Rightly Representing What We Believe about God

 24 Pentecost 26B November 3, 2024
Ruth 1:1-18 Psalm 146
Hebrews 9:11-14 Mark 12:28-34

Lectionary Link

Jesus was not from the line of Levi so he was not in the priestly lineage.  But in the metaphorical titles that the early church gave to Jesus, he was a prophet, a priest, and a king.  The early church believed that he was the superlative case and the essence of what being prophet, priest, and king means.

The writer of the book of Hebrews confesses Jesus as the great heavenly High Priest, deriving from the pre-Levite figure of Melchizedek, the mysterious King/priest of Salem who received tithes from Abraham.

According to the writer of the book of Hebrews, the Risen Christ intercedes at the heavenly altar for humanity.  The essence of intercession is offering the service of one's life for others in words of prayer and in deeds of life.

In our appointed Gospel, Jesus replied to the scribe that loving God and one's neighbor was more important than the entire system of animal sacrifices the offerings of which were one of the main functions of the Temple priests.

The animal sacrificial system of Judaism was replaced by the followers of Jesus in asking disciples to be living sacrifices, offering the entirety of ones words and deeds as being on behalf of loving God and our neighbors.

And who is our neighbors?  As much as the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament seem to the text books for Judaism and Christianity, they both indicate that God regards everyone to be neighbors as people made in the image of God.

However, in human community, the human situation of everyone does not turn out to be equal in dignity and in favorable circumstances.   Holy Scriptures proclaims teachings to equalize the situation for those not so fortunate.  The Psalmist wrote that God cares for the stranger and sustains the widow and the orphan.  The great Law to love God and our neighbors as ourselves is divine law to equalize the blessing among all people and to alleviate the conditions of deprivation for the suffering.

And that brings us to the example of Ruth?  Who is Ruth?  She is a foreigner, a Moabite, and a widow.  She has a deep affection for her mother-in-law Naomi, and after her husband and father-in-law had died, she decides to go with Naomi in her return to her native Judah.  Ruth was a foreigner and a widow in Judah, but she met Boaz who manifested a care for her, a widow, and she faired well as a foreigner in Judah.  In fact, she as a foreigner is listed in the messianic lineage of Jesus.

The message for us today is that we are to represent the truth about God to our world.  What is the truth about God?  God cares for the vulnerable, and we are given the great commands to love God and our neighbor to practice a equalizing love and justice to represent in the very best way that God cares for the vulnerable.

Let us endeavor to rightly represent the God who cares for all our neighbors, especially those most vulnerable.  Amen.

Sunday School, November 3, 2024 24 Pentecost B 26, All Saints' Sunday

  Sunday School, November 3, 2024  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.

 

Intergenerational Family Service with Holy Eucharist

November 3, 2024: The Twenty-Fourth Sunday and All Saints' Sunday

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! 

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

Lectionary Link

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.

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!