Showing posts with label B Proper 26. Show all posts
Showing posts with label B Proper 26. Show all posts

Sunday, October 31, 2021

God, What Can I Do to Get into Where I Already Am?

23 Pentecost 26B October 31, 2021
Deuteronomy 6:1-9 Psalm 119:1-8
Hebrews 9:11-14 Mark 12:28-34







How can one agree with Jesus about the law and still just be near the kingdom of God and not in it?  Sounds like another word riddle of the Gospels; distinctions without difference or what?  Why the word games or is there some highly nuanced spiritual and religious point?

And the solution to the word riddle of Jesus is this.  How does one do better things, associate with the right people, have the correct religious pedigree so that I can get into the room where I am not standing?

What do I have to do Jesus to get into the room where I am already?

Jesus if I agree with you that loving God and loving my neighbor are the greatest of the laws, will that allow me to get into the room where I am?

Can we appreciate the wisdom of Jesus.  You can't get to somewhere that you already are, so what is the big problem?

The problem is our internal alienation, the lack of understanding regarding the extent of God's realm in space and time.

What is the internal alienation?  Why is it that I don't think God's realm is already my location?  If I am not living in God's realm, then whose realm am I living in?

I live and move and have my being in my house, in my city, in my state, in my country, in my hemisphere, on the earth, in the solar system, in the universe, and in God, in totality, within the edges of the expanding universe.

If we can conceive of the universe as as location, then what realm is beyond the universe physically and spiritually in complete inner space, the totality of the inner lives of all people who ever have or can exist; what realm is beyond?  And do I not live there?

There was a total realm which pre-dated my existence; there will be a total realm which will post-date my death in my body.

What kind of internal alienation prevails to believe that the lesser realms are final and determining of my entire life?

Jesus was trying to teach biblical cosmology.  "Sorry, you religious people, you cannot be more religious to attain the status of being made in God's image and belonging to God in God's realm."  You cannot erase the image of the divine from your life; you can deny your heavenly parentage, but your heavenly parent will not deny the divine genetics of your life and the location of your life in space and time.

You are God's and you live and move and have your being in God and you cannot doing anything to get and be what you already are.

The Gospel program of Jesus is to deprogram us from our alienation about who we are and about the telling and most significant realm of life, the kingdom of God.

Why do people need to be deprogrammed?  Because they have been alienated from reality.

One might characterize a large sector of our population today as being alienated from reality.  Many people have come to believe lies as truth, science as unbelieveable, and many religious people have re-defined the kingdom of God as their own little groups with Q-Anon like reality of existence.

There are religious people today who say you have to believe their politics and their predictions about political leaders to really be in God's kingdom and be the true believers.  Any program of exclusivity is false, because one can never make oneself more in the Realm of God.  That was done and established long before we came into this world.

So what is the point Jesus?  The point is accepting that one lives and moves and has one's being in God, and being contained in God, one has access to the Spirit of God to engage in the human vocation with excellence.

Being in the kingdom of God, what is our vocation?  To love God and our neighbor and to have the Spirit of God help us to do this well.

If one is trying to promote that one is more correct, of a better race, have a superior baptism, have more of the Spirit, belong to the largest group of correct believers, of the correct sexual orientation, as a marker of knowing God better, one has missed the point of Jesus.  One persists in alienation.

There are many superior religious people in our country who believe they are more in the kingdom of God than others, as if their little formula of asking Jesus into their heart got them into the kingdom.

No, you can't get somewhere, where you already are, and that is Gospel of Jesus.  Don't keep adding born again rules, salvation rules to try to prove you did the right thing to get where you already are.

God made you and the entire place where you reside; accept that humbly and then accept the flow through the arteries of the universe, the Spirit of God to go forth and love God and our neighbors.  Amen.


Monday, October 25, 2021

Sunday School, October 31, 2021 23 Pentecost B 26, Eve of All Saints'

 Sunday School, October 31, 2021  23 Pentecost B 26


Themes:

All laws are not equal in importance.  For example, it is more important not to kill than not to jay walk, even though both laws have special use. 
A religious man wanted to hear from Jesus about which laws of the 601 laws were the most important.  Jesus said, “Love God and love your neighbor as yourselves.”
If we work to please God and do what is fair to our neighbors all of the time, then we will be keeping the most important laws.

Some time we might like to replace religious laws for the more important laws.  For example, if some people made an animal sacrifice to keep a religious law, would that stand in place of having to tell the truth?
If we come to church because we think that it is a religious law for us, do we think that we can lie and steal because we have gone to church?

The practice of less important laws cannot replace the practice of the greatest laws.

The saints are those who became famous models for us because they were successful at keeping the law to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  If that is what we are doing in our lives, then we are learning how to be saints too.

Sermon

  Today is All Saints Sunday and in our lessons from Holy Scripture we have read about read about the law.  We read the charge that Moses gave to the children of Israel.  He told them that when they went into the Promised Land, that the Law was to be the crucial identity of their lives.  Today, we believe with the advent of the T-shirt, clothes became the billboard for textual messages of all sorts.  In our day, a T-shirt allows a person to literally wear their language.  But what is our relationship to the text that we wear.  What textual message could I wear that I could live up to?  My T-shirt could read, “I am a gray and balding older man.”  Well, that would be true.
  Long before textual T-shirts, the people of the Hebrew and Jewish faith have worn their texts.  Part of the prayer costume for Jews includes phylacteries.  These are leather boxes with the text of the Torah written within them.  They are strapped around the head and on the wrist.  They literally are the worn text of the Torah and they fulfilled this command of Moses:   “Bind the words of the commandments as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead.”  In a very symbolic way the writing of the commandments worn on the hand and the forehead state the principle that the commandment cannot remain a dead letter upon the page; the commandments has to take control of one’s thought life and the commandments have to be internalized into our hands, into our actions and body language.
  What can happen instead of the Torah living in our minds and in our actions?  We can replace justice and fairness by devising a series of religious ritual behaviors to stand in place of actually doing justice.  So, it became a practice to make the religious sacrifices of the prescribed animals and that kind of religious behavior was done, while the orphans and the widows went without food.  So prescribe religious ritual behavior became a substitute for living a life of justice, compassion and care.  Ritual behavior is easier than justice.  It is very messy business to try to bring justice to everyone.  Clergy are happy with ritual behavior; the ancient priests of Israel could get some of the best cuts of meat for their own tables with the prescribed animal sacrifices.  Clergy can fund the church and their jobs with prescribe obligatory religious and ritual behavior; okay so you’re not perfect and justice is not realized in society, but just come, give your tithe, make your confession, receive your absolution and go to Mass, and you get a clean slate.
 
 On All Saints Day, we confess Jesus to be the Saint of Saints.  Jesus is the Law of all Laws.  When one speaks in generalizations about faith communities, one would say that the Torah or the Law is central to Judaism.  But what is central to Christianity is Jesus Christ.  In Jesus Christ, the message of God does not come on stone tablets as written laws; in Jesus Christ, God comes as embracing the entire personhood.  What is greater?  Writing or Personhood?  Even though language and writing are what make human beings the unique creature, the appearance of God in a human being bespeaks a belief that human beings can only access that which is greater than human life, through human life.  Our belief in Jesus Christ is a belief that God does not just communicate through writing on stone tablets; God embraces the entire human experience as a way for us to know and celebrate the fact that being human, also means recognizing that life involves a recognition of life that is more than human.  It is the more than human life of God that comes to us in the Jesus Christ.
And what it reveals to us is that in a world of time, we are always invited to be More than we are right now.  We are always invited to surpass ourselves in excellence.  Believing in God means that we believe in the immensity of the quantity of future occasions of existence and those future occasions invite us to further invention, further creativity, further excellence.
  The future will likely change the details of human law of the past.  Why?  Because love always requires the details and strategies of love to be worked out in new situations.  We write laws and will continue to writer laws in new situations because love and justice are not fixed states of what can ever be permanently attained.  Practicing love and justice is never completed; we have to keep at it again and again.  As much as the founders of our country believed in their laws that “all people were created equal” they were blinded to achieve that in their actions as long as they accepted tacitly the practice of slavery and the subjugation of women.  Our founders preached a beautiful law and justice but at the same time, they did not fully realize law as a full completion of the work of justice.
  This never finished work of love and justice is perhaps the chief reason that Jesus settled for the summary of all of the law into just two laws; love God and love your neighbor as yourself.  St. Paul did a similar reduction when he said that love fulfills the law.
  Does this mean that love and law are opposed to each other?  Of course not.  Law is the strategy that love and justice need to be actually practiced.  We write laws as approximations of what good and just living means in actual practice.  And how do we know?  Well, you ask people; and people will tell you when they think something is fair or just in how they are treated. 
  All of the written laws can be reduced to love because love is not just having the law written as text on a T-shirt.  Love is not placing little boxes of Torah on your forehead and hand.  Love is when my hands perform deeds of kinds; love is when my thought think thoughts of kindness.  When our body language performs and acts deeds of love and kindness, then we become living law.  We become the law of love and justice.
  And who is it who was the perfect example in life of law and justice?  It was Jesus Christ.  He was the living law.  He was God’s law in Person.  He was love and justice personified.  And on All Saints Sunday, who do we call saints?  We call saints those who embodied love and justice in their very deeds.  These were not people who gave us legal texts on how we should live; they were people who showed how to live by the example of their lives.  They were “living laws.”
  So on All Saints Sunday, we are invited to personify the law and the justice of Christ.  We can be articulate and brilliant in legal reasoning, but law is most effective when we see it in practice.  Children are perhaps the most impressionable when they cannot speak and when they cannot read.  So in the first three years of their lives they are formed mostly by the people who model what it is to be human for them.  Parents and mentors are the living law for the impressionable children.
  But we never lose our childlike impressionability; we forever have this need to be impressed.  And what are we most impressed by?  By the living practice of love and kindness.  We are impressed when we experience justice and fairness.
  All Saints Sunday is a time to celebrate those who lived love and justice with their lives.  It is a time for us to embrace what is saintly in life.  It is time for us to internalize love and justice and let love and justice be lived through every word and deed of our lives.
  Today, we sing the song of the saints of God, and we pray, “God help me to be one too.  God help me to be love and kindness in word and deeds.”  Amen.
 



Intergenerational Family Service with Holy Eucharist
October 31, 2021: The Twenty-Third-Sunday after Pentecost and Eve of All Saints'

Gathering Songs: When the Saints; O Come Let Us Adore Him, Jesus Stand Among Us; God Is So Good

Liturgist: Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
People: And blessed be God’s kingdom, now and for ever.  Amen.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.
And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.
Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Song: When The Saints Go Marching In
When the saints go marching in, when the saints go marching in.  Lord I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in.
When the girls go marching in…..
When the boys go marching in….


Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.
People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray
Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your gift that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service: Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Litany Phrase: Alleluia (chanted)

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia
O God, you have made us! Alleluia
O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Alleluia
O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Alleluia
O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Alleluia
O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia
O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Alleluia

A reading from the book of Deuteronomy
Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord
People: Thanks be to God
   
Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 119

5  Oh, that my ways were made so direct * that I might keep your statutes!
6  Then I should not be put to shame, * when I regard all your commandments.
7  I will thank you with an unfeigned heart, * when I have learned your righteous judgments.


Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

Litanist:
For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!
For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!
For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!
For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!
For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!
For work and for play. Thanks be to God!
For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!
For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!
For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.
Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark
People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.
One of the scribes came near and heard the Saducees disputing with one another, and seeing that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?" Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Then the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that 'he is one, and besides him there is no other'; and 'to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,' and 'to love one's neighbor as oneself,'--this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." After that no one dared to ask him any question.


Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.
People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon:  Fr. Phil

Children’s Creed

We did not make ourselves, so we believe that God the Father is the maker of the world.
Since God is so great and we are so small,
We believe God came into our world and was born as Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.
We need God’s help and we believe that God saved us by the life, death and
     resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We believe that God is present with us now as the Holy Spirit.
We believe that we are baptized into God’s family the Church where everyone is
     welcome.
We believe that Christ is kind and fair.
We believe that we have a future in knowing Jesus Christ.
And since we all must die, we believe that God will preserve us forever.  Amen.

Litany Phrase: Christ, have mercy. (chanted)

For fighting and war to cease in our world. Christ, have mercy.
For peace on earth and good will towards all. Christ, have mercy.
For the safety of all who travel. Christ, have mercy.
For jobs for all who need them. Christ, have mercy.
For care of those who are growing old. Christ, have mercy.
For the safety, health and nutrition of all the children in our world. Christ, have mercy.
For the well-being of our families and friends. Christ, have mercy.
For the good health of those we know to be ill. Christ, have mercy.
For the remembrance of those who have died. Christ, have mercy.
For the forgiveness of all our sins. Christ, have mercy.

Liturgist:         The Peace of the Lord be always with you.
People:            And also with you.

Song during the preparation of the Altar and the receiving of an offering.

Song for the Offertory: O Come, Let Us Adore Him (Renew # 1)
O come, let us adore him; O come, let us adore him; O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.
We’ll give him all the glory.  We’ll give him all the glory; we’ll give him all the glory, Christ the Lord.
For he alone is worthy.  For he alone is worthy.  For he alone is worthy, Christ the Lord.
We’ll praise his name forever.  We’ll praise his name forever.  We’ll praise his name forever, Christ the Lord.

Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.


Prologue to the Eucharist
Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of heaven.”
All become members of a family by birth or adoption.
Baptism is a celebration of birth into the family of God.
A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.
The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you
And also with you.

Lift up your hearts
We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.
It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.  Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 
Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

All may gather around the altar

Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;
You have made us in your image
And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:
Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.
And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph
And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.
Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat
  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  
  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

The Prayer continues with these words

And so, Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and wine. Bless and sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Bless and sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."
After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, "Drink this, all of you. This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death and resurrection of Christ and that his presence will be with us in our future.

Let this holy meal keep us together as friends who share a special relationship because of your Son Jesus Christ.  May we forever live with praise to God to whom we belong as sons and daughters.

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory
 is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. Amen.

And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing,


Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)
Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.
Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.
As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.
But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.
Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.
Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Alleluia! Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia!

Words of Administration

Communion Song:  Jesus Stand Among Us (Renew # 237)
1-Jesus, stand among us in your risen power; let this time of worship be a hallowed hour.
2-Breathe the Holy Spirit into every heart; bid the fears and sorrows from each soul depart.


Post-Communion Prayer

Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;
We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.
And His Presence has been known to us.
We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers
    and sisters in Christ.
Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the
     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,
As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Closing Song: God is So Good (# 31 in  All the Best)
1-God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He’s so good to me.
2-He cares for me, He cares for me, He cares for me, He’s so good to me.
3-I’ll do His will, I’ll do his will, I’ll do his will, He so good to me.
4-He is my Lord, He is my Lord, He is my Lord, He’s so good to me.


Dismissal:   
Liturgist: Let us go forth in the Name of Christ. 
People: Thanks be to God! 

Sunday, November 4, 2018

Near or Far to the Kingdom of God?


24 Pentecost 26B     November 04, 2018
Deuteronomy 6:1-9 Psalm 119:1-8
Hebrews 9:11-14 Mark 12:28-34
Lectionary Link

After a legal discussion with a scribe, Jesus told him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

What was the legal discussion about?  They discussed the fact that not all laws are equal, and we know that too. All all laws might have circumstantial relevance for social order.  The laws forbidding killing, stealing and lying, are more important than the laws about cleaning up after your dog, but if you don't clean up after your dog, your neighbor may want some intervention enforcement.

Why did the scribe ask a question to Jesus about the greatest laws?  There are 613 laws in the Hebrew Scriptures and lots of those laws are about religious practice and ritual practice.

Of all of the laws, which did Jesus cite as most important?  Love God, love your neighbor as yourself.

The scribe agreed with Jesus and added that these laws are more important than burnt offering and sacrifices.  Loving behaviors toward God and toward each other are more important than religious practice.  Now if I say that too often, I will put myself out of business and maybe I have since many don't see a connection between what happens in church and what happens outside of church.  If you can love God and your neighbors without religious practice, then the church and the clergy and all the rules are not needed.

What are some of the insights for us from the great laws of loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves?

The first insight is the assumption that we as human beings can love God and can love our neighbors as ourselves.  That is quite an optimistic belief about humanity.  It actually means that our basic identity in life is to be "lovers,"  lovers of God and each other.

Another insight might be that if God is all sufficient, why does God need our love?  We, as people, need love, but why does God want our love?

God wants our love because to activate the best love within us means we can only direct our love toward what is perfect.  This is why loving God and loving our neighbor go together.  We are not perfect enough to be worthy of love; we prove this often with our behaviors.  Our love has to be activated toward Someone greater than us so that we can love our neighbors and love ourselves.  How else could we tolerate ourselves unless we can see a perfectible future?

If God is love and we are made in the image of God then God has planted this great big love engine within each of us.  It sometimes goes by other names; desire, preservation instinct, will to power, or hope.  This engine of love within us can be wrongly interpreted and it can be thwarted when we love wrongly.  That is the tenth commandment: Thou shalt not covet.  Thou shall not love in ways harmful to your well-being and the well-being of your community.  The wrongful use of our love engine occurs when we create idols.  We focus our desires on things, people and activities when we demand them to satisfy us, we end up addicted, disillusioned, disappointed or bad habits which we tolerate they don't "hurt" anyone except ourselves.  Why do we love wrongly?  Because NO THING and NO ONE can be omni-competent to our needs.  So we need to direct our love toward God the great One who then gives us regulatory power to channel our desires toward enjoyment and good stewardship for the things in our lives and blessed fellowship with the people of our lives.  We need to love God beyond humanity to help us gain regulatory control over our behaviors toward others and toward ourselves.

If we can discover God as love and ourselves as lovers of God and others, then we realize that laws are strategies in society for the practice of loving behaviors.  We don't perform lawful behaviors in order to gain favor with God and get into the kingdom of God; we perform lawful behaviors because we are already in the kingdom of God and we are learning to tame our big engines of love by directing it first to God, whom only is worthy. And in so doing we learn regulatory control of our selves which enables us to perform the good behaviors of law and love toward each other.


Friends remember that God has made us lovers.  Love is so powerful that it needs regulatory control as expressed in behaviors of empathy for our neighbors based upon knowing the love of self-esteem.

Being near or far from the kingdom of God is a switch that we have within ourselves.  All we have to do is to say, yes I have been made for love.  And with God's help we make the vocation of our lives to love God and our neighbors as ourselves.  Amen

Friday, November 2, 2018

Sunday School, November 4, 2018 24 Pentecost B 26, All Saints Sunday

Sunday School, November 4, 2018  24 Pentecost B 26, All Saints Sunday

Themes:

All laws are not equal in importance.  For example, it is more important not to kill than not to jay walk, even though both laws have special use. 
A religious man wanted to hear from Jesus about which laws of the 601 laws were the most important.  Jesus said, “Love God and love your neighbor as yourselves.”
If we work to please God and do what is fair to our neighbors all of the time, then we will be keeping the most important laws.

Some time we might like to replace religious laws for the more important laws.  For example, if some people made an animal sacrifice to keep a religious law, would that stand in place of having to tell the truth?
If we come to church because we think that it is a religious law for us, do we think that we can lie and steal because we have gone to church?

The practice of less important laws cannot replace the practice of the greatest laws.

The saints are those who became famous models for us because they were successful at keeping the law to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  If that is what we are doing in our lives, then we are learning how to be saints too.

Sermon

  Today is All Saints Sunday and in our lessons from Holy Scripture we have read about read about the law.  We read the charge that Moses gave to the children of Israel.  He told them that when they went into the Promised Land, that the Law was to be the crucial identity of their lives.  Today, we believe with the advent of the T-shirt, clothes became the billboard for textual messages of all sorts.  In our day, a T-shirt allows a person to literally wear their language.  But what is our relationship to the text that we wear.  What textual message could I wear that I could live up to?  My T-shirt could read, “I am a gray and balding older man.”  Well, that would be true.
  Long before textual T-shirts, the people of the Hebrew and Jewish faith have worn their texts.  Part of the prayer costume for Jews includes phylacteries.  These are leather boxes with the text of the Torah written within them.  They are strapped around the head and on the wrist.  They literally are the worn text of the Torah and they fulfilled this command of Moses:   “Bind the words of the commandments as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead.”  In a very symbolic way the writing of the commandments worn on the hand and the forehead state the principle that the commandment cannot remain a dead letter upon the page; the commandments has to take control of one’s thought life and the commandments have to be internalized into our hands, into our actions and body language.
  What can happen instead of the Torah living in our minds and in our actions?  We can replace justice and fairness by devising a series of religious ritual behaviors to stand in place of actually doing justice.  So, it became a practice to make the religious sacrifices of the prescribed animals and that kind of religious behavior was done, while the orphans and the widows went without food.  So prescribe religious ritual behavior became a substitute for living a life of justice, compassion and care.  Ritual behavior is easier than justice.  It is very messy business to try to bring justice to everyone.  Clergy are happy with ritual behavior; the ancient priests of Israel could get some of the best cuts of meat for their own tables with the prescribed animal sacrifices.  Clergy can fund the church and their jobs with prescribe obligatory religious and ritual behavior; okay so you’re not perfect and justice is not realized in society, but just come, give your tithe, make your confession, receive your absolution and go to Mass, and you get a clean slate.
  On All Saints Day, we confess Jesus to be the Saint of Saints.  Jesus is the Law of all Laws.  When one speaks in generalizations about faith communities, one would say that the Torah or the Law is central to Judaism.  But what is central to Christianity is Jesus Christ.  In Jesus Christ, the message of God does not come on stone tablets as written laws; in Jesus Christ, God comes as embracing the entire personhood.  What is greater?  Writing or Personhood?  Even though language and writing are what make human beings the unique creature, the appearance of God in a human being bespeaks a belief that human beings can only access that which is greater than human life, through human life.  Our belief in Jesus Christ is a belief that God does not just communicate through writing on stone tablets; God embraces the entire human experience as a way for us to know and celebrate the fact that being human, also means recognizing that life involves a recognition of life that is more than human.  It is the more than human life of God that comes to us in the Jesus Christ.
And what it reveals to us is that in a world of time, we are always invited to be More than we are right now.  We are always invited to surpass ourselves in excellence.  Believing in God means that we believe in the immensity of the quantity of future occasions of existence and those future occasions invite us to further invention, further creativity, further excellence.
  The future will likely change the details of human law of the past.  Why?  Because love always requires the details and strategies of love to be worked out in new situations.  We write laws and will continue to writer laws in new situations because love and justice are not fixed states of what can ever be permanently attained.  Practicing love and justice is never completed; we have to keep at it again and again.  As much as the founders of our country believed in their laws that “all people were created equal” they were blinded to achieve that in their actions as long as they accepted tacitly the practice of slavery and the subjugation of women.  Our founders preached a beautiful law and justice but at the same time, they did not fully realize law as a full completion of the work of justice.
  This never finished work of love and justice is perhaps the chief reason that Jesus settled for the summary of all of the law into just two laws; love God and love your neighbor as yourself.  St. Paul did a similar reduction when he said that love fulfills the law.
  Does this mean that love and law are opposed to each other?  Of course not.  Law is the strategy that love and justice need to be actually practiced.  We write laws as approximations of what good and just living means in actual practice.  And how do we know?  Well, you ask people; and people will tell you when they think something is fair or just in how they are treated. 
  All of the written laws can be reduced to love because love is not just having the law written as text on a T-shirt.  Love is not placing little boxes of Torah on your forehead and hand.  Love is when my hands perform deeds of kinds; love is when my thought think thoughts of kindness.  When our body language performs and acts deeds of love and kindness, then we become living law.  We become the law of love and justice.
  And who is it who was the perfect example in life of law and justice?  It was Jesus Christ.  He was the living law.  He was God’s law in Person.  He was love and justice personified.  And on All Saints Sunday, who do we call saints?  We call saints those who embodied love and justice in their very deeds.  These were not people who gave us legal texts on how we should live; they were people who showed how to live by the example of their lives.  They were “living laws.”
  So on All Saints Sunday, we are invited to personify the law and the justice of Christ.  We can be articulate and brilliant in legal reasoning, but law is most effective when we see it in practice.  Children are perhaps the most impressionable when they cannot speak and when they cannot read.  So in the first three years of their lives they are formed mostly by the people who model what it is to be human for them.  Parents and mentors are the living law for the impressionable children.
  But we never lose our childlike impressionability; we forever have this need to be impressed.  And what are we most impressed by?  By the living practice of love and kindness.  We are impressed when we experience justice and fairness.
  All Saints Sunday is a time to celebrate those who lived love and justice with their lives.  It is a time for us to embrace what is saintly in life.  It is time for us to internalize love and justice and let love and justice be lived through every word and deed of our lives.
  Today, we sing the song of the saints of God, and we pray, “God help me to be one too.  God help me to be love and kindness in word and deeds.”  Amen.
 


St. John the Divine Episcopal Church
17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037
Family Service with Holy Eucharist
November 4, 2018: The Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Gathering Songs: When the Saints; O Come Let Us Adore Him, Jesus Stand Among Us; God Is So Good

Liturgist: Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
People: And blessed be God’s kingdom, now and for ever.  Amen.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.
And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.
Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Song: When The Saints Go Marching In
When the saints go marching in, when the saints go marching in.  Lord I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in.
When the girls go marching in…..
When the boys go marching in….


Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.
People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray
Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your gift that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service: Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Litany Phrase: Alleluia (chanted)

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia
O God, you have made us! Alleluia
O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Alleluia
O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Alleluia
O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Alleluia
O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia
O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Alleluia

A reading from the book of Deuteronomy
Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord
People: Thanks be to God
   
Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 119

5  Oh, that my ways were made so direct * that I might keep your statutes!
6  Then I should not be put to shame, * when I regard all your commandments.
7  I will thank you with an unfeigned heart, * when I have learned your righteous judgments.


Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

Litanist:
For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!
For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!
For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!
For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!
For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!
For work and for play. Thanks be to God!
For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!
For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!
For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.
Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark
People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.
One of the scribes came near and heard the Saducees disputing with one another, and seeing that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?" Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Then the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that 'he is one, and besides him there is no other'; and 'to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,' and 'to love one's neighbor as oneself,'--this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." After that no one dared to ask him any question.


Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.
People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon:  Fr. Phil

Children’s Creed

We did not make ourselves, so we believe that God the Father is the maker of the world.
Since God is so great and we are so small,
We believe God came into our world and was born as Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.
We need God’s help and we believe that God saved us by the life, death and
     resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We believe that God is present with us now as the Holy Spirit.
We believe that we are baptized into God’s family the Church where everyone is
     welcome.
We believe that Christ is kind and fair.
We believe that we have a future in knowing Jesus Christ.
And since we all must die, we believe that God will preserve us forever.  Amen.

Litany Phrase: Christ, have mercy. (chanted)

For fighting and war to cease in our world. Christ, have mercy.
For peace on earth and good will towards all. Christ, have mercy.
For the safety of all who travel. Christ, have mercy.
For jobs for all who need them. Christ, have mercy.
For care of those who are growing old. Christ, have mercy.
For the safety, health and nutrition of all the children in our world. Christ, have mercy.
For the well-being of our families and friends. Christ, have mercy.
For the good health of those we know to be ill. Christ, have mercy.
For the remembrance of those who have died. Christ, have mercy.
For the forgiveness of all our sins. Christ, have mercy.

Liturgist:         The Peace of the Lord be always with you.
People:            And also with you.

Song during the preparation of the Altar and the receiving of an offering.

Song for the Offertory: O Come, Let Us Adore Him (Renew # 1)
O come, let us adore him; O come, let us adore him; O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.
We’ll give him all the glory.  We’ll give him all the glory; we’ll give him all the glory, Christ the Lord.
For he alone is worthy.  For he alone is worthy.  For he alone is worthy, Christ the Lord.
We’ll praise his name forever.  We’ll praise his name forever.  We’ll praise his name forever, Christ the Lord.

Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.


Prologue to the Eucharist
Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of heaven.”
All become members of a family by birth or adoption.
Baptism is a celebration of birth into the family of God.
A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.
The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you
And also with you.

Lift up your hearts
We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.
It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.  Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 
Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

All may gather around the altar

Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;
You have made us in your image
And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:
Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.
And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph
And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.
Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat
  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  
  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

The Prayer continues with these words

And so, Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and wine. Bless and sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Bless and sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."
After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, "Drink this, all of you. This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death and resurrection of Christ and that his presence will be with us in our future.

Let this holy meal keep us together as friends who share a special relationship because of your Son Jesus Christ.  May we forever live with praise to God to whom we belong as sons and daughters.

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory
 is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. Amen.

And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing,


Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)
Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.
Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.
As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.
But deliver us from evil: Hallowed be thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.
Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.
Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:       Alleluia! Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia!

Words of Administration

Communion Song:  Jesus Stand Among Us (Renew # 237)
1-Jesus, stand among us in your risen power; let this time of worship be a hallowed hour.
2-Breathe the Holy Spirit into every heart; bid the fears and sorrows from each soul depart.


Post-Communion Prayer

Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;
We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.
And His Presence has been known to us.
We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers
    and sisters in Christ.
Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the
     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,
As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Closing Song: God is So Good (# 31 in  All the Best)
1-God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He’s so good to me.
2-He cares for me, He cares for me, He cares for me, He’s so good to me.
3-I’ll do His will, I’ll do his will, I’ll do his will, He so good to me.
4-He is my Lord, He is my Lord, He is my Lord, He’s so good to me.


Dismissal:   
Liturgist: Let us go forth in the Name of Christ. 
People: Thanks be to God! 

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