4th Sunday after Epiphany Year B

The Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg The 4th Sunday after the Epiphany-Year B January 28, 2024 A few weeks ago, I was at Honey Creek (our diocesan camp and conference center) for a meeting; it was dinnertime, and I was a little late joining the group. I fixed my plate at the buffet and was walking across the dining room to a table when I WENT DOWN! Thankfully, I suffered no real injury beyond the significant bruises to my rear end (which I landed on) and of course, my pride. As two kind friends rushed over to help scoop me and my spilled plate up off the floor and try to restore me to rights, I bewilderedly looked at the foot that had betrayed me to discover off the side the instrument of my literal downfall: a single, rogue, green bean that had been dropped onto the dining room floor by someone who had come before me. (You’ll be relieved to note that I checked my initial impulse to hold a full inquiry and was able to let the matter go.) The apostle Paul writes about this in our passage from 1st Corinthians today. Paul is writing to the young church in Corinth which is a church in conflict. We only get glimpses of what’s going on there in Paul’s admonitions to them on how to get along together as one should in Christian community. In today’s passage, we see Paul reflecting on the relationship between individual freedom and responsibility to others for a community’s overall health instigated by the question of whether or not it is ok for Christians to eat meat that has been offered to idols.i Paul says, sure, it’s ok to do this, but he offers one of the strongest admonitions in the New Testament (in the Greek word blepete)- a word of strong warning, or caution that is translated “take care.” Sure, it’s ok, he says, “but take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block” to someone else. You could also say, “Pay attention that you don’t drop a green bean off your plate and cause someone else to fall.” (Ok, so maybe I’m not as over it as I say.) It’s actually pretty intense, if you think about it. Our lives are made up of webs and webs of connections—with family, friends, acquaintances, fellow church members, strangers. How many times a day do we inadvertently do something (or not do something) that becomes a stumbling block for someone else? Probably so much more than we ever realize. In fact, I bet I’ve left a scattered trail of green beans throughout my life for people to slip on! And while Paul says, yes, technically I do have the individual liberty to leave my green beans wherever I want, as a follower of Jesus, I should take care, take care of other people, take care that my action or inaction doesn’t cause anyone else to stumble or fall. So what do we, as Christians, do about this? How then should we live? First, we have to pay attention to when we drop green beans. We can’t just go through life oblivious to how our action or inaction may cause damage to others. We have to pay attention to what aspects of our personalities, what aspects of our behaviors can become stumbling blocks (and have become stumbling blocks) for the people around us in any given web of relationships. For me, this means bringing more thoughtfulness to ordinary encounters, and it also means paying attention to the ways I have tripped people up in the past; asking for forgiveness; and trying to change my behavior. One of my gifts is that I can see potential—in people, in situations—and one of the challenges of that is that I can be relentless and demanding in pursuit of the achievement of that potential, to the detriment of relationships. A friend of mine shared that her stumbling block is her certitude—that she believes that she is always right and it brings with it a certain degree of inflexibility to other peoples’ ideas. Our Wednesday healing service congregation shared a couple of their stumbling blocks, too. One said that her perfectionism can be an impediment to her most important relationships, and another said that her time frame for things doesn’t always line up with others’ expectations, and this can be responsible for dropped green beans lying around. Once we recognize that we all inadvertently drop green beans from time to time, and are therefore in need of forgiveness, then it reminds us that others who drop green beans that trip us up are worthy of our forgiveness, too. I wonder what in your actions or inactions have you seen to be the cause of other people’s stumbling? What do you need to pay attention to in order to better take care of the people around you? The other challenge in this passage today for us is that it isn’t just about individual behavior; it’s also about communal behavior. How are we, as a church, dropping green beans for other people to slip on and not even noticing? What are the areas that we need to pay attention to that can be or already have become stumbling blocks for people in our midst or others seeking God in this community? One of the gifts of this place is long-established relationships, ties of kinship, and long-held friendships. One of the stumbling blocks in that is we often don’t pay attention to the stranger in our midst, the people outside our circle who are seeking belonging in this community, because we are so busy talking with our friends. How might we open up pathways of belonging in some of those old, cherished, long-standing relationships and create new space for others? I think it’s going to take all of us being intentional about this and maybe even putting some new practices in place. Your invitation this week is to think about all this on both individual and communal levels. How might your behavior (or lack thereof) become a stumbling block to others you encounter? Or what have you experienced around this in the past that you need to pay attention to? How are you being called to “take care” that you don’t cause someone else to fall? And how are we being called to pay attention to this as a church and to continue to be transformed as a community of faith? i. Feasting on the Word. Exegetical Perspective; WJK: p 303

2nd Sunday after Epiphany Year B

The Rev. Melanie Lemburg The 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany-Year B January 14, 2024 Last weekend, I gathered at Honey Creek with the Diocese of Georgia’s Commission on Ministry, which is a committee required by The Episcopal Church canons whose purpose is to advise the Bishop of each diocese in matters pertaining to ministry. Last weekend, we were meeting with people who were discerning a call to ordained ministry—both the priesthood and the diaconate. I told my colleagues when we gathered that I love doing this sort of work for the same reason that I love doing pre-marital counseling: they both help me remember my first love. It is enlivening for me to work with a group of other faithful lay and clergy to try to listen to how the Holy Spirit is acting in lives of individuals and in the greater church. Our work is essentially trying to listen for God’s call among us. So I’ve been especially struck this week in our readings by the story of Eli and Samuel. Eli is an interesting character to me. He’s a priest, but it’s not clear if he is an especially good or effective priest. In fact, throughout Eli’s story in the first part of 1 Samuel, he gets more things wrong than he does right. The book opens with an exchange between Hannah, Samuel’s mother, and Eli when she comes to pray at Shiloh where Eli is in service. She is distraught and in her prayers, she begs God for a son, praying with her lips moving but no words coming out. In watching her, Eli determines that she must be drunk, so he confronts her and chastises her. When she stands up to him, he offers her God’s blessing, and not long afterward, she has Samuel, who she dedicates to the service of God. We also learn that Eli’s sons, who are also priests, are scoundrels. They send their servants to take the best meat from what has been sacrifice to God, and thus they hold God (and the people worshipping God) in contempt. Eli gets a warning that his sons are invoking the wrath of God with their behavior, but he seems unwilling or unable to curtail their behavior. After our reading for today, as events in the life of Israel unfold, Israel goes to war with the Philistines. The Philistines kill a great number of Israelites, including both of Eli’s sons, and they steal the Ark of Covenant which holds the stone tablets containing the 10 Commandments and is Israel’s most prized relic at this time. When Eli receives the news that both his sons have been killed and the ark has been stolen, he falls over and breaks his neck and dies. But our story for today, gives us a glimpse of a single shining moment in Eli’s ministry. Samuel is young--tradition tells us probably around 12--and while he has spent his entire life in the service of the Lord, he doesn’t know the Lord. The Lord calls to Samuel, and he thinks it’s Eli, so he goes to see what the old man wants from him. Eli sends him back to bed with both a patience and a gentleness that he did not exhibit with Samuel’s mother Hannah. After three different times of this, Eli finally realizes what is going on, and he teaches Samuel how to respond to the Lord saying, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Samuel does as Eli instructs, and the Lord tells Samuel that God is about to punish Eli for the sins of his sons. In the morning, Eli presses Samuel to share what God has revealed to him, and he receives the news courageously with a fair amount of equanimity, not offering any anger toward Samuel as messenger. And here’s a spoiler alert: Samuel goes on to become a great prophet in the history of Israel, an important figure in the establishment of the monarchy, featuring in both King Saul and King David’s stories. But even Samuel has to learn how to hear God’s call in his life, and it was the fallible priest Eli who taught him. Well, that’s all great, Melanie, but what does that have to do with me or with us, today? The reason why we do the work of discernment for ordained life as a committee in the diocese is because much of the time, we need community to understand who we truly are, who God is calling us to be. Eli’s story is heartening to me because it shows that we as individuals don’t have to be good or effective in order to help people learn a little bit more about who God has created them to be, and this is the call of what it means to be together in community. We are called to hold up a mirror for each other at times when we see the giftedness of the other, or when we can discern how God may be acting in that person’s life. It’s a task that requires humility, gentleness, a willingness to listen, and great courage to risk ourselves in this endeavor. But each of us is called to do this work for each other, both inside the church and beyond. You know, I’m not sure if I would be a priest, if my mother hadn’t named something that I was already wrestling with inside, giving me a sort of blessing to begin seriously considering it. And this is not a task that is limited to ordained vocations. So this is especially important work that we can offer to the younger people among us. But we have to take the time to listen, to be curious, and to be compassionate about the things that they are passionate about. To do this truly effectively, we have to be open to perspectives different than our own, and we have to be able to reimagine the contours of our own youth alongside the benefits of wisdom and age. This is also work that we are called to both as individuals and also as a whole church. Your invitation this week is to think of a time when someone noticed something in you and named it for you in a way that helped you understand yourself different? This week, be open to looking and listening to ways God might be inviting you to share something that you see (in kindness, gentleness, humility, and courage) about someone you encounter.

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?