The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 11C

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 11C July 20, 2025 Beloved,i from the moment I first met you, I loved you, and you were so eager to love me, too. Beloved, it was miraculous! You were kind of depressed but “with so much potential,” ii and I was so deeply wounded. But we were All-graced by the Holy Spirit’s hope and you helped me discover how to love again. Beloved, it wasn’t perfect, because none of us is perfect. But it was Faithful— all the small and wondrous ways we cared for each other: Beloved hands outstretched to receive and give; kindly pressed on holy foreheads, holy shoulders. Beloved faces lifted shining, sorrowful, open at God’s altar. Beloved bodies crafting wooden boxes to cradle beloved friends into their final rest in the garden under the windows of their Home. As we Sang them into eternity. Beloved hands clasped in beginning, two lives joined and wrapped in vows and hope and the prayers and support of Beloved Community. Beloved children, claimed and marked in water and oil, raised by us all as God’s beloved. Beloved, we are all (understandably) grateful and grieving and worried and anxious about many things. May we always remember “there is need of only one thing”. May we Choose the Better Part: Beloved. That God is in each of you, in the midst of you, working in and among you more than you can ask or imagine. God will never forsake you. Beloved, be gentle to yourselves and to each other. Be alert and be silent so you may Listen to God who is in each of you and among you. Trust your leaders and if you do not understand, don’t assume. Ask. If you assume, (because I know you, and you probably will) assume the best, as you are each and all the dwelling place of God, God’s Beloved. Know that you have shaped me and my ministry in so many ways. I’m so grateful for the ways we’ve risked and tried, Created, and trusted and adapted. These are not just my capabilities, but Our capabilities. And they do not leave here with me. Beloved, is how you will always be known by God and by me, and no amount of time or distance will change that, My Beloved. i. This homily was inspired by Jan Richardson’s blessing Beginning with Beloved from her book The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief. p 99 ii. This is how then Canon Frank Logue described St. Thomas to me when he invited me to apply.