The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 9C

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg The 4th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 9C July 6, 2025 When faced with an upcoming journey, I have a tendency to overpack, especially if I wait and pack at the last minute. I’ve been thinking about this tendency of mine this week in the light of our gospel reading—when Jesus sends out 70 disciples to go out ahead of him and to proclaim his mission. He gives them specific instructions about what to take (not very much), where to stay (don’t move around from house to house), how to engage with the people where you stay (eat what they give you, offer your peace but if they don’t receive it, then move on to the next town). By our modern standards, these are some austere travel instructions, and it makes my little over-packer heart anxious just to think about it. But there’s much that we can learn from today’s gospel reading. Some of the highlights of this story include that Jesus sees abundance where others see scarcity (“the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few”). Vulnerability is implicit in discipleship (take nothing with you and eat whatever they give you). The faithfulness of the 70 leads to successes that have unexpected results (not only do they spread the good news but they discover that even the demons submit to them). And even though the 70 disciples receive great power from God, the greatest benefit of their faithfulness is that their relationship with God develops and deepens through their trust in God and not in their own power.i But this way of traveling, of being in the world requires a certain degree of risk. Here’s what another writer writes about this passage: “In commissioning seventy disciples, Jesus invites them-and us-into practices of risk. Risk traveling lightly. Risk rejection and welcome. Risk protest and proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom, which is coming near to every circumstance. This passage nurtures our capacity for risking…” ii It’s interesting to think about my tendency to overpack, or to over plan in light of this. Perhaps it is my own attempt at ‘risk management.’ And it has led me to wonder how Jesus calls us, even now, to take risks in our life of faith, in our discipleship? What does it look like right now in our lives of faith, to heed Jesus’s call to not overpack, to take less than what we need, to be vulnerable and open to both hospitality and to rejection, to live into his call to boldly proclaim the good news of God’s healing and restoration? What are the ways that we are called to this kind of discipleship both in our upcoming journeys and in our everyday lives? Who are the companions that Jesus is sending us out with, so that we are not alone on the road? Where is God’s peace revealed in our lives, so that we may share it with others? I will confess that in these final weeks with you, I am trying to resist the temptation to overpack, over plan for you and for me for our separate futures. We are all being called to the risk of uncertainty, of not having the itinerary completely nailed down. The temptation is to try to stuff our suitcases full of everything we might need. But the call of Jesus is to be fully present in this moment, to risk trusting God and also trusting our companions on the way. And our gospel reading reminds us of all the ways God shows up with abundance even when we expect scarcity, of the ways God provides in the midst of our risk and uncertainty. So this week, I invite you to think about how Jesus is calling you to risk in your discipleship, in your living out your faith. I invite you to examine where you might be overpacking in your life or in your faith right now. Where is God calling you to risk both hospitality and rejection? In closing, I’ll share with you writer Kate Bowler’s Blessing for Uncertainty. “Blessed are you who live here. The space between simple categories and easy answers. You who wonder why this is your life, why you got this diagnosis, or why you still struggle with infertility, or why you haven't found your birth parents, or why you can't kick this addiction, or why your kids haven't come. Blessed are you who built a home on uneasy ground, who, despite your trying, your asking, your searches haven't found the satisfying feeling of discovery and blessed are you who never will. This is not an easy place to live outside of certainty, outside of knowing, outside of the truth. But blessed are you who realize that love and beauty and courage and meaning can still be found here amid the unease and frustration and sleepless nights. May you be surprised by your capacity for ambiguity, for the way it makes you a great listener and a good friend for you or someone who knows how to feel your way around in the dark and squint for the stars. I wish it were easier, dear one, I wish I could have the answers you seek, but for now, may you find comfort in the fact that you are not alone. Here in the gray, we are all learning to live in the uncertainty of the unknowing. So blessed are we who live here together.” iii i. This section came from a homily I preached on these lessons at St. Thomas on July 7, 2019. ii. Quote by Hierald E. Osorto in Everyday Connections: Reflections and Prayers for Year C. Heidi Haverkamp, ed. WJK: 2021, pp 366-367 iii. Shared on Kate Bowler’s Facebook page on June 26, 2021 https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1FD8KjPGmy/

The Third Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg Third Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8C June 29, 2025 A letter to Lillian Alice Johnston upon the occasion of her baptism. Dear Lily, Today we are celebrating your baptism here at St. Thomas. Today your parents and godparents are making promises on your behalf about how you will live your life, and we, the gathered congregation, are making promises to support you and them in your life of faith. In baptism, we are acknowledging that God has already claimed you as God’s beloved. We are all saying “yes” to that belovedness for you, even as you are reminding us of our own belovedness as well. There’s a saying in the church that “baptism is becoming who you already are.” You are already God’s beloved, and today, you are becoming God’s beloved as you and those who speak for you say “yes” to your belovedness. In fact, our whole lives of faith are a growing deeper in this becoming who we already are. It’s what the church refers to as discipleship. Jesus models for us the way of growing deeper into true belonging as God’s beloved, of becoming who we already are. He teaches that that becoming is marked by dying to ourselves and our own selfish desires; in living lives of empathy and compassion and forgiveness of and service to others. The ways that we become who we already are as God’s beloved are encoded in our baptismal covenant. Our becoming is nourished in prayer, scripture, and sacrament; it is rooted in seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves, asking for and offering forgiveness, repenting and returning to God when we fall away, striving for justice and peace and respecting the dignity of every human being. But as we see in our gospel lesson for today, this call to discipleship, the call to continued becoming is not an easy path. Sometimes it calls us to forsake things that are good in and of themselves; and sometimes we find that if we cling too tightly to these good things they get in the way of our becoming or our growing in our belovedness. Our hearts can make idols of even the best things in our lives, so that they come between us and God. And our hearts can also cling too much to the wounds and slights and shadows of the past, holding us hostage for living fully in this present moment. That’s part of what our becoming is; it is being fully present to God and those in our midst in each present moment. It’s challenging, uncomfortable work, and so we need each other. It’s why we gather here week after week together, so we can support one another in our becoming. Today is the beginning of that journey for you, sweet Lily. Today you begin your becoming. There will be so many more moments before you when you will be challenged to become more than you already are, to grow deeper in God’s love for you. These moments of becoming can be deeply unsettling and uncomfortable. They are filled with both hope and terror, as we leave behind what is old and don’t yet exactly know what is to come. i It is what the apostle Paul refers to when he says that anyone who is in Christ is a “new creation.” It’s what Jesus is getting at in our gospel reading when he calls the people on the road to follow him in discipleship and then rebukes them for wanting to turn back; even though what they are turning back for is worthy, it divides their hearts and holds them back from following him into their becoming a new creation. Lily, today is the first moment of many becomings for you. There will be so many more than you can ever count. Any time you stand in the crossroads of such seemingly ordinary things as choosing kindness or forgiveness over retribution or setting aside your own selfish desires to create space and welcome for another. And of course, there will be bigger moments of becoming as well, times when you stand on a precipice and are called to jump into the unknown; sometimes it will be your choice to jump, and sometimes it won’t. But the truth that undergirds all of this, for you and us, is that you have been, are, and always will be God’s beloved: marked as Christ’s own forever. No matter what happens in your life, you will never be alone. God will not forsake you, God’s own beloved. We promise to help you remember this, sweet Lily, and we hope you will do the same for us. May you continue to become what you already are! Your sister in Christ, Melanie+ i. A friend of mine recently quoted a line from her favorite Jane Austin book Persuasion in reference to these moments of becoming, saying, “I am half agony, half hope.”

The Second Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 7C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg 2nd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 7C June 22, 2025 “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?” In our two psalms assigned for today, we read this verse three different times. “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?” It could easily be the refrain for our modern times. “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?” There is so much noise in our lives and in our world. And our souls just seem to soak it up. Even in our hyper-connected society, we find ourselves lonely, our souls burdened and disquieted, cut off from God, our source of life and light and oppressed/overloaded with so much noise. And you know what’s crazy? We choose this noise all the time! The 24 hour news cycle. The text-threads. The endless doom scrolling on social media. The to-do lists. And don’t even get me started on the leaf-blowers! (Oh, how I hate the leaf blowers!) Take a minute and think about how you often choose noise in your life? Think about how you have done it just this week? Just last night, as we were going to bed, we heard the news that the US had dropped bombs on Iran, and instead of saying a prayer for all those affected and going on to bed, what do you think I did? I picked up my phone and started reading as much news about it as I could. Also, I can’t help but notice that we do it here, too. Just about every week, we fill up the silence before worship with talking. Why do we do this? Why do we choose the very things that are making us disquieted and restless? And even more importantly, how do we stop it? How do we stop choosing for our souls to be disquieted? Let’s look at our Old Testament reading for today to gain some insight into all of this. Our portion from First Kings picks up right in the middle of things with the prophet Elijah. Now, Elijah has gotten himself sideways with the king and queen of his day, Ahab and Jezebel, who were quite corrupt. God has used Elijah as God’s mouthpiece to tell Ahab and Jezebel to return to following Yahweh, but they have upped the ante, worshipping the false god Baal and killing off the prophets of Yahweh. So Elijah puts on a show where he goes against the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. He prophesies how God will end the drought, and Elijah calls down God’s fire from heaven (while doing some epic taunting of Baal’s prophets), to demonstrate the sovereignty of Yahweh over all other gods. And then, Elijah encourages the gathered witnesses to round up all the prophets of Baal, and Elijah kills them all. That’s when our story for today picks up. After his tremendous victory, Elijah goes on the run as Queen Jezebel threatens to kill him. We see God sending an angel to Elijah to tend to him in the wilderness. The angel provides him with food and encouragement to rest and to continue. Elijah runs all the way to a cave at Mount Horeb (where God had given the 10 commandments to Moses), and at this point, Elijah is feeling persecuted and quite self-righteous. When God asks him what he’s doing there, he replies (quite full of himself), “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." God, tells Elijah to stand out on the mountainside and God will pass by. And then, comes the noise of several cataclysmic events: wind, earthquake, fire. But Elijah knows that God is not in those. It is when Elijah hears the sound of sheer silence that he knows that God is approaching, so he goes out of the cave, and he encounters God in the silence. And in the silence, God speaks to Elijah and reveals what Elijah is to do next. Where Elijah feels like he is the only one left who is faithful to God, God reminds Elijah that there is a whole community of people who remain faithful, and there is still work for Elijah to do among them. God tells Elijah to anoint two new kings, and to anoint his prophetic successor, and God reminds Elijah that there are 7,000 people who are still faithful to God. So Elijah leaves that encounter with God in the silence with renewed mission and purpose. He finds courage in knowing that he is not alone after having received God’s care for him in the form of food and rest. And he becomes renewed by a sense of a new call-- that he is called to be an important part of the community of those who remain faithful to God, and he leaves Mount Horeb and gets back to work. So, what does this all have to teach us about our own disquieted souls and how to stop choosing the noise in our lives but instead making space for God to speak in the silence? The Episcopal priest and spiritual director Margaret Guenther writes about this encounter between God and Elijah in her book My Soul in Silence Waits. Here is what she writes: “The voice of God was not in the powerful, potentially devastating phenomena, but in the silence. I try to imagine the clarity and expansiveness of that silence. Looking within myself, I am baffled and chagrined by my simultaneous yearning and resistance. I am drawn to the intimacy of that prayerful silence, and at the same time I am genius at avoiding it. The silence of God… is living, active, and filled with the Holy Spirit….The silence of God demands our surrender. It demands that we shut up and listen, abandoning our defenses and taking off our masks. [She continues,] Elijah, standing outside the cave on Mt Horeb, must have felt helplessly open, as vulnerable and exposed as a mortal can be. He must have wondered if the wind and the fire would destroy him, if the earthquake would swallow him up. When we let ourselves wait upon God in God’s silence, we too become receptive and open. We rid ourselves of non-essentials… [She concludes] To wait for God in silence demands that we pay attention. It demands our awareness of subtlety and smallness. In the silence we become mindful of what might otherwise be dismissed or ignored.”i Where in your life is God inviting you to surrender, to be vulnerable, to be open to how God speaks to you in the silence? How are you being called to choose the silence of God over the noise of your life or the world? Where is God inviting you to lean into uncertainty, to relationship, to trust in God? Consider ending each day of this coming week in intentional silence. You might consider using the Psalmist’s refrain as a mantra: “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?” i. Guenther, Margaret. My Soul in Silence Waits: Meditation on Psalm 62. Cowley: 2000, pp 37-39

Easter 7C

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg The 7th Sunday of Easter-Year C June 1, 2025 Liturgically, we find ourselves in a strange, in between time today. Today is the 7th Sunday after Easter-The Sunday after the Ascension-where we find ourselves dwelling in a liturgical “already-not yet.” Jesus has already ascended to be with God, (we commemorated the feast of the ascension this past Thursday), and the gift of the Holy Spirit has not yet been given to his disciples. (That will happen for us next week on the Feast of Pentecost.) So, we’re in a sort of spiritual in-between or liminal sort of place. It’s no wonder that the collect for today seems to plead: “Do not leave us comfortless!” This week at the healing service, we talked about liminal spaces, and about how or where we have found comfort in those in between times and places and seasons. I shared that I had recently read the book How to Walk into a Room by Emily Freeman, and she uses the image of how our lives are like different rooms in a house, how we spend different seasons of life in different rooms, and sometimes we are forced out of a particular room, and sometimes we choose to walk out of our own accord. There are even liminal, in-between times when we find ourselves hanging out in the hallway of our life, in between rooms. That’s where we find ourselves today; in the liturgical hallway between Jesus’s ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. None of us is a stranger to this hanging out in the hallway. These liminal spaces are a part of our human condition. The shift from babyhood to toddler-hood, from childhood to adolescence and adolescence to adulthood. There are transitions between being engaged and getting married, from leaving one job and starting another. The transition from this life into the next is another liminal space which we will all dwell in eventually, and often accompany loved ones through. Some of us find comfort in these hallways, these transitions. These liminal spaces can give us a break, a time-out for a reset, or even be a place of safety, a refuge where we build a nest of blankets and hunker down when the tornado sirens are going off. For others, the hallway is a place of risk, where we relinquish any sense of control over our goals or our destiny, a place of waiting and watching, and of discomfort. For many of us, these hallways are the portal between life before and life after—life before the diagnosis, the loss of our spouse, the job loss, a new relationship, a new job, or the birth of a child and the life after this transition that we sometimes choose and sometimes don’t. These liminal spaces, these hallways, are opportunities for reflection on our life and our call, and they are spaces where God invites us to be open to uncertainty, the unknown, to mystery. Can you take a moment to think about when you have experienced one of these liminal spaces or stood in the hallway of your life? Was it a place of discomfort or comfort for you? What did you learn about yourself, about your life, your relationship with God? Where or how did you find comfort in the liminal space, in the hallway of your life? How did courage take shape in your life the last time you were hanging out in the hallway? The Irish priest, theologian, and poet John O’Donohue writes about these liminal spaces, these hallways that he calls thresholds in his book To Bless the Space Between Us. Here is what he writes, “ At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotions comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds; to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.” i In our gospel reading for today, we get a glimpse of Jesus’s farewell discourse to his disciples from John’s gospel, where he is trying to impart to them the truths he wants to leave with them. He invites them to stay grounded in God’s love and to stay connected with each other, even as things are about to change dramatically. In her reflection on the feast of the Asension, the pastor, poet, and artist Jan Richardson had this to say about how Jesus takes leave us his disciples and how he encourages them to dwell in the liminal space for a time. She writes, “Before he is gone from the physical presence of his beloved followers and friends—precisely while he is leaving them, in fact—Jesus offers them a blessing. It’s this moment that really knocks me out. Jesus is not trying to put a silver lining on his leaving. He is not giving them a blessing as a consolation prize for having come through these wild years with him, only to see him leave—though consolation is surely part of his intent. Instead, with the blessing that he gives them in the very moment of his leaving, Jesus is acknowledging that the substance of grief is also the substance of love. They are made of the same stuff, and if we can be present to this—if we can stay with both the grief and the love that lives at the heart of it, the love will become more and more clear, and more clarifying, and it will, in time, show us the way to go.” In conclusion, I’ll offer you Richardson’s blessing that accompanies her reflection. It is titled STAY I know how your mind rushes ahead, trying to fathom what could follow this. What will you do, where will you go, how will you live? You will want to outrun the grief. You will want to keep turning toward the horizon, watching for what was lost to come back, to return to you and never leave again. For now, hear me when I say all you need to do is to still yourself, is to turn toward one another, is to stay. Wait and see what comes to fill the gaping hole in your chest. Wait with your hands open to receive what could never come except to what is empty and hollow. You cannot know it now, cannot even imagine what lies ahead, but I tell you the day is coming when breath will fill your lungs as it never has before, and with your own ears you will hear words coming to you new and startling. You will dream dreams and you will see the world ablaze with blessing. Wait for it. Still yourself. Stay. ii i. O’Donohue, John. To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. Doubleday: New York, 2008, p48-49. ii. Jan Richardson from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

Easter 5C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Fifth Sunday of Easter-Year C May 18, 2025 How many times in our lives have we said, “I just can’t wait to be home!” We say it when we are away on trips of various sizes. We say it when we have a stay in the hospital. We say it sometimes even mid-way through a long day at work. Even in the midst of adventures, this longing for home may steal upon us. I’ve talked to a number of different people this week about what makes a place home for them. Home seems to indicate a place of familiarity, of comfort, of peace, of refuge. It’s a place where we feel like we belong in our truest selves, and it is often a safe place where we can mourn. Many folks associate home with family and friends, and for some, home encompasses a multitude of generations who figure out how to get along in ways that sometimes stretch us. I wonder what makes a place home for you? When you say “I just can’t wait to be home!” for what are you longing or looking for? In our reading from Revelation for today, we’ve got the very end of the book of Revelation. Now, we’ve had readings from Revelation for the last four Sundays and surprisingly, none of our preachers have chosen to engage them, myself included!. So, here’s a bit of context on Revelation from the scholar Diana Butler Bass. She writes, “We often forget that the Revelation of John is exactly what it claims: a revelation, a vision. It isn’t predictive, it isn’t fortune telling, and it certainly isn’t writing the future. Above all, it isn’t literal. Like all visions, it reveals truth of things through symbols, poetry, visual and auditory suggestions, and dream sequences. The writer wasn’t a soothsayer. The author was certainly intuitive. And by the text’s own admission, the writer was a contemplative visionary. This person heard voices, paid attention to dreams, and prayed through images. And then, whoever this was wrote down what had been seen. Sort of like an ancient dream journal. A record of visionary experiences…” She continues, “Revelation was written many years after Jesus’ execution. Most scholars, even conservative ones, think it was composed some six or seven decades later. The popular predictive interpretation of the end times isn’t accepted by serious academics, even if it is the familiar view held by casual Bible readers and fundamentalist Christians. [Instead] modern interpreters have emphasized that Revelation was a message of comfort to a persecuted church. Some suggest that it emerged in the midst of internal Christian conflict, others think it was a warning aimed at Christians who had become collaborators with the Roman Empire. She concludes, “Catholic biblical scholar Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza insisted that Revelation be read ‘from the margins’ and is best understood as a kind of Christian version of the Jewish story of the Exodus. As such, the book stands in the tradition of scriptural liberation, reveals the struggle of early believers with Rome, and proposes a hoped for future of justice for all.” i Our reading for today gives us a glimpse into this vision, this dream for God’s church in the midst of conflict or persecution or collaboration with Empire. In the vision, God is making God’s home among mortals, and it is clear that in that home, we all belong together with God. And the main thing that this passage shows us that God does in making God’s home among mortals is to offer comfort for those who mourn, to take away all sadness and suffering. And in that home together with us, God makes all things new. It’s a compelling image of God, if we really think about it; That God chooses to not only make God’s home with us but also, that one of the ways that God makes home is by comforting those who mourn and by even removing the sources of that grief or mourning. Perhaps that is why this passage is one of the suggested passages for our Burial liturgy—to remind us of this image, this promise of God. And I can’t help wonder what this means for us as the Church? If we the church are the body of Christ, God’s way of making home among mortals, how are we called to further this work of God? How are we called to create a space of home or belonging for others, both inside our walls and outside? How are we called to care for those who mourn, both inside our walls and outside? How are we called to make things new in partnership with God? Because it’s not enough to create a space where we and others feel comfortable. There’s an aspect of home that nourishes us, cares for us, even as we get called outward to make our way in the world. Poet David Whyte captures this tension beautifully in a portion of his poem WHAT I MUST TELL MYSELF. I’ll share it with you in closing, and invite you to consider this week, how we are called to make home for others. WHAT I MUST TELL MYSELF I know this house so well, and this horizon, and this world I have made. from my thoughts. I know this quiet and the particular treasures and terrors of my own silence but I do not know the world to which I am going. I have only this breath and this presence for my wings and they carry me in my body whatever I do from one hushed moment to another. I know my innocence and I know my unknowing but for all my successes I go through life like a blind child who cannot see, arms outstretched trying to put together a world. And the world seems to work on my behalf catching me in its arms when I go too far. I don’t know what I could have done to have earned such faith. Watching the geese go south I find that even in silence and even in stillness and even in my home alone without a thought or a movement I am forever part of a great migration that will take me to another place. And though all the things I love may pass away and all the great family of things and people I have made around me will see me go, I feel they will always live in me like a great gathering ready to reach a greater home. When one thing dies all things die together, and must learn to live again in a different way, when one thing is missing everything is missing, and must be found again in a new whole and everything wants to be complete, everything wants to go home and the geese traveling south are like the shadow of my breath flying into darkness on great heart-beats to an unknown land where I belong. This morning they have found me, full of faith, like a blind child, nestled in their feathers, following the great coast to a home I cannot see. ii i. From Diana Butler Bass’s Substack page The Cottage. Sunday Musings for Easter 4C-The prophetic shepherd. https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/sunday-musings-a22?utm_source=substack&publication_id=47400&post_id=162973184&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=l4l89&triedRedirect=true ii.From WHAT I MUST TELL MYSELF In The House of Belonging © David Whyte and Many Rivers Press. Share on David Whyte’s Facebook page on May 7, 2020.

Easter 3C_with 3A's gospel

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg Easter 3C_2025 (with 3A’s gospel) May 4, 2025 Based on Luke 24:13-35 There are four words from the story of the Road to Emmaus that echo in my life from time to time. Is it the same for you? Do you hear them, too? “But we had hoped…” The two travelers encounter the stranger on the road after a harrowing time. And the weight of their disappointment is conveyed in those four simple words: “But we had hoped..” Luke tells us that this disappointment-sadness-anger-regret stops them in their tracks in the middle of the road on their journey somewhere else, as if they can outrun or escape it. In that moment, Hope stands resurrected, manifest, right in front of them. But their disappointment-sadness-anger-regret blinds them so they cannot see him, cannot recognize him. How many times have I, too, been blinded by my own disappointment-sadness-anger-regret? But we had hoped… That things would turn out differently. But we had hoped… That they would finally hear us. But we had hoped… That the healing would come, the relationship be reconciled. But we had hoped.. That new life, resurrection would conform to our expectations. How many times have I been blinded by my disappointment-anger-sadness-regret when Hope, himself, stands right in front of me, gazing upon me with the look of Love? If there is nothing else we remember this Easter-tide, it is the good news that Our Lord of all Hopefulness does not leave us standing still on the road to Emmaus, blinded by our own disappointment-anger-sadness-regret. He journeys with us, coaxing us, inviting us onward down the road, accompanying us on the journey, always teaching, even when our ears don’t fully hear, even when our hearts don’t fully recognize. And on that road, Hope slowly steals past our blinding disappointment-anger-sadness-regret, and lightens and softens our vision, our hearts, until gradually-all at once, we see the Resurrected Lord, Hope Incarnate, breaking the bread there in our midst: in the face of the weary one kneeling at the altar rail, in one in the hospital bed, in the person at the table across from us, the one in line ahead of us, in the stranger asking for help or offering a word of encouragement. In those glorious moments, we know that Hope has never failed us. Disappointment-anger-sadness-regret cannot blind us forever. And we can see Love everywhere we look: on the road beside us, at the table across from us, and especially, going before us, smoothing the path that we may follow. But we had hoped… It is both an ending and a new beginning. Because Hope never leaves us stuck in disappointment-anger-sadness-regret.

The Day of Resurrection: Easter Day 2025

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Day of Resurrection: Easter Day April 20, 2025 There’s so much fear. I’d never noticed it before this year. I had always thought that maybe it was about competition. But this year, I realize….there is just so much fear. The unthinkable has happened. They’ve been going about their business, doing good things for society, and the authorities have come in and arrested their friend. He has been handed over to a foreign government. He is tried under false charges in a sham of trial. He is tortured, publicly humiliated to prove a point about who’s really in charge here, and then, he is brutally, publicly executed. Like a criminal. Even though he was innocent. His friends are terrified and hopeless. What if they come for them too? Who’s to stop them from being arrested and tried as his followers? It’s no wonder that next week, we will see them huddle together in a locked room, hunkered down in fear. Afraid to go to work. But today, we see them trying to do the next right thing, to prepare the body of their friend for the hasty, disgraced burial he has already received. They are terrified, and they are trying to keep on doing the next right thing. And their fear is evident, if we know how to look for it. There’s so much running, hither and yon, accompanied by panic. We recognize this because we’ve seen it in ourselves from time to time. When we are threatened, our primitive fight or flight response kicks in. Mary Magdalene panics and runs from the tomb to retrieve Peter and John and she tells them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Peter and John race back to the tomb with Magdalene running behind them. When the disciples verify that the tomb is indeed empty, they wander lostly back home. What else is there to do in the face of such mystery? But Mary Magdalene stays, and she finally succumbs to a complete and utter melt-down. It has all been too much, and all she can do is stand there and weep. In her standing still, in her grief, she encounters two angels who ask her a question: “Woman, why are you weeping?” Her response is wrapped in fear: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know what they have done with him.” Now, how do we know this is fear? It’s because we do this ourselves when we are afraid. We pin all our fears and distrust on the shadowy “they”. The ones who aren’t like us. Who don’t think like us, don’t look like us, don’t act like us. Who’s the “they” that Magdalene keeps referring to here? We don’t really know. But what we do know is that it is not us. And that’s when the risen Christ shows up. Mary Magdalene starts to blame him for moving Jesus’s body, thinking he’s the gardener. Because maybe, just maybe, he is one of them: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” And then Jesus calls her by name, and she recognizes him. And all of those “us versus them” categories disappear for her as Jesus stands before her resurrected from the dead. If I were to ask you what you think the opposite of fear is, what would you say? (probably courage, maybe persistence, maybe even hope?) What if I tell you that I think that this story shows us that the opposite of fear is awe? We see it, over and over again, in the gospel: people going about their business in various shades of fear or woundedness, and the power of God is revealed in their lives or right in front of them, and their fear vanishes in the face of their awe. We get a glimpse of this transformation for Peter in the Acts passage for today. Peter, who was so afraid that in the face of the empty tomb, he just goes home. We see him preaching in Acts after some time has passed, and he has been transformed by encounters with the Risen Christ and the manifestation of the glory of God in and through the faithful actions of Jesus’ disciples. Peter preaches: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality…” Peter’s fear has been driven out by his awe and he now understands that in the Kingdom of God, there is no us versus them. There is only us. Back in January, I preached a sermon about sin and awe, and I spoke about how sin divides us but how awe connects us. We could say the same thing about fear and awe as well. Fear divides us; awe connects us. I recently came across this definition of awe. Awe is “an emotional experience in which we sense being in the presence of something that transcends our normal perception of this world.”i Researchers have found that awe ‘leads people to cooperate, share resources, and sacrifice for others’ and causes them to ‘fully appreciate the value of others and see themselves more accurately, evoking humility.’ Some researchers even believe that ‘awe-inducing events may be one of the fastest and most powerful methods of personal change and growth.’” ii Fear divides us. Awe connects us. Back in January, I talked about how we cannot generate our own awe, how we have to be on the lookout for moments when awe breaks into our ordinary lives, and then be attentive enough to allow it to transform us. We might argue that’s why we come to church today. We are trying to show up for the awe of God’s mighty work through Jesus’s resurrection from the dead to astound us, to break us open, to transform us. But guess what?! I have recently learned that just like we can practice other spiritual disciplines like gratitude and hope and mercy and forgiveness, we can practice the discipline of awe! Scientists have actually studied this, and they have named a pattern that is found in the heart of most religions as a way for us to practice awe. These scientists call it “microdosing mindfulness” and they have identified a five to fifteen second, three step process to help us cultivate and practice awe in our lives. They call it the AWE method. The first step-the A-is Attention. Start by focusing your full and undivided attention on something you value, appreciate, or find amazing. The second step-the W- is Wait. It means slowing down or pausing, taking a breath, inhaling deeply while you appreciate the thing or person or idea that you are focusing your attention on. The third step-the E- is Exhale and Expand. Make a slightly deeper exhalation than normal, allowing what you are feeling to fill you and grow. Pay attention to what you notice about yourself. Did you feel a surge or release of energy? iv The invitation of this day, of Easter, is for you to think about what all of your running around (literally, figuratively, spiritually) reveals about how fear is motivating you? Because it is only when Mary Magdalene stays put, standing still and grieving near the empty tomb, that she becomes open to awe in her encounter with the Risen Christ. In that moment, her fear is transformed, and she is deepened in her connection with Jesus, empowering her to be the one who delivers the good news of his resurrection to the other disciples and ultimately the world. Her awe thus connects her with believers throughout time. How might your life, your faith be transformed by practicing AWE during the next 50 days in this season of Easter?v In closing, I'd like to share with you a poem about moments of resurrection awe that can be found in everyday life. What It's Like to Rise Again By Tania Runyan Not just the first crocus bulb poking from the ground, but its pollen shining saffronly on the legs of a bee. The reverberations of a hammered dulcimer or the puff of sweetness escaping between peel and pith of a ripe tangelo. It's an old woman admiring her hair in the mirror—the curl that bounces back— and an anonymous (to you, at least) possum in the woods yawning as she stretches front legs then hind. It's a teenager mountain-posing by an open window, his childhood blanket his mat, and yes, I can say it: unclasping an underwire bra after church and just letting your humanity be. It's riding the elevator after the doctor tells you, we can't say why the scans are suddenly clear, or, if you're exhausted from trying, time to surround yourself with people you love. It's waking in the middle of the night, looking out at the silhouettes of trees and realizing there is nothing lonely about silence. It's cruising a wide-open Montana highway or swinging your hips to the rhythm of a street-corner bucket drummer and daring the stares. It's not the cicada blooming from its shell as much as the shell itself, balanced on the finger of a little girl, then tumbling along the grass tips among the unkillable dandelions. i. Eagle, Jake and Michael Amster. The Power of Awe: Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Paine, Find Clarity and Purpose-in Less than 1 Minute Per Day. Hachette Books: New York, 2023, p 19. ii. Brown, Brene. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. Random House, 2021, pp58-59 iii.This section is originally found in my Epiphany 5C sermon for 2025 preached at St. Thomas. iv.Eagle, Jake and Michael Amster. The Power of Awe: Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Paine, Find Clarity and Purpose-in Less than 1 Minute Per Day. Hachette Books: New York, 2023, p 185 v. Here are resources to learn more about the AWE method. https://thepowerofawe.com/what-it-is/