SPEAKER_06: We have already lit the first two candles of our Advent wreath, one for hope and one for peace.
SPEAKER_06: Today we light the third candle, the candle of joy.
SPEAKER_06: This should be the easy one because joy is all around us, in children, lights, music, and gathering together.
SPEAKER_06: But how often do we let our preparations or our inner memories push joy to the side?
SPEAKER_06: Joy is like an underground spring that wells up within us, but joy is also a choice, an attitude.
SPEAKER_06: Like a muscle that needs to be exercised, and so today we would open ourselves to joy, trusting that God has already planted it in us.
SPEAKER_06: All we need to do is give it care and offer it to share.
SPEAKER_06: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_06: Almighty God, under whom all hearts are open, all desires are known, and from whom no secrets are hidden.
SPEAKER_06: Cleanse the followers of our hearts by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy holy name through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_05: And also with you.
SPEAKER_06: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_06: Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.
SPEAKER_06: And because we are sorely hindered by our sin, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be honor and glory now and forever.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: As you're being seated, our children are invited to children's church with Mr.
SPEAKER_06: Alex and the back.
SPEAKER_01: A reading from Zephaniah.
SPEAKER_01: Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion.
SPEAKER_01: Shout, O Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice and exalt with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord has taken away the judgments against you.
SPEAKER_01: He has turned away your enemies.
SPEAKER_01: The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst.
SPEAKER_01: You shall fear disaster no more.
SPEAKER_01: On that day it shall be sent to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Do not fear Osion.
SPEAKER_01: Do not let your hands grow weak.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord your God is in your midst.
SPEAKER_01: A warrior who gives victory.
SPEAKER_01: I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it.
SPEAKER_01: I will deal with all your oppressors at that time, and I will save the lame and gather the outcast.
SPEAKER_01: And I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: At that time I will bring you home, at that time when I gather you.
SPEAKER_02: Again, I will say, rejoice.
SPEAKER_02: Let your gentleness be known to everyone that the Lord is near.
SPEAKER_02: Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made and made known to God.
SPEAKER_02: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_06: John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, you brut of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bear fruits worthy of repentance.
SPEAKER_06: Do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our ancestor.
SPEAKER_06: For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.
SPEAKER_06: Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees.
SPEAKER_06: Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
SPEAKER_06: And the crowds asked him, What then should we do?
SPEAKER_06: In reply, he said to them, Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.
SPEAKER_06: Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, Teacher, what should we do?
SPEAKER_06: He said to them, Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.
SPEAKER_06: Soldiers also asked him, And we, what should we do?
SPEAKER_06: He said to them, Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.
SPEAKER_06: As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming.
SPEAKER_06: I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.
SPEAKER_06: He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit in fire.
SPEAKER_06: His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
SPEAKER_06: So with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.
SPEAKER_06: The gospel of the Lord.
unknown: Please be sick.
SPEAKER_06: Advent is the season where we're eagerly awaiting, and not just waiting, but participating and making ready the coming of Christ.
SPEAKER_06: And you can see in our wreath, the other one I dropped this week, so it broke.
SPEAKER_06: It was really dreadful.
SPEAKER_06: Grateful we had that Advent Wreath workshop.
SPEAKER_06: You can see in these ones, though, the older color is not blue, it's purple, just like you would see in Lent, which is psychologically a difficult color, it turns out for us.
SPEAKER_06: It confronts us not only with royalty but with repentance.
SPEAKER_06: And so in the dark, the seasons of reform that we have both in Advent and in Lent.
SPEAKER_06: In Advent 3, we have the rose, sometimes called Godate Sunday or Refreshment Sunday, the same words you can hear in Lent 4 as well, to remind us that this toil that we're supposed to be about in the making room for the Lord is for our benefit.
SPEAKER_06: This is meant to be joyful work, even if it isn't always happy.
SPEAKER_06: So it might be a surprise on Rose Sunday to hear John the Baptist call us a brutal viper.
SPEAKER_06: Doesn't sound like the most joyful welcome to church.
SPEAKER_06: But I do want to put to you what almost all the research I've read about this is that happiness and joy are not the same.
SPEAKER_06: And just to hammer this a little more hum, you've probably heard me say this before, but the Hebrew Bible, the bulk of our Bible, the Hebrew language has 10,000 words in it total.
SPEAKER_06: You may think that's a lot of words.
SPEAKER_06: It's not.
SPEAKER_06: The Greek language, from which like a third of our Bible comes, the New Testament, has a hundred thousand words in it.
SPEAKER_06: 100,000.
SPEAKER_06: Does anybody know how many words English has?
SPEAKER_06: 540,000.
SPEAKER_06: What's interesting is we are arguably the most word-rich language on the planet because English folk they meet a word that they like and we just sweep it in, right?
SPEAKER_06: Because it's it's something we don't have.
SPEAKER_06: But we do a lot of conflating of words, and I put before you that this is at least where Advent's taking me this year.
SPEAKER_06: Remember, hoping and wishing are not the same, but we so often use them interchangeably.
SPEAKER_06: So the first week we talked about the difference between wishing and hoping.
SPEAKER_06: Last week I tried to talk a little bit about how peace and quiet often have very little to do with one another.
SPEAKER_06: We so often use them interchangeably.
SPEAKER_06: Like the difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking are very different.
SPEAKER_06: And today I think we're confronted that joy.
SPEAKER_06: Joy can be rather unlike happiness.
SPEAKER_06: And I think John the Baptist puts in a longer version what one of my seminary professors said that repentance is joyful sorrow.
SPEAKER_06: I don't think we can get away with the phrase like happy sorrow.
SPEAKER_06: Happiness, says all the research I'm familiar with, is more based on externals or circumstantial.
SPEAKER_06: But the minute circumstances change, happiness can depart as well.
SPEAKER_06: Whereas joy seems to be of a different sort than happiness.
SPEAKER_06: I'd like to, um, because I'm not a mystical person, I'm not, I'd like to give you some words about joy by some people who are mystical, and so before talking about John the Baptist, I want you to hear Rumi's take on joy.
SPEAKER_06: Sorrow prepares you for joy.
SPEAKER_06: It violently sweeps everything out of your house so that new joy can find space to enter.
SPEAKER_06: It shakes the yellow leaves from the boughs of your heart so that fresh green leaves can grow in their place.
SPEAKER_06: It pulls up the rotten roots so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow.
SPEAKER_06: Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things may take their place.
SPEAKER_06: I'd like you to hear John the Baptist saying something like that today.
SPEAKER_06: I was raised in a spirituality in which people are either wheat or they're chaff.
SPEAKER_06: Usually the people or chaff are the ones who don't think the things that I think, if I'm really honest about it.
SPEAKER_06: But I'll put before you that that's not really good news, that's just my news.
SPEAKER_06: Uh, good news says that in fact, all of us are collections of wheat and chaff.
SPEAKER_06: And what John the Baptist promises is that Christ will come burn up the chaff and our lives for our benefit.
SPEAKER_06: Instead of you're either this or you're that.
SPEAKER_06: I notice that there are branches in the tree of my life that produce fruit that is nourishing for other people, and I notice that there are branches that yield what I would call bitter fruit that I don't enjoy myself.
SPEAKER_06: Advent three, Rose Sunday, is that God would like to contend with the desiccated and dry and thorny brambles of our lives for our own benefit.
SPEAKER_06: And this isn't something that God would just like to spot treat once in a while.
SPEAKER_06: John the Baptist promises there'll be unquenchable fire such that it will roast up to utterly destroy those parts of ourselves that have no life in them.
SPEAKER_06: Fire in the Bible is never an image of torture, it's only ever an image of refinement or absolute destruction.
SPEAKER_06: So I'd like to hear these words that repentance is joyful sorrow coming from John the Baptist now.
SPEAKER_06: These changes that wishing is not the same as hoping, and that peace is not the same as quiet, and that happiness and joy can in fact be very different things, are meant to help us enjoy our lives more and not to hurt us.
SPEAKER_06: If you are like me, you might sometimes find yourself very satisfied with the chaff in your life.
SPEAKER_06: I have a lot of chaff.
SPEAKER_06: I like it.
SPEAKER_06: I do because I'm used to it.
SPEAKER_06: You know?
SPEAKER_06: Some of it was given to me, and so like a family heirloom, I know where it is and what it represents, and it hasn't borne fruit in years, but I will haul it out every season so I can look at it.
SPEAKER_06: And John the Baptist says, hey, what if we just grew something new?
SPEAKER_06: What if instead of that we made room for something that would bear fruit?
SPEAKER_06: I know it was in our reading today, but I want to suggest to you that when I hear fruit, I can't help but think about words attributed to Paul in Galatians that said, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.
SPEAKER_06: Against such things there are no law.
SPEAKER_06: That is to say, are the branches of my life nourishing other people with love, joy, goodness, kindness, gentleness, peace, patience, and self-control.
SPEAKER_06: And if they're not, God, the master for my sake, would be grateful to the prudent.
SPEAKER_06: I could trust.
SPEAKER_06: Trust is a hard one.
SPEAKER_06: But I would like to suggest to you this image that Marcus Ford put in one of his books several years ago before dying.
SPEAKER_06: That really, this trust in the Master Gardener is like the difference between jumping into a body of water and desperately trying to tread to keep your head above and laying back after it.
SPEAKER_06: And I want to suggest to you that this is what God has before us.
SPEAKER_06: Trust that the Master Gardener would print us for our benefit.
SPEAKER_06: Because, in the words of the African proverb, God made us because God thought we might enjoy it.
SPEAKER_06: To follow that thread a little bit.
SPEAKER_06: C.S.
SPEAKER_06: Lewis, a good Anglican theologian.
SPEAKER_06: Of course, when I was a Baptist, I thought he was a Baptist.
SPEAKER_06: Nice to know he was an Anglican guy.
SPEAKER_06: He said, you know, joy comes from God, so if you're ever not sure where God's calling you, just follow the joy.
SPEAKER_06: I'm coming to trust that more and more, hearing that joy and happiness are different things.
SPEAKER_06: I want to suggest to you, in the lines of another poet, again, I'm not the poetic type, so thanks for leaning with me into this.
SPEAKER_06: The joy is about another world.
SPEAKER_06: So, in the words of Forrest Gander, there is another world, the poet Paul Eluard famously wrote, but it is inside this one, and quite literally so.
SPEAKER_06: Certain bacteria live hundreds of meters within the Earth's crust, feeding on dissolved gases and minerals rendered by the reaction of groundwater and rock.
SPEAKER_06: These bacteria, chemolithotrophs, have no need for solar energy.
SPEAKER_06: Some scientists estimate that the underground biomass, the world inside this one, might be more than double the living mass at the surface of our planet.
SPEAKER_06: Perhaps we can understand now what the 19th-century German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt meant when he spoke of the all-animatedness of the earth.
SPEAKER_06: I want to suggest to you that joy, repentance is joyful sorrow, is about living into the world that is inside of this world.
SPEAKER_06: It was very helpful for me to read in Berlin Brown's newest book, Atlas of the Heart, that the opposite of joy tends to be fear.
SPEAKER_06: The opposite of joy tends to be fear, not sorrow.
SPEAKER_06: Fear.
SPEAKER_06: She identifies one particularly, that's called foreboding joy.
SPEAKER_06: Foreboding joy is when in the moment things are really, really wonderful and then it hits you this might not last forever.
SPEAKER_06: And it's nerve-wracking.
SPEAKER_06: Because it's hard to imagine how we live without it.
SPEAKER_06: What Brene Brown cites, which is not my experience, it's not, is looking at her children asleep in the bed and thinking something terrible can happen.
SPEAKER_06: That's not the kind of foreboding joy I have.
SPEAKER_06: No, the kind of foreboding joy I have as a parent is I look at my children asleep in the bed, and I think there's nowhere to go from here but down.
SPEAKER_06: Like the only thing I can do is mess this up.
SPEAKER_06: If you've seen a little one asleep in the bed, I'm suspicious.
SPEAKER_06: You've had a thought like one of these two takes us out of joy.
SPEAKER_06: The poet and mystic, Rabbi Martin Buber, says that the moment we realize we're having a joyful experience, and we call it that is the moment that it's over.
SPEAKER_06: Because we just put it under our control.
SPEAKER_06: Happiness we can control.
SPEAKER_06: Happiness is about things going according to my plan.
SPEAKER_06: And joy, quite honestly, I find surprises me.
SPEAKER_06: It comes.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I'm always happy to have it, I suppose, but it doesn't come when I whistle for it.
SPEAKER_06: And when I name it and try to replicate it, it rarely feels the same.
SPEAKER_06: I don't know if that's your experience.
SPEAKER_06: There's foreboding joy.
SPEAKER_06: And then there is for people like me, the type A, I-N-T-J, what my spiritual director calls FOMO.
SPEAKER_06: Do you know this word?
SPEAKER_06: Fear of missing out.
SPEAKER_06: This is probably the worst challenge to the experience of joy in my life, knowing that all of us are different.
SPEAKER_06: FOMO is about me making the maximum of everything.
SPEAKER_06: So I will tell you that I often go to a restaurant when I'm traveling that's recommended, and the question I want to know is what's the best thing on the menu?
SPEAKER_06: Can I be really an Episcopalian for a second?
SPEAKER_06: Does anybody else do this?
SPEAKER_06: What's the best thing on the menu?
SPEAKER_06: Sometimes I hear the best thing on the menu, and I am not interested in it at all.
SPEAKER_06: But I am ordering that because I'm going to have the best thing.
SPEAKER_06: I hope y'all aren't like me.
SPEAKER_06: That's a different kind of foreboding joy.
SPEAKER_06: And for me, my spiritual director says, it's because you're a maximizer.
SPEAKER_06: And what if instead you decided to be a satisfiser?
SPEAKER_06: What if you could cultivate the spirit in you that says, what would satisfy me?
SPEAKER_06: What would satisfy me instead of what's the very best thing I can have?
SPEAKER_06: I don't know what impediments you put in the way of joy.
SPEAKER_06: I'm not even sure I've named all of my own.
SPEAKER_06: But when I hear John the Baptist tell a soldier they should be satisfied with their wages, that's when I hear my spiritual director saying, When you've got a choice, what might satisfy you?
SPEAKER_06: I usually say, I don't want to be satisfied, I want the best.
SPEAKER_06: And my spiritual director says, Well, what do you want?
SPEAKER_06: And I say, Well, I don't know what I want.
SPEAKER_06: I just know what's best.
SPEAKER_06: And the spiritual director tells me, well, just guess.
SPEAKER_06: It's okay if you don't get it right.
SPEAKER_06: What might you enjoy?
SPEAKER_06: And if you get it wrong, then you'll learn something about yourself, and that'll be enjoyable.
SPEAKER_06: I hear John the Baptist talking to soldiers who are not satisfied with their wages, inviting them to consider how can they be satisfied.
SPEAKER_06: If you're like me, the difference between a good meal and a great meal isn't even the food, it's the mood I'm in and the company I have.
SPEAKER_06: I have been to some of the best restaurants that there are, and the food wasn't great.
SPEAKER_06: I've had some really expensive wine.
SPEAKER_06: I didn't know why it cost that much.
SPEAKER_06: Had a lot to do with who I was with, where I was and the expectations I put on joy.
SPEAKER_06: Now it might sound a little bit strange to hear this line from C.S.
SPEAKER_06: Lewis since joy is from God, if you don't know where God is, follow joy.
SPEAKER_06: Strikes my puritanical heritage as tough because when people are having fun, they're probably sinning, right?
SPEAKER_06: That's how we grew up.
SPEAKER_06: But do hear that joy is from God.
SPEAKER_06: And if joy is from God, it's not wrong.
SPEAKER_06: In fact, if joy is from God, it's righteous.
SPEAKER_06: And the righteous parts of God is that there's more fruit for myself.
SPEAKER_06: And there's more fruit for a hungry world than I'm growing.
SPEAKER_06: This isn't just about you feeding the world, it's about you being nourished by these same fruits that will also nourish the world.
SPEAKER_06: So sometimes, I don't even remember the poem, it's not in this book.
SPEAKER_06: Sometimes joy is an act of resistance.
SPEAKER_06: Joy is an act of resistance.
SPEAKER_06: Joy is living into my values, even when that means there will be growing pains.
SPEAKER_06: Sometimes joy is about doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_06: Cultivating love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, especially when I don't feel like it.
SPEAKER_06: Joy is an act of resistance when I can't see those things happening, and I can't see outcomes.
SPEAKER_06: I choose in faith that God will float the world if I live into those values anyway.
SPEAKER_06: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control against such things.
SPEAKER_06: There is no law.
SPEAKER_06: Those things I suggest the scriptures imagine expanding the universe infinitely.
SPEAKER_06: I don't always get to see in immediate time those fruits come back to me, but that isn't why we do them.
SPEAKER_06: There is cognitive dissonance between acts of righteousness and when they start to take root and when they start to grow.
SPEAKER_06: Quick growth is really fast.
SPEAKER_06: And it damages the organism and it damages the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_06: Sustainable growth is slow.
SPEAKER_06: The Lord says something like this repeatedly.
SPEAKER_06: But we trust with joy that even though we can't see the growth with our human eye all the time, that God, the master gardener, can make it grow and can make it nourish the world.
SPEAKER_06: And that we can enjoy that.
SPEAKER_06: God's not looking for slave laborers.
SPEAKER_06: God's looking for co-gardeners and co-distributors of fruit that will nourish the world.
SPEAKER_06: Unless this seems too dower, because I'm afraid it is.
SPEAKER_06: Close your eyes.
SPEAKER_06: Fall in love.
SPEAKER_06: Stay there.
SPEAKER_06: When you feel a peaceful joy.
SPEAKER_06: When you feel a peaceful joy, that's when you are close to truth.
SPEAKER_06: And maybe somebody in the room, other than just myself, needs to hear this one.
SPEAKER_06: Stop acting so small.
SPEAKER_06: You are the universe in ecstatic motion.
SPEAKER_06: And we are called to put joy into motion.
SPEAKER_06: Whether that is a moment of awe and wonder and being wrapped up in one another, are moments in which we can say, I can change.
SPEAKER_06: I can change for my joy and for yours.
SPEAKER_06: Moments like when your spouse says, the hugest man's claims to me, that we can say, it's because they trust me.
SPEAKER_06: They're telling me that because they trust I can do something about it.
SPEAKER_06: And I will.
SPEAKER_06: Or when your spouse says to you, or your child says to you, blank criticism, the joy in it is that they told you.
SPEAKER_06: Because they believe you can do something about it.
SPEAKER_06: And we can.
SPEAKER_06: We can do something about it.
SPEAKER_06: In fact, friends, we can do more together.
SPEAKER_06: Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Christ.
SPEAKER_05: We believe in one God, the Father of the Almighty.
SPEAKER_05: We believe the church.
SPEAKER_05: We have one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_05: We believe for the resurrection of the dead, and the one to come.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray for the church and for the world.
SPEAKER_00: Grant, Almighty God, that all who confess your name may be united in your truth, live together in your love, and reveal your glory in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, in your compassion, hear our prayers.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for all who govern and hold authority in every nation, for the members of the armed forces throughout the world, and for all who struggle for peace and justice, that they may act with prudence and vision to plant the seeds of your kingdom everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, in your compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Give us all a reverence for the earth as your own creation, that we may use its resources rightly in the service of others, and to your honor and glory, Lord, in your compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Bless all whose lives are closely linked with ours, and grant that we may serve Christ in them and love one another as He loves us.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, in your compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Lead our parish.
SPEAKER_00: Source of wisdom, guide us, source of strength, support us.
SPEAKER_00: Source of love, unify us, we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, in your compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Guide St.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas the Apostles' School, that those who teach and those who learn may rejoice in the knowledge of your truth, that we may teach our students to love whatever is just and true and good, and that we may be bearers of your grace to all who come through our doors.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, in your compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Comfort and heal all those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Give them courage and hope in their troubles, and bring them the joy of your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Especially Chris, Sean, Ken, Nancy, and Amber.
SPEAKER_00: And you, the congregation, are invited to name celebrations or petitions silently or aloud.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, in your compassion.
SPEAKER_00: We commend to your mercy all who have died, that your will for them may be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray that we may share with all your saints in your eternal kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, in your compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Compassionate God, make your healing and peaceful presence known to the world.
SPEAKER_00: Comfort those who mourn, strengthen those who are weary, encourage those in despair, and lead us all to fullness of life.
SPEAKER_05: Lord, hear our prayer.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your love.
SPEAKER_05: According to your mercy questions.
SPEAKER_05: I think from my sins and all my create.
SPEAKER_05: And my spirit within me.
SPEAKER_05: Restore to me with all of your salvation.
SPEAKER_05: And all me with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_06: The Almighty and Merciful Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sin.
SPEAKER_06: True repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: The peace of the Lord be always with you.
SPEAKER_06: Good morning, Dean.
SPEAKER_06: Thank you for worshiping with us at St.
SPEAKER_06: Thomas today.
SPEAKER_06: If you're new to it or haven't done this before, in the room right behind this one, it's called the Narcitex.
SPEAKER_06: So these little tables, and on the tables are some cards that say welcome.
SPEAKER_06: We'd be tremendously grateful if you fill out one of those welcome cards if you haven't done so before, so we have a recognition of your visit.
SPEAKER_06: And thanks for joining us today.
SPEAKER_06: There are a few announcements I want to call to your attention.
SPEAKER_06: One is about a few things that happened last week.
SPEAKER_06: So some of you know this already, that one of our parishioners, Vicky Buxton, wrote a grant to the diocesan ECW, and we were awarded a$10,000 grant to support children and families at McWorder Elementary who were on the free lunch program.
SPEAKER_06: So on Friday, we were able to take, I don't know if you remember getting underwear and toiletries and socks on Christmas.
SPEAKER_06: That used to be me.
SPEAKER_06: That's what we gave to kids who might have had one pair of underwear.
SPEAKER_06: We brought$2,500 worth of underwear, socks, and toiletries to kids at McWurder in partnership with the ECW.
SPEAKER_06: It's an amazing gift.
SPEAKER_06: If you see Vicky, please thank her.
SPEAKER_06: It's worthy of applause.
SPEAKER_06: This is who we are.
SPEAKER_06: A second lovely uh thing that happened is that we were a site for disaster relief during hurricane season, and that meant that we were storing about 6,000 bottles of water.
SPEAKER_06: Since hurricane season is over for this year, so is tornado season on there.
SPEAKER_06: Um we were able to distribute that water.
SPEAKER_06: So to Lord of the Streets Episcopal Church, that's a church serving formerly and currently homeless men, women, and children, 6,000 bottles of water, uh, and they've had like no corporate sponsorship since COVID, so it's a huge difference.
SPEAKER_06: We're bringing the last 3,000 bottles up on Tuesday, and that's y'all.
SPEAKER_06: So thank you for supporting that.
SPEAKER_06: Um, I also want to highlight that this past Thursday our school did a fantastic uh musical program for Christmas that involved not only uh the traditional church story but Christmas around the world.
SPEAKER_06: You can see that on our YouTube channel.
SPEAKER_06: Uh Hal was so kind as to come and film that.
SPEAKER_06: It's a lovely, lovely.
SPEAKER_06: Presentation, so I raise that up to you.
SPEAKER_06: If you missed it or if you were there and still want a little bit of Christmas joy, Thursday morning at 8 15.
SPEAKER_06: Our kindergarten kids are putting on nativity play, and it's just really, really cute.
SPEAKER_06: You're welcome to come.
SPEAKER_06: It takes about 15 minutes, happens in the regular chapel environment here that we do every day at St.
SPEAKER_06: Thomas.
SPEAKER_06: And again, you'll see our kindergarten.
SPEAKER_06: They'll they'll put on costumes.
SPEAKER_06: They say things like we are very tired.
SPEAKER_06: And it's just really, really lovely.
SPEAKER_06: So that's that's this Thursday at 8:15.
SPEAKER_06: I also want to hold up to you that we're having a different kind of service because, quite honestly, uh, not all of us do get in the holiday spirit, and there are legitimate reasons for that for some of us.
SPEAKER_06: And so this coming Sunday, the 19th at 4:30, is what we call a longest night service.
SPEAKER_06: That's close to the longest night of the year.
SPEAKER_06: And it just makes space for things like we fit off in a time when you're not supposed to feel listening.
SPEAKER_06: So you're able to get rid of that in this place.
SPEAKER_06: This may not appeal to you, but it might appeal to somebody that you work with or that or related to who can use a place to be honest about where they are in God's presence.
SPEAKER_06: So that's this is kind of not today, a week from today at 4 30.
SPEAKER_06: It's not too early to go ahead and start thinking about Christmas services.
SPEAKER_06: Uh so on Christmas Eve, that's Friday, there's a 3.30 spontaneous Christmas pageant family service.
SPEAKER_06: So adults, if you want a costume, I have adult costume.
SPEAKER_06: If you show up at 3:15, you'll get a costume, and you get to kind of reenact a live activity.
SPEAKER_06: You just want your kids to do it, that's fine too.
SPEAKER_06: But it's a godly play story, so it tells the story.
SPEAKER_06: Our kids kind of act and out up here.
SPEAKER_06: We have a really short sermon, and we have the Eucharist, and we're gone before 4:30.
SPEAKER_06: It's really, really a joyful service.
SPEAKER_06: Five o'clock is another solemn traditional service.
SPEAKER_06: We'll have hand candles, we have a pew torches lit.
SPEAKER_06: Really lovely.
SPEAKER_06: Uh and then we do that again.
SPEAKER_06: You come at 9, you'll get to hear some carols from the choir and from the harpist and from then, and you can join in singing them as well.
SPEAKER_06: And then midnight mass starts here at 9.30.
SPEAKER_06: So I know it's midnight somewhere.
SPEAKER_06: Here it's 9.30.
SPEAKER_06: So you come at 9.30, it's I'm gonna prepare you, it's dark.
SPEAKER_06: We just have the lights on in the chancel, and it's gorgeous.
SPEAKER_06: We'll have candles for a bit of it, and after that service, there'll be champagne and chocolate uh for a brief bit of fellowship uh on the way out.
SPEAKER_06: And that's Christmas Eve.
SPEAKER_06: Christmas Day, there's no service.
SPEAKER_06: And then on Sunday, the 26th, it's what we call affectionately Low Sunday.
SPEAKER_06: Uh there'll be one service at 9 a.m.
SPEAKER_06: So one service at 9 o'clock a.m.
SPEAKER_06: on the 26th, and that's what Christmas uh looks like this year at that time of uh at least Christmas one.
SPEAKER_06: I just want you to also be prepared that starting in January, we're going to offer a five-week series during the Epiphany uh that's learning affirmatively about different uh religious practices from the clergy at a different face.
SPEAKER_06: So the first one will be January the 13th when our Tibetan Buddhist friend Dr.
SPEAKER_06: Stephen Cherry at UHCL is going to come and guide us through some mindfulness meditation.
SPEAKER_06: The rabbi from Har Shalom will be coming, another one.
SPEAKER_06: The Imam is going to come over.
SPEAKER_06: All of these people are very excited to share what's meaningful about their faith with you, tell you what they wish Christians knew about their faith tradition, and be open to your questions as well.
SPEAKER_06: These will be Thursday nights.
SPEAKER_06: We'll do them in person in Chris Hall starting January the 13th.
SPEAKER_06: And I just want to raise this opportunity to you now so you can start sort of planning ahead.
SPEAKER_06: This should be really delightful, and people would be very gracious and kind to come here and share truly their faith testimonies with us.
SPEAKER_06: Continue to walk in joy.
SPEAKER_06: This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more.
SPEAKER_06: So come.
SPEAKER_06: You who have much joy 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_06: You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come, not because the church invites you, it is Christ, and he invites you to meet him here.
SPEAKER_03: The Lord be here with you.
SPEAKER_03: I am also with you.
SPEAKER_03: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_06: It is right and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, because you sent your beloved Son to redeem us from sin and death and to make us heirs in him of everlasting life, that when he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, we may without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearance.
SPEAKER_06: And therefore we praise you, joining our voices with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, who forever sing this hymn to proclaim the glory of your name.
SPEAKER_06: In your word spoken to the prophets, and above all in the word made flesh, Jesus your Son.
SPEAKER_06: For in these last days you sent him to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Savior and Redeemer of the world.
SPEAKER_06: In him you have delivered us from evil and made us worthy to stand before you.
SPEAKER_06: In him you have brought us out of error into truth, and of sin into righteousness, and a death into life.
SPEAKER_06: On the night before he died for us, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread.
SPEAKER_06: And when he given thanks to you, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples and said, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_06: This is my body which is given for you.
SPEAKER_06: Do this for the remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_06: After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.
SPEAKER_06: And when he given thanks, he gave it to them and said, Drink this, all of you.
SPEAKER_06: This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for all for the forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_06: Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_06: Therefore, according to his command, O Father, we remember his death, we proclaim his resurrection, we await his coming new glory, and we offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to you, O Lord of all, presenting to you from your creation this bread and this wine.
SPEAKER_06: We pray you, gracious God, to send your Holy Spirit upon these gifts, that they may be the sacrament of the body of Christ in his blood of the new covenant.
SPEAKER_06: Unite us to your Son in his sacrifice that we may be acceptable through him, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_06: In the fullness of time, put all things in subjection unto your Christ, and bring us to the heavenly country where with John the Baptizer, St.
SPEAKER_06: Thomas, and all your saints, we may enter the everlasting heritage of your daughters and sons through Jesus Christ our Lord, the firstborn of all creation, the head of the church, and the author of our salvation.
SPEAKER_06: 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.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.
SPEAKER_03: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, all her.
SPEAKER_05: Give us this day our daily prayer, 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_05: For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: Hallelujah, Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us.
SPEAKER_03: Therefore, let us keep the feast.
SPEAKER_06: These are the gifts of God for you, the family of God.
SPEAKER_06: Feed on them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_06: 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_06: Now send us for 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_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: Sometimes we have to dare to be fools for Christ.
SPEAKER_06: And that means sometimes we have to be willing to give food to people who don't really need or deserve it.
SPEAKER_06: Sometimes we have to be willing to work with some people who might even exploit us.
SPEAKER_06: Maybe this is as close as we can come to an experience of self-emptying.
SPEAKER_06: It is the experience of being useless in the presence of the Lord.
SPEAKER_06: The blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be with you this day and remain with you always.
unknown: I will not be a good one.
SPEAKER_05: I got my hands.
SPEAKER_05: We are to complain our feet.
SPEAKER_05: So usually that was a good thing.
SPEAKER_05: I think that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_05: So what I was suggesting is we just have these.