The Eve of Christ's Nativity-2023

Christmas Eve 2023 The Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg December 24, 2023 Many of you know that it is not uncommon for me to get a particular song stuck in my head. I’m a big believer in how the Holy Spirit uses that to get my attention and as an invitation to delve deeper into what might be unfolding in my soul in a particular season. If you’ve been here before for Christmas Eve, chances are, you’ve heard me talk about this. One year it was Dona nobis pacem (God, give us peace) which was lodged firmly in my soul. Another year it was two particular lines from O Holy Night: “a thrill of hope/ the weary world rejoices”. Last year, it was a different line from O Holy Night…. You get the picture. This year, the Holy Spirit has shaken it up a bit, because my obsession hasn’t been limited to one song; instead, I’ve been obsessed, all through the Advent season, with two very different songs. I think the second song came into play because I couldn’t figure out why the first song was stuck on repeat in my soul. (But more on that later). This first song that got stuck in my soul this year is brand new to me. It’s titled Lully, Lulla, Lullay, and it’s written by a contemporary composer named Philip Stopford. I encountered it when I attended The University of the South’s Lessons and Carols service earlier this month where my daughter was singing in the choir. We had talked with her about the program earlier that day, and she had shared that it was her favorite song in their program. So when they started singing, I was immediately captivated by the gentle lullaby nature of the song. (It’s set to the words of the Coventry Carol, if you’re familiar with that.) The chorus goes: Lully, lullah, thou little tiny child/ Bye bye, lully, lully. It’s a lullaby sung from a mother’s perspective. It could even by Mary singing it for Jesus. But as the song unfolds, its soaring and beautiful melody becomes haunting as the song tells about the murder of the innocents, all the young children murdered by order of King Herod in his attempt to wipe out the threat of the baby Jesus: “ O sisters too, how may we do, For to preserve this day This poor youngling for whom we do sing Bye, bye, lully, lullay. Herod, the king, in his raging, Charged he hath this day His men of might, in his owne sight, All young children to slay. That woe is me, poor Child for Thee! And ever mourn and sigh, For thy parting neither say nor sing, Bye, bye, lully, lullay. i Y’all know this story, right? Even though it’s not one we typically read on Christmas Eve, it’s still part of the story of the birth Jesus. We find it in Matthew’s gospel, which tells us that after Jesus is born, Herod, the King, gets wind of Jesus’s birth from the wise men, and he grows concerned about a potential rival king, so he sends soldiers to the area in and around Bethlehem with orders to kill all the children there who are 2 years old or younger. (Jesus escapes because Joseph is warned in a dream to take Jesus and Mary into Egypt where they will be safe.) As I’m listening to this beautiful song unfold in the magnificent space that is All Saints’ Chapel at Sewanee, I can feel myself coming apart. The one Kleenex that I have on my person cannot combat the weeping that has just overwhelmed me. I mean, I am wrecked. As I sit listening to this song, I’m thinking about my own children, who are way past the age of infancy (thank goodness!), and this crazy world they are growing up in. I’m thinking about all the children of the world now and since the time of Jesus who have been killed because of the decisions of men mad with power, about how it’s happening, even now, in the same place it did 2,000 years ago, in Bethlehem (whose Christians have chosen not to offer Christmas observances this year in their churches because they are at war, under siege). The song comes to a hauntingly beautiful conclusion. I am openly weeping, and then immediately next in the program is that the congregation is supposed to stand and sing Angels we have heard on high. I stand up, and I’m really trying to get it together, but I’m still a blubbering mess, who’s trying desperately to sing Gloria….in excelsis deio. And then I start to get mad—who’s idea was it to play such a sad song and then make us get up and sing, anyway?! By the time angels we have heard on high is over, I’ve pulled myself together, but I’m still haunted by the emotional whip-lash I’ve just experienced through the two songs. But here’s the really crazy part, y’all. I can’t stop listening to this song. I bought it, and I’ve listened to it over and over throughout Advent, and sometimes, it still makes me weep. (I was listening to it on my way to pickleball the other day and started weeping at 7:00 in the morning.) But I still hadn’t figured out what invitation is there in this for me from the Holy Spirit. So, this is where the second song comes in, and interestingly enough it’s next up after Lullay, Lulla on my Advent playlist, so I’ve been listening to it all season. (This is one of those times when my spiritual obtuseness has given the Holy Spirit a run for her money.) The second song isn’t an Advent or Christmas song, but it’s a song on one of my favorite artists’ new albums, and it felt Advent-y to me. It’s titled Singing in the Dark by Carrie Newcomer. (Those of you who were at the Blue Christmas service heard me sing it with my friend Joshua Varner.ii) It’s a song about singing prayers with the monks of Gethsemane in the early hours of the morning before dawn has broken, and it’s all about how we can carry each other through dark times with our song and our common prayer, how our voices raised together can call forth the light out of the darkness. Our reading from the prophet Isaiah tonight hints at some of these images. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. But just like in the darkness of night in Bethlehem when the light of the angel’s song breaks forth, these people who are in exile and hope to return once again to their homeland know that darkness and light are never really far apart. In fact, you can’t have one without the other. It’s all a part of the same story: the murder of the innocents by King Herod and the light breaking forth in the dark from angelic voices. It’s all a part of the same story. In one of my favorite prayers in the liturgy for healing that we offer every week here, we pray “Gracious God, we give you thanks for your beloved Jesus Christ, in whom you have shared the beauty and pain of human life.” And that is certainly what is at the heart of this night, what is at the heart of this collaboration of darkness and light, what is at the heart of the incarnation, at the heart of Emmanuel—who is God with us. The creator of all has come alongside us, in and among us, both 2,000 years ago and again this night, to experience all the beauty and pain that come together to make up this human life, this human story. We gather here this night to name that, to recognize it, to lift it up for each other when we need reminding. That God has not left us to our own pain and horror; that God is present with us in it, even as God is present in the beauty, in the shining singing of the angels, and in the soft candle-light of Silent Night. When our hearts are breaking with beauty, God is with us. When our hearts are breaking with pain, God is with us. It’s all a part of the same story. And God is with us. We gather tonight because it is the nature of Christian community to raise our voices together against the dark, to call forth the light with our singing and with our proclamation of the good news. And it is the nature of Christian community when one is suffering, then we carry that one through with our singing until they are able to sing again. So if you find yourself able to sing this night, then sing on behalf of your neighbors who can’t this year. And if you find you can’t sing this year, that’s ok. We’ve got you. Know you’re not alone. Bishop Stephen Charleston puts it this way: “We will stay with you. That is the ancient pledge that turned humanity from being solitary creatures to living in community. In family. In kinship. We will stay with you, whatever comes…We will never wonder if we are alone, for in our heart is the pledge of hope: we will stay with you.”iii This year, what I’ve learned is that my invitation from the Holy Spirit has been to dwell alongside the darkness for a bit. It has been an invitation to me to hold in my heart the needs of those who are suffering here in this parish and around the world. To learn the lesson as another writer puts it “It is healthy and holy for joy and grief to coexist.” iv I’m so very grateful to be here, singing with you, in the heartbreak of pain and the heartbreak of beauty here on this most holy night. Remembering together that it is all a part of the same story. i. You can listen to the Sewanee Choir sing this hauntingly beautiful song starting at 1 hr 5 min. https://new.sewanee.edu/campus-life/believing/all-saints-chapel/festival-service-of-lessons-and-carols/festival-service-of-lessons-and-carol/ ii.You can listen to Joshua and me sign this song here. Thanks to Elizabeth Varner for recording it for our mammas: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vkJ2-_gX0_tCT2NmnxxyqeBWqqyKaFcN/view iii.Bishop Stephen Charleston on Facebook. Thursday, December 21, 2023 iv. Attributed to Holley Gerth in a Facebook image

The Second Sunday of Advent-Year B

The Rev Melanie Lemburg 2nd Sunday of Advent Year B December 10, 2023 The Lonely Places by Melanie Lemburg Why is it that prophets so often appear out in the wilderness? The literal lonely places. The places of dusty desert and desolate valley. The places of expansive roads stretching out into nowhere under the endless-eye of the horizon. They come with challenge and comfort, with new direction and solace and a certain lostness. They help us see the danger and risk and nurture and care that all dwell deep in our loneliness. And they remind us of all the potential in a simple change of direction. Our gospel reading for today, on this Second Sunday of Advent, is the very beginning of Mark’s gospel. We are plopped down in the middle of a wilderness and John the Baptist appears there with us. We hear echoes of the song of comfort to the Children of Israel in exile in Babylon in the words of the prophet Isaiah. And in this opening section, the writer of Mark mentions wilderness two out of the ten times that he will reference wilderness throughout the gospel. The word Mark uses, eremos, is the Greek word for desert, but the first part, erem, literally means ‘lonely place.’ In this opening section, Mark is inviting us to hold together both good news and lonely places. What might that look like for us on this Second Sunday of Advent? I invite you to ponder when you have found yourself in a lonely place in your spiritual life? Consider how the wilderness or a lonely place can be a place of both danger and risk and loneliness and also a place of refuge and rest for those who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life. When have you found yourself in a lonely place and been offered a change of direction by one of God’s messengers? Where are the wilderness or lonely places in your life right now, and what is the good news you need to hear there? The Lonely Places by Melanie Lemburg Why is it that prophets so often appear out in the wilderness? The literal lonely places? The places of dusty desert and desolate valley. The places of expansive roads stretching out into nowhere under the endless-eye of the horizon. They come with challenge and comfort, with new direction and solace and a certain lostness. They help us see the danger and risk and nurture and care that all dwell deep in our loneliness. And they remind us of all the potential in a simple change of direction.

Last Sunday after Pentecost-Christ the King year A

The Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg Last Sunday after Pentecost-Christ the King Year A November 26, 2023 A number of years ago, I attended a conference that was put on by TENS—The Episcopal Network for Stewardship. The speaker talked about how our understanding of generosity is deeply connected with our first memories of money and this, in turn is deeply connected with our understanding of who God is. The speaker asked us to recall our first memory of money, to reflect on what it taught us about generosity and how it impacted our understanding of who God is and to share that in our small group setting. My first memory of money began with my paternal grandfather, who also happened to be a Methodist minister. Pop was a growly, gruff, manly-man who was known to be a successful boxer in his youth. My brothers and boy cousins were all slightly terrified of him as he would often growl at them, “Boy, I’m gonna bite your ankles.” And they never really knew if he was serious or not. But I was the first granddaughter, and so I knew him differently. And one day when I was staying with my grandparents, Pop took me in his car to the bank where he opened a savings account in his and my names. (I still have the little bank book that they gave us where we wrote our deposits.) And over a period of time, Pop would save up the quarters that he emptied from his pockets every night; we’d deposit them in our bank account; and after we had saved enough money, we made a withdrawal to buy me a used piano that we could have in our home that I could practice on while I was taking piano lessons. As an adult revisiting this memory, I was struck by the fact that I didn’t have to do much of anything to participate in my grandfather’s generous act of saving up his quarters. I didn’t contribute anything except by riding with him in the car to the bank, and yet, I felt like I was a full-participant in the endeavor of saving quarters to get my piano. This memory gives me a tiny glimpse into what my relationship with God is like. How all I really have to do is (barely) show up, and God invites me to be a full participant in God’s generosity. Today is the last Sunday of the church year, the last Sunday after Pentecost, also known as Christ the King Sunday. It’s also the first Sunday of our church’s annual giving campaign which is titled Generations of Generosity. Eleanor Foster, the senior warden and I, chose this campaign because it is a way to tell the stories of those who have come before us, in our lives of faith and in the life of this congregation, as we approach the conclusion of our centennial year-long celebration. Each week for the next three Sundays, you will be invited to contemplate questions to help you reflect on the generations who have helped nourish and shape your faith, on what it means to live lives of generosity, and to tell those stories as a part of our common life. This will culminate on December 17 with a storytelling event, where we will share a video of many of you sharing your stories about how you have been nurtured by this faith community and your hopes for its present and future. In our gospel reading for today, we have the third in a series of three parables that Matthew’s gospel gives us in Jesus’s final hours. The first parable which we read two weeks ago is the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids in which Jesus is inviting us to live a mindful, joyful life. Last week, we had the parable of the three slaves who were given talents by their master and is an invitation by Jesus for us to live a daring, fruitful life. And then this week, we get Jesus’ last public teaching in Matthew’s gospel, the parable of the last judgement, in which Jesus invites us to live a generous, compassionate life. It’s tempting to read this parable as Jesus showing us that we can earn our place in heaven, or that our place in God’s kingdom is a reward for righteous behavior. But notice that the Son of Man says to the sheep, “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…” which shows that those who live lives of compassionate generosity are invited to join in the creative work that God has already done, as a free gift from God, an invitation to participate in God’s creative work and in God’s generosity; that when we practice our own compassionate generosity in our dealings with our fellow humans, then we are already active participants in God’s kingdom of eternal life, even here and now. i. Your invitation this week is to consider our questions for small group discussion: What is your first memory of money and how is that connected to your understanding of God? What important lessons have your learned from the members or events of a previous generation at St. Thomas? How has the influence of past generations affected how we have evolved as a congregation? Is the vision for how we live together as the body of Christ changing? In what ways? What stories does our church have that we should preserve and share? What is your vision of this church for future generations? i. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/11/16/the-least-of-these-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-reign-of-christ-the-king-sunday

25th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28A

The Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg 25th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 28A November 19, 2023 What kind of life does God want you to live? Or, what does it look like for you to participate in the Kingdom of God right here, right now? Our gospel reading for today is the 2nd in a set of 3 parables in the late chapters of Matthew’s gospel. Jesus has made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He has taught in the temple, fought with the Jewish religious leaders, and he tells this series of three parables immediately before he once again predicts his death in two days. We heard the first of the three parables last week—the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, who get into a fight about having enough oil in their lamps to light the way of the late-arriving bridegroom. We have our parable for today, about slaves who are entrusted with talents from their master, and then next week, we’ll get the third parable in this series—the parable of the Great Judgement, when people will be separated before the judgement seat of the Son of Man based on how they treated people in extremis. With increasingly more urgency, Jesus is trying to teach his followers and us about what it means to participate in the Kingdom of God here and now. He’s trying to get people to ponder what kind of life God wants each of us to live individually and together as a community. The first parable (from last week-the one about the bridesmaids) shows that God wants us to live a mindful, joyful life. Today’s parable shows us that God wants us to live a daring, fruitful life. And next week’s parable (which, spoiler alert!, is the grand finale) shows us that God wants us to live a generous compassionate life.i. I asked our Wednesday congregation to reflect on a time when they took a risk, stepped out in daring that resulted in a more fruitful spiritual life. And we shared lovely stories about how people stepped out in faith differently to take a risk, how God called them forward in their lives out of their comfort, and how their spiritual lives have been forever shaped by that experience. All of the stories acknowledged, in some way, the vulnerability that their daring, their risk required. Because with the risk of doing something new there is always the very real possibility of failure. Now I’m someone who really doesn’t like to fail. And so what jumps out at me in today’s parable (besides some of the significant problems with the whole scenario of asking slaves who are powerless to step into a role that they haven’t been given clear direction around and haven’t been prepared for and then punishing the one who fails) is just how enslaved to fear the one slave is—how his fear of failure and punishment keeps him from thriving. And then he ends up failing and being punished anyway. A few weeks ago, I went to a conference at Kanuga as a part of my continuing education and formation. But unlike most continuing ed conferences I attend, this one wasn’t church sponsored. It wasn’t on church leadership or conflict or any other helpful tools for my ministry tool-box. This was a purely secular conference that is titled “Life is a Verb Camp.” I signed up because two of my favorite writers—Carrie Newcomer who is a poet and songwriter and poet and essayist Ross Gay—were listed as the keynote speakers. So, I took at fairly safe risk (I mean, it was at Kanuga, so how weird could it be, right?) and I went all by myself. The goal of the gathering is to create an annual, camp-like experience for adults to help nurture courage, creativity, compassion, and community, and, I’m not going to lie, it certainly had its weird moments. But the founder, a writer named Patti Digh told us that she invites poets to be the keynote speakers every year because “poets help us see the world differently.” And I found this to be so very true. There is no way I could have anticipated the gifts I received from this small risk of attending this new, slightly strange gathering. I’ve started writing poetry again. I used to write poetry all the time in my younger years, but the more sermons I wrote, the fewer poems poured forth from me. And with that writing has come a deepening in how I look at the world around me; it has brought a new intentionality to my experiences and encounters and a reflectiveness that requires the slowing down of my spirit. It has definitely been a stretching of my spirit and a deepening in my relationship with God and with others. So, your questions this week to consider are “What kind of life does God want you to live? What does it look like to participate in the Kingdom of God here and now? Reflect on a time that you took a risk, stepped out in daring, that resulted in a more fruitful spiritual life for you. And look for opportunities either this week or into Advent to step out a little in risk, in daring, in faith.” And since I try not to ask you to do things that I’m not willing to do, I’m going to close with a poem that I’ve written recently. It’s about a time when I took a risk here with y’all, and you met me exactly where I needed to be met, and how I saw it transform all of us. An Ode to the Church by Melanie Lemburg She sat curled small on a bench behind the open door of the church. Are you sad, I asked. And she nodded. Would you like a hug? She did. And clung to me like the poor motherless child she was. Would you like more hugs? She nodded. Well, watch this! And I put my faith in my flock filing out of church. Poor Kurt was our first victim. I opened my arms wide and he hugged me, maybe a little reluctantly. Her eyes luminous, she mirrored and hug after hug rained down on her- manna in her wilderness. And suddenly Charlotte stood before us on the arm of her sister. (Charlotte’s super-power is hugging.) Full body-arms pulled tight in a squeeze of delight-enough to lose yourself. We have never been more the church, the bride, the body of Christ, than on that day when we transfigured the holy handshake line into a holy hug line together for the motherless child in each of us. i. Much of this reading of these three parables together was inspired by this week’s Salt Lectionary commentary: https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/11/9/be-daring-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-twenty-fourth-week-after-pentecost

The Sunday after All Saints' Day 2023

The Sunday after All Saints’ Day The Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg November 5, 2023 Today, the church is given the option to transfer our observance of All Saints’ Day to the Sunday following, which we are doing. We’ll renew our baptismal vows, because this is one of those Sundays the BCP says are especially appropriate for baptism. We’ll remember the saints and the faithful departed who have influenced our lives or faith. And we’ll name those members of this portion of the body of Christ who have died in the last year in the Eucharistic prayer. Plus, there’s the beatitudes for our gospel—what is known in Matthew’s gospel as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It’s a lot of different threads to knit together. A couple of weeks ago, one of our Wednesday congregation reference the beatitudes in her comments for that week, and she said something like, “The beatitudes are the path of our becoming.” (I’ve carried that around with me in my soul, occasionally rubbing my fingers over it like one of those polished rocks with messages on them that you can carry around in your pocket.) The beatitudes are the path of our becoming. It reminds me of a saying that we learned about baptism back in my seminary days. That is “baptism is becoming who you already are.” Baptism is becoming who you already are. We are all of us on this path of becoming together--created by God to be the best version of ourselves. But sometimes the world trips us up. Sometimes we trip over our own feet. The saints are those who walked before us or walk alongside us and inspire us in the different ways that they have grown into their belovedness, in how they continue to become better versions of themselves through their relationship with God. If the beatitudes are the path of our becoming, then what might they have to teach us about how God is calling us to deepen in our faith, to grow further into who God has created us to be? (And who has God created us to be? Each of us is made in the image and likeness of God, created as an outpouring of God’s love and made to share that love with others. You were made in the image and likeness of God. You were created as an outpouring of God’s love, and you were made to share that love with others.) One way that the beatitudes can be translated that may help us unlock the invitation of these so familiar words is to read them as “you are on the right path…” You are on the right path if you mourn, for you will be comforted. You are on the right path if you hunger and thirst for righteousness for you will be filled. You are on the right path if you are merciful, for you will receive mercy. You get the picture. And what if we expanded on what these simple, complex words and ideas capture to try to make them a bit more tangible by writing our own in keeping with the spirit of what Jesus is teaching? You are on the right path if you allow your heart to break wide open at the news of the world and refuse to let it harden back for you will find compassion there. You are on the right path if you don’t allow pain to unmake who you are holding onto the best of yourself for you will find respite. You are on the right path if you question for you will invite (and find) meaning. You are on the right path if you decide that if you will err, you will err toward mercy for you will find mercy in the erring. You are on the right path if you stay in touch with your gratitude even when you are suffering for you will find joy. You are on the right path if you look for peace and lift it up around you for you will embody peace. We’re going to take some time today to contemplate, and I’m going to give you two options on how to think about this. The first option is to continue contemplating this path of becoming that Jesus lays out for us in the beatitudes. What words in the beatitudes capture your attention today? Where might God be inviting you to deepen in your becoming in this moment on your path of faith? Or, you can think about the path of becoming that you have witnessed in one of the saints of the church or in someone whom you love who has entered the communion of the saints or it can even be one of God’s faithful saints who live and walk among us now. What has their path of becoming taught you about the life of faith? How might you be called to emulate that on your own path of faith?

21st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24A

21st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 24A October 22, 2023 Enemies abound and loyalties shift. In the gospel reading, we see two long-time enemies-the Herodians and the Pharisees- teaming up against their common enemy—Jesus of Nazareth. Eventually, these two enemies will join together with another common enemy—the Romans, the occupying oppressors of their people, the foreign invaders—to entrap and kill Jesus. But before that happens, Jesus remains unflappable in his purpose, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God has come near and all are invited to participate, and he tries to remind them of what it means to be made in the image of God, as God proclaims at creation for each of us. He offers them the chance to remember what it means to be made in the image of God and the invitation to order their lives accordingly. Enemies about and loyalties shift within the story of the Children of Israel, Moses, and God. Moses has left them alone, gathered together at the foot of Mount Sinai where he has gone to the top to meet with God face to face and to receive the 10 Commandments. The people grow anxious in Moses’ absence, restless, and they create a statue of a golden calf to reassure themselves and to worship, fracturing their relationship with God through their choice of raising up a false idol, proving themselves to be enemies of God instead of those who belong to God. God reveals to Moses that the people have become God’s enemy by committing what is, essentially, a capital crime, and God makes plans to destroy God’s people and to found a new nation for God and Moses. Moses argues with God, trying to convince God to spare the people, and then Moses goes down the mountain and invites those who still belong to God to join him as they put to death by sword 3,000 men who had turned from following God. Moses then goes back up the mountain to try to convince God to take them back and to go with them as they leave Sinai and head into the promised land. And we see that at least one image of God is to relent from punishing, to lean into mercy, to be willing to be changed and shaped by relationships. And then there’s Jesus. As enemies abound and loyalties shift around him just days before his crucifixion, he doesn’t fight back, not really. He models the image of God in his persistent peace, in his unwillingness to go to war, in his willingness to give himself over into the hands of his enemies where he will be humiliated, tortured, and executed. And then he forgives them. All of them. Every single one. Enemies abound and loyalties shift in our world. War has broken out in the Middle East. Terror seems to triumph. It is oh, so very tempting to make this about us and them, demonizing enemies and heroizing friends. It is oh so tempting to build our own golden calf to safety, to security, to right versus wrong and good versus evil as innocents are harmed over and over again by the powerful. When we are really honest, we recognize just how alarming it is to realize how close we stand to the line between those who act as God’s beloved and those who act as God’s enemies. What does it mean, in this moment, for each of us to embrace that we are made in the image of God? What does it mean for us to embrace that truth, even for our enemies? How have we strayed in our actions, stepped over the line and become the enemies of God instead of the beloved? What are ways that we can walk the way of peace in this present moment? To look for peace around us, to draw it into ourselves and embody it, and to try to send God’s peace out into the world? Let us pray. (BCP p 833-A prayer attributed the St. Francis): “Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.”

20th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23A

20th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 23A October 15, 2023 A letter to Lily Lynn Calver upon the occasion of her baptism. Dear Lily, Today is an exciting day for you and for us, your community of faith. Today, your parents and your godparents are taking an important step on your behalf in your life of faith. Today we all are saying yes to the fact that God has already claimed you as God’s beloved; we are reinforcing what God has already proclaimed over you, that you will always have a place of belonging in the Kingdom of God, that God has created you to be in full and joyful relationship with God, with God’s people, and with all of God’s creation. Today we say yes to all of that for you, and we also promise that we will help you remember that belonging, that belovedness as you grow here in your life and in your faith. Today, we will reaffirm our own belonging and belovedness alongside you. We will do what we can to remember our own baptism and the promises that we made or that were made for us on how we would try to live as God’s beloved. Today we hear the echo of the words that were said over each one of us as I say them to you: “you are marked as Christ’s own forever.” And we feel the truth of that love of God deep in our bones, a love that has shown through Jesus’s death and resurrection that God’s love is stronger than absolutely anything, even death. We remember that being marked as Christ’s own forever means that there is nothing that any of us can do that will put us outside of God’s love. And yet, even on this glorious day, our gospel reading gives us glimpses of violence and horror. It’s a story that Jesus tells in the temple in Jerusalem just days before his own death, a story that is meant “to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.”i It’s a story that leaves me with so many questions: Why do the original guests say that they will attend this royal wedding banquet but then refuse to go? Why is the guest who is at the banquet not wearing the appropriate clothes? What are the ways that each one of us rejects our own belonging in the Kingdom of God? And how might our baptismal vows serve as reminds to us of how to live more fully into our belonging? It’s hard to fathom for you now, sweet Lily, so beloved by your family, so cherished by this faith community, but just like each of us, at some point, you will taste what it feels like to not belong. Sometimes we are put in that position by others; but much of the time, we choose to reject our own belonging. Maybe it’s because we don’t feel worthy? Maybe it’s because we give ourselves over to deliberate distractions from the love of God. We choose other gods to worship or create idols because it’s easier than being in relationship with God and each other. We fall into petty conflicts like Euodia and Syntyche, and we forget the common work that God calls us to do together—to spread the good news of God’s love, to help extend the circle of belonging beyond our midst and out into a needy and hurting world. In so many ways, we reject our belonging and the belonging of others over and over again. So, we gather here to remember. To be forgiven of our rejection and to forgive. To taste that belonging again at God’s altar. And to be sent out into the world for another week to try to live our lives as those who belong to God, as God’s beloved. Our epistle reading for today gives us a glimpse on one practice that we can employ in between Sundays, to try to help us stay grounded in our being as God’s beloved, those who belong to God. It is the spiritual practice of rejoicing, of giving thanks. When my children were little, we had a nightly bed-time ritual of naming three things for which we were grateful. And even on the days when I was feeling exhausted and not particularly grateful, I knew that my children would ask me to name those three things, and so I would pay attention. And often that paying attention to the places in my day where I could find a small taste of joy was enough to remind me of my belonging in the heart of God. Today, sweet Lily, we, your family, promise to help you learn how to rejoice, to help you remember your belonging when you fall away from it. In order to do that, we have to practice it in our own lives as well. We encourage one another to be reconfirmed in our own belonging through our own baptism and to practice rejoicing daily in intentional ways. Today, sweet Lily, I am thankful for you, for the family who cherishes you, for your sweet baby assurance of your belonging in this community already, and that we will be able to walk this path alongside you as you live and grow. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+ The Big Question this Week: In our baptism, we say yes to God’s call to us as God’s beloved, and we pledge to live our lives as those who belong to God, marked as Christ’s own forever. Consider the ways that you have recently rejected your own belonging in the heart of God. Name three things for which you rejoice or are grateful. Try making this a daily practice this week at the end of each day. i. This is what Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine says is what Jesus’ parables are meant to do.