First Sunday in Lent Year A

The First Sunday in Lent-Year A February 26, 2023 Today we mark the first Sunday in Lent. Lent is a season of 40 days before Easter, and it offers an opportunity to us for a sort of spiritual spring cleaning. We are invited to deeper self-examination, increased prayer and study of scripture, and some folks opt to take on certain practices that may help them be more aware of God’s presence in their lives or give up certain practices that they feel draw them away from the love of God and neighbor. (I have a friend who gave up fear a number of Lents ago. This year, she told me that she was going to give up negativities and snarkiness and to choose positivity instead.) In our Lenten devotion by Kate Bowler titled Bless the Lent we Actually Have, Bowler writes about how “Lent is an incredible moment for …spiritual honesty…. She invites us through spiritual honesty to “bless the days we have while longing for the future God promised when there will be no tears, no pain, no email.” This week, I’ve been reflecting on a line from our Lenten Eucharistic prayer. It’s one of the seasonal proper prefaces, a sentence or two that is unique to the liturgical season that we can insert into the Eucharistic prayer to make it more tailored for the particular season. One of the proper prefaces for Lent talks about Jesus who “was tempted in every way as we are, yet did not sin.” Even though I’ve prayed that proper preface over the last 18+ years, it has taken on new meaning for me this Lent, as I’ve continued to wrestle with how I get along with my literal, immediate neighbors in the aftermath of an encounter that has resulted in the incarceration of our dog for well over two weeks. (I’m happy to report that our dog is home with us now, so at least that part of this horrible situation is over.)i. Fortunately, I’ve been really busy lately, but in all of my free moments, y’all, I still want to utterly destroy them. And I know that is not of God or how God would have me treat them. As another parishioner suggested, I’ve prayed that God’s will will be worked in their lives (and in mine). I’ve prayed some of the more graphic psalms which invites God’s smiting of one’s enemies. Psalm 3 vs 7 has been a cherished favorite of late: “Rise up, O LORD; set me free, O my God; * surely, you will strike all my enemies across the face, you will break the teeth of the wicked.” But I am struggling with the pull between self-righteousness and judgement, constantly wrestling with my own resentments, and it is not a healthy or whole-hearted place to be. So I’ve been thinking about the ways that Jesus was tempted just as we are, yet he did not sin. In our gospel reading for today, we see the devil offering Jesus three distinct temptations which can been seen as three great questions: Whom do you trust for your nourishment? Whom do you trust to love and care for you? And whom do you trust with your service? It’s tempting to view Jesus as some sort of stoic hero, resisting the temptations through sheer force of will and divine fortitude. But that doesn’t really help us out, does it? Because even though we all like to think that we are the hero of our own stories, we know that we often come up short. And the good news for us is that Matthew’s gospel doesn’t support this heroic view of Jesus either. “Matthew’s story actually points in a quite different direction: not toward closed-fisted fortitude, but rather toward open-handed, open-hearted, humble, humbling trust.”ii Jesus is tempted as we are yet did not sin because Jesus trusts God, and he will not allow anything to erode that. (Interestingly enough, our reading from Genesis gives us a picture of what it looks like when there is lack of trust in God and the dire consequences that spring from that.) It’s important to remember today, also, what has happened in Matthew just prior to this story of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness. Jesus has been baptized by John, the Holy Spirit descended, like a dove upon Jesus and a voice from heaven said: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” The temptations that the devil offers Jesus in the wilderness are attacks against Jesus’s baptism, against his belovedness. And I don’t know about y’all, but this feels right to me—this schism between who I have promised to be in and through my baptism and who I am when I don’t fully trust God (and am at war with my neighbors). So, this week, I invite you to join me in daily reflecting on the three questions posed to Jesus in his temptation, as a way to remind myself to put my trust in God and to not be led astray from the promises of my baptism: Whom do you trust for your nourishment? Whom do you trust to love and care for you? And whom do you trust with your service? i. Bowler writes about this on page 3. You can access the full devotional here. https://files.constantcontact.com/00993281801/dc792944-8c38-440c-9b83-9c76da7812ec.pdf?rdr=true ii. The quote and the other ideas from this paragraph and the one preceding it are from Salt Lectionary commentary: https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/trust-saltlectionary-commentary-lent-1-year-a

Last Sunday after the Epiphany-Year A

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany-Year A February 19, 2023 “I went up to the mountain,/because you asked me to.” It’s the first line of a song I’ve been listening to all week. It’s titled Up to the Mountain by Patty Griffin. The song was written in homage to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and it references his last speech, I’ve been to the mountaintop, that he preached the day before he was killed. “I went up to the mountain Because you asked me to Up over the clouds To where the sky was blue I could see all around me Everywhere I could see all around me Everywhere” I’ve been pondering this song all week, listening to it, and thinking about how it’s a window into our readings for today, this Last Sunday after the Epiphany. Both the Old Testament reading from Exodus and Matthew’s gospel for today start with an invitation from God to God’s people to go up the mountain. In these stories, Moses and the disciples encounter the glory of God face to face, a glimpse of glory that both awe and inspire, confuse and confound them, a rest and a respite in the midst of a hard and challenging road. “Sometimes I feel like I've never been nothing but tired And I'll be walking 'Til the day I expire Sometimes I lay down No more can I do But then I go on again Because you ask me to” As we close out this season of Epiphany, the season of light, it’s important to remember that God continues to offer us this invitation, to journey up to the top of the mountain, to gain a new or different perspective, to have a respite from the cares and concerns and challenges of everyday life, to catch a glimpse of God’s glory, and to remember… Some days I look down Afraid I will fall And though the sun shines I see nothing at all Then I hear your sweet voice, oh Oh, come and then go, Telling me softly You love me so Today we are once again offered the invitation to hear the echoes of our own baptism in God’s words to Jesus—You are my beloved child, and with you I am well pleased. We are invited to be fully present to the wonder of God—to see, as another writer puts it “How Jesus shines. Life just shines. The glory of God spills out of things,/leaks out of every container, even people.”ii We are invited to see that belovedness shining out of every person, even when we and they are at our worst. As we head into the season of Lent, a season of preparation for the new life of Easter, the new life of the resurrection, may we remember this invitation from God is always with us, this invitation to join God “up the mountain” where we once again encounter God’s glory in Jesus, in ourselves, in each other. “The peaceful valley Few come to know I may never get there Ever in this lifetime But sooner or later It's there I will go Sooner or later It's there I will go.” i. You can find the full lyrics here: https://genius.com/Patty-griffin-up-to-the-mountain-mlk-song-lyrics ii. https://unfoldinglight.net/2023/02/13/weird/ iii. Hear Patty Griffin sing the whole song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az4DGPSiSFg

6th Sunday after Epiphany Year A

6th Sunday after Epiphany—Year A i February 12, 2023 It’s been a hard week in the Lemburg house. We’ve had a run in with our next door neighbor (yes, it’s that same neighbor that I’ve preached about before). It’s been bad, and I’ll confess that I’ve spent the week fantasizing about horrible things that might happen to her. And then I read today’s gospel. I thought about ignoring it and preaching on something else. But it was too late for that. It had already taken hold in my heart in the midst of this horrible week. It became clear that it was something that the Holy Spirit was encouraging me to wrestle with. But I couldn’t see, through my hurt and my anger, through my hardness of heart, any good news in this challenge this week. I knew I had preached on these lessons numerous times over my 18 years of ordained life. So I looked back at the good news that I had found before, relying on earlier foundations of my faith in my wrestlings with the readings and my integrity this week. So, today, I’m sharing with you what I preached on these readings in 2011; it’s what I needed to hear today (they say we preachers really just preach the sermons that we, ourselves, need to hear), and I hope it will be a gift of good news for you today as well. There is nothing like death to help give us perspective on life and how we are living it. Moses shares some of his own insight with us and the Children of Israel as he faces his own impending death on the outskirts of the Promised Land and as the Children of Israel prepare to enter the Promised Land and begin their new life there. “Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and adversity…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life.” There at the end of his life, Moses encounters the reality that most of us are not able to choose the manner of our death, but that our lives are made up of millions of opportunities in which we are allowed to choose between adversity and prosperity, curses and blessings, death and life. In his valedictory sermon, Moses doesn’t just tell the Children of Israel to choose between life and death, blessings and curses. He tells them how they may choose death or choose life. You choose death, he says, when your hearts turn away from God; when you do not listen to God, when you do not obey; you choose death when you bow down and serve other gods. You choose life, he says, when you love the Lord your God. You choose life when you walk in God’s ways and when you observe God’s commandments. You choose life when you hold fast to God. Jesus’s message in today’s portion of the Sermon on the Mount is a much harsher and hyperbolic way of articulating this choice between death and life. “Let your word be ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no,’” Jesus tells his disciples. Others have said this in various ways: “You’re either for us or against us.” “Do… or do not….There is no try.” While we know that neither of those sayings is really faithful to life because life isn’t about such dramatic extremes, the message is clear. Choose life. Jesus speaks strong words about the choices people face over the course of their lives: the choices of nursing and nurturing our anger against one who has wronged us or one whom we have wronged versus doing the difficult work of forgiveness and reconciliation. In this he tells us to choose reconciliation, choose life. He speaks of the choice of lusting after another, of coveting aspects of another’s life versus being reconciled with the reality of our own lives and what we have, and again he urges us to choose reconciliation, to choose contentment, to choose life. He speaks of divorce and urges people to work to preserve marriage, and he lays out again the choice between divorce versus reconciliation. When at all possible (and he acknowledges that it isn’t always possible in marriage, in relationships), choose reconciliation; choose life. Finally, he offers the choice between making false vows versus reconciliation between your values and your action, reconciliation between your words and your works. Choose reconciliation; choose life. In his piece of the Sermon for today, Jesus says that the Way of God is the path of reconciliation; it includes being reconciled with ourselves, who we are, the reality of our lives, and being reconciled with others, rather than holding onto our anger, past wrongs or injustices. Choosing life means recognizing that our relationship with God is deeply connected with our relationships with others. Choosing life means knowing and believing and holding fast to the reality that no matter what we have done, God continues to reach out to us, that we do not have to live a life of curses, of adversity, of death; we may accept God’s forgiveness and our restored relationship as God’s beloved that we might choose life. Again and again we are offered this choice, between death and life. It is the choice between living our lives for ourselves alone, not worrying about who we crush to get what we want versus striving for justice for all people and care for the poor, searching for something deeper than our own comfort. And we are urged to choose life. It is the choice between living our lives in a rush to meet deadlines that are, in the scheme of things, completely insignificant, and ordering our lives around those lesser things versus spending time with those who are dearest to us, and letting them know how precious they are. And we are urged to choose life. It is the choice between shutting down our emotions, not dealing with the reality of grief and loss in our lives versus acknowledging our losses and grieving…. grieving well. And we are urged to choose life. It is the choice between shuttling our children through the countless rounds of school and sports and clubs and social activities, expecting as much or more from them than we expect from ourselves versus spending some time every day playing with or being present with them, enjoying their childhood and youth, and sharing in their joy that they so freely give. And we are urged to choose life. It is the choice between being polite and saying what we think the other wants to hear, our tongues held captive by the fear of hurting feelings versus speaking the truth in love when the truth begs to be told. And we are urged to choose life. It is the choice between making all our decisions, living our lives based on fear versus living our lives out of a deep and abiding hope that nothing can separate us from God’s love. And we are urged to choose hope, to choose life. It is the choice between bowing down and serving anything less than God: ideas that are not worthy, the demands and priorities of our culture, our own over-programmed calendars, our jobs, our loneliness, our despair, our own deep control needs and plans for how our lives should go versus holding fast to God, offering to God nothing less than our whole hearts during worship, praying, and giving thanks for all of God’s good gifts. And we are urged to choose life. And here’s the really good news in all of this. We are always offered the choice, and even when we continue to choose death, for whatever our reasons, God can and will redeem that too, if we will let God. God can take the death that we choose, and God offers us in its place reconciliation… redemption…. resurrection. It is the very heart of the resurrection: that God’s love is stronger than anything this world has to offer—stronger than our bad choices, stronger than evil and hate, stronger than anything. God’s love is stronger than death. Therefore, when we choose God, we choose life. Your invitation this week is to join me in looking for ways to choose life, to choose God, in the midst of the hardness and the challenges of our lives. One way I have been doing this this week has been when I find myself nursing my anger, I acknowledge that. I take in a big breath, and in my heart and mind, I say to God and myself, “Choose life.” i. This bulk of this sermon was originally preached at St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, Gulfport, MS on February 13, 2011

5th Sunday after Epiphany Year A

5th Sunday after the Epiphany-Year A February 5, 2023 “Have you heard the story about the life house?” my husband said to me when we were talking about preaching this Sunday. Once there was a community by the sea, and they realized that so many people kept drowning. They decided they needed to do something, so they built a life-house and they trained life guards to go out and save people who were drowning. They were very successful in their mission, and all the people were glad. A generation went by, and the people of the life house spent all of their time sitting around and talking about the good old days of when they founded the life house. And while they were busy talking and reminiscing, people began drowning again, and there was no one to save them. Some members of the life house noticed this and asked for change, but others didn’t want to give up their stories and their time for reminiscing. So a fight broke out. One group argued that there are souls out there drowning, and we need to get back out there because we can save them, and the other group was comfortable and not really up for the risk of life-guarding any more. So, the ones who wanted to save the people from drowning went a little ways down the beach and built a new life house, and a generation later, the same thing happened. Our Old Testament reading for today is a reading from the book of Isaiah. Isaiah is a long book that scholars think was written by at least three different people during three different time periods. The first portion of Isaiah-what scholars call First Isaiah- takes place when Israel is headed for trouble, the enemies are at the gates and the kingdom is about to fall to foreign invaders. The second portion—Second Isaiah—is written to the people of Israel who have been taken into captivity by the foreign invaders into Babylon. They are trying to figure out how to be the people of God removed from their land which had been promised by God, trying to figure out how to continue to be God’s chosen people when it seems God has forsaken them. The portion for today—Third Isaiah-- is what is happening after the people in exile have been allowed to return to Israel. They have come home and find their homeland is in ruins: the temple is destroyed; there is no infrastructure; they have to completely rebuild the trappings of both their common life and their worship. In today’s passage, the prophet is writing to them that they are spending too much energy on the trappings of worship; they are trying to influence God in their fasting, and they are quarreling with one another and mistreating their workers and the most vulnerable among them. The prophet reminds them of what God’s priorities are and therefore, what their priorities should be: “Is not this the fast that I choose: 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.” The gospel reading for today is the second portion of Jesus’s famous teaching known as the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has started with the beatitudes (which we heard last week), and he is now teaching about discipleship—how to maintain our “saltiness.” In the Beatitudes, Jesus is teaching that blessing is closely connected with our relationships with both God and our neighbor, and in our portion for today, he is teaching about the mission of his followers must be to serve others through their example. We are to be bearers of God’s light in the world’s dark places, and our self-offerings will be signs of God’s presence and redemptive work. Jesus is reminding us and his disciples that there are people out there who are drowning, and he have the gifts and abilities to help save them. Several years ago, when my husband David and I got to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, we went to the site where people think Jesus gave the sermon on the mount. It was actually one of my least favorite sites that we visited, and I felt unsettled the whole time I was there. There’s a monastery that exists near the site of the sermon on the mount now. And there’s a church on the site that was very clearly built sometime in the 60’s. It is a shrine to 1960’s church architecture and 1960’s religious decoration and opulence—strangely frozen in time on this timeless spot. All around the church on the grassy hillside are sidewalks, so much concrete, that lead up steps to the monastery, to restrooms near the parking lot and to a gift shop. The church is built to look out over the side of the hill where the disciples and crowds would have gathered, but there’s no way to get down to that area as a pedestrian. After visiting that site, I felt completely disconnected from what we know of Jesus’s teachings in the sermon on the mount and about the topsy-turvy nature of the kingdom of God and the good news to those who are perishing. It’s easy to see how we as the church can insulate ourselves from risk, from change, from believing that we are bold and brave enough to make a difference, to help save the lives of people who are drowning. All churches can fall into that trap from time to time. We gather here, week after week, to engage together in the public act of worship. When we worship together, we participate in, give our hearts fully to the saving mission that God has begun and continues to carry out through Jesus Christ. We open ourselves to being drawn closer to God in and through our worship, to being drawn closer to the rest of human kind. In and through worship, our desires become a little more closely aligned with God’s desires: that every person will have all that they need to live whole-hearted and healthy lives. And then, transformed, we go out into the world to try to do our part, working with the Holy Spirit, to make that a reality. This week, I invite you to pay attention to how you are transformed in worship of God today, and look through that lens on the world around you in the coming days.