SPEAKER_03: Let's be called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_04: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_04: Almighty God.
SPEAKER_04: To you, all hearts are open.
SPEAKER_06: All the Spirit.
SPEAKER_06: And from you the secret spirit.
SPEAKER_06: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_06: Let me perfectly love you and worthily magnify your name through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_04: And also.
SPEAKER_04: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_04: Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things, both in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_04: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people.
SPEAKER_04: And in our time grant us your peace through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: As you're being seated, our children are invited to children's chapel.
SPEAKER_00: A reading from Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_00: And before you were born, I consecrated you.
SPEAKER_00: I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Then I said, Ah, Lord God, truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord said to me, Do not say, I am only a boy, for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said to me, Now I have put my words in your mouth.
SPEAKER_00: See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.
SPEAKER_00: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_00: In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge.
SPEAKER_00: In your righteousness, deliver me and set me free.
SPEAKER_00: Be my strong rock, a castle, to keep me safe.
unknown: You are my trade and my stronghold.
SPEAKER_00: Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked.
SPEAKER_00: For you are my hope, O Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: I have been sustained by you ever since I was born.
SPEAKER_00: From my mother's womb, you have been my strength.
SPEAKER_01: Reading from First Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
SPEAKER_01: And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, I'm sorry, understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
SPEAKER_01: If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Love is patient, love is kind.
SPEAKER_01: Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
SPEAKER_01: It does not insist on its own way.
SPEAKER_01: It is not irritable or resentful.
SPEAKER_01: It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
SPEAKER_01: It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
SPEAKER_01: Love never ends.
SPEAKER_01: But as for prophecies, they will come to an end.
SPEAKER_01: As for tongues, they will cease.
SPEAKER_01: As for knowledge, it will come to an end.
SPEAKER_01: For we now we know only in part, and we prophesize only in part.
SPEAKER_01: But when the complete comes, the partial would come to an end.
SPEAKER_01: When I was a child, I spoke like a child.
SPEAKER_01: I thought like a child, I reason like a child.
SPEAKER_01: When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
SPEAKER_01: For now we see in the mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face.
SPEAKER_01: Now I know only in part.
SPEAKER_01: Then I will know fully.
SPEAKER_01: Even as if I have been fully known.
SPEAKER_01: And now faith, hope, and love abide.
SPEAKER_01: These three, and the greatest of these is love.
SPEAKER_01: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God.
SPEAKER_04: I'm intentionally extending the reading.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread all through the surrounding country.
SPEAKER_04: He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
SPEAKER_04: When he came to Nazareth, where he'd been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day as was his custom.
SPEAKER_04: He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and he unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written.
SPEAKER_04: To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.
SPEAKER_04: The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
SPEAKER_04: Then he began to say to them, Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
SPEAKER_04: All spoke well of him, and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
SPEAKER_04: They said, Is not this Joseph's son?
SPEAKER_04: He said to them, Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, Doctor, cure yourself, and you will say, Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.
SPEAKER_04: And he said, Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown.
SPEAKER_04: But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine all over the land.
SPEAKER_04: Yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.
SPEAKER_04: There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.
SPEAKER_04: When they heard this all in the synagogue were filled with rage.
SPEAKER_04: They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.
SPEAKER_04: But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
SPEAKER_04: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: The compilers of the revised common lectionary presume that you're already biblically fluent.
SPEAKER_04: So they presume you knew that sermon when they started the reading for the day, which is all this has come to fulfillment.
SPEAKER_04: I am not making that presumption, because it's just good to know what it is people were happy to hear.
SPEAKER_04: You'll see on your bulletin that Eric was slated to preach.
SPEAKER_04: So I do invite your prayers for Eric who tested positive for COVID on Friday, so he's doing fine by his own admission.
SPEAKER_04: And what you're going to get is probably a second-rate sermon.
SPEAKER_04: So here it is anyway.
SPEAKER_04: Keep in mind, we're in the middle of Epiphany, and so far what we saw happen was the Magi saw this light.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus was baptized, the wedding at Cana.
SPEAKER_04: And now here is this other event, Jesus' first sermon.
SPEAKER_04: So he's unrolled this scroll from the prophet Isaiah, which I want to remind you means he was theologically liberal because conservative folk in the time of Jesus didn't read Isaiah.
SPEAKER_04: They read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, stop.
SPEAKER_04: Those people were called Sadducees.
SPEAKER_04: The Pharisees read Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc.
SPEAKER_04: So clearly Jesus is going to a Pharisaic synagogue.
SPEAKER_04: If you've ever wondered why the gospel is so critical of the Pharisees, it's because they had the highest hopes for them.
SPEAKER_04: Because Jesus was raised a Pharisee.
SPEAKER_04: He unrolls this scroll and he reads, and there's this little tagline on the bottom that I never quite understood as a kid.
SPEAKER_04: Proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
SPEAKER_04: The year of the Lord's favor in Isaiah is a direct reference to a practice in the book of Leviticus that we're not sure ever happened, but is rather a beautiful picture that was never depicted on a flannel board when I was growing up.
SPEAKER_04: This is called the year of Jubilee.
SPEAKER_04: So the year of the Lord's favor is the year of Jubilee.
SPEAKER_04: Many of us understand as we read the Hebrew Bible and think about still Jewish practice, that there are seven days a week.
SPEAKER_04: The last day of the week is the Sabbath day.
SPEAKER_04: In Hebrew, Sabbath is the number seven.
SPEAKER_04: It means seven.
SPEAKER_04: It also means perfect, and it's a day of rest.
SPEAKER_04: So you have a Shabbat every year.
SPEAKER_04: When you read the book of Leviticus, it turns out that not only do people get a Shabbat once a week, but the land gets a Shabbat every seven years.
SPEAKER_04: And the prescription is you can plant, you can sow and plant and reap six years, and the seventh year let the land lay fallow so the land can rest.
SPEAKER_04: Otherwise, you will overburden the land, exceed its carrying capacity, and you will have nothing.
SPEAKER_04: Every seven, seven years, that's 49, right?
SPEAKER_04: You add on the 50th year, and that's called the year of Jubilee.
SPEAKER_04: Now, there is relief not only for land, but also for minor debts every seven years.
SPEAKER_04: But in the year of Jubilee, and you have to think about this in an agrarian economy, this is not a monetary economy, but an agrarian economy, uh, Jubilee shuffles the land ownership back to its initial distribution.
SPEAKER_04: So let's pretend that I cut a land into four parcels and we're all farmers, and three of the parcels do really, really well, and the fourth doesn't.
SPEAKER_04: Like I don't produce enough food to feed my family.
SPEAKER_04: Where am I gonna get food?
SPEAKER_04: Because it's a pre-monetary economy, right?
SPEAKER_04: I suppose I could borrow, or I could try to hire myself out, but if it gets really, really tough, I have to start selling parcels of my land away, even just to have enough money to buy seed to plant next year.
SPEAKER_04: After a couple of bad harvests, I may have to sell the entirety of my land.
SPEAKER_04: And consider in an agrarian economy, what that does is it institutionalizes servanthood within a family.
SPEAKER_04: Because without land, you have no means of producing your own income.
SPEAKER_04: You perpetually have to be hired up.
SPEAKER_04: So in the year of Jubilee, what happens is your family gets it back.
SPEAKER_04: If you think about it, 50 years is two and a half generations, which might feel like forever, but it is not forever.
SPEAKER_04: The year of Jubilee is also when prisoners of war are set free.
SPEAKER_04: It's also a time when people who are serving land aside are released from their servitude.
SPEAKER_04: We're not sure the Jubilee was ever practiced.
SPEAKER_04: There's no evidence.
SPEAKER_04: And you can understand why.
SPEAKER_04: Particularly if you're one of those three people that bought that plot.
SPEAKER_03: Has anybody heard of this before?
SPEAKER_04: Jubilee?
SPEAKER_04: I didn't grow up here in church.
SPEAKER_04: I really didn't.
SPEAKER_04: It's because it's in the middle of the book of Leviticus, and we usually think like that's not a fun book to read.
SPEAKER_04: Um I'm still not sure it's a fun book to read, but this is really important to hear that this is a biblical injunction against institutionalizing hierarchy.
SPEAKER_04: The year of Jubilee, you see, is really like a big reset button.
SPEAKER_04: And every 50 years you hit reset.
SPEAKER_04: Further, the book of Leviticus implores people that if it's year 47 and this farmer is coming to you for money, and you know I'm only gonna get the land for three years, you still have to buy it, knowing you'll only possess it for three years.
SPEAKER_04: The book warns what will happen if people are hard-hearted against their neighbor, knowing the Jubilee's coming.
SPEAKER_04: Now, the last time there was a Jubilee was the year 2000.
SPEAKER_04: And this uh paralleled some of those millennium development goals, but it was pronounced by uh Pope John Paul II at the time to be the year Jubilee 2000.
SPEAKER_04: The next one obviously will be 2050.
SPEAKER_04: And around the year 2000, uh actually 1995, this gained some extra traction that spun out into the late 90s, with people like the World Council of Churches and people like pop musician Bono really arguing for the release of the developing world debt.
SPEAKER_04: After all, the people owing the debt hadn't willingly incurred it in the first place, and being stuck and making interest payments really deprives you of the opportunity to advance.
SPEAKER_04: In some ways, it's like an institutionalized way of servitude in the world.
SPEAKER_04: Obviously, that didn't happen.
SPEAKER_04: Now, I don't know how to affect any of this stuff politically.
SPEAKER_04: Just to be honest, it's not really my thing.
SPEAKER_04: Politics are not my thing.
SPEAKER_04: Um and it takes, I think this is helpful, even though it's not my thing, it is part of our duty, uh, knowing that no one of us can handle a big political issue is that we can, in fact, do more together.
SPEAKER_04: That's why we vote, right?
SPEAKER_04: This is important and part of our American democratic process.
SPEAKER_04: But I do want to suggest to you that Jesus shows up in the synagogue, and we don't know that it's a Jubilee year.
SPEAKER_04: It probably isn't.
SPEAKER_04: He reads a passage about Jubilee, like this is the year captives go free, and he's not just talking about people in prison.
SPEAKER_04: He's talking about people who don't have their land anymore.
SPEAKER_04: He's talking about debt remission in general, which is captivity.
SPEAKER_04: And he says, Today this has been fulfilled in your hearing.
SPEAKER_04: Now, it's very possible the original crowd was thinking, Antha reminded me of this after the eight o'clock service, oh, we're gonna be free of the Romans who have put us into this debt peonage.
SPEAKER_04: And maybe that's why they were excited.
SPEAKER_04: Or maybe they thought, oh, look, Jesus is going to help.
SPEAKER_04: Well, I guess it's about the same thing.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus is gonna do this at a political level.
SPEAKER_04: While I do believe in political deliverance being necessary, I do also want to invite you to consider how we might be invited to fulfill the scripture and our hearing.
SPEAKER_04: See, there's people in my life that have done things that I didn't appreciate.
SPEAKER_04: And sometimes I say, well, okay, in 50 years I'll let that go.
SPEAKER_04: I know that's a joke, but I'm not joking.
SPEAKER_04: So what if this was the year of the Lord's favor?
SPEAKER_04: What if instead of waiting until 2050, I decided to join God in release for the captives and sight for the blind?
SPEAKER_04: If you get nothing else, I want you to consider that we don't have to wait as long as we think to push the reset button.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not naive.
SPEAKER_04: I understand that there are some kinds of hurt that don't mean I go back into proximity.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not naive.
SPEAKER_04: I understand that accountability and dignity are different things.
SPEAKER_04: In the Jubilee year, serial killers are not just turned out of the street.
SPEAKER_04: Not.
SPEAKER_04: So I'm not being naive, but I do think sometimes I put people on a 50-year plan when maybe just a 50-day plan would work.
SPEAKER_04: So I think we're always invited to consider why are we not hitting that reset button?
SPEAKER_04: Why are we not?
SPEAKER_04: The crowd notice reacts favorably to Jesus, I said, for a variety of reasons, maybe because they hear him politically saying he's gonna overthrow Rome.
SPEAKER_04: But then Jesus decides to do something that sex sort of seems rather ungrateful.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you notice.
SPEAKER_04: He says, No doubt you're gonna ask me to proclaim a jubilee in this town, like heal sick people.
SPEAKER_04: You heard I did that somewhere else.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_04: This is really tough, just to be honest, right?
SPEAKER_04: This is like going to your home church that sponsored you to go to college and seminary and saying, like, hey, thanks for the sponsorship, and I'm not doing anything here now.
SPEAKER_04: Not only does he refuse to heal people in his hometown, but he kind of excoriates the people and says, My mission is somewhere else out there.
SPEAKER_04: And the crowd gets upset.
SPEAKER_04: They get upset enough, apparently, to haul him to the cliff and they're prepared to throw him off.
SPEAKER_04: Now, I don't know if it helps you to hear.
SPEAKER_04: That cliff is about seven feet high.
SPEAKER_04: Nonetheless, you get the gesture.
SPEAKER_04: Um it's helpful that Jeremiah does this thing for us this week.
SPEAKER_04: Uh anytime you take, well, I shouldn't say anytime, the classes I took on Hebrew prophets remind us how unpopular of a calling that is.
SPEAKER_04: And I just want you to hear in the words of Jeremiah, this has really distilled what it means to be a prophet.
SPEAKER_04: Pluck up, pull down, destroy, overthrow, build and plant.
SPEAKER_04: Do you see the balance?
SPEAKER_04: Four parts deconstruction, two parts construction.
SPEAKER_04: Now we understand why prophets usually met untimely deaths.
SPEAKER_04: People are much more excited about these two than these four.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not much of a gardener, but to be honest, gardening is usually more about these four than these two.
SPEAKER_04: If you would like to be successful, right?
SPEAKER_04: Of course, all four of these things are about removing weeds so that fruit can grow.
SPEAKER_04: It's just having like cultural suppositions and things you love plucked from you usually feels rather painful.
SPEAKER_04: So Jesus stands in this prophetic tradition.
SPEAKER_04: Another way of saying this is to afflict the comforted and sometimes comfort the afflicted.
SPEAKER_04: And in a prophetic tradition, usually what they do is they afflict the comforted.
SPEAKER_04: So Jesus is telling his people, like, hey, you're not getting help from me.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know why.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know why he chooses to say that.
SPEAKER_04: There's lots of hypotheses out there, and it's sort of tough.
SPEAKER_04: And when you read this story, you might find yourself thinking, like, wow, the crowd is nuts.
SPEAKER_04: They're gonna throw this guy off that seven-foot cliff.
SPEAKER_04: And then all of a sudden, he just walks right through.
SPEAKER_04: Do you notice that?
SPEAKER_04: Like they don't.
SPEAKER_04: He just walks through.
SPEAKER_04: And um, I guess I've been thinking about that a little bit.
SPEAKER_04: And you know, normally we get really mad at the crowd by I I've been thinking about these words from Elie Bizel.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe you know him.
SPEAKER_04: Elie Bizel was sent to Auschwitz when he was nine and ended up writing the book Night.
SPEAKER_04: That's the first of the trilogy.
SPEAKER_04: And I saw this quote from Ellie Bizel recently that says, the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
SPEAKER_04: And it made me think, you know, throughout the scriptures, there's these people who get really mad at God.
SPEAKER_04: And they go ahead and tell God, like, I'm really mad at you.
SPEAKER_04: The Psalms are full of this.
SPEAKER_04: And I've told you like a couple of months ago that in Hebrew the word blessing can also mean curse.
SPEAKER_04: And there's sometimes there's people who bless God and they might actually be cursing God.
SPEAKER_04: And I got into a discussion with the parishioner who was very thoughtful, that said, Well, how could you possibly curse God and not sin?
SPEAKER_04: And I realized maybe you can, because actually the opposite of love is not hatred, it's indifference.
SPEAKER_04: And so if you tell God, I'm really mad, people that in the moment I hate, it's actually because I deeply want to be connected with, and something has gone counter to my expectations.
SPEAKER_04: The people I care about the littlest are the ones I ignore.
SPEAKER_04: So there's this interesting thing, I think, to read this story as the people get so mad at Jesus they're ready to throw him off a cliff.
SPEAKER_04: But he's their guy, so he walks right through.
SPEAKER_04: I've had children.
SPEAKER_04: I've been ready to throw them off a seven-foot cliff.
SPEAKER_04: I know not to do that, because they're my kids.
SPEAKER_04: I have parents.
SPEAKER_04: I've been ready to throw them off a 70-foot cliff.
SPEAKER_04: I've gone to the brink.
SPEAKER_04: And then, of course, they pass right through when I choose love.
SPEAKER_04: When I choose choose love.
SPEAKER_04: And that's why I think we get to hear this passage from 1 Corinthians today that is so popular at weddings, and that I'm afraid I internalize the wrong way.
SPEAKER_04: As a kid, see, I thought this passage was all about how love feels.
SPEAKER_04: And it's not at all about how love feels, at least not for me.
SPEAKER_04: Now, you are probably more mature than I am.
SPEAKER_04: Love is patient.
SPEAKER_04: Boy, I rarely feel like being patient.
SPEAKER_04: I usually feel like being inefficient and getting stuff done now.
SPEAKER_04: Love begs us to practice patience.
SPEAKER_04: And since we talked a little bit about an agrarian world, you know, the things that grow quickly, they don't do well.
SPEAKER_04: They don't lay down sufficient roots to keep them from being blown over.
SPEAKER_04: They don't lay down sufficient roots to uphold them in time of drought.
SPEAKER_04: So, you know, sometimes I get so impatient because people aren't making steps I've already made, or frankly, they're not obeying.
SPEAKER_04: And, you know, it just takes time for things to be sustainable.
SPEAKER_04: I wish I had some way of reminding myself that when I need that reminder, which is unpredictable.
SPEAKER_04: Hey, it takes time.
SPEAKER_04: It takes time for things to be sustainable.
SPEAKER_04: That's a practice, that's not a feeling.
SPEAKER_04: Kind.
SPEAKER_04: I love people, but I don't always feel like being kind.
SPEAKER_04: Even some of the people I love the most.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, look, I want to be really clear.
SPEAKER_04: It's not okay to shake your child.
SPEAKER_04: We get that.
SPEAKER_04: But if you've never wanted to shake your child, we got nothing in common.
SPEAKER_04: Look, I know not to do it.
SPEAKER_04: I know not to.
SPEAKER_04: And I have a support system that makes that possible.
SPEAKER_04: But the desire, that speaks to my feelings, right?
SPEAKER_04: And so the practice of love says, regardless of how you feel, you practice kindness.
SPEAKER_04: Love doesn't envy.
SPEAKER_04: Look, I love people and I want some of the stuff they've got.
SPEAKER_04: I often look at people and think, man, I wish I were happy like they were.
SPEAKER_04: That's not a feeling thing.
SPEAKER_04: The practice is, can I be joyful for them instead of wanting what they have?
SPEAKER_04: And that takes work.
SPEAKER_04: This is how we practice love.
SPEAKER_04: So I wonder if we don't proclaim the year of the Lord's favor when we're brought to the brink in our feelings, and we choose to practice love and pass through.
SPEAKER_04: Now, all of us have different journeys, and I didn't think my mom's watching this, so I don't think I'll get in trouble.
SPEAKER_04: But I would tell you the reason like faith means something to me is because my mother is a faithful person.
SPEAKER_04: And our faith is very, very different.
SPEAKER_04: I feel really comfortable having doubts and uncertainties and pointing out like linear inconsistencies.
SPEAKER_04: And I've talked to my mom and she says, like, I'm not interested in that.
SPEAKER_04: That might hurt my faith.
SPEAKER_04: And, you know, I used to think we all have to do it the same way.
SPEAKER_04: And she's taught me very gently that we don't.
SPEAKER_04: And uh, to be really fair, um, particularly when I was in high school and even through my early 20s, I did grow up with a really strong fear of when I would cross the threshold and be beyond the pale.
SPEAKER_04: Like, when would my church absolutely reject me?
SPEAKER_04: And frankly, when would I lose my mother because of what I thought or who I was?
SPEAKER_04: In my 30s, I realized I never would because my mother is committed to loving me no matter how she feels.
SPEAKER_04: But I did come up with this confusing or interesting formula for me.
SPEAKER_04: How could I break my mother's heart the worst with who I am?
SPEAKER_04: And it occurred to me that if I told my mother that I was gay or transgender, it would absolutely break her heart because it would be a rejection of her faith.
SPEAKER_04: And because my mother has a faith where it's emulating, I know that about her, and I know she would choose to love me.
SPEAKER_04: I wasn't sure my church would do that, but I was sure my mother, who was a part of my church, would choose to do that.
SPEAKER_04: And I want to suggest to you that's when we proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
SPEAKER_04: When we're brought to the brink.
SPEAKER_04: And we choose to say, I don't even know how, but I'm gonna practice love with you.
SPEAKER_04: Read this way, you see, the people in Nazareth might not be villains.
SPEAKER_04: They might be like you and me.
SPEAKER_04: During the pandemic, I found myself brought to the brink more frequently than I'd like to be.
SPEAKER_04: I can't explain why.
SPEAKER_04: I'd like to think I'm in my right mind and I'm thinking linearly, but the truth is there's this ambient malaise and stress in the air that brings us all to the brink faster than we'd like to admit, my belief.
SPEAKER_04: Uh, I think the proof is in the way we talk about politics, or even the way we talk about masking, or quite frankly, the way we talk about what we believe.
SPEAKER_04: We just lose our minds in a quick second here.
SPEAKER_04: And uh I think this opportunity is to remind us: hey, actually being upset is a reminder, I want to love you.
SPEAKER_04: Indifference is the opposite.
SPEAKER_04: I want to love you.
SPEAKER_04: And there's some frustration in the way, and Corinthians invites us how can we proclaim the year of the Lord's favor with the way we practice love?
SPEAKER_04: Look, let's be honest.
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes our feeling and our practice lines up, and those are the great parts about being married, aren't they?
SPEAKER_04: You know, if that is all we get, though, if they have to line up for it to work, I've never seen a marriage last more than two and a half years.
SPEAKER_04: To make it long term, you've got to practice when you don't feel.
SPEAKER_04: And even practicing when I don't feel doesn't guarantee it's gonna be great.
SPEAKER_04: It just means we got a chance of staying together, right?
SPEAKER_04: I want to suggest if you find yourself like I do often at the brink, actually, it's probably a sign of love, not a sign of the opposite.
SPEAKER_04: Indifference is what we're called to fear.
SPEAKER_04: Indifference to the developing world of death.
SPEAKER_04: Indifference to the fact that 30 people who came to our food distribution yesterday live in this neighborhood, including homeowners.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not just talking about apartments.
SPEAKER_04: Indifference.
SPEAKER_04: Throwing our hands up and saying, because I don't know what to do, I choose to give up.
SPEAKER_04: I think that's what we're being called away from.
SPEAKER_04: If you find yourself being agitated, like I say, I think it's a sign, I want to love, and something's hard.
SPEAKER_04: And that's where we have these virtues of practicing love, and particularly we have them as a community.
SPEAKER_04: Look, if there was one guy in the synagogue, and guy is the right word, because no lady would throw Jesus off a seven-foot cliff.
SPEAKER_04: Um, if there was one guy in the synagogue, he might have gone ahead and done it.
SPEAKER_04: But don't you see there was a group of people, and they were able to say, no, that's Joseph's son.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe he's a little weird, but we can't throw him off a cliff.
SPEAKER_04: That's Joseph's boy, you know?
SPEAKER_04: That's why we baptize as a group, don't you see?
SPEAKER_04: Because we do it together.
SPEAKER_04: In case Mike is not in his right mind as usual, then Jim can say, Really, Mike, like you can't do that.
SPEAKER_04: This is our call.
SPEAKER_04: And increasingly more, if you were here Thursday, you heard the rabbi say this, right?
SPEAKER_04: The rabbi said, what's important is knowing that we're different, but not being indifferent.
SPEAKER_04: I think if we can be mindful and we can choose to practice love, we can start living into the Jubilee before it's 2050.
SPEAKER_04: Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.
SPEAKER_06: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, creator and earth, the Lord that is seen and unseen.
SPEAKER_06: We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally the Father, life and life, truth, truth, believe in the Father, we salvation, the came from the Holy Spirit, we became the Spirit, until the day you read the end, in the Lord to the Scriptures, he seemed to heaven, and the seed of the right name of the Father.
SPEAKER_06: He will come again in glory to just the living and the dead, and the same amen.
SPEAKER_06: We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and Son.
SPEAKER_06: With the Father and Son, He is worshiped and glorified.
SPEAKER_06: He is working through the process.
SPEAKER_06: We believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
SPEAKER_06: We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_05: We live in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_08: The prayers of the people.
SPEAKER_08: With all our heart and with all our mind, let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_08: I ask your prayer for God's people throughout the world, for all people and ministers, for the priests in our community, Mike, Jim, Craig, Bill, and Lillian, for our bishops, Andy, Hector, Jeff, and Kai, and the diocesan cycle of prayer, for Christopher's Austin, Saint David's Austin, and St.
SPEAKER_08: George's Austin, for Justin, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for our presiding bishop, Michael.
SPEAKER_08: Pray for the church.
SPEAKER_08: We ask your prayers for all who govern and hold authority in the nations of the world, for all members of the armed forces, and for all who struggle for peace and justice, that they may act with prudence and vision to plant the seeds of our of your kingdom everywhere.
SPEAKER_08: Pray for justice and peace.
SPEAKER_08: I ask your prayers for our parish and for our vestry, for the source of wisdom, that the source of wisdom may guide us, the source of strength may support us, and the source of love may unite, unify us.
SPEAKER_08: I pray for your community, that may discern clearly and administer effectively.
SPEAKER_08: I ask your prayers for St.
SPEAKER_08: Thomas of the Apostle School, that those who teach and those who learn may rejoice at the knowledge of your truth, that we may teach our students to love whatever is just and true and good.
SPEAKER_08: Pray that we may be bearers of God's grace to all who come through our doors.
SPEAKER_08: I ask for prayers for the poor, the sick, the hungry, the oppressed, and those in prison.
SPEAKER_08: Pray for those in any need or trouble.
SPEAKER_08: I ask your prayers for all who seek God, or a deeper knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_08: Pray that they may find and be found by God.
SPEAKER_08: I ask your prayers for the departed, especially JB.
SPEAKER_08: Pray for those who have died.
SPEAKER_08: Let us give thanks for our blessing and pray for our own needs and those of others.
SPEAKER_08: Especially Chris, Sean, and Nancy.
SPEAKER_08: The congregation is invited to name their own celebration or petition silently or aloud.
SPEAKER_08: Lord our God, accept the fervent prayers of our people, and the multitude of your mercies.
SPEAKER_08: Look with compassion upon us and all who turn to you for help.
SPEAKER_08: For you are gracious, O lover of souls, and to you we give glory, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and forever.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: Let us humbly confess our sins unto Almighty God, holy God, creator of all that is, donor of grace, and give of life.
SPEAKER_06: Hear our prayer.
SPEAKER_04: There are chasms and allies, deep valleys that separate us from one another and from you.
SPEAKER_04: We confess that we have the grace to grow, for fear of being apart and separation, for fear of being rejected when we reach out.
SPEAKER_06: You call us to a reconciled life, to heal relationships, to a wholeness with each other and with you.
SPEAKER_06: Mend us we pray, and make us new creations through the power and love of Christ, in whom we pray.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Friends, hear this good news.
SPEAKER_04: The love of God is beyond all measure, and you are included in that love.
SPEAKER_04: Know that you are forgiven and thus freed to love and serve anew.
SPEAKER_04: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_04: The peace of the Lord be always with you.
unknown: And I also with you.
SPEAKER_04: If you're new to us or have not done this before, in the room right behind the one we're in, it's called the Narthix.
SPEAKER_04: There's these little cards that say welcome, and we'd be tremendously grateful if you'd fill one out so we have a record of your visit.
SPEAKER_04: And thank you for worshiping with us today.
SPEAKER_04: A couple of announcements I'd like to just highlight.
SPEAKER_04: You'll see most of these in your Wednesday e-news, but we don't always put some of the details.
SPEAKER_04: Like yesterday, we hosted our fresh food distribution.
SPEAKER_04: Normally we do that on the first Saturday of the month, but because the food bank was closed for New Year's, they pushed it to the end.
SPEAKER_04: And we had actually one of the higher turnouts, 93 vehicles representing 344 people in about an hour and a half.
SPEAKER_04: And as you heard me say, it's a little bit stunning that a third of the people live in our own neighborhood here.
SPEAKER_04: So thank you for sponsoring that service.
SPEAKER_04: It's incredibly lovely as a volunteer because we always have more volunteers than we need.
SPEAKER_04: And this is how we practice social justice.
SPEAKER_04: And to see children serving alongside with their parents just absolutely is heart-touching.
SPEAKER_04: Our next one of these is this coming Saturday, 7.45.
SPEAKER_04: It will be done ahead of 10 as always.
SPEAKER_04: And hear the first Saturday of the month going after.
SPEAKER_04: So again, the next one's this coming Saturday.
SPEAKER_04: You do have to sign up in advance.
SPEAKER_04: You can come and just know that we might have more people than we need.
SPEAKER_04: Which again, there's no reason justice can't be social.
SPEAKER_04: This coming Thursday is the fourth speaker in our Epiphanies of Respect series.
SPEAKER_04: And I want to remind you that if you missed any of them and are interested, we've not been able to publicly post them on YouTube, but you'll find the link to the videos in your e news from our Tibet Buddhist, from the Imam, from the Clear Lake Gothamic Center, and from our conservative rabbi Stuart Federo, who was here this past Thursday.
SPEAKER_04: Um they're all really different and uh not only in the way they choose to express themselves but in the time we spend together, and I hope that they're a delight to you.
SPEAKER_04: Um this past week it was uh it was lovely to hear some ways that our Jewish brothers and sisters practice their faith, and quite appropriately to hear a little bit of frankly um some of the turmoil they've had to embody.
SPEAKER_04: And that came out very clear in in our time together.
SPEAKER_04: And again, to consider that we just had a hospital situation in a synagogue, right?
SPEAKER_04: And so to hear that uh from somebody who's practicing and in our community and has been here for 26 years uh added a face to that, which was infinitely helpful to me.
SPEAKER_04: Um this week I just want to make sure you know we've had to change our schedule up.
SPEAKER_04: Uh so our speaker this year is a practitioner of Wicca and um uh other old paths.
SPEAKER_04: Now, look, if you grew up like I did, you hear that word, and you're like, wow, I don't even know I can listen to that, which is why we're doing it.
SPEAKER_04: The point is so that we can hear and understand.
SPEAKER_04: So a practitioner of Wicca and uh and and sort of what they call older paths is gonna come and share uh how they came to be involved in in the Wiccan movement and how they came to be involved in Other Ways of Old Path and what that looks like, so that we can have a better understanding.
SPEAKER_04: So that'll be this Thursday from 6 to 7 here.
SPEAKER_04: We'll also be streaming it on YouTube.
SPEAKER_04: Be patient if you ask questions.
SPEAKER_04: If you've done this before, we don't always have time.
SPEAKER_04: You know, it just depends on how the speaker does it, but we try to get to all the questions through the chat, or you can text me as well.
SPEAKER_04: Um thank you for those who attended the parish meeting this morning.
SPEAKER_04: We we did indeed conduct all of our items of business, um, elected our new vestry and our council reps and passed our budget.
SPEAKER_04: And just huge thank you for the time uh invested in that process all along the way.
SPEAKER_04: We started working on the budget back in September.
SPEAKER_04: Uh, thank you for those people who are willing to offer three years of leadership on vestry.
SPEAKER_04: And many of you know that we celebrated our outgoing uh vestry as well, uh including people like Mr.
SPEAKER_04: Ken Jurgens and Tom Burns and Antha Atkins and uh Rini Bielski and Greg uh Hausler.
SPEAKER_04: Uh most of those are eight o'clockers, but Ken is here as well.
SPEAKER_04: Thank you for your service, Ken.
SPEAKER_04: If you see Rini Bielski, she served four years, two times as senior warden in a row because of the COVID upheaval.
SPEAKER_04: Please give her a special, special thank you.
SPEAKER_04: Um, to cram three years of service into four is a really, really big deal.
SPEAKER_04: Um I think that's all to announce today.
SPEAKER_04: Continue to walk in love.
SPEAKER_04: Oh no, yes, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_07: We have one more than everyone's.
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, you who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time or ever before, 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.
SPEAKER_04: Page 361.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord be he with you, and also with you.
SPEAKER_02: Always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, because in the mystery of the word made flesh, you have caused a new light to shine in our hearts, to give the knowledge of your glory in the face of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Joining with him and giving voice to every, to angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven who forever saves him to proclaim the glory of your name.
SPEAKER_02: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.
SPEAKER_04: Hosanna in the highest.
SPEAKER_04: Blessed is he who comes the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_06: Hosanna in the highest.
SPEAKER_04: Holy and gracious Father, in your infinite love you made us from yourself.
SPEAKER_04: And when we'd fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you in your mercy sent 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, 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.
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 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 unending life in Him.
SPEAKER_04: Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy sacrament and 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, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.
SPEAKER_04: 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.
SPEAKER_06: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_04: For thine is kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: These are the gifts of God for you, the people of God.
SPEAKER_04: Feed on them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_04: Loving God, we give you thanks for restoring us in your image and nourishing us with spiritual food in the sacrament of Christ's body and blood.
SPEAKER_04: Now send us forth the people, forgiven, healed, renewed, that we may proclaim your love to the world and continue in the risen life of Christ our Savior.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: May Almighty God, who led the Magi by the shining of a star to find the Christ, the light from light, lead you also in your pilgrimage to find and reveal the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be with you this day and remain with you always.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.