The Seventh Sunday of Easter-The Rev Melanie Lemburg

Easter 7B_2021

May 16, 2021

        The first time I visited the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina was when I was interviewing for the rector position to which I was eventually called.  The Senior Warden at the time took me on a tour as a part of the interview process, and as we drove up and down the battered landscape with properties along the Coast still in various forms of destruction or even completely empty, I also noticed the trees, which had their own story to tell.  So many live oaks up and down the coastline had gauges cut into their trunks where the storm surge had battered them with large debris (which included boats, cars, parts of houses…).  I asked the Senior Warden about the trees, and he told me how so many oaks had been toppled by Katrina and the storm surge, and lay on their sides, roots exposed, among the wreckage.  He told me about how he and others had come in soon after the storm with some of their large construction equipment (he was a homebuilder), and they used that equipment to push the oaks back upright, so that their massive roots were once again planted in the soil.  “We couldn’t save all of them,” he told me, “but we were able to save some.”  Throughout my years there, I looked fondly on the battered and scarred trunks of some of those oaks, the testimony of all that they had endured and continued to endure as trees planted near the shore and also as a testament to the kindness of the people who sought to help and restore them in their time of need.

        Today is a sort of in between time in the life of the church.  This past Thursday, we marked the feast day of the Ascension, when the resurrected Christ left his disciples for the last time as God lifted him up to heaven; and next Sunday we will mark the feast day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit first descended upon the disciples after Jesus’s ascension. 

        Jesus has left and the Spirit has not yet come.  We don’t really know what to expect, what will come next, but we know things will be different.  And so our collect for today holds something of a plea: “Do not leave us comfortless” we pray.  And we cling to the assurance of the Psalm, that God’s people will be “like trees planted by streams of water,/

bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; /

everything they do shall prosper.”

        We are not strangers to the in-between times, the liminal times.  This whole past year has been an in-between time, and even as things are much more hopeful, we still find ourselves in between what was, what has been, and what will be.  We don’t really know what life will look like in the coming months, although we have glimmers, and we definitely know if will be different. 

        I’ve had numerous conversations with people these last couple of weeks about unexplained emotions and behaviors that are bubbling up from us in this liminal time, this in between season.  Many of you are experiencing heightened irritability or anger; some of you are feeling unexplained sadness, weariness, or lethargy.  I suspect these may be the wounds and scars on our souls from this past traumatic season. 

        “Do not leave us comfortless” is a prayer that may resonate with us now more than ever as we seek certainty and understanding in the midst of the continuing changing landscape and as we begin to assess the damage and look for ways to begin to heal.

        On the feast of the Ascension this past week, I read a sonnet on the Ascension by Malcolm Guite, Anglican priest and poet, where he writes of Christ’s ascension:

We saw him go and yet we were not parted

He took us with him to the heart of things

The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted

Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings,

Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness,

Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight,[i]

        I’ve been pondering this image of Christ’s heart that broke for all the broken hearted that now sings in the strength that rises out of weakness and the promise that we have been taken with him to the heart of things. 

There is certainly comfort there for me to think of Christ’s heart that continues to break for all whose hearts are breaking here and now.  And there is comfort to think about the ways that our strength can rise out of weakness just as Jesus rose from the grave in the resurrection and ascended into heaven.  It’s an image not unlike those old oaks trees, battered and bruised, lying on their sides after the utter devastation of a hurricane, until someone came along and cared enough to push them back upright to bury their roots once again in the soil.

 Sometimes, we are so much like those oaks, in need of help, comfort, care from others, with our scars from this last year on visible display through our unexpected feelings and responses.  And sometimes we are called to by like the ones who brought in the heavy equipment for no reason other than they saw a need and sought to help, because it is what you do when you see another creature of God’s failing and floundering.

        This week, your invitation is to pray about and ponder what your response is to our plea to God this week:  “Do not leave us comfortless!”  Are you being called to open yourself to help and healing that may be offered from unexpected sources?  Or are you being called to be one of the helpers?  I suspect we are all called a little bit to both in this season.  How might we be called to help heal what has been damaged and wounded in each other—through active kindness, listening, patience with each other, forgiveness…

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[i] https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2021/05/12/a-sonnet-for-ascension-day-10/?fbclid=IwAR3z6m1dQhlH5Ify_4PwQqzmLEKe-fxZWaQOk-do1g1-15Jw446v8orEu1E