Why I won't do the ALS Icebucket challenge, but I will let my daughter....

I've been watching as more and more of my friends post videos of themselves dumping buckets of ice water over their heads in efforts to raise money and awareness for the disease ALS. I will admit that I have been somewhat disdainful of the phenomenon. Don't get me wrong: ALS is truly a terrible disease, and I'm sure folks with ALS and those researching it are thankful for all the exposure and the money that is being raised. But I personally don't like being peer-pressured into jumping on the ALS bandwagon. My husband David and I have a number of charitable organizations that we already support, and that is something that I enjoy doing--giving money to people to help in their endeavors. In fact, I see it as a part of our own stewardship and the giving of our resources back to God through organizations that seek to do good in the world in a variety of ways. Then I was challenged by three different clergy colleagues to do the ALS ice bucket challenge. Truly, I was just going to ignore you all, but then my 10 year old daughter came home saying that she really wanted to do it. My first thought was "Aha! A proxy for me!" But we began to have a conversation about it. I asked her why she wanted to do it, and she could not really answer that other than "everybody else is doing it." So I made her do research on ALS, which she did. She came back to me and told me what she had learned, and she said she wanted to do it and to give them a donation from her own savings. It was then that we had a real conversation about peer pressure, how it can be used and for ill, and how it's always important to make informed decisions about things rather than just doing them because everyone else is doing them. I felt good about her decision, and so I dumped a bucket of ice water on her head. (That was actually really fun!) But I'm still not joining the ALS icebucket challenge. I'm glad you all are doing it and that you have found some way to give to something beyond yourselves that you think is important. But for me, dumping a bucket of ice water on myself isn't much of a sacrifice, nor does it have much meaning (although I'm sure my children would think it would be fun to watch). Instead, I have signed up to give blood in a blood drive this Friday for the American Red Cross. I understand that there is a blood shortage, and giving blood is a way that I can give of myself, my time (one of the hardest things for me to part with), and to help save lives. In the meantime, you can see the video of my daughter doing the ice bucket challenge posted on my Facebook page, but we won't be tagging anyone to carry on after us.

11th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 16A

11th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 16A August 24, 2014 So many people are deeply unhappy. They walk around under this cloak of quietly burdened misery. Maybe they’re unhappy in their jobs or their lack of a job? Maybe they’re unhappy in their relationship (or lack of a relationship)? Maybe they’re unhappy under the stress of all that they have to do or that they don’t have enough to do? Maybe they’re unhappy because their health is failing? Maybe they’re unhappy because of regrets about the past? Maybe they’re unhappy because their hopes for the future continue to be frustrated? So many of us are deeply unhappy. In the gospel reading for today, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter, always impetuous, jumps out there on his own, and he takes a risk in his faith, in his relationship with Jesus. “You are the Messiah,” he proclaims boldly, even if he doesn’t really know or understand what that means. Peter’s story is an incredible story because it is a story of transformation. And in this moment in this gospel, we see that Peter has been and will continue to be so transformed that Jesus gives him a new name, a new identity. (We saw a similar thing occur several weeks ago when we read the story of Jacob wrestling with God.) And that is really what faith and relationship with God is all about—transformation. God loves us too much to let us stay in our same old worn out and broken lives. But transformation is scary. It’s risky. I don’t think it’s something that most of us naturally seek out. It often comes about in the crucible of hardship. And I think sometimes, we resist the transformation of God’s love into something deeper and fuller and richer in our lives, because we are afraid. We don’t like change. What’s the saying? “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t..” And our playing it safe, resisting the transforming power of God’s love makes us unhappy. When is the last time, do you think, that you risked something in your faith, in your relationship with God? The thing about transformation is that it is not an end unto itself. Paul writes that we become transformed so that we can seek to discern the will of God. That’s the goal of transformation, the object of faith—to seek to discern the will of God. When is the last time that you sought to discern the will of God in your life, in your particular situation or relationship? Take a minute and ask yourself if you spend much of your life these days being unhappy? Might it be because of your answer to my previous question? We do not have to be unhappy. So much of unhappiness in people of faith is because 1.we actively resist transformation and 2. We do not seek to discern the will of God. Now, hear me carefully. Even if we do these things, it does not mean that we will always be happy. But it does mean that we will know and experience both joy and peace. I spent part of this past week at Gray Center with the Commission on Ministry, and one conversation that I had with a friend about happiness stuck with me. My friend was talking about how their family had vacationed at Walt Disney World this summer for the first time. He had resisted it for the much of his child’s life, but finally the whole family went. And he said it was the first time in a long time where he spent five days and was purely, utterly happy. He talked about how people would spontaneously break out into song in the streets ("it was like living in a musical"), and how he and his wife (perhaps jokingly) wanted to come up with some way to make their church services like that—to transport people to a place of happiness, out of the world, out of the cares and concerns of our lives for at least the time that they are at church Sunday morning. Wouldn’t that be awesome?! But what if we didn’t need the church or our Sunday morning worship to escape the cares of our real, everyday lives? What if we allowed ourselves to become so transformed, so in tune with discerning the will of God that Sunday became a time to feed our joy? So where do we start if we recognize that we are stuck, mired down in unhappiness? First, we have to recognize that we are unhappy, and we have to get to the point as they say in 12 steps recovery where we are “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Then we begin to do the difficult work of recognizing how we have become conformed to this world and embracing the process of being transformed to discern the will of God. For most of us, this is work that cannot be done alone. We walk this way with spiritual directors, with conversations with clergy or close friends who are already deeply committed to the spiritual life. We do this work with good therapists. I have watched as Dave Wilson has walked with many of you and helped you in this process of discerning God’s will through seeking health and wholeness in your lives. And when you are willing to do the work, I am amazed at how the results of good therapy seem to border on the miraculous! If you are feeling physically unwell, then go to your doctor and demand that she or he help figure out what is wrong. The most important part, I think, is being willing to risk by listening to your own life, what it is telling you and how God is speaking to you in and through that. As I returned from sabbatical, I realized two very important things. First, judging by the amount that I slept while on sabbatical, I was incredibly sleep deprived. Second, in my unhappiness at my husband’s absence and in other things, I had not been taking care of myself. In fact, I was overusing both food and alcohol—being conformed to this world—in efforts to assuage my loneliness. Back to school time is a time in our culture which is filled with hope. It is a time when we eagerly anticipate fresh starts, a time ripe for making changes and being transformed. You do not have to continue to be unhappy. If you are willing and ready, God will transform you with the help of this community and others. Let us pray. Pour out your Holy Spirit upon us, O God, that we may be made uneasy within the comfort of our lives and that we might be emboldened like Peter, to proclaim you as Messiah of our lives and our world. Help us to not be conformed to this world, but to be transformed that we may discern and fulfill your will. Amen.

10th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 15A

10th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 15A August 17, 2014 It’s so good to be back with you! I had a wonderfully refreshing sabbatical, these past 8 weeks. I really enjoyed the gift of time to be with my family in a very intentional way (that I have never experienced before), and I return to you refreshed and energized and hopeful about our life together. While on sabbatical, one of the things that I did was to disconnect from a lot of what has been going on in the world. I didn’t really watch the news and only checked on social media occasionally. I’ve really enjoyed catching up with those of you I have seen and learning what’s been going on in your lives these past two months. But is has been a bit of a shock to my system this past week, in getting reconnected with the world around me—mainly through media and social media. As I’m sure you all know the internet has been abuzz this week with the news of Robin Williams’ suicide. His death was shocking and so deeply tragic. It seems that everyone has something to say (or write) about it. His poor daughter has been under attack, and others are adamant that this is the perfect time to raise awareness about mental illness and depression. Having been disconnected for a bit and then coming back into it all at this particular moment in time, I am struck by the stubbornness that colors much of the writings and postings about Williams’ death. Each person with a position is so very sure he or she is right, and then someone else comes along to argue. I was somewhat dismayed to discover some of this stubbornness in the gospel reading for today. Jesus encounters a Canaanite woman, and she starts shouting at him to heal her daughter. Jesus doesn’t answer her (it reminds me of what I do when my children are asking me for something I don’t want to do—I try to act like I don’t hear them and maybe they’ll get tired and go do something else). But she just keeps yelling at Jesus and his disciples until finally Jesus has a conversation with her. Both of them seem to be stubbornly dug in to their positions—Jesus isn’t going to heal her daughter and she isn’t going away before she gets what she knows he can give --until suddenly something shifts. And Jesus recognizes the woman’s great faith and gives her what she demands—healing for her daughter. We see stubbornness at work in the other readings for today as well. Joseph stubbornly forgives his brothers after they have sold him into slavery in Egypt, and he is able to step back from his own individual circumstances and suffering and to recognize God’s fulfillment of salvation for God’s people—“what you meant for evil God meant for good”. And then Paul gives us a glimpse of the stubbornness of God when he writes, “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” God’s people will always be God’s people, no matter what. And it’s comforting and hopeful to say and believe that God is going to redeem it all—our stubbornness, the suffering, the brokenness, the mean-spirited comments, those whom we have loved and lost to mental illness, depression, suicide. But what are we supposed to do in the meantime? What does it mean to have faith like the Canaanite woman? Faith like Joseph? Faith like Paul? What does that actually look like in our lives and in our world? I want to share with you two different things that I read this week that have spoken to me about stubbornness and about faith and about the long arc of salvation—where I have found the good news to be this week in the midst of tumultuous public conversation and a challenging gospel story. First, from SSJE-Brother, give us a word. Faith by Brother Mark Brown. “God’s vision of the new heaven and new earth actually needs the engine of our discontent, our dissatisfaction. We tend to see the individual brush strokes rather than the sweep of the whole canvas. But the eyes of faith begin to see the long arc. The eyes of faith even begin to understand how not only vague discontent but even suffering and anguish are part of this larger process.” This is what Joseph is doing in the Genesis reading for today when he is able to offer generously to his brothers both forgiveness and their place in long of arc of God’s redemption of us all. Second, a blog post by author and sociologist Brene' Brown posted this week. “Choose Courage”. "When confronted with news of a stranger’s unimaginable pain – a suicide, an overdose, a protest for justice and basic dignity – we have two choices: We can choose to respond from fear or we can choose courage. We can choose to believe that we are somehow insulated from the realities of these traumas and that our willpower or our strength of character makes us better than these displays of desperation and woundedness. When we seek shelter in the better than – safer than – different than thinking, we are actually choosing fear and that requires us to self-protect and arm ourselves with judgment and self-righteousness. Our only other option is to choose courage. Rather than deny our vulnerability, we lean into both the beauty and agony of our shared humanity. Choosing courage does not mean that we’re unafraid, it means that we are brave enough to love despite the fear and uncertainty…. The courageous choice also does not mean abandoning accountability – it simply means holding ourselves accountable first. If we are people of faith, we hold ourselves accountable for living that faith by practicing grace and bringing healing. If we consider ourselves to be smart and curious, it means seeking greater understanding. If we consider ourselves to be loving, it means acting with compassion. It’s difficult to respond to the tragedies of strangers – even those we think we know – because we will never have access to the whole truth. In the absence of information, we make up stories, stories that often turn out to be our own biographies, not theirs. Our choices have consequences: They make the world a more dangerous place or they cultivate peace. Fear and judgment deepen our collective wounds. That rare mix of courage and compassion is the balm that brings global healing. We have two choices. Let’s choose courage. Let’s choose to love despite the fear.”i In this world of individual opinions and judgments run rampant in the public, one of the most faithful things that we can do is to examine our own stubbornness when it comes to judging others. When we find ourselves slipping into thinking that we are better than, safer than, different than, someone else and thus arming ourselves with self-righteousness and judgment, we are invited to take a step back and do some self-examination. We can ask ourselves: What is it that makes me afraid in this situation? What are the assumptions that I am making about this person, this group that may be colored by my own story, my own prejudices? What might it be like for me to be vulnerable to this other person’s suffering and brokenness? How am I called to be true to my faith in this relationship? How might I practice grace and bring healing? How might I see greater understanding? How might I practice compassion? How might God be calling me to participate in God’s saving work by choosing courage? i. http://brenebrown.com/2014/08/14/choose-courage/

The Day of Pentecost-Year A

The Day of Pentecost Year A June 8, 2014 A letter to Dominick Cabral upon the occasion of his baptism. Dear Dominick, Today is a wonderful day to be baptized! It is the Day of Pentecost, the day that we celebrate God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to all believers and through that gift, the birth of the church. In baptism, it is said that you are remembering who you already are. And on this day of Pentecost, the church shifts our awareness to remember who we already are, remembering what we proclaim and the source of that proclamation. In baptism, you are remembering that God has already created you good. God has claimed you as God’s beloved and marked you belonging to God through Jesus Christ forever. In baptism, you are saying “yes” to the truth that God has already claimed you. You are accepting this grace which cannot be earned but only given by God; grace which must be accepted by you in order to fully be received. In baptism, you are promising to follow the way of Jesus Christ, follow the way of hope, reconciliation, forgiveness, healing; and the way of death to self and resurrection to new life in Jesus Christ. In baptism, you are becoming a part of the body of Christ that is the church—both this particular church and the universal Christian church. You are accepting your own unique ministry among us, and you promise to join with us in proclaiming the good news of Jesus in your words, in your actions, in your very life. On this day in the life of the church, together we remember our story. We remember how God creates all things and all people good, but how we turn away from God to follow our own faithless hearts and desires. We remember how God calls us again and again to return to God, to put our trust in God, to have relationship with God and to once again be God’s people. And when that doesn’t work, God sends Jesus to walk beside us, with us, as one of us; to lead us along the way of being fully human and in perfect relationship with God. But we still don’t like that. We don’t like giving up our own way, and so we put him to death on the cross thinking that would be the end of him. We desert him, we who were his closest friends and followers, and we despair at what we have done. But God shows us! Because on the third day, Jesus rises from the grave and shows us that God’s love is stronger than our own wills; God’s love is stronger than our own faithless hearts; God’s love is stronger than sickness and pain and adversity; God’s love is stronger than anything, even death. And Jesus walks among us for a little longer, until he is taken up to heaven; but before he leaves, he promises that he will not leave us comfortless. He will send us the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate to continue to teach us and to keep us connected to God and to Jesus in a new way. And that is what we remember and celebrate today--Jesus’s gift and the fulfillment of his promise--that he does not leave us comfortless; we are not left alone again to our own devices. And so we, the church, remember today who we already are, what we proclaim, and the source of that proclamation. We proclaim the hope of the resurrection through our words and deeds and very presence. We proclaim God’s promise of comfort to the broken hearted, even when we, ourselves, are suffering with sighs to deep for words. We proclaim the continued presence of the risen Christ among his people and in our hearts and minds and bodies. We proclaim a home for all in Christ Jesus, a place where all are welcome and where all are already claimed as God’s beloved and marked as Christ own forever. We proclaim a ministry of proclaiming the gospel for all—even the littlest of children--every person a disciple—called to tell and to live the story of hope in a way that is authentic and unique to your own unique gifts and lives. We proclaim and remember this day that the Holy Spirit is even now already at work within us, helping us in our weakness, inspiring us to pray, allowing us to be known intimately by God. We proclaim and remember this day that we are all given a variety of gifts but they are all rooted in the same spirit of God. We proclaim and remember that none of us walks this way alone. We all need each other to be whole and complete and holy. And finally we proclaim and remember this day the truth of that first Pentecost: that the church is those who are “called out.” We are not content to sit within our beautiful four walls, focusing on our own inner lives and our own individual relationships with God. We do come here to find rest and peace, to get reconnected with the source of our hope, and we are fed and loved and nurtured and comforted and reminded that we are God’s beloved. And then we are filled to the brim with the Holy Spirit and sent out into the world to share the good news of God’s presence-- of comfort and hope, grace and home, belovedness and belonging-- to a needy and hungry world. Dominick, we welcome you into the family of God; we promise to walk this way with you; and we give thanks for your presence among us. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+

Easter 7A

7th Sunday after Easter-Year A June 1, 2014 We have been doing much waiting, much anticipating in the Lemburg household of late. Every day, we have been counting the number of days left in school. (Only one and half more, in case anyone needs help counting it). We have two June birthdays to which we are counting down, and we also are just about close enough that we can begin counting down the days to our summer trip to Hawaii. For me, I have always enjoyed the anticipation of the event, the preparation, the expectation that comes along with the waiting. So I am struck today by the waiting that takes place in the Acts story for today. We find ourselves in this weird sort of in between time liturgically, where Jesus has ascended to heaven (which we celebrated this past Thursday) and the church (and the disciples) are left waiting. We have been promised by Jesus that he will send his gift of the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us after he has gone. And we look forward to this. We will celebrate it at Pentecost next Sunday with red balloons and birthday cake and a baptism. We wait with expectation of what is to come. “So when they had come together, [the disciples] asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ [Jesus] replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…’” Even after all that has happened, the disciples are still waiting for their certain expectations to be fulfilled. They are counting down the days until Jesus will restore the kingdom to Israel. But Jesus blows those expectations wide open, just before he is physically taken up to heaven. And all of a sudden, the disciples are left there, looking up to heaven with their mouths hanging open. They are left there waiting without their expectations. So the question for us this morning, the invitation for us is—what is it like to wait without expectation? What is it like to wait without the countdown to something bigger and better? What is it like to wait without watching the clock? What is it like to wait without expectation? Because this is the kind of waiting we are called to in these final days of the Easter season and beyond? I’ve just begun reading a book called Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by a man named Parker Palmer. Palmer is a Quaker, and in this book, he writes about how we are all called in vocation—how vocation is not a goal that each of us pursues but rather the voice that calls us in and through our life. Vocation is our life telling each of us who we are. At the beginning of this lovely little book, Palmer quotes a poem by William Stafford titled “Ask Me” which begins to hint at what it means to wait without expectation. Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what you say. You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and going from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say. In some ways, waiting without expectation is like a frozen river: “We know/the current is there, hidden; and there/are comings and going from miles away/that hold the stillness exactly before us.” But how on earth do we do this? How do we wait without counting down the days? How do we keep moving through life and time (which we are all bound to do, no matter how much we might want to stop it) while holding the stillness exactly before us? The disciples’ response to this waiting without expectation is to stay together and to constantly devote themselves to prayer. Palmer’s response to this is that we must listen to our life; that we have deep within us, the truth of who we already are that has been covered up by the goals that we think we need to pursue and the ways that we try to fit in. I think we are called to do both (because really, they are both forms of prayer-of knowing God and knowing ourselves.) How might we do this? Palmer writes about this lyrically and with humor: “How we are to listen to our lives is a question worth exploring. In our culture, we tend to gather information in ways that do not work very well when the source is the human soul: the soul is not responsive to subpoenas or cross-examinations. At best it will stand in the dock only long enough to plead the Fifth Amendment. At worst it will jump bail and never be heard from again. The soul speaks its truth only under quiet, inviting, and trustworthy conditions. The soul is like a wild animal-tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek. That is why the poem at the head of this chapter [that I just shared with you] ends in silence…” We break bread together. And we spend time alone in silence and in prayer. This summer, I hope to spend time with Palmer’s lovely little book and to spend time in silence, listening to how my life speaks. I hope you will join me in doing this in your own life, and when we meet again in August, we will have much to share with each other. Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what you say. You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and going from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say.

Easter 4A sermon

Easter 4A May 11, 2014 I LOVE YOU LITTLE. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.” I was starting to get bogged down in the gospel reading for today, lost in Jesus’s mixed metaphors of shepherds, sheep, gatekeepers, and gates. My attention had been captured by the last line of our gospel, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” I was trying to focus on what abundant life really is? And I was contemplating the following line written by the Lutheran pastor David Lose, “In contrast to all that would rob us of life-the thieves and the bandits he mentions-Jesus comes to give, not just life, but life in abundance. Not just survival, that is, but flourishing; not just getting by, but thriving, not just existence, but joy.” I was thinking about how this abundant life that Jesus brings flows out of being cherished by, being known by God, and how it flows out of the work that we do of cherishing and knowing others. And then I happened to pick up the Christian Century, and I read a story that I think gets to the heart of abundant life. It’s written by Mark Ralls who is a Methodist minister. “ ‘I LOVE YOU LITTLE. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.’ During my visit to the nursing home that afternoon, I must have heard this sweet, odd rhyme more than a hundred times. I was sitting in the atrium, talking to a distinguished older man I had come to visit. He was a church member, and I enjoyed visiting him. But that particular day we were not sitting there alone. Near us sat a woman, another resident, wearing a nondescript pastel blouse and a broad, broad smile. Though the woman sat close enough to touch, she expressed no interest in us or in our conversation. She just stared out the window and said those childlike words: ‘I love you little. I love you big.’ She repeated them again and again and again. ‘I love you like a little pig.’ I tried my best to focus on the man I had come to see. But throughout my conversation with him, I caught myself wondering about our neighbor and her whimsical rhyme. Did she ever say anything else? Of all the words to remember, why these? As I was leaving the nursing home, my curiosity got the better of me. I searched for a nurse and, feeling a little sheepish about interrupting her work, approached her. ‘Could I ask you an odd question?’ I said. ‘The woman who sits in the atrium. She says this little rhyme over and over. Do you know why she does this?’ The nurse smiled and repeated the words with a dramatic flair: ‘I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig!’ She had obviously heard the rhyme thousands of times—and she wasn’t the least bit tired of it. ‘That’s Thelma,’ she explained. ‘She taught first grade for more than 30 years. Her little rhyme was her own special way of greeting the children each morning. As she helped them remove their coats, she would whisper those words in every little ear. It was her way to let each child know she possessed a special place in her heart.’ Thelma’s mind was ravaged by dementia, but here was this single holdout from her memory. I marveled at this. Perhaps Thelma and her rhyme suggest a way to understand…[the love of God as lived out through Jesus—the shepherd for us the sheep.]” It is a kind of cherishing. And that is certainly at the heart of what Jesus is saying when he talks about being the good shepherd. He’s talking about how he is the one who knows us, who calls us by name, and who cherishes us, always, no matter what. This message takes on deeper meaning when we remember it in context in John’s gospel; our passage today is Jesus defense against those who criticize him for healing a man who was born blind on the Sabbath. It shows the lengths to which God will go in God’s cherishing of each of us. But it also serves as a reminder that when we follow Jesus, then we are called to not only receive this cherishing from him. But we are also called to pay attention to the times when others offer us that same type of knowing, of cherishing, and we are called to offer that to others. It is my deep hope that you have known and experienced this knowing, this cherishing by God and by another before. Whether it is through the love of a parent, a lover, or a child; a grandparent, a grandchild, or a grand-friend; whether it is a sibling, a best friend, or a soul mate…I suspect you each have truly been known and cherished by at least one other person in this world. Once we have known that kind of knowing, or cherishing, then we are called to do that for others. “Thelma gave this kind of love to her students. That is, she gave them a sustained cherishing, not mere mindless repetition. This is why she greeted every student with a hug and a rhyme—and it’s why, even now, she can’t seem to stop greeting them. ‘I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.’ ‘Does she always do that?’ I asked the nurse. ‘Oh, no!’ she replied. ‘Only when she is very happy.’ The nurse paused. ‘But then again, Thelma has had a good life, and she’s happy most of the time.’” “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” This sense of abundant life is captured in the StoryPeople story by Brian Andreas titled Whole World. I’ll share it with you in closing: “Moms come in all shapes and sizes, but they’re pretty easy to recognize because they’re the ones who teach you stuff all the time about how to be in the world and sometimes that sounds a lot like: chew with you mouth closed sit still. Stand up straight be polite. Look them in the eye. And Sometimes it seems like that sort of thing doesn’t add up to a whole lot. Until the day you feel the soft ache of love in your heart that makes you take care with a friend who hurts or when you look in a stranger’s tired eyes and you stop and smile. Or when you listen to the ABC song for the thousandth time and you laugh and say again and suddenly you understand that is the real thing moms do and it adds up to the whole world.” I LOVE YOU LITTLE. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.” “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Easter 3A

Easter 3A May 4, 2014 It is a season of hope, this great 50 days of Easter Season. It is a season of hope in our diocese of Mississippi, this week that has led up to the election of the 10th bishop of Mississippi. The hope and the energy and the excitement have been palpable—both in my conversations with you, in our gathering here on Wednesday night, and as our diocese gathered together in a re-convened Council to elect our new bishop. Yesterday, we elected the Very Reverend Brian Seage to be our 10th Bishop of Mississippi. And people there and all across the diocese are excited, hope-filled, and hopeful. And yet, in the middle of this season of hope, my imagination is captured by 4 little words in this gospel story for today, one of my favorite gospel stories. The two men are on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaeus when they encounter the risen Christ, but they do not recognize him. They tell him of all that has happened, and then they say these four little words that echo deeply within our own souls: “But we had hoped…” It is the cry of frustrated expectation, of disappointment, of heartbreak, of failure. “But we had hoped…: It is said that Ernest Hemmingway was once challenged to write a short story in 6 words. He replied by taking out a pen and writing on a napkin: “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” “It’s not just the tragedy of what happened that hurts, but the gaping hole of all that could have happened but won’t.”(David Lose on Workingpreacher.org) And we know something about this, don’t we? But we had hoped….that the cancer wouldn’t return. But we had hoped that the addiction would be overcome. But we had hoped that the beloved wouldn’t die, the friend wouldn’t betray, the child wouldn’t walk away, the perfect job would come along, the people wouldn’t disappoint us. So today, in the midst of this season of hope, we take a moment to grieve the future that will never be, to acknowledge the expectations that will never be met. We like the two men on the road to Emmaeus, walk together a ways on this day to bury our hope. And like them, we encounter the Risen Christ in the breaking of bread, in hospitality and welcoming the stranger. We encounter the Risen Christ in the Eucharist—he who is the embodiment and fulfillment of a hope that can never be lost or frustrated or even expected and anticipated. Like the two men on the road to Emmaus, we, too, discover, that in the Risen Christ is the true source of our hope that is never diminished, no matter what happens, as long as we gather together in his name. And we discover that a significant part of that hope exists in the fact that we always have companions on the way. So on this day, let us grieve the loss of our hope, even as we feed on the love of God and drink from the spring of his hope. And may we go out into this world as ambassadors of this hope—proclaiming to others that even though their hope may be lost, and they may grieve a future that will never be, God has created and prepared a future for them that is beyond any they can ask for or imagine. That is an Easter message. That is what it means to be a resurrection people. Thanks be to God. Alleluia. Alleluia.