Meeting the Episcopal Church Again for the First Time, Week 6, 1/20, Book of Common Prayer Part II

This is where we're supposed to be doing episode.

Oh, well, it's a good godly place.

Most welcome.

Okay, you know, as a beginning prayer, I'd like us to turn in our prayer books.

This is from morning prayer two.

Not because it's better, just different.

But um this is on page one hundred.

Page one hundred.

So on page one hundred, look at the second one from the top, a college for grace.

This is our sorry for guidance.

We're going to collect ourselves by praying for guidance.

And again, that's why we got the word college.

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being.

We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

And as a second prayer at the very bottom of the page, this is a lovely prayer for times such as these.

O God, you've made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near.

Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you, bring all the nations into your fold, pour out your spirit upon all flesh, and hasten the coming of your kingdom through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Well, thank you for being here this morning as we talk about the second half of the prayer books.

A reminder last week we were able to talk about the four times of prayer that Thomas Cranmer imagined every Christian would do every day: morning prayer, noonday, evening prayer, and compant.

Right?

We were able to talk about the colics and how the colicks are supposed to be a prayer that ties together all four readings each week.

Readings from the Hebrew Bible, the Psalms, the New Testament, and the Gospels, right?

We were able, I think, to talk about baptism last week.

Is that where we quit?

I think that's, oh no, we made it to prayers of the people, did we not?

Prayers of the people in the Eucharist, did we do that?

I think we did.

Let me pause before we go forward and see.

Did anybody experiment with the prayer book this week, or did we uh leave out anything last week you were interested in in the first half of the prayer book?

I forgive you.

I'm just gonna make a really bad sports analogy.

I I'm I'm not an athletic person, I'm really not.

Um, but I have spent a lot of time in the last couple of years getting into some rhythms of running and swimming.

Uh the first six months of running, I absolutely hated running all the time.

And then I realized running became okay for me after the fourth mile, which is strange.

That's usually when people quit.

Because after four miles, the shock of running has been absorbed, and I was able to get like in a state where I'm running, but I'm not thinking about running because I've gotten into the structure of running.

And the same with swimming.

After the first 500 meters, um I actually wasn't even thinking about swimming.

I was counting one, two, three, four, five, breathe.

One, two, three, four, five, breathe.

But actually, that's when I do most of my sermon preparation is when I'm running or when I'm swimming after that fourth mile or five hundredth meter, because I've gotten into the structure enough that my mind can wander freely without thinking about exactly what's happening.

And bad analogy perhaps, but I think that's the same about the daily office.

After the first couple of times, the first three or four miles, it's really clunky because you're looking for the college for Lent, and then there's a scripture for Lent, and you have to wade through all the other ones.

But after you've done it enough, it starts to become this structure that instead of you having to think about, actually you can reorient even your subconscious around because when it becomes it becomes rhythmic.

Um it takes discipline to do that.

So I would tell you now, you may say, Well, I don't know, whatever.

If you're looking for something to do during Lent, instead of giving up chaka, and I would tell you, that is a waste of your time.

Do not give up chocolate for Lent.

Don't do morning prayer every day.

And I promise you, by the time you get to the seventh week in morning prayer, you'll have found your rhythm.

Does that make sense?

Listen, don't do four a day.

Don't do four a day.

It's too much.

You probably won't succeed.

Just pick one.

Or say, I'm going to do Compline every night before I go to bed.

It takes about three minutes.

But you will find by the second or third week into it that it sort of starts to become embedded in the muscle memory of your mind and will allow you to express feelings with more clarity, I think, than you knew you could.

And uh that would be my Linton dare.

I dare you to try something like this for Lent, if not now.

If you want the other one, that I I told you last week, we have the Book of Common Prayer in the Episcopal Church, but there's a New Zealand one and there's a South African one, and I am personally most partial to the New Zealand Compline.

The New Zealand Compline is really, really strong, and uh and I again I would just commend it to you.

Any other thoughts from last week or questions about the prayer book?

Yeah, well, I was just gonna say that um when you were speaking last week, I'm a critical Mr.

Hellinger.

When I was a teenager, I used to go to our campus and stuff like that.

And when we did that, it happened to be outdoors a lot, but we would do all four of those every day.

And it was a really nice, really, very peaceful PowerPoint.

It really just kind of focused us all, and it was a really um comfort.

Comforting is the word that comes to mind.

So you know, when I was a teenager and I grew up evangelical, we would take certain trips like camps or we would go on a ski retreat, you know, and um part of the ski retreat of the camps would we would be have these extra modules of education where we would maybe do a Bible study on Galatians, and that would be the theme of the ski retreat.

And what I realized is that um, and I I I don't know how every group does this, but it's really interesting to take a retreat and do all four of the daily offices and just let them stand.

It's a totally different way than thinking we're gonna have extra modules of education.

Instead, we're gonna have extra modules of praying as a community.

Uh anyway, it's just it's not about competing or one's better than the other, but that is really our episcopal heritage, is that especially on retreat, we hit the daily office.

And of course, if it's refreshing on retreat, hopefully you'll find the rhythm in your daily life as well.

Is that okay?

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

You know, and Ted, if you didn't hear, um, what Ted said is he has a rhythm about praying for forgiveness each day.

And I want to tell you about a love about the daily office is that's in every four of the daily office.

That's in the morning, the noon, similar thing, right?

But with some scripted words.

Confession happens four times a day, and so does so does absolution.

It's built in the prayer book that not only do we confess, but we receive absolution every time we confess.

And this is really important, I want to uphold to you.

See, as a as an evangelical, I was taught we do this constant confession, but I never got the affirmation of absolution.

Because we didn't do that practice in the evangelical church.

We didn't hear absolution, because we didn't think, and I think this is fair, that we needed somebody else to absolve us.

But I'll tell you, one of the things I have found very beneficial about the episcopal practice of faith is not that I need it, but boy, I sure do enjoy somebody saying, on behalf of God, heard you.

Done.

It's just sort of nice to hear that.

But again, that's why in the services I try to highlight, after the absolution, we've got to stand up.

We kneel to say, God, you know, forgive me these things, and then when we stand, we claim that God has done away with that stuff.

And reminder, sometimes we think, oh golly, you know, I'm not really sure that I've got any mortal sins to confess.

But I sure am worried about my mom.

I sure am worried about that decision I made about putting my kid in public school instead of private school today.

The absolution is for that as much as it is for moral transgression.

I'm gonna let you know, I have this pet theory that I'm about to engage in, that every parent, when their child turns 18, should do the sacrament of reconciliation.

It is not called confession.

It is not.

It is called reconciliation.

And that is when we tell a priest, which is God's representative on earth, for that one moment.

See, in that one moment, the priest doesn't speak their words, they speak for God.

We say, father or mother, I'm just so worried.

What if I'd done this?

I just feel guilty.

Maybe I could have.

So go forward, not living in the past, but in the present and in the future.

I'll tell you how that goes because I'm doing it Tuesday.

Because I've got an 18-year-old.

Yay, okay, all right.

But I will tell you, most of my parenting decisions are not sins.

I just are worried about them.

What if I'm getting to that point with my parents because I'm I'm making care decisions?

How do you make care decisions with absolute clarity?

How do you do that?

Of course, you can't.

You can't.

That's why we have the sacrament of reconciliation.

It's as much for that as for murdering people in cold blood.

I want you to hear that.

Okay.

Well, shall we spring forward from that happy topic?

Some of yes, ma'am.

Don't give up on your 18-year-old.

No, no.

Listen, reconciliation is not about washing our hands.

It's about putting down the baggage that we carry.

And imagine this, this is a hard thing.

In any relationship you've got, it's always the smallest things that drive you to the edge because they represent small, small, big, big, big, big, small, right?

I mean, very rarely, in my experience, is it a huge load that breaks the camel's back.

It's always a straw.

Because there have been many huge loads, and you did that again.

And imagine, imagine, if we had this opportunity from God and with the church and with one another to say, God help me be unburdened from the huge loads.

Well, then the straw wouldn't bother you at all, don't you see?

If we could stop living in the past, then the infractions of the present would be just what they are: straws.

And our backs would be firmer and more flexible.

And I think that's what reconciliation is about.

She's not a good teenager.

She's not a good person at that time.

But she's turned into a wife.

And the same could be said about our brothers and our sisters, right?

Our brothers-in-law, right?

I mean, we believe in redemption and resurrection, but sometimes we live in the tomb on Holy Saturday because we're so worried about Friday.

When it could be Sunday.

Or Saturday was yesterday.

So let's see, today might be Sunday.

And if we would stop, you know, I had I had a really great therapist one time who said there's this thing in therapy called the 90-10 rule, which is 90% of our emotion is coming from something that happened in the past, and only 10% is from what just really happened.

By and large, that seems to be true, right?

So so what if we could deal with that 90%?

Then then instead of it being 10 today, it could be 100, and uh a straw is relatively easy to lift.

That that's what I think.

Yes, sir.

Um I don't think you were.

I don't think you were investing when I was hired.

Father Cal was no uh after Cal came Bill Hyde.

So, yeah, Ken Fields came after Bill Hyde.

Someone was before me.

John Musgrave.

Cal Sackers, and then it was Jim Smalley, and then John Musgrave, and then Bill Hyde.

Ken Fields was here uh a little more than a year.

It was a long interim, like maybe 1.2, and then and then you got stuck with me.

Yeah.

You always have an opportunity, you know.

Isn't that great?

That's a great word.

Thank you, Ted.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm grateful.

Grateful.

Absolutely, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, it any other thoughts before we forward uh uh forward in the prayer book.

How many times has it been changed?

Glad you asked.

Uh the first prayer book for the Episcopal Church.

Now remember, we're different from the Anglican Church on purpose.

Um the first bishop.

He was not consecrated, not consecrated by the Church of England.

They wouldn't do it.

He had to go to Scotland.

And he wrote, well, not by himself, but he compiled the first prayer book, 1793, I believe.

That prayer book stood for almost a hundred years before it was revised.

Gosh, I don't remember the date quite yet, but it was something like 1890s.

Okay?

So that was first book, 1890s was the first revision.

1928 was the second revision.

Now I'll let you know there's some folk that still use that 1928 prayer book.

In fact, the other St.

Thomas in the Diocese of Texas, the one up in Houston that has the bagpiping and the Scottish dancing, they're a 1928 prayer book church.

And then we got the new prayer book 42 years ago.

So what 76?

76.

76 is when it came out, and it wasn't published in this volume until 79, but had come out in 76.

Uh there's been a few different rites, R-I-T-E-S, that have been published by the Commission on Liturgy.

They're called Enriching Our Worship.

Uh there's a 1 and a 2, and they have different wording in the Eucharistic prayers.

We may use those in the Diocese of Texas without permission whenever we choose, because that was Bishop Payne's legacy, is you don't have to ask for anything the liturgical commission has approved.

We use them in the summer sometimes because you need um ordinary time is really long, just like ordinary time.

So it's nice to have a little bit of variety, help us appreciate what we love the most, I think.

They are going to revise the prayer book again, but I don't know when.

And again, it's been 42 years.

Okay, then uh we're on confirmation, and this is interesting.

This is on page 413.

I don't want to walk you through the liturgy, but I want to say if you're thinking to yourself, oh, like I'm here because I want to be confirmed, and you want to know what's going to happen, it's on page 413.

And there will not be any deviation from the script.

Well, there'll be a little bit, but not from the words that we're going to speak.

Um the bishop is going to stand up and say stuff, and our compromands are going to say stuff back.

I get to present the candidates because that's what I want to do.

The bishop will ask questions of the baptismal covenant.

Notice the baptismal covenant, we talked about this last week, is where we get to say things like, we're going to persevere in resisting evil, and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Right?

These are the kinds of things we get to do.

Um, because I I we were going to talk about um theology as well, I just want to say one other word.

Don't turn backward.

You don't need to turn backward.

But I want you to know in the baptismal covenant, we ask people who are going to be baptized, particularly sponsors, do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?

And do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?

We ask that.

And you know, this is part of our Anglican tradition, is that we have a lot of room for what those words mean.

And it's an interesting thing that the prayer book allows room.

The prayer book says, Satan and all spiritual forces that rebel against God.

Some people would understand that to mean the red guy with the horns and the tribent, you know, the John Milton version, the one who reigns in hell.

I don't want to tell you that's wrong, but I want you to know that doesn't exhaust the possibility.

And the phrase, spiritual forces that rebel against God, offers a lot of bandwidth.

What are spiritual forces that rebel against God?

It's easier for me to say here than in my last parish, which was Navy Town USA.

Those are things like nationalism that confuse the idea that God is more interested with one group of people than the world.

National pride and civic duty can be a great way to unify us.

But if they do it at somebody else's expense, I would tell you as your priest, it's rebellion against God.

I would tell you the same is true about things like, well, racism and sexism, ageism.

Pretty much any word that ends in ism is a spiritual force that rebels against God, including evangelicalism.

When the impetus upon who's in and who's out, I think that's rebelling against God.

I hope that makes sense what I'm saying.

Now, I'm not telling you you have to believe like I do.

What I want you to hear is the prayer book has really wide bandwidth.

You are welcome to believe in a black and white world in which there's angels and demons on your shoulder.

You are welcome to believe in that.

And you are also welcome to say, well, I don't know about the little spiritual entities, but I know there are things like Nazism and Fascism that are pretty satanic.

Does that make sense?

Reminder in the Episcopal Church, in general, we baptize infants and we say, God's grace is on you, whether you'll have it or not.

Because to be honest, most babies don't want to get wet by a stranger.

Confirmation is where we say, Yeah, I got wet at some point in my earlier life, and now I'm claiming that for myself.

I've got my mind around where I am for now, and I intend to live into a future with God's presence in this way.

Seeking Christ in all persons and loving my neighbor as myself.

And that's our confirmation right.

Again, you find it right here in the prayer book.

We don't deviate from it.

Okay.

Marriage, we get to do.

The marriage service is in here.

So if you're thinking, like, boy, I don't know, I don't remember my marital vows, they're probably in here.

If you're thinking, oh boy, you know, like, what is it that we as a church believe about marriage?

It's in here.

This is an interesting thing.

Our theology as an Episcopal church is in here.

So I want you to know, and we've talked about this a few times, just to contrast, in the Roman Catholic Church, marriage is about procreation, which is why you can't use birth control.

Many of you know this.

I don't want to say that's wrong.

What I want to say in the Episcopal Church, marriage is about unity.

And maybe also about children.

And the way you know that, by the way, is on page 429, one of the prayers in marriage, in the marriage rite, is bestow on them if it's your will, the gift and heritage of children.

That prayer is optional.

You don't have to pray it.

Which tells you that procreation in marriage is optional.

And therefore, don't you see the theology of the church is that marriage is for unity and maybe procreation, not the other way around.

Does that make sense what I'm saying?

This becomes a way of understanding what theology is for.

And I'm not telling you what you have to believe, but don't you see if marriage is about unity and not necessarily procreation, then it allows people to get married in their 70s, in which procreation is not a possibility, at least not normally.

Does that make sense?

And this is why, in case you're wondering, why is it the Episcopal Church would allow same-sex marriage when same-sex couples can't have children?

Because marriage is not about children.

It's about unity.

And you may say, well, yeah, but you know, even 80-year-old people, God could work a miracle and they could become pregnant.

It'd be equally miraculous as a same-sex couple got pregnant, don't you think?

I mean, so so miracles belong to God.

Fine, we believe that.

And then what does marriage really about?

You know?

And that's an interesting thing as we think about marriage, right?

It's really about equality.

It's about being complementary, being complementary to one another.

It's about commitment and fidelity.

If marriage were just about having kids, you wouldn't have to have any of those things, don't you see?

So we're trying to say in the right, don't aim just to procreate.

Aim to have complementarity and mutuality.

Aim to love each other not in spite of what you do, but because of what you do.

I think that's in the liturgy.

I hope that's helpful.

And by the way, again, you can read these things, and the vision is there for you.

And that's why this is the book of common prayer, not the priest's handbook.

You see.

There's a blessing for a civil marriage.

This is an interesting thing, by the way.

I want to point out, just as we're doing this, um this guy, uh Gene Robinson, and this is one of the weird uh heritages of the United States, you know, we have a separation of church and state.

Kind of.

But you know, I act as an agent of the state when I marry a couple.

I I validate their state-issued license.

I don't ever dissolve their license.

I don't know if you thought about that.

Gene Rob I mean, I didn't think of that about my own.

But Gene Robinson sort of said it's interesting that we act as agents of the state, but we don't undo what we do.

And there's no right for disillusion of marriage vows.

I think that's to our loss, by the way.

I think there should be a right where we say, we can't do this anymore, but we're parting in peace, not as enemies.

Gene Robinson wrote that right up, by the way.

He dissolved his marital vows.

They left his friends.

I just it's just interesting to think about.

It doesn't always happen.

It doesn't always happen.

You know, and part of what Gene Robinson says, we've got this prayer book that talks about marriage, but marriage is really a church idea, you know?

So it's interesting, the state is interested in unions for tax purposes, right?

So it's funny that that's called a marriage when marriage is really a church thing.

I just I don't want to overdo politics, but in Germany, if you want to go to marriage, you go to if you want to be joined, you go to the judge, and if you want a marriage, you then go to the church.

But your minister does not sign your marriage license because that's not a church thing, that's a state thing.

This is sort of an interesting model.

So what Gene talks about, and I think this is right, is getting us out of being officials and making us celebrants.

So I'm one of those nasty, nitpicky episcopal people where somebody will say, Will you be the official at my wedding?

I will not.

But I will celebrate your relationship.

A judge will be your official.

Judges don't need to know you.

You don't need to do marital counseling to be civilly joined by a judge.

But hopefully the church says, We know you well enough to celebrate what you have in your relationship as bearing out God's grace for the world.

And I will stand and celebrate that.

I think that's in the prayer book.

We just forget to live into it.

Is that okay to say?

I hope I didn't offend you with my wild politics.

That marriage is supposed to be celebratory and not official.

I don't even think that's wild.

I think that's pretty conservative.

We get to have thanksgiving for the birth and the adoption of a child.

Now, in the church I grew up in, we called it the dedication, a baby dedication.

We baptize babies, that's how we dedicate them.

But if you want a dedication, you can do it here too.

I don't know if you were here in December.

We got to do the adoption right for a family.

We prayed for baby Kevin forever, and the stuffs, David and Laura, their children, adopted a baby, and we got to do the adoption right.

It's kind of cool that there's a right for everything.

And if there's not, we make them up, by the way.

We do, and and that is meet and right in our bounded duty.

Okay.

Next follows reconciliation.

And listen, I I want to encourage you.

Every week, you know, we do uh the confession and the absolution in church, right?

And it's very broad brush.

The idea is that you get to think of what those words mean for you this week, and you get to hear you're going to be absolved.

And this is an interesting thing.

I don't ever get up and say, No, I actually, what you did was too bad, and God will not take care of that.

So go do some penance.

You know in the service you're going to be forgiven.

You know that.

But sometimes there are things more insidious than just that.

Sometimes you might need a moment, not just, again, earlier, not just to think about sins, but worries, things that are separating you from God because they're dragging you backward.

And that's why we have this rite where you sit in front of the priest, face to face, not in a booth, and a priest listens to you and says, I'm not speaking my words, I'm speaking God's.

Put that away from you.

Put that away and live into your future instead of living into your past.

If you have never done reconciliation, I encourage you to do it.

It's actually a pretty interesting Linton discipline to say, I'm going to do the sacrament of reconciliation this year.

See how it feels.

If you want to read further, I have a book that's called Preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

It will tell you all the things it's meant historically in ways you might make a sober inventory of the things that are separating you from God's presence and joy in your life.

And then you go and you try it.

Anyone ever done?

Well, I shouldn't ask you to raise hands.

I should ask you to.

Let me tell you this.

I've done this right.

Three times in six years.

To the point that I thought it would be kind of cool to buy a booth, because maybe more people would do it.

This is not something God needs you to do.

You hear every Sunday morning, God has absolved you.

You hear that.

This is something you might need to live into absolution.

Maybe you do not have a hard time accepting forgiveness.

You don't need this.

Maybe you do.

This might strengthen you in your spiritual life.

It might not.

You might leave and say, that didn't help me at all.

The first time I did it was before my ordination to the priesthood, and I felt like the person giving me the sacrament actually didn't listen to me, and it wasn't helpful.

It wasn't a waste of my time.

I just didn't feel like they were listening to what I was worried about and hearing what I was worried about.

Does that make sense what I'm saying?

As with all sacraments, there's times in which it feels more real to you.

One of the reasons I think we do communion every week is not because it's magic every week.

It's because if we don't do it, we don't put ourselves in a place to receive the magic when it comes.

So I just raise that up to you.

If you want to know what happens, it's right here in the prayer book.

There's a script.

The script is there, of course, to make sure that we're able to put our thoughts into words we couldn't even find for ourselves.

That's the magic of the book.

Not that it's a spell, but that it collects what we're feeling anyway.

I'm probably over talking.

It can be done by a layperson in an emergency.

I will tell you, never do this with somebody who you are concerned will not keep confidence.

Especially if that person is your priest.

Does that make sense what I'm telling you?

Never do the sacrament of reconciliation with someone whose confidence you don't trust.

Especially if that person is your priest.

That means if you are worried that the person will say or even treat you differently after the rite, do not do it with them.

This is the priestly calling, is that we can hear that and not change the way we treat you.

Does that make sense what I'm saying?

You know, if you ever want to do this with somebody who's not your priest, because you say, Mike, I don't trust you, I will help you find somebody who you don't even know who will come here.

Is there ever a time as a priest?

Like I'm a counselor, and so I mean there are times that I mean I keep things confidential, but if they are something that is going to harm a person, you know, if you say that, like I murdered my child, of course, I cannot keep that a secret.

Cannot.

But if you say, I mean, this is a hard thing.

This is a really, really hard thing because you know, like, that's one of those deals with confession in the Roman church, is that people would confess to actively abusing their spouses, and then what does the priest do?

Do they keep that confident or do they consult the authority?

Does anybody know about this tension?

I don't want to talk about it too much today, but that's hard tension to hold.

You know, anytime you're a counselor and you're talking to a juvenile or an adult, and somebody says, and you usually you say, our relationship's confidential unless you're talking about hurting yourself.

Or another person.

Or another person, and then I can't do it.

Now, I didn't remember how the courts ruled on protecting priests in that moment.

I there is a ruling.

Um, and I don't remember it.

They have to tell.

I think that's I think I would tell you for me.

If somebody said, I'm actively abusing my spouse or I'm thinking about killing myself, I would immediately call my bishop, who by the way, is the mandated reporter for the diocese, not me.

But if I don't tell, in this case it is a him, sometimes it's a her, but I don't tell him, then I'm derelect in my duty.

Does that make sense what I'm saying?

This bishop belong this building belongs to the bishop of Texas.

I just supervise it.

So I have to tell the owner what's happened in my in my ministry, because it's really his.

So if you want to confess that that you're gonna kill your brother-in-law, go to a Roman Catholic priest.

Okay.

Otherwise, you could see me.

Yes, ma'am.

Are you saying reconciliation more is more important?

No, Catholic.

Oh, I don't know.

I'm gonna be called.

Yeah.

No.

Again, again, I I I I want you to hear, I mean, uh as with everything, I my viewpoint is God doesn't need this, we need it.

Right?

And I don't think it's a counseling situation.

I think it's where you say, I'm just, it could be where you say, listen, I just keep lying.

I just I keep lying and it's ruining my life.

And I'm I'm really sad about it, and I want to change that.

Or, you know, I just I called my friend this name.

Could be an active decision we made that was morally wrong.

It also could be, I just, and I can't even sleep.

I'm so worried about my dad because, you know, how do I help him make these medical decisions?

Or, you know, I I this coworker of mine just keeps saying these things, and I just, it's really affecting me like I'm feeling really beat down.

Um, and then we get to say, listen, God would like for that to no longer affect you so you can be present.

I mean, I sort of think that's a function of it, whether it's a sin or a worry, whether it's guilt or shame, it's listen, let's let's God wants you to live in the present, and God wants your life to be joyful.

So let's put away with the baggage that we're carrying.

Sometimes, right, we have to go forward as different people.

In fact, always I think we do.

We can do this reconciliation and go back to the old pattern of living and nothing has changed.

So I think that's where the idea of doing penance comes about.

Change the way you're living.

But know that God has put the past away.

I think that's the function.

If I turn it into a counseling session, I've flubbed it up.

It's an opportunity for someone to share what's bothering them out loud before God through a minister and hear God's voice through another human being say, God is not worried about that.

God is concerned with what that's doing to you, so let's put that away.

Do episcopal or something?

Uh, you know, I would tell you, maybe some Episcopalians do believe in both of those things.

But remember in the prayer book, sin is separation from God.

So how can that be mortal or venial?

It is or it is not.

And and again, remember that being separate from God is not just a consequence of I broke one of the Ten Commandments, it's constant worrying or anxiety, which are not morally wrong, but they sure do separate us uh from God.

But you know, I uh I read this book by Brene Brown, sorry to mention her again, and she says the single most influential criterion in whether or not people live joyfully is whether or not they believe the following phrase.

Everyone is pretty much doing the best they can with what they have.

That becomes really difficult for me to accept with people who are abusive.

However, upon further reflection, if I take time to know those people, many of the people who I know who have been abusive were in fact themselves abused.

That doesn't justify it, but it sure tells them that in moments of duress, they're going to their default.

I spent most of my adolescence thinking, when I'm a parent, I will never do what my mom and dad did.

How interesting, when I became a parent, I found myself doing those things and saying, well, it worked for me.

And that was my default.

And in general, most of us as parents parent the way we were parented.

In general, we do.

And um, boy, you know, when I look at people who make bad decisions and say, you're just evil, I don't know that they are.

And that's why I think it gets really difficult between mortal and venial sins, because even when I've made my own worst decisions on purpose, I wasn't doing them to have partnership with the devil, frankly.

I was agitated and didn't know what to do with the feeling.

I'd been taught to seek revenge, not justice.

I didn't blame the people who taught me that.

That was just my container.

And I still do that sometimes.

Boy, when I get mad at my kids, I want revenge.

I don't even want to be a good parent.

I want to get even.

I'll be honest with you.

And my worst parenting is when I do that.

But it's so natural because that's what I observe all around.

Now, again, I don't do it to destroy their lives.

I do it because I don't even think.

Is that a mortal sin?

I don't know.

The difference between forgiveness and accountability.

And those are entirely different things.

I can forgive you and still hold you accountable for what you've done.

And we often don't think that's the case.

I don't know what God's accountability looks like.

I don't know.

But I firmly trust that God's forgiveness is universal.

Socially, I understand that when people commit crimes, this is built into our American psyche.

Even when we know you're guilty, you have a right to a trial.

And the trial might find you not guilty, even though we know you are.

Notice the trial never finds you innocent.

I don't know if you've noticed that.

There's no criterion of innocence in the court system.

There's just not guilty based on the evidence presented, right?

And in some ways, uh that's an interesting way to think about everybody is worth a trial, even if we catch them in the act.

Because there's basic human dignity that's never lost, even when they have to be held accountable for their actions.

That's why we say we're against cruel and unusual punishment, even for cruel and unusual people.

Does that make sense what I'm saying?

Forgiveness and accountability are not the same.

And sometimes we think, oh, if I forgive them, I don't have to hold them accountable, and that is not the case at all.

That's wrapped up into reconciliation, I believe.

Which is why in the Roman Church, particularly in the Reformation and still now, there are two criteria to be forgiven.

Contrition, you actually have to be sorry.

And penance.

You have to make right what you did wrong.

If you can.

You'll find that in the AA curriculum if you know it.

Right?

In the AA curriculum, you have to make right to those individuals you've heard, except when doing so would make things worse.

It's thoughtful.

No, I think that's exactly right.

Forgiveness is really about something you do for you.

Now, two people together, that's reconciliation.

Reconciliation is not promised to us in this lifetime because you both have to want it.

Forgiveness, though, is a unilateral decision that I make, regardless of your willingness to be forgiven.

I think.

Boy, I'm getting bogged out.

I hope this is okay there.

This is kind of robust stuff, right?

And this is why we have these rights.

Yes, sir.

Reconciliation, you could go every Saturday at 3 o'clock.

You schedule it with the priest, and I'll tell you, you know, again, we have it built into the service, so in general, you get that rhythm every Sunday.

Uh but if again, if you're finding, golly, I'm doing that and I still don't know, or I don't feel right, then you you say, I want to come in and do reconciliation with you.

I do it with you every week.

You probably don't have that much to share, let's just be honest, right?

I mean, some of you maybe you do, I don't know.

No, again, I mean that that's the interesting thing is in the in the evangelical church, we'll do it at all.

We'll do it at all.

Because you just pray and then you hear in your mind or something that God does it for you.

In in the Roman church, it's it's regular, and we're somewhere in the middle.

Somewhere in the middle.

Because I've been praying Baptist.

Yep.

Welcome to the Episcopal Church.

Yeah.

I think the truth is, again, coming back to, and this is just my point of view, God doesn't need you to do it.

The question is, do you need it?

You might say, I don't.

I don't need somebody in the uniform to say on behalf of God, I've listened, I've taken that seriously, I understand how you're worried about those things, and I want you not to worry about them anymore.

But I will tell you, there's times in my life, and this is one of those things, since we're talking about marriage today in church.

I mean, that's one of those great things about my marriage, is that sometimes my spouse can say, just listen, stop.

Just stop because that's not taking you anywhere.

You know, and if I'm good, I'll listen.

If I'm not, I'll come back and do that little sacrament again.

You you you get what I'm saying?

Yes.

That's why it's a repeatable sacrament, too.

It's not limited to once.

Next follows the ministration to the sick.

And um, in there you'll find actually that uh we have holy oil that we anoint people with and the sick.

This is one of the seven sacraments as well.

And who can consecrate the oil?

Do you know?

Who consecrates the oil?

I can't.

Now, there's oil we put on babies when they baptize, it's called chrism.

Do you know who can who consecrates that oil?

That's a bishop only.

So chrism is for bishops.

Oil for anointing the sick is any priest.

Just to be safe, I had our bishop consecrate our oils.

But according to the prayer book, any priest can do it.

And this is a repeatable sacrament.

And I'll just tell you, I do this frequently.

If you've ever been to my office, or if you've said, hey, um, I uh am going to have a surgery Friday, or if I visited you post op, it is likely I have offered to anoint you with oil.

I'll tell you what I pray.

And it comes out of the book, I anoint you with oil in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, beseeching God to nourish you with grace and peace, especially in moments of blank anxiety or pain, grief, loss, hopelessness, whatever it is that you say is going on, to drive away from you all sickness of mind and body so that you might know the healing power of God's love more and more every day.

Repeatable sacrament.

May sound funny, but I will tell you, having grown up Southern Baptist, we did not do this.

And I feel in my body, like the holy shiver, when I do this.

There's something, maybe it's because I'm touching someone on their head.

Because I put this on your forehead and touch your head.

Maybe it's that.

I don't know.

But it is a more powerful way of praying for me than anything else I did in my life.

And lay folk can do it too.

You just can't bless the oil, but I got a whole gallon of oil.

If you want to take a little, this is gonna sound funny to you, but I don't mean it as a joke, particularly if you've got a purse or I've got a car.

I've got a little oil in my car.

Makes sense because I'm a priest.

You don't have to be a priest.

You can carry oil around.

And one of your coworkers could say, Golly, you know, my wife is really sick.

Can I pray over you and anoint you with oil?

That may make you sound really Pentecostal, but I promise you this: when you put hands on somebody's head and pray for them, the connection physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually will often surprise you.

And it is totally available to everyone to do this right.

I don't know what to say.

That's why you have the prayer book.

Read the script and use the oil, and you get to touch someone and pray over them.

I'm not a holy roller, I'm not.

But I'll tell you, in our culture, touch is so intimate and reserved, we rarely get to do it.

And here's an excuse to touch somebody in connection with their need, and it's really it's really beautiful.

If you've ever had it done to you, well, I hope you'll agree.

I hope you'll agree that there's just something really fabulous about it.

It's very meaningful for the family, it's very funny.

Yeah.

Um, you may have heard that there is a sacrament called last rites, not in the Episcopal Church.

There is unction.

That means anointing with oil, whether you're sick or afraid or grieving or dying.

So we don't do last rites, we do ministration at the time of death.

And that follows in your prayer book on page 463.

There's prayers for everybody around.

I will tell you in general.

Um, I don't know when anyone's gonna die.

So it's really hard to say, you're gonna die now, go to Jesus.

Beep, beep.

Okay, you're gonna die now.

Go to the Lord.

Beep.

Beep.

That's just really hard to guess, right?

Um but what we do, and I and I'll tell you, the abridged version I do, if somebody is in hospice or maybe they're dying in the next couple of days, or even we don't know, is I commend them to the Lord.

That's a repeatable sacrament.

Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a lamb of your own fold, a sheep of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming.

Receive him or her into the arms of your mercy and give them rest with the saints of light evermore.

You could pray that prayer for a newborn baby.

Receive them into the arms of your mercy.

And you can pray that for someone who's dying.

You can do that prayer.

You don't have to have a priest.

Often I come.

I tell you what's interesting is I've gone to people who should have been dead and prayed that prayer, and they died when I was done.

And I believe people have some choice when they die.

A little bit.

Um I've had friends who waited until all their children came to visit them and then waited until the kids left the room because they weren't going to die in front of their kids.

And as soon as they left, they died.

This happened to my mom.

Her dad was in bed and she was watching constant vigil.

She got up in bed with him and fell asleep.

He died when she fell asleep.

And I and I'm positive that's what he wanted.

He wanted her there and he wanted her asleep.

I could be wrong.

I haven't died.

But I think there's something to it.

And again, I've given people this prayer, and they died.

It depends on what it is they're they're looking for or what they need.

And if you've ever interacted with hospice, that's really what it's set up is I give myself permission to die, my family gives me permission to die.

And it's sort of a beautiful way to do that.

And it works this way.

So if you're ever curious about that, it's in the prayer book.

We have two burial rites that follow.

I would tell you, this is the right we do better than anybody else.

It is the best rite in the prayer book because we get to say things like, In you, God, life is not ended, it's changed.

And that is the crux of our faith.

Life is not ended, it's changed.

George Bush's funeral, done at St.

Martin's, came right out of the prayer book.

It is amazing.

It is so well done and thoughtful and dignified and not silly.

Then there's episcopal services.

I'm just gonna kind of I'm gonna have to stop here.

Look at that, it barely covered anything today.

Um you'll find in the Episcopal, no, I just talked about, no, I we can't do it.

Okay.

Next week, we're not going to do this.

We're going to have the parish annual meeting.

Now you may say, listen, I'm a teenager and I want to be confirmed.

Why should I go to that?

Because it tells you what church membership is really about in this annual meeting.

Much of it will be fun, some of it will be boring, some of it might give you consternation, and it is what it is to be a supporting member of a church.

So I hope to see you next week, and then we'll do a prayer book part three after that.