SPEAKER_04: Hallelujah, Christ is risen.
SPEAKER_06: The Lord is risen.
SPEAKER_06: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_04: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_05: Almighty God.
SPEAKER_05: And from you the secret star.
SPEAKER_06: Cleanse the heart of hearts.
SPEAKER_06: Let me perfectly love you.
SPEAKER_06: And through the colour, you can't do it.
SPEAKER_04: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_04: O God, you prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding.
SPEAKER_04: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises which exceed all that we can desire.
SPEAKER_04: Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.
SPEAKER_04: A prayer for Mother's Day.
SPEAKER_04: On this Mother's Day, we give thanks to God for the divine gift of motherhood in all its diverse forms.
SPEAKER_04: So let us pray for all the mothers among us today.
SPEAKER_04: Or our own mothers, those living and those who have passed away.
SPEAKER_04: For the mothers who loved us and for those who fell short of loving us fully.
SPEAKER_04: For all who hope to be mothers someday.
SPEAKER_04: For those whose hope to have children has been frustrated.
SPEAKER_04: For all mothers who have lost children.
SPEAKER_04: For all women and men who have been our substitute mothers, and we who have done so for those in need.
SPEAKER_04: And for the earth that bore us and provides us sustenance, we pray this in the name of God, our great and loving parents.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: As you're being seated, our children are invited to children's chapel with Mr.
SPEAKER_04: Alex in the very event.
SPEAKER_01: Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.
SPEAKER_01: For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, To an unknown God.
SPEAKER_01: What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you, the God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives all to all mortals life and breath and all things.
SPEAKER_01: From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of our own poets have said, for we too are his offspring.
SPEAKER_01: We are since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.
SPEAKER_01: While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
SPEAKER_01: Because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.
SPEAKER_01: And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_06: Thank you to God.
SPEAKER_01: A reading from Psalm 68.
SPEAKER_01: Please respond at the half verse.
SPEAKER_01: Bless our God, you peoples.
SPEAKER_06: May the voice of praise to be heard.
SPEAKER_01: God holds our souls in life.
SPEAKER_06: And will not allow our feet to slift.
SPEAKER_01: For you, O God, have proved us.
SPEAKER_06: And you have tried us to burn to try.
SPEAKER_01: You have brought us into the snare.
SPEAKER_06: You laid heavy burdens upon our backs.
SPEAKER_01: You let enemies ride over our heads.
SPEAKER_01: We went through fire and water.
SPEAKER_06: But you brought us out into a place of refreshment.
SPEAKER_01: I will enter your house with burnt offerings and will pay you my vows.
SPEAKER_01: I will offer you sacrifices of fat beasts with the smoke of rams.
SPEAKER_06: I will give you oxen and goats.
SPEAKER_01: Come and listen, all of you who fear God.
SPEAKER_06: And I will tell you what God has done for me.
SPEAKER_01: I cried out with my mouth.
SPEAKER_06: And God praise was on my tongue.
SPEAKER_01: If I had found evil in my heart, the Lord would not have heard me.
SPEAKER_01: But in truth, God has heard me.
SPEAKER_06: And has attended the voice of my prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed be God who has not rejected my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Do not fear what they fear.
SPEAKER_00: And do not be intimidated.
SPEAKER_00: Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you and accounting for the hope that is in you.
SPEAKER_00: Yet do it with gentleness and reverence.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your conscience clear so that when you are alive, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be good to shame.
SPEAKER_00: For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than to suffer for doing evil.
SPEAKER_00: In order to bring you to God.
SPEAKER_00: He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, to which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey God, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah.
SPEAKER_00: During the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water, and baptism, which is prefigured, now saves you.
SPEAKER_00: Not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authority, and powers made subject to him.
SPEAKER_00: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and the Father will give you another advocate to be with you forever.
SPEAKER_04: This is the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.
SPEAKER_04: You know him because he abides with you and he will be in you.
SPEAKER_04: I will not leave you orphaned.
SPEAKER_04: I am coming to you.
SPEAKER_04: In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.
SPEAKER_04: Because I live, you also will live.
SPEAKER_04: And on that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
SPEAKER_04: They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.
SPEAKER_04: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_04: I don't want to overdo the reminders, but we've got 50 days of Easter, and as I've said before, uh we have this time to consider not just what resurrection was like for Jesus, but for us to consider how we pattern our own lives after the resurrection, not just experience but invitation.
SPEAKER_04: So the first four Sundays of Easter, we got to hear passages about resurrection day and its immediate aftermath.
SPEAKER_04: But last weekend, this week, we're going back over things that happened before the Easter story with new eyes.
SPEAKER_04: The resurrection has changed the meaning for the disciples and the community of faith, the things that Jesus said and did before Easter.
SPEAKER_04: And so today, we sort of know that there's 50 days of Easter.
SPEAKER_04: We know that Pentecost is sort of coming up, and here is Jesus telling people, hey, uh, it's for your own good that I get out of your way.
SPEAKER_04: And that's weird, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04: Jesus sort of says, It is for your sake that I am going to become invisible to you, so you can start to visualize God in new ways and not just get stuck on me.
SPEAKER_04: And here's the promise of the day I will send you the advocate.
SPEAKER_04: In Greek, this is the word paraclete, and it is a legal term.
SPEAKER_04: Turns out in ancient Greece, you weren't appointed a defense attorney, by and large.
SPEAKER_04: That was not your right.
SPEAKER_04: If you were accused of a crime, you represented yourself.
SPEAKER_04: If you were very well connected, if you had a privilege in court, perhaps you could have an advocate.
SPEAKER_04: So this is a very legal metaphor.
SPEAKER_04: The advocate, of course, is the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_04: Now I want you to consider this from a court standpoint.
SPEAKER_04: Who's the judge?
SPEAKER_04: God, right?
SPEAKER_04: Who's the jury?
SPEAKER_04: Well, probably God, right?
SPEAKER_04: Do you know who the prosecutor is?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the prosecutor, there's two words for this in the Bible.
SPEAKER_04: One's Hebrew and one's Greek, and they have literal meaning.
SPEAKER_04: So sometimes we we make them a proper name to our detriment, and we miss that the word Satan in Hebrew, oh, that's Satan.
SPEAKER_04: No, it's Satan.
SPEAKER_04: It means accuser.
SPEAKER_04: And if you read the book of Job, you'll find the accuser works for God, has access to God's court.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe the accuser is none other, welcome to DA.
SPEAKER_04: I will tell you a story.
SPEAKER_04: My wife was put on a jury, uh, and she's an attorney, and somebody said to her, Well, do you think you could be objective in this case?
SPEAKER_04: She said, sure, but if the DA is pressing charges, I think the person's guilty.
SPEAKER_04: And they said, Well, do you think you could withhold that and, you know, like entertain reasonable doubt?
SPEAKER_04: Sure.
SPEAKER_04: Well, she made it on a jury, they were desperate, and then she was elected to the foreman position.
SPEAKER_04: But in general, most attorneys will say, if the DA is pushing charges, they probably didn't, right?
SPEAKER_04: So the Satan goes around making accusations, sometimes wild ones, but hey, accusations.
SPEAKER_04: And we're given a court-appointed defense attorney.
SPEAKER_04: Now, this is unlike the ones you'd get here, who very often have very huge caseloads.
SPEAKER_04: Your court-appointed defense attorney is a member of a trinity.
SPEAKER_04: Your advocate is the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_04: So God, who's the judge, is also advocating for you.
SPEAKER_04: I think that's a pretty lovely metaphor, don't you?
SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's like the best court-appointed defense attorney you can get.
SPEAKER_04: It's the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_04: And Jesus says, I'm not leaving you behind, I'm not leaving you with an advocate.
SPEAKER_04: I am on my way out, but this is for your own sake, so that instead of looking to me only, you can start to find me in places you didn't think I could be.
SPEAKER_04: So let me talk about advocacy for a second.
SPEAKER_04: I mentioned to you last week that I'd been in Greece, but this shows up in Acts, and I just want to give you a little picture of the city of Athens.
SPEAKER_04: It's a little bit blurry, but down here is like where three million people live, and up here is the Acropolis, and the Acropolis had like some records, but by and large it was full of temples.
SPEAKER_04: Temple of Athena, Temple of Ephestus, Temple of Zeus, Temple of Heracles, Temple of Seraphion, Temple of Aslepius, all of this sort of religious stuff.
SPEAKER_04: And when you read today, Paul is talking at the Areopagus.
SPEAKER_04: That's here, that's this high hill that is just lower than the Acropolis, but significantly higher from where everybody else lives.
SPEAKER_04: This is a place of debate.
SPEAKER_04: So people go up and they worship their respective deities, and then they come down and they talk about Stoicism and Cynicism and philosophy, Platonism, and the Socratic method, and all this sort of this business.
SPEAKER_04: And so Paul is here, and the presumption is he's just made the tour up here.
SPEAKER_04: Now, what kind of stuff would you find here?
SPEAKER_04: Well, this is the the uh this is the Parthenon, right?
SPEAKER_04: Very famous building, and it had a very large statue of Athena that is now destroyed.
SPEAKER_04: Uh I'm not sure if you know this, but what it looked like to worship Athena, there was a couple of things.
SPEAKER_04: Uh, people were not worshiping the statue.
SPEAKER_04: I want to be really clear.
SPEAKER_04: That's a little bit of what we call a polemic to say you're worshiping a statue.
SPEAKER_04: What they thought was in taking care of this image of Athena, washing it, dressing it, burning incense, that was symbolically taking care of the deity herself.
SPEAKER_04: So I just want to allay your suspicion.
SPEAKER_04: Nobody was bowing down to the statue, the statue was.
SPEAKER_04: Was supposed to be a representative of something you could not see.
SPEAKER_04: By the way, this entered in the Christian tradition.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you know about the schism that happened between East and West.
SPEAKER_04: In the Greek Orthodox Church, they have these things.
SPEAKER_04: We've got one over here, we've got several in the chapel that are called icons.
SPEAKER_04: Right?
SPEAKER_04: They're pictures of saints or holy moments from the Bible.
SPEAKER_04: And people in Rome said, Y'all Greek people are praying to the icons.
SPEAKER_04: They're idols.
SPEAKER_04: And the Greek people said, What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_04: We're praying through the icons.
SPEAKER_04: The icons are trying to enrich our imagination.
SPEAKER_04: They're giving us things to meditate on to help us pray.
SPEAKER_04: We're not praying to the picture.
SPEAKER_04: Similarly, in the Roman tradition, a lot of sculptures.
SPEAKER_04: And the Orthodox Christians, you're calling us idolaters, you've got those statues.
SPEAKER_04: Well, the Roman tradition doesn't pray to statues.
SPEAKER_04: They're supposed to represent things that stimulate our religious imagination and provoke us to prayer, right?
SPEAKER_04: So sadly, both of us decided the other person's wrong because we were doing idolatry.
SPEAKER_04: But I just want to make sure we're clear.
SPEAKER_04: Nobody prays to statues.
SPEAKER_04: The statue is a representation of something else.
SPEAKER_04: And Paul says, hey, the thing is, you're actually worshiping sort of the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_04: You're taking care of an image that's beautiful and precious and inspiring, and you're not taking the incarnation seriously.
SPEAKER_04: See, what did priests do?
SPEAKER_04: As I mentioned, they tried to feed the deity.
SPEAKER_04: How do you feed a god?
SPEAKER_04: Well, gods are invisible, so this is why they burn stuff up.
SPEAKER_04: That's how you make a bull invisible, you burn it up.
SPEAKER_04: Then it's gone, so the god must have eaten.
SPEAKER_04: You dress the statue, you pray, you wash the statue, this is how you take care.
SPEAKER_04: Paul says, hey, turns out God doesn't need all that statuary.
SPEAKER_04: Now look, in our tradition, we've got room for holy things.
SPEAKER_04: Has anybody been on altar guild before?
SPEAKER_04: In the altar guild, we treat the holy things with great care.
SPEAKER_04: Not just because they're expensive, they are, like really expensive, but frankly, because they represent something bigger than what they are, right?
SPEAKER_04: When we get through with this port wine, we say, God, we want you to do something special.
SPEAKER_04: We want you to nourish our spirits with this wine.
SPEAKER_04: We can't then treat it like regular wine and pour it down to drink.
SPEAKER_04: That would be disrespectful to what we'd ask God to do with it.
SPEAKER_04: So what do we do?
SPEAKER_04: We've got a special sink called a Pessina and we pour it directly into the ground.
SPEAKER_04: That's two sinks back there.
SPEAKER_04: A little inefficient.
SPEAKER_04: But that's how we practice reverence.
SPEAKER_04: We say we're not going to treat this like ordinary because we've asked God to make it extraordinary.
SPEAKER_04: But here's the step I hope you'll consider taking.
SPEAKER_04: When Paul scourges the Athenians at the Areopagus, it's not necessarily that they don't know God.
SPEAKER_04: It's that they're missing this opportunity to take the incarnation seriously.
SPEAKER_04: The incarnation says that God has decided to be fully present in human embodiment.
SPEAKER_04: That's the mystery of the incarnation.
SPEAKER_04: So that means instead of a washing a statue, instead of burning incense before a beautiful image, I would put to you the invitation of how we care for God is by washing our neighbor when they're dirty.
SPEAKER_04: By picking a baby who cannot clean itself and washing the child that is washing God.
SPEAKER_04: By feeding somebody who is hungry, a human being in whom Christ has been embodied.
SPEAKER_04: This is the way we practice real worship, which is the opposite of idolatry.
SPEAKER_04: We say, person, you've got a need, and when I meet your need, I'm meeting God's desire.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you ever thought about that.
SPEAKER_04: When you feed a hungry person, you're feeding God.
SPEAKER_04: When you are patient with somebody who is not fit for human consumption, and which one of us has not been patient fit for human consumption at a moment or two in our lives, you are being patient with God.
SPEAKER_04: When tending to one another's needs, we tend to God in our midst.
SPEAKER_04: We call that advocacy.
SPEAKER_04: That's the advocacy of the Holy Spirit tending to one another in need.
SPEAKER_04: And I know I'm a little bit like a broken record here.
SPEAKER_04: It's really easy to worship beautiful people, isn't that?
SPEAKER_04: It's really easy to tend to people's needs that we like.
SPEAKER_04: This is what Paul says to the people of Athens.
SPEAKER_04: What about all the other people?
SPEAKER_04: What about people you don't like?
SPEAKER_04: When you tend to their needs, you're worshiping God.
SPEAKER_04: When you're tending to people who drive you up the wall with care and empathy and compassion, that's not just a thing you're doing, that is taking care of God embodied in each and every one of us, which is the assurance of our faith.
SPEAKER_04: That's the advocacy of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_04: How progressive is the Holy Spirit's advocacy.
SPEAKER_04: That's why we've got 1 Peter.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you notice this part in 1 Peter.
SPEAKER_04: It says that Jesus goes down to the prison, the spirits who are imprisoned under the earth, the ones that rebelled.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you've read the book of Genesis, but in chapter 6, there are these extraordinary beings.
SPEAKER_04: We're not quite sure what they are.
SPEAKER_04: They're some kind of angelic thing.
SPEAKER_04: And they end up rebelling against God by having superhuman children.
SPEAKER_04: Giants.
SPEAKER_04: You all know this?
SPEAKER_04: So Genesis chapter 6, if you want to read it.
SPEAKER_04: It's kind of wild.
SPEAKER_04: Well, the mythology says that those spirits that rebelled against God got imprisoned under the earth for the disobedience.
SPEAKER_04: And they've just sort of been down there in the dark.
SPEAKER_04: Here's the kind of advocacy that the risen Lord does.
SPEAKER_04: He goes down there and says, get out.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you've read this book by C.
SPEAKER_04: S.
SPEAKER_04: Lewis, The Great Divorce.
SPEAKER_04: It's about 94 pages.
SPEAKER_04: It's a light read.
SPEAKER_04: Super interesting.
SPEAKER_04: And what C.S.
SPEAKER_04: Lewis says is that hell's only eternal if you choose to stay there.
SPEAKER_04: In the book, he imagines that a bus comes from God every day and says to people living in hell, get on the bus and let's get the hell out of here.
SPEAKER_04: And what do you know?
SPEAKER_04: A lot of people are like, eh, I don't want to go to a new place.
SPEAKER_04: You know, like, this is really dark, it's pretty sad, but I'm kind of used to it, you know.
SPEAKER_04: I've invested in realty here.
SPEAKER_04: You know, I don't want to walk away from a good investment, you know.
SPEAKER_04: So people choose to stay there, but look at the advocacy of one Peter.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus goes to exactly the spirits who should have known better than anybody else than to disobey God.
SPEAKER_04: The ones who should know the best.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus goes to them and says, get on the bus, let's get out of here.
SPEAKER_04: That's the advocacy of the Holy Spirit that Jesus says, it's coming for us.
SPEAKER_04: That's the kind of advocacy I put before you we're invited to practice as part of what resurrected discipleship looks like.
SPEAKER_04: That sounds really inconvenient, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_04: It might even sound a little bit unjust.
SPEAKER_04: Hey, my neighbor doesn't deserve it.
SPEAKER_04: We don't get to decide what your neighbor deserves.
SPEAKER_04: God made that decision a long time ago.
SPEAKER_04: Do you notice when Paul says?
SPEAKER_04: Christ died for the righteous and the unrighteous.
SPEAKER_04: To take care of them all.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but Jesus, that was a bad idea because there's some like really bigoted people in the world.
SPEAKER_04: If you convince God to do it your way, please let me know.
SPEAKER_04: The scriptures stand as written.
SPEAKER_04: And they say, Jesus died to take care of all.
SPEAKER_04: The question is, do we say, well, Jesus, you'll take care of it when we die, or do we say, we're going to enter the resurrected life right now and start advocating for even the hardest people to advocate for in our own lives?
SPEAKER_04: And I'm going to tell you, it's Mother's Day, and not everybody got my mom.
SPEAKER_04: I know that.
SPEAKER_04: I had a son whose mom did not advocate for him.
SPEAKER_04: That's why he lives with me.
SPEAKER_04: But I was a lucky one because my mom advocated for me every step of the way, especially when it broke her heart because I did something really dumb, which probably I'll do in the next five minutes, too.
SPEAKER_04: This is what advocacy looks like.
SPEAKER_04: We don't look at a baby who's crying and say, What are you crying about?
SPEAKER_04: Feed yourself.
SPEAKER_04: We know they can't do that.
SPEAKER_04: I was lucky because my mom looked at a crying baby when I was 18 and said, Sweetie, let me help you out, right?
SPEAKER_04: That's advocacy.
SPEAKER_04: For some of us, it was our aunt that did that.
SPEAKER_04: For some of us, it was our grandma.
SPEAKER_04: For some of it, it was our dad.
SPEAKER_04: Of course, we all understand that there were coaches and teachers and clergy along the way who mothered us, whether they were men or women.
SPEAKER_04: But that kind of advocacy is what we celebrate.
SPEAKER_04: And I just want to share with you, most of you might think Mother's Day was invented by Hallmark.
SPEAKER_04: But it was in fact a movement that happened during the First World War in England, where mom said, our sons are dying and we're tired of it.
SPEAKER_04: So what if we as mothers got together and said, Enough with this, let's figure this out in a way where we don't lose our kids anymore?
SPEAKER_04: That's the advocacy of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_04: That's the advocacy of the resurrected life.
SPEAKER_04: Thank God that's the advocacy of my mom.
SPEAKER_04: And that's the advocacy we're called together to do for one another in this community, and especially for those who can't even walk in the door because they've been hurt so bad, frankly, by people who refuse to advocate for them.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus says, I'm going to get out of your way so you don't just look at me.
SPEAKER_04: You start looking for me in each other.
SPEAKER_04: You may have to look really hard.
SPEAKER_04: Keep looking.
SPEAKER_04: Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene III.
SPEAKER_06: We believe in one God, the Father and Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
SPEAKER_06: We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from pure God, begotten and unmade, of one being with the Father.
SPEAKER_06: Through him all things were made.
SPEAKER_06: For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.
SPEAKER_06: By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate for the Virgin Mary and was made of man.
SPEAKER_06: For our sake he was frucified by the Latin Father.
SPEAKER_06: He suffered to heaven with buried.
SPEAKER_06: On the third day he rose again, in accordance with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_06: He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_06: He will come in the glory to judge the living and the dead, and in the kingdom of God knowing.
SPEAKER_06: We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
SPEAKER_06: With the Father and the Son, He is worshipped and glorified.
SPEAKER_06: He has only through the prophets.
SPEAKER_06: We believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
SPEAKER_06: We acknowledge the baptism for the forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_06: And look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world of God.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Let us confess our sin against God and our neighbor.
SPEAKER_04: Holy God, Creator of all lives, the Lord of grace, and giver of life, fear of prayer, there are times in our lives, deep values that separate us from one another and from you.
SPEAKER_05: For fear of making our heart in separation, for fear of being rejected when we reach out.
SPEAKER_06: You call us to reconcile life, to deal with relationships, to uphold us with each other and with you.
SPEAKER_06: And make us big creations of our love of Christ.
SPEAKER_06: 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: So know that you are forgiven, and thus freed to love and serve.
SPEAKER_07: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: The peace of the risen Lord be always with you.
SPEAKER_06: And also with you.
SPEAKER_04: If you're new to it or haven't done this before, in the room right behind the one we're sitting in, we call that the Narthex.
SPEAKER_04: There's these little cards that say welcome.
SPEAKER_04: And we'd be tremendously grateful if you fill one out and put it in the blue basket.
SPEAKER_04: And hey, if you don't want to call from the priest, don't check that box and you won't get one.
SPEAKER_04: But we are delighted that you've chosen to worship with us and would like to have a record of your visit.
SPEAKER_04: A few announcements I want to call to your attention, and it's always good to look back because I've got to tell you, it's the last couple of weeks it's occurred to me that uh there is more going on in this building than I can keep track of.
SPEAKER_04: And that's been the goal.
SPEAKER_04: I think I told you this story about five years ago.
SPEAKER_04: We had a lady try to move her letter.
SPEAKER_04: We were trying to find her sponsoring parish.
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and turns out uh when I called the diocese of Dallas, they said, well, we had to close that church.
SPEAKER_04: We've turned it into a community center.
SPEAKER_04: That will not be us.
SPEAKER_04: We will not be closed to be a community center.
SPEAKER_04: We will be a community center to remain open, and that's where we are, right?
SPEAKER_04: And so uh a group of us ran for like the fifth year in a row the Lord of the Streets luncheon this week.
SPEAKER_04: It was beautiful and lovely and the biggest fundraiser uh that they have.
SPEAKER_04: And little old St.
SPEAKER_04: Thomas ran the Lord of the Streets uh fundraiser lunch once again.
SPEAKER_04: Thank you, everybody involved.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you know that we take Eucharist over to Brookdale once a week, and hey, it takes lots of hands to do this, so thanks, Jim, for filling in for me so I can go to lots.
SPEAKER_04: We got lots going on.
SPEAKER_04: We got lots of lovely people making lots go on.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you know that we had a funeral this week on Thursday afternoon for 12 people.
SPEAKER_04: Uh, Phyllis Morse, who was a member here oh, a long time ago, uh, she's kind of stopped attending before I got here.
SPEAKER_04: Phyllis Morse died, and uh on a Thursday afternoon we had a funeral for 12.
SPEAKER_04: But that's what we do.
SPEAKER_04: That's the community that we are.
SPEAKER_04: We say, please, absolutely, we will celebrate your mother, and what a joy it was to do that.
SPEAKER_04: Now, looking forward, we've got some really cool things coming up.
SPEAKER_04: Uh, one that I want to offer to you is happening today.
SPEAKER_04: It's happening so eminently that I am not gonna stand there and shake your hand.
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna go get on a plane.
SPEAKER_04: Because I mentioned to you that Bishop Doyle believed that outdoor renewal was a priority for clergy and lay people in the diocese, and I am leaving in 40 minutes to fly to Zion National Park to take eight clergy on a five-day backpacking trip.
SPEAKER_04: The diocese said this is such a good idea.
SPEAKER_04: How about we give you$10,500 to pay for it?
SPEAKER_04: So that trip is today.
SPEAKER_04: And I will be headed out the door to do that.
SPEAKER_04: And I do want to remind you, your turn is in November.
SPEAKER_04: There is a trip to Arkansas that is a five-day backpacking trip.
SPEAKER_04: You don't ever have to have gone before.
SPEAKER_04: You do have to be able to walk, but you don't have to have gone before.
SPEAKER_04: And we're gonna do this loop in November.
SPEAKER_04: So let me know if you've got any questions.
SPEAKER_04: But this is the beginning of a ministry that the bishop believes enough in, well, to finance.
SPEAKER_04: And uh, I am really looking forward to the first one today.
SPEAKER_04: So that's coming up.
SPEAKER_04: Uh, another thing coming up, you'll see two flyers out there.
SPEAKER_04: And look, we do too much stuff for everybody to go to, but I just want to raise to you we're hosting two concerts next weekend.
SPEAKER_04: There's a guitar uh duo that's gonna be here on Saturday night, and I've been to four of their events, and they are all downtown quality.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, they are really, really lovely.
SPEAKER_04: You don't have to be a guitarophile to enjoy this.
SPEAKER_04: This is a fine concert.
SPEAKER_04: It'll be Saturday at 7:30.
SPEAKER_04: And I want you to notice there's another one that we're promoting, it's not here, it's on Sunday in our area, uh, from a group called the Notables.
SPEAKER_04: They used to sing here as part of the Houston Symphony Bay Area Auxiliary, but they're gonna be at Clear Lake Methodists.
SPEAKER_04: So uh two concerts uh next weekend that may fit your interests.
SPEAKER_04: Uh I also want to raise up to you that um there's a couple of book studies coming up that we're gonna do this summer.
SPEAKER_04: Have a look in your e-news.
SPEAKER_04: One's called The Wounded Healer.
SPEAKER_04: Uh, it's a spiritual classic, but it's incredibly insightful.
SPEAKER_04: Uh short book.
SPEAKER_04: We're gonna read that over four weeks beginning in June.
SPEAKER_04: And uh there's another program we're gonna start at the beginning of June called The Artist's Way.
SPEAKER_04: And it's aimed at unlocking creativity as a spiritual discipline.
SPEAKER_04: So we're gonna do that as a group through the summer and in the fall, we're gonna have some tutors offer us some creative ways we can do things like take better photographs and make ceramics and share that with each other to help us unlock creativity as a spiritual discipline.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you ever heard that phrase, creativity as a spiritual discipline.
SPEAKER_04: So if that intrigues you, uh the artist way might be of interest to you.
SPEAKER_04: Um, two other kind of community announcements that are really important.
SPEAKER_04: Um, if you're looking for hearing-assisted devices, we haven't forgotten, we've made the order, should be here in the next two weeks, we hope.
SPEAKER_04: We hope, and then we'll get our hearing devices up to date.
SPEAKER_04: So we're working really hard to have both Bluetooth ones that tie to your headphones and the devices we've got out there, so there should be options.
SPEAKER_04: Give us a two or three weeks, and we'll get that all ironed out.
SPEAKER_04: And the other is we're just so happy to celebrate with Anna Christofferson.
SPEAKER_04: Please, if you see her, ask to see her badge.
SPEAKER_04: Because she's now an official employee at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and this is like the light of her life.
SPEAKER_04: We've been praying for her for a long time.
SPEAKER_04: She interned, ask to see the badge because you will make her day and she will make yours.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, if she doesn't make your day, uh, I'll pray for you.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
SPEAKER_04: Continue to walk in love.
SPEAKER_04: If Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, offering and sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_04: All things come of you, O Lord.
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.
SPEAKER_04: 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, but he invites you to meet him here.
SPEAKER_04: Our service continues on page 372 of your red prayer book.
SPEAKER_04: Page 372.
SPEAKER_02: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_02: It is truly right to glorify you, Father, and to give you thanks.
SPEAKER_02: For you alone are God, living and true, dwelling in light, inaccessible from before time and forever, fountain of life and source of all goodness.
SPEAKER_02: Made all things and fill them with you who bless me.
SPEAKER_02: You created them to rejoice in the splendor of your radiance.
SPEAKER_02: Countless strong standing before you serve you night and day, and beholding the glory of your presence, they offer who you unceasing praise, joining with them and giving voice to every creature on who heaven we acclaim you and glorify your whole name as we sing.
SPEAKER_04: Your mighty works reveal your wisdom and love.
SPEAKER_04: You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our stewardship, so that in obedience to you, our Creator, we might shepherd and serve all your creatures.
SPEAKER_04: When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death.
SPEAKER_04: In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you.
SPEAKER_04: Again and again you called us into covenant with you.
SPEAKER_04: Through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation.
SPEAKER_04: Father, you love the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only son to be our Savior.
SPEAKER_04: Incarnated by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us, yet without sin.
SPEAKER_04: To the poor, he proclaimed the good news of salvation, the prisoner's freedom, and the sorrowful joy.
SPEAKER_04: To fulfill your purpose, he gave himself up to death, rising from the grave, destroyed death, and made the whole creation new.
SPEAKER_04: That we might live no longer for ourselves, but for the one who died and rose for us, God sent the Holy Spirit, God's own first gift to those who believe, to complete Jesus' work in the world, to bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all.
SPEAKER_04: When the hour had come for him to be glorified by you, his heavenly Father, having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end.
SPEAKER_04: Supper with them, he took bread.
SPEAKER_04: And when he given thanks to you, he broke it.
SPEAKER_04: Gave it to his disciples and said, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_04: This is my body, all that I am, which is given to build you up.
SPEAKER_04: Whenever you eat bread, remember me.
SPEAKER_04: After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.
SPEAKER_04: And when he given thanks, he gave it to them and said, Drink this, all of you.
SPEAKER_04: This is my blood, my life force, given to nourish your own.
SPEAKER_04: Whenever you drink wine, remember me.
SPEAKER_04: Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption, calling Christ death and his descent among the dead, proclaiming his resurrection and ascension to your right hand, awaiting his coming in glory, and offering to you from the gifts you've given us this bread and this cup, we praise you and we bless you.
SPEAKER_06: We praise you, we bless you, we give thanks to you, and we praise you, Lord our God.
SPEAKER_04: Lord, we pray that in your goodness and mercy your Holy Spirit may descend upon us and upon these gifts, sanctifying them and showing them to be holy gifts for your holy people, the bread of life and the cup of salvation, the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_04: Grant that all who share this bread and cup may become one body and one spirit, a living sacrifice in Christ to the praise of your name.
SPEAKER_04: Remember, Lord, your one holy Catholic and apostolic church, redeemed by the love of your Christ.
SPEAKER_04: Reveal its unity, guard its faith, and preserve it in peace.
SPEAKER_04: Remember Andy, Hector, Kay, and Jeff, our bishops.
SPEAKER_04: Justin, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael, our presiding bishop, Craig, Jim, and Mike, our priests.
SPEAKER_04: Remember all your people and those who seek your truth.
SPEAKER_04: The congregations invited to name their own celebrations or petitions silently or aloud.
SPEAKER_04: Remember all who died in the peace of Christ, especially Philip's morse.
SPEAKER_04: And those whose faith is known to you alone.
SPEAKER_04: Bring them into the place of eternal joy and life, and grant that we might find our inheritance with all the saints who have found favor with you in ages past.
SPEAKER_04: We praise you in union with them and give you glory through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_06: Through Christ and with Christ and in Christ, all honor and glory are yours, Almighty God and Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, whoever and now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_06: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from people, for thy kingdom, and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: God of creation, we give you thanks for nourishment for our souls and bodies, both as individuals and as a good faith.
SPEAKER_06: Let's all eternity your heart, and let's go to you and you'll go for your church, and that we might join you to nourish our world in the good goal that we do, at the bottom of your life in your darkest days, with the radiance of your glory.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Keep your eyes wide open, your hands willing, your hearts generous, your ears attentive, your senses awake, your feet light, your hope alive, and your faith alike.
SPEAKER_04: Go and shine wherever you may be.
SPEAKER_04: Go and embrace with tenderness all of life with its sorrows and joys.
SPEAKER_04: Go and know what divinity expects and what your sisters and brothers seek.
SPEAKER_04: And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be upon you this day and remain with you forever.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.