SPEAKER_06: Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_07: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_07: Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.
SPEAKER_07: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and morely magnify your holy name through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_07: Amen.
SPEAKER_07: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_07: God from whom all good proceeds.
SPEAKER_07: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them.
SPEAKER_07: Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_07: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, You are old, and your sons do not follow in your ways.
SPEAKER_00: Appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.
SPEAKER_00: But the king displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to govern us.
SPEAKER_00: Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord to Samuel said to Samuel, Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you.
SPEAKER_00: For they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.
SPEAKER_00: Just as they have done to me from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods.
SPEAKER_00: So also they are doing to you.
SPEAKER_00: Now then, listen to their other voice.
SPEAKER_00: Only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.
SPEAKER_00: So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king, and he said, These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you.
SPEAKER_00: He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots, and he will also appoint you for himself, the commanders of thousands, and of commanders of fifties, and some to plough his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war, and all the appointment of his chariots.
SPEAKER_00: He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.
SPEAKER_00: He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers.
SPEAKER_00: He will take one tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it give it to his officers and his courtiers.
SPEAKER_00: He will take your male and female slaves and the best of your cattle and your donkeys and put them to his work.
SPEAKER_00: He will take one-tenth of your flocks and you shall be his slaves.
SPEAKER_00: And that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord will not answer you in that day.
SPEAKER_00: But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, No, but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.
SPEAKER_00: Samuel said to the people, Come, let us go to Gilgal, and there renew the kingship.
SPEAKER_00: So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal.
SPEAKER_00: There they sacrificed offerings of well-being before the Lord, and there Saul and all the Israelites rejoiced greatly.
SPEAKER_00: We will read responsibly by the half verse.
SPEAKER_00: I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with my whole heart.
SPEAKER_00: I will bow down and toward your holy temple and praise your name.
SPEAKER_00: For you have glorified your name.
unknown: And the word of all things.
SPEAKER_00: When I called you, you answered me.
SPEAKER_00: All the rulers of the earth will praise you, O Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They will sing of the ways of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is high, yet the Lord cares for the lowly.
SPEAKER_03: And receive the highly from far.
SPEAKER_00: Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you keep me safe.
SPEAKER_03: Stretch forth your hand against theory of my hands, and your right hand shall save me.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, you will make good your purpose for me.
SPEAKER_04: Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_04: So we do not lose heart, even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.
SPEAKER_04: For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.
SPEAKER_04: Because we look not at what can be seen, but at what cannot be seen.
SPEAKER_04: For what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.
SPEAKER_04: For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
SPEAKER_07: Glory to you, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_07: The crowd came together again so that Jesus and his disciples could not even eat.
SPEAKER_07: When Jesus' family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, He has gone out of his mind.
SPEAKER_07: And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, He has Beelzebule, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.
SPEAKER_07: And Jesus called them to him and spoke to them in parables.
SPEAKER_07: How can Satan cast out Satan?
SPEAKER_07: If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
SPEAKER_07: And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
SPEAKER_07: And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come.
SPEAKER_07: But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man.
SPEAKER_07: Then indeed the house can be plundered.
SPEAKER_07: Truly I tell you, people be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter.
SPEAKER_07: But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.
SPEAKER_07: For they had said, Jesus has an unclean spirit.
SPEAKER_07: Then Jesus' mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they sent to him and called him.
SPEAKER_07: A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside asking for you.
SPEAKER_07: And Jesus replied, Who are my mother and my brothers?
SPEAKER_07: And looking at those who sat around him, he said, Here are my mothers and my brothers.
SPEAKER_07: Whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother.
SPEAKER_07: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_07: So let me catch you up in case you haven't before, because of what's happened in the book of Samuel is that the people were organized into these 12 different tribes, might as well call them clans, and the clans had very little unity.
SPEAKER_07: In fact, basically the way they worked is everybody did what they wanted to do in their own land, and then there'd be a military threat, and uh somebody called a judge would show up and deliver them from the threat, but they didn't really do any judging.
SPEAKER_07: All they did was sort of fight some battles and then go away.
SPEAKER_07: And the last judge also happens to act like a king and be a priest, and his name is Samuel.
SPEAKER_07: And um Samuel seems to be a pretty good guy, but it turns out his kids are awful.
SPEAKER_07: I mean, they're awful.
SPEAKER_07: Uh they steal people's taxes, women come to worship and they take advantage of them, I mean, in the worst possible ways.
SPEAKER_07: And this is no secret.
SPEAKER_07: The people of Israel look at Samuel's kids and they say, we don't want that.
SPEAKER_07: When you're gone, we don't want your kids ruling over us just because they're your kids, because they're awful.
SPEAKER_07: So they don't come out looking real good in this story, the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_07: What they want is a king, and it turns out it's not just what they want, they pick this guy camp called Saul.
SPEAKER_07: Maybe you've heard of Saul before, in Hebrew is Sa'ul.
SPEAKER_07: Sa'ul in Hebrew means asked for.
SPEAKER_07: He is the guy they asked for, and if you know your Bible, it's because he's a head and shoulders taller than everybody else.
SPEAKER_07: So he's kind of like any basketball player compared to me.
SPEAKER_07: And that is important because the king led the troops on the battle, didn't do like Napoleon and stay in the tent in the back, like was the first one on the field, and that's what they wanted: a giant.
SPEAKER_07: They did not want Samuel's kids.
SPEAKER_07: So, look, in this passage, the people get criticized.
SPEAKER_07: Oh, look, they've rejected God, they haven't rejected you.
SPEAKER_07: I mean, really, they've just rejected Samuel's kids.
SPEAKER_07: They're corrupt.
SPEAKER_07: This is important to hear.
SPEAKER_07: The people in the story get a bad rap here, but they're in what we like to call something called a double bind.
SPEAKER_07: A double bind is when you've got two choices, both of which are really bad.
SPEAKER_07: We find ourselves frequently in double binds, whether we realize it or not.
SPEAKER_07: And I want to put this before you because I think that's what Jesus is talking about as well.
SPEAKER_07: When he talks about houses being divided against themselves, that's a double bind.
SPEAKER_07: So let me tell you a story from the Zen tradition about double binds.
SPEAKER_07: Once upon a time, there was a Zen master who had many Zen disciples, and he also had a really big stick.
SPEAKER_07: And he said, If you say this stick is real, I will beat you with it.
SPEAKER_07: If you say this stick is not real, I will beat you with it.
SPEAKER_07: If you say nothing, I will beat you with this stick.
SPEAKER_07: You might be thinking, Mike, that's a triple bind.
SPEAKER_07: Anyway, you see that there's no good choice.
SPEAKER_07: So what do you pick?
SPEAKER_07: Well, the Zen tradition says that one very clever student gets up and breaks the stick.
SPEAKER_07: Now, there's a lot of wisdom in that story, because what I want to suggest to you, when we talk about a house divided against itself and what happens in this story between people picking corrupt children of the prophet and a corrupt king, this is about double binds.
SPEAKER_07: And uh, if you don't mind me saying so, I think we're getting called as a people of faith and a people of God to break the stick.
SPEAKER_07: To break the stick.
SPEAKER_07: Notice that breaking the stick is not about beating up the master with the stick, it's about breaking the stick.
SPEAKER_07: Now, you may not feel like you're in a double bind, so I want to name a couple of these, and I know you're not gonna like all of them.
SPEAKER_07: I already know that.
SPEAKER_07: But I want to tell you a double bind I find myself in as a parent of a daughter.
SPEAKER_07: You see, she's young, but the day is coming when she will either be considered a prudish girl or a loose woman.
SPEAKER_07: And those are her choices.
SPEAKER_07: Now you tell me how you win.
SPEAKER_07: God is calling us to break that stick, don't you hear?
SPEAKER_07: Already exists.
SPEAKER_07: There's a word we use for little girls who assert themselves that I have never heard used against a little boy.
SPEAKER_07: Starts with the B, it's the word bossy.
SPEAKER_07: You will never hear a boy called bossy, you will hear a boy called a natural leader.
SPEAKER_07: Little girls are in a double bind.
SPEAKER_07: Are they bossy or are they voiceless?
SPEAKER_07: We are called to break that stick.
SPEAKER_07: Women who are assertive.
SPEAKER_07: We don't call them bossy.
SPEAKER_07: We have a different B word we use for women who are assertive.
SPEAKER_07: It's a double bind.
SPEAKER_07: It's sinful, and we're called to break the stick.
SPEAKER_07: Men are in a double bind too.
SPEAKER_07: You see, as a when we're children, we're taught not to be emotionally sensitive.
SPEAKER_07: So don't be emotional.
SPEAKER_07: But there's this interesting thing that little boys and men are both prone to do, which is be destructive when they get angry.
SPEAKER_07: So men shouldn't be emotional, but if they punch a wall, well, that was sort of okay.
SPEAKER_07: And don't you see it's the same thing as being totally out of control with your emotion, breaking stuff.
SPEAKER_07: Sometimes it isn't stuff we break, it's people we break.
SPEAKER_07: I call that bridge burning.
SPEAKER_07: Let me tell you, I grew up learning how to burn a bridge without thinking twice about it because that was acceptable masculine behavior, and we're called to break that stick as a church, as disciples of the risen Lord.
SPEAKER_07: Those are not acceptable alternatives.
SPEAKER_07: We all realize, of course, that the same sort of sexual categories that gets thrust upon women also gets thrust on young men.
SPEAKER_07: You're either a loser or you're a player.
SPEAKER_07: We are called to break that stick.
SPEAKER_07: We often find ourselves in other double binds.
SPEAKER_07: Listen, I drive a Toyota Prius because it gets 50 miles to the gallon, and I think that's great.
SPEAKER_07: But I realize that the materials for that car battery, which were mined in Africa, had a lot of issues that not only affect the environment, but affect populations.
SPEAKER_07: It's a double bind.
SPEAKER_07: And often, sometimes we find ourselves in this position and we say, I don't know what to do, so I'll just pick one of these two terrible choices.
SPEAKER_07: I don't know how to solve the biggest problems, but I know that we as a community are asked to try to break some of these sticks that punish people when they don't pick from one of two terrible choices.
SPEAKER_07: And this is what Jesus really has to say.
SPEAKER_07: You know, a long time ago we taught our kids, and we heard as kids ourselves, two wrongs don't make a right.
SPEAKER_07: I'm sure you've heard that before.
SPEAKER_07: And that's what Jesus says in a different language.
SPEAKER_07: He says, Satan can't drive out Satan.
SPEAKER_07: So if you use a satanic means to accomplish a gospel end, it didn't work.
SPEAKER_07: Boy, that's tough because you know, um I've just got to say, and here I'm speaking from a double by mentality again, as a man.
SPEAKER_07: Um, I was taught that anger is really acceptable.
SPEAKER_07: You know what anger does in the male brain, the same thing as it does in the female brain, is it gives you energy.
SPEAKER_07: Anger releases adrenaline and cortisol, it winds you up, and you can do stuff when you're angry.
SPEAKER_07: But when you're sad, actually, you don't have as much energy.
SPEAKER_07: I don't know if you've realized this.
SPEAKER_07: And boy, as a man, I'm real scared of being sad because it's not productive.
SPEAKER_07: And I can't control it.
SPEAKER_07: Talk about a double bind, right?
SPEAKER_07: So what do we do?
SPEAKER_07: We go around saying, hey man, instead of being angry, y'all should just be sad and hold that on your own.
SPEAKER_07: No, what we do in order to break the stick is we say, you may not even be able to hold that sadness, and I'll hold it with you.
SPEAKER_07: So that you don't have to hold something you can't hold.
SPEAKER_07: Look, every parent knows the double bind.
SPEAKER_07: Well, I think so anyway.
SPEAKER_07: The double bind I realized as a parent, particularly the parenting I received, which was mixed, right?
SPEAKER_07: Like all of our parenting is mixed.
SPEAKER_07: My parents did the best they could, and boy, it's scary that some days I'm doing the best I can, but but I think I am.
SPEAKER_07: What I realized recently, thinking about some of the parenting that I've lived into, because it's what I was given, is that you know, you really want your kids to love you, but you can't control that.
SPEAKER_07: So sometimes we settle for your kids obeying you.
SPEAKER_07: And there's a whole lot of respect that uh is sort of overlaps with the love category, but sometimes since we can't have love, we'll just settle for respect.
SPEAKER_07: That's a double bind, isn't it?
SPEAKER_07: Listen, if you've ever parented, I trust you know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_07: And we're being called, I think, to bear that up together.
SPEAKER_07: So what does that mean, right?
SPEAKER_07: Well, that means that when we go around humiliating our children, or should I better say, God's children to teach them a lesson, we've succumbed to the double bind.
SPEAKER_07: There's nothing honorable about shaming somebody.
SPEAKER_07: Nothing honorable about that.
SPEAKER_07: That's using Satan to drive out Satan.
SPEAKER_07: We often, maybe I'll just say me.
SPEAKER_07: Sometimes I see something that bothers me, and really what that means is I haven't chosen to take enough time to understand where it's.
SPEAKER_07: Coming from?
SPEAKER_07: Because in my brain it doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_07: And again, I don't always make cognitive space to enter somebody else's brain.
SPEAKER_07: So what I'll do, of course, is I'll go and I'll say to somebody not involved, hey, I had this experience, and isn't that really strange?
SPEAKER_07: Instead of trying to understand what I didn't understand.
SPEAKER_07: And this is the way that we break the stick together, is we try to understand what we didn't understand without throwing somebody under the bus immediately first.
SPEAKER_07: You see, if we don't do that, what we're doing is using satanic means to try and accomplish some kind of godly end.
SPEAKER_07: I just think about the prison system and it's on my heart because the guy's our grass used to be incarcerated, right?
SPEAKER_07: So if somebody does something awful and we punish them, look, I don't know the answer.
SPEAKER_07: I don't.
SPEAKER_07: But I know there's a little element of the satanic part Jesus is talking about in that.
SPEAKER_07: You deprive somebody of their ability to vote or hold a job the rest of their life.
SPEAKER_07: Is that good news?
SPEAKER_07: Surely we can see that there's some satanic element in the way we result to retribution.
SPEAKER_07: Now Jesus says this thing that was chilling for me as a kid.
SPEAKER_07: The unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_07: That's what he says, right?
SPEAKER_07: Now if you grew up Southern Baptist, what that meant, right, is that if you did that, you're going to hell and to God.
SPEAKER_07: There's no coming back from that.
SPEAKER_07: So we started to get really worried about what's the what does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_07: Like, what is that?
SPEAKER_07: And you know, sometimes we said he was playing with a Ouija board, or sometimes it was dancing.
SPEAKER_07: I grew up in that kind of culture, you know, but but some of us did.
SPEAKER_07: And look, the text is really clear about what the unforgivable sin is, but I want to tell you a little bit more about what I think that means.
SPEAKER_07: The unforgivable sin is when we see God doing the work of reconciliation, providing a place at God's table for people we shoot away.
SPEAKER_07: And when that happens, we say that was the devil doing that instead of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_07: When we see God working the world to look like God imagined, and we say that's evil, that's blasphemy.
SPEAKER_07: That's what the scripture says.
SPEAKER_07: But lest you think you do that one time and you're stuck forever, what I want you to hear is that even though sin means missing the mark, it also means bearing a burden.
SPEAKER_07: And I want to tell you, probably the biggest burden we could ever bear is seeing God's reconciling work in the world and rejecting it.
SPEAKER_07: And I'm going to tell you, I think we can recover from that.
SPEAKER_07: I think we can recover from that.
SPEAKER_07: But I think until we do, we miss not only what God's doing in the world, but we miss what God's doing in us.
SPEAKER_07: And then we find ourselves increasingly heavy laden and full of despair and without hope.
SPEAKER_07: So look, once upon a time, and to be honest, most of us, the reason we came to church was because our parents went to church, and that's how we were raised.
SPEAKER_07: You know, we continue to choose this, but some of the choices were made.
SPEAKER_07: So look, some of the gifts that my church gave me is that women should not be ministers.
SPEAKER_07: And I really believed that.
SPEAKER_07: Well, until I had one, I had a professor in seminary who was a woman, and she believed that women shouldn't be ministers.
SPEAKER_07: It was okay for women to be teachers, but they couldn't preach as if there's any difference, you know.
SPEAKER_07: That was the way we sort of played with the scriptures, you know.
SPEAKER_07: It's odd.
SPEAKER_07: Isn't it crazy what kind of games we play so that we can hold on to something that's untenable and life-taking from everybody else?
SPEAKER_07: I mean, we do that.
SPEAKER_07: We work really hard so we can continue to be life-taking from the world, you know.
SPEAKER_07: So I had this lady, and I said, Oh my gosh, geez, you know, I've had these other professors and I've had other ministers, and wow, you pastored me.
SPEAKER_07: And she was like, no, no, no, I taught you.
SPEAKER_07: And here I was in this dilemma.
SPEAKER_07: Was I gonna throw away my category?
SPEAKER_07: Or was I just gonna wrap it up real differently and say it was some kind of anomaly, but whatever, this is right in the end.
SPEAKER_07: And you know, it's easy for me to talk about this, but because I've come on the other way now, and here we are in the Episcopal Church, and there's not a lot of collateral damage for me talking about women in ministry, but the social cost of fighting a double bind is kind of high at the personal level.
SPEAKER_07: Somebody tells a joke that ridicules somebody else at your home, you know as well as I do how uncomfortable it is to say, hey, I love you, but I don't appreciate that joke.
SPEAKER_07: The social cost feels really high.
SPEAKER_07: Once upon a time, I had a member of my family who was really, really close to me.
SPEAKER_07: And I'll tell you, I had celebrated a gay couple's wedding, and that person said, You've never done that, have you?
SPEAKER_07: Because if you have, you're going to hell forever.
SPEAKER_07: And let me tell you what the double bind was.
SPEAKER_07: Was I going to tell this person I'd done that so that they would worry about my eternal soul?
SPEAKER_07: And every time heretofore I was gonna interact with that person, that's what the not conversation, that's what the monologue was gonna be.
SPEAKER_07: How could you have done that?
SPEAKER_07: Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_07: Was I gonna be quiet?
SPEAKER_07: Was I gonna say, let's talk about something else?
SPEAKER_07: These are the double binds we find ourselves in in the discipleship world.
SPEAKER_07: I mean it, whether we're in church or where we're out.
SPEAKER_07: And sadly, right, and this is where I want to come back to the double bind of, forgive me for using this phrase.
SPEAKER_07: I know not everybody's gonna like it, but toxic masculinity, this is toxic masculinity.
SPEAKER_07: You do it different from me, I'll burn that bridge in a second.
SPEAKER_07: I grew up in a family in which your family status was a question if you disagreed with the party line.
SPEAKER_07: And maybe that's why Jesus says this bit that's otherwise kind of confusing.
SPEAKER_07: You know, we could read this bit where Jesus says, Who are my mother and brothers?
SPEAKER_07: They're the people who do God's will.
SPEAKER_07: We could read that as diminishing the importance of our parents and our uncles and our aunts and our siblings.
SPEAKER_07: But I don't think that's what Jesus is trying to do.
SPEAKER_07: I think what Jesus is saying is, look, families have got their own issues.
SPEAKER_07: We all know that.
SPEAKER_07: We've all got our own issues, and thanks be to God, we've got this other family that's helped to carry us.
SPEAKER_07: It's not there to replace our family, it's there to supplement the family we were born into.
SPEAKER_07: And this is the hardest part of discipleship, it drives me crazy because remember, I was mentored on how to burn a bridge in 60 seconds or less.
SPEAKER_07: If I go about burning a bridge, then I've just divided my own house, which is what Jesus has asked me not to do.
SPEAKER_07: And you know, I don't want to sound uh this is gonna come across the wrong way, but I I heard the bishop say this recently, and the bishop has something I don't really have, which is like patience and vision.
SPEAKER_07: And what I realized is that our bishop is super good at planning and executing the long game.
SPEAKER_07: And what I hear the bishop sort of saying, even though he didn't use these words, right, is that there's people who don't believe in certain things like that women can in fact be leaders and should be praised for their intellect and not just for their looks.
SPEAKER_07: This is a double bind, by the way, right?
SPEAKER_07: When people talk about how pretty your daughter is, but how well spoken your son is, you know they mean well, right?
SPEAKER_07: But in front of my daughter, I feel like I'm supposed to say she's really bright and capable.
SPEAKER_07: And that's off-putting.
SPEAKER_07: I mean it is, it's off-putting for someone to say that.
SPEAKER_07: But what I've heard the bishop say that I appreciate is if we can avoid the bridge-burning tactic that is just easy to us because it comes from that uh adrenaline and cortisol response, if we can start to realize that the biggest hope I have for the person who's intolerant of me is to stay in relationship with them, that's their hope.
SPEAKER_07: Because if I cut them off, guess what?
SPEAKER_07: They don't have any more difference in their lives.
SPEAKER_07: This is what the bishop, I think, has envisioned for the church.
SPEAKER_07: You know, you may not totally be on every issue of the Episcopal Church, and you don't have to be.
SPEAKER_07: But when we start creating churches that look like us, we lose any hope of growing bigger than we are.
SPEAKER_07: And this is, I think, what the long game is about, and what it looks like to break the stick that is in use, that is used to inflict these double binds on people.
SPEAKER_07: And the wisdom of this place, this place, is that seven years ago when you were deciding what your mission and what your vision for ministry was, you came up with a mission statement.
SPEAKER_07: It's a little bit long, right?
SPEAKER_07: And it includes things like worship and serve and welcome and learn.
SPEAKER_07: But you know the tagline here is the wisdom of the place.
SPEAKER_07: The tagline is we can do more together.
SPEAKER_07: And this is what Jesus is talking about.
SPEAKER_07: Wherever your nuclear family is, here we are supplementing one another spiritually.
SPEAKER_07: I didn't say replacing, supplementing and holding one another up.
SPEAKER_07: Experiencing sadness new to you, we can do more together.
SPEAKER_07: Standing up for your girl children or your boy children or your gay children or your transgender children, difficult, and we can do more together.
SPEAKER_07: I don't always know how to change the stick that governs the world, but in this place, in this place, we can break these sticks at least as a start.
SPEAKER_07: And that's not just what Jesus asks us to do, Jesus commissions us to do that work.
SPEAKER_07: And it takes energy.
SPEAKER_07: And don't you see that's why we come back to the Eucharist every week?
SPEAKER_07: You know, I used to hear, well, when you take the communion so often, it kind of like waters it down.
SPEAKER_07: But look, I mean, I probably could take it nine or ten times a day because I often find myself out of energy in a social situation when somebody has put down women in general and my wife in particular without even knowing it.
SPEAKER_07: And how do I break the stick without burning the bridge?
SPEAKER_07: I'm still learning, I'm learning that stuff from you, and that's what we're in this together to do.
SPEAKER_07: How do we break the stick without burning the bridge?
SPEAKER_07: God give us nourishment for that.
SPEAKER_07: Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.
SPEAKER_07: We believe in one God.
SPEAKER_03: We believe our Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally God of the Father, God of God, I am life, true God and true God, become the Father, through all things, for us for our salvation, became heaven from heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became heart of the Virgin Mary and was made man.
unknown: For our sake, he was decided and multiplied, he suffered death and spirit.
unknown: On the third day he rose again, according to the scriptures, he ascended to heaven, and received by Father.
unknown: He will come again, glory to judge the day, and see you have your hand.
SPEAKER_03: Believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord of life, who proceeds the Father and Son, who the Father and Son, which is worshiped before God, Jesus, believe in one.
SPEAKER_01: 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_01: Lord, in your compassion, 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_01: Lord, in your compassion, 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.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, in your compassion, 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_01: Lord, in your compassion, we are our prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Lead our parish.
SPEAKER_01: Source of wisdom guide us.
SPEAKER_01: Source of strength support us.
SPEAKER_01: Source of love unify us, we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, in your compassion, guide St.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas the Apostle 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 true and just and good, and that we may be bearers of your grace to all who come through our doors.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, in your compassion, comfort and heal all those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Give them courage and hope in their troubles, and bring them the joy of your salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Especially Chris, Sean, Jerome, Mickey, John, Lavon, Paxton, and Lee.
SPEAKER_01: The congregation is invited to name celebrations or petitions silently or aloud.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, in your compassion, we command to your mercy, Martha, and all who have died, that your will for them may be fulfilled, and we pray that we may share with all your saints in your eternal kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, in your compassion, compassionate God, make your healing and peaceful presence known to the world.
SPEAKER_01: Comfort those who mourn, strengthen those who are weary, encourage those in despair, and lead us all to fullness of life.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_07: Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.
SPEAKER_07: Before God, with the people of God, I confess to my brokenness, to the ways I wound my life, the lives of others, and the life of the world.
SPEAKER_08: May God forgive you, Christ renew you, and the Spirit enable you to grow in love.
SPEAKER_09: Amen.
SPEAKER_08: With the people of God, we confess to our brokenness, to the ways we wound our lives, the lives of others, and the life of the world.
SPEAKER_07: May God forgive you, may Christ renew you, and the Holy Spirit enable you to grow in love.
SPEAKER_07: Amen.
SPEAKER_07: The peace of the Lord be always with you.
SPEAKER_07: If you're new to us or haven't done this before, in the narthix, that's what we sort of call the room behind this one.
SPEAKER_07: Sometimes we call it a lobby, but just the narthix.
SPEAKER_07: There's the little cards that say welcome, and we'd be tremendously grateful if you'd fill one of those out so we have a record of your visit.
SPEAKER_07: And thank you for worshiping with us today.
SPEAKER_07: I want to draw a few announcements to your attention.
SPEAKER_07: One is I just want to thank you for making your R building open to the community.
SPEAKER_07: And so there's a few things that happened here you may not know about that's important for you to know how your assets are being used to serve the world.
SPEAKER_07: One is that all week, thanks to Garmin, we hosted the diocesan music camp for youth and children.
SPEAKER_07: And they celebrated yesterday with a morning prayer that included choral song and handbells and uh strings, and uh a few adults joined in, and it was just really, really lovely.
SPEAKER_07: So that camp has moved around from Camp Ballon to Brynham and here we were because we were willing to have it.
SPEAKER_07: So thank you, Garmin, for helping us use our building to support some really wonderful work.
SPEAKER_07: And yesterday, not only did we celebrate this morning prayer that students had worked um several days on, but we also had a food distribution here, and it was really fantastic to offer 331 people some fresh groceries.
SPEAKER_07: So thank you for continuing to open your hearts through this campus to the community.
SPEAKER_07: Um, a few announcements I want to raise to your attention upcoming opportunities.
SPEAKER_07: Uh one is, and Kathy, would you stand up so we can see you?
SPEAKER_07: Here's Kathy Reinhold, and she is right now uh the president of the Daughters of the King, and we're offering this opportunity.
SPEAKER_07: If you'd like to learn more about the Daughters of the King, the Daughters of the King is a rule, it's a group of women who have a rule of life oriented around study, service, and prayer.
SPEAKER_07: And we take this order very, very seriously here at St.
SPEAKER_07: Thomas.
SPEAKER_07: The service many of you have personally experienced, which is offering receptions to people at funerals, especially people we don't know.
SPEAKER_07: This is so lovely.
SPEAKER_07: And so um, Kathy is offering some induction classes into the Daughters of the King, what it means to be a daughter, how we can live into that rule of life, and she's offering that starting today.
SPEAKER_07: So if you've got any questions about Daughters of the King, maybe you say, Oh, I I don't know if I've got time today.
SPEAKER_07: Talk to Kathy and we'll figure this out because it's a really meaningful ministry.
SPEAKER_07: It does a lot of fantastic work at St.
SPEAKER_07: Thomas, and Kathy's your lady uh to talk to today.
SPEAKER_07: I also want to raise up to you that we are headed back into, you see, it's fantastic, we've got our acolytes here.
SPEAKER_07: We're headed back into acolytes, and we are training acolytes next week after the service.
SPEAKER_07: Um, you may say, Well, I didn't know that, and and now you do.
SPEAKER_07: So grandkids can come, kids can come, adults can be acolytes, and I'll tell you, some of my most meaningful experiences in church before I was a priest happened when I was in sitting in one of those seats as a 30-year-old guy acolyting.
SPEAKER_07: So you can do this with your grandkids or with your kids.
SPEAKER_07: We ask in general that people have finished the third grade, but if you know a really good incoming third grader, you know, who's who is uh able to keep live fire upright, this could be a really good fit.
SPEAKER_07: So I just want to raise that attention.
SPEAKER_07: Our next training's next week, and then we'll have another one at the end of the month.
SPEAKER_07: Uh really happy that we've got 10 new acolytes at least that are coming in.
SPEAKER_07: Um we're done in this room and in those rooms.
SPEAKER_07: Thank you for giving generously to the Capital Funds Drive.
SPEAKER_07: Please continue giving those pledges as we move through our projects, but you'll see whether you need to use the restroom or not.
SPEAKER_07: Go look at the restrooms because well, we've done phase two.
SPEAKER_07: We we paid off our loan, and now we've re-floored our sanctuary and our restrooms, and we're ready to keep going with our capital funds.
SPEAKER_07: Thanks to your tremendous generosity.
SPEAKER_07: And I gotta tell you, from my perspective, anyway, it's never been as beautiful as it is.
SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
SPEAKER_07: Thank you for supporting beauty.
SPEAKER_07: And as you know, we don't keep it to ourselves.
SPEAKER_07: Diocesan music camp is here, we do funerals for people we don't know.
SPEAKER_07: The symphony comes in here.
SPEAKER_07: Thank you for making this a beautiful.
SPEAKER_07: Service to the community.
SPEAKER_07: You're doing that.
SPEAKER_07: I feel like I'm missing something.
SPEAKER_07: Oh, yes, it's this really great thing that's happening.
SPEAKER_07: You probably know we've got three scout troops here.
SPEAKER_07: We've got a Cub Scout pack that's got about 80 families involved, and then we've got a scouting group for boys.
SPEAKER_07: They're gonna earn like Eagle Scout, and then we've got a scouting group for girls, and they're gonna earn like Eagle Scout, right?
SPEAKER_07: So we don't actually have a Girl Scout troop, we have a Scout troop for girls.
SPEAKER_07: And um we also have our Cubmaster has just been appointed the coordinator for Episcopal Scouting in the Diocese of Texas.
SPEAKER_07: So Zach Worley, I don't know where he's got the energy from.
SPEAKER_07: He he has yeah, I know it's really amazing.
SPEAKER_07: The diocese hasn't had somebody do this for like more than 10 years, and Zach has stepped up as a member of our vestry and as the the Scoutmaster.
SPEAKER_07: Zach has asked us because we've got several girls who are actually within striking distance of the Eagle Award, and we've got some boys who have identified that's their goal.
SPEAKER_07: You know, one of the ways you get there is by earning merit badges, and you can earn merit badges in about like 125 things, including like aerospace engineering.
SPEAKER_07: I wish we knew some people who did that.
SPEAKER_07: And um sewing and swimming, right?
SPEAKER_07: And so you'll see this list in the e-news, but what they need is for us to do more together.
SPEAKER_07: They need merit badge counselors because some of our regular scouting folks don't do the things you know how to do.
SPEAKER_07: So please have a look at your email or talk to me more about this.
SPEAKER_07: This the requirements are usually pretty short, but it's basically sharing your wisdom and things you love to do anyway with a scout so that they can learn to love what you love.
SPEAKER_07: And that's evangelism.
SPEAKER_07: Um continue to walk in love.
SPEAKER_07: As Christ first loved us and gave himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_10: Oh come to you, we cry heavenly gift of God's time, of course, of life for love, and sweet annoying spirit through you know we the Father and the Sonic is of a changing creed that you do from the proceed.
SPEAKER_07: This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_07: It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more, so come.
SPEAKER_07: 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_07: You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.
SPEAKER_07: Not because the church invites you, it is Christ.
SPEAKER_07: He invites you to meet him here.
SPEAKER_07: Our service continues on page 370 of your red prayer book.
SPEAKER_07: You will need it.
SPEAKER_07: This has a lot of responses in it.
SPEAKER_07: Page 370 of your red prayer book.
SPEAKER_05: The Lord be he with you.
SPEAKER_05: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_07: God of all power, ruler of the universe, you are worthy of glory and praise.
SPEAKER_07: At your command, all things came to be, the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets and their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.
SPEAKER_07: From the primal elements you brought forth the human race and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill.
SPEAKER_07: You made us the shepherds of creation, but we turned against you and betrayed your trust, and we turned against one another.
SPEAKER_07: Again and again you called us to return.
SPEAKER_07: Through prophets and sages you revealed your righteous law, and in the fullness of time you sent your only son, born of a woman, to fulfill your law, to open for us the ways of freedom and peace.
SPEAKER_07: Therefore we praise you, joining with the heavenly chorus, with prophets, apostles, with Martha Halliburton and Martyrs, and with all those in every generation who have looked to you in hope to proclaim with them your glory and their unending hymn.
SPEAKER_07: Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_07: For on the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread.
SPEAKER_07: He said the blessing, broke the bread, gave it to his friends, and said, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_07: This is my body which is given for you.
SPEAKER_07: Do this for the remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_07: After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks to God, and said, Drink this, all of you.
SPEAKER_07: This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for all for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_07: Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_07: Remembering now his work of redemption and offering to you this sacrifice of thanksgiving, we celebrate his death and resurrection as we await the day of his coming.
SPEAKER_07: Lord God of our parents, God of Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, and Keturah, of Isaac and Rebekah, of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us.
SPEAKER_07: Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this table for solace only and not for strength, for pardon only and not for renewal.
SPEAKER_07: Let the grace of this holy communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name.
SPEAKER_07: Risen, Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.
SPEAKER_07: Accept these prayers and praises, Father, through Jesus Christ, our great high priest, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit your church gives honor, glory, and worship from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_07: Amen.
SPEAKER_07: And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_07: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_07: Amen.
SPEAKER_07: And as we continue to celebrate the season of Pentecost, I invite you to pray that prayer from the New Zealand Rite.
SPEAKER_07: Eternal Spirit, earthmaker, pain-bearer, life giver, source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, loving God in whom is heaven, the hallowing of your name echo through the universe, the way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world, your heavenly will be done by all created beings, your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.
SPEAKER_07: With the bread we need for today, feed us, in the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
SPEAKER_07: In times of temptation and test, strengthen us from trials too great to endure, spare us from the grip of all that is evil, free us.
SPEAKER_07: For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever.
SPEAKER_07: Amen.
SPEAKER_07: Feed on them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_07: And I invite you forward to receive bread or a blessing, and remember the cup is open for intention.
SPEAKER_07: Please come to the aisle closest to your right after receiving uh return to your seat from the far side.
SPEAKER_11: Let's not start alive, and what I didn't break your heart.
SPEAKER_11: All out is what I got up.
SPEAKER_11: Oh God, all my family with my breath.
SPEAKER_07: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_07: Freely thou hast given me thy body for my food, O thou who art afire, consuming the unworthy.
SPEAKER_07: Consume us not, O our Creator.
SPEAKER_07: Consume the thorns of our transgressions.
SPEAKER_07: Instead enter into our members, our veins, our hearts, cleanse our souls, and sanctify our reasonings.
SPEAKER_07: Make firm our knees and bodies with this nourishment from your table.
SPEAKER_07: Illumine our five senses to see you ever at work in the world.
SPEAKER_07: Always protect, guard, and keep us from soul-destroying words and deeds.
SPEAKER_07: Give us understanding and illumination.
SPEAKER_07: Show us to be a temple of thy one spirit and not the home of many sins.
SPEAKER_07: Thou art the only sanctification, nourishment, and light of our souls, O good one.
SPEAKER_07: And to thee we ascribe glory day by day.
SPEAKER_07: Amen.
SPEAKER_07: May God who by the Holy Spirit cause those of many languages and world views to proclaim Jesus as Lord, strengthen your faith, and send you out to bear witness to God in word and deed.
SPEAKER_07: And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be with you this day and remain with you always.
SPEAKER_07: Amen.