SPEAKER_01: Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed be God's family now and forever.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.
SPEAKER_01: 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_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_01: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things, graft in our hearts the love of your name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and bring forth in us the fruit of good works, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: A reading from Exodus.
SPEAKER_00: Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian.
SPEAKER_00: He led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
SPEAKER_00: There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush.
SPEAKER_00: He looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.
SPEAKER_00: Then Moses said, I must turn aside and look at this great site and see why the bush is not burned up.
SPEAKER_00: When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here I am.
SPEAKER_00: Then he said, Come no closer, remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.
SPEAKER_00: He said further, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord said, I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivatites, and the Jebusites.
SPEAKER_00: They cry, the cry of the Israelites has now come to me.
SPEAKER_00: I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.
SPEAKER_00: So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?
SPEAKER_00: He said, I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you when you have brought the people out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: You shall worship God on this mountain.
SPEAKER_00: But Moses said to God, If I come to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your ancestors has sent me to you, and they asked me, What is his name?
SPEAKER_00: What shall I say to them?
SPEAKER_00: God said to Moses, I am who I am.
SPEAKER_00: He said further, Thus you shall say to the Israelites, I am has sent me to you.
SPEAKER_00: God also said to Moses, thus you shall say to the Israelites, the Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.
SPEAKER_00: This is my name forever, and this is my title for all generations.
SPEAKER_00: Please read responsibly by the half verse.
SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name.
SPEAKER_00: Sing to him, sing praises to him.
SPEAKER_00: Glory in his holy name.
SPEAKER_00: Search for the Lord and his strength.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the marvels he has done.
SPEAKER_00: O offspring of Abraham, his servant.
SPEAKER_00: Israel came into Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord made his people exceedingly fruitful.
SPEAKER_00: Whose heart he turned so that they hated his people.
SPEAKER_00: He sent Moses his servant.
SPEAKER_02: Hate what is evil.
SPEAKER_02: Hold fast to what is good.
SPEAKER_02: Love one another with mutual affection.
SPEAKER_02: Outdo one another in showing honor.
SPEAKER_02: Do not lag in zeal.
SPEAKER_02: Be ardent in spirit and serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Rejoice in hope.
SPEAKER_02: Be patient in suffering.
SPEAKER_02: Persevere in prayer.
SPEAKER_02: Contribute to the needs of the saints.
SPEAKER_02: Extend hospitality to strangers.
SPEAKER_02: Bless those who persecute you.
SPEAKER_02: Bless and do not curse them.
SPEAKER_02: Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
SPEAKER_02: Live in harmony with one another.
SPEAKER_02: Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.
SPEAKER_02: Do not claim to be wiser than you are.
SPEAKER_02: Do not repay anyone evil for evil.
SPEAKER_02: But take thought of what is noble in the sight of all.
SPEAKER_02: If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
SPEAKER_02: Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_02: For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: No, if your enemies are hungry, feed them.
SPEAKER_02: If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
SPEAKER_02: For by doing this you will reap burning coals on their heads.
SPEAKER_02: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good by the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Praise be to thee, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed, and on the third day be raised.
SPEAKER_01: And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke Jesus, saying, God forbid it, Lord, this must never happen to you.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus told his disciples, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
SPEAKER_01: For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
SPEAKER_01: For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?
SPEAKER_01: Or what will they give in return for their life?
SPEAKER_01: For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of the Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.
SPEAKER_01: Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: The Gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So I grew up in a church that was really strong in saying that Moses wrote all of the first five books of the Bible, that is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, all written by Moses.
SPEAKER_01: And there was a curious thing, my first semester in college, when I took Hebrew Bible studies, which I had to do at my particular Christian university, and realized that actually there was a rabbi in the middle of the 1700s named Baruch Spinoza, who was extremely advanced.
SPEAKER_01: So advanced he ended up getting excommunicated from his Jewish brethren and sister for this idea.
SPEAKER_01: Rabbi Spinoza noticed, this is what we notice today, that actually there are stories that duplicate.
SPEAKER_01: Like the creation story happens twice, and the flood story happens twice.
SPEAKER_01: And Rabbi Spinoza noticed actually that there are a number of sources that have been kind of combined in Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this was space shattering for me because this challenged this basic assumption that Moses wrote it all down.
SPEAKER_01: And uh the number one thing that Rabbi Spinoza noticed is that in some sources one particular name for God was used, and in other sources a different name was used.
SPEAKER_01: You'll see it in your text today, actually, because this is the ultimate story in the oldest source of our Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The oldest source uses, uh, you'll see it especially in the Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: If you look at the word Lord, all in capital letters, that's different from Lord with a capital L in small letters.
SPEAKER_01: It's telling you in English, in English, that this is the oldest name for God.
SPEAKER_01: At one time people used it maybe freely, and they decided probably sometime around 700 BC that it was so holy people shouldn't even say it anymore.
SPEAKER_01: So this is a name for God that Jesus doesn't even say.
SPEAKER_01: It's really interesting to know.
SPEAKER_01: And if they're Jewish to this day, you don't write this name for God, you don't say it.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've ever wondered why it is that our Jewish brothers and sisters carry their scriptures around on a scroll, it's because the paper has this name on it and it's so holy you can't even touch it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I grew up also hearing a facsimile of this name kind of tossed around.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Y word, by the way, if you've heard it before, this Y name for God that's used casually.
SPEAKER_01: What's super interesting about that name, actually, is number one, our Jewish brothers and sisters don't use it because they perceive that it's taking God's name in vain.
SPEAKER_01: Uh out of mutual respect, I don't use it myself because that just seems appropriate to me.
SPEAKER_01: Again, this is a name Jesus would not have used.
SPEAKER_01: The other thing that's really interesting is that the rabbis say that nobody knows how to say this right, because if you said God's name correctly, the world would end.
SPEAKER_01: This is sort of mystical.
SPEAKER_01: Uh what is agreed upon by um by all of the rabbis is this does not sound like the Y-word that you hear.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, God's name sounds quite interesting.
SPEAKER_01: It sounds very extremely soft.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, this is a little more mystical than I normally talk about.
SPEAKER_01: I'm probably a little uncomfortable with the mystical part, but that's where I'm gonna be today.
SPEAKER_01: Um, God says, or Moses says to God, look, how do I know?
SPEAKER_01: And people are gonna ask, what is your name?
SPEAKER_01: Because after all, in Egypt, all the gods have names.
SPEAKER_01: There's Ra and there's Osiris and there's Seth.
SPEAKER_01: So what's your name?
SPEAKER_01: And in Hebrew it says something, we read this, I am who I am, which sounds a little bit, well, what's it to you?
SPEAKER_01: I am who I am, Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Uh what's really interesting is that in Hebrew this is the verb to be in the infinitive.
SPEAKER_01: So God's name is being.
SPEAKER_01: So when we say Holy Spirit in whom we live and move and have our being, that's really right out of this text.
SPEAKER_01: God's name in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Your name is who you are, God's name is being.
SPEAKER_01: Which, by the way, if you're reading Hebrew, ancient or modern, you can't write the verb to be because that would be writing God's personal name.
SPEAKER_01: So instead of saying Vicky is very nice, you have to write in Hebrew, Vicky nice, period.
SPEAKER_01: And you fill the verb in, because otherwise you'd be putting God there.
SPEAKER_01: So instead of this saying, I am who I am, what God replies is, I am, I was, I will be, in all tenses, in all subjunctives at one time.
SPEAKER_01: And um, so you can hear this, the rabbis say it sounds a little like this.
SPEAKER_01: God says in Hebrew, which is super interesting, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because you know, um, there's this word that gets shows up all over the Hebrew Bible, spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And spirit really just means moving air in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The word in Hebrew is ruach.
SPEAKER_01: And if you know your Genesis 2 story, God makes the human being, it's just a clay sculpture, and then all of a sudden God breathes a spirit into the clay, breathes the spirit, which goes, and the clay becomes alive because it catches God's spirit and becomes alive.
SPEAKER_01: And the rabbis say this really interesting thing, which is the first thing out of our mouth when we're born is God's holy personal name.
SPEAKER_01: Some say it louder than others, if you've ever been birth side.
SPEAKER_01: And the last thing out of our mouth when we die, we say God's name one more time.
SPEAKER_01: And God's name leaves us, and so does our existence.
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty mystically powerful.
SPEAKER_01: And it makes me think, actually, that there's something really interesting in that commandment that Moses is going to get a little bit later, when God says, don't use my name in vain.
SPEAKER_01: How can you possibly use God's name in vain when you're all doing it right now just in order to be alive?
SPEAKER_01: And I wonder, I wonder if this isn't actually the challenge.
SPEAKER_01: We use God's name in vain when we put prescriptions on what God has to be like and God has to be doing.
SPEAKER_01: And I wonder if we don't hold our breath way too long before we accept that God is exactly where we are.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that makes sense, but we read a book about two months ago as a parish called Deep Survival, and it talks about stages that we go through, which are sort of stages of grief, actually, that happen when you're lost.
SPEAKER_01: They don't just happen when somebody dies.
SPEAKER_01: So the book says you're lost when your mental map of the world doesn't fit your physical experience.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to tell you, I've been lost in faith a lot of times.
SPEAKER_01: Uh personally and relationship with other people, I often have found myself and continue to find myself saying things like, God, change this person.
SPEAKER_01: How can you allow this to happen?
SPEAKER_01: It's not right, it's not fair.
SPEAKER_01: Where are you God?
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever wondered, where are you God?
SPEAKER_01: My church life is not helping me.
SPEAKER_01: It's incongruous with my experience.
SPEAKER_01: I'm lost.
SPEAKER_01: Which means God is absent, not me.
SPEAKER_01: This is typically how I do this.
SPEAKER_01: When I am most lost is when I say, uh, God in heaven, my will be done on heaven as it is in earth.
SPEAKER_01: And it makes me super angry.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, that's the first stage of being lost or grief is anger.
SPEAKER_01: And then I go into things like denial.
SPEAKER_01: And some of us just stay in denial.
SPEAKER_01: We sort of say, yeah, I'll do this prayer stuff, but it doesn't even matter because God's not listening.
SPEAKER_01: God's not giving me the outcomes that I'm asking for.
SPEAKER_01: My life's not changing, or my child's not changing, or my sister is intractable over this inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, there's no reason to pray none of this works.
SPEAKER_01: The third stage is depression, sorrow.
SPEAKER_01: Some of this don't make it out of that stage.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, the fourth, the fourth stage is acceptance.
SPEAKER_01: And acceptance doesn't mean that we're resigned to fate.
SPEAKER_01: I think what means actually in an extremely mystical and powerful way is in the middle of our models of saying, God, if you don't do this, you must not be real.
SPEAKER_01: We find in some moment, and it's usually very fleeting for me, we find in a moment that God is surprisingly present and something as mundane and regular as breathing.
SPEAKER_01: And so I return to this idea.
SPEAKER_01: I wonder if we don't take God's name in vain when God has to do blank in order for God for us to be in relationship with God instead of God is constantly right here.
SPEAKER_01: God is as close to us as our breath.
SPEAKER_01: And the question is, are we willing to breathe that in, or do we hold our breath and hold God out?
SPEAKER_01: There's another rabbi that's been extremely influential in Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: Actually, most Jewish people don't know about him.
SPEAKER_01: His name's Martin Buber, and it's really appropriate, I think, for this service to hear.
SPEAKER_01: Martin Buber wrote this book called I and Thou.
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you've heard of it before.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Buber talks about revelation and inspiration, and he says basically there's two kinds of fundamental relationships in the world.
SPEAKER_01: There's the ones between that we have between subjects and objects.
SPEAKER_01: That's called the I-I it.
SPEAKER_01: That is, our relationship is predicated on what you do for me.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's the other kind of relationship, which is called I thou.
SPEAKER_01: This works better in German because in German um there's a you formal and there's a you polite.
SPEAKER_01: It turns out English used to have that too.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we say thy, thee, and thou.
SPEAKER_01: That is the um that is the um the informal.
SPEAKER_01: That's the language you use between uh your parents and your deepest friends, and notice that's the language that shows up in this service.
SPEAKER_01: And with thy spirit is actually not formal.
SPEAKER_01: It's informal.
SPEAKER_01: Your is formal in English.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're wondering why we don't say the and thy and thou anymore.
SPEAKER_01: It's because the Quakers about uh 150 years ago decided that they should be informal with everybody.
SPEAKER_01: They use the thy vow with everybody, even with strangers, to take this kinship and the family of God seriously.
SPEAKER_01: And everybody else was so put off that they only started to use the formal.
SPEAKER_01: That's when we dropped the thy vow and only went to your, the more formal.
SPEAKER_01: So actually, this eight o'clock service that we do, this right one, is based not on formality, it's based on relationship and intimacy.
SPEAKER_01: Buber says that we have these moments of transcendence, and maybe they only happen for moments.
SPEAKER_01: He says, if you're trying to make it happen, it never will.
SPEAKER_01: He says, if you're in one of those moments with your spouse or with your child with a coworker, and you think this is an I thou relationship, it's over.
SPEAKER_01: Because you just wrapped language around it and packaged it up so that it could no longer be free.
SPEAKER_01: And Buber says, when God says to Moses, I am who I am, when God says, What God is really saying is, I'll be right there.
SPEAKER_01: That is, with every breath you take, I am right there waiting for an I thou relationship with you, if you'll stop settling for an I it relationship where you try to tell me what to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's really interesting because the Christianity I internalized was that God is always telling me what to do.
SPEAKER_01: If I would do just this more, God God would love me more.
SPEAKER_01: I would please God more.
SPEAKER_01: I would get more jewels in my heavenly crown.
SPEAKER_01: And what it ended up teaching me, of course, is that I should always critique the spirituality of other people.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of taking this idea seriously, that God is in every single one of these.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, this isn't unique to the Hebrew Bible.
SPEAKER_01: If you know anything about the Indus Valley Civilization, the word for your spirit is the word Atman, and it's your breath, it's your spirit.
SPEAKER_01: In Hebrew, that's ruach.
SPEAKER_01: We've been taught that your soul lives in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: In the Bible, your soul is right here.
SPEAKER_01: It's your larynx.
SPEAKER_01: Because when you can't do this anymore, you're gone.
SPEAKER_01: This word ruach and Atman, this is like if you know anything about karate, this is your qi.
SPEAKER_01: It's your life force.
SPEAKER_01: And there is something very analogous to the chakras that maybe you've heard of before.
SPEAKER_01: In Hebrew, those are called the Sephiroth, and it's part of this mystical part called the Kabbalah.
SPEAKER_01: You can go a lot into breath.
SPEAKER_01: The truth is, I think very few of us, maybe I'll just talk about myself, I don't live with God from breath to breath.
SPEAKER_01: I look for way bigger things.
SPEAKER_01: I look for God to meet my expectations.
SPEAKER_01: I look to meet God's expectations before I'm more loved.
SPEAKER_01: And here is God showing up and saying, My name is something so regular and ordinary that it is always right with you.
SPEAKER_01: This is sort of like in the Quran, which says, God is closer to you than your jugular vein.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, the thing closer than your jugular is your larynx.
SPEAKER_01: What does that have to do with what Jesus says?
SPEAKER_01: Part of this is mystical and it's about being close with God, and it's about being close with other people based on who they are instead of who I want them to be.
SPEAKER_01: And to be honest, if I could do that, I'd be a joyful person pretty much all the time.
SPEAKER_01: If I had one wish from a genie, it wouldn't be that I would have unlimited resources because eventually I'd be afraid they'd run out.
SPEAKER_01: I like to think I'd use my wish to say I'd be perfectly happy with exactly who I am.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is what breathing's about.
SPEAKER_01: And I also think from that point of joy is where the justice of this story shows up.
SPEAKER_01: Because this isn't just about having some personal edifying relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: This is about Moses going to Pharaoh and a people who are bound up in bondage and saying, Let my people go.
SPEAKER_01: Whose people?
SPEAKER_01: The people who are to be freed are the ones who are breathing, regardless of their skin color or their culture, regardless of their deities or their religious practice.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where I think we can read the story as a history lesson, or we can read the story as a fundamental spiritual value, that God desires the freedom and dignity of every single thing that draws life and breath on the planet, and that Pharaoh, uh, the people were not delivered from Pharaoh just once.
SPEAKER_01: God demands deliverance from the pharaohs of our own day, because after all, everybody, especially the people who bother you, are worshiping God because they're alive.
SPEAKER_01: We have this great sense that you do not kill somebody in their piety.
SPEAKER_01: You let them pray, and then you take them to the gallows.
SPEAKER_01: This sense is saying, right, God is saying, if you're breathing, you're in a moment of piety.
SPEAKER_01: And so we are compelled to respect our fellow human beings because just by being alive, God's name is flowing in and out of them.
SPEAKER_01: And that means I think taking up our cross is an inward and outward journey.
SPEAKER_01: Remember this word Satan, it means accuser.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm really good at accusing God of not meeting my expectations.
SPEAKER_01: I'm really good at accusing myself of not meeting God's expectations.
SPEAKER_01: I'm really good at accusing my brother and my sister of getting what they deserve.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of having an opportunity to share something with them as fundamental as breathing.
SPEAKER_01: And God asks us to let those parts of ourselves die.
SPEAKER_01: To take up our cross is to resist all of this toxic and divisive spirituality.
SPEAKER_01: It is to stop being administrators in Pharaoh's regime.
SPEAKER_01: And it starts, I think, or it can start, with just a simple, deep act of worship.
SPEAKER_01: Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.
SPEAKER_01: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
SPEAKER_01: We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten the Father, God of God, lightly light, true God and true God, begotten our name, and one being God.
SPEAKER_01: Through all things of men, our salvation, taking God in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became and was in.
unknown: For our day he was crucified and conscious by suffering and spirit.
SPEAKER_01: On the third day he rose again, and according to the scriptures, he ascended in heaven and is sitting at the right hand of God.
unknown: With the Holy Son of God, that's something to God.
SPEAKER_03: For the peace from above, from the loving kindness of God, and for the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For the peace of the world, for the welfare of the Holy Church of God, and for the unity of all peoples, let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For the people and clergy of the church, for our bishops and other ministers, the priest in our community, Mike, Craig, Bill, and Lillian, our bishops Andy, Hector, Jeff, and Kay in the Diocese of Texas, Holy Comforter Spring, Holy Family Church, Plant Humble, and St.
SPEAKER_03: Aiden's Cyprus, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin, and our presiding bishop, Michael.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For our parish and our vestry, that the source of wisdom may guide us, the source of strength may support us, and the source of love may unify us.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For St.
SPEAKER_03: Thomas the Apostle's School, that those who teach and those who learn may rejoice in the knowledge of your truth, that we may teach our students to love whatever is just and true and good, and that we may be bearers of your grace to all who come through our doors.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For all who have governed 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 signs of your dominion everywhere.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For this city, for every city, especially those who have been in the path of Hurricane Laura and community, and for those who live in them.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For the good earth which God has given us, and for the wisdom and will to conserve it.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For the aged and infirm, for the widowed and orphaned, for the sick and the suffering, especially Chris, Jerry, Sean, Jerome, Chris, Susie, Ted, Andrea, Kevin, Ron, Joe, and Nancy.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: The congregations invited to name their own celebrations or petitions silently or aloud.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For the poor and oppressed, for the unemployed and the destitute, for prisoners and captives, and for all those who remember and care for them.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For all who have died in the hope of the resurrection, and for all the departed.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For deliverance from all danger, violence, oppression, and degradation.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: That we may end our lives in faith and hope, without suffering and without reproach.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: In the communion of St.
SPEAKER_03: Thomas and all the saints, let us commend ourselves and one another and all our life to Christ our God.
SPEAKER_01: Thee, O Lord, our God.
SPEAKER_01: Let us humbly confess our sins unto Almighty God.
SPEAKER_01: We confess, our Father, that we do not live up to the family name.
SPEAKER_01: We are more ready to resent than to forgive, more ready to manipulate than to serve, more ready to fear than to love, more ready to keep our distance than to invite and welcome, more ready to compete than to help.
SPEAKER_01: At the root of this behavior is mistrust.
SPEAKER_01: We do not love one another as we should, because we do not believe that you love us as you do.
SPEAKER_01: Forgive us our cold unbelief, and make more vivid to us the meaning and depth of your love at the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Show us what it costs you to give up your Son that we might become your daughters and sons.
SPEAKER_01: We ask this in the name of Jesus our righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: The Almighty and Merciful Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sins, true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And now the socially distanced peace of the Lord be always with you.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning, all, and just a few announcements to raise up.
SPEAKER_01: Yesterday we hosted our monthly food distribution, and we saw 84 cars come in in about an hour and a half, representing 399 people, and$22,000 worth of food distributed, which is just extremely amazing.
SPEAKER_01: Our sisters and brothers over here at St.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's have been doing this on a weekly basis with the Houston Food Bank, and we're doing it with the Galveston Food Bank once a month.
SPEAKER_01: And so what's curious is that we're hitting different clientele.
SPEAKER_01: And so thank you for continuing to come out and serve and also to offer this room really to take care of the least of these in our community.
SPEAKER_01: Next Sunday starts a several week series on race and intersectionality.
SPEAKER_01: I'm really pleased to tell you next week one of our retired professors of psychology from U of HCL is going to present on the roots of racism in human psychology.
SPEAKER_01: And there'll be opportunities for both communication, conversation around her presentation, and some resource presentations to help connect you with resources so that we can not just know more but be more transformed in light of these conversations.
SPEAKER_01: So that's every Sunday morning beginning at go from 9 to 10, and it's it's it's a Zoom meeting, and that begins next Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: We're in the middle of a drive here to try to equip students at McWerder.
SPEAKER_01: This is our sister Title I elementary school.
SPEAKER_01: So 80% of the families there are at or below the poverty level.
SPEAKER_01: Most of them are receiving not reduced lunch, but free lunch.
SPEAKER_01: And they've asked, as usual, uh, can we supply backpacks and school supplies?
SPEAKER_01: You'll find information for that online.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, a few people have said, hey, I don't feel comfortable going shopping.
SPEAKER_01: Are there people at St.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas that will go shopping if we contribute funds?
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is of course, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Um they've also asked for us to supply masks to their students because they can't return to school without masks.
SPEAKER_01: Uh they've asked us for a nine, well, they've identified their need as 900.
SPEAKER_01: Um I'd love to see us figure that out.
SPEAKER_01: Um, whether we do it ourselves or we talk to people at work and say, I think you sew.
SPEAKER_01: Would you help make some masks for kids who go to McWorder?
SPEAKER_01: Because parents who have to pick between buying a kid a mask and paying their rent, it's pretty obvious what they're gonna pick.
SPEAKER_01: So uh we we really just want to make that decision easy so that these students have access to school.
SPEAKER_01: And um thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Many people have already hopped on this and and are um I haven't done the count yet, but um we're we're we're on our way.
SPEAKER_01: Um I think that's enough.
SPEAKER_01: So a reminder when we receive Eucharist, we're we're bread only for now, and I'll come to each aisle.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'll come, I'll start here in the center aisle, and please come to the aisle to your right, receive, and then go back around for your seat.
SPEAKER_01: So I'll come to these three aisles.
SPEAKER_01: Continue to walk in love as Christ first loved us and gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_01: All things come of thee, O Lord.
SPEAKER_01: This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more.
SPEAKER_01: 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_01: You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.
SPEAKER_01: Not because the church invites you, it is Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He invites you to meet him here.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_01: Lift up your hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: It is very meet and right, and our bound in duty that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee, O Lord, holy Father Almighty, everlasting God.
SPEAKER_01: 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_01: Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.
SPEAKER_01: 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_01: And at 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_01: 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_01: For in the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, and when he given thanks to thee, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_01: This is my body which is given for you.
SPEAKER_01: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_01: Likewise after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, and when he given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink this all of you.
SPEAKER_01: This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for all for the remission of sins.
SPEAKER_01: Do this as often as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_01: 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_01: 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_01: 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_01: 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_01: And also that we and all thy whole church may be made one body with him, that he might dwell in us, and we in him, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, 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_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.
SPEAKER_01: 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_01: 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_01: For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: These are the gifts of God for you, the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: Feed on them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.