A Letter to Emily: Pentecost 2019

In keeping with my practice of writing to the baptizand, here's my letter to Emily who was baptized on Pentecost.

Click here to listen to the Letter as read at the 10.00 Eucharist.

Pentecost

9 June 2019

Dear Emily,

            Today is a special day for you, for your family and for all the friends of Jesus we call ‘the church’.  For you and your family today is special because you are being baptized.  From today on you will be one of Jesus’ friends and together with all of us who are also Jesus’ friends you will join us in working towards making our world a place filled with God’s love.

            Working towards making our world a place filled with God’s love is not easy. Even the first group of Jesus’ friends, people we call the disciples and apostles, were afraid to share the stories that had about Jesus and to share with other people the things Jesus had taught them about how to love others as God loves us.  For almost two months after God raised Jesus from the dead, the disciples and apostles tried to hide from the leaders of their own community and the officials of the Roman government who were in charge of Jerusalem and Judea.

            But God wanted the whole world to know how much God loves this world and how in Jesus God has shown us how to love one another in the same way.  God knows that we can do this, even when we don’t believe we can.  Every human being, whether they know who God is or not, whether they know anything about Jesus or not, whether they belong to the church of not, has built into them the ability to love as God loves.  It’s just how were made.

            But when we’re afraid or when we not confident about our abilities or when we don’t want people to think that we are ‘different’, we can forget that we can love as God loves.  So, two thousand years ago, when Jesus’ friends were gathered, still afraid and still unsure about what they were supposed to do, God whooshed in upon them and whispered in each one’s ears, ‘Yes, you can do this.  I know you’re afraid, but you can do this.  You know how to love as I love.  You can change the world if you’ll tell others what you have learned from Jesus.  I promise you, there’ll be a lot of people who will listen to you.’

            We use a old-fashioned word for what God did on this day two thousand years ago: inspiration.  It means ‘breathing life into someone or something’.  In the case of the disciples and apostles what God did was to blow on the glowing ember of Jesus’ love that was in each one of them.  That glowing ember burst into a fire of love that gave them all courage to tell their story. Because of that transformation we’re here today.

            Emily, today you are being gathered into the loving community of Jesus’ friends. For a very long time we have brought together all sorts of people, young and old, women and men and children, so that they can know how much God loves them and how much God loves the whole world. But there’s more to being a friend of Jesus.  To be a friend of Jesus we have need to be transformed, to be inspired, so that the love we have found here can be shared with others.

            We need God to breathe into us, to blow on the glowing ember of Jesus’ love in us, because we sometimes forget that this love is inside us.  Sometimes we are afraid because we don’t want people to think we are strange or different.  Sometimes we are afraid because we know that loving the world as God loves the world means standing up to bullies and to selfish people.  But we can do it.  It’s how God made us.  We just need God to whisper in our ears.

            Sometimes God whispers in our ears when we listen to the stories we read from the Bible.  Sometimes God whispers in our ears when we speak to God as we would speak to any friend, sharing with God all that we are thinking and feeling.  Sometimes God whispers in our ears we listen to how other people have tried to love as God loves.

            Emily, welcome to the friends of Jesus.  Welcome to the church where we try as best as we can to love each other as God loves us.  Here you are and will be loved.  Here God has and will whisper in your ear.  Here God has and will kindle the fire of love God planted in your heart and all of our hearts from the day of our birth.  Welcome.

Always your friend in Jesus,

Richard+

The Venerable Richard Geoffrey Leggett

Vicar of Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral 

More Than We Can Ask or Imagine: Reflections on John 15.26-27; 16.4b-15 (RCL Pentecost B, 20 May 2018)

More Than We Can Ask or Imagine

Reflections on John 15.26-27; 16.4b-15

RCL Pentecost B

20 May 2018

Saint Faith’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon

as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 20th.

John 15.26-27; 16.4b-16

            ^15.26[Jesus said to his disciples,] “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.  ²⁷You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

            ^16.4b“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.  ⁵But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’  ⁶But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.  ⁷Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.  ⁸And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement:  ⁹about sin, because they do not believe in me; ¹⁰about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; ¹¹about judgement, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

            ¹²“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  ¹⁴He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  ¹⁵All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

(1) When I think about who I am today as a pastor, priest and teacher, I know that I have been influenced by many people, formally and informally.  But two people come quickly to mind.

(a)  The first is Louis Weil, who was my mentor in seminary and who first set my feet on the path to advanced studies in the history, theology and practice of Christian worship.

(b)  From Louis I learned many things, but I remember most his reminder that the disciple of a respected teacher is not meant to become her or his teacher’s clone.

(c)  The second was Jim White, may he rest in peace, who became the director of my doctoral thesis after an academic disaster that could have finished my then almost-but-not-yet academic career.

(d)  From Jim I learned to look at any development in Christian discipleship with three questions in mind:

(i)  How does this development fit into Christian practice over centuries?

(ii)  How does this development meet the real needs of real people living in real times and real places?

(iii)  How does this development proclaim the good news of God in Jesus of Nazareth?

(2) These two men, one now retired and living in the San Francisco Bay area, the other now dead almost fourteen years, came to mind when I read today’s gospel.  Within it is one of the sayings of Jesus that has sustained me over the past forty years.

(a)        “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” [1]

(b)  In these two verses Jesus 

(i)  unleashes his disciples from any slavish devotion to the past and 

(ii)  releases them to be agents of God’s transforming love into a world needing the freedom that this love brings to the children of God.

(c)  He sends them --- and us --- out as disciples not as clones destined to repeat established habits and customs over and over again in the hopes of different results.

(d)  He promises them --- and us --- that the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will guide us to ask important questions:

(i)  How does our way of being disciples of Jesus fit with the ‘great’ tradition, the tradition we see in Jesus himself?

(ii)  How does our way of being disciples of Jesus meet the real needs of real people in this our real time and place?

(iii)  How does our way of being disciples of Jesus proclaim the good news of God we have experienced?

(3) This is not something new to this Parish of Saint Faith’s.

(a)  Fifteen years after this Parish was established in 1947, a new prayer book embarked us and our whole church on a process of liturgical renewal which continues to this very day.

(b)  By the 1960’s this Parish joined others in questioning how the Church ought to honour and recognize the ministry of women, whether in lay or ordained ministry.  The ‘Me Too’ movement has shown us that we are still learning.

(c)  In 1949 British Columbia permitted aboriginal people to vote in provincial elections, but it was not until 1960 that the suffrage was granted in federal elections. We know that we continue to work for reconciliation and the creation of a truly just society.

(d)  During the last twenty years we have taken some risks in order to ‘take care of the neighbourhood’ God has entrusted to us

(i)  through our many outreach initiatives;

(ii)  through the Pastoral Resource Centre;

(iii)  through Saint Hildegard’s Sanctuary.

(e)  We have not always known where we might be led nor have we always been certain that what we were doing was ‘right’ --- but we have trusted that God’s Spirit was and is guiding us.

(4) Soon, with the leadership of the Canonical Committee and an interim priest, this Parish will enter a new stage in its on-going journey of faith.

(a)  I am convinced that this Parish continues to have a role to play in God’s purposes for this neighbourhood and all the places from whence we come.

(b)  We are here to be disciples who dare to go where we have not gone before.

(c)  We are here to discern how our future ministry

(i)  will add one more chapter to the story of God’s love here among us and around us;

(ii)  will respond to the needs of this changing neighbourhood and region, even if our neighbours do not recognize their need for communities of faith such as ours;

(iii)  will proclaim the good news we have seen with our eyes, heard with our ears, touched with our hands in our lives and the lives of our friends and families and neighbours.

(d)  But let us be of good cheer --- for surely the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will continue to guide us into the truth, God’s truth --- for us, for this neighbourhood, for this world.

Let us pray.

O God,

you have called your servants

to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,

by paths as yet untrodden,

through perils unknown.

Give us faith to go out with good courage,

not knowing where we go,

but only that your hand is leading us

and your love supporting us;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.
[Evangelical Lutheran Worship, 317]

---

[1]John 16.12-13.

What a Difference an 'S' Makes: Reflections on John 20.19-23 (Pentecost A, 4 June 2017)

What a Difference an ‘S’ Makes

Reflections on John 20.19-23

Pentecost A

4 June 2017

Saint Faith’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as it was preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday, 4 June 2017.

John 20.19-23

                  ^20.19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the [Jewish authorities], Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  ²¹ Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  ²² When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

            In 1928, the year my father was born, the American Episcopal Church approved a new Prayer Book.  In many ways it continued the tradition of its two predecessors, but there were some changes.  One of the more notable was a change in the Lord’s Prayer from ‘as we forgive them that trespass against us’ to ‘as we forgive those who trespass against us’.  I am sure that some of the changes tripped up my grandmother, but it was the book my father grew up using, so it was familiar to him.

            In the late summer of 1967, the year that I turned fifteen, our parish priest, Father Palmer, made an announcement before the Sunday service.  He held up a little booklet entitled ‘The Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper’.  It marked the moment when liturgical change began for my generation.  Canada would wait a few more years.  After all, in 1967, the ‘new’ Prayer Book was only five years old, but there were voices already suggesting that changes would need to take place.

            I remember having to get familiar with a change in the Agnus Dei, an ancient prayer used in the communion liturgy.  As a choir member I was accustomed to singing ‘O Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us.’  Now we had a new text to learn:  ‘O Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world.  Have mercy upon us.’  As I look back, it wasn’t the change from Tudor English to more contemporary American English that threw me; it was the change from ‘sin’ to ‘sins’.  Even at fifteen I knew that a theological change had occurred and not for the better.

            There is a significant difference between saying that Jesus takes away the sin of the world and saying that Jesus takes away the sins of the world.  Over the centuries untold amounts of ink and paper have been consumed as theologians and church authorities have argued about what it means to forgive sins and how it is done and by whom it is done.  Some Christians have even been persecuted by other Christians over such differences.

            Now let me be clear.  You and I, as members of the body of Christ, have been called to be ministers of reconciliation.  You and I, as members of the body of Christ, have also been called to hold people to account for acts of injustice, for lack of compassion and for attitudes of arrogance towards God’s creation and God’s creatures.  But we need to be clear what sin is, the root cause of humanity’s ills and evils, rather than becoming entangled in the thorny world of sins, the symptoms of the disease that afflicts all human beings, whether young or old, male or female, rich or poor, believer or non-believer, perpetrator or victim.

            Over the Easter season our Sunday gospels have come from the Gospel according to John.  For John the ‘sin of the world’ is not ‘a moral category of behavior but a theological category about one’s response to the revelation of God in Jesus’. [1]  You have heard me quote my professor of theology, the late Jim Griffiss, who began his opening lecture on theology by saying, ‘When you meet Jesus, you meet God.  Everything else is commentary.’ 

            For John and for my professor the sin of the world is the refusal to recognize what God has shown us again and again, first in the law and the prophets, then in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  God expects us to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God (Micah 6.8).  This is the message embodied in the ‘Summary of the Law’ that many of us grew up hearing almost every Sunday:  ‘. . . hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.  This is the first and the great commandment.  And the second is like unto it:  thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets’. [2]

            What we call sins are symptoms of a more deeply embedded shadow in the human soul.  We find it so hard to believe that all that exists was created by Love.  We find it so hard to believe that we are loved so much that the One who created the universe comes among us to restore us to show us how to live in harmony.  We find it so hard to believe that we are loved so much that God breathes love into every human being in the hopes that this loves fans into a steady flame a desire to love others as we have been loved.

            And this Love that holds the universe so dear and that gives itself so freely goes one step further.  God enlists those who choose to follow the way of Jesus into the same work that Jesus began:  ‘²¹ Jesus said to [the apostles] again, “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  ²² When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”’

            Just as God sent Jesus, the Word, into the world, so does God give us the Holy Spirit to continue that work begun in Jesus.  We are sent into the world not as morality police or bedroom spies to make people afraid.  We are sent into the world to take the blinders from the eyes of those who cannot see, who do not see, who will not see, the works of God in their own lives, in the lives of their friends and families, in their neighbourhoods and communities.  The ancient sin continues to hold sway over many we know and love; we ‘forgive’ their sin when we help them, by our words and our examples, see the God who has loved them, loves them and will always love them.

            When we are able to see God at work and know that we are called to be co-workers with God in the great work of creation, redemption and renewal, then we become conscious of the behaviours, the thoughts, the habits that draw us away from becoming who we are truly called to be and from doing what we are called to do.  There is an ancient word for this --- metanoia  --- ‘seeing the world as God sees it’, ‘looking at the world with new eyes’ --- eyes shaped by love not fear, hope not despair, generosity not miserliness.

            Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.  How?  By showing us how to live authentic lives, open to God’s possibilities working in us and through us.  By sharing with us the divine breath that turns disciples into friends and frightened people into apostles, ambassadors through whom God appeals to the whole world.  What a difference getting rid of an ‘s’ can make!

---

[1] The New Interpreter’s Study Bible 2003.

[2] The Book of Alternative Services 1985, 231.

An Ordo for Pentecost (4 June 2017)

The Feast of Pentecost

4 June 2017

The Gathering of the Community

Gathering Music

Announcements

Opening Hymn

‘Wind Who Makes All Winds That Blow’  Common Praise #249

Introductory Responses

Alleluia!  Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!

May his grace and peace be with you.

May he fill our hearts with joy.

The Hymn of Praise

‘Breathe on Me, Breath of God’  Common Praise #649

The Collect of the Day

Let us pray.

God of wind and flame,

send your life-giving Spirit upon your people:

give fire to our words,

strength to our witness

and boldness to our proclamation

of your wondrous work in Christ;

who, with you and the Spirit, lives and reigns

now and for ever.  Amen. [i]

The Proclamation of the Word

The First Reading

A reading from Numbers (11.24-30).

            ^11.24 So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent.  ²⁵ Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.

            ²⁶ Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp.  ²⁷ And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”  ²⁸ And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, “My lord Moses, stop them!”  ²⁹ But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake?  Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”  ³⁰ And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

Thanks be to God.

The Psalm

Psalm 104.24-34, 35b from Songs for the Holy One.

Refrain (sung twice):  O my soul, bless the Holy One!  Hallelujah!

O Holy One, how many things you do!

            You do them all with wisdom.

The earth is full of your creatures.

            There is the great sea, reaching far and wide,

full of swimming life, creatures large and small.

            There ships sail,

            and Leviathan whom you formed to sport therein.

Refrain:  O my soul, bless the Holy One!  Hallelujah!

All look to you to give them food in due season.

            When you hide your face, they are dismayed.

When you taken away their breath, they die,

and to dust return.

            When you send forth your breath, they are created,

            and you renew the face of the world.

Refrain:  O my soul, bless the Holy One!  Hallelujah!

To the Holy One, who rejoices in all creation,

be glory forever!

            When God looks at the world, it quakes;

            at a touch, the mountains smoke.

Refrain:  O my soul, bless the Holy One!  Hallelujah!

I will sing to the Holy One all my life

and chant to my God all my life long.

            May my meditations be pleasing to the Most High,

            in whom I always rejoice!

Refrain:  O my soul, bless the Holy One!  Hallelujah!

O my soul, bless the Holy One!

            Hallelujah!

Refrain:  O my soul, bless the Holy One!  Hallelujah!

The Second Reading

A reading from the Acts of the Apostles (2.1-21).

            ^2.1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  ² And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  ³ Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

            ⁵ Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.  ⁶ And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.  ⁷ Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?  ⁸ And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?  ⁹ Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹ Cretans and Arabs — in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”  ¹² All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”  ¹³ But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

            ¹⁴ But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.  ¹⁵ Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.  ¹⁶ No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:  ¹⁷ ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.  ¹⁸ Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.  ¹⁹ And I will show portents in the heaven above

and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.  ²⁰ The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.  ²¹ Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

Thanks be to God.

Hymn before the Gospel

‘Alleluia’  Common Praise #715 (‘Alleluia’ refrain only)

The Gospel

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John (20.19-23).

Glory to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

            ^20.19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the [Jewish authorities], Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  ²¹ Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  ²² When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

The Gospel of Christ.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Hymn after the Gospel

‘Alleluia’  Common Praise #715 (‘Alleluia’ refrain only)

The Homily

The Nicene Creed

Let us confess our faith, as we say,

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one being with the Father;

through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

he came down from heaven,

was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary

and became truly human.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father,

who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come.  Amen.

The Prayers of the Community

Intercessions, Petitions and Thanksgivings

The Exchange of the Peace

May the peace of the risen Christ be always with you.

And also with you.

The Holy Communion

Offertory Hymn

‘All Creatures of Our God and King’  Common Praise #355 vv. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7

Prayer over the Gifts

Let us pray.

Blessed are you, O God, ruler of heaven and earth.

Day be day you shower us with blessings.

As you have raised us to new life in Christ,

give us glad and generous hearts,

ready to praise you and to respond to those in need,

through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord.  Amen. [ii]

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 indeed right, our duty and our joy, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks and praise to you, almighty and merciful God, through our Saviour Jesus Christ.  Fulfilling the promise of the resurrection, you pour out the fire of your Spirit, uniting in one body people of every nation and tongue.  And so, with Mary Magdalene and Peter and all the witnesses of the resurrection, with earth and sea and all their creatures, with angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim with all the choirs of angels, we praise your name and join their unending hymn:

You are holy, you are whole. 

You are always ever more

than we ever understand.

You are always at hand.

 

Blessed are you coming near.

Blessed are you coming here

to your church in wine and bread,

raised from soil, raised from dead.

You are holy,

you are wholeness,

you are present. 

Let the cosmos praise you, Lord!

Sing hosanna

in the highest! 

Sing hosanna! 

Sing hosanna to our God! [iii]

Blessed are you, O God of the universe.  Your mercy is everlasting and your faithfulness endures from age to age.

Praise to you for creating the heavens and the earth.  Praise to you for saving the earth from the waters of the flood.  Praise to you for bringing the Israelites safely through the sea.  Praise to you for leading your people through the wilderness to the land of milk and honey.  Praise to you for the words and deeds of Jesus, your anointed one.  Praise to you for the death and resurrection of Christ.  Praise to you for your Spirit poured out on all nations.

In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread, and gave thanks; broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:  Take and eat; this is my body, given for you.  Do this for the remembrance of me.

Again, after supper, he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it for all to drink, saying:  This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin.  Do this for the remembrance of me.

With this bread and cup we remember our Lord’s passover from death to life as we proclaim the mystery of faith:  Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.

O God of resurrection and new life:  Pour out your Holy Spirit on us and on these gifts of bread and wine.  Bless this feast.  Grace our table with your presence.  Come, Holy Spirit.

Reveal yourself to us in the breaking of the bread.  Raise us up as the body of Christ for the world.  Breathe new life into us.  Send us forth, burning with justice, peace, and love.  Come, Holy Spirit.

With the ever-blessed virgin Mary, blessed Joseph, blessed Faith and your holy ones of all times and places, with the earth and all its creatures, with sun and moon and stars, we praise you, O God, blessed and holy Trinity, now and forever.  Amen. [iv]

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

Lord, we died with you on the cross.

Now we are raised to new life.

We were buried in your tomb.

Now we share in your resurrection.

Live in us, that we may live in you.

These are the gifts of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Communion

The Hymn after Communion

‘God of the Sparrow’  Common Praise #414

The Sending Forth of the Community

Prayer after Communion

Let us pray.

Life-giving God,

in the mystery of Christ’s resurrection

you send light to conquer darkness,

water to give new life,

and the bread of life to nourish your people.

Send us forth as witnesses to your Son’s resurrection,

so that we may show your glory to all the world,

through Jesus Christ, our risen Lord.  Amen. [vi]

Glory to God,

whose power, working in us,

can do infinitely more

than we can ask or imagine.

Glory to God from generation to generation,

in the Church and in Christ Jesus,

for ever and ever.  Amen.

Closing Hymn

‘Wind upon the Waters’  Common Praise #408

Dismissal

The Deacon sends the Community forth with an appropriate Dismissal.

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[i] Liturgy Task Force 2016, 26.

[ii] Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), 64.

[iii] Evangelical Lutheran Worship #525.

[iv] Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), 111.

[v] Songs for a Gospel People #12.

[vi] Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), 65.