This week;s devotions are written by Vicar Steve Bond.



Alas, the final installment from Hauerwas’ “Only Theology Overcomes Ethics”…



“It is the gospel that is the agent of the specifi history of God’s people and so enables and shapes…meanings.” It is the Eucharist above all that shapes the habitus of the church’s speech.



If you want to get to know someone, pay attention to how he or she responds when you say, “Tell me your story.” The kinds of events and relationships that people name as having significance in their lives say a great deal about who they are themselves. It is the same with the church—at our center, is not a list of rules, a magic formula for success, or a mystical feeling, but the death and resurrection of Jesus. The story we tell centers around the living remembrance and real presence of Jesus in the bread and the cup—for us. The story of the church is the story of Jesus, who has claimed us and called us to be a cruciform—cross-shaped—people.



Connection: At its heart, ours is a story of a God who is gracious beyond our deserving and good beyond our imagining. It is our firm hope that at the last, the “old old story,” which is also a vision of our future, will be made real. In this day, God is already at work showing us surprises of mercy and offering us the presence of the living Jesus in ways we can only imagine.



Father, let your mercy shape us and let your grace have its way with us. Open our ears to the good news you will speak to us today, and open our mouths and hands to speak and live that news to all.



1 Corinthians 11:23-26—“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”