21st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 26C

21st Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 26C October 30, 2022 How many of you still write letters? (Now, I’m not talking about thank you notes, because I know y’all’s mammas raised you right! I’m talking about full-fledged letters.) How many? I wrote one this week and one a few weeks ago. It’s a dying art, isn’t it? So much of my days are filled with emails, instant messages, and text messages, that when I do sit down to write a letter, it’s like I have to turn that part of my brain back on. I’ve been intrigued by our 2nd lesson for the week. As in most weeks, the second lesson that we read is an epistle or a letter that has been written to early Christian communities. Today we have the very beginning part of the 2nd letter to the Thessalonians, with the standard greeting of the writer expressing their thankfulness for the community. It’s a letter of encouragement to a people who have fallen on hard-times, a sort of love-letter to help them hold on to their faith and each other. I especially appreciated the perspective of a podcaster for this passage when she said, “In this letter Paul writes, ‘I am grateful for you, church. You have been faithful and steadfast, even in the face of terribleness. And yet, not all is terrible. Because we’re not doing this thing called life and faith by ourselves. We’re in this together; so stand firm. Hold on tight. The way isn’t easy, and sometimes there are people who are rooting for your failure. But that’s not the whole of it, though, and it will be amazing as we go together. Grace and peace of Jesus be with you always.’ [She concludes] Now while this letter was written a while ago, it still speaks today, doesn’t it? What terribleness have we seen! How have we needed some encouragement!” i In the spirit of this, I decided I wanted to write you all a letter for today, as we celebrate the new things that God continues to do in, among, and through us in this place and as we make our commitment to support the work God is doing in and through us together, over the next year. To my beloved people of St. Thomas, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I must always give thanks for you, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore, I boast of you among the church of God throughout all of Savannah and even in the greater diocese and beyond. We have certainly not had an easy time of it here these last couple of years. We have dealt with all of the challenges of being a faith community during a global pandemic, trying to navigate the way together when there were no maps and we didn’t even really know where we were going. We have lost people from this community who we loved, and we weren’t able to gather together to celebrate their lives, to mourn together, or to mark the profound changes to our community with their deaths. We have fallen out of familiar rhythms, and even as we tried to stay connected, we struggled with loneliness, with our inability to gather and worship and be together in ways that were comforting and familiar and necessary. Through it all, you remained constant in your support for this church, for your clergy, for each other. You continued to give faithfully, and because of that, we are doing well economically, even thriving. Today, as we gather to celebrate the new things that God is doing in, among, and through us here, I give thanks for the steadfastness of you and your faith. I give thanks for the ways that you welcome the stranger, how you seek to create space for new people, for new life without abdicating your own responsibilities. I give thanks for the ways that you love my children for who they really are and not who you think they should be. And not just my children. I give thanks that you love all of our children this way. I give thanks for the joy that you find in celebrating life together. I give thanks for all the things that you do for one another that I usually never know about but get glimpses of from time to time. I give thanks for the times when you aren’t afraid to ask for help, to lean on me or each other in ways that show deep trust. I give thanks for your gifts of hospitality, for how you make manifest for me and for others all those times when Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a really good party. I give thanks for the ways that you are willing to wrestle with scripture with me, and for the stories that you are willing to share about how God continues to transform you in your life of faith. I give thanks for the ways that you encourage and nurture us, your clergy, and for all the ways that you embrace and roll with our crazy! I give thanks for the ways that you have shown me that new love can heal old wounds and heartbreak and how it can call forth new gifts from us. I pray for you regularly, and I will confess that when I get glimpses of your prayers for me, it takes my breath away. And I ask that God will continue to do new things in and through and among us together in this place, so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in us, and us in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Your sister in Christ, Melanie+ i. Melissa Meyers speaking on the podcast Pulpit Fiction episode #510. https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/proper26c