Lent 2 & Instructed Eucharist

Good morning.

As part of our service today, we're going to have an instructed Eucharist where we talk about why it is we do the movements that we do.

So you can be seated for now.

It's good to know that the Eucharist that we're going to have today is basically older than anything else we do in church.

In fact, the earliest Christians gathered not just to have bread and wine, but to have a meal.

So it began actually as a potluck tradition.

That's not just a southern thing, and it's developed into what we have today.

Our service is split into two parts.

In the first part, we're going to have the liturgy of the word, which is why when you look at the Lord's table, you see not the chalice, but you see the Bible, the gospel, open to the reading for the day.

In just a few moments, we're going to have the procession, and that's really just about intention setting.

We know that God is not just all of a sudden entering the room.

God has been here all along.

But this is a dramatic moment to remind us to open our minds, open our hearts, and open our spirits.

Normally we would have the prayers of the people after the sermon.

Normally we would have the confession after the sermon.

But because it's Lent, we typically begin with the confession because of the penitential season, so that we can start the service having cleansed our hearts completely.

And the prayers of the people we're using doubles as our confession this Lent because of the phrase, disturb us, Lord.

So we're asking not only on behalf of others, but we are asking for God to grow us when we settle for things too small.

There are in the right one, there is one prayer of the people.

In right two, there are six other forms.

And maybe you've wondered why there are so many.

In fact, we use ten different ones at St.

Thomas.

The goal of the prayers of the people is to make us mindful of the needs of the world and not just our own needs.

So we have multiple forms that are meant to open our awareness for those that are all too easy to forget.

And that's the reason that we tend to cycle through multiple prayers.

The confession, of course, is really something that we do corporately in the Episcopal Church, although many of you know that we also have the individual rite of reconciliation, which happens one-to-one with either the deacon or the priest.

You should make an appointment before coming to make sure that I'm here.

But we get to do both.

And so we do this corporately so that we can hear the words of absolution.

This is great.

In the Episcopal Church, you don't confess your sins and then have the priest say, Nope, you really were that bad.

Get out of here.

You're promised that the absolution or the words of comfort are coming next.

And so we typically having heard the liturgy of the word, which often might convict us to contemplate more of ways in which we've gone astray through the sermon, we might do the confession after that and before the Eucharist so that we're ready to come to God's table with a clear conscience.

But again, in Lent, we do it at the beginning of the service because in this penitential season, the goal is that we've already been thinking hard about ways in which we're falling short, missing joy, missing God's love.

So we come first thing to hear that, to confess, and then sit and absorb the word more fully, if that makes sense.

So I'm going to ask you to stand as we process the cross so that we can be mindful in our prayers.

Generous God, we thank you for your power to create discomfort and wrestling within us.

We ask that you disturb us so that we may be stretched to serve you and our neighbors better.

Disturb us, Lord.

When we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore, disturb us, Lord.

When with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life.

Having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity.

And in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim, to serve us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery.

We're losing sight of the land, we shall find the stars.

We ask that you push back the horizons of our hopes and to push us forward with strength, courage, hope, and love.

To serve us, Lord.

So that while we are in health, we may be steadfast in prayer of healing for others, especially for Chris, Rita, Jerry, Kirsten and Maya, Sean, Jerome, Mary, Pat, Paige, Shannon, Ted and Judy, Gail, Drew, the congregations invited to name their own petitions or celebrations silently or aloud.

Disturb us, Lord.

When we strive to be anything less than the agents of reconciliation and wholelessness, in a world where there is a division, sickness, and sorrow.

Disturb us, Lord, until we see others as you see them, until peace becomes precious to us as heir, until we love as you love.

Amen.

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made, and forgive the sins of all who are penitent.

Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and mortal one, have mercy upon us.

Let's pray together.

We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.

We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table.

But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy.

Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us.

Amen.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

There's also in our prayer book comforting words.

There are four selections, and I'm just going to offer one of them today.

Jesus said, Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavily laden, and I will refresh you.

Many of you are already doing something that dates back to the Middle Ages, which is kneeling to pray.

In the church in which I was most readily formed, we knelt to pray, we sat to listen, and we stood to sing.

And as part of our intention setting, not only did we have the procession coming in, but any time we got up from the pew or sat down, whether we were coming in for the first time, getting up for the Eucharist, coming back to our seat, we did something Christians have done since the Middle Ages, which is genuflected in order to come up.

Again, it was intention setting in a way that we could be mindful with our bodies.

Of course, the earliest Christians prayed not kneeling, but standing with their hands outstretched and their eyes looking up, expectant of God to answer their prayers on the spot.

This is the way our Jewish brothers and sisters pray.

The kneeling came in the Middle Ages as we knelt to people like bishops who had not only religious but civil authority as well.

And it became something that we did, recognizing Christ as our Lord, to kneel in the presence of the monarch, if that makes sense.

So there are many different postures people have used to pray.

One of my attractions to the church, having grown up low church, Southern Baptist, and even looser than that, was in fact the ability to move my body throughout the service to make me more mindful of what was happening.

A few other words of introduction.

Nick is a verger, and he carries with him a verge, and that was literally used in the Middle Ages because people were compelled to go to church.

Sometimes animals were in the church, and so that wand he used was to clear the way literally.

The verger often acted as a bailiff in the civil court held by the bishop.

And so you can see this rail is not just a communion rail, it was a barrister, meant to keep people out from civil court and keep animals away from the Lord's table.

And the bishop would try literally civil cases.

So the earliest churches were in homes.

The first public churches were judicial buildings donated by Constantine to the church, and the bishop sat there in the bishop's seat.

The bishop can't be here today.

So I'll be the representative for the bishop.

The verge, if you were talking during church, you might have found a wrap on the back of your head with it.

If you fell asleep during church, even during the two-hour-long sermon, you might have found a rap on the back of your head with it.

If you didn't kneel at the right moment, you might have felt a rap on the back of your head with it.

Of course, now we use the verger as the butler at the Lord's table.

And you'll hear both phrases actually in the earliest prayer book that Thomas Cranmer wrote, this was the Lord's table.

In the Scottish Rite, which was more Catholic, this is the altar.

I've never been to a church that had a Lord's Table Guild.

We always have the altar guild, but we do get to have both.

The collet is something that is seasonally prayed, and it really is meant so we can collect ourselves for the liturgy of the word that's going to happen.

The colet is supposed to match in some ways the readings of the day.

So we're going to have four readings in just a second, and this is called lectionary preaching.

Real lectionary preaching is when the Hebrew Bible, the Psalter, one of the New Testament epistles, and the Gospel, four different readings, are woven together in a homily to show that God speaks in one coherent voice.

Most of us are not lectionary preachers.

It takes a lot of ingenuity to make those four things go together.

But the collect is supposed to be our interpretive key each week.

The writers of the lectionary scripted the collect to give us a key for how these readings might indeed fit together.

One last word is that we're going to process the gospel out, and that comes from the Sephardic Jewish tradition of bringing the Torah scrolls out to the Bhima to be read and the people.

We do it now because this is the gospel typically read by the deacon, who represents the needs of the church, represents the needs of the world of the church, and represents the church in serving the needs of the world.

The deacon usually reads the gospel in our midst, so it is indeed directly for us.

The other thing we get to say, the Lord be with you and with thy spirit, I will tell you I prefer to, and also with you.

It's the older way of saying spirit means moving air.

So when we say, and with your spirit, what we mean is, may God be in your breath.

And we don't mean may God be with you.

When we say the Lord be with you, what we mean is the Lord is, was, and will be with you, and also in your very breathing.

The Lord be with you.

Let us pray.

Of God whose glory it is always to have mercy.

Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your word.

Jesus Christ your Son, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns one God for ever and ever.

Amen.

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.

The word of the Lord.

He will not let your foot be moved.

Behold, he who keeps watch over Israel.

The Lord Himself watches over you.

So that the sun shall not strike you by day.

The Lord shall preserve you from all evil.

The Lord shall watch over your going out and your coming in.

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the scripture say?

Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Now, to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift, but something that is due.

But to one who without work trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or his descendants through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

If it is the inheritance of the law who are to be the heirs of faith, is null and void.

For the law brings wrath, but there is no law, neither is there a violation.

For this reason it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants.

Not only to the adherents of the law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham.

For he is the father of all of us, it is written, I have made you the father of many nations.

In the presence of God, whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls to the existence the things that do not exist.

The word of the Lord.

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.

He came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know you're a teacher who's come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.

Jesus answered him, Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.

Nicodemus said to him, How can anyone be born after having grown old?

Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?

Jesus answered, Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit.

What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit is spirit.

Do not be astonished that I say to you, you must be born from above.

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit, Nicodemus said to Jesus.

How can these things be?

Jesus answered him.

Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we've seen, yet you do not receive our testimony.

If I've told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that God gave God's only Son, so that every one who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a lamb of your own fold, a sheep of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Please be seated.

We get to hear today a couple of things that hopefully will, in fact, weave together very well in just a very short time.

The first is God calling to Abraham, saying, Go somewhere you've never been, and I will make something new and great of you.

In fact, Abraham, I would like you to be the satellite for the world.

That is, I want you to hear my signal and broadcast it to sets that are not hearing it.

And so maybe you're wondering what is special about Abraham that God would talk to him?

And there's a couple of answers.

The Muslim answer, quite interesting, is that Abraham's father was an idol maker back in the Ur of the Cow days, and that one day Abraham's father had to step outside the idol shop for a little bit.

And he left Abram in charge.

And Abram looked around and he grabbed a stick and he broke to bits every single idol in the store except for one.

And he put the stick in that one's hands.

And Dad came in and said, What happened?

And Abraham said, He did it.

And according to Islamic tradition, that's when God said, I can work with this guy.

What's interesting is to consider maybe God asked many people before Abraham to go and be a conduit to help people incline their ears to God.

Abraham just happened to be the first one who said yes.

I've heard this about Mary.

People wondered why did it take God so long to send Jesus?

Maybe because Mary was the first woman who said, okay.

And all the other women said, Nope, not doing that.

Interesting to think that God might in fact be asking each and every one of us to say, I will bless you so that you can be a blessing to others.

Do you hear the so that?

I'm not gonna bless you so you can prosper.

This is absolutely against the prosperity gospel you here on TV.

God does not bless us so that we can swim in luxury.

God blesses us so that we can distribute God's blessings to the world.

And Abraham says yes, and part of that yes means he has to go to uncharted territory.

He has to literally, in the story, go to a place he has never seen or been before.

He has to be born again, don't you see?

He has to reinvent what it means to be Abram and to represent God in the smallest of matters.

In Romans, we get to hear this really interesting thing.

Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

And it may interest you to know that Paul's read of Abraham is not the only read.

In fact, at the time of Abraham, and it still exists today, you can hear the rabbis make a comment on this.

Does God reckon Abraham's belief as righteousness?

Or, this is the rabbinic read, God offers this blessing, and Abraham reckons that blessing to God as righteous.

That is, because God offers this blessing to Abraham, Abraham says that God is righteous.

And it's a difference, don't you see, in our faith or our deeds currying God's favor, or us saying, God, you are so righteous to not even consider our faith in deeds, but to call us worthy from the get-go.

It's up to you how you choose to read the story about being reckoned as righteous.

But when I hear this story that I've heard so many times and see on placards on football fields, John 3.16, what we usually tend to miss is that God did not just love us, but God so loved the world, all of it.

I don't want to sound too political, but God happens to love French Canadians in addition to Americans.

God probably even loves Cajuns.

I know that's a stretch.

God might even love French people, which is tough in our English heritage.

God doesn't just love us, God so loved the whole world.

Aborigines, Hindus, Muslims.

And God so loved the world that God sent the most precious thing God had, God's very self.

That's the image of a son.

Not a literal child, but God's own inheritance.

And of course it happened to be literal as well.

God sent God's own future because God so loved the world.

And the follow-up verse is really interesting.

God didn't send the Son in the world to condemn it.

So those people who say, listen, I've got good news.

You're going to hell, but you don't have to.

As I've told you before, that's not good news.

That's mixed news at best.

They read John 3.16 and they stopped too early.

Because Jesus didn't come to be a litmus test for heaven and hell.

He came to save the whole world.

All of it.

Even people who don't.

Listen.

God is not interested in us perishing.

God knows we're going to die.

God doesn't want us to live in a state of death.

And I want to offer to you this Lent one of the biggest things I think that is penitential season calls us toward is not to curry God's favor with our misery or to earn extra jewels in our heavenly crown.

Because by the way, if you read the good book, as soon as you get that heavenly crown, you throw it down at the feet of Jesus, because nobody wears crowns in heaven.

Everybody's equal.

No, instead, I want you to imagine that whatever we cannot repent of, whatever reconciliation we cannot do while we're on earth, God will take care of for us when we die.

And if we could trust that that's somehow good, by the way, usually I don't want God to do that.

I want the people I don't like to go to hell.

But God is so much greater than me.

And God is going to do this when I die on my behalf.

And don't you see Lent is a season where we buy into God's imagination so much and we see the goodness of that grace, God saving the world, that we start to live into it now.

When we live in things like wrath and revenge and penant and vengeance, we live into perishing.

And when we live, as we read in Romans, not into wages but into gifts, we start to live an eternal life.

The question of Lent is not whether God is going to do it, it's when you're going to accept it.

Are you going to wait till you die?

You can.

God's got you either way.

But why wait?

Because you don't have to.

Now, about 200 years ago, that would have been two hours.

Which is one of the reasons why the verger has the stick to hit you when you fall asleep.

It's another reason why we're going to use the bells in just a few moments, because people who fell asleep after hours of a sermon and listening to this thing that they didn't even understand because it was in Latin and nobody spoke it had to know when to wake up.

We use the bells now, not because I need you to wake up, but because I believe it applies some solemnity to the moment.

Now, maybe it's worth offering to you a couple of other thoughts here before we start to change from the liturgy of the word to the liturgy of the sacrament.

Many of you are wondering about why the clergy dress the way they dress.

Actually, all of our garments come from Roman nobility.

And that's because Constantine was an emperor, and so we just brought all that garments in.

There's really nothing fantastically traditional about them.

Roman nobility wore them and we made up what they mean.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters and our orthodox brothers and sisters, they dress surprisingly alike, black with the headdress and the veil.

That is probably how Pharisees dressed.

We abandoned that because we were Roman and Romanized.

So the real reason we wear this alb is so we can shine with the light of Christ, and quite honestly, so we're not distracted by our earthly clothes, if that makes sense.

The stole has been the sign of the clergy for a long, long time, and the chasable is supposed to be the yoke of Christ.

So we're bringing the gospel along as we come to the Lord's table.

Some churches, um Vatican II, said priests no longer have to wear this.

This is a maniple.

And so only about 60 years ago, our Roman Catholics said, You, brothers and sisters, that you don't have to wear it anymore.

It was a napkin.

Turns out it's a really expensive napkin, so I will not be wiping your mouths with it.

Um, but that was the origin of it.

And um priests and deacons for a long time used a linen one similar to how we would use a purificator now.

Many people have asked about this.

It's the only beretta permitted in the building, because we have signs, in case you don't know, that say it's against the law for you to bring firearms.

So leave your berettas out there.

We have this one, it comes actually from the 1200s to 1300s when many clergy were illiterate and they made up the mass.

Maybe you've heard the magic words hocus pocus before.

The words are supposed to be hoc est corpus maum.

This is the body of Christ.

Half the priests couldn't read Latin, so they just sort of mumbled.

We don't know whether somebody misheard the priest or the priest said hocus pocus.

But if that can turn bread into the blood of Jesus, imagine what it could do to your sister.

So the reason we wear these things, and this is the origin of the mortarboard, is a symbol to you.

The clergy knows how to read and write.

It's fallen a little bit out of practice.

But if you go to Neshoda House, this is one of our seminaries, people are trained in the Anglo Catholic tradition, and um many of our priests continue to wear these.

I don't wear them all the time.

Um but we're using right ones, so I'm going back a little bit in tradition with clothing and a few things that we do.

The interesting thing is anytime we hear the words Jesus Christ, I'm supposed to pick it up.

I'm not great.

Sometimes I miss it.

If it's just Jesus, I don't have to, or if it's Christ, I don't have to, but at Jesus Christ, I'm supposed to.

We're getting ready to say the Nicene Creed, and we didn't decide on this version of the Creed until after 385.

The first Nicene Creed was written in 325 and then ended with the words, and the Holy Spirit.

The expansion about who the Holy Spirit is, worshiped and glorified, came in 385, and it was Charlemagne, if you know, the first Holy Roman Emperor, who put the creed before the Eucharist in the late 700s.

The king put it there because the church was full of heretics.

The Goths were all Arians.

That means they followed the position of Arius that Jesus was a created being and not co-eternal with the Father.

So before they were allowed to come have communion, they had to say this creed that they didn't believe it.

Charlemagne put it where it is, and we've been doing it there ever since.

What's great since 1976 is that we say the creed with the words we believe instead of I believe.

And I'll tell you why that's great, because I'm not always sure what I believe, but I know someone in the building does.

And on that day they carry me, and it'll be my turn to carry them on another day.

Then we get to do the peace, which is usually a time in which we just sort of say hello, but in the earliest church it was a time in which if you were estranged from somebody else, remember, everybody had to go to church, and there weren't a whole bunch of choices.

If you were estranged, you had to be reconciled, otherwise, the priest might withhold communion from you.

The piece could have been really long.

And I have read stories, maybe you've heard them too, where the priest said, I won't serve you communion until you say hello to one another.

And usually what happens is people say, hello, where's my communion?

It sort of goes like that.

Um we've changed it a little bit to a time in which we have announcements and a time in which we say hello, but I hope you'll buy into this deeply.

Where we're able to wish and really consider, may God's peace be with you wherever you are.

Of course, we don't know peace is easy, but we always know new life comes from peace.

So once you stand as you're able, we stand for the creed, we don't kneel, even though we're going to pray it, as we pray the essence of 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 begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

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

By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and was made human.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius.

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

Most of these are on your purple sheet.

Um this Wednesday we're having an HSLBA concert.

This is completely free.

You can come at 1040.

It says 10:30, but that's business.

You can come to 1045, and you'll hear a he's a current high schooler here at Clear Lake.

He actually went to St.

Thomas School, I believe, uh, or his brother did, I don't know, but he's a virtuoso pianist, and he'll be here at 1045 playing about a 30, 45-minute program.

It will be lovely, and again, it's completely free.

If you want to bring your lunch, um, bring your lunch and sit in the North X.

You can still hear her eat lunch, enjoy a really um wonderful concert, and that's Wednesday at 1045.

Um, we're coming up, of course, reminder, we're collecting shoes and clothes for kids of McWurder, and there are carts out there to bring on Maundy Thursday.

That's the spirit of the day.

We're coming up on um this fresh food distribution on April the 4th.

I just really want to encourage you.

It's it's our biggest um initi new initiative this year in outreach and our way to really serve people both in the apartments and at McWorders.

So um I just commend it to you that we need a lot of things, and whether you come to volunteer or not, we need your old grocery bags in order to bag items.

So if you've collected those at home and don't have any, please bring them.

There's a barrel out there, and and we'll need a barrel of bags every month in order to do this properly.

Um, you may say, Oh boy, I don't know if I can do anything.

My seven-year-old is going to do this, uh, because there really is a job for everybody, including sitting at a table and checking people in, standing and dividing things out.

I mean, anybody can do this, so if you're interested, please do let me know.

Um I also um want to call to your attention, you'll see that the Blast group is meeting on Monday, the 16th.

And um, there's going to be another opportunity this week on Thursday.

This is really short notice, to do our on tap.

On tap is this um monthly informal gathering we have in order to talk about theology, to spend time with one another.

And this week it'll be at my home, so that announcement will be coming out.

But if you're interested, you're welcome to come to my home and we're going to whine about faith together, no age.

Um so that that um you'll see that announcement on Wednesday, but I just want you to mark your calendars that on Thursday from 7 to a little bit after 8, we'll have theology and tap on my home this month.

A few other things I get to tell you before we move to the liturgy of the sacrament.

At the liturgy of the sacrament, the gospel is going to move over there and the chalice is going to come out here.

Um there's this really, really old tradition that having one element, that neither element is more important than the other, and having one is as good as having both.

In fact, this is really interesting to know in the prayer book, the intention to have the element is as good as having the element.

So if I go to the hospital and somebody can't eat, I can bring out this chalice and bread, and they can want to have it, and that's as good as having it.

Not interesting.

That's part of the doctrine of the real presence.

Now, I tell this to you because our bishop has made some rulings for the time being, we're not going to be dipping in the chalice.

So, to be clear, what happens, you're going to get bread if you put your hands out.

You can eat the bread and drink from the cat chalice.

You can eat the bread and just go back to your seat, or you can skip either for a blessing.

Many of you were wondering, why is that?

And I think this is a great opportunity to tell you from a public health standpoint, at least my education, is that drinking has always been much safer than dipping, because the dirtiest thing on your body are your hands.

Bill's shaking his head, but he's not a scientist.

The truth is.

What is under your fingernails is dreadful.

And I will tell you, if you're really careful dipping, maybe, but from my perspective, I see many people accidentally get their fingers in that wine.

Now, in the church, we use a silver cup.

And many of you have been in places that use clay.

We have a clay set.

I will never offer it to you.

Silver is antimicrobial.

Clay isn't.

So silver is antimicrobial.

We use port wine, which is 20% alcohol.

You see, I put a drop of water in it.

That drop represents the Holy Spirit coming into the people in the Orthodox tradition.

In the Catholic tradition, it represents the wound in the side of Jesus from which water and blood flowed.

So it can mean either thing, but I didn't put more than a drop in there.

I hope you notice.

I'm really careful.

Because that 20% alcohol is meant to do a job.

We use a purificator around the rim to wipe off things like lipstick and lip gloss because the wine and the silver pretty much do their job when there's not a bunch of oil on there.

I grew up in a church in which we used grape juice and we had individual little cups in a tray.

Of course, you know that not only is sneezing a vector, but so is breathing.

So a breath over that tray can contaminate the whole lot.

When you go to grab your plastic cup, and I've done this because I grew up that way, how many times did I touch the adjacent cup with the dirtiest part of my body?

Maybe the cleanest way is that we had silver shot glasses filled with port wine.

I don't know, but I will tell you there's never been an epidemic traced back to a common cup.

So it is my belief, and my seminary teacher's belief, and the physicians I know, that the common cup is in fact much more safe than individual cups.

Intinction, I don't know what to tell you about that, but you know, that's the bishop's seat, and I serve at the bequest of the bishop, and the bishop has said no to intinction for now.

So it's not up to us.

The bishop suggested we may not want to shake hands at the peace.

That's just a suggestion.

And it's up to you.

So you don't have to enforce that.

The bishop did tell us drain the holy water font and don't use it for now.

Um the truth is we're not really sure about things like this current epidemic.

What's scary is we don't even know what we don't know.

Um, but as a church, we choose not to live in fear, or at least I choose not to live in fear.

So I will put my hand out to you and I will drink from that cup myself.

And your choice is your choice.

Remember, the prayer book says if you choose to have neither element, but you want to, it's like you had both.

Real presence is an interesting thing.

That's what we came to during the Elizabethan settlement.

We said that the blood, the bread and the wine do not literally become the body and blood of Jesus, but they have changed.

They've become full of his presence so that they don't just nourish our bodies but our spirits.

And if you ever go back here after the service, you'll see we have a piscina.

That's a pipe that goes directly into the ground because we don't pour any leftovers into the sewer.

We have to treat special things specially.

We return them directly to the earth.

My practice has been that I drink the I drink the balance of the wine.

I don't have to do that.

That's part of my own piety.

I was formed and it's meaningful to me, or I wouldn't do it.

I don't eat all the leftover bread because I just don't.

We throw that out to the birds, although we could eat it.

In fact, interestingly enough, people like John Wesley were inspired by the earliest tradition that is, you would go to somebody's home and you'd consecrate the entire bottle of wine and you'd all drink it, and that would be communion.

You wouldn't just have a little bit, you'd just have your regular old wine, and you'd consecrate the bread on the table, and you'd just eat slices of bread.

We do it in small bits because we know that God can do a whole lot with a little, and that's part of what our service promises us.

Um the service itself is something that every Jewish person, I mean, we got this right in a Judaism, it does on Shabbat.

There's two candles on the table.

The first thing that happens at sundown is the oldest woman in the room lights those candles and prays a prayer.

She sings it.

And then you get this bread outside of Passover, it's Khalh.

During Passover, it's matzah, and everybody gets a bite.

And then, if you've ever been to a Jewish home, what do you know?

They pass around a silver cup called the Kiddish.

And the way it's supposed to work is everybody, after you bless this wine, everybody takes a sip if they want to, and they say something that they're grateful for.

And so Jesus did that.

And he said, whenever you eat this bread, remember me.

Whenever you eat this bread, and maybe it's helpful to hear that at the time Jesus said that, 90% of your nutritional input was bread.

People ate two pounds of bread every day.

Whenever you eat bread was not once a quarter, it wasn't even once a week, it was three times a day.

Whenever you eat bread, remember me.

And whenever you drink wine, that was like 5% of the rest of your nutrition, remember me.

Not once a quarter.

Some of you grew up where we did this once a month, and we did morning prayer the other three times, but since 1976, we um we do this every week.

Some people say that waters down the significance, but I want to suggest to you I need it more than once a week.

I need God's energy to become a bigger and better person.

So we need to be nourished at the Lord's table, and we need to sacrifice practices that are keeping us and others from it on God's altar.

And that's what we get to do both at the same time.

So walk in love.

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

The bread, of course, is made by our members for us.

The wine comes from the hack vineyard nearby.

All things come of thee, 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, and he invites you to meet him here.

And our service continues on page 340 of your red prayer book.

Page 340, this rite is most similar to the one written in the first prayer book by Thomas Cranmer, although I will tell you the oldest rite we have is Eucharistic prayer D, which comes in rite 2, written by the patriarch Hippolytus.

The Lord be with you.

Lift up your hearts.

Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.

It is very meet right in our bound in duty that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, everlasting God.

You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast, that fervent in prayer and works of mercy, and renewed by thy word and sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which thou hast prepared for those who love thee.

And therefore, with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory.

Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High.

Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Holes and the highest.

All glory be to thee, O Lord our God, for that thou didst create heaven and earth, and didst make us in thine own image, and of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son, Jesus Christ, to take our nature upon him, and to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption.

He made there a full and perfect sacrifice for the whole world, and did institute, and in this holy gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that, his precious death and sacrifice until his coming again.

For in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread.

And when he had given thanks to thee, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Likewise, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.

And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink this, all of you.

This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for all for the remission of sins.

Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me.

Wherefore, Lord and Heavenly Father, we thy people do celebrate and make with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy son hath commanded us to make, having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension, and looking for his coming again with power and great glory.

And we must humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us, and with thy word and Holy Spirit to bless and sanctify these gifts of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the body and blood of thy dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ.

And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness to accept this, our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, whereby we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies.

Grant, we beseech thee that all who partake of this holy communion may worthily receive the most precious body and blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, and be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction.

And also that we and all thy whole church may be made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom and with whom and in whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end.

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.

O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world.

Grant us thy peace.

These are the gifts of God for you, the people of God, behold who you are and become what you receive.

Almighty and ever-living God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us in these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us, and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy son, the blessed company of all faithful people, and are also heirs to hope of thy everlasting kingdom.

And we humbly beseech thee, O Heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory, world without end.

Amen.

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.

All things break, and all things can be mended, not with time as they say, but with intention.

So go.

Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.

The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is in you.

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.