Reading The Bible For Good : Scott Newman

Special welcome to those joining online or on demand.

So uh I grew up in LA, many of you know that, and my family actually has deep roots in the movie industry.

My uh great-grandpa was a set builder for the studios back in the golden age of Hollywood.

And so growing up, we watched a lot of classic movies and things like that.

And it's always fascinated me how they were able to do these practical effects in movies, right?

I mean, these are uh in the days before CGI, in the days before AI, they would make just incredible special effects happen on the screen.

So one that I discovered recently, this wasn't a movie that I watched growing up, but it's this movie called Shh the Octopus.

That's how you know it's a B movie because they named it Shh the Octopus, but it's kind of this comedy, mystery, horror sort of movie.

And there's this one character who's kind of this like nice, sweet old lady.

And then at the very end of the movie, spoilers, uh, you find out that she's the villain.

And so they do this really incredible transformation on screen.

The director wanted her to transform from this kind of sweet little old lady while you're watching into this like nasty old witch.

And so I'm gonna show a picture in a second, but it's a little, I mean, even it's even though it's almost a hundred years old, it's a little jarring.

So if you're sensitive, if there's kids, you might want to look away.

So you've been warned.

Um, but this is what it looked like.

So the way that they did it though, this is what's fascinating.

They made it happen on screen as you're watching.

I mean, you can Google this after church.

There's YouTube clips of it.

What they did was they painted her, the witch makeup, in red makeup.

So her face was covered in all this red makeup, and then they clicked a red filter into the camera.

So a red lens was over the camera.

So while the red lens was in there, she looked normal, like the image on the left.

And then as soon as they pulled the filter out, all of a sudden you could see all the witchy makeup.

So it just happened on screen.

So pretty incredible for 1937.

No CGI, no anything.

So it's it's amazing how much filmmakers were able to do just with lenses, makes such a massive difference in what we see and how we understand the movie.

So, why am I talking about movies and lenses?

Well, it's because when it comes to reading the Bible, reading and understanding the Bible, there's a very similar dynamic at work.

Sometimes when we read the Bible, we can find it mysterious or we could find it confusing.

Like, like, why in the world should I care about why so-and-so begat so-and-so begat so-and-so?

Am I right?

Or why do I have to go talk to a priest if I get a skin disease and all of a sudden there's a patch of white hair?

Because that's in there.

Thanks, Leviticus.

Um but when we take off the lenses that we see the world through, and then we click some new lenses into place, the lenses of an ancient culture, an ancient worldview, all of a sudden some of these confusing things begin to make some sense for us.

Now, others of us, we've also had the Bible weaponized against us.

We've been told that we can't say certain things, do certain things, live certain ways because that would go against the Bible, whatever that means.

Or how about this?

When you've tried to do good things in the world and you've had people who claim to be Christians come along and try to shut you down and say that what you're doing is unbiblical.

It's left you feeling hurt and confused, and I'm willing to bet it's made it hard for you to be a part of a church community, and I'm sure it's made it even harder for you to read the Bible because who wants to spend time with the stick that someone used to beat you over the head?

I mean, that's just not something that most of us want to do.

So if you felt that way, though, I'm I'm right there with you.

I mean, just this week, even I had someone leave a rude comment on a social media post of mine.

And mind you, this is someone who has been in church for decades, and it was all because I was talking about doing my best to try to love people like I believe Jesus would.

But here's what I know.

I've spent literally my entire life learning to be a reader and interpreter of the Bible.

I love the Bible.

I really do.

I mean, this book is incredible.

And so I gotta be honest and tell you that it makes me so incredibly sad when religious people take this book and weaponize it and use it to inflict pain in people's lives.

And so this is why it's so important to me and so important to us as a church that we learn to put on better, healthier lenses when it comes to reading the Bible.

Because when we don't, we end up hurting ourselves and others.

So, what I hope we can see as we move through this morning is that we know we're reading the Bible well.

We know we're reading it well when it leads to goodness.

Goodness in our own lives, but goodness also in the world around us.

So let's dive in.

So I want to begin with the word of God.

Now, Christians tend to talk about the Bible as the word of God, and it is.

It absolutely 100% is, but biblically speaking, there's a word of God that's even more important than the Bible.

And that word of God is Jesus.

Jesus is the word of God.

Listen to the opening verses of John's gospel.

This is John chapter 1, verses 1 and 14.

John 1:1

It says, In the beginning, the word already existed.

The word was with God, and the word was God.

So the word became human and made his home among us.

He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father's one and only Son.

So John, who, if you remember, was one of Jesus' disciples, is beginning his account of the life of Jesus.

And so he offers kind of this theological explanation as he's starting this account of Jesus' life.

Now, notice John doesn't say that the word was with God and the word was God, and then God turned it into a book and dropped it down for us, right?

It's not what it says, is it?

What he does do is identify Jesus as the Word of God, the one who has always existed with the Father, created the world alongside the Father, entered into human existence by becoming one of us in Jesus of Nazareth.

So Jesus is God's message to us.

The author of the letter of Hebrews says basically the same thing in Hebrews 1, 1 to 3.

He says, Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by a son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.

He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.

So Jesus is God's definitive and most important word to us.

Now, as you hear me talking about this, though, maybe maybe you're thinking to yourself, seems like a weird distinction to make.

Jesus, the word of God, the Bible, the word of God.

Some of you are saying, I don't, I don't see the point, right?

But here's why this is important.

In John chapter 5, Jesus is talking to some of the religious leaders of his day, and he tells them this.

John 5 · chapter mention

This is John 5, verses 39 and 40.

John 5:39

He says, You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.

And it is they that testify on my behalf, and yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

So again, Jesus is talking to the religious leaders of his day.

These were people who had devoted their lives to reading, interpreting, and teaching the Hebrew scriptures, what we call the Old Testament today.

Many of them would have had all of it memorized by heart.

They knew the words of the Bible backwards and forwards, and yet they still missed the entire point of it, according to Jesus.

Why?

Because they missed him.

They missed how it was about God's love, God's compassion, God's mercy embodied in Jesus.

So, yes, the Bible is the word of God.

We're gonna stand on that forever, but it's the word of God when we read it and understand it as pointing towards and bearing witness to Jesus, as God's message to us, as God's word to us.

In other words, we can read the Bible and completely miss its power and significance in our lives if we don't see it as revealing Jesus and making us more like Jesus.

So if Jesus is the Word of God and we only understand it correctly as it aligns with who Jesus is, then the biggest question we have to ask ourselves when we read the Bible is how does this point to Jesus and or make me more like Jesus?

Those are the questions we have to ask.

How does this point to Jesus?

How does this make me more like Jesus?

Now, in order to answer these questions, we have to understand what Jesus was like.

So, quick refresher course.

Um, going back to the Hebrew scriptures, 700 years before Jesus' birth, the prophet Isaiah wrote about a figure called the servant of God, who we later, as we look back, came to realize that was talking about Jesus.

So Isaiah says about him, this is Isaiah 42, verses three and four, that he will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle.

He will bring justice to all who have been wronged.

He will not falter or lose heart until justice prevails throughout the earth.

So Jesus, according to Isaiah, is marked by compassion and gentleness, not going to take the the weakest and most bruised and broken among us and cause any harm.

And yet, because of that, Jesus is also marked by a tenacity to see justice done in the world.

So then, going back to John's gospel, which we looked at earlier, Jesus says this about himself, verses that are familiar to many of us.

John 3, verses 16 and 17.

John 3:16

It says, This is Jesus talking, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life.

And 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.

So Jesus entered into our human experience, became human because of how much God loves us.

God loves us so much that God couldn't stand by while we were tearing ourselves and our world apart.

He came to rescue us without condemning us.

And then Jesus also puts it in John 10, 10.

He says, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.

So Jesus is clearly saying that he came so that we could experience life to the fullest.

Jesus wants nothing but goodness for you and for me.

Anything that harms us and any interpretation of the Bible that harms us has nothing to do with him.

So that's who Jesus is.

And because that's who Jesus is, that's who God is.

And that's what we should find when we read the Bible in the Jesus way.

Lucky for us, though, Jesus also models for us how we do this.

Jesus himself read the Bible for goodness.

So all over the Gospels are examples of Jesus in his teaching, either reinterpreting parts of the Hebrew scriptures that people had misunderstood along the way, or directly confronting the religious leaders of the day and saying, Hey, you guys, you guys messed up.

You didn't you don't understand this right.

So a couple examples.

This is this is from Matthew chapter 5, verse 43.

Matthew 5:43

This is in the middle of what we call the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus is sort of laying out this is what God is like, this is what God's kingdom is like.

And so he says, This you have heard the law that says, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

So Jesus is saying that the religious leaders of the day were teaching the law, and they were teaching that the law says, love your neighbor, yes, but it's okay to hate your enemies.

Well, what where did they get this?

They're interpreting a verse from the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18.

Leviticus 19:18

This is the part that we usually fall asleep in during, you know, if you're trying to read through the Bible in a year, you get to Leviticus and like I give up.

This doesn't make sense to me.

So um, Jesus is reading Leviticus 19, 18.

Lost my place here.

Let me find it again.

And he says this.

So Leviticus 19, 18 says this do not nurse hatred in your heart for any of your relatives.

Confront people directly so you will not be held guilty for their sin.

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself.

I am the Lord.

So in ancient Israel, people interpreted this and they said, Well, it says, Don't have hatred in your hearts for your relatives, and you know, don't hold a grudge against your fellow Israelite.

And so when God tells us to love your neighbor as yourself, clearly he's just referring to the people that we already like, you know, our fellow countrymen, you know, maybe family members, but people that you don't like, your enemies, the people that oppress you, that are mean to you, you don't have to like them.

It's okay to hate them.

They had a loophole.

So Jesus uh upends that interpretation and he says, No, right?

Your neighbor includes everyone.

That was the whole point of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Everyone, up to and including the person that you like the least in the world.

That is your neighbor.

And so you have to love everyone: your friends, your countrymen, your literal neighbors, but also the people that are very different from you, the people that you don't agree with, the people that live halfway around the world.

So Jesus is reinterpreting how they understood this verse from Leviticus.

Because the religious leaders of the day interpreted it in a way that gave people a loophole.

Oh, you hate some people.

Well, you know, what are you gonna do?

We're human.

That's okay, right?

But they use it as an excuse to not love everybody.

Here's another example.

In Mark chapter three, Jesus goes into a synagogue on a Sunday, and this is what happens.

Mark Mark three, starting in verse one.

Jesus went into a synagogue again and noticed a man with a deformed hand.

Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus' enemies watched him closely.

If he healed the man's hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath.

But Jesus said to the man with the deformed hand, Come and stand in front of everyone.

And then he turned to his critics and asked, Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath?

Or is it a day for doing evil?

Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?

But they wouldn't answer him.

So he looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts.

And then he said to the man, Hold out your hand.

So the man held out his hand, and it was restored.

You see, the religious people in Jesus' day, they looked back at the Hebrew scriptures and there were laws, there were commandments about keeping the Sabbath.

I mean, you go back to the Ten Commandments, those of you that learned those at some point along the way.

It literally says, honor the Sabbath day, keep it holy, which is great.

God wanted his people to have a day of rest, to not be working 24-7 without any rest, to be able to rest, to enjoy themselves, to enjoy each other, to enjoy the creative world around them, to reflect on God.

That's the whole purpose of a Sabbath is that life is not defined by work.

God will still hold us even when we stop working.

That's what the Sabbath is all about.

But then along the way, religious leaders begin to ask, okay, what does it mean to honor the Sabbath?

And so they they begin to kind of formulate these lists of here's what you can do, here's what you can't do, and all of that.

And so along the way, they begin to say, well, you can't heal or be a doctor or do these things on the Sabbath unless it's unless it's like a life or death sort of situation, right?

But Jesus is pushing back on them and saying the whole point of the Sabbath is about enjoying the world and creation and each other in God.

But you've turned it into a rule and a burden that doesn't let people love their neighbors well.

It's another excuse for not loving their neighbors.

And so Jesus pushed back on this about how they interpreted the Sabbath as just some another moralistic demand that ended up getting in the way of love for neighbor.

So Jesus consistently interpreted the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, in a way that led to life, in a way that led to wholeness, in a way that led to goodness.

So then the question is how do we read the Bible so that we can become more like Jesus as well?

Well, we need new lenses.

We need to see differently.

We need the lenses that Jesus used.

In one of our summer book groups this year, we we read a book called Better Ways to Read the Bible by Zach Lambert, a pastor in Austin.

And honestly, I would wish that all of us would read this book.

You can put it on your bookshelf in the Scott section, like Matt does.

But in this book, he offers four lenses to take off and four lenses to put on when we're reading the Bible.

So I've I've sort of adapted this for a way that makes sense to me, hopefully a way that makes sense to us.

And so what I want to do is offer us four movements, four lens change outs that can help us read the Bible, see Jesus, and become more like him.

So these four movements are moving from biblical to Christ-like, moving from fire to freedom, moving from duty to delight, and moving from power and control to love.

So before we finish this morning, I want to explain what each of these movements look like for you.

But as I do, as I'm explaining them, I want you to ask yourself, where have I been shaped by one of these harmful lenses?

Because we all have.

None of us escapes that, unfortunately.

Where have I been shaped by one of these harmful lenses?

And then also, where is Jesus inviting me?

Where is Jesus inviting me to click some new lenses into place when I'm reading the Bible?

So let's begin with biblical and Christ-like.

If you've been around Christian circles, you've probably heard or seen people talking about being biblical.

And this sounds really good because don't we want our lives to be shaped by the Bible?

I mean, don't we?

Well, yes.

And no.

See, the problem here is that there's lots of things that are quote unquote biblical that are really terrible.

I mean, slavery is biblical after all.

Genocide is biblical.

It's in there.

Having more than one spouse is biblical.

What the Bible describes is not the same thing as the Bible condoning something.

None of those things look like Jesus.

They're not Christ-like.

So there's lots of things in there that when you're reading them, they look nothing like Jesus.

But sometimes Christians have ended up being contortionists, like tying themselves up in knots, trying to explain how something, like, for example, slavery that looks nothing like Jesus is somehow good.

I mean, Christians did that.

It's crazy.

So when you want to click these lenses into place, you can ask, does this look like the God revealed in Jesus?

Or does it look like something else?

And then you can also ask, how is this gonna make me more like Jesus?

It can make you more like Jesus by being something you want to emulate, something that's good news to you.

Or sometimes it can be something that it reveals about yourself that you don't really like.

And when you can when you find something like that, instead of beating ourselves up, which is what many of us do, you can ask God for his help, for his grace to start looking more like Jesus in that area of your life.

So that's the first set of lenses: moving from being biblical to being Christ-like.

The second is moving from fire to freedom.

So, okay, what in the world do I mean by moving from fire to freedom?

Well, some of us have been in circles that taught that the ultimate destiny of the world is that it's gonna burn in the fire of God's judgment.

This has this has all sorts of ugly implications if you believe this.

So, for example, when I was growing up, I often heard people talk about environmentalism.

And the thinking was, well, it if it's all gonna burn in the end, like what why do I need to take care of what's out there now?

Right?

Like, let me just exploit it and use it for my benefit, and then let's move on because it's gonna burn, we're gonna, we're gonna go somewhere else.

But when we read the Bible in the Jesus way and in context, God's intention for the world was never to burn it all up in the end.

In fact, ever since sin and death entered God's good creation, God has been on a rescue mission to save people and the whole creation from the ravages of sin and from death and from decay.

And when we read the Bible through the right lenses, the Bible's vision for the end isn't flames and burning and sulfur.

It's this it's a beautiful restored world in which God and human beings and the world all exist in this perfect harmony for all eternity.

Paul describes this in his letter to the Romans, Romans 8.21, he says, the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay, and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

That's what I mean by the freedom lens.

When we're worried about everything being under God's judgment, by which we understand that God's going to punish and burn, then so much of what we do is driven by fear.

Fear guides our decisions, fear guides how we show up in the world.

And if we know anything from Jesus, it's that fear and love cannot coexist together for very long.

So instead, seeing that God's intentions for us and for our world are goodness, it gives us freedom.

We no longer need to have lives dominated by fear, even though there are still scary things out there.

Yeah, I get it.

But we can be free to enjoy our lives and love to the best of our abilities as God works in us.

So that's the second set of lenses, moving from fire to freedom.

The next set of lenses addresses a challenge that many of us have.

This is moving from duty to delight.

So there's this perspective out there that many have, sometimes on purpose.

Oftentimes we just sort of pick it up along the way.

And this sort of sees the Bible as like a rule book or like a manual for living.

So if you want to know how to live, just open this thing up, flip to the right chapter, and then just read, read it and do what it says.

Look to the Bible for instructions.

So when I was in youth group back in the ancient times of the 90s and 2000s, people often like to say that the Bible was an acronym.

Have you heard this before?

The Bible's an acronym, stands for basic instructions before leaving Earth.

It's okay, you can laugh at that.

Is it catchy?

Kinda.

Is it cheesy?

Yeah, 100%.

Is it right?

Uh, not so much.

Now it's true, we've got to be honest, the Bible does have a lot of commands, a lot of things to say about what makes for the good life.

However, this way of reading the Bible, it ends up piling up an impossible amount of demands and expectations that none of us can ever hope to live up to, right?

And it leads to Christians who are so burdened by duty that there's absolutely no joy in what we do, right?

And and we often become extremely judgmental towards other people, right?

Because what do you need to do when you live by the rules?

And you start recognizing that I can't keep all the rules.

Well, then you need to look around and find someone else who's even worse at keeping the rules than you are, so you can look down on them and feel better about yourself.

That's how it works.

That's why we're judgmental.

The Bible, though, was never supposed to be a rule book that we slavishly follow.

Instead, what it is is the place where we meet Jesus, where we experience transformation.

It's never about rule keeping, it's about transformation.

Listen to how, again, the apostle Paul puts it.

This is in his second letter to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 17 and 18.

2 Corinthians 3:17

He says, Now the Lord is spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

And all of us with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

For this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

And we're actually fulfilling the deepest longings of our hearts, the ones that we were created to know and experience life with God.

And when we live from that place, from a place of inner freedom and transformation, we don't need to think about the rules or stress about the rules anymore.

Why?

Because when we're living a transformed life, we'll show up in the world in ways that are good and right and true because that's what Jesus has transformed us into.

That's what it's always been about.

So the last set of lenses is trading the lenses of power and control for a lens of love.

Now, in the world, this power usually shows up in the form of rigid hierarchies.

What do I mean by that?

Right?

This just means that some people have more power and control than others.

And what the people with less power and control need to do is just submit to those with more power or wisdom or knowledge or whatever, and then their lives are going to be okay.

So, in a world that feels, frankly, pretty chaotic, right?

We we all understand that.

So out of control with bad things happening, it can feel really, really comforting to just sort of have your place in the world be defined for you.

Just do this and show up in this way, and everything is going to be okay.

But then what happens is that we get so comfortable and so used to these systems of power and control that we end up reading the Bible in ways that normalize some people.

And for some reason, in our day and age, it usually ends up being men, often white men, having power, authority, mastery, and control, while others are just supposed to submit to them.

Here's the thing this has led to all kinds of abuse and bad things in the world, in churches and in marriages.

And so some pastors will tell you, you just you just need to agree with their teaching.

And if if you disagree with them, well, I'm, you know, I'm sorry, you're not really disagreeing with me, you're disagreeing with God because what God and I think are the same things, right?

Have you ever seen that?

Or some husbands will tell their wives that they just need to obey them no matter what, just do what I say, no matter what.

And governments will claim divine authority for whatever they do, whether it's just or whether it's not.

See, see, we're doing this because God gave us this power and we can do whatever we want.

The classic case this shows up in is in Paul's instructions to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5.

So, real quick, lots of people will emphasize Ephesians 5.22, which says, Wives, submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord.

And so they'll go on and on about how this is this is how God has ordered family life.

And husbands are like a protective covering for their wives as long as the women submit.

Maybe you've heard this before.

But when we click the Jesus lenses into place, we remember that just one verse, just one verse before this, in Ephesians 5.21, Paul says this submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Was never about women submitting and men leading.

Was never about servants submitting and masters leading, it was never about children submitting and parents leading.

It was always about how in the community of Jesus we submit to one another and prefer each other.

That's how you know it's a Jesus community.

So Jesus invites us to leave behind the need for power and control and instead embrace the way of love, where every single one of us is willing to extend ourselves for the benefit of other people and not just for ourselves.

So that's why Paul writes in Galatians 5, 22 and 23, he's talking about the fruit of the Spirit.

What will your life look like when the Spirit of God lives in us and is transforming us from the inside out?

He says this the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And there is no law against such things.

So at the end of the day, we know we're reading the Bible well.

Not because it agrees with what your pastor says, even if that pastor happens to be Matt or me or Don or Darcy, or you don't know you're reading it well because it agrees with a theology textbook that you read one time.

We know we're reading the Bible well when love, when the fruit of the spirit is the result of our reading.

And when we don't find things like love or joy or peace or patience or kindness or generosity or faithfulness or gentleness or self-control as the result of our reading the Bible, then we have to ask ourselves, where have we gone wrong?

To do anything else is like taking out the red lens from the camera in shh, the octopus.

And all that we're left with when we do that is just an ugly, scary version of what was supposed to be healing and life-giving in the first place.

Now, before we finish, I have to give a quick plug.

Jill announced earlier that we have a Bible study starting on um September 20th.

So this is using a method called the Discovery Bible method.

Our longtime friends, Paul and Karen Henzie, are going to be leading this Bible study.

If anything I've said has resonated with you today and you're like, I want to learn how to read the Bible that way, I really encourage you to show up to that class.

It's six weeks, it's a it's a short six weeks.

You don't have to make it every week.

We know how life is, but would love for you to show up there and learn how to read the Bible through lenses like this.

So today we've talked about how the Word of God is ultimately Jesus.

And we have to experience Jesus if we hope to begin to see Him and find Him in the scriptures.

So one of the things that we do around here to do that is a practice called communion, where we experience the presence of Jesus around a table through bread and through a cup.

So I want to invite us this morning to gather with Jesus around a table because that's where Jesus so often met people, where he could see people face to face and listen to their stories and share their laughter.

And so this morning, metaphorically speaking, we're gathered around Jesus' table.

Because this is where Jesus has promised to be for those who want to meet him.

So I invite you this morning, accept Jesus' invitation.

Feel welcome at this table because Jesus Christ, who here and now offers us a foretaste of eternal life, invites you to be his guests.

So as Kate and the worship team come, in a minute, there's gonna be a song.

There's three tables uh around the back of the room, two on the sides, one in the back.

Uh, when you're ready, you can go there and receive a little cup of juice and a little wafer of bread.

Invite you to take that back to your seat, hang on to that until the end of the song because we're gonna receive those elements together.

And while Kate and the worship team are leading us in that song, you can sing along.

Or I'd invite you maybe just sit and hold these elements and reflect on how they're a symbol of how much God loves you, to what lengths God was willing to go to free us from the curse of sin and from death, so that we could be a part of Him producing goodness in the world.

Let's pray.

So, holy three in one, Father, Son, and Spirit, we thank you for Jesus, who was born among us incognito, who grew up without privilege or status, who walked the way to heaven through the back streets of the world, who told the deepest truths in ordinary language, who touched and healed, blessed and disturbed without fear or favor, who showed inclusive love in all its unconditional glory, and who for all this was crucified, died, and was buried, and who for all this and for all of us rose again, and who, though high in heaven, is present with us here and now.

So, God be on holiness, as we do what Jesus once did, let your spirit move among us, settle on this bread and this cup, that they may become for us our true spiritual food.

May that same spirit stir our souls so that as we share the sacrament, we may recognize our Lord and receive Him, that He may be in us and we in Him forever.

Amen.