Breathe Out. Breathe In.

Breathe Out, Breathe In

Reflections on Philippians 2.1-11

Palm Sunday

14 April 2019

Holy Trinity Cathedral

New Westminster BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 14th of April.

Philippians 2.1-11

                  ^2.1If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, ²make my joy complete:  be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.  ³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  ⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.  ⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

                  ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, ⁸he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.

                  ⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

            Thursday afternoons you will usually find me at the Diamond Centre at Vancouver General Hospital participating in a cardiac wellness program.  My hour-long class begins with warm-up exercises, three ten-minute sessions on the various equipment in the gym and then a cool-down period.  We are taught to breathe out when flexing our muscles rather than a tendency on the part of most of us to hold our breaths and to breathe in during the relaxation phase of the exercise.  Often during the cool-down portion of our class we will spend a few minutes quietly breathing in and out, concentrating on deep breathing using our diaphragms, a form of easy meditation.

            Think on it for a moment.  Each time we breathe out, we help our body cleanse itself of the potential toxic effects of carbon dioxide.  We empty our lungs of what is harmful to us in order to breathe in the oxygen and nitrogen that gives life to our bodies.  Thousands of times each day, countless times during our lives, we breathe out and then breathe in, a rhythm of emptying and filling that can include the wider world in which we live and move and have our being.

            In 1987 the Faculty of Vancouver School of Theology collectively breathed out our commitment to academic traditions and practices that were hundreds of years old and breathed in a new commitment to a way of offering theological education that challenged us then and continues to challenge the whole church to this day.  We agreed to embark on a journey in partnership with indigenous communities throughout North America who wanted clergy leaders who had been trained to honour the cultures of indigenous peoples as well as their stories and their ways of learning.  Our partners wanted their clergy leaders to be trained, as much as possible, within the communities they served rather than disappear for three years to study in Vancouver or some other urban setting.

            So we designed a program that made use of on-line courses, classic extension courses, summer school courses and tutorials led by local tutors.  Some of our colleagues in other institutions thought we were foolish.  Others thought we were sacrificing the academic traditions in which we had been trained.  But we breathed out what was not life-giving to our indigenous students and we breathed in what had the potential to be life-giving.

            We actively recruited allies through the Anglican and Episcopal churches in North America.  One of those allies was the then Bishop of Alaska who came to Vancouver for visit to learn more about the program.  I was assigned to be his host and guide.  On the appointed day I dressed in a very professorial way and waited for the Bishop to arrive.  Time passed with no Bishop in sight.  So I finally went downstairs to Reception.  I passed by a man in his forties, dressed in a lumberjack shirt and sporting a beard and a ponytail.  We smiled at each other and I went on the receptionist.  I asked her to keep an eye out for the Bishop and to call me when he arrived.  Behind me a quiet voice said, ‘Oh, here I am.  I might be a little late.’  I turned with to shake his hand and came face to face with a man in his forties, dressed in a lumberjack shirt and sporting a beard and a ponytail --- the Bishop of Alaska. Years later he would become and still is our National Indigenous Bishop, Mark MacDonald.  

            Mark had breathed out the trappings of office that sometimes hinder bishops in their ministry.  He then breathed in a more life-giving persona that allowed him to reach out to people where they were.

            Friends, on this Palm Sunday we begin our annual journey from Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, through the tumult of a week filled with intrigue and fear, betrayal, condemnation and death, to the resurrection and its proclamation that ‘Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death’ and that ‘victr’y is ours, victr’y is ours, through God who loves us.’ [1]  During this week Jesus breathes out ‘equality with God’ as a barrier to reaching out to us and to all humanity.  He breathes in ‘human likeness’ so that you and I and all our sisters and brothers can ‘. . . be of the same mind, having the same love, [be] in full accord and of one mind.’

            We breathe out ‘selfish ambition [and] conceit’. We breathe in ‘mind of Christ’ so that we can ‘look not to [our] own interests, but to the interests of others’. We breathe out injustice, arrogance and self-centredness.  We breathe in justice, humility and loving-kindness.  With each breath we become more and more our true selves, the beloved community gathered to be transformed, whether as individual believers or as a community of faith, not for ourselves alone but for the sake of world.

            Bishop Nicholas Knisely writes in his little Lenten devotional book, Lent Is Not Rocket Science, a reflection on breathing out and breathing in.

            [If] you work out all the math, it turns out that each breath we take contains many of the same air molecules that Jesus breathed during his lifetime.  You and I are literally, with each breath, breathing the same air as Our Lord.  And, by extension, the same air that was breathed by every saint, known and unknown, who ever lived --- and every sinner as well.[2]

The air of laughter, of tears, of heroes, and of scoundrels surrounds us at every moment of our lives, filling our lungs and giving us life.[3]

Have the same breath within you as was in Christ Jesus who breathed out exploiting his relationship with God.  Have the same breath within you as was in Christ Jesus who breathed in our human nature. Breathe out.  Breathe in.  With each breath become more like Christ Jesus who gives life to every cell in our bodies so that the glory of God, the compassion of Christ and the wisdom of the Spirit might fill the whole earth or at least that small space that surrounds each one of us.

---

[1]Evangelical Lutheran Worship#721.

[2]Knisely 2013, 89.

[3]Knisely 2013, 90.

Skin in the Game: A Palm Sunday Reflection in Progress (25 March 2018)

Skin in the Game

A Palm Sunday Reflection in Progress

RCL Palm Sunday B

25 March 2018

Saint Faith's Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 eucharist on Palm Sunday and see how things turned out!

During a recent meeting of the Management, Finance and Property Committee of the Diocese, we were discussing a request from a parish for financial support for a significant renovation project.  The first question asked was, 'Do they have skin in the game?'

• 'Skin in the game' = Had they made a tangible and credible financial commitment to the project themselves?
• They did indeed have 'skin in the game', so we were quite willing to join them by committing diocesan funds in the form of a loan and a small grant.

'Skin in the game'

• Skin = Have we made a tangible and/or credible commitment that involves something that we hold valuable, something that would be a real loss if the venture failed?
• Game = God's 'game' of restoring right relationships and of bringing about justice, mercy and humility.
• Every covenant God makes with us is about having skin in the game.

1. With Noah God chooses self-restraint and risks watching humans undermine God's creation yet again.
2. With Abraham and Sarah God asks for very little in exchange for an almost inconceivable promise.
3. With Moses and the Hebrew people God shares more of what it means to be in relationship with God and then spends centuries on a roller coaster of times of faithfulness and times of infidelity.
4. Through Jeremiah God offers to engrave God's very self on human hearts and risks the fickleness of human nature to live wisely.

Today we begin our annual commemoration of the week during which God's total commitment to us and to all creation is revealed.

• If rainbows aren't enough, God will come riding on the colt of an ass.
• If the promise of descendants as numerous as the sands isn't enough, God will come into Jerusalem and into the hands of those who do not understand God's vision or who are afraid of it.
• If a covenant engraved on stone and on human hearts isn't enough, then God will endure betrayal by friends and death at the hands of enemies.
• Does God have skin in this game, this life-giving, death-defying gambit to save us from ourselves and restore us to our rightful minds?  YES --- God has skin in this game.

But God is not the only one who has a stake in this adventure.

• Every day we make choices about how to live.  Each choice is like a poker chip of faith thrown into the centre of the table.
• We are seated at a table with people who are playing with us, with people who are most definitely playing against us and with people who are not sure what the game is really about but who want to play anyway.

1. What we do with the precious and irreplaceable moments of our lives matters.
2. How we use the tangible assets entrusted to us matters.
3. The ways we use our knowledge, our insights, our experience and our influence matter.

To take a palm today is to make a public declaration that we, each one of us, has skin in God's game of restoration and renewal.

• Do we have skin in God's game?
• We surely do --- and it is the only game in town worth playing.

Making Room for the Other: Reflections on Philippians 2.1-11 (9 April 2017)

Making Room for the Other

Reflections on Philippians 2.1-11

RCL Palm Sunday A

9 April 2017

Saint Faith’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 a.m. Eucharist on the 9th.

                  ^2.1 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, ² make my joy complete:  be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.  ³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  ⁴ Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.  ⁵ Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

                  ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷ but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, ⁸ he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.

                  ⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

            Growing up as I did on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, I have always liked to have room around me.  The happiest homes in which we have lived as a family always have had plenty of space around them or easy access to green space nearby.  I admit to suffering a bit from claustrophobia, so the tightly packed streets of downtown Toronto hold no attraction for me.  I do not like shopping during busy times because of the number of people crowding the space around me.

            Sometime after Owen was born, Paula and I bought a Plymouth Voyager family van.  All three children were in some car safety seat or another, so trying to fit everything into the Subaru station wagon was no longer an option.  When our first van reached its limit, we turned it in for a new Voyager.  We had become the typical urban family:  three kids, a dog and a van.

            One of the saving graces of a family van is space.  Two children could sit in the back seat and have a space between them.  One child could sit in the middle seat and have space to her or his right.  Between the driver’s seat and the front passenger’s seat was space for whatever needed to be close at hand.  On longer road trips we had room for Paula’s box of musical noise-makers which she would produce at just the right moment.  The kids would sing at the top of their lungs and play their instruments.  Energy was discharged and harmony was maintained.  Rarely did Paula and I have to suffer the dreaded words:  ‘He touched me.  Move over.  I don’t have enough room.’

            Some theologians have described creation as God’s act of making room for others.  During the season of Lent we have heard these words every Sunday:  “At your command all things came to be:  the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home; by your will they were created and have their being.”  (BAS 201).  All that is, seen and unseen, exists because God has chosen to create rather than remain supremely alone and self-sufficient.

            And why did God choose to create?  The writer of the First Letter of John gives us the answer in three simple English words:  “. . . God is love.”  (1 John 4.8b)  Love is not possible in isolation.  Love requires someone who loves and someone who is loved.  The relationship between the lover and the beloved creates what we call love.  Augustine of Hippo, the fifth-century Christian theologian, once described the Holy Trinity as ‘God the Lover, God the Beloved, God the Love’.

            When genuine love is present, the lover makes room for the beloved.  In this space the lover hopes that the beloved will become more truly herself or himself.  And the beloved is also the lover who creates space for the other to grow and to mature.  Most conflicts in loving relationship, I think, arise when we crowd the space of the one we love.  We struggle to love the other as he or she is.  We try to crowd out the person we know at present with our image of who he or she should be.  We may do this with the very best of intentions, but our efforts run the risk of failure and disappointment.

            Paul’s words in today’s reading from his letter to the church in Philippi are among the more familiar texts in the New Testament.  Paul quotes an existing early Christian hymn that describes Jesus emptying himself in order to accomplish God’s loving purposes.  We might want to say that Jesus made room within himself for humanity by putting aside the prerogatives of being God’s promised one.  Jesus lets go of his rights in order that our relationship with God can be put right.  This is the attitude that Paul believes should inform the lives of every Christian:  “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete:  be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.  Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus . . . . “  (Philippians 2.1-5)

            What Jesus has done runs counter to much of human culture.  I dare to say that xenophobia, ‘fear of the other’, is built into the cultural DNA of many human societies.  It’s understandable:  survival as a community requires a certain caution in welcoming someone who is different, someone who is not like us.  For example, the Saxon settlers who came to Britain called the Celts ‘walesc’ --- ‘foreigners’.  We know too well the stories European colonists in the Americas and Africa told about the ‘savages’.  Making room for the ‘foreigner’ and the ‘savage’ is never easy.  One Christian writer described the Gospel according to Luke as being filled with the belief that ‘the stranger is my friend’, a truly counter-cultural view in the tribal world of humanity.  Rather than exhibiting xenophobia, Christians are meant to live out an attitude of xenophilia.

            Making room for others is at the heart of evangelism.  You and I have promised on multiple occasions that we will “. . . proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ”  (BAS 159).  Proclaiming the good news of God in Christ challenges us to make room for the other.  Making room for others is never easy.  ‘They’ move the furniture.  ‘They’ put kitchen utensils in the wrong drawers.  ‘They’ don’t understand ‘our’ jokes and ‘they’ frequently speak in languages ‘we’ do not understand.  ‘They’ ask questions that ‘we’ may not wish to answer and ‘they’ invite ‘us’ to undertake initiatives ‘we’ may not have considered.  But if Saint Faith’s is to live out its promise to be a place of  ‘help, hope and home’, then making room for others will be a priority.

            We are proclaiming the good news of God in Christ through Saint Hildegard’s Sanctuary by providing a space where contemplation and the arts can touch the lives of people who, for one reason or another, have not always experienced the Christian community to be a place of ‘help, hope and home’.  We are proclaiming the good news of God in Christ through the Community Pastoral Resource Centre by providing a space where access and advocacy touch the lives of people who need a place of ‘help, hope and home’.  Next week we shall take the first steps to reach out to families with younger children.

            But making space for others takes time and commitment.  After all, it’s been billions of years since God made space for creation --- and God’s work is not yet finished.  It’s been two thousand years since Jesus made space for humanity --- and Christ’s work is not yet finished.  It’s been seventy years since the Spirit made space for Saint Faith’s in this neighbourhood --- and the Spirit’s work is not yet finished.

            So let us “(draw) the circle wide . . . let our loving know no borders, faithful to God’s call”.  For this is the mind of Christ; this is the mind that is ours.

An Ordo for Palm Sunday (9 April 2017)

Rationale for the Rite

• With the introduction of a full set of rites for Holy Week in The Book of Alternative Services in 1985, Passion Sunday (Lent 5 in the prayer book tradition) and Palm Sunday were merged into the current Palm/Passion Sunday (Lent 6).  In effect one rite now carries two foci:  the triumphal procession and the reading of the Passion narrative (Matthew in Year A, Mark in Year B and Luke in Year C).
• The Revised Common Lectionary recognizes that some congregations may wish to keep these foci separate, perhaps with a reading of the Passion in the morning and a palm procession in the afternoon or early evening.
• At Saint Faith's we have chosen to keep the palm procession at the 8.00 and 10.00 eucharists and, to emphasize the procession as our entry into Holy Week, the procession forms the core of the sending forth of the community at the end of the eucharist.  In place of the Passion from the Gospel according to Matthew, we read Matthew's account of the entrance into Jerusalem.
• For our community the reading of the Passion from the Gospel according to John on Good Friday has become the core of our Good Friday observances.

Palm Sunday

9 April 2017

The Gathering of the Community

Gathering Music

Announcements

Greeting and Litany

The Presider greets the Community from the door to the Nave.

Christ became obedient unto death for us,

even death upon a cross.

He was pierced for our sins,

bruised for no fault but ours.

His punishment has won our peace,

and by his wounds we are healed.

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain

to receive power and riches and wisdom,

strength, honour, glory and praise.  Amen.

During the procession to the Sanctuary, the biddings of the Litany are offered and the response is sung using Common Worship #707.

When we willfully misuse your gifts of creation:

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy immortal one,

have mercy upon us.

When we see the ill-treatment of others

and do not go to their aid:

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy immortal one,

have mercy upon us.

When we condone evil and dishonesty

and fail to strive for justice:

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy immortal one,

have mercy upon us.

When we hear the good news of Christ

but fail to share it with others:

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy immortal one,

have mercy upon us.

When we do not love you with all our hearts

nor our neighbours as ourselves:

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy immortal one,

have mercy upon us.

The Presider then says the following,

May the God of love and power

forgive us and free us from our sins,

heal and strengthen us by the Spirit,

and raise us to new life in Christ our Lord.  Amen. [i]

The Collect of the Day

Let us pray.

O God of eternal glory,

whose servant, Jesus Christ, bore our sins,

encouraged the weary, and raised up the fallen:

keep before our eyes his passion and resurrection,

so that our lives may be signs of his obedience and victory.

We ask this in the name of Christ, our liberator.  Amen. [ii]

The Proclamation of the Word

First Reading

A reading from Isaiah (50.4-9a).

            The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.  Morning by morning he wakens — wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.  The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.  I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.

            The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near.  Who will contend with me?  Let us stand up together.  Who are my adversaries?  Let them confront me.  It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?

Here what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Thanks be to God.

The Psalm of the Day

Psalm 31.9-16 with the Refrain from Songs for the Holy One alt.

Refrain (twice):  Holy One, may the light of your face shine upon us.

⁹ Have mercy on me, O Lord, *

            for I am in trouble;

my eye is consumed with sorrow, *

            and also my throat and my belly.

¹⁰ For my life is wasted with grief, *

            and my years with sighing;

my strength fails me because of affliction, *

            and my bones are consumed.

Refrain:  Holy One, may the light of your face shine upon us.

¹¹ I have become a reproach to all my enemies *

            and even to my neighbours,

a dismay to those of my acquaintance; *

            when they see me in the street they avoid me.

¹² I am forgotten like a corpse, out of mind; *

            I am as useless as a broken pot.

¹³ For I have heard the whispering of the crowd; *

            fear is all around;

they put their heads together against me; *

            they plot to take my life.

¹⁴ But as for me, I have trusted in you, O Lord. *

            I have said, “You are my God.”

Refrain:  Holy One, may the light of your face shine upon us.

¹⁵ My times are in your hand; *

            rescue me from the hand of my enemies,

            and from those who persecute me.

¹⁶ Make your face to shine upon your servant, *

            and in your loving-kindness save me.”

Refrain:  Holy One, may the light of your face shine upon us.

The Second Reading

A reading from the Letter to the Philippians (2.5-11).

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.

            Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Thanks be to God.

The Hymn before the Gospel

‘Prepare the Way’  Common Praise #107

The Gospel

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew (21.1-11).

Glory to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

            When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me.  If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’  And he will send them immediately.”  This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

            The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.  A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

            The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

            When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?”  The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

The Gospel of Christ.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

The Hymn after the Gospel

‘Prepare the Way’  Common Praise #107

The Sermon

The Apostles’ Creed

Let us confess the faith of our baptism.

I believe in God, the Father almighty,

creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died and was buried;

he descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again;

he ascended into heaven,

he is seated at the right hand of the Father,

and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting.  Amen.

The Prayers of the Community

Intercessions, Thanksgivings and Petitions

The Exchange of the Peace

May the peace of our servant Lord be with you all.

And also with you.

The Holy Communion

The Offertory Hymn

‘Before I Take the Body of My Lord’ Common Praise #610

The Prayer over the Gifts

Let us pray.

God our provider,

you have not fed us with bread alone,

but with words of grace and life.

Bless us and these your gifts,

which we receive from your bounty,

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. [iii]

The Thanksgiving at the Table

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is right to give you thanks and praise, O Lord, our God, sustainer of the universe, you are worthy of glory and praise.  Glory to you for ever and ever.

At your command all things came to be:  the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home; by your will they were created and have their being.  Glory to you for ever and ever.

From the primal elements you brought forth the human race, and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill; you made us the stewards of creation.  Glory to you for ever and ever.

But we turn against you, and betray your trust; and we turn against one another.  Again and again you call us to return.  Through the prophets and sages you reveal your righteous law.  In the fullness of time you sent your Son, born of a woman, to be our Saviour.  He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities.  By his death he opened to us the way of freedom and peace.  Glory to you for ever and ever.

Therefore we praise you, joining with the heavenly chorus, with prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and with those in every generation who have looked to you in hope, to proclaim with them your glory, in their unending hymn.

Holy, holy, holy Lord,

God of power and might,

heaven 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. [iv]

Blessed are you, Lord our God, for sending us Jesus, the Christ, who on the night he was handed over to suffering and death, took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, gave it to his friends, and said, “Take this, and eat it:  this is my body which is given for you.  Do this for the remembrance of me.”

In the same way, after supper, he took the cup of wine; he gave you thanks, and said, “Drink this, all of you:  this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sins.  Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.”  Glory to you for ever and ever.

Gracious God, we recall the death of your Son Jesus Christ, we proclaim his resurrection and ascension, and we look with expectation for his coming as Lord of all the nations.  We who have been redeemed by him, and made a new people by water and the Spirit, now bring you these gifts.  Send your Holy Spirit upon us and upon this offering of your Church, so that we who eat and drink at this holy table may share the divine life of Christ our Lord.  Glory to you for ever and ever.

Pour out your Spirit upon the whole earth and make it your new creation.  Gather your Church together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom, where peace and justice are revealed, so that we, with all your people, of every language, race, and nation, may share the banquet you have promised; through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ, all honour and glory are yours, Creator of all.  Glory to you for ever and ever.  Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer

As our Saviour taught us, let us pray,

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us from the time of trial,

and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power,

and the glory are yours,

now and for ever.  Amen. [v]

The Breaking of the Bread

We break this bread,

communion in Christ’s body once broken.

Let your church be the wheat

which bears its fruit in dying.

If we have died with him,

we shall live with him;

if we hold firm,

we shall reign with him.

The gifts of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

The Communion

The Hymn after Communion

‘Bread of the World, in Mercy Broken’ Common Praise #54

The Sending Forth of the Community

The Blessing of the Palms

Dear friends in Christ,

during Lent we have been preparing

for the celebration of our Lord’s paschal mystery.

On this day our Lord Jesus Christ

entered the holy city of Jerusalem in triumph.

The people welcomed him with palms and shouts of praise,

but the path before him led to self-giving, suffering and death.

Today we greet him as our Sovereign,

although we know his crown is thorns and his throne a cross.

We follow him this week from the glory of the palms

to the glory of the resurrection

by way of the dark road of suffering and death.

United with him in his suffering on the cross,

may we share his resurrection and new life.

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is right to praise you, almighty God,

for the acts of love by which you have redeemed us

through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Hebrews acclaimed Jesus as Messiah and Sovereign,

with palm branches in their hands, crying,

Hosanna in the highest.

May we also, carrying these emblems, go forth to meet Christ

and follow him in the way that leads to eternal life;

who lives and reigns in glory with you and the Holy Spirit,

now and for ever.  Amen.

The Distribution of the Palms

The Processional Hymn

‘All Glory, Laud and Honour’  Common Praise #181

The Dismissal

The Deacon then sends the community forth.

Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

Let us go forth in peace.

In the name of Christ.  Amen.

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[i] The Litany was crafted from the Confession for ‘City, World and Society’ and the Absolution from Common Worship (2000), 127, 135 alt.  The Trisagion is Common Praise #707.

[ii] Liturgy Task Force, ‘Trial Use Collects for Years A, B & C and Seasonal Prayers over the Gifts and after Communion’ 2016, 16.

[iii] Liturgy Task Force, ‘Trial Use Propers:  Ash Wednesday to Palm/Passion Sunday’ (2015), 4.

[iv] ‘Sanctus’ by George Black in The Book of Alternative Services Altar Book.

[v] David Haas.