The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 10A-St. Andrew's and San Andreas, Rogers

 The Rev. Canon Melanie Dickson Lemburg 

The 7^th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 10A 2026

St. Andrew’s and San Andreas, Rogers

July 12, 2026

              

              Good morning/good afternoon!  My name is Melanie Lemburg;  I serve on the bishop’s staff as the Canon to the Ordinary, and I’m delighted to be making my first visit here with you today!

      A little over 7 years ago, my parents bought a farm in Northeast Mississippi.  My mom was a teacher and my dad works in politics, and they bought the farm as a bridge into retirement and so that they could feed themselves from the fruits and vegetables of their own harvest.  My parents bought land with two houses and a barn, moved out there with my brother, his wife, and their two infant twin daughters, and they all learned how to farm by watching YouTube videos.  

      It has been a grand and meaningful endeavor, and it has taught me so much about life and hope and the earth and sustainability and especially about all the things we cannot change or control, like the vicissitudes (unpredictability) of weather.  

      Last weekend, I was at the farm to spend time with my family for the 4^th of July holiday, and my mom and I have a habit of walking the land in the evening after supper.  We wandered around the fruit trees to see what fruits are growing (persimmons, and blueberries, and apples!), and then we wandered into the area of the farm where they grow things in the raised beds—these wooden boxes that they’ve added good soil to, and then we wandered down into the fields to see what is planted there, lined up in neat rows.  

      As we walked, my mom was telling me proudly about her corn that she had planted in one of the raised beds, and how she had been keeping an eye on my brother’s corn that he had planted in the field.  She was delighted to report that her corn was thriving and already had some ears on it way before my brother’s corn was showing signs of producing.  As we grew closer, my mother exclaimed in dismay as we discovered that the storm that had blown through the night before had blown all her corn over in the raised bed, so it was lying in a big pile.  When we investigated further, we discovered that the tiny persistent roots were still holding, exposed out of the soil, but working hard to do their job of keeping the corn anchored in the ground.  

      After her initial dismay and investigation, my mom turned to look at my brother’s corn patch, and we discovered that it was still standing upright possibly because it was completely surrounded by weeds that were helping hold it up.  We also determined that the roots of his corn were able to go down further into the ground (as opposed to my mom’s corn in the raised bed) to provide more support to keep his corn upright.  

      All week long, this parable of our family farm life has been in conversation for me with the parable in today’s gospel reading.  As another writer puts it, “The word ‘parable’ means to ‘overturn’ or ‘cast aside’.  The parables are stories told by Jesus and intended to upset what we think!”[i]  And our reading for today is the first parable in a series of 8 parables that Matthew’s gospel gives us about how the Kingdom of God has already broken into this life, and how this inbreaking can invite us into new possibilities in unexpected ways.  

      So how might Jesus’s parable about the sower invite us to overturn or cast aside things that might need to be overturned or cast aside?  Where might it be inviting us to see the Kingdom of God breaking into our world and our lives and this congregation and even your relationship with the other congregation here in unexpected ways and places? 

      “Listen!  A sower went out to sow” Jesus begins.  And then he tells the story of a really bad farmer.  This farmer throws seed around wildly, with seemingly no thought or care for optimizing soil and growth conditions.  (Now my family may have learned to farm from YouTube, but even we know, that’s not how you do it!). Jesus’s parable goes on to detail the plight of the seeds that have been sown in different (mostly unfortunate) locations—along the path, among the thorns, upon the rocks, and then finally, some on the good soil.  Jesus concludes the parable by saying that the seeds that fell on the good soil brought forth grain—“some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty…”

      Now, this might not mean much to our modern ears, but another writer sees this as being so significant that we might consider renaming the parable “the hundredfold harvest.”[ii]  Because in a normal farming year, a seven-fold harvest would be a really, really good year for that farmer.  A tenfold harvest would mean true abundance.  Thirty-fold would feed a village for a year, and a hundred fold?… Well that would be absolutely unheard of.  It’s crazy.  Ridiculous. Miraculous.  

      So where is the good news in this parable for us? 

      It has been interesting to me to think about this homily that I’m preaching to two different congregations today:  St. Andrew’s and San Andreas, and it seems that your two congregations have things in common with my family’s two corn patches.  You are planted very near to each other, trying to grow the same crop and facing similar and different challenges.  

      For the people of St. Andrew’s:  I’m wondering if y’all might be feeling a bit like my mom’s corn crop?  You’ve had a bit of a storm blow through here in the expected departure of your long-time, beloved priest Father Craig, and you’ve had a bit more of a dust-up with a public fight via text message between your former senior warden and your former musician a couple of weeks ago which was concluded by the resignation of each from their position.  Maybe you are feeling like you’re tipped over, piled up a bit on top of each other trying to catch your breath?  

      For the people of San Andreas: I’m wondering if y’all might feel a bit like my brothers’ corn crop?  You’ve had a bit of a storm blow through here with the departure of St. Andrew’s long-time priest, and not knowing what will come next for them, and therefore, for y’all and that relationship.  And I wonder if the current political situation might have you feeling like you are a flourishing corn crop that is surrounded by weeds that threaten to choke you and hold you captive and stifle your growth as individuals and as a congregation?  

      The good news for all of us is that we are all seed in the hands of a sower who casts with abandon and whose power inspires harvests so far beyond anything we can ask for or imagine.  There are certainly things that we can do to assist and support in God’s good work that is already begun and ongoing—in our lives, in our church, in our world; but none of it is really up to us.  God will always find a way—with or without us.  Our task is to nurture and tend what God has entrusted to us;  our task is try to be faithful:  to God and to each other.  

And one of cool things that I learned about corn is that corn has to brush up against other corn plants in order to get pollinated.  It is how it is created.  We need each other to flourish, to bear fruit.  How might this speak to you as individuals in your different congregation and how might this be speaking to all of you in the two different congregations? 

      I reached out to my mom earlier this weekend to get an update on the two corn plots on the farm.  And there’s good news:  her corn “is still living—bowed but not broken” and trying to stand up a bit straighter once again, now that the storm has come and gone.  Its ears are still growing and preparing to be harvested.  She reports that my brother’s corn plants are still surrounded by weeds, but there is corn growing on his plants, and the brown at the top of the ears shows it, too, is almost ready to be harvested.  

      Your invitation this week is to think about, pray about how is Jesus’s parable about the sower inviting you to overturn or cast aside things that might need to be overturned or cast aside in your life or in the life of this congregation?  Where might it be inviting you to see the Kingdom of God breaking into our world and our lives and this congregation and even your relationship with the other congregation here in unexpected ways and places?  

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[i] Diana Butler Bass:  Substack post The Parable of the Talents from July 8, 2026

[ii] from Feasting on the Word Pastoral Perspective by Talitha J. Arnold p 236

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 9A-Good Shepherd Pea Ridge

Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Pea Ridge, AR

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 9A

July 5, 2026

 

      Good morning!  It’s good to be with y’all today.  My name is Melanie Lemburg, and I serve as the Canon to the Ordinary on the Diocesan Staff.  Part of my work includes accompanying congregations who are in transition or in search for their next leadership, so I’m grateful to have the opportunity to be here with y’all today, on this first Sunday in your time of transition.  

      Our gospel reading for today is one that might contain a favorite verse for some.  The last two verses are contained in the list of verses known as “the Comfortable Words” in our Rite 1 service, and many of us who grew up using that service or the older prayer book may know them by heart:  “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

      As I was in conversation with this text and others who have contemplated it this week, I came across this spiritual practice:  “Write down…all the things that make up your heavy burden at this time in your life.  Then reread Matthew 11:29-30.  What rest is Jesus offering you?  How is Jesus inviting you to learn from [him]?”  

      So, I want us to contemplate this scripture in this way this morning, and I’m going to offer it as a spiritual exercise, and then I’ll have a bit more reflection for us after it.  So, let’s break it down with a bit of silence for you to contemplate.

      If you have paper and pen, you can write this down.  If not, just make a list in your head:  list all the things that make up your heavy burden at this time in your life.  (pause)

      Now listen to these “comfortable words:” (slowly) “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  (pause)

      What rest is Jesus offering you? (pause)

      How is Jesus inviting you to learn from him?  (pause)

      As I was contemplating all this in my own life this week, I noticed (maybe for the first time?) the connection between Jesus’s invitation around the burdens and Jesus’s invitation to learn from him.  It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?  What is Jesus inviting us to learn from him in and through the bearing of our burdens?

      Because here’s what I also realized in this conversation with the text.  In my spiritual practice, I was imagining naming my burdens and either laying them down or handing them to Jesus.  But I realized that isn’t what Jesus is offering.  He invites those of us bearing heavy burdens to come to him, and he offers rest.  And he invites us to learn from him.  

What will we learn in this?  Gentleness, humility of heart, and how to rest.  And there’s an interesting connection here earlier in the passage with the disconnect between what is hidden from the “wise and intelligent” but revealed to the infants—those who are weak, powerless, and even silent. Perhaps there’s a learning in that for us as well?

As we talked about this gospel reading in staff meeting, the bishop pointed out that our friends don’t take our burdens from us.  But they bear witness to them, and they walk beside us, bolstering us up when we need it, bringing us casseroles when we’re really down and sharing others of their gifts to support us, and celebrating with us in times of celebration. 

      Do you have friends like this who do all this for you (and who you do this for)?  I’m so fortunate to have this in my life, and I’ve realized this week how my friends have accompanied me through a difficult season, offering support to me in ways that are unique to their gifts and strengths.  They are both really smart women—one is a doctor who helped me navigate the medical system with all of her wisdom, experience, and relationships.  And the other is an organizational wizard and she helped organize meals for us and also some of the physical chaos of our home.  Neither of them took away any of the burden from me, but they used their gifts to lighten my load in unexpected ways, and they accompanied me during a difficult season and made things a little less burdensome for me, and a little less lonely. 

      So in light of this, then, what is Jesus inviting you to learn through his friendship, through his accompanying you as you carry those burdens that you named earlier? For me, this week, his invitation to learn his gentleness has resonated with me. 

      I also think there may be a different sort of invitation for you, the good people of Good Shepherd Pea Ridge, in these comfortable words.  You have had such a gifted leader in James, and now that he has been called to live into his ordained vocation in a different way, I suspect that you as a community may be feeling the weight of the burden of his absence, mindful of the burdens that he carried alongside y’all that he can no longer share in with you.  I’m wondering where is Jesus coming to meet you in that?  What is he offering to bear with you?  What he is inviting you to learn in this season?  And who are the friends who may be accompanying you already who can share their gifts in different ways?

      “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”       

      

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8A-St. John's Helena/West Helena

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8A

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Helena/West Helena

June 28, 2026

 

       “When is the last time you experienced kindness, and what was that like?”  

       My husband and I were eating dinner the other night when he asked me that question (that had been asked of him by a mindfulness app on his Apple watch!): “When is the last time you experienced kindness, and what was that like?”  

       I reflected on a recent trip when my hosts had left me soy milk (I’m mostly vegan), homemade granola, and honey collected from their beehives out behind their home.  Each piece of that early Sunday morning breakfast gift was seeped in kindness, in hospitality, in welcome.

       It made me realize that welcome and kindness are intimately connected. 

       So, my husband could have just as easily asked:  “when is the last time you truly felt welcomed?  And what was that like?”  

       Think about that question for a minute: “when is the last time you truly felt welcomed?  And what was that like?”  (Just a heads up to the vestry…I’m going to invite y’all to share your responses to this question when we meet later, if you are willing.)

       In our gospel reading for today, we see the end of chapter 10 in Matthew’s gospel, which we began reading three weeks ago.  If you’ll recall, Jesus has been travelling all around his home region of Galilee, and Matthew says that he has seen the crowds and “he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”  So he summons his disciples and then spends the rest of the chapter teaching them, preparing them to go out in pairs to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of heaven, to “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.”  He warns them that this work they will be doing will be divisive, and will get them into trouble with their families and the authorities, and he assures them that God will be with them, providing them with what they need.  And then we get to the part from today, the part about welcome.  Jesus concludes his teaching to his disciples saying,  “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me…”. 

So, what does that mean?  What does it look like to welcome Jesus, to welcome God, and to welcome the ones who Jesus sends?  I was delighted when I received your service bulletin for this week to discover something I hadn’t noticed before, but I’m sure y’all have already made this connection:  y’all actually have the word “welcome” in your mission statement that’s at the end of your bulletin!

St. John’s Episcopal Church Mission Statement:  “To know God, love God, and serve God; By welcoming all, loving all, and serving all.”  (That’s a great mission statement, by the way!)

       So I wondered since welcome is so important that you included it in your mission statement, what have been the hallmarks of welcome for you here?  Certainly part of why I am here with y’all today is to recognize the welcome, the mutual kindness you have shared with Father Hayden as he has cared for y’all, and y’all for him in these last months.  And of course, part my work today with the vestry is to be a touchpoint for them and y’all as you prepare to welcome your new rector-Father Ryan Boyce.  (I can’t wait to hear what all y’all have planned!). 

As I’ve been reflecting on this notion of welcome this week, there were two different things I read that I found helpful. The first is from a daily meditation by the Franciscan priest Richard Rohr.  This is from Wednesday, where Rohr writes about his time founding a vibrant community for youth in the early years of his ministry.  He writes, “I believe we must be free to say ‘yes’ before we say ‘no’ but most of us aren’t that free.  Our first response is normally dualistic, negative, and probably even fear based.  We often respond initially with something like: ‘I don’t trust that.  I don’t like that. I don’t want that.’  [He concludes,] The word ‘yes’ before ‘no’ allows for some enthusiasm…which means ‘filled with God.’”[ii]

This is an interesting complement to our consideration around what welcome looks like and how we welcome Jesus, God, and those who Jesus sends us.  What if welcome is a saying ‘yes’ to the other in ways that go deeper than superficial circumstances?  What might that look like?  How might that challenge us as people of faith?  

The other thing I read this week was by the writer Kate Bowler, who is a professor at Duke Divinity School.  Bowler writes a weekly blog post on Substack that I read, and this week, I re-read her post from May 20 titled:  Joyful, Porous.  In this post, Bowler is reflecting on an interview she had with the former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and she writes about a notion the two of them discuss in her interview:  that is the spiritual practice of being porous.  

Now, what does that mean?  Bowler references Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor’s work about this, writing: “Charles Taylor describes two very different ways of being a person. The first he calls the porous self. The porous self has a permeable boundary—no firm wall between the inner life and the world outside. Meaning, grace, beauty, the divine, even sorrow can cross into you from elsewhere. Taylor calls this self vulnerable, and he means it as a description, not an insult. You are open to forces you did not generate. When joy arrives, it visits you. When suffering comes, it may be coming from somewhere larger than your own circumstances. The porous self is not the master of its own experiences with the world. And (mostly) this is experienced as a relief. You do not have to manufacture meaning to be living a deeply important life. Meaning comes to you.”

She continues, “The second he calls the buffered self. The buffered self is sealed. It is the self we have all been trained to become—the one who tracks her sleep, optimizes her morning, journals her gratitude, and audits her own progress at the end of every week. Meaning is something this self has to generate from inside its own walls. Significance is something it has to manufacture. Nothing reaches it unless it has scheduled the appointment. This sounds like freedom, and in some ways it is. But it also means that the entire weight of your life is yours to carry, alone, with the tools you happen to have. The buffered self is self-made…and it is very, very, very tired.”[iii]

I think this distinction between a porous self and a buffered self, and the spiritual practice of initially saying “yes” instead of initially saying “no” are both found at the heart of what it means to offer and experience true welcome.  They are at the heart of what Jesus is saying about welcoming him, welcoming God, and welcoming those who he sends us and those he sends us out to.  

When I go back to reflect about what it was about those simple gestures of hospitality—the soy milk and homemade granola, and backyard honey—were so profoundly welcoming to me, I think it is because they are manifestations of this porous life.  Of offering true, authentic pieces of ourselves in an attempt to meet someone where they truly are.  

Your invitation this week is to think about how you are being invited to offer welcome out of your porous self?  Where are you being invited to say “yes” first instead of saying “no”?  What does welcome really look like and mean to you as a community, and how is going inviting you all to embody that in this new season? 

 

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[i] https://www.etymonline.com/word/welcome

[ii] https://cac.org/daily-meditations/participatory-hope/

[iii] https://katebowler.substack.com/p/joyful-porous

The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost-_Proper 7A-St. Andrew's Mountain Home

 The Rev. Canon Melanie Dickson Lemburg

The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 7A

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Mountain Home, AR

June 21, 2026

 

       Can you “imagine the personal and social loss that Matthew’s community must have experienced in order to make today’s gospel reading an encouraging word for them?”[i]

       Jesus tells them: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 

For I have come to set a man against his father, 
and a daughter against her mother, 
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

       He continues, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.  Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

       We know a little bit about the historical context in which the writer of Matthew’s gospel is writing.  Matthew’s community of primarily Jewish believers has certainly gotten cross-wise with the Jewish authorities of their day, and they may have even been forced out of their synagogues.  They have lived through the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, and they may have known persecution by the Romans as well.  And that’s not even considering whatever personal disappointments or losses or divisions the listeners may have experienced in their lives. 

       But knowing what it means to be human, we can be certain they have experienced disappointment; we know that they have suffered loss.

       We see another heart-breaking portrait of loss and disappointment in our Old Testament reading for today as well.  Hagar has been forced out of Abraham and Sarah’s house with her child Ishmael, and after the food and water run out, Hagar recognizes there is nothing more she can do for her child, so she begins to try to prepare herself for his death.

       Now, what’s interesting about this story that we don’t see in today’s portion is that Hagar’s own actions have been a factor in leading her to this point of desperation.  Earlier in the story, she has frequently taunted Sarah about her continued childlessness by flaunting the existence of her own child Ishamel.  So when Sarah’s son Isaac is born, the seeds of resentment and competition between the two women and their children have firmly taken root and are now bearing rotten fruit.  

       But just when things are at their bleakest for Hagar and Ishmael, God steps in to offer Hagar the tools for salvation, and God continues to be with Ishmael even in their exile.

       It’s interesting to me because Jesus’s teaching to his disciples offers them a similar promise and assurance of God’s protection, care and intervention for them in the midst of their disappointments, sufferings, losses, and trials.  He tells them:  “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

       Three times in this section of the reading, Jesus tells his disciples:  “do not be afraid.”  “Do not be afraid.”  “Do not be afraid.”  It’s like a drumbeat or an echo or a refrain for this disappointed and downtrodden community.

       The question I’ve been wrestling with this week is this.  The word “disciple” means to be a learner.  So what is my understanding of my own discipleship in light of this text, especially as it pertains to disappointment and loss?  What are the aspects of following Jesus that the Holy Spirit is inviting me to learn right now? 

       This past year, our family has been living in a sort of liminal space, a place of in between.  My husband has stayed in Savannah, Georgia, with our son so he could graduate from high school there.  And I’ve been mostly in Little Rock.  Happily, our son has now graduate from high school, so we are in the process of selling our home in Savannah and buying a home in Little Rock. There has been so much uncertainty in all of this that even my best-laid plans have been thwarted.  Just this past week, we decided to terminate a contract on a house that we were planning to buy in Little Rock.  I know it’s the right decision, and yet, I’m so disappointed.  And it’s really hard not to be discouraged because I thought we were making good progress in moving, and now we’ve got to start all over in finding a new home. 

       I suspect you all know a taste of this disappointment as well, as you all thought you were close to calling a new priest after this long, liminal, in-between season for you as a congregation.  And that call did not materialize and so you, too, are, in some ways, back to the beginning.  

       So what might the Holy Spirit be inviting us all to learn about our disappointment in this season?  How might it be an invitation to grow deeper in our faith?  

       About a month ago, I read the book Joyful, Anyway by Kate Bowler.  Bowler is a professor of religion at Duke Divinity school; she is known for having done significant research on the prosperity gospel, and she has written extensively about her journey through a medical diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer with a husband and a very young child.  She is deeply faithful, luminous, and remarkable, along with the added bonus of being very easy to read.  This new book explores the notion that the human condition is such that we all have an underlying ache.  This ache can be fueled by loss or disappointment or suffering or just the daily slog that is life—the never-ending piles of laundry or to-do lists, the argument that you keep having over and over again, the uncertainty that takes up space in your life like an unwelcome guest who will never leave.  

She writes about how we know the ache, because it is often accompanied by the question: “Is this it?  Is this really all there is?”  And she writes about how the ache is found in the intersection of grief, guilt, and longing.  She has a whole host of quotes from other theologians and writers about this ache and the human condition, but it’s her conversation with a man named Father Ron that really spoke the most to me.  This is in her chapter titled, “Is this it?”. 

       Bowler writes, “We plug along, and we make our plans.  We make more with less—but still, we know:  

       A small void lies in each of us, and it acts as a perfect echo chamber.

       Hope. Fear. Possibility.

       There is a longing that rings through us.  Is it anxiety? Is it a malaise?  Can it simply be solved with some psychological strategies and a little more self-care?  Or is this soul work?”

       She writes about how a friend of hers tells her that she needs to talk to a man named Father Ron, and she goes on to share that conversation.  When Bowler asks Father Ron about “the ache” he tells her, “I think a lot of people think it’s only a downside.  But in fact, that energy, that perpetual disquiet, that inchoate feeling…it is also divine…”. He continues, “We are made in the image and likeness of God.  So that feeling isn’t a mistake.  There’s a fire inside of us.  But it’s a divine fire…” 

       When Bowler asks him what, then, do we do with all of our longing (and our disappointment), he says, “ ‘Well, I think that’s the very definition of spirituality.  It’s what we do with that divine fire,’ he said, and described how some people might use it for unhealthy pursuits of endless more, more, more.  Or some people might try to snuff out their own fire in an attempt to be very pious.  But that the divine moves through our longing, channeling it toward better and better aims.” 

       Father Ron concludes with these words:  “We are going to die with a lot of hopes unfulfilled….But if you can mourn it, you can live with it.  There’s a deep spiritual and psychological genius here:  I need to mourn this.  I can die without being fulfilled, but I can’t die with the unfulfillment not being mourned.”

       Bowler writes, “I closed my eyes and took a moment to let that thought settle into place.  I had been hoping that there was a solution to the ache…but I’ve never found a short-cut when it comes to genuine, life-altering wisdom.”  

       And listen to how she concludes this chapter.  “The ache cannot be ignored.  Distraction or anger can only get so far…so I supposed I would have to be more honest about what I need to grieve.  Mourning is the terrible process of allowing reality to wash over you again and again and again.  What do you do when nothing can change but everything must?  I will need some help, but at least I know where to start: say yes to the dark unfinishedness of this symphony.

       Turn your face toward the ache and say yes.

       The ache? Yes

       The longing?  Yes

       The grief?  Yes

       The holiness of all this want?  I’m not sure how, but yes.”[ii]

       (Pause)

       This past week, I was feeding the birds outside my friend Caroline’s house where I am staying.  Caroline feeds the birds faithfully, and I had missed a day while we were both out of town.  As I walked out the front doors to spread the birdseed on the walk and in the front yard, I happened to look back over my shoulder to the corner of the front porch, where what can only be described as a “gang” of three, fat squirrels sat watching me with their beady little eyes.  

       After I scattered the seed and went back inside, I stayed at the front windows to watch.  Well, those three squirrels were going at it like an all you can eat buffet.  But there were also birds scattered and eating in and among the squirrels and even a little bunny over to the side in the grass.  I watched as the squirrels would try to scare off the sparrows, the smallest birds who were out there eating, and to my delight the sparrows would fly off and then circle back to land right behind the squirrels and continue to eat.  I was so impressed with their intelligence and their persistence in the face of adversity, and for me, it has been a helpful lesson in discipleship this week.

       “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

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[i] Quote by Sonia Waters. From Everyday Connections: Reflections and Practices for Year A.  ed. Heidi Haverkamp Westminster John Knox: Louisville, 2022.   p 341 (Kindle Version)

[ii] Bowler, Kate.  Joyful, Anway.  The Dial Press:  New York, 2026, pp 71-76 (Kindle version). 

The Third Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 6A-St. Mary's El Dorado

 The Rev. Canon Melanie Dickson Lemburg

The Third Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 6A

St. Mary’s El Dorado

June 14, 2026

 

       Good morning!  It is a delight to be with y’all on this third Sunday after Pentecost!  I’ve spent a good amount time with your wardens and your vestry, and let me tell you, y’all have got some excellent wardens--they are dedicated and hard-working and they love y’all and this congregation so much!  And y’all have got some really smart, faithful, and committed vestry people.  I have really appreciated working with all of them! You all are in steady hands.   

This past week, I loaded up my car and left my home and my family in Savannah to return to Little Rock, and as I pulled out of my driveway, I realized I didn’t know when I would be back or when I would see my family again.  Now let me be clear.  This sounds much more dramatic than it actually is. You see, we are in the process of trying to buy a house in Little Rock and sell the house in Savannah, and we may be about to get an offer on the Savannah house and we’re waiting to hear more on our offer in Little Rock.  So we do have a plan a and a plan b and a plan c of when we’ll next be together as a family, but it’s all still very fluid right now.

As a result, this week has felt coated in a residue of uncertainty for me. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t really appreciate uncertainty.  Oh, I try. Because I know that uncertainty is a part of life and being able to hold uncertainty is a key part of our spiritual development.  But I don’t like it.  

So this week, my spiritual practice has been to try to pay attention to the ways that I resist uncertainty.  I wonder how you feel about this?  Are you generally comfortable with uncertainty or do you have predictable ways that you try to manage or deal with uncertainty in your life?  Do you freeze in the face of uncertainty or withdraw?  Are you of the “don’t just stand there, do something!” in the face of uncertainty school?  This would look like getting busier and busier, both with things that matter and things that don’t.  Do you try to ignore the uncertainty and pretend everything is normal?  How do you normally engage with uncertainty in your life?  You’ve probably already guessed this about me, but I like to create multiple plans and then attempt to grab the uncertain area by the throat and wrestle it into one of my plans.  (Spoiler alert:  this often does not work well for me.) 

So this week, I’ve been trying to have my plans formulated but to also create space for the uncertainty in my life to dwell alongside me.  And it’s uncomfortable, which tells me that this is probably an area I need to continue to grow in.

The gospel reading and the Old Testament readings have been helpful companions for me this week in my discomfort with uncertainty.  In the story from Exodus, we see the Children of Israel are three months into their wandering in the wilderness.  They are just three months out from their miraculous escape from Egypt and Pharoah’s army, when they walked on the dry land between the parted waters of the Red Sea where God, through Moses, led them to safety.  They have tried to drink bitter water, which God (through Moses) has made sweet for them; they have been hungry and been taught how to gather the manna that God provides for them to eat.  They’ve even been attacked by the Amalekites and saved (again by God and Moses).  But the wandering and the uncertainty is starting to wear on them, and they are feeling the full impact of that way of life.  So God gives the people through Moses a word of encouragement in the form of a covenant:  “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”  

In these words, God is promising the people that just as God has taken care of them and has not let anything happen to them, God will continue to offer them God’s presence and God’s protection.  They are and continue to be treasured by God.  And because of this special relationship, the people have a responsibility to God also.  They are called by God to obedience to God and to keeping the covenant.   And in this call, this invitation, God is giving God’s people the tools to navigate the next 39 years and 9 months of wandering in the wilderness of uncertainty:  Trust God.  Obey God.  Be faithful to God. 

The gospel reading for today from Matthew shows how Jesus sends the disciples out to proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.  This sending out is a result of Jesus’ compassion; he sees that the people are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd,” so he sends out his disciples as missionaries of good news, telling them to “go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.”  And then, Jesus gives the disciples further instruction on how to do this, and it is a master class in uncertainty, in vulnerability.  He tells them:  

“Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff... Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave… If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.” 

He tells them, you’re going to be handed over to the authorities, and when you are, prepare no defense, “for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

Jesus is sending his disciples out with a call to wander in order to proclaim the good news.  He sends them out without a clear destination (that’s the definition of wandering) and his instructions make it clear that the call to wandering, the call to discipleship, involves a great deal of both vulnerability and uncertainty.  In fact, the call to wandering is, at its heart, a call to uncertainty. 

And again, he offers them the assurance that in the midst of their wandering and their uncertainty, they don’t have to worry because the Holy Spirit is with them, working in and through and around them.  The other key piece to Jesus’s call to the disciples to wander off into vulnerability and uncertainty is that there is a purpose to this uncertainty.  It is to spread the good news of the Kingdom of God and to offer healing and reconciliation in Jesus’s name to those who need it most as inspired by the Holy Spirit.  

So what does this mean for us?  That the call to discipleship, the call to following Jesus is a call to both vulnerability and uncertainty?  Just as I find myself in a season of uncertainty in my life, you at St. Mary’s may also be wandering around a bit in the wilderness of “what’s next?”.  Maybe this season is an important reminder for all of us that we cannot plan or control how or when the Holy Spirit shows up?  (And thank goodness for that because it is often so different/greater/better than our best laid plans!). 

God’s invitation to wander, to uncertainty is God’s invitation to us to trust God, to give our lives over to an unreasonable, unplannable and unplanned hope.  And then to see what sort of space opens up in our lives (of faith) when we live into God’s call to wander, to be uncertain, to be vulnerable, to be faithful, and to trust God—all for the sake of God’s purpose which is the spreading of the good news.  

Your invitation this week is to pay attention to how you encounter uncertainty in your life or in this church?  Pay attention to what is your general disposition toward uncertainty?  How is God calling you to wander, to step into uncertainty for the sake of the good news?  

I can’t wait to see how God’s Holy Spirit shows up and surprises us in our work here together!  May God give us all the power to trust God, to obey God, and to be faithful to God in this coming season.  

The First Sunday in Lent-St. Alban's Stuttgart & St. Peter's Tollville

The Rev Canon Melanie Dickson Lemburg

St. Peter’s and St. Alban’s, Tollville and Stuttgart

The First Sunday in Lent Year A

February 22, 2027

 

       About 7 years ago, my parents bought a farm in Northeast Mississippi.  Now, this might not seem like big news to y’all, here in the Arkansas Delta, but I have to admit that I thought they were crazy.  They were in their late 60’s at the time, so they had an eye toward doing this in retirement.  My dad is a lobbyist, and my mom is a retired teacher who also worked as a county court administrator.  They had always liked to garden, and they had this dream of owning a farm so they could grow their own food in the form of organic vegetables.  Together, with my youngest brother and his wife and newborn twin girls, they all embarked on the adventure of our family farm, learning all that they could about farming from YouTube videos.  

       About a year after they started their adventure, I asked my brother what had been most surprising to him about the whole endeavor.  He told me that farming had been for him a lesson in how little of life a person can actually control.  It was humbling, really, to recognize how much of farming was out of his control and that he couldn’t work his way or think his way out of hardships like drought or weeds or burst pipes in the barn.  

       My dad has shared his favorite quote about farming that’s not original to him.  (I suspect y’all have heard this before.) “God made farming hard, and then God invented weather.”  

       I’ve been thinking about all of this in light of our readings for this First Sunday in Lent, especially the Old Testament reading and the gospel.  In Genesis, we see Adam and Eve at work farming, tending the garden of Eden.  God gives them so much freedom and only one stipulation:  whatever you do, don’t eat of the fruit of one particular tree—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Anything else is fair game.  So what do they do?  They eat of that one tree.  And I can’t help but wonder why?  Was it because it was the one thing in the garden that was outside their control?  

       We see the counter to this potential need for control in how Jesus interacts with the devil in his temptations in the wilderness.  If you look closely, each one of the three temptations offered by the devil are temptations to control, to try to assert one’s will over trusting God’s care and providence.  And Jesus refuses to do that.  It is utterly astounding to me how he resists those temptations to try to exert control.  And each time he resists, he reiterates the call to trust only in God.

       When he says, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  He is saying: “I trust God.”

       When he says, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ He is saying, “I trust God.”

       When he says, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him,’  he is saying, “I trust God.” 

And we see this supreme trust in God in the way he lives his life as well.  It is at the heart of his journey to the cross, which we will follow over the course of these forty days.  It is a slow, steady relinquishing of control, even to the point of giving himself up for death at the hands of his enemies.  

       So, what might all this have to teach us today?  Maybe y’all have already learned the lessons you need about control and trusting in God, but for me, it is a lesson I need to learn and re-learn just about every Lent.  

       A few years ago, I read the book A Different Kind of Fast:  Feeding our True Hungers in Lent by Christine Valters Paintner.  The book is essentially a Lenten retreat where the author invites the reader to take on a different type of fast during Lent and then using the space created by the fast to embrace more life-giving practices.  Each week, she offers a different practice, and for the sixth week she encourages the reader to “Fast from certainty and attempting to control the outcome of things so that you might grow in trust in the great mystery of life.”  Embrace the beauty of the unknown and be nourished by new possibilities we would have never dreamed.”[i]

       I’ve been thinking about that invitation a lot this week as I’ve been contemplating the ways that I most frequently act like Adam and Eve and contemplating the invitation to act more like Jesus in this area of control and putting my trust in God.  

       And something else that I’m reading currently has helped me in this contemplation.  It’s from the book titled the centuries wrap round us: a thousand ponderings on beauty, bridging, and being in an age of fear, fragmentation, and fragility by John Paul Lederach who is well known as a Mennonite and a successful peacebuilder/conflict mediator.  Lederach writes, “From Hannah Arendt I understood the greatest of all human paradoxes.  We have the capacity to remember but no power to change the past.  We have the capacity to imagine, but no power to control the future.  To embrace the paradox of powerlessness, to hold its extraordinary tension, humility remains the constant guidepost.”

He continues with his definition of humility writing, “Humility (n): The courage to hold your truth lightly enough that the light of another, even one you fear, can unexpectedly illuminate your path; also known as living with a tender tenacity.”[ii]

Let me read that one more time:  “Humility is the courage to hold your truth lightly enough that the light of another, even one you fear, can unexpectedly illuminate your path; also known as living with a tender tenacity.”  

Which goes back to farming, doesn’t it?  I can’t think of a better image of tender tenacity than little green shoots started from seeds and just beginning to spout up from the dirt.  And even the earth itself can teach us about this spiritual practice of humility.  The Latin word humus, which means earth, ground, or soil, is the root word for both human and humility.  

We are not strangers to dirt and dust in these early days of Lent; just the other day, we heard the haunting call to“remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

In light of all this, here are some questions I invite you to join me in considering this week.  Where in your life do you need to try to fast from seeking to control?  How might God be inviting you to practice humility—holding your own truth lightly enough that the light of another can also illumine your path?  Where in your life are you being invited to trust God, to trust others, to abandon all sense of control and to lean into uncertainty? Where is God offering you the nourishment of new possibilities?

In closing, I’ll share with you a blessing by the Methodist minister, artist, and poet Jan Richardson.  It’s titled:

Blessing the Dust

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.[iii]

     

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[i] Paintner, Christine Valters.  A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding our True Hungers in Lent. Broadleaf: Minneapolis, 2024, pp 29-31 in kindle edition.

[ii] Lederach, John Paul.  the centuries wrap round us: a thousand ponderings on beauty, bridging, and being in an age of fear, fragmentation, and fragility.  Outskirts Press:  2026, pp 15-16 in Kindle edition. 

[iii] Richardson, Jan.  from Circle of Grace:  A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. https://paintedprayerbook.com/2026/02/17/ash-wednesday-to-ask-where-love-will-lead-us