The Day of Pentecost-Year A

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

Easter 7A

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

Easter 4A sermon

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

Easter 3A

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

The Day of Resurrection 2014

Easter Day 2014 I read a story this past week that caught my attention. It is shared by Rob Bell in his book What We Talk About When We Talk About God: “At TED 2012 a brilliant, passionate lawyer named Bryan Stevenson gave a talk about injustice and racism. He spoke about his work around the country within the prison and court systems and his desire to see all people treated fairly. He told stories about young men he's currently defending in court, arguing compellingly for a more just society, and then he closed with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. (who was quoting the abolitionist Theodore Parker) about how the moral arc of the universe is long and it bends toward justice. The second Stevenson was done, the audience gave him a rousing, extended standing ovation. Then later, they pitched in collectively to give his organization over a million dollars. I point this out because when the audience was asked from the stage two days earlier how many of them considered themselves religious, it appeared that only about 2 or 3 percent of the people raised their hands. And yet a man confronted them with the moral arc of the universe and they intuitively, unanimously, instantly affirmed the truth of his claim. Is history headed somewhere? Seriously? Because when Bryan Stevenson talks about the moral arc of the universe, he's talking about history, history that is headed somewhere, somewhere good. History that has a point to it. I believe that those smart, educated, accomplished, self-described-as-not-very-religious people stood and applauded because deep within every single one of us is the conviction that there is a point to this. That life has purpose. That when we die, the lights are not turned off and the show is not over.” This is what we gather here today to celebrate: the moral arc of the universe that culminates in a justice that we would have never imagined or even asked for. Easter Day shows us, year after year, that the moral arc of the universe culminates in Resurrection. What a wonderful, unexpected surprise! In John’s gospel this morning, we see Mary Magdalene also receiving a surprise. She has discovered the empty tomb; the two men disciples have come to see it, and have gone away, not knowing what to do. And yet, Mary Magdalene lingers until she encounters a man who she thinks is the gardener, but really it is Jesus. That always captures my imagination, how she doesn’t recognize him until he calls her by name. Because we know something about that don’t we? We, who would have never imagined resurrection, who hear the story year after year, we don’t recognize it when it is right in front of us! Another writer writes, “Resurrection is always a mystery, always a miracle, but often we do not recognize resurrection when it comes to us. When all that separates and injures and destroys is overcome by that which unites, heals and creates in the ordinary routine of our daily lives, resurrection has taken place.” (From Birthed from the Womb of God: A lectionary for women compiled by Dorothy Harvey p 28) Today we gather to celebrate that the point of history is resurrection. In and through Jesus’s death and resurrection, God is making all creation new—us, our families, our church, our friends and neighbors, those people we love and those we don’t, the oceans and the deserts, the mountains and the cities….The point of history is resurrection. May we have the grace this day and always to recognize the mystery of resurrection when it stands before us and calls us by name!

The Great Vigil of Easter 2014

Great Vigil of Easter-2014 “Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. This excerpt from Mary Oliver’s poem, “In Blackwater Woods” wonderfully captures what we do on this night. Tonight we gather to tell the stories of our faith, and in some mysterious way, we are present in those moments of salvation history. We sit in the dark of creation as God forms us from the dust. We run panicked through the dark in the midst of waters of the Red Sea, and we witness the death and destruction of God’s enemies. We sing the song of our salvation while we are still in the dark, still in the middle of the water, still wondering if we will actually make it out alive. We stand in the valley of bones with Ezekiel and we watch as God’s breath knits the scattered bones together and remakes them into a people. We who have walked into this church that is as dark as a tomb, walk with the women in the dark to Jesus’s tomb, and we share their fear and their confusion when we find it empty because it is so far beyond our experience, our understanding. We gather in the dark to renew the words of our baptismal covenant, to remember the light of Christ that is given to us in and through our baptism, and to see this night, what a difference this light can make in the face of death and darkness, fear and loss. “Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.” We have experienced the black river of loss; we acknowledge the fleetingness of this world, this life, and all whom we hold dear. And we rejoice this night in Christ’s resurrection, in the way that we are brought through the black river of loss into the mystery of eternal life waiting on the other side.

Good Friday 2014

Good Friday—2014 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? * and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress? 2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; * by night as well, but I find no rest. 3 Yet you are the Holy One, * enthroned upon the praises of Israel. 4 Our forefathers put their trust in you; * they trusted, and you delivered them. 5 They cried out to you and were delivered; * they trusted in you and were not put to shame. We gather over the course of these three days to recall the stories that form the heart of our faith, the essence of the people of God. We suffer with the children of Israel who are in captivity in Babylon. We watch and wait with Jesus’s mother and his disciples as he hangs dying on the cross. We read aloud the heartbroken words of Psalm 22, and we remember today our own desolate times, the times when God seems to be absent. And we remember the times when we have acted as if God is absent. Just last week, I was introduced to a Welsh poet names R. S. Thomas, and much of Thomas’s poetry speaks to the absence of God. I’ll share with you his poem titled In Church for your reflection on this day. “In Church,” by R.S. Thomas Often I try To analyze the quality Of its silences. Is this where God hides From my searching? I have stopped to listen, After the few people have gone, To the air recomposing itself For vigil. It has waited like this Since the stones grouped themselves about it. These are the hard ribs Of a body that our prayers have failed To animate. Shadows advance From their corners to take possession Of places the light held For an hour. The bats resume Their business. The uneasiness of the pews Ceases. There is no other sound In the darkness but the sound of a man Breathing, testing his faith On emptiness, nailing his questions One by one to an untenanted cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is a day to dwell for a while with our suffering; it is a day for questions. Let us fearlessly kneel together now, nailing our questions, our emptiness, and the world’s suffering one by one to an untenanted cross.