SPEAKER_04: Bless the Lord and forgive us all our sins.
SPEAKER_04: God's mercy is yours.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_04: Almighty God, to you all our spirit of all sins, and from you that seekers.
SPEAKER_04: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_04: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_04: Almighty Father, whose dear son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the sacrament of his body and blood.
SPEAKER_04: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life, and who now lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: You led in your faithful love the people whom you redeemed.
SPEAKER_01: You guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
SPEAKER_01: The peoples heard, they quaked, pangs like labor seized the inhabitants of Philistia.
SPEAKER_01: Then the chiefs of Edom were dismayed, and the rulers of Moab trembling seized them.
SPEAKER_01: All the inhabitants of Canaan melted away, terror and dread fell upon them by the might of your arm, and they became still a stone, until your people, redeeming God, passed by, until the people until the people whom you acquired passed by.
SPEAKER_01: You brought them and planted them on the mountain of your own possession.
SPEAKER_01: The place sheltering God you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, most high God, that your hands have established.
SPEAKER_01: The everlasting God will reign for ever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: The horse of the Pharaoh and his chariots and charioteers went into the sea, and the mighty God turned the waters of the sea back upon them.
SPEAKER_01: But the daughters and sons of Israel walked through the sea on dry ground.
SPEAKER_01: Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron's sister, took a hand drum in her hand, and all the women went out after her with hand drums and were dancing.
SPEAKER_01: And Miriam sang to them, Women and men, Sing to the indomitable God, who has triumphed triumphantly, horse and rider, God has thrown into the sea.
SPEAKER_01: Give thanks to the fount of life who is good.
SPEAKER_01: Give thanks to the God of gods.
SPEAKER_01: Give thanks to the majesty of majesties.
SPEAKER_01: Who alone does great wonders.
SPEAKER_01: Who through insight made the heavens?
unknown: For our faithful law is everlasting.
SPEAKER_01: To the one who spread out the land upon the waters.
SPEAKER_01: To the one who made great lights.
SPEAKER_01: The sun to govern the day.
SPEAKER_01: Who struck Egypt through their firstborn daughters and sons?
SPEAKER_01: And brought Israel out from among them.
SPEAKER_01: With a strong hand and an outstretched arm.
SPEAKER_01: Who cut the Red Sea in two?
SPEAKER_01: And made Israel pass over through the midst of it.
SPEAKER_01: But churned Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_01: And walked her people through the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: By faith, Moses, after he had grown up, refused to be called a son of Jara's daughter, rather choosing ill treatment with the people of God than enjoyment of the transitory pleasures of men.
SPEAKER_00: He considered abuse for the sake of the Messiah to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the reward.
SPEAKER_00: By faith, he left Egypt, unafraid of the anger of the king, for he persisted as though he saw the unseen.
SPEAKER_00: By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, in order that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn daughters and sons of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: He said, Go into the city to a certain person and say, The teacher says, My time is near.
SPEAKER_04: I will keep the Passover in your house with my disciples.
SPEAKER_04: So the disciples did, just as Jesus instructed them, and they prepared the Passover meal.
SPEAKER_04: When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve, and while they ate, he said, Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.
SPEAKER_04: They became deeply grieved, and each one began to say to Jesus, Not me is it rabbi.
SPEAKER_04: He responded and said, The one who dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.
SPEAKER_04: Indeed, the Son of Woman goes away, as it is written of him.
SPEAKER_04: But woe to the person by whom the Son of Woman is betrayed.
SPEAKER_04: Would it have been better for that person not to have been born?
SPEAKER_04: Judas, who betrayed him, responded and said, It wasn't me, was it, Rabbi?
SPEAKER_04: Jesus replied, You said it.
SPEAKER_04: While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread and blessing it, he broke it and gave it to the disciples, saying, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_04: This is my body.
SPEAKER_04: Then he took a cup, giving thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink from it all of you.
SPEAKER_04: For this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_04: I tell you all, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you all in the realm of my Abba.
SPEAKER_04: And when they'd sung the ham, they went out to a Mount of Olives.
SPEAKER_04: Then Jesus said to them, You will all become scandalized to the point of desertion because of me this night, for it is written, for I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.
SPEAKER_04: But after I am raised, I will go ahead of you all to Galilee.
SPEAKER_04: Peter said to him, Though all become scandalized and desert because of you, I will never desert you.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus said to him, Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.
SPEAKER_04: Peter said to Jesus, Should it be necessary I die with you, I will not deny you.
SPEAKER_04: Then likewise said all the disciples, Then Jesus came with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, You all sit here while I go pray there.
SPEAKER_04: He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be grieved and distressed.
SPEAKER_04: And then he said to them, My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death.
SPEAKER_04: You all stay here and stay awake with me.
SPEAKER_04: And going on a little, he fell on the ground and prayed, saying, My father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me.
SPEAKER_04: Nevertheless, not what I want, but what you do.
SPEAKER_04: And then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, So you all were not strong enough to stay awake with me one hour.
SPEAKER_04: Stay awake and pray that you all may not come into the test.
SPEAKER_04: Indeed, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
SPEAKER_04: Again for the second time Jesus went away and prayed, saying, My Father, if it is not possible for this to pass, lest I drink it, let your will be done.
SPEAKER_04: And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.
SPEAKER_04: So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying those words again.
SPEAKER_04: Then he came to the disciples and said to them, Sleep now and take your rest.
SPEAKER_04: See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Woman is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
SPEAKER_04: Get up, let us go, look.
SPEAKER_04: My betrayer is at hand.
SPEAKER_04: While Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him was a large crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests and the elders of the people.
SPEAKER_04: And the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, That when I kiss as he, take him.
SPEAKER_04: And once he came up to Jesus and said, Shalom, Rabbi, and kissed him.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus said to Judas, Friend, This is why you have come.
SPEAKER_04: Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took him.
SPEAKER_04: Suddenly someone with Jesus reached out his hand, drew his sword, and struck the slave or the high priest, cutting off his ear.
SPEAKER_04: Then Jesus said to him, Return your sword to its place, for all who choose the sword will perish by the sword.
SPEAKER_04: Do you think I am not able to ask my Abba, who will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?
SPEAKER_04: How then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say it must be thus?
SPEAKER_04: At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, Is it as for a bandit, you all have come out with swords and clubs to seize me?
SPEAKER_04: Daily in the temple I sat teaching, and you did not arrest me.
SPEAKER_04: But all this has happened, so the scriptures of the prophets may be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_04: And then all the disciples deserted him and fled.
SPEAKER_04: It's kind of hard to imagine a spot with the disciples where you don't know what's in store tomorrow.
SPEAKER_04: So it's sort of hard for us to really meaningfully re-enter the story when we know about Friday and Saturday and Sunday.
SPEAKER_04: But I think there is something to be said for trying to re-enter that story.
SPEAKER_04: Now, normally the lectionary, the revised common lectionary, would have us read the story that is the preparation for the Passover that happens in Egypt, right?
SPEAKER_04: So we didn't get that this year because the women's lectionary thinks you already know the story.
SPEAKER_04: Quick reminder: the people were slaves in Egypt.
SPEAKER_04: Moses said, Let my people go.
SPEAKER_04: Pharaoh said no.
SPEAKER_04: A bunch of times.
SPEAKER_04: Things got bad, then they got worse.
SPEAKER_04: And this is the evening of the tenth plague, is where we normally would pick up.
SPEAKER_04: And this is the instructions for the Passover.
SPEAKER_04: That people, not priests, are supposed to take a lamb and kill it and eat it.
SPEAKER_04: This is the only time in the Jewish calendar when each family kills its own meat.
SPEAKER_04: Otherwise, that's what you go to the Levites for, who were the butchers.
SPEAKER_04: You kill your own meat.
SPEAKER_04: You do something even a Cajun wouldn't do.
SPEAKER_04: You roast it with the entrails inside.
SPEAKER_04: That's just kind of gross.
SPEAKER_04: Because you're in a anybody ever roasted meat with the entrails in it?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, heard say a no.
SPEAKER_04: It's just not really going to be tasty.
SPEAKER_04: The point is not that the Passover lamb is tasty or that you put jelly on it.
SPEAKER_04: The point of the Passover lamb is also has nothing to do with its blood, nothing at all.
SPEAKER_04: The point of the Passover lamb is to get some greasy calories because you are holly tailed out of Egypt in the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_04: Remember, these are people in the ancient world who ate meat a few times a year, not a few times a week.
SPEAKER_04: So this is that celebration.
SPEAKER_04: What about the blood?
SPEAKER_04: It's just important to mention this.
SPEAKER_04: If you know anything about the Hebrew Bible and if you know anything about kosher food regulations, you cannot eat the blood of any animal.
SPEAKER_04: Because the Hebrew Bible tells you the life of the animal is in the blood.
SPEAKER_04: Well, we understand the life of the animal is also in the lungs and the brain and the pancreas, like you need all of those things.
SPEAKER_04: But blood is a symbol for life, and it's probably a good reminder that Judaism has never been a Western religion.
SPEAKER_04: It has always been an Eastern religion.
SPEAKER_04: The life is in the blood, is like saying the chi, the spirit essence is in the blood, which is why you can't have it.
SPEAKER_04: That belongs to God, not to you.
SPEAKER_04: This sounds really weird, but I used to have an exchange student.
SPEAKER_04: You probably heard about this.
SPEAKER_04: There's a swift black market business on eating rhino horns so you can gain virility through the animal's powers.
SPEAKER_04: Do you know about this?
SPEAKER_04: I hope you don't know about it personally.
SPEAKER_04: It doesn't really work.
SPEAKER_04: It still happens today, which is why the rhinos are almost extinct.
SPEAKER_04: Like this is a thing that's been going on for a long time.
SPEAKER_04: By taking the power of the animal, which you consume, this is the way that you increase your own personal power.
SPEAKER_04: That's not a new idea that's been around for a long time.
SPEAKER_04: Hence the injunction, you don't get the blood.
SPEAKER_04: In fact, the difference between kosher meat and the meat you buy at HEV is that it's been soaked in salt three times.
SPEAKER_04: Also, it's been killed by a rabbi.
SPEAKER_04: Look, it's been soaked in salt three times so that there is no blood left in the meat.
SPEAKER_04: So we have this false understanding in the Christian church that the Passover lamb is a sacrifice for sin.
SPEAKER_04: That is not at all the case.
SPEAKER_04: The sacrifice for sin happens on Yom Kippur, not on Passover.
SPEAKER_04: Passover is about people who are in bondage, getting ready to go out into freedom, and what do you know they need strength for the journey?
SPEAKER_04: We pick up now where that's already happened.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you noticed in the reading.
SPEAKER_04: The reading is they've already crossed the Sea of Reeds.
SPEAKER_04: So they left Egypt, Pharaoh sent the chariots, they're up against the sea, the sea is parted, the Hebrew people crossed, the sea's close.
SPEAKER_04: That's when the reading starts today.
SPEAKER_04: Not just in preparation, but for the salvation that is already coming.
SPEAKER_04: Then we pick up that Jesus is going to have his Passover meal.
SPEAKER_04: Has anybody been to a Seder, by the way?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and that is a new custom, the Seder.
SPEAKER_04: Like, we don't have any evidence of that happening before the year 500.
SPEAKER_04: Although we do have this understanding, it's in the book of Exodus, that the Passover is like a regular Shabbat dinner with a few twists to it.
SPEAKER_04: Right?
SPEAKER_04: So a lot of what we get in the Christian church comes, frankly, from our Jewish roots.
SPEAKER_04: Every Shabbat and every Passover, there are two candles on the table.
SPEAKER_04: We always have two.
SPEAKER_04: The dinner.
SPEAKER_04: Always has like a sort of a celebratory lighting of the candles.
SPEAKER_04: There's always a celebratory blessing of a silver cup that everyone drinks out of.
SPEAKER_04: That's called the kiddish.
SPEAKER_04: The disciples do it.
SPEAKER_04: What do you know?
SPEAKER_04: We do it too.
SPEAKER_04: There's also a ritual blessing of the bread.
SPEAKER_04: Passover, the only real difference in Passover is that there's a hymn at the end and that the bread is flat, not leavened.
SPEAKER_04: Not because yeast is bad, but because when you leave in the middle of the night, there's no time for the bread to rise.
SPEAKER_04: In the ancient world, they did not have fleischments.
SPEAKER_04: They had sourdough and they used yeast from the air, leaven the bread.
SPEAKER_04: So it's not like they didn't put yeast in the bread in the Exodus story.
SPEAKER_04: It's that there was no time for it to rise, so it came out flat.
SPEAKER_04: So this is a tradition today that during the Passover week, you not only refrain from eating yeast, you clean all of it out of your home and throw it all away.
SPEAKER_04: So Jesus is at the table with his disciples doing the regular stuff, and then he puts in a couple of twists that we still remember to this day.
SPEAKER_04: The first twist, he says, is that this bread is my body.
SPEAKER_04: And the second is that he says, This wine is my blood.
SPEAKER_04: And of course, if you've been around, that could mean 19 million things.
SPEAKER_04: So I'm not going to deflate 19 million possible meanings for you.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not going to debate the finer points of transubstantiation and consubstantiation, but I do want to offer you symbolically that if Jesus is the Passover lamb, he is nourishment for the journey out of bondage.
SPEAKER_04: And then when we drink the wine that is his blood, I suppose that could be literally the case, although in the context of the story, that's about being possessed with the spirit of Jesus.
SPEAKER_04: His qi.
SPEAKER_04: Isn't that interesting to think about?
SPEAKER_04: Consuming the chi of Jesus.
SPEAKER_04: Of course, it helps to know that wine in the Hebrew Bible is a symbol for joy.
SPEAKER_04: Do you know about kosher wine?
SPEAKER_04: Does anybody know about kosher wine?
SPEAKER_04: What makes kosher wine kosher?
SPEAKER_04: If you know anything about kosher food law, right, it really has everything to do with meat and dairy.
SPEAKER_04: And everything else is called parve, which means you can just eat that, it's fine.
SPEAKER_04: There's no regulations about beer.
SPEAKER_04: There's no regulations about grain, alcohol, at all.
SPEAKER_04: The only concern about kosher wine is that in Judaism, kosher wine is used ceremonially, ritually.
SPEAKER_04: Every Shabbat, at weddings, and at high holy days, you drink wine.
SPEAKER_04: In fact, we just had Purim, in which you're supposed to drink so much wine, you can't tell the difference between the names Haman and Mordechai.
SPEAKER_04: That's like a lot of wine.
SPEAKER_04: Like really a lot of wine.
SPEAKER_04: Like you might want to have the EMT on speed dial, right?
SPEAKER_04: And so the insistence that wine be kosher is because wine was used ceremonially in the ancient world by pagans and Jews alike.
SPEAKER_04: And so what they didn't want is to have sort of pagan ritual wine used in Jewish ceremony.
SPEAKER_04: It was very important that the land, and this is still true, kosher wine today, must be grown in the land of Israel.
SPEAKER_04: And it has to be sort of not touched by unclean hands.
SPEAKER_04: By the way, if you touch a bottle of kosher wine, you just unkoshered it, just so you know, right?
SPEAKER_04: So there's this interesting about keeping it sort of sanctified so that it can be this symbol of joy.
SPEAKER_04: And so it is an interesting thing.
SPEAKER_04: We know where the evening's going, but Jesus offers that his blood, that his wine, is actually not a nourishment for sorrow, or so we can feel bad about ourselves, or we can say, God, woe is me.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus invites us to enter into his joy.
SPEAKER_04: If we miss the joy of Maundy Thursday, we've missed the invitation to the table.
SPEAKER_04: It may also help to hear that in the ancient world, people pretty much just ate bread and wine.
SPEAKER_04: Like two pounds of bread a day, that was 90% of your nutritional intake.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe you got a couple of fruits, maybe you got a little bit of fish, and maybe you got some three buck chucks level of wine, like it wasn't particularly very good.
SPEAKER_04: So it could be that Jesus is setting up a thing that we do once a year or once a week.
SPEAKER_04: It's more likely Jesus is saying, When you eat and drink together, do it with an awareness of my teaching and our time together, so that you can be nourished by our time together, by my teaching, so you can enter into my joy, so that your spirit can be light, so that your spirit can be nourished by me.
SPEAKER_04: There's a Jesuit priest named Greg Boyle who says God is really not afraid we will take this as something unimportant.
SPEAKER_04: God is perhaps afraid we will forget how ordinary it is.
SPEAKER_04: The communion is made at basic nutrition with others, with the spirit of joy.
SPEAKER_04: And that this nourishment is not meant to be self-contained, it's supposed to send us out, out of our own bondage, so that we can help be agents of deliverance for others.
SPEAKER_04: And there's this really, really interesting twist on the meal.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus seems acutely aware that one of his better friends is going to intimately betray him.
SPEAKER_04: And please notice that that person still is completely included in the meal.
SPEAKER_04: The gospel, according to Mike, says, Judas, it was it's you.
SPEAKER_04: Get out.
SPEAKER_04: I'll see you on death row, but I'm enjoying my last meal for myself.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know what your gospel reads.
SPEAKER_04: I'm suspicious it's really similar.
SPEAKER_04: Would you choose to share your last meal with somebody who is going to betray all of your trust?
SPEAKER_04: I doubt it.
SPEAKER_04: And this is what Jesus chooses to do.
SPEAKER_04: So when he says it'd be better if you weren't born, does that mean that God loves Judas less?
SPEAKER_04: It can't mean that.
SPEAKER_04: He wouldn't have been included at the meal.
SPEAKER_04: Perhaps Jesus knows that Judas won't be able to live with himself.
SPEAKER_04: And that is how the story plays out.
SPEAKER_04: The disciples have been nourished by Jesus' own hand.
SPEAKER_04: They have the Passover energy.
SPEAKER_04: And do you notice that they're still in bondage when it's time to pray?
SPEAKER_04: I find this very hopeful.
SPEAKER_04: But if the people who knew Jesus best can get it wrong three times in a row, there's hope for us.
SPEAKER_04: And in some ways, they become a foil for the Eucharist.
SPEAKER_04: They've been nourished to come out of bondage.
SPEAKER_04: Remember, the Hebrew people leave in the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_04: It's the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_04: And these Hebrew people fall asleep.
SPEAKER_04: This is a reminder to us that the holy energy that God gives us is to get us up and out.
SPEAKER_04: Not to desert our friends in their deepest need.
SPEAKER_04: You know, how could you minister to Jesus at this time?
SPEAKER_04: Do you notice that he doesn't ask them to say anything?
SPEAKER_04: He doesn't ask them to be an armchair psychologist.
SPEAKER_04: He doesn't ask them to pump it up.
SPEAKER_04: He just says, could you just stay awake with me?
SPEAKER_04: And maybe this is a really good reminder.
SPEAKER_04: We don't have to solve our friends' problems.
SPEAKER_04: We don't have to solve our political problems.
SPEAKER_04: It'd be nice if we'd stay awake and pray.
SPEAKER_04: You don't have to know the right answer when somebody's grieving or upset.
SPEAKER_04: Really, if you just show up, that might do it.
SPEAKER_04: If you just show up and you stay awake for an hour.
SPEAKER_04: I am usually afraid to share somebody's pain for five minutes.
SPEAKER_04: Especially if they won't listen to my advice on how to turn it off.
SPEAKER_04: This is a great reminder that this holy energy pushes us not to solve, but to be present with.
SPEAKER_04: And then there's something that is, because we've heard this story all too often, to be betrayed by a kiss.
SPEAKER_04: Of course, we know in the Middle East, I have relatives from Spain.
SPEAKER_04: When they greet each other, they give two kisses, one on each cheek.
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes even on the mouth, not to me, I'm not in the family.
SPEAKER_04: I give the cheeks, which is great.
SPEAKER_04: I actually could do without any of those.
SPEAKER_04: This is a cultural thing of closeness, and this is precisely within intimacy the way all of this goes down poorly.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus has indeed been intimate with Judas at the Last Supper.
SPEAKER_04: He has knelt and washed Judas' feet in this intimacy that comes back, but this time in betrayal.
SPEAKER_04: And that's why in about 30 minutes it's going to get really dark.
SPEAKER_04: This is part of the story.
SPEAKER_04: You notice that Peter says, We'll never leave you.
SPEAKER_04: And Peter's going to prove it.
SPEAKER_04: He doesn't get named in this story, he gets named in Luke.
SPEAKER_04: Peter's the one with the sword.
SPEAKER_04: And when Jesus says, put that away, put your sword away, that's when Peter leaves.
SPEAKER_04: Peter would have fought to the death, but he wasn't going to just be with Jesus at a time of sorrow or despair.
SPEAKER_04: That's an interesting model, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04: Once again, I would much rather solve your problems with the sword or with my stunning wit.
SPEAKER_04: Peter deserts Jesus because he can't sit with pain.
SPEAKER_04: He's not allowed to take on for himself.
SPEAKER_04: It's just interesting to think about.
SPEAKER_04: This is our story.
SPEAKER_04: And we call this the Eucharist.
SPEAKER_04: Does anybody know what that means?
SPEAKER_04: It's a Greek word.
SPEAKER_04: We still say it today.
SPEAKER_04: If somebody gives you something in Greece, you say Eucharisto, which means thank you.
SPEAKER_04: Eucharist means Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_04: That's all it means, thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_04: And of course, on a night like tonight, perhaps we come and we say, hey Jesus, thanks for showing us the way.
SPEAKER_04: Showing us the way to serve others by kneeling and washing the feet of your friends who didn't really need it.
SPEAKER_04: Thanks for that.
SPEAKER_04: Thanks for sharing your last meal with somebody who's going to betray you.
SPEAKER_04: That just seems like really lovely for the human spirit.
SPEAKER_04: Hey, thanks for offering nourishment from your own table for us week after week.
SPEAKER_04: And while perhaps that's important, I'm suspicious the reason we use that word and the reason we come back year after year and week after week is because, quite frankly, it is not your Thanksgiving that much matters.
SPEAKER_04: We call this the Eucharist because this meal, the foot washing, the communion, the invitation to people who are going to fail three times in a row.
SPEAKER_04: You notice he doesn't seem to get all that upset about it.
SPEAKER_04: It's cognitively dissonant to think that God is thankful for Jesus as much as God is thankful for Judas.
SPEAKER_04: Which is why we will do this again next year.
SPEAKER_04: It will still be cognitively dissonant next year.
SPEAKER_04: It will probably still cognitively be dissonant in 30 years.
SPEAKER_04: Which is why we will do it again.
SPEAKER_04: So that we can not just hear the story, but start to imagine who am I in the story?
SPEAKER_04: Who is Judas in my life?
SPEAKER_04: What weapons do I fight with?
SPEAKER_04: What do I do with the nourishment that I ask God to give?
SPEAKER_04: Will I stay awake or am I so uncomfortable and I can't fix someone who God doesn't need me to fix, that I'd rather desert or sleep?
SPEAKER_04: And in all of those moments, if we find ourselves going away from joy, it's because we're not drinking the qi of Jesus.
SPEAKER_04: The qi of Jesus is grounded in thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_04: God is thankful for you.
SPEAKER_04: I know that because I know most of you and I am thankful for you.
SPEAKER_04: And if I can be thankful for you, then God certainly is.
SPEAKER_04: Tonight will not fill you with enough thankfulness for people you have prejudice against for the rest of the year.
SPEAKER_04: This one meal won't do it.
SPEAKER_04: Sunday morning will not be enough to give you energy you need to live in liberation and love for people who irk you.
SPEAKER_04: Which is why Jesus says, whenever you eat bread like three times a day, whenever you drink wine, which what do you know would have been three times a day, whenever you eat food for your body, invite nourishment for your spirit.
SPEAKER_04: Because it takes a lot of energy to love somebody who seems hard to love.
SPEAKER_04: I guess unless you're God.
SPEAKER_04: Which is why we ask God to give us that energy.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe it is a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_04: We're invited to sacrifice being right so that we can be in communion.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe it's a sacrifice because we're asked to give up having it how we want when we want, so that we can be with one another.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe it's a sacrifice because there's times I'd rather be asleep than watching and praying.
SPEAKER_04: I think our thanksgiving matters because that determines whether or not we're living in joy or not.
SPEAKER_04: But it is God's thanksgiving for us that makes all of this possible.
SPEAKER_04: So as we celebrate this holy meal, and then we celebrate intimacy gone awry, and celebrates the right word, we do celebrate it.
SPEAKER_04: It's a dark celebration.
SPEAKER_04: It's one you've all known just as Jesus has known it himself.
SPEAKER_04: So we can go and do it out there when it's not always safe.
SPEAKER_08: And when it matters the most to be grounded in joy and thankfulness, and in communion, especially when it's hard.
SPEAKER_04: Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of an IC3.
SPEAKER_04: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty.
SPEAKER_02: Lord God, you are both host and servant at this meal and in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: Teach us, we pray, to follow your example of love, hospitality, and service.
SPEAKER_02: In your mercy, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: We pray for your church, broken in many ways.
SPEAKER_02: We wait on your guidance and nourishment for our lives, for encouragement and strength for your mission.
SPEAKER_02: In your mercy, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: We pray for our leaders responsible for shaping our common lives, that they may lead us in ways of justice and peace.
SPEAKER_02: In your mercy, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: We pray for those who struggle to find food and shelter tonight, who hunger for peace, who ache for warmth and friendship, heal broken hearts and spirits.
SPEAKER_02: Envelop the sick with your healing embrace.
SPEAKER_02: We pray for those who know the pain of betrayal and for those who face death today.
SPEAKER_02: In your mercy, Lord, we leave this place singing hymns of love.
SPEAKER_02: Embed them in our lives that we may teach others to sing.
SPEAKER_02: We follow you into the garden, into the unknown.
SPEAKER_02: Teach us to trust the lessons of this night in your mercy, Lord.
SPEAKER_04: Let us humbly confess our sin unto Almighty God.
SPEAKER_04: Holy God, creator of all that is, donor of grace, giver of life, give our heaven, every cast.
SPEAKER_08: We confess that we have allowed those to us to grow, for fewer in our hearts of separation, for fewer in when we reach out.
unknown: You call us to reconcile life, to heal relationships, to a holdness with each other and with you.
SPEAKER_04: And thus we pray and make us new creations the department love of Christ, in whose name we pray.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Friends, hear this good news.
SPEAKER_04: The love of God is beyond measure, and you are included in that love.
SPEAKER_04: Know that you are forgiven, and thus free to love and serve.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: The peace of the Lord be always with you.
SPEAKER_04: So just prepare your own.
SPEAKER_04: The choir is going to keep their lights, but the rest of us are mostly going to lose.
SPEAKER_04: And we do leave at the very end, we leave in silence.
SPEAKER_04: So there's a moment when all the festivity is stripped away and we leave in silence.
SPEAKER_04: And uh the Holy Week schedules out, but we'll have an opportunity to gather for Good Friday tomorrow at 12 and at 6.
SPEAKER_04: On Saturday morning for Holy Saturday at 8.30 for a 20-minute morning prayer, and then of course on Easter morning at 6.30 for the vigil.
SPEAKER_04: Uh we come in the dark and it becomes light during the service, and then uh the principal service is at 8.30 and at 10.30.
SPEAKER_04: Walk in love.
SPEAKER_04: As Christ first loved us and gave himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_04: This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_04: It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more.
SPEAKER_04: So come, you who have much faith and you who have little.
SPEAKER_04: You who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.
SPEAKER_04: You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.
SPEAKER_04: Not because the church invites you, it is Christ.
SPEAKER_04: And he invites you to meet him here.
SPEAKER_04: Our service continues on page 361 of your red prayer book, page 361.
SPEAKER_03: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_04: It is right, a good and joyful thing always and everywhere to give thanks to you.
SPEAKER_04: Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_04: For our sins he was lifted high up on the cross that he might draw the whole world to himself.
SPEAKER_04: By his suffering and death, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who put their trust in him.
SPEAKER_04: Therefore we praise you, joining our voices with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven who forever sing this hymn to proclaim the glory of your name.
SPEAKER_04: And when we've fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you and your mercy send Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.
SPEAKER_04: He stretched out his arms upon the cross and offered himself, in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.
SPEAKER_04: On the night he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread.
SPEAKER_04: And when he given thanks to you, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples and said, Take eat.
SPEAKER_04: This is my body which is given for you.
SPEAKER_04: Do this for the remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_04: After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, and when he given thanks, he gave it to them and said, Drink this, all of you.
SPEAKER_04: This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for all for the forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_04: Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_04: Therefore, we proclaim the mystery of faith.
SPEAKER_04: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
SPEAKER_04: We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_04: Recalling his death, resurrection, and ascension, we offer to you these gifts.
SPEAKER_04: Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the body and blood of your Son, the holy food and drink of new and an ending life in Him.
SPEAKER_04: Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy sacrament.
SPEAKER_04: Serve you in unity, constancy, and peace.
SPEAKER_04: And at the last day, bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom.
SPEAKER_04: All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ, by him and with him and in him.
SPEAKER_04: In the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: 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, honor as names in heaven.
SPEAKER_08: Give us the state of 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.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
SPEAKER_04: Therefore, please keep your feast.
SPEAKER_04: These are the gifts of God for you, the people of God.
SPEAKER_04: Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_04: Almighty and ever living God, we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and for assuring us in the evil too that we are living in the body of the Son, and heirs of our kingdom.
SPEAKER_08: And now we've done us out to do the work you have given us to do to love using the wisdom to the heart of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: Given into the hands of sinners and suffer death upon the cross, who lives and reigns forever and ever.
SPEAKER_08: My wretched body from the horns of wonderful sons.
SPEAKER_07: I will declare your name to my heart.
SPEAKER_08: In the midst of the congregation, I will praise you.
SPEAKER_07: Praise the Lord in that bear of himself.
SPEAKER_07: For he has not despised for the water, for me.
SPEAKER_07: My praise is on him with the greatest.
SPEAKER_08: I can look for my heart in the presence of those who worship him.
SPEAKER_08: The world shall each have been satisfied, and who should speak, no one shall praise him.
SPEAKER_08: All the ends of the earth shall give everyone attempted.
SPEAKER_06: For a nation belongs to the God.
SPEAKER_07: Let him in the heaven.
SPEAKER_08: Let him rest your hills in me.
SPEAKER_08: You are my God, my mind was beaten my father.