Pentecost 14

Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and blessed be God's family 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.

Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts, for as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

A prayer for Labor Day.

Almighty God, you have so linked our lives with one another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives.

So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good.

And as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers and arouse our concern for those who are out of work through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

It shall be the first month of the year for you.

Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of the month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household.

If a household is too small for a whole lamb, then it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one.

The lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it.

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year old male.

You shall take it from the sheep or from the goats.

You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month.

Then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.

They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat.

They shall eat the lamb that Satan same night.

They shall eat it roasted over a fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs.

You shall let none of it remain until the morning.

Anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.

This is how you shall eat it, your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly.

It is the Passover of the Lord, for I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every fish firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals.

On all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments.

I am the Lord.

The blood shall be a sign for you on your houses where you live.

When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

This day shall be a day of remembrance for you.

You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord throughout your generations.

You shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

The word of the Lord.

Please join me in reading Psalm 149 responsively by the half verse.

Hallelujah, sing to the Lord a new song.

Let Israel rejoice in their Maker.

Let them praise God's name in the dance.

For the Lord takes pleasure in the chosen people.

Let the faithful rejoice in triumph.

Let the praises of God be in their throat.

To wreck vengeance on the nations, to bind their rulers in chains, to inflict on them the judgment decreed.

For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

The commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this word.

Love thy neighbor as yourself.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.

For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.

The night is far gone, the day is near.

Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.

Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

The word of the Lord.

But if you're not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

And if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

The gospel of the Lord.

Please be seated.

A reminder when we hear the lectionary read, there's the presumption that we know the context automatically.

Now this comes out of Matthew 18.

And the presumption is you know what precedes this, and I'll bring you up to speed in case you don't have Matthew's contents organized by chapter and verse.

Jesus starts off by saying that the kingdom of heaven belongs to little children.

He moves on to say, whoever puts an obstacle in the way of a child, it'd be better if they put a millstone around their neck and were thrown into the sea.

And then he tells the parable of the shepherd, if out of a flock of a hundred one has wandered, the shepherd will go for the one who is away from the flock, who is away from safety and security, and look to restore them.

So the context of Matthew 18, as I read it, is looking out for those who are vulnerable, who are rife for exploitation, who are lost.

And then Jesus speaks this word about how it is we ought to handle conflicts.

I want to start off by telling you, I used to work at a Christian school, and part of my contract was the Matthew 18 principle, which meant I was signing on my contract that if I had a grievance with the administration, I would go straight to the principal or superintendent and say my grievance, and this was really good policy, said our documents, because it resolved all conflicts.

And of course, what I want to say is that that was an extremely dangerous policy because these administrators had the opportunity to fire me on the site for voicing my grievances.

The policy was bad because it didn't respect the power differential.

But I want to suggest to you that we often don't operate by this policy, especially when power is more evened out.

You may not be like me.

You're probably much better.

But I want to talk about how I struggle with this policy.

First, there's the presumption, I think, by Jesus, actually, that conflict is not bad, it's natural.

And that conflict so often we look at as a win or lose battle, when instead conflict, though painful, could be viewed as birth pangs, the opportunity for us to grow into new ways of life, in new ways of being with the community.

So part of it depends on how we look at it at the outset.

And I want to tell you, as with most clergy, I'm pretty conflict averse.

Um, I tend to be worried about it.

And one of the ways I tend to do conflict, which is very different from what Jesus lays out here, uh, first of all, I have the wrong presumption, and second of all, rather than going to the person uh with whom I have an issue, I really prefer to build coalitions.

I like to go to all kinds of people who aren't involved and get them on my side.

Um, and then I sort of have this presumption that because of this coalition building, that will force the person to change.

I also like to think that the other person should be able to read my mind so that I can be very passive, passive aggressive with what bothers me, and then be even more upset at the person that they didn't understand I was actually being critical of their behavior.

This may be unique to me.

But of course, this passage lays out an opportunity for us to rethink how we deal with one another and how we can grow from it.

First of all, this is not when we have conflicts with people about what color the carpet is.

That has nothing to do with sin.

So Jesus says, when a member of the church is sinning, that is, doing something that is exploiting or hurting one of the most vulnerable people.

This is how the chapter begins, Matthew 18.

Go to that person directly and inquire what's going on.

Many of you know that I have been very inspired by Brene Brown, and Brene Brown says this a different way.

She says, in all cases of conflict, we can really choose between the discomfort of setting a boundary or the resentment that will happen if we don't.

That is to say, in a time of conflict, we either choose to engage in a healthy way or we choose to resent and build resentment through all kinds of ways.

Conflict isn't about carpet, it's about sin, number one.

So what do we do?

We go to somebody directly.

If that doesn't work out, then we're meant to bring another person or two with us, and this is really important, not as a coalition, Jesus said as witnesses, which is a better way to hear that is as mediators, to make sure that we're going to another person not to judge or dictate their behavior, but to actually explore whether or not somebody is being exploited and what we can do about it.

The other people are there to guarantee not only the content of our objection, but to help mediate the presentation of it.

They're there to say, listen, you have an opportunity by acknowledging conflict to make it a growth point.

And many of you may know this, and again, I'm going to speak to myself.

If somebody comes to me with the correct content and an offensive presentation, I will double down on all the bad I was already doing.

It's self-destructive, and I know it, but that's a personality flaw I still have.

So why do you bring one or two other people with you to make sure that the spirit is reconciliation and growth, not pejorative condemnation?

If that doesn't work, you can involve the whole church.

And this is really helpful to know.

When Jesus uses this word church, it's the Greek word ekklesia.

It really means gathering.

Churches at the time this Gospel of Matthew was written had 12 people.

So this is not a 5,000-member St.

Martin's, and you're going to have the parish meeting and talk about Mike's secret sin in front of the parish.

This is like 12 people.

It's a community.

People who share intimately in food and drink.

They don't involve newcomers.

These are people who know each other and they're able to say, look, we've got a relationship with you.

We care about you.

We care about you too much to let this go.

I hope you hear the spirit.

We care about you too much to let this go.

If that doesn't work, treat them like a tax collector or a gentile.

Now I'm going to tell you how we hear that phrase is extremely important.

I don't know if you know this in the prayer book.

As rector, particularly, I have the rubrical right to deny communion from anybody until they are properly reconciled in the church.

That is, you could come up to communion and I can say, nope, not till you apologize to your priest.

I gotta tell you, not only have I never done that, it doesn't match really my understanding of what we're meant to do.

Treating people like they're tax collectors and Gentiles doesn't mean turning our back to them.

I think what it means is inviting them to live in a way of life that is bigger than we normally settle for.

And the way I'd like to ask you to consider this is by thinking about the Passover.

So here we're thinking about the Passover.

These are people who have been in bondage in Egypt for a long, long time.

They're very resource poor because they're slaves.

And if you know anything about animal husbandry, to kill an unblemished lamb is really expensive.

Unblemished lambs are your breeding stock.

They have a lifetime of wool to offer you along with milk.

This is one of your most valuable commodities, and here the injunction is you're going somewhere in the middle of the night.

You have been eating, most likely, an impoverished diet.

I am going to give you the calories you need to get out of Egypt.

This is the one time in the Hebrew Bible, the one time, when every family kills its own lamb.

Normally you need a priest to do that.

Priests function as butchers.

There's not time for all that.

Kill the fatted lamb, which is just sort of like binging before you do a marathon.

Normally we think you shouldn't binge before a race.

Having done a marathon, you absolutely should binge before a marathon.

You need the calories to get out of Egypt.

What's this business about blood?

I can't help but talk about it really briefly.

In the Bible, blood is a symbol for the life force.

Another way to hear it is sort of like the qi of the animal.

The instructions are the life belongs to God.

You just get the calories.

Why do you put it on the door?

To show that you're not trying to steal what belongs to God, the life force of the animal.

So you're showing that.

You're eating this food, and in the morning you're gonna go.

Now, it's easy to forget that the people who are going are not all young, fit, ultra-triathes.

There's great grandma, there's babies, there's donkeys and chickens, and you know what that means is going is gonna be really slow.

And you need to know that because the goal of the Exodus is to leave nobody behind.

The goal of the Exodus is to take as long as you need to get everybody out of the bondage that's in Egypt.

That might mean cutting the meat into impossibly small bites so that great-grandma can chew it.

That might mean coaxing small children who are very not adventurous eaters to eat this lamb to try something different because they will need it for their journey.

It also means leaving nobody behind and coming back to what Jesus says.

The goal is not for the church to push anybody away from journeying together in faith.

Really, the choice is will you stay in bondage or will you come with us in faith?

The goal is that people get to choose to either stay or come, and the church never says, we're leaving you.

The church says, We're leaving, and we're gonna bend over backward to get you to journey with this.

Please, we love you too much for you to stay in bondage, but we're not going to stay either.

I suspect that is how we're being called to treat tax collectors and Gentiles, to beg them to journey with us in faith out of bondage.

And that's why I think at the end, this is one, I think, one of the most contextually misappropriated verses in the Bible.

Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, I'm there with you.

It's not like Jesus is more present when two of you are praying than when you're by yourself.

No.

It's when a community of people will handle conflict as a growth opportunity with journeying out of bondage towards faith, doing it slowly and invitingly.

Jesus is right there.

That is to say, if we find ourselves burning a bridge to serve God, we've really just served ourselves.

And in fact, we haven't even served ourselves.

We've gone back to Egypt and put ourselves into bondage.

Now, maybe I should have waited to say all of these remarks until the annual meeting.

But I don't think this is just about how we do politics or decision making at St.

Thomas.

I think this is a guide, frankly, for how we can live bigger.

There is huge conflict on the national stage, but that aside, there's all kinds of conflict in my own family.

And if you're like me, you sometimes find yourself creating these little things called triangles in which you've got a problem with one person, so instead of going to them, you go to somebody else.

This happens when uh sibling one talks to mom about sibling two, or this happens when Sibling, talk to sibling about dad.

And we can say, Oh, look, I just need somebody to vent to.

There's a difference between venting, and I'm going to tell you, which is rarely healthy.

Rarely healthy.

Usually what venting does is it amps people up to leave people behind.

We would like more people to join us in leaving people behind, and getting a witness to be a mediator.

Jesus invites us to share with somebody else so that they can help mediate us.

But if the spirit is, listen, that guy Mike, he is such a jerk.

That's not what Jesus is talking about.

Jesus is offering us the opportunity not only to transform conflict into growth, but to be transformed by having enough respect for our brother or our sister to tell them.

This is getting in the way of my relationship with you, and I respect you too much to leave it there.

I am certain, if you're like me, that leaving that bondage of triangulation and of passive aggression and coalition building will require nutrition you may not have in you.

Which is why we come back to the Lord's table week after week, so that we can be nourished by the bread, the body, the teachings, the life of Jesus.

So we can come back as a community and remember this is not a journey for the swift loan.

We're called as a community to move forward in faith and push carts and wheelchairs and saw up little bites for those who need the nutrition to journey forward in health toward growth.

And I invite you to that nutrition in just a few minutes.

And you know what's wonderful about the Episcopal Church, because you may be watching this on a screen.

The prayer book says this amazing thing that really applies in hospitals, but I think applies in these times right now.

The prayer book says that the intention to receive the sacrament is as good as receiving the sacrament.

That is, sometimes I go to the hospital and people are going to have surgery, they can't eat anything.

And the intention to receive offers in the Lord the nourishment that receiving does.

So I invite you to be nourished for your journey in addressing whatever conflict you may find yourself in with energy and with life.

And certainly we know, because we're all in different positions here, that the example I gave of going to an administrator who could fire me for my honesty, this reminds us that if we're in positions of power, that we really need to be involved in creating opportunity for people to share what's going on without blowback.

Really important, whether that's at work or whether that's at home or whether that's in church, so that the community is able to grow and move out of Egypt.

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

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, the Maker and all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the United Son of God, the eternal God of the Father, God of God, I am true God, true God, be God and the Father, who in all things remain, for us and for our salvation, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became part of the virgin marriage, and was bad.

For our sin, he was crucified and justified.

He suffered death and his birth.

On the third day, he present him, he ascended into heaven, and seated in the right hand of the Father.

He will come in the glory to justice and death, and as he won't have to.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the life, the perceived Father and Son, with the Father and Son, which we believe in one.

Let us pray to the Lord.

I 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 Kai, in the diocesan cycle of prayer, St.

Cutbird's Houston, St.

Dunstan's, Houston, and St.

Isidore's Spring, for Justin, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and 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, for all who struggle for peace and justice, that they may act with prudence and vision to plant the seeds of your kingdom everywhere.

Pray for justice and peace.

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

I pray that our community may discern clearly and minister effectively.

I ask your prayers for St.

Thomas the Apostle School, that those who teach and those who learn may rejoice in the knowledge of your truth, that we may teach our students to love whatever is just and true and good.

I pray that we might 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 to pray for those in any trouble.

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

I pray that they may find and be found by God.

I ask your prayers for the departed.

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, Chris, Susie, Ted, Andrea, Kevin, Ron, Joe, 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 and 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 confess our sins against God and our neighbor.

We confess, our Father, that we do not live up to the family name.

We are more ready to resent than to forgive, more ready to manipulate than to serve, more ready to fear than to love, more ready to keep our distance than to invite and welcome, more ready to compete than to help.

At the root of this behavior is mistrust.

We do not love one another as we should, because we do not believe that you love us as you do.

Forgive us our cold unbelief, and make more vivid to us the meaning and depth of your love at the cross.

Show us what it costs you to give up your son, that we might become your daughters and sons.

We ask this in the name of Jesus our righteousness.

Amen.

The Almighty and Merciful 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.

Please be seated.

I just want to raise a few announcements to your attention.

One is that we begun this morning a series of uh symposiums on race and intersectionality that are presented to us by professionals within and without the St.

Thomas community.

Dr.

Darling Hunter, I presented this morning, and you'll find those available on our YouTube channel.

We'll be doing those throughout the months of September and October at a minimum at 9 a.m.

So I invite you to be a part of those.

Again, each session has a real professional opportunity to connect with resources that have been transformative and for conversation.

So this is really a great time to do some conflict management, like we heard about in the gospel, particularly within ourselves.

This week we're going to be ending our supply drive for McWurder.

So reminder our sister school McWirder has 80% of families at or below the poverty level.

They've asked us to collect masks and school supplies.

We're going to take those through Thursday.

A few people asked, um, hey, I don't feel comfortable shopping.

Can we make a donation?

And do you have shoppers?

The answer is yes, we do.

A number of people have remarked, myself included, I didn't realize that it costs$50 to get school supplies.

And boy, it's inconvenient, isn't it?

And it sort of reminds you that when you have to pick between rent and school supplies,$50 is a lot.

Really, it's a lot.

So thank you for helping people not have to make, frankly, a false choice.

Really grateful.

The other thing that's amazing is that they asked us for masks, and I don't think they were expecting we would meet all of them, but I'm going to tell you, I think we're going to meet all 900 of those masks.

Not even within our own community, but because some of us did this really great thing.

We connected with people even in other states.

Like there's somebody who's mailing 100 masks from out of state tomorrow that they've made.

This person's not an Episcopalian, they don't go to St.

Thomas.

Um they've got time.

That's what they said.

And uh at 20 minutes of mask, you you can calculate how long it took to make a hundred masks.

And this is us doing more together.

So thank you really for helping us do more together for kids at McWorder.

Um the other thing I just want to tell you is uh you heard me say two weeks ago that um your tremendous generosity toward the capital funds drive has taken a loan balance of$540,000 down to$93,000 in less than two years.

So thank you for your continued generosity.

Simultaneously, some people have been making dedicated gifts toward our pipe organ, and I'm very pleased to tell you sometimes it takes a little bit longer than we'd like uh due to things like well, COVID and summer heat, but by the end of the month, our pipe organ will be completely moved out of paid storage and moved into the balcony, and we'll slowly begin the installation process as funds continue to accrue.

So very excited that people have uh given us restricted memorial gifts to get our pipe organ moved out so we're no longer paying for storage, and we're going to begin phasing into different parts of our growth as a parish.

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

This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.

It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more, so come.

You who have much faith and you who have little, you who have been here often, and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.

Not because the church invites you, it is Christ, and he invites you to meet him here.

The Lord be 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.

And 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 and the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna and 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 in your mercy 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 down 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 had 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 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.

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.

Alleluia, Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

Hallelujah.

These are the gifts of God for you, the people of God, feeding them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.

And I'm going to invite you all becoming aisle by aisle to please come from your right to receive and come back around.

Also doing blessings if you choose not to receive.

Let's pray together.

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 God, who by the Holy Spirit causes of many languages and worldviews to proclaim Jesus as Lord, strengthen your faith, especially in times of conflict and growth, and send you out to bear witness to God in word and deed.

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

Amen.