The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost-The Rev Melanie Lemburg
The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg
The Sixth Sunday
after Pentecost-Proper 11C
July 20, 2025
Beloved,[i]
from the moment I
first met you,
I loved you,
and you were so
eager to love me, too.
Beloved,
it was miraculous!
You were kind of
depressed
but “with so much
potential,”[ii]
and I was so
deeply wounded.
But we were
All-graced by the
Holy Spirit’s hope and
you helped me
discover
how to love again.
Beloved,
it wasn’t perfect,
because none of us
is
perfect. But it
was
Faithful—
all the small and
wondrous ways we
cared for each
other:
Beloved hands
outstretched to
receive and give;
kindly pressed on
holy foreheads, holy
shoulders.
Beloved faces
lifted
shining,
sorrowful, open
at God’s altar.
Beloved bodies
crafting wooden boxes
to cradle beloved
friends into
their final rest
in the
garden under
the windows of
their
Home. As we
Sang
them into
eternity.
Beloved hands
clasped in beginning,
two lives joined
and
wrapped in vows
and hope and the prayers and support
of Beloved
Community.
Beloved children,
claimed and marked
in water and oil,
raised by us all
as
God’s beloved.
Beloved,
we are all
(understandably)
grateful and grieving
and
worried and
anxious about
many things.
May we always
remember
“there is need
of only one thing”.
May we
Choose
the Better Part:
Beloved.
That God is in
each of you,
in the midst of
you,
working in and
among you more than you
can ask or
imagine.
God will never
forsake you.
Beloved,
be gentle to
yourselves and to each other.
Be alert and be
silent so you may
Listen
to God who is
in each of you and
among you.
Trust your leaders
and if
you do not
understand,
don’t assume. Ask.
If you assume,
(because I know
you, and you probably will)
assume the best,
as you
are each and all the
dwelling place of
God,
God’s Beloved.
Know that you have
shaped me and my
ministry in so
many ways. I’m so grateful for the
ways we’ve risked
and tried,
Created,
and trusted
and adapted.
These are not just
my capabilities, but
Our capabilities.
And they do not
leave here with me.
Beloved,
is how you will
always
be known by God
and
by me,
and no amount
of time or
distance
will change that,
My Beloved.
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