.

Your ego is who God made you to be.

No more and no less.

What Sigmund Freud said is that we don't have an ego problem.

Our problem is we don't live into our ego.

We've got two competing forces.

Does anybody know these?

Well, there's the id.

The id is sort of that unrestrained, impulsive adventure desire.

And then the thing that fights the id is the superego, and that's the repressor.

What's been really interesting is that most of Christian spirituality that I've inherited is all about growing your superego so you can suppress and push down and shove.

And I want to suggest to you that's the kind of peace that steps on cockroaches.

And you can always find something else to suppress and push down.

John doesn't talk about strip mining.

John doesn't talk about the death of our ego.

John talks about a leveling.

And I want to suggest that if our spirituality inclines us to destroy any part of us, it's unhealthy.

And it won't make extraordinary peace, it'll make submission.

You know what Sigmund Freud said is the more you suppress, the more subconsciously things leak out.

Because you can't suppress yourself unless you die.

Two more weird thoughts.

One comes from St.

John of the Cross.

He's a mystic, which means I'm often really impatient with him because I'd just like to know what I'm supposed to do.

Here's what John of the Cross says about the spiritual life.

To reach satisfaction in all things, desire satisfaction in nothing.

To come to possess all, desire the possession of nothing.

To arrive at being all, desire to be nothing.

To come to the knowledge of all, desire the knowledge of nothing.

To come to enjoy what you have not, this is interesting, you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.

To come to the possession you have not, you must go by a way.

In which you possess not.

To come to what you are not, you must go by a way in which you are not.

I used to be a chaplain at a drug rehab facility in Atlanta for homeless black crack addicts.

It was my first supervised ministry.

We were based on twelve steps.

Part of the first step is to say, our best thinking got us here.

You know the first step?

That's the one in which you admit that your life, you become powerless, and you turn your life over to a higher power.

You don't say, I should have seen it, I knew better.

You say, My best thinking got me here.

It was easy to ride these people off.

They were homeless.

Except there was another little drug rehab facility that cost$5,000 a day, a couple miles over.

They were all white collar.

They were all white.

Most of them were physicians.

And they came over to do their first step and then they went back.

These were people who could have bought and sold the whole thing.

These were people who'd gone to Yale Medical School and done postgraduate medical research in places like Singapore, and their best thinking got them there.

It was a little bit harder to write them off because their best thinking was probably, well, pretty good, to be honest.

Our best thinking about peace has created a place as a nation in which we don't even have faith in our own election system.

Our best thinking got us there.

Our best thinking gets us to a place where if people don't live into the outcomes we have planned for them, and that is not the way of peace.

The reason this quote, I think, is so stimulating for me is because I'm so tempted to just double down on what I'm already doing, and then I'll have peace.

And Advent is inviting us instead of doubling down to walk away we don't know.

Because the truth is, if you only have peace when your children or your spouse or your candidate does what you want them to do, then you will never have it.

Because you can't hold on to that forever.

And beyond that, there's a real difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking.

Jesus didn't say, Blessed are the peacekeepers.

My son had me read this uh series.

It was really good, The Hunger Games.

I don't know if you've read it, really enjoyed reading it, but it turns out the agents of the dominating state, like the secret police, they're called the peacekeepers.

The way they keep the peace, see, if you've got a different idea, they squash you.

That's the peace we practice out there, you see.

We're invited to walk away, we don't know how to walk.

Now comes the part where I wish I could tell you 12 easy steps for walking peacemaking.

By the way, I can.

Look up AA, 12 easy steps.

They're not easy.

They're terribly difficult because if you double down on what you're doing, you've already missed them.

We have a compass to this advent.

We don't have a map.

And if you're like me, it's not just our nation that could use some peacemaking.

I really could use some peacemaking between my superego and my id.

I could use some peacemaking in some of the most significant relations of my life that continue to drive me crazy because I'm so focused on peacekeeping that I don't make any room for God to actually make peace.

Again, Advent doesn't give us a map, but it gives us a compass.

And my prayer is that we will check that compass together, and that we'll be willing to step off our known path onto God's super highway for creating rest and return and for making peace.

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

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, making her heaven and earth.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God the God, light from light, true true God, for true God.

Through whom all things were made.

For us and for our salvation, he came down into heaven.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnated with the Virgin Mary and was made man.

For our sake, he was crucified under conscious father.

He suffered death and buried.

On the third day he rose again, in accordance with the scriptures.

He will come again for righteousness, the living and the dead.

And the kingdom of the way.

We believe in the holy Catholic.

The prayers of the people.

In peace, let us pray to the Lord, saying, Lord, have compassion.

For the holy church of God, that it may be filled with truth and love and be found without fault at the day of your coming.

We pray to you, O Lord.

Lord, have compassion.

For all the holy people of God, for all bishops and other ministers, for Andy, Hector, Jeff, and Kay, our bishops in the diocese cycle of prayer, Santa Maria Virgin House, Houston, St.

Andrews in Houston, St.

Christopher's Houston, for Michael, our presiding bishop, for Mike, Craig, Jim, Bill, and Lillian, and the priests in our community, we pray to you, O Lord.

For all who fear God and believe in you, Lord Christ, that our divisions may cease and that all may be one as you and your Father are one, we pray to you, O Lord.

For the mission of the church, that in faithful witness it may preach the gospel to the ends of the earth.

We pray to you, O Lord.

For the peace of the world, that a spirit of respect and forbearance may grow among nations and people, we pray to you, O Lord.

For those in positions of public trust, especially Donald, our president, and Greg, our governor, that they may serve justice and promote the dignity and freedom of every person.

We pray to you, O Lord.

For the poor, the persecuted, the sick, and all who suffer.

For refugees, prisoners, and all who are in danger, that they may be relieved and protected, we pray to you, O Lord.

For this congregation, that we may be delivered from the hardness of heart and show forth your glory in all that we do.

We pray to you, O Lord.

For our enemies and those who wish us harm, and for all whom we have injured or offended, for ourselves, for the forgiveness of our sins, and for the grace of the Holy Spirit to amend our lives, we pray you, O Lord.

For all who have committed themselves to our prayers, for our families, friends, and neighbors, especially Chris, Jerry, Sean, Jerome, Susie, Joe, Nancy, and those the congregation wishes to name at this time, silently or aloud, we pray to you, O Lord.

For all who have died in the communion of your church, and those whose faith is known to you alone, that with all the saints they may have rest in that place where there is no pain or grief, but life eternal, we pray to you, O Lord.

Rejoicing in the fellowship of the saints, let us commend ourselves and one another and all our life to Christ our God.

To you, O Lord our God.

For yours is the majesty, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, now and forever.

Amen.

Now we've already prayed for the forgiveness of our sins and the grace of the Holy Spirit to mend our lives.

So trusting in that, the peace of the Lord be always with you.

Good morning, and thank you for worshiping with us at St.

Thomas today.

Just a few announcements I want to draw to your attention.

One is that yesterday, in about an hour and 20 minutes, we served 103 vehicles representing 467 persons, upwards of 50 pounds worth of food and hygiene supplies here in a parking lot.

So thank you for supporting peacemaking at St.

Thomas.

It's truly a lovely thing that we're doing each and every month.

I want to draw your attention to a couple of things that are coming up.

One is that December the 20th is sort of a special day.

Um, it's the last day that we're 55 years old as a parish.

The next day, the 21st, we turn 56, and it's on St.

Thomas the Apostle Day.

And so we're having one service, December 20th, at 1030, to celebrate 55 full years of ministry.

Um, and the so there's a sign-up for that online instead of Advent 4.

I'm just going to prepare you.

We're celebrating our patronal feast day.

And then afterwards, if it's not raining, we're going to have a band out here.

You can bring a lawn chair, B-Y-O-L-C.

We're going to be socially distanced and wear masks.

They're also, the holy smokers are going to make for us a box, a hot box lunch that you can eat in your lap.

Uh, because we're not only celebrating 55 years of ministry, we're celebrating that less than two years into our capital funds campaign, we're paying off our mortgage on the Brownley Hall, which is a great thing to celebrate.

Many of you have said 2020 is not an exciting year.

Well, good news in the church, it's already 2021.

So happy new year to you.

And this is how we're going to celebrate it out here as well.

So you'll see two sign-ups, one for the service and one for the lunch to make sure we cook uh properly.

Uh, and again, the band that's coming is is tremendous, and I hope you'll enjoy it as a way of being together and being safe.

So we've checked this through all the protocol of uh Brown University Medical School, and everything sounds good.

If it's raining, oh well.

So we may make the call the day before.

But um, but but that's what you'll see on the signups.

Um later that day at 4:30 p.m.

is an opportunity uh for a service called the Longest Night.

Um, of course, it is the longest night, the the winter um solstice is coming.

And so um it's a service, quite honestly, not just for people who have had somebody physically die, but honestly, just to acknowledge a little bit of grief, uh, soberly and honestly in God's presence.

And and I have to say this, um I mean, Christmas is gonna be challenging because um Easter was hard enough, and Thanksgiving was challenging for many of us, and we're we're coming close to Christmas.

So um it's an opportunity to name this this um those very real feelings that we're having in God's presence that day.

Um, more about Christmas.

Uh you can sign up for these services already, and we're doing the best we can.

Still, singing in church is not really a best practice for COVID.

Uh, in fact, we are not allowed to do it.

So, uh, what we're going to do is have three services as per usual: 3:30, 5 o'clock, and 9.30 on Christmas Eve.

Those signups are already there.

3.30 is sort of the family service, but we can't have a pageant.

So just we're just not going to have the pageant.

But families are more than welcome.

I will tell you it's the shortest service of the day.

At 4:30, if it's not raining, come with your mask and we'll sing carols out here until 5 and we'll come in for a service.

If it is raining, come at 4.30 and you'll hear our harper play some lovely sacred Christmas music here.

So either way, there's special music at 4.30.

Okay.

Same thing at 9.30.

You can come at 9.30 for the service, or you can come to sing if it's not raining at 9 with your mask on, socially distanced, and then come here at 9.30.

Or if it's raining, come at 9 and you'll hear the harper and a couple of uh musical solos, if that makes sense, akin to what we're doing on Sunday morning.

So those are our Christmas Eve plans.

We're able to increase our capacity a little bit.

The signups are already there.

I don't know what's going to happen, but if you want to come, go ahead and plan and sign up.

That's that's I think the best we can do.

Um I think that's all I wanted to make sure you knew.

Continue to walk in hope and peace.

As Christ first hoped and made peace for us and gave himself an offering and sacrifice to God.

And of your own have we given you.

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 peace 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 with you.

Lift up your hearts.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere, to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.

Because you sent your beloved Son to redeem us from sin and death, and to make us heirs in Him of everlasting life, that when He shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, we may without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearing.

Therefore we praise you, joining our voices with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, who forever say this hymn to proclaim the glory of your name.

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 give thanks to you, O God, for the goodness and love which you've made known to us in creation, and the calling of Israel to be your people, in your word spoken through the prophets, and above all, in the word made flesh Jesus your Son.

For in these last days you sinned to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Savior and Redeemer of the world.

In him you have delivered us from evil and made us worthy to stand before you.

In him you have brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.

On the night before he died for us, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread.

And when he gave 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 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.

Therefore, according to his command, O Father, we remember his death, we proclaim his resurrection, we await his coming in glory, and we offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

Giving to you, O Lord of all, presenting to you from your own creation this bread and this wine.

We pray you, gracious God, to send your Holy Spirit upon these gifts, that they may be the sacrament of the body of Christ in his blood of the new covenant.

Unite us to your Son in his sacrifice, that we may be acceptable through him, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

In the fullness of time, put all things in subjection under your Christ and bring us to that heavenly country where, with Thomas and all your saints, we may enter the everlasting heritage of your daughters and sons through Jesus Christ our Lord, the firstborn of all creation, the head of the church, and the author of our salvation.

By him and with him and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever.

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 Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

Invite you to receive either bread or a breasting by coming to the aisle immediately to your right, coming down forward and returning to your seat by going around.

Your people's everlasting light.

Loving God, we give you thanks for restoring us in your image and nourishing us with spiritual food in the sacrament of Christ's body and blood.

Now send us forth a people, forgiven, healed, renewed, that we may proclaim your love to the world and continue in the risen life of Christ our Savior.

Amen.

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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.