The First Sunday of Advent Year A

Advent 1A November 27, 2022 Today we celebrate the beginning of a new year in the church calendar. It is the first Sunday of Advent, a season of the church year that is characterized by anticipation and waiting, by expectant hope and longing, by preparation for Jesus’s coming again through his birth at Christmas and by preparation for Jesus’s coming again into this world as he promised. Advent is, perhaps, the most counter-cultural of our seasons because all around us, the stores, the yards, the houses are all decorated for Christmas in a riot of carols and colors. And yet in Advent, we light our single candles week by week and huddle expectantly around the light of those individual flames. In our gospel lesson for today, we see Jesus, who has just entered Jerusalem and is peering into the shadows of his impending death, entreating his disciples (and us) to “keep awake!” And that’s really the theme of this season, isn’t it: Keep awake! But how do we do that, we who are not so good at or comfortable with waiting? In Advent, we are invited to dwell for a season with our longing. We sing every week “O, come O come Emanual,” and we identify as a people in exile, longing to return home. We remember for a season that we are a people who are called to wait, to watch expectantly, to hope. Most of the time, we just refuse to wait. We rush or we ignore it or we distract ourselves with our smartphones, but in Advent we are called to embrace the waiting and the longing that comes with it; we are called to lean into the uncertainty of our daily lives. We are invited to keep watch for the presence of God, who does show up and who will continue to show up. A while back, one of my favorite songs was titled “Awake My Soul” by the British band Mumford and Sons. The refrain of the song goes: “Awake my soul! For you were made to meet your maker.” St. Augustine wrote a long time ago that at the center of each of us is a God-shaped hole. We try to fill it so often with things that aren’t God or of God. But in the end, only God can fill that void. So one way of keeping awake during this season of Advent is to embark upon an examination of our longing. What is it for which we wait? What does our deepest longing reveal about each of us? And what would it be like to kneel before God (perhaps during some extra silence before the confession?) and to name our specific longing before God and ask God for God’s fulfillment? So this Advent, may your soul be awakened: that you may watch with the expectancy and joy of children waiting for their playmates to arrive. May your soul be awakened that you may watch with the purpose of one who waits for water to boil. May your soul be awakened that you may watch with the patience and faithfulness of one who keeps watch with a loved one who is near death. May you keep awake and keep watch for the presence of God in your life and in this world. For you were made to meet your maker.

23rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28C

23rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28C November 13, 2022 “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” I couldn’t help but think of this line from our epistle reading today—the 2nd letter to the Thessalonians--as I sat at a stoplight about to turn onto the Truman from Montgomery Crossroads. I was looking out the window at a man holding a small sign—saying he was a veteran and asking for any sort of assistance. I was thankful that I had one of our blessing bags in the back seat, so I rolled down my window and handed it to him. Then I watched as my husband, who was in the car in front of me, rolled down his window and handed him some money. It’s one of the things that I admire about my husband and his priestly ministry. He takes to heart another scriptural admonishment, that we heard Jesus say in last week’s gospel: “give to everyone who begs of you.” And I wondered what we’re supposed to do with these two seemingly contradictory scriptures from one week to the next? There’s a whole history around this quote from 2 Thessalonians. It has been quoted by leaders across the centuries—John Smith to the colonists at Jamestown; Vladimir Lenin as a foundation of socialism, the first phase of communism. The original hearers of this line, the Christian community of Thessolonika, received this admonition from the letter writer (who may or may not have been Paul) in a specific context. They were worried about the eschaton, the end times. They thought it was going to happen any day now, that Jesus was going to return and pass judgement on this world, and they would be released from their trials and tribulations to go live as the faithful in Jesus’s eternal kingdom. If you think the end of this world is going to happen any day now, then what does it matter how you earn your living or contribute to the community? But the writer of 2nd Thessalonians is telling that community that it does matter. What they do every day between now and the end of this world, how they function together in community continues to matter. No matter what is happening, our contributions to our community matter; how we care for each other matters. So, I started wondering about different ways to think about contributions to community and how we take care of each other from this particular scripture. How do we get at the heart of it—that our contributions matter, that how we take care of each other matters—while maybe leaving behind the very individualistic and punitive nature of it? My little family is getting ready to go visit my extended family in Northeast Mississippi next weekend. Most of you know that my parents decided to buy a farm in the last few years, and together with my youngest brother and his wife and their twins, they all farm, growing their own organic food—fruit and produce—and sharing that with their community by selling it at a local farmer’s market and through C.S.A. shares (which stands for community supported agriculture). It’s a huge undertaking for four adults and there’s always something to do. They joke now about how they often save big projects for when they know my other (California) brother and I are coming with our families. They call us their migrant workers. And if the weather cooperates, we help do these projects; and my mom cooks and cooks and cooks and feeds us all. We don’t help out to earn our food. My mom would still feed us even if we didn’t help with the work. We help out because we’re family, and the farm is important to them, so it’s also important to us, and we want to support it. (It’s why we go to sporting events for our children and grandchildren, right? Why we sign up to bring food to church events or volunteer. We are a part of these families, these communities, and we value what they value and so we support it and them.) But what if the gospel calls us to think bigger? Bigger than helping out in our own families? Bigger than helping out in our own church? I’ve been reading the book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Kimmerer is a mother and a scientist and also a Native American. In her chapter titled The Council of Pecans, she recounts one of the stories of her family of origin—how her grandfather and his brother go out fishing for their supper but catch nothing. They are hesitant to go home empty handed and face a supper of only biscuits and red-eye gravy yet again. When one of the boys stubs his toe on something, they are delighted to discover nuts, so many he can hardly walk through them all. They decide to take them home and stuff as many as they can in their pockets, but they long to bring more home to mamma to see them through the coming days, and they can only carry so many in their small hands. Kimmerer concludes the story writing, “The heat eases a little as the sun sinks low and evening air settles in the bottomland, cool enough for them to run home for supper. Mamma hollers for them and the boys come running, their skinny legs pumping and their underpants flashing white in the fading light. It looks like they’re each carrying a big, forked log, hung like a yoke over their shoulders. They throw them down at her feet with grins of triumph: two pairs of worn-out pants, tied shut with twine at the ankles and bulging with nuts.” i Over the course of the chapter, Kimmerer writes beautifully about what pecan (and other nut trees) can teach us. She writes about how pecan trees don’t produce every year but rather at unpredictable intervals that scientists speculate are brought about because of environmental stimuli or factors. And in the years that the nut trees mast or produce, the environment around them flourishes. The squirrels eat more and become more abundant, and then the hawks eat more and become more abundant. And the next year, when the nut trees don’t mast, the squirrel and hawk populations drop as well. Because the thing about pecan trees is that they don’t just decide as individuals if they’re going to produce nuts in a given year. They all work together and all the trees produce or don’t. She writes, “If one tree fruits, they all fruit—there are no soloists. Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove; not one grove in the forest, but every grove; all across the county and all across the state. The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together. All flourishing is mutual.” ii All flourishing is mutual. What you do matters to the greater community. What if each of us moved from a more individualistic mentality (the one of he who does not work shall not eat) toward a more communal mentality—that all flourishing is mutual? What might we as a church, as a society learn from the pecan trees about how to live and how to take care of each other and the world around us? What might we consider changing in our lives or in the life of this place to support the flourishing of all? i. Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed editions, 2013. p 11 ii. Ibid. p 15

The Sunday after All Saints' Day-The Rev Melanie Lemburg

Sunday after All Saints Year C November 6, 2022 Most of us don’t want to think about death. Not our own death. Not the deaths of those we love. Rather than even mentioning the word “death,” we have created these phrases that we all know mean death but don’t make us say it. There’s the most popular “passed away” (as in “he/she passed away”) or the expression of someone being lost-- (we lost him/her or I’m so sorry for your loss). There’s the wonderfully Shakespearean “shuffled off this mortal coil” or the more prosaic: “kicked the bucket,” “bought the farm,” or even “bit the dust.” The references may be even more oblique; one of our Wednesday service congregation reported indignantly that her doctor had said to her this week, “you know as we age, these things are going to happen”. Most of us just don’t like to talk about it or even think about it. And when we do think about death, it may make us afraid or uncomfortable. That’s why I’m so thankful for our liturgical tradition—which encourages us to spend some time with death this time every year. Every year, we walk through three days of death—All Hallow’s Eve, All Saint’s Day, and the day after when we remember All the Faithful Departed. In fact, it’s so important to us that we face this reality at least once a year that we can move the observance of All Saints’ Day to the Sunday after, which we are doing today, so just in case people tried to duck spending three days with death earlier in the week, we’re going to get you with it on Sunday! I’m also thankful for this place, where we bury our loved ones right outside the doors of the church, so that they are not far away from us in their “eternal rest.” There’s no fake grass here to try to cover up the gaping hole of the grave, and we even take turns passing around the shovel during the burial service to help fill in their grave. So what are the gifts that we receive from marking this day—this Sunday after All Saints’ year after year, from being willing to look at death head on from time to time rather than trying to ignore it or pretend it doesn’t exist? First, it gives us an opportunity to acknowledge our discomfort around death, and it invites us to sit with death for a bit, maybe even start to make friends with it. Second, All Saints’ helps us remember that even though each of us must ultimately face death on our own, there is a whole great communion of those who we love and who love us, who have gone before us into death and who wait to welcome us when we get there. Third, this day serves as a reminder for us that no one who is ever loved is truly lost. During this season, as we write names on bags and place them on the graves, as we read off names from a list during our Eucharistic prayer, we creep a little bit closer to the reality that there is no real division between death and life, between this life and the next. It’s what Jesus is talking about in the gospel reading for today: we make our own eternity even now in the choices we make and how we engage others and the world around us. Or as our burial liturgy puts it: “death is not the end, but a change.” One of my favorite musicians—the Quaker poet and musician Carrie Newcomer—has a song titled All Saints’ Day that I’ve been listening to these last couple of weeks. She captures in poetry and in song the grace and mystery that this day offers us, the comfort and consolation that can be found in remembering all those who have loved us and have gone before us into death and the ways that they continue to support and surround us, in our life and in our death. In the chorus, Newcomer talks about how the next life hovers close to us all throughout this one, as if on the other side of a veil, and it is only at times that we notice. Can't you feel it ever closer We breathe it in and then we exhale We touch both sides and now eternal Standing closer to the veil Now is just a moving image Not a ribbon a start and end There is a bird a hidden singer That calls and listens and calls again Can't you feel it ever closer We breathe it in and then we exhale We touch both sides and now eternal Standing closer to the veil Centered down and moving outward Sometimes almost too sweet to bare There are endless ways to reach home Just keep walking and I'll meet you there Can't you feel it ever closer We breathe it in and then we exhale We touch both sides and now eternal Standing closer to the veil There's a blurring of the borders And I swear that I heard voices But every act of simple kindness Calls the kingdom down and all around us Can't you feel it ever closer We breathe it in and then we exhale We touch both sides and now eternal Standing closer to the veil Standing closer to the veil Songwriters: Carrie Newcomer, Carrie Ann Newcomer. For non-commercial use only.

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?