The Second Sunday in Lent-Year B

The Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg 2nd Sunday in Lent-Year B February 25, 2024 Last fall, I was driving down Highway 17 in South Carolina, and I saw a figure approaching in the distance along the shoulder of the road. I watched as it approached, and my eyes began to discern what I was seeing. It was youngish man, probably in his twenties; he was dressed casually, but nicely—in blue jeans and a ball cap. And he was carrying something slung over his shoulder. As we grew closer still, I discovered that he was holding a wooden cross, with one of the arms draped casually over the front of his shoulder, and as he approached, I noticed that the cross seemed to somehow be bumping merrily along behind him. Still trying to make sense of what I was seeing, I glanced over as I passed him to discover that the wooden cross that he was so intentionally carrying while walking down the shoulder of Highway 17 was attached to a wheel. (Hunh!) Our gospel reading for today from Mark’s gospel gives us Jesus’s first out of three predictions of his death and suffering. This is happening in the center of Mark’s gospel and is immediately followed by the Transfiguration (which we read two Sundays ago), and we talked about how the disciples in that moment are invited to go from being spectators to being witnesses. But today’s reading sets the tone for the rest of Mark’s gospel, which focuses on the question “What does it mean to be a faithful disciple of Jesus?” and continues to show, over and over again, how Jesus’s disciples fail to understand what Jesus’s mission and ministry is all about. In our reading for today, Jesus predicts his suffering and death on the cross; Peter, who has just had a beautiful shining moment when he actually gets it right and has named Jesus as the Messiah, takes Jesus aside and rebukes him, and Jesus, in turn rebukes Peter, telling him that he is trying to distract him from his mission. Then he calls together his disciples and the crowd who is following along with them and says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Now, before I really delve into this passage, let me take a minute to identify some of the pitfalls. (Another writer suggests that this passage is rife with possibility to be problematic, likening its treatment to how one picks up a snake. There are lots of ways a person can pick up a snake and it can go horribly wrong, but really only one right way.) So let me say very clearly that I do not believe that Jesus (or God, or the Holy Spirit) wants us to suffer or willingly inflicts suffering on us. We also have to be mindful of all the ways that this particular passage has been used to oppress people—specifically women and people of color— whom the system has been stacked against and this passage is quoted to basically tell them to suck it up and deal with their suffering as a way of following Jesus. So what is Jesus actually saying? What is happening here? Listen to what Contemplative writer Joyce Rupp writes about Jesus’ difficult teaching for followers to “take up their cross and follow him”: “What did the crowd following Jesus think when he made that tough statement? Did they wonder what carrying the cross meant? Did they have second thoughts about accompanying him? Jesus wanted his followers to know that the journey they would make involved knowing and enlivening the teachings he advocated. In other words, Jesus was cautioning them, ‘If you decide to give yourselves to what truly counts in this life, it will cost you. You will feel these teachings to be burdensome at times, like the weight of a cross.’ She continues, “We can’t just sit on the roadside of life and call ourselves followers of Jesus. We are to do more than esteem him for his generous love and dedicated service. We do not hear Jesus grumbling about the challenges and demands of this way of life. We do not see him ‘talking a good talk’ but doing nothing about it. He describes his vision and then encourages others to join him in moving those teachings into action.” i “If you decide to give yourself to what counts in this life, it will cost you.” We know this, right? Suffering is, strangely enough, an essential part of humanity, of loving engagement—with others and with life itself. And yet, so often we want to have our cake and eat it, too. We want to be followers of Jesus, but we want to be comfortable. We want to be good people, with meaningful relationships, but we don’t want to suffer. We want to be able to witness to Jesus by walking down Highway 17 carrying a big wooden cross, but we don’t want to strain our muscles, or for it to rub too much on our shoulder, so we slap a wheel on the bottom of it, and voila! No more suffering! How many times do I try to slap a wheel on the cross that Jesus has invited me to carry as a part of what it means for me to grow deeper in my discipleship? What do I lose when I do that? What is lost in my community of faith when I do that? Your invitation this week is to think about one recent way that you may have tried to slap a wheel on the cross that Jesus has invited you to carry as a part of your discipleship. Or here’s how another writer puts it: “How have you actively avoided suffering, rejection, or unpleasantness this week? [Maybe it is as simple as not telling someone the truth?] Was there a cost to you, to loved ones, or to your community in doing so? How might facing suffering directly, even just naming what is happening…open you to greater fullness this week?” ii And just for fun, here’s a poem I wrote about my encounter on Hwy 17. Wooden Cross on a Wheel Melanie Dickson Lemburg I saw his silhouette in the distance on the shoulder of 17 and I could not make sense of it. Eventually emerged a man in his prime blue-jeaned and ball-capped with a wooden cross slung over his shoulder bouncing merrily along behind him. As I passed I discovered the wooden cross was on a wheel. Why carry when you can roll? Is such work pleasing to God? Well, it certainly makes a statement. (Even Jesus had a little help carrying his cross.) Carrying crosses is cumbersome bulky and bumping with no place to rest it unless there’s a convenient corner handy to prop. Jesus never said to take up his cross. I am to take up my own cross embracing suffering and that which slowly kills me and in the awkward struggle God reveals salvation. i.Quoted in Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations From the Center for Action and Contemplation for Thursday, February 22, 2024. Original citation is Joyce Rupp. Jesus, Guide of My Life: Reflections for the Lenten Journey. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2023, 20–21. ii. These questions come from Everyday Connections: Reflections and Practices for Year B edited by Heidi Haverkamp. WJK: Louisville, KY, 2023, p312.

Ash Wednesday

The Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg Ash Wednesday 2024 (7 and 11:30am) February 14, 2024 It’s always a little weird when Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day. It’s like the secular world and the church world collide in a way that seems starkly incongruous. But this year, I decided to lean into the connection to see where it would take me. And where it took me was, unsurprisingly, to consideration of the heart. Every year on Ash Wednesday, we recite or sing Psalm 51 either during the imposition of ashes or just after, and in that Psalm we ask God to “Create in me, a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” It has been an interesting exercise this year for me to think about this day, Ash Wednesday, and all of Lent in light of this request I am making of God. What does it mean for my heart to be created clean? What does it look like for God to renew a right spirit within me? There’s a camp song that our daughter learned when she was little that is set to this verse from Psalm 51. She went through a phase where she wanted my husband to sing it to her every night before bedtime. It goes Create in me, a clean heart O, God, that I might be renewed. Create in me, a clean heart O, God, that I might be renewed. So fill me. Heal me. And bring me back to you. Create in me, a clean heart O, God, that I might be renewed. What are the ways that you need God to create a clean heart in you during this Lenten season? What does it look like for God to renew a right spirit within you? (Or even to renew you?) Create in me, a clean heart O, God, that I might be renewed. What are you longing to change? What is the deepest desire of your heart that needs tending to? Create in me, a clean heart O, God, that I might be renewed. Lent is a season in which we fast from practices that break our hearts or break the hearts of others, fasting from practices that distract us and draw us away from the heart of God. So fill me. Heal me. And bring me back to you. And when we create space in our fasting then we can embrace practices that are more life-giving, practices that can restore our hearts with God’s help and gracious presence. Create in me, a clean heart O, God, that I might be renewed. This requires truth telling and radical self-honesty, which is part of the work that we begin this day. And this work can be supported by Lenten practices or disciplines. I’ve started reading a new book as a part of my Lenten practice that looks at fasting and embracing in a new light. The book is titled A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding our True Hunger by Christine Valters Paintner. And in this book, the author invites us to get in touch with our true hunger that we so often try to feed or placate with heart-breaking practices, practices that draw us away from the heart of God and from our own truest hearts. She has written a Lenten retreat to encourage us to consider fasting from these practices and in the space opened by that fast, embracing more life-giving practices over the different weeks of Lent. Listen to her invitation: 1. “Fast from multi-tasking and the destructive energy of inattentiveness… Embrace the practice of beholding each thing, person, moment, as you respond to that hunger for presence.” 2. “Fast from anxiety and endless torrent of thoughts that rise up in your mind, thoughts that paralyze you with fear of the future. [Embrace] the radical trust at the heart of things and listen to the hunger for contentment in the moment.” 3. Fast from “speed and rushing through your life.” Embrace “the grace shimmering right here in… holy pause[s].” 4. “Fast from being strong and always trying to hold it together, and instead embrace the profound grace that comes through your vulnerability and tenderness…exploring [your] hunger for the ability to reveal [y]our wounded places and have them seen and loved by another.” 5. “Fast from endless list-making and too many deadlines and enter into the quiet as you listen for what is ripening and unfolding, what is ready to be born.” 6. “Fast from certainty and attempting to control the outcome of things so that you might grow in trust in the great mystery of life.” Embrace the beauty of the unknown and be nourished by new possibilities we would have never dreamed. i It's certainly a different kind of fast than we usually take up, isn’t it? But just maybe, on this Ash Wednesday that is also Valentine’s Day, we need to give some attention in the coming season to all the ways that we break our own hearts, and how God is longing to restore and renew them for us. Create in me, a clean heart O, God, that I might be renewed. Create in me, a clean heart O, God, that I might be renewed. So fill me. Heal me. And bring me back to you. Create in me, a clean heart O, God, that I might be renewed. i. Paintner, Christine Valters. A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding our True Hungers in Lent. Broadleaf: Minneapolis, 2024, pp 29-31 in kindle edition.

Last Sunday after Epiphany Year B

The Rev Melanie D. Lemburg Last Sunday after the Epiphany-Year B February 11, 2024 I have a new song that I’m quasi-obsessed with. It’s my new hype song; I listen to it when I’m driving in the car often on repeat because it makes me happy. It wasn’t a song I had planned to preach on until I woke up with it going through my head on Monday morning. The song is titled Shambala and it’s performed by Three Dog Night. Do y’all know this song? It was released in 1973 and the song is about the mythical kingdom of Shambala which is referred to in Tibetan Buddhism, and it is speculated that the song to this mythical place is actually about the spiritual path or journey. It starts: “Wash away my troubles Wash away my pain With the rain in Shambala Wash away my sorrow Wash away my shame With the rain in Shambala Ah ooh yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Ah ooh yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah” The narrator goes on to sing about the people he encounters on the road to Shambala—people who are helpful, kind, lucky, and so kind-on the road to Shambala- and then launches into the rousing chorus: “How does your light shine In the halls of Shambala? How does your light shine In the halls of Shambala?” Today is the last Sunday after the Epiphany, the season in the church when we most focus on light—the light shining in the darkness, the ways that God is manifest in this world in the person of Jesus, the ways that God continues to be manifest in this world through the power of the Holy Spirit shining in our lives, weaving people and experiences together. So this question of how does your light shine is an especially appropriate one for us as we close out this season. But I think we can be a bit more specific in looking at how our light shines considering two of our readings for today—the Old Testament and the gospel. In the Old Testament, we see two of the greatest prophets of Israel-Elijah and Elisha; Elijah has served as a mentor to Elisha and Elijah is preparing to complete his time on earth and be taken up to heaven. There’s this strange group of spectator prophets who seem to be trailing after them wanting to see what will happen and kind of heckling Elisha, who just keeps telling them to essentially “shut up!” And in the gospel reading for today-the story of Jesus’s Transfiguration—we have Jesus’s closest disciples on top of the mountain with him when he becomes transfigured, and a voice from heaven proclaims: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Another writer says of this gospel account: “The disciples witness the deeds of Jesus, but fail to grasp the core of his character and mission. This is all the more striking, considering that the divine voice, heard in the transfiguration account, commands them to listen to Jesus (9:7). Narratively speaking this imperative suggests more than practices of passive listening. Here, the voice demands that the very disposition of Jesus’s closest followers evolve from spectators to witnesses.” We see this differentiation between witnesses and spectators at work in the Old Testament story as well. The spectators are the gaggle of prophets who are following along to see what’s going to happen to Elijah. But it is Elisha who insists on accompanying Elijah to the very end, and who receives a double portion of Elijah’s spirit as he is able to watch Elijah being taken up to heaven on chariots of fire with horses of fire in a whirlwind. And it is, thus, Elisha who becomes the witness and the next great prophet of Israel. So, what do you think is the difference between a spectator and a witness? Our Wednesday congregation weighed in on this question this week: for them a spectator indicates a certain amount of distance between the watcher and the event. But a witness implies connection, an experiential piece that changes the watcher making them become a part of the ongoing story; someone observed that witness is both a noun and a verb; and being a witness can sometimes mean standing up for what you believe is true or what truly happened. Think about how the disciples change from spectators to witnesses between the transfiguration and after Jesus’s resurrection (well into the Acts of the Apostles). Do you think the transformation from spectator to witness is a sudden development or more of a slow growth in the life of faith? How are you being called in your own life to grow from spectator or passive listener to witness to the manifestation of God through the Holy Spirit in your life or in the world around you? Or to quote my friends Three Dog Night: “How does your light shine in the halls of Shambala?” i. https://genius.com/Three-dog-night-shambala-lyrics ii. Smith, Shively T.J. As represented in Everyday Connections: Reflections and Practices for Year B. Ed Heidi Haverkamp. WJK: Louisville, 2023.