______________SERMONSA NEW/OLD NORMAL
A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent
Almighty God,
you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves:
Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls,
that we may be defended from all adversities
which may happen to the body,
and from all evil thoughts
which may assault and hurt the soul;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
AMEN.
~ The Collect for the Third Sunday of Lent
Soon after I began to serve as the rector of an historic downtown church in
another state, the husband of one of the parish matriarchs died. He was a retired
military officer, someone well-known in those parts. The Bishop, whom I had
met during my interview process just a few months earlier, was asked to preside
and preach at his funeral. My only job was to be a pastor to his widow.
As has often been my experience, she was a pastor to me. She had come to
grips fairly quickly with the untimely death of her husband. My sense was that
she was someone from whom I, still relatively new as a priest, might learn some
lessons. Before the funeral she told me she had been considering what life
without her husband might be like. She declared, “This is my new normal.”
On that day, a grieving wife gave me some wisdom for the ages. Since then,
I’ve often heard and used the phrase “new normal.” I don’t know about you, but
I’ve had several seasons in my life during which a new normal began. I’ve also
learned there’s something my new normal moments and seasons have in
common: for me, they always seem to have something to do with grief and loss.
We may be shocked at the arrival and presence of this novel Coronavirus
called COVID-19. We may be looking forward to things getting back to “normal,”
whatever that normal was or is for us. A local columnist recently came to a
different conclusion: “Just because we’re...using sanitizer and bumping elbows
doesn’t mean we won’t be affected in the Mid-South....This is the new normal for
now” (Bruce VanWyngarden, Memphis Flyer, 3/12/20).
Whatever this season of our common life becomes, I believe it is our new
normal, at least for now. It feels hard, if not impossible - borrowing words from
the Serenity Prayer - to accept this thing we cannot change. So many of our old
behaviors have been turned into new warnings (“Don’t touch your face! Keep
your distance!”). At least for now, we have lost the ways we’ve been used to, ways
in which we have lived, moved, and had our being in the world.
I believe that as a church, a nation, a world, we are in grief, and in the days
to come, we do not know what else we may need to grieve. We do know we don’t
have to go it alone. We can and we must care for one another in our grief. (I’ll
have more to say about grief in the April Tract newsletter.)
Throughout the New Testament, people misunderstand Jesus when they
first encounter him. The story of the woman at the well in John’s Gospel (4:5-42)
is not unlike the stories about the disciples when they met Jesus. His friends had
a certain belief, a theological understanding of who their Jewish Messiah would
be and what he would do. The Samaritan woman also thought she knew how this
strange, Jewish man would behave - until he says, “Give me a drink” (4:7).
She replies, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of
Samaria?” By the way, John says that “Jews do not share things in common with
Samaritans” (4:9). But Jesus is not your normal Jew. He explains that he can
give her a new kind of water, living water, that “will become...a spring...gushing
up into eternal life” (4:14). His water is also not “normal.”
The Samaritan woman asks Jesus for that living water, and he does give it to
her. But here’s the catch: First, he tells her everything she’s ever done - including
the fact that she has been married five times. And the fact that the man she’s
with currently is not her husband. No fake news here.
Now, she knows Jesus is a prophet, and yet, once again, Jesus is not offering
normal prophecy. He is also the Christ, the One who heals in God’s name.
Suddenly, the disciples appear, astonished to find him speaking to a woman. She
returns to the city, and exclaims, “Come and see a man who told me everything I
have ever done!” Then she asks, “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”
Once the woman’s Samaritan friends hear her share this Good News, they
start catching what she caught. “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him
because of the woman’s testimony” (4:39). Jesus is not a virus. But Jesus is
definitely contagious. Fear is also contagious, but God’s highly contagious love
casts out fear. When we encounter Jesus, he invites us to let go of our losses, so
we can catch something liberating and life-giving: a new/old normal called love.
In these trying times, how does Jesus want to be caught now? How is he
inviting us to follow him into a new/old normal? What if this season of Lent is
about those old practices - prayer, fasting, and self-denial - done in a new way?
Poet and minister Lynn Ungar wrote a piece about COVID-19 last week.
Perhaps her words have some answers for us:
PANDEMIC
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
~ The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg
March 14, 2020
MAY 31, 2020
The Day of Pentecost
A Sermon by Bishop Phoebe Roaf
Please click on the youtube link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhcD5Z8CFDo
MAY 24, 2020
Constant Prayer
Acts 1:6-14, John 17:1-11
The Seventh Sunday of
Easter
Last Sunday, when the Zoom platform
(that has been bringing us together each week) shut down all over the world, I
sent a text message to those whose name
I saw on my screen and to some I knew were listening by telephone. My message: “I keep pressing ‘admit.’ It keeps saying you are ‘joining,’ but
nothing happens. I am SO sorry. I'll e-mail my sermon soon.”
Normally I e-mail my Sunday sermons
on Tuesdays, but this week, it slipped my mind until Thursday. My mind has been focused this week mostly on
the conversations Ty Legge and I are having with two leaders at All Saints’ Church,
our nearby Episcopal neighbors. We have
been talking with All Saints’ leaders about the possibility of joining them for
worship.
Let’s be sure you know: Bishop Phoebe
has given permission to all the Episcopal churches in the Diocese of West
Tennessee to resume in-person worship, no earlier than June 1st. That’s just two weeks from tomorrow. The first Sunday of next month, June 7th, is
Trinity Sunday, our congregation’s feast day.
That could be a fitting time to come together - in one place, for the
first time since March 8th, as guests of All Saints’.
Now, this is not yet a “done deal.” The Vestries of both Holy Trinity and All
Saints’ need to agree on details of such a temporary arrangement. Those details will include all the new necessary
and essential health and safety practices which are now part of our common life
in this COVID-19 pandemic era. The
details of our plan for worship will be submitted in writing and approved by
Bishop Phoebe before we even begin. This
means we may not start worshipping together again until the second half of
June.
As I said, this arrangement with All
Saints’ will not be permanent. St.
George’s
School campuses are closed until the Fall, so we don’t have access to our
buildings or campus until they reopen.
But it looks like we may well have a temporary place to come together,
worship together, pray together.
Last Sunday, when we could not worship
together, I went online to the Washington National Cathedral’s service. As you might imagine, the music was quite
wonderful - and diverse. Each month the
National Cathedral recognizes all those in military service, so the preacher
last Sunday was Retired Navy Rear Adm. Barry C. Black. He’s the 62nd chaplain of the U.S.
Senate. Chaplain Black is the first
African-American elected to hold that position. His sermon title last Sunday was “Defending
Our Hope.”
I want to tell you my sermon
title this morning. It’s in the last
verse of our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Each year, for the seven Sundays of the
Easter season, we hear a passage from the book of Acts. Today’s story from Acts prepares us for next
Sunday: the feast of Pentecost.
On the day of Pentecost, the
disciples of Jesus were assembled, all together in one room. We heard about this today (1:13). Next Sunday, we’ll hear what happened in that
upper room. But today, we hear these
words: “All...were
constantly devoting themselves to prayer” (1:14). Constantly praying. Constant prayer. That’s what I want to talk with you about
today.
Before the Gospel reading, we heard
one of my favorite groups, Sweet Honey in the Rock, sing “Somebody Prayed for
Me.” Along the way, one woman sings in
the background, “Just a little bit of
time, every day...” This is what constant
prayer is like.
Pray constantly - or, as it’s put in
another familiar Bible passage about prayer, “pray without ceasing” (I
Thessalonians 5:17). This does not
mean that you can never, ever stop to do something else. Constant prayer does not need to be
continuous. Constant, unceasing prayer is
something else.
Senate chaplain Barry Black once said
this about constant prayer: “Did Jesus pray nonstop? The Bible says (Luke 2) that he was a
carpenter for (a long time) before being baptized by John in the Jordan
River. Surely this work prevented Jesus
him from continuous prayer.” He
continues:
“The Greek word for ‘without ceasing’
is adialeiptos, which doesn’t mean nonstop...(It)
means constantly recurring. In other words, we can punctuate (our) moments (of
life) with intervals of recurring prayer” (The Washington Times, 11/29/15). Constant prayer keeps recurring. I have come to believe that every attempt to
pray is to pray. To desire to pray is to
pray. Keep trying to pray, over and
over, and you will be praying.
Prayer is not just on the mind of the
disciples in that upper room and the mind of Senate Chaplain Black. Prayer is also on the mind of the President
of the United States. On Friday,
President Trump said, “In America, we need more prayer, not less.”
There were several responses to the President’s call to prayer. One response came from the Rt. Rev. Marian
Budde, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C. “You needn't worry, Mr. President,” she
said. “People of faith have never
stopped praying. You are welcome to join
us in any Episcopal Church (in D.C.) on Sunday, from the safety of your home.”
In our Gospel reading today from John’s seventeenth chapter, Jesus
begins what scholars call his High Priestly Prayer. On the evening we know as Maundy Thursday -
after Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and told them to love one another as he
loved them, before saying goodbye to them - prayer was on Jesus’ mind and heart. The last words in today’s Gospel are Jesus’ constant
prayer: “That that they may be one, as we are one” (17:11).
Today, we cannot all be one - we cannot realize this constant prayer of
Jesus for his disciples, including us - all who seek to follow him - unless we
believe, through our own constant prayer, that all people - even all creatures,
great and small - all God’s creation matters to God. One pastor invites us to imagine what our
own, constant prayer might produce: “Imagine a world in which we live this way
all the time....What if we took this kind of...view in every season, not just
in a time of (a coronavirus) crisis?
What if we looked at one another and saw all people (and all creatures
of God) as valuable, as part of the oneness Jesus desires)....?
“Then,” that pastor says, “then, we might inhabit the kind of (world)
for which Jesus prays...We must believe God (is waiting) for us to respond to
this call to action” (Martha Spong, Christian Century, 5/20/20).
Here are some questions: How will we respond to this call to
action? What is our response to these
stories of faith? How will we respond to the constant prayer of Jesus and to
the constant prayer of Jesus’ disciples, as they wait in that upper room for “power
when the Holy Spirit...(comes)
upon (them)” (Acts 1:8)? In the new
season that the feast of Pentecost will bring next Sunday, how is God’s Spirit
preparing to empower us?
Meanwhile, what is your constant prayer?
Spiritual writer Anne Lamont says there are really only three kinds of
prayer: Help me, help me, help me. Thank
you, thank you, thank you. Wow. Wow.
WOW!
So, who will you be taking time to pray for this week? My constant prayer is for the people of All
Saints and the people of Holy Trinity, as we consider what our temporary,
shared worship might look like and become.
My constant prayer is also for
Bishop Phoebe, as she guides our congregations in all seasons of our
common life.
And let us give thanks today, because somebody is constantly praying for
us.
~ The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg
Vicar
Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
3745 Kimball Avenue
Memphis, TN 38111
holytrinityec.org
fathermom1949@gmail.com
301.825.2846 mobile
Another
Friend
The
Sixth Sunday of Easter
John 14:15-21 May 17, 2020
Make new friends, but keep the old;
one is silver, and the other gold.
During these trying times in which we all
now live, I believe friends are more important than ever. There are some amazing new ways in which
people are trying to stay connected with their friends. Our Sunday morning Zoom Worship is one way
that has been helping us, if I may borrow an old telephone advertisement from
the 1980s, to reach out and touch someone.
The someone or someones we touch may
be newer friends, people we have met in recent months or years. You, the good people of Holy Trinity, are
some of my newer friends, and today, once again, I’m grateful for our
friendship, which, officially, will be one year old at the end of this
month.
Today I’m also grateful for my
not-new friends, friends I’ve known for years.
Recently one of my old friends reached out to me, wanting to make a “phone
date.” She’s a good-as-gold old
friend. Other than my siblings, I’ve stayed in regular touch with her longer
than any other person on the planet.
On Friday I talked with yet another
now-long-time friend. Each week we’ve
been getting together online, for spiritual support. As that old song puts it, I want to keep the
old. I want to hold on to my
golden-oldie friends. They’re like
sisters and brothers by another mother.
I believe we can’t have too many sisters and brothers, especially our
sisters and brothers in Christ.
Recently we’ve been given parts of
the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel account on Sundays. We hear how Jesus, knowing his earthly life
is coming to an end, is saying goodbye to his followers, his disciples. His “Farewell Discourse,” as it is called,
began in chapter thirteen with the words, “Little children, I am with you only
a little longer” (13:33). That farewell
goes on, in John’s telling, for more than three chapters.
On May 21st, the Church will observe
the Feast of the Ascension, the departure of Jesus. Before then, before Jesus ascends into
heaven, he has more things to say. Jesus
wants to tell his disciples about what is to come.
If we were to read the next chapter
of John’s Gospel, we’d hear Jesus say this to them, “No one has greater love
than this: to lay down one’s
life for one’s
friends. You are my friends if you do
what I command you. I do not call you
servants any longer, because the
servant does not know what the
master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to
you everything that I have heard from my Father” (15:13-15).
Back in the 14th chapter, Jesus
prepares his friends for what is to come: ”If you love me, you will keep my
commandments. And I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever” (vv.
15-16). The word “Advocate” is a
rendering of the Greek word parakletos, which meant “one who has been
called to our side.”
In addition to “advocate,”
parakletos has also been translated down through the years as counselor,
comforter, helper, and mediator. Of course,
all those words describe Jesus.
Regardless of translation, Jesus is leaving, while assuring his friends
that God will send them another Advocate.
Now, we may infer something from
today’s first verse. There may seem to
be an implication here that, if Jesus’ disciples, his friends, will keep his
commandment - the command to love one another as Jesus loves and has loved - then,
Jesus will ask God to send another Advocate.
It can sound like tit for tat: If and only if you love like I do, then
I’ll ask God to help you.
This begs the question: “Are we out
of luck if we don’t love like Jesus loves?”
Which begs a bigger question: “Is that how God really works?” I don’t know about you and your understanding
of God, but I don’t think so.
This is why it can help to look at
different translations or renderings of Holy Scripture. On more than one occasion you’ve heard me
mention The Message. That’s a
relatively recent rendering of the Bible that was completed over the years by
Eugene Peterson, a pastor and biblical scholar.
Here’s how Peterson puts the first
two verses of today’s Gospel text: If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve
told you. I will talk to the Father, and
he will provide you with another Friend, so that you will always have someone
with you. Now, that rendering
sounds more like Jesus to me.
Jesus will ask God to send spiritual “back-up,”
another Friend - like Jesus, but different.
This new Friend is “the Spirit of Truth,” a Spirit the world does not
see or know, but a Spirit that will live in them, his good, old friends. The more they love like Jesus, the more the
Spirit will live in them.
Eugene Peterson does not use the word “advocate.” He says God will provide another Friend. And why not friend? Of all the words to describe the kind of help
those first followers of Jesus need - the kind of help we need - why not
think of the Holy Spirit as a new Friend?
And why wouldn’t God send that very same Spirit to us, now, in each new
friend we make?
Recently I read a story in the
Commercial Appeal about a man who died at the age of 86. I wish I had known this man, but the story
Tonyaa Weathersbee wrote helped me learn about him. His name was Fred Davis.
Fred Davis founded the Mid-South’s
first black-owned insurance company. The
year before the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred
Davis became the first African-American to be elected to the Memphis City
Council in a mostly White district. He
was an advocate for striking sanitation workers and marched next to Dr.
King.
Years later Fred Davis won the
Humanitarian Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Before he died, people who had vilified him
ended up having dinners in honor of Mr. Davis.
“Fred was a cutting- edge guy,” one of his old, White friends said about
him. “He was so genuine, so approachable, that even though he might disagree
with people, he wasn’t disagreeable.” Clearly,
the Spirit of truth was alive and living in Fred Davis.
That old, white friend, attorney
James Jalenak, and the former sports editor for the old Memphis Press-Scimitar,
George Lapides, saw the kind of discrimination Fred Davis faced in running for
that election back in 1967. They were
inspired by Fred, clearly the most qualified candidate, and they decided to do
something about it. They went to Fred’s
home in Orange Mound, knocked on his door, and said, “We want to campaign for
you.”
For the next two months James and
George went to Coca Cola parties in people’s backyards and made speeches for
Fred. Those two white guys spoke up on
his behalf. You could say they were advocates
for Fred Davis. George died some years
ago, but James is still alive. “I’ve
lost a very good friend,” he said last week.
“As has Memphis,” Tonyaa Weathersbee wrote.
My friends, there’s Good News! Next month, we are being given a chance to make
new friends. This is an opportunity
I believe the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, has placed smack dab in our path.
As you know, St. George’s Schools are
officially closed until the Fall, and we will not have access to our buildings
or campus until they reopen. Recently Bishop Phoebe
gave all the
churches in our Diocese permission to reopen next month, provided we abide by
all the necessary and essential health and safety practices which are now part
of our common life in this COVID-19 pandemic era. Here’s how I see the Friendly Spirit at work:
The good people of All Saints’ Episcopal
Church have invited us to join them in Sunday morning worship, in person, at
Quince and White Station, starting three weeks from today. Our new friends and gracious hosts at All
Saints’ have a mission statement: “To explore and celebrate God’s infinite
grace, acceptance and love with all God’s children, through Jesus Christ, Our
Lord.” Soon, all these old and new
friends in Christ will have a chance to explore and celebrate God’s infinite
grace, acceptance, and love together.
In the June “Tract” newsletter you’ll
receive more information about how we plan for our combined worship to work
next month. Meanwhile, please pray for
the leaders of our two churches.
Remember: we can’t have too many sisters and brothers, too many friends,
both our old friends and our new friends in Christ. ~ Peace, Tom+
___________________________________________
MAY 3, 2020
Dear Holy Trinity Members and Friends:
Here’s my sermon from Sunday, focusing on Psalm 23.
Below is a YouTube weblink to a musical setting of the 23rd
Psalm, recorded by the amazing Bobby McFerrin (who grew up singing in an
Episcopal church choir).
This setting is dedicated to Bobby’s mother, Sarah, a voice
teacher. (Allow me to wish all you mothers and grandmothers an early
Happy Mother’s Day!)
Spoiler alert: If you’ve never heard this, it may be a bit
unsettling. (I love it. It reminds me of my mother Betty, of
blessed memory, also a singer of songs.)
https://youtu.be/FrIISwwK9Y0
SERMON for MAY 3, 2020
My Cup Overflows
Psalm 23
The Fourth
Sunday after Easter May 3, 2020
In your
lifetime, who have been your favorite teachers? What was it about those
teachers that make you remember them as a woman or man who inspired you to
learn - perhaps inspired you to teach? Of course, those of us who follow Jesus
would say that he
is one of our favorite teachers.
So...besides Jesus, who would you choose as the teachers for your life?
I’ve had many
great teachers. There have also been some I wanted to forget. I’m thinking of a
man who had the undeniably hard job of calling his class together the day
President Kennedy was assassinated. I was a freshman at White Station High
School, and when class resumed that afternoon, everyone was abuzz about what
had happened just a few hours earlier. Calling us to order, our teacher said,
“Now, boys and girls, I know the President has been shot, but I have a Civics
class to teach.” I don’t remember learning anything that day, except how NOT to
teach a class.
What I’ve
learned from another teacher, whose student I have been for quite some time, is
this: We teach
who we are in times, of darkness as well as light. Parker Palmer began his academic career
as a community organizer in the 60’s. Since then, he has been a teacher and
spiritual guide for thousands. At the turn of the century, Palmer founded a
non-profit, the Center for Courage and Renewal, which first nourished public
school teachers and students, then clergy and congregational leaders, and now,
leaders from all walks of life. In his early eighties, he still teaches who he
is.
The first book
Parker published, forty years ago, was The Promise of Paradox: A Celebration of Contradictions
in the Christian Life. His
most well-known book and a must-read for all considering their own life’s call,
is Let Your Life Speak: Listening for
the Voice of Vocation. Parker’s
newest book is On
the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old.
It was yet
another book that helped create the center Parker Palmer founded. It was a book
called The
Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. In it, Parker wrote something that, for
me, connects with what is happening in our world and in our scriptures today: We become teachers for reasons of
the heart. But many of us lose heart as time goes by. How can we take heart,
alone and together, so we can give heart to our students and our world (which is
what good teachers do)?
Take
heart. Regain your
courage, one dictionary says. Of course, the word courage has at its core, its
root, the Latin word for heart. Regain the courageous part of your heart.
Another dictionary says to “take heart” is to “feel encouraged,” to feel brave
and courageous again - or for the first time.
Take, for
example, those encouraged souls in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
Those Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship,
to the breaking of bread and the prayers” and, “day by day, as they spent much
time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with
glad and generous hearts” (2:42, 46). Glad and generous. That’s the kind of heart I want to have, today and every day.
More than half a
century ago, my high school Civics teacher may have lost heart and could only
teach who he was and where he was that day. It is indeed hard to have a glad heart every day, especially these days, when so much sadness, so much
suffering, so much death is all around us. It is, I believe, the time and
season for another of today’s lessons: the 23rd Psalm.
Psalm 23 is that
world-famous and most-beloved prayer, in all times and seasons. The 23rd Psalm
is appointed for Christians around the world to hear, each and every Fourth
Sunday of Eastertide, each and every year. This year, especially in light of
all we are facing, I believe the 23rd Psalm has the Good News of God in Christ
we all need to take to
heart, so we can both take heart and give
heart to others, on any given day.
There’s an old
joke about how there are only two kinds of people in the world: those who like
Neil Diamond - or, to be more contemporary and culturally relevant - those who
like Kanye West - and those who don’t. Those jokes are pretty dualistic, a
little too either-or. (I like some music by each artist.)
There’s another
saying about there being just two kinds of people in this world: those who
approach life as if it were a glass-half-full and those who are more glass-half-empty folks. The Psalmist, the one who wrote the
23rd Psalm, sees life as a glass, a cup that overflows. No matter what.
When I first
looked at today’s lessons, I remembered all the Sundays I’ve preached on Good
Shepherd Sunday. We hear Psalm 23 every year on this Sunday because we also
hear part of the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel, in which Jesus speaks of
himself as the Good Shepherd. Jesus lays down his life for his sheep, who hear
and who know his voice, and follow him.
The last Gospel
verse we heard today was, “I came that they may have life, and have it
abundantly.” Not just life, but abundant life. Not just a glass or cup that is
full. A cup, a life that overflows, no matter what. Jesus taught who he was, in
darkness and light, living his life abundantly.
One Bible
teacher says this about Psalm 23: “This...Psalm is not merely for moments of
death. It needs to be read, heard, and understood...as a psalm about
living...it puts daily activities, such as eating, drinking, and seeking
security, in a...God-centered perspective that challenges our usual ways of
thinking” (John White, Feasting
on the Word, p.
451).
When I realized
the 23rd Psalm was appointed for this Sunday, this
year, the first part of another verse
grabbed my throat, and then, my heart: “Yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death...(v.4).” It took me a few moments, amidst our
coronavirus crisis, to remember the next part of that fourth verse: “I will
fear no evil, for thou art with me.” The verse continues, of course, with, “The
rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”
Parker Palmer
has walked through his own valley of a different kind of deadly shadow. He has
survived what he calls “three deep dives,” three profound experiences of
clinical depression. He says “depression is not so much like being lost in the
dark as it is like becoming the dark.”
He goes on to
say: After my first depression, which
was in my mid-forties, it took me ten years to...begin to write and speak about
it. Only then did I have the ability to say, “Yes, I am all of the above. I am
my darkness, and I am my light. I am a guy who spent months cowering in a
corner with the shades pulled down, as well as a guy who can get on stage in
front of several thousand physicians and deliver some challenging messages. I am
all of that, and I don’t need to hide any of it.” It’s my way of saying to
myself, “Parker, welcome to the human race!” Dear friends in Christ, welcome to the human race!
My prayer is
that we learn how to teach who we are, like Jesus, in times of darkness and
light, distance and closeness, scarcity and abundance, emptiness and fullness.
When we lose heart, may we take heart in the words of the 23rd Psalm. God will keep filling our cup to overflowing. No
matter what. I invite you to join me this week in praying this part of the
Bible, Psalm 23.
I invite you to
pray as if your abundant life in Christ depends on it. Because it does.
The Rev. Thomas
A. Momberg Vicar,
Holy
TrinityEpiscopal Church
3745 Kimball
Avenue
Memphis, TN
38111 holytrinityec.org
fathermom1949@gmail.com
301.825.2846
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
SUNDAY - APRIL 26, 2020
Holy Trinity Members and Friends:
How is your “new normal” going? Part of my new normal is to send y’all my sermon from the previous Sunday every Tuesday.
Some of you heard or saw me preach it on Sunday (we had 17 folks on Zoom together that day, a new high for our online worship!).
Whether you join us on Sunday mornings at 10 or not, I want you to know what I have to say about the Gospel for the day. So, I’ve attached my sermon below.
Also in this e-mail is one of the three music videos I wanted to share Sunday morning, which, unfortunately, didn’t happen. (I’m still learning...).
Here’s one of those music videos. It’s my favorite of the three:
https://youtu.be/QOPLLOrcugI
And here’s my sermon:
Making Jesus Known Again Luke 24:13-35
The Third Sunday of Easter April 26, 2020
This weekend, one of the headlines from a major news outlet reads, “Reopening has begun. No one is sure what happens next” (The New York Times). Some states are reopening, others are not. Each state that is reopening is doing things differently. Urban areas and rural areas will be reopening differently. To all of this, our response might be: “Things were already confusing and uncertain enough!”
There’s some old wisdom about how bad news is bad, but it’s better than any kind of news about uncertainty. The problem is, these days, we have news that is both bad and uncertain. One economist, Elizabeth Ananat, put it this way: “In some ways, I’m even more anxious about the reopening than I am about the shutdown.”
And there’s this bad news fact: as a country, we have now passed a milestone no one thought possible three months ago: more than 50,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. More than any other country. More than the era of the Vietnam War. More men than women, more older folks than younger folks, more black, indigenous, and people of color than white.
Robert Jones, the CEO and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) wrote this in a recent article called “Flattening the Curve of Xenophobia” (https://sojo.net/articles/flattening-curve-xenophobia):
If history has a lesson for us here, it is this: where there is a massive wave of suffering and death, a second wave of racism and xenophobia is typically not far behind. Do I need to state the obvious? This is bad news. And yet, it is not news of uncertainty. Robert Jones continues: Experiences of mass grief and economic stress easily generate a desire for someone to blame. This is especially true of events that defy logic, such as the randomness of illness. Amidst any truth or certainty, there are questions:
Why is one person infected and not another? Why did this person die while another experienced only mild symptoms? Why have I lost my job while others have not? And most importantly, how can we restore a sense of order and safety in the wake of such devastating losses? These are all good questions, but I have some additional questions. Maybe you do, too.
The questions for us Christians might also include these: In all this fear, anxiety, and death, where is Jesus? Has anyone seen Jesus lately? And if we have seen Jesus, or when we do see Jesus, how will we know it?
Those first disciples, before they knew Jesus had risen from the dead - whether at the empty tomb, or in the upper room, or, as in today’s Gospel story, in the breaking of bread - those first disciples were definitely filled with fear and anxiety. If you had been following Jesus as closely as they had, wouldn’t you be afraid and anxious, too?
Cleopas and the other, unnamed disciple may not have expressed or felt any anxiety or fear when they met this stranger on the road to Emmaus, a good seven-mile walk from Jerusalem. They were too busy “talking with each other about all these things that had happened” (Luke 24:14). In the midst of that discussion, Jesus joins them. And what does Luke’s story tell us happened next? “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (24:16).
Recognition. That’s a “re-” word, like re(-)opening. It’s also a word that tells us they had seen, they had been cognizant of Jesus, right up until now, right after his resurrection. Until now, their eyes have not yet been re-opened. They cannot see - quite yet, once again, who this fellow traveler is.
Dictionary definitions tell us that to “recognize” is to not just to see again, but also to learn again, to know again. Let me repeat: To “recognize” is to see again, to learn again, to know again. For Christians, recognizing Jesus is to see him again. And again. Recognizing Jesus, for Christians, is to know Jesus, again and again, and then, to make Jesus known, again and again. Being Christian, following Jesus, is never a one-and-done affair.
Even the two disciples in today’s much-loved story - those two who finally “got it” again about Jesus, whose eyes were (re)opened (24:31) - even they had to keep learning about Jesus and keep knowing him, in order to make him known, in their new world. In our new world, we, the followers of Jesus who showed up today, online - we need to keep seeing and learning about Jesus, knowing Jesus. Again. We need to make Jesus known. Again.
So what might all of that look like? We cannot make Jesus known if we do not know Jesus. And even if we have known Jesus in the past, what does it mean to know Jesus again, right now? It probably means we need to learn more about Jesus, perhaps as if we were learning for the first time.
A week from this Wednesday, on May 6th, we will offer Bible study. (Again!) And yet, this particular Bible study may feel like it’s being offered for the first time. Why? Because it will be, like our Sunday worship today, online. Our new Bible study, using this same Zoom technology, will be called “Praying the Bible.” We’ll start with the Gospel of Matthew and pray our way through the Gospels. We’ll try to see, and to learn about, and to know Jesus. Again. Perhaps this Bible study experience will be as if we are coming to know Jesus for the first time, so we can make him known. Again.
These days, we may wonder if we will recognize each other when we finally come together again at 3745 Kimball Avenue. For example, some of us may worry a bit that our new, more freely-flowing hairdos will keep even our dearest friends from seeing the real us. “Tom, is that you?”
There is something different about these “virtual” meetings, these new ways we have come to see, to learn about, to know each other, without all of us being in the same physical space. This difference can be disappointing and even off-putting. We cannot now, for example, actually break bread together or exchange the Peace of the Lord with one another by shaking hands or exchanging hugs. So, how can we be the peace, be the hope, be the love we want and need to see? Well,...I think we’re doing it, right now.
When I was preparing this sermon, the words in that little spiritual song we heard just before the Gospel came back to me. I first heard them about forty years ago, before I went to seminary. It’s a song popular in the renewal movement called Cursillo, a word that means a little course - in Christianity. The lyrics move from an endless ocean, to a fiery sunset, to Jesus’ eyes of love while on the cross. Finally, there are these words:
��
Have you ever stood in the family / with the Lord there in your midst?
Seen the face of Christ in each other? Then I say:
You’ve seen, Jesus, my Lord / He's here in plain view.
Take a look, open your eyes / He'll show life to you.
Take a good look, everyone. Jesus is here in plain view, in the midst of this little family of God. Yes, Jesus wants to show life to us, so we can make him known again, and make life known again, in our own, new world.
~ The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg, Vicar
Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
3745 Kimball Avenue
Memphis, TN 38111
holytrinityec.org
____________________________________________
APRIL 19, 2020
PEACE BE WITH YOU
A Sermon for “Thomas
Sunday”
John
20:19-31 (The Sunday after Easter)
So, here we are again, both together and apart, as we begin another
week. How was your week? How is your practice - to be as safe
and as well as you can - going for you?
Have you got it “down” yet, that practice? No? Contrary to what we may have been taught,
practice does not make perfect. Church
historian Diana Butler Bass says that practice makes pilgrims.
I don’t know about you, but
these days, I’m trying to learn how to enjoy this different way of living and
moving in my world. I’m also aware of
how incredibly privileged I am, with a sufficient income, a lovely house, and
an amazing partner who shares a home and a life with me. My health has its challenges, but I’m
grateful again this morning to have put both my feet on the floor - and to have
taken a few more steps on my journey with Jesus.
You and I are definitely on a journey, a pilgrimage, a new way of life,
and death, and resurrection. Today is
the Sunday after Easter, the second Sunday of the fifty-day long Easter
season. It’s also the Sunday church folk
get to hear about Thomas, the disciple known for doubting. Each and every year, this story about Jesus
and Thomas is told in churches worldwide.
Now, allow me to state the obvious.
This beloved little church called Holy Trinity has more than its share
of Toms, Tommies, and Thomases. Might
Holy Trinity be a church that could also be called...Holy Thomas!
I wonder: was the Thomas who encountered Jesus...holy? He was, I’d guess, wholly unhappy. He was absent when Jesus appeared to all his
other disciples on that first Easter Monday, the first day of the week. Thomas was usually right there with Jesus,
smack dab in the middle of the action.
For example, when Jesus’s friend Lazarus died, and Jesus left to be with Mary and Martha, the apostles didn’t want to
go back to Judea, where some had attempted to kill
Jesus. But Thomas says: "Let us also go, that we
may die with him” (John 11:16).
Later in John’s Gospel, when Jesus
explained how he was leaving to prepare a heavenly home for his followers, and
that one day, they’d all join him there, Thomas said, "Lord, we do
not know not where you are going. How
can we know the way?" (14:5)
“The Way” was the first name given to
these pilgrims, these people who decided to follow Jesus. The name “Christian” came later, but it has
always been “The Way.” It is the Way of
Life, and Death, and Resurrection. And
at this moment in time, at the beginning of this story, when Jesus appears to
his friends after his resurrection, Thomas is the only one. He is the only disciple who is stuck in time,
several days behind his friends, still back at that terrible moment of Jesus’ crucifixion
and death. That Easter Monday, when all
the other disciples have seen the risen Lord, Thomas is still a pilgrim on the
Way of the Cross.
Sometimes, when I gather with folks
to talk about faith and life, I ask the question, “What season are you in?” For example, spring may have sprung, and it
may be the Easter season, but Lent may not have officially come to an end in my
life. I may still be in Holy Week. For me, these days, it may still feel more
like Good Friday than Easter Monday.
Thomas sees all his friends so
excited, full of resurrection joy, but he simply cannot go there or be there
with them. “We have seen the Lord,” they
tell him. That’s easy for them to
say. But that’s hard - actually, it’s
impossible - for Thomas. At least, right
now.
I wonder: When have you been
in that kind of place, the place Thomas was in, a place the word “doubt” doesn’t
begin to describe. Thomas was clearly
devoted to Jesus, ready to die with him, if need be, and then, suddenly, Jesus
is gone. Surely Thomas’ grief over
losing Jesus was as great as anyone’s, and now, today, his pain is
palpable. “Unless I see the mark of the
nails in his hands,” Thomas demands, “(unless I can) put my finger in the mark
of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
Jesus appeared to all the other
disciples in a moment that Thomas, for one reason or another, simply
missed, Now, the good news those
disciples shared, this miraculous return of their risen Lord, all of it may
well have felt like even more bad news to Thomas. Was Thomas’ pain in part because he had been
left out of their celebration? Why would
Thomas NOT need and deserve physical proof, when all the others had it? Why should Thomas be denied the very thing
all the others had been freely given?
Was Thomas simply mad about
this? Was he still sad? Was he, like all the others, afraid? Remember that first verse of today’s Gospel
text? “The doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for
fear...”
John’s Gospel account, which has in
recent years been described as being relatively anti-Semitic in its portrayal
of the children of Israel, tells us that it was fear “of the Jews.” No matter who the disciples were afraid of,
their fear was real. I’m guessing Thomas
was also afraid.
So...is doubting holy? Was Thomas holy? Were the other disciples? We who seek to follow Jesus need to remember
how Jesus appeared to them that day. We
need to remember how Jesus was holy.
There were holes, wounds, the mark of the nails in Jesus’ hands and
in his side.
Once again, Debie Thomas, an
Indian-American student of the Bible, gives us some insight. Here’s what she says about Jesus’ wounds: This
year - more than ever - I cherish the wounds in Jesus’s post-resurrection life. On this
first Sunday after Easter, even though we are a resurrection people, we are
still hurting. The world is still wounded. Regardless of where on the
planet we live, we are still anticipating grief on a scale most of us have
never experienced before. This year especially, Jesus’s scarred body speaks with great
power, tenderness, mercy, and truth. Allow (those scars, those wounds, those holes)
to speak to you (today).
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays
Into that locked room, not once, but
twice - both on the day after his resurrection and one week later - Jesus comes
and stands among his friends and speaks four little words. They are the same four little words we followers
of Jesus still speak to each other. “Peace. Be.
With. You.”
No matter what season we are in. No matter whether we see the risen Lord for
the first time, or the second, or we have yet to see him. No matter what our circumstance, no matter
what we see or do not see, dare to believe this: Jesus will come and stand
among us, speaking peace, even into our fear.
No matter how scary this virus may be or may get, no matter how much
pain and suffering there is, Jesus still speaks peace to those who are far
off. Jesus is still speaking peace to
us, who are near (Ephesians 2:17).
Jesus came into that room in those
first Eastertide days. He came and stood
among his disciples, and he said, "Peace be with you." My sisters and brothers, Jesus has come into
each of our rooms on this Second Sunday of Easter. He is standing among us, and he saying,
"Peace be with you." The
question is: How will we receive the peace Jesus has given us, once again,
today? How might we dare to believe that
his wounds bring us healing?
Allow me to offer you a prayer, a
simple sign of the peace of Christ, in a spiritual song I learned some time
ago. If the words sound familiar to you,
it’s because they are an adaptation of a prayer attributed to St. Patrick. As you will see, there are some motions -
body movements - that go with this prayer.
The movements ground this prayer more deeply within me.
Let’s call this prayer a practice, a
practice of health and wholeness and holiness, a practice of safety and
protection, a practice of peace that, I hope and pray, will help you and help
me to move a bit more fully into the next chapter of our pilgrimage, this
chapter called the Second Week of Easter.
Here are the words:
Peace be with you, peace before you,
Peace to the right of you, peace behind
you.
Peace to the left of you, peace above you.
Peace below you, peace within you.
~ Ruth
Cunningham
~ The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg
Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
April 19, 2020
