16th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21C

16th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21C September 25, 2022 There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and who feasted sumptuously everyday. His wealth and his power insulated him from the world around him; his sin was self-absorption. He was so blinded by his own wealth and luxury that he couldn’t even see the need of a hungry man at his front door, and it created a great chasm between him and God, between him and others. Even in death, when offered the opportunity to change, to cross some of the great chasm he had created by his own self-absorption, he couldn’t imagine that his money and power couldn’t buy him what he wanted. There was a busy woman who valued her time above everything else. While her busy-ness and her time management gave her a sense of control over the chaos, her obsession with her to-do lists and her calendar created a great chasm between herself and others. Her sin was self-absorption. She valued getting things done over relationships, and a great chasm was created between her and God, between her and others. She missed out on spontaneous moments of delight, of tasting the richness of unplanned joy; she was so busy planning that she couldn’t participate in the Kingdom of God as it unfolded around her. There was a successful man who had done very well in life. He always made top grades in school; he worked hard and he tried to make everything he did look effortless. It was very important to him that people admire him and think well of him. His sin was self-absorption. He cared too much about how people thought about him, and a great chasm was created between him and God, between him and others. Because he was always trying to make a good impression, he never could be fully himself in his relationships and many times, he felt lonely, lost, empty, even in a room full of people. There was a charismatic woman who seemed to have it all together, life well in hand. She made friends easily, and she was beautiful. Her sin was self-absorption. She was much too concerned about doing something wrong, about past decisions, which she would second-guess, and because she would beat herself up when things didn’t go how she wanted, a great chasm was opened between her and God, between her and others. She would often find herself frozen, paralyzed, thinking it was better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing and regret it. There was a caring man who spent much time and energy taking care of others. Every day, he poured out so much energy tending to the needs of those in the world around him, and everyone appreciated him for it. His sin was self-absorption. His caring slowly transformed into a secret resentment that no one cared for him as well as he cared for others, and so a great chasm opened up between him and God, between him and others. Even as he continued to go through the motions of caring for those around him, he found his heart was hardened, and he was so very bitter deep down inside. There was a self-sufficient woman, who was smart and capable and who lived a full life. She was fiercely independent and didn’t really need anyone to be complete. Her sin was self-absorption. She wouldn’t let anyone get too close; she wouldn’t risk getting her heart broken, and so a great chasm opened up between her and God, between her and others. Each and every one of us is one of these children of God, on the other side of a chasm made by our own flavor of self-absorption. Jesus, who loves us, has already built a bridge across the chasm, and he invites each one of us to step out of our self-absorption, to see things a little differently, and to take one tiny step toward God and others on that bridge across that chasm. Are you ready?

15th Sunday after Pentecost-Year C

15th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 20C September 18, 2022 A letter to Matthew Cousins Ochsner, Jr upon the occasion of your baptism. Dear Cousins, Today is a big day in your young life! It is the day that your parents and godparents accept, on your behalf, that you are already God’s beloved child, a child of the light, and they make promises, on your behalf about how you will live and about how they will raise you. Today, this congregation will make a promise to you that we will support you in your life in Christ. We promise to nurture you, to walk with you, to teach you and to learn from you as we walk this way of faith together, worshipping God, breaking bread together, and being transformed together. Our gospel reading for today is not one I would have chosen for a baptism. It is one of Jesus’s more difficult, dare I even say, unsavory? parables. It is known as the parable of the dishonest manager, although I’ve also heard a modern-day commentator refer to it as the parable of the dishonest CFO. But as unsavory as it is, it’s important to notice that in this chapter of Luke, Jesus turns from teaching the large crowds who have been following him toward specific teaching for his disciples. So, what might Jesus be offering to us, his disciples, his baptized followers, those who have said yes to God’s claim on us as God’s beloved, in this unsavory parable? I think as children of light, we need to share in the dishonest manager’s realization that relationships are the most important thing and that through our relationships, we have untold amounts of resources that are available to us. This is a gift that you have already tasted, Cousins, in the life of your family, and now you will know it in all the relationships available to you through the life of this church and the larger body of Christ as well. In fact, as children of the light, we all are called to live our lives grounded in the awareness that the vision of the Kingdom of God is rooted in love and relationships, and we are called to understand and practice that the deepest treasure of both love and relationships is forgiveness. It's why we gather here, week after week. To help each other remember that we are the people of God, and to help us each remember what we are called to do as children of the light. The other gift that this strange parable offers us is a reminder of the importance of gratitude in our lives and in our relationships. Gratitude helps us focus our hearts and our attentions on the good things, the treasures in our lives, when we are often tempted to focus on our shortcomings or what we lack. Years ago, when my children were small, we started a daily gratitude practice that we called “three things”. Each night at bedtime, we would name out loud to each other three things that we were grateful for from that day. It became such an important part of our family bedtime ritual that my children would insist on it every night (even on those nights when I was not feeling particularly grateful). So in closing, sweet Cousins, let me offer three things for which I am grateful on this particular day. First, I am grateful that I get to be in ministry alongside three whole generations of your family in this place. What a gift that is! Second, I am grateful for all the ways that this special community of faith helps strengthen my relationship with God and with my fellow children of light. I’m grateful for the ways that we nurture and care for each other in difficult times, and I’m grateful for the ways that we celebrate and play together. Third, I am grateful for the reminder that your baptism serves for all of us, the way that we are able to recommit to our own baptismal vows, and for the way that we will all gather today to fed from God’s table. I look forward to walking with you in your life of faith, Cousins, in seeing the relationships you develop in this place, and in learning from you about what it means to be children of the light together. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 18C

13th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 18C September 4, 2022 When I worked at Stewpot Community Services, the non-profit soup kitchen in Jackson, Mississippi, in the years before I went to seminary, I had a co-worker named The Rev Donnell Flowers. Rev Flowers was a fire and brimstone Baptist preacher. He walked with a limp, spoke directly but kindly, and some of his language would make most preachers blush. Rev Flowers was the director of the Men’s homeless shelter at Stewpot, and some days, he would give the talk that opened our noon meal, the center point of our day at Stewpot. Our passage from Deuteronomy for today was one of his favorites—Moses’s farewell speech as he and the children of Israel stand at the edge of the promised land. Moses has led them this far but he isn’t allowed by God to go on with them, and so Moses is giving them one last message from God before he goes off on his own to die. Rev Flowers would quote it by memory; the words were inscribed on his heart as if there were his own: "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." The congregation for that noon meal for Rev Flowers was often mixed. It was made up of people who lived on the streets of Jackson, people who battled addiction and alcoholism. It was made up of senior citizens who didn’t have enough money from their social security checks to pay for all their necessary expenses, so they’d eat the free noon meal daily to help those funds stretch. The congregation was made up of people who were looking for somewhere safe where they could spend time—where the free meal was an extra gift that came with someone to eat it with. The congregation was made up of the attorneys and business people from Downtown Jackson who came to volunteer their time to help serve the meal, and it was made up of the staff who worked every day to try to help soften the lives of our community members just a bit. Choose life,” Rev Flowers would tell us all. Every day when you walk out these doors, you will be faced with the choice between life and death, blessings and curses; choose life. It was easy for me to see this choice between life and death that lay before those battling addiction and poverty, the minute they walked out the door. But I also began to realize that Rev Flowers’ impassioned encouraging to choose life was just as urgent for all the rest of us, too. For us, as followers of Jesus, choosing the way of life means paying attention to the things that Jesus paid attention to; it means taking up our own cross and following him in ways we would never choose or imagine—offering mercy to those we think don’t deserve it; offering healing and help, charity and kindness to the poor and the suffering; being open to giving up our very selves, all the trappings of what we have used to build and create our lives in order to live and walk and follow this way of love. Choosing life also means not turning our faces away from suffering—both others’ and our own, not numbing ourselves with the things we use to numb ourselves, not hardening our hearts or shielding ourselves with all the things we do to shield ourselves. Choosing life means acknowledging the others gods who tempt us and call out to use to worship them instead of following the difficult way of discipleship that Jesus offers. Choosing life means holding fast to a God who lifts up the lowly and exalts the small and who casts down the mighty. Choosing life means living our lives according to God’s priorities and not our own. Choose life. In every minute, every encounter. In every hour and in every day, we have before us the choice between life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life.