SPEAKER_11: Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_11: Blessed be God's family now and forever.
SPEAKER_11: Amen.
SPEAKER_11: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_11: Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires open, and from you no secrets are hid.
SPEAKER_11: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_11: Amen.
SPEAKER_11: Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
SPEAKER_11: This is the first and greatest commitment.
SPEAKER_11: And the second is like unto it.
SPEAKER_11: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
SPEAKER_11: On these two commitments hang all the law and the prophets.
SPEAKER_11: Holy God, holy and mighty, holy immortal one, have compassion upon us.
SPEAKER_11: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_11: And with Hyper.
SPEAKER_11: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_11: O God who wonderfully created and yet more wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature.
SPEAKER_11: Grant that we may share the divine life of Him who humbled Himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.
SPEAKER_11: Amen.
SPEAKER_11: As you're being seated, our children are invited to children's chapel with Miss Williams in the dark.
SPEAKER_05: Thus says the Lord, sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nation.
SPEAKER_05: Proclaim, give praise, and say, Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.
SPEAKER_05: See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, and those with child and those in labor altogether.
SPEAKER_05: A great company they shall return here.
SPEAKER_05: With weeping they shall come, and with consolations, I will lead them back.
SPEAKER_05: I will let them walk by brooks of water in straight path in which they shall not stumble.
SPEAKER_05: For I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.
SPEAKER_05: Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away.
SPEAKER_05: And say, He who scattered Israel will come, will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd, a flock.
SPEAKER_05: For the Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from his hands too strong for him.
SPEAKER_05: They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain and the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd.
SPEAKER_05: Their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again.
SPEAKER_05: Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry.
SPEAKER_05: I will turn their morning into joy, and I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow.
SPEAKER_05: I will give the priest their fill of fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty.
SPEAKER_05: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_05: A reading from Psalm.
SPEAKER_05: How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts!
SPEAKER_08: My heart and my blood rejoice in the living God.
SPEAKER_05: The sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young.
SPEAKER_05: Happy are they who dwell in your house.
SPEAKER_05: And happy are the people whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set upon the pilgrim's way.
SPEAKER_05: Those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs.
SPEAKER_05: They will climb from height to height.
SPEAKER_08: And the God of God will appear in mine.
SPEAKER_05: Lord, God of hosts, hear my prayer.
SPEAKER_08: Hearken, O God, too.
SPEAKER_08: Behold, our defender, O God, and look upon the face of your anointed.
SPEAKER_05: For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own.
SPEAKER_03: Contend to stand in the threshold of the house of thy God, and to dwell with you.
SPEAKER_05: For the Lord God is both Son and Shield.
SPEAKER_05: No good thing will the Lord withhold.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.
SPEAKER_00: He destined us for adoption of his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, that he freely bestowed on us in the beloved.
SPEAKER_00: I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints.
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 the 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, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us to believe.
SPEAKER_00: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_11: After the Magi had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.
SPEAKER_11: And then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.
SPEAKER_11: This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, out of Egypt I have called my son.
SPEAKER_11: When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life were dead.
SPEAKER_11: And then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.
SPEAKER_11: But when he heard that Archolus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there.
SPEAKER_11: And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee.
SPEAKER_11: There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken to the prophets might be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_11: He will be called a Nazarene.
SPEAKER_11: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_11: We do each Christmas for twelve days.
SPEAKER_11: Sometimes it can seem weird to look up here and see this pelican.
SPEAKER_11: There was this myth in Elizabeth in England, it's a myth, they don't actually do this, that when there was not enough food or water, a mother pelican would literally prick her breast to feed the chicks her own blood.
SPEAKER_11: This was to keep them alive.
SPEAKER_11: So this was this image of life giving in the Elizabethan church.
SPEAKER_11: So if you go to a church in England and see this in a window, it gives you an approximate time when it was made.
SPEAKER_11: Like I said, they don't really do that, but it is this image of sharing life.
SPEAKER_11: And it might seem funny that we're doing that during Christmas, but don't you see?
SPEAKER_11: During Easter, we think about how God has shared it with us, but during Christmas, we think about how the whole holy family shared it with God.
SPEAKER_11: And this is part of our guidance.
SPEAKER_11: Here in the story, Joseph and Mary are immigrants looking for asilo.
SPEAKER_11: And they do that on behalf of the Christ child, and they share their life by literally leaving their hometown to keep them safe.
SPEAKER_11: And it's this great reminder that this is a two-way relationship.
SPEAKER_11: This is not just some fact pattern that happened a long time ago.
SPEAKER_11: This is a story that we're invited to live into and to use Matthew's word, fulfill.
SPEAKER_11: Fulfillment of the scriptures is the theme I want to put forward today.
SPEAKER_11: Because what that means can be varied depending on, frankly, how we were grounded.
SPEAKER_11: So one way to look at what Matthew does with Scripture is to say, aha.
SPEAKER_11: Matthew's reading the prophets, and he's saying, they predicted precisely event A, and Jesus literally did that.
SPEAKER_11: So all of that business about the prophets was really just about Jesus.
SPEAKER_11: That's more about prediction and coming to pass than Matthew's use of the word fulfillment.
SPEAKER_11: I want to put before you.
SPEAKER_11: Fulfillment actually means something different than I make a prediction and it happens exactly like I said it.
SPEAKER_11: And the way I'd like to make this alternative reading is by leveraging the two scriptures that Matthew uses.
SPEAKER_11: The first one, by the way, if you've read the other Gospels, neither Mark nor Luke nor John mention the Holy Family going to Egypt.
SPEAKER_11: None of them do.
SPEAKER_11: I'm not saying it didn't happen, it just wasn't important for them in the story that they told.
SPEAKER_11: Matthew tells the story because most scholars will tell you Matthew's writing to a Jewish community, not a Jewish, not a Gentile community, not even a mixed community.
SPEAKER_11: He's telling a group of people who are very, very set in rites like circumcision and practicing the feast of Passover and tabernacles.
SPEAKER_11: He's saying, look, the scriptures resonate in the life of Jesus.
SPEAKER_11: He's like making them alive again.
SPEAKER_11: And part of the way he does that is by having Jesus figuratively fulfill them and literally.
SPEAKER_11: So this phrase, first one, out of Egypt I've called my son.
SPEAKER_11: You can read that in the book Hosea, and it's very clear who Hosea is talking about.
SPEAKER_11: The people of Israel.
SPEAKER_11: You all probably know enough to know, once upon a time in Exodus, the people were in bondage under the Pharaoh, and Moses brought them out of bondage with God's help, right?
SPEAKER_11: So Hosea is saying, out of Egypt, I've called my child.
SPEAKER_11: Hosea is using it literally and figuratively.
SPEAKER_11: And Matthew is saying, Look, holy family goes, and more important, Jesus is going to call us out of bondage.
SPEAKER_11: Out of Egypt, out from under the pharaohs, God is calling us to be God's people.
SPEAKER_11: I think we get the Bible wrong when we take it so literally we forget to take it seriously.
SPEAKER_11: So I will tell you, you can go to Egypt and it's actually really cool.
SPEAKER_11: It's neat.
SPEAKER_11: And it allows you to envision the story in new ways.
SPEAKER_11: But friends, if we just go to Egypt so we can be God's children and forget that God is trying to call us out of bondage, I think we miss the point.
SPEAKER_11: The point is to hear the story and fulfill it by seeing people who are in bondage and calling them out.
SPEAKER_11: That's how we fulfill the scriptures.
SPEAKER_11: We live them out.
SPEAKER_11: By the way, it may be helpful to hear.
SPEAKER_11: Sometimes we often gloss over this, that at the time of Jesus, there wasn't one Jewish way.
SPEAKER_11: This is still true today.
SPEAKER_11: Most of you know there are groups called Orthodoxy and Chabad and Reformed Judaism and Conservative Judaism.
SPEAKER_11: And these aren't the only ones, they just tend to be some of the major labels.
SPEAKER_11: Well, at the time of Jesus, it wasn't any different.
SPEAKER_11: Some of the principal groups you've already heard of if you read the New Testament, because there's these people called the Sadducees, and these people called the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_11: And by the way, some of the Pharisees were also Sadducees.
SPEAKER_11: But one of the core differences, it's good to hear, is that the Sadducees, who were the, in general, the people who controlled the temple at Jerusalem and said, this is where you have to come, they only read the books of the Bible that we call Genesis, Exodus, Liticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_11: Those five.
SPEAKER_11: That was it.
SPEAKER_11: Only those five.
SPEAKER_11: What about the Psalms?
SPEAKER_11: Didn't read them.
SPEAKER_11: What about the prophets?
SPEAKER_11: Didn't read them.
SPEAKER_11: The Sadducees were conservative religious folks.
SPEAKER_11: The Pharisees read the same books as the Sadducees, but they also read the prophets and the Psalms.
SPEAKER_11: Forgive me for saying this, but the Pharisees were pretty inclusive in what they called scripture.
SPEAKER_11: So was Matthew.
SPEAKER_11: He was a liberal.
SPEAKER_11: A flaming liberal for quoting Hosea.
SPEAKER_11: But he did.
SPEAKER_11: And Jesus grew up in a Pharisaic school because he quotes the Psalms left and right.
SPEAKER_11: And what Matthew is doing to his people is saying, look, this story once happened, but it gets to happen again in you.
SPEAKER_11: Second case.
SPEAKER_11: When you're from Texas, it's like Texas.
SPEAKER_11: Well, instead they go to New England, and you know, if you're from Texas, that's like the Yankee place or whatever.
SPEAKER_11: How is it that they end up in Galilee?
SPEAKER_11: Well, it gives you an excuse.
SPEAKER_11: Archolus, what's the problem?
SPEAKER_11: Nazareth, we usually think of as this like sweet place.
SPEAKER_11: It was a tiny podent village of about 70 families, and it was a garrison for Roman troops.
SPEAKER_11: It was not a place you wanted to go.
SPEAKER_11: So the story is telling you how this good Bethlehemite, living in God's country, got to be in this place.
SPEAKER_11: And it uses this really curious phrase: he'll be called a Nazarene.
SPEAKER_11: This is to fulfill what the prophet's plural said, he'll be called a Nazarene.
SPEAKER_11: You won't find that phrase in any book of the Bible.
SPEAKER_11: Any prophet saying he'll be called a Nazarene.
SPEAKER_11: You won't find it anywhere.
SPEAKER_11: So either Matthew's read some people that we didn't get in our Bible.
SPEAKER_11: That's possible, by the way, it's possible.
SPEAKER_11: Or there's one of two other things happening.
SPEAKER_11: I'm going to tell you the one I like the least first, just so you can hear it, and give you the other option.
SPEAKER_11: There's this scripture in Isaiah that we read during Advent that says, out of the stump of Jesse, a new branch will grow.
SPEAKER_11: And it turns out that that word branch has the letters in the R in Hebrew, from which you hear the word Nazareth, in the R.
SPEAKER_11: So maybe this is a play on words saying, aha, Jesus is going to be this life-giving branch that grows from the trunk and roots of Judaism to bear fruit with his people spiritually.
SPEAKER_11: It's a great interpretation, actually.
SPEAKER_11: But hear how it's a fulfillment.
SPEAKER_11: He's not actually a stump or a tree.
SPEAKER_11: This is figurative talk, right?
SPEAKER_11: The second option I prefer because I think it's right.
SPEAKER_11: I mean, otherwise I wouldn't prefer it.
SPEAKER_11: But it's it is about the same.
SPEAKER_11: There are these people in the Bible that are called not Nazareneans, but they're called Nazarites.
SPEAKER_11: And most people in the Bible were Nazarites for a short time.
SPEAKER_11: You took a solemn oath to God, and during the time of that oath, you did three things.
SPEAKER_11: You did not cut your hair, you didn't touch anything dead, which means you didn't eat meat, and you didn't drink wine.
SPEAKER_11: Now that's really challenging because wine was had at pretty much every meal.
SPEAKER_11: But people gave it up temporarily.
SPEAKER_11: And then when you completed your vow, like when it came to an end, you resumed those behaviors and you shaved your head.
SPEAKER_11: The Apostle Paul does this if you read the Acts of the Apostles.
SPEAKER_11: He takes a vow.
SPEAKER_11: When it's over, he shaves and returns to his lifestyle of eating meat and drinking wine.
SPEAKER_11: There are only three people in the Bible that seem to be lifelong Nazirites, the most famous of whom is Samson.
SPEAKER_11: He loses his extraordinary strength when he breaks the final of his three vows.
SPEAKER_11: So if you know Samson's actually a really bad Nazirite, because he eats honey out of a dead lion and he drinks wine, and then when Delilah cuts his hair, he's broken all three parts and his strength is gone.
SPEAKER_11: He's one of them.
SPEAKER_11: The prophet Samuel is a Nazarite.
SPEAKER_11: Remember, his mom dropped him off at the temple when he was a baby, and he became a priest and a judge, and kind of a de facto king, and he apparently never cut his hair or ate wine or ate meat.
SPEAKER_11: And the third one is John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_11: Right?
SPEAKER_11: Grows up in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_11: Doesn't eat meat, he eats bugs.
SPEAKER_11: This is him.
SPEAKER_11: I know what you think.
SPEAKER_11: Well, Jesus isn't a Nazirite.
SPEAKER_11: He drank wine at the Last Supper, and this is where it's good to remember.
SPEAKER_11: Nazarite means guardian in Hebrew, and it's about guarding, guarding, protecting fidelity to God, and what that looks like.
SPEAKER_11: I would tell you, I think Jesus is a Nazirite.
SPEAKER_11: His mission is to say, this is what community and life in God looks like, and I'm going to guard it.
SPEAKER_11: You may not like some of its expressions.
SPEAKER_11: I'm going to do them anyway because they're right.
SPEAKER_11: I mean, this is what he does.
SPEAKER_11: Even though he drinks wine.
SPEAKER_11: Now, it turns out that Nazareth in Hebrew is really close to Nazarite.
SPEAKER_11: So I think what Matthew is doing biblically is telling us we get to eat it, we get to have our cake and eat it too.
SPEAKER_11: Literally, he's from Nazareth.
SPEAKER_11: But what's more important is not that he's from this little village, but that he's a guardian of what it looks like to live faithfully with God.
SPEAKER_11: And that's not just some neat fact pattern that we get to hear and appreciate Jesus did that.
SPEAKER_11: That's an invitation for him, for us to join in doing that work.
SPEAKER_11: Guarding what open faithfulness looks like.
SPEAKER_11: Once upon a time, the Hebrew people were slaves in Egypt and they got delivered.
SPEAKER_11: That's one way to read the Bible.
SPEAKER_11: But another way to read the story is we get to join that procession.
SPEAKER_11: I'm probably going to mess this up and Garmin can correct me because he knows more about this than I'm getting ready to say.
SPEAKER_11: But you know, this last week, Desmond Tutu entered into larger life.
SPEAKER_11: And Desmond Tutu, whatever you think of the guy who helped chair the Reconciliation Commission in South Africa at the end of apartheid.
SPEAKER_11: One of the stories I've read about Tutu is his call to become a priest.
SPEAKER_11: And in my mind, it reflects the fulfillment of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_11: It goes like this: once upon a time, he and his black mother in South Africa were walking on the sidewalk, and a white person was coming.
SPEAKER_11: And it was the duty of black people in South Africa to get off the sidewalk so the white person could come through unobstructed.
SPEAKER_11: Before they could do that, the white person got off the sidewalk and walked in the street and went around.
SPEAKER_11: And Desmond Tutu said to his mother, Who was that?
SPEAKER_11: Who did it?
SPEAKER_11: Turns out it was an Anglican priest wearing a clerical collar.
SPEAKER_11: And his mother said, That was a person of God.
SPEAKER_11: And Desmond Tutu said, When I grow up, I want to be a person of God too.
SPEAKER_11: Do you know that one?
SPEAKER_11: I should have asked him this before the service.
SPEAKER_11: Go ahead, please correct me.
SPEAKER_09: Well, he was uh Father Trevor Hansen, who was originally from England, Anglican Peace, who had a very, very strong influence on, who at first wanted to be a doctor, but couldn't afford to go to study medicine and then became a teacher.
SPEAKER_09: And then when the government took the uh the Anglican church school's uh ability to teach animal away from and for them to teach according to the government's lower standard, uh actually went into a uh and then follow uh advice.
SPEAKER_09: So even then I think it was reluctant at all.
SPEAKER_09: So it wasn't a little clear according to this.
SPEAKER_11: I'm grateful for that correction because I think either way what you hear is that's the fulfillment of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_11: Right?
SPEAKER_11: There's a story in the Bible that happened, and there's these stories that happen now.
SPEAKER_11: And the stories that happen now are meant to resonate with these themes that show up in scripture of being called out of bondage, when we find ourselves far from home, being a home for people who are far from home, of preparing the way of the Lord, even if that means we need to get off of it so other people can travel.
SPEAKER_11: This is how the scriptures are fulfilled, not just literally, but all the more seriously.
SPEAKER_11: And I can't help but talk about this passage because it's it's uh it's well, we only get it once a year from the epistle to the Hebrew, uh the Ephesians.
SPEAKER_11: There's these couple lines in here that are really interesting.
SPEAKER_11: Um, God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless.
SPEAKER_11: God destined us for adoption as God's children through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_11: You know, there's this guy, you've heard of him probably called John Calvin that read those words and he said, destined.
SPEAKER_11: Oh, like predestined.
SPEAKER_11: And the way John Calvin read this is that the us are the people who think the right things.
SPEAKER_11: And we're the ones going to heaven, and everybody else not.
SPEAKER_11: And, you know, God's grace is so valuable that God would even never let us reject it, because that would be an affront.
SPEAKER_11: So some people just don't even have the choice.
SPEAKER_11: To put it kind of uh smugly, number six is an affix, and number seven goes to heaven.
SPEAKER_11: I don't love that line of thinking.
SPEAKER_11: It doesn't seem particularly gracious to me at all to create somebody who has to go to hell.
SPEAKER_11: Perhaps it's because I was predestined to think the way I think.
SPEAKER_11: But I want you to know what's interesting about it is we could take that word so literally we forget to take it seriously.
SPEAKER_11: And there was this great gift in the 20th century.
SPEAKER_11: There's this theologian maybe you've heard of called Carl Barth.
SPEAKER_11: Most people say he was the most, I don't want to say affected, but the most significant Protestant theologian of the last century.
SPEAKER_11: Turns out he might have actually taken credit for his secretary's work.
SPEAKER_11: So whether she wrote it or he did, they both came, they gave us this really interesting idea about predestination.
SPEAKER_11: It's not individuals that are predestined, says Bart or his secretary.
SPEAKER_11: It's the mechanism of salvation, and it's Christ.
SPEAKER_11: Before the foundation of the world, God chose to be with us in the incarnation.
SPEAKER_11: That's what was predestination.
SPEAKER_11: That God was going to do this.
SPEAKER_11: God predestined us as adoption through Christ.
SPEAKER_11: Not predestined Mike and Jim, but not Ella, predestined us through Jesus.
SPEAKER_11: It was the mechanism that God chose, not who gets it and who doesn't.
SPEAKER_11: And one of the interesting things we rarely remember is that when Ephesians came out, it wasn't a book.
SPEAKER_11: It was a sermon.
SPEAKER_11: And it was preached in the open.
SPEAKER_11: And I guarantee you, then as now, there were people who didn't wear the right clothes to church.
SPEAKER_11: And there were people who probably didn't check all the right cognitive boxes.
SPEAKER_11: And the sermon says, us.
SPEAKER_11: Us.
SPEAKER_11: Like the people who believe aliens built the pyramids.
SPEAKER_11: Us.
SPEAKER_11: Like people who wear rose-colored chasubles when it's not Rose Sunday.
SPEAKER_11: Us.
SPEAKER_10: Us.
SPEAKER_10: God predestined us through Jesus.
SPEAKER_11: And this is part of where we come back to Christmas, is where this is all going.
SPEAKER_11: It's going to our invitation to fulfill the scriptures.
SPEAKER_11: We don't fulfill the scriptures when we talk about some of us.
SPEAKER_11: We fulfill the scriptures when we talk about all y'all.
SPEAKER_11: But that's when they come alive.
SPEAKER_11: So go to Egypt when you feel safe and comfortable.
SPEAKER_11: It's cool.
SPEAKER_11: Pull people out of bondage.
SPEAKER_11: That's the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_11: Sometimes we miss, and Jim sent me this article this week, that was really interesting.
SPEAKER_11: You know, I grew up in a spirituality in which I always identified with the biblical heroes.
SPEAKER_11: And I always thought, you know, oh, like I'm those people being called out of bondage from the Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_11: And to be honest, sometimes I'm probably an Egyptian.
SPEAKER_11: I don't like to think of myself that way.
SPEAKER_11: Sometimes I benefit off the toil of other people.
SPEAKER_11: We fulfill the scriptures when we don't wait for God to overturn all that when we say, okay, alright, we can do something about this now.
SPEAKER_11: You see, we don't have to do the scriptures just like they're written to fulfill them.
SPEAKER_11: We don't have to have cataclysms show up.
SPEAKER_11: No, we get to learn from the scriptures, you see.
SPEAKER_11: That's how we fulfill them.
SPEAKER_11: So come out of bondage.
SPEAKER_11: I see you're far from home.
SPEAKER_11: Maybe I can have, maybe you can have a room in my house.
SPEAKER_11: And this is where we make the words of the Psalm true.
SPEAKER_11: When we talk about God's dwelling place, it's not just here.
SPEAKER_11: Here is a place, hopefully, we're mindful of it, so that we can cultivate it everywhere else we go.
SPEAKER_11: We dwell in God's house when we practice justice and we love mercy and we walk humbly with God.
SPEAKER_11: And we're invited to fulfill that just like the Holy Family shared their life with the infant child Jesus.
SPEAKER_10: We have to fulfill that by sharing our life with the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_11: Sometimes the best gifts you get are the ones you also get to share.
SPEAKER_11: So I hope the fulfillment of the scriptures is a gift you get and share this Christmas tie.
SPEAKER_11: Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.
SPEAKER_11: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty.
SPEAKER_03: We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God through God, life from light, true God for true God, begotten of the man, the only being of the Father.
SPEAKER_03: Through him all things were made.
SPEAKER_03: For us, for our salvation, he became man from heaven.
SPEAKER_03: By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnated from the Virgin Mary and was made man.
SPEAKER_08: For our Savior Jesus crucified and his Father.
SPEAKER_08: He suffered death and spirit.
SPEAKER_03: On the third day he rose again, in accordance with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_03: He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_03: He will come and give glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
SPEAKER_03: We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
SPEAKER_03: With the Father and the Son, he is worshiped and glorified.
SPEAKER_03: He has spoken through the prophets.
SPEAKER_03: We believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church.
SPEAKER_03: We honor in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_03: We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: For the victims of oppression throughout the world, especially those who have been financed by governments of use and poverty.
SPEAKER_01: For refugees and those displaced by war or strife.
SPEAKER_01: For those who hunger.
SPEAKER_03: Satisfy the Episcopal and spiritual need.
SPEAKER_01: Mentor and guide elected and appointed officials throughout our world.
SPEAKER_01: For 43 years of female clergy shining your light in the Episcopal Church.
SPEAKER_03: We pray we thank you, O Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Enable our laity, deacons, priests, and bishops to discern your work in the world and boldly join it.
SPEAKER_01: Bless our day school, its teachers, staff, families, and students.
SPEAKER_03: May the constant school grow in power wisdom, love, and knowledge in our world.
SPEAKER_01: We praise you for constant love, compassion, diligence, kindness, and guidance of spouses, siblings, parents, friends, and extended families who have put us and others before themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Mend broken relationships and comfort those who are alone.
SPEAKER_01: Equip us to empathize even when we are in pain.
SPEAKER_01: Protect the dignity of those who are in physical decline or hardship.
SPEAKER_01: Remembering especially Chris, Sean, Ken, Nancy, Amber, and the celebration or petitions the congregation wishes to name at this time silently or aloud.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Compassionate God, make your healing and peaceful presence known to the world.
SPEAKER_01: Comfort those who mourn.
SPEAKER_01: Strengthen those who are weary.
SPEAKER_01: Encourage those in despair, and lead us all to fullness of life.
SPEAKER_11: Let us confess our sin against God and our neighbor.
SPEAKER_11: God of all mercy, we confess that we have sinned against you, opposing your will in our lives.
SPEAKER_11: We have denied forgiveness in each other, in ourselves, and in the world you have created.
SPEAKER_11: We were cleansed of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done in our high.
SPEAKER_11: Forgive, restore, and strengthen us through our Savior Jesus Christ, that we may abide in your love and serve only your will.
SPEAKER_08: Amen.
SPEAKER_11: The Almighty and Compassionate Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sin, true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_11: Amen.
SPEAKER_11: The peace of the Lord be always with you.
SPEAKER_11: Good morning, and thank you for worshiping with St.
SPEAKER_11: Thomas today.
SPEAKER_11: A few announcements I'd like to just bring to your awareness.
SPEAKER_11: But first, it is the first Sunday of January.
SPEAKER_11: So if you were born this month, I'd like to invite you forward so we can celebrate your birthday and offer you a blessing.
SPEAKER_11: And as you're coming up, our custom is that we say our name, the day of our birth, and either where we were born, when we were born, or both of those.
SPEAKER_09: Just for the whole month of January.
SPEAKER_09: Awesome.
SPEAKER_09: Sean Shelton, January 8th, 1984, Galvison, Texas.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_08: 38 years old.
SPEAKER_08: Thank you.
SPEAKER_06: I'm Lauren Hill.
SPEAKER_06: I was born on the 19th of January, 1942, in Covington, Kentucky.
SPEAKER_08: Kathy Bigler, born 1959, Fort Rucker, Alabama.
SPEAKER_04: Ken Jurgen is born in Austin, Texas on January 10th.
SPEAKER_07: Ellen Maston, born in Charleston, West Virginia, on January the 12th, and I will be 83 years old.
SPEAKER_07: Oh, we've got one of this.
unknown: Hadley Snap, January 20th, and she's born in Houston.
SPEAKER_11: Hadley Snap, How's the youngest of four, January 20th in Houston.
SPEAKER_11: Let's say a blessing for our birthdays.
SPEAKER_11: God, we know every year, every moment of our lives is in your hand and in your heart.
SPEAKER_11: Look with continued love and wonder on these, your children, as they begin another year.
SPEAKER_11: Grant that they would continue to grow in wisdom and grace, and above all, strengthen their trust in your goodness and your love all the days of their lives through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_11: Amen.
SPEAKER_11: Okay, so a few announcements to call to your attention, really just three.
SPEAKER_11: One is a reminder that a week from Thursday, that's January the 13th, we're gonna start a five-part series through the season of Epiphany that are geared to helping us have epiphanies of respect.
SPEAKER_11: So there's going to be different leaders from different faith traditions in our area who are gonna come and tell their story.
SPEAKER_11: How did you become an Imam?
SPEAKER_11: Or how did you become a rabbi?
SPEAKER_11: What are some of the things you wish Christian people knew about what you did?
SPEAKER_11: Are there practices you can guide us through so that we can not only hear, but connect with the spirituality that undergirds you?
SPEAKER_11: So next Thursday night, which will be the first, Dr.
SPEAKER_11: Stephen Terry from the University of Houston Clear Lake, who's a practicing Tibetan Buddhist, is gonna say how he became a Tibetan Buddhist.
SPEAKER_11: And he's probably gonna guide us through a mindfulness meditation.
SPEAKER_11: I don't know if you've done that before, but it's an opportunity to do this with a practitioner and hear more person to person what he wished we knew.
SPEAKER_11: Two rabbis are going to be coming a conservative rabbi and a reform rabbi.
SPEAKER_11: Uh, one of our imams from the Islamic Center who lives in this neighborhood is going to come soon.
SPEAKER_11: I hope you make time for these.
SPEAKER_11: We're gonna figure out how we can record them, but as of now, the plan is that.
SPEAKER_11: Will be in Christ Hall distanced and massed so that we can be in person and see one another, and that seems really important.
SPEAKER_11: So that will start this, not this Thursday, but the one following on the 13th.
SPEAKER_11: Also want to name that today is Christmas too, but it is also the Sunday we call Take a Poinsettia Home Sunday.
SPEAKER_11: Now, a lot of people aren't sure what that means.
SPEAKER_11: You take a poinsettia home.
SPEAKER_11: Now, you may say, I don't want a poinsettia, but it's very possible that you know or love somebody who you could show honor with this gift.
SPEAKER_11: You could say to one of your neighbors, hey, these poinsettias decorated our church and made it feel really special and holy, and I thought of you and would like to give you one.
SPEAKER_11: There are many here, there are some in the hall.
SPEAKER_11: Take as many as you'd like.
SPEAKER_11: The key is that people take the poinsettias home.
SPEAKER_11: Because they don't do well inside.
SPEAKER_11: I don't know if you know this.
SPEAKER_11: So it's a lovely way you can show a gift to somebody because it has helped prepare us for the season, and it's a great way to say, I've been thinking about you, and I love you.
SPEAKER_11: So please do take a poinsettia home or take four or seven and share them with your neighbors.
SPEAKER_11: This is, I mean, this is good people stuff, right?
SPEAKER_11: Like we we share the fruits of our liturgy with people who aren't here.
SPEAKER_11: Like, this is like why why we do this?
SPEAKER_11: We come so we can share.
SPEAKER_11: Um, the other thing I'd like to invite you to is what we call the ungreening of the church.
SPEAKER_11: Uh the ungreening of the church happens next Sunday and immediately following this service.
SPEAKER_11: It doesn't take very long, uh, but it involves us taking down the wreaths and organizing them, putting some labels on them so we can get them right out next year.
SPEAKER_11: It's pretty fun.
SPEAKER_11: It probably takes 20 minutes to do, and it helps prepare us for the season of the fifth day.
SPEAKER_11: So you're all invited to help ungreen the church next year and take the points out of your home Sunday.
SPEAKER_11: I do hope the next couple of days, right?
SPEAKER_11: Christmas is gonna wrap up this week.
SPEAKER_11: I do hope it's the time to continue to celebrate the holiness of God's unabashed, unashamed love for us as human beings.
SPEAKER_11: That God came and a deep love not to just set us straight.
SPEAKER_11: And I invite you to meditate on these last couple of days that God loves us more than we love ourselves, and we get to learn from God.
SPEAKER_11: This is part of the Christmas process.
SPEAKER_11: So prayers for a holy conclusion of Christmas tide.
SPEAKER_11: Walk in love.
SPEAKER_11: As Christ first loved us and gave himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_11: All things come of thee, O Lord.
SPEAKER_11: This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_11: It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more, so come.
SPEAKER_11: 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.
SPEAKER_11: You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.
SPEAKER_11: Not because the church invites you, it is Christ, and he invites you to meet him here.
SPEAKER_02: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_11: It is very meekright in our bound and duty that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father Almighty, everlasting God, because thou didst give Jesus Christ, thine only Son, to be born for us, who by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost was made very man of the substance of the Virgin Mary, his mother, that we might be delivered from the bondage of sin and receive power to become thy children.
SPEAKER_11: Therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we ought to magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee and saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of thy glory.
SPEAKER_11: Hosanna in the highest.
SPEAKER_11: Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.
SPEAKER_11: All glory be to thee, O Lord our God, for that thou didst create heaven and earth and didst make us in thine own image.
SPEAKER_11: And in thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to take our nature upon him and to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption.
SPEAKER_11: He made there a full and perfect sacrifice for the whole world, and did institute.
SPEAKER_11: And in his holy gospel command us to continue a perpetual memory of that, his precious death and sacrifice until his coming again.
SPEAKER_11: Isn't it lovely that church is just like real life?
SPEAKER_11: I mean, it's just normal.
SPEAKER_11: For in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus blew down a burning adventure.
SPEAKER_11: He took bread, and when he'd given thanks to thee, he broke it, gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_11: This is my body which is given for you.
SPEAKER_11: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_11: Likewise, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, and when he gave thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink this, all of you.
SPEAKER_11: This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for all for the remission of sin.
SPEAKER_11: Do this as often as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_11: Wherefore, O Lord and Heavenly Father, we thy people do celebrate and make with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy son hath commanded us to make, having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension, and looking for his coming again with power and great glory.
SPEAKER_11: And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us, and with thy word and Holy Spirit to bless and sanctify these gifts of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the body and blood of thy dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_11: And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness to accept this, our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, whereby we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies.
SPEAKER_11: Grant, we beseech thee that all who partake of this holy communion may worthily receive the most precious body and blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction.
SPEAKER_11: And also that we and all thy whole church may be made one body with him.
SPEAKER_11: He may dwell in us and we in him, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom and with whom and in him.
SPEAKER_11: In the unity of the Holy Ghost, our honor and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end.
SPEAKER_11: Amen.
SPEAKER_11: Now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.
SPEAKER_11: 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_11: 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.
SPEAKER_11: For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_11: Amen.
SPEAKER_11: Hallelujah, Christ our Passover, is sacrificed for us.
SPEAKER_11: These are the gifts of God for you, the family predestined by God.
SPEAKER_11: Feed on them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_11: Faithful God, in the wonder of your wisdom and love, you fed your people in the wilderness with the bread of angels, and you sent Jesus to be the bread of life.
SPEAKER_11: We thank you for feeding us with this bread.
SPEAKER_11: May it strengthen us that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may embody your desire and be renewed for your service through Jesus Christ our Savior.
SPEAKER_11: Amen.
SPEAKER_11: Depart in peace and take with you the certain knowledge that God is always coming into the world.
SPEAKER_03: We will receive God not in all of the same or change, but in every people we need in the dead of our hearts.
SPEAKER_11: May the blessing of Christmas make you a blessing to others.
SPEAKER_11: May the peace of the season pervade all that you do.
SPEAKER_03: We will welcome the children of discipleship.
SPEAKER_03: We will offer ourselves as God's ministers.
SPEAKER_03: We will have forward, peace, joy, and love.
SPEAKER_11: And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be upon you this day and remain with you always.
SPEAKER_11: Amen.
SPEAKER_08: Do you know what small thing is?
SPEAKER_08: No, they're in mixed room.
SPEAKER_08: They're all in all in mixture.
SPEAKER_04: There are five things.
unknown: Wow.
SPEAKER_04: Two of them are twenty.
SPEAKER_04: So thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_04: Merry Christmas.
SPEAKER_09: And I'm glad you're you're trying to come home on Christmas.
unknown: I'm really excited about this.
SPEAKER_04: I've been since this is your undergraduate reading.
unknown: I am terribly proud.
SPEAKER_04: If I may be so presumptuous, I'm terribly proud.
SPEAKER_04: You have a gorgeous which you didn't get from me.
SPEAKER_04: Well, but you're talking about it.