The Second Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 7C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg 2nd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 7C June 22, 2025 “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?” In our two psalms assigned for today, we read this verse three different times. “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?” It could easily be the refrain for our modern times. “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?” There is so much noise in our lives and in our world. And our souls just seem to soak it up. Even in our hyper-connected society, we find ourselves lonely, our souls burdened and disquieted, cut off from God, our source of life and light and oppressed/overloaded with so much noise. And you know what’s crazy? We choose this noise all the time! The 24 hour news cycle. The text-threads. The endless doom scrolling on social media. The to-do lists. And don’t even get me started on the leaf-blowers! (Oh, how I hate the leaf blowers!) Take a minute and think about how you often choose noise in your life? Think about how you have done it just this week? Just last night, as we were going to bed, we heard the news that the US had dropped bombs on Iran, and instead of saying a prayer for all those affected and going on to bed, what do you think I did? I picked up my phone and started reading as much news about it as I could. Also, I can’t help but notice that we do it here, too. Just about every week, we fill up the silence before worship with talking. Why do we do this? Why do we choose the very things that are making us disquieted and restless? And even more importantly, how do we stop it? How do we stop choosing for our souls to be disquieted? Let’s look at our Old Testament reading for today to gain some insight into all of this. Our portion from First Kings picks up right in the middle of things with the prophet Elijah. Now, Elijah has gotten himself sideways with the king and queen of his day, Ahab and Jezebel, who were quite corrupt. God has used Elijah as God’s mouthpiece to tell Ahab and Jezebel to return to following Yahweh, but they have upped the ante, worshipping the false god Baal and killing off the prophets of Yahweh. So Elijah puts on a show where he goes against the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. He prophesies how God will end the drought, and Elijah calls down God’s fire from heaven (while doing some epic taunting of Baal’s prophets), to demonstrate the sovereignty of Yahweh over all other gods. And then, Elijah encourages the gathered witnesses to round up all the prophets of Baal, and Elijah kills them all. That’s when our story for today picks up. After his tremendous victory, Elijah goes on the run as Queen Jezebel threatens to kill him. We see God sending an angel to Elijah to tend to him in the wilderness. The angel provides him with food and encouragement to rest and to continue. Elijah runs all the way to a cave at Mount Horeb (where God had given the 10 commandments to Moses), and at this point, Elijah is feeling persecuted and quite self-righteous. When God asks him what he’s doing there, he replies (quite full of himself), “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." God, tells Elijah to stand out on the mountainside and God will pass by. And then, comes the noise of several cataclysmic events: wind, earthquake, fire. But Elijah knows that God is not in those. It is when Elijah hears the sound of sheer silence that he knows that God is approaching, so he goes out of the cave, and he encounters God in the silence. And in the silence, God speaks to Elijah and reveals what Elijah is to do next. Where Elijah feels like he is the only one left who is faithful to God, God reminds Elijah that there is a whole community of people who remain faithful, and there is still work for Elijah to do among them. God tells Elijah to anoint two new kings, and to anoint his prophetic successor, and God reminds Elijah that there are 7,000 people who are still faithful to God. So Elijah leaves that encounter with God in the silence with renewed mission and purpose. He finds courage in knowing that he is not alone after having received God’s care for him in the form of food and rest. And he becomes renewed by a sense of a new call-- that he is called to be an important part of the community of those who remain faithful to God, and he leaves Mount Horeb and gets back to work. So, what does this all have to teach us about our own disquieted souls and how to stop choosing the noise in our lives but instead making space for God to speak in the silence? The Episcopal priest and spiritual director Margaret Guenther writes about this encounter between God and Elijah in her book My Soul in Silence Waits. Here is what she writes: “The voice of God was not in the powerful, potentially devastating phenomena, but in the silence. I try to imagine the clarity and expansiveness of that silence. Looking within myself, I am baffled and chagrined by my simultaneous yearning and resistance. I am drawn to the intimacy of that prayerful silence, and at the same time I am genius at avoiding it. The silence of God… is living, active, and filled with the Holy Spirit….The silence of God demands our surrender. It demands that we shut up and listen, abandoning our defenses and taking off our masks. [She continues,] Elijah, standing outside the cave on Mt Horeb, must have felt helplessly open, as vulnerable and exposed as a mortal can be. He must have wondered if the wind and the fire would destroy him, if the earthquake would swallow him up. When we let ourselves wait upon God in God’s silence, we too become receptive and open. We rid ourselves of non-essentials… [She concludes] To wait for God in silence demands that we pay attention. It demands our awareness of subtlety and smallness. In the silence we become mindful of what might otherwise be dismissed or ignored.”i Where in your life is God inviting you to surrender, to be vulnerable, to be open to how God speaks to you in the silence? How are you being called to choose the silence of God over the noise of your life or the world? Where is God inviting you to lean into uncertainty, to relationship, to trust in God? Consider ending each day of this coming week in intentional silence. You might consider using the Psalmist’s refrain as a mantra: “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?” i. Guenther, Margaret. My Soul in Silence Waits: Meditation on Psalm 62. Cowley: 2000, pp 37-39

Easter 7C

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg The 7th Sunday of Easter-Year C June 1, 2025 Liturgically, we find ourselves in a strange, in between time today. Today is the 7th Sunday after Easter-The Sunday after the Ascension-where we find ourselves dwelling in a liturgical “already-not yet.” Jesus has already ascended to be with God, (we commemorated the feast of the ascension this past Thursday), and the gift of the Holy Spirit has not yet been given to his disciples. (That will happen for us next week on the Feast of Pentecost.) So, we’re in a sort of spiritual in-between or liminal sort of place. It’s no wonder that the collect for today seems to plead: “Do not leave us comfortless!” This week at the healing service, we talked about liminal spaces, and about how or where we have found comfort in those in between times and places and seasons. I shared that I had recently read the book How to Walk into a Room by Emily Freeman, and she uses the image of how our lives are like different rooms in a house, how we spend different seasons of life in different rooms, and sometimes we are forced out of a particular room, and sometimes we choose to walk out of our own accord. There are even liminal, in-between times when we find ourselves hanging out in the hallway of our life, in between rooms. That’s where we find ourselves today; in the liturgical hallway between Jesus’s ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. None of us is a stranger to this hanging out in the hallway. These liminal spaces are a part of our human condition. The shift from babyhood to toddler-hood, from childhood to adolescence and adolescence to adulthood. There are transitions between being engaged and getting married, from leaving one job and starting another. The transition from this life into the next is another liminal space which we will all dwell in eventually, and often accompany loved ones through. Some of us find comfort in these hallways, these transitions. These liminal spaces can give us a break, a time-out for a reset, or even be a place of safety, a refuge where we build a nest of blankets and hunker down when the tornado sirens are going off. For others, the hallway is a place of risk, where we relinquish any sense of control over our goals or our destiny, a place of waiting and watching, and of discomfort. For many of us, these hallways are the portal between life before and life after—life before the diagnosis, the loss of our spouse, the job loss, a new relationship, a new job, or the birth of a child and the life after this transition that we sometimes choose and sometimes don’t. These liminal spaces, these hallways, are opportunities for reflection on our life and our call, and they are spaces where God invites us to be open to uncertainty, the unknown, to mystery. Can you take a moment to think about when you have experienced one of these liminal spaces or stood in the hallway of your life? Was it a place of discomfort or comfort for you? What did you learn about yourself, about your life, your relationship with God? Where or how did you find comfort in the liminal space, in the hallway of your life? How did courage take shape in your life the last time you were hanging out in the hallway? The Irish priest, theologian, and poet John O’Donohue writes about these liminal spaces, these hallways that he calls thresholds in his book To Bless the Space Between Us. Here is what he writes, “ At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotions comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds; to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.” i In our gospel reading for today, we get a glimpse of Jesus’s farewell discourse to his disciples from John’s gospel, where he is trying to impart to them the truths he wants to leave with them. He invites them to stay grounded in God’s love and to stay connected with each other, even as things are about to change dramatically. In her reflection on the feast of the Asension, the pastor, poet, and artist Jan Richardson had this to say about how Jesus takes leave us his disciples and how he encourages them to dwell in the liminal space for a time. She writes, “Before he is gone from the physical presence of his beloved followers and friends—precisely while he is leaving them, in fact—Jesus offers them a blessing. It’s this moment that really knocks me out. Jesus is not trying to put a silver lining on his leaving. He is not giving them a blessing as a consolation prize for having come through these wild years with him, only to see him leave—though consolation is surely part of his intent. Instead, with the blessing that he gives them in the very moment of his leaving, Jesus is acknowledging that the substance of grief is also the substance of love. They are made of the same stuff, and if we can be present to this—if we can stay with both the grief and the love that lives at the heart of it, the love will become more and more clear, and more clarifying, and it will, in time, show us the way to go.” In conclusion, I’ll offer you Richardson’s blessing that accompanies her reflection. It is titled STAY I know how your mind rushes ahead, trying to fathom what could follow this. What will you do, where will you go, how will you live? You will want to outrun the grief. You will want to keep turning toward the horizon, watching for what was lost to come back, to return to you and never leave again. For now, hear me when I say all you need to do is to still yourself, is to turn toward one another, is to stay. Wait and see what comes to fill the gaping hole in your chest. Wait with your hands open to receive what could never come except to what is empty and hollow. You cannot know it now, cannot even imagine what lies ahead, but I tell you the day is coming when breath will fill your lungs as it never has before, and with your own ears you will hear words coming to you new and startling. You will dream dreams and you will see the world ablaze with blessing. Wait for it. Still yourself. Stay. ii i. O’Donohue, John. To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. Doubleday: New York, 2008, p48-49. ii. Jan Richardson from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

Easter 5C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Fifth Sunday of Easter-Year C May 18, 2025 How many times in our lives have we said, “I just can’t wait to be home!” We say it when we are away on trips of various sizes. We say it when we have a stay in the hospital. We say it sometimes even mid-way through a long day at work. Even in the midst of adventures, this longing for home may steal upon us. I’ve talked to a number of different people this week about what makes a place home for them. Home seems to indicate a place of familiarity, of comfort, of peace, of refuge. It’s a place where we feel like we belong in our truest selves, and it is often a safe place where we can mourn. Many folks associate home with family and friends, and for some, home encompasses a multitude of generations who figure out how to get along in ways that sometimes stretch us. I wonder what makes a place home for you? When you say “I just can’t wait to be home!” for what are you longing or looking for? In our reading from Revelation for today, we’ve got the very end of the book of Revelation. Now, we’ve had readings from Revelation for the last four Sundays and surprisingly, none of our preachers have chosen to engage them, myself included!. So, here’s a bit of context on Revelation from the scholar Diana Butler Bass. She writes, “We often forget that the Revelation of John is exactly what it claims: a revelation, a vision. It isn’t predictive, it isn’t fortune telling, and it certainly isn’t writing the future. Above all, it isn’t literal. Like all visions, it reveals truth of things through symbols, poetry, visual and auditory suggestions, and dream sequences. The writer wasn’t a soothsayer. The author was certainly intuitive. And by the text’s own admission, the writer was a contemplative visionary. This person heard voices, paid attention to dreams, and prayed through images. And then, whoever this was wrote down what had been seen. Sort of like an ancient dream journal. A record of visionary experiences…” She continues, “Revelation was written many years after Jesus’ execution. Most scholars, even conservative ones, think it was composed some six or seven decades later. The popular predictive interpretation of the end times isn’t accepted by serious academics, even if it is the familiar view held by casual Bible readers and fundamentalist Christians. [Instead] modern interpreters have emphasized that Revelation was a message of comfort to a persecuted church. Some suggest that it emerged in the midst of internal Christian conflict, others think it was a warning aimed at Christians who had become collaborators with the Roman Empire. She concludes, “Catholic biblical scholar Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza insisted that Revelation be read ‘from the margins’ and is best understood as a kind of Christian version of the Jewish story of the Exodus. As such, the book stands in the tradition of scriptural liberation, reveals the struggle of early believers with Rome, and proposes a hoped for future of justice for all.” i Our reading for today gives us a glimpse into this vision, this dream for God’s church in the midst of conflict or persecution or collaboration with Empire. In the vision, God is making God’s home among mortals, and it is clear that in that home, we all belong together with God. And the main thing that this passage shows us that God does in making God’s home among mortals is to offer comfort for those who mourn, to take away all sadness and suffering. And in that home together with us, God makes all things new. It’s a compelling image of God, if we really think about it; That God chooses to not only make God’s home with us but also, that one of the ways that God makes home is by comforting those who mourn and by even removing the sources of that grief or mourning. Perhaps that is why this passage is one of the suggested passages for our Burial liturgy—to remind us of this image, this promise of God. And I can’t help wonder what this means for us as the Church? If we the church are the body of Christ, God’s way of making home among mortals, how are we called to further this work of God? How are we called to create a space of home or belonging for others, both inside our walls and outside? How are we called to care for those who mourn, both inside our walls and outside? How are we called to make things new in partnership with God? Because it’s not enough to create a space where we and others feel comfortable. There’s an aspect of home that nourishes us, cares for us, even as we get called outward to make our way in the world. Poet David Whyte captures this tension beautifully in a portion of his poem WHAT I MUST TELL MYSELF. I’ll share it with you in closing, and invite you to consider this week, how we are called to make home for others. WHAT I MUST TELL MYSELF I know this house so well, and this horizon, and this world I have made. from my thoughts. I know this quiet and the particular treasures and terrors of my own silence but I do not know the world to which I am going. I have only this breath and this presence for my wings and they carry me in my body whatever I do from one hushed moment to another. I know my innocence and I know my unknowing but for all my successes I go through life like a blind child who cannot see, arms outstretched trying to put together a world. And the world seems to work on my behalf catching me in its arms when I go too far. I don’t know what I could have done to have earned such faith. Watching the geese go south I find that even in silence and even in stillness and even in my home alone without a thought or a movement I am forever part of a great migration that will take me to another place. And though all the things I love may pass away and all the great family of things and people I have made around me will see me go, I feel they will always live in me like a great gathering ready to reach a greater home. When one thing dies all things die together, and must learn to live again in a different way, when one thing is missing everything is missing, and must be found again in a new whole and everything wants to be complete, everything wants to go home and the geese traveling south are like the shadow of my breath flying into darkness on great heart-beats to an unknown land where I belong. This morning they have found me, full of faith, like a blind child, nestled in their feathers, following the great coast to a home I cannot see. ii i. From Diana Butler Bass’s Substack page The Cottage. Sunday Musings for Easter 4C-The prophetic shepherd. https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/sunday-musings-a22?utm_source=substack&publication_id=47400&post_id=162973184&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=l4l89&triedRedirect=true ii.From WHAT I MUST TELL MYSELF In The House of Belonging © David Whyte and Many Rivers Press. Share on David Whyte’s Facebook page on May 7, 2020.

Easter 3C_with 3A's gospel

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg Easter 3C_2025 (with 3A’s gospel) May 4, 2025 Based on Luke 24:13-35 There are four words from the story of the Road to Emmaus that echo in my life from time to time. Is it the same for you? Do you hear them, too? “But we had hoped…” The two travelers encounter the stranger on the road after a harrowing time. And the weight of their disappointment is conveyed in those four simple words: “But we had hoped..” Luke tells us that this disappointment-sadness-anger-regret stops them in their tracks in the middle of the road on their journey somewhere else, as if they can outrun or escape it. In that moment, Hope stands resurrected, manifest, right in front of them. But their disappointment-sadness-anger-regret blinds them so they cannot see him, cannot recognize him. How many times have I, too, been blinded by my own disappointment-sadness-anger-regret? But we had hoped… That things would turn out differently. But we had hoped… That they would finally hear us. But we had hoped… That the healing would come, the relationship be reconciled. But we had hoped.. That new life, resurrection would conform to our expectations. How many times have I been blinded by my disappointment-anger-sadness-regret when Hope, himself, stands right in front of me, gazing upon me with the look of Love? If there is nothing else we remember this Easter-tide, it is the good news that Our Lord of all Hopefulness does not leave us standing still on the road to Emmaus, blinded by our own disappointment-anger-sadness-regret. He journeys with us, coaxing us, inviting us onward down the road, accompanying us on the journey, always teaching, even when our ears don’t fully hear, even when our hearts don’t fully recognize. And on that road, Hope slowly steals past our blinding disappointment-anger-sadness-regret, and lightens and softens our vision, our hearts, until gradually-all at once, we see the Resurrected Lord, Hope Incarnate, breaking the bread there in our midst: in the face of the weary one kneeling at the altar rail, in one in the hospital bed, in the person at the table across from us, the one in line ahead of us, in the stranger asking for help or offering a word of encouragement. In those glorious moments, we know that Hope has never failed us. Disappointment-anger-sadness-regret cannot blind us forever. And we can see Love everywhere we look: on the road beside us, at the table across from us, and especially, going before us, smoothing the path that we may follow. But we had hoped… It is both an ending and a new beginning. Because Hope never leaves us stuck in disappointment-anger-sadness-regret.

The Day of Resurrection: Easter Day 2025

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Day of Resurrection: Easter Day April 20, 2025 There’s so much fear. I’d never noticed it before this year. I had always thought that maybe it was about competition. But this year, I realize….there is just so much fear. The unthinkable has happened. They’ve been going about their business, doing good things for society, and the authorities have come in and arrested their friend. He has been handed over to a foreign government. He is tried under false charges in a sham of trial. He is tortured, publicly humiliated to prove a point about who’s really in charge here, and then, he is brutally, publicly executed. Like a criminal. Even though he was innocent. His friends are terrified and hopeless. What if they come for them too? Who’s to stop them from being arrested and tried as his followers? It’s no wonder that next week, we will see them huddle together in a locked room, hunkered down in fear. Afraid to go to work. But today, we see them trying to do the next right thing, to prepare the body of their friend for the hasty, disgraced burial he has already received. They are terrified, and they are trying to keep on doing the next right thing. And their fear is evident, if we know how to look for it. There’s so much running, hither and yon, accompanied by panic. We recognize this because we’ve seen it in ourselves from time to time. When we are threatened, our primitive fight or flight response kicks in. Mary Magdalene panics and runs from the tomb to retrieve Peter and John and she tells them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Peter and John race back to the tomb with Magdalene running behind them. When the disciples verify that the tomb is indeed empty, they wander lostly back home. What else is there to do in the face of such mystery? But Mary Magdalene stays, and she finally succumbs to a complete and utter melt-down. It has all been too much, and all she can do is stand there and weep. In her standing still, in her grief, she encounters two angels who ask her a question: “Woman, why are you weeping?” Her response is wrapped in fear: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know what they have done with him.” Now, how do we know this is fear? It’s because we do this ourselves when we are afraid. We pin all our fears and distrust on the shadowy “they”. The ones who aren’t like us. Who don’t think like us, don’t look like us, don’t act like us. Who’s the “they” that Magdalene keeps referring to here? We don’t really know. But what we do know is that it is not us. And that’s when the risen Christ shows up. Mary Magdalene starts to blame him for moving Jesus’s body, thinking he’s the gardener. Because maybe, just maybe, he is one of them: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” And then Jesus calls her by name, and she recognizes him. And all of those “us versus them” categories disappear for her as Jesus stands before her resurrected from the dead. If I were to ask you what you think the opposite of fear is, what would you say? (probably courage, maybe persistence, maybe even hope?) What if I tell you that I think that this story shows us that the opposite of fear is awe? We see it, over and over again, in the gospel: people going about their business in various shades of fear or woundedness, and the power of God is revealed in their lives or right in front of them, and their fear vanishes in the face of their awe. We get a glimpse of this transformation for Peter in the Acts passage for today. Peter, who was so afraid that in the face of the empty tomb, he just goes home. We see him preaching in Acts after some time has passed, and he has been transformed by encounters with the Risen Christ and the manifestation of the glory of God in and through the faithful actions of Jesus’ disciples. Peter preaches: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality…” Peter’s fear has been driven out by his awe and he now understands that in the Kingdom of God, there is no us versus them. There is only us. Back in January, I preached a sermon about sin and awe, and I spoke about how sin divides us but how awe connects us. We could say the same thing about fear and awe as well. Fear divides us; awe connects us. I recently came across this definition of awe. Awe is “an emotional experience in which we sense being in the presence of something that transcends our normal perception of this world.”i Researchers have found that awe ‘leads people to cooperate, share resources, and sacrifice for others’ and causes them to ‘fully appreciate the value of others and see themselves more accurately, evoking humility.’ Some researchers even believe that ‘awe-inducing events may be one of the fastest and most powerful methods of personal change and growth.’” ii Fear divides us. Awe connects us. Back in January, I talked about how we cannot generate our own awe, how we have to be on the lookout for moments when awe breaks into our ordinary lives, and then be attentive enough to allow it to transform us. We might argue that’s why we come to church today. We are trying to show up for the awe of God’s mighty work through Jesus’s resurrection from the dead to astound us, to break us open, to transform us. But guess what?! I have recently learned that just like we can practice other spiritual disciplines like gratitude and hope and mercy and forgiveness, we can practice the discipline of awe! Scientists have actually studied this, and they have named a pattern that is found in the heart of most religions as a way for us to practice awe. These scientists call it “microdosing mindfulness” and they have identified a five to fifteen second, three step process to help us cultivate and practice awe in our lives. They call it the AWE method. The first step-the A-is Attention. Start by focusing your full and undivided attention on something you value, appreciate, or find amazing. The second step-the W- is Wait. It means slowing down or pausing, taking a breath, inhaling deeply while you appreciate the thing or person or idea that you are focusing your attention on. The third step-the E- is Exhale and Expand. Make a slightly deeper exhalation than normal, allowing what you are feeling to fill you and grow. Pay attention to what you notice about yourself. Did you feel a surge or release of energy? iv The invitation of this day, of Easter, is for you to think about what all of your running around (literally, figuratively, spiritually) reveals about how fear is motivating you? Because it is only when Mary Magdalene stays put, standing still and grieving near the empty tomb, that she becomes open to awe in her encounter with the Risen Christ. In that moment, her fear is transformed, and she is deepened in her connection with Jesus, empowering her to be the one who delivers the good news of his resurrection to the other disciples and ultimately the world. Her awe thus connects her with believers throughout time. How might your life, your faith be transformed by practicing AWE during the next 50 days in this season of Easter?v In closing, I'd like to share with you a poem about moments of resurrection awe that can be found in everyday life. What It's Like to Rise Again By Tania Runyan Not just the first crocus bulb poking from the ground, but its pollen shining saffronly on the legs of a bee. The reverberations of a hammered dulcimer or the puff of sweetness escaping between peel and pith of a ripe tangelo. It's an old woman admiring her hair in the mirror—the curl that bounces back— and an anonymous (to you, at least) possum in the woods yawning as she stretches front legs then hind. It's a teenager mountain-posing by an open window, his childhood blanket his mat, and yes, I can say it: unclasping an underwire bra after church and just letting your humanity be. It's riding the elevator after the doctor tells you, we can't say why the scans are suddenly clear, or, if you're exhausted from trying, time to surround yourself with people you love. It's waking in the middle of the night, looking out at the silhouettes of trees and realizing there is nothing lonely about silence. It's cruising a wide-open Montana highway or swinging your hips to the rhythm of a street-corner bucket drummer and daring the stares. It's not the cicada blooming from its shell as much as the shell itself, balanced on the finger of a little girl, then tumbling along the grass tips among the unkillable dandelions. i. Eagle, Jake and Michael Amster. The Power of Awe: Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Paine, Find Clarity and Purpose-in Less than 1 Minute Per Day. Hachette Books: New York, 2023, p 19. ii. Brown, Brene. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. Random House, 2021, pp58-59 iii.This section is originally found in my Epiphany 5C sermon for 2025 preached at St. Thomas. iv.Eagle, Jake and Michael Amster. The Power of Awe: Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Paine, Find Clarity and Purpose-in Less than 1 Minute Per Day. Hachette Books: New York, 2023, p 185 v. Here are resources to learn more about the AWE method. https://thepowerofawe.com/what-it-is/

Palm Sunday 2025

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday Year C April 13, 2025 How does the wilderness become a refuge? What does it look like for me to face my own wilderness and to befriend it? These are questions I was pondering for myself at the beginning of this Lent—as I thought about how Jesus is driven into the harsh, unforgiving wilderness to face temptations but then at some point, he begins seeking out the wilderness and the lonely places as places of refreshment in his ministry. How does the wilderness become a refuge? What does it look like for me to face my own wilderness and to befriend it? I realized last week that I had pretty much forgotten about this question, and so I picked it back up again and looked at my Lenten journey through the lens of wilderness. And I realized, much to my chagrin, that I had not befriended the wilderness, but instead, I had done the exact opposite. I had spiritually bushwacked my way through the wilderness of Lent. In this dance that is the spiritual life, we fall away and then we return. We fail and we begin again. So I’ll ask myself again: How does the wilderness become a refuge? What does it look like for me to face my own wilderness and to befriend it? As today is Palm Sunday, we start with Jesus riding at the head of a triumphant parade, and we end with Jesus alone in a garden, facing his betrayal which then leads to his arrest and death on a cross. Today we set the scene for our movement through Holy Week and into Easter, and we are invited to both watch and participate as Jesus embarks on this wilderness journey of loneliness, sadness, betrayal and death, even when he is completely surrounded by people. We can contemplate what it means for us to befriend those places of sadness, grief, loneliness, betrayal, and the shadow of death in our own souls, not rushing to try to triumph over them or beat them into unruly submission, but making peace, making friends with them. In his book The Tears of Things, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr writes about this phenomenon saying, “We all need to feel and know, at this cellular level that we are not the first ones who have suffered, nor will we be the last. Instead, we are in one universal parade—God’s “triumphal procession,” as Paul calls it (2 Corinthians 2:14…), using the metaphor of a Roman triumph after a great victory. In this parade, he says, we are all ‘partners’ with both the living and the dead, walking alongside countless ancestors and descendants who were wounded and longing for healing….[Rohr concludes] The body of Christ is one great and shared sadness and one continuous joy, and we are saved just by remaining connected to it.” i Here at the beginning of Holy Week, you are invited to remain connected to both the sadness and the joy that can be found in Jesus’s final days. You are invited to contemplate with me: How does the wilderness become a refuge? What does it look like for me to face my own wilderness and to befriend it? i. Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage. Convergent: New York, 2025, p 101.

The Fourth Sunday in Lent-Year C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Fourth Sunday in Lent-Year C March 30, 2025 A few weeks ago, I was leading a weekend on conflict transformation for a group of lay people in the diocese. We were talking about Jesus’s teaching on his process of reconciliation for the church in Matthew 18—you know this part? If someone in the church sins against you, go to them individually and try to resolve it. If that doesn’t work, take someone with some spiritual maturity with you to try again to resolve it, and if that doesn’t work, bring in a group of wise leaders from the church to help mediate it. As I was teaching this passage to this group, they were really wrestling with it, in a way that felt earnest and faithful, and about half-way through the discussion, I realized that the ones who were the most vocal had in mind a specific relationship that was still unreconciled, and hence their wrestling. Our readings for today have both overt and covert connections with this concept of reconciliation. In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, we see Paul hammering this concept of reconciliation in our portion for today. He uses the word reconciliation or reconcile at least five times in these few verses. The Greek word that Paul is using here is a word that implies a change, so it’s important for us to make that connection between reconciliation and change in relationship. And Paul is emphasizing that reconciliation happens on a number of levels: God reconciles us all to God’s self through the life and actions of Jesus Christ. God also works to reconcile us to each other. The image of reconciliation is both vertical (as in restored relations between God and people) and horizontal (as in restored relations among people). And it’s important to realize that for Paul, this notion of reconciliation is not just theoretical. Something has happened between his first letter to the Corinthians and this second letter that has damaged Paul’s relationship with the community at Corinth. Some work has been done to be reconciled (probably in a letter that has been lost), but there is still a breach evident in this second letter as Paul writes to defend his ministry to the Corinthians and also to combat the influence of a group of teachers who he refers to as “the super-apostles” who he believes are leading the church at Corinth astray from the teachings of Jesus. And in this passage, we see Paul reiterating that the ministry of the gospel is a ministry of reconciliation. Reconciliation is what Jesus has done (and continues to do through the work of the Holy Spirit), and it is the work we are called to as well. It is through this reconciliation that God brings about the new creation, and it means a change in reality for individuals, for Christian community and for all of creation. In the gospel passage for today, we see Jesus telling a series of stories as he tries to bring about reconciliation between the tax collectors and sinners and the religious elite who are grumbling about how he is spending time with tax collectors and sinners. He tells a series of three parables in which something is lost and the person searching for the lost item makes great effort to restore it and then hosts an elaborate celebration to which others are invited. First, it’s a story of a lost sheep, then a lost coin, and then finally our reading for today, the story of a lost son. Seen in that light and in the light of the Corinthians passage, what can this almost overly-familiar story of Jesus have to teach us about reconciliation? It teaches us that in order to be truly reconciled, we have to put aside our own notions of fairness, because how the father acts in Jesus’ story is both nonsensical and completely unfair. The younger son has asked for his share of the property that he would have inherited upon the father’s death. And the father gives it to him. Now, this isn’t just a matter of going to the bank and taking out half of the money that is deposited there. This would have entailed selling off property and animals in order to achieve this, but the father does it and doesn’t appear to even question it. And after the younger son squanders it all and comes crawling back, the father doesn’t question it again. He simply rejoices and proceeds to throw a party to which all are invited. The older son gets hung up on the ridiculousness of it all, the unfairness of the situation. And we get that, don’t we? We pay a lot of attention to what is fair…until we are the ones who are in need. But when we are in need, we are quite eager to see fairness thrown out the window. Like the younger son, we, too, make mistakes. And there are times in life when we need to ask for help and when we need to be vulnerable in seeking reconciliation in relationship. In the story, the older son is reminded by his father of his relationship with his brother. The father speaks the truth in love to his older son, and the he invites the older son into the celebration, but we don’t know what the son ultimately chooses. Does the older son relinquish his understanding of fairness and come to the celebration of his brother’s return, or does he hold on to his resentment, refusing to be reconciled? Like all of us, he has a choice to hold onto his resentments and his frustrated expectations of how his brother should live his life and how that life compares to the life the older son is living. True reconciliation requires honesty. It requires vulnerability, and it requires being open to being changed by God in and through our relationships with each other. Reconciliation means getting back into right relationship with someone. It is finding a path forward together. It means allowing room for both to be changed through the gift of God’s spirit in relationship with God and in our relationship with each other. Reconciliation is so much more than just forgiving, and it is more than forgiving and forgetting (and infinitely more than forgiving but not forgetting). It is a healing of what is wounded or broken which then makes the relationship stronger for having been healed. In light of this well-known story, I invite you contemplate these questions this week. How have you been like the younger son and received unexpected help, grace, or reconciliation in your life? How have you been like the older brother and rejected an offer of reconciliation? What relationship in your life might God be inviting you to seek reconciliation as you continue to prepare for Easter this year?

The Second Sunday in Lent-Year C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Second Sunday in Lent-Year C March 16, 2025 “When you scratch the surface of anger, there’s always something underneath it.” These words were shared with me by my very first spiritual director about 25 years ago, and I still think about them all the time. “When you scratch the surface of anger, there’s always something underneath it.” I’ve learned to pay attention to anger—both my own and others—and also to question it. What is truly underneath my anger? What are they feeling that is below the surface of their anger? What I have learned about myself and others is that sometimes when I scratch the surface of anger, I find fear underneath it. And sometimes when I scratch the surface of anger, I find grief underneath. We see this grief just below the surface of Jesus’s anger in today’s gospel reading from Luke. Jesus is on a teaching and healing tour in Galilee when some Pharisees warn him that Herod is out to kill him. Now, scholars disagree on whether this was a genuine warning to Jesus on the part of these particular Pharisees or their attempt to get Jesus to leave town or stop his teaching and healing in the area. (It could be either.) At first, Jesus responds with strong words for Herod (and perhaps these particular Pharisees?) saying: “Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” But then, Jesus shows us that under his initial flash of anger is grief as his words continue in a clear lament for Jerusalem and how he knows the people there will not live up to his hope for them saying, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Lately, I’ve been reading the Franciscan priest Richard Rohr’s new book The Tears of Things. It finds its title in an ancient Latin phrase- lacrimae rerum-which is found in Virgil’s Aeneid and has been quoted throughout our history. Rohr quotes poet Seamus Heaney’s translation of this phrase: ‘There are tears at the heart of things’-at the heart of our human experience.” And Rohr explains this by saying, “There is an inherent sadness and tragedy in almost all situations: in our relationships, our mistakes, our failures large and small, and even our victories. We must develop a very real empathy for this reality, knowing that we cannot fully fix things, entirely change them, or make them to our liking. This ‘way of tears,’ and the deep vulnerability that it expresses is opposed to our normal way of seeking control through will-power, commandment, force, retribution, and violence. Instead, we begin in a state of empathy with and for things and people and events, which just might be the opposite of judgementalism. It is hard to be on the attack when you are weeping.” i Rohr writes about how the Old Testament prophets follow a predictable pattern in their self-development. They begin with anger at the people and their behavior, blaming them for whatever impending crisis they are warning against, encouraging the people to change their ways. But then, they move into grief; and after the prophets make peace with their own grief, they then are able to engage their empathy, moving alongside the people in solidarity in their suffering. This pattern is revealed in Jesus’s interaction for today as well—how he is angry, then he is grieved, then he is empathetic and standing alongside the people of Jerusalem in solidarity, even as he is disappointed in their reception of him. Interestingly enough, the apostle Paul adds another voice to this conversation this morning. In his letter to the Philippians, he is writing from prison to the Christian community in Philippi, which is a city in Macedonia; and Paul is writing to the Philippians, who are the first church he established on Europeans soil. Unlike some of his other churches, Paul seems to have a close and happy relationship with the Philippians, and he writes the letter to them to encourage them to be persistent in their faith as they face opposition to the church in that community and even the threat of death. Earlier in Philippians, Paul has emphasized the importance of emulating Jesus “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself…and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” In our reading for today, Paul is urging the Philippians to follow his example as he seeks to emulate Christ, and he reminds them that their citizenship is not of this earth (or of Rome within whose territory they lived), and because they are truly citizens of heaven, they may not ever feel at home here. And then grumpy, old Paul speaks about the tears he is shedding for people who are driven by their passions (because the Greeks thought the stomach was the seat of the passions or the emotion), and he urges the Philippians to not be like that, reminding them that all things will be transformed through Christ. It’s a good lesson for us today, regardless of how you land politically, this reminder that our citizenship lies with God and not with earthly structures. It’s a helpful reminder, even as it can makes us uncomfortable to feel a little homeless when it comes to the workings of our government because our true citizenship lies elsewhere. And hopefully this discomfort can invite us to look under the surface of anger, because Lord knows there is so much anger in our country right now, and name what is underneath it, which is probably either fear or grief. And if we do find grief under the anger, I hope we can follow the example of Jesus and the prophets to let our grief propel us toward empathy and solidarity with those who are also sad and suffering, even if their grief and their suffering looks different from ours. Because that is what it means to be imitators of Christ and to be full citizens of God’s kingdom. So this week, I invite you to be curious about the anger you see—whether it is in yourself or in someone else. And if you find grief there, to make room for it, inviting God to be present with you in it and to transform you in and through either grief or empathy. In closing, I want to share with you a poem by a poet I just discovered. His name is Dwayne Betts, and this is a poem in his brand new book titled Doggerel. The poem is titled Grief For Lori The story of Easy, a small dog who I imagine is named after Mosley’s detective, Crawls into the psace left by Zinnia, Burrowing into corners, against Door frames, beneath a house- In search of a phantom smell. State Fair: Sahara: Thumbelina: Dreamland: Envy. Orange Star. Creeping zinnias That bloom until first frost. My g-d The ways we grieve, again & again Because the only rule of life Is to forget means to abandon. When I forget to feed Tay, she never barks, But waits, wherever I am, as if she trusts My memory more than I do. I imagine This is grief’s lesson: it is the engine Of making what happened before Matter, & it’s true that I’ve only ever Remembered a few joys as much As I’ve recounted all my reasons To grieve, but nothing grows Without weeping, not even joy.ii i. Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom For An Age of Outrage. Convergent: New York, 2025, p 4. ii. Betts, Reginald Dwayne. Doggerel. Grief. Norton: 2025, p 59.

The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C February 23, 2025 Enemies is such a strong word. I’ve been thinking about this all week and wondering if it isn’t a bit archaic as well? Do we still really have enemies? What are other words that we might use in our modern context to capture what Jesus is getting at in the second out of three parts of his Sermon on the Plain in Luke’s gospel today: “Love your enemies and pray for those who curse you”? Adversary? How about nemesis? Those who irritate you or whom you disagree with? The Greek word translated as enemy here is literally hateful or the hated one. Enemies. It’s a bit strong. Maybe we could soften it somehow. Surely we’re enlightened enough, Christian enough, that we don’t have enemies? I’d gotten pretty far down this path this week until I was pulling out of my driveway headed to work and who did I see? My next door neighbor who is definitely my enemy!!! For those of you who haven’t been here long, there’s a whole history there; it’s a history of lawn fungus and dog drama. So, there I was thinking enemies was an archaic term in today’s gospel when I came face to face with mine. (Denial ain’t just a River in Egypt, Melanie!) Ok, so we have enemies. And usually an enemy is someone who has harmed us in some way; enemyship often involves some sort of betrayal of power or relationship. In last week’s gospel, we had the first part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, where Jesus is enumerating those who are blessed (which can also be translated as a sort of “atta boy”) and those who are woe-begone (which can be translated as a sort of “shame on you!”). And we pick up today right where we left off last week with Jesus teaching us about what it means to live a faithful life, to be merciful, even toward our enemies. And unfortunately, Jesus is unambiguous: “I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” And then he says it again: “love your enemies.” And he goes one to talk about the importance of giving over receiving and of forgiving. But how do we go about forgiving someone who has hurt us who we just do not want to forgive? (I am, of course, asking for a friend!) Our Old Testament reading for this week gives us an interesting glimpse into forgiveness of one’s enemies. Today we have the happy ending in the Joseph saga from Genesis, and it’s interesting to me in this context because Joseph has suffered a massive betrayal at the hands of his brothers which leads to his enslavement and imprisonment in the foreign land of Egypt, and then, through God’s involvement, in an exciting twist, Joseph becomes the hero of the Egyptian people, helping safe-guard them from a debilitating famine through his faithful and accurate interpretation of Pharoah’s dreams. In our reading for today, we see how Joseph, who has been betrayed by members of his own family, forgives them and seeks to be reconciled with them, even though he has been horribly wronged by them. And isn’t that also the case with enemies? When I was on my pursuit of a different term for enemy, I ran across a definition someone had submitted to Urban Dictionary for enemy that gets to this: an enemy is “1. A former friend or acquaintance whose company is no longer considered to be beneficial to a relationship; 2. One who is deemed or deems him/herself to be of more use to another as an adversary as opposed to an ally.” We’ve even made up a word for this: we call them a frenemy. The people who are closest to us have the greatest power to wound or betray us. Or perhaps we have different expectations of what love should look like, and those unvoiced or unmet expectations lead to resentments, which can be toxic to us and to our relationships. Joseph’s is an interesting case study on how family systems work. Because most families do follow predictable patterns of behavior, but when one member of the family changes their behavior, it can impact the entire family and its dynamic. It could have been so easy for Joseph to reveal himself to his brothers and to enact his vengeance upon them and their families by just refusing to help them and sending them back home to Canna where they would all eventually starve. But something in Joseph has changed over the years, and his hubris and pride which he used to flaunt around his brothers has been worn away by the challenges he has faced. And so he ends the pattern of sibling retribution that has gone back generations in his family by forgiving his brothers, and inviting them to join him in Egypt to reap the benefits of his position of power there. So, what does that mean for us? How do we live into this call of Jesus and forgive our enemies? For me, I think that’s going to have to start with regular, daily prayer for my neighbor. And here’s what I’m going to try to do. (Someone else came up with this, and I’m going to borrow it.) “Choose an enemy to pray for this week. Write their name on a piece of paper and place it somewhere you will see it regularly. You might use this prayer: ‘May they have enough. May they love and be loved. May they know and be known by God.’” i (repeat it) In closing, I’ll leave you with someone else’s words about making this shift in thinking toward our enemies: “[Christian life] asks us to sacrifice our long-cherished sense of aggrievement toward our enemies, rendering them in the process not enemies at all, but fellow sinners forgiven by God.” ii So, I’ve added my enemy/neighbor to my private prayer list and am committing to pray for her for the week: “May she have enough. May she love and be loved. And may she know and be known by God.” I invite you to join me in this practice this week. i. Haverkamp, Heidi, ed. Everyday Connections: Reflections and Prayers for Year C. Westminster John Knox: 2021, p 124 ii. Ibid. p122 Quote by Robert F. Darden

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany Year C

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C February 9, 2025 It is pretty uncommon for Episcopal preachers to give our sermons titles. (It can be common in other denominations.) But this week, I couldn’t help thinking that if this sermon had a title, it would be “Sin and Awe.” Sin and awe are two states of being that I would not normally associate with each other, but they are two ribbons woven through almost all of our readings for this Sunday. So, what’s up with that? First, I think we need to start with some definitions. When I asked our Wednesday healing service crowd to define sin, we had even more definitions than we had people in the room. Sin is “separation from God; moving away from God instead of moving toward God; unrighteous behavior; disobeying the commandments; defiance; missing the mark…” The list was much, much longer. Our Book of Common Prayer actually has a really helpful section that gives us some definition around common phrases and words that helps bind us together, like the Prayer Book helps bind us together in our common prayer. If you look on page 848 in the BCP in the Catechism section, you’ll see lots of writing about sin, including this definition: “Sin is the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” Seems straightforward enough. But what about awe? Our group described awe as standing at Pike’s Peak and looking out and down and being overwhelmed by majesty. I think we find awe in the brushing up against something so much larger than ourselves. Unfortunately, our BCP doesn’t have a handy definition of awe for us, but in her book Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience, sociologist Brene Brown defines awe for us. She writes about how we often use awe and wonder interchangeably, but there is an important difference. “ ‘Wonder inspires the wish to understand; awe inspires the wish to let it shine, to acknowledge and unite.’ When feeling awe, we tend to simply stand back and observe, ‘to provide a stage for the phenomenon to shine…Researches have found that awe ‘leads people to cooperate, share resources, and sacrifice for others’ and causes them to ‘fully appreciate the value of others and see themselves more accurately, evoking humility.’ Some researchers even believe that ‘awe-inducing events may be one of the fastest and most powerful methods of personal change and growth.’” i Interesting. So, in one way they are complete opposites. Sin divides and separates. Awe connects and humbles. Our readings for today give us two solid examples of this juxtaposition (and the Corinthians reading actually hints at it pretty strongly as Paul points back to his own story and conversion experience on the road to Damascus). We see in both Isaiah’s call story and the call story for Jesus’s disciples in Luke this encounter with the divine which provokes awe for both Isaiah and the newly-minted disciples juxtaposed with an acute awareness of their sinfulness. And I can’t help but wonder if this overwhelming sense of connectedness to the infinite doesn’t highlight for them all the ways that they are separated or divided from God and from others? The passage from Isaiah is interesting, too, because it isn’t just an indictment of individual sin. The call from God through Isaiah in the first third of that book is all about the ways that God’s people Israel are failing as a people. Isaiah isn’t calling for just a repentance from individual sin; he is holding up a mirror to an entire society and pointing out the ways that they are not living up God’s expectations of how God’s people should treat each other and especially the most vulnerable among them. Back before Christmas, I saved a meme that I found floating around social media that I’ve been contemplating since then. It’s a quote from someone named Mark Charles (who I know absolutely nothing about), and it is this: “Western Christianity preaches a hyper individualistic salvation so it doesn’t have to repent from its systemic sin.” (Ouch!) But this systemic sin is, in fact, what Isaiah is calling the people to repent from, even when he acknowledges that there seems to be a certain inevitability to their destruction because they have allowed themselves as a society to become too separated, too divided from how God encourages and calls them to live as God’s people. Last week, in one of the daily meditations from the Center for Action and Contemplation, they shared excerpts from Franciscan priest Richard Rohr’s new book titled The Tears of Things. Rohr reflects that we often think of a prophet as someone who is angry and raving at the people of Israel for their many sins or predicting future doom, but there is often a larger pattern to the prophets (and Isaiah falls into this larger pattern as well). First the prophets “rage against sin as if they were above or better than it-then they move into solidarity with it.” Rohr continues, “Please understand that sin is not as much malice as woundedness. Sin is suffering. Sin is sadness. Many of us have learned this truth from studying addictions, where it’s become more clear that sin deserves pity, not judgement.” He concludes, “Sin is also the personal experience of the tragic absurdity of reality. It leads us to compassion. We must have compassion for the self, for how incapable we are of love, of mercy, or forgiveness. Our love is not infinite like God’s love. It’s measured-and usually measured out according to deservedness. But that’s not how YHWH treats ancient Israel, which was always unfaithful to the covenant. God is forever faithful.” The meditation ends by showing how the prophets move from standing above sin to being in solidarity with human suffering, and we, too, can be transformed by that evolution, just like the prophets. ii And awe is one of the tools that God uses to transform us. Awe is God’s unexpected gift for us. It’s not something that we can generate, but it is something we can look out for, and when we encounter it, we can lean into it allowing it to transform us through humility and re-connection. Your invitation this week is to try to think about sin differently, to see it as something to be pitied, in yourself and others, as opposed to something to be judged; to look for the ways that our systemic sin harms the most vulnerable among us. And you are also invited to try to create space for awe in your days and in your interactions, and in those moments in your life when God’s glory is revealed, to pay attention. i. Brown, Brene. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. Random House, 2021, pp58-59 ii. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-misunderstood-image/

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Third Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C January 26, 2025 You might have noticed that I’ve done something a little different with our readings today. Our gospel passage assigned for today was actually the first half of the reading—Jesus’s first sermon back in his hometown of Nazareth at the beginning of his earthly ministry just after his baptism. Normally, next Sunday, we’d have the second part of the reading which we heard today, which is Jesus’s extrapolation of his sermon and how his hometown friends and family received it. But instead, next Sunday, we will have the Feast of the Presentation—when Jesus as a baby is presented in the temple, which is a major feast of the church that when it falls on a Sunday, we commemorate it. So we weren’t going to get to hear about the fall-out from Jesus’s sermon at all this year. So, we have a double gospel reading today, and I just went ahead a cut the other readings to accommodate that change. This past week, I got to hear the Rev Dr. Bertice Berry, who is a deacon serving at Christ Church, preach at the MLK eucharist at St. Matthew’s. Bertice preached about Jesus’s sermon on the plain and how it was a “leveling” which included the golden rule. She spoke eloquently about all the ways that we “other” each other, drawing lines between we who are in and those who are out, and how those lines can constantly shift. I’ve been thinking about this concept of “othering” this week as I’ve watched the news swirling around the Rt Rev Marianne Budde, the bishop of the diocese of Washington DC and her sermon at her cathedral earlier this week. I’ve watched as she has been heralded as a champion by many and also demonized by many who question both the validity of her ordination as a woman bishop and even her right to American citizenship. And I have become so very curious as to how a sermon about unity has become so deeply divisive. i. It’s an interesting juxtaposition that our gospel readings for today give us a glimpse into Jesus’ first sermon back in his hometown of Nazareth. It’s unclear if Jesus himself picks the scripture or if, like us, he preaches on what is assigned for that day’s reading. (Scholars suggest it could be either option.) Jesus’s reading threads together several different passages from the book of the prophet Isaiah saying, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then he sits down and says, (in what may be enviably the shortest sermon ever) "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Jesus is proclaiming how his work flows out of his baptismal anointing as God’s beloved, and he shows through the words of the scriptures how his ministry will be one of restoration and reconciliation for the lost and the least. And his hometown folks are understandably proud. But Jesus doesn’t leave it at that. In the second part of the gospel, we see him give his hometown folks, who are feeling quite proud of their hometown hero, a bit of a jab which almost gets him thrown off the cliff. He reminds them that in the past, the prophets of God have shown up most frequently for those who are considered other—not the hometown folks but the foreigners and the enemies of Israel. When his hometown crowd is feeling proud because of their connection with him, Jesus immediately sides with the “other.” And they become angry and unsettled by what appears to be a shift in his allegiance. But here’s the thing. Jesus is reminding the crowd and us that in the Kingdom of God, there is no “other.” All are God’s children, and as God’s people, we are called to recognize our kinship with everyone. There is no “other” in the Kingdom of God, no matter how much we might want there to be. Think for a moment about who you might consider to be an “other” in this moment. And hear Jesus proclaiming that even that person is a beloved child of God, a part of Jesus’s mission of healing, reconciliation, and restoration for all. Noone is outside of that mission. Today, Jesus is reminding us of the inclusive embrace of God, and he is showing us how the Holy Spirit is so often willing to use “others” or “outsiders” to unfold new narratives for God’s people and all of creation. I wonder how God is inviting us here at St. Thomas to live more fully into this reality? I wonder how God will continue to be revealed here in our midst through people and places we might not expect? i. Here is the full text of Bishop Budde's sermon: https://dioet.org/blog/bishop-mariann-buddes-sermon-from-service-of-prayer-for-the-nation/?fbclid=IwY2xjawH_QUhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTenL8nqXGeEqjenpn-_9uIv0zchDa214UPihxMy46zm5WX-ZYSGoZgi0g_aem_sq0l66p3u7-0iJkH_9qJhg

The First Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C

The Very Rev. Melanie D. Lemburg The First Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C January 12, 2025 I’m not someone who regularly watches the news. I get most of my updates from daily emails from NPR with the headlines, and that’s almost more than I can stand. But this week, I’ve been paying more attention than usual because of the wildfires in California. It started early in the week when a seminary classmate of mine who is now the bishop of Arizona and is from California shared the news about how the Diocese of Los Angeles had lost St. Mark's, Altadena, the rectories of St. Matthew's, Pacific Palisades, and many homes of church members to the fires. And I’ve watched the stories about how so many people are evacuating and still some choose to stay, wetting down their rooves to try to prevent losing their homes. It makes me wonder what people are thinking who choose to stay and face down a wildfire. It reminded me of the stories I heard along the MS Gulf Coast after I served there after Hurricane Katrina—about parishioners who live a block back from the water who would always stay and ride out the storms. They’d never had any problems before. But Katrina was different, pushing a wall of water so many miles inland. As the waters rose throughout the day, my parishioners moved from the ground floor to the second floor, and then finally from the second floor into their attic. As they watched the waters continue to rise from the tiny attic window, the wife called her best friend and told her, “The water’s still rising, and I don’t think we’re going to make it. Whatever you do, don’t let them play Amazing Grace at my funeral.” i Two of our readings for today give glimpses of God’s providence over the elements. Psalm 29 is a reminder of God’s creative power, how God speaks creation into being and how the Holy Spirit moves over the water at creation. It is a song of reassurance and thanksgiving from the voice of an individual that when they go through the fires and floods of life, God’s providence has been faithful and that God continues to give to God’s people strength and the blessing of peace. In the reading from Isaiah, we see the voice of God speaking to God’s people through the writer of Isaiah as the people have been taken into captivity in Babylon. Removed from their homes, their temple destroyed (and probably many of their homes, too), the people are captives in enemy territory for anywhere from 50 to 70 years. In this passage from Isaiah, God reassures God’s people that in the midst of this crisis, God has not abandoned them. God continues to be with them as they walk through fire, as they face floods and rivers. God promises that they will not be overwhelmed and that God finds them precious in God’s sight. In both of these passages, we see glimpses of chaos that God’s people are swept up in, and we receive assurance that God controls the uncontrollable. God promises that we, too, shall not be overwhelmed, and that God is enthroned over the metaphoric floods of our lives. It is a part of the human condition that we all will, at some point or another, face fires and floods in our lives. They may not be literal, but all of us face things that are beyond our control. Can you think back over your life and identify past floods that you have encountered, and how God showed up in those? What does the flood feel like in your life today? How might you envision God enthroned over that flood? How can God help you from feeling overwhelmed?ii It’s really easy to judge the people who are wetting their rooves to try to save their homes from the wildfires or the people who stayed during Katrina and ended up stranded in their attics facing possible drowning there. But when we think back about our own floods and fires in our lives, we can see how certain decisions we made put us in a similar place. No one willingly chooses to be stuck in their attic facing drowning in the midst of a flood. But so often, that’s exactly where our decisions and our choices put us. Perhaps it is because so often in the face of our floods and fires, we try to be like God; we try to exert our control over forces that are just too big for us, and this is part of how we get overwhelmed. So, maybe you’re thinking, “well, that’s just great, Melanie. But what’s the alternative? Are we just supposed to lie down and die in the face of the diagnosis or the family member who is trapped and looking to us for help? The job loss, the broken relationship, or the death of those close to us? What, then, should we do? We know we are supposed to trust God, but what does that actually look like?” And to that I say, I hear you! Every day, my faith journey is an exercise in questioning what areas are mine to influence and control and what is best left to God. I promise you, I haven’t figured it out yet. But here’s something that has helped me this week. Retired Bishop Stephen Charleston posts daily on social media, and here’s what he posted this past Wednesday that spoke to me: “We live in a time of extremes. Extreme weather, extreme events, extreme anxiety. These are forces that we cannot control. Therefore, control is not what we seek. We concentrate instead on keeping our balance. We adapt. We adjust. We remain flexible, riding over the impact as best we can, staying close to one another, being alert for chances to help. When reality turns hard, we become like water.”iii What does that mean—in the face of floods and fires and forces we cannot control--to become like water? Water is fluid; it can be both gentle and powerful. It can cool and refresh, and it can also reorder and reshape. What does it mean to become like water in the face of whatever flood or fire you may find yourself in? My parishioners who were trapped in their attic during Katrina made it out. They faced the complete destruction of their home and the world around them, but they survived. And they rebuilt their home. Three years after their brush with death, we blessed their newly rebuilt home, during Epiphany-tide, the season of light. “We live in a time of extremes. Extreme weather, extreme events, extreme anxiety. These are forces that we cannot control. Therefore, control is not what we seek. We concentrate instead on keeping our balance. We adapt. We adjust. We remain flexible, riding over the impact as best we can, staying close to one another, being alert for chances to help. When reality turns hard, we become like water.”

i. This is the story of Maria Watson and Julius Ward who were parishioners of mine at St. Peter’s by-the-Sea in Gulfport, MS. Maria called her friend, Joy Jennings, who was also a parishioner. ii. This idea is from Khalia J. Williams as share din Everyday Connections… iii. January 9, 2025 https://www.facebook.com/bishopstevencharleston