Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost--The Rev Melanie Lemburg

 15^th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 20C

September 18, 2022

 

A letter to Matthew Cousins Ochsner, Jr upon the occasion of your baptism.

Dear Cousins,

Today is a big day in your young life!  It is the day that your parents and godparents accept, on your behalf, that you are already God’s beloved child, a child of the light, and they make promises, on your behalf about how you will live and about how they will raise you.  Today, this congregation will make a promise to you that we will support you in your life in Christ.  We promise to nurture you, to walk with you, to teach you and to learn from you as we walk this way of faith together, worshipping God, breaking bread together, and being transformed together.

Our gospel reading for today is not one I would have chosen for a baptism.  It is one of Jesus’s more difficult, dare I even say, unsavory? parables.  It is known as the parable of the dishonest manager, although I’ve also heard a modern-day commentator refer to it as the parable of the dishonest CFO.  But as unsavory as it is, it’s important to notice that in this chapter of Luke, Jesus turns from teaching the large crowds who have been following him toward specific teaching for his disciples. 

So, what might Jesus be offering to us, his disciples, his baptized followers, those who have said yes to God’s claim on us as God’s beloved, in this unsavory parable?  I think as children of light, we need to share in the dishonest manager’s realization that relationships are the most important thing and that through our relationships, we have untold amounts of resources that are available to us.  This is a gift that you have already tasted, Cousins, in the life of your family, and now you will know it in all the relationships available to you through the life of this church and the larger body of Christ as well. 

In fact, as children of the light, we all are called to live our lives grounded in the awareness that the vision of the Kingdom of God is rooted in love and relationships, and we are called to understand and practice that the deepest treasure of both love and relationships is forgiveness. 

It's why we gather here, week after week.  To help each other remember that we are the people of God, and to help us each remember what we are called to do as children of the light. 

The other gift that this strange parable offers us is a reminder of the importance of gratitude in our lives and in our relationships.  Gratitude helps us focus our hearts and our attentions on the good things, the treasures in our lives, when we are often tempted to focus on our shortcomings or what we lack. 

Years ago, when my children were small, we started a daily gratitude practice that we called “three things”.  Each night at bedtime, we would name out loud to each other three things that we were grateful for from that day.  It became such an important part of our family bedtime ritual that my children would insist on it every night (even on those nights when I was not feeling particularly grateful). 

So in closing, sweet Cousins, let me offer three things for which I am grateful on this particular day.  First, I am grateful that I get to be in ministry alongside three whole generations of your family in this place.  What a gift that is!  Second, I am grateful for all the ways that this special community of faith helps strengthen my relationship with God and with my fellow children of light.  I’m grateful for the ways that we nurture and care for each other in difficult times, and I’m grateful for the ways that we celebrate and play together.  Third, I am grateful for the reminder that your baptism serves for all of us, the way that we are able to recommit to our own baptismal vows, and for the way that we will all gather today to fed from God’s table.

I look forward to walking with you in your life of faith, Cousins, in seeing the relationships you develop in this place, and in learning from you about what it means to be children of the light together.

Your sister in Christ,

Melanie+