The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8A-St. John's Helena/West Helena

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8A

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Helena/West Helena

June 28, 2026

 

       “When is the last time you experienced kindness, and what was that like?”  

       My husband and I were eating dinner the other night when he asked me that question (that had been asked of him by a mindfulness app on his Apple watch!): “When is the last time you experienced kindness, and what was that like?”  

       I reflected on a recent trip when my hosts had left me soy milk (I’m mostly vegan), homemade granola, and honey collected from their beehives out behind their home.  Each piece of that early Sunday morning breakfast gift was seeped in kindness, in hospitality, in welcome.

       It made me realize that welcome and kindness are intimately connected. 

       So, my husband could have just as easily asked:  “when is the last time you truly felt welcomed?  And what was that like?”  

       Think about that question for a minute: “when is the last time you truly felt welcomed?  And what was that like?”  (Just a heads up to the vestry…I’m going to invite y’all to share your responses to this question when we meet later, if you are willing.)

       In our gospel reading for today, we see the end of chapter 10 in Matthew’s gospel, which we began reading three weeks ago.  If you’ll recall, Jesus has been travelling all around his home region of Galilee, and Matthew says that he has seen the crowds and “he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”  So he summons his disciples and then spends the rest of the chapter teaching them, preparing them to go out in pairs to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of heaven, to “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.”  He warns them that this work they will be doing will be divisive, and will get them into trouble with their families and the authorities, and he assures them that God will be with them, providing them with what they need.  And then we get to the part from today, the part about welcome.  Jesus concludes his teaching to his disciples saying,  “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me…”. 

So, what does that mean?  What does it look like to welcome Jesus, to welcome God, and to welcome the ones who Jesus sends?  I was delighted when I received your service bulletin for this week to discover something I hadn’t noticed before, but I’m sure y’all have already made this connection:  y’all actually have the word “welcome” in your mission statement that’s at the end of your bulletin!

St. John’s Episcopal Church Mission Statement:  “To know God, love God, and serve God; By welcoming all, loving all, and serving all.”  (That’s a great mission statement, by the way!)

       So I wondered since welcome is so important that you included it in your mission statement, what have been the hallmarks of welcome for you here?  Certainly part of why I am here with y’all today is to recognize the welcome, the mutual kindness you have shared with Father Hayden as he has cared for y’all, and y’all for him in these last months.  And of course, part my work today with the vestry is to be a touchpoint for them and y’all as you prepare to welcome your new rector-Father Ryan Boyce.  (I can’t wait to hear what all y’all have planned!). 

As I’ve been reflecting on this notion of welcome this week, there were two different things I read that I found helpful. The first is from a daily meditation by the Franciscan priest Richard Rohr.  This is from Wednesday, where Rohr writes about his time founding a vibrant community for youth in the early years of his ministry.  He writes, “I believe we must be free to say ‘yes’ before we say ‘no’ but most of us aren’t that free.  Our first response is normally dualistic, negative, and probably even fear based.  We often respond initially with something like: ‘I don’t trust that.  I don’t like that. I don’t want that.’  [He concludes,] The word ‘yes’ before ‘no’ allows for some enthusiasm…which means ‘filled with God.’”[ii]

This is an interesting complement to our consideration around what welcome looks like and how we welcome Jesus, God, and those who Jesus sends us.  What if welcome is a saying ‘yes’ to the other in ways that go deeper than superficial circumstances?  What might that look like?  How might that challenge us as people of faith?  

The other thing I read this week was by the writer Kate Bowler, who is a professor at Duke Divinity School.  Bowler writes a weekly blog post on Substack that I read, and this week, I re-read her post from May 20 titled:  Joyful, Porous.  In this post, Bowler is reflecting on an interview she had with the former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and she writes about a notion the two of them discuss in her interview:  that is the spiritual practice of being porous.  

Now, what does that mean?  Bowler references Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor’s work about this, writing: “Charles Taylor describes two very different ways of being a person. The first he calls the porous self. The porous self has a permeable boundary—no firm wall between the inner life and the world outside. Meaning, grace, beauty, the divine, even sorrow can cross into you from elsewhere. Taylor calls this self vulnerable, and he means it as a description, not an insult. You are open to forces you did not generate. When joy arrives, it visits you. When suffering comes, it may be coming from somewhere larger than your own circumstances. The porous self is not the master of its own experiences with the world. And (mostly) this is experienced as a relief. You do not have to manufacture meaning to be living a deeply important life. Meaning comes to you.”

She continues, “The second he calls the buffered self. The buffered self is sealed. It is the self we have all been trained to become—the one who tracks her sleep, optimizes her morning, journals her gratitude, and audits her own progress at the end of every week. Meaning is something this self has to generate from inside its own walls. Significance is something it has to manufacture. Nothing reaches it unless it has scheduled the appointment. This sounds like freedom, and in some ways it is. But it also means that the entire weight of your life is yours to carry, alone, with the tools you happen to have. The buffered self is self-made…and it is very, very, very tired.”[iii]

I think this distinction between a porous self and a buffered self, and the spiritual practice of initially saying “yes” instead of initially saying “no” are both found at the heart of what it means to offer and experience true welcome.  They are at the heart of what Jesus is saying about welcoming him, welcoming God, and welcoming those who he sends us and those he sends us out to.  

When I go back to reflect about what it was about those simple gestures of hospitality—the soy milk and homemade granola, and backyard honey—were so profoundly welcoming to me, I think it is because they are manifestations of this porous life.  Of offering true, authentic pieces of ourselves in an attempt to meet someone where they truly are.  

Your invitation this week is to think about how you are being invited to offer welcome out of your porous self?  Where are you being invited to say “yes” first instead of saying “no”?  What does welcome really look like and mean to you as a community, and how is going inviting you all to embody that in this new season? 

 

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[i] https://www.etymonline.com/word/welcome

[ii] https://cac.org/daily-meditations/participatory-hope/

[iii] https://katebowler.substack.com/p/joyful-porous

The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost-_Proper 7A-St. Andrew's Mountain Home

 The Rev. Canon Melanie Dickson Lemburg

The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 7A

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Mountain Home, AR

June 21, 2026

 

       Can you “imagine the personal and social loss that Matthew’s community must have experienced in order to make today’s gospel reading an encouraging word for them?”[i]

       Jesus tells them: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 

For I have come to set a man against his father, 
and a daughter against her mother, 
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

       He continues, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.  Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

       We know a little bit about the historical context in which the writer of Matthew’s gospel is writing.  Matthew’s community of primarily Jewish believers has certainly gotten cross-wise with the Jewish authorities of their day, and they may have even been forced out of their synagogues.  They have lived through the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, and they may have known persecution by the Romans as well.  And that’s not even considering whatever personal disappointments or losses or divisions the listeners may have experienced in their lives. 

       But knowing what it means to be human, we can be certain they have experienced disappointment; we know that they have suffered loss.

       We see another heart-breaking portrait of loss and disappointment in our Old Testament reading for today as well.  Hagar has been forced out of Abraham and Sarah’s house with her child Ishmael, and after the food and water run out, Hagar recognizes there is nothing more she can do for her child, so she begins to try to prepare herself for his death.

       Now, what’s interesting about this story that we don’t see in today’s portion is that Hagar’s own actions have been a factor in leading her to this point of desperation.  Earlier in the story, she has frequently taunted Sarah about her continued childlessness by flaunting the existence of her own child Ishamel.  So when Sarah’s son Isaac is born, the seeds of resentment and competition between the two women and their children have firmly taken root and are now bearing rotten fruit.  

       But just when things are at their bleakest for Hagar and Ishmael, God steps in to offer Hagar the tools for salvation, and God continues to be with Ishmael even in their exile.

       It’s interesting to me because Jesus’s teaching to his disciples offers them a similar promise and assurance of God’s protection, care and intervention for them in the midst of their disappointments, sufferings, losses, and trials.  He tells them:  “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

       Three times in this section of the reading, Jesus tells his disciples:  “do not be afraid.”  “Do not be afraid.”  “Do not be afraid.”  It’s like a drumbeat or an echo or a refrain for this disappointed and downtrodden community.

       The question I’ve been wrestling with this week is this.  The word “disciple” means to be a learner.  So what is my understanding of my own discipleship in light of this text, especially as it pertains to disappointment and loss?  What are the aspects of following Jesus that the Holy Spirit is inviting me to learn right now? 

       This past year, our family has been living in a sort of liminal space, a place of in between.  My husband has stayed in Savannah, Georgia, with our son so he could graduate from high school there.  And I’ve been mostly in Little Rock.  Happily, our son has now graduate from high school, so we are in the process of selling our home in Savannah and buying a home in Little Rock. There has been so much uncertainty in all of this that even my best-laid plans have been thwarted.  Just this past week, we decided to terminate a contract on a house that we were planning to buy in Little Rock.  I know it’s the right decision, and yet, I’m so disappointed.  And it’s really hard not to be discouraged because I thought we were making good progress in moving, and now we’ve got to start all over in finding a new home. 

       I suspect you all know a taste of this disappointment as well, as you all thought you were close to calling a new priest after this long, liminal, in-between season for you as a congregation.  And that call did not materialize and so you, too, are, in some ways, back to the beginning.  

       So what might the Holy Spirit be inviting us all to learn about our disappointment in this season?  How might it be an invitation to grow deeper in our faith?  

       About a month ago, I read the book Joyful, Anyway by Kate Bowler.  Bowler is a professor of religion at Duke Divinity school; she is known for having done significant research on the prosperity gospel, and she has written extensively about her journey through a medical diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer with a husband and a very young child.  She is deeply faithful, luminous, and remarkable, along with the added bonus of being very easy to read.  This new book explores the notion that the human condition is such that we all have an underlying ache.  This ache can be fueled by loss or disappointment or suffering or just the daily slog that is life—the never-ending piles of laundry or to-do lists, the argument that you keep having over and over again, the uncertainty that takes up space in your life like an unwelcome guest who will never leave.  

She writes about how we know the ache, because it is often accompanied by the question: “Is this it?  Is this really all there is?”  And she writes about how the ache is found in the intersection of grief, guilt, and longing.  She has a whole host of quotes from other theologians and writers about this ache and the human condition, but it’s her conversation with a man named Father Ron that really spoke the most to me.  This is in her chapter titled, “Is this it?”. 

       Bowler writes, “We plug along, and we make our plans.  We make more with less—but still, we know:  

       A small void lies in each of us, and it acts as a perfect echo chamber.

       Hope. Fear. Possibility.

       There is a longing that rings through us.  Is it anxiety? Is it a malaise?  Can it simply be solved with some psychological strategies and a little more self-care?  Or is this soul work?”

       She writes about how a friend of hers tells her that she needs to talk to a man named Father Ron, and she goes on to share that conversation.  When Bowler asks Father Ron about “the ache” he tells her, “I think a lot of people think it’s only a downside.  But in fact, that energy, that perpetual disquiet, that inchoate feeling…it is also divine…”. He continues, “We are made in the image and likeness of God.  So that feeling isn’t a mistake.  There’s a fire inside of us.  But it’s a divine fire…” 

       When Bowler asks him what, then, do we do with all of our longing (and our disappointment), he says, “ ‘Well, I think that’s the very definition of spirituality.  It’s what we do with that divine fire,’ he said, and described how some people might use it for unhealthy pursuits of endless more, more, more.  Or some people might try to snuff out their own fire in an attempt to be very pious.  But that the divine moves through our longing, channeling it toward better and better aims.” 

       Father Ron concludes with these words:  “We are going to die with a lot of hopes unfulfilled….But if you can mourn it, you can live with it.  There’s a deep spiritual and psychological genius here:  I need to mourn this.  I can die without being fulfilled, but I can’t die with the unfulfillment not being mourned.”

       Bowler writes, “I closed my eyes and took a moment to let that thought settle into place.  I had been hoping that there was a solution to the ache…but I’ve never found a short-cut when it comes to genuine, life-altering wisdom.”  

       And listen to how she concludes this chapter.  “The ache cannot be ignored.  Distraction or anger can only get so far…so I supposed I would have to be more honest about what I need to grieve.  Mourning is the terrible process of allowing reality to wash over you again and again and again.  What do you do when nothing can change but everything must?  I will need some help, but at least I know where to start: say yes to the dark unfinishedness of this symphony.

       Turn your face toward the ache and say yes.

       The ache? Yes

       The longing?  Yes

       The grief?  Yes

       The holiness of all this want?  I’m not sure how, but yes.”[ii]

       (Pause)

       This past week, I was feeding the birds outside my friend Caroline’s house where I am staying.  Caroline feeds the birds faithfully, and I had missed a day while we were both out of town.  As I walked out the front doors to spread the birdseed on the walk and in the front yard, I happened to look back over my shoulder to the corner of the front porch, where what can only be described as a “gang” of three, fat squirrels sat watching me with their beady little eyes.  

       After I scattered the seed and went back inside, I stayed at the front windows to watch.  Well, those three squirrels were going at it like an all you can eat buffet.  But there were also birds scattered and eating in and among the squirrels and even a little bunny over to the side in the grass.  I watched as the squirrels would try to scare off the sparrows, the smallest birds who were out there eating, and to my delight the sparrows would fly off and then circle back to land right behind the squirrels and continue to eat.  I was so impressed with their intelligence and their persistence in the face of adversity, and for me, it has been a helpful lesson in discipleship this week.

       “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

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[i] Quote by Sonia Waters. From Everyday Connections: Reflections and Practices for Year A.  ed. Heidi Haverkamp Westminster John Knox: Louisville, 2022.   p 341 (Kindle Version)

[ii] Bowler, Kate.  Joyful, Anway.  The Dial Press:  New York, 2026, pp 71-76 (Kindle version). 

The Third Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 6A-St. Mary's El Dorado

 The Rev. Canon Melanie Dickson Lemburg

The Third Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 6A

St. Mary’s El Dorado

June 14, 2026

 

       Good morning!  It is a delight to be with y’all on this third Sunday after Pentecost!  I’ve spent a good amount time with your wardens and your vestry, and let me tell you, y’all have got some excellent wardens--they are dedicated and hard-working and they love y’all and this congregation so much!  And y’all have got some really smart, faithful, and committed vestry people.  I have really appreciated working with all of them! You all are in steady hands.   

This past week, I loaded up my car and left my home and my family in Savannah to return to Little Rock, and as I pulled out of my driveway, I realized I didn’t know when I would be back or when I would see my family again.  Now let me be clear.  This sounds much more dramatic than it actually is. You see, we are in the process of trying to buy a house in Little Rock and sell the house in Savannah, and we may be about to get an offer on the Savannah house and we’re waiting to hear more on our offer in Little Rock.  So we do have a plan a and a plan b and a plan c of when we’ll next be together as a family, but it’s all still very fluid right now.

As a result, this week has felt coated in a residue of uncertainty for me. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t really appreciate uncertainty.  Oh, I try. Because I know that uncertainty is a part of life and being able to hold uncertainty is a key part of our spiritual development.  But I don’t like it.  

So this week, my spiritual practice has been to try to pay attention to the ways that I resist uncertainty.  I wonder how you feel about this?  Are you generally comfortable with uncertainty or do you have predictable ways that you try to manage or deal with uncertainty in your life?  Do you freeze in the face of uncertainty or withdraw?  Are you of the “don’t just stand there, do something!” in the face of uncertainty school?  This would look like getting busier and busier, both with things that matter and things that don’t.  Do you try to ignore the uncertainty and pretend everything is normal?  How do you normally engage with uncertainty in your life?  You’ve probably already guessed this about me, but I like to create multiple plans and then attempt to grab the uncertain area by the throat and wrestle it into one of my plans.  (Spoiler alert:  this often does not work well for me.) 

So this week, I’ve been trying to have my plans formulated but to also create space for the uncertainty in my life to dwell alongside me.  And it’s uncomfortable, which tells me that this is probably an area I need to continue to grow in.

The gospel reading and the Old Testament readings have been helpful companions for me this week in my discomfort with uncertainty.  In the story from Exodus, we see the Children of Israel are three months into their wandering in the wilderness.  They are just three months out from their miraculous escape from Egypt and Pharoah’s army, when they walked on the dry land between the parted waters of the Red Sea where God, through Moses, led them to safety.  They have tried to drink bitter water, which God (through Moses) has made sweet for them; they have been hungry and been taught how to gather the manna that God provides for them to eat.  They’ve even been attacked by the Amalekites and saved (again by God and Moses).  But the wandering and the uncertainty is starting to wear on them, and they are feeling the full impact of that way of life.  So God gives the people through Moses a word of encouragement in the form of a covenant:  “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”  

In these words, God is promising the people that just as God has taken care of them and has not let anything happen to them, God will continue to offer them God’s presence and God’s protection.  They are and continue to be treasured by God.  And because of this special relationship, the people have a responsibility to God also.  They are called by God to obedience to God and to keeping the covenant.   And in this call, this invitation, God is giving God’s people the tools to navigate the next 39 years and 9 months of wandering in the wilderness of uncertainty:  Trust God.  Obey God.  Be faithful to God. 

The gospel reading for today from Matthew shows how Jesus sends the disciples out to proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.  This sending out is a result of Jesus’ compassion; he sees that the people are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd,” so he sends out his disciples as missionaries of good news, telling them to “go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.”  And then, Jesus gives the disciples further instruction on how to do this, and it is a master class in uncertainty, in vulnerability.  He tells them:  

“Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff... Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave… If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.” 

He tells them, you’re going to be handed over to the authorities, and when you are, prepare no defense, “for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

Jesus is sending his disciples out with a call to wander in order to proclaim the good news.  He sends them out without a clear destination (that’s the definition of wandering) and his instructions make it clear that the call to wandering, the call to discipleship, involves a great deal of both vulnerability and uncertainty.  In fact, the call to wandering is, at its heart, a call to uncertainty. 

And again, he offers them the assurance that in the midst of their wandering and their uncertainty, they don’t have to worry because the Holy Spirit is with them, working in and through and around them.  The other key piece to Jesus’s call to the disciples to wander off into vulnerability and uncertainty is that there is a purpose to this uncertainty.  It is to spread the good news of the Kingdom of God and to offer healing and reconciliation in Jesus’s name to those who need it most as inspired by the Holy Spirit.  

So what does this mean for us?  That the call to discipleship, the call to following Jesus is a call to both vulnerability and uncertainty?  Just as I find myself in a season of uncertainty in my life, you at St. Mary’s may also be wandering around a bit in the wilderness of “what’s next?”.  Maybe this season is an important reminder for all of us that we cannot plan or control how or when the Holy Spirit shows up?  (And thank goodness for that because it is often so different/greater/better than our best laid plans!). 

God’s invitation to wander, to uncertainty is God’s invitation to us to trust God, to give our lives over to an unreasonable, unplannable and unplanned hope.  And then to see what sort of space opens up in our lives (of faith) when we live into God’s call to wander, to be uncertain, to be vulnerable, to be faithful, and to trust God—all for the sake of God’s purpose which is the spreading of the good news.  

Your invitation this week is to pay attention to how you encounter uncertainty in your life or in this church?  Pay attention to what is your general disposition toward uncertainty?  How is God calling you to wander, to step into uncertainty for the sake of the good news?  

I can’t wait to see how God’s Holy Spirit shows up and surprises us in our work here together!  May God give us all the power to trust God, to obey God, and to be faithful to God in this coming season.