The Eve of Christ's Nativity-2023

Christmas Eve 2023 The Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg December 24, 2023 Many of you know that it is not uncommon for me to get a particular song stuck in my head. I’m a big believer in how the Holy Spirit uses that to get my attention and as an invitation to delve deeper into what might be unfolding in my soul in a particular season. If you’ve been here before for Christmas Eve, chances are, you’ve heard me talk about this. One year it was Dona nobis pacem (God, give us peace) which was lodged firmly in my soul. Another year it was two particular lines from O Holy Night: “a thrill of hope/ the weary world rejoices”. Last year, it was a different line from O Holy Night…. You get the picture. This year, the Holy Spirit has shaken it up a bit, because my obsession hasn’t been limited to one song; instead, I’ve been obsessed, all through the Advent season, with two very different songs. I think the second song came into play because I couldn’t figure out why the first song was stuck on repeat in my soul. (But more on that later). This first song that got stuck in my soul this year is brand new to me. It’s titled Lully, Lulla, Lullay, and it’s written by a contemporary composer named Philip Stopford. I encountered it when I attended The University of the South’s Lessons and Carols service earlier this month where my daughter was singing in the choir. We had talked with her about the program earlier that day, and she had shared that it was her favorite song in their program. So when they started singing, I was immediately captivated by the gentle lullaby nature of the song. (It’s set to the words of the Coventry Carol, if you’re familiar with that.) The chorus goes: Lully, lullah, thou little tiny child/ Bye bye, lully, lully. It’s a lullaby sung from a mother’s perspective. It could even by Mary singing it for Jesus. But as the song unfolds, its soaring and beautiful melody becomes haunting as the song tells about the murder of the innocents, all the young children murdered by order of King Herod in his attempt to wipe out the threat of the baby Jesus: “ O sisters too, how may we do, For to preserve this day This poor youngling for whom we do sing Bye, bye, lully, lullay. Herod, the king, in his raging, Charged he hath this day His men of might, in his owne sight, All young children to slay. That woe is me, poor Child for Thee! And ever mourn and sigh, For thy parting neither say nor sing, Bye, bye, lully, lullay. i Y’all know this story, right? Even though it’s not one we typically read on Christmas Eve, it’s still part of the story of the birth Jesus. We find it in Matthew’s gospel, which tells us that after Jesus is born, Herod, the King, gets wind of Jesus’s birth from the wise men, and he grows concerned about a potential rival king, so he sends soldiers to the area in and around Bethlehem with orders to kill all the children there who are 2 years old or younger. (Jesus escapes because Joseph is warned in a dream to take Jesus and Mary into Egypt where they will be safe.) As I’m listening to this beautiful song unfold in the magnificent space that is All Saints’ Chapel at Sewanee, I can feel myself coming apart. The one Kleenex that I have on my person cannot combat the weeping that has just overwhelmed me. I mean, I am wrecked. As I sit listening to this song, I’m thinking about my own children, who are way past the age of infancy (thank goodness!), and this crazy world they are growing up in. I’m thinking about all the children of the world now and since the time of Jesus who have been killed because of the decisions of men mad with power, about how it’s happening, even now, in the same place it did 2,000 years ago, in Bethlehem (whose Christians have chosen not to offer Christmas observances this year in their churches because they are at war, under siege). The song comes to a hauntingly beautiful conclusion. I am openly weeping, and then immediately next in the program is that the congregation is supposed to stand and sing Angels we have heard on high. I stand up, and I’m really trying to get it together, but I’m still a blubbering mess, who’s trying desperately to sing Gloria….in excelsis deio. And then I start to get mad—who’s idea was it to play such a sad song and then make us get up and sing, anyway?! By the time angels we have heard on high is over, I’ve pulled myself together, but I’m still haunted by the emotional whip-lash I’ve just experienced through the two songs. But here’s the really crazy part, y’all. I can’t stop listening to this song. I bought it, and I’ve listened to it over and over throughout Advent, and sometimes, it still makes me weep. (I was listening to it on my way to pickleball the other day and started weeping at 7:00 in the morning.) But I still hadn’t figured out what invitation is there in this for me from the Holy Spirit. So, this is where the second song comes in, and interestingly enough it’s next up after Lullay, Lulla on my Advent playlist, so I’ve been listening to it all season. (This is one of those times when my spiritual obtuseness has given the Holy Spirit a run for her money.) The second song isn’t an Advent or Christmas song, but it’s a song on one of my favorite artists’ new albums, and it felt Advent-y to me. It’s titled Singing in the Dark by Carrie Newcomer. (Those of you who were at the Blue Christmas service heard me sing it with my friend Joshua Varner.ii) It’s a song about singing prayers with the monks of Gethsemane in the early hours of the morning before dawn has broken, and it’s all about how we can carry each other through dark times with our song and our common prayer, how our voices raised together can call forth the light out of the darkness. Our reading from the prophet Isaiah tonight hints at some of these images. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. But just like in the darkness of night in Bethlehem when the light of the angel’s song breaks forth, these people who are in exile and hope to return once again to their homeland know that darkness and light are never really far apart. In fact, you can’t have one without the other. It’s all a part of the same story: the murder of the innocents by King Herod and the light breaking forth in the dark from angelic voices. It’s all a part of the same story. In one of my favorite prayers in the liturgy for healing that we offer every week here, we pray “Gracious God, we give you thanks for your beloved Jesus Christ, in whom you have shared the beauty and pain of human life.” And that is certainly what is at the heart of this night, what is at the heart of this collaboration of darkness and light, what is at the heart of the incarnation, at the heart of Emmanuel—who is God with us. The creator of all has come alongside us, in and among us, both 2,000 years ago and again this night, to experience all the beauty and pain that come together to make up this human life, this human story. We gather here this night to name that, to recognize it, to lift it up for each other when we need reminding. That God has not left us to our own pain and horror; that God is present with us in it, even as God is present in the beauty, in the shining singing of the angels, and in the soft candle-light of Silent Night. When our hearts are breaking with beauty, God is with us. When our hearts are breaking with pain, God is with us. It’s all a part of the same story. And God is with us. We gather tonight because it is the nature of Christian community to raise our voices together against the dark, to call forth the light with our singing and with our proclamation of the good news. And it is the nature of Christian community when one is suffering, then we carry that one through with our singing until they are able to sing again. So if you find yourself able to sing this night, then sing on behalf of your neighbors who can’t this year. And if you find you can’t sing this year, that’s ok. We’ve got you. Know you’re not alone. Bishop Stephen Charleston puts it this way: “We will stay with you. That is the ancient pledge that turned humanity from being solitary creatures to living in community. In family. In kinship. We will stay with you, whatever comes…We will never wonder if we are alone, for in our heart is the pledge of hope: we will stay with you.”iii This year, what I’ve learned is that my invitation from the Holy Spirit has been to dwell alongside the darkness for a bit. It has been an invitation to me to hold in my heart the needs of those who are suffering here in this parish and around the world. To learn the lesson as another writer puts it “It is healthy and holy for joy and grief to coexist.” iv I’m so very grateful to be here, singing with you, in the heartbreak of pain and the heartbreak of beauty here on this most holy night. Remembering together that it is all a part of the same story. i. You can listen to the Sewanee Choir sing this hauntingly beautiful song starting at 1 hr 5 min. https://new.sewanee.edu/campus-life/believing/all-saints-chapel/festival-service-of-lessons-and-carols/festival-service-of-lessons-and-carol/ ii.You can listen to Joshua and me sign this song here. Thanks to Elizabeth Varner for recording it for our mammas: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vkJ2-_gX0_tCT2NmnxxyqeBWqqyKaFcN/view iii.Bishop Stephen Charleston on Facebook. Thursday, December 21, 2023 iv. Attributed to Holley Gerth in a Facebook image

The Second Sunday of Advent-Year B

The Rev Melanie Lemburg 2nd Sunday of Advent Year B December 10, 2023 The Lonely Places by Melanie Lemburg Why is it that prophets so often appear out in the wilderness? The literal lonely places. The places of dusty desert and desolate valley. The places of expansive roads stretching out into nowhere under the endless-eye of the horizon. They come with challenge and comfort, with new direction and solace and a certain lostness. They help us see the danger and risk and nurture and care that all dwell deep in our loneliness. And they remind us of all the potential in a simple change of direction. Our gospel reading for today, on this Second Sunday of Advent, is the very beginning of Mark’s gospel. We are plopped down in the middle of a wilderness and John the Baptist appears there with us. We hear echoes of the song of comfort to the Children of Israel in exile in Babylon in the words of the prophet Isaiah. And in this opening section, the writer of Mark mentions wilderness two out of the ten times that he will reference wilderness throughout the gospel. The word Mark uses, eremos, is the Greek word for desert, but the first part, erem, literally means ‘lonely place.’ In this opening section, Mark is inviting us to hold together both good news and lonely places. What might that look like for us on this Second Sunday of Advent? I invite you to ponder when you have found yourself in a lonely place in your spiritual life? Consider how the wilderness or a lonely place can be a place of both danger and risk and loneliness and also a place of refuge and rest for those who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life. When have you found yourself in a lonely place and been offered a change of direction by one of God’s messengers? Where are the wilderness or lonely places in your life right now, and what is the good news you need to hear there? The Lonely Places by Melanie Lemburg Why is it that prophets so often appear out in the wilderness? The literal lonely places? The places of dusty desert and desolate valley. The places of expansive roads stretching out into nowhere under the endless-eye of the horizon. They come with challenge and comfort, with new direction and solace and a certain lostness. They help us see the danger and risk and nurture and care that all dwell deep in our loneliness. And they remind us of all the potential in a simple change of direction.

Last Sunday after Pentecost-Christ the King year A

The Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg Last Sunday after Pentecost-Christ the King Year A November 26, 2023 A number of years ago, I attended a conference that was put on by TENS—The Episcopal Network for Stewardship. The speaker talked about how our understanding of generosity is deeply connected with our first memories of money and this, in turn is deeply connected with our understanding of who God is. The speaker asked us to recall our first memory of money, to reflect on what it taught us about generosity and how it impacted our understanding of who God is and to share that in our small group setting. My first memory of money began with my paternal grandfather, who also happened to be a Methodist minister. Pop was a growly, gruff, manly-man who was known to be a successful boxer in his youth. My brothers and boy cousins were all slightly terrified of him as he would often growl at them, “Boy, I’m gonna bite your ankles.” And they never really knew if he was serious or not. But I was the first granddaughter, and so I knew him differently. And one day when I was staying with my grandparents, Pop took me in his car to the bank where he opened a savings account in his and my names. (I still have the little bank book that they gave us where we wrote our deposits.) And over a period of time, Pop would save up the quarters that he emptied from his pockets every night; we’d deposit them in our bank account; and after we had saved enough money, we made a withdrawal to buy me a used piano that we could have in our home that I could practice on while I was taking piano lessons. As an adult revisiting this memory, I was struck by the fact that I didn’t have to do much of anything to participate in my grandfather’s generous act of saving up his quarters. I didn’t contribute anything except by riding with him in the car to the bank, and yet, I felt like I was a full-participant in the endeavor of saving quarters to get my piano. This memory gives me a tiny glimpse into what my relationship with God is like. How all I really have to do is (barely) show up, and God invites me to be a full participant in God’s generosity. Today is the last Sunday of the church year, the last Sunday after Pentecost, also known as Christ the King Sunday. It’s also the first Sunday of our church’s annual giving campaign which is titled Generations of Generosity. Eleanor Foster, the senior warden and I, chose this campaign because it is a way to tell the stories of those who have come before us, in our lives of faith and in the life of this congregation, as we approach the conclusion of our centennial year-long celebration. Each week for the next three Sundays, you will be invited to contemplate questions to help you reflect on the generations who have helped nourish and shape your faith, on what it means to live lives of generosity, and to tell those stories as a part of our common life. This will culminate on December 17 with a storytelling event, where we will share a video of many of you sharing your stories about how you have been nurtured by this faith community and your hopes for its present and future. In our gospel reading for today, we have the third in a series of three parables that Matthew’s gospel gives us in Jesus’s final hours. The first parable which we read two weeks ago is the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids in which Jesus is inviting us to live a mindful, joyful life. Last week, we had the parable of the three slaves who were given talents by their master and is an invitation by Jesus for us to live a daring, fruitful life. And then this week, we get Jesus’ last public teaching in Matthew’s gospel, the parable of the last judgement, in which Jesus invites us to live a generous, compassionate life. It’s tempting to read this parable as Jesus showing us that we can earn our place in heaven, or that our place in God’s kingdom is a reward for righteous behavior. But notice that the Son of Man says to the sheep, “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…” which shows that those who live lives of compassionate generosity are invited to join in the creative work that God has already done, as a free gift from God, an invitation to participate in God’s creative work and in God’s generosity; that when we practice our own compassionate generosity in our dealings with our fellow humans, then we are already active participants in God’s kingdom of eternal life, even here and now. i. Your invitation this week is to consider our questions for small group discussion: What is your first memory of money and how is that connected to your understanding of God? What important lessons have your learned from the members or events of a previous generation at St. Thomas? How has the influence of past generations affected how we have evolved as a congregation? Is the vision for how we live together as the body of Christ changing? In what ways? What stories does our church have that we should preserve and share? What is your vision of this church for future generations? i. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/11/16/the-least-of-these-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-reign-of-christ-the-king-sunday

25th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28A

The Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg 25th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28A November 19, 2023 What kind of life does God want you to live? Or, what does it look like for you to participate in the Kingdom of God right here, right now? Our gospel reading for today is the 2nd in a set of 3 parables in the late chapters of Matthew’s gospel. Jesus has made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He has taught in the temple, fought with the Jewish religious leaders, and he tells this series of three parables immediately before he once again predicts his death in two days. We heard the first of the three parables last week—the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, who get into a fight about having enough oil in their lamps to light the way of the late-arriving bridegroom. We have our parable for today, about slaves who are entrusted with talents from their master, and then next week, we’ll get the third parable in this series—the parable of the Great Judgement, when people will be separated before the judgement seat of the Son of Man based on how they treated people in extremis. With increasingly more urgency, Jesus is trying to teach his followers and us about what it means to participate in the Kingdom of God here and now. He’s trying to get people to ponder what kind of life God wants each of us to live individually and together as a community. The first parable (from last week-the one about the bridesmaids) shows that God wants us to live a mindful, joyful life. Today’s parable shows us that God wants us to live a daring, fruitful life. And next week’s parable (which, spoiler alert!, is the grand finale) shows us that God wants us to live a generous compassionate life.i. I asked our Wednesday congregation to reflect on a time when they took a risk, stepped out in daring that resulted in a more fruitful spiritual life. And we shared lovely stories about how people stepped out in faith differently to take a risk, how God called them forward in their lives out of their comfort, and how their spiritual lives have been forever shaped by that experience. All of the stories acknowledged, in some way, the vulnerability that their daring, their risk required. Because with the risk of doing something new there is always the very real possibility of failure. Now I’m someone who really doesn’t like to fail. And so what jumps out at me in today’s parable (besides some of the significant problems with the whole scenario of asking slaves who are powerless to step into a role that they haven’t been given clear direction around and haven’t been prepared for and then punishing the one who fails) is just how enslaved to fear the one slave is—how his fear of failure and punishment keeps him from thriving. And then he ends up failing and being punished anyway. A few weeks ago, I went to a conference at Kanuga as a part of my continuing education and formation. But unlike most continuing ed conferences I attend, this one wasn’t church sponsored. It wasn’t on church leadership or conflict or any other helpful tools for my ministry tool-box. This was a purely secular conference that is titled “Life is a Verb Camp.” I signed up because two of my favorite writers—Carrie Newcomer who is a poet and songwriter and poet and essayist Ross Gay—were listed as the keynote speakers. So, I took at fairly safe risk (I mean, it was at Kanuga, so how weird could it be, right?) and I went all by myself. The goal of the gathering is to create an annual, camp-like experience for adults to help nurture courage, creativity, compassion, and community, and, I’m not going to lie, it certainly had its weird moments. But the founder, a writer named Patti Digh told us that she invites poets to be the keynote speakers every year because “poets help us see the world differently.” And I found this to be so very true. There is no way I could have anticipated the gifts I received from this small risk of attending this new, slightly strange gathering. I’ve started writing poetry again. I used to write poetry all the time in my younger years, but the more sermons I wrote, the fewer poems poured forth from me. And with that writing has come a deepening in how I look at the world around me; it has brought a new intentionality to my experiences and encounters and a reflectiveness that requires the slowing down of my spirit. It has definitely been a stretching of my spirit and a deepening in my relationship with God and with others. So, your questions this week to consider are “What kind of life does God want you to live? What does it look like to participate in the Kingdom of God here and now? Reflect on a time that you took a risk, stepped out in daring, that resulted in a more fruitful spiritual life for you. And look for opportunities either this week or into Advent to step out a little in risk, in daring, in faith.” And since I try not to ask you to do things that I’m not willing to do, I’m going to close with a poem that I’ve written recently. It’s about a time when I took a risk here with y’all, and you met me exactly where I needed to be met, and how I saw it transform all of us. An Ode to the Church by Melanie Lemburg She sat curled small on a bench behind the open door of the church. Are you sad, I asked. And she nodded. Would you like a hug? She did. And clung to me like the poor motherless child she was. Would you like more hugs? She nodded. Well, watch this! And I put my faith in my flock filing out of church. Poor Kurt was our first victim. I opened my arms wide and he hugged me, maybe a little reluctantly. Her eyes luminous, she mirrored and hug after hug rained down on her- manna in her wilderness. And suddenly Charlotte stood before us on the arm of her sister. (Charlotte’s super-power is hugging.) Full body-arms pulled tight in a squeeze of delight-enough to lose yourself. We have never been more the church, the bride, the body of Christ, than on that day when we transfigured the holy handshake line into a holy hug line together for the motherless child in each of us. i. Much of this reading of these three parables together was inspired by this week’s Salt Lectionary commentary: https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/11/9/be-daring-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-twenty-fourth-week-after-pentecost

The Sunday after All Saints' Day 2023

The Sunday after All Saints’ Day The Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg November 5, 2023 Today, the church is given the option to transfer our observance of All Saints’ Day to the Sunday following, which we are doing. We’ll renew our baptismal vows, because this is one of those Sundays the BCP says are especially appropriate for baptism. We’ll remember the saints and the faithful departed who have influenced our lives or faith. And we’ll name those members of this portion of the body of Christ who have died in the last year in the Eucharistic prayer. Plus, there’s the beatitudes for our gospel—what is known in Matthew’s gospel as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It’s a lot of different threads to knit together. A couple of weeks ago, one of our Wednesday congregation reference the beatitudes in her comments for that week, and she said something like, “The beatitudes are the path of our becoming.” (I’ve carried that around with me in my soul, occasionally rubbing my fingers over it like one of those polished rocks with messages on them that you can carry around in your pocket.) The beatitudes are the path of our becoming. It reminds me of a saying that we learned about baptism back in my seminary days. That is “baptism is becoming who you already are.” Baptism is becoming who you already are. We are all of us on this path of becoming together--created by God to be the best version of ourselves. But sometimes the world trips us up. Sometimes we trip over our own feet. The saints are those who walked before us or walk alongside us and inspire us in the different ways that they have grown into their belovedness, in how they continue to become better versions of themselves through their relationship with God. If the beatitudes are the path of our becoming, then what might they have to teach us about how God is calling us to deepen in our faith, to grow further into who God has created us to be? (And who has God created us to be? Each of us is made in the image and likeness of God, created as an outpouring of God’s love and made to share that love with others. You were made in the image and likeness of God. You were created as an outpouring of God’s love, and you were made to share that love with others.) One way that the beatitudes can be translated that may help us unlock the invitation of these so familiar words is to read them as “you are on the right path…” You are on the right path if you mourn, for you will be comforted. You are on the right path if you hunger and thirst for righteousness for you will be filled. You are on the right path if you are merciful, for you will receive mercy. You get the picture. And what if we expanded on what these simple, complex words and ideas capture to try to make them a bit more tangible by writing our own in keeping with the spirit of what Jesus is teaching? You are on the right path if you allow your heart to break wide open at the news of the world and refuse to let it harden back for you will find compassion there. You are on the right path if you don’t allow pain to unmake who you are holding onto the best of yourself for you will find respite. You are on the right path if you question for you will invite (and find) meaning. You are on the right path if you decide that if you will err, you will err toward mercy for you will find mercy in the erring. You are on the right path if you stay in touch with your gratitude even when you are suffering for you will find joy. You are on the right path if you look for peace and lift it up around you for you will embody peace. We’re going to take some time today to contemplate, and I’m going to give you two options on how to think about this. The first option is to continue contemplating this path of becoming that Jesus lays out for us in the beatitudes. What words in the beatitudes capture your attention today? Where might God be inviting you to deepen in your becoming in this moment on your path of faith? Or, you can think about the path of becoming that you have witnessed in one of the saints of the church or in someone whom you love who has entered the communion of the saints or it can even be one of God’s faithful saints who live and walk among us now. What has their path of becoming taught you about the life of faith? How might you be called to emulate that on your own path of faith?

21st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24A

21st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24A October 22, 2023 Enemies abound and loyalties shift. In the gospel reading, we see two long-time enemies-the Herodians and the Pharisees- teaming up against their common enemy—Jesus of Nazareth. Eventually, these two enemies will join together with another common enemy—the Romans, the occupying oppressors of their people, the foreign invaders—to entrap and kill Jesus. But before that happens, Jesus remains unflappable in his purpose, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God has come near and all are invited to participate, and he tries to remind them of what it means to be made in the image of God, as God proclaims at creation for each of us. He offers them the chance to remember what it means to be made in the image of God and the invitation to order their lives accordingly. Enemies about and loyalties shift within the story of the Children of Israel, Moses, and God. Moses has left them alone, gathered together at the foot of Mount Sinai where he has gone to the top to meet with God face to face and to receive the 10 Commandments. The people grow anxious in Moses’ absence, restless, and they create a statue of a golden calf to reassure themselves and to worship, fracturing their relationship with God through their choice of raising up a false idol, proving themselves to be enemies of God instead of those who belong to God. God reveals to Moses that the people have become God’s enemy by committing what is, essentially, a capital crime, and God makes plans to destroy God’s people and to found a new nation for God and Moses. Moses argues with God, trying to convince God to spare the people, and then Moses goes down the mountain and invites those who still belong to God to join him as they put to death by sword 3,000 men who had turned from following God. Moses then goes back up the mountain to try to convince God to take them back and to go with them as they leave Sinai and head into the promised land. And we see that at least one image of God is to relent from punishing, to lean into mercy, to be willing to be changed and shaped by relationships. And then there’s Jesus. As enemies abound and loyalties shift around him just days before his crucifixion, he doesn’t fight back, not really. He models the image of God in his persistent peace, in his unwillingness to go to war, in his willingness to give himself over into the hands of his enemies where he will be humiliated, tortured, and executed. And then he forgives them. All of them. Every single one. Enemies abound and loyalties shift in our world. War has broken out in the Middle East. Terror seems to triumph. It is oh, so very tempting to make this about us and them, demonizing enemies and heroizing friends. It is oh so tempting to build our own golden calf to safety, to security, to right versus wrong and good versus evil as innocents are harmed over and over again by the powerful. When we are really honest, we recognize just how alarming it is to realize how close we stand to the line between those who act as God’s beloved and those who act as God’s enemies. What does it mean, in this moment, for each of us to embrace that we are made in the image of God? What does it mean for us to embrace that truth, even for our enemies? How have we strayed in our actions, stepped over the line and become the enemies of God instead of the beloved? What are ways that we can walk the way of peace in this present moment? To look for peace around us, to draw it into ourselves and embody it, and to try to send God’s peace out into the world? Let us pray. (BCP p 833-A prayer attributed the St. Francis): “Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.”

20th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23A

20th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23A October 15, 2023 A letter to Lily Lynn Calver upon the occasion of her baptism. Dear Lily, Today is an exciting day for you and for us, your community of faith. Today, your parents and your godparents are taking an important step on your behalf in your life of faith. Today we all are saying yes to the fact that God has already claimed you as God’s beloved; we are reinforcing what God has already proclaimed over you, that you will always have a place of belonging in the Kingdom of God, that God has created you to be in full and joyful relationship with God, with God’s people, and with all of God’s creation. Today we say yes to all of that for you, and we also promise that we will help you remember that belonging, that belovedness as you grow here in your life and in your faith. Today, we will reaffirm our own belonging and belovedness alongside you. We will do what we can to remember our own baptism and the promises that we made or that were made for us on how we would try to live as God’s beloved. Today we hear the echo of the words that were said over each one of us as I say them to you: “you are marked as Christ’s own forever.” And we feel the truth of that love of God deep in our bones, a love that has shown through Jesus’s death and resurrection that God’s love is stronger than absolutely anything, even death. We remember that being marked as Christ’s own forever means that there is nothing that any of us can do that will put us outside of God’s love. And yet, even on this glorious day, our gospel reading gives us glimpses of violence and horror. It’s a story that Jesus tells in the temple in Jerusalem just days before his own death, a story that is meant “to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.”i It’s a story that leaves me with so many questions: Why do the original guests say that they will attend this royal wedding banquet but then refuse to go? Why is the guest who is at the banquet not wearing the appropriate clothes? What are the ways that each one of us rejects our own belonging in the Kingdom of God? And how might our baptismal vows serve as reminds to us of how to live more fully into our belonging? It’s hard to fathom for you now, sweet Lily, so beloved by your family, so cherished by this faith community, but just like each of us, at some point, you will taste what it feels like to not belong. Sometimes we are put in that position by others; but much of the time, we choose to reject our own belonging. Maybe it’s because we don’t feel worthy? Maybe it’s because we give ourselves over to deliberate distractions from the love of God. We choose other gods to worship or create idols because it’s easier than being in relationship with God and each other. We fall into petty conflicts like Euodia and Syntyche, and we forget the common work that God calls us to do together—to spread the good news of God’s love, to help extend the circle of belonging beyond our midst and out into a needy and hurting world. In so many ways, we reject our belonging and the belonging of others over and over again. So, we gather here to remember. To be forgiven of our rejection and to forgive. To taste that belonging again at God’s altar. And to be sent out into the world for another week to try to live our lives as those who belong to God, as God’s beloved. Our epistle reading for today gives us a glimpse on one practice that we can employ in between Sundays, to try to help us stay grounded in our being as God’s beloved, those who belong to God. It is the spiritual practice of rejoicing, of giving thanks. When my children were little, we had a nightly bed-time ritual of naming three things for which we were grateful. And even on the days when I was feeling exhausted and not particularly grateful, I knew that my children would ask me to name those three things, and so I would pay attention. And often that paying attention to the places in my day where I could find a small taste of joy was enough to remind me of my belonging in the heart of God. Today, sweet Lily, we, your family, promise to help you learn how to rejoice, to help you remember your belonging when you fall away from it. In order to do that, we have to practice it in our own lives as well. We encourage one another to be reconfirmed in our own belonging through our own baptism and to practice rejoicing daily in intentional ways. Today, sweet Lily, I am thankful for you, for the family who cherishes you, for your sweet baby assurance of your belonging in this community already, and that we will be able to walk this path alongside you as you live and grow. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+ The Big Question this Week: In our baptism, we say yes to God’s call to us as God’s beloved, and we pledge to live our lives as those who belong to God, marked as Christ’s own forever. Consider the ways that you have recently rejected your own belonging in the heart of God. Name three things for which you rejoice or are grateful. Try making this a daily practice this week at the end of each day. i. This is what Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine says is what Jesus’ parables are meant to do.

17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 20A

17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 20A September 24, 2023 This week, I’ve been thinking about complaining. Our [Old Testament and Gospel] readings for today are chock full of complaining, and after I read these readings for the first time this week, I started to pay attention to how often I offer or listen to complaints in my life. I was reminded of an idea that Richard Rohr had in his book Falling Upward that has stayed with me since I read it years ago. The idea that Rohr poses is that when we complain, what we complain about says more about ourselves and the state of our own spiritual life than it does about whatever we are complaining about. In my quest this week to understand complaining, I listened to a podcast about it. The podcast was titled The Hidden Brain and the episode was “How to Complain Productively.” In the podcast, a psychologist talks about a study that he did on bus drivers in England. And what they learned in this study is that we most often complain to people who we think will support us in our complaint. (And if we don’t find that support initially, we’ll move on in our complaining until we find a different person who will agree with us.) We then often can get caught in a complaining loop with that person that creates a sort of echo chamber. And when we get caught in that complaining loop, the study revealed that our anger goes up and our forgiveness and our hope goes down. So, what’s the answer? The psychologist suggested that we need to reframe the situation that we’re complaining about—see it from a different angle. Often curiosity can help us in that endeavor. Sometimes we can do this by ourselves, or sometimes we need the help of a sympathetic listener who can help us reframe.i In our reading from Exodus today, we see the Children of Israel wandering in the wilderness, and they are complaining that they don’t have enough food: “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (It’s a legitimate complaint, albeit perhaps overly-dramatic.) But Moses is not a particularly sympathetic listener: “For what are we, that you complain against us?” … Your complaining is not against us but against the Lord.” But he does help reframe the complaint—"don’t complain to me! Take it up with God!” Now it’s easy to think badly of the Children of Israel about how they are bunch of whiners, but just think for a minute about how they have fled slavery in Egypt and are now wandering around in the wilderness. They are understandably anxious; they probably feel pretty powerless, and the one thing that they can do is complain. (And that’s probably just the tip of the iceberg of what their complaining reveals about their spiritual lives in that moment.) And interestingly enough, God responds to the peoples’ complaining in a sort of divine eavesdropping and offers to provide food for the people as long as they follow God’s instructions on how to gather it. So God reframes the complaint, reminding the people that this same God who has brought them out of slavery in Egypt is with them in the wilderness and still provides for them, and as a part of that relationship, they need to do what God asks of them. The story ends with the peoples’ complaining replaced by curiosity when they ask about the manna: “what is this?” It’s interesting to me that in this story, the peoples’ complaining is rewarded with response by God and an invitation into a deeper relationship with God. In the gospel reading for today, Jesus tells a parable that comes right on the heels of Peter’s complaint (in Matthew 19:27): “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus helps reframe Peter’s complaint by telling our parable for today, a parable about workers complaining about the generosity of the landowner and how they aren’t getting their fair share. When the all-day workers complain to the landowner, he pushes back and reframes the complaint saying, “‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’” In both of these stories, the complaint gets re-framed within the context of God’s providence and God’s radical generosity. And interestingly enough, the lesson doesn’t stick for long. Just after this passage in the gospel, we see the disciples begin to fight about who is the greatest among them and who will sit at Jesus’ right and left hands when he comes into his kingdom (thanks for that, James and John’s mamma!). And we see next week in Exodus that the people once again start complaining, and this time it’s because they don’t have enough water. So, what’s the invitation (the big question) for us in all of this this week? I invite you to reflect on what you’ve been complaining about recently. What might it reveal about your spiritual life right now? Have you complained to God about what is bothering you? How might the Holy Spirit be inviting you to reframe the issue you are complaining about to see it in new light? i. https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/how-to-complain-productively/

15th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 18A

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 18A September 10, 2023 A few years ago, my husband David and I were stuck in a not-particularly-healthy spot in our marriage. The bishop recommended a book for us to read that’s by Dr. John Gottman and is titled The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Gottman and his wife Dr. Julie Gottman have spent years researching the typical patterns of relationships in their “love lab,” and this book is a result of those years of work and research. I appreciate Gottman’s premise around conflict in his book and it’s one that I take when doing pre-marital work with couples who I’m going to marry. It isn’t a question of when you’re going to have conflict in your most significant relationships; instead, the important question is how. Conflict is an opportunity to grow and to learn more about each other and ourselves. Gottman also weaves a thread throughout the whole book that is a reminder that in our significant relationships, we need to spend time and effort building those up so that in the difficult times, we can approach conflict in ways that will work to continue to build us up rather than drawing us apart. In the book, Gottman lists several “keys to managing conflict” in significant relationships that are worth mentioning here before we dive into a closer look at the gospel. 1. Negative emotions are important. Gottman writes about how in our most significant relationships, we need to know that “when you are in pain, the world stops, and I listen.” It’s important to try to listen for what is under the negative emotions and to have conversations in ways that encourage healing rather than creating more hurt. 2. Noone is right. What? That can’t be right. Gottman quotes his friend Dan Siegel who says, “There is no immaculate perception.” All reality is subjective, and so in all conflicts, the reality usually falls somewhere in the middle of the two sides. 3. Acceptance is crucial. In our significant relationships, we have to start from a place of acceptance of who the other is before we try to navigate any kinds of requests for change. 4. Focus on fondness and admiration. There are systems that we can cultivate in our closest relationships that help us nurture fondness and admiration for the other. They can help us mellow about each other’s faults and they help us tackle issues from the foundation of knowing that each of us is loved and accepted, “warts and all.” i. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus is responding to his disciples’ question earlier in the chapter about who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus brings forth a little child to show them and then goes on about not putting stumbling blocks in front of these little ones. (Matthew likes to talk a lot about these little ones.) Jesus then goes on to tell the parable of a shepherd who has 100 sheep and when one is lost, he leaves the 99 to go off and find the one lost sheep, and he tells them that it is God’s will that not a single “one of these little ones” should be lost. Then our reading for today picks up—about what to do if you are wronged by someone. First, you must recognize your own negative emotions and how those have been impacted by another person, and you own those. Then you go directly to that other person to try to be reconciled. How many of you have ever done this before? It’s really, really hard, and it requires you to be so very brave. Most of the time, we don’t do this very first step, right? We either try to avoid whomever or whatever has hurt us, or we talk to other people about whatever has happened to us, and it’s usually the people who we know will agree with us. We gang up on each other, and we become entrenched in thinking that we are right and the other person is wrong (as opposed to the Gottman perspective that no one is fully right). But when we go directly to the person who we have a problem with, it shows that we value that relationship, that we trust them to try to work things out with us, and when it works, then ultimately addressing that conflict makes that relationship stronger. ii And I think two keys to those difficult, one on one conversations has to be that first, we go into them with the main goal being trying to repair a relationship that is important to us, and that second, we are willing to walk into those conversations with the understanding that no one is really right in this situation. Just think about how that might change how we have these conversations when we are attempting to repair relationships! Because that is what is at the heart of what Jesus is trying to teach us and his disciples this week. He’s trying to teach us about the lengths that we should go to try to repair relationships. But what happens when it doesn’t work? Because, let’s face it, we all have experienced times when we haven’t been able to reconcile our problems with someone. Jesus makes it very clear that estrangement is not a good option saying, “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” And what did Jesus do with Gentiles and tax collectors? He ate with them and continued to try to teach them the way of life of his good news. But we all know that sometimes, that just doesn’t happen. And those times when we are not able to be reconciled leave scars on our hearts and our souls. (In fact, when I asked the Wednesday group about a time when they had experienced accountability and reconciliation in a significant relationship or a church, only one person was able to speak about a reconciled relationship, and many more of us reflected on the failed reconciliation attempts and how painful that was for us.) Our gospel reading for next week will see Peter asking Jesus how many times he must forgive someone who has wronged him, so I’ll give you a bit of a spoiler for next week by saying that Jesus draws Peter’s attention through a parable to the importance of both unwavering forgiveness and mercy. In those times when we feel that reconciliation is failed, it’s important to recognize that in the Kingdom of God, nothing is ever lost. These moments of hurt can become for us opportunities to ask for God’s healing, to ask God to help us learn things about ourselves that can continue to benefit us and other significant relationships, and also to ask God to help us open our hearts to examining what reconciliation really means and looks like? What if reconciliation was less like the absence of conflict or peace and was more like growth in ourselves and our relationships? Then that can change how we look at what might seem to be old failures and see them in new light. Many of you know that I was forced out of my last church. It was an incredible painful example in my life of when conflict goes completely awry, and I felt for a long time that my relationship with that church could never be redeemed. But I don’t believe that’s true anymore. I’ve talked about how my relationship with you has healed some of the woundedness in me from that last experience. I also believe that God gave me the courage that I would not have been able to summon on my own to show up here willing to love you and let myself be loved by you. It’s miraculous when I look back on it now and was certainly an infusion of the Holy Spirit in and among us all. And while I won’t ever be a part of that former community again, I’ve come to realize that isn’t what reconciliation looks like for me in that relationship. Instead, reconciliation has meant the Holy Spirit revealing to me important truths about myself—about how no one was right in that conflict, about how there are things about myself that need to shift to support and strengthen relationships that are important to me such as the importance of compromising more and less intractability on my part and the importance of showing up with gratitude to help strengthen relationships so that the foundation of trust and appreciation is already laid when misunderstandings and conflicts do arise. Think about a time when you were not able to be reconciled in a significant relationship. What might God still be offering to teach you about yourself through that? Where might God be inviting you to grow? How might reconciliation look differently in that situation than what you hoped for or expected? i. Gottman. John M. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert. Harmony: New York, 1999, 2015, pp156-159 ii.

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 16A

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 16A August 27, 2023 I’ve been listening to and thinking about a song all week. Now before I tell you the name of the song and why it’s been inspiring me, I need to offer you a disclaimer. There are some issues, some controversy around this artist, and the song itself also has some profanity in it, so it is NSFW (y’all know what that means?—"not suitable for work”) and it’s definitely NSFC (“not suitable for church”) or NSFDAWYK (that’s “not suitable for driving around with your kids”). Ok, so you’ve been warned. The song is titled Esther, Ruth, and Rahab, and it’s all about how the singer attended a church as a child where only the men could speak in church. The singer found inspiration in the stories they found of the women of the Bible—Esther, Ruth, and Rahab-and others. It’s actually the chorus that’s been stuck in my head all week: “Castaways who outwitted and outplayed An immigrant ancestor to the incarnate divine Everyone has a star that lights their way We see our paths by someone else's shine Esther, Ruth, and Rahab, they were mine.” i It’s definitely a “girl-power” song, and y’all know I love me some girl-power! What has captivated me about this chorus this week is thinking about these people who have been the stars that have lit my own way, how I have seen my own spiritual path as a result of the shine of someone else. We see this effect playing out in our Old Testament reading from Exodus today. But first, here’s some context. We’ve just fast forwarded in time from last week. You’ll remember last week that we were witnessing a happy reunion between Joseph and his brothers in Egypt. Jospeh had been sold into slavery in Egypt; he’d been falsely imprisoned and then discovered by Pharoah because he had a God-given gift of interpreting dreams. Joseph successfully interpreted Pharoah’s dream that there would be 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of famine in the land, so Pharoah promoted Joseph to his right hand man, and Jospeh saw Egypt through the famine. His dad, his brothers, and all their families joined him in Egypt, and time passed. Exodus starts with the recognition that this family has now grown into an entire people, and rulers of Egypt have forgotten the significant role that Jospeh played in their history. This new king (who isn’t even named and is even scarcely referred to as Pharoah) starts getting anxious, paranoid, and afraid, and so he starts making decrees which further deepen his adversarial relationship with the Hebrew people. Eventually, he decrees that all Hebrew males who are born must be thrown into the Nile River. (While we’re having our “girl-power” moment together, can we just notice the significance that only the two Hebrew midwives--Shiphrah and Puah—are named in this beginning chapter of Exodus, which in Hebrew literally means the book of names. And these women quietly work to defy Pharoah’s order to kill all the male Hebrew children.) Then our story reveals that a male Hebrew baby has been born, and his mother hides him for three months. But then she makes him a basket (literally an ark—like the same word as in Noah and the ark), and she sends him with his sister in his little baby ark to the Nile River. The sister, who we later learn is named Miriam, waits and watches and then strategically places her baby brother into the water where he will be found and adopted by Pharoah’s daughter (who also decides to defy her dad’s decree about killing all the male Hebrew children). The baby’s sister does some wheeling and dealing and makes it so her mom can serve as nurse for her brother, and eventually, the baby is named Moses which refers to his being drawn out of the water. (Miriam’s name, by the way, means “rebellion”.) I’ve really appreciated Miriam’s big-sister energy in our reading for this week. For the first time, I’ve realized that without Miriam, there wouldn’t have been a Moses. Miriam’s courage and ingenuity are part of what helped set Moses on his path as the leader of the Hebrew people out of their slavery in Egypt and into the promised land. And it’s also important to note that Miriam is right there beside Moses and their brother Aaron as they lead the people out of Egypt, and Miriam is a prophet in her own right. One of the oldest pieces of scripture in our whole bible is Miriam’s song that she sings right after the parting of the Red Sea. So Miriam has her own gifts, her own relationship with God, and she also uses her gifts to shine the light on the path of Moses so he can become who God is calling him to be. Can you think of someone in your life who has done this for you? Who has shared their gifts to help light your path for you, who has thrown some fabulous big-sister energy your way when you have needed it? I think it’s important for us to name them right now, so when I count to three, I want you to say the name (or names) of someone who has helped shine a light on your path in the faith. Ready? 1, 2, 3:____________. It’s really the essential call of discipleship, isn’t it? We aren’t in this faith business, doing this faith thing just for our own spiritual well-being, right? We do this together, and we are called to do this for each other—this shining of our own light on someone else’s path to help them find their way and who God has created them to be. We are also called as a church to try to shine the light on the paths of as many others outside our doors as we can. I’ve really appreciated getting to hear more about the work that the women of the St. Martha’s Guild have done in creating a Zen Den, a mindfulness room, at the Chatham Juvenile Court. This is a healing and nurturing space for the people who work at the court and who come face to face with horrible things and trauma every day. Our ladies offered their gift of making things beautiful as a way to shine the light on the path of those who work in the Juvenile Court system to give them strength and courage to keep doing this important work in our community. What other unusual ways might the Holy Spirit be calling us as a community of faith to shine our light on the paths of others in Savannah, Chatham County or beyond? Your invitation is to be on the lookout for ways that you can shine your light for someone else to help light their path in the faith. How are you being called to share some big-sister energy with someone else this week? “Castaways who outwitted and outplayed An immigrant ancestor to the incarnate divine Everyone has a star that lights their way We see our paths by someone else's shine Esther, Ruth, and Rahab, they were mine.” i. https://lyrnow.com/1600515

11th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 14A

11th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 14A August 13, 2023 11th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 14A August 13, 2023 This past week, I came across a story with art by one of my favorite artist families—the Andreas family. Their studio is called StoryPeople. The story is titled “Deep End” and here are the words: “I used to believe if I prepared hard enough and long enough, I would be ready when I needed to be. But now I think the closest any of us really get to being ready is feeling not ready and then doing it anyway.” The image that accompanies the story is of a person stretching an arm higher than is comfortable with a ball of energy shining from their center. I’ve been thinking of this piece of art all week as I’ve been pondering the story of Peter’s attempt to walk on water that our gospel reading gives us this week. What on earth possesses passionate, impetuous Peter to inspire him to get out of the relative safety of a boat on an already storm-tossed sea and attempt to join Jesus out walking on the water? What is it that possesses any of us to take risks in our lives or in our lives of faith? Our reading from Matthew this week is especially interesting to me, not just for this risk that Peter takes, but because it shows growth in Peter and in the rest of the disciples in their faith in Jesus. This is actually the second time in Matthews’ gospel when Jesus is with the disciples in the midst of a storm on the sea. In the first story, Jesus is present in the boat with the disciples. (This is in Matthew 8:23-27.) Jesus falls asleep in the boat, and a storm blows up. The disciples start to panic, wake Jesus up saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” Jesus chastises the disciples saying, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” and then he gets up, rebukes the winds and the sea, and everything suddenly becomes calm. The disciples’ response is amazement, and they say, “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” In today’s reading, Jesus has sent the disciples on ahead in the boat to the other side of the lake, while he goes up the mountain alone to pray. A storm blows up, and Jesus walks across the water to join the disciples in the boat. Interestingly enough, the disciples don’t seem to be freaking out in this storm like before. It’s only seeing Jesus walking across the top of the water to them in the midst of the storm that really freaks them out. Jesus speaks to them, assuring them that it is he, and Peter decides at that point that he needs to get out of the boat to join Jesus walking out on the water (because, why not?). Jesus seems to agree with Peter’s plan, and Peter is doing ok at first, until he remembers the storm blowing all around him. He becomes frightened, and then he begins to sink. Jesus wastes no time rescuing him and saying again, “You of little faith” and asking “why did you doubt?” But then, listen to what happens! The two get into the boat, the wind ceases, and the disciples in the boat worship Jesus proclaiming, “Truly you are the Son of God.” This is quite a different response to the first story, where they basically say, “who is this guy?” I can’t help but wonder if Peter’s risk and stretching and willingness to get out of the safety of the boat didn’t help inspire the other disciples to finally recognize Jesus for who he really is—the Son of God. Can you think of a time when someone else’s risk or stretching in their own faith helped inspire your faith or helped you grow deeper in your relationship with God? I know that your courage inspires me all the time and makes me want to be more courageous, too. It’s one of the gifts of Christian community. When we walk closely together, we see the ways that each of us grows in faith, and it can inspire us, challenge us to stretch, to take our own risks and to grow in our own ways, jumping off into the deep end even when we don’t always feel prepared. This fall, we’ve got plans to do some stretching here at St. Thomas. We’re going to start a Children’s Chapel program for kids in K-5th grades. (Older kids are welcome to join us as helpers if they want.) It’s time we tried something different for Children’s formation, and so we are committing to do this for a year to see how it does. We are so committed to this, in fact, that the two clergy are going to take turns, with one of us being in children’s chapel every week with the kids. So we are committing some energy and some resources to this to try to help it succeed. It’s definitely a risk, a stretch, for each of us. I’ve never done children’s chapel before, so we’ll see if this old dog can learn some new tricks. Hopefully our risk will inspire others to join us in this. For it to be successful, we need the parents to bring the kids (‘cause it ain’t children’s chapel without children), and I’m going to be asking our young families to make a commitment to regular church attendance while we try to get this off the ground. We’ve already got some volunteers who are willing to step up and help us in this endeavor. How else might this risk, this stretching, inspire us as the people of faith in this place? This past week, I finished reading the book How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith by Bishop Mariann Budde, the Bishop of Washington D.C. Bishop Budde writes all about the times in her life when she has been inspired to take risks, to get out of the relative safety of the boat. She also acknowledges that sometimes, it is not our choice to get out of the boat; sometimes, the storms of life toss us out into the water, ready or not, and it’s up to us to figure out where we go from there. In her final chapter, she writes about the importance of perseverance and she writes about how perseverance in prayer needs to be joined in us with a commitment to mindfulness and a willingness to learn some basic spiritual skills. If we don’t have mindfulness and spiritual skills coupled with our perseverance, she writes, “We fall pray, in the words of the late Harvard Chaplain Peter Gomes ‘to a false and phony version of the Christian faith that suggests that by our faith or our prayers we will be spared the burdens of life. Thus perseverance in prayer isn’t just about doing it more, but allowing our hearts to be stretched by the trials and struggles of life so that our capacity for love and forgiveness grows, as well as what we are willing to endure for the sake of love.” ii. Perhaps you find yourself outside the boat against your will. What might this allowing your heart to be stretched by the trials and struggles of life look like for you in this moment? Your invitation this week is to ponder how you might be called to stretch a bit, to take some risk in your life of faith? Or, if you find yourself in the midst of a trial or a challenge (tossed out of the boat, perhaps against your will) then your invitation is to persevere in prayer so that your heart may be stretched by the trials and struggles of life so that your capacity for love and forgiveness grows. Where might Jesus be inviting you to get out of the boat and do the seemingly impossible with him at your side? i. https://www.storypeople.com/products/deep-end-prints?variant=32107322081391 ii. Budde, Mariann. How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith. Avery: New York, 2023, p 175.

The Transfiguration-2023

The Feast of the Transfiguration August 6, 2023 A letter to Maisey Elizabeth Liipfert upon the occasion of her baptism. Dear Maisey, Today is a very special day to be baptized. It is the feast of the Transfiguration, a day that we celebrate on a Sunday only every six years. Today we remember the day that Jesus took his closest disciples up to the top of a mountain and they saw his face shining with God’s glory. Today we remember the voice that speaks from the clouds to Jesus and to all, proclaiming Jesus as God’s Chosen or as God’s beloved. Today in your baptism, your parents and godparents are making promises to God and to the Church, your faith community about how they want to raise you in the Christian faith, and we, the people of God, are making promises to you that we will be faithful companions to you along the way. Sweet Maisey, you have already been claimed by God as God’s beloved since even before your birth. Today your parents and godparents and all of us gather around you to accept your belovedness on your behalf, and we promise to teach you what it means to live as God’s beloved throughout the course of your life. So, what does it mean to be beloved? I watched you a couple of weeks ago shine in your own little baby belovedness as your mamma danced with you in church while the VBS children sang “This little light of mine.” So, I know that you grow up knowing what it means to be beloved. It is that sense of pure belonging, of being cherished, of long-held longings being fulfilled, of knowing that you are not alone. Belovedness is tasted when we discover unexpected gifts or delights, when we can see the synchronistic weavings of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the world around us. As we go through this sometimes hard and weary world, it is easy to lose sight of our belovedness. And it’s when we lose sight of it, that we live in ways that are not pleasing to the heart of God. We treat each other badly; we are unkind or disinterested in anything or anyone beyond ourselves; we don’t live up to our own capacity for sharing our belovedness with the world, shining a light of the good news of God’s love beyond ourselves to those we encounter. The Christian faith and life is all about being grounded in our own belovedness so we can share that with others. It’s why we come here, week after week, because we need each other to help us remember that each one of us is God’s beloved. We are fed from God’s table so that Christ’s body and blood can give us a belovedness-infusion every week, and we are sent out into the world to remind everyone whom we encounter that they, too, are claimed by God as God’s beloved. As we renew our baptismal vows today alongside your parents and godparents, Maisey, we remember that we, too, have said “yes” to God’s call and claim of each one of us as God’s beloved. We are confirmed and strengthened in that belovedness today. And we promise that as you grow, we will help you learn and remember it too. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+

The 9th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 12A

The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 12A July 30, 2023 I read a quote this week about Jesus’s parables in this week’s gospel reading from the Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor that I want to share with you. Here is what she writes, “The striking thing about all these images is their essential hiddenness—the mustard seed hidden in the ground, the yeast hidden in the dough, the treasure hidden in the field, the pearl hidden among all the other pearls, the net hidden in the depths of the seas. If the kingdom is like these, then it is not something readily apparent to the eye but something that must be searched for, something just below the surface of things waiting there to be discovered and claimed.” I love this idea of the kingdom of God lingering just below the surface of the things of our every-day life! (It’s actually the subject of a song by one of my favorite artists Carrie Newcomer titled “Every little bit of it.”) And interestingly enough, a few weeks ago, before I even knew that this gospel reading was coming up, I started journaling about moments in my own life when I encountered the kingdom of God, and I wrote about these in standard parable form: “The kingdom of God is like a giant fig tree whose owners invite you to come pick figs while they are on vacation. On the way over, you worry about how you will reach the higher branches, and when you get there, you discovered they have left ladders set up underneath to reach the figs on the higher limbs.” Or from VBS week—“The kingdom of God is like child-sized arms suddenly wrapping around your legs or waist when you are distracted and busy. If you take time to stop and look down, you see a face of joy and love shining up at your and in that instant, you remember who you’ve been created to be.” Or a random moment of domesticity: “The kingdom of God is like when your teenage children can do something that you can’t do, and they do it willingly and joyfully, and it contributes to the good of the whole family.” Or “The kingdom of God is like a healing prayer circle made of kind hands and generous hearts and the surprise of the Holy Spirit showing up in heat and light and happy light-headedness.” We talked about this all at last week’s healing service, and I invited them to write their own parables about when the Kingdom of God has shown up in their lives. Here are some of what they said. The Kingdom of God is like feeding the kids of VBS from the kitchen and then after all is cleaned up, going out to watch them sing their songs with such joy and life. The Kingdom of God is like when the light breaks through one of the stained glass windows in the church (which are easy to miss because they are up high), and the light shines in color on the floor. The Kingdom of God is moving to a new condo and discovering that you have marvelous neighbors who become like your family because we all need each other. The Kingdom of God is like a trip that you’ve worried about and prayed over that turns out being so much more wonderful than you could have ever imagined. The Kingdom of God is like my back yard where so many different animals come to be fed: aggressive racoons, slow moving turtles, three black crows, gentle deer, bird-food eating squirrels, cats-both inside and out. It is a reminder of how God is revealed to us in nature and through the peaceable animal kingdom. The kingdom of God is like a grandparent who will make you your very own cake when you didn’t get a slice of cake at church coffee hour. Isn’t it marvelous, this understanding that the kingdom of God is all around us, just underneath the surface of things! Would you like to try it? I’ll give you two or three minutes to think about it and write down your Kingdom of God moment, and then, if you want, we’ll also have some time for you to share it with someone sitting next to you. Here’s one final one to share with you: The kingdom of God is like a congregation who eagerly writes your homily for you when you’ve been away on vacation!

The 6th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 9A

The 6th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 9A July 9, 2023 This past week, I was scrolling on social media when I came across an article title that captured my attention: “Why your brain hates other people: and how to make it think differently.” As if the title weren’t enough to draw me in, listen to the first few lines: “As a kid, I saw the 1968 version Planet of the Apes. As a future primatologist, I was mesmerized. Years later I discovered an anecdote about its filming: At lunchtime, the people playing chimps and those playing gorillas ate in separate groups.” The author Robert Sapolsky continues, “Humans universally make Us/Them dichotomies along lines of race, ethnicity, gender, language group, religion, age, socioeconomic status, and so on. And it’s not a pretty picture. We do so with remarkable speed and neurobiological efficiency; have complex taxonomies and classifications of ways in which we denigrate Thems; do so with a versatility that ranges from the minutest of microaggression to bloodbaths of savagery; and regularly decide what is inferior about Them based on pure emotion, followed by primitive rationalizations that we mistake for rationality. Pretty depressing.” He concludes his introduction saying, “But crucially, there is room for optimism. Much of that is grounded in something definedly human, which is that we all carry multiple Us/Them divisions in our heads. A Them in one case can be an Us in another, and it can only take an instant for that identity to flip. Thus, there is hope that, with science’s help, clannishness and xenophobia can lessen, perhaps even so much so that Hollywood-extra chimps and gorillas can break bread together.” I’ve been thinking about this us/them division this week. It shows up in two of our scripture readings—the Old Testament reading and the Gospel reading. First, in the Old Testament, we see the conclusion of Abraham’s story that we’ve been following over the last few weeks. Sarah has died, and Abraham has decided that it’s time for his son Isaac to be married. But Abraham doesn’t want Isaac to marry a woman from the Cannanites, those people that he’s been living among. Instead, Abraham sends his servant back to his old, hometown where all his relatives still live. “Go to my country and to my kindred” Abraham tells the servant, and he promises the servant that God will send an angel before him to help him find Isaac a wife. So, the servant goes, and when he gets to Abraham’s brother’s compound, he prays that God will help him. Then we get our reading for today, when Rebecca shows up at the well, makes herself notable to Abraham’s servant by offering hospitality in the gift of water to him (and his 10 camels), and upon his investigation, reveals that she is the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother. Rebecca ends up agreeing to journey back to the land of Cana where she will marry Isaac-her first cousin once removed (and spoiler alert-where she will give birth to twins Jacob and Esau, and Jacob will go back home and marry not one but two of his first cousins-Rachel and Leah—the daughters of Rebecca’s brother Laban). This story illustrates not only how God continues to fulfill God’s promise to Abraham of making Abraham’s descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, it also shows the lengths that we will go to preserve our us versus them lines that we have drawn, and it shows how hospitality can help break down some of those lines and barriers. In our gospel reading for today, we see Jesus fielding complaints as he is on the road teaching and proclaiming his message in different cities. He’s growing increasingly more frustrated and angry as he reflects that his critics can’t be satisfied with either the more austere John the Baptist and his call to repentance or Jesus, who comes feasting and breaking bread with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus’s critics clearly want him to be more like “us” and they are criticizing him for his reaching out beyond the division of us and them. He is frustrated because the most religious are the ones who can’t seem to grasp his message. But then we see a turning point. Jesus moves from anger and judgement—specifically a grace-filled judgement that invites repentance and can see broader and better possibilities of and for these people Jesus cares about; it’s a judgement that’s all about lifting up and restoring relationships. He moves from judgement to an invitation to grace and care, where all can find rest and comfort. In this passage we see him breaking down the barriers of us and them, inviting all into the rest and comfort that he offers. So, let’s talk a little more about us versus them, and how that plays out in our own lives and in the life of our church. Can you think of a time when you have found yourself in an “us versus them” situation when somehow the lines became blurred or even broken down? Or can you think of a time when you found yourself in an “us versus them” situation and the lines weren’t broken down? We talked about this in our Wednesday healing service, and as we ended our conversation, we discovered that we had inadvertently divided ourselves into an us versus them scenario of people who are ok with women clergy (the us) and people who aren’t (the them). I couldn’t have created a better example of all this if I had tried! In a more painful encounter, I had a conversation with our nursery supervisor, Dianne Jones, last Sunday. Dianne and I were touching base on how things in the nursery were going, and she shared with me that she had thought about resigning her post with us. She told me about how she, a person of color, had felt the looks from some of our parishioners when she would bring the children into church or when she would come over for hospitality time—looks that said to her, “Who are you and what are you doing here?” As Dianne was telling me all this, I had to fight my natural inclination to get defensive, to defend “us.” As I watched her speak, I saw her gentleness and her heartbreak, I heard her longing, as a long-time Christian and practitioner of her faith, as the one who teaches and nurtures and loves our youngest parishioners for it to all be about us and how we live out our faith together here—no insiders and outsiders, all beloved of Christ in need of forgiveness, grace, healing, and a place to belong. I apologized and told her that I appreciated her sticking with us, and that we would try to do better. I asked her if I could share this with y’all today, and she graciously agreed. In the article I referenced earlier, Robert Sapolsky makes a scientific case for how our brains are wired to create these us versus them strata, these automatic characterizations of people, but he says it is fairly easy to rapidly recategorize individuals and even whole groups (giving three powerful examples) and writing, “We all have multiple dichotomies in our heads, and ones that seem inevitable and crucial can, under the right circumstances, evaporate in an instant.” You can read the article for yourself and see some of the strategies that he suggests. But what it really boils down to is intentionally practicing what Jesus taught—the importance of relationship with God and with each other, how we are changed and become more open when we are empathetic and curious, gentle and humble of heart, how we all have fallen short of the best possibility who God has created us to be and are all in need of Jesus’s forgiveness, and how Jesus invites all into his restful embrace. Your invitation this week is to pay attention to the times when you find yourself categorizing someone as a “them” to your us. Take one opportunity this week to be in relationship with that “them,” even if it just means a brief conversation, sharing a smile or noting or imagining something that you have in common. Pay attention to how the Holy Spirit works in, around, and through us to help us break down the false barriers of us and them. May you be willing to find rest this week alongside the gentleness of Jesus, who alone can offer you perfect belonging and perfect rest. i. https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/your-brain-hates-other-people/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0BvZIpgiC9B9ua7rJ-QjZxYebK2naD8SMX-xiZNznHXh8Xa7-XAu2hfWw_aem_AeWeLYurQH-6KeDzJ38dUr1k1Q0bcRt0ApTg-dNSHE4F_v4Vz6FXqJlz3ywfW6oa6iY#Echobox=1687990738

The 5th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8A

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8A July 2, 2023 So… nothing like a biblical story about potential child sacrifice to get your week started off right! As you might imagine, we had some spirited discussion about our Old Testament reading from Genesis for today in our Wednesday healing service conversation. Perhaps you’ll be relieved to know that none of us sat easily with this reading for this week, and we raised more questions than answers around it: What is God up to in this story? Does God show change or growth throughout the stories of scripture? What might God ask of us that we treasure? Others spoke knowingly about what it is like to sacrifice something or someone that we love when we feel that is what God is asking of us. We spoke about relationships between children and parents and we talked about what obedience to God looks like in our lives even now. I closed our time with this reflection from Unfolding Light by Steve Garnaas-Holmes, and our Wednesday congregation instructed me to read it to you this morning. Unbinding my Isaac God tested Abraham. and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” So Abraham went… —Genesis 22.1-3 God, I confess I ask others to be my sacrifice. What I have been given to tend, and those I have been given to love, I have used. Without thought I have ascribed it to you, as if it is how you have arranged the world. I have abused my power and privilege, and neglected how my benefit has caused others to suffer. I have justified it in your name. I repent. Hold my hand. Stay my knife. Open my eyes. Give me grace to unbind my Isaac, to set free what I have intended to use, to renounce my entitlement to comfort that costs others. God, I myself am Isaac, bound by my own self-serving. May my selfishness be my sacrifice. Unbind me, and set me free.i. What are the people, places, things, memories, ideas that you hold more dearly than God? How might God be calling you to hold those more loosely? How might God be inviting you to be unbound and set free? Isaac is the physical embodiment and fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah. He’s what Abraham has longed for and holds most dearly in his life. God tests Abraham’s faithfulness or obedience to God by asking Abraham to give up what has the potential to be an idol for Abraham, an impediment in Abraham’s relationship with God. Can you think of a time when you have been asked to relinquish something that you cherished? That relinquishing feels like a death, like a willing leap off a spiritual cliff. And yet, we experience, again and again, new life on the other side of that letting go. In the Romans reading for today, Paul points out that the choice isn’t between slavery and freedom but the choice is to whom one will be enslaved. Will we be enslaved to that which separates us from God or will we know the freedom that is found in obedience to God through Christ? God offers to Abraham and us a call to risk a change, an invitation to examine our relationships between what we hold most dear, if we have made them into idols, an invitation to examine if what we hold most dear has, in fact, become a stumbling block for us in our relationships with God, an impediment in seeing how the Holy Spirit is calling us into deeper life in God and in each other. Sometimes it can be surprising what we uncover when we imagine how what we hold most dear can be or has become a stumbling block between us and God. Here’s an example. While I was on vacation, I had a dream that I was trying to convince a Dutch billionaire to invest in my new project where I use pickleball to draw people into community and into the church. I’ve started playing pickleball this summer with some local ladies once a week; it’s a group of novice pickleballers who my friend Helen has pulled together, and I love it! I’ve enjoyed learning a new sport and playing the game, and I’ve loved making new friends. In my dream, I was presenting a convincing argument to this Dutch billionaire about how we were using pickleball to create meaningful community and change lives, and that it would be a good tool for the Church to use as well. I was telling the billionaire how the (capital C) Church was struggling with creating authentic and engaging community, and how I worried that the Church was broken. I texted my friend Helen about my dream. (Helen is also a priest.) And I realized in our text conversation that perhaps my dream was pointing out to me how even the church can become an idol, a stumbling block in our relationship with God. How God might be inviting us to relinquish and risk to adopt new ways of being together and carrying out God’s mission in the world. It’s a sobering thought for me. I’ve spent 20 years of my life working to build up God’s church. What might it look like for me to hold it a bit more loosely? God, I confess I ask others to be my sacrifice. What I have been given to tend, and those I have been given to love, I have used. Without thought I have ascribed it to you, as if it is how you have arranged the world. I have abused my power and privilege, and neglected how my benefit has caused others to suffer. I have justified it in your name. I repent. Hold my hand. Stay my knife. Open my eyes. Give me grace to unbind my Isaac, to set free what I have intended to use, to renounce my entitlement to comfort that costs others. God, I myself am Isaac, bound by my own self-serving. May my selfishness be my sacrifice. Unbind me, and set me free.i. What are the people, places, things, memories, ideas that you hold more dearly than God? How might God be calling you to hold those more loosely? How might God be inviting you to be unbound and set free? i. https://unfoldinglight.net/2023/06/27/unbinding-my-isaac/

3rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 6A

3rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 6A June 18, 2023 I want to share with you a mediation that I read this week that I’ve been contemplating. After I read it, I’ll share with you some questions to consider and another lens to look through. Sent by Steve Garnaas-Holmes Proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. —Matthew 10.7-8 You are given power and authority and sent, not to proselytize, not to enact “Christian” legislation, but to heal. In your workplace, in your community, in your family. How can you possibly do this? Because you are given power and authority. You are given love, which casts out fear— slowly, to be sure, but it does cast out fear. You won’t cast out all the demons of greed or racism, or cure the whole epidemic of loneliness or despair. But you will love, even one person at a time, and maybe your witness will move crowds. But remember you are an empty vessel; it is not your power but God’s. And though your vessel is small, that power is infinite. Go, then, and peace be with you. i. One of the questions I want you to consider today is where in your life, your world, your family, your work, are you being sent by Jesus to be a messenger of his healing? This week, I read an article from the Barna Research Group that was published this past May. According to their website, Barna’s goal is to “reveal the cultural and religious trends affecting your life everyday.” This article is titled Openness to Jesus Isn’t the Problem—the Church Is. (I know, right?! Ouch!!) Here’s the gist of the article: “When we asked Americans whether they have a positive or negative opinion of Jesus, seven in 10 (71%) say they view him positively…Beyond Jesus, when it comes to views of other Christian groups or entities, positive opinions wane. People of no faith are neutral or leaning negative [when it comes to how they view Christianity as a whole]…Among those of no faith, even Christian individuals are not viewed so favorably. Further, the data… shows why people may be reluctant to hold Christian beliefs, with the top reason today being ‘hypocrisy of religious people.’” According to the data, the biggest divergence in the perceptions around Christianity between Christians and non-Christians is found in three areas. 1. 48% of surveyed Christians say that Christianity is a faith that they respect. When non-religious people were asked if Christianity is a faith they respect, only 15% agreed. 2. When Christians were asked if they considered Christianity to be hypocritical, 23% answered they thought it was. Of the non-religious people, 49% said Christianity was hypocritical. 3. And finally, when Christians were asked if Christianity was judgmental, 22% said they thought it was. Of the non-religious, 48% thought that Christianity was judgmental. ii Wow, that’s depressing! Did y’all know this? Are y’all living with this reality already? What on earth are we supposed to do about this? I think we need to reflect on this again in light of the question I posed earlier: where in your life, your world, your family, your work, are you being sent by Jesus to be a messenger of his healing? Maybe the first healing we need to be attentive to is our own? I was at the gym the other day, and while I didn’t say anything or act on it, I sure was judging the two men I saw who did not wipe down their workout machines. I was judging them in my heart, and you know what else? I was judging their mamas, too! (Why? You can say it with me: “Because they must not have raised them right!”) I can say all day long that I’m not one of “those kind of Christians.” “It’s the evangelicals. They give us all a bad name!” But when I’m being really honest, I know that I am judgmental, that I am hypocritical. And just maybe I need to seek out Jesus’s healing for that in me before I get sent out to offer his healing out in the world? When we’re at our best, it’s what we do here. We gather, we pray, we confess, we receive pardon, we take in the body and blood of Jesus who heals us, and then we are sent out into the world to proclaim the good news of his healing and to be agents of his same healing, not through our own power or gifts or charisma, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, who is with us always. I invite you to think about that as I read the mediation one more time and close with your questions for reflection for this week. Sent by Steve Garnaas-Holmes Proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. —Matthew 10.7-8 You are given power and authority and sent, not to proselytize, not to enact “Christian” legislation, but to heal. In your workplace, in your community, in your family. How can you possibly do this? Because you are given power and authority. You are given love, which casts out fear— slowly, to be sure, but it does cast out fear. You won’t cast out all the demons of greed or racism, or cure the whole epidemic of loneliness or despair. But you will love, even one person at a time, and maybe your witness will move crowds. But remember you are an empty vessel; it is not your power but God’s. And though your vessel is small, that power is infinite. Go, then, and peace be with you. What do you need to ask Jesus for healing for this day in this place? Where in your life, your world, your family, your work, are you being sent by Jesus to be a messenger of his healing? i. https://unfoldinglight.net/2023/06/13/sent/ ii. https://www.barna.com/research/openness-to-jesus/

The Second Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 5 Year A

2nd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 5A June 11, 2023 “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Jesus is quoting Hosea 6:6 in our gospel reading for today: Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ But I also know this passage as one of Matt Devenney’s favorite bible verses. It’s strange that I know that this is one of Matt Devenney’s favorite bible verses, but I never actually knew Matt Devenney. Matt was the Executive Director of Stewpot years before I got there. By the time I started working at Stewpot in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, the soup kitchen in inner city Jackson had expanded dramatically and had moved from the gas station across the street to the former Presbyterian church whose fellowship hall had been transformed into the heart of the soup kitchen where people from all over Jackson would gather to enjoy a daily, hot meal. Stewpot’s executive director had been a friend of Matt’s, and sometimes he talked about him, while pointing to the photo of Matt holding his young son that watched over us all from a prominent place in the lunchroom. On June 19, 1991, the 33 year old Matt Devenney had confronted a man named John D. Smith who had a gun with him where everyone was gathering outside for lunch. In an effort to protect the community, Matt had told John that he couldn’t be there with a gun. John was not unknown to Matt. Matt had been working with him, trying to help him as John had been discharged from the Army with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, and had received treatment in both a state hospital and a veterans' medical center. After Matt confronted John, John began moving away across the street, and Matt moved toward him. Some of the witnesses suggested that Matt was trying to protect the group of men gathered behind him in case John decided to fire into the crowd. John shouted at Matt that he couldn’t stop him from having a gun because he was the governor of Mississippi, and then he turned and shot Matt in the chest two times at close range. John was arrested later that day. Matt died, leaving behind a wife and a two year old son. Matt was buried wearing a medallion that had been given to him by his sister. On the front is an image of Jesus on the back are the words of Matthew 9:13: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” i I was working at Stewpot 10 years after Matt’s death, and in my three years there, I learned as much or more as I learned in my three years of seminary. Matt’s legacy of tending toward mercy had created a community that was a glimpse into the kingdom of God: a place where all can come to be fed, where all sit together around the table, where people come to serve and be served and where there is mutuality in those relationships. As I would eat lunch with those folks every day, working with them, creating friendships and relationships, I realized that they had so much less than me, and yet that had so much more gratitude for the gift of each new day. I learned that every single one of us is able to give or show mercy and that every single one of us is in need of mercy, from God and from our fellow children of God. We fool ourselves when we think we don’t need mercy, and this is what Jesus is trying to teach us and the Pharisees in today’s gospel: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” We are, each and every one of us, made in the image and likeness of God, and each and every one of us falls short of the glory of God. None of us is truly righteous, and every one of us is in need of mercy—lovingkindness, forgiveness, grace. When we believe that we are not in need of mercy, when we think we have it all together or all figured out is when we harden our hearts like the Pharisees, who were faithful religious people just like us, and we begin to question who deserves mercy and a place at Jesus’s table. So, what does it mean to show or to receive mercy? Many of us think of showing mercy as giving to those who beg from us, and there is certainly mercy wrapped up in that. But what if seeking and showing mercy is broader and wider than giving to beggars? What if showing mercy means inviting the new kid to sit with you at lunch or expanding your circle of friendship beyond its normal or natural bounds? What if mercy means being patient with someone when you are running out of patience to give? What if mercy means putting yourself in someone else’s shoes in daily encounters, or offering someone the benefit of the doubt before rushing to judgement? What if mercy means being honest but tempering that honesty with kindness? What if mercy means looking for the humanity in others and responding to that? Can you think of a time when you felt called to show someone mercy? Can you think of a time when you were in need of mercy or someone gave it to you without you having to ask for it? “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” i. Some of these details are found in the Sojourner’s article titled A Teacher of Mercy by Joyce Hollyday: https://sojo.net/magazine/october-1991/teacher-mercy

First Sunday after Pentecost/Trinity Sunday Year A

First Sunday after Pentecost-Trinity Sunday Year A June 4, 2023 What would you think if I said to you, “Well, bless your heart!?” It can mean any number of things, right?, depending on the context. I could say it to you to comfort you. I can say it to you pitying. I can say it to you as a joke, or even making fun of you. I had a friend in seminary who was Canadian and most recently from Minnesota who found herself befriended by many of the Southerners in our class, and she spent months making a study of “bless your heart,” seeking to understand the myriad of ways that it was used and invoked in conversation by the rest of us. And what she learned is that it’s all about tone. i In the book The Lives We Actually Have (which is actually a book of blessings), Kate Bowler and co-author Jessica Richie write about blessing in the introduction: “The act of blessing is the strange and vital work of noticing what is true about God and ourselves. And sometimes those truths are awful. Like, blessed are those who mourn. I mean scripturally it’s true. Jesus said it. But does any of that feel true when our worlds are ripped to pieces? No. Or, blessed are the poor. Again, it doesn’t feel true at all. But in the act of blessing the world as it is and as it should be, we are starting to reassemble what we know. Maybe, God, you are here in the midst of this grief. Maybe, God, you can provide for this specific problem or be discoverable when I’m buttering this toast.” They continue, “For that reason, [another author] calls the act of blessing a kind of spiritual “placement.” This goes here. That goes there. We are beginning to fit this moment into the larger order of things, the divine story of God’s work and purposes. I find that language of placement and re-placement to be incredibly satisfying. Blessings put our spiritual house in order, even when our circumstances are entirely out of order.” I love that understanding of blessings as something that help us name our realties and help us order or re-order our lives. In our reading from 2nd Corinthians for today, Paul is concluding that letter and he is invoking the power of the divine relationship including the characteristics of the relationship of the Trinity: order, mutual agreement, and peace. And he offers the people of the church of Corinth God’s blessing in a trinitarian blessing that is unique to all of Paul’s letters: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” So what’s really happening here? The church at Corinth is Paul’s “problem children.” He’s already written them one letter where he is letting them have it because he has heard that they are divided up into factions. In first Corinthians, he urges them toward unity and to remember the faith that he taught them when he was with them. In second Corinthians, Paul has gotten wind that these folks known as the “super-apostles” have moved into town and are influencing the Corinthians. The super-apostles are questioning the absent Paul’s credentials, and so he defends himself and reminds the Corinthians to not be led astray by false teachers of the gospel. Perhaps Paul is trying to remind the Corinthians about the nature of God who is social and relational, that we are made in the image of God, so we are social and relational also? Perhaps because he has such difficulties with the Corinthians, Paul is urging them to draw upon the full resources of God for this troubled chapter in their life-reminding them that the love of God is available to them; that the grace of Christ is already theirs, and that the Holy Spirit is actively working to connect them with Paul, with each other and with the followers of Jesus all around the world. There are echoes here of Jesus’ promise in Matthew, that he will be with his disciples and us always, even to the end of the age. The gift of the Trinity, the divine relationship, is that we are all always connected—the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, always in relationship with each other and us; we are connected through the Holy Spirit as the body of Christ that transcends time and space, this life and the next. In our Wednesday healing service, we reflected on a time when we received an unexpected blessing from someone. The common threads in those experiences were when a person we encountered (sometimes a stranger, sometimes someone more intimate) named something about us or about the world that helped us re-order our understanding of ourselves or the world, helped connect us deeper to others, and helped us be more at peace. This is the ultimate gift of blessing and it is the ultimate gift of Christian community—why we need each other--to help uncover and discover truths about God and ourselves that we couldn’t find on our own. I invite you to reflect on this notion of blessing this week as well. Think about a time when you received an unexpected blessing and how that changed what you know about yourself or the world around you. And be open to paying attention to ways you might be called to receive or to offer blessings from others this week. Today as we mark the end of Rev Aimee’s time with us, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the unexpected blessing she has been in our lives here in this place over the last five years. Some of my colleagues thought I was crazy hiring a United Methodist deacon, but it worked, so HA!!!! She has freely shared her gifts of ordering things, of creating connections; she has helped us be more aware of pop-culture and the world around us. I mean, let’s be honest….how many of us finally broke down and watched Ted Lasso because Aimee wouldn’t stop asking if we’d watched it yet? She definitely brings the fun, and we are grateful for all the ways that she blessed us and helped us learn more about the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of Holy Spirit as she walked this way with us for a season. i. Here’s an interesting article from Southern Living that helps unpack more the phrase “bless your heart”: https://www.southernliving.com/culture/bless-your-heart-response