So I had anticipated Father Terry being here today because he’s getting ready to leave for Europe, but he had a, not a serious, but medical thing come up that he had to take care of. And so please keep him in your prayers that he heals quickly. So it’s nothing serious, but just the fact that it was something that had arisen for him. So just for you to be aware of that, to be keeping him in prayer for that. So did you have something you were gonna share? Okay. I get pictures, I get pictures of people, and sometimes I’m not sure what they mean. So this is almost funny what happened. Mary, I was going to tell her that I had a picture of her running around in the park over there like she was doing when she was 16 years old and Father Jim found her. And that her enthusiasm had never abated, from that young, beautiful girl. And then so Jennifer came along and stole my thunder. (Laughing) Back Jennifer. Because that was right before Jennifer gave her that long word. So it was meant to be a prayer. Very good. Thank you.

So hopefully I can do this well. There’s a couple of things I wanted to try to do for a few minutes. I would like to spend a lot of time on the readings, but I want to just say a couple of things and then to go to something else. But in this passage from Jeremiah, in particular that one verse, you could do a whole lot with that. But in verse nine it says, then I said, I will not make mention of him nor speak any more in his name, meaning Jeremiah is talking about the Lord. I’m not going to mention him anymore. I’m not going to say his name. But his word was in my heart like a burning fire, which was a lot to do with the worship today.

But his word was in my heart like a burning fire, shut up on my bones. I was weary of holding it back and I could not. I would pray that, not the first part, but the last part for all of us, that that word of his would be this burning fire within us that we can’t hold it back. And it’s not based on fear of man. It’s not based on circumstances that you just find, I can’t hold it back. There’s something in you that explodes. When you begin to consider him, it’s like there’s something about this fountain or this river that I don’t seem to be able to control. And if we spend too much time controlling it, and we’re pressing it down, we may get used to that. What would it be like to all of a sudden, like you’ve ever seen the firemen when they come by and they want to,

I guess purge the fire hydrants that they turn those on and that water is just spewing out of there like whatever, is I would pray that prayer, not necessarily to be a fire hydrant, but I would pray that prayer for all of us that his word would become so magnificent within us that we can’t hold it back. And whatever would be the reason of holding it back, whatever would be the reason to say, maybe I’m not hearing anything or whatever, whatever would be something that’s familiar to us to say, but what if that’s not him? What if he does have that presence that he wants to just recognize that you can’t hold it in anymore? It just comes out.

And to be more comfortable with being uncomfortable with that. And then this passage from Romans that for anyone who’s been following over the years, any of Bishop Jones’s teachings should be very familiar with this Romans reading because he will go back to that many, many, many times about the distinction between being aware of who we are in Christ versus having. a continual sin consciousness.

And does that mean that we have not the capacity for sin? Yes, we do. We can choose to do that. But that’s no longer our nature. And see, in some ways that’s an important thing to be able to grasp. That’s no longer our nature. Our nature is not prone to that. There is this sinfulness that is part of that fallen person, and whatever that’s there, at times wants to get our attention, that corpse. We can spend a lot of time dragging that corpse around, but to realize that’s not your nature.

And you can tell that’s not your nature in the very fact of being in a position of, let’s say, when we’ll use the word sin, maybe prone or drawn to do that. What happens when all of a sudden you just know that you know, “I don’t want to go there.” Sometimes we make it too complicated. It’s like, “I don’t want to go there.” Versus something like,

“You know, I’m not really giving in to gossip, so I want you to listen really well this first time.” You know, as opposed to just saying, “No, just because I’m thinking that, I’m not going to explode if I don’t say it.” So it’s like, you just kind of know, right?

There’s something in you that you just know. And you get more familiar to that knowing. You get more familiar to saying, “No, that’s not him. That’s not me. I’m a new creation in him, and so I’m not walking around with that continually having to battle, battle, sin as opposed to instead keeping my eye and my heart, my focus on him.” I just think sometimes we can make it, and maybe I’m speaking for myself, a little bit too complicated. But we come more familiar with the familiar, which is his presence.

So in about three weeks, I’m going to be at that 3SI, which is in San Clemente, California, and I’ve been asked one of the presentations on what

we do and why we do during the Eucharist, the Liturgy. So I went back when I was doing that study, and I went back and I looked at, I did six homilies prior to doing that study where I had a lot of you coming to the Liturgy for that three-week period. And so these were the titles of those homilies that I did back about five years ago. The first one was the “Anadote for Mortality and the Medicine of Immortality,” and I’ve mentioned that on numerous occasions, what that is. Remembering that the medicine of immortality is that whole sense of the resurrection, what we experience, the beauty, no more pain, all of that stuff that goes along with that, that we are forward looking, that we live in the world but we’re not of the world. And the Eucharist is a reminder of, it’s a medicine of immortality, that this is not our home. We are a pilgrim passing through, and it’s not to find some place to stop and hang out for a long period of time, that we are continually moving. And so part of that is learning, right, not to get stuck, to learn not to get stuck, because you’re going to keep moving.

And so part of that is learning to let that go, that every time the Eucharist is a reminder that there’s something more. But it’s also the “Anadote of Mortality,” it’s that sense of the Lord’s abiding presence to bring His abiding presence of healing and hope into you right now that you can manifest into other people’s lives. Wasn’t that good? The second one was “Anamnesis,” which all had to do with remembrance. And remembering that that’s another one, those words, when Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me,” it’s a word that does not translate very well into the English. Because when we think of the word “remember” in English, we have a tendency to think of something that happened back then, and we remember it back then. We may want to collapse the distance to remember all that, and we tell the story again, but we’re not back there. We just remember it. It’s like what people might do, for example, at Thanksgiving or other places like that, as they sit around and they tell stories about family stuff, right? But that word “remembrance,” remember, is the whole idea that it is something that happened then, is happening now, and will continue to happen. So when Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me,” it’s not just about looking back at what He did, it’s recognizing what He’s doing right now. So when we say the moral acclamation, Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will, and has nothing to do with the second coming. And sometimes it doesn’t mean that you can’t be aware of that, but it has to do with Christ coming right here, right now, in this moment. That’s what we’re saying, the mystery of faith. He’s right here, right now, in this moment. Third one was “Sacrum Convivian.” I’m sure you talk about that all the time. The sacred banquet, and what’s all involved with the sacred banquet, being involved into the sacred banquet, being invited to the sacred banquet, the whole idea of what that means, and going through that whole notion of the theology of food, from the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, to the marriage feast at Cana, to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, to the very act of even you blessing your food, the whole idea of that involvement of the sacred banquet, and this as being the perfect pattern of that sacred banquet.

Number four was the Eucharist and the cross, the whole idea of the Eucharist to do with the cross as being an idea, being an object, and being a gesture. And so it went through the whole thing of the five different times that we make the sign of the cross during the liturgy, and what does that mean, and why we have the processional cross coming up, and the whole idea of the cross, where Paul will say, “Now I preach the cross, Christ crucified, which is the wisdom and power of God,” and where it even helps us understand times that whole reality of suffering, that whole thing of theodicy. The fifth one was Agnes Day, the Lamb of God. He was talking about all that to do from Exodus and Genesis and Isaiah and John and Revelation, and why it was that Jesus was called the Lamb of God, and then the last one was the Bread of Life discourse. You remember all of those? When I say that, please don’t hear that in any kind of a way like that. I’m not thinking necessarily that you should, but I’m just saying that when I look back on that, that was a series of homilies that I’d given six of those to talk about this whole idea of what it means to be invited into this tremendous experience that we call the liturgy.

So I thought what I would do just for a moment is just talk a little bit about processions. And if you remember, we’ve talked about that before. We’ve talked about processions and incense and things such as that. So let me just run through this real quickly and see if this is useful to you, because that will help me.

So how many processions are there? So where’s the first one? Where’s the first one occur? What’s that? Okay, very good. That’s all tied into the first one when you get up.

Okay, so the very first one has to do, it’s tied in with us coming down the aisle, but what preceded that is what Dr. Tim just said. The very first procession is when you got up and you made a decision to do what? Come. That’s where the first procession begins, is the fact that you chose to get up and come. At times you have a person may and when I, you know, do I say this, say the obvious? A person gets up and decides what? Not to come. And remember fundamental stance, you have a stance before the world. You have a worldview. You have a way in which you look at life and where you look at yourself. This is your foundation. This is where you say, this is my foundation. This is non-negotiable. This is who I am. This is what I stand for. This is my stance.

And the fundamental option is every choice that I make that either grounds that stance, that supports that stance, that verifies that stance or does something else. It undermines it. It comes against it. So I may say things like Stacy and I at times have, boy, I want to be careful with this one too. We’ve learned and we learned it when we started in Idaho with that church in our house. And I used to, because that’s what we were asked to do, Bishop said, I want you to go back to Idaho and see if you can get something started. So we came back and we opened up. So we opened up our house and it would amaze me that people would come through the front door that would even come, but they would come. And so occasionally we’d hear people say, you know, I really like this. I really like this here. I’m going to be coming back every week and what we would see over and over and over again, we wouldn’t see him anymore. And it was almost like making this declaration and the enemy’s hanging around and saying, I’m going to steal that. I’m going to come right along and steal that every seat, because every time we make a statement about what we’re going to do for the Lord, the enemy is lurking around to steal it, to cause something for you to go back on what it is that you said you did. I’m going to do this every time I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that. And the enemy hears that. That’s why sometimes we almost have to be somewhat circumspect when we make those statements, from you. And all of a sudden, then it’s like, I said, I was going to do that. I didn’t do that. And then sometimes, not always, sometimes people almost feel worse because like I haven’t done that and then whatever, and then they just get more and more laid out. So the very first processional then is when an individual gets up and decides

I’m going to come and see when we talked about the whole thing of worship, does it matter how you feel? What happens if at some point in our life, we begin to realize it doesn’t matter how I feel? If that’s my way of going, then do I transpose that onto the Lord and to say the Lord is a bit capricious and he may be having a good day and he may be having a bad day.

But it’s because I’m making a choice because remember we come to church first and foremost to do what? To give. See, that’s where we also really get in trouble is when anytime we go to church and go, wow, I got a lot out of church today. It was great worship. It was a great word. It was great fellowship. That’s going to bring me back. That’s wonderful. But what happens when all of a sudden an individual comes and says, “Ah, the word wasn’t so good today. I didn’t really care for the worship. Ah, some of the people, you know, they didn’t pay that much attention to me. I don’t know that I really like the fellowship and I don’t know where I really am with all of this right now.” Dangerous place to be.

So the whole idea of recognizing I’m making a choice to give. See, that’s a real invitation, but it’s a real healthy challenge because the Lord will say, “I’m here. I want to give you a job.” So the whole idea of that first processional is so much with that, but we were talking with our daughter not too long ago and she has an almost four-year-old and a one-year-old and she’s going to have another one in December. And on one of those Sunday mornings when we were there, Abigail was having a bit of a meltdown and Ezra was having his own meltdown and Katie turned and looked at me and said, “I know why families at times don’t go to church.

So I’m very aware of that. Very, very aware of that reality that some people have more challenges right? Which is why we hold them up in our prayers. That’s why we hold parents with young children up in our prayers because it’s a whole reality that there can be stuff going on. There can be other times an individual just doesn’t feel well and so they’re choosing to walk through that. But that whole notion that knowing that every single one who chose to come is saying something that in the midst of all the reasons that I could have not come, I chose to come and that’s important. And to know how pleased the Lord is with that, but is that to say that if you didn’t come he’s not pleased with you? Don’t go there. But just the whole notion of what that means to process. So where’s the second procession? It’s a little bit of a misnomer, but the second procession is when it’s called the Gospel Gradual, the Gospel Processional. When and we’ve been having the deacon right come down here like what Jason did today. That’s the second procession. Why does the word of God come down into our midst?

What’s that? Okay to teach us the Lord comes among his people. What’s that? To dwell among us. Sounds pretty good, right? So we can hear. So you remember in the historic church and maybe you don’t remember this because I didn’t do it well enough. Remember in the historic church the reason that the gradual comes down right to here and everybody does what? Stand. Okay it’s a sign of reverence and worship and granted the Lord’s words coming down on the midst. You can say Jesus is going to the midst of the people and that’s all good and you can certainly build a case for that. But there’s something else going on because see after that Gospel is proclaimed then everyone who has not been baptized or is part of the process of becoming a Christian, what do they do?

They have to leave. They have to leave and the door is locked. They leave and the door is locked and they cannot continue with the celebration of the Eucharist. What are they supposed to do when they leave?

Apparently I didn’t do this well at all. You don’t remember this? So what do they do when they leave? What are they supposed to do when they leave? They’re supposed to go find at least one person before the sun goes down and to tell them about the risen Christ.

The ones who are in the process of wanting to become but are not yet baptized have not yet been received but they cannot participate in the Eucharist. They’re locked out from it and they go out into the world as it were with one job now is before the sun goes down is to talk to someone by word or example who the Lord, who the risen Lord Jesus Christ is. You didn’t know that one. Kind of amazing, isn’t it? What does that mean about the rest of us who stay?

Yeah, the rest of us who stay and do the Eucharist and how does the liturgy end? Yeah, to go. Get out of here. Go and do what? To do what? You see, when I have people come up here and to say, “Do you have a prophetic word for anyone?” Remember I’ve told you what we do here is like training so you get more comfortable doing it out there.

So you get more used to doing that. You get more used to carrying that word and releasing that because you’re always on a processional. You’re always being sent.

You’re always being sent. You got up to come, to give and God’s never done in generosity and he pours and then he comes into your midst to give to you so that after you have received the Eucharist, you even have more to release. And those who have gone out cannot, they cannot wait to be able to come more and more a part of the whole community. And there can be something about that that maybe almost sounds a little mean, but it’s trying to say not mean at all. It’s trying to say, “Do you understand? Have you counted the cost?

Do you know what it is that you’re signed up for?” You remember when Jesus says, “If you’re about ready to go against an army and you don’t have the personnel that you think, you need to maybe kind of think that through, etc. So all of a sudden, the onus again isn’t about us our giving, our pouring out what it is that we have received. What’s the third processional? And again, it’s a bit of a misnomer. We haven’t been doing this COVID,

but I put the illustration on the back corner. Yeah. It’s called the offertory. And see, it’s typically you can get a couple of people that are designated or whatever to bring up the gifts of bread and wine. Now, if we were to be involved in the whole process, everybody would have a couple of people that are designed to bring up the gifts of bread and wine. That’s another processional. Why bringing those up to the altar? What does the wine represent regarding you?

The bread represents all that you do, and the wine represents all that you are. And the wine also represents when you think of grapes, the crushing of the grapes. So in other words, in this life, there is a crushing that goes on. And when you see that wine, it’s a remembrance of there’s a crushing that has gone into your life

with the Lord, because in that crushing, you become a new creation. It’s fermented in that wine, right? That’s for the sense of that sense of joy, but it also has to do with worship. That’s what that bread and that wine represent. It represents all of you coming forth. And what happens is we offer that to the father and it gets transformed, brought back to us. The incarnate word brought back to us has taken all that we do and all that we are and transforms it into him that will be transformed us into him.

Does that make any sense? Okay. Where’s the next one? Again, it’s a bit of a misnomer, but where’s the next processional? So now we’re at number four.

It’s coming up for communion. See, this is the altar call. I grew up Baptist. So periodically, you know, the minister okay. Anybody who wants to accept the Lord come up here, come up forward. Do you realize that there’s an altar call every single Sunday when you come up for communion? Because remember when I did that illustration, I had that table here. You told me you really liked that.

I had that table here and I had the goblet of wine. And remember that it was rooted in the whole Jewish marriage ceremony. That when the young man decided that he really wanted to have this woman to be his bride, he would come to her and he would take a goblet of wine and he would put it in front of her. And if she were to drink from it, she was saying, yes, I will be your bride. And if she either pushed it away or ignored it, then he knew that he had been turned down. But if she were to take from that cup and take a drink, then she’s saying, I will be your bride. Right? And then if the perspective room was to walk out and someone were to ask him, so when’s the big day?

When’s the wedding? Do you remember what he would say? It comes right out of John 14. Only the father knows.

Only the father knows. And then I will come back and do what? Take you with me that where I am, you will be also see every time you receive the cop, what you’re saying again unto the Lord is, yes, I am yours. And you receive from that that which has been transformed. And the Lord is saying to you, I am preparing a place for you and I will come back soon to get you and to take you where I am that where I am, you will be also. And the father knows that there’s all that preparation that’s going on in the midst of that transformation that takes place. of amazing, isn’t it? And that’s your altar call because every time that you’re here, whether you’re kneeling or whatever, and whether you do the intention, I personally am please don’t anyone be offended by this. Please, please, please, please, please. My preference would be people to come from the cup. That would be my preference. But I know that for some that’s that’s bothersome. So please don’t change your your way of receiving community because what’s most important is what’s most meaningful for you. But there is something about taking that and saying, yes, yes. Because it’s all wound up in him, right? And then the recession, which we to a certain extent have already dealt with. And that is the fact that after you have given and given and given, the Lord gives back a hundred fold. And now you go out and you release what it is that you have received because you have that mark on you. And so you are going out like the disciples. I want you to go to the highways and the byways. I want you to cast out demons. I want you to carry my word. I want you to lay hands on the sick. What you have received freely, give freely.

That’s processional. Is that valuable to you? Seriously, you think people in their 20s and 30s, you think that would be valuable? How would I clean it up? Do you like it that way?

Do you want me to get angrier? I would say, there I would make it as relatable as possible. So how would you relate it? I mean, so how was I not relating it? Well, some of it was, I mean, I was following this one. Some of it was a bit abstract. Can you think of any particular? Well, for a person like me who is not familiar with a lot of the early churches, and why we need to learn, because the first physical church I’ve ever gone to, right? So I learned a lot here, but I don’t know the history behind it. I followed along because I explained it. And then I go, oh, okay, great.

And I accept it because I’ve seen it happen before, but I just didn’t know what was going on. So when you have those concepts of people who are not entrenched in the physical faith or Catholic or anything like that, all I was around it was not unfamiliar. The concepts of this abstract, unless you break it down to, let me give you an example. You know, the Baptist church, if they make it simple, you come up to the front, close the accept Jesus Christ, who is all the people, and that’s the way that you confess him before being. And then after you do that, he accepts you, and you say, see, to me, that’s what I’ve come up with. Like, from, from, from, like, once you breathe, that’s how it happens. I think that’s helpful because that could be a clear distinction to be able to make, to mention that. So remember for, that there’s two worldviews when it comes to baptism, and I’m not pitting one against the other. I’m just telling you that there’s two worldviews. The Protestant worldview, and I’m not, like I said, I’m not pitting one against the other. The Protestant worldview kind of goes like this. At some point, some, some moment, some whatever, I experienced this, this. I had a personal relationship that became real as what? An adult.

Okay. This became real. After that, then I become a member of the community because I’ve experienced this. And so sometimes what baptism is seen as a ritualizing of something that’s already occurred, that you’ve already had this. So the, the, the vertical is very, very, in fact, some people, like, I know that you can do that. Some people can say, I can tell you the day and the date that that happened. Okay. The other, call it the Catholic, is that you become a member of the, you become a member of the community and as being a member of the community, the Lord, you had, you experienced the Lord as being a member of that community. So the difference between the two of them is the first one, you are baptized into your faith in him. The second one, you’re baptized into his faith. See, that’s why when you start looking at infant baptism, the church can look at that infant baptism makes all the sense in the world. If you have that understanding, that you are becoming part of the body of Christ and you are being drawn into all of that because you’re baptized into his faith. But what happens is these end up getting pitted against one another, right?

They become pitted against one another. And I could say a whole lot more about, you know, some of the distinction, but I think that’s good. So I have to kind of work that through and maybe I even confuse some of you more with that. But to be able to have an understanding, any one of us to look at it and say, how do I look at baptism? Am I uncomfortable with infant baptism? Does I think I should just be adult baptism? Where am I with all of that? What’s the distinction? What’s the difference? What’s the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Is there such a thing? Rick? I just wanted to say that because we have come from so many different faiths, that and we don’t, you know, this isn’t talking about you, I’m just talking about in general, we don’t even get taught about the faith that we came from very well. So we come here to something that a lot of us are unfamiliar with and don’t even realize the things that we took for granted where we came from, what their historicity was. As far as just for history, altar calls didn’t occur in the church until the late 1800s in America because of an evangelist named Billy Sunday. That was the first time that a mass altar call ever occurred in the church. So even that is not ancient tradition. Did I confuse anybody? Sure, that’s what I want for a couple more minutes. So you probably plan to do this anyway, but I thought as you were unpacking all of that, how much the Holy Spirit is brooding over each processional?

Just with a desire to go to church and then all the other processional that happen after that, that the Holy Spirit is just brooding over that, it just is pouring over that and saturating that. So I’d share this with some of you that before I knew anything about the CEC, I got invited to be part of a healing ministry for about, I showed up three different times. It was in Toronto, Canada, had nothing to do with the Toronto thing. It was different from that.

But at this particular times, there was one of the individuals that was part of the team was a prophetic seer, S-E-E-R. So when the prophetic worked, she would see things. And any rate, what she did is she would tell us afterwards, where all the healing and everything was going through every single part of the liturgy. Because sometimes even with our charismatic experience, we can get trapped into thinking, okay, the worship is going to do three songs and then the Holy Spirit shows up. Did you hear what I just said? You know, we do the three songs and then we have people come up and we’re going to operate in the charismatic here for a few minutes. And then okay, that’s done. Let’s continue on. We’ve invited him to come and see if he’s going to say anything. And it’s like, okay, you can go wherever it is that you need to go now. We’re going to continue on with what it is that we need to do, as opposed to what you just said very well. And that is, it’s woven throughout the whole thing. The whole thing is there and to recognize the entire… And that again, and maybe as a value of the processional, is recognizing there’s something going on in the midst of that, that you’re constantly moving. We’re constantly moving because we’re intended to. We’re not intended to stay in one place for very long. If we’re following where he’s calling, he’s always calling us deeper, always calling us deeper, calling us into more.

And so it’s not wanting to stay in some place, but to continue to know that he’s calling you more and more and more. That’s what spiritual direction does. Listens to the individual and says, “Where is the Lord calling you now? This is where you’ve been.” But it just seems like, I don’t know, it’s not quite as rich as it was, probably because now the Lord’s calling you someplace else. I’m sorry, I’m going to go a little long. I don’t think I’m so unique, but like you said, Dr. Chan said… The decision to get up and go. But there’s something about, you know, when you’re driving, you know, getting here, hopefully you’re not saying bad words to people.

And you have to ask for absolution when you get here. But once– and once I turn that car off, and I get to the handles of the door– I was late this morning. But there was something like I was just reaching for the handles of the door, saying, Lord, thank you. I want to reach– grab these handles, open this door up, and walk in and walk into your presence. There’s just something of– and then, like you said, it continues to grow. I’m in the little nartics out there. And then I come in, and I touch the holy water. And then I come in, and I bow before the Lord as much as I’m able to. And then we come in, and we begin to worship.

And it’s like a snowball that– I mean, I started out with a big– maybe only a little ice couple at home. They got me here. But by the time we get going, that snowball grows, and it grows, and it grows, and it grows, and it grows. That’s just my experience. So again, just looking at the time, thank you so very much for listening and trying to get some degree of feedback. If you have more stuff that you want to say, that you would prefer to say to me personally, that this, I didn’t understand, or I would appreciate that, that would be unbelievably helpful. Because dealing with that age group,

I want to have some way of being able to impart something that’s going to be of value to them, that they can take away. So when they look at that, what they’re doing, whether they have young families, or whether they’re wanting to have a family, or whatever that looks like. OK? (Inaudible) How many of you believe in the creed? I do.