Christmas Eve 2022

Christmas Eve_2022 December 24, 2022 It’s not uncommon for me to be haunted by snippets of song in my ordinary days. Those of you who hear me preach with any regularity probably get sick of hearing about the ways that the Holy Spirit communicates with me through the annoying habit of lodging songs in my head. This tendency is even more pronounced in the days leading up to Christmas. Maybe it’s the Christmas carols swirling around us everywhere, the so-familiar soundtrack of this season? A few years ago, I had a phrase of lyrics lodged in my head that I kept repeating, trying to figure out where it was from, until I finally took to google to help discern the message the Holy Spirit was prompting in me, typing in “the weary world rejoices…” Well, of course the whole line goes: “a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices…” and it’s from the beloved Christmas song “O, Holy Night.” This was a reminder to me that even the most familiar songs and words, when taken out of context, can take on new life, new meaning. “Sing to the Lord a new song!” our psalm demands of us-year after year-on this holy night. Sing, sing, sing! It commands us three times in its first two verses. A new song? Really? I don’t know…we all like our familiar carols with their hazy nostalgia and their safety this time of year. New songs are hard to learn. If you’re a singer, you have to learn new words, new music, new timing and breath. Dusting off an old familiar song is so much easier—we mostly know the words and timing; we know where to breathe; we know the notes that we struggle to hit. Some of these songs are so familiar we don’t even really have to think about singing them. Our bodies just do it. But sometimes, old, familiar songs can become new in unexpected ways. Maybe a different musician plays it differently than we are accustomed or in a different medium. Or an old, yet newly compelling phrase gets lodged in our heads as an invitation to look at our lives through this lens. Old songs can be refreshed, made new when the unexpected happens. This year, my soul was snared by another line from “O Holy Night” when I read a blog post by the Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber. (Bolz-Weber is a writer who writes books and a regular blog, but if you look for her, know that she used profanity regularly and abundantly in her writing.) In this blog post, Nadia Bolz-Weber writes about how “O Holy Night” is speaking to her this year.i She starts by lifting up the phrase: “long lay the world in sin and error pining” and she talks about the word pining, how the lyrics mean that we, in our lives and in the world are “failing gradually from grief, regret, or longing due to sin or error.” This phrase helps us acknowledge that we have messed things up. We see this in our individual lives: when we go astray from our promises; when we treat people badly; when we live out the old unhealthy stories and patterns of our lives or our families over and over again in our relationships; when we make choices that take us off the path of love that God would have us follow to live our best, fullest, most whole-hearted lives. Sometimes these paths away from love become so much easier to trod, like those old familiar songs are easier to sing, and it feels beyond us, even impossible, to get back onto the path of love. We know that we need help. And that’s part of what we celebrate this night. God doesn’t leave us alone to languish in the darkness. As the song says, we were pining “ ‘til he appeared and the soul felt its worth.” In and through the birth of Jesus, God once again claims and names creation as good—taking that old song and making it new again for us. Sometimes it’s so hard to believe that God values us or cares what happens, so God reveals the value God holds for each one us by becoming one of us, and then showing us how to walk the path of love. But it’s an unexpected path often through unsought places, much like the story of the first Christmas shows. A young peasant woman gives birth to God in a town far away from her home, in a place where there are so many people there is no room for her to be in the house with family. The shepherds who are working in the field that night are visited by an angelic host of messengers who terrify them at their appearance. And unexpectedly, even tonight as we celebrate birth, we also talk about death. How God was born as one of us, how that path of love led God to offer God’s-self up to death on a cross, and how even death couldn’t contain God’s love for us—as it bursts forth from the grave in the light of the resurrection. And then, in the new/old song, the music swells and the other voices join in singing: “fall on your knees, and hear the angel voices…” What does it mean to fall on our knees? It’s a posture of supplication asking for help, a posture of relief in finally admitting that we don’t have it all together and we can’t fix this for ourselves or our loved one or for anyone, no matter how hard we might try. It’s a posture of reverence before something so inspiring and overpowering that our legs can no longer support us. It’s a posture of trepidation and maybe a little fear, as we are faced with the challenge and the invitation to sing a new song or to sing anew old, familiar songs in new and different ways. i. You can access Nadia Bolz-Weber’s blog post here: Fall on your knees - The Corners by Nadia Bolz-Weber (substack.com)

2nd Sunday of Advent Year A

2nd Sunday of Advent Year A December 4, 2022 It’s the 2nd Sunday of Advent. Do you know what that means for this day? It means it’s “Grumpy John the Baptist Sunday!” Every year on this Second Sunday of Advent, we get a picture of John the Baptist, who is a key figure in all four gospels, quite unusual. And boy, is he in rare form today. There is something strangely compelling about John the Baptist; all these different people are going out into the wilderness to hear what he has to say. And today, he targets the Scribes and the Pharisees, two competing segments of Judaism of the day—not unlike how Christians in the Republicans and Democrats of our day are at odds. So, it’s interesting that in Matthew’s gospel, which we know was written to a primarily Jewish audience, John goes after the most religious people who have come out to hear him. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance….Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” It’s an interesting challenge: open yourselves and your religion up to God’s transforming work or God is going to make of you…a stump! When we lived in the rectory at our first church in McComb, Mississippi, we were haunted, for a season, by a stump in our front yard. The stump was the remnant of a tree that had fallen on the rectory during Hurricane Katrina, and every time I looked at it, even after the damage to the home and our possessions had been repaired, it felt like a reminder of a wound. Eventually, I was silently grateful when the church had someone come out to grind up the stump and make it disappear, so I didn’t have to look at it every day. So, I can certainly relate to stumps having some negative connotations. Our Old Testament reading for today, the passage from Isaiah, also talks about a stump in Isaiah’s vision of a peaceable kingdom. “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” For Isaiah, the stump is a hopeful symbol; as long as the roots of the stump are intact, it is still a living, growing thing. This image of the stump in Isaiah shows that all is not lost, that there is still a rooted foundation for new life to grow, even when it seems that disaster has struck, and the tree has been chopped down. When we moved to the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, I was intrigued by an artistic phenomenon there. A chainsaw artist named Marlin Miller had carved a number of beautiful wooden statues of native creatures—dolphins, birds, fish—out of stumps; trees that had been cut down because they were so damaged by the hurricane. These statues dotted the coastline of the Mississippi sound. I saw them as beacons of how hard change and transformation can be and also a reminder that beauty and new life can come out of the hardest and worst things. These old, seemingly-dead stumps were transformed by the artist’s skill and loving attention into signs of hope and even joy. I have certainly known this reality in my own life, over and over again, and I wonder if you have, too? Have you experienced times in your life when change was inflicted upon you or even when you gave yourself willingly over to transformation and what felt like an ending became a source of new life, beauty, and hope, what seemed like a stump became a source of new life? I can’t help but wonder if the people who were flocking out to hear that grumpy John the Baptist preach in the wilderness weren’t longing for some of this, sensing that God was already at work in the world around them, in the foundations of their faith, as John prepared the way for Jesus the coming Messiah. Did they sense the shifting foundations? Were they hopeful for the dramatic transformation that was coming? At our diocesan convention a few weeks ago, our Bishop Frank Logue and two of his canons all spoke at length about the seismic changes that have happened in our greater Episcopal church since Covid. They spoke about the shock and dismay that they felt when they compared attendance and budget numbers for the diocese from 2019 with those of 2021. Those numbers would suggest a rapid decline across the diocese. They also shared stories of new life, new hope, of God’s continued faithfulness in congregations across the diocese, and they shared stories of how God was bringing new life out of stumps. I will confess that I felt a little disconnected from all of this at diocesan convention, and I have wrestled with it since then. While the decline in numbers was certainly true for us in 2021, it is not where we find ourselves here and now, as we close out 2022. In fact, these days, I’m pleasantly surprised to find that our attendance numbers are close to where they were in 2019, and our finances are in pretty good shape. And yet, we find ourselves dramatically changed from the pandemic. While it might seem like things are “back to normal” here, we’re different. We now have three Sunday morning services instead of two. We find ourselves living into slightly different rhythms; we have the addition of a virtual congregation, which we never had before; and weekly attendance rhythms have changed, especially for our families with children still at home. There is still a sort of stumpishness (through this change that has been inflicted upon us) clinging to us after Covid, that may never dissipate. I invite you to join me in contemplating this and praying about it. In this season of hope and expectation, may we, too, be curious about the invitation from grumpy John the Baptist, a challenge to be open to God’s transforming work. May we be visionaries like Marlin Miller, looking to see the beautiful new creation that God can reveal to us in the living scars of the stumps of Covid. May we trust in God, who gives us strong roots of faith and tradition to anchor us even as God calls new life forth in, through, and among us.

The First Sunday of Advent Year A

Advent 1A November 27, 2022 Today we celebrate the beginning of a new year in the church calendar. It is the first Sunday of Advent, a season of the church year that is characterized by anticipation and waiting, by expectant hope and longing, by preparation for Jesus’s coming again through his birth at Christmas and by preparation for Jesus’s coming again into this world as he promised. Advent is, perhaps, the most counter-cultural of our seasons because all around us, the stores, the yards, the houses are all decorated for Christmas in a riot of carols and colors. And yet in Advent, we light our single candles week by week and huddle expectantly around the light of those individual flames. In our gospel lesson for today, we see Jesus, who has just entered Jerusalem and is peering into the shadows of his impending death, entreating his disciples (and us) to “keep awake!” And that’s really the theme of this season, isn’t it: Keep awake! But how do we do that, we who are not so good at or comfortable with waiting? In Advent, we are invited to dwell for a season with our longing. We sing every week “O, come O come Emanual,” and we identify as a people in exile, longing to return home. We remember for a season that we are a people who are called to wait, to watch expectantly, to hope. Most of the time, we just refuse to wait. We rush or we ignore it or we distract ourselves with our smartphones, but in Advent we are called to embrace the waiting and the longing that comes with it; we are called to lean into the uncertainty of our daily lives. We are invited to keep watch for the presence of God, who does show up and who will continue to show up. A while back, one of my favorite songs was titled “Awake My Soul” by the British band Mumford and Sons. The refrain of the song goes: “Awake my soul! For you were made to meet your maker.” St. Augustine wrote a long time ago that at the center of each of us is a God-shaped hole. We try to fill it so often with things that aren’t God or of God. But in the end, only God can fill that void. So one way of keeping awake during this season of Advent is to embark upon an examination of our longing. What is it for which we wait? What does our deepest longing reveal about each of us? And what would it be like to kneel before God (perhaps during some extra silence before the confession?) and to name our specific longing before God and ask God for God’s fulfillment? So this Advent, may your soul be awakened: that you may watch with the expectancy and joy of children waiting for their playmates to arrive. May your soul be awakened that you may watch with the purpose of one who waits for water to boil. May your soul be awakened that you may watch with the patience and faithfulness of one who keeps watch with a loved one who is near death. May you keep awake and keep watch for the presence of God in your life and in this world. For you were made to meet your maker.

23rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28C

23rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28C November 13, 2022 “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” I couldn’t help but think of this line from our epistle reading today—the 2nd letter to the Thessalonians--as I sat at a stoplight about to turn onto the Truman from Montgomery Crossroads. I was looking out the window at a man holding a small sign—saying he was a veteran and asking for any sort of assistance. I was thankful that I had one of our blessing bags in the back seat, so I rolled down my window and handed it to him. Then I watched as my husband, who was in the car in front of me, rolled down his window and handed him some money. It’s one of the things that I admire about my husband and his priestly ministry. He takes to heart another scriptural admonishment, that we heard Jesus say in last week’s gospel: “give to everyone who begs of you.” And I wondered what we’re supposed to do with these two seemingly contradictory scriptures from one week to the next? There’s a whole history around this quote from 2 Thessalonians. It has been quoted by leaders across the centuries—John Smith to the colonists at Jamestown; Vladimir Lenin as a foundation of socialism, the first phase of communism. The original hearers of this line, the Christian community of Thessolonika, received this admonition from the letter writer (who may or may not have been Paul) in a specific context. They were worried about the eschaton, the end times. They thought it was going to happen any day now, that Jesus was going to return and pass judgement on this world, and they would be released from their trials and tribulations to go live as the faithful in Jesus’s eternal kingdom. If you think the end of this world is going to happen any day now, then what does it matter how you earn your living or contribute to the community? But the writer of 2nd Thessalonians is telling that community that it does matter. What they do every day between now and the end of this world, how they function together in community continues to matter. No matter what is happening, our contributions to our community matter; how we care for each other matters. So, I started wondering about different ways to think about contributions to community and how we take care of each other from this particular scripture. How do we get at the heart of it—that our contributions matter, that how we take care of each other matters—while maybe leaving behind the very individualistic and punitive nature of it? My little family is getting ready to go visit my extended family in Northeast Mississippi next weekend. Most of you know that my parents decided to buy a farm in the last few years, and together with my youngest brother and his wife and their twins, they all farm, growing their own organic food—fruit and produce—and sharing that with their community by selling it at a local farmer’s market and through C.S.A. shares (which stands for community supported agriculture). It’s a huge undertaking for four adults and there’s always something to do. They joke now about how they often save big projects for when they know my other (California) brother and I are coming with our families. They call us their migrant workers. And if the weather cooperates, we help do these projects; and my mom cooks and cooks and cooks and feeds us all. We don’t help out to earn our food. My mom would still feed us even if we didn’t help with the work. We help out because we’re family, and the farm is important to them, so it’s also important to us, and we want to support it. (It’s why we go to sporting events for our children and grandchildren, right? Why we sign up to bring food to church events or volunteer. We are a part of these families, these communities, and we value what they value and so we support it and them.) But what if the gospel calls us to think bigger? Bigger than helping out in our own families? Bigger than helping out in our own church? I’ve been reading the book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Kimmerer is a mother and a scientist and also a Native American. In her chapter titled The Council of Pecans, she recounts one of the stories of her family of origin—how her grandfather and his brother go out fishing for their supper but catch nothing. They are hesitant to go home empty handed and face a supper of only biscuits and red-eye gravy yet again. When one of the boys stubs his toe on something, they are delighted to discover nuts, so many he can hardly walk through them all. They decide to take them home and stuff as many as they can in their pockets, but they long to bring more home to mamma to see them through the coming days, and they can only carry so many in their small hands. Kimmerer concludes the story writing, “The heat eases a little as the sun sinks low and evening air settles in the bottomland, cool enough for them to run home for supper. Mamma hollers for them and the boys come running, their skinny legs pumping and their underpants flashing white in the fading light. It looks like they’re each carrying a big, forked log, hung like a yoke over their shoulders. They throw them down at her feet with grins of triumph: two pairs of worn-out pants, tied shut with twine at the ankles and bulging with nuts.” i Over the course of the chapter, Kimmerer writes beautifully about what pecan (and other nut trees) can teach us. She writes about how pecan trees don’t produce every year but rather at unpredictable intervals that scientists speculate are brought about because of environmental stimuli or factors. And in the years that the nut trees mast or produce, the environment around them flourishes. The squirrels eat more and become more abundant, and then the hawks eat more and become more abundant. And the next year, when the nut trees don’t mast, the squirrel and hawk populations drop as well. Because the thing about pecan trees is that they don’t just decide as individuals if they’re going to produce nuts in a given year. They all work together and all the trees produce or don’t. She writes, “If one tree fruits, they all fruit—there are no soloists. Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove; not one grove in the forest, but every grove; all across the county and all across the state. The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together. All flourishing is mutual.” ii All flourishing is mutual. What you do matters to the greater community. What if each of us moved from a more individualistic mentality (the one of he who does not work shall not eat) toward a more communal mentality—that all flourishing is mutual? What might we as a church, as a society learn from the pecan trees about how to live and how to take care of each other and the world around us? What might we consider changing in our lives or in the life of this place to support the flourishing of all? i. Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed editions, 2013. p 11 ii. Ibid. p 15

The Sunday after All Saints' Day-The Rev Melanie Lemburg

Sunday after All Saints Year C November 6, 2022 Most of us don’t want to think about death. Not our own death. Not the deaths of those we love. Rather than even mentioning the word “death,” we have created these phrases that we all know mean death but don’t make us say it. There’s the most popular “passed away” (as in “he/she passed away”) or the expression of someone being lost-- (we lost him/her or I’m so sorry for your loss). There’s the wonderfully Shakespearean “shuffled off this mortal coil” or the more prosaic: “kicked the bucket,” “bought the farm,” or even “bit the dust.” The references may be even more oblique; one of our Wednesday service congregation reported indignantly that her doctor had said to her this week, “you know as we age, these things are going to happen”. Most of us just don’t like to talk about it or even think about it. And when we do think about death, it may make us afraid or uncomfortable. That’s why I’m so thankful for our liturgical tradition—which encourages us to spend some time with death this time every year. Every year, we walk through three days of death—All Hallow’s Eve, All Saint’s Day, and the day after when we remember All the Faithful Departed. In fact, it’s so important to us that we face this reality at least once a year that we can move the observance of All Saints’ Day to the Sunday after, which we are doing today, so just in case people tried to duck spending three days with death earlier in the week, we’re going to get you with it on Sunday! I’m also thankful for this place, where we bury our loved ones right outside the doors of the church, so that they are not far away from us in their “eternal rest.” There’s no fake grass here to try to cover up the gaping hole of the grave, and we even take turns passing around the shovel during the burial service to help fill in their grave. So what are the gifts that we receive from marking this day—this Sunday after All Saints’ year after year, from being willing to look at death head on from time to time rather than trying to ignore it or pretend it doesn’t exist? First, it gives us an opportunity to acknowledge our discomfort around death, and it invites us to sit with death for a bit, maybe even start to make friends with it. Second, All Saints’ helps us remember that even though each of us must ultimately face death on our own, there is a whole great communion of those who we love and who love us, who have gone before us into death and who wait to welcome us when we get there. Third, this day serves as a reminder for us that no one who is ever loved is truly lost. During this season, as we write names on bags and place them on the graves, as we read off names from a list during our Eucharistic prayer, we creep a little bit closer to the reality that there is no real division between death and life, between this life and the next. It’s what Jesus is talking about in the gospel reading for today: we make our own eternity even now in the choices we make and how we engage others and the world around us. Or as our burial liturgy puts it: “death is not the end, but a change.” One of my favorite musicians—the Quaker poet and musician Carrie Newcomer—has a song titled All Saints’ Day that I’ve been listening to these last couple of weeks. She captures in poetry and in song the grace and mystery that this day offers us, the comfort and consolation that can be found in remembering all those who have loved us and have gone before us into death and the ways that they continue to support and surround us, in our life and in our death. In the chorus, Newcomer talks about how the next life hovers close to us all throughout this one, as if on the other side of a veil, and it is only at times that we notice. Can't you feel it ever closer We breathe it in and then we exhale We touch both sides and now eternal Standing closer to the veil Now is just a moving image Not a ribbon a start and end There is a bird a hidden singer That calls and listens and calls again Can't you feel it ever closer We breathe it in and then we exhale We touch both sides and now eternal Standing closer to the veil Centered down and moving outward Sometimes almost too sweet to bare There are endless ways to reach home Just keep walking and I'll meet you there Can't you feel it ever closer We breathe it in and then we exhale We touch both sides and now eternal Standing closer to the veil There's a blurring of the borders And I swear that I heard voices But every act of simple kindness Calls the kingdom down and all around us Can't you feel it ever closer We breathe it in and then we exhale We touch both sides and now eternal Standing closer to the veil Standing closer to the veil Songwriters: Carrie Newcomer, Carrie Ann Newcomer. For non-commercial use only.

21st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 26C

21st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 26C October 30, 2022 How many of you still write letters? (Now, I’m not talking about thank you notes, because I know y’all’s mammas raised you right! I’m talking about full-fledged letters.) How many? I wrote one this week and one a few weeks ago. It’s a dying art, isn’t it? So much of my days are filled with emails, instant messages, and text messages, that when I do sit down to write a letter, it’s like I have to turn that part of my brain back on. I’ve been intrigued by our 2nd lesson for the week. As in most weeks, the second lesson that we read is an epistle or a letter that has been written to early Christian communities. Today we have the very beginning part of the 2nd letter to the Thessalonians, with the standard greeting of the writer expressing their thankfulness for the community. It’s a letter of encouragement to a people who have fallen on hard-times, a sort of love-letter to help them hold on to their faith and each other. I especially appreciated the perspective of a podcaster for this passage when she said, “In this letter Paul writes, ‘I am grateful for you, church. You have been faithful and steadfast, even in the face of terribleness. And yet, not all is terrible. Because we’re not doing this thing called life and faith by ourselves. We’re in this together; so stand firm. Hold on tight. The way isn’t easy, and sometimes there are people who are rooting for your failure. But that’s not the whole of it, though, and it will be amazing as we go together. Grace and peace of Jesus be with you always.’ [She concludes] Now while this letter was written a while ago, it still speaks today, doesn’t it? What terribleness have we seen! How have we needed some encouragement!” i In the spirit of this, I decided I wanted to write you all a letter for today, as we celebrate the new things that God continues to do in, among, and through us in this place and as we make our commitment to support the work God is doing in and through us together, over the next year. To my beloved people of St. Thomas, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I must always give thanks for you, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore, I boast of you among the church of God throughout all of Savannah and even in the greater diocese and beyond. We have certainly not had an easy time of it here these last couple of years. We have dealt with all of the challenges of being a faith community during a global pandemic, trying to navigate the way together when there were no maps and we didn’t even really know where we were going. We have lost people from this community who we loved, and we weren’t able to gather together to celebrate their lives, to mourn together, or to mark the profound changes to our community with their deaths. We have fallen out of familiar rhythms, and even as we tried to stay connected, we struggled with loneliness, with our inability to gather and worship and be together in ways that were comforting and familiar and necessary. Through it all, you remained constant in your support for this church, for your clergy, for each other. You continued to give faithfully, and because of that, we are doing well economically, even thriving. Today, as we gather to celebrate the new things that God is doing in, among, and through us here, I give thanks for the steadfastness of you and your faith. I give thanks for the ways that you welcome the stranger, how you seek to create space for new people, for new life without abdicating your own responsibilities. I give thanks for the ways that you love my children for who they really are and not who you think they should be. And not just my children. I give thanks that you love all of our children this way. I give thanks for the joy that you find in celebrating life together. I give thanks for all the things that you do for one another that I usually never know about but get glimpses of from time to time. I give thanks for the times when you aren’t afraid to ask for help, to lean on me or each other in ways that show deep trust. I give thanks for your gifts of hospitality, for how you make manifest for me and for others all those times when Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a really good party. I give thanks for the ways that you are willing to wrestle with scripture with me, and for the stories that you are willing to share about how God continues to transform you in your life of faith. I give thanks for the ways that you encourage and nurture us, your clergy, and for all the ways that you embrace and roll with our crazy! I give thanks for the ways that you have shown me that new love can heal old wounds and heartbreak and how it can call forth new gifts from us. I pray for you regularly, and I will confess that when I get glimpses of your prayers for me, it takes my breath away. And I ask that God will continue to do new things in and through and among us together in this place, so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in us, and us in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+ i. Melissa Meyers speaking on the podcast Pulpit Fiction episode #510. https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/proper26c

19th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24C

19th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24C October 16, 2022 My paternal grandfather was a United Methodist minister; I grew up visiting his church, seeing him in his black robe in the pulpit, hearing him preach. He was a big man with a deep voice and a commanding presence. The very first church that I served was in the same town as the last church Pop had served—the one he officially retired from. It was a small town and everyone knew who I was—the young, female, Episcopal priest (with a husband and new baby) in rural, Southwest Mississippi. When I went places in town, it was not uncommon for me to run into someone who would tell me a story about my grandfather. Their favorite stories to tell were the stories when Pop threatened to beat someone up. (Yes, there were many of those stories.) You see, my grandfather was a boxer in his youth, and there are some parts of us that even seminary and ordination cannot temper. And it seems that while he didn’t employ the threat often, there were occasions when Pop thought a person needed more than words and prayers to whip them back into shape and make them act right. As best I could tell, no one ever needed to take him up on his offer to “step outside” with him. The offer itself was enough to steer the offender back onto the right path. And what I came to learn was that underneath these stories of my grandfather as a fighter was a man who loved his flock fiercely and who was willing to fight to make the world a better place (and to get people to do better, to be better). Our scriptures for today give us two stories about people who are fighting for what they want and what they believe in. First, there is Jacob, who is returning home and mentally preparing for a big showdown/fight with his brother Esau who he has cheated out of their father’s blessing. Jacob, the quintessential, scrappy conman, has sent his entourage ahead when he encounters the mysterious stranger with whom he fights all night. When the two reach an impasse, with Jacob holding on for dear life, he demands a blessing from the stranger-perhaps in the hope it will give him a leg-up in the coming fight with his brother. And the stranger not only gives him a blessing, but he also gives him a new name—Israel—which literally means “God-fighter.” Then there’s the parable from Luke about a widow and an unjust judge. Luke gives the story a framework, telling us that Jesus tells the story to teach his disciples about “the need to pray always and not lose heart” and about faith or faithfulness. And Jesus’s parable is all about fighting. The widow has an “adversary”, and she keeps going to the judge demanding justice or possibly vengeance (the word can be translated as either) from the judge toward her adversary. We don’t know what the issue is or whether the woman’s cause is just or unjust. The strangely self-aware judge, who admits he doesn’t fear God or respect people, decides that he will give the widow what she is asking for so that she “won’t give [him] a black eye”. (The word that is translated in our reading for today as so that she won’t “wear me out by continually coming” is actually a Greek boxing term that means to give someone a black eye. We may very well be seeing some of Jesus’s humor at work in this.) Jesus is telling a story about a judge who isn’t afraid of God or other peoples’ perceptions of him but who is afraid of a widow giving him a black eye (or at least continuing to bother him with her demand). So, what does all this have to do with us or with our faith or with our relationship with God? I’ll confess that my first instinct is to identify with the fighter. The very opposite of losing heart is being willing to fight for something or someone. What does that mean to fight for something in our relationship with God, in our faith? Maybe it means showing up and when all else fails, holding on for dear life until God gives us something akin to what we demand. Maybe it means nagging, again and again, when even we are sick of the sound of our own voice asking…demanding justice. Maybe it means finding the same fire for justice or vengeance or self-interest toward God and the potential for God’s kingdom in the here and now, in and among us. Maybe it means asking ourselves what do we love enough to fight for, and how does our faith become that fierce and fiery, too? But what if the fighters in these two stories are meant to reveal to us something about God? What would it mean for us to think that God fights for what God loves and values with the tenacious, scrappy, persistent passion of Jacob? What if God fights for us with the single-minded purpose of a scorned widow seeking vengeance? If we knew and believed God was already, always fiercely fighting for us, how would that change our faith? How would that change the way we pray, what we pray for? Your invitation this week is to embrace this image of God fiercely fighting for you and to pay attention to what happens, how that changes you.

18th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23C

18th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23C October 9, 2022 Thanksgiving. It’s at the very heart of who we are as people of faith. We practice it week after week after week in the Eucharist, which literally means thanksgiving. You’d think we’d be good at it, that it would come easy for us. And maybe it does for some of us. Most of us know we are supposed to be thankful. If our mammas didn’t drill it into us with their refrain of “now what do you say to me?” (and we all know the answer is “thank you”), then our southern culture did. (“He or she just wasn’t raised right” we say of someone who fails to write a thank you note.) We know we should be thankful, and yet, so many times, we aren’t. I’m intrigued by this story from Luke’s gospel this week, that follows immediately on the heels of last week’s gospel. Immediately after Jesus’s overwhelmed disciples plead for him to give them more faith and he tells them a weird story about how slaves are just supposed to show up and do what they’re supposed to do, then we get today’s story. Jesus is traveling in a sort of in-between space when he encounters 10 lepers, people who have been isolated from community, who plead to him, “Have mercy upon us!” Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests, and as they go, they are made clean--healed of their affliction which separates them from community. Luke tells us that when one of the former lepers notices the healing, he stops and turns back to Jesus. He falls at Jesus’s feet and praises God, giving thanks. Jesus asks him where the other 9 are, but we know this don’t we? They are wrapped up in all the same things that keep us from giving thanks. One is too busy, trying to do the “right” thing, the thing that Jesus told them to do—go show themselves to the priests. One is too preoccupied and hasn’t even noticed the miracle has occurred. One is too distrustful of the gift, the miracle, suspicious of what he has received. One is too self-sufficient, unwilling to admit that she was ever in a place where she needed to be healed and unwilling to be made vulnerable yet again in the offering of thanks. One is conflicted about accepting anything that hasn’t been earned through hard work or merit. I’m sure we can name many other reasons why we have failed to give thanks when we might have. But the one who returned and gave thanks to Jesus… he has not only been made clean, but Jesus also tells him that his faith has saved him or made him well. What is it about this act of thanksgiving that is also an act of faith, and how does it also work to save him or make him well? Every week, we offer our prayers of thanksgiving to God. We come to God’s table with our hands outstretched and open. They are open in thanksgiving, offering back to God all the good gifts we have received over the week, and they are open in supplication, asking to be filled/refilled with the very gift of God’s presence in our hearts and lives, in our bodies and souls. This week, I’m going to offer you time and space to be thankful, to lay aside all those impediments that distract us from being thankful, for offering thanks, for just a few minutes. I’m inviting you to start writing down on this tiny slip of paper everything you can think of for which you are grateful, about your life, about this place. I hope everyone can think of at least three things you are grateful for, and I suspect, once you get started, you will be able to write so much that you cover the paper, running out of both space and time to keep going. As you come forward for communion, carry your gratefulness in your open palm to God’s altar where you can make it a part of your offering. Pay attention to what is happening in your heart as you offer your thanks to God. In what ways might that be healing for you? And then with empty hands, receive God’s good gift for you again this week, so you can go back out into the world to continue the work of thanksgiving.

17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 22C

17th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 22C October 2, 2022 The disciples are really stressed. Jesus has just shared with them some really difficult teachings—don’t be a stumbling block to any little ones, (and if you do, it’d be better for someone to tie a millstone around your neck and throw you in the water); if someone sins against you 7 times and comes to you and repents, then you have to forgive them. They are feeling overwhelmed and not up to the task, and so they plead to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” And Jesus tells them an odd parable about slaves just doing what they’re supposed to do. And so it seems like when the stressed, overwhelmed disciples say, “Lord, it’s too much! Increase our faith!” Jesus tells them “no.” Just show up and do what you’re supposed to do. Doesn’t seem very Jesus-like of him, does it? And yet, Jesus commends people for their faith all the time. Think of all the stories in the bible when someone seeks out Jesus for healing, and he tells them, “Go, your faith has made you (or whoever you love and are petitioning for) well.” So what do these people have that the disciples don’t have? Faith has come to mean a sort of intellectual belief, but that isn’t really what faith is or is about. Faith (the Greek pisteo) means setting your feet upon a path and walking it. Faith means doing the next right thing, taking yet another small step in a lifetime of small steps toward Jesus, doing the next small act of love in a life-time of small acts of love. It helps to not be as stressed or overwhelmed to know that we, like the disciples, don’t have to be able to move mountains with our faith. We just have to be able to take one small step toward God; we just need to be able to do the next right thing in order to be faithful. Today at St. Thomas, we are kicking off our annual giving campaign: “See, I am doing a new thing.” You’ll be getting a letter in the mail about this from Jamie McCurry, the chair, and me along with a pledge card, and on the Sundays in October, you’ll hear from others how they are trying to live out their faithfulness in how they give here in this community of faith. Throughout the month, I invite you to think about what the next right thing, the next faithful act of love looks like in your giving to God through this church. Maybe that means making a pledge or a commitment to give for the first time; maybe it means holding steady in what you are already giving, maybe faithfulness means an increase if you are doing especially well to help cover those who might be struggling and need to decrease. What is the next right thing, the small act of love, the one step closer to Jesus on the path that is your life of faith that you are being called to do to grow in your faithfulness in this place over the coming year?

16th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21C

16th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21C September 25, 2022 There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and who feasted sumptuously everyday. His wealth and his power insulated him from the world around him; his sin was self-absorption. He was so blinded by his own wealth and luxury that he couldn’t even see the need of a hungry man at his front door, and it created a great chasm between him and God, between him and others. Even in death, when offered the opportunity to change, to cross some of the great chasm he had created by his own self-absorption, he couldn’t imagine that his money and power couldn’t buy him what he wanted. There was a busy woman who valued her time above everything else. While her busy-ness and her time management gave her a sense of control over the chaos, her obsession with her to-do lists and her calendar created a great chasm between herself and others. Her sin was self-absorption. She valued getting things done over relationships, and a great chasm was created between her and God, between her and others. She missed out on spontaneous moments of delight, of tasting the richness of unplanned joy; she was so busy planning that she couldn’t participate in the Kingdom of God as it unfolded around her. There was a successful man who had done very well in life. He always made top grades in school; he worked hard and he tried to make everything he did look effortless. It was very important to him that people admire him and think well of him. His sin was self-absorption. He cared too much about how people thought about him, and a great chasm was created between him and God, between him and others. Because he was always trying to make a good impression, he never could be fully himself in his relationships and many times, he felt lonely, lost, empty, even in a room full of people. There was a charismatic woman who seemed to have it all together, life well in hand. She made friends easily, and she was beautiful. Her sin was self-absorption. She was much too concerned about doing something wrong, about past decisions, which she would second-guess, and because she would beat herself up when things didn’t go how she wanted, a great chasm was opened between her and God, between her and others. She would often find herself frozen, paralyzed, thinking it was better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing and regret it. There was a caring man who spent much time and energy taking care of others. Every day, he poured out so much energy tending to the needs of those in the world around him, and everyone appreciated him for it. His sin was self-absorption. His caring slowly transformed into a secret resentment that no one cared for him as well as he cared for others, and so a great chasm opened up between him and God, between him and others. Even as he continued to go through the motions of caring for those around him, he found his heart was hardened, and he was so very bitter deep down inside. There was a self-sufficient woman, who was smart and capable and who lived a full life. She was fiercely independent and didn’t really need anyone to be complete. Her sin was self-absorption. She wouldn’t let anyone get too close; she wouldn’t risk getting her heart broken, and so a great chasm opened up between her and God, between her and others. Each and every one of us is one of these children of God, on the other side of a chasm made by our own flavor of self-absorption. Jesus, who loves us, has already built a bridge across the chasm, and he invites each one of us to step out of our self-absorption, to see things a little differently, and to take one tiny step toward God and others on that bridge across that chasm. Are you ready?

15th Sunday after Pentecost-Year C

15th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 20C September 18, 2022 A letter to Matthew Cousins Ochsner, Jr upon the occasion of your baptism. Dear Cousins, Today is a big day in your young life! It is the day that your parents and godparents accept, on your behalf, that you are already God’s beloved child, a child of the light, and they make promises, on your behalf about how you will live and about how they will raise you. Today, this congregation will make a promise to you that we will support you in your life in Christ. We promise to nurture you, to walk with you, to teach you and to learn from you as we walk this way of faith together, worshipping God, breaking bread together, and being transformed together. Our gospel reading for today is not one I would have chosen for a baptism. It is one of Jesus’s more difficult, dare I even say, unsavory? parables. It is known as the parable of the dishonest manager, although I’ve also heard a modern-day commentator refer to it as the parable of the dishonest CFO. But as unsavory as it is, it’s important to notice that in this chapter of Luke, Jesus turns from teaching the large crowds who have been following him toward specific teaching for his disciples. So, what might Jesus be offering to us, his disciples, his baptized followers, those who have said yes to God’s claim on us as God’s beloved, in this unsavory parable? I think as children of light, we need to share in the dishonest manager’s realization that relationships are the most important thing and that through our relationships, we have untold amounts of resources that are available to us. This is a gift that you have already tasted, Cousins, in the life of your family, and now you will know it in all the relationships available to you through the life of this church and the larger body of Christ as well. In fact, as children of the light, we all are called to live our lives grounded in the awareness that the vision of the Kingdom of God is rooted in love and relationships, and we are called to understand and practice that the deepest treasure of both love and relationships is forgiveness. It's why we gather here, week after week. To help each other remember that we are the people of God, and to help us each remember what we are called to do as children of the light. The other gift that this strange parable offers us is a reminder of the importance of gratitude in our lives and in our relationships. Gratitude helps us focus our hearts and our attentions on the good things, the treasures in our lives, when we are often tempted to focus on our shortcomings or what we lack. Years ago, when my children were small, we started a daily gratitude practice that we called “three things”. Each night at bedtime, we would name out loud to each other three things that we were grateful for from that day. It became such an important part of our family bedtime ritual that my children would insist on it every night (even on those nights when I was not feeling particularly grateful). So in closing, sweet Cousins, let me offer three things for which I am grateful on this particular day. First, I am grateful that I get to be in ministry alongside three whole generations of your family in this place. What a gift that is! Second, I am grateful for all the ways that this special community of faith helps strengthen my relationship with God and with my fellow children of light. I’m grateful for the ways that we nurture and care for each other in difficult times, and I’m grateful for the ways that we celebrate and play together. Third, I am grateful for the reminder that your baptism serves for all of us, the way that we are able to recommit to our own baptismal vows, and for the way that we will all gather today to fed from God’s table. I look forward to walking with you in your life of faith, Cousins, in seeing the relationships you develop in this place, and in learning from you about what it means to be children of the light together. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 18C

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 18C September 4, 2022 When I worked at Stewpot Community Services, the non-profit soup kitchen in Jackson, Mississippi, in the years before I went to seminary, I had a co-worker named The Rev Donnell Flowers. Rev Flowers was a fire and brimstone Baptist preacher. He walked with a limp, spoke directly but kindly, and some of his language would make most preachers blush. Rev Flowers was the director of the Men’s homeless shelter at Stewpot, and some days, he would give the talk that opened our noon meal, the center point of our day at Stewpot. Our passage from Deuteronomy for today was one of his favorites—Moses’s farewell speech as he and the children of Israel stand at the edge of the promised land. Moses has led them this far but he isn’t allowed by God to go on with them, and so Moses is giving them one last message from God before he goes off on his own to die. Rev Flowers would quote it by memory; the words were inscribed on his heart as if there were his own: "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." The congregation for that noon meal for Rev Flowers was often mixed. It was made up of people who lived on the streets of Jackson, people who battled addiction and alcoholism. It was made up of senior citizens who didn’t have enough money from their social security checks to pay for all their necessary expenses, so they’d eat the free noon meal daily to help those funds stretch. The congregation was made up of people who were looking for somewhere safe where they could spend time—where the free meal was an extra gift that came with someone to eat it with. The congregation was made up of the attorneys and business people from Downtown Jackson who came to volunteer their time to help serve the meal, and it was made up of the staff who worked every day to try to help soften the lives of our community members just a bit. Choose life,” Rev Flowers would tell us all. Every day when you walk out these doors, you will be faced with the choice between life and death, blessings and curses; choose life. It was easy for me to see this choice between life and death that lay before those battling addiction and poverty, the minute they walked out the door. But I also began to realize that Rev Flowers’ impassioned encouraging to choose life was just as urgent for all the rest of us, too. For us, as followers of Jesus, choosing the way of life means paying attention to the things that Jesus paid attention to; it means taking up our own cross and following him in ways we would never choose or imagine—offering mercy to those we think don’t deserve it; offering healing and help, charity and kindness to the poor and the suffering; being open to giving up our very selves, all the trappings of what we have used to build and create our lives in order to live and walk and follow this way of love. Choosing life also means not turning our faces away from suffering—both others’ and our own, not numbing ourselves with the things we use to numb ourselves, not hardening our hearts or shielding ourselves with all the things we do to shield ourselves. Choosing life means acknowledging the others gods who tempt us and call out to use to worship them instead of following the difficult way of discipleship that Jesus offers. Choosing life means holding fast to a God who lifts up the lowly and exalts the small and who casts down the mighty. Choosing life means living our lives according to God’s priorities and not our own. Choose life. In every minute, every encounter. In every hour and in every day, we have before us the choice between life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life.

12th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 17C

12th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 17C August 28, 2022 “Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots/And ruined your black-tie affair…” Whenever I hear the first line of Garth Brooks’ hit “I’ve got friends in low places,” I’m immediately transported to a summer in high school when I’d drive back and forth to basketball camp with a car-load of my teammates. Whoever was driving was obsessed with the song, and she would blast the song over and over again (which required rewinding the cassette tape to get back to the start every time). My teammates would belt the song our with gusto every time through; but I’ll confess that I never really understood the appeal; I actually thought it was a somewhat depressing song about humiliation set to a raucous chorus, but in the throes of the euphoria of teenaged freedom, I would often join in. Y’all know this song? It’s all about how the narrator shows up underdressed (and maybe uninvited?) to a fancy party that his ex is throwing; he recognizes that he comes from a different sort of social status as his ex, but he doesn’t let it bother him as he makes plans to blow off his humiliation and go party with his “friends in low places.” One music critic writes, "Friends in Low Places" was as effective as pop music ever gets: It's a depressing song that makes you feel better. Singing along with that song was like …laughing at a rich person and knowing that you were right ... Garth told stories about blue-collar people who felt good about what their bad life symbolized ...”i The genesis of the song is also interesting. One of the two songwriters was hosting a lunch at a restaurant, entertaining other songwriters, when he realized that he had left his money at home. He told his songwriting buddies, “Don’t worry. I have friends in low places. I know the cook." The songwriters realized what a good line it was and wrote the song from there.ii It’s interesting to me because it’s a song about how a person can take a humiliating experience and embrace it. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus is at a dinner party, and he tells a parable that is all about how a person can learn humility to avoid humiliating situations and also about how a humiliating situation can teach us about the unexpected ways that God shows up for us both when we are humiliated and when we embrace humility. On Wednesday at our weekly healing service, I asked the congregation to think about times when they had been humiliated and also asked them to think about ways that formed them toward humility. We re-discovered that a universally humiliating experience in our modern context is located in the games that we play as children at P.E. or recess; you know the ones: musical chairs, Red rover, the process of picking teams, and of course the ultimate humiliating experience that is known as dodge ball. But as we talked about these early humiliations, some people shared about how humiliations turned into opportunities for prayer and God’s healing response; they talked about how bumping up against other people from time to time serves as a reminder of who they are and how they wanted to live their life and their faith. They talked about how hard and how humiliating it is to ask for help, and they also talked about how it feels when they offer someone help and it is rejected. Friends, our readings for today offer us both good and challenging news. The good news is that God has given each one of us all good things for no good reason. None of us has earned anything that we have ever been given from God; God has given and continues to give because God loves—extravagantly, abundantly, unreasonably. When we get glimpses of that reality—whether it’s in our day to day lives or when we are kneeling at that altar with hands outstretched--it humbles us. And the challenging news in this passage is that God wants us to treat each other the same way; God invites us to do the same for others: giving to others only good things for no good reason, wanting the best for others regardless of how that may seem to affect us, and even working toward that reality. It may actually feel like a humiliation when others are lifted up; and if it does, then we need to pay attention to that, and become more curious because God may show up unexpectedly there, and because Jesus tells us, again and again, that that is what the Kingdom of God looks like. This week, on the Pray as You Go podcast, one of the prompts had to do with humility. I’ve been pondering it all week. “The gift of humility is an excellent foundation for recognizing the unexpected God. It means my ego, my concerns, don’t get in the way. Do you find yourself drawn to this kind of humility?”iii The true answer is that actually, I don’t find myself drawn to that kind of humility. It like my ego and my concerns, thank you very much. And that has shown me, this week, that this is what I need to be praying for, as frightening as that is for me. This week, I invite you to reflect on humility and humiliation. Can you think of a time when you were humiliated that moved you toward embracing a deeper call to humility or to deepen your trust in God? Or perhaps, can you think of a time when God lifted up the lowly and that felt threatening or unsettling to you? Look more closely at your own discomfort and see what God might be revealing to you in that? Or perhaps you need to spend some time with the awareness that God wants to give you only good things, loving you abundantly, extravagantly, un-earnedly. And God calls you to do the same for others. i. From the Wikipedia entry on the song. From an essay by Chuck Closterman: Klosterman, Chuck (2009). Eating the Dinosaur. New York, NY: Scribner. p. 107. ISBN 978-1-4165-4421-0. ii. Ibid. Collins, Ace (1996). The Stories Behind Country Music's All-Time Greatest 100 Songs. New York: Boulevard. p. 276. ISBN 1-57297-072-3. iii. https://pray-as-you-go.org/player/2022-08-28

11th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 16C

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 16C August 21, 2022 Many of you know that when I go visit our family farm, I often am given or take on a project. One of my projects for my visit this past summer was the clipping up of tomato plants. I wasn’t sure what I agreed to until I headed to the field, and I discovered rows upon rows of tomato plants whose vines and fruit were so heavy that they not only lay on the ground but they had started to grow entangled together. My task was to separate the plants and to clip up the vines to thin ropes hanging down from above. It was hard work; the vines were heavy and laden with flowers and fruit that I had to be so very careful not to damage. The tomato plants made my skin itch when I came into contact with them. And we won’t even talk about the weeds! As I worked, I thought about the passages in scripture where God promises to make the crooked paths straight, and I thought about how Jesus heals a bent over, crooked woman, who had borne the weight of her infirmity for 18 years. I thought about how we, like the tomato plants, like the woman, and like the leader of the synagogue that confronts Jesus, are impeded in our growth and in our ability to bear fruit, how we get all tangled up together, how we don’t know where we end and others begin until Jesus comes along and heals us and helps us untangle, until God makes our crooked, heavy vines straight. Both Isaiah and the gospel reading today speak about the importance of Sabbath. In the gospel reading, sabbath and the law become the stick that the synagogue leader uses to fight Jesus with when he heals the crooked woman on the sabbath. Jesus argues back that sabbath is a time to create space for compassion for all, a time to be free from what binds us. Isaiah talks about how it is important to use God’s sabbath for the way God has intended it, as a space to create and hold compassion for ourselves and for others, about how that practice of drawing close to God and each other through sabbath rest will shower blessings down upon the whole land of Israel. But there’s always a temptation—that is referenced in the Isaiah reading today (and we see it at play in the gospel as well)—that is to make Sabbath about ourselves. But God speaks through Isaiah saying that when we keep the sabbath, opening our hearts and creating space for God to work in us, Sabbath will heal us. Jesus shows that true sabbath is always rooted in compassion—compassion for ourselves and our over-filled lives, compassion for others, compassion for our planet that we use and use and use with little thought. Sabbath is the invitation to pay attention to our inner life, to delve deeper into our own souls, beyond the boundaries of our personalities into the heart of the deep darkness within us where God dwells. When we worship God, when we embrace the rest and compassion offered in Sabbath, we open space for Jesus to do healing work in us, too, for God to help us yield the abundant fruit that is grown out of compassion for ourselves, for others, and for the world around us. How are you being called to keep Sabbath differently, to create a space for Jesus to heal you and give you what you need? What parts of you are crooked that need straightening? What parts of you are too bound up with others, in ways that damage the fruit that you have to offer? What parts of you are wounded, bent, or sick that need to be healed, straightened, made whole? Where are you being called to look through Sabbath-seasoned eyes, with compassion—on yourself, on someone else, on the world around you?

10th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 15C

10th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 15C August 14, 2022 After a long summer hiatus, I started back running this week. On good days, there is nothing I love more than a good treadmill-run. I show up at the gym like I plan to; I crank up my running playlist in my headphones, and run/walk exactly as I had planned to run/walk that day. As someone who has run off and on, her whole adult life, I am quite familiar with the pattern. For whatever reason, my first run back after a hiatus (assuming that I have set reasonable expectations for my level of physical fitness—which isn’t always the case), is usually a dream. It’s easier than I think it will be; the time flies by; I end my workout optimistic about getting back into running shape. But the second run after coming back, that’s the one that always gets me. Best case scenario: I make it to the gym; run the course I had planned, and it is 10 times harder than my first run back. My muscles are sore and I’m tired. My mind tells me that I can always just stop and walk or even just get off the treadmill—no one will even know, and so I often have to dig deep and push through to finish my planned course. I’m not always successful. So it has intrigued me this week that the writer of Hebrews, who is writing about faith in this week’s passage and in last week’s passage, talks about how faith, the life of the faithful is like running—entreating the followers of Christ who are suffering by saying, “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” Hebrews Chapter 11 is often known as “the hall of fame of faith.” It begins with a familiar verse: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Last week’s portion goes on to talk about Abraham and Sarah-how they trusted God and set out for a new promised land; how God made them promises that they did not live to see fulfilled, but how we as the people of faith know that God came through for them. This week’s reading name drops more of the faithful throughout our scriptural history and it is full of action: “By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace.” Faith inspired the followers of God to conquer kingdoms, administer justice, obtain promises, shut the mouths of lions, quench raging fire, escape the edge of the sword, win strength out of weakness, become mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight…. For so many of us, faith has come to mean a sort of intellectual set of beliefs or even an emotional connection to God and each other, but in this chapter of Hebrews, faith is a physical response to the call of God to go to new places, to step out into the unknown because God tells us that is where we need to go. As another writer puts it, “The texts describe the faithful as people who set out for new places, anticipate new arrivals, wait for big changes, and search for new homelands. In these texts, the faithful are nomads. They wander. They contend with a holy restlessness…They work for the transformation of this world even as they yearn with all their hearts for another.” She continues, “Faith as it is described in Scripture is not, in other words, a destination. It’s not a conclusion or a form of closure. Faith is a longing. Faith is a hunger. Faith is a desire. Faith is the restless energy that pushes us out the door and onto the road in pursuit of the inheritance God has promised. Faith is the audacity to undertake a perilous journey simply because God asks us to — not because we know ahead of time where we’re going. Faith is the itch and the ache that turns our faces towards the distant stars even on the cloudiest of nights. [She concludes,] Faith is the willingness to stretch out our imaginations and see new birth, new life, new joy — even when we feel withered and dead inside. Faith is the urgency of the homeless for a true and lasting home — a home whose architect and builder is God.” i This chapter of Hebrews also makes it clear that a life of faith, this response to God’s call to step out into new places, isn’t always smooth or easy. The passage details all the ways that the faithful hall-of-famers suffered in faithfulness, in their stepping out into the places God was calling them. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus talks some about this, too, offering a description (and not necessarily a prescription) of what his disciples may endure as he makes his way to Jerusalem. So where is the good news in all of this? We come here looking for peace and solace, not more stress and difficulty in our already fractious, stressful lives! Why go back to the gym when we know that 2nd run back is going to be so much harder than the first? Years ago, I heard a remarkable, true story about phenomenal grace under pressure, about faith and patience in the face of extreme persecution and stress. It’s a story that aired on This American Life about a group of Girl Guides (the rest of the world’s form of our Girl Scouts) and their leaders who were taken prisoner in a Japanese concentration camp right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The leaders and the girls were at a school for the children of American and British missionaries and workers in China, and the children were taken, without their parents to the concentration camp. But here is what is remarkable about this story. They never stopped acting like Girl Guides. The leaders promoted cheerfulness and service to the girls for the entire four years they were captive. They had competitions (based on the thing they needed for their survival) that served as their merit badges, and they continued to sing throughout the whole four years the Girl Guide songs, songs of faith and optimism and hope. One girl remembers how they would frequently sing the song: “Day is done. Gone the sun from the sea, from the hills, from the sky. All is well, safely rest. God is nigh.” The leaders were not foolish. One is recorded as having written about her hope that when they were finally to be taken outside of the camp to be killed, she hoped she went first so she wouldn’t have to watch it. Yet, in the midst of incredibly stressful circumstances, those leaders chose to have hope, to do what they could to protect those children, and to be faithful in their calling. The narrator of the piece says it well: “There probably aren't many places on earth where you have less reason to be cheerful than a concentration camp. But it turns out, in a place like that, being able to be cheerful, to have a positive outlook, it's not dopey or silly. It's how you survive. How you tell the story matters.” ii Every time I show up at the gym and run on the treadmill, I become a runner. And every time we show up and break bread together in this place, asking for forgiveness for our sins, reaching out our hands and our very souls in supplication to be fed by the body and blood of Christ, asking to be transformed more into the image and likeness of the God who created us, and then accepting God’s call to go out into the world once again to share God’s love with a desperate and needy world; every time we choose mercy over taking offense, we choose doing what is right over doing what is easy, we choose kindness over meanness or indifference, we are practicing our faith, becoming more and more those people who step out in faith in response to God’s call. We give ourselves and our lives over to something bigger than our own self-centeredness. We participate in the story of all the faithful, being mindful that we need each other, in order for the fullness of God’s promises to be fulfilled. i.From Debie Thomas’ essay: Called to Restlessness. First published on Journey with Jesus blog in 2019. Full text can be found here: https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3420-called-to-restlessness-2 ii.From a sermon I preached at St. Columb’s Episcopal Church, Ridgeland, MS. 13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 13C; August 14, 2016

9th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 14C

9th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 14C August 7, 2022 There are some songs that you have known for so long, that you don’t even remember the first time you hear them. You know the words by heart, and sometimes, because you have sung the words so many times, you don’t even really think about what the words mean at this point. The Servant Song is one of those songs for me. I must have sung it thousands of times in my 46 years in the church. I’ve sung it at baptisms, at weddings, at funerals. I’ve sung it at most Maundy Thursday services. (One year, when we didn’t sing it, I received a friendly critique from my elementary-aged daughter when she said, “It just doesn’t feel like Maundy Thursday if we don’t sing the Servant Song during the footwashing.”) And I have sung it at countless regular Sunday morning services, with so many different of the faithful across many dioceses. For those of you who don’t have this song inscribed on your hearts—it goes like this: “Won’t you let me be your servant?/ Let me be as Christ to you/ Pray that I may have the grace/ To let you be my servant too.” The verses talk about what it means to be together in Christian community, about holding the light of Christ for each other in dark times, in caring for one another and sharing in joys and in sorrows. It’s so familiar, I’ll confess that I hardly think about it much anymore (although it will catch me unawares occasionally and raise a lump in my throat). This week, I found myself humming it, and when I stopped and paid attention to the part of the song that was rolling around in my mind, it was actually the second verse, that I found myself singing over and over throughout the week: “We are pilgrims on a journey/We are travelers on a road/ We are here to help each other/ Walk the mile and bear the load.” I’ve been thinking this week about pilgrimage, about the difference between travel and pilgrimage, about why people for centuries have gone on pilgrimage. I know of so many churches, including our own, who have gone on pilgrimage this summer, and I’ve been thinking about what that verse of the Servant Song means. If a pilgrimage usually entails a journey to some far-off place, then what does that mean when we all sing together in this place—"We are pilgrims on the journey/ We are travelers on the road/We are here to help each other/ Walk the mile and bear the load.” I was fortunate to get to talk to two of my seminary classmates this week who both led pilgrimages this summer. I listened as they compared notes and then I asked them what the difference was between a pilgrimage and a trip, as I continue to think about and process some of my own travels from this summer. And as I listened to my two friends talk about pilgrimage, here is what I heard. That many people go on pilgrimage to try to find God in some traditionally holy place. And many people discover, that if they participate in pilgrimage fully, then they find God has been with them all along, every day. Sometimes, however, it helps to step out of the ordinary, out of our day-to-day rhythms and routines, to subject ourselves to some of the unpredictability and vulnerability of travel, to begin to see God present and at work in our lives and around us always. My friends talked about the stages or characteristics of pilgrimage that others have written about: “The Practice of Hearing the Call and Responding; The Practice of Packing Lightly; The Practice of Crossing the Threshold; The Practice of Making the Way by Walking; The Practice of Being Uncomfortable; The Practice of Beginning Again; The Practice of Embracing the Unknown; and The Practice of Coming Home.”i They talked about how the crux of pilgrimage is noticing what is present in and around you and intentionally focusing on God who is already with you along the way. I’ve used this lens in looking back on some of my own travels this summer, and I find I can remember some of the pilgrimage moments better than most because those were the times when I either encountered the unexpected or I was really paying attention: when Jack and I were sitting on the stoop of a shop while David was inside buying clergy-wear in Vatican City, and we looked up, and there was a really old, toothless lady waving at us out of her third story window above us. And when I waved back, she smiled broadly and started blowing us kisses. About how our Dutch canal tour guide and boat-driver named Klaas, intentionally built community out of a group of strangers on his tour, and we made new friends from around the world. A handful of special meals when I was really paying attention, truly present—Mary Margaret’s birthday dinner in front of the open windows in a lovely restaurant in Paris with the rain pouring down outside, sitting across the table grill at a Korean bbq in London and watching Jack cook his dinner; date night with David at a restaurant in Rome with our table out on the sidewalk of an old, curvy Roman road. These were the moments when I encountered God in unexpected ways because I was paying attention. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus talks about this act of paying attention, or being alert to the presence of God. He talks about how sometimes we have to strip away those things that keep us too comfortable—the possessions, the routines, the comforts—so that we can encounter God who is always with us. Or as another preacher puts it, we find God more regularly when we “position ourselves to be surprised.”ii. So, what does that mean for us as individuals and what does that mean for us at St. Thomas—"pilgrims on a journey, travelers on the road, we [who] are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load”? My friends who led pilgrimages talked a fair amount about being the leaders of their groups; both agreed that their greatest challenge was the couple of people in each group who were most focused on getting to the destination point each day with the most speed/haste, so much so that they would often leave behind the rest of the group. They were so focused on the end point that they didn’t pay attention to what was happening all around them on the way. I’ll confess that in life this is often my own sin as well. I’ll get so caught up in tasks and to-do lists that I will miss the presence of God that is right in front of my face, fully present in another person or walking right beside me. What if our call as individuals and as a church is to slow down and pay attention to the ways that God is already showing up in and through and among us? What if our call is to look for those who are getting left behind in the journey of faith, and to slow down deliberately and wait for them? What would that even mean? What might that look like? “We are pilgrims on a journey/We are travelers on a road/ We are here to help each other/ Walk the mile and bear the load.” i. These are actually the chapter headings in the book The Soul of a Pilgrim: 8 Practices for the Journey Within by Christine Valters Paintner. ii. Attributed to Gene Lowry.

8th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 13C

8th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 13C July 31, 2022 A letter to William Fort Strickland upon the occasion of his baptism Dear Fort, Today is an important day in your young life. Today is the day upon which you are baptized into Christ’s body. Today is the day when you will be sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. Today, your parents and godparents and family are accepting, on your behalf, that you already belong to God. They are offering God thanks for your belonging, and we are all making promises that we will walk with you, teach you and learn from you about what it means to live as those who always belong to God, no matter what. Our reading from Colossians for today is all about baptism. In and through our baptism, we believe that we are buried with Christ in his death and raised with Christ into new life. The writer of Colossians is urging the faithful to live as those with new life, to seek the things that are above, setting our minds on things that are above and not on the things that are from earth. The author then gives a list of what not to do as the baptized followers of Jesus; we are called to put to death that which is in us that tends toward fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed/idolatry and to get rid of anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive language and lies. We are called to clothe ourselves with our new self- which is reminiscent of the image and likeness of God our creator, and we are called to deepen in the ways that we dwell within Christ. It’s interesting, sweet Fort, that the writer gives us a list of how not to live, what not to do as the baptized members of the body of Christ; but we are not given a list of what to do, how to live. Thankfully, we have our baptismal covenant to rely on for that, which gives us guidelines on what to do/how to live. In and through our baptismal covenant, we promise to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers. We promise to persevere in resisting evil and when we do fall into sin to repent and return to the Lord. We promise to proclaim the good news of God in Christ by both word and example; to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves and to strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. These are good guidelines for how to live, Fort, and they are a part of the tradition that your family, godparents, and us, your church family, are all promising to model for you as you grow among us. But there’s another lesson in our scriptures today for all of us. It’s found in the gospel parable of a rich man who seeks to preserve what he has built up for himself in this life. As another writer put it, “let’s look at the story—what’s in it? There are crops, an abundance of crops, barns, business planning, success. The man even has a soul, you know, because he talks to it: “Soul, you have ample goods…relax, eat drink, be merry.” Pretty much the American Dream, complete. What’s not in this story? There is nobody else in the story. No one. Just the rich man and his thoughts for his own security and comfort.”i We need each other, Fort, to be truly fulfilled, to truly live the Christian life. We need the lessons that we can teach each other, lessons about forgiveness when we don’t deserve it or haven’t asked for it, lessons about how to offer mercy and compassion and kindness in a world that is so quick to anger and take offense and blame. This Christian way of life is not easy, so we walk this way together, gathering week after week to support each other, to be fed and strengthened to go back out into the world to try again the next week. You will have much to teach us in the coming years, Fort, and we look forward to walking this way with you. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+ i. From a teaser from Andrew Kadel’s sermon for Trinity Morrisania for today.

6th Sunday of Easter-Year C

The Sixth Sunday of Easter-Year C May 22, 2022 As I’ve been preparing to go on sabbatical, I’ve been thinking about peace a lot lately—thinking about what peace is in general and what it is specifically to me. Many people think that peace is the absence of conflict; it can be equated with tranquility, and for people with small children, it is often coupled with “quiet” (as in “Can I, please, just get five minutes of peace and quiet?”). As we watch from afar the 12 week war between Russia and Ukraine, peace may even feel like an unachievable dream for us and for our world. I asked our Wednesday group what peace means for them. One spoke about how peace is the opposite of fear. Another spoke of how it is a deepening in God. Another referred to a Martin Luther King Jr quote: "We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience." For me, both physically and spiritually, peace is a kind of deep breathing that dispels the tightness in my chest and belly and even the tightness in my soul that is anxiety, stress, striving, and a fearful and troubled heart. In our gospel reading for today, we see Jesus speaking to his disciples in the gospel of John’s long farewell discourse. He is responding to a question from one of the disciples, and even as he gives them the bad news that he is not going to be with them for much longer, he gives them the good news that God will be sending the Holy Spirit to teach and remind them. He also gives them the gift of his peace saying: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” As I was thinking about this peace that Jesus gives his disciples (both his disciples then and us, his disciples now), I began to wonder…Is Jesus saying that his gift of peace is an antidote for troubled and fearful hearts? Or is he giving them the gift of his peace coupled with a command to them: “do not let your hearts be troubled…[or] afraid”? Is peace a free gift that will strengthen our hearts through its reception or is it an either/or situation—Jesus gives us peace in which we can choose to dwell or we can allow our hearts to be troubled and afraid? At its heart, peace is a free gift of Jesus, what Jesus offers and wants for each one of us, and it comes into our hearts when they are undefended and longing for peace The Anglican priest Herbert O’Driscoll writes this about Jesus’s gift of peace in John 14:27: “The word Jesus would have used at that moment is shalom, a much richer and more complex term. ‘Peace’ in this sense does not mean tranquility, lack of challenge, or restfulness. We can experience the peace of Christ without any of these things. Experiencing the shalom of Christ is to taste moments when in an almost inexpressible way things seem to come together for us. The shalom of Christ comes when we experience the conviction that in Christ everything somehow makes sense.” i The story from Acts gives us a picture of what this peace, this shalom of Jesus looks like, a coming together of things to spread the good news of the resurrection throughout the world. In the story, we see Paul being obedient to a vision that he has that compels him to travel to Europe. He ends up in Philippi, and seemingly by chance, he finds himself on the outside of town near the river. There he encounters some women who’ve gathered there, and he sits down with them and begins to teach them. Among this group of women is Lydia, who is a wealthy, successful head of her own household in Philippi. She is a dealer in purple cloth which only the wealthy could afford, so she has access to most of the movers and shakers in town and perhaps beyond. As she is listening to Paul, the writer of Acts says that “God opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” She and her whole household get baptized and then she urges Paul and his companions to come stay at her home with her. What this story tells me is that in God’s shalom, nothing is a coincidence. It also shows me that when Lydia’s longing for a relationship with God encounters the grace of God, the offspring of that union are both peace and an abundance of generosity. So what does that mean for us this day? We too are offered the gift of Jesus’s peace, Jesus’s shalom into our hearts and lives. That does not mean that our lives will be conflict free. And it does not mean that we will always be perfectly tranquil. What it does mean is that we can rest in the assurance that in Christ, everything somehow makes sense. And it means that when our longing for God encounters the gift of God’s grace, then the results are both peace and generosity. In that way, we are made whole. In closing, as I prepare to be away from you for nine weeks on sabbatical, I’d like to share with you an old favorite song. It’s called Deep Peace by Kirk Dearmen, and it’s a Celtic blessing that brings me a little closer to this mystery that is peace. It goes: “Deep peace of the running wave to you, Deep peace of the silent starts/Deep peace of the flowing air to you. Deep peace of the quite Earth./ May peace, may peace, may peace fill your soul,/ Let peace, let peace, let peace make you whole.”ii i. O’ Driscoll, Herbert. Prayers for the Breaking of Bread. Cowley: Cambridge, 1991. p 87. ii. From Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi’s Camp Bratton Green Songbook: 1999 Expressions of Praise Music; CCLI song no. 2198338; CCLI license no. 2260158

4th Sunday of Easter Year C

4th Sunday of Easter-Year C May 8, 2022 I’ve been hearing one particular question more frequently over these last few weeks: “What are you going to do on your sabbatical?” The conversation usually proceeds along similar lines as I begin to share details of a family trip to Europe that we have planned to kick-off my sabbatical and to celebrate our daughter’s graduation from high school. I tell them all the different places we’ll be going and what we plan to do there, and after their initial enthusiastic response, their eyes start to glaze over. It’s a lot. Once I realize this, I quickly wrap up and we talk about the rest of the plans for what I’m going to do on sabbatical. (Don’t worry, I’ll be detailing more of this for y’all in upcoming correspondence…) But after several versions of this conversation, I began to sense some uneasiness within myself. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I have spent months planning this trip—where we’ll go and stay, how we’ll get there, what we’ll see and do when we’re there. (I do love to plan trips—my mom even gave me a bunch of guidebooks for my birthday this past January….because that’s what I asked for!) When I dig a little deeper, I begin to realize that the twinges of uneasiness I am feeling are, perhaps, gentle pecks from the Holy Spirit to pay attention. And when I dig deeper still, I begin to see that I am bringing the same sort of violence (or dare I call it sinfulness?) to my sabbatical that I often live with in my work and home life. Here’s what I mean by that. I’ve been re-reading a book titled Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in our Busy Lives. It’s by a man named Wayne Muller, who had a near death-experience through a serious infection during a time in his life when he was dramatically over-working. In his opening chapter, Muller writes this about sabbath keeping and our modern lives: “Thomas Jefferson suggested that human life and liberty were intimately entwined with the pursuit of happiness. Instead, life has become a maelstrom in which speed and accomplishment, consumption and productivity have become the most valued human commodities. In the trance of overwork, we take everything for granted. We consume things, people, and information. We do not have time to savor this life, nor to care deeply and gently for ourselves, our loved ones, or our world; rather, with increasingly dizzying haste, we use them all up, and throw them away…” Muller suggests that in all this, we have forgotten Sabbath—a time that is set aside for sacred rest. He continues, “Sabbath is more than the absence of work; it is not just a day off when we catch up on television or errands. It is the presence of something that arises when we consecrate a period of time to listen to what is most deeply beautiful, nourishing, or true. It is time consecrated with our attention, our mindfulness, honoring those quiet forces of grace or spirit that sustain and heal us….While many of us are terribly weary, we have come to associate tremendous guilt or shame with taking time to rest. Sabbath gives us permission….We only need to remember.”i Today, we are offered two different reminders of how we might find this rest, take this refuge in Jesus. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus reminds his listeners and us that none of his followers, his sheep, can be snatched out of his hand; how we are all also held in God’s hand as well. At a different point in John’s gospel, Jesus invites us to “make your home in me as I make mine in you.” The second reminder comes from Dame Julian of Norwich whose feast day is also today. Julian, a medieval mystic who lived in England during a time of plague and political tumult, had a vision about the nature of God’s love. And in this vision, Julian saw God holding something that looked like the size of a hazelnut in God’s hand. It was revealed to Julian that this hazelnut was all that had ever been created by God, and she realized three truths about her life, the life of others, and the life of all creation: 1. God made it. 2. God loves it. 3. God keeps it. We are already fully made, fully loved, and fully kept by God. There is no striving that we need to do or even that we can do in order to earn this. That offer of peace, of rest, of belonging is already there. We just have to accept it, and to open ourselves up to the delight that comes. So, what does that look like? For me, it has meant more a change in approach than a change in plans for sabbatical at this point. I’ve pulled back from trying to schedule out every moment of our trip and have left open spaces for rest, for exploration, for delight. Your invitation this week is two-fold. First, spend some time with Dame Julian’s revelation: that God made you; God loves you; and God keeps you. Second, spend some time doing a time inventory. Look at how you spend your time in a given week. What are ways that you are already keeping the sabbath—whether it be for just a few minutes a day to whole stretches of time? What are some ways that the God who keeps you is inviting you into deeper, fuller sabbath rest in the coming week? i. Muller. Wayne. Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in our Busy Lives. Bantam: New York, 1999, pp 4-8.

The Second Sunday of Easter-Year C

Easter 2C_2022 April 24, 2022 I’d like to start a campaign—to change the designation of our patron saint. Instead of people calling him Doubting Thomas, I’d like to start calling him Need for Certainty Thomas. Or maybe Evidenced-based Thomas? True, it doesn’t quite roll of the tongue as well as Doubting Thomas, but I feel our patron saint has been horribly misunderstood throughout the centuries. Because I believe that out of all the disciples, Thomas is the most like us. Think about it. The little that we know of Thomas is that he is a problem solver. He isn’t scared enough to stay locked in the room with the other disciples when they are afraid they will also be targeted for death as Jesus’ closest friends. Thomas is the rational pragmatist of the group. So, when the Risen Christ appears to the disciples and Thomas isn’t there, Thomas wants to see it for himself. He wants answers and certainty, and all they can give him is wonder and mystery. We modern people have grown accustomed to being able to find answers after a quick search in the palm of our hand. We are accustomed to the place of science and rational thought in our modern world, which provide answers to so many of the deep mysteries our ancestors just had to live with. We’ve been taught answers by the church since childhood, and when we show up here, it is often our secret hope to get more answers to the deepest dilemmas of our lives: how to love those who differ from us? how and where to find peace in our frenzied, frantic lives? what is our purpose? I think at the heart of Thomas’s demand for proof is a demand for answers. “What do you mean he’s back from the dead? How on earth did that happen? Maybe if I can see it, see him, then I’ll understand what has happened.” Thomas keeps asking the others for answers and all they can do in response is marvel at the mystery they have seen unfold before them in the person of the Resurrected Jesus. When Thomas finally encounters the Risen Christ for himself, he asks him for certainty, and in response, Jesus shows Thomas his scars from his wounds—the mystery of new life out of brokenness. So today, what if, instead of being here in search of certainty, we opened ourselves to the mystery of God’s love, which is so much grander than we can even begin to imagine? What if instead of answers we sought out uncertainty? What if, here on out, we made a choice to come here not in search of answers, but rather looking for mystery?I i. This homily was inspired by my listening to Brene Brown’s interview of Richard Rohr. You can access it here: Spirituality, Certitude, and Infinite Love, Part 1 of 2 - Brené Brown (brenebrown.com)