Christmas Eve 2021

Christmas Eve 2021 “The world can be divided into two types of people: those who love Ted Lasso and those who haven’t seen it yet.”i If you’ve been following us here at St. Thomas this past year, you will know that I was late (and a little reluctant) to watch the Emmy-winning Apple TV show titled after its main character Ted Lasso. My friend and colleague here discovered the show pretty early and after her initial enthusiastic recommendation, she would periodically say, “Have you watched it yet?” This summer just as the 2nd season was coming out, I finally succumbed to her gentle yet zealous encouragements to “just watch it, you’ll see!” Here is what I found. Ted Lasso is an American college level football coach who is hired to coach for a premier soccer league in England. He’s never played soccer before, doesn’t really understand all the rules, and he has all sorts of misadventures because of the differences in how we use the English language and in the different culture. But here’s the thing. The show isn’t really about soccer. It’s about humanity—what forces drive and motivate us and about how we are all a strange mix of light and dark, of hope and self-interest, of kindness and smallness. Ted is this intriguing character because he carries in him an unrelenting optimism that sees potential in people and helps invoke the best out of most of the people around him. In the first episode, on his first day of work at his new job at fictional AFC Richmond Football club, Ted walks into the locker room and then tapes up a handwritten sign on a yellow piece of paper. The sign reads “Believe.” Throughout the two seasons, Ted refers to the sign occasionally, sometimes just by tapping it with his hand as the players watch him walk through the doorway into his office. And I think, when you boil it all down, the success of Ted Lasso in this current moment in our common life is that we all are desperately looking for, longing for, something or someone to believe in. We long to remember how the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. We look for the hope of the promise that kindness, vulnerability, and forgiveness can change the world. This time of year, we hear a lot about believing. We watch movies about how the power of belief can help bring about magic in this old, tired world. One meditation on Belief says it this way: “This time of year we’re told to “believe.” But what does that mean? Judging from the movies to believe means to believe in magic, or Santa, or romance, to be optimistically wishful and naïve. In many Christian circles to believe means to think, as in believing certain doctrines are true. But the word “believe” comes from old English, rooted in German, belieben—to love. In scripture to believe means to give your heart: to lovingly entrust yourself, not to an idea but to a person.” ii We know the people who walked in darkness; we are them. We long to give our hearts to something or someone, to put our trust in something greater than ourselves. The Medieval mystic Meister Eckhart wrote, “we are all meant to be mothers for God, for God is always needing to be born.” In order for Jesus to be born on this night so many years ago, his mother Mary first had to say yes to God’s invitation. She had to give her heart to God, to put her trust in God in an unexpected and unprecedented way. Joseph, also, was given a chance, a dream, a moment when his initial no to being the father of Jesus changed to become a yes, and he, too, gave his heart and his trust to God. That is the gift of this most holy night—the old, familiar story reminds us of how normal people, not so different from us, said yes when God’s messenger showed up in their lives asking for them to believe, inviting them to believe, to trust, to give their hearts and to help give birth to God. It’s a reminder of how regular people—Mary, Joseph, the shepherds—witness and participate in the birth of Emmanuel/God with us and how they gave their hearts to him, upending both their own lives and the entire world. This year-maybe above all years-we have longed to believe in something, in someone. We have longed to give our hearts to someone or some cause that is worthy. We have longed to be saved from ourselves and all the craziness that is going on in the world around us. The gift of this night is the reminder that through the birth of Emmanuel-God with us-God shows us that God is with us, that God invites us to give our heart, our trust, ourselves to God. And when enough of us say yes to God, God will change the world. It has already happened, and it will happen again. Ti. his line is taken from an article for Mr. Porter by Dan Rookwood: Fashion: Swearing Is Caring: A Few Choice Words From The Breakout Star Of Ted Lasso | The Journal | MR PORTER ii. https://unfoldinglight.net/2021/12/17/believe/

Blue Christmas 2021

Blue Christmas 2021 December 15, 2021 Years ago, I was visiting a parishioner in the hospital. When I walked into her room, she looked up at me from where she was slumped in her chair; her eyes were shadowed with pain, and she said, “I know God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, but this feels like too much.” I flinched and opened my mouth to respond, and then I thought better of it because hospital rooms and funeral homes are not the places a priest should be arguing theology with her people when they are hurting. But I suspect, there are some of you here tonight who have been wounded by someone saying those words to you in the face of suffering or tragedy—that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle-and so I want to spend a couple of minutes tonight reflecting on what we do believe about God in the midst of suffering. Spoiler alert: the God that is captured in that horrible saying is not the God I believe in or follow. (I don’t think I have to say this to y’all, but I’m going to say it anyway, just in case. It is better to stay silent in the face of suffering—both someone else’s or your own—than to say to someone else or yourself that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.) When I was pregnant with our daughter, my husband David and I went with some friends to see a Cirque de Soleil performance. Before the performance started, they had these clowns wandering through the audience as entertainment. Somehow, I caught the attention of one of the clowns, and he came over with a giant stack of empty wrapped packages. He proceeded to entertain the crowd by trying to stack package upon package in my lap, which also contained the medium-sized baby bump that was Mary Margaret. And what added to the show was my fiercely protective husband seated next to me, who kept taking package by package off my lap into his own while he and the clown made angry gestures at one another. Friends, God is not like some clown putting on a show and piling things up in the laps of already hurting and vulnerable people. God is the one who loves us, sitting right next to us, trying to help us bear some of the burden. We see this at work in both the Isaiah reading and the gospel reading for tonight. God’s chosen people of Israel are hurting, and God reminds them, that God is strong and righteous and ready and eager to help them. In the gospel, John the Baptist hears about Jesus while imprisoned and sends his disciples to find out if Jesus is really the messiah. In typical Jesus fashion, Jesus answers the question enigmatically saying, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” Those who are weak or vulnerable are being restored to strength; those who are hurting are being comforted. This is spoken by Emmanuel, God with us—who has no interest in testing the limits of “what we can handle.” God created us to be in relationship with God and each other. Bad things happen, sometimes because of our own decisions or the decisions of those we love and sometimes they just happen—we don’t know why. But the God of love who sent Emmanuel to be with us does not want us to suffer. God longs to be fully reconciled with us and for us to live our lives in peace and whole-heartedness, and God is willing to come along-side each one of us to help us bear our burdens and sorrows. There’s a story I read this week that is attributed to the writer Elizabeth Gilbert. It gets to the heart of why we are here tonight, why we gather, what God promises to do for us, and what we are called to do for one another. Here’s what she writes: “Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated with one another, with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here. But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. ‘Folks,’ he said, ‘I know you have had a rough day and you are frustrated. I can’t do anything about the weather or traffic, but here is what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don’t take your problems home to your families tonight, just leave them with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I will open the window and throw your troubles in the water.’ It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who had been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other’s existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious? Oh, he was serious. At the next stop, just as promised, the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river. We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it is extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don’t know where to find it. But what if you are the light? What if you are the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for? That’s what this bus driver taught me, that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy influencer. He was a bus driver, one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit. When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world’s troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, ‘What can I do, right now, to be the light?’ Of course, I can’t personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can’t control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other’s name.” She concludes, “No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated, one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river."

Advent 3C

Advent 3C_2021 December 12, 2021 “What, then, should we do?” John the Baptist has burst onto the Advent scene in full force today, calling his listeners (and maybe, us?) “a brood of vipers” and challenging them to repent to prepare for the coming of God’s messiah. “What, then, should we do?” They ask him not once, not twice, but three different times. And it could just as easily be us asking the question with sincerity, a little bit of hope, and a whole lotta longing. We wouldn’t mind repenting, we’re just not really sure how to do it. “What, then, should we do?” The Old Testament scholar Walter Bruegemann writes this about prophets: “A prophet is someone that tries to articulate the world as though God were really active in the world. And, that means on the one hand, to identify those parts of our world order that are contradictory to God, and on the other hand, it means to talk about the will and purpose that God has for the world that will indeed come to fruition even in circumstances that we can’t imagine. So, what that gives you is both judgement and hope.”i. So, when the people come to John the Baptist in today’s gospel reading, and they continue to ask him again and again…”What then should we do?”, John’s great gift is that he is a person of vision who knows exactly who he is (not the Messiah but the one pointing to him) and that he has a very clear understanding of who his listeners are and clear vision who they could potentially be. He sees the shortcomings and the possibilities of each of them and of the world around them. He tells each one what they need to do in order to bear fruits worthy of repentance, and each prescription has to do with looking outside of themselves and their own issues and treating others with justice and mercy, gentleness and charity. The poet Audre Lord wrote to her friend and fellow poet, Adrienne Rich: “Once you live any piece of your vision, it opens you to a constant onslaught of necessities, of horrors, but of wonders too, of possibilities.”ii That is what John the Baptist offers his hearers: “possibilities”. It is the possibility of the good news—how we can be, how we will be changed for the better. The prophet invites his audience to open their eyes to the challenges and the possibilities of the world around them and to live more fully into the hope, the possibilities. He invites each one to become a little prophet in their own lives, holding in tension the challenge and the possibility and becoming a part of the Kingdom of God in how they contribute to bringing the possible to fruition. What, then, should we do? May we open our eyes to the world around us-to both the challenges and the possibilities. May we hear the invitation of the prophet to let go of those parts of ourselves, those “things that we do again and again that do not help deepen life.”iii And may we offer to God and the world around us “the fruits worthy of repentance”-obeying the call to look outside of ourselves and our own issues and treating others with justice and mercy, gentleness and charity. May we be God’s agents of hope and of possibility in a world where we believe God continues to act. i. Walter Brueggemann and Kenyatta Gilbert, What Does It Mean To Be Prophetic Today? From the daily email of Inward/Outward Together—Church of Our Savior Washington DC ii. From a sermon I preached at St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, Gulfport, MS on December 13, 2009 iii. https://unfoldinglight.net/2021/12/06/pruning/

The Second Sunday of Advent-Year C

Advent 2C December 5, 2021 It was like something out of a nightmare. The New York City Subway had dumped us out into a futuristic concourse with no windows or exit signs. We had no idea where we were, if we were above or below ground, or how to get out. And everything was this unnatural white color. Many around us moved with purpose as if they knew exactly where they were going, while other kindred spirits wandered around aimlessly in the futuristic wilderness trying to find the exit that would get us to the World Trade Center Memorial. Finally, after we had walked from one end to the other, I saw it, a light shining on it as if illuminated from heaven. A map. We rushed eagerly forward and searched for the sign that would help set us free: the tiny star in the circle with those blessed words “You Are Here.” But here’s the thing, even after we saw where we were, we couldn’t make sense of the map or of the landscape around us, so we couldn’t figure out how to get out. So, we wandered a bit more until we happened upon an escalator to take us up to the surface and out to freedom. Our gospel reading today from Luke’s gospel is the gospel equivalent to the star in the circle with the words “you are here.”i. Luke is writing in a very specific time, in a very specific context, to a very specific people. And he is showing them, and us, exactly where they are in the moment before Jesus’s birth. He’s giving them a map of the landscape and helping them orient only to tell them that God is about to change the landscape in dramatic ways—"Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth…” So what do we do, how do we find our way when given a map and then being told that the landscape is about to change dramatically? That’s where Zechariah comes in. Our lectionary gives us another portion of Luke’s gospel today in place of the Psalm. It’s known as Canticle 16 or the Song of Zechariah in our Prayer Book, and I’m really grateful for its presence in our readings today because Zechariah is an interesting character who is not so different from us. We don’t see this in the portion for today, but Luke gives us another “you are here” moment in the telling of the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth. He writes, “In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.” One day, Zechariah was minding his own business, doing his priestly work and offering incense in the holy of holies in the temple, and the Angel Gabriel appears at the altar. (If we learn anything from Luke’s gospel it is that the Angel Gabriel as God’s messenger is one of the ways that God dramatically changes the landscape in an instant.) Gabriel tells Zechariah that he and Elizabeth are going to have a son who will be a prophet like Elijah, filled with the Holy Spirit. And his job will be to “make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” But Zechariah scoffs and questions Gabriel saying, “‘How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.’ And Gabriel, knowing that Zechariah needs a little help in changing the landscape, replies, “‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.’” So Zechariah is silenced for at least nine months, and in that silence and space, his own landscape changes. After John is born and he can speak again, Zechariah is filled with the Holy Spirit and he sings this song that we have recited together today—a song that remembers God’s goodness to God’s people and promises more good things to come in the immediate future. In his months of silence, Zechariah recognizes where he actually is and allows God to change the landscape all around him. As one of my colleagues put it, “If you never prepare for something new, you’ll never be ready for anything new. Zechariah is this old priest who learns he’s going to have a child and he scoffs. He isn’t ready for something new, so he’s struck silent to be able to prepare.”ii And the amazing thing is that Zechariah uses that time to prepare for John’s birth and in that process, he becomes clearer on the nature of the God who he loves and serves. Change happens. The landscape can shift around us suddenly in an instant—like with an unexpected diagnosis, with the unexpected death of someone we love, with our world shutting down over the course of a weekend in 2020. And the landscape can also shift gradually as we wait and watch as our oldest child prepares to leave for college, as we pray and discern if it’s time to move out of our lovely home that is filled with so many memories and comforts into a place where we can age more easily and gracefully. The gift of Advent is that it is a season that invites us to prepare for change, to prepare for a change in landscape. It’s an opportunity for us to find the star on the map of our spiritual lives that says, “You are here,” and to take inventory as we begin to open our hearts to expect and prepare for change. Your invitation this week is to think about this. On the map of your life, with the star in the circle that says “you are here”, where exactly is that? Name that place to yourself or to someone you love and trust. And begin asking God to help you prepare for change. i. This idea came from my friend the Rev Jen Deaton. She shared it with our preaching group on December 1 and asked us to reflect on the question of what “you are here” star with a circle looks like in this moment of our life. ii. This comment came from my friend The Rev Kevin Goodman in the same conversation as listed above.

Last Sunday after Pentecost-Christ the King-Year B

Last Sunday after Pentecost—Christ the King Sunday November 21, 2021 Today I would like to tell you two tales of two very different bunnies. The first bunny is named Barrington Bunny. Barrington is the only bunny in the whole wide forest, and he is sad and lonely because he cannot go to the other animals’ Christmas parties--he cannot climb trees like a squirrel or swim like a beaver. And he doesn't have a bunny family of his own. Barrington is crying alone in the snow on Christmas Eve when the wise wolf whose eyes are like fire appears before him. The wolf tells Barrington that all of the animals of the forest are his family, and that he, as a bunny, has his own special gifts. He can hop, and he is furry and warm. As Barrington is hopping home filled with hope and a plan to help the members of his family (all the different animals of the forest), a blizzard wind begins to blow, and he comes across a young field mouse who is lost from his family. Barrington tells the mouse to not be afraid, that he will stay with him, and because he is a bunny, he can help keep him warm. In the morning, when the young mouse's parents find him, Barrington has died in the night keeping the little mouse warm. And the wolf comes and keeps watch over Barrington's body all Christmas Day. The second bunny is named Foo Foo. You see, Little Bunny Foo Foo was hopping through the forest. And out of nowhere he inexplicably scoops up a field mouse and bops him on the head. Then, down comes the good fairy, and she says, “Little Bunny Foo Foo, I don’t want to see you scooping up the field mice and bopping them on the head. I’ll give you three chances. And if you do, I’m gonna turn you into a goon!” Well, we all know what happens. Whatever inexplicable forces that are at work in Little Bunny Foo Foo’s soul to make him want to bop the innocent field mice on the head do not abate, in spite of the good fairy’s warning, and he burns through his three chances, getting turned into a goon in the end. These two stories of two different bunnies are actually two different pictures of kingship that we need to consider on this Last Sunday after Pentecost which is also known as Christ the King Sunday. The Foo Foo way of kingship is a way of might and violence. Foo Foo is bigger and stronger than the field mice and he exercises his power over them until someone stronger than him comes along and punishes him with more violence. The Barrington way of kingship is a way that knows and experiences suffering and loneliness, a way that reaches out to others out of that shared pain and offers a comforting presence even to the point of sacrificial death. We all know suffering, loneliness, tribulation. And most of the time, we are like the communities who John's gospel and Revelation are being written to. We want a strong, Foo Foo like King who will come in and bop all our enemies on the head and rescue us from our suffering. That is the world's way. But Jesus is not a Foo Foo like King. "My kingdom is not of this world," he says. “The way of using might to bring about victory, the way of violence, the way of ‘bopping the little ones on the head’ (or even turning the bullies into goons) is not my way,” he tells us in that one simple phrase. His is the way of Barrington Bunny: the way of staying beside those who are suffering, the way of sacrifice, the way of peace and a love that eventually conquers everything-even death. If we are to be his followers, the citizens of his kingdom, then that must be our way too. Which kind of bunny will you be? Whose way do you follow?

25th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28B

25th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28B November 14, 2021 We don’t realize how much we rely on landmarks until they are no longer there. In two different times in my life, I’ve lived someplace where major landmarks have disappeared in an instant. Even though I had only lived in New York City for a couple of weeks before September 11, 2001, in my 3 years there, I never got used to the gap in the downtown skyline where the twin towers once stood when I’d go for a run south on the West-side Highway. On the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the whole landscape was wiped out and irrevocably changed when Hurricane Katrina came ashore. Parishioners who had lived there their entire lives told me stories about how, after Katrina, they would get lost traveling well-known routes because all the distinguishing landmarks were gone, so they never really felt like they knew where they were at any given time. When I moved there 4 years after Katrina, they still hadn’t replaced street signs, so anytime I would try to go somewhere off my regular path, I would often get lost. You should probably know that I often find myself “directionally challenged.” Just last weekend, a companion and I decided to walk to dinner from St. Mark’s Church in Brunswick where we’d had the opening service of convention. It actually took us a while to realize that we had gotten lost on the three-block trip to the restaurant, and when we called my husband to come get us, we finally realized that we had walked in the opposite direction of the restaurant—this is with ample street signs and my phone’s gps. But even for people who are not directionally-challenged like me, it is easy to get lost when known landmarks are wiped away. The community that the writer of Mark is addressing knows something about this. As one commentator writes, “Mark was likely written during (or just after) the disastrous Jewish revolt against Roman imperial occupation in Palestine (66 – 70 CE). Mark’s world was shattered and shaken to its core. The Roman armies vanquished the rebellion and destroyed the Jewish temple, desecrating what for Jews was nothing less than the sacred heart of the world. The message of Mark’s Gospel is thus a message of hope proclaimed in the midst of catastrophe, grace in the midst of violence and ruin. To really hear it, we have to listen from a position of desolation, chaos, and bewilderment; we have to listen alongside the traumatized soldier, the displaced refugee, the pregnant teenager, the addict and his heartbroken family…. This is where Mark lives. These are the depths from which Mark proclaims God’s good news.”i So, it makes sense that in our portion of Mark for today, we see the disciples begging Jesus for certainty. We, who have seen many of the landmarks of our world shifting for the last 18 months, can certainly understand that longing for a sure foundation, for known landmarks, when the world around us feels like it is in chaos. The Hebrews reading is a portion of a sermon to a dispirited congregation. The preacher is addressing a congregation that is suffering from decline; he is addressing a flock who is “tired and discouraged about the way evil seems to persist in the world. As a result the congregation has begun to question the value of being followers of Christ. Attendance at worship has begun to falter, zeal for mission has waned, and the kind of congregational life that is rich with love and compassion has begun to dissipate.” ii It’s interesting to me that both Mark and the Hebrews reading end up in the same place—hope. In the gospel reading, Jesus doesn’t offer his disciples certainty but he does offer hope, telling them that God will come to the rescue “in spectacular fashion: righting wrongs, routing wrongdoers, and thereby inaugurating a new era of justice and compassion.” In similar fashion, the author of Hebrews urges his congregation saying, “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” What might that look like—that holding fast to hope—what might that look like for us in a world where many of our major landmarks were taken away from us in March 2020 and if they are being built back, many of them look very different from before? Last weekend at Diocesan Convention, our bishop Frank Logue shared the gift of a road map for the journey in the form of a question that had been shared with him by a fellow bishop. That question is “what does faithfulness to Jesus look like in this moment?” “What does faithfulness to Jesus look like in this moment?” It doesn’t necessarily offer the certainty that the disciples and many of us long for. It does, however, offer us a new landmark when all around us seems in chaos, and it is helpful reminder of both how we might continue to hold fast to hope, and it is also a reminder that “he who has promised is faithful.” Asking ourselves “what does faithfulness to Jesus look like in this moment?” gives us the road map, for one small step at a time and reminds us that Jesus is walking the path right beside us. It helps us move forward together until we recognize the landmarks around us or until we find a completely new path and the courage and hope to follow it. i.https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/lectionary-commentary-for-twenty-sixth-week-after-pentecost ii. I quoted this in a previous sermon I preached in 2012, but I cannot find where the original quote came from. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/lectionary-commentary-for-twenty-sixth-week-after-pentecost

The Sunday after All Saints' Day-Year B

Sunday after All Saints’ Day Year B November 7, 2021 This time of year, a lot of people like to hang out in graveyards. I’ve seen lots of folks decorating their yards with skeletons, bones, and tombstones this year, and this time of year always sees an increase of interest in cemetery or haunted walking tours. Just this past week, some of us spent some time hanging out here in the Memorial Garden, our church’s very own graveyard, as we held our All Saints’ service in the Memorial Garden for the second year. We wrote the names of the Saints and our faithful departed on luminary bags that we lit up with candles and placed on different graves and on the pathways in our church’s graveyard. After the brief service, many of us lingered, talking with our fellow worshippers among the graves as we waited for darkness to fall to better see the lighted luminaries. I found it to be such a profound moment of peace in the midst of a very full week. Not so long ago, Scott Tanner oversaw a project to clean up the Memorial Garden. In addition to placing new sod and cleaning the markers, Scott ran plumblines through the garden and then straightened the grave markers to be in better alignment. One day, as Scott was out there working in the heat, I went out to check on him toward the end of the day. (He’s said it’s ok that I share all this with you.) Even though the work was grueling, and he was clearly tired, he was strangely luminous. He told me he was actually enjoying the work, and he talked about how, while he was working, he would talk to his friends and loved ones who were buried nearby where he was working, how he could almost just hear how they were responding to him—some were offering him words of encouragement while others were heckling him or still trying to boss him around even from beyond the grave. (I’m sure those of you who have been around here a while can guess who was doing what!) I couldn’t help remembering Scott’s peace and his joy when he told me that he was working among friends and loved ones as we sat among friends, both living and dead, and waited for the darkness to fall this past Monday. The Celtic people-both pagans and Christians-had a name for this. They called it a “thin place,” and they had an abiding awareness of these thin places in their lives and in their world. Harvard theologian Rev. Peter Gomes writes this about thin places: “There is in Celtic mythology the notion of ‘thin places’ in the universe where the visible and the invisible world come into their closest proximity. To seek such places is the vocation of the wise and the good — and for those that find them, the clearest communication between the temporal and eternal. Mountains and rivers are particularly favored as thin places marking invariably as they do, the horizontal and perpendicular frontiers. But perhaps the ultimate of these thin places in the human condition are the experiences people are likely to have as they encounter suffering, joy, and mystery.”i Thin places are places and moments when we recognize that the veil between our current life and our eternal life is thin, sheer, even, at times, non-existent. Thin places, both physically and spiritually, transport us to a place of homecoming and belonging. In the liturgical year, the days surrounding All Saints’ Day are one of these thin places. We see Jesus standing in one of these thin places in our gospel reading for today, as he raises his friend Lazarus from the dead and invites him to come out of his grave. And we see another thin place in the vision of the celebratory banquet in Isaiah, a joyful vision of a time when the scattered will one day be regathered and restored. Today is such a thin place in the life of this church. As we turn in our pledge cards and ask God to bless these gifts that we offer back to God from the gifts God has given us, we stand in the thin place between the past and the future here at St. Thomas. On one side are all those saints who have come before us, who have shined the light of Christ’s love for us in this place. And on the other side are those who have yet to come, to whom we are called to shine the light of Christ’s love—our companions and children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the faith—generations yet to be born. We mark our place here in this thin place by making our pledge commitment and by renewing our baptismal vows—reminding and encouraging ourselves and each other of what it means to be bearers of Christ’s light in this place and in this season. Years ago, in the early days of my priesthood, I performed the funeral of a woman named Virginia Stephens. Virginia, who was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother, had been a life-long Episcopalian, and she wasn’t so different from most of those folks buried out in our graveyard. She had been secretary of the parish for a season long before I got there, was a member of the altar guild and a choir member among many other things. One of the gifts Virginia gave to her family and to me as a baby priest, is that she planned her entire funeral. (Perhaps she didn’t trust me or her family to not mess it up!?) As we processed out of the service, her grandchildren bearing her body out of the church for the last time, we sang the hymn Virginia had chosen for her exit. It was hymn 400 which we sang last Sunday and is the same hymn tune as the hymn we’re singing today. It’s a hymn, whose words are attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, and which talks about how all of creation is invited to join in praise of God the Creator. There’s an optional verse that Virginia had us sing, and singing that verse in that moment opened up a thin place for me; even now I can’t hear it without wanting to weep with a strange mix of sorrow and joy. “And even you, most gentle death/ waiting to hush our final breath/O, praise him. Alleluia!/ You lead back home the child of God/for Christ before that way has trod/O praise him! O praise him! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!” i. https://couragerenewal.org/wpccr/thin-places/

23rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 26B

23rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 26B October 31, 2021 Our readings for this Sunday for both Old Testament and the gospel are quite familiar. Both readings articulate and encapsulate what are the key teachings of both Judaism and Christianity: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” Most of us have probably been able to recite these since our childhood Sunday school days. And yet, a colleague helped me see these old commandments with fresh eyes this week. She shared a reflection from Steve Garnaas-Holmes from his blog Unfolding Light. It is titled: “First Commandment.” God, you know how I put other things first: to be right, to be safe, to belong. I confess. I repent. I already belong to you, eternally, absolutely. I am safe in you. I need not earn your love, or prove my worthiness, or have others approve. I only need to let the love you give me become all of me: to love you with all of myself, every little thing I do an act of love, and to pass that love to others, always and no matter what, to never compromise my love with anything else. Oh, stand for justice, speak the truth, say the hard things, prohibit abuse, but only with love, not anything else, anything else.i This colleague then asked us to reflect upon the question: What are the commandments that we really live our life according to—like being right, being safe, belonging? How do those commandments that we really live our lives according to compare or contrast to the commandments to love God and love our neighbors? What are the ways that we try to earn God’s love rather than living into the love God already has for each one of us? I invite you to think about a specific time in your life this week when things just felt wrong or out of sorts. Reflect on what commandment you were following at that time. Was it a commandment to appear perfect? Was it a commandment to give up so much of yourself in service to others so that there was nothing left of you? Was it a commandment to look or be successful? Was it a commandment to be understood in a world that doesn’t understand you? Was it a commandment to try to have all the answers? Was it a commandment to be safe in an unsafe world? Was it a commandment to try to find your own fulfillment in new experiences or entertainment? Was it a commandment that you had to be “top dog”? Was it a commandment that above every thing else, peace must be kept? What was the commandment that you were following in that time when things were wrong this week, and where did that commandment come from? How did you go astray from loving God and loving your neighbor in that moment? What might you have done differently? What might that moment have looked like if you had been more attentive to the commandment to love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself? What might it have looked like if you had been able to let God’s love speak through you in that moment—either to yourself or to someone else? Today, as you hold out your hands to received communion, know that you are receiving the love of God, offered to you over and over and over again. Take that love into your body, heart, soul, mind, and strength, and let it empower you to share that love with all you encounter this week. i. https://unfoldinglight.net/2021/10/27/first-commandment/

22nd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 25B

22nd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 25B October 24, 2021 Years ago, when I was working at Stewpot, the inner city soup kitchen in Jackson, Mississippi, I almost, inadvertently started a riot. I had been talking to one of the community members who was homeless, and he revealed to me that as the temperatures were beginning to drop, he was concerned because he did not have a blanket. I was delighted that I could help him; we had recently received a donation of about 20 brand new blankets, still in their packaging. So, I went to where they were stored, and I brought one out and gave it to him. I’m not sure how word got out, maybe other community members saw his new blanket, and they started mobbing the office where the blankets were kept. It eventually took the intervention of our security officer to quell the crowd. I had never seen anything like it, and I learned to be much more discreet when handing out new blankets in the future. Years later, I was serving as a priest in a downtown church. We had another man who was homeless stop by the church on a specific mission. As the deacon was talking with him the man said, “I have these two blankets here. Would you please keep them and give them to someone else who may need them more than me?” Blankets are a hot commodity among those who are homeless and impoverished. They can mean the difference between survival and not. Now, I don’t know how many blankets this man had, but it is striking to me that he must have felt that he had an abundance of blankets, and so he chose to give away two to try to help someone else in need. In our gospel reading for today, we see a blind beggar named Bartimaeus who is at work with his cloak or blanket in Jericho. When Jesus and his followers come by, Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” First, this is unusual, because this is the first time the writer of Mark introduces Jesus’s connection with David into this gospel, although if we continue on with the story, we will see it again shortly in Jesus’s triumphant entry in Jerusalem. Second, it is important to note that translators tell us that there is no good translation for the Greek words into English for what is translated as “have mercy on me.” It is a much more active demand in the Greek, and would be more like us saying, “Do something!” or even “Mercify me!” Bartimaeus encounters resistance from the crowd, but he just calls out louder. And then Jesus tells the crowd to tell Bartimaeus to come here, which they do. “Take heart,” they say. “Courage!” “Get up, he is calling you.” And this is the part that really strikes me in this story. Bartimaeus throws off his cloak, and he jumps up, and he goes to Jesus. Think about that for a minute. The man is a beggar. His cloak is most likely his most valuable possession (much like my homeless visitor’s blankets). Bartimaeus would have used his cloak as a shelter from the elements; he would have laid it on the ground as a place to gather and collect any alms he received as people passed by. And when Bartimaeus throws off his cloak and leaves it behind, he knows that he most likely will not be able to find it after his encounter with Jesus unless he has assistance. What tremendous faith and courage to cast off the one most valuable thing that helped him eke out an existence as a beggar to go to Jesus and seek out a whole new and better life, a new way of being and a new way of seeing! Bartimaeus is unique in all of Mark’s healing stories (of which this is the last) because Jesus tells him to go, his faith (courage, chutzpah) has made him well, but Bartimaeus doesn’t go. He follows Jesus on the way, which means that Bartimaeus follows Jesus into Jerusalem, where he will witness others throwing their cloaks down and proclaiming Jesus to be the “Son of David”. In the daily meditation “Brother, give us a word” from the Society of St. John the Evangelist, one brother writes this about the word “Savior”: “I would be willing to bet that nearly everyone here this morning has some inconvenient truth in his or her life that may well seem beyond the pale of redemption—a failed relationship, a debilitating illness, a financial or professional setback, some loathsome habit or compulsion or addition. Take heart. You are not alone. King Jesus saves us and is with us and is for us, always, no matter what. That’s the good news—and the truth.” i Each of us has an inconvenient truth--something for which we cry out to Jesus, “Have mercy! Do something!” And Jesus offers us an invitation asking “What do you want me to do for you?” And I’d be willing to bet that each of us also has some sort of cloak or blanket, a way of coping, a way of getting by that seems essential to life as we know it, but may be encumbering our progress in following Jesus. What is your inconvenient truth? What is your cloak? Do you have the faith, the courage, the chutzpah, to throw it off, to leave it behind so that you may be given the gift of new ways of living, new ways of seeing, new ways of being? What are the gifts that God have given you—the gifts of God for the people of God? What is God’s hope for their use? What extra blanket are you being called to share? What old cloak are you being called to leave behind to receive the new, abundant life that Jesus is offering you? i. From “Brother, Give Us A Word” on 10/24/12 by Br. Kevin Hackett www.ssje.org.

21st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24B October 17, 2021 This past week, I listened to Brene’ Brown’s podcast Unlocking Us—a recent episode where she interviews Esther Perel, who is a Belgian born psychologist who specializes in relationships and who is the child of Holocaust survivors. The two women chat about uncertainty, about life in the pandemic, about story-telling, and about how we reframe roles in our significant relationships. Esther Perel asks Brene about her experience in the pandemic saying, “Has it changed over time? Is your answer evolving, or do you feel like you felt similarly a year ago, or do you think in the beginning, and then there was that phase… I have phases at this point.” Brene replies, “Yes, I think I went to war with uncertainty. It, of course, won.…Yeah, I thought I could beat it down. And I’ve learned to move with it, but almost kind of like riding a wave, sometimes I’m right on top of it, and we’re riding together and there’s me and uncertainty, are moving together in this kind of rhythmic way, and sometimes it crashes over me and takes me down. So, I’m on that ride.” Perel responds wisely, “You have this definition somewhere of vulnerability as comprising, emotional exposure, risk and uncertainty, and I thought, this is actually not just the definition of vulnerability inside of us, this is actually a definition of the world we live in. It’s no longer just an individual experience, it is really a collective experience. We are in a phase of prolonged uncertainty, with no end in sight whatsoever, we are dealing with risk and trust, and risk and safety, and we’re struggling that whole thing, and then we are trying to remain connected in the midst of all of that. And what is the emotional exposure that that connection invites us to do? And I just thought your triad here is just a perfect description of the world at large, and not just of the individual psychology.” The two then go on to chat about how some people go through their lives with the belief, the sense that they are in complete control of their destiny and others go through life with the sense that the whole world could come crashing down on them at any moment. It was interesting and helpful for me to listen to these two wise women talk casually about how different people deal with uncertainty and how that affects our relationships. We see this at work in our gospel reading (and possibly in the Job reading as well) this week, but it is not apparent at first glance. Our lectionary has left out two really important verses that come right before our reading for today. They are absolutely critical in setting the scene; here is what they say: “They (Jesus and the disciples) were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.” Then it picks up with today’s reading, where James and John approach Jesus with their request. This setting is critical for a couple of reasons. First, it’s important to recognize that this whole exchange happens on this prolonged journey on the road to Jerusalem. Second, it’s important to note that this is the third time in Mark’s gospel that Jesus has predicted his death and the disciples have misunderstood. And finally, it’s important to recognize how confused and afraid Jesus’s followers and especially his closest disciples are at this point. All of this takes a story where it is super easy for us to judge James and John for their arrogance, and it helps us to see that they are really no different than us. They are trying to wage a war against uncertainty in the only way they know how. If Jesus is going to die as he tells them, then at least they can ask for the security, the assurance of knowing where they will be—on his right hand an on his left. Externally, they appear to be arrogant and anger the other disciples, but in reality, internally, they are deeply afraid and uncertain about what the future holds for all of them. If we are being faithful, then perhaps we can relate to James and John and reflect on the ways that we have tried to wage war against uncertainty in the past and reflect on how our externals may have reflected something completely different from what was going on in our hearts. In the passage from the Old Testament, Job has suffered nonsensical, catastrophic loss (his wife, his children, his animals, his servants….). He enters a debate with his friends about Job’s plight, and Job demands a response from God saying, “O that I had one to hear me!/ (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!)” Job takes the war against uncertainty straight to God, and our reading for today gives us God’s response. God is telling Job that Job doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, which, rather than instilling certainty, actually ups the ante on uncertainty. So where is the good news in all of this? Singer, songwriter, and poet Carrie Newcomer has written a poem about the process of sitting with uncertainty and how to practice kindness to ones self and to others as a part of this process. (To read the poem, see the image attached to this blog post.)

Newcomer shared an invitation with this poem that I invite you to join me in practicing this week. When you feel the first flutter of uncertainty in your heart, instead of waging war against it, lay your hand gently on your heart, and say, with the tenderness and kindness you would offer a good friend, breath and say “Oh, honey” and pay attention to how that shifts the frame.

20th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23B

20th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23B October 10, 2021 Today’s homily will be in the form of a meditation on the gospel reading. I invite you to close your eyes and use this time to prayerfully reflect. As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Do you long for the answer to certain questions that only Jesus can answer? Take a moment and name them now before him. What feelings do the words “eternal life” evoke for you? Jesus invites the man to consider the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’ Notice that Jesus lists the commandments that have to do with our relationships with others when pointing to ‘eternal life’. In what ways might Jesus be inviting you to move deeper into eternal life by examining your relationships with other people? Think about a specific relationship that needs examining. Hold it in your heart alongside Jesus. Not content with this response, the young man answers Jesus impatiently that he has kept these commandments since his youth. Jesus looks at him and loves him. Jesus tells him that he lacks one thing. And he tells the man to go, sell what he owns, give the money to the poor, and then come follow Jesus. The young man is shocked and goes away grieving. After Jesus lovingly sees the young man, he tells the young man that to inherit eternal life, he must give up that which is an impediment in his relationship with God and others. Imagine that Jesus looks at you, loves you, and seeing the deepest, darkest and brightest corners of your heart, he names that which is your greatest impediment in your relationship with God and other people. Jesus calls you by name. Tells you that you lack one thing. What does he tell you to give up or to take on? What is your greatest impediment in following Jesus? How is Jesus inviting you to be changed? “What is the thing you lack?/ What do you need to let go of?/What do you rely on for happiness,/security, worthiness?” i Stay with Jesus in your discomfort at what he invites you to. Look him in the eyes and see love not judgement; see kindness and hope not condemnation. Trust his belief in you that you can live more deeply into eternal life, here and now. Remember that “Faith is the blessed leap/ from what we leave to what we receive."ii Take a deep breath, now, and leap. i. “Eye of the Needle” by Steve Garnass-Holmes; Oct 4; on unfoldinglight.net https://www.unfoldinglight.net/reflections/f7j9p3t9mjjb8ycte6kfyczxye7hws ii “What we Receive” by Steve Garnaas-Holmes; Oct 7; on unfoldinglight.net https://www.unfoldinglight.net/reflections/aewr5t3d6y8cwwnywt4r42ngftz52m

18th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21B

18th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21B September 26, 2021 The book of Esther is an interesting book. It tells the story of Esther who becomes Queen in Persia after she wins a beauty pageant that the king puts on (after having set aside his previous wife who refused to show off her beauty at his request). Esther, who is a Hebrew, follows the counsel of her uncle and guardian Mordechi, and keeps her faith a secret from her new husband. Meanwhile, political machinations unfold between Haman, the king’s right-hand man and Esther’s uncle. When Mordechi refuses to pay homage to Haman because of his faith, Haman hatches a plot to kill all the Jews in Persia. In an epic plot twist, which we see today, Esther orchestrates the salvation of her uncle and her people and ensures the assassination of the dastardly Haman. The book is interesting, not just for its soap-opera-like drama and plot twists. Scholars say that “no other book of the Bible has received such mixed reviews from….both Jews and Christians. Some have criticized the book for what it contains; others, for what it lacks.” “The Persian king, for instance, is mentioned 190 times, but the God of Israel, not once-nor are such basic Jewish practices and institutions as the Law, covenant, prayer, dietary regulations, or Jerusalem…The book has [also] frequently been faulted for its moral tone. Not only are such basic Judaic values as kindness, mercy, and forgiveness lacking; but as many Jews and Christians have lamented, the story evidences a vengeful, bloodthirsty, and chauvinistic spirit. Intrigue, deceit, and hatred abound regardless of whether the spotlight is on Haman, Esther, Mordecai, or on their enemies.” i I had a picture book that told the story of Esther that I often would request for reading time at bed time from my parents, and I loved it: the way that good Queen Esther was able to turn the tables on the evil Haman ending in his execution! It fit perfectly in my child’s understanding of justice. It’s even more interesting to find this story from the Old Testament paired with our gospel reading for today. These past few weeks, Mark has been showing us Jesus and his disciples on the road to Jerusalem, and Jesus has been trying to teach them all he can about discipleship and what it means. In our gospel for last week, Jesus overhears the disciples arguing on the road over who is the greatest. When they get to the house, Jesus takes a little child into his arms and teaches his disciples, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all… Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” Our reading today picks up immediately from that point, with Jesus (ostensibly) still holding the little child in his arms. The disciples launch into complaints about how they saw someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name and how they tried to stop him because “he was not following us.” Jesus tells them not to stop him, saying, “Whoever is not against us is for us.” He then refers back to the child and cautions the disciples to not put stumbling blocks before “these little ones.” We’ve heard these teachings of Jesus so often that it’s easy to disregard just how revolutionary they are to how we normally live our lives. We live our lives to be the greatest; but Jesus calls us to be the servants. We believe that lines between friends and enemies are clearly drawn, that whoever is not for us is against us; Jesus reminds us that there are no lines, that those who do not actively work against him are technically for him. We want to be Queen Esther or wiley Mordechi who outsmart the clearly evil Haman, but life is not that simple, and all of us are a strange mix of darkness and light, of kindness and selfishness, or hope and scarcity. This past week I listened to Brene’ Browns podcast Unlocking Us where she interviewed Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt, two of the stars, co-creators, and writers of the hit show Ted Lasso. They’re talking about what the appeal is to the character of Ted Lasso, how they have created him to be just a normal, really nice guy and that these days, a normal nice guy seems “more interesting than Batman.” Brene’ says, “There is a scene where someone who is dealing with a ton of shame and pain has done what we all do with shame and pain, for the most part, has discharged it on someone else and then you’ve got Ted Lasso who’s like a freight train who just stops the shame and blame thing and leans into forgiveness and have we forgotten, do you think, that that’s not superhuman? That that possibility exists in all of us?” And Jason Sudeikis responds: “I think we have forgotten that. I think that’s a big part of why it was thrilling for us to conceive and then execute, because it did feel like a modern-day aberration and yet, it’s rooted in DNA, sociologically. It can seem so trite, but [we often see people in power acting in both] ignorance and arrogance and Ted is ignorant and curious and I think curiosity comes from a power of being able to ask questions and truly empathize, see what someone else is dealing with and there’s people much more clever than myself that came up with all those great kinds of quotes “You never know what battle someone else is dealing with, everybody’s life is a comedy and a tragedy and a drama.” I think it was Mark Twain, and I just think Ted and our intention was for him to embody those things but to do it in a sincere and genuine way but yeah, I think we have forgotten it a little bit and it breaks down a discourse and an opportunity for dialogue and loving someone for who they are versus hating them for what they’re not.”ii And that’s when I almost fell off my treadmill. Because Jason Sudeikis just encapsulated much of Jesus’s life, ministry, and teachings in that one line: that we are called to love someone for who they are versus hating them for what they’re not. How might this change they way that we think about our enemies or our rivals, those we need to forgive? What might that teach us about how we serve and how we not become impediments in the path to Jesus of the little ones? Your invitation this week is to join me and find one person in your life, and spend the week prayerfully working to love them for who they are as opposed to hating them for who they are not. i. Intro to Esther from the New Oxford Annotated Bible. Oxford: NYC, 1991, p 612 OT. ii. https://brenebrown.com/transcript/brene-with-jason-sudeikis-and-brendan-hunt/ Unlocking Us. October 7, 2020

The 17th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 20B

17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 20B September 19, 2021 This past week, Rev Aimee and I began a series on pilgrimage with our high school aged parishioners for Christian formation. Our class will focus on both spiritual journeys and will culminate in physical journey of pilgrimage on a route still to be determined by the young people. Along the way, we will learn about ourselves, about spirituality and the spiritual life, and about society—the world around us. As a part of this beginning, I shared this with the group: “Pilgrimage entails a search for the sacred. It is all about exploration—of both exterior and interior places. There are three basic types of pilgrimage: ‘First, outward bound journeys go ‘to the frontier in a kind of metaphorical sense. Second, homeward-bound journeys are ‘somehow back to where we started, where our major stories are acted out.’ These are journeys of return. Finally in wandering or …pilgrimage [of moving from place to place], ‘the point is not so much one’s destination at all, but the journey itself, the discipline of being on the road.’i Each of us is already on a journey as a part of just being alive. Take a moment and think about which of these types of pilgrimages resonates most with where you are in your journey right now? Are you more outward bound, homeward bound, or wandering?” ii Interestingly enough, our gospel reading for today lands us squarely in the center of a “pilgrimage section” of Mark’s gospel. In previous and subsequent chapters of Mark, Jesus and his disciples are traveling on the road to Jerusalem. They start off in the Northern part of the country and make their way, in a sort of wandering way, down to Jerusalem. Jesus uses this time on the road with his disciples to try to teach them about discipleship and what that means and also to try to prepare them for his coming death. It is a difficult journey both physically and spiritually for the disciples (and probably for Jesus, too, as the disciples repeatedly miss the point of what Jesus is trying to teach). One week, in almost the same breath, Peter proclaims Jesus as the Messiah and rebukes him when he learns Jesus must die. The next week, Jesus tries to teach about faith versus fear, and how our fear can cripple us in our discipleship, and immediately after, the disciples begin arguing about which among them is the greatest. They are confused, and they are tired, and they find themselves following a difficult way through uncharted territory. And we can certainly resonate with them, these days, but these gospels are important reminders to us that discipleship isn’t necessarily learned while we are sitting in the pews of church; rather, discipleship is learned on the way as we follow Jesus through the meanderings and challenges of the journey through our everyday lives. This week, I read one of the daily meditations of Franciscan priest Richard Rohr where he was quoting Ilia Delio who is a Franciscan nun who specializes in writing about the intersection of science and religion. (She’s absolutely brilliant.) Here is what Rohr quoted of Delio. (Hint, it’s all about pilgrimage and the spiritual journey that makes up each of our lives): “Everything that exists speaks of God, reflects that love energy of God. But God is more than anything that exists. God is always the more of our lives. We can’t contain God. If we try to control God, that’s not God; God always spills over our lives. So, God is our future. If we’re longing for something we desire, it’s that spilled-over love of our lives that’s pulling us onward, that’s luring us into something new. But we don’t trust this God [of implanted desire] often. We were pretty sure that God’s there, [and] we're here, and we just need to keep [on] the straight and narrow path. . . .” She continues, “What Francis [of Assisi] recognized is God is in every direction. That you might arrive, you might not arrive. You might arrive late; you might arrive early. It’s not the arrival that counts. It’s God! It's not the direction that counts. It's just being there, trusting that you will be going where God wants you. In other words, God is with us. Every step of the way is God-empowered love energy. But we tend to break down and start controlling things: ‘If I go this way, I'm going to get lost. Well, what if it's wrong? What will happen to me?’ Well, what will happen to you? Something will happen. But guess what? Something’s going to happen whether or not you go; that’s the whole point of life. So, it’s all about love.” She concludes, “So, it’s not like we’ve got this, ‘Here’s God; here’s us. God’s just waiting till we get our act together and then we’ll all be well.’ That’s a boring God; that's not even God. God is alive. God is love. Love is pulling us on to do new things and we need to trust the power of God in our lives to do new things. . . . We need to unwire ourselves to recognize that the God of Jesus Christ is, you might say, the power beneath our feet, the depth of the beauty of everything that exists, and the future into which we are moving. . . ” iii Your invitation this week is to think about what sort of pilgrimage you are being called to right now: an outward bound adventure where you will explore new places and encounter new people, a home-coming to revisit aspects of your life or your past, or a wandering where the journey matters more than the destination. What new understanding of discipleship is Jesus inviting you into on this journey? How and where are you being called to trust the power of God to do new things in your life or in your world? ii. i. Thurston, Bonnie B. The Spiritual Landscape of Mark. Liturgical Press: Collegeville, 2008, p 34. Lemburg, Melanie. Pilgrimage Formation Session 1. St. Thomas IOH, September 14, 2021 iii. From Center for Action and Contemplation’s daily email for September 16, 2021: https://cac.org/love-is-all-there-is-2021-09-16/ (The quote is from Ilia Delio, CONSPIRE 2014: A Benevolent Universe, session 9. Center for Action and Contemplation: 2014.)

16th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 19B

16th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 19B September 12, 2021 This week, I stopped in a local drive-through to pick up supper. The line was long, and it had been a long day. When I finally approached the order board and began to place my order, the worker rudely interrupted me to inform me that they could not make any quesadillas because the grill had been turned off. “It’s an hour before we close,” she told me angrily. I was extremely irritated and fumbled around to try to find something else to order, and finally just made do with something. And then I waited. And while I waited, I seethed. What kind of restaurant turns off its grill an hour before closing, thus eliminating at least a third of its menu items? And how dare she be so rude to me? By the time, I reached the window, I was ready to let her have it. When she opened the window and I opened my mouth to just blast her (completely regardless of the fact that I am sitting in my car in the clergy collar), the Holy Spirit did something really strange. In that one moment before I spoke, I had a spark of curiosity that was not my own, and I said, completely surprising myself, “Would you sell me the ingredients for the quesadilla, so I can just make it at home?” She looked at me for at least 15 seconds straight, and then she started laughing and closed the window. I waited, assuming she would need to go ask a manager if she could do this, and I just felt so weary. But then, she surprised me. She came back to the window with a bag of ingredients, handed it to me with a smile and said, “It’s on me.” In all the years that I have been preaching through the lectionary, I don’t think I’ve ever been brave (or foolish enough) to preach on this lesson from James. We don’t really know anything about this book of the Bible; we don’t know who wrote it, who they were writing to, where they were writing…It is the lone book of wisdom literature in the New Testament, which means it is more like Proverbs than a true epistle like Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. And our passage for today is especially intense, as the writer takes up arms against the tongue, calling it “a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” He writes, “The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue.” “With it” he continues, “we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.” Perhaps this is why I’ve never preached on this lesson: I doubt there is any person here who has not felt the ill effects of someone else’s tongue, or felt shame over the damage caused by their own words. And yet, James doesn’t tell us what we are supposed to do about it. Where’s the good news in this? I read an essay this week that speaks to this. The woman writing was sharing how her husband, who is a Christian pastor, had run for United States Congress on one of two of our major political party tickets. She writes, “By the end of what surely was the most divisive and tumultuous U.S. election season my generation has ever experienced, we had moved out of our house twice because of concerns of violence and harassment at our home; on a regular basis people drove by our house slowly with the windows down shouting obscenities before peeling off with a roar. Several families in our Christian school community made it clear through emails, anonymous snail mail, Facebook messages, and icy stares that our family was unwelcome and unwanted at “their” school. Our kids endured more than I care to write about here. We were slandered in unmentionable and dehumanizing ways, even some local pastors told us straight up that we were not Christians if we voted for X.” She continues, “Strangers on Facebook — people who had never met us or engaged in meaningful dialogue with us — wrote monstrous heart-stopping words about our family and took giddy pleasure in publicly boasting about all the ugly things they would like to do to us… Why? Because there was a [particular letter] beside my husband’s name [on the ballot], and that was enough to justify vilification. There was no end to the violent, poisonous, and dehumanizing rhetoric — including by self- professed Christians. Throughout history, dehumanizing labels and rhetoric have always been a precursor to justifying violence. Always. And so it was so very difficult to realize that this kind of cruelty was lurking underneath so many of the polite and well-manicured faces that moved among us.” She writes about how she has fled to her garden as her refuge in this time, about how one of her friends “hammered out the barrel of a gun and transformed it into a beautiful garden trowel for [her]. He is literally turning weapons into garden tools.” She continues, “Gripping the carved wooden handle and plunging it into the hot summer soil became a repetitive symbolic reminder that we are called to be people of life and hope — not death and destruction. We are called to throw light at the darkness, to dish out love to those who slam us with hatred. We are called to embody God’s way of shalom in the midst of a cruel and chaotic world. We are called to self-sacrifice in the service of others — not to sacrifice others in service of ourselves and our selfish power gains.” She concludes, “Gardening has become a meditative, contemplative practice where I’ve learned to intentionally examine the workings inside myself and begin the work of easing out the hatred that hides in the corners of my own heart — a hatred that tempts me to draw a sword and swing back. Here I am learning to appreciate and name the good in even those who seek to hurt my family. Here in the silence of the garden, God seems always present and always whispering to me the reminder that violence nearly always begets violence whether we are talking about global warfare or a war of words intended to wound and kill, and that God calls us to step away from it.” i Rev Aimee has been on a crusade for several months to get me to watch the tv show Ted Lasso. (She’s talked about it here at church, too, and even preached about it.) About a month ago, I finally succumbed, and I told her (as I do many times), “You were right!” In one of the episodes, Ted experiences a victory over one of the nastier characters of the show, and he tells him, “You know, Rupert, guys have underestimated me my entire life, and for years I never understood why. It used to really bother me. But then one day, I was driving my little boy to school, and I saw this quote by Walt Whitman painted on the side of the wall, and it said, ‘Be curious, not judgmental.’ I like that. …And all of a sudden it hits me. All of them fellas that used to belittle me, not a single one of them were curious. They thought they had everything all figured out, so they judged everything and they judged everyone.” ii Be curious, not judgmental. It’s the good news that is buried in the James reading. We are not destined to be victims and perpetrators of our untamed tongues. The Holy Spirit has given and continues to give us the gift of curiosity, and when we choose to be curious over being judgmental, then we help bring about God’s kingdom here on earth and help make this world a kinder, more curious place. i. By Christy Berghoef in her blog Reformed Journal on September 6, 2021 https://blog.reformedjournal.com/2021/09/06/weapons-into-tools/?fbclid=IwAR35E5EGlD9G4euRifaNauPn2VtD_-V6WN8T-nSq7qvcBbUc-jdvTIJSTBE ii. Watch the clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V6x-qmhzm0

15th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 18B

15th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 18B September 5, 2021 This past week, Mary Margaret was telling me that they were having some trouble at school among the freshmen class. She said that some members of the class were bullying another freshman based on what she chose to wear to dress down day. They allegedly wrote nasty things on the girl’s locker, and there was lots of drama churning through the school about this. Mary Margaret told me how upset some members of the senior class were about all this. They planned to go talk to the freshmen homerooms about it. When I inquired why the seniors were upset and getting involved, MM told me, “Because there’s just no need for it. People shouldn’t treat other people that way, and it is causing upset throughout the whole school.” I ran across a quote years ago that is especially pertinent. It is a quote attributed to Richard Hooker, who was one of the most influential theologians in the development of the Church of England, our parent church. This quote says, “I pray that none will be offended if I seek to make the Christian religion an inn where all are received joyously, rather than a cottage where some few friends of the family are to be received.”i (read it again). This quote is quite striking in the contrast between what Hooker is saying, and what is happening in today’s gospel reading between Jesus and the Syrophonecian woman. Our gospel story is a somewhat confusing and even somewhat embarrassing snapshot of Jesus. It is a story in which we see his fully human side, and we see that, even in his divinity, he is capable of change, especially when it comes to how he understands his own ministry on earth. Let’s look at the story. Jesus is trying to catch a break. He’s gone inside a house out in the middle of nowhere to try to recover from the demands of his ministry, and even there, he is pursued. He’s tired, perhaps a little irritable, and then he has to deal with this impertinent woman who is demanding healing for her daughter and yet who does not even belong to his people, the people to whom he is sent to proclaim the gospel. And so he calls her a dog and refuses to heal her daughter. But then something fascinating happens. The woman doesn’t retaliate with other name-calling or fancy rhetoric or statistics. She absorbs the insult, and then she reflects the good news of Jesus’s own ministry right back to him. With a deeply rooted humility, she claims her place of belonging in the heart of God and in the good news of God’s kingdom. There is such deep good news in today’s gospel, despite the uncomfortable parts! Each of us, I believe, longs for belonging. We were all created to be lonely for God, longing for God, longing to make our home in God. Often times we run around and try to fill that longing with other things—money, achievements, things, good works. But ultimately, only God can fulfill our longing for God. When we spend time with God (in prayer, in worship, in silence), we discover our true belonging in God. (I believe that this is what Jesus was searching for in the beginning of our gospel story.) When we spend time with God, then God whispers back in our hearts, “You are enough; you belong because I have created you; nothing you can do or not do, be or not be, buy or not buy can change that you belong; but you must put your trust in me and not in yourself—in what you can do or not do, be or not be, buy or not buy. You are enough and you belong.” When we regularly spend time with God and we dwell within that awareness of (and gratitude for) our belonging, then we are free to invite others into that belonging as well. It becomes our great delight to share that belonging with others. We recognize that belonging in God is not limited to who we think should belong; we all dwell within the good news of God’s kingdom where all may find belonging and home. But when we are out of touch with God, we are also out of touch with our own belonging, and then we are more inclined to try to keep others (especially OTHERS—those who are different than us) from belonging as well. If you look around in your world at any point and think in your secret heart that there is someone who does not belong to God, then that is a first sign that God is calling you back, to spend more time with God and to get reconnected with your own belonging within God. My favorite poet, Mary Oliver, has written a poem that articulates all this beautifully. It is called Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. [Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.] Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.ii God loves you just as you are. You are enough. You belong to God, and we all belong together. This week, I invite you to live more fully into your belonging in God, and to look for ways to invite others around you into that belonging. May we all give our hearts fully to that this morning, this week, and be grateful. And as the body of Christ in this particular place, let us be mindful of Richard Hooker’s words that continue to call us to mission and ministry: “I pray that none will be offended if I seek to make the Christian religion an inn where all are received joyously, rather than a cottage where some few friends of the family are to be received.” i. I found this quote in a picture posted on the Facebook page for Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis, TN. ii.from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press © Mary Oliver. This sermon has been reworked from a sermon I orginally delivered at St. Peter's by-the Sea on September 9, 2012.

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 17B

14th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 17B August 29, 2021 When I worked at Stewpot, an inner city non-profit, between college and seminary, I came across many unusual characters on a daily basis. One of these was a man named Mr. Long. Mr. Long probably had the mental capacity of a young child, and he would leave his personal care home to wander the streets of Jackson until he found his way to Stewpot and joined the morning enrichment program I was running to give folks like a him a safe and entertaining place to be every day. Mr. Long, never really called many of us by name, but instead, he liked to greet everyone by saying, “You so choot!” (translated “you are so cute!”) Well, my 25 year old self was mortified by this salutation, and so I set out to teach Mr. Long my name. My project spread out over weeks, and every day, it went something like this. Mr. Long: “You so choot!” Me: “What’s my name, Mr. Long?” Him: “I don’t know.” Me: “Melanie.” Him: “Merlin” Me: “Close enough.” Day after day, I taught my lesson until one day, it happened. I entered the dining area where Mr. Long sat, and he greeted me saying, “Hey, Merlin! You so choot!” Mr. Long also had another regular saying that he would share as the Spirit moved him. He would often say, “You can’t fool God.” You can’t fool God. This is at the heart of what Jesus is teaching in our gospel reading for today. The Pharisees have come to Jesus and asked why his disciples aren’t following the law around washing things. Jesus aligns himself with the prophetic tradition by quoting Isaiah and saying that the Pharisees are so worried about the law that they have lost sight of the spirit of what God has intended for each of us. In the part left out for today, Jesus talks about a loophole that some religious leaders of the day have discovered that allows them to give money to the temple and not have to use their money to care for their elderly family members as the law also instructs. And then Jesus goes on to teach the crowds that we should be more worried about what evil intentions are coming out of us into the world as opposed to what evil we might be taking in from the world around us. The Pray as You Go podcast for today says it this way: “Jesus takes the Pharisees’ notion of ‘defilement’ and turns it inside out. Instead of it being a word you might use self-righteously to mean being ‘sullied’ by unholy people and unholy things around me, it becomes a check on myself, a warning not to defile yourself by allowing evil to enter the world through you. How do you react to that warning?”i In this polarized world that we live in, it is so easy to try to fool myself and fool God by thinking that my cause (and here you can name any number of current event items of the day) is the one that is righteous and the other is bringing evil into the world. This week, I’ve been pondering what it would mean to examine more frequently the things that come out of me that add evil to this world and how to hold that alongside not judging others who believe differently than me. And let me tell you, it is hard for me to even imagine what that might look like. But then I read and opinion piece from an E.R. nurse in Kansas City that she wrote for the local paper. It is titled: “I work in a Kansas City emergency room. I know who’s to blame for COVID frustration.” Here is what she writes, “COVID-19 is something we are still learning about. We health care workers are trying to perfect how we respond to it and make people as safe as possible. I’m not angry at those who aren’t yet vaccinated, and I’m not angry at those who have put so much faith into the vaccine. Who and what bothers me … Is the person in the hospital lobby coughing, trying to refuse wearing a mask because “I don’t have COVID. I was tested thre months ago.” (And new test results come back in 30 minutes revealing that the patient is, indeed, positive.) And the person who says, “If they aren’t vaccinated, they might as well just die. They’re stupid.” There is so much attitude of superiority on both extremist sides. I’m not innocent. I’ve caught myself being quite judgmental as well on certain days when traffic in the emergency room is heavy. Then, I sometimes find myself speaking more negativity into the environment than is even close to being helpful. The enemy isn’t those who are pro-vaccine. The enemy isn’t those who haven’t yet gotten it. The enemy is COVID-19, and those who don’t care or just don’t understand are to be pitied. Not hated or despised. I understand the frustration of those who are anti-vaccine and those who are pro-vaccine. Both sides’ anger and exasperation come from fear and exhaustion. And maybe even from PTSD. The important thing is to keep an open mind, to continue to do research and maintain a humble attitude that acknowledges there are things we are still learning about COVID-19, and, I hope, will continue to learn. Maintain a hunger for more understanding, for new information. Maintain compassion for the fact that so many people are utterly terrified and have suffered loss. Maintain sympathy for those who are around COVID 24/7 and may be a wee bit grumpy at times. Maintain humility that says, “I’m not sure I have all the answers, but I will try not to spread the virus personally. And I will do my best to help in this season.” I do feel blessed to still be alive, breathing without effort and walking around outside in the sunshine. My disorganized self left my apartment so spick-and-span for the whole first part of the pandemic, just in case I died and my family had to come get my stuff. (I can’t say the same for its current state. I’m not that dedicated long- term, although I should be.) I’m not saying I couldn’t still suffer a tragedy because of COVID-19 — anything is possible. And I realize that, and appreciate every day every moment that I do have. Every day is a gift, a gift that isn’t really even deserved, to be honest. I’m not a “hero” for working with COVID patients. I’m lucky to have a job, grateful to have enough masks to wear a new one daily, and thankful to be close to equipment that could possibly help me should I ever become sick and need it. I’m going to work on checking my attitude more often. Because, as I said, I am very guilty of being crotchety about all of this. I’m pointing the finger at myself, first. That is all.”ii Your invitation this week is to join me in examining the thoughts that come out of my heart for evil, self-righteousness, or hardness of heart and to ask God to help me from letting more evil escape from me into the world. Because, like Mr. Long says, “You can’t fool God.” i. https://pray-as-you-go.org/player/prayer/2021-08-29 ii. By Tasha Miller. Originally printed in the Kansas City Star. https://news.yahoo.com/kansas-city-emergency-room-know-100000488.html

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 16B

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 16B August 22, 2021 This past week, I read a post on social media from a friend from high school. This woman, who is now a wife, a mother, and a judge, was sharing with her Facebook friends that her mother was in the ICU with non-Covid pneumonia. This family has had some tragic occurrences in the past decade, including the death by suicide of my friend’s father. I was intrigued by my friend’s post, so I’ll just read it to you: “I was taught a long time ago that all of us have a direct line to Jesus. None of us have more access than another. We can all go straight to the source. However, as I've gotten older, I've recognized that there are certain people who walk among us who seem to have a sensitivity to the spiritual world that is extraordinary. Maybe they listen better and are willing to hear more, so they know more, feel more, and are just more in tune. A friend of an aunt of mine is one of those people. When our family has a big prayer request, we send that request to her friend that I will just call "S." I've never met her, but I feel like I know her. I sure know her heart. I think her spirit must be one of the most beautiful on Earth…. I know many of you know my mama has pneumonia (non-Covid) and is in the hospital. She's been there for a week today. None of us have put it on Facebook, but most [everybody in our small town] knows she's there and it isn't a secret. She is a private woman, and I respect her privacy, but I also believe that when you are given a message by a woman who listens to and hears Jesus via the Holy Spirit---you don't just keep that to yourself. So, I'm not. S told us to pray, ‘Lord, turn it around.’ I've been praying it over and over and over today. I've prayed it for my mama, and I'd sure appreciate it if you would pray it for my mama, too. But S may hear more than she even knows she hears. Covid. "Lord, turn it around." Afghanistan and national security. "Lord, turn it around." The grief everywhere you look. "Lord, turn it around." The division that only gets deeper and wider. "Lord, turn it around." I believe S is a woman who is willing to listen and hear more than the average person. I know I don't need her to give me a prayer to pray for my mama for it to be some kind of magic. I also know that those who listen and hear get specific messages the rest of us may miss. So I'm humbly asking, if you are a pray-er, you consider praying the four simple words: "Lord, turn it around." And when you watch something in your world turn, will you post it? Your turn may be little to us but big to you. It may be big to every last one of us. It may make a huge difference to many, all over, no matter his or her belief or faith. It may give someone out there hope. And we ALL need a big, fat dose of hope. Lord, turn it around. Please.” Our Old Testament reading for today takes place just as Joshua is about to lead the Israelites into the promised land. Joshua recounts all the ways that Yahweh has saved the Israelites, and he urges them to renew the covenant that Yahweh made with them in the wilderness. As a part of that renewal, they will be pledging to turn solely toward Yahweh and to turn away from and renounce any of the gods of the land they are entering. “Choose this day whom you will serve…as for me and my house we will serve the Lord,” Joshua urges them. It has been interesting for me to think about how when we choose or turn toward something, we are inevitably turning away from something else. In this instance the people are choosing Yahweh and turning away from all other gods. But if we think about it, there are so many times in our lives that mean that when we choose one path, we are turning away from something else. I think of all the times I have chosen work and turned away from family. Times I have chosen my self and turned away from the other; chosen easy answers over mystery and uncertainty when it comes to my relationship with God. Times when I have chosen any and everything else and turned away from God and the way Jesus taught me how to be in this life. So as tempting as it is for me to pray my friend’s prayer, “Lord, turn it around” (and I certainly have been praying that for her mother Judy), I realize that the choices we each make and that we have all made together are what determine where we find ourselves now. So I can pray, “Lord, turn it around.” But I also need to pray, “Lord, turn us around. Lord, turn me around.” Because the nature of this human life and the nature of what we refer to as sin, is that most of us have never been able to consistently choose God, to consistently turn to God and away from the forces that destroy us. We see it in this story from Ancient Israel. We see it in the disciples who leave Jesus when his questions become too difficult. We see it everywhere in the world around us today. So this week, I invite you to pray for my friend’s mom who’s name is Judy. Pray that God will turn her pneumonia around. And I also invite you to join me in praying: “Lord, turn it around. Lord, turn us around. Lord, turn me around.” Covid. "Lord, turn it around. Turn us around. Lord, turn me around.” Afghanistan and national security. "Lord, turn it around. Turn us around. Turn me around.” Haiti "Lord, turn it around. Turn us around. Turn me around.” The grief everywhere you look. "Lord, turn it around. Turn us around. Turn me around.” The division that only gets deeper and wider. “Lord, turn it around. Lord, turn us around. Lord, turn me around. And lead us back to you.” Amen.

11th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 13B

11th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 14B August 8, 2021 I’m going to fill you in on a well-kept secret of all preachers: there’s a fine line between a deep dive on a good sermon illustration and procrastination. Often it is only after the fact that one can tell the difference. This past week, as I was preparing to preach (and possibly procrastinating preparing to preach) about this story about Elijah, I ran across a quote that a seminary classmate had posted on her social media account. This quote got right to what is going on in our Old Testament reading for today, so I saved it to continue to ponder. The quote is “Don’t you want to see what happens if you don’t give up? Don’t you want to see what happens? And that’s what I keep saying to myself and that’s what I say to everyone watching tonight. Don’t you want to see what happens if you don’t give up?”i The quote is attributed to someone named Nightbirde, who I’ve never heard of, so I did what every good preacher does. I went to Google and typed “who is Nightbirde?” But before I tell you more about Nightbirde, let me tell you about what’s going on here with Elijah. This part of Elijah’s story has always fascinated me. Last year, especially, this story rose to prominence as there was a meme that circulated among clergy types that referenced this portion of scripture: “This is your gentle reminder that one time in the Bible, Elijah was like ‘God, I’m so mad! I want to die!’ So God said ‘Here’s some food. Why don’t you have a nap?’ So Elijah slept, ate, and decided things weren’t so bad. Never underestimate the spiritual power of a nap and a snack.” Elijah has just come off a major victory over the prophets of the false god Baal, Yahweh’s biggest rival. Elijah has called down fire from heaven to convince the people that Yahweh is the true God and that they should follow him. The people are looking for a show of strength from God, or any god, as they have struggled through 3 years of drought that has plagued the land. As a result of Elijah’s fire-show, he convinces his audience to follow Yahweh, and Elijah himself kills all the prophets of Baal who have been present at the contest (there were 450), and then it begins to rain showing that the drought is truly ended. But when Queen Jezebel, the patron of the prophets of Baal, hears what Elijah has done, she threatens to find him and kill him, so Elijah flees to the wilderness where our passage for today picks up. But, we also need to be mindful of what happens next, after this passage, and this is where Nightbirde’s quote comes in. It’s almost as if we can here God in this story saying, “Elijah, you really are going to want to see what happens next. Don’t give up now!” Because when Elijah rests and eats, he continues his journey to a cave on the top of Mount Horeb, which is known as the mount of God. There Elijah meets God, face to face, and God tells Elijah exactly what to do next, how to survive this next season. So, what did Google have to say about this person named Nightbirde? Nighbirde, whose real name is Jane Marczewski, is a 30 year-old singer on the show America’s Got Talent. In her audition for AGT, Nightbirde, who has a waifish look about her, is being interviewed by the panel of judges. She shares that Nighbirde is her professional name, and she reveals, in a way that is both casual and optimistic, that she has been fighting cancer for years, and that for her audition, she is singing an original song that is about the last year of her life titled “It’s ok.” So, I listened to her song (deep dive, remember?). The first two times I listened to it, y’all, I just wept. Since we don’t have music today, I’ll play the song for you later in the service, but for now, the chorus goes: “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay/ if you’re lost, we’re all a little lost and it’s alright/ It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay/ if you’re lost, we’re all a little lost and it’s alright.” ii This week has been hard. In some ways I feel a lot like Elijah. I want to sit down somewhere alone in the middle of nowhere and tell God: “‘It’s enough now, O Lord!’ We’ve tried to be faithful for so long. We’ve stayed away and apart; we’ve gotten vaccinated; we’ve even put our masks back on. And still Covid cases are rising quickly here in Chatham County; the hospitals are dangerously full. We are so tired, and we don’t really know what to do. We had all these wonderful plans for the fall for new life together that would feel even more “normal,” so many fun things that we were working on, and, for at least right now, the most faithful thing seems to be to just stay our current course and to be prepared to pull back if absolutely needed. “It’s ok/ if you’re lost. We’re all a little lost, and it’s alright.” Just this week, Nightbirde announced that she was leaving America’s Got Talent because her health has taken a turn for the worse, and she needs to put all her energy and attention into her fight against cancer. She concludes her announcement with these words: “Thank you for all your support, it means the world to me. Stay with me, I’ll be better soon. I’m planning my future, not my legacy. Pretty beat up, but I’ve still got dreams.” Both Nightbirde and the story about Elijah have been a much-needed reminder for me that agents of God and agents of Hope are all around us, even in the most desolate parts of the wilderness, and sometimes, the most important thing we can do, the most faithful thing we can do is to just keep going. “Don’t you want to see what happens if you don’t give up? Don’t you want to see what happens? And that’s what I keep saying to myself and that’s what I say to everyone watching tonight. Don’t you want to see what happens if you don’t give up?” i. Nightbirde to Chris Cuomo in an interview sometime earlier this week. ii. To hear NIghtbirde’s audition for America’s Got Talent and to read more about her, check this out: https://variety.com/2021/music/news/nightbirde-americas-got-talent-cancer-drops-out-1235032856/