Fourth Sunday in Lent Year C

Lent 4C_2022_new March 27, 2022 As I was sitting with the readings for this Sunday, I was reminded of a story I read years ago. It’s a story that the Celtic priest and mystic John O’Donohue tells in his book Anam Cara (which means soul friend). Here is what he writes as he writes about the challenges of modern life to the soul: “Rapidity is another force causing massive stress in the workplace. Baudrillard, a French philosopher, speaks of the exponential speed of modern life. Where things are moving too quickly, nothing can stabilize, gather, or grow. There is a lovely story of a man exploring Africa. He was in desperate hurry on a journey through the jungle. He had three or four Africans helping him carry his equipment. They raced onward for about three days. At the end of the third day, the Africans sat down and would not move. He urged them to get up, telling them of the pressure he was under to reach his destination before a certain date. They refused to move….Finally, he got one of them to admit the reason. This native said, ‘We have moved too quickly to reach here; now we need to wait to give our spirits a chance to catch up with us.’” i In our Old Testament reading for today, we see the end of the wandering of the Children of Israel in the wilderness for forty years. Joshua, who becomes their leader after Moses’s death, has just led them across the Jordan River and into the promised land where they have come to this place that they name Gilgal, and God tells them “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” At this point, two notable things happen. The Israelites celebrate Passover for the first time in their new home of the promised land, and the manna, the bread from heaven that has sustained them while wandering in the wilderness, ceases because it is no longer needed. Now that they are finally home, they eat the produce and crops of the land. One of my colleagues invited us to reflect on this passage from Joshua this week by asking us to think of a time when we had been wandering in the wilderness for a long time, and we finally arrived at a place that quickly became home, where we could “eat the produce of the land.” What was that like for us—to be settled someplace where we could have time and space to grow things, to see things brought to fruition and then to enjoy the fruits of our labor? This has been interesting for me to think about this week, because one of the encounters with Gilgal for me in my faith journey has been in coming here. This place has been Gilgal for me—where I have seen things take root and grow and have enjoyed sampling with you from the fruit of our labors. And it is still Gigal, but lately, I haven’t been able to be fully attentive to what is growing. Perhaps I have traveled too far and too fast and need to be still, pay attention, and wait for my soul to catch up with me? Perhaps this is true for all of us in the light of these last two years of pandemic and corporate trauma? How do we tend to the growth if we feel too parched, to dried out in our own souls for anything to grow or bear fruit? John O’Donohue writes about this as well. He writes, “You can search far and in hungry places for love. It is a great consolation to know that there is a wellspring of love within yourself. If you trust that this wellspring is there, you will then be able to invite it to awaken. The following exercise could help develop awareness of this capacity. When you have moments on your own or spaces in your time, just focus on the well at the root of your soul. Imagine that nourishing stream of belonging, ease, peace, and delight. Feel, with your visual imagination, the refreshing waters of that well gradually flowing up through the arid earth of the neglected side of your heart. It is helpful to imagine this particularly before you sleep. Then during the night you will be in a constant flow of enrichment and belonging. You will find that when you awake at dawn, there will be a lovely, quiet happiness in your spirit.”ii Your invitation this week is to join me in practicing this here and now. We are going to sit together in two minutes of silence. For some it’s going to feel like an eternity and for some it’s going to fly by. As O’Donohue says, “Imagine that nourishing stream of belonging, ease, peace, and delight. Feel, with your visual imagination, the refreshing waters of that well gradually flowing up through the arid earth of the neglected side of your heart.” Imagine that water bubbling up into all corners and crevices of your mind, heart, and body. Pay attention to what comes, and if you get distracted in that practice, acknowledge that distraction, see it, and bring your focus back to the well spring. I’ll tell you when the two minutes is up, and don’t forget to breathe! Now everyone, take a minute to get settled, close your eyes, and let’s begin. i. O’Donohue, John. Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. Cliff Street Books: 1997, p. 151. ii. Ibid. p 28

Third Sunday in Lent Year C

Lent 3C_2022 March 20, 2022 Well, it’s been a week in the Lemburg house! On Monday, while I was in staff meeting, my husband David fell off a ladder while trying to get on the roof of our house. We spent all day Monday in the St. Joseph’s ER and learned that as a result of his fall, he fractured 4 vertebrae. The good news is that he’s going to be ok; he doesn’t need surgery, just time and space to heal. After my initial response of fear that lasted most of the day on Monday as we waited to learn just how badly he was injured, my emotions have been on a roller-coaster ride this week, plunging into the depths of some pretty intense anger and then settling into a high of self-righteousness and blame. “I’ve told him a hundred times not to get up on that roof! We’ve known and loved too many people over the course of our ministries who have had life-altering accidents that involved falling off a roof.” “Note how he waited until I was at staff meeting to do it because he knew I wouldn’t like it.” It felt so much better to replace my fear, my recognition of the fragility of all our lives, my helplessness in the face of disaster with self-righteousness. You might imagine my dismay when I am confronted by a picture of self-righteousness in our gospel reading for today. Luke gives us a strange little scene in which some people who are present listening to Jesus tell him about a recent current event in which Pilate has allegedly killed some Galileans (Jesus’s own people), who were making pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem to offer sacrifice (just like Jesus’s parents did when he was young), and when they were killed Pilate, a character that everyone loved to hate because he did legitimately, regularly committer of atrocities, had their blood mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. The self-righteous indignation of those telling Jesus about this incident echoes across the centuries. But Jesus doesn’t respond the way they would expect. He talks about the need for all people to repent, the need for all people to be reoriented in relationship with God, for we never know when death may come for us. I’m reading sociologist Brene’ Brown’s new book Atlas of the Heart for my book club. In this book, Brown relies on many years of research (both her own and others’) to try to define and map out 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human and to open up ways to make and deepen more meaningful connections. This week, I was about half-way through and decided to scroll ahead to see what chapters were coming up when I stumbled upon chapter #12 titled Places we go when we feel wronged in which Brown tackles the emotions of anger, contempt, disgust, dehumanization, hate and….self-righteousness. (Man, I really hate it when the lectionary scriptures for the coming Sunday and stuff I’m reading for fun gang up on me! And this week, we also have the passage from Exodus 3—Moses’s encounter with the burning bush which I preached on a few weeks ago as an invitation to pay attention to how God’s Holy Spirit is showing up and working in the world around us. It’s like God is putting up a flashing neon sign in my life.) In wretched Chapter 12, Brene’ Brown first writes about how anger is often an invitation to examine what is going on deeper in our souls—how anger is like a sort of check-engine light for our souls, inviting us to be curious about what is really going on there, what is behind our anger. She offers a couple of graphics that show that behind anger may be shame, sadness, fear, frustration, guilt, disappointment, worry, embarrassment, jealousy, hurt, anxiety, loneliness, rejection, helplessness, and even overwhelming stress. And then she writes this of self-righteousness. She quotes John Mark Green who writes, “The self-righteous scream judgements against others to hide the noise of skeletons dancing in their own closets.” And Brown continues: “I can tell you exactly what I was wearing and where I was sitting twenty-five years ago when someone in an AA meeting said, ‘Part of my sobriety is letting go of self-righteousness. It’s really hard because it feels so good. Like a pig rolling in [manure].’” Brown continues, “I remember thinking, Oh God. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I think I roll around in that [manure] too. From that day forward, I started thinking of self-righteousness as a threat to my self-respect, my well-being, and my sobriety. Unfortunately, it’s virtually impossible to add it to the abstinence list-it’s not as binary as having or not having a Bud Light or a cigarette—but I definitely see it as a slippery behavior that necessitates some self-reflection. And possibly amends.” i Jesus makes it clear in the gospel passage for today that the antidote for self-righteousness is repentance. Repentance starts with the acknowledgement from the opening line of our collect today: “Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves…” and so we ask God to keep us safe in both body and soul. Repentance is acknowledging that we’ve gone the wrong way, or to put it in the poignant words from the Rite 1 confession that: “we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts…”. And repentance means an openness to once again realigning our will with God’s will. All of this has served as an invitation to me to recognize my own helplessness in keeping myself and those I love from harm, recognizing that we are all dependent on God’s mercy for that protection and that it doesn’t always look like I think it should look, and it has been an invitation to me to live into a deeper humility below the surface of my anger and self-righteousness. Your invitation this week is to examine where in your life you have felt a sense of self-righteousness lately. Examine what feelings might be lurking underneath, and ask God how you are being called to repent and reorient your life and your will with God’s. i Brown, Brene’. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. Random House: 2021. Chapter 12. Anger part is on pp 218-222. Self-righteousness is from pp 238-239.

2nd Sunday in Lent Year C

Lent 2C_2022 March 13, 2022 Last weekend, I served on staff for Happening #105 in the Diocese of Georgia. Happening is a spiritual renewal experience for high school students led by high school students. They have a handful of adults present to work as the support staff and to handle any adult stuff, but it’s mostly the teenaged staff members who do everything. This is the third time I’ve served on staff as an adult, but the other two times, I served as one of the spiritual directors—giving talks, preaching and presiding over the sacraments. But this time, I didn’t serve as a spiritual director. I got to serve as a “mom.” When I showed up on Thursday, I was given a manual on how to be a Happening mom. (I do love a good manual!) After I read my manual cover to cover, anxious to understand and be able to fulfill my duties as a mom, I began to get a picture of what serving as a mom on Happening staff would look like. As the weekend unfolded, I was intrigued to realize that my tasks were much more physical ones than I had accomplished in my previous role as spiritual director. As a mom, I put out snacks. I cleaned up the food. I picked up trash, and I encouraged the youth to pick up their trash. I made an ice pack and provided a little care for someone who got hurt in a game. I set up chairs for worship and then I moved and stacked and reset them. I planned a party and made things festive and beautiful. And I swept, and I swept, and I swept—every single particle of dirt from Honey Creek migrated to the inside spaces, and I waged war on it for the whole weekend. During one of my many sweeping endeavors, it occurred to me that my task as a mom, while so much more physical than I had anticipated, in fact, had a spiritual component. My work as a mom at Happening was to create and cultivate home for the candidates and staff. Sometimes this meant nurturing them; sometimes this meant protecting them—like the time I had to cut off the young candidate who was continually shot-gunning the blue fizzy drink we offered for the party. (“Trust me kid, it’s late, and this won’t end well for you if you don’t stop.”) This got me reflecting on the many different ways we mother or create home for each other and what that looks like. In our gospel reading for today, we see Jesus headed toward Jerusalem where he is prepared to die on the cross when he gets a warning that Herod is looking to kill him. This provokes some choice words about Herod from Jesus, and then Jesus offers a lament over Jerusalem 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! See, your house is left to you.” Jesus is expressing a longing to gather up the scattered, to protect and shield them from harm, to mother them, heal them, and to make home for them. But they are unwilling to be gathered, protected, mothered, healed, or made at home. Can you think of a time in your life when you have resisted Jesus’s gathering, protecting, mothering, healing, or being made at home? Can you think of a time when you accepted it? What was that like? Can you think of a time when Jesus worked through you to gather, protect, mother, heal or create home for someone else? What was that like? How might Jesus be calling each one of us and all of us together to do that work in this world right here and right now? This world that so desperately needs gathering, protecting, mothering, healing, and home-making for? Your invitation this week is to be mindful of the ways that the Holy Spirit might be inviting you to do this work for those you encounter. Look for times and ways to gather, to protect, to mother, to offer kindness and healing, and to seek to make home for another.

Ash Wednesday 2022

Ash Wednesday 2022 Every year, Lent holds the same temptation for me—that is to try to use the 40-day period as a sort of “holiness bootcamp.” I do love a good self-help program, and embedded in the heart of this temptation for me is the secret belief that I can make myself righteous before God. Every year, I need to feel the grit of the dust on my forehead; to hear those solemn and holy and sobering words: “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Every year, I need Ash Wednesday to check my expectations for Lent; I need the reminder that God has already done all that is needful and that the gift of Lent is the invitation to open our hearts more fully to God. This year, the reading from Isaiah also has served as that holy reminder for me, that check to my temptation to dwell too much on the fasting aspect of Lent. In Isaiah, God speaks to God’s people who are dispirited and scattered, taken out of their homeland into the land of foreign invaders. God’s people ask: "Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" And God responds: “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?” And then God says, “Here is what I mean by a fast!” “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.” God is telling God’s people that their true relationship with God is revealed in how they treat others. God is reminding God’s people that God’s justice goes hand in hand with God’s mercy, and they are called to do likewise. Only then, God tells them, will the Lord guide them and give them strength; their ancient ruins will be rebuilt and they will be called “the repairer of the breach.” What might a fasting for Lent look like that is oriented to “repairing the breach”? How might Lent be a time when we are called to look fully into the face of the world’s injustices and examine our part in them? What does it mean, even in Lent, to put our hope in the promise of the resurrection—that through God all things in this world can be made new and that nothing in this world is beyond the healing power of God? Through our fasting, how might we be called to be agents of that healing? How might what each of us does for Lent have implications far beyond our own spiritual lives and our relationship with God, far beyond the bounds of our own self-discipline to impact the whole world? How are we, all together and each one of us, being called to repair the breach this Lent?