Pentecost 23

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

Let's pray together.

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy holy name through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

The Lord be with you.

Let us pray.

Blessed Lord who calls all holy scriptures to be written for our learning.

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you've given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

So the Lord sold them into the hand of King Jaban of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor.

The commander of his army was Siserah, who lived in Harosheth Hagoim.

Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help, for he had 900 chariots of iron and had oppressed the Israelites cruelly for twenty years.

At that time Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lapadoth, was judging Israel.

She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim.

And the Israelites came up to her for judgment.

She sent and summoned Barak, son of Abanoim from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you, go, take position at Mount Tabor, bring ten thousand from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun.

I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jaban's army, to meet you by the Wadi Kishon, with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand.

The word of the Lord.

As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters.

So our eyes look to you, O Lord our God.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy.

Too much of the scorn of the indolent wretch and of the derision of the proud.

Now considering the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written for you.

For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

When they say there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape.

But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief, for you are all children of light and children of the day.

We are not of the night or of darkness.

So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night.

But since you we belong to the day, let us be sober and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

For God has destined us not for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live with him.

Therefore, encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.

The word of the Lord.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Jesus said, The kingdom of heaven will be as when a man going on a journey summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them.

To one he gave ten million dollars, to another, four million dollars, and to another, two million dollars, to each according to their ability.

And then he went away.

The one who received the ten million went off at once and traded with it and made ten more million dollars.

In the same way the one who had four million dollars made four million more dollars.

But the one who received the two million went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

After a long time, the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.

Then the one who'd received the ten million came forward, bringing ten million more, saying, Master, you gave me ten million dollars, look, I've made ten million more dollars.

His master said to him, Well done, good and trustworthy slave.

You've been trustworthy in a few things.

I will put you in charge of many things.

Enter into the joy of your master.

And the one with the four million dollars also came forward, saying, Master, you handed over to me four million dollars.

Look, I've made four million more dollars.

His master said to him, Well done, good and trustworthy slave.

You've been trustworthy in a few things.

I'll put you in charge of many things.

Enter into the joy of your master.

And then the one who received the two million also came forward, saying, Master, I knew you were a harsh man reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed.

So I was afraid.

And I went and hid your talent in the ground.

Here, you have what is yours.

But his master replied, Well, you wicked and lazy slave, you knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter.

And you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.

So take the two million dollars from him and give it to the one with twenty million.

For to all those who have more will be given, and they will have an abundance.

But from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.

As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, for there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The gospel of the Lord.

So they've offered us this nugget that uh, if we read it at face value, pretty much says you better give or else.

Um I want to tell you some good news though, which is I don't think that's what this story is about.

And maybe I want to say first that um when we hear Jesus talk, we always have choices.

Is Jesus saying this is the way things ought to be?

Or is Jesus saying to us, maybe more frequently than we'd like to admit, this is what you've settled for.

And do you really want to live that way anymore?

I have a hard time thinking that Jesus is saying this is the way it ought to be.

And I'm gonna tell you why.

I know better than to be that way with my own children.

I know better than to treat my children as if my love and affection depended on what they do with everything I give them.

And I'm not particularly a great person.

So if God is greater than me, surely, surely, this is not a story that says you'd better be economically productive in faith and in church, or else.

Economic is an important word because you know, normally we hear this word talent, and it's so easy.

We have a word talent in English in which we think about people like, I don't know, um Shirley McLean or Shirley, Shirley Temple, isn't she the good ship lollipop, right?

At a young, young age, she could tap dance and do that, and that's a talent, right?

But a talent is a quantity, it's a weight, and these are talents of gold, which weigh, depending on who you read, between 58 and 71 pounds.

So when you give a slave 58 to 71 pounds of gold, the economic value is probably like$2 million a pound at least, right?

This is about resources.

This is not about whether you can carry a tune in a bucket.

It's about what you do economically.

And a lot of times we read this and we say, aha, here's the proverb.

To whom much is given, much is expected.

But if you read it at face value, it doesn't even say that.

It says to whom anything's given, a lot is demanded.

Or else.

I want to tell you the roots of my faith, read this at face value.

And so I've spent a lot of time trying to hustle for my worthiness before God, but if you read the story carefully, you better not make a mistake.

Because if you do, I mean you could get thrown out into outer darkness with this weeping and gnashing your teeth.

That's a pretty tough margin of error.

I think.

I want to suggest that maybe what Jesus is revealing is a faith life that we often settle for.

But I want to suggest Jesus might be telling us we don't have to live this way.

And we don't always get to have variable answers.

What I wish had happened in the story is that the third slave invested that$2 million and lost it.

I want to know what the master would have said.

Part of me wonders if in the story there's this uh disappointment because the slave did nothing.

But I also want to hold up to you this small, like um evolutionary mirror of human cognition.

You know, when we're encountered with a threat, and this is true of animals, we do one of three core responses, and this has nothing to do with our mammalian brain.

This is hardwired in our little baby lizard brain that we're born with.

We either fight, we flee.

Or do you know the other one we do?

Most people don't do this.

We don't think they do anyway.

We freeze.

And you might think the animal freezes like a possum so the predator won't see it.

But that's not why animals freeze.

Animals freeze because they know they're getting ready to be devoured.

And if they fight back, it'll hurt more.

Freezing in the animal kingdom is about meeting your doom with as least pain as possible.

And that's what the servant does.

He freezes.

Listen to what he says.

The master is a harsh and unforgiving man who he can't possibly meet the expectations of, so he surrenders so as not to hurt himself so much.

And I want to tell you, for most of my life, maybe even until this morning at eight o'clock, I read this thinking, yeah, that's how it is.

But don't we believe that God is more compassionate and greater than we are?

Could you imagine somebody who was so scared out of their mind that they couldn't do anything?

Could you imagine punishing that person instead of having compassion for them?

Boy, I've got to tell you, in my own spiritual journey, uh, I have soaked this in, not just in church, um, but how I'm supposed to be, uh, whether as an employee or a spouse or a parent.

And if I'm not being productive, oh my God, I might get thrown out into the place where there's outer darkness.

And you know, I have a hard time when I see people who aren't hustling for their worth like I am.

Like, hey, if you know something bad's gonna happen, why don't you get up and move?

And that's because I'm a fighter.

But hardwired into other people is to freeze because they know they can't.

Or they don't think they can.

And recently I realized I'm not always the fighter that I think I am.

There are some aspects in my relationships that matter a lot to me in which I freeze because I fought a long time and it didn't work.

And I can't imagine knowing what I know about myself when I'm honest.

That God intends for the suffering to happen that happens.

I want to hold up to you.

I think if we read this at face value, we read it to our own peril because there's no good news in that story.

The story says you'd better work your butt off, and when you make a mistake, you better hope that you outdid the bad that you did.

And there's nothing gracious about that.

There's nothing gracious about it.

That kind of theology and that kind of stewardship and that kind of living in relationships, what it results in is us saying things like, Give until it hurts.

And no gift too small.

And I think as we think about the end of our stewardship drive, uh, that God has a counter-narrative.

And it has to do a lot with our spiritual posture of frankly straightening itself down and putting its shoulders back and opening up to the world and saying, actually give until it feels good.

And there is no gift too big, don't worry.

And I think that comes to us from Thessalonians.

Because Paul says, listen, you can live, you can live like you're asleep.

I mean, that's the whole point of Buddhism, right?

I don't know if you know this.

The Buddha is the enlightened one, he's the one who's awake and everybody else is asleep.

You can either perceive things or they are, or you can live through this lens that we've frankly often been given, in which everything is just kind of sleepy and dolorous, surreal.

And Paul says the way that we ought to dress ourselves is we ought to wear hope as a helmet, and on our breastplate, we ought to wear things like faith and love.

And you know, when Paul says hope should be our helmet, he's not talking about wishing.

Wishing and hoping are really different things.

You know, you might be thinking, boy, I hope this sermon will be over soon.

And really that's a wish.

The reason it's a wish is because you can't do anything about it.

I'm just up here.

No, hope is not about wishing.

Hope is about setting attainable goals.

And Paul is saying an attainable goal is we live like we're awake.

We live life fully.

And that salvation is not something we just try to ride out and go to heaven when we die.

Paul is saying God would desperately like for us to wake up to salvation right now and be involved in saving other people.

And what do we need to save them from?

Oh my God, the sick spirituality that we could read in this parable that God is out to get you, that God is a predator.

So you might as well just lay still and let God gobble you up.

No, instead, we think there's this image that we hope, not wish, we hope.

That is to say, we trust God.

So that when God comes, God comes not as a lion to eat us up or punish us or throw us out somewhere because we did not succeed at some kind of huge cosmic level, but rather God comes full of strength to pick us up.

John Newton, he's a priest in the diocese, he came a couple years ago and he wrote this book that I really appreciate called Falling into Grace.

And what John Newton said, which is totally uh my experience, is that falling is really, really scary.

In fact, when my dad had his prostate out, the scariest thing was not the prostate, it was that he kept falling.

Because as you know, you can fall and break your hip.

You can fall and hit your head.

I used to do some trail racing back when I was like insane.

And um one of the reasons I don't do that is because I start out great, and then when I start to get tired, um I don't pick my feet up high enough and I start tripping.

And I would fall, and uh sure I didn't break my hip, but I was almost bleeding every time I did a trail race, and uh falling is about as bad as it gets for me because you know what's hard about falling is you're out of control.

And you're gonna land on something really hard.

And on some trails, you might land on something hard and then roll off a mountain onto other hard things, or uh, there's also things that are sharp, like rocks and roots.

And that's the reason I like to ski for about 10 feet and then turn because uh high speed falling is even scarier.

And it occurred to me this morning that one time in my life, and I've only done it once, and it was so intense, I don't think I could ever do it again.

Honestly, I did jump out of a perfectly good airplane for no other reason that uh it would be thrilling.

And I will tell you, it was thrilling.

Like more thrilling than I can bear again.

The air was rushing so fast in my face that I didn't feel like I could even breathe.

I know that's doesn't make sense.

And there was a guy on my back who'd done this many, many times, and he was, at my request, was flipping me all around and spinning me.

And the parachute opened up, and this is gonna sound crazy, but when the parachute opened up, it was really disappointing.

Uh, not because I was looking forward to falling to my death, no, but you fall really slowly with the parachute and it's really controlled.

And there wasn't this big rush of wind.

And what John Newton says that's really interesting is that essentially a lot of our life is really about falling into grace, and um, whether or not it's thrilling or terrifying depends on what kind of trust that is, what kind of hope we have in God.

And if our hope in God is like the surface read of this parable, it's terrifying.

Because God's gonna catch you in the lion's mouth.

But if the fall is something like the hope that we put on the center of our will and say, God is going to catch me.

It's gonna be a soft landing no matter how fast I go.

Well then that's a different kind of fall, isn't it?

That's a fall in which even as we speed up, not only does it become more enjoyable, it becomes transformative.

It becomes this moment where we say, you know, this grace is so full of rushing air in life that maybe I could just open myself up to it a little bit more so that not only my face but my hands, not only my head, but my body can experience and be super saturated with this grace.

And that's what salvation's about.

And salvation is really about the difference between falling because you're afraid and being afraid of being hurt, and knowing and knowing you're gonna be caught.

And I wonder if we couldn't lay down those kinds of roots in our lives, how much greater bearers of the gospel we might be.

I wonder when we see that adolescent who is frozen because they're encountering challenges in life they feel like they can't face or even run away from.

I wonder instead of saying you're gonna get what you deserve, if we couldn't say I'm gonna give you the grace you deserve.

I think that's what stewardship has to be about.

That's the kind of investment that I believe God is asking us to make.

And coming back to it, the reason I wish we heard the third story where the person had their two million dollars and failed.

I wish we heard the master say something like, Don't you see when you invest in things like faith and hope and love, you never can fail.

And I wish I could make that my core value, not just in my uh cognitive list of things I believe in, but the ground of my being.

And I think Jesus is telling us this story so that we can see where the two roads that diverge into a yellow wood lead.

The face value road leads not only the petrified to hell, but it takes all of us there.

So at the conclusion of the stewardship season, I hope you'll join me in at least trying.

Trying to imagine a story that goes differently, in which God says, look, I see you're scared of me.

Your fear is unjustified.

I love you just like you are, even if you're frozen or fighting or fleeing.

And then I wish we could take that assurance of God's grace.

And for people who can't see that, we could be the net.

And so you may not see God waiting to catch you.

So here are our hands.

There's enough of us that we can grab you.

And if you've been around children, you know the best thing that they can ever do is jump into your arms.

In fact, sometimes I wish my daughter didn't trust me so much, because there's a big strain on my back that comes from that uh reckless jumping.

But what if discipleship was about that?

Jumping like a small child into arms that we know and trust will bear us up instead of being pushed or shoved, instead of being afraid, we're going to bounce.

And what if we could be those arms?

What if we could use our talents to bear one another like that?

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

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

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only child of God, eternally God and the Father, God to God, light and light, true God, eternal, becoming, of one being the Father, through and all things created, for us and for our salvation, we get down to heaven.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, being hard to make for our safety was five.

With all our heart and with all our mind, let us pray to the Lord.

We ask your prayers for God's people throughout the world, for all people and ministers, for the priests in our community, Mike, Craig, Bill, and Lillian, for our bishops Andy, Hector, Jeff, and Kay, in thy absence and cycle of prayer, Ascension Houston, Christ the King Ailey, and Emmanuel Houston, for Justin, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for our presiding bishop Michael.

Pray for the church.

I ask your prayers for all who govern and hold authority in the nations of the world, for the members of the armed forces, and for all who struggle for peace and justice, that they may act with prudence and vigilance and to plant the seeds of your kingdom everywhere.

Pray for justice and peace.

I ask your prayers for our parish and our ventry, that the source of wisdom may guide us, the source of strength may support us, and the source of love may unify us.

Pray that our community may discern clearly and minister effectively.

Pray that we may be bearers of God's grace to all who come through our doors.

I ask your prayers for the poor, the sick, the hungry, the oppressed, and those in prison.

Pray for those in any need or trouble.

I ask your prayers for all who seek God or a deeper knowledge of God.

Pray that they may find and be found by God.

I ask your prayers for the departed, especially Patty and Bill.

Pray for those who have died.

Let us give thanks for our blessings and pray for our own needs and those of others, especially Chris, Jerry, Sean, Jerome, Susie, Joe, Larry, and Nancy.

The congregation is invited to name their own celebration or petitions, silently or aloud.

O Lord our God, accept the fervent prayers of your people.

In the multitude of your mercies, look with compassion upon us and all who turn to you for help.

For you are gracious, O Lover of souls, and to you we give glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever.

Amen.

Let us humbly confess our sins unto Almighty God.

Almighty and merciful God, we are thankful that your compassion is higher than the heavens, wider than our wanderings, deeper than all our sin.

Forgive our careless attitudes toward your purposes, our refusal to relieve the suffering of others, our envy of those who have more than we have, our obsession with creating a life of constant entertainment, our indifference to the treasures of heaven, our neglect of your wise and gracious law.

Help us to change our way of life so that we may desire what is good, love what you love, and do what you command 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 now the socially distanced peace of the Lord be always with you.

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

Thomas today.

There are a few announcements I want to call to your attention.

Most of these you're going to see in your e-news, but one is that tomorrow morning is the day that our Thanksgiving bags are given over to McWurder, and thanks to your generosity, we're bringing about looks like a north of 50 families of Thanksgiving dinner.

It's this really interesting thing.

I have to tell you, having bought some of these bags, they're not cheap.

It's like 40 or 50 dollars to make a bag.

And my natural instinct is to complain about that, and then I realize like that's why we do it.

Because since it's not cheap, people don't have it unless we do it.

So thank you.

Thank you for doing it.

Uh to give people uh again something we often take for granted.

It's just it's such wonderful stewardship, and you all are so generous, and I really appreciate it.

If your bag comes in after tomorrow morning, it'll still get there, don't worry.

So we're still taking bags, but we're we're going over there uh tomorrow, uh, having blessed those bags to hopefully nourish not only bodies but spirits.

Um, I also want to hold up to you that um a week from Wednesday, which is going to be the 25th, uh, we will have a Thanksgiving Eve service at 7 p.m.

It'll be relatively short.

We'll pray through the Great Litany, we'll have the Eucharist, uh, if conditions allow, we'll have some outdoor, maybe some hot cider or something like that, so we can socially distance, um, just sort of have a moment of saying things that we're grateful to with one another and checking in.

But it is really a great way to get into, frankly, the Thanksgiving mood if you're around Wednesday, November the 25th at 7 p.m.

Um, two other things I want to encourage you to look for.

Um, you know, our uh we have a couple of organizations we support as a parish, and frankly, their regular fundraisers are not going to be able to happen.

So, our Scouts Troop BSA, these are the boys, the Boy Scouts who are of age um 12 and above, they're going to host a meat sale next week.

And uh Bob and the Holy Smokers have been really good on sharing insider trading with them so they know how to get the meat that you enjoy that we didn't get to have at the Fall Festival.

I think they're making things like brisket, pork ribs, and pork shoulder just in time for Thanksgiving, and you can pick it up on um Sunday so that if you do a turkey meal, then hey, you can take the rest of the week off.

Uh, you will see the link to do that in your Sunday e-news.

Um, I'm gonna promise it's going to taste like supporting a good cause, uh, for sure.

So you'll see that link, and uh this is something that the students themselves are doing in a great way that we're not only mentoring people on how to barbecue, but we're connecting them with adults and giving them meaningful figures that they can look up to in their faith lives.

So that is always worthy of our support.

Um, the other thing I want to hold to your attention is normally the day school has a gala in the spring that raises uh money that allows uh us to do financial aid and make the school accessible to people who otherwise wouldn't be able to come.

And that is in jeopardy, obviously, because having a physical gala is really tough.

So they're going to be having an online gala, and that's actually going to start this coming Saturday.

They're going to be auctioning off 15 cakes.

Now, this is gonna sound crazy, uh, but I'm gonna tell you anyway.

One of the best things about the school gala is seeing people be offensively generous when buying a cake.

So if you've ever been, you'll see that cakes go for ridiculous sums of money.

And of course, what people are doing is they've decided that they're wanted to make a donation to the school, and the cake is gonna be their souvenir.

And that's really a lovely thing to see, honestly.

This is not, no cake is worth a thousand dollars.

We know that.

But I have seen cakes at the Gala sell for more than that, because people wanted to make a donation and share a cake at their table.

Now, I'm not telling you what you need to bid on these cakes, but they are gonna auction them off next weekend.

And if you win a cake, what's going to happen is the baker will bake the cake and deliver it to your home uh sometime the week of Thanksgiving, so that maybe that's one less thing you have to make.

I just want to raise this to your awareness because it's one of the things, honestly, that allows us to bring in students to our school who economically can't afford to come.

And it's one of the ways that we increase diversity and share in the mission and ministry of the church.

So if you're interested in a cake or a lovely souvenir, uh you'll see that around the same time as the meat sale, and you can pick your delivery date, and it will come to your home.

Walk in love.

As Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.

There's gonna be a great day, we've gone about to sunshine, we've gotta put them to the day, there's gonna be a great day, comes on to be a great day, there's gonna be a great day.

We've gone to show you the show, there's gonna be all the bee, to be coming.

All things come of you, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.

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, but he invites you to meet him here.

The Lord be with you.

And also lift up your hearts.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give God thanks to brings.

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

Cause in the obedience of your saints, you've given us an example of righteousness, and in their eternal joy a glorious pledge of the hope of our calling.

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 the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.

Holy and gracious Father, in your infinite love, you made us from yourself.

And when we'd fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you and your compassion sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.

He stretched out his arms upon the cross and offered himself in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.

On the night he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ 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 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, we proclaim the mystery of faith.

Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

Recalling his death, resurrection, and ascension, we offer to you these gifts.

Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people, the body and blood of your Son, the holy food and drink of new and unending life in Him.

And sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace.

And at the last day bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom.

All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ, 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 Saver is sacrificed for us.

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'm going to invite you to receive bread or blessing by coming down the aisle to your right, and then coming back to your seat by going around the pew.

Excellent.

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 God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships, so you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, suppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace, 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.