SPEAKER_04: Blessed be God.
SPEAKER_04: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_03: Almighty God.
SPEAKER_04: To you, all hearts are open.
SPEAKER_04: All the secrets.
SPEAKER_04: And from you those secrets are hidden.
SPEAKER_04: Cleanse us of our hearts.
SPEAKER_04: By the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_04: That we may perfectly love you, and will we magnify your holy name through Christ.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
SPEAKER_04: This is the first and greatest commitment.
SPEAKER_04: And the second is like unto it.
SPEAKER_04: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
SPEAKER_04: On these two commitments hang all the law and the prophets.
SPEAKER_04: Holy God, holy and mighty, holy immortal one, have compassion upon us.
SPEAKER_04: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_04: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_04: Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things, and your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of Lords, mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: As you're being saved, our children are invited to Children's Chapel and the deck with Miss Maite and Miss Julia.
SPEAKER_02: These are the last words of David.
SPEAKER_02: The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man whom God exalted, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the favorite of the strong one of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: The Spirit of the Lord speaks through me.
SPEAKER_02: His word is upon my tongue.
SPEAKER_02: The God of Israel has spoken.
SPEAKER_02: The rock of Israel has said to me: one who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.
SPEAKER_02: Is not my house like this with God?
SPEAKER_02: For he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.
SPEAKER_02: Will he not cause to prosper all my health and my desire?
SPEAKER_02: But the godless are all like thorns that are thrown away, for they cannot be picked up with a hand.
SPEAKER_02: To touch them one uses an iron bar or the shaft of a spear, and they are entirely consumed in fire on the spot.
SPEAKER_02: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_02: A portion of the Psalter today is Psalm 131, verses 1 through 13.
SPEAKER_02: Read responsively by half verse.
SPEAKER_02: How he swore an oath to the Lord.
SPEAKER_06: And now to the I will not come under the roof of my house.
SPEAKER_02: I will not allow my eyes to sleep.
SPEAKER_02: Until I find a place for the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: The ark, we heard it was an epithet.
SPEAKER_02: Let us go to God's dwelling place.
SPEAKER_06: Let us follow our needs before God's dwelling schools.
SPEAKER_02: Arise, O Lord, into your resting place.
SPEAKER_06: You and the ark of your strength.
SPEAKER_02: Let your priests be clothed with righteousness.
SPEAKER_06: Let your faithful people sing with joy.
SPEAKER_02: For your servant David's sake.
SPEAKER_06: Do not turn away the face of your anointing.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord has sworn an oath to David.
SPEAKER_06: And his fruit will not break it.
SPEAKER_02: A son, the fruit of your body, will I sit upon your throne.
SPEAKER_02: If your children keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their children will sit upon your throne forevermore.
SPEAKER_02: For the Lord has chosen Zion.
SPEAKER_06: And desire for the holy habitation.
SPEAKER_02: This shall be my resting place forever.
SPEAKER_06: Here will I dwell for my time.
SPEAKER_02: I will surely bless the provisions of Zion.
SPEAKER_02: And satisfying the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: There will I make the horn of David flourish.
unknown: I will prepare the land for my enemy.
SPEAKER_02: As for his enemies, I will clothe them with shame.
SPEAKER_02: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.
SPEAKER_01: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: To him who loved us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priest serving his God and Father.
SPEAKER_01: To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Look, he is coming with the clouds.
SPEAKER_01: Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
SPEAKER_01: So it is to be.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I am the Alpha and the Omegas, says the Lord God, who is and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.
SPEAKER_01: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_04: Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me.
SPEAKER_04: What have you done?
SPEAKER_04: Jesus answered, My kingdom is not from this world.
SPEAKER_04: If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders.
SPEAKER_04: But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.
SPEAKER_04: Pilate asked him, So you are a king?
SPEAKER_04: Jesus answered, You say that I'm a king.
SPEAKER_04: For this I was born, and this I came into the world to testify to the truth.
SPEAKER_04: Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.
SPEAKER_04: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: We've arrived at the last Sunday in the church year, so when we come back next week, it'll be Advent 1.
SPEAKER_04: And since 1976, which is when the new prayer book came out, it's now 45 years old, it's worth pointing out.
SPEAKER_04: We've had this tradition of making today Christ the King Sunday.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe you've heard this language before.
SPEAKER_04: And part of the reason I think we circle back to this story here at the end, if you think about the way we've done the calendar for the last year, we spent a whole lot of time in the green season of Pentecost, where we were supposed to grow new roots and produce some fruit.
SPEAKER_04: And today I want to suggest Rickard Funded with the fact we got more growing to do.
SPEAKER_04: This is why we come back to this story, which is at best a miscarriage of justice.
SPEAKER_04: This is a story.
SPEAKER_04: It reminds us that we need something yet, which is why we're going to come to Advent next week.
SPEAKER_04: Reminded of what we need, we start to yearn for the coming of love, hope, joy, and peace.
SPEAKER_04: By the way, we're going to need to do this again next year.
SPEAKER_04: Let's just be clear.
SPEAKER_04: Like we're always going to be confronted by our need to grow.
SPEAKER_04: And no matter how much we've grown, there's more fruit that a hungry world needs.
SPEAKER_04: Now it's also the day.
SPEAKER_04: But pretty soon after that new prayer book, the General Convention decided today is also Restorative Justice Sunday.
SPEAKER_04: Restorative Justice Sunday.
SPEAKER_04: Now, to be honest, these two I think go together pretty well if we'll have them.
SPEAKER_04: First, let's talk about Christ the King.
SPEAKER_04: I don't want to bother you, but I'm going to bother you.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus says he's not a king.
SPEAKER_04: He says that in the reading.
SPEAKER_04: And he says that his kingdom is not of this world.
SPEAKER_04: Now, we could hear that a couple of ways.
SPEAKER_04: We could hear, oh, by saying that, is really him being the king.
SPEAKER_04: But I want to suggest to you, Jesus himself says, I am not that, that's what you call me.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not here to lord it over you.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not here to tell you what to do.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not here to be the kind of tyrant you're used to called Caesar or Pilate or whoever it is that you will tolerate some kind of hierarchized form of leadership where your faith means you do what I say.
SPEAKER_04: I'm interested in making disciples, not clones.
SPEAKER_04: If you like to call Christ the king, nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_04: We're not obeying him, let's just be clear.
SPEAKER_04: More about that in a second.
SPEAKER_04: If we say the guy's the king, we're committing treason all the time, left and right.
SPEAKER_04: He says, My kingdom's not of this world.
SPEAKER_04: We could hear that, I think, in the wrong way, which is human beings are fundamentally bad and evil, so we'll never get it right.
SPEAKER_04: Remember, we've been reading Revelation the last two weeks.
SPEAKER_04: We hear it today.
SPEAKER_04: The new Jerusalem is not when we leave the earth, it's when God lives among mortals and every city gate is open.
SPEAKER_04: God is not saying we can't do it.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus is saying to Pilate, Rome isn't doing it.
SPEAKER_04: My kingdom is not of this Roman world, which is predicated upon domination.
SPEAKER_04: Look at the justice meted out in the story.
SPEAKER_04: The justice meted out in the story.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus is arrested because he bothers people, not because he breaks the law.
SPEAKER_04: Can we be clear on that?
SPEAKER_04: He bothers people who are in authority.
SPEAKER_04: He does something like loiters.
SPEAKER_04: We don't put up with loitering, but we don't like it.
SPEAKER_04: It's not that it's evil, we just don't like it.
SPEAKER_04: So when people loiter, what we do is we call the police to remove them so we don't have to deal with people we don't like anymore.
SPEAKER_04: And then they get something on their record which makes it really hard for them to get a job.
SPEAKER_04: That's one form of justice.
SPEAKER_04: It is.
SPEAKER_04: It's one form of justice.
SPEAKER_04: It's the one that most often comes into our mind, and I'm going to speak for myself.
SPEAKER_04: I'm a Libra.
SPEAKER_04: You know the whole scales thing?
SPEAKER_04: That's me.
SPEAKER_04: On the Myers-Briggs I-N-T-J.
SPEAKER_04: So I'm like a double Libra.
SPEAKER_04: I've got the spiritual gift of criticism.
SPEAKER_04: That's in one of the hidden texts, you know, that God gives that gift.
SPEAKER_04: And what we normally think of as justice, I want to suggest to you, is what we call retributive justice.
SPEAKER_04: Retributive justice is when we get even.
SPEAKER_04: Now, it doesn't always mean revenge, but it does mean we'll settle for punishment instead of fixing a broken system.
SPEAKER_04: To be honest, I think it's because we often don't know what else to do.
SPEAKER_04: I know how to get even and I know how to punish, kind of.
SPEAKER_04: And since the other things are hard, I'll settle for what I know how to do.
SPEAKER_04: It's very, very convenient.
SPEAKER_04: And asking questions about God's kind of justice, which we call restorative justice, I often don't know how to fix those problems.
SPEAKER_04: And so rather than being overwhelmed by what I don't know how to do, I'll settle for what I do know how to do, which is punish and get even.
SPEAKER_04: And that's where I think Jesus says, my, I want you to hear this intentional switch.
SPEAKER_04: My kingdom is not of the retributive justice world, is not.
SPEAKER_04: God is interested in a kingdom, not a kingdom.
SPEAKER_04: And I put before you something very biblical that we often forget because it's been taken away from us.
SPEAKER_04: There's a verb in Hebrew called vara, and it means to create.
SPEAKER_04: And there's only one entity in the Bible that can create anything, and it's God.
SPEAKER_04: Human beings cannot create.
SPEAKER_04: We can make stuff, we can do stuff, but we can't create.
SPEAKER_04: So if I were talking about chemistry, the elements are made by God.
SPEAKER_04: And maybe we can play with them, but we can't make elements.
SPEAKER_04: That's not completely true, right?
SPEAKER_04: But this is an analogy.
SPEAKER_04: I hope you hear this.
SPEAKER_04: Which means when God creates us in God's image and likeness and says we're very good, we can't end that.
SPEAKER_04: This is good biblical theology.
SPEAKER_04: We cannot uncreate the dignity that is our birthright as being made in the image and likeness of God.
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes we can't see that in people we call villains, which are really just people we don't understand, more often than not.
SPEAKER_04: And so what we say is it's a fallen world and it's sad, and really that's because we don't hold on to the discomfort of trying to look at how people are basically doing the best they can with what they have and trying to give them more.
SPEAKER_04: That's what restorative justice looks like.
SPEAKER_04: People are doing the best they can with what they have, and it's our job to equip them to be able to do more.
SPEAKER_04: I want to name a few ways in which I see us struggling with this, if you don't mind.
SPEAKER_04: And I want to remind you, I did not go to school to be a political scientist.
SPEAKER_04: I have a math degree.
SPEAKER_04: I don't even know how to like solve real problems, I just know how to make new ones up.
SPEAKER_04: That's what you do in math.
SPEAKER_04: And even worse, I went to divinity school, so I'm even another step removed from solving real problems.
SPEAKER_04: But I want to name some because I think this is our opportunity here at the end of the Christian year to be confronted by problems we still live into.
SPEAKER_04: So let me name the first easy one.
SPEAKER_04: I went to buy a prescription the other day, and I have insurance that I pay for, and it's expensive.
SPEAKER_04: And yours is too, I suspect.
SPEAKER_04: And I went to get this prescription, and they said, Oh, you've got to get this approved, we have to wait over the weekend.
SPEAKER_04: I said, Well, I want it now.
SPEAKER_04: What's the cash price?
SPEAKER_04: The cash price is$10.
SPEAKER_04: That's easy.
SPEAKER_04: Oh, just curious, what would it be with my insurance?
SPEAKER_04: $25.
SPEAKER_04: Friend, that's a problem.
SPEAKER_04: That's a problem.
SPEAKER_04: I've got friends that work across the street and they love what they do, but they would quit today except they were afraid about losing their health insurance.
SPEAKER_04: That's a problem.
SPEAKER_04: That's a justice problem.
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes I read books that are about things I don't understand.
SPEAKER_04: Let me tell you what I understood from reading debt, a 5,000-year history.
SPEAKER_04: There's this little nation in the Caribbean called Haiti.
SPEAKER_04: You've probably heard of it.
SPEAKER_04: It's pretty much the poorest country in the world, year after year after year.
SPEAKER_04: The story of Haiti and the debt that it's in goes like this.
SPEAKER_04: Once upon a time, Haiti was one of the first banana republics on behalf of the French government.
SPEAKER_04: After a while, the Haitians decided they didn't want to be a banana republic anymore.
SPEAKER_04: They wanted to be an independent, sovereign nation, so they had a revolution.
SPEAKER_04: They were successful.
SPEAKER_04: The French did not appreciate that, so they sent an army to subdue the Haitians.
SPEAKER_04: The army was defeated.
SPEAKER_04: The Haitians won round two.
SPEAKER_04: So what France did is they convinced the rest of the modernized world, including America, to say that not only did Haiti have to pay back all the capital they'd taken in their revolution, but they also had to pay for the army the Haitians had defeated, that they sent to subdue them.
SPEAKER_04: And everybody decided Haiti owes that debt.
SPEAKER_04: A debt that how on earth are they going to pay?
SPEAKER_04: I mean, what's what do we call that?
SPEAKER_04: I guess you could call that retribution, but you sure can't even call that justice, can you?
SPEAKER_04: Haiti is one of the most beautiful and mineral-rich islands in the Caribbean.
SPEAKER_04: And until 10 years ago, they didn't have an X-ray machine.
SPEAKER_04: Because they couldn't afford one.
SPEAKER_04: And what we often say is, well, it's because they're a third world country.
SPEAKER_04: But we don't live in three worlds.
SPEAKER_04: We live in one.
SPEAKER_04: And is quality health care predicated on your ability to pay, or is it something we deserve?
SPEAKER_04: We haven't figured this out.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know how to solve the problem, but we're confronted again today.
SPEAKER_04: This is a problem that needs to be solved.
SPEAKER_04: Even if I don't know how to do it.
SPEAKER_04: The reason it needs to be solved, and I did talk about economics for a second, and I'm going to do it again, but I want you to hear the word economics we've relegated to some kind of like dollars and cents category, and it's worth thinking about the word means.
SPEAKER_04: It's a Greek compound word, two words put together.
SPEAKER_04: The first is oikos, which means household, the second is gnomos, which means like law or rule of the household.
SPEAKER_04: So we can talk about the economy, but today Restorative Justice Sunday invites us to think about God's household.
SPEAKER_04: And what are the ways in which God's household ought to be ordered?
SPEAKER_04: Ought to be ordered.
SPEAKER_04: Because God's household is not of this world.
SPEAKER_04: This world of retribution.
SPEAKER_04: This is way before I was really into like this word that I'm gonna talk about this word in a second.
SPEAKER_04: Before I was into like social justice stuff, uh, there was this clamor around the year 2000 to forgive the third world debt.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe you've heard about this.
SPEAKER_04: I didn't know much about it.
SPEAKER_04: I thought, well, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_04: Those people took loans that they just can't pay back, and now they don't want to pay them back.
SPEAKER_04: Having read this book, though, Debt, a 5,000-year history, I was curious to learn who took out those debts?
SPEAKER_04: Warlords.
SPEAKER_04: Warlords like Robert Mugabe.
SPEAKER_04: If you don't know anything about him, I suggest the film The Last King of Scotland because it's horrific.
SPEAKER_04: Robert Mugabe and other warlords took out these loans from Europe, put that money right in their pocket, and left.
SPEAKER_04: And now we insist that those countries pay those loans out.
SPEAKER_04: They didn't ask for that money.
SPEAKER_04: They didn't see any of it, but they must pay it back.
SPEAKER_04: Now, I'm not going to tell you that canceling a debt like that is straightforward and easy.
SPEAKER_04: I am going to say that this whole third world debt problem we talk about is complicated and retribution isn't going to fix it.
SPEAKER_04: Not only because you can't squeeze blood out of turnips, but when you charge people more than 20% interest, there's a word for that in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_04: It's called usury.
SPEAKER_04: And it's wrong.
SPEAKER_04: We decided if people take out credit card debt, they deserve to pay 27% interest.
SPEAKER_04: But in God's economy, it's wrong.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know how to solve that problem.
SPEAKER_04: Because I wish people wouldn't buy stuff they can't pay for.
SPEAKER_04: But it's not that simple.
SPEAKER_04: There's all kinds of plays about this.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe you've seen Les Miserables, in which Jean Valjean steals bread to feed his starving sister, and as a result, he is put into a forced labor camp for five years.
SPEAKER_04: Never mind that it takes five hours to make bread.
SPEAKER_04: Five years.
SPEAKER_04: Of course, at the end of that five years, he's given a parole paper that says he's a dangerous criminal.
SPEAKER_04: Which means, how's he going to get a job?
SPEAKER_04: By the way, that hadn't changed.
SPEAKER_04: Most of you know that if you get a felony, you have to put it on every job application for the rest of your career, and that most people, I'm included, when I see a felony, I'm like, oh, I don't know if I'm going to take that risk.
SPEAKER_04: That isn't even retribution, though.
SPEAKER_04: Retribution says you serve time in jail, it ought to be evened out.
SPEAKER_04: But we don't even behave like that.
SPEAKER_04: You serve time in jail, I'm not hiring you.
SPEAKER_04: That's how we behave.
SPEAKER_04: And we call that justice, and all that is is revenge.
SPEAKER_04: It's a problem.
SPEAKER_04: We had a guy come over our grass here at church.
SPEAKER_04: He committed a violent crime when he was 20.
SPEAKER_04: He served 15 years in jail.
SPEAKER_04: During that time, he earned an associate's degree and a bachelor's degree and a master's degree.
SPEAKER_04: He got put back in jail for violating his parole because he opened a Facebook account.
SPEAKER_04: And his ex-wife said he was trying to get to her.
SPEAKER_04: Because he opened a general Facebook account.
SPEAKER_04: So he went back in jail for more than a month, and because it was COVID, he was in solitary confinement.
SPEAKER_04: When he got out, he got one of those low jack trackers so he could be under house arrest.
SPEAKER_04: Turns out a couple of times during that the battery went out.
SPEAKER_04: And when the battery goes out, it means you violate your parole.
SPEAKER_04: So what he had to do is drive to his parole officer to get the low jack fixed.
SPEAKER_04: But the minute the battery goes out, there's a warrant issued for your arrest.
SPEAKER_04: Now, you might be thinking.
SPEAKER_04: They'll figure all that out.
SPEAKER_04: You know, after they arrest him and take him to jail again, they'll figure that out.
SPEAKER_04: They probably will in a couple of months.
SPEAKER_04: But Johnny told us what jail was like for him, which included no heat or cool, leaking sewage pipes, and people, frankly, who are so depressed that they're just interested in beating you up or killing you.
SPEAKER_04: Sounds like revenge to me.
SPEAKER_04: It's a problem.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know how to solve it.
SPEAKER_04: But I think Christ tells us you can't put a problem down just because you can't solve it.
SPEAKER_04: It's still a problem.
SPEAKER_04: I don't have those skills.
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna be honest, I don't have those skills.
SPEAKER_04: I know how to like parse theological words that nobody but me tends to care about.
SPEAKER_04: But I can name that this is a problem.
SPEAKER_04: And just to be really clear, we had a really ugly, controversial trial this past week.
SPEAKER_04: The sad thing is, most of us care more about that verdict than what's gonna happen to four families who have now had their lives ruined.
SPEAKER_04: We focus on the easy part, guilty or not guilty.
SPEAKER_04: Two people are dead.
SPEAKER_04: Another person was mortally wounded, and then the perpetrator or the hero, whichever side you come out on, is 17 years old.
SPEAKER_04: Now I can tell you what it's like.
SPEAKER_04: Because I've seen my father do this, to live the rest of your life knowing you've killed a human being.
SPEAKER_04: I heard Andy Doyle say one time in all of his wisdom, you know why we're always gonna have chaplains in the army?
SPEAKER_04: Because we all know it's wrong to kill people and then we do it.
SPEAKER_04: That's why you need a chaplain.
SPEAKER_04: We use that word justice so cheaply.
SPEAKER_04: Was justice served in this trial?
SPEAKER_04: And most of us don't bother to think about how are these families gonna go forward?
SPEAKER_04: What's restoration gonna look like?
SPEAKER_04: Because we can't even imagine that, we go the easy, cheap way, and we talk about retribution or right or wrong.
SPEAKER_04: And that's why we need a Savior.
SPEAKER_04: That's why we're gonna come back here the next four weeks and we're gonna say, God, we hope for the wrong things.
SPEAKER_04: We hope for the wrong things.
SPEAKER_04: We hope for the easy ones, not the restorative ones.
SPEAKER_04: God, we'll settle for quiet instead of peace.
SPEAKER_04: As if those have anything to do with each other.
SPEAKER_04: We'll settle for happiness instead of joy.
SPEAKER_04: Because the two have not much to do with one another.
SPEAKER_04: And we only settle for loving people when we feel like instead of practicing love, no matter how it feels.
SPEAKER_04: That's the course Advent's going to take us on.
SPEAKER_04: And Christ confronts us with it today.
SPEAKER_04: And he confronts us not by being the king of kings, but by being the kin of kin.
SPEAKER_04: There's this mystical image.
SPEAKER_04: You probably have heard this church language before.
SPEAKER_04: This is more Theo speak, sorry.
SPEAKER_04: Imminent and transcendent.
SPEAKER_04: Imminence is when God is alongside us, like Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_04: And transcendence is when God's ways are so much higher than our ways.
SPEAKER_04: Right?
SPEAKER_04: Makes the form of a cross.
SPEAKER_04: One of my favorite Jesuit theologians says God is more present in us than we are in ourselves.
SPEAKER_04: God is more present in us than we are in ourselves.
SPEAKER_04: The part of God's presence we're aware of is God's eminence.
SPEAKER_04: And the part of God's presence in us we're not aware of is God's transcendence.
SPEAKER_04: And this is how Christ, King of King, Kin of kin.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus is more present in us than we are in ourselves.
SPEAKER_04: And if we want to live in God's economy, we recognize that presence in one another.
SPEAKER_04: Now, we got to hear this line in the Psalm.
SPEAKER_04: He talks about the wicked being thorny and hard to touch, and that's going to get consumed in the fire.
SPEAKER_04: And don't you understand?
SPEAKER_04: That's our Christian hope.
SPEAKER_04: Because wicked people aren't wholesale people, they're thorny parts of me.
SPEAKER_04: And what God invites us to do in Advent is to have those thorns that, frankly, I often prick myself with, destroyed not for my punishment, but for my enjoyment.
SPEAKER_04: Because God's really clear.
SPEAKER_04: When the prayer goes like this, your will be done on earth like it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_04: That's what restorative justice is about.
SPEAKER_04: That's why it comes right before Advent.
SPEAKER_04: And I want to say, particularly because of this parish, you go over there across the street and you can see that people in this parish build a rocket I would never get in with a slide rule.
SPEAKER_04: If we can do that, and we did that, we can do this.
SPEAKER_04: We can do this.
SPEAKER_04: Revelation tells us we can do this.
SPEAKER_04: We can engineer restorative justice starting here.
SPEAKER_04: We got the engineers that can do it.
SPEAKER_04: We do.
SPEAKER_04: We got the hearts, we got the souls that can do it.
SPEAKER_04: And this is how we show reverence to the kin of kin.
SPEAKER_04: Or the king of the kings, whichever strikes your ear.
SPEAKER_04: By living into the economy of God.
SPEAKER_04: By bringing around the engineers.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not one of them, but I know some in the room.
SPEAKER_04: To help re-engineer what justice looks like.
SPEAKER_04: Last thing I want to tell you, sometimes we hear this bit like, oh, I don't know why we keep talking about social justice.
SPEAKER_04: Because in the Bible, that's the word righteousness.
SPEAKER_04: Righteousness and justice are the same.
SPEAKER_04: A long time ago we decided we'll be pious in church and do whatever out there.
SPEAKER_04: And that has a capital S accent.
SPEAKER_04: So we're invited to be grateful where God has brought us, but to open ourselves for Christ's coming anew, to raise us to real hope, real peace, real joy that comes with it.
SPEAKER_04: And the real practice of love.
SPEAKER_04: Pledges that we've made, that we're going to bless in just a second.
SPEAKER_04: They're not going to solve the world's problems.
SPEAKER_04: But they're things we've chosen to do.
SPEAKER_04: We have chosen to make these pledges, and we're going to put them in God's hands in just a few seconds and say, God, we know you can do more than we can ask or imagine.
SPEAKER_04: Do it.
SPEAKER_04: We'll go with you.
SPEAKER_04: That's what we're going to consecrate.
SPEAKER_04: That's what we're going to celebrate.
SPEAKER_04: That's who I want us to be together.
SPEAKER_04: Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.
SPEAKER_04: We believe in one God.
SPEAKER_06: We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: We believe.
SPEAKER_06: On the third day, in the hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_06: He will come again in the glory of the children, living in the dead.
SPEAKER_06: And since we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Earl of Life.
SPEAKER_06: We proceed from the Father and the Son.
SPEAKER_06: With the Father and the Son, He is given to glorified God.
SPEAKER_06: He is spoken to the prophets.
SPEAKER_06: We believe in one Holy Gather and Apostolic Church.
SPEAKER_06: We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_06: We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
SPEAKER_00: Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of the world, and for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.
unknown: We pray to our ground and go.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for setting us to tasks which demand our best efforts and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.
SPEAKER_06: We pray to turn our hand to go.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.
SPEAKER_06: We try to return back to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ, for the truth of his word and the example of his life, for his steadfast obedience by which he overcame temptation, for his dying through which he overcame death, and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to life of your kingdom.
SPEAKER_06: We pray for you and Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Grant us the gift of your Spirit that we may know Christ and make him known, and through him at all times and in all places may give thanks to you in all things.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We pray to you also for the forgiveness of our sins.
SPEAKER_06: God of all mercy, we confess that we have sinned against you, opposing your will in our lives.
SPEAKER_03: We have denied your goodness in each other, in ourselves, and in the world you have created.
SPEAKER_06: We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.
SPEAKER_06: Forgive, restore, and strengthen us.
SPEAKER_06: We're our Savior, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_03: And we may abide and serve only your will.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Almighty God, who in Jesus Christ has given us a family that cannot be destroyed, forgive your sin.
SPEAKER_04: Open your eyes, impart to truth, and new life, strengthen you to do God's will and live joyfully into God's family.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: This is that point in the liturgy where we must stand because it's a practice of restorative doctrine.
SPEAKER_04: We said what we did wrong.
SPEAKER_04: And now we stand and approach God's table with confidence because God has made it so.
SPEAKER_04: The peace of the Lord be always with you.
SPEAKER_04: If you're new to us or haven't done this before, in the Narthex, on those little white tablecloth tables where we got our bulletins, are these little cards that say welcome.
SPEAKER_04: And we'd be tremendously grateful if you'd fill one of those down if you haven't done this before.
SPEAKER_04: So we have a record of your visit, and thanks for worshiping with us today.
SPEAKER_04: There's a few announcements I want to call to your attention.
SPEAKER_04: I'm going to make sure I get them right.
SPEAKER_04: So one is today is the last day to sign up for the Progressive Dinner that's going to be held two weeks from yesterday.
SPEAKER_04: So on December the 4th.
SPEAKER_04: The Progressive Dinner is this opportunity to all get together for an appetizer and then to split into subgroups for dinner and dessert.
SPEAKER_04: And there is a family-friendly track such that you can bring your children if you like.
SPEAKER_04: If you don't want to, that's fine too.
SPEAKER_04: But the sign-ups are out there.
SPEAKER_04: There's also a sign-up in the e-news, or you can email Amy or myself.
SPEAKER_04: And again, this is a great opportunity to get to know folk that sit across the room for you or that are here at 8 o'clock.
SPEAKER_04: So good opportunity for fellowship.
SPEAKER_04: The same day, December the 4th, again, that's two weeks from yesterday, is our next fresh food distribution with the food bank.
SPEAKER_04: So that'll be from 7:45 until 10.
SPEAKER_04: You just show up.
SPEAKER_04: You don't have to sign up in advance.
SPEAKER_04: We're always done by 10.
SPEAKER_04: And I don't think we've ever served fewer than 350 people with food.
SPEAKER_04: And this is what the Advent practice of hope and peace looks like.
SPEAKER_04: So this is a holy way to start your Advent week.
SPEAKER_04: Speaking of Advent, it does begin next Sunday.
SPEAKER_04: And Alex Hillis, our family minister, is going to provide this opportunity to start a tradition in your home or continue one if you've done it before, Advent reef making.
SPEAKER_04: So at 4 o'clock, you can come and make a very small Advent wreath with candles and greenery.
SPEAKER_04: All you really need are some hand trimmers to trim some of the greenery.
SPEAKER_04: At my home, we typically use this when we sit down for a meal.
SPEAKER_04: There's a prayer for each candle and what it represents so that we can bring the lights of hope, peace, joy, and love into our family life and into God's family life.
SPEAKER_04: So this is what the Advent Reef is supposed to help us to support, making those lights visible in our lives.
SPEAKER_04: And that workshop is next Sunday at 4 p.m.
SPEAKER_04: And there'll be a sheet with some prayers that you may choose to use as a family to support the practice.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not going to be here next week.
SPEAKER_04: You're going to get to hear Alex give the sermon, which I'll be grateful for.
SPEAKER_04: And Stacy Stringer, who does disaster relief for the diocese, will be here as your celebrant.
SPEAKER_04: If you need pastoral care, call me, even though I'm in San Diego.
SPEAKER_04: We'll figure it out.
SPEAKER_04: I'll be back on Monday night.
SPEAKER_04: And you're in great hands between Alex and Stacy.
SPEAKER_04: Lastly, I just invite you.
SPEAKER_04: You're going to see this prayer on Thursday that comes out to us.
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes we think we give gratitude, but there is this lovely reminder that we just got in the prayers.
SPEAKER_04: This is the litany of Thanksgiving instead of the prayers of the people today.
SPEAKER_04: That gratitude is not always just something we give, it's something we choose.
SPEAKER_04: And sometimes I don't want to choose to be grateful when I'm around my family, if I'm real honest.
SPEAKER_04: But it's an opportunity we have this week to choose gratitude, to choose that, and to live into that together.
SPEAKER_04: Walk in love.
SPEAKER_04: As Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_06: And what to come in a cave children we shall take to you by seat all the time.
SPEAKER_04: Gracious and loving God, giver of all that is good and true and beautiful and life-giving.
SPEAKER_04: These cards represent our sweat.
SPEAKER_04: They represent our lives.
SPEAKER_04: They represent our dreams.
SPEAKER_04: They represent the fixing of hearts on true joys amidst the swift and varied changes of the world.
SPEAKER_04: The pledges which we make on them are but tokens of the awesome gifts that have been given to us.
SPEAKER_04: And their pledge and thanksgiving for all we have received, for all we've been inspired to be, for all we are challenged to become in this place.
SPEAKER_04: May they be the first fruits of all we have and not what we have left over, so that we may live out as closely as possible how you give to us.
SPEAKER_04: May we see them as our offering to you.
SPEAKER_04: Sacred, holy, yet earthy, filled with possibilities.
SPEAKER_04: May we hold this image in our hearts and minds so as we watch our offerings each week come to your table, we can see our very selves being part of this offering.
SPEAKER_04: It is us on the table, living sacrifices to you.
SPEAKER_04: Give us the courage to pursue these pledges and the grace to accomplish them.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: All things come of you, O Lord.
SPEAKER_04: This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_04: It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more.
SPEAKER_04: So come.
SPEAKER_04: You who have much faith and you who have little, you who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.
SPEAKER_04: You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.
SPEAKER_04: Not because the church invites you, it is Christ.
SPEAKER_04: But he invites you to meet him here.
SPEAKER_04: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_06: And also with you.
SPEAKER_04: Lift up your hearts.
SPEAKER_06: We live in the love of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.
SPEAKER_06: Jesus Christ and praise.
SPEAKER_04: All thanks and praise are yours at all times and in all places, our true and loving God through Jesus Christ, your eternal word, the wisdom from on high, by whom you created all things.
SPEAKER_04: You laid the foundations of the world and enclosed the sea when it bursts from the womb.
SPEAKER_04: You brought forth all creatures of the earth and gave breath to humankind.
SPEAKER_04: Wondrous are you, holy one of blessing.
SPEAKER_04: All you create is a sign of hope for our journey.
SPEAKER_04: So as the morning stars sing your praises, we join the heavenly beings and all creation as we say with joy, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.
SPEAKER_04: Hosanna and the highest.
SPEAKER_04: Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: Hosanna and the highest.
SPEAKER_04: Glory and honor are yours, creator of all.
SPEAKER_04: Your word has never been silent.
SPEAKER_04: You call the people to yourself as a light to the nations.
SPEAKER_04: You delivered them from bondage and led them to a land of promise.
SPEAKER_04: Of your grace, you gave Jesus to be human, to share our life, to proclaim the coming of your holy reign and give himself for us a fragrant offering.
SPEAKER_04: Through Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, you have freed us from sin, brought us into your life, reconciled us to you, and restored us to the glory you intend for us.
SPEAKER_04: We thank you that on the night before he died for us, Jesus took bread.
SPEAKER_04: When he given thanks to you, he broke it, gave it to his friends and said, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_04: This is my body broken for you.
SPEAKER_04: Do this for the remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_04: After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, said the blessing, and gave it to his friends, and said, Drink this, all of you.
SPEAKER_04: This cup is the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you and for all for the forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_04: Do this for the remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_04: And so remembering all that was done for us.
SPEAKER_04: The cross, the tomb, the resurrection and ascension, longing for Christ's coming in glory and presenting to you these gifts your earth has formed and human hands have made, we acclaim you, O Christ.
SPEAKER_04: Dying, you destroyed our death.
SPEAKER_04: Rising, you restored our life.
SPEAKER_04: Christ Jesus, come in glory.
SPEAKER_04: Send your Holy Spirit upon us.
SPEAKER_04: And upon these gifts of bread and wine, that they may be to us the body and blood of your Christ.
SPEAKER_04: Grant that we burning with your Spirit's power may be a people of hope, justice, and love.
SPEAKER_04: Giver of life, draw us together in the body of Christ, and in the fullness of time, gather us with Thomas, with Violet Coward, and all your people into the joy of our true eternal home.
SPEAKER_04: Through Christ and with Christ and in Christ, by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, we worship you, our God and Creator, in voices of unending praise.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are you now and forever.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: 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 on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_03: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
SPEAKER_06: And leave us out into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_06: For God is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: Therefore, let us keep the feast.
SPEAKER_03: These are the gifts of God.
SPEAKER_03: For you, the family of God.
SPEAKER_04: Behold who you are, and become gifts of God which you receive.
SPEAKER_03: God of abundance, you have fed us with the bread of life and cup of salvation.
SPEAKER_04: You have united us with Christ and one another, and you have made us one with all your people in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_04: Now send us forth in the power of your spirit, that we may proclaim your redeeming love to the world and continue forever in the risen life of Christ our Savior on the earth.
SPEAKER_04: At any time, day or night, at home or in the street, wherever we are, we live bathed in God.
SPEAKER_04: If we always kept this in mind, it would be impossible to sin.
SPEAKER_04: May God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit bless you with an awareness of holiness and the communion of saints in heaven on earth this day and forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: I would do the I would do the four yeah, but nothing.
SPEAKER_06: And I have to come on.