SPEAKER_05: Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
SPEAKER_05: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_05: Assist us mercifully with your help, O God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts whereby you've given us life and immortality.
SPEAKER_05: Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_05: The Lord be with you.
unknown: And with thy spirit.
SPEAKER_05: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_02: It is deeply right so to do.
SPEAKER_05: It is right to praise you, Almighty God, for the acts of love by which you have redeemed us through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_05: On this day, he entered the holy city of Jerusalem in triumph and was proclaimed as King of kings by those who spread their garments and branches of palm along his way.
SPEAKER_05: So let these branches be for us signs of his victory, and grant that we who bear them in his name may ever hail him as our King and follow him in the way that leads to eternal life, who lives and reigns in glory with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_05: Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.
SPEAKER_01: Glory be to thee, O Lord.
SPEAKER_05: When they were approaching Jerusalem at Bethphage in Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden.
SPEAKER_05: Untie it and bring it.
SPEAKER_05: If anyone says to you, Why are you doing this?
SPEAKER_05: just say this.
SPEAKER_05: The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.
SPEAKER_05: They went away and found a colt tied near a door outside in the street.
SPEAKER_05: As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, What are you doing, untying the colt?
SPEAKER_05: They told them what Jesus had said, and they allowed them to take it.
SPEAKER_05: Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their colt cloaks on it, and he sat on it.
SPEAKER_05: Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they'd cut in the fields.
SPEAKER_05: Then they who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_05: Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David.
SPEAKER_05: Hosanna in the highest heaven.
SPEAKER_05: Then Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.
SPEAKER_05: And when he looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany in the twelve.
SPEAKER_05: The Gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_05: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_05: This is a little bit of an abnormal Palm Sunday, obviously.
SPEAKER_05: We're not having a procession from the hallway like we normally do.
SPEAKER_05: And I want to split what we talk about in two.
SPEAKER_05: In the 1976 prayer book, we usually call this the new prayer book, even though it is now 45 years old.
SPEAKER_05: The suggestion for Palm Sunday is that we conclude the day by reading the passion narrative, that is, the story of what happens on Friday and on Saturday and Sunday.
SPEAKER_05: That is because, according to the information I have anyway, that in 1976 people noticed a downward attendance in Holy Week services.
SPEAKER_05: So the decision was because we don't expect people to come to church during Holy Week, we're going to give them the whole story on Sunday.
SPEAKER_05: I'm going to warn you, we will not be doing that this year.
SPEAKER_05: I'm going to send you the Passion story in an email today, both in text and read aloud.
SPEAKER_05: But today in this service, I want to talk about Palm Sunday and let it be its own thing.
SPEAKER_05: Do I expect you to come to church this week?
SPEAKER_05: I hope you will.
SPEAKER_05: I hope you will take each day as it comes so you can enter into the story, because quite honestly, the people who showed up on Palm Sunday were not expecting what happened Friday.
SPEAKER_05: And if we ride ourselves out of their surprise, we'd ride ourselves out of the surprises of our own faith journey, come what may.
SPEAKER_05: So about Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_05: Most of us don't realize that there were, in fact, two processions that day.
SPEAKER_05: The best book, if you'd like to read this on the subject, is called The Last Week by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossen.
SPEAKER_05: Here is a model of Jerusalem that exists in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_05: It's a scale model.
SPEAKER_05: You can see exactly how large it is by looking at the people in the back.
SPEAKER_05: And what you see is the temple here, which is the size of two and a half football fields, and it is absolutely dominated by something called the Antonio Fortress.
SPEAKER_05: On Palm Sunday, Jesus, he's off the screen up here on top of the Mount of Olives, rides down across the Kidron Valley and into this gate to the temple, which is called the Golden Gate.
SPEAKER_05: It was rarely used because there were no money changers here, and the temple was the Mall of the Americas of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_05: Vendors were absolutely packed into this area.
SPEAKER_05: Most people entered the temple here on this side, and the money changers we hear about in the gospel were stationed here, so that appropriate non-idolatrous money, that is, money that did not bear the images of the Caesars, could be acquired for transactions and then changed back on your way out.
SPEAKER_05: So there was some messianic expectation to somebody coming in through the Golden Gate.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus comes in on a donkey.
SPEAKER_05: We don't quite realize this, but if you know your scriptures, when King David conquers Jerusalem, he rides in it on a donkey.
SPEAKER_05: And sometimes we think, aha, a donkey is a strong military weapon, and it's important to hear that a donkey is of negative value in a military campaign.
SPEAKER_05: That is to say, a foot soldier is stronger than someone on a donkey.
SPEAKER_05: Donkeys are slow, they're stubborn, hence the nickname that they get.
SPEAKER_05: Donkeys are not particularly spry or quick.
SPEAKER_05: Somebody with a sword or a spear on their feet is much more agile than someone on a donkey.
SPEAKER_05: What's important to hear is that when David rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, it's because it's already been conquered.
SPEAKER_05: He's not riding into battle on the donkey.
SPEAKER_05: He's showing the battle has been decisively won by getting on the beast.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus gets on a donkey, and people expect him to take up arms.
SPEAKER_05: They give him the poor man's red carpet.
SPEAKER_05: They cut down palm branches.
SPEAKER_05: They're excited for what he might do.
SPEAKER_05: What we don't realize is that there's another procession that day that looked a lot more like the Nuremberg processions of Nazi Germany.
SPEAKER_05: That is to say, imagine a legion of Roman soldiers, which is in fact more than a thousand, marching in tandem, something like goose stepping, on horses, with standards, with red plumes.
SPEAKER_05: It turns out that Pontius Pilate did not live in the city of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_05: He hated it.
SPEAKER_05: Pontius Pilate lived in Caesarea Maritima, which was the most cosmopolitan city of the ancient world when it was built by Herod the Great.
SPEAKER_05: It included a breakwater that pioneered waterproof cement.
SPEAKER_05: Herod the Great made this the most modern port in the Mediterranean.
SPEAKER_05: It had a circus, it had a gymnasium.
SPEAKER_05: Jerusalem had neither of those things.
SPEAKER_05: And so Pontius Pilate spent approximately 50 weeks a year living in Caesarea Maritima and King of Jerusalem only during the high holy days.
SPEAKER_05: Because during Passover, the population of Jerusalem went from 40,000 to 400,000.
SPEAKER_05: It was so crammed full of people that riots were almost guaranteed.
SPEAKER_05: So here come, the parade of soldiers showing that Rome is not just sort of in control, but is ready to stamp down any sort of insurrection, any sort of hope of overthrowing.
SPEAKER_05: And they came into the Antonia, which overlooks the entire Temple Mount, ready to react to any threat.
SPEAKER_05: Pilate came in a tour de force.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus came sort of like the holy locky of Haight Asbury.
SPEAKER_05: You have to imagine compare your palm branch to Roman legions armed to the teeth in armor.
SPEAKER_05: It's a counter procession.
SPEAKER_05: And it happens today on Palm Sunday where Jesus is not showing folks what he's getting ready to do.
SPEAKER_05: He's riding in a donkey because he's confident.
SPEAKER_05: This I think is important to hear, that the outcome has already been decided.
SPEAKER_05: There's going to be cognitive dissonance on Friday.
SPEAKER_05: And most people who watch this procession undoubtedly think Jesus is going to do something with that whole legion that has just shown up.
SPEAKER_05: But I invite you to consider that Jesus' perspective is different from the crowd's perspective.
SPEAKER_05: And that this week, I think, challenges our own perspectives.
SPEAKER_05: This is like the foam finger at the ancient world basketball game.
SPEAKER_05: And all too often we're so excited about what Jesus is going to do for us that we forget to ask, how are we going to be with him?
SPEAKER_05: Palm Sunday, curiously enough, it's very possible that in the minds of the gospel writers, some of the people waving these fronds on Sunday waved their fists on Friday, some of the same people, and said, Crucify Him.
SPEAKER_05: Because he was not who they'd hoped he would be.
SPEAKER_05: And Jesus' ability to trust in God's ability for redemption, for forgiveness, to delight in humanity and all of its greatness and ugliness.
SPEAKER_05: In spite of consequences that he undoubtedly knows are coming.
SPEAKER_05: That's his Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_05: And I'm going to suggest to you after we read Philippians in a few minutes that that might be our opportunity for Holy Week.
SPEAKER_05: So bear this in mind, and then I invite you to join me in the Collect for Purity that's on page two of our bulletin.
SPEAKER_05: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_05: Almighty God, unto whom all our hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy holy name through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_05: Hear the word of God to all who truly turn.
SPEAKER_05: Come to me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.
SPEAKER_05: God has not dealt with us according to our sins.
SPEAKER_05: Holy God, holy and strong, holy and immortal, have mercy upon us.
SPEAKER_05: As far as the East is from the West, as a parent has compassion on their children.
SPEAKER_05: Bless the Lord, O my soul.
SPEAKER_05: And let us give thanks to God for all of God's faithful gifts freely bestowed upon us.
SPEAKER_05: For the beauty and wonder of your creation in earth and sky and sea.
SPEAKER_05: For all that is gracious in the lives of women and men, revealing the image of Christ.
unknown: We thank you.
SPEAKER_05: For our daily food and drink, our homes and families and our friends.
unknown: We thank you for Lord.
SPEAKER_05: For minds to think, and hearts to love and hands to serve.
unknown: We thank you to God.
SPEAKER_05: For health and strength to work and leisure to rest and play.
SPEAKER_05: We thank you, for the brave and courageous who are patient and suffering and faithful in adversity.
unknown: We thank you to God.
SPEAKER_05: For all valiant seekers after truth, liberty, and justice.
unknown: We thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_05: For the communion of saints, and all times and places, especially Ryan.
SPEAKER_05: Above all, we give you thanks for the great mercies and promises given to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
SPEAKER_05: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_05: Almighty and ever living God, in your tender love for the human race, you sent your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility.
SPEAKER_05: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering and also share in his resurrection through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Morning by morning, he wakens, awakens my ear to listen, as those who are taught.
SPEAKER_03: The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious.
SPEAKER_03: I did not turn backward.
SPEAKER_03: I gave my back to those who struck me and my cheeks to those who pulled up my beard.
SPEAKER_03: I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.
SPEAKER_03: The Lord helps me.
SPEAKER_03: Therefore, I have not been disgraced.
SPEAKER_03: Therefore, I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
SPEAKER_03: He who vindicates me is near.
SPEAKER_03: Who will contend with me?
SPEAKER_03: Let us stand up together.
SPEAKER_03: Who are my adversaries?
SPEAKER_03: Let them confront me.
SPEAKER_03: It is the Lord God who helps me, who will declare me guilty.
SPEAKER_03: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_03: Psalm thirty-one, we will read responsively by half verse.
SPEAKER_03: Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble.
SPEAKER_03: For my life is wasted with grief and my years with sighing.
SPEAKER_03: I have become a reproach to all my enemies, and even to my neighbors, a dismay to those of my acquaintance.
SPEAKER_03: I am forgotten like a dead man out of mind.
SPEAKER_03: For I have heard the whisperings of the crowd.
SPEAKER_03: Fear is all around.
SPEAKER_03: But as for me, I have trusted in you, O Lord.
SPEAKER_03: My times are in your hand.
SPEAKER_03: Make your face to shine upon your servant.
SPEAKER_00: But emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_05: Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a lamb of your own fold, a sheep of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming.
SPEAKER_05: In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_05: This passage from Philippians is what scholars argue the oldest passage in our New Testament.
SPEAKER_05: That is to say, this section is older than the rest of the letter, written probably more than 35 years before the gospel that we heard this morning.
SPEAKER_05: It was a hymn of the earliest Christian community.
SPEAKER_05: And it contains this key word that I would like to put before you for holy week and for discipleship in general, the Greek word kinosis.
SPEAKER_05: It's one of those words that we often gloss over, but it is like as significant a word as agape.
SPEAKER_05: Kinosis means self-emptying.
SPEAKER_05: It's not imposed, it's chosen, and of course, emptying yourself is in order to make room for something larger than yourself.
SPEAKER_05: Self-emptying is what a woman does in pregnancy, makes room.
SPEAKER_05: And this is the word used for Jesus.
SPEAKER_05: And I invite you to consider how old this goes, as I do every year, honestly, which is through the life cycle of the salmon.
SPEAKER_05: So I used to live in Alaska.
SPEAKER_05: I lived in Alaska for 10 weeks one summer with a guy who was similar to Grizzly Adams.
SPEAKER_05: When everybody else was fishing, he was catching.
SPEAKER_05: And there is something absolutely transcendent about catching a 65-found fish at three in the morning and being able to see in almost full light the lure hit it in the mouth.
SPEAKER_05: There's something even more majestic and metaphysical about the fish, though.
SPEAKER_05: Many of you know this.
SPEAKER_05: You can see it on BBC or Discovery Channel, that salmon are born in freshwater lakes whose clarity is beyond parallel.
SPEAKER_05: A salmon lays something like 3,000 eggs.
SPEAKER_05: A few months later, the fish are called alofin.
SPEAKER_05: They look like an eye with a little tail.
SPEAKER_05: They swim around observing and growing.
SPEAKER_05: There's about 325 that make it to that point.
SPEAKER_05: About a year later, they're the size of your finger, and so they're called fingerlings, and there's about 124 that make it to that size.
SPEAKER_05: A couple years later, they're the size of your hand.
SPEAKER_05: And one day some urge overtakes them that scientists haven't still quite figured out how it works, and they become a smolt when they leave the waters that raise them and head for the ocean.
SPEAKER_05: Of course, you know the oceans are briny.
SPEAKER_05: And so to change the kind of air that you live in and thrive in is More than a little bit difficult, these fish who swim swiftly down raging waters, when they hit the bay, they kind of go belly up, they're completely disoriented.
SPEAKER_05: Twenty-four of them will survive.
SPEAKER_05: They spend these 24 fish a few years in the bay, growing about as long as your middle finger to your elbow in biblical language that's called a cubit.
SPEAKER_05: When they're that size, they enter to these things in the ocean called gyres.
SPEAKER_05: A gyre is a current in the ocean that turns reliably, it's generated by the moon.
SPEAKER_05: The fish will swim in the next three years something like 24,000 miles.
SPEAKER_05: Every fish in Alaska will swim by every salmon in Japan.
SPEAKER_05: And then one day, that same bizarre mechanism that pulled them out of their freshwater lake fires again.
SPEAKER_05: And you know this now, they turn back and they swim somehow up exactly the same river that they swam down years ago, even though adjacent rivers can differ by one part per billion in mineral content.
SPEAKER_05: So again, this is still beyond the science that we have at our hands to figure out how it is they know which river they ought to swim against.
SPEAKER_05: If you've seen the film before, or if you know about the fish, you know that they are not going to make the conversion this time around.
SPEAKER_05: So because they're not going to go from saltwater to freshwater, the freshwater, curiously enough, is going to poison and kill them.
SPEAKER_05: They secrete something like a thick layer of slime to protect them.
SPEAKER_05: And they swim miraculously upstream.
SPEAKER_05: In fact, you can see videos of them flipping their way up a waterfall, and I mean literally.
SPEAKER_05: Along the way, of course, there are anglers trying to catch them, there are bears who stand there and get them at their weakest.
SPEAKER_05: Many of them become exhausted and simply don't make it.
SPEAKER_05: In fact, three will make it.
SPEAKER_05: As that slime starts to wash off, as the fresh water that used to give them life starts to become toxic to them, they undergo a radical physical metamorphosis.
SPEAKER_05: In fact, they become more than a little disturbing.
SPEAKER_05: They go from being a silver-colored, hydrodynamic fish to kind of a monster.
SPEAKER_05: They grow a large hump on their back.
SPEAKER_05: Their jaws get really long, they elongate, and they grow teeth that are one or two inches long, they look like spines on a saguaro cactus, and their colors change.
SPEAKER_05: If you've ever bought a sake salmon, they're blood red on the inside.
SPEAKER_05: But as that coating starts to wear off and they start to die from the fresh water, they leach out their fat and their skin becomes blood red, like fire engine red, and their head becomes green.
SPEAKER_05: They look nothing like they were.
SPEAKER_05: That's the kind of fish you don't want to catch.
SPEAKER_05: They burned off all of their fat.
SPEAKER_05: They're kind of like living zombies, living dead, actually.
SPEAKER_05: Their time is limited.
SPEAKER_05: Grizzlies don't even eat the filet, grizzlies just eat the guts.
SPEAKER_05: They get back to the pool in which they were spawned, and as I mentioned, they lay their eggs and they die soon after, and 3,000 eggs start over from three once again.
SPEAKER_05: While this is really a lovely story to hear, I invite you to consider it much like the gospel and much like Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_05: See, once upon a time, Jesus grew up in a really small village.
SPEAKER_05: Like Nazareth had maybe 74 people.
SPEAKER_05: And he spent his childhood as much as we do watching how we're supposed to behave.
SPEAKER_05: He was carried along by the currents of his culture, and sure enough, he entered into the big, the big pond called being a carpenter or a day laborer.
SPEAKER_05: He swam there for a while, and then one day he heard in his cousin John the Baptist a call to swim against some of the same currents that raised him.
SPEAKER_05: You know what I'm talking about, like Jesus said, you've heard it said that human beings were made for the Sabbath, but no, no, the Sabbath was made for human beings.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus went out of his way not just to talk with women, but to touch them.
SPEAKER_05: He touched dead people and gave them new life.
SPEAKER_05: He swam against the forces of the culture that raised him that threatened to take the dignity from the creatures of God.
SPEAKER_05: And of course, this week there were people trying to catch him.
SPEAKER_05: Should we pay taxes to the emperor or not?
SPEAKER_05: You know the story.
SPEAKER_05: There are bears, let's just call them Rome, trying to devour him.
SPEAKER_05: And at the end of the week, there's maybe about 12 or 15 people who are commissioned to swim as Jesus was.
SPEAKER_05: We call those people the disciples.
SPEAKER_05: The thing that is supernatural about Jesus this week, consider that the salmon show us what is natural when we swim against powers that have raised us, powers that strip dignity from God's creation.
SPEAKER_05: The salmon show us that in that swim, which is against steep currents and even against waterfalls, the natural thing for us to do is to become sort of living dead, to grow self-righteous humps on our back, to grow barbed teeth to lash out.
SPEAKER_05: After all, I'm trying really hard.
SPEAKER_05: Why do you keep getting in my way?
SPEAKER_05: I wish everybody could just think and do like I do.
SPEAKER_05: That's natural.
SPEAKER_05: The salmon prove it.
SPEAKER_05: It's metaphysical.
SPEAKER_05: In the middle of swimming against anglers and up the same stream that carried him.
SPEAKER_05: We're going to hear Jesus say on Friday, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_05: That's not natural.
SPEAKER_05: And it is the gospel.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus invites us to consider that as we swim the way of our faith, we're also invited to take that self-righteous hump off our back.
SPEAKER_05: We're invited not to grow teeth.
SPEAKER_05: We're compelled by our Lord to keep our true colors and not to change them.
SPEAKER_05: We can only speculate as to what Jesus was thinking on Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_05: But I want to suggest to you that his actions show us he trusted in God's final outcome.
SPEAKER_05: The hardest thing about my life, both secular and sacred, as if there were a difference, is knowing it's going to work in the end.
SPEAKER_05: You know, as a father, I could get up every morning for the rest of my life and give extra tutoring, or make breakfast if I knew it was going to work.
SPEAKER_05: I could run an ultra marathon if I knew it was going to work.
SPEAKER_05: The difference I want to suggest between Jesus' faith and mine often is Jesus does know it's going to work.
SPEAKER_05: And this is the promise of faith.
SPEAKER_05: Love, joy, pace, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, self-control, these are the things that will win.
SPEAKER_05: And perhaps Jesus is able to ride in Jerusalem on a donkey because he knows that even if not in his own lifetime, even if not in our lifetime.
SPEAKER_05: That these faith, hope, joy, and love happen inside of God and have no end.
SPEAKER_05: And we're invited to see Jesus swim that swim this week.
SPEAKER_05: And I want to suggest we're invited to swim that swim ourselves.
SPEAKER_05: Would Jesus have been a better king than Caesar?
SPEAKER_05: Probably.
SPEAKER_05: Easily.
SPEAKER_05: And this is the challenge of Holy Week.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus isn't interested in being your king.
SPEAKER_05: And that ween we result to taking control, really, even for the best reasons.
SPEAKER_05: We're acting like Caesar and we're acting like Rome.
SPEAKER_05: And it sure does take a lot of trust.
SPEAKER_05: And all of that looks like the difference between jumping and falling.
SPEAKER_05: If you know you're gonna get caught, falling can be kind of fun.
SPEAKER_05: If you're not sure, it's pretty terrifying.
SPEAKER_05: This week, this day, and I don't want to move past Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_05: Palm Sunday is the day where we have high expectations, and I think we need to hold on to those.
SPEAKER_05: High expectations.
SPEAKER_05: But you realize Jesus is not going to meet their expectations, and quite honestly, he's often not going to meet ours.
SPEAKER_05: And this, I think, is the message that we hear in that little quit from Abraham Lincoln: let's never presume that God is on our side.
SPEAKER_05: Let's ask how instead we can be on God's side.
SPEAKER_05: The most disappointed I've ever been in my faith life was when I put God squarely on my side, because that's when I start to grow teeth and hooked jaws and change my colors and put a hump on my back.
SPEAKER_05: Because since God's on my side, why are you in my way?
SPEAKER_05: And it's a hard message.
SPEAKER_05: As Dorothy Day said.
SPEAKER_05: Love is a terrible thing to ask.
SPEAKER_05: This kind of love.
SPEAKER_05: But it is the only way.
SPEAKER_05: And I put before you, it's the way of faith.
SPEAKER_05: And I invite you, as you swim both this holy week with Jesus and in your faith life, to continue that swim, to join Jesus and staying true to your colors, the colors of faith.
SPEAKER_05: And when those teeth grow, pull them back in.
SPEAKER_05: It's gonna take some energy to do that.
SPEAKER_05: And that's why I'm gonna offer you the Eucharist in a few minutes, so that God can give you the energy you need this week to swim in a holy way.
SPEAKER_05: Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.
SPEAKER_05: We believe in one God.
SPEAKER_04: We pray for God to fill us with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_04: Generous God, we thank you for your power to create discomfort and reveling within us.
SPEAKER_04: We ask that you disturb us so that we may be distressed and serve you and our neighbors better.
SPEAKER_04: When we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams come true because we dream too little, when we arrive safely because we fail too close to the shore.
SPEAKER_04: When with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life.
SPEAKER_04: Having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity.
SPEAKER_04: And in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new heavens to dim.
SPEAKER_04: To dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your majesty, where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
SPEAKER_04: We ask that you push back the horizons of our hopes and to push us forward with strength, courage, hope, and love.
SPEAKER_04: So that while we are in health, we may be steadfast in prayer for the healing of others, especially for Chris, John, Jerome, Mark, Janet, and Leslie.
SPEAKER_04: May we not only pray for the sick among us, but also give them the gifts of personal contact and visit.
SPEAKER_04: When we strive to be anything less than agents of reconciliation and wholeness in a world where there is division, sickness, and sorrow.
SPEAKER_04: Disturb the Lord until we see others as you see them, until peace becomes as precious to us to bear, until we love as you love.
SPEAKER_05: The peace of the Lord be always with you.
SPEAKER_05: Good morning, peace, and thank you for worshiping with us at St.
SPEAKER_05: Thomas today.
SPEAKER_05: If you're new to us or haven't done this before, there are some cards on those little tables in the Narthics, and we'd be grateful if you fill one out so we have a record of your visit.
SPEAKER_05: And thank you for adding your prayers and participation to our worship here today.
SPEAKER_05: I want to offer you a few announcements.
SPEAKER_05: You'll again see this one coming out this week in addition to the passion reading that will guide us today.
SPEAKER_05: What Holy Week looks like this year.
SPEAKER_05: First of all, we're really grateful we get to have it.
SPEAKER_05: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_05: I never thought I would be so grateful to be able to have services, but we are.
SPEAKER_05: It's a little bit pared down.
SPEAKER_05: We won't be doing footwashing this year because of COVID, although I do invite you to honor the spirit of that by taking care of somebody's need whom you love, even if it's giving your daughter or your mother a manicure.
SPEAKER_05: That's the message of the day.
SPEAKER_05: We're going to meet Thursday, Maundy, Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
SPEAKER_05: It'll be streamed, it'll be live as we uh celebrate the institution of the Holy Eucharist.
SPEAKER_05: And if you've not done this before, it's dramatic and there's nothing like it.
SPEAKER_05: We begin in light, we begin in celebration, and of course, we live into the story of the darkness of the night, of the betrayal, and we leave in darkness and we leave with all decorations stripped.
SPEAKER_05: It's moving, it's a powerful way to remember the story literally.
SPEAKER_05: I hold to you that these services on Thursday, Friday, and on Sunday morning are unlike any other.
SPEAKER_05: Uh, and if you haven't done them, they really they really contain the power of the story.
SPEAKER_05: So on Friday, which uh the earliest Christians called Black Friday, but of late we've called Good Friday.
SPEAKER_05: There's two opportunities to worship.
SPEAKER_05: They'll be streamed or they'll be live.
SPEAKER_05: They're somber.
SPEAKER_05: There will be no lights on.
SPEAKER_05: Um, it'll be light enough inside, of course.
SPEAKER_05: Um first is at noon, and the other is at 6 p.m.
SPEAKER_05: And again, I warn you it's a somber service because it's a somber story.
SPEAKER_05: On Sunday, um, we'll begin at 6:30 with something called the Easter Vigil.
SPEAKER_05: Again, there is no service like it the rest of the year.
SPEAKER_05: Uh we will come in with candlelight and the darkness as the first women who waited for the uh the apparent sunrise on Easter morning.
SPEAKER_05: We'll come in candlelight, we'll hear the story of salvation.
SPEAKER_05: There will be a great noise.
SPEAKER_05: I mean, I'm gonna prepare you, it's going to be very loud.
SPEAKER_05: Uh that's the earthquake.
SPEAKER_05: Um, it'll probably be drums.
SPEAKER_05: You may want to turn your hearing aids down.
SPEAKER_05: I just want to tell you this now.
SPEAKER_05: It will be loud and it will be joyful, and the sun will be up, and we'll continue forward with the celebration of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_05: And then there's two services that are actually different.
SPEAKER_05: They have different readings, they have a different sermon.
SPEAKER_05: They're at 8:30 and 10:30, and they'll both be, of course, in person and streamed.
SPEAKER_05: And that's what Holy Week is going to look like at St.
SPEAKER_05: Thomas this week.
SPEAKER_05: I also want to guide to you that um even though there's difficulties, it's just lovely to hear.
SPEAKER_05: Yesterday we have our mobile fresh food distribution, and it was a slow day.
SPEAKER_05: And what I'm grateful to tell you is a slow day means 379 people left with a ton of fresh groceries.
SPEAKER_05: Uh, so thank you for those who you who served and those of you who support this valuable ministry and our community.
SPEAKER_05: My prayer for you is that this will, in fact, be a holy week.
SPEAKER_05: And of course, holy means one that is set apart towards larger life.
SPEAKER_05: On the way out today, I'm going to invite you, please, to take your palm with you.
SPEAKER_05: This is uh, of course, the fresh one, but I'm going to give you one of our parishioners has worked with a village in Africa to offer a sustainable product, and they've they've formed uh these palms, such as these, into lovely palm crosses that you may consider to pin on.
SPEAKER_05: And really, I'd like you to hold on to these throughout the week as objects of contemplation, both the palm cross and the fresh one that people waved.
SPEAKER_05: That's the bandwidth of the week.
SPEAKER_05: Continue to walk in love.
SPEAKER_05: As Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_01: Oh am I that for thy sake I want to take my fence and Christ came from heaven's throne, salvation to be so, but equals corn another long for Christ would know.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, my friend, my friend, indeed.
SPEAKER_01: No toy on never once laughter king, never once great my fun.
SPEAKER_01: My friend, I've heard green great.
SPEAKER_01: My song is love unknown.
SPEAKER_01: Is love his love is love.
SPEAKER_05: This is the table not of the church but of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_05: It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more.
SPEAKER_05: So come, you who have much faith and you who have little, you who have been here often, and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.
SPEAKER_05: You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.
SPEAKER_05: Not because the church invites you, it is Christ.
SPEAKER_05: And he invites you to meet him here.
SPEAKER_05: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_05: Lift up your hearts.
SPEAKER_05: Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.
SPEAKER_05: It is very meet right and our abound in invitation that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father Almighty, everlasting God, who does bid thy faithful people cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast, that fervent in prayer and in works of mercy, and renewed by thy word and sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which thou hast prepared for those who love thee.
SPEAKER_05: And therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory.
SPEAKER_05: Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High.
SPEAKER_05: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna and the highest.
SPEAKER_05: All glory be to thee, O Lord our God, for that thou didst create heaven and earth, and didst make us in thine own image.
SPEAKER_05: And if thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to take our nature upon him, and to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption.
SPEAKER_05: He made there a full and perfect sacrifice for the whole world, and did institute, and in his holy gospel command us to continue a perpetual memory of that, his precious death and sacrifice, until his coming again.
SPEAKER_05: For in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread.
SPEAKER_05: And when he given thanks to thee, he broke it.
SPEAKER_05: Gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_05: This is my body which is given for you.
SPEAKER_05: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_05: Likewise, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.
SPEAKER_05: And when he given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink this, all of you.
SPEAKER_05: This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for all for the remission of sins.
SPEAKER_05: Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_05: Wherefore, O Lord and Heavenly Father, we thy people do celebrate and make with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy son hath commanded us to make, having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension, and looking for his coming again with power and great glory.
SPEAKER_05: And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us, and with thy word and Holy Spirit, to bless and sanctify these gifts of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the body and blood of thy dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_05: And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness to accept this, our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, whereby we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies.
SPEAKER_05: Grant, we beseech thee that all who partake of this holy communion may worthily receive the most precious body and blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, and be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction.
SPEAKER_05: And also that we and all thy whole church may be made one body with Him, that He may dwell in us and we in Him, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_05: By whom and with whom and in whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_05: And now, as our Savior Christ hath taught us, we are bold to pray.
SPEAKER_05: 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_05: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_05: For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_05: Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
unknown: Therefore, let us keep the beast.
SPEAKER_05: These are the gifts of God.
unknown: And we are the people of God.
SPEAKER_05: I invite you to receive either bread or a blessing by coming forward using the aisle closest to your right, coming down in socially distant intervals and returning to your seat on the far side.
SPEAKER_05: Please do mind your step in the middle of the construction zone.
SPEAKER_05: Almighty and ever-living God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us in these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us, and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people, and are also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdom.
SPEAKER_05: And we humbly beseech thee, O Heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory, world without end.
SPEAKER_05: Amen.
SPEAKER_05: Do not me dismayed by the brokenness of the world.
SPEAKER_05: All things break, and all things can be mended, not with time as they say, but with intention.
SPEAKER_05: So go.
SPEAKER_05: Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
SPEAKER_05: The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.
SPEAKER_05: 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_05: Amen.