Easter 3C_with 3A's gospel

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg Easter 3C_2025 (with 3A’s gospel) May 4, 2025 Based on Luke 24:13-35 There are four words from the story of the Road to Emmaus that echo in my life from time to time. Is it the same for you? Do you hear them, too? “But we had hoped…” The two travelers encounter the stranger on the road after a harrowing time. And the weight of their disappointment is conveyed in those four simple words: “But we had hoped..” Luke tells us that this disappointment-sadness-anger-regret stops them in their tracks in the middle of the road on their journey somewhere else, as if they can outrun or escape it. In that moment, Hope stands resurrected, manifest, right in front of them. But their disappointment-sadness-anger-regret blinds them so they cannot see him, cannot recognize him. How many times have I, too, been blinded by my own disappointment-sadness-anger-regret? But we had hoped… That things would turn out differently. But we had hoped… That they would finally hear us. But we had hoped… That the healing would come, the relationship be reconciled. But we had hoped.. That new life, resurrection would conform to our expectations. How many times have I been blinded by my disappointment-anger-sadness-regret when Hope, himself, stands right in front of me, gazing upon me with the look of Love? If there is nothing else we remember this Easter-tide, it is the good news that Our Lord of all Hopefulness does not leave us standing still on the road to Emmaus, blinded by our own disappointment-anger-sadness-regret. He journeys with us, coaxing us, inviting us onward down the road, accompanying us on the journey, always teaching, even when our ears don’t fully hear, even when our hearts don’t fully recognize. And on that road, Hope slowly steals past our blinding disappointment-anger-sadness-regret, and lightens and softens our vision, our hearts, until gradually-all at once, we see the Resurrected Lord, Hope Incarnate, breaking the bread there in our midst: in the face of the weary one kneeling at the altar rail, in one in the hospital bed, in the person at the table across from us, the one in line ahead of us, in the stranger asking for help or offering a word of encouragement. In those glorious moments, we know that Hope has never failed us. Disappointment-anger-sadness-regret cannot blind us forever. And we can see Love everywhere we look: on the road beside us, at the table across from us, and especially, going before us, smoothing the path that we may follow. But we had hoped… It is both an ending and a new beginning. Because Hope never leaves us stuck in disappointment-anger-sadness-regret.

The Day of Resurrection: Easter Day 2025

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Day of Resurrection: Easter Day April 20, 2025 There’s so much fear. I’d never noticed it before this year. I had always thought that maybe it was about competition. But this year, I realize….there is just so much fear. The unthinkable has happened. They’ve been going about their business, doing good things for society, and the authorities have come in and arrested their friend. He has been handed over to a foreign government. He is tried under false charges in a sham of trial. He is tortured, publicly humiliated to prove a point about who’s really in charge here, and then, he is brutally, publicly executed. Like a criminal. Even though he was innocent. His friends are terrified and hopeless. What if they come for them too? Who’s to stop them from being arrested and tried as his followers? It’s no wonder that next week, we will see them huddle together in a locked room, hunkered down in fear. Afraid to go to work. But today, we see them trying to do the next right thing, to prepare the body of their friend for the hasty, disgraced burial he has already received. They are terrified, and they are trying to keep on doing the next right thing. And their fear is evident, if we know how to look for it. There’s so much running, hither and yon, accompanied by panic. We recognize this because we’ve seen it in ourselves from time to time. When we are threatened, our primitive fight or flight response kicks in. Mary Magdalene panics and runs from the tomb to retrieve Peter and John and she tells them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Peter and John race back to the tomb with Magdalene running behind them. When the disciples verify that the tomb is indeed empty, they wander lostly back home. What else is there to do in the face of such mystery? But Mary Magdalene stays, and she finally succumbs to a complete and utter melt-down. It has all been too much, and all she can do is stand there and weep. In her standing still, in her grief, she encounters two angels who ask her a question: “Woman, why are you weeping?” Her response is wrapped in fear: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know what they have done with him.” Now, how do we know this is fear? It’s because we do this ourselves when we are afraid. We pin all our fears and distrust on the shadowy “they”. The ones who aren’t like us. Who don’t think like us, don’t look like us, don’t act like us. Who’s the “they” that Magdalene keeps referring to here? We don’t really know. But what we do know is that it is not us. And that’s when the risen Christ shows up. Mary Magdalene starts to blame him for moving Jesus’s body, thinking he’s the gardener. Because maybe, just maybe, he is one of them: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” And then Jesus calls her by name, and she recognizes him. And all of those “us versus them” categories disappear for her as Jesus stands before her resurrected from the dead. If I were to ask you what you think the opposite of fear is, what would you say? (probably courage, maybe persistence, maybe even hope?) What if I tell you that I think that this story shows us that the opposite of fear is awe? We see it, over and over again, in the gospel: people going about their business in various shades of fear or woundedness, and the power of God is revealed in their lives or right in front of them, and their fear vanishes in the face of their awe. We get a glimpse of this transformation for Peter in the Acts passage for today. Peter, who was so afraid that in the face of the empty tomb, he just goes home. We see him preaching in Acts after some time has passed, and he has been transformed by encounters with the Risen Christ and the manifestation of the glory of God in and through the faithful actions of Jesus’ disciples. Peter preaches: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality…” Peter’s fear has been driven out by his awe and he now understands that in the Kingdom of God, there is no us versus them. There is only us. Back in January, I preached a sermon about sin and awe, and I spoke about how sin divides us but how awe connects us. We could say the same thing about fear and awe as well. Fear divides us; awe connects us. I recently came across this definition of awe. Awe is “an emotional experience in which we sense being in the presence of something that transcends our normal perception of this world.”i Researchers have found that awe ‘leads people to cooperate, share resources, and sacrifice for others’ and causes them to ‘fully appreciate the value of others and see themselves more accurately, evoking humility.’ Some researchers even believe that ‘awe-inducing events may be one of the fastest and most powerful methods of personal change and growth.’” ii Fear divides us. Awe connects us. Back in January, I talked about how we cannot generate our own awe, how we have to be on the lookout for moments when awe breaks into our ordinary lives, and then be attentive enough to allow it to transform us. We might argue that’s why we come to church today. We are trying to show up for the awe of God’s mighty work through Jesus’s resurrection from the dead to astound us, to break us open, to transform us. But guess what?! I have recently learned that just like we can practice other spiritual disciplines like gratitude and hope and mercy and forgiveness, we can practice the discipline of awe! Scientists have actually studied this, and they have named a pattern that is found in the heart of most religions as a way for us to practice awe. These scientists call it “microdosing mindfulness” and they have identified a five to fifteen second, three step process to help us cultivate and practice awe in our lives. They call it the AWE method. The first step-the A-is Attention. Start by focusing your full and undivided attention on something you value, appreciate, or find amazing. The second step-the W- is Wait. It means slowing down or pausing, taking a breath, inhaling deeply while you appreciate the thing or person or idea that you are focusing your attention on. The third step-the E- is Exhale and Expand. Make a slightly deeper exhalation than normal, allowing what you are feeling to fill you and grow. Pay attention to what you notice about yourself. Did you feel a surge or release of energy? iv The invitation of this day, of Easter, is for you to think about what all of your running around (literally, figuratively, spiritually) reveals about how fear is motivating you? Because it is only when Mary Magdalene stays put, standing still and grieving near the empty tomb, that she becomes open to awe in her encounter with the Risen Christ. In that moment, her fear is transformed, and she is deepened in her connection with Jesus, empowering her to be the one who delivers the good news of his resurrection to the other disciples and ultimately the world. Her awe thus connects her with believers throughout time. How might your life, your faith be transformed by practicing AWE during the next 50 days in this season of Easter?v In closing, I'd like to share with you a poem about moments of resurrection awe that can be found in everyday life. What It's Like to Rise Again By Tania Runyan Not just the first crocus bulb poking from the ground, but its pollen shining saffronly on the legs of a bee. The reverberations of a hammered dulcimer or the puff of sweetness escaping between peel and pith of a ripe tangelo. It's an old woman admiring her hair in the mirror—the curl that bounces back— and an anonymous (to you, at least) possum in the woods yawning as she stretches front legs then hind. It's a teenager mountain-posing by an open window, his childhood blanket his mat, and yes, I can say it: unclasping an underwire bra after church and just letting your humanity be. It's riding the elevator after the doctor tells you, we can't say why the scans are suddenly clear, or, if you're exhausted from trying, time to surround yourself with people you love. It's waking in the middle of the night, looking out at the silhouettes of trees and realizing there is nothing lonely about silence. It's cruising a wide-open Montana highway or swinging your hips to the rhythm of a street-corner bucket drummer and daring the stares. It's not the cicada blooming from its shell as much as the shell itself, balanced on the finger of a little girl, then tumbling along the grass tips among the unkillable dandelions. i. Eagle, Jake and Michael Amster. The Power of Awe: Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Paine, Find Clarity and Purpose-in Less than 1 Minute Per Day. Hachette Books: New York, 2023, p 19. ii. Brown, Brene. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. Random House, 2021, pp58-59 iii.This section is originally found in my Epiphany 5C sermon for 2025 preached at St. Thomas. iv.Eagle, Jake and Michael Amster. The Power of Awe: Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Paine, Find Clarity and Purpose-in Less than 1 Minute Per Day. Hachette Books: New York, 2023, p 185 v. Here are resources to learn more about the AWE method. https://thepowerofawe.com/what-it-is/

Palm Sunday 2025

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday Year C April 13, 2025 How does the wilderness become a refuge? What does it look like for me to face my own wilderness and to befriend it? These are questions I was pondering for myself at the beginning of this Lent—as I thought about how Jesus is driven into the harsh, unforgiving wilderness to face temptations but then at some point, he begins seeking out the wilderness and the lonely places as places of refreshment in his ministry. How does the wilderness become a refuge? What does it look like for me to face my own wilderness and to befriend it? I realized last week that I had pretty much forgotten about this question, and so I picked it back up again and looked at my Lenten journey through the lens of wilderness. And I realized, much to my chagrin, that I had not befriended the wilderness, but instead, I had done the exact opposite. I had spiritually bushwacked my way through the wilderness of Lent. In this dance that is the spiritual life, we fall away and then we return. We fail and we begin again. So I’ll ask myself again: How does the wilderness become a refuge? What does it look like for me to face my own wilderness and to befriend it? As today is Palm Sunday, we start with Jesus riding at the head of a triumphant parade, and we end with Jesus alone in a garden, facing his betrayal which then leads to his arrest and death on a cross. Today we set the scene for our movement through Holy Week and into Easter, and we are invited to both watch and participate as Jesus embarks on this wilderness journey of loneliness, sadness, betrayal and death, even when he is completely surrounded by people. We can contemplate what it means for us to befriend those places of sadness, grief, loneliness, betrayal, and the shadow of death in our own souls, not rushing to try to triumph over them or beat them into unruly submission, but making peace, making friends with them. In his book The Tears of Things, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr writes about this phenomenon saying, “We all need to feel and know, at this cellular level that we are not the first ones who have suffered, nor will we be the last. Instead, we are in one universal parade—God’s “triumphal procession,” as Paul calls it (2 Corinthians 2:14…), using the metaphor of a Roman triumph after a great victory. In this parade, he says, we are all ‘partners’ with both the living and the dead, walking alongside countless ancestors and descendants who were wounded and longing for healing….[Rohr concludes] The body of Christ is one great and shared sadness and one continuous joy, and we are saved just by remaining connected to it.” i Here at the beginning of Holy Week, you are invited to remain connected to both the sadness and the joy that can be found in Jesus’s final days. You are invited to contemplate with me: How does the wilderness become a refuge? What does it look like for me to face my own wilderness and to befriend it? i. Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage. Convergent: New York, 2025, p 101.

The Fourth Sunday in Lent-Year C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Fourth Sunday in Lent-Year C March 30, 2025 A few weeks ago, I was leading a weekend on conflict transformation for a group of lay people in the diocese. We were talking about Jesus’s teaching on his process of reconciliation for the church in Matthew 18—you know this part? If someone in the church sins against you, go to them individually and try to resolve it. If that doesn’t work, take someone with some spiritual maturity with you to try again to resolve it, and if that doesn’t work, bring in a group of wise leaders from the church to help mediate it. As I was teaching this passage to this group, they were really wrestling with it, in a way that felt earnest and faithful, and about half-way through the discussion, I realized that the ones who were the most vocal had in mind a specific relationship that was still unreconciled, and hence their wrestling. Our readings for today have both overt and covert connections with this concept of reconciliation. In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, we see Paul hammering this concept of reconciliation in our portion for today. He uses the word reconciliation or reconcile at least five times in these few verses. The Greek word that Paul is using here is a word that implies a change, so it’s important for us to make that connection between reconciliation and change in relationship. And Paul is emphasizing that reconciliation happens on a number of levels: God reconciles us all to God’s self through the life and actions of Jesus Christ. God also works to reconcile us to each other. The image of reconciliation is both vertical (as in restored relations between God and people) and horizontal (as in restored relations among people). And it’s important to realize that for Paul, this notion of reconciliation is not just theoretical. Something has happened between his first letter to the Corinthians and this second letter that has damaged Paul’s relationship with the community at Corinth. Some work has been done to be reconciled (probably in a letter that has been lost), but there is still a breach evident in this second letter as Paul writes to defend his ministry to the Corinthians and also to combat the influence of a group of teachers who he refers to as “the super-apostles” who he believes are leading the church at Corinth astray from the teachings of Jesus. And in this passage, we see Paul reiterating that the ministry of the gospel is a ministry of reconciliation. Reconciliation is what Jesus has done (and continues to do through the work of the Holy Spirit), and it is the work we are called to as well. It is through this reconciliation that God brings about the new creation, and it means a change in reality for individuals, for Christian community and for all of creation. In the gospel passage for today, we see Jesus telling a series of stories as he tries to bring about reconciliation between the tax collectors and sinners and the religious elite who are grumbling about how he is spending time with tax collectors and sinners. He tells a series of three parables in which something is lost and the person searching for the lost item makes great effort to restore it and then hosts an elaborate celebration to which others are invited. First, it’s a story of a lost sheep, then a lost coin, and then finally our reading for today, the story of a lost son. Seen in that light and in the light of the Corinthians passage, what can this almost overly-familiar story of Jesus have to teach us about reconciliation? It teaches us that in order to be truly reconciled, we have to put aside our own notions of fairness, because how the father acts in Jesus’ story is both nonsensical and completely unfair. The younger son has asked for his share of the property that he would have inherited upon the father’s death. And the father gives it to him. Now, this isn’t just a matter of going to the bank and taking out half of the money that is deposited there. This would have entailed selling off property and animals in order to achieve this, but the father does it and doesn’t appear to even question it. And after the younger son squanders it all and comes crawling back, the father doesn’t question it again. He simply rejoices and proceeds to throw a party to which all are invited. The older son gets hung up on the ridiculousness of it all, the unfairness of the situation. And we get that, don’t we? We pay a lot of attention to what is fair…until we are the ones who are in need. But when we are in need, we are quite eager to see fairness thrown out the window. Like the younger son, we, too, make mistakes. And there are times in life when we need to ask for help and when we need to be vulnerable in seeking reconciliation in relationship. In the story, the older son is reminded by his father of his relationship with his brother. The father speaks the truth in love to his older son, and the he invites the older son into the celebration, but we don’t know what the son ultimately chooses. Does the older son relinquish his understanding of fairness and come to the celebration of his brother’s return, or does he hold on to his resentment, refusing to be reconciled? Like all of us, he has a choice to hold onto his resentments and his frustrated expectations of how his brother should live his life and how that life compares to the life the older son is living. True reconciliation requires honesty. It requires vulnerability, and it requires being open to being changed by God in and through our relationships with each other. Reconciliation means getting back into right relationship with someone. It is finding a path forward together. It means allowing room for both to be changed through the gift of God’s spirit in relationship with God and in our relationship with each other. Reconciliation is so much more than just forgiving, and it is more than forgiving and forgetting (and infinitely more than forgiving but not forgetting). It is a healing of what is wounded or broken which then makes the relationship stronger for having been healed. In light of this well-known story, I invite you contemplate these questions this week. How have you been like the younger son and received unexpected help, grace, or reconciliation in your life? How have you been like the older brother and rejected an offer of reconciliation? What relationship in your life might God be inviting you to seek reconciliation as you continue to prepare for Easter this year?

The Second Sunday in Lent-Year C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Second Sunday in Lent-Year C March 16, 2025 “When you scratch the surface of anger, there’s always something underneath it.” These words were shared with me by my very first spiritual director about 25 years ago, and I still think about them all the time. “When you scratch the surface of anger, there’s always something underneath it.” I’ve learned to pay attention to anger—both my own and others—and also to question it. What is truly underneath my anger? What are they feeling that is below the surface of their anger? What I have learned about myself and others is that sometimes when I scratch the surface of anger, I find fear underneath it. And sometimes when I scratch the surface of anger, I find grief underneath. We see this grief just below the surface of Jesus’s anger in today’s gospel reading from Luke. Jesus is on a teaching and healing tour in Galilee when some Pharisees warn him that Herod is out to kill him. Now, scholars disagree on whether this was a genuine warning to Jesus on the part of these particular Pharisees or their attempt to get Jesus to leave town or stop his teaching and healing in the area. (It could be either.) At first, Jesus responds with strong words for Herod (and perhaps these particular Pharisees?) saying: “Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” But then, Jesus shows us that under his initial flash of anger is grief as his words continue in a clear lament for Jerusalem and how he knows the people there will not live up to his hope for them saying, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Lately, I’ve been reading the Franciscan priest Richard Rohr’s new book The Tears of Things. It finds its title in an ancient Latin phrase- lacrimae rerum-which is found in Virgil’s Aeneid and has been quoted throughout our history. Rohr quotes poet Seamus Heaney’s translation of this phrase: ‘There are tears at the heart of things’-at the heart of our human experience.” And Rohr explains this by saying, “There is an inherent sadness and tragedy in almost all situations: in our relationships, our mistakes, our failures large and small, and even our victories. We must develop a very real empathy for this reality, knowing that we cannot fully fix things, entirely change them, or make them to our liking. This ‘way of tears,’ and the deep vulnerability that it expresses is opposed to our normal way of seeking control through will-power, commandment, force, retribution, and violence. Instead, we begin in a state of empathy with and for things and people and events, which just might be the opposite of judgementalism. It is hard to be on the attack when you are weeping.” i Rohr writes about how the Old Testament prophets follow a predictable pattern in their self-development. They begin with anger at the people and their behavior, blaming them for whatever impending crisis they are warning against, encouraging the people to change their ways. But then, they move into grief; and after the prophets make peace with their own grief, they then are able to engage their empathy, moving alongside the people in solidarity in their suffering. This pattern is revealed in Jesus’s interaction for today as well—how he is angry, then he is grieved, then he is empathetic and standing alongside the people of Jerusalem in solidarity, even as he is disappointed in their reception of him. Interestingly enough, the apostle Paul adds another voice to this conversation this morning. In his letter to the Philippians, he is writing from prison to the Christian community in Philippi, which is a city in Macedonia; and Paul is writing to the Philippians, who are the first church he established on Europeans soil. Unlike some of his other churches, Paul seems to have a close and happy relationship with the Philippians, and he writes the letter to them to encourage them to be persistent in their faith as they face opposition to the church in that community and even the threat of death. Earlier in Philippians, Paul has emphasized the importance of emulating Jesus “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself…and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” In our reading for today, Paul is urging the Philippians to follow his example as he seeks to emulate Christ, and he reminds them that their citizenship is not of this earth (or of Rome within whose territory they lived), and because they are truly citizens of heaven, they may not ever feel at home here. And then grumpy, old Paul speaks about the tears he is shedding for people who are driven by their passions (because the Greeks thought the stomach was the seat of the passions or the emotion), and he urges the Philippians to not be like that, reminding them that all things will be transformed through Christ. It’s a good lesson for us today, regardless of how you land politically, this reminder that our citizenship lies with God and not with earthly structures. It’s a helpful reminder, even as it can makes us uncomfortable to feel a little homeless when it comes to the workings of our government because our true citizenship lies elsewhere. And hopefully this discomfort can invite us to look under the surface of anger, because Lord knows there is so much anger in our country right now, and name what is underneath it, which is probably either fear or grief. And if we do find grief under the anger, I hope we can follow the example of Jesus and the prophets to let our grief propel us toward empathy and solidarity with those who are also sad and suffering, even if their grief and their suffering looks different from ours. Because that is what it means to be imitators of Christ and to be full citizens of God’s kingdom. So this week, I invite you to be curious about the anger you see—whether it is in yourself or in someone else. And if you find grief there, to make room for it, inviting God to be present with you in it and to transform you in and through either grief or empathy. In closing, I want to share with you a poem by a poet I just discovered. His name is Dwayne Betts, and this is a poem in his brand new book titled Doggerel. The poem is titled Grief For Lori The story of Easy, a small dog who I imagine is named after Mosley’s detective, Crawls into the psace left by Zinnia, Burrowing into corners, against Door frames, beneath a house- In search of a phantom smell. State Fair: Sahara: Thumbelina: Dreamland: Envy. Orange Star. Creeping zinnias That bloom until first frost. My g-d The ways we grieve, again & again Because the only rule of life Is to forget means to abandon. When I forget to feed Tay, she never barks, But waits, wherever I am, as if she trusts My memory more than I do. I imagine This is grief’s lesson: it is the engine Of making what happened before Matter, & it’s true that I’ve only ever Remembered a few joys as much As I’ve recounted all my reasons To grieve, but nothing grows Without weeping, not even joy.ii i. Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom For An Age of Outrage. Convergent: New York, 2025, p 4. ii. Betts, Reginald Dwayne. Doggerel. Grief. Norton: 2025, p 59.

The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C February 23, 2025 Enemies is such a strong word. I’ve been thinking about this all week and wondering if it isn’t a bit archaic as well? Do we still really have enemies? What are other words that we might use in our modern context to capture what Jesus is getting at in the second out of three parts of his Sermon on the Plain in Luke’s gospel today: “Love your enemies and pray for those who curse you”? Adversary? How about nemesis? Those who irritate you or whom you disagree with? The Greek word translated as enemy here is literally hateful or the hated one. Enemies. It’s a bit strong. Maybe we could soften it somehow. Surely we’re enlightened enough, Christian enough, that we don’t have enemies? I’d gotten pretty far down this path this week until I was pulling out of my driveway headed to work and who did I see? My next door neighbor who is definitely my enemy!!! For those of you who haven’t been here long, there’s a whole history there; it’s a history of lawn fungus and dog drama. So, there I was thinking enemies was an archaic term in today’s gospel when I came face to face with mine. (Denial ain’t just a River in Egypt, Melanie!) Ok, so we have enemies. And usually an enemy is someone who has harmed us in some way; enemyship often involves some sort of betrayal of power or relationship. In last week’s gospel, we had the first part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, where Jesus is enumerating those who are blessed (which can also be translated as a sort of “atta boy”) and those who are woe-begone (which can be translated as a sort of “shame on you!”). And we pick up today right where we left off last week with Jesus teaching us about what it means to live a faithful life, to be merciful, even toward our enemies. And unfortunately, Jesus is unambiguous: “I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” And then he says it again: “love your enemies.” And he goes one to talk about the importance of giving over receiving and of forgiving. But how do we go about forgiving someone who has hurt us who we just do not want to forgive? (I am, of course, asking for a friend!) Our Old Testament reading for this week gives us an interesting glimpse into forgiveness of one’s enemies. Today we have the happy ending in the Joseph saga from Genesis, and it’s interesting to me in this context because Joseph has suffered a massive betrayal at the hands of his brothers which leads to his enslavement and imprisonment in the foreign land of Egypt, and then, through God’s involvement, in an exciting twist, Joseph becomes the hero of the Egyptian people, helping safe-guard them from a debilitating famine through his faithful and accurate interpretation of Pharoah’s dreams. In our reading for today, we see how Joseph, who has been betrayed by members of his own family, forgives them and seeks to be reconciled with them, even though he has been horribly wronged by them. And isn’t that also the case with enemies? When I was on my pursuit of a different term for enemy, I ran across a definition someone had submitted to Urban Dictionary for enemy that gets to this: an enemy is “1. A former friend or acquaintance whose company is no longer considered to be beneficial to a relationship; 2. One who is deemed or deems him/herself to be of more use to another as an adversary as opposed to an ally.” We’ve even made up a word for this: we call them a frenemy. The people who are closest to us have the greatest power to wound or betray us. Or perhaps we have different expectations of what love should look like, and those unvoiced or unmet expectations lead to resentments, which can be toxic to us and to our relationships. Joseph’s is an interesting case study on how family systems work. Because most families do follow predictable patterns of behavior, but when one member of the family changes their behavior, it can impact the entire family and its dynamic. It could have been so easy for Joseph to reveal himself to his brothers and to enact his vengeance upon them and their families by just refusing to help them and sending them back home to Canna where they would all eventually starve. But something in Joseph has changed over the years, and his hubris and pride which he used to flaunt around his brothers has been worn away by the challenges he has faced. And so he ends the pattern of sibling retribution that has gone back generations in his family by forgiving his brothers, and inviting them to join him in Egypt to reap the benefits of his position of power there. So, what does that mean for us? How do we live into this call of Jesus and forgive our enemies? For me, I think that’s going to have to start with regular, daily prayer for my neighbor. And here’s what I’m going to try to do. (Someone else came up with this, and I’m going to borrow it.) “Choose an enemy to pray for this week. Write their name on a piece of paper and place it somewhere you will see it regularly. You might use this prayer: ‘May they have enough. May they love and be loved. May they know and be known by God.’” i (repeat it) In closing, I’ll leave you with someone else’s words about making this shift in thinking toward our enemies: “[Christian life] asks us to sacrifice our long-cherished sense of aggrievement toward our enemies, rendering them in the process not enemies at all, but fellow sinners forgiven by God.” ii So, I’ve added my enemy/neighbor to my private prayer list and am committing to pray for her for the week: “May she have enough. May she love and be loved. And may she know and be known by God.” I invite you to join me in this practice this week. i. Haverkamp, Heidi, ed. Everyday Connections: Reflections and Prayers for Year C. Westminster John Knox: 2021, p 124 ii. Ibid. p122 Quote by Robert F. Darden

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany Year C

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C February 9, 2025 It is pretty uncommon for Episcopal preachers to give our sermons titles. (It can be common in other denominations.) But this week, I couldn’t help thinking that if this sermon had a title, it would be “Sin and Awe.” Sin and awe are two states of being that I would not normally associate with each other, but they are two ribbons woven through almost all of our readings for this Sunday. So, what’s up with that? First, I think we need to start with some definitions. When I asked our Wednesday healing service crowd to define sin, we had even more definitions than we had people in the room. Sin is “separation from God; moving away from God instead of moving toward God; unrighteous behavior; disobeying the commandments; defiance; missing the mark…” The list was much, much longer. Our Book of Common Prayer actually has a really helpful section that gives us some definition around common phrases and words that helps bind us together, like the Prayer Book helps bind us together in our common prayer. If you look on page 848 in the BCP in the Catechism section, you’ll see lots of writing about sin, including this definition: “Sin is the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” Seems straightforward enough. But what about awe? Our group described awe as standing at Pike’s Peak and looking out and down and being overwhelmed by majesty. I think we find awe in the brushing up against something so much larger than ourselves. Unfortunately, our BCP doesn’t have a handy definition of awe for us, but in her book Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience, sociologist Brene Brown defines awe for us. She writes about how we often use awe and wonder interchangeably, but there is an important difference. “ ‘Wonder inspires the wish to understand; awe inspires the wish to let it shine, to acknowledge and unite.’ When feeling awe, we tend to simply stand back and observe, ‘to provide a stage for the phenomenon to shine…Researches have found that awe ‘leads people to cooperate, share resources, and sacrifice for others’ and causes them to ‘fully appreciate the value of others and see themselves more accurately, evoking humility.’ Some researchers even believe that ‘awe-inducing events may be one of the fastest and most powerful methods of personal change and growth.’” i Interesting. So, in one way they are complete opposites. Sin divides and separates. Awe connects and humbles. Our readings for today give us two solid examples of this juxtaposition (and the Corinthians reading actually hints at it pretty strongly as Paul points back to his own story and conversion experience on the road to Damascus). We see in both Isaiah’s call story and the call story for Jesus’s disciples in Luke this encounter with the divine which provokes awe for both Isaiah and the newly-minted disciples juxtaposed with an acute awareness of their sinfulness. And I can’t help but wonder if this overwhelming sense of connectedness to the infinite doesn’t highlight for them all the ways that they are separated or divided from God and from others? The passage from Isaiah is interesting, too, because it isn’t just an indictment of individual sin. The call from God through Isaiah in the first third of that book is all about the ways that God’s people Israel are failing as a people. Isaiah isn’t calling for just a repentance from individual sin; he is holding up a mirror to an entire society and pointing out the ways that they are not living up God’s expectations of how God’s people should treat each other and especially the most vulnerable among them. Back before Christmas, I saved a meme that I found floating around social media that I’ve been contemplating since then. It’s a quote from someone named Mark Charles (who I know absolutely nothing about), and it is this: “Western Christianity preaches a hyper individualistic salvation so it doesn’t have to repent from its systemic sin.” (Ouch!) But this systemic sin is, in fact, what Isaiah is calling the people to repent from, even when he acknowledges that there seems to be a certain inevitability to their destruction because they have allowed themselves as a society to become too separated, too divided from how God encourages and calls them to live as God’s people. Last week, in one of the daily meditations from the Center for Action and Contemplation, they shared excerpts from Franciscan priest Richard Rohr’s new book titled The Tears of Things. Rohr reflects that we often think of a prophet as someone who is angry and raving at the people of Israel for their many sins or predicting future doom, but there is often a larger pattern to the prophets (and Isaiah falls into this larger pattern as well). First the prophets “rage against sin as if they were above or better than it-then they move into solidarity with it.” Rohr continues, “Please understand that sin is not as much malice as woundedness. Sin is suffering. Sin is sadness. Many of us have learned this truth from studying addictions, where it’s become more clear that sin deserves pity, not judgement.” He concludes, “Sin is also the personal experience of the tragic absurdity of reality. It leads us to compassion. We must have compassion for the self, for how incapable we are of love, of mercy, or forgiveness. Our love is not infinite like God’s love. It’s measured-and usually measured out according to deservedness. But that’s not how YHWH treats ancient Israel, which was always unfaithful to the covenant. God is forever faithful.” The meditation ends by showing how the prophets move from standing above sin to being in solidarity with human suffering, and we, too, can be transformed by that evolution, just like the prophets. ii And awe is one of the tools that God uses to transform us. Awe is God’s unexpected gift for us. It’s not something that we can generate, but it is something we can look out for, and when we encounter it, we can lean into it allowing it to transform us through humility and re-connection. Your invitation this week is to try to think about sin differently, to see it as something to be pitied, in yourself and others, as opposed to something to be judged; to look for the ways that our systemic sin harms the most vulnerable among us. And you are also invited to try to create space for awe in your days and in your interactions, and in those moments in your life when God’s glory is revealed, to pay attention. i. Brown, Brene. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. Random House, 2021, pp58-59 ii. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-misunderstood-image/