SPEAKER_03: Hallelujah, Christ is risen.
SPEAKER_07: The Lord is risen indeed.
SPEAKER_07: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_02: Almighty God.
SPEAKER_06: All desires are known.
SPEAKER_06: And from me no secrets are hid.
SPEAKER_06: Cleanse the fossil hearts by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_06: That we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify in the only name.
SPEAKER_06: Through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_02: Almighty God, whose blessed Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.
SPEAKER_02: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that according to his promise, he abides with the church on earth even to the end of the ages.
SPEAKER_02: Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting.
SPEAKER_02: As you're being seated, our children are invited to children's church with Mr.
SPEAKER_02: Alexander.
SPEAKER_01: From the beginning until the day when Jesus was taken up to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: After giving instructions to the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had shown.
SPEAKER_01: After his suffering, he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: This, he said, is what you have heard from me.
SPEAKER_01: For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now.
SPEAKER_01: So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?
SPEAKER_01: He replied, It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.
SPEAKER_01: But you will receive power from when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
SPEAKER_01: And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
SPEAKER_01: While he was going, and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.
SPEAKER_01: And they said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven?
SPEAKER_01: This Jesus who has been taking up from heaven, taking up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 47.
SPEAKER_01: We will read responsively by the half verse.
SPEAKER_01: Clap your hands, all ye peoples.
SPEAKER_01: For the Lord most high is to be feared.
SPEAKER_07: The great sovereign over all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord subdues the peoples under us.
SPEAKER_07: And the nations under our feet.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord uses our inheritance for us.
SPEAKER_06: The bride of the light of Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: God has gone up with a shadow.
SPEAKER_06: The Lord is gone with the bride's own.
SPEAKER_01: Sing praises to God.
SPEAKER_01: Sing praises.
SPEAKER_06: Sing praises to our sovereign.
SPEAKER_06: Sing praises.
SPEAKER_01: For God is sovereign of all the earth.
SPEAKER_06: Sing praises of all Israel.
SPEAKER_01: God reigns over the nations.
SPEAKER_06: God reigns on his holy throne.
SPEAKER_01: The nobles of the peoples have gathered together.
SPEAKER_01: The rulers of the earth belong to God.
SPEAKER_00: And for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.
SPEAKER_00: What are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints?
SPEAKER_00: And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us to believe according to the working of his great power?
SPEAKER_00: God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand of the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come.
SPEAKER_00: And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
SPEAKER_00: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_02: Glory to you, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said to the disciples, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you.
SPEAKER_02: That everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_02: Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, Thus it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sin is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: You are witnesses of these things, and see, I'm sending upon you what my father promised.
SPEAKER_02: So stay here in the city until you've been clothed with power from on high.
SPEAKER_02: Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them.
SPEAKER_02: While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.
SPEAKER_02: And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple, blessing God.
SPEAKER_02: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_02: This is the seventh Sunday, festival day in Easter, and we've done this thing transferring what we call the Feast of the Ascension.
SPEAKER_02: That happened on Thursday.
SPEAKER_02: So a reminder, Easter season is not a day.
SPEAKER_02: In the church, we do this 50 days, hence the word Pentecost.
SPEAKER_02: 50.
SPEAKER_02: The ascension happens 40 days then.
SPEAKER_02: This is good biblical numerology, right?
SPEAKER_02: Like Jesus tempted 40 days in the desert.
SPEAKER_02: The Israelites wander 40 years in the wilderness, right?
SPEAKER_02: So 40 days, physically embodied, resurrected Jesus, and then on Thursday, he ascends to heaven.
SPEAKER_02: And then there's this sort of like 10-day window between the ascension and Pentecost.
SPEAKER_02: Well, now we'll have seven days to sort of think through what do we do in the absence of the visible embodied resurrected Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: This is still part of the resurrection message.
SPEAKER_02: Remember, I don't think resurrection is a neat historical concept.
SPEAKER_02: It's an invitation to pattern our lives after.
SPEAKER_02: So I do hope you will do this the next seven days.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to talk about ascension because sometimes we take this so literally we forget to take it seriously.
SPEAKER_02: In our own community, we're very well aware that when Yuri Gregarian left the atmosphere, he said, There's no God up here.
SPEAKER_02: He didn't see.
SPEAKER_02: I would bet money that the web telescope will not find the resurrected Jesus floating out there in outer space.
SPEAKER_02: We have to remember that this is meant to invite us into a concept more than to a fact pattern.
SPEAKER_02: The concept is, and we still use language like this today, ancient people, and again, we still do this sometimes, perceive the universe as having three tiers.
SPEAKER_02: The underworld is down beneath us.
SPEAKER_02: Here we are in the land of the living, heaven is up.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: This is why trees are so significant in many ancient cultures, because they're in all three plants.
SPEAKER_02: They're rooted below the earth, present and reaching up to the heavens.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: So we could read this as Jesus leaves the atmosphere like a rocket.
SPEAKER_02: Instead, I'd like you to consider symbolically what's happening.
SPEAKER_02: In the beginning, what we hear is there is this thing called the incarnation, where all of God's presence takes on the confinements of our humanity.
SPEAKER_02: All of them.
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is a riddle.
SPEAKER_02: How is Jesus both human and divine at the same time?
SPEAKER_02: Without, this is really critical to Christian theology, without the divine nature overriding the human nature.
SPEAKER_02: It is a holy mystery.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to give you my take on it.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is born just like you and me, which means, like you and me, if he wanted to read and write, he had to learn.
SPEAKER_02: I bet you he even made mistakes.
SPEAKER_02: Mistakes aren't a sin, says John Wesley.
SPEAKER_02: Not learning from our mistakes is sin.
SPEAKER_02: I bet you.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus went to middle school.
SPEAKER_02: Now I wish the divine nature would take me out of that.
SPEAKER_02: But look, if that happened, he didn't like you and me in every way.
SPEAKER_02: If Jesus walked into the room and read everybody's mind, he wouldn't like you and me.
SPEAKER_02: How did he do miracles?
SPEAKER_02: He didn't do them.
SPEAKER_02: God did them through his openness and willingness, just like God did miracles through Elijah and Moses and my mother and the people you know and love who are saints in your life.
SPEAKER_02: They do miracles like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, supernaturally because they are open to God, expressing God's presence through them.
SPEAKER_02: That's your priest's take on it.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, we are called to emulate that way of life.
SPEAKER_02: And it is emulable because our Savior was like us in every way.
SPEAKER_02: Which meant he got diarrhea sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: And I don't say that to be irreverent.
SPEAKER_02: It's critical.
SPEAKER_02: It's critical he got ingrown hairs, because I get those.
SPEAKER_02: It's critical he woke up and a joint hurt, because that happens to most of us in the room.
SPEAKER_02: Without that, he was not incarnate as we are, and the scriptures claim he was.
SPEAKER_02: So here's the earthly journey.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus learns.
SPEAKER_02: He needs a tutor to say, that's not how you make the letter Alpha.
SPEAKER_02: Add a longer tail.
SPEAKER_02: We need that stuff.
SPEAKER_02: And then one day people decide to kill him, which I would tell you was a mistake.
SPEAKER_02: That is not a thing we should have done, and we did.
SPEAKER_02: And here's part of the resurrection story.
SPEAKER_02: God can take our mistakes and still work good out of them, and that's why we're here today.
SPEAKER_02: We're here celebrating our resurrection because we as human beings did a dumb thing.
SPEAKER_02: And God said, That's okay, I can edit that.
SPEAKER_02: So we've got the resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: And now the day we think about it as the ascension, where Jesus takes all of our humanity and brings it right back to God eternally.
SPEAKER_02: Symbolically, Jesus is taking the human experience and weaving it into the Godhead forever.
SPEAKER_02: This is a part of Orthodox theology called apotheosis.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't often show up in our Western tradition, but if you read Orthodox, what you say is Jesus as God became a human so that humans could become just like God.
SPEAKER_02: The interesting thing about the offended Jesus, don't you remember that?
SPEAKER_02: Jesus comes back on Easter Day.
SPEAKER_02: Those wounds are not Henry.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus doesn't just raise our humanity into the Godhead, he raises our wounds into humanity into the Godhead.
SPEAKER_02: That is to say, our personality works are not in the front of God, part of the Godhead.
SPEAKER_02: That is taken theology seriously.
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting that the people, the disciples, you notice they have two different reactions in Luke and Acts.
SPEAKER_02: In Luke, they're like, yay, this is great.
SPEAKER_02: And in Acts, they're like, what do we do?
SPEAKER_02: Totally different reactions, right?
SPEAKER_02: From the same author.
SPEAKER_02: I think he got us right.
SPEAKER_02: Because I usually have both reactions at the same time, too, right?
SPEAKER_02: There's these two guys in white.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know if they're angels.
SPEAKER_02: We just hear that they're wearing white and they say, hey, he's coming back the same way he went up.
SPEAKER_02: And what I hear that saying is, he's coming back wounded.
SPEAKER_02: Paul does the next step for us.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Y'all are the body of Christ on earth.
SPEAKER_02: The wounded body of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Which to me is a lovely call.
SPEAKER_02: It both assures us that God is not put out by our idiosyncrasies.
SPEAKER_02: God is not put out by them.
SPEAKER_02: But it also reminds us, frankly, as a body of Christ, there are wounds in the body of Christ that are still actively hemorrhaging.
SPEAKER_02: And part of our invitation this Easter season is to take care of ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: What do I mean?
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you three things.
SPEAKER_02: You may have four or seventy seven others in your hip.
SPEAKER_02: These are representative.
SPEAKER_02: You may or may not know this.
SPEAKER_02: Even though the Episcopal Church has decided to ordain women to the priesthood and consecrate them as bishops, there are still churches today where people will come to receive the Eucharist and refuse to take it from a female priest.
SPEAKER_02: That is a hemorrhage in the body of Christ, and it is our invitation to give it medical care.
SPEAKER_02: Will it ever go away?
SPEAKER_02: Because it is part of our tradition, that wound will never completely go away, and it would be lovely if we could have a scar there that is no longer leeching life out.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you know this, maybe you don't.
SPEAKER_02: There are people who will not receive the Eucharist from somebody who has more melanin in their skin than I do.
SPEAKER_02: They will come to the rail and refuse to take it because the priest is black or Asian or Latino.
SPEAKER_02: That is a hemorrhaging wound in the body of Jesus Christ that we are invited to give advanced medical care to until it becomes a scar.
SPEAKER_02: It should not go away.
SPEAKER_02: We must remember as people of faith, we got this wrong.
SPEAKER_02: But we're not gonna keep getting it wrong.
SPEAKER_02: This is how we become the wounded body of Christ on earth.
SPEAKER_02: We're not afraid of our wounds.
SPEAKER_02: We want to stop the hemorrhaging of life, and we want to remember this is part of our tradition, so we don't keep doing it.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna tell you, this you may sound like I'm nuts, but one of the biggest wounds historically in the Christian tradition is anti-Semitism.
SPEAKER_02: And if you read any study, it continues to grow and it is a hemorrhage in the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And today, when we read the scripture, you might have heard a gateway into it.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus explains how the scriptures look forward to their own fulfillment, and it is very tempting as Christian people to say, Jewish people don't even read their own scriptures appropriately.
SPEAKER_02: We got it right, and they don't know.
SPEAKER_02: That is a hemorrhaging wound in the body of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty strong on this.
SPEAKER_02: It is the epitome of Christian arrogance to think that we understand the Hebrew scriptures better than the people to whom they were given.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to tell you it is sinful and wrong to do it.
SPEAKER_02: What happened at the resurrection is people who followed Jesus said, hey, we have experienced more life from a guy after he died than when he was alive.
SPEAKER_02: This is the truth.
SPEAKER_02: And through that experience, we are going to look at the scriptures in a different way.
SPEAKER_02: And that doesn't mean our Jewish brothers and sisters were or are wrong.
SPEAKER_02: It means we read them through the experience of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: We are coming up.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you know this, next week is Pentecost.
SPEAKER_02: That's the Christian word.
SPEAKER_02: The Jewish word is shabuot.
SPEAKER_02: It is the celebration of the Torah as God's greatest gift to human beings.
SPEAKER_02: A hemorrhaging wound in the body of Jesus Christ is when we say Jewish people are legalists, they follow the law, they are works-based salvation people.
SPEAKER_02: Those things are sinful and wrong.
SPEAKER_02: We as a body of Christ need to repent of them.
SPEAKER_02: Our Jewish brothers and sisters this coming Saturday will read the whole Torah.
SPEAKER_02: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_02: They read the whole thing.
SPEAKER_02: They sit through the synagogue, and then they eat honey to say how sweet that gift of instruction is.
SPEAKER_02: Our Jewish brothers and sisters do not hear the Torah as the law, they hear it as God's guidance to how we live joyfully with one another and with God.
SPEAKER_02: You may not like me saying this, but I will tell you when we went and visited the rabbi recently, who by the way is retiring, uh, next week, on Shabu, somebody asked him about hell.
SPEAKER_02: Do Jewish people believe in hell?
SPEAKER_02: And the rabbi said, God is too loving to torment people forever for things they do that are temporal.
SPEAKER_02: I think he's right.
SPEAKER_02: And that grace comes from the Hebrew Bible.
SPEAKER_02: Some people don't put a lot of stake in words, but I'll tell you the reason I'm an Episcopalian is because I do.
SPEAKER_02: When we call the Hebrew scriptures the Old Testament, we do it to our detriment.
SPEAKER_02: It is not the Old Testament, it is the Hebrew Bible.
SPEAKER_02: What do we read?
SPEAKER_02: We read the Christian Bible.
SPEAKER_02: That's what we read.
SPEAKER_02: Has the Hebrew Bible changes the order?
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you know this.
SPEAKER_02: The book you got in front of you, the Hebrew scriptures are in a different order than our Jewish brothers and sisters read them.
SPEAKER_02: And we've added letters and gospels.
SPEAKER_02: That's why it's the Christian Bible.
SPEAKER_02: The Hebrew Bible, we reorder.
SPEAKER_02: So we have our own Bible.
SPEAKER_02: We do.
SPEAKER_02: We have reordered it because we have this experience of the risen Christ.
SPEAKER_02: That's part of our guidance.
SPEAKER_02: But to say things like, the Jews killed Jesus, that's a hemorrhaging wound in the body of Jesus Christ that we are called to be a part of.
SPEAKER_02: Ascension Day invites us to say these are wounds.
SPEAKER_02: Let's stop the hemorrhaging and let's leave the star as a memorial so that we don't do it again.
SPEAKER_02: Whether that is with women, priests, openly gay clergy, or our Jewish brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, that list can go on and on and on and needs to, if we are going to be the resurrected body of Jesus Christ on earth.
SPEAKER_02: And that's our invitation.
SPEAKER_02: Do some advanced medical care for one another so that these wounds in the body of Christ stop hemorrhaging.
SPEAKER_02: Quite frankly, that is how we ourselves ascend.
SPEAKER_02: And we don't have to go anywhere to do it.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, we're invited to do our own ascension right where we are.
SPEAKER_02: And that's the instructions Jesus gives.
SPEAKER_02: Stay here.
SPEAKER_02: You want to be missionaries to Africa because it's exotic and fun, there's a place for that.
SPEAKER_02: Do the hard work.
SPEAKER_02: Go to the people you have history with.
SPEAKER_02: Go to the people that you've put down in times of former ignorance, the people you've hurt, and do the difficult thing and make a real apology and prove you meant it with the way you treat them here on out.
SPEAKER_02: That's what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_02: Start where you are, make it right where you are, and then make it right everywhere else you go.
SPEAKER_02: I think that's our invitation for ascension.
SPEAKER_02: Now, there is this interesting period.
SPEAKER_02: And what I'm getting ready to say next about ascension is a thing, if you've been to the funeral with me, you have probably heard me say.
SPEAKER_02: This is the Paschal candle.
SPEAKER_02: It is the light of the risen Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And for the last 40 days, it's been a risen Christ who the first followers of Jesus were able to see and touch.
SPEAKER_02: Visible to their naked eye.
SPEAKER_02: What happens on ascension?
SPEAKER_02: The same thing that happens when I'm getting ready, and I'm going to do it in a second.
SPEAKER_02: Take the snuffer and put it on top of that flame.
SPEAKER_02: And you know what it's going to do?
SPEAKER_02: The light is going to change.
SPEAKER_02: It is not going to go out.
SPEAKER_02: You will even see it change.
SPEAKER_02: It will be very visible to you.
SPEAKER_02: What happens when Jesus ascends?
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't leave us.
SPEAKER_02: His presence among us changes.
SPEAKER_02: Strictly speaking, the spectrum of light is like this big.
SPEAKER_02: The light spectrum that is visible to your eye is like that big.
SPEAKER_02: All the light we do not see.
SPEAKER_02: Like microwaves.
SPEAKER_02: Invisible to the eye.
SPEAKER_02: We know they're real because, hey, they heat up a lean pocket really fast, right?
SPEAKER_02: Infrared, invisible to your eye, absolutely real.
SPEAKER_02: What we say at every funeral is this is why we come into church to funerals.
SPEAKER_02: Life is not ended, it is changed.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus' embodied presence is not ended, it's changed.
SPEAKER_02: And where is it?
SPEAKER_02: It's in your neighbor.
SPEAKER_02: It's even in the neighbor who you would like to accept, but won't accept you.
SPEAKER_02: That is the hardest thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: To accept somebody who won't accept your acceptance.
SPEAKER_02: And that's the body of Christ on earth.
SPEAKER_02: Not visible to your eye, which is why we trust what God says.
SPEAKER_02: I have come to fill and raise all things up.
SPEAKER_02: What happens next week?
SPEAKER_02: Consider.
SPEAKER_02: The disciples, they don't know nothing.
SPEAKER_02: They're just like us.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, really.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we think, well, if I'd been around, I would have got Jesus on the first take.
SPEAKER_02: That is wishful thinking, right?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, these guys and girls, they spent three years with them and they still got him wrong at every turn, which makes me think there's hope for me.
SPEAKER_02: He flies up, they say, Oh, we're left alone.
SPEAKER_02: They mourn a visible presence of the embodied Christ because they're looking in the wrong place.
SPEAKER_02: God doesn't give up.
SPEAKER_02: On Pentecost, God goes.
SPEAKER_02: And there's a loud and mighty wind.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's what happens next week.
SPEAKER_02: It's like a sound of a really big wind.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, go to Utah.
SPEAKER_02: It's like 35 miles an hour.
SPEAKER_02: That's what Pentecost is like.
SPEAKER_02: It blows your tent over sometimes, off a mountain.
SPEAKER_02: Might have happened last week.
SPEAKER_02: They live in between this space of visible, and quite honestly, in my own spiritual journey, that's the case.
SPEAKER_02: We talk about mountaintop experiences.
SPEAKER_02: We talk about valleys as if God is not as present in both places.
SPEAKER_02: What's different?
SPEAKER_02: My eye, not God's presence.
SPEAKER_02: My eye is what's different.
SPEAKER_02: So sometimes we find ourselves in this weird space, and there's even a word for it.
SPEAKER_02: It's called liminal spaces.
SPEAKER_02: A liminal space is a space of transition, and it feels like a lot of anxiety, and it can sometimes feel really tough.
SPEAKER_02: And what I want to share with you actually is what I think Ascension is really doing for us, and I want to do it in a nature poem, but an introduction to it.
SPEAKER_02: So many of you know that I just spent the last week in Zion National Park, and we hiked, I don't know, like 40 miles with 45-pound backpacks.
SPEAKER_02: And there was this liminal moment where we did probably a 500-foot ascent with these packs on, 500 feet of elevation change, on a 30% gradient.
SPEAKER_02: That's really steep, by the way.
SPEAKER_02: Like that's that's that's challenging.
SPEAKER_02: And then there was this sort of lovely moment.
SPEAKER_02: Right when we were coming around to the top of the ascent, there were probably 200 bright yellow Canaanite daisies.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the top.
SPEAKER_02: Now, maybe you've been to Zion before.
SPEAKER_02: The road is at the bottom, you look up.
SPEAKER_02: We were on the top, looking down.
SPEAKER_02: And let me tell you about the heavenly city of Zion.
SPEAKER_02: You'll find it in Utah.
SPEAKER_02: You look down, and there it is.
SPEAKER_02: And of course, it wouldn't have been as perfect without the journey.
SPEAKER_02: And the journey was a journey with you, it was part of the experience.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes going uphill with a backpack on is what we call liminal space.
SPEAKER_02: Liminal.
SPEAKER_02: When am I gonna get there?
SPEAKER_02: Can we take a break?
SPEAKER_02: Do we have any more water?
SPEAKER_02: These are natural moments in our lives, are they not?
SPEAKER_02: Part of what we're invited to do is people, when we get it, when we see the bouquets, whether they are real flowers, or just frankly, we understood why somebody was so difficult to deal with.
SPEAKER_02: Because somebody was cruel to them.
SPEAKER_02: And they didn't know what to do with that pain.
SPEAKER_02: And we get that.
SPEAKER_02: That's when we're able to say to our fellow brother or sister on the trail, there are some flowers up ahead.
SPEAKER_02: I've had a look.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's hard.
SPEAKER_02: And it's part of the trail.
SPEAKER_02: So, how about we walk it together?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe even I'll help carry something in your pack to make it easier.
SPEAKER_02: This is how we heal hemorrhaging wounds in the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Part of what's going to happen next week is this assurance that God really is in all things.
SPEAKER_02: I mean all things.
SPEAKER_02: I'm still scratching my head how God is embodied in mosquitoes.
SPEAKER_02: You think they're bad here.
SPEAKER_02: I was really surprised to find them on top of Zion trying to, they're not smart up there.
SPEAKER_02: They were like trying to extract blood from my puffy jacket.
SPEAKER_02: They were really trying hard.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what they got.
SPEAKER_02: But they were all over the place.
SPEAKER_02: And if we can't find God on a mosquito, it's not God's fault, it's ours.
SPEAKER_02: Whether that mosquito is a bug or the person across your street with a political sign you don't like.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think I'm wrong.
SPEAKER_02: And the reason I think I'm right is because it's really darn hard.
SPEAKER_02: And if we did it, the world will be better than we settled for.
SPEAKER_02: That's why I think I'm right about this.
SPEAKER_02: Now, part of what the ascension does, it lifts all of our any parts of brokenness in our lives, it lifts them up to God.
SPEAKER_02: And there is this assurance, right, that all of human experience, the successes, the pain, the arthritis, the aging bodies, the irritable bowel syndrome, those times when we just smile because we don't even know why, just like we get the feels.
SPEAKER_02: All that goes up to God for good.
SPEAKER_02: And we may find ourselves in this short spot.
SPEAKER_02: And so I want to tell you what I think we're called to do as the body of Christ on earth that is healing wounds and not trying to cover up scars with makeup.
SPEAKER_02: Look, we don't need to be afraid of that stuff.
SPEAKER_02: It's to help other people, help one another, be patient with ourselves when we find ourselves in one of those liminal spots.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna read you this poem.
SPEAKER_02: It's called Lost.
SPEAKER_02: It's by Daniel Wagoner.
SPEAKER_02: You may say it's because you're really tired.
SPEAKER_02: That's why you're doing this.
SPEAKER_02: That could be true.
SPEAKER_02: Stand still.
SPEAKER_02: The trees ahead and the bushes beside you are not lost.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever you are is called here.
SPEAKER_02: And you must treat it as a powerful stranger.
SPEAKER_02: You must ask permission to know it and be known.
SPEAKER_02: The forest breathes.
SPEAKER_02: Listen.
SPEAKER_02: It answers.
SPEAKER_02: I have made this place around you.
SPEAKER_02: If you leave it, you may come back again saying, here.
SPEAKER_02: No two trees are the same to Raven.
SPEAKER_02: No two branches are the same to wren.
SPEAKER_02: If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, you are surely lost.
SPEAKER_02: Stand still.
SPEAKER_02: The forest knows where you are.
SPEAKER_02: You must let it find you.
SPEAKER_02: We have at moments in our lives we know people who have lived our lives in large squads of being lost.
SPEAKER_02: And we're invited as part of the pattern of life and faith that we call resurrection to help people know that they are found by God, that we are found in God.
SPEAKER_02: And the way we do that is by taking seriously the body of Christ on earth.
SPEAKER_02: Stay still.
SPEAKER_02: God is where you are, no matter how beautiful or hard or annoying or tired it may be.
SPEAKER_02: Our call as the body of Christ on earth is to help make that visible.
SPEAKER_02: You may be looking for the second coming of Christ to end the world.
SPEAKER_02: That's fine.
SPEAKER_02: Let's not wait that long.
SPEAKER_02: Let's make the second coming of Christ embodied and visible a little more today.
SPEAKER_02: Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the 1930s.
SPEAKER_04: We believe in one God, the Father in the Almighty, Negator of the Earth, of all day and be.
SPEAKER_02: Beyond measure, and you are included in that love.
SPEAKER_02: So know that you are forgiven.
SPEAKER_02: And thus free to love and serve.
SPEAKER_02: The feast of the risen and ascended Lord be always with you.
SPEAKER_02: Good morning, and thank you for worshiping with us at St.
SPEAKER_02: Thomas today.
SPEAKER_02: If you're new to us or haven't done this before in the room right behind the one we're sitting in, we call that the North X.
SPEAKER_02: There's these little cards that say welcome.
SPEAKER_02: And we'd be tremendously grateful if you fill one out so we have a record of your visit.
SPEAKER_02: And look, I'm not going to call you unless you say I want to call.
SPEAKER_02: So you decide the terms of engagement.
SPEAKER_02: Well, we would just be really grateful if we know who you are and where you're from.
SPEAKER_02: It's just lovely to know who's with us.
SPEAKER_02: There are a few announcements I'd like to call to your attention.
SPEAKER_02: One of them you'll see coming this Wednesday that's really lovely.
SPEAKER_02: Many of you know that we have a resale shop that we've had for more than 50 years called the Nearly New.
SPEAKER_02: It's not just a thrift shop.
SPEAKER_02: We also do, well, a lot of other things.
SPEAKER_02: Now, many of you know that this is an all-volunteer workforce made up not only of people in our parish.
SPEAKER_02: We invite everybody who wants to do this, right?
SPEAKER_02: So we have some lovely community volunteers who work over at the shop.
SPEAKER_02: And one of the most visible things they do is they profit share.
SPEAKER_02: So all of the money that they earn after paying their expenses as a shop goes out into the community, and uh the shop has decided to pick one service organization a year to really concentrate on.
SPEAKER_02: And the one we're doing this year is Bay Area Turning Point, which is relief, frankly, for women who are abused and their children.
SPEAKER_02: The first quarter, the Nearly New is sharing more than$8,000 with Bay Area Turning Point.
SPEAKER_02: What I want you to know about the Nearly New Shop is it does not just a revenue generator, it doesn't just keep recycling things, which is really good in stewardship, right?
SPEAKER_02: It is.
SPEAKER_02: It's also a place where our volunteers give pastoral care to some really needy people who are looking for somebody to give them a minute of time.
SPEAKER_02: It is a place where young people are mentored as well in how to service.
SPEAKER_02: I can't really describe to you the full ministry.
SPEAKER_02: The dollars are the visible part.
SPEAKER_02: The invisible part is beyond imagination.
SPEAKER_02: So thanks, nearly new.
SPEAKER_02: By the way, if you're interested, it would be so great to have so many volunteers there that we practice what I call social justice.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: That's why you stand around and talk while you serve, right?
SPEAKER_02: So if you are interested in the Nearly New, even one day a week, you can talk to Stacy, you can talk to me, you can talk to Vicky.
SPEAKER_02: It really is a ministry, not just a prophet.
SPEAKER_02: Speaking of ministry, Jane Flynn took a group of folks.
SPEAKER_02: Can I ask you to stand if you went this morning?
SPEAKER_02: To Lot's?
SPEAKER_02: I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_02: Jane Flynn, you'll hear from her in the future, is coordinating us, serving breakfast at Lots, Lord of the Streets.
SPEAKER_02: That's a church community for current and formerly homeless families that also needs to worship.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna see opportunities coming up, and I just want you to pay attention because look, while I'm talking about this Ascension Day message, I just want you to hear.
SPEAKER_02: It's great to meet people's physical needs.
SPEAKER_02: If we do that without meeting their dignity needs, we miss something.
SPEAKER_02: The work is an excuse.
SPEAKER_02: The work is an excuse to build a bond and pay homage to God embodied in somebody who's caught up short.
SPEAKER_02: You will see this coming up.
SPEAKER_02: I thought it was today.
SPEAKER_02: That's what happened to you on for a week.
SPEAKER_02: Uh you missed it.
SPEAKER_02: Speaking of, lots of gratitude for our vestry, for our bishop, for you all making space for your priest to lead an outdoor renewal trip in Zion National Park for clergy and spouses.
SPEAKER_02: And I just want you to know the experience there's these images you get of beauty that for me, in the twilight of my sleep, they come back in a haunting way because they're so beautiful, they haunt me.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you've had that experience.
SPEAKER_02: Zion is full of those images.
SPEAKER_02: Beyond that, talk about simplicity.
SPEAKER_02: Everything you're gonna use is on your back.
SPEAKER_02: And to be with a group of clergy focused on awe and wonder and renewal and conversation and how it is that, frankly, we we live into God's presence in the world is just a true gift.
SPEAKER_02: And I want you to know this clergy group was the Alpha Test.
SPEAKER_02: Because I would love to bring you to Arkansas this coming November for a five-day trip.
SPEAKER_02: You don't ever have to have backpacked before, and I only have a couple of spots left.
SPEAKER_02: I'm really amazed that we already have ten people.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna have to buy more backpacks, and I will be happy to do it.
SPEAKER_02: If this is of any interest to you, we'll be doing this in November in the Wachita National Forest for five days, averaging five miles a day, which is not terrible.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and it is an opportunity to find yourself in what I call a thin place.
SPEAKER_02: It really is, with a group of other people who are also in a thin place, all in wonder suffuse these experiences for me.
SPEAKER_02: So if you're really interested in this at all, let's talk about it uh after service or online.
SPEAKER_02: Um, as I mentioned, we're gonna do this in Arkansas.
SPEAKER_02: Um, a couple other things coming up.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna be here next week at 10:30, I'll be here at 8.
SPEAKER_02: And you're gonna have a lovely guest, the Bishop's Chief of Staff.
SPEAKER_02: This is for the diocese, his name Marcia Paul.
SPEAKER_02: She is such a lovely lady.
SPEAKER_02: Jamaican, so she's Afro-Caribbean, and she'll be your celebrant.
SPEAKER_02: And uh Alec Tillis will be preaching at 10:30.
SPEAKER_02: Um I'll be doing it at 8 o'clock.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and that's so that I can have time with uh with some extended family next week who are gonna be around.
SPEAKER_02: So uh thank you for understanding that we need a break.
SPEAKER_02: We need a break sometime.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, even sometimes we need a break in a row.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, thanks for getting that, and you will enjoy Marcia.
SPEAKER_02: She is really a beautiful human being.
SPEAKER_02: That'll be at 10.30 only.
SPEAKER_02: I I I think I missed the candle.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't put the candle out.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna wait to do that last.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
SPEAKER_02: I would have forgotten.
SPEAKER_02: What about the music?
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, you know, there's this lovely concert happening over at Clear Lake Methodist today at four.
SPEAKER_02: It's a group called the Notables that used to be kind of an auxiliary of the Houston Symphony Bay area when it was around that we hosted.
SPEAKER_02: And it's just gonna be a high-quality musical performance, and I'm really glad to say you don't have to go downtown to have something really beautiful and inspiring.
SPEAKER_02: Today over at Clear Lake Methodist at 4 o'clock, there's some flyers out here in the North.
SPEAKER_02: They're putting on a concert.
SPEAKER_02: It will be absolutely beautiful.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and you may not know this, we hosted one here last night.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I wouldn't hear it, but I think it was really good.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Susan?
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
SPEAKER_02: So it's not a money, it's a it's a a a a collection of ease.
SPEAKER_02: And I think it doesn't make sense to do it now instead of have a look.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Continue to walk in love and into the center.
SPEAKER_02: Just to fight for his love, for his love, God gave himself for it.
SPEAKER_02: An offering and sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_02: This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more.
SPEAKER_02: So come.
SPEAKER_02: You who have much faith and you who have little.
SPEAKER_02: You who have been here often, and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.
SPEAKER_02: You who are lost, and you who have been found and found in God.
SPEAKER_02: Come not because the church invites you, it is Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And he invites you to meet him here.
SPEAKER_02: And our service continues on page 372 of your red prayer book.
SPEAKER_02: Page 372.
SPEAKER_03: The Lord be with you, and also with you to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_03: It is wrong to give up thanks and praise.
SPEAKER_03: It is truly right to glorify you, Father, and to who give you thanks, 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_03: You made all things and filled them with your food left.
SPEAKER_03: You created them to rejoice in the splendor of your radiance.
SPEAKER_03: Countless throngs of angels stand before you to serve you who night and day, and beholding the glory of your presence, they offer for you who unceasing praise, joining with them and giving voice to every creature under heaven.
SPEAKER_03: We acclaim you and glorify your whole name as we sing.
SPEAKER_02: Your mighty works reveal your wisdom and love.
SPEAKER_02: You formed us from 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_02: When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death.
SPEAKER_02: And your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you and be found in you.
SPEAKER_02: Again and again, you called us into covenant with you.
SPEAKER_02: To the prophets, you taught us to hope for salvation.
SPEAKER_02: Father, you love the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior.
SPEAKER_02: Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us, yet without sin.
SPEAKER_02: To the poor, he proclaimed the good news of salvation, prisoners' freedom to the sorrowful joy.
SPEAKER_02: To fulfill your purpose, he gave himself up to death.
SPEAKER_02: Rising from the grave, destroyed death, and made the whole creation new.
SPEAKER_02: And 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 for those who believe, to complete Jesus' work in the world and bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all.
SPEAKER_02: When the hour had come for him to be glorified by you, his heavenly Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
SPEAKER_02: So at supper with them, he took bread.
SPEAKER_02: And when he given thanks to you, he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_02: This is my body, all that I am, which is given to build you up.
SPEAKER_02: Whenever you eat bread, remember me.
SPEAKER_02: After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.
SPEAKER_02: And when he given thanks, he gave it to them and said, Drink this, all of you.
SPEAKER_02: This is my blood, my life force given to nourish your own.
SPEAKER_02: Whenever you drink wine, remember me.
SPEAKER_02: So, Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our own redemption.
SPEAKER_02: Recalling Christ's death and his descent among the dead, proclaiming his resurrection and his 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_07: We praise you, we bless you, we thanks to you, and we praise you, Lord our God.
SPEAKER_02: 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.
SPEAKER_02: The bread of life and the cup of salvation.
SPEAKER_02: The body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Grant that all who share this bread and this cup may become one body and one spirit, a living sacrifice in Christ to the praise of your name.
SPEAKER_02: Remember, Lord, your one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, redeemed by the love of your Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Reveal its unity, guard its faith, preserve it in peace.
SPEAKER_02: Remember Andy, Hector, Jeff, and Kay, our bishops, Michael, our presiding bishop, Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury, Craig, Jim, and Mike, the priests in our community, and all who minister in your church.
SPEAKER_02: Remember all your people and those who think you are truth.
SPEAKER_02: The congregation is invited to name their own prayers and petitions finally for a remember all who died in the peace of Christ, and to those whose faith is known to you alone.
SPEAKER_02: Bring them into the place of eternal joy and light, and grant that we may find our own inheritance with matriarchs, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, with all the saints who have found favor with you in ages past.
SPEAKER_02: We praise you in union with them and give you glory through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_07: 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, forever 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_07: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_07: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_02: God of creation, we give you thanks for the burden of our souls and bodies, both as individuals and all the energy you have done, and your community for your church.
SPEAKER_07: For now, we urge our world in the control of the line of life on the dark earth days with the rain of your glory.
SPEAKER_02: 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 alight.
SPEAKER_02: Go and shine wherever you may be.
SPEAKER_02: Go and embrace with tenderness all of life, with its sorrows and joys.
SPEAKER_02: Go and know what divinity expects and what your sisters and brothers seek.
SPEAKER_02: 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.