16th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21C

16th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21C September 25, 2022 There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and who feasted sumptuously everyday. His wealth and his power insulated him from the world around him; his sin was self-absorption. He was so blinded by his own wealth and luxury that he couldn’t even see the need of a hungry man at his front door, and it created a great chasm between him and God, between him and others. Even in death, when offered the opportunity to change, to cross some of the great chasm he had created by his own self-absorption, he couldn’t imagine that his money and power couldn’t buy him what he wanted. There was a busy woman who valued her time above everything else. While her busy-ness and her time management gave her a sense of control over the chaos, her obsession with her to-do lists and her calendar created a great chasm between herself and others. Her sin was self-absorption. She valued getting things done over relationships, and a great chasm was created between her and God, between her and others. She missed out on spontaneous moments of delight, of tasting the richness of unplanned joy; she was so busy planning that she couldn’t participate in the Kingdom of God as it unfolded around her. There was a successful man who had done very well in life. He always made top grades in school; he worked hard and he tried to make everything he did look effortless. It was very important to him that people admire him and think well of him. His sin was self-absorption. He cared too much about how people thought about him, and a great chasm was created between him and God, between him and others. Because he was always trying to make a good impression, he never could be fully himself in his relationships and many times, he felt lonely, lost, empty, even in a room full of people. There was a charismatic woman who seemed to have it all together, life well in hand. She made friends easily, and she was beautiful. Her sin was self-absorption. She was much too concerned about doing something wrong, about past decisions, which she would second-guess, and because she would beat herself up when things didn’t go how she wanted, a great chasm was opened between her and God, between her and others. She would often find herself frozen, paralyzed, thinking it was better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing and regret it. There was a caring man who spent much time and energy taking care of others. Every day, he poured out so much energy tending to the needs of those in the world around him, and everyone appreciated him for it. His sin was self-absorption. His caring slowly transformed into a secret resentment that no one cared for him as well as he cared for others, and so a great chasm opened up between him and God, between him and others. Even as he continued to go through the motions of caring for those around him, he found his heart was hardened, and he was so very bitter deep down inside. There was a self-sufficient woman, who was smart and capable and who lived a full life. She was fiercely independent and didn’t really need anyone to be complete. Her sin was self-absorption. She wouldn’t let anyone get too close; she wouldn’t risk getting her heart broken, and so a great chasm opened up between her and God, between her and others. Each and every one of us is one of these children of God, on the other side of a chasm made by our own flavor of self-absorption. Jesus, who loves us, has already built a bridge across the chasm, and he invites each one of us to step out of our self-absorption, to see things a little differently, and to take one tiny step toward God and others on that bridge across that chasm. Are you ready?

15th Sunday after Pentecost-Year C

15th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 20C September 18, 2022 A letter to Matthew Cousins Ochsner, Jr upon the occasion of your baptism. Dear Cousins, Today is a big day in your young life! It is the day that your parents and godparents accept, on your behalf, that you are already God’s beloved child, a child of the light, and they make promises, on your behalf about how you will live and about how they will raise you. Today, this congregation will make a promise to you that we will support you in your life in Christ. We promise to nurture you, to walk with you, to teach you and to learn from you as we walk this way of faith together, worshipping God, breaking bread together, and being transformed together. Our gospel reading for today is not one I would have chosen for a baptism. It is one of Jesus’s more difficult, dare I even say, unsavory? parables. It is known as the parable of the dishonest manager, although I’ve also heard a modern-day commentator refer to it as the parable of the dishonest CFO. But as unsavory as it is, it’s important to notice that in this chapter of Luke, Jesus turns from teaching the large crowds who have been following him toward specific teaching for his disciples. So, what might Jesus be offering to us, his disciples, his baptized followers, those who have said yes to God’s claim on us as God’s beloved, in this unsavory parable? I think as children of light, we need to share in the dishonest manager’s realization that relationships are the most important thing and that through our relationships, we have untold amounts of resources that are available to us. This is a gift that you have already tasted, Cousins, in the life of your family, and now you will know it in all the relationships available to you through the life of this church and the larger body of Christ as well. In fact, as children of the light, we all are called to live our lives grounded in the awareness that the vision of the Kingdom of God is rooted in love and relationships, and we are called to understand and practice that the deepest treasure of both love and relationships is forgiveness. It's why we gather here, week after week. To help each other remember that we are the people of God, and to help us each remember what we are called to do as children of the light. The other gift that this strange parable offers us is a reminder of the importance of gratitude in our lives and in our relationships. Gratitude helps us focus our hearts and our attentions on the good things, the treasures in our lives, when we are often tempted to focus on our shortcomings or what we lack. Years ago, when my children were small, we started a daily gratitude practice that we called “three things”. Each night at bedtime, we would name out loud to each other three things that we were grateful for from that day. It became such an important part of our family bedtime ritual that my children would insist on it every night (even on those nights when I was not feeling particularly grateful). So in closing, sweet Cousins, let me offer three things for which I am grateful on this particular day. First, I am grateful that I get to be in ministry alongside three whole generations of your family in this place. What a gift that is! Second, I am grateful for all the ways that this special community of faith helps strengthen my relationship with God and with my fellow children of light. I’m grateful for the ways that we nurture and care for each other in difficult times, and I’m grateful for the ways that we celebrate and play together. Third, I am grateful for the reminder that your baptism serves for all of us, the way that we are able to recommit to our own baptismal vows, and for the way that we will all gather today to fed from God’s table. I look forward to walking with you in your life of faith, Cousins, in seeing the relationships you develop in this place, and in learning from you about what it means to be children of the light together. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 18C

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 18C September 4, 2022 When I worked at Stewpot Community Services, the non-profit soup kitchen in Jackson, Mississippi, in the years before I went to seminary, I had a co-worker named The Rev Donnell Flowers. Rev Flowers was a fire and brimstone Baptist preacher. He walked with a limp, spoke directly but kindly, and some of his language would make most preachers blush. Rev Flowers was the director of the Men’s homeless shelter at Stewpot, and some days, he would give the talk that opened our noon meal, the center point of our day at Stewpot. Our passage from Deuteronomy for today was one of his favorites—Moses’s farewell speech as he and the children of Israel stand at the edge of the promised land. Moses has led them this far but he isn’t allowed by God to go on with them, and so Moses is giving them one last message from God before he goes off on his own to die. Rev Flowers would quote it by memory; the words were inscribed on his heart as if there were his own: "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." The congregation for that noon meal for Rev Flowers was often mixed. It was made up of people who lived on the streets of Jackson, people who battled addiction and alcoholism. It was made up of senior citizens who didn’t have enough money from their social security checks to pay for all their necessary expenses, so they’d eat the free noon meal daily to help those funds stretch. The congregation was made up of people who were looking for somewhere safe where they could spend time—where the free meal was an extra gift that came with someone to eat it with. The congregation was made up of the attorneys and business people from Downtown Jackson who came to volunteer their time to help serve the meal, and it was made up of the staff who worked every day to try to help soften the lives of our community members just a bit. Choose life,” Rev Flowers would tell us all. Every day when you walk out these doors, you will be faced with the choice between life and death, blessings and curses; choose life. It was easy for me to see this choice between life and death that lay before those battling addiction and poverty, the minute they walked out the door. But I also began to realize that Rev Flowers’ impassioned encouraging to choose life was just as urgent for all the rest of us, too. For us, as followers of Jesus, choosing the way of life means paying attention to the things that Jesus paid attention to; it means taking up our own cross and following him in ways we would never choose or imagine—offering mercy to those we think don’t deserve it; offering healing and help, charity and kindness to the poor and the suffering; being open to giving up our very selves, all the trappings of what we have used to build and create our lives in order to live and walk and follow this way of love. Choosing life also means not turning our faces away from suffering—both others’ and our own, not numbing ourselves with the things we use to numb ourselves, not hardening our hearts or shielding ourselves with all the things we do to shield ourselves. Choosing life means acknowledging the others gods who tempt us and call out to use to worship them instead of following the difficult way of discipleship that Jesus offers. Choosing life means holding fast to a God who lifts up the lowly and exalts the small and who casts down the mighty. Choosing life means living our lives according to God’s priorities and not our own. Choose life. In every minute, every encounter. In every hour and in every day, we have before us the choice between life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life.

12th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 17C

12th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 17C August 28, 2022 “Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots/And ruined your black-tie affair…” Whenever I hear the first line of Garth Brooks’ hit “I’ve got friends in low places,” I’m immediately transported to a summer in high school when I’d drive back and forth to basketball camp with a car-load of my teammates. Whoever was driving was obsessed with the song, and she would blast the song over and over again (which required rewinding the cassette tape to get back to the start every time). My teammates would belt the song our with gusto every time through; but I’ll confess that I never really understood the appeal; I actually thought it was a somewhat depressing song about humiliation set to a raucous chorus, but in the throes of the euphoria of teenaged freedom, I would often join in. Y’all know this song? It’s all about how the narrator shows up underdressed (and maybe uninvited?) to a fancy party that his ex is throwing; he recognizes that he comes from a different sort of social status as his ex, but he doesn’t let it bother him as he makes plans to blow off his humiliation and go party with his “friends in low places.” One music critic writes, "Friends in Low Places" was as effective as pop music ever gets: It's a depressing song that makes you feel better. Singing along with that song was like …laughing at a rich person and knowing that you were right ... Garth told stories about blue-collar people who felt good about what their bad life symbolized ...”i The genesis of the song is also interesting. One of the two songwriters was hosting a lunch at a restaurant, entertaining other songwriters, when he realized that he had left his money at home. He told his songwriting buddies, “Don’t worry. I have friends in low places. I know the cook." The songwriters realized what a good line it was and wrote the song from there.ii It’s interesting to me because it’s a song about how a person can take a humiliating experience and embrace it. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus is at a dinner party, and he tells a parable that is all about how a person can learn humility to avoid humiliating situations and also about how a humiliating situation can teach us about the unexpected ways that God shows up for us both when we are humiliated and when we embrace humility. On Wednesday at our weekly healing service, I asked the congregation to think about times when they had been humiliated and also asked them to think about ways that formed them toward humility. We re-discovered that a universally humiliating experience in our modern context is located in the games that we play as children at P.E. or recess; you know the ones: musical chairs, Red rover, the process of picking teams, and of course the ultimate humiliating experience that is known as dodge ball. But as we talked about these early humiliations, some people shared about how humiliations turned into opportunities for prayer and God’s healing response; they talked about how bumping up against other people from time to time serves as a reminder of who they are and how they wanted to live their life and their faith. They talked about how hard and how humiliating it is to ask for help, and they also talked about how it feels when they offer someone help and it is rejected. Friends, our readings for today offer us both good and challenging news. The good news is that God has given each one of us all good things for no good reason. None of us has earned anything that we have ever been given from God; God has given and continues to give because God loves—extravagantly, abundantly, unreasonably. When we get glimpses of that reality—whether it’s in our day to day lives or when we are kneeling at that altar with hands outstretched--it humbles us. And the challenging news in this passage is that God wants us to treat each other the same way; God invites us to do the same for others: giving to others only good things for no good reason, wanting the best for others regardless of how that may seem to affect us, and even working toward that reality. It may actually feel like a humiliation when others are lifted up; and if it does, then we need to pay attention to that, and become more curious because God may show up unexpectedly there, and because Jesus tells us, again and again, that that is what the Kingdom of God looks like. This week, on the Pray as You Go podcast, one of the prompts had to do with humility. I’ve been pondering it all week. “The gift of humility is an excellent foundation for recognizing the unexpected God. It means my ego, my concerns, don’t get in the way. Do you find yourself drawn to this kind of humility?”iii The true answer is that actually, I don’t find myself drawn to that kind of humility. It like my ego and my concerns, thank you very much. And that has shown me, this week, that this is what I need to be praying for, as frightening as that is for me. This week, I invite you to reflect on humility and humiliation. Can you think of a time when you were humiliated that moved you toward embracing a deeper call to humility or to deepen your trust in God? Or perhaps, can you think of a time when God lifted up the lowly and that felt threatening or unsettling to you? Look more closely at your own discomfort and see what God might be revealing to you in that? Or perhaps you need to spend some time with the awareness that God wants to give you only good things, loving you abundantly, extravagantly, un-earnedly. And God calls you to do the same for others. i. From the Wikipedia entry on the song. From an essay by Chuck Closterman: Klosterman, Chuck (2009). Eating the Dinosaur. New York, NY: Scribner. p. 107. ISBN 978-1-4165-4421-0. ii. Ibid. Collins, Ace (1996). The Stories Behind Country Music's All-Time Greatest 100 Songs. New York: Boulevard. p. 276. ISBN 1-57297-072-3. iii. https://pray-as-you-go.org/player/2022-08-28

11th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 16C

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 16C August 21, 2022 Many of you know that when I go visit our family farm, I often am given or take on a project. One of my projects for my visit this past summer was the clipping up of tomato plants. I wasn’t sure what I agreed to until I headed to the field, and I discovered rows upon rows of tomato plants whose vines and fruit were so heavy that they not only lay on the ground but they had started to grow entangled together. My task was to separate the plants and to clip up the vines to thin ropes hanging down from above. It was hard work; the vines were heavy and laden with flowers and fruit that I had to be so very careful not to damage. The tomato plants made my skin itch when I came into contact with them. And we won’t even talk about the weeds! As I worked, I thought about the passages in scripture where God promises to make the crooked paths straight, and I thought about how Jesus heals a bent over, crooked woman, who had borne the weight of her infirmity for 18 years. I thought about how we, like the tomato plants, like the woman, and like the leader of the synagogue that confronts Jesus, are impeded in our growth and in our ability to bear fruit, how we get all tangled up together, how we don’t know where we end and others begin until Jesus comes along and heals us and helps us untangle, until God makes our crooked, heavy vines straight. Both Isaiah and the gospel reading today speak about the importance of Sabbath. In the gospel reading, sabbath and the law become the stick that the synagogue leader uses to fight Jesus with when he heals the crooked woman on the sabbath. Jesus argues back that sabbath is a time to create space for compassion for all, a time to be free from what binds us. Isaiah talks about how it is important to use God’s sabbath for the way God has intended it, as a space to create and hold compassion for ourselves and for others, about how that practice of drawing close to God and each other through sabbath rest will shower blessings down upon the whole land of Israel. But there’s always a temptation—that is referenced in the Isaiah reading today (and we see it at play in the gospel as well)—that is to make Sabbath about ourselves. But God speaks through Isaiah saying that when we keep the sabbath, opening our hearts and creating space for God to work in us, Sabbath will heal us. Jesus shows that true sabbath is always rooted in compassion—compassion for ourselves and our over-filled lives, compassion for others, compassion for our planet that we use and use and use with little thought. Sabbath is the invitation to pay attention to our inner life, to delve deeper into our own souls, beyond the boundaries of our personalities into the heart of the deep darkness within us where God dwells. When we worship God, when we embrace the rest and compassion offered in Sabbath, we open space for Jesus to do healing work in us, too, for God to help us yield the abundant fruit that is grown out of compassion for ourselves, for others, and for the world around us. How are you being called to keep Sabbath differently, to create a space for Jesus to heal you and give you what you need? What parts of you are crooked that need straightening? What parts of you are too bound up with others, in ways that damage the fruit that you have to offer? What parts of you are wounded, bent, or sick that need to be healed, straightened, made whole? Where are you being called to look through Sabbath-seasoned eyes, with compassion—on yourself, on someone else, on the world around you?

10th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 15C

10th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 15C August 14, 2022 After a long summer hiatus, I started back running this week. On good days, there is nothing I love more than a good treadmill-run. I show up at the gym like I plan to; I crank up my running playlist in my headphones, and run/walk exactly as I had planned to run/walk that day. As someone who has run off and on, her whole adult life, I am quite familiar with the pattern. For whatever reason, my first run back after a hiatus (assuming that I have set reasonable expectations for my level of physical fitness—which isn’t always the case), is usually a dream. It’s easier than I think it will be; the time flies by; I end my workout optimistic about getting back into running shape. But the second run after coming back, that’s the one that always gets me. Best case scenario: I make it to the gym; run the course I had planned, and it is 10 times harder than my first run back. My muscles are sore and I’m tired. My mind tells me that I can always just stop and walk or even just get off the treadmill—no one will even know, and so I often have to dig deep and push through to finish my planned course. I’m not always successful. So it has intrigued me this week that the writer of Hebrews, who is writing about faith in this week’s passage and in last week’s passage, talks about how faith, the life of the faithful is like running—entreating the followers of Christ who are suffering by saying, “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” Hebrews Chapter 11 is often known as “the hall of fame of faith.” It begins with a familiar verse: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Last week’s portion goes on to talk about Abraham and Sarah-how they trusted God and set out for a new promised land; how God made them promises that they did not live to see fulfilled, but how we as the people of faith know that God came through for them. This week’s reading name drops more of the faithful throughout our scriptural history and it is full of action: “By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace.” Faith inspired the followers of God to conquer kingdoms, administer justice, obtain promises, shut the mouths of lions, quench raging fire, escape the edge of the sword, win strength out of weakness, become mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight…. For so many of us, faith has come to mean a sort of intellectual set of beliefs or even an emotional connection to God and each other, but in this chapter of Hebrews, faith is a physical response to the call of God to go to new places, to step out into the unknown because God tells us that is where we need to go. As another writer puts it, “The texts describe the faithful as people who set out for new places, anticipate new arrivals, wait for big changes, and search for new homelands. In these texts, the faithful are nomads. They wander. They contend with a holy restlessness…They work for the transformation of this world even as they yearn with all their hearts for another.” She continues, “Faith as it is described in Scripture is not, in other words, a destination. It’s not a conclusion or a form of closure. Faith is a longing. Faith is a hunger. Faith is a desire. Faith is the restless energy that pushes us out the door and onto the road in pursuit of the inheritance God has promised. Faith is the audacity to undertake a perilous journey simply because God asks us to — not because we know ahead of time where we’re going. Faith is the itch and the ache that turns our faces towards the distant stars even on the cloudiest of nights. [She concludes,] Faith is the willingness to stretch out our imaginations and see new birth, new life, new joy — even when we feel withered and dead inside. Faith is the urgency of the homeless for a true and lasting home — a home whose architect and builder is God.” i This chapter of Hebrews also makes it clear that a life of faith, this response to God’s call to step out into new places, isn’t always smooth or easy. The passage details all the ways that the faithful hall-of-famers suffered in faithfulness, in their stepping out into the places God was calling them. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus talks some about this, too, offering a description (and not necessarily a prescription) of what his disciples may endure as he makes his way to Jerusalem. So where is the good news in all of this? We come here looking for peace and solace, not more stress and difficulty in our already fractious, stressful lives! Why go back to the gym when we know that 2nd run back is going to be so much harder than the first? Years ago, I heard a remarkable, true story about phenomenal grace under pressure, about faith and patience in the face of extreme persecution and stress. It’s a story that aired on This American Life about a group of Girl Guides (the rest of the world’s form of our Girl Scouts) and their leaders who were taken prisoner in a Japanese concentration camp right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The leaders and the girls were at a school for the children of American and British missionaries and workers in China, and the children were taken, without their parents to the concentration camp. But here is what is remarkable about this story. They never stopped acting like Girl Guides. The leaders promoted cheerfulness and service to the girls for the entire four years they were captive. They had competitions (based on the thing they needed for their survival) that served as their merit badges, and they continued to sing throughout the whole four years the Girl Guide songs, songs of faith and optimism and hope. One girl remembers how they would frequently sing the song: “Day is done. Gone the sun from the sea, from the hills, from the sky. All is well, safely rest. God is nigh.” The leaders were not foolish. One is recorded as having written about her hope that when they were finally to be taken outside of the camp to be killed, she hoped she went first so she wouldn’t have to watch it. Yet, in the midst of incredibly stressful circumstances, those leaders chose to have hope, to do what they could to protect those children, and to be faithful in their calling. The narrator of the piece says it well: “There probably aren't many places on earth where you have less reason to be cheerful than a concentration camp. But it turns out, in a place like that, being able to be cheerful, to have a positive outlook, it's not dopey or silly. It's how you survive. How you tell the story matters.” ii Every time I show up at the gym and run on the treadmill, I become a runner. And every time we show up and break bread together in this place, asking for forgiveness for our sins, reaching out our hands and our very souls in supplication to be fed by the body and blood of Christ, asking to be transformed more into the image and likeness of the God who created us, and then accepting God’s call to go out into the world once again to share God’s love with a desperate and needy world; every time we choose mercy over taking offense, we choose doing what is right over doing what is easy, we choose kindness over meanness or indifference, we are practicing our faith, becoming more and more those people who step out in faith in response to God’s call. We give ourselves and our lives over to something bigger than our own self-centeredness. We participate in the story of all the faithful, being mindful that we need each other, in order for the fullness of God’s promises to be fulfilled. i.From Debie Thomas’ essay: Called to Restlessness. First published on Journey with Jesus blog in 2019. Full text can be found here: https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3420-called-to-restlessness-2 ii.From a sermon I preached at St. Columb’s Episcopal Church, Ridgeland, MS. 13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 13C; August 14, 2016

9th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 14C

9th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 14C August 7, 2022 There are some songs that you have known for so long, that you don’t even remember the first time you hear them. You know the words by heart, and sometimes, because you have sung the words so many times, you don’t even really think about what the words mean at this point. The Servant Song is one of those songs for me. I must have sung it thousands of times in my 46 years in the church. I’ve sung it at baptisms, at weddings, at funerals. I’ve sung it at most Maundy Thursday services. (One year, when we didn’t sing it, I received a friendly critique from my elementary-aged daughter when she said, “It just doesn’t feel like Maundy Thursday if we don’t sing the Servant Song during the footwashing.”) And I have sung it at countless regular Sunday morning services, with so many different of the faithful across many dioceses. For those of you who don’t have this song inscribed on your hearts—it goes like this: “Won’t you let me be your servant?/ Let me be as Christ to you/ Pray that I may have the grace/ To let you be my servant too.” The verses talk about what it means to be together in Christian community, about holding the light of Christ for each other in dark times, in caring for one another and sharing in joys and in sorrows. It’s so familiar, I’ll confess that I hardly think about it much anymore (although it will catch me unawares occasionally and raise a lump in my throat). This week, I found myself humming it, and when I stopped and paid attention to the part of the song that was rolling around in my mind, it was actually the second verse, that I found myself singing over and over throughout the week: “We are pilgrims on a journey/We are travelers on a road/ We are here to help each other/ Walk the mile and bear the load.” I’ve been thinking this week about pilgrimage, about the difference between travel and pilgrimage, about why people for centuries have gone on pilgrimage. I know of so many churches, including our own, who have gone on pilgrimage this summer, and I’ve been thinking about what that verse of the Servant Song means. If a pilgrimage usually entails a journey to some far-off place, then what does that mean when we all sing together in this place—"We are pilgrims on the journey/ We are travelers on the road/We are here to help each other/ Walk the mile and bear the load.” I was fortunate to get to talk to two of my seminary classmates this week who both led pilgrimages this summer. I listened as they compared notes and then I asked them what the difference was between a pilgrimage and a trip, as I continue to think about and process some of my own travels from this summer. And as I listened to my two friends talk about pilgrimage, here is what I heard. That many people go on pilgrimage to try to find God in some traditionally holy place. And many people discover, that if they participate in pilgrimage fully, then they find God has been with them all along, every day. Sometimes, however, it helps to step out of the ordinary, out of our day-to-day rhythms and routines, to subject ourselves to some of the unpredictability and vulnerability of travel, to begin to see God present and at work in our lives and around us always. My friends talked about the stages or characteristics of pilgrimage that others have written about: “The Practice of Hearing the Call and Responding; The Practice of Packing Lightly; The Practice of Crossing the Threshold; The Practice of Making the Way by Walking; The Practice of Being Uncomfortable; The Practice of Beginning Again; The Practice of Embracing the Unknown; and The Practice of Coming Home.”i They talked about how the crux of pilgrimage is noticing what is present in and around you and intentionally focusing on God who is already with you along the way. I’ve used this lens in looking back on some of my own travels this summer, and I find I can remember some of the pilgrimage moments better than most because those were the times when I either encountered the unexpected or I was really paying attention: when Jack and I were sitting on the stoop of a shop while David was inside buying clergy-wear in Vatican City, and we looked up, and there was a really old, toothless lady waving at us out of her third story window above us. And when I waved back, she smiled broadly and started blowing us kisses. About how our Dutch canal tour guide and boat-driver named Klaas, intentionally built community out of a group of strangers on his tour, and we made new friends from around the world. A handful of special meals when I was really paying attention, truly present—Mary Margaret’s birthday dinner in front of the open windows in a lovely restaurant in Paris with the rain pouring down outside, sitting across the table grill at a Korean bbq in London and watching Jack cook his dinner; date night with David at a restaurant in Rome with our table out on the sidewalk of an old, curvy Roman road. These were the moments when I encountered God in unexpected ways because I was paying attention. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus talks about this act of paying attention, or being alert to the presence of God. He talks about how sometimes we have to strip away those things that keep us too comfortable—the possessions, the routines, the comforts—so that we can encounter God who is always with us. Or as another preacher puts it, we find God more regularly when we “position ourselves to be surprised.”ii. So, what does that mean for us as individuals and what does that mean for us at St. Thomas—"pilgrims on a journey, travelers on the road, we [who] are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load”? My friends who led pilgrimages talked a fair amount about being the leaders of their groups; both agreed that their greatest challenge was the couple of people in each group who were most focused on getting to the destination point each day with the most speed/haste, so much so that they would often leave behind the rest of the group. They were so focused on the end point that they didn’t pay attention to what was happening all around them on the way. I’ll confess that in life this is often my own sin as well. I’ll get so caught up in tasks and to-do lists that I will miss the presence of God that is right in front of my face, fully present in another person or walking right beside me. What if our call as individuals and as a church is to slow down and pay attention to the ways that God is already showing up in and through and among us? What if our call is to look for those who are getting left behind in the journey of faith, and to slow down deliberately and wait for them? What would that even mean? What might that look like? “We are pilgrims on a journey/We are travelers on a road/ We are here to help each other/ Walk the mile and bear the load.” i. These are actually the chapter headings in the book The Soul of a Pilgrim: 8 Practices for the Journey Within by Christine Valters Paintner. ii. Attributed to Gene Lowry.