The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 11B

The Very Rev Melanie Lemburg The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 11B July 21, 2024 I’m sure y’all know that we’ve had Vacation Bible School here at St. Thomas in the evenings this past week. Now I’ve been doing VBSes for my whole ordained life. (I did miss it one year; I was getting dressed to go, and then discovered that I had gone into labor with our son Jack. We sent Mary Margaret to church with my brother and sister-in-law because “The VBS must go on.”) So it’s strange that in all my years of doing VBS, every year, I seem to forget just how much fun it can be. I’ve been thinking about that this week and talking with colleagues about it, and I’ve realized that it is because at VBS even the adults give ourselves permission to play. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus and his disciples have regathered after Jesus has sent them out in pairs to proclaim the good news of the gospel, calling people to repent, casting out demons, and curing the sick. The disciples are excited to tell Jesus about all that has transpired while they were out working, and Jesus says to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” Jesus gathers them all together and invites them to rest together after their work. And I can’t help but wonder if there is a certain amount of play and playfulness in this homecoming gathering? Dr. Stuart Brown, who is the founder of the National Institute of Play defines play as “anything that is spontaneously done for its own sake…(Play) appears purposeless and produces pleasure and joy.” Brown’s research focuses a great deal on the importance of play for children and how that helps them build identity, but he also writes about the importance of play for adults. He writes, “The human being really is designed biologically to play throughout the life cycle…From my standpoint as a clinician, when one really doesn’t play at all or very little in adulthood, there are consequences: rigidities, depression, lack of adaptability, no irony…things that are pretty important that enable us to cope in a world of many demands.” i. So, can you think of the last time you really played? When was the last time you did something that was spontaneous and for its own sake, with little or no other purpose? What was that like for you? How did you feel? What might play have to teach you about your relationship with God? Your invitation this week is to pay attention to how and how often you play, and to intentionally work to cultivate play as a sabbath practice this week. i I can’t find an original sources for either of these quotes from Brown. They are quoted by Ben Conachan in his sermon “Getting Rest: Hours for Sabbath, Rest, and Play” for Pearl Church on May 21, 2023: https://www.pearlchurch.com/sermon-archive/2023/5/21/getting-rest-hours-of-sabbath-rest-and-play?format=amp

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 10B

The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg 8th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 10B July 14, 2024 This week, as I was working out on the E-gym machines at the Y, I noticed the woman on the machines next to meet kept drinking from her water bottle. As we made the circuit, it bothered me more and more. You see, there’s a rule that we’re not supposed to drink anything on the machines; there’s even a big sign that says that right by the entrance to the machines. But this woman was openly defying the rule and drinking her water in front of God and everyone. As I made the circuit and contemplated my potential action or continued inaction, I began focusing more on myself and what I was feeling. In a moment of clarity, I was able to peel back the layers of righteous indignation to see what was below; and below it was resentment. In our readings for today we have two different pictures of resentment and its destructive power. Our gospel reading tells us of John the Baptist’s grisly demise at the hands of the machinations of Herod’s wife Herodias. Mark tells us that John had been telling Herod that it wasn’t lawful for him to marry Herodias, who was his brother’s wife, and so “Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him.” She sees an opportunity, and she takes it, and as a result of Herodias’s resentment of John (and Herod’s weakness), John the Baptist’s head ends up on a platter. In the Old Testament reading, we have one line that gives us a glimpse into resentment: “As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.” Now, as you might imagine, there is so much more to this story. It starts way back in 1 Samuel 18. Michal is Saul’s daughter, and she loves David. Saul is working really hard to hold onto his kingship after he has lost both God’s and the people’s favor, and David is his chief rival for that. Saul decides to offer his daughter Michal to David as his wife to try to bring David under his influence. He even makes it easy for David by only asking as a bride price of 100 specifically graphic severed body parts of their common enemy the Philistines. (If you want to know what body part, then you’re going to have to google it. I’m not saying it from the pulpit. But let’s just say it rhymes with “storefins”) Yep, 100. David and Michal marry and because Michal loves David, she becomes a part of team David instead of team Saul. At one point, Saul sends assassins to murder David, and Michal helps lower David out the window and then places an idol with a shock of goatshair in the bed and tells her father’s people that David isn’t well. But then David goes on the run, and at some point, Saul reclaims Michal and marries her off to someone else—a guy named Palti son of Laish. And they are happy. But then Saul dies, and David is working to solidify his claim to the kingship, and someone tells David he will only talk to David about being king if Michal, as a member of Saul’s family, is present. So David reaches out to Michal’s brother, who goes and gets Michal and returns her to David, and Michal’s husband Paltiel follows her crying until they tell him to go home. In our reading for today, David is king, and he has worked to bring the Ark of the Covenant home to his city Jerusalem. It is a huge victory for him and his people after years of war and scheming. So, he dances before the ark as it comes into the city. And Michal despises him in her heart. She is understandably resentful. (Later on in this same chapter, we hear Michal’s comment to David about his behavior implying that he’s not dignified enough to be king. She says, “How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants’ maids, as any vulgar fellow might shamelessly uncover himself!”) But because of her understandable resentment, she misses experiencing this moment of joy when the Ark of God containing the 10 commandments is brought home. It’s a powerful symbol of God’s relationship with God’s people, and she can’t fully experience it because of her resentment toward David. So, let’s talk about resentment. Can you think of a time when you were resentful? How did it feel? How did it impact your relationship with that person? With God? This week, I’ve been thinking about how resentment feels to me like a piece of popcorn kernel that is wedged in my teeth, maybe even up under my gum, and can’t be dislodged. It’s hard, and it’s nagging, and it feels so much bigger than it actually is, and it can be inaccessible to the ordinary ways of knocking it loose. Many folks feel shame around feeling resentment. I mean, neither Michal or Herodias are people we would ever want to emulate. Their resentment makes them unattractive to us. In her book about human emotions titled An Atlas of the Heart, sociologist Brene Brown writes about her life-long battle with resentment. She writes about how she always thought that resentment was an extension of anger, but a friend and emotions researcher corrected her and told her that resentment is actually a part of envy. This was an epiphany for her as she began to now examine her resentment through the lens of envy. Brene Brown writes, “Now when I start to feel resentful, instead of thinking, What is that person doing wrong? Or What should they be doing? I think, What do I need but am afraid to ask for? While resentment is definitely an emotion, I normally recognize it by a familiar thought pattern: What mean and critical thing am I rehearsing saying to this person?” And here’s Brown’s definition on resentment: “Resentment is the feeling of frustration, judgement, anger, ‘better than’ and/or hidden envy related to perceived unfairness or injustice. It’s an emotion that we often experience when we fail to set boundaries or ask for what we need, or when expectations let us down because they were based on things we can’t control, like what other people think, what they feel, or how they’re going to react.”i Our Wednesday congregation talked about resentments, about how they are burdensome, how they can be much more toxic to us than to the people whom we resent, but also how resentments make us do crazy things, shameful things that we will probably regret latter on (maybe, like asking for someone’s head on a platter!). We talked about how it’s important to recognize and process resentment as soon as possible, before it can take root and fester and run amuck, and we identified two tools to combatting resentment. The first is forgiveness. We have to forgive the person or situation that has inspired our resentment. And the second is to recognize our common humanity in a person toward whom we are resentful. That’s empathy. I was thinking about Brown’s definition of resentment as envy as I was working the circuit on those e-fitness machines at the Y, and I took a step back from my seething resentment and righteous indignation to ask myself Brene’ Brown’s question: “What do I need but am afraid to ask for?” And y’all, I realized that I was thirsty! When I dug down deep into why I resented her having her water bottle against the rules, I realized I was thirsty, so I got myself up in between sets and went and got a good long drink of water, and then I no longer cared that she wasn’t’ following the rules. Now, we all know it’s not always that easy or that simple. It was certainly much more complex for Michal who had been consistently used as a pawn in her father’s and husband’s political machinations. But the tools to combat resentfulness are sound and can be employed in a variety of situations. So, your invitation for this week: Can you think of a time when you were resentful? How did it feel? How did it impact your relationship with that person? With God? If the resentment is still stuck in your soul like a piece of popcorn kernel, then consider offering it to God in prayer and ask God to help you see the person or situation with empathetic eyes and to help you begin to forgive. i. Brown, Brene. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. Random House: New York, 2021, pp30-33.