Blue Christmas 2019

Blue Christmas 2019 The Feast of St. Thomas December 21, 2019 One of my friends shared a lovely story on social media this past week about the German writer Franz Kafka. “When he was 40, the renowned Bohemian novelist and short story writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, was strolling through Steglitz Park in Berlin, when he chanced upon a young girl crying her eyes out because she had lost her favorite doll. She and Kafka looked for the doll without success. Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would look again. The next day, when they still had not found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter "written" by the doll that said, ‘Please do not cry. I have gone on a trip to see the world. I'm going to write to you about my adventures.’ Thus began a story that continued to the end of Kafka’s life. When they would meet, Kafka read aloud his carefully composed letters of adventures and conversations about the beloved doll, which the girl found enchanting. Finally, Kafka read her a letter of the story that brought the doll back to Berlin, and he then gave her a doll he had purchased. ‘This does not look like my doll at all,’ she said. Kafka handed her another letter that explained, ‘My trips, they have changed me.’ The girl hugged the new doll and took it home with her. A year later, Kafka died. Many years later, the now grown-up girl found a letter tucked into an unnoticed crevice in the doll. The tiny letter, signed by Kafka, said, ‘Everything you love is very likely to be lost, but in the end, love will return in a different way.’ It may seem strange to combine this Blue Christmas service with the Feast Day of St. Thomas, which is today and from which our readings come, but that story about Kafka, I think, gets to the heart of both. In the gospel reading, we see Thomas, who was away when the rest of the disciples had a visit from the resurrected Jesus. They all were huddled together in a locked room, afraid and grief-striken. We don’t know what Thomas was doing to not be there, but the very fact that he wasn’t there suggests that he wasn’t so afraid to be out and about. Perhaps he was doing what many of us have done in times of grief—he was trying to keep calm and carry on. Like Kafka’s doll, both Jesus and Thomas have been changed by Jesus’s death, by the love and the loss that came with that. But fearless Thomas is not afraid to ask Jesus for what he needs to be on the same page with the other disciples as a full participant in the astonishing event that is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. On this night, may we be like Thomas, not afraid to ask God for what we need—to live our lives faithfully, to fully participate in the astonishing event that is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead—the ultimate result of what it means for us in the birth of Emmanuel: God with us. May we who have tasted heartbreak remember the truth of Jesus’s nativity which can never escape the shadow of the cross: ‘Everything you love is very likely to be lost, but in the end, love will return in a different way.’

Advent 3A_2019

Advent 3A_2019 December 15, 2019 “Advent is a season of waiting,” she said to me. “What are you waiting for?” What are you waiting for? Anyone else, I would have just made something up, maybe even made a joke about it, but since she was my spiritual director, I told her the truth. Sadly I responded, “I’ve been too busy to wait. But I’m hopeful there is still time yet to wait, and I’ll be thinking about what I am waiting for.” What are you waiting for? We see John the Baptist in greatly reduced circumstances just in the course of a week. Last week, he was loose in the wilderness, preaching about repentance and calling the religious authorities who came out to see him a “brood of vipers.” Now, we see him imprisoned after having angered the wrong person, and he sends a single question back to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Many other commentators have read John’s question as one of uncertainty and doubt, but this year, it struck me that maybe there is another interpretation. What if John’s question comes, not from a place of anxiety but a place of curiosity? What if John’s question reflects that he is comfortable waiting for as long as it takes because he trusts that the Kingdom of God will be brought to fulfillment; he knows that his job, his only job at this point, is to wait and see? What would it look like for us if we trusted whole-heartedly that the Kingdom of God would be fulfilled, not through any work of our own but through the grace of the Holy Spirit and through the person of Jesus Christ? How would our waiting be different? Would it change what we are waiting for? I had a conversation with a friend of mine the other night. She was telling me about a season of discernment that she finds herself in pertaining to her work and her family needs. “What are you waiting for?” I asked her. And she responded that she did not know. I then told her about one of my touchstones of discernment, a print my mom had gotten me years ago on a trip out west. It’s a drawing and poem by an artist named Brian Andreas, and the title is “Waiting for signs.” “I used to wait for a sign, she said, before I did anything. Then one night I had a dream & an angel in black tights came to me & said, you can start any time now, & then I asked is this a sign? & the angel started laughing & I woke up. Now, I think the whole world is filled with signs, but if there’s no laughter, I know they’re not for me....” I’m going to invite us to sit in silence for a bit today. During that time, if you feel anxious or agitated, I invite you to pay attention to your breath, and to ponder: What are you waiting for? Where is the laughter in your life in this season of expectation and waiting?

Funeral Homily_Rita Lewis

Rita Lewis funeral homily December 9, 2019 Rita Lewis was a force to be reckoned with. She was a devoted daughter, sister, wife, mother, and grandmother, and she loved fiercely. She was someone who you would want on your side, because she was tenacious. Her sister Liz called her “the little bulldog” because she would not rest until things were taken care of. And in Rita’s petite 5 foot 1 inch frame dwelled the heart of a lion. She was courageous, undaunted by life’s circumstances. When her husband died, Rita was only 49 years old, and her children were college age. Wes and Brooke remember that time as being remarkable because their mother didn’t just keep things going; she helped them thrive in a very difficult time in all their lives. Rita also survived a kidney transplant here in recent years, and she not only recovered from that but was very intentional in how she took care of herself, so that she also thrived after that challenge. Rita had a diverse career. (She liked to remind her family that she was voted best all-around in her high school.) She was a music teacher, a “real estate agent in 3 states,” and a small business owner, having owned Lauren’s Hallmark Shop here in Savannah for many years. One of my favorite stories about Rita is of the time when she was at the shop, and she discovered a man stealing. When he ran out into the mall with the stolen item, Rita chased him all the way onto the CAT bus where she retrieved the item and returned it to the store. Rita was also incredibly thoughtful, empathetic, and kind. When her brother in law, Rusty, was activated in Desert Storm, Rita sent him a box of blank holiday cards for him and his colleagues so they could send them home to their wives and families for holidays. I knew Rita best through her work on the pastoral care team here at the church. We most often communicate via email, and just before Thanksgiving, Rita emailed the group to let us know that she had sent Thanksgiving cards to many of our church members on the prayer list. Rita was deeply faithful. She and Bud had a strong marriage that has served as an example for their children and given them something to aspire to. She was a long-time member of a regular bible study, and a long-time member of this church; and she believed firmly in the power of prayer. She would pray for people, and then she would follow up and ask for updates on them, so she could continue to pray for them in ways that they needed. Rita’s death was sudden and shocking, and such a large presence in the lives of those of us who loved her will be deeply missed. She died doing what she loved: Christmas shopping for people that she loved. And we hold fast to our faith that in her death, Rita was lifted up in the arms of Jesus, who was her “friend and not a stranger,” and that he has taken her to his heavenly dwelling place, where he has prepared a place for her. And so we grieve her loss here in this life with us, but we do not sorrow as those without hope. We gather today to remember the hope of our faith: that death is not the end, but a change; that through Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, God has proven once and for all that God’s love is stronger than absolutely anything-even death. We’ll see Rita again, and together we will all feast again at God’s table and dance together in God’s heavenly kingdom. We give thanks for Rita: for her courage and for her kindness. And we’ll all live a little bit more kindly and a little bit more bravely for having known her.

Advent 2A_2019

Advent 2A_2019 December 8, 2019 In a sermon I gave several months ago, I shared a story with y’all about a plant someone had given me—a bromeliad, to be exact. Do y’all remember this? It came in this little glass container, and I watered it sporadically until one day, I picked it up to water it, and to my horror, the whole top of the plant came off in my hand! (I am accustomed to killing plants, although since coming here, I’ve managed to “turn over a new leaf,.” But this was a new low, even for me!) After church and my show and tell during the sermon with my poor bromeliad, our resident plant doctor, Selina, offered to take it to her plant hospital and to try to coax it back to life. Several weeks later, she broke the news to me gently—the bromeliad was beyond any saving. Her diagnosis was that the container it had been planted in had actually killed it. It was too small, too contained, without enough air or drainage. She kindly brought me a new plant that requires very little attention or water to keep it alive and some specific handwritten instructions to assist me. Time passed, and one day Selina found me after church and said, “You’re not going to believe this! I dumped the dirt out of your old bromeliad into my yard, and now, there’s a bromeliad growing there! I’ve put it in a pot and will bring it to you next week!” The reading from Isaiah for today begins with the words, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,/ and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” The passage goes on to talk about the peaceable kingdom that will be ushered in by God through this new kind of king. It’s all about Israel’s future hope: what it means to hope even when the future seems uncertain. And it is all about the connections between justice and peace. Because at this point in Israel’s history, things are really bad. The once united kingdom has been divided into two; the king of the southern kingdom has sold out the northern kingdom to their mutual enemies, and the northern kingdom has fallen. The people in the southern kingdom, including Isaiah, know that it’s only a matter of time until they, too, are conqured. So they long for a new kind of king who will hold justice and peace together, a king who will be God’s agent in ushering in the peaceable kingdom where enemies, predators and prey will all lie down together and be at peace. For Isaiah, he is looking at something that seems dead or dying, and he is hoping that new life will yet spring up from it. This is not an unfounded hope. It is, in fact, the hope of our calling as Christians. It can be true for society, and it can be true for own lives as well. As another writer puts it, “According to Isaiah, the transformation from a culture of fear to a world at peace begins with a stump. Out of something that appears finished, lifeless, left-behind, comes the sign of new life—a green sprig. This is how hope gets its start-it emerges as a tiny tendril in an unexpected place.”i Much like my now resurrected bromeliad-which went from being a pile of dirt in Selina’s yard to a newly re-potted plant in my office (where plants go to die!). I became curious about this bromeliad resurrection, so I’ve been doing some research. Apparently, there is a saying in the northern counties of England where something is described as being “wick.” This basically means that it is alive or lively. In the classic book The Secret Garden, Dickon teaches Mary how to determine if something is “wick”—meaning that it looks to be dead on the outside, but then when you prune it or cut deeper, you can see that there is still life and growth there. (There’s even a whole song about this in the musical version of The Secret Garden). “Bear fruit worthy of repentance” John the Baptist tells his listeners. What if, for us, that involved reflection during Advent about what containers our lives may have outgrown that may be slowly killing us? What if it meant a closer examination of the stumps of our lives—those places that appear to be dead—to look for possible signs of new life there? What if it meant examining our old, dead dreams and seeing them in the light of God’s hope, looking for ways that God may be resurrecting them, recreating them, to help us become agents of God’s peace and justice in this world that desperately needs signs of hope and new life? What if it means looking for signs that something is wick when it appears to be lifeless, dead, useless? Your invitation this week is to look for shoots that grow out of stumps, things that you once thought were dead which may exhibit signs of life. iFrom Feasting of the Word for the Isaiah passage for this week. I don’t have the book with me to cite author and page. Sorry!

Last Sun after Pentecost-Christ the King Proper 29C

Last Sunday after Pentecost/Christ the King-Proper 29C November 24, 2019 Today is the last Sunday after Pentecost, the last Sunday in our season of ordinary time, and the last Sunday of the church year. In our church, this Sunday is designed to lift up the theme of Christ as King or the Reign of Christ, and then we move next Sunday into a whole new church year and into the season of Advent with its themes of waiting and hope, of expectation and longing. So what does it mean to say that Christ is King on this day? Our readings give us three depictions of kingship that are startling in their differences. For Jeremiah, a true king is one who is responsible for the people and should not allow them to be scattered through ruin and disaster. True kingship is the promise of one who will not only gather up those who are scattered but he will also fulfill the kingly task of bringing all people together and being present with all people. In the hymn to Christ, the writer of Colossians gives us a poetic smattering of images of Christ’s kingship: his glorious power, his inheritance of light, the image of the invisible God, first born of all creation; “he is before all things and in him all things hold together;” in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him God reconciled all things to God. It is a high and lofty expression of what it means to see Christ as King as compared to the humble shepherd depicted in Jeremiah, except that both images of king involve bringing people together in and through God. Then suddenly we find ourselves right in the middle of Jesus’s crucifixion from Luke’s gospel, and we see Jesus being mocked by his tormentors and ridiculed in his kingship. We witness his humiliation, and his sublime power as he forgives again and again and again. From the cross he forgives those who crucified him; those who stood by and watched; those who betrayed him; those who mocked him; those who failed him. “Father forgive them [all] for they don’t know what they are doing.” And we see him honor the thief’s request and his confession of faith as he grants him a place in his kingdom. So how do these three different pictures of Christ’s kingship come together to inform us and help us in our relationship with God? My husband used to like to share a quote that I never knew where it came from. I recently learned that the original quote is from a Religious News Journalist named Cathleen Falsani. The quote is “Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. And grace is getting what you absolutely don't deserve. ...... benign good will. unprovoked compassion. the unearnable gift” (read it a 2nd time) The Franciscan priest Richard Rohr writes about this topic in his meditation for today, where he talked about the difference between our economy—capitalism, where everything we have is earned—and God’s economy, where nothing that we have is earned; everything that we have is, instead, a free gift from God.i Jesus Christ’s kingship is characterized by mercy, by forgiveness, by 2nd chances. It is in and through mercy that he gathers up all us wayward sheep and restores us together in and through God. As another writer put it, Jesus is the “king of second chances.” Think about something that you would like to have a second chance for. The mercy of Jesus, the kingship of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus means that there will always be room for a 2nd chance in the Kingdom of God. And it means that as citizens of that kingdom, we must also practice mercy and forgiveness. Think of someone you know who may not deserve your mercy, your forgiveness, and think about how, as a citizen of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of mercy and reconciliation, you might begin to offer it. Your invitation this week is two-fold. First, it is to be mindful that you dwell in the realm of Christ the King, where nothing is earned and all is freely given. Second, it is to look for opportunities to both ask for and offer second chances to those whom you find yourself cross-wise with. i. https://cac.org/the-gospel-economy-2019-11-24/

23rd Sun after Pentecost-Proper 28C

23rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28C November 17, 2019 Behold, I am doing a new thing, says the Lord God to Israel. Israel, who has been taken into captivity for generations in Babylon, is now being delivered back to their home land, the land promised to their father Abraham and his subsequent generations. They have faced heartbreak and what must have seemed like the end of the world, and God is assuring them that God is doing a new thing for them. Our readings for today are a reminder to us that it is always God who is doing the new thing, even when it is tempting to think that we are the ones doing the new thing. It is God who does the new thing, and God will do it, sometimes with or without us, but what our readings drive home for us today is that always, no matter what, our job is to show up and to try to be faithful. “Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right,” the writer of 2nd Thessalonians exhorts the discouraged community, the community who has expected Jesus’ return and who has been frustrated in that expectation. And who has seen strife in the community as a result of that. And Luke’s Jesus warns his disciples that it’s going to feel like the end of the world for them; they’re going to be persecuted; the temple will be destroyed. And still, they are supposed to show up and be faithful: “By your endurance you will gain your souls” he tells them. I have found in my own life of faith that it is so much easier to show up and continue to be faithful when God’s new creation is clear and evident—like it seems now for us here at St. Thomas. Our pledges are up; we’ve got great energy, are connecting new people to the good news of Jesus Christ through this community, and we are doing interesting, creative ministry together. Life is good here and it is easy for me to see God’s new creation at work in and among us. But there have been times in my life of faith when it has felt like the end of the world, when just showing up and being faithful seems to be more than I have left in me to give. And those are the times when it is most important, to continue to be faithful to the tradition that we have received from the apostles, to join together in prayer and in worship, breaking bread together—showing up and being faithful. Because often, in those darkest times, in our fear and our discouragement and in our heartbreak, it is through our showing up and being faithful that God reveals to us the new thing that God is already at work and doing in our lives, in our churches, in our diocese, in the world. I am just back from the 198th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia where, among other things, we elected Frank Logue as the 11th bishop of Georgia on the first ballot. Truly God is doing a new thing in the diocese of Georgia as Scott Benhase’s episcopate moves toward an end and Frank’s is beginning. But it is important for all of us to remember that it is God who is doing the new thing, not any of us-from the bishop on down to the people in the pews (and all of us in between). And it is also important to remember that we are called to show up and to be faithful, to not grow weary in doing what is right. I was especially reminded of this truth by the youth of our diocese who wrote prayers for our morning worship this morning. These prayers are all about what it means for each of us to be faithful, and I’ll share them with you in closing, even as I plan to pray them in the coming days. A Prayer in Thanksgiving for Bishop Scott A. Benhase, 10th Bishop of Georgia We thank you God for Bishop Benhase and the many wonderful ways he has served you through the Diocese of Georgia. Bless him as he gets ready for his retirement, with overwhelming joy and great love. May Bishop Benhase know that the impact he has had on the Diocese of Georgia will always be appreciated and honored. We ask that you bless Bishop Benhase with happiness and health for him and his family. May he continue to serve you and show your love through his actions, words, and way of life. Amen. A Prayer for Bishop-Elect Frank Logue, elected to become the 11th Bishop of Georgia Please help our Bishop-Elect, Frank Logue, as he embarks on this new journey that you have set for him. Help his wife, Victoria, and their daughter Griffin adjust to this change. Help him to continue to lead our diocese in your way. Keep Frank safe as he travels from church to church. Help keep him strong in his faith during this transition and keep him in your eye. Amen. A Prayer for the Diocese of Georgia in this Time of Transition Watch over our diocese as we adjust to our new bishop. We pray that our hearts may be open to his new way of leadership. May we not be hasty to criticize his new ways. May we show our Bishop support and offer our work and our guidance that there may be a smooth transition for him and for our whole Diocese. Amen. A Prayer for Our Communities during this Transition This time may be challenging for us and our communities, and so we pray for those communities, asking you to ensure a positive future for us all. We pray that this change does not get the better of us, and that our communities remain intact. We pray that our congregations will remain faithful and free from the sin of resentment. Above all, Lord, we pray that good will come out of this change and that our communities will be blessed with new ideas and ways to bring a positive difference in our world. Lord, we pray that we will all remain good stewards in your name. Amen.

The Sunday after All Saints' 2019

Sunday after All Saints’ Year C November 3, 2019 Years ago, I attended a Stewardship Summit where the speaker asked us a question. He asked us to think about the first memory that we each had about money. He gave us time to think about that, and then we talked about it in table discussions. Think about it for a second. What is the first memory you have about money? Then, after we talked about that, he asked us to think about how that first memory of money is connected to how we understand God? It’s a strange concept, right? What on earth does our first memory of money have to do with our understanding of God? My first memory of money is one that came easily to my mind that first time I heard this question. I was a young child, maybe 5 or 6? and I had started taking piano lessons, but my family did not have a piano. One day, I remember my paternal grandfather, who was a Methodist minister we called “Pop,” telling me that he was going to start saving the quarters from his pocket change every day to help me buy a piano. And not long after that, Pop took me on a little trip. He and I went to the Citizens’ Bank in Columbia, Mississippi, where he lived, and he opened a bank account with his collected quarters, with both of our names on the account. I was given this little blue bank book which he would write all the deposits in, until, one day, we had saved enough to buy me a piano. When I grew older, I never thought to ask my grandfather why he did that—helping me buy a piano and putting my name on the account with his, even though I didn’t contribute a single quarter (although I do remember finding quarters in their house and bringing them to him and telling him I’d found another for our bank account). But I suspect that for him, there were similar themes that we will hear when Bobby Minis speaks in a few moments: the ribbons of gratitude and generosity and love woven throughout. And what this story says about my understanding of God is that God’s love is so abundant and so overflowing that it is God’s very nature to need to give. And God gives joyfully, thankfully, and God invites us to be full partners in giving as well. We, who are created in the image and likeness of God, need to give. Nothing that we have is really ours, but God gives us a full and equal share—the inheritance of the saints (as the writer to the letter to the Ephesians calls it), and we are not truly fulfilled until we also, in turn, give. One of the things that I discovered that day at the stewardship summit was that I was not unique in having a story that involved a family member or loved one or fellow church member in my first memory of money. Everyone who shared around our table learned something from someone else about money and this informed their understanding of God. Today, we celebrate the feast of All Saints’, one of the 7 major feasts in the life of our church. It’s a time when we give thanks for all those who, (as one of our Wednesday service participants put it), “have held our hands along the way”. These are the folks who have lived lives of faithfulness, and whose faith has shaped ours, even if we have not personally known them. And even though they have passed beyond the veil of this life, they are still with us, and we are all connected and united together in the body of Christ, invited by God to be full participants in that life, even though we have earned none of it. The inheritance of the saints includes them and it includes us, even now. This week, I invite you to ponder a number of things. Think about your first memory of money and what that says about your understanding of God. Think about what saints in your life had a hand in teaching you those things. What have the saints in your life taught you about God? About gratitude? About generosity? And then, as we all prepare for our Consecration Sunday commitment next Sunday, where we will gather in worship and turn in our commitment cards for the year and then break bread together at God’s altar and at table for lunch together, think about how you have been created by God to give, and how it is a practice of faithful discipleship of Jesus for us to be intentional in our giving, paying attention to what percentage of our income we give and giving to God through the church of the first fruits of our life and not merely what is left over. In just a minute, you will each be invited forward to light a candle. That candle can represent the one who first taught you about money, about God. It can represent other saints who have held your hand along the way. As you light the candle, think of at least one saint for whom you are grateful, whose life has shown a light in your life and faith, and know, as you light the candle, that you participate in the inheritance of the saints, even now, as your life shines for the light of God’s abundant generosity.