3rd Sunday of Easter Year A

3rd Sunday of Easter-Year A April 23, 2023 A letter to Hugh Love McLaurin, III, upon the occasion of your baptism. Dear Hugh, It’s the third Sunday of Easter, which means we are still celebrating, feasting for 50 days, and today we also have the deep joy of celebrating your baptism with you and your family. Easter baptisms are really the best because they are very much buoyed up by the stories of Jesus’s appearances after his resurrection. These stories are filled with the myriad ways that Jesus shows up for his followers after his death and resurrection, and how his appearance never fails to surprise them. Last week, the no-longer-dead Jesus shows up in the locked room with his terrified disciples offering them his peace and the gift of the Holy Spirit. This week, he journeys on the road to Emmaus as a stranger with his weary, confused, and disappointed disciples. They share parts of their faith stories with each other, and when the disciples offer the affable stranger hospitality, they are surprised to discover that it is the Risen Christ who has been walking with them on their journey. The Easter season is chock full of surprises, and it reminds us that the life of faith, the life of the baptized mean that we, too, are to be open to being surprised by the Risen Christ. It reminds us of all the ways that he shows up unexpectedly in our lives, in and through the Church, and in our world. In our reading today from Acts of the Apostles, we see the conclusion of Peter’s moving speech to a crowd in Jerusalem. As a result of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter has been testifying to them that Jesus is the Messiah; the crowd is moved and ready, and so they ask Peter, “what should we do?” Peter urges them to repent—to “turn from what one has been and done” and to be baptized, and scripture tells us that 3,000 people were baptized that day. In writing about this conversion experience in Acts, another preacher writes, “ ‘What should we do’ (v.37) is exactly the question we should ask, not once or twice over the course of the Christian life, but every single day….What should we do? Perhaps put on a new set of glasses so as to see the world in all its resurrected splendor.” Today, young Hugh, your parents and your godparents are standing before God and saying yes or your behalf. Even before your birth, God has named and claimed you as God’s beloved, and your parents and godparents are accepting your belovedness. They are making promises before God and the Church that they will raise you in the Christian faith, the community that will help you nurture and live into your belovedness. That means that they will teach you how to see the world through these resurrection lenses; they will encourage you to grow into your own unique faith life and invite you to be open to being surprised by the Risen Christ when he shows up in your life. And we, the Church, make a promise to you today, also. We promise that we will walk alongside you, we will gather with you, listening to and sharing the stories of our faith, breaking bread together, encouraging you when you need encouragement, challenging you when you need to be challenged, and comforting you when you are discouraged. We will gather together with you over the years because we know that the Risen Christ shows up when we gather together and share the stories of our faith and break bread together. You are already showing me glimpses of the surprising Risen Christ, sweet Hugh, in your beaming smile when you come forward for communion with your parents every Sunday. I look forward to many more years of walking this way with you, and of us being surprised by the Risen Christ together in this place. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+

The 2nd Sunday of Easter Year A

2nd Sunday of Easter—Year A April 16, 2023 I have to admit that I am quite squeamish about today's gospel reading. There are numerous artists’ renderings of the scene when Thomas encounters the Risen Christ, and I really have trouble spending much time with those also. There's the famous Caravaggio painting, where Thomas sticks his finger in the slit that is the wound in Jesus's side while the other disciples gather around looking, and there's even a banner that used to hang on the belltower of the Cathedral where I attended as a child that shows Thomas coming toward Jesus's wounded side with an outstretched finger (which one of my friends has dubbed the "Tickle me Jesus banner." ) I thought about why this image makes me uncomfortable, and I think it is the same type of squeamishness that would make my stomach do a flip-flop when my daughter used to tell me how she ripped her loose tooth out at the lunch table in the cafeteria. I just don't really want to think about anybody probing anybody else's wounds, no matter how worthy the cause. But it’s still kind of weird, right? Thomas, who is out living his life and isn’t locked up in fear with the rest of the disciples, doesn’t get to see the Risen Christ when he first appears to the rest of them. So, what does Thomas ask for? He says he needs to both see and touch Jesus’s wounds in order to believe that he has been resurrected from the dead. And this is what is truly significant: The Risen Christ is recognized by his disciples because of his wounds. The resurrection has not miraculously removed his hurt, his betrayal, his suffering. Even though he has defeated death, he still maintains its scars. When the Resurrected Christ first visits the disciples all together, he offers them his wounds as evidence of who he is. In his offering up his wounds as proof of who he is, Jesus furthers his teaching (for his disciples and for us) about what it means to be his follower, his disciple. I heard a bishop interpret this years ago saying, "When we give ourselves to God, we don't just offer our best; we offer God our all, our everything." That includes our joy and our gifts and our hope and our new life, and it also includes our wounds and our scars, our suffering and our sorrow. And notice what happens when Jesus has offered Thomas his wounds? Thomas replies with not only recognition but with a statement of faith: "My Lord and my God!" It is the climax in the Gospel of John, and Thomas becomes the apostle who articulates the new faith, the good news after the resurrection. But what happens to us when we offer God our all? Ernest Hemmingway has a line in one of his books that says, "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places." As Christians, we believe that it is only through giving our all to God, offering to God all ourselves even our wounds as Christ did (to God and to his disciples), then God takes us and makes us a new creation, resurrected and remade and strong at our broken places. In that way we become both believers and witnesses to the resurrection in our own lives and those who walk this way with us, and we become evangelists of the good news of God's salvation in our words and even more importantly in our very being. Every week, I get a subscription email from On Being, a podcast by Krista Tippett. She reflects on the episode of her podcast that is coming out and some of the wisdom that she has gleaned from the person she interviewed. This week, she has released the episode when she interviews the US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, and here’s what she writes about it: “We talk a lot at On Being about the word ‘healing,’ the meaning of healing, and how it is distinct from, and interwoven with, words that are used with greater fluency in our world: fixing, curing, closure.” She continues, “I love that the Surgeon General of the United States has had a deep, intentional orientation to healing from his earliest life with his father, also a physician, and his mother, who helped run their medical practice. He defines it this way: ‘Healing is about making whole. To be a healer, you have to be able to listen, to learn, and to love. And I saw those three forces at work in my parents, and how they cared for their patients.’” Tippett goes on to reflect on a learning she gained from Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, who also influenced Dr. Murthi writing, “she was the first person, early in this adventure, to bring home to me this connection between healing and wholeness. She gave voice to counterintuitive truths I’ve seen embodied in wise and graceful lives ever since. Healing — becoming whole — is not about eradicating our wounds and weaknesses. It emerges in and through them. ‘The way we deal with loss,’ [Dr. Remen has] written, ‘shapes our capacity to be present to life more than anything else.’ Tippet concludes, “ The other side of this is that when we don’t deal with our losses — when we suppress them, wish them away, power through — they ‘distance us from life’ and continue to define us.” On this Second Sunday of Easter, what would it mean for us to be like Thomas and to dwell for a bit with the way Jesus has been wounded and made whole again for us in his resurrection? What might it look like for us to dwell for a bit with our own wounds and to look for the ways that God has already offered us healing and wholeness?

Easter Day

Easter Day 2023 April 9, 2023 I do not consider myself to be a “Swiftie.” However, I am close with at least two Swifties—these self-proclaimed fans of the pop music artist Taylor Swift, and these two beloved Swifties of mine occasionally keep me apprised of the goings on in the T. Swift universe. In a recent conversation about failure, and about how I’d been contemplating failure as a part of my Lenten discipline and reading, my Swiftie friend, Rev Aimee mentioned that Taylor had recently received an innovator award and in her reception speech, she spoke about failure. Here’s what Taylor said: “I do want to say that the thing with these exciting nights and moments and specifically this award that I’m so lucky to have gotten is that they’re shining a light on the choices I made that worked out. Right? The ones that turned out to be good ideas,” she said. “I really, really want everyone to know, especially young people that the hundreds or thousands of dumb ideas that I’ve had are what led me to my good ideas.” “You have to give yourself permission to fail,” she continued. “I try as hard as I can not to fail because it’s embarrassing, but I do give myself permission to and you should too. Go easy on yourselves and just make the right choices that feel right for you. And someday someone might think that you’ve been innovative. Thank you so much for this.” i What a gift that one of the biggest successes of an entire generation takes a moment to reflect on her failures and invites everyone to give themselves permission to fail! As I mentioned, I was already pondering failure as a part of my Lenten discipline this year. Lest you think too highly of me for taking on something so interesting, you should know that it came about by my reading the book that was designated this year as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lenten book. (He picks a different book every year, and I try to read it as a part of my Lenten discipline. Some years are better than others!) The book this year is titled Failure: What Jesus Said About Sin, Mistakes, and Messing Stuff Up, and it’s by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Emma Ineson, who is a bishop in the Church of England. Bishop Ineson defines failure as “when things don’t go according to plan” ii She clarifies that failure itself is not a sin, writing about how Jesus teaches his disciples what to do when (not if) they encounter failure, saying how again and again, in the face of their failures Jesus “names the reality of the situation and offers another, hopeful, chance to try again.” She writes, “Jesus was used to dealing with failure in others. He anticipated the failure of his disciples, trained them for it even, and was merciful when he encountered failure in those he met, always giving them a second chance.”iii So if Jesus is fully human (as well as fully divine), and failure is not the same as sin, it’s important to recognize that Jesus, himself, tasted failure. (If he didn’t then he wouldn’t be fully human.) In some ways, this can help redeem failure for us (like T. Swift was talking about). If even Jesus failed, then failure can be seen as something that is “an intrinsic part of everyday human experience, not something to be fearful of, embarrassed about or ashamed of, but owned, confronted, and learned from.”iv And while the failure of the cross isn’t a matter of things not going according to plan (because the gospels tells us over and over again that Jesus knew he was going to die, and he walked willingly down that path toward the cross and his death), Jesus knew the taste of failure as he hung there, betrayed by Judas, one of his closest friends, abandoned by so many others, mocked and made fun of by those in power in his own faith. And, most significantly, he felt the profound sense of God’s absence in all of that. The biggest joy of this day is that Jesus’s resurrection shows that failure will never be the last word in anybody’s story. Easter shows that once and for all failure is never final, and what might look like failure can turn out to be an incredible success. But we do ourselves a disservice if we rush too quickly to the redemption of our failures in and through Jesus’s resurrection without first encountering the truth of what Jesus teaches about failure. In her book, Bishop Ineson offers a number of suggestions on how to wrestle with and learn from failure in our own lives, or as she puts it “how to fail really well.”v There are two significant and related ones, that I want to mention here. The first is to “fail widely,” that is learning to make different kinds of mistakes (because so often in our lives, we make the same mistakes over and over again, never learning from them or changing and growing—we see this in the bible, too). The second is knowing your besetting sins. “Besetting sins are those aspects of our own character that lead us to fail in the same way repeatedly. Knowing what those flaws are and being aware of the impact they have on our interactions is half the battle.” Trusted friends can sometimes help us with this, holding up a mirror to help us “challenge the sins we have come to love.” vi Or to once again quote, Taylor Swift, “It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me At tea time, everybody agrees I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror It must be exhausting, always rooting for the anti-hero.” vii The gift of this day, of Easter, is that no matter what we do (or don’t do), Jesus’s death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead proves, once and for all that God’s love is stronger than any failure. It’s stronger than absolutely anything—even death. So failure is never final, and the resurrection means that even after our death in this life, we continue to grow in God’s love in God’s kingdom. In closing, I’ll share with you Bishop Ineson’s final words about failure. “When you are feeling down about your failures, remember the Benedictine monk who found that, due to cold, damp weather, his carefully stored wine had begun to ferment a second time, creating within it bubbles of carbon dioxide. What a failure! Discovering that mistake must have been a very bad day for him. The name of the monk? Dom Perignon.”viii i. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-innovator-award-speech-iheartradio-music-awards-2023-1234703674/amp/ ii. Ineson, Emma. Failure: What Jesus Said About Sin, Mistakes, and Messing Stuff Up. SPCK: 2023, p 129 iii.Ibid. p126 iv.Ibid. p 127 v. Ibid. p 128 vi.Ibid p 163 vii.Anti-hero by Taylor Swift. https://www.lyrics.com/lyric-lf/8688818/Taylor+Swift/Anti-Hero Listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kbLwvqugk viii.Ineson, Emma. Failure: What Jesus Said About Sin, Mistakes, and Messing Stuff Up. SPCK: 2023, p 176

The Great Vigil of Easter 2023

The Great Vigil of Easter 2023 April 8, 2023 A letter to Ingrid Skousgard and Nathaniel Stein upon the occasion of your baptism. Dear Ingrid and Nathaniel, Tonight is a holy night. “This is the night” we sing again and again; the holiest moment of our church year in which we remember and participate in the saving acts of God. This is the night we gather in the darkness to light the new fire, to remember that the light of Christ can overcome all darkness. This is the night we tell the stories of our faith, how God creates all that is and calls it ‘so good’; how God acts to free God’s people from hundreds of years in slavery in Egypt and how God sets them on their course to new life and freedom in the land God has promised them; how those same people find themselves once again in exile and God promises them that God is always near, that God will save them if they but trust in God and not be afraid. This is the night, we remember and participate in the story of how God saves us; we remember and participate in this love story of God for God’s people. This love story is best summarized in a quote by the writer Frederick Buechner (pronounced Beekner). He writes that God says to us, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” This is the night you are being baptized into Jesus’s death and resurrection, which is, strangely enough, the happy ending of this love story, and the reason why you don’t ever have to be afraid. This is the night you are being baptized into a new way of life—the way of discipleship, of following Jesus. This is the night you are being baptized into this way of forgiveness and reconciliation; into a way of self-emptying and self-giving; into the way of peace that teaches you to not be afraid but instead to put your hope in the God who saves you and who is always near. This is the night you are being baptized into the truth that God’s love for you is stronger than anything that you will ever have to face in this life, even death. And it is the night when we remember (as our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry says) that if it is not of love, then it is not of God. It is a road that is never meant to be walked alone, so we promise to walk this way with you. We promise to help you remember the light of Christ that always burns brightly in the darkness, even the darkness of the grave. This is the night we promise to help you remember God’s love story for you and for all of creation: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” God’s love never fails. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+

Maundy Thursday 2023

Maundy Thursday 2023 April 6, 2023 “Miranda works the late night counter A little joint called Betty's Diner Chrome and checkered tablecloths One steamy windowpane She got the job that shaky fall And after hours she'll write till dawn With a nod and smile she serves them all” It’s the opening lines of one of my all time favorite songs titled Betty’s Diner by Carrie Newcomer, and the song looks through Miranda’s kindly and strangely-knowing eyes to tell us about the regulars who frequent Betty’s diner in the late-night hours. She gently names some of their past sins or hardships and tenderly paints a picture of this gathering of souls in need of communion, which she emphasizes over and over again with the chorus: Here we are all in one place The wants and wounds of the human race Despair and hope sit face to face When you come in from the cold Let her fill your cup with something kind Eggs and toast like bread and wine She's heard it all so she don't mind I’ve loved this song for years, and I think it’s because it reminds me of the best of what the church has to offer. At our very best, we are the gathering of the friends and followers of Jesus, each bearing the burdens and joys of our own humanity, who come together to find the comfort and the challenge that Jesus offers us in the awareness that this way is too hard, too burdensome to walk alone. And this night, as we begin this journey through the next three days, we remember especially Jesus’s invitation as he kneels before his friends and disciples. The invitation is to walk this path with our hearts wide open and undefended—open and undefended before God, and even open and undefended for each other. It’s why we wash each other’s feet, sharing this strange and startling intimacy with each other; it’s to remind ourselves that this awkward openness is how Jesus invites us to move through this life and how even with all its risk, it enriches and fills our lives with more meaning than we could ever ask for or imagine. It’s why we’ll pray our prayers and kneel side by side at the altar rail tonight, holding our own wants and wounds in our open hands to be received by Jesus and replaced, our hands filled with the gift of his very self, the gift of God who gently names our past sins and hardships, God who tenderly names our wants and our wounds, God who embodies hope in the face of our despair, God who grants forgiveness, who continues to sit with us, and who invites us to live and walk and dwell within his love and service, which is so much larger than our very small selves. Here we are all in one place The wants and wounds of the human race Despair and hope sit face to face When you come in from the cold Let her fill your cup with something kind Eggs and toast like bread and wine She's heard it all so she don't mind