SPEAKER_03: Bless the Lord who unburdens all of our sin.
SPEAKER_03: God's mercy endureth forever.
SPEAKER_03: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_03: Almighty God, under whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.
SPEAKER_03: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: And that we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy holy name through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Hear what the Lord Jesus saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy exceedingness.
SPEAKER_03: This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it.
SPEAKER_03: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
SPEAKER_03: On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
SPEAKER_03: And so let us give thanks to God for all the gifts freely bestowed upon us.
SPEAKER_03: For the beauty and wonder of your creation and earth and sky and sea.
SPEAKER_03: We thank you, Lord, for all that is gracious in the lives of women and men, revealing the image of Christ.
SPEAKER_03: We thank you, Lord, for our daily food and drink, our homes and families and our friends.
SPEAKER_03: We thank you, Lord, for minds to think, hearts to love and hands to serve.
SPEAKER_03: We thank you, Lord, for health and strength to work and leisure to rest and play.
SPEAKER_03: We thank you, Lord, for the brave and courageous who are patient and suffering and faithful in adversity.
SPEAKER_03: We thank you, Lord, for all valiant seekers after truth, liberty, and justice.
SPEAKER_03: We thank you, Lord, for the communion of saints in all times and places.
SPEAKER_03: We thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Above all, we give you thanks for the great mercies and promises given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_03: To him be praise and glory with you, O Father, and the Holy Spirit, now and forever.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: The Lord be with you.
unknown: And with thy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_03: O God whose glory it is always to have mercy.
SPEAKER_03: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your word, Jesus Christ your Son, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God for ever and ever.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Walk before me and be blameless.
SPEAKER_01: And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.
SPEAKER_01: Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, As for me, this is my covenant with you.
SPEAKER_01: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.
SPEAKER_01: No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations.
SPEAKER_01: I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.
SPEAKER_01: I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
SPEAKER_01: God said to Abraham, as for Sari, your wife, you shall not call her Sari, but Sarah shall be her name.
SPEAKER_01: I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her.
SPEAKER_01: I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations.
SPEAKER_01: Kings of people shall come from her.
SPEAKER_00: It is as it is written, I have made you the father of many nations.
SPEAKER_00: In the presence of God, in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
SPEAKER_00: Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become the father of many nations.
SPEAKER_00: According to what was said, so numerous shall your descendants be.
SPEAKER_00: He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead, for he was about a hundred years old.
SPEAKER_00: Or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb, no distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he knew strong in his face, faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Now the words, it was reckoned to him, were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also.
SPEAKER_00: It will be reckoned to us who believe in him, who are raised to Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handled over to death for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.
SPEAKER_00: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
SPEAKER_03: He said all this quite openly.
SPEAKER_03: And Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: But turning and looking at his disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.
SPEAKER_03: He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
SPEAKER_03: For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the good news will save it.
SPEAKER_03: For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
SPEAKER_03: Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?
SPEAKER_03: Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man, will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
SPEAKER_03: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_03: This is, I think, one of the least historically understood passages of the New Testament in which Jesus invites his disciples to take up their cross and follow him.
SPEAKER_03: And I want to suggest it's been misunderstood because our whole thinking about the cross has been sort of played with artistically and even theologically, so that we've sort of lost sense of what the cross and crucifixion was about and what it was like.
SPEAKER_03: Often I hear this sort of thinking, take up your cross and follow me quoted as a way of saying, well, look, we're just supposed to suffer.
SPEAKER_03: So I'm just taking up my cross when I talk to that guy I can't stand.
SPEAKER_03: Or I'm taking up my cross where I'm at wear a mask in public.
SPEAKER_03: But I think it's important without being gruesome, and it is really important to hear that the cross is about as gruesome as capital punishment gets, to think about what it was like and who it was for.
SPEAKER_03: And part of the thing that we often miss is that people weren't crucified in the middle of town and crosses weren't 30 feet tall.
SPEAKER_03: People were crucified right outside of the city gates, primarily because in ancient cities the walls only accommodated a select few.
SPEAKER_03: Most people lived in caves or huts out in the fields, and they brought their produce or their flocks inside to the market every day.
SPEAKER_03: And on their way in and out, they would pass the ancient billboard of crosses, advertising for the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_03: This is what happens when you mess with our government.
SPEAKER_03: People were not crucified because they wanted to do religious reform.
SPEAKER_03: People were not crucified because they stole bread.
SPEAKER_03: They had their hands or their thumbs cut off for that.
SPEAKER_03: People were crucified because of their politics.
SPEAKER_03: This is really important.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus is encouraging people to live into their faith in a way that is threatening to the way Rome is governing the empire, or they would not have killed him.
SPEAKER_03: He was not killed by Jewish people.
SPEAKER_03: He was killed by Romans.
SPEAKER_03: People who had means were not crucified, they were beheaded.
SPEAKER_03: Crucifixion was for poor people accused of sedition or treason, resisting the system of Rome.
SPEAKER_03: That could have included people who encourage you not to pay your taxes.
SPEAKER_03: By the way, you'll see that Jesus' opponents try to get him to do this.
SPEAKER_03: He doesn't come out on that clearly.
SPEAKER_03: Give to God, what is God's, give to Caesar, what is Caesar's?
SPEAKER_03: People were not crucified 30 feet above the ground.
SPEAKER_03: They were crucified at eye level.
SPEAKER_03: There were permanent posts outside the city gates, about five and a half feet tall, with a little notch in them.
SPEAKER_03: When you were to be crucified, you carried a two by four, not a 300-pound railroad tie.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus was led out with a two by four, and you didn't need a ladder.
SPEAKER_03: You needed two people to pick it up and set it in a notch.
SPEAKER_03: And crucifixion could take days.
SPEAKER_03: It is arguably humanity at its worst.
SPEAKER_03: And Jesus invites his disciples not to be inconvenienced, not don't hear this the wrong way, not to give up chocolate for Lent.
SPEAKER_03: He invites his disciples to resist the forces of the world to dehumanize people who are made in God's image and likeness.
SPEAKER_03: He invites them to suffer on behalf of others so that we can live in dignity and equality as God intends.
SPEAKER_03: Some of those forces are really, really big.
SPEAKER_03: Usually they end with the word ism, like race-ism, age-ism, sex-ism, heterosexism, denominational-ism.
SPEAKER_03: Those are the forces, and we say this every time we say the baptismal covenant, the powers of this world that are greater than any single individual that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.
SPEAKER_03: And Jesus says, be willing to bear the punishment of resisting.
SPEAKER_03: And what's interesting, right, is that we have crosses all over the place.
SPEAKER_03: And they didn't look like that.
SPEAKER_03: They looked like that.
SPEAKER_03: We have them all over the place as a symbol of victory, because that is the amazing part of the story.
SPEAKER_03: God was able to transform our worse into something life-giving.
SPEAKER_03: But by the way, we're not supposed to settle for our worth just because God can change it.
SPEAKER_03: We're supposed to resist what is worth resisting, these powers.
SPEAKER_03: When Jesus tells his disciples to take up their cross, he's not talking about chocolate or saying thank you, although those are included.
SPEAKER_03: He's talking about resisting political, social realities that hold other people down.
SPEAKER_03: He's talking about realities that no single person can resist or change by themselves.
SPEAKER_03: Systems of inequality that are often so embedded in ourselves that we don't even know that they're there until we have a daughter.
SPEAKER_03: Until we have a professional spouse who is female, until we have a relative or a friend who is not cisgender.
SPEAKER_03: Things we're not even aware of because we don't have to be.
SPEAKER_03: Now don't tell anybody.
SPEAKER_03: And Jesus says, look, the Messiah will pour himself out for other people, not quash all the enemies underfoot.
SPEAKER_03: People who are anointed by God offer their life so that other people can have more.
SPEAKER_03: And Peter says, no, no, no, you're too important for that.
SPEAKER_03: And we get the rest of this story.
SPEAKER_03: Dead in the middle of Mark's gospel is the question, who do you say I am?
SPEAKER_03: And he's not, Mark is not talking to Peter.
SPEAKER_03: He's talking to you and he's talking to me.
SPEAKER_03: We know there's Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John.
SPEAKER_03: There's four of them.
SPEAKER_03: Mark wants there to be an infinite number.
SPEAKER_03: Mark wants there to be a gospel according to Jim and to Lewis and to Mike.
SPEAKER_03: Who do you say Jesus is?
SPEAKER_03: And to be honest, we have the words of the creed that we're going to say in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, he's God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made.
SPEAKER_03: And sometimes those words, I think, while they convey a truth, they can distance us from who Jesus truly invites us to be and how it is that he walks with us.
SPEAKER_03: And our bishop encourages to go ahead and pick up the cross and talk about, pick up our cross and say who Jesus is to us.
SPEAKER_03: So I'm going to do that.
SPEAKER_03: And at the end, I doubt that you'll crucify, you might just leave.
SPEAKER_03: And that's okay.
SPEAKER_03: Because the answer is, how am I going to tell you in 10 minutes who Jesus is to me?
SPEAKER_03: Because honestly, it changes not just every day, but throughout the day.
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes the guy drives me crazy, and sometimes I feel sorry for him, and sometimes I'm willing to take him seriously.
SPEAKER_03: And what I struggle with quite a bit this length that I'm really trying to live into, if I'm honest, is that our doctrine says Jesus was like us in every way, but without sin.
SPEAKER_03: Boy, that's a tough one, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03: It's tough.
SPEAKER_03: I grew up with the all-powerful God man on the flannel board who walked into a room and read everybody's minds.
SPEAKER_03: He knew exactly what they were thinking.
SPEAKER_03: And like Santa Claus, he's making a list and shaking it twice, so you better watch out.
SPEAKER_03: Because if you're naughty, that God man might send you to hell when you die.
SPEAKER_03: I grew up with a Jesus who was so detached from humanity.
SPEAKER_03: How could I possibly follow him?
SPEAKER_03: You heard me say last week that sin means a couple of different things.
SPEAKER_03: It means missing the mark, like you shoot and you miss.
SPEAKER_03: So you just change your aim, or you change how you hold the bow.
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't mean your righteousness is ragged before God.
SPEAKER_03: It means you missed.
SPEAKER_03: Burden.
SPEAKER_03: And I wonder if Jesus was out is without sin because he learned how to lay his burdens down, and I haven't figured that out.
SPEAKER_03: In my own spirituality, I'm delighted to pick up new burdens every single day, which is kind of sad, but it's where I am.
SPEAKER_03: And this idea of sinlessness that Jesus was able to lay burden down, put burdens down, that maybe Jesus' divinity was the fact that he was fully human.
SPEAKER_03: It's snagging me this year in a new way.
SPEAKER_03: You know the Christmas story.
SPEAKER_03: Mary was betrothed, and she was pregnant, and they weren't married.
SPEAKER_03: And you know what you call a child that's born out of wedlock?
SPEAKER_03: It's not an ice word.
SPEAKER_03: And Jesus grew up, I'm sure, being called that, and he figured out how to lay that burden down.
SPEAKER_03: He didn't earn it, he didn't deserve it.
SPEAKER_03: And he was without sin because he figured out how to lay that burden down.
SPEAKER_03: Don't you want to figure out how to lay that burden down?
SPEAKER_03: God, I do.
SPEAKER_03: I gotta tell you, if Jesus never regretted anything he did, he didn't have much to say to me.
SPEAKER_03: But maybe he figured out how to lay that burden down.
SPEAKER_03: Wouldn't you love it if you could walk that road with him?
SPEAKER_03: How to lay down regret so you could actually live in the present.
SPEAKER_03: I'm not convinced everything Jesus did, frankly, was always right.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know, the last week of his life, he makes a whip and chases people away.
SPEAKER_03: Didn't sound all that friendly.
SPEAKER_03: And maybe he figured out how to lay that burden down.
SPEAKER_03: John Wesley, and I can say this because I went to a Methodist seminary, he wrote, this is really interesting.
SPEAKER_03: He was an interesting guy.
SPEAKER_03: Um Wesley wrote that actually being ignorant is not sinful.
SPEAKER_03: Choosing to stay ignorant is sinful.
SPEAKER_03: And I gotta tell you, it is meaningful me, even if it's heretical, to think that Jesus was raised in ignorance, and the thing that was different about him is he chose to learn.
SPEAKER_03: That might be heretical.
SPEAKER_03: It means a lot to me.
SPEAKER_03: It means I don't have to stay in this state of sin that I didn't earn or deserve.
SPEAKER_03: That there might be a way forward.
SPEAKER_03: Boy.
SPEAKER_03: And maybe it means having to pick up things that we put brass on top of now, but that are really harsh and ugly.
SPEAKER_03: And result, frankly, in something that's so painful, that is dying to a way of being that we're used to that has been killing us all along anyway.
SPEAKER_03: I think that's why we get to hear these other stories.
SPEAKER_03: You know what I love about Genesis is it's not just something, well, I guess it could be it could be a book that was written a long, long time ago, and it's great to think about the fact pattern of it, but instead I want to suggest it's inviting us into some realities we can live into.
SPEAKER_03: And the story begins where Abraham is 99 years old, and Paul says, in rather ageist fashion, he was as good as dead.
SPEAKER_03: That is ageism, by the way.
SPEAKER_03: Abraham lives another um 57 years.
SPEAKER_03: Um this reminds me of something I told my children.
SPEAKER_03: It's right.
SPEAKER_03: It's never too late.
SPEAKER_03: It just gets harder.
SPEAKER_03: And isn't it amazing to think at the beginning of Lynch it is not too late, even though it might get harder.
SPEAKER_03: Why?
SPEAKER_03: Because we've got these cumulative layers of burdens that not only we've carried, but that we think we're supposed to be carrying around.
SPEAKER_03: A lot of times I've heard in my Christian walk, God wants you to dislike yourself.
SPEAKER_03: Boy, and you hear it so many times that you think, oh, that's the gospel.
SPEAKER_03: I'm supposed to not like myself.
SPEAKER_03: It's never too late.
SPEAKER_03: But it can get harder.
SPEAKER_03: And God promises this new future to Abraham, promises him a future.
SPEAKER_03: And God changes Sarah.
SPEAKER_03: Sarai means my princess, like she belonged to Abraham.
SPEAKER_03: God changes her name into Sarah, which just means princess, like of the world.
SPEAKER_03: And God would like to change that reality of us where we live no longer unto ourselves or quite honestly our false selves, but we live in the reality that God is beckoning us to as a world.
SPEAKER_03: Paul does this really interesting thing.
SPEAKER_03: Remember that when you read the lectionary, the people who put it together presume you've already read the Bible.
SPEAKER_03: And we get to sniff it, it's very convoluted, where Paul is really trying to say, listen, Abraham didn't earn God's favor, he just chose to live into what was already there.
SPEAKER_03: Abraham didn't earn God's blessing, he accepted it.
SPEAKER_03: Very imperfectly, if you read the story, but nonetheless, he accepted it.
SPEAKER_03: And there's this little bit where Abraham believed God, and it was, here's how the text reads, and it was credited to him as righteousness.
SPEAKER_03: And Paul is trying to say, God credited Abraham's belief as righteousness.
SPEAKER_03: But our Jewish brothers and sisters read the text the other way.
SPEAKER_03: God promised Abraham a future, and Abraham credited God with righteousness.
SPEAKER_03: That God would give somebody 99 years old a new future, that God would say, it is never too late.
SPEAKER_03: Abraham credited God with righteousness for that.
SPEAKER_03: To be honest, I think it's lovely to hold on to both at the same time, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03: And it makes me wonder as I hear this line from the Psalms.
SPEAKER_03: This is a tough line.
SPEAKER_03: I didn't even hear it at 8 o'clock.
SPEAKER_03: The Lord does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty.
SPEAKER_03: There's a reason we have Lent every year.
SPEAKER_03: Because we've got to turn away from things like that.
SPEAKER_03: From the belief that our culture would like to tell us that the poor are poor because they deserve it, that they're poor or poor because they're lazy or they're not bright, because they haven't made our choices.
SPEAKER_03: We're presented with a Jesus who was not a middle manager, white CEO at a chemical plant or aeronautical engineer.
SPEAKER_03: We're presented with a Jesus who was unlike us because he was impoverished.
SPEAKER_03: I have a hard time even imagining that.
SPEAKER_03: That's why we come back to Lent every year so we can re-imagine that story.
SPEAKER_03: The white Jesus, I don't have to pick up any cross because I'm already white.
SPEAKER_03: But to think through this is somebody who suffered epithets as a child because of something he didn't even do.
SPEAKER_03: The scriptures say God did it and he had to suffer for something God did.
SPEAKER_03: Think through that.
SPEAKER_03: And this is somebody who went out and stood in front of Home Depot every day hoping somebody would hire him so he could buy food.
SPEAKER_03: I have never lived that reality.
SPEAKER_03: We're called to think about that so that we can literally pick up the cross for the Jesuses that live on the outsides of the neighborhoods we live in.
SPEAKER_03: We're called to pick up the cross honestly for the ways in which we carry around burdens and we do it thinking God blesses that, when God would be so grateful if we would dare try and lay them down, and if we would dare pull the burdens off of people that have been given to them, that they did not earn or deserve.
SPEAKER_03: So that all people, ourselves included, can hear the kernel of faith and blessing.
SPEAKER_03: It is not too late to live in a God's future, even if it does get harder.
SPEAKER_03: And we can do more together.
SPEAKER_03: We believe in one God.
SPEAKER_07: We always are the people.
SPEAKER_02: Hear us.
SPEAKER_02: For it is your spirit who speaks through us as we pray.
unknown: Lord, hear us.
SPEAKER_02: In your steadfast love.
SPEAKER_02: You provide for your creation.
SPEAKER_02: Grant good rains for our crops.
unknown: Lord, hear us.
SPEAKER_02: Gracious God, you inspired the prophets of old.
SPEAKER_02: Grant that your church may faithfully proclaim your truth to the world.
unknown: Lord hear us.
SPEAKER_02: Gracious God, you sent your Son into the world.
SPEAKER_02: Reveal him to others through his life in us.
SPEAKER_02: And Lord Jesus, you sent your apostles to make disciples of all nations.
SPEAKER_02: Bless the clergy and the laity of our diocese and church.
SPEAKER_02: Together with Andy, Hector, Jeff, and Kai, our bishops, and in the diocese cycle of prayer, St.
SPEAKER_02: Matthew's, Austin, St.
SPEAKER_02: Michael's, Austin, and St.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's Pflugerville, Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Michael our presiding bishop.
SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus, for your sake, men and women forsook all and followed you.
SPEAKER_02: Call many to serve you in religious communities and in the ordained ministry of your church.
SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus, you called your disciples to take up the cross.
SPEAKER_02: Deepen in each of us a sense of vocation.
unknown: Christ hear us.
SPEAKER_02: You prayed for your church to be one.
SPEAKER_02: Unite all Christians that the world may believe.
SPEAKER_02: You forgave the thief on the cross.
SPEAKER_02: Bring us all the penitence and reconciliation.
SPEAKER_02: And you broke down the walls that defied us.
SPEAKER_02: Bring the people of this world to live in peace and concord.
SPEAKER_08: Christ hear us.
SPEAKER_02: You taught us through Paul, your apostle, to pray for kings and rulers.
SPEAKER_02: Bless and guide all in authority.
unknown: Christ hear us.
SPEAKER_02: You were rich, yet for our sake became poor.
SPEAKER_02: Move those who have wealth to share generously with those who are poor.
SPEAKER_05: Christ hear us.
SPEAKER_02: You sat among the learned, listening and asking them questions.
SPEAKER_02: Inspire all who teach and all who learn.
unknown: Christ hear us.
SPEAKER_02: You cured by healing touch and word.
SPEAKER_02: Heal the sick and bless those who minister to them.
SPEAKER_02: You were unjustly condemned by Pontius Pilate.
SPEAKER_02: Strengthen our brothers and sisters who unjustly suffering violence and persecution.
SPEAKER_02: You lived as an exile in Egypt.
SPEAKER_02: Protect and comfort all refugees.
SPEAKER_02: You knew the love and the care of an earthly home.
SPEAKER_02: May your presence and protection be made known to migrant workers and their families.
SPEAKER_02: You open and none can shut.
SPEAKER_02: Open the gates of your kingdom to those who have died without hearing your gospel.
SPEAKER_02: You have been glorified in the lives of innumerable saints, especially Saint Thomas.
SPEAKER_02: Give us strength to follow in their footsteps.
SPEAKER_02: Holy Spirit, you help us in our weakness and intercede for us when we cannot.
SPEAKER_02: Remember our petitions and thanksgiving before God, especially for Chris, Sean, Mark, Jerome, and Leslie.
SPEAKER_02: And enhance our vision to see your presence in them.
SPEAKER_02: The congregation is invited to name their own celebration or petition silently or aloud.
SPEAKER_02: And your infinite compassion.
SPEAKER_02: Compassionate God, make your healing and peaceful presence known to the world.
SPEAKER_02: Comfort those who mourn.
SPEAKER_02: Strengthen those who are weary, encourage those in despair, and lead us all to fullness of life.
SPEAKER_02: Father, we know that you are good and that you hear all those who call upon you.
SPEAKER_02: Give to us and all people what is best for us that we may glorify you through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns through us in the Holy Spirit now and forever.
SPEAKER_03: If this is your first time or haven't done this before, in the room right behind us, it's called Anarthex, there are some cards that say welcome, and we would be tremendously grateful if you'd fill out one of those cards if you haven't done so before, so that we have a record of your visit.
SPEAKER_03: And again, thank you for worshiping with us today.
SPEAKER_03: There are a few announcements I want to call to your attention.
SPEAKER_03: Most of these you'll see in your e-news on Wednesday.
SPEAKER_03: And if you're not getting that and would like to, please just see me and I can make sure you get signed up for it.
SPEAKER_03: First is that this coming Saturday is our next food distribution.
SPEAKER_03: It starts at 7:45 a.m.
SPEAKER_03: We're usually done by 10.
SPEAKER_03: It really is a great way to bear some minor inconvenience on behalf of giving life to people who really could use it.
SPEAKER_03: So it is a great opportunity to serve this Saturday at 7.45.
SPEAKER_03: We partner, as you know, with a number of organizations that really help be hands and feet of giving life in the world.
SPEAKER_03: And two of them have sort of gone on red alert this last week.
SPEAKER_03: One is St.
SPEAKER_03: Vincent's House in Galveston.
SPEAKER_03: Many of you know that Galveston essentially has two worlds, a world of haves and a world of have, like nothings.
SPEAKER_03: And particularly after this winter storm, there is a strong call for children's clothing by St.
SPEAKER_03: Vincent's House.
SPEAKER_03: Maybe you have some in your closets or your grandchildren's closets, or perhaps you're willing to do some shopping or even to donate some funds so that they can close children on the island.
SPEAKER_03: They have asked us that emergency status or help.
SPEAKER_03: So you'll find a bin in the hallway.
SPEAKER_03: And if you're interested, I'm happy to give you more information on how we can be a help to them.
SPEAKER_03: The other, of course, is that Lord of the Streets Episcopal Church, that's a church that ministers to currently and formerly homeless men, women, and children.
SPEAKER_03: They have run out of a number of sponsors, and so they're struggling to be able to give people non-perishable necessities like bottles of water, protein packages like tuna or granola bars, something that a homeless person can eat.
SPEAKER_03: We're collecting those goods in a hallway as well, and we make regular trips up there to drop those off.
SPEAKER_03: Nobody can do everything, we know though, but everybody can do something, and we can do more together.
SPEAKER_03: So I just invite you to consider these along with the other organizations you support.
SPEAKER_03: Speaking of support, uh our school, St.
SPEAKER_03: Thomas School, who is pre-K3 through fifth grade, normally holds a really lovely gala somewhere like a Lakewood Yacht Club every year to raise money for financial aid, frankly, to allow people that can't afford to go to school here to come to school here.
SPEAKER_03: And we're not able to physically have that gala, so you'll see this on in our e-news and on our Facebook page.
SPEAKER_03: Their gala is coming up March 12th.
SPEAKER_03: It's an online auction, and those funds raised go to financial aid.
SPEAKER_03: I've even heard that they're looking for a few items still.
SPEAKER_03: It's a tough year for businesses to offer things, it's a little bit drier wells than normal, but I hold up to you that our school educates children in knowledge and wisdom and faith, and that um I'm really proud of it.
SPEAKER_03: And I want you to be proud of it, and that um the fundraiser is coming up on March 12th, and you can do that online or not, but please do be aware.
SPEAKER_03: And um, the last opportunity I want to hold up to you, and it's not limited to Lent.
SPEAKER_03: I hope it is something we will build in the fabric of our community, even though it's taken me five years to figure out to offer it.
SPEAKER_03: I would love to visit with you at your home or to have you in my home, or have you in my office, or meet you outside in a way, of course, that is socially distanced and safe, and not because you need your priest to pray for you, although I'd be happy to do that if you would like.
SPEAKER_03: I would like to connect with you.
SPEAKER_03: So please take me up on this offer and consider joining me at my office or home or having me in your home.
SPEAKER_03: I'm not looking for you to feed me, I'm looking to have time with you, and would be grateful if you take me up on it.
SPEAKER_03: Continue to walk in love.
SPEAKER_03: As Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_06: Lord, I want to be a Christian in my Lord, in my Lord, I want to be a Christian, Lord, I want to be more lobby, in my home, Lord, I want to be more lobby.
SPEAKER_06: In my heart, in my heart, Lord I want to be like Jesus in my heart.
SPEAKER_03: All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.
SPEAKER_03: This is the table not of the church but of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_03: It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more.
SPEAKER_03: 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_03: You who have tried to follow, and you who have failed.
SPEAKER_03: Come not because the church invites you, it is Christ, and he invites you to meet him here.
SPEAKER_03: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_03: Lift up your hearts.
SPEAKER_03: Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.
SPEAKER_03: It is very meet, right, and are bound in duty.
SPEAKER_03: We should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father Almighty, everlasting God, who dost 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 continue to the fullness of grace which thou hast prepared for those who love thee.
SPEAKER_03: And therefore, with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laude 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_03: Glory be to thee, O Lord most high.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.
SPEAKER_03: All glory be to thee, O Lord our God, for that thou didst create heaven and earth and make us in thine own image.
SPEAKER_03: And of 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_03: He made there a full and a 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_03: For in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, and when he'd given thanks to thee, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_03: This is my body which is given for you.
SPEAKER_03: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_03: Likewise, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.
SPEAKER_03: And when he'd given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink this, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you all for the remission of sins.
SPEAKER_03: Do this as often as you shall drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_03: 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_03: 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_03: 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_03: 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_03: 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_03: 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_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.
SPEAKER_03: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done 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, 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_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
SPEAKER_03: Therefore, let us keep the feast.
SPEAKER_03: These are the gifts of God, and we are the people of God.
SPEAKER_03: I invite you to receive bread or blessing by coming to the aisle closest to your right, coming down front to receive, and returning to your seat on the far side.
SPEAKER_06: Such a way as gives us breath, such a truth essence of strike, such a life as kiss.
SPEAKER_06: Such a life cause as feast, such a fix, such a strength as man is such a joy, such as the pray together.
SPEAKER_03: Almighty and ever-living God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou hast fed 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 to hope of thy everlasting kingdom.
SPEAKER_03: 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 an end.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.
SPEAKER_03: All things break, and all things can be mended.
SPEAKER_03: Not with time as they say, but with intention, so go.
SPEAKER_03: Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
SPEAKER_03: The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.
SPEAKER_03: 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_03: Amen.