21st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 26C

21st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 26C October 30, 2022 How many of you still write letters? (Now, I’m not talking about thank you notes, because I know y’all’s mammas raised you right! I’m talking about full-fledged letters.) How many? I wrote one this week and one a few weeks ago. It’s a dying art, isn’t it? So much of my days are filled with emails, instant messages, and text messages, that when I do sit down to write a letter, it’s like I have to turn that part of my brain back on. I’ve been intrigued by our 2nd lesson for the week. As in most weeks, the second lesson that we read is an epistle or a letter that has been written to early Christian communities. Today we have the very beginning part of the 2nd letter to the Thessalonians, with the standard greeting of the writer expressing their thankfulness for the community. It’s a letter of encouragement to a people who have fallen on hard-times, a sort of love-letter to help them hold on to their faith and each other. I especially appreciated the perspective of a podcaster for this passage when she said, “In this letter Paul writes, ‘I am grateful for you, church. You have been faithful and steadfast, even in the face of terribleness. And yet, not all is terrible. Because we’re not doing this thing called life and faith by ourselves. We’re in this together; so stand firm. Hold on tight. The way isn’t easy, and sometimes there are people who are rooting for your failure. But that’s not the whole of it, though, and it will be amazing as we go together. Grace and peace of Jesus be with you always.’ [She concludes] Now while this letter was written a while ago, it still speaks today, doesn’t it? What terribleness have we seen! How have we needed some encouragement!” i In the spirit of this, I decided I wanted to write you all a letter for today, as we celebrate the new things that God continues to do in, among, and through us in this place and as we make our commitment to support the work God is doing in and through us together, over the next year. To my beloved people of St. Thomas, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I must always give thanks for you, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore, I boast of you among the church of God throughout all of Savannah and even in the greater diocese and beyond. We have certainly not had an easy time of it here these last couple of years. We have dealt with all of the challenges of being a faith community during a global pandemic, trying to navigate the way together when there were no maps and we didn’t even really know where we were going. We have lost people from this community who we loved, and we weren’t able to gather together to celebrate their lives, to mourn together, or to mark the profound changes to our community with their deaths. We have fallen out of familiar rhythms, and even as we tried to stay connected, we struggled with loneliness, with our inability to gather and worship and be together in ways that were comforting and familiar and necessary. Through it all, you remained constant in your support for this church, for your clergy, for each other. You continued to give faithfully, and because of that, we are doing well economically, even thriving. Today, as we gather to celebrate the new things that God is doing in, among, and through us here, I give thanks for the steadfastness of you and your faith. I give thanks for the ways that you welcome the stranger, how you seek to create space for new people, for new life without abdicating your own responsibilities. I give thanks for the ways that you love my children for who they really are and not who you think they should be. And not just my children. I give thanks that you love all of our children this way. I give thanks for the joy that you find in celebrating life together. I give thanks for all the things that you do for one another that I usually never know about but get glimpses of from time to time. I give thanks for the times when you aren’t afraid to ask for help, to lean on me or each other in ways that show deep trust. I give thanks for your gifts of hospitality, for how you make manifest for me and for others all those times when Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a really good party. I give thanks for the ways that you are willing to wrestle with scripture with me, and for the stories that you are willing to share about how God continues to transform you in your life of faith. I give thanks for the ways that you encourage and nurture us, your clergy, and for all the ways that you embrace and roll with our crazy! I give thanks for the ways that you have shown me that new love can heal old wounds and heartbreak and how it can call forth new gifts from us. I pray for you regularly, and I will confess that when I get glimpses of your prayers for me, it takes my breath away. And I ask that God will continue to do new things in and through and among us together in this place, so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in us, and us in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+ i. Melissa Meyers speaking on the podcast Pulpit Fiction episode #510. https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/proper26c

19th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24C

19th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24C October 16, 2022 My paternal grandfather was a United Methodist minister; I grew up visiting his church, seeing him in his black robe in the pulpit, hearing him preach. He was a big man with a deep voice and a commanding presence. The very first church that I served was in the same town as the last church Pop had served—the one he officially retired from. It was a small town and everyone knew who I was—the young, female, Episcopal priest (with a husband and new baby) in rural, Southwest Mississippi. When I went places in town, it was not uncommon for me to run into someone who would tell me a story about my grandfather. Their favorite stories to tell were the stories when Pop threatened to beat someone up. (Yes, there were many of those stories.) You see, my grandfather was a boxer in his youth, and there are some parts of us that even seminary and ordination cannot temper. And it seems that while he didn’t employ the threat often, there were occasions when Pop thought a person needed more than words and prayers to whip them back into shape and make them act right. As best I could tell, no one ever needed to take him up on his offer to “step outside” with him. The offer itself was enough to steer the offender back onto the right path. And what I came to learn was that underneath these stories of my grandfather as a fighter was a man who loved his flock fiercely and who was willing to fight to make the world a better place (and to get people to do better, to be better). Our scriptures for today give us two stories about people who are fighting for what they want and what they believe in. First, there is Jacob, who is returning home and mentally preparing for a big showdown/fight with his brother Esau who he has cheated out of their father’s blessing. Jacob, the quintessential, scrappy conman, has sent his entourage ahead when he encounters the mysterious stranger with whom he fights all night. When the two reach an impasse, with Jacob holding on for dear life, he demands a blessing from the stranger-perhaps in the hope it will give him a leg-up in the coming fight with his brother. And the stranger not only gives him a blessing, but he also gives him a new name—Israel—which literally means “God-fighter.” Then there’s the parable from Luke about a widow and an unjust judge. Luke gives the story a framework, telling us that Jesus tells the story to teach his disciples about “the need to pray always and not lose heart” and about faith or faithfulness. And Jesus’s parable is all about fighting. The widow has an “adversary”, and she keeps going to the judge demanding justice or possibly vengeance (the word can be translated as either) from the judge toward her adversary. We don’t know what the issue is or whether the woman’s cause is just or unjust. The strangely self-aware judge, who admits he doesn’t fear God or respect people, decides that he will give the widow what she is asking for so that she “won’t give [him] a black eye”. (The word that is translated in our reading for today as so that she won’t “wear me out by continually coming” is actually a Greek boxing term that means to give someone a black eye. We may very well be seeing some of Jesus’s humor at work in this.) Jesus is telling a story about a judge who isn’t afraid of God or other peoples’ perceptions of him but who is afraid of a widow giving him a black eye (or at least continuing to bother him with her demand). So, what does all this have to do with us or with our faith or with our relationship with God? I’ll confess that my first instinct is to identify with the fighter. The very opposite of losing heart is being willing to fight for something or someone. What does that mean to fight for something in our relationship with God, in our faith? Maybe it means showing up and when all else fails, holding on for dear life until God gives us something akin to what we demand. Maybe it means nagging, again and again, when even we are sick of the sound of our own voice asking…demanding justice. Maybe it means finding the same fire for justice or vengeance or self-interest toward God and the potential for God’s kingdom in the here and now, in and among us. Maybe it means asking ourselves what do we love enough to fight for, and how does our faith become that fierce and fiery, too? But what if the fighters in these two stories are meant to reveal to us something about God? What would it mean for us to think that God fights for what God loves and values with the tenacious, scrappy, persistent passion of Jacob? What if God fights for us with the single-minded purpose of a scorned widow seeking vengeance? If we knew and believed God was already, always fiercely fighting for us, how would that change our faith? How would that change the way we pray, what we pray for? Your invitation this week is to embrace this image of God fiercely fighting for you and to pay attention to what happens, how that changes you.

18th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23C

18th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23C October 9, 2022 Thanksgiving. It’s at the very heart of who we are as people of faith. We practice it week after week after week in the Eucharist, which literally means thanksgiving. You’d think we’d be good at it, that it would come easy for us. And maybe it does for some of us. Most of us know we are supposed to be thankful. If our mammas didn’t drill it into us with their refrain of “now what do you say to me?” (and we all know the answer is “thank you”), then our southern culture did. (“He or she just wasn’t raised right” we say of someone who fails to write a thank you note.) We know we should be thankful, and yet, so many times, we aren’t. I’m intrigued by this story from Luke’s gospel this week, that follows immediately on the heels of last week’s gospel. Immediately after Jesus’s overwhelmed disciples plead for him to give them more faith and he tells them a weird story about how slaves are just supposed to show up and do what they’re supposed to do, then we get today’s story. Jesus is traveling in a sort of in-between space when he encounters 10 lepers, people who have been isolated from community, who plead to him, “Have mercy upon us!” Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests, and as they go, they are made clean--healed of their affliction which separates them from community. Luke tells us that when one of the former lepers notices the healing, he stops and turns back to Jesus. He falls at Jesus’s feet and praises God, giving thanks. Jesus asks him where the other 9 are, but we know this don’t we? They are wrapped up in all the same things that keep us from giving thanks. One is too busy, trying to do the “right” thing, the thing that Jesus told them to do—go show themselves to the priests. One is too preoccupied and hasn’t even noticed the miracle has occurred. One is too distrustful of the gift, the miracle, suspicious of what he has received. One is too self-sufficient, unwilling to admit that she was ever in a place where she needed to be healed and unwilling to be made vulnerable yet again in the offering of thanks. One is conflicted about accepting anything that hasn’t been earned through hard work or merit. I’m sure we can name many other reasons why we have failed to give thanks when we might have. But the one who returned and gave thanks to Jesus… he has not only been made clean, but Jesus also tells him that his faith has saved him or made him well. What is it about this act of thanksgiving that is also an act of faith, and how does it also work to save him or make him well? Every week, we offer our prayers of thanksgiving to God. We come to God’s table with our hands outstretched and open. They are open in thanksgiving, offering back to God all the good gifts we have received over the week, and they are open in supplication, asking to be filled/refilled with the very gift of God’s presence in our hearts and lives, in our bodies and souls. This week, I’m going to offer you time and space to be thankful, to lay aside all those impediments that distract us from being thankful, for offering thanks, for just a few minutes. I’m inviting you to start writing down on this tiny slip of paper everything you can think of for which you are grateful, about your life, about this place. I hope everyone can think of at least three things you are grateful for, and I suspect, once you get started, you will be able to write so much that you cover the paper, running out of both space and time to keep going. As you come forward for communion, carry your gratefulness in your open palm to God’s altar where you can make it a part of your offering. Pay attention to what is happening in your heart as you offer your thanks to God. In what ways might that be healing for you? And then with empty hands, receive God’s good gift for you again this week, so you can go back out into the world to continue the work of thanksgiving.

17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 22C

17th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 22C October 2, 2022 The disciples are really stressed. Jesus has just shared with them some really difficult teachings—don’t be a stumbling block to any little ones, (and if you do, it’d be better for someone to tie a millstone around your neck and throw you in the water); if someone sins against you 7 times and comes to you and repents, then you have to forgive them. They are feeling overwhelmed and not up to the task, and so they plead to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” And Jesus tells them an odd parable about slaves just doing what they’re supposed to do. And so it seems like when the stressed, overwhelmed disciples say, “Lord, it’s too much! Increase our faith!” Jesus tells them “no.” Just show up and do what you’re supposed to do. Doesn’t seem very Jesus-like of him, does it? And yet, Jesus commends people for their faith all the time. Think of all the stories in the bible when someone seeks out Jesus for healing, and he tells them, “Go, your faith has made you (or whoever you love and are petitioning for) well.” So what do these people have that the disciples don’t have? Faith has come to mean a sort of intellectual belief, but that isn’t really what faith is or is about. Faith (the Greek pisteo) means setting your feet upon a path and walking it. Faith means doing the next right thing, taking yet another small step in a lifetime of small steps toward Jesus, doing the next small act of love in a life-time of small acts of love. It helps to not be as stressed or overwhelmed to know that we, like the disciples, don’t have to be able to move mountains with our faith. We just have to be able to take one small step toward God; we just need to be able to do the next right thing in order to be faithful. Today at St. Thomas, we are kicking off our annual giving campaign: “See, I am doing a new thing.” You’ll be getting a letter in the mail about this from Jamie McCurry, the chair, and me along with a pledge card, and on the Sundays in October, you’ll hear from others how they are trying to live out their faithfulness in how they give here in this community of faith. Throughout the month, I invite you to think about what the next right thing, the next faithful act of love looks like in your giving to God through this church. Maybe that means making a pledge or a commitment to give for the first time; maybe it means holding steady in what you are already giving, maybe faithfulness means an increase if you are doing especially well to help cover those who might be struggling and need to decrease. What is the next right thing, the small act of love, the one step closer to Jesus on the path that is your life of faith that you are being called to do to grow in your faithfulness in this place over the coming year?

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.