Fourth Sunday in Lent Year C

Lent 4C_2022_new March 27, 2022 As I was sitting with the readings for this Sunday, I was reminded of a story I read years ago. It’s a story that the Celtic priest and mystic John O’Donohue tells in his book Anam Cara (which means soul friend). Here is what he writes as he writes about the challenges of modern life to the soul: “Rapidity is another force causing massive stress in the workplace. Baudrillard, a French philosopher, speaks of the exponential speed of modern life. Where things are moving too quickly, nothing can stabilize, gather, or grow. There is a lovely story of a man exploring Africa. He was in desperate hurry on a journey through the jungle. He had three or four Africans helping him carry his equipment. They raced onward for about three days. At the end of the third day, the Africans sat down and would not move. He urged them to get up, telling them of the pressure he was under to reach his destination before a certain date. They refused to move….Finally, he got one of them to admit the reason. This native said, ‘We have moved too quickly to reach here; now we need to wait to give our spirits a chance to catch up with us.’” i In our Old Testament reading for today, we see the end of the wandering of the Children of Israel in the wilderness for forty years. Joshua, who becomes their leader after Moses’s death, has just led them across the Jordan River and into the promised land where they have come to this place that they name Gilgal, and God tells them “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” At this point, two notable things happen. The Israelites celebrate Passover for the first time in their new home of the promised land, and the manna, the bread from heaven that has sustained them while wandering in the wilderness, ceases because it is no longer needed. Now that they are finally home, they eat the produce and crops of the land. One of my colleagues invited us to reflect on this passage from Joshua this week by asking us to think of a time when we had been wandering in the wilderness for a long time, and we finally arrived at a place that quickly became home, where we could “eat the produce of the land.” What was that like for us—to be settled someplace where we could have time and space to grow things, to see things brought to fruition and then to enjoy the fruits of our labor? This has been interesting for me to think about this week, because one of the encounters with Gilgal for me in my faith journey has been in coming here. This place has been Gilgal for me—where I have seen things take root and grow and have enjoyed sampling with you from the fruit of our labors. And it is still Gigal, but lately, I haven’t been able to be fully attentive to what is growing. Perhaps I have traveled too far and too fast and need to be still, pay attention, and wait for my soul to catch up with me? Perhaps this is true for all of us in the light of these last two years of pandemic and corporate trauma? How do we tend to the growth if we feel too parched, to dried out in our own souls for anything to grow or bear fruit? John O’Donohue writes about this as well. He writes, “You can search far and in hungry places for love. It is a great consolation to know that there is a wellspring of love within yourself. If you trust that this wellspring is there, you will then be able to invite it to awaken. The following exercise could help develop awareness of this capacity. When you have moments on your own or spaces in your time, just focus on the well at the root of your soul. Imagine that nourishing stream of belonging, ease, peace, and delight. Feel, with your visual imagination, the refreshing waters of that well gradually flowing up through the arid earth of the neglected side of your heart. It is helpful to imagine this particularly before you sleep. Then during the night you will be in a constant flow of enrichment and belonging. You will find that when you awake at dawn, there will be a lovely, quiet happiness in your spirit.”ii Your invitation this week is to join me in practicing this here and now. We are going to sit together in two minutes of silence. For some it’s going to feel like an eternity and for some it’s going to fly by. As O’Donohue says, “Imagine that nourishing stream of belonging, ease, peace, and delight. Feel, with your visual imagination, the refreshing waters of that well gradually flowing up through the arid earth of the neglected side of your heart.” Imagine that water bubbling up into all corners and crevices of your mind, heart, and body. Pay attention to what comes, and if you get distracted in that practice, acknowledge that distraction, see it, and bring your focus back to the well spring. I’ll tell you when the two minutes is up, and don’t forget to breathe! Now everyone, take a minute to get settled, close your eyes, and let’s begin. i. O’Donohue, John. Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. Cliff Street Books: 1997, p. 151. ii. Ibid. p 28

Third Sunday in Lent Year C

Lent 3C_2022 March 20, 2022 Well, it’s been a week in the Lemburg house! On Monday, while I was in staff meeting, my husband David fell off a ladder while trying to get on the roof of our house. We spent all day Monday in the St. Joseph’s ER and learned that as a result of his fall, he fractured 4 vertebrae. The good news is that he’s going to be ok; he doesn’t need surgery, just time and space to heal. After my initial response of fear that lasted most of the day on Monday as we waited to learn just how badly he was injured, my emotions have been on a roller-coaster ride this week, plunging into the depths of some pretty intense anger and then settling into a high of self-righteousness and blame. “I’ve told him a hundred times not to get up on that roof! We’ve known and loved too many people over the course of our ministries who have had life-altering accidents that involved falling off a roof.” “Note how he waited until I was at staff meeting to do it because he knew I wouldn’t like it.” It felt so much better to replace my fear, my recognition of the fragility of all our lives, my helplessness in the face of disaster with self-righteousness. You might imagine my dismay when I am confronted by a picture of self-righteousness in our gospel reading for today. Luke gives us a strange little scene in which some people who are present listening to Jesus tell him about a recent current event in which Pilate has allegedly killed some Galileans (Jesus’s own people), who were making pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem to offer sacrifice (just like Jesus’s parents did when he was young), and when they were killed Pilate, a character that everyone loved to hate because he did legitimately, regularly committer of atrocities, had their blood mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. The self-righteous indignation of those telling Jesus about this incident echoes across the centuries. But Jesus doesn’t respond the way they would expect. He talks about the need for all people to repent, the need for all people to be reoriented in relationship with God, for we never know when death may come for us. I’m reading sociologist Brene’ Brown’s new book Atlas of the Heart for my book club. In this book, Brown relies on many years of research (both her own and others’) to try to define and map out 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human and to open up ways to make and deepen more meaningful connections. This week, I was about half-way through and decided to scroll ahead to see what chapters were coming up when I stumbled upon chapter #12 titled Places we go when we feel wronged in which Brown tackles the emotions of anger, contempt, disgust, dehumanization, hate and….self-righteousness. (Man, I really hate it when the lectionary scriptures for the coming Sunday and stuff I’m reading for fun gang up on me! And this week, we also have the passage from Exodus 3—Moses’s encounter with the burning bush which I preached on a few weeks ago as an invitation to pay attention to how God’s Holy Spirit is showing up and working in the world around us. It’s like God is putting up a flashing neon sign in my life.) In wretched Chapter 12, Brene’ Brown first writes about how anger is often an invitation to examine what is going on deeper in our souls—how anger is like a sort of check-engine light for our souls, inviting us to be curious about what is really going on there, what is behind our anger. She offers a couple of graphics that show that behind anger may be shame, sadness, fear, frustration, guilt, disappointment, worry, embarrassment, jealousy, hurt, anxiety, loneliness, rejection, helplessness, and even overwhelming stress. And then she writes this of self-righteousness. She quotes John Mark Green who writes, “The self-righteous scream judgements against others to hide the noise of skeletons dancing in their own closets.” And Brown continues: “I can tell you exactly what I was wearing and where I was sitting twenty-five years ago when someone in an AA meeting said, ‘Part of my sobriety is letting go of self-righteousness. It’s really hard because it feels so good. Like a pig rolling in [manure].’” Brown continues, “I remember thinking, Oh God. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I think I roll around in that [manure] too. From that day forward, I started thinking of self-righteousness as a threat to my self-respect, my well-being, and my sobriety. Unfortunately, it’s virtually impossible to add it to the abstinence list-it’s not as binary as having or not having a Bud Light or a cigarette—but I definitely see it as a slippery behavior that necessitates some self-reflection. And possibly amends.” i Jesus makes it clear in the gospel passage for today that the antidote for self-righteousness is repentance. Repentance starts with the acknowledgement from the opening line of our collect today: “Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves…” and so we ask God to keep us safe in both body and soul. Repentance is acknowledging that we’ve gone the wrong way, or to put it in the poignant words from the Rite 1 confession that: “we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts…”. And repentance means an openness to once again realigning our will with God’s will. All of this has served as an invitation to me to recognize my own helplessness in keeping myself and those I love from harm, recognizing that we are all dependent on God’s mercy for that protection and that it doesn’t always look like I think it should look, and it has been an invitation to me to live into a deeper humility below the surface of my anger and self-righteousness. Your invitation this week is to examine where in your life you have felt a sense of self-righteousness lately. Examine what feelings might be lurking underneath, and ask God how you are being called to repent and reorient your life and your will with God’s. i Brown, Brene’. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. Random House: 2021. Chapter 12. Anger part is on pp 218-222. Self-righteousness is from pp 238-239.

2nd Sunday in Lent Year C

Lent 2C_2022 March 13, 2022 Last weekend, I served on staff for Happening #105 in the Diocese of Georgia. Happening is a spiritual renewal experience for high school students led by high school students. They have a handful of adults present to work as the support staff and to handle any adult stuff, but it’s mostly the teenaged staff members who do everything. This is the third time I’ve served on staff as an adult, but the other two times, I served as one of the spiritual directors—giving talks, preaching and presiding over the sacraments. But this time, I didn’t serve as a spiritual director. I got to serve as a “mom.” When I showed up on Thursday, I was given a manual on how to be a Happening mom. (I do love a good manual!) After I read my manual cover to cover, anxious to understand and be able to fulfill my duties as a mom, I began to get a picture of what serving as a mom on Happening staff would look like. As the weekend unfolded, I was intrigued to realize that my tasks were much more physical ones than I had accomplished in my previous role as spiritual director. As a mom, I put out snacks. I cleaned up the food. I picked up trash, and I encouraged the youth to pick up their trash. I made an ice pack and provided a little care for someone who got hurt in a game. I set up chairs for worship and then I moved and stacked and reset them. I planned a party and made things festive and beautiful. And I swept, and I swept, and I swept—every single particle of dirt from Honey Creek migrated to the inside spaces, and I waged war on it for the whole weekend. During one of my many sweeping endeavors, it occurred to me that my task as a mom, while so much more physical than I had anticipated, in fact, had a spiritual component. My work as a mom at Happening was to create and cultivate home for the candidates and staff. Sometimes this meant nurturing them; sometimes this meant protecting them—like the time I had to cut off the young candidate who was continually shot-gunning the blue fizzy drink we offered for the party. (“Trust me kid, it’s late, and this won’t end well for you if you don’t stop.”) This got me reflecting on the many different ways we mother or create home for each other and what that looks like. In our gospel reading for today, we see Jesus headed toward Jerusalem where he is prepared to die on the cross when he gets a warning that Herod is looking to kill him. This provokes some choice words about Herod from Jesus, and then Jesus offers a lament over Jerusalem saying, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you.” Jesus is expressing a longing to gather up the scattered, to protect and shield them from harm, to mother them, heal them, and to make home for them. But they are unwilling to be gathered, protected, mothered, healed, or made at home. Can you think of a time in your life when you have resisted Jesus’s gathering, protecting, mothering, healing, or being made at home? Can you think of a time when you accepted it? What was that like? Can you think of a time when Jesus worked through you to gather, protect, mother, heal or create home for someone else? What was that like? How might Jesus be calling each one of us and all of us together to do that work in this world right here and right now? This world that so desperately needs gathering, protecting, mothering, healing, and home-making for? Your invitation this week is to be mindful of the ways that the Holy Spirit might be inviting you to do this work for those you encounter. Look for times and ways to gather, to protect, to mother, to offer kindness and healing, and to seek to make home for another.

Ash Wednesday 2022

Ash Wednesday 2022 Every year, Lent holds the same temptation for me—that is to try to use the 40-day period as a sort of “holiness bootcamp.” I do love a good self-help program, and embedded in the heart of this temptation for me is the secret belief that I can make myself righteous before God. Every year, I need to feel the grit of the dust on my forehead; to hear those solemn and holy and sobering words: “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Every year, I need Ash Wednesday to check my expectations for Lent; I need the reminder that God has already done all that is needful and that the gift of Lent is the invitation to open our hearts more fully to God. This year, the reading from Isaiah also has served as that holy reminder for me, that check to my temptation to dwell too much on the fasting aspect of Lent. In Isaiah, God speaks to God’s people who are dispirited and scattered, taken out of their homeland into the land of foreign invaders. God’s people ask: "Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" And God responds: “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?” And then God says, “Here is what I mean by a fast!” “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.” God is telling God’s people that their true relationship with God is revealed in how they treat others. God is reminding God’s people that God’s justice goes hand in hand with God’s mercy, and they are called to do likewise. Only then, God tells them, will the Lord guide them and give them strength; their ancient ruins will be rebuilt and they will be called “the repairer of the breach.” What might a fasting for Lent look like that is oriented to “repairing the breach”? How might Lent be a time when we are called to look fully into the face of the world’s injustices and examine our part in them? What does it mean, even in Lent, to put our hope in the promise of the resurrection—that through God all things in this world can be made new and that nothing in this world is beyond the healing power of God? Through our fasting, how might we be called to be agents of that healing? How might what each of us does for Lent have implications far beyond our own spiritual lives and our relationship with God, far beyond the bounds of our own self-discipline to impact the whole world? How are we, all together and each one of us, being called to repair the breach this Lent?

Last Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C

Last Sunday after the Epiphany—Year C February 27, 2022 Last weekend, your vestry and I gathered for a retreat on Saturday morning. In our time together, we talked about the times in our lives when the Holy Spirit has shown up. The stories your vestry shared were beautiful and moving and unique and holy. One vestry member talked about how during the times when the Holy Spirit has showed up in his life it was like a gentle tap on his shoulder and an understanding of “Hey, maybe I should go do this….” Others talked about doors opening, about a certain kind of knowing that stole over them that was beyond their own mind or understanding. Then we looked at the story of Moses and the burning bush. This comes from Exodus 3, much earlier in Moses’s story than our reading for today. Moses is just kind of hanging out, tending the flock for his father-in-law, and all of a sudden, he notices that there is this bush that is on fire but isn’t being consumed. He says to himself, “Hmmm, this is interesting, and it may be something I need to pay attention to. Let me turn aside from what I’m doing and go over there to take a closer look at this curious thing.” And it’s as if God is waiting for Moses to stop and take notice, because only after Moses approaches the burning bush to check it out does God speak to Moses. God tells Moses that Moses is going to be God’s agent of deliverance for God’s people who have been enslaved by the Egyptians. In that very first encounter, it took a willingness on Moses’ part to turn aside from what he was doing, to stop and see what the Lord is up to before God speaks to him. It’s important to remember this history when we encounter our Old Testament reading for today, which has this whole weird thing with Moses talking to God and Moses’s face shining so brightly that he feels the need to wear a veil around the children of Israel unless he is telling them what God has told him. These regular, super-shiny conversations with God all started with a willingness on Moses’s part to turn aside and look to see what work God was already doing in the world around him. Then we have our gospel reading for today. Jesus takes three disciples up to the top of a mountain, and while there, they witness his transfiguration-the revelation of God’s glory in and through the person of Jesus-along with his conversation with both Moses and Elijah. Luke is unique in telling us that the disciples are feeling “weighed down by sleep” but that since they manage to stay awake, they are able to see the miraculous events unfold right before their eyes. Are you, too, feeling weighed down these days? What is it that is weighing you down? Is it weariness, monotony, the tediousness of the mundane? Is it fear, anxiety, anger, or frustration? Is it busyness, the tyranny of the urgent? Is it a limiting of your physical capacity? Are you, as the prayer book puts it, “wearied by the changes and chances of this life”? Take a moment now to name what weariness you are fighting. Now, take a moment to turn aside and look. Where have you seen a burning bush, the unexpected revelation of the presence of God, in your life or in the world lately? What invitation might God be extending to you in and through this revelation?

The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C

7th Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C February 20, 2022 When I was in middle school, we lived in an ante-bellum home in downtown Canton right next door to the Catholic church. For years, we didn’t have a key that worked in the door lock, so we just didn’t lock our back door when we left the house. We would often leave each other notes pinned to the straight back of the chair that you saw when you opened the door to the house—notes like, “Debra (that’s my mom), I left the cash on top of your jewelry box. Love, Steve (my dad). One day, someone broke into our house. They took the cash, mom’s and my jewelry, tvs, vcrs, and my leather-bound bible with my name embossed on it, among many other things. We did all the things you’re supposed to do; we filed a police report, we got the lock fixed and started locking our door; my dad started frequenting the pawn shops in Canton, and he recovered some of the electronics. We thought we were safe once we started locking the door. But then they broke in again-forcing entry into our home and taking more stuff. Eventually, the police caught them- they were two teenagers-and we went on with our lives, although I never really felt safe in the house after that. Years go by, and my dad was serving on staff at Kairos, an Episcopal spiritual renewal retreat that is similar to Cursillo or Happening but takes place in prison. Late in the weekend, a young man came up to my dad. He said, “You probably don’t remember me, but I’ve met you before. The last time I saw you, I was handcuffed in the Canton Police Department; I’m the one that broke into your house. I’m so sorry. Will you, please, forgive me?” “Jesus said, "I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Our Old Testament reading for today gives us another glimpse of what it means to forgive those who have wronged you. We pick up in the middle of the Joseph story—one of my childhood favorites, thanks to an early encounter with Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This is toward the end of Joseph’s story. You will recall that Joseph was most beloved by Jacob his father of all his brothers, and he had the gift of interpreting dreams which had been given to him by God. What Joseph did not have, at that point in the story, was wisdom or humility, and he proceeded to tell his already jealous brothers that he had a dream which showed him that he would be raised up higher than all of them and that they would eventually worship him. So the brothers did what most jealous siblings would do. The sold him into slavery in Egypt. While serving as a slave there, Joseph was falsely accused by his master’s wife and thrown into prison. And that could have been the end of it all right there. But while Joseph was in jail, it came to Pharaoh’s attention that Joseph could interpret dreams, and since Pharaoh had been experiencing a rash of troubling dreams, he called upon Joseph to interpret them. Joseph divined that Pharaoh’s dreams meant that Egypt was about to have 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of famine, and he instructed Pharaoh to start collecting the food and resources from the years of plenty to see them through the years of famine. As a result, Pharaoh releases Joseph from prison and elevates Joseph to a position of trust in his court. Our reading for today picks up two years into the 7 years of famine, when Jacob’s sons have come to Egypt to seek assistance because they are all starving in Canna. Joseph revels himself to his brothers in our passage for today, and rather than offering them some well- deserved retribution, Joseph humbly forgives them and tells them how their actions, though meant for evil, have been a part of God’s plan to bring about good for all of them. It’s an astonishing moment when we think about all that has happened to Joseph and how he had been so haughty in relationship with his brothers before. And there is only one explanation for how Joseph could have reacted the way that he did. That is that both he and his brothers have been transformed by God’s grace. I’ve been thinking about forgiveness in light of all this—the story of my dad forgiving the man who robbed us and of Joseph and his brothers’ reconciliation. One thing that helped me this week was listening to a podcast on forgiveness. Here’s what they said in the podcast: “Forgiveness is not reconciliation. Forgiveness sets us up for reconciliation if God opens up for that opportunity and if the other person is willing and all that. But forgiveness doesn’t require anybody else. It’s something that we do as a spiritual practice within our own relationship with God that can open us up to other things, but it sets a realistic expectation for what forgiveness is and what it isn’t.” i God, through the Holy Spirit, is the one who begins the work of forgiveness in us. We can pray and ask God to help us be open to receive that work; and it doesn’t require any other person in order for us to forgive. Reconciliation is what comes when the other person is willing to participate in our forgiveness journey, or when, like Joseph’s brothers, the Holy Spirit has been active in transforming other lives as well. Your invitation this week is to think about an area of your life in which you’d like to be forgiven or to offer forgiveness to someone else. Begin praying to the Holy Spirit to open your heart that you may be ready for the work God will do in and through you. i. https://transformingcenter.org/2021/08/season-13-episode-8-invitation-to-forgive/

The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany_Year C

The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C February 13, 2022 When is the last time you thought about delight? To charm, to enchant, to captivate, delight is a subtle emotion that steals over us and because of its soft nature, it requires attention from us to even be acknowledged. If you’re anything like me, you probably haven’t had too many occasions to think about delight lately. This week, I stumbled upon The Book of Delights—a book of essays by poet Ross Gay. In his preface, Gay writes, “One day last July, feeling delighted and compelled to both wonder about and share that delight, I decided that it might feel nice, even useful, to write a daily essay about something delightful. I remember laughing to myself for how obvious it was. I could call it something like The Book of Delights.” He continues, “ I came up with a handful of rules: write a delight every day for a year; begin and end on my birthday, August 1; draft them quickly; and write them by hand. The rules made it a discipline for me. A practice. Spend time thinking and writing about delight every day.” He concludes, “…It didn’t take me long to learn that the discipline or practice of writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle. Something that implies that the more you study delight, the more delight there is to study. A month or two into this project delights were calling to me: Write about me! Write about me! Because it is rude not to acknowledge your delights, I’d tell them that though they might not become essayettes, they were still important, and I was grateful to them. Which is to say, I felt my life to be more full of delight. Not without sorrow or fear or pain or loss. But more full of delight. I also learned this year that my delight grows-much like love and joy-when I share it.” i This has all helped me this week, as I’ve contemplated Luke’s version of the Beatitudes for today. Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes, probably the more familiar version that is ensconced in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, is all about the blessings: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth….” It goes on like that, all blessings. But Luke’s version of the Beatitudes which we have for today, happens in Jesus’s sermon on the plain. Rather than preaching these teachings from a mountain, like in Matthew, Jesus is on a level, flat place. In Luke, Jesus includes a list of woes that are the counterpoint to his blessings: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” But “"But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.” But “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.” “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” But “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.” “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets." But “"Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets." And while this version in Luke has a nice symmetry to it, if we are really listening and paying attention, it probably makes us a little uncomfortable. I’m an Episcopalian. I don’t like to think of Jesus casting woe on anyone, especially his disciples, who Luke tells he is looking up at as he is preaching, and coupled with the passage from Jeremiah where God is easily throwing around curses on people, the whole thing makes me squirm. What has helped me was going back to Luke, and looking at the words that are translated as “blessed are you” and “woe to you.” The phrase or word for “blessed are you” is better translated for us as “good for you if…” or even the Australian saying, “Good on you!” Good for you if you are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Good for you if you are hungry now, for you will be filled.” “Good on you, mate,” says Australian Jesus, “if you weep now, for you will laugh.” And the woe part can better be translated, “Watch out!” or “Pay attention if…” or even “Trouble ahead!” but it also has the connotations of grief surrounding it. So maybe like when you give someone a warning but you know they aren’t really listening or aren’t going to follow it? “Pay attention if you are rich, for you have received your consolation.” “Look out if you are full now, for you will be hungry.” “Trouble ahead: I’m going to warn you and you probably aren’t going to listen so it’s going to be bad--if you are laughing now, at your own good fortune and others’ distress, then eventually you, too, will mourn and weep because ultimately that makes you a miserable human being.”ii And what Ross’s Book of Delights helped me recognize in the Beatitudes this week is that most of the time, we are not in an either/or state. We are in a both and state. Delight, being captivated or paying attention, shows us the beauty and wonder in our lives and the world around us, and sometimes, it even springs up from suffering and woe, in those times when we should have been paying better attention to our own humanity and the humanity of every person around us. Your invitation this week is to look for delight in your life and in the world around you. Pay special attention to it during times of suffering or woe, and look for it in your humanity and the shared humanity of those around you. i. Gay, Ross. The Book of Delights. Algonquin: 2019, pp xi-xii. ii. Levine Amy-Jill and Ben Witherington III. The Gospel of Luke: New Cambridge Bible Commentary. Cambrige UP: 2018, pp 177, 178, 179.