The following services are planned for April 14 thru May 5, 2024:
Sundays April 14, 21, 28....Morning Prayer at 10am with Jane and/or Tim
Wednesday April 17..........Holy Eucharist at 5pm with Rev. Don
Sunday May 5....................Morning Prayer with Holy Communion at 10am with Deacon Bette
The following services are planned for Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph:
...Good Friday (March 29) at 5pm with The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman
...Easter Sunday (March 31) at 10am with The Rev. Mary Richard
"The First Deacon"
by The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman
4 February 2024, Christ Episcopal Church,
Year B, Epiphany 5 Isaiah 40:21-31, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, Mark 1:29-39
Today’s Gospel lesson is the story of Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law. This story lays out a pattern for us, actually a couple of patterns that are well worthy of our reflection as we head toward Lent.
The first pattern is set by Peter’s mother-in-law. She was, no doubt, in charge of the household. That’s the way it was. The senior woman—the matriarch—was in charge of the household.
She is sick when Jesus arrives. I like to think she was sick from doing “grandma daycare”! I do grandma daycare and love to do it, but occasionally I come down with some kid disease the grandbabies caught in regular daycare.
In any case, although she is sick, Jesus is welcomed in. He learns of her illness and immediately goes to her bedside.
Now I must pause to explain a couple of things because so much in our reading of Holy Scripture is lost in translation. Our reading says Jesus “lifted her up.” The Greek used here is the same exact word as is used for Jesus’ resurrection.
So what we have here is a mini Easter, a foreshadowing of the Easter story. She is not dead, but in a sense, Jesus resurrects her. And what does she do? Immediately she begins to serve.
Again, our lesson says she begins to “wait on them,” and the Greek word used for that is diaconia. And diaconia means “service among others.” It is also the source of the word “deacon,” and deacons are the icons and leaders of servant ministry in the church. So Peter’s mother-in-law is, in that sense, the church’s first deacon.
But remember what Jesus said about himself. For the son of man came not to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45). We are all called to serve, from Jesus on down. We are all called to announce the Gospel by our actions in service to others.
Peter’s mother-in-law’s home becomes a house church, a home base, a gathering place for those who need forgiveness, healing. Our translation of this story says “the whole city was gathered around the door.” Older translations say "the whole world was pressing up against the door."
It’s important to note that Peter’s mother-in-law’s home, powered by the Love of God in Jesus, is a new kind of gathering place, one outside of the mainstream of religious institutions. And outside of the mainstream of religious instiutions is where Jesus did most of his work. Yes, he preached in the synagogues. But the places place of healing, administering justice, and helping all who come looking for him mostly happened in this new type of gathering place, outside of the mainstream.
So that’s the first pattern: Peter’s mother-in-law receives the Love of God in Jesus into her home/life, she is raised up from her place of weakness by the Love, and the Love shines through her and her home as she ministers to others. To this day, her home in the middle east is a revered site of healing and pilgrimage.
In what ways does your own life become a conduit for God’s Love? In what ways has your home become a base for comings and goings in Love?
The second pattern in this story is set by Jesus himself. He serves; he heals the multitudes pressing at the door. The story say he began healing at sundown; it was probably the Sabbath. And from sundown until who knows what wee hour of the night, he healed the multitude at the door. He must have gone to bed exhausted.
Nevertheless, he gets up early, the story says, emphasizing that it was still very very dark. He gets up and goes to a deserted place to pray.
Which of us has ever done that? Or would do it? I might indeed wake up early when the house is quiet and everyone else asleep. But if I think of praying, I am most likely to convince myself that I’ll just lay here in bed and pray, right?! And I’ll be back asleep again in minutes.
We’ll get up early to go hunting. Or to catch an early flight. But to get dressed to go out in search of silence and solitude? Not likely.
But Jesus must refresh his relationship with Divine Love through prayer in silence and solitude. He must go back to the source of all Love.
Thomas Merton was a monk and poet who lived alone in a cabin in the woods that he called “the hermitage.” He so craved solitude that he got special permission to live by himself in this cabin, rather than in the monastery proper, where he went for meals and communal worship services.
Here’s Merton’s description of what I think Jesus is up to in this story: Let me seek, then, the gift of silence … and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.
Wherever you go—outdoors,
a space in your home, an empty church (
And what does Jesus do next? Restored, he plunges back into the waiting world. He answers his call, he expands his ministry. He takes his disciples to spread the good news of God’s love to the neighboring villages.
Seeking, loving and serving human beings is as much an absolute as seeking, loving and serving God. One movement is vertical, the other horizontal; both are essential.
Jesus left us in no doubt about the necessity of this simultaneous movement in two planes: toward God and toward each other.
Here’s how author Carlo Caretto puts it: The closer you come to God …, the greater … your craving to love human beings on the level of action. The perfection of men and women on earth consists in the integration … of our love for God and our love for human beings.
Notice now, these two patterns:
Peter’s mother-in-law receives the Love of God in the person of Jesus into her home and life, he reaches out to her in her weakness and raises her up, and she responds with diaconia, loving service to humankind that extends far beyond her immediate household.
Jesus, full of God’s Love, heals and serves and ministers to the world pressing at the door, goes out into silence and solitude—that is, prayer—to be refreshed by the very source of Divine Love, then returns to the world to expand his own ministry in love to the world.
These are really two versions of one pattern—the very same pattern we will shortly enact. We serve. We get spent and exhausted and cranky and sick and tired of it all. We come to the Holy Table to be refreshed, to be renewed in body, mind and spirit. And we go back out to serve some more.
That is our theology of Holy Communion. That is what we who are dwelling places of the Holy Spirit do.
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.
It is with great sadness that we announce Nicholas Isaiah Dorrell, a member of our congregational family, passed away on December 18, 2023, from an overdose of fentanyl. He was 27 years old. Incredibly intelligent and funny, he was loved by all who met him, and his joyous laughter will now bless heaven. He enjoyed boating, the beach, and anything to do with the great outdoors. Over his too-short lifespan, Nick enjoyed work as a deck hand and engineer for tow boat companies ranging from the northern reaches of the Mississippi River, east to Panama City, FL, and west in the Intracoastal Waterway to Texas. He also had jobs cooking crawfish, working as a farm hand and construction work including heavy equipment and boat operations. Nick lived in Tensas Parish for numerous years and became friends with many of the officers of the Tensas Parish Sheriff’s Office due to his exuberant driving habits. Nick also had a love for animals, several of whom he brought home, including chickens, turkens, an opossum, a calf, and most recently a kitten named PJ. He will be greeted in heaven by his first puppy Money Dog and his later dogs, Maggie and Beaudreaux. He is preceded in death by his maternal and paternal great-grandparents, and two second cousins. He is survived by his parents Shelley and Laurence Leyens, David and Kim Dorrell, brothers Corey Leyens and Junior Dorrell, and sister Madison Leyens. Nick is also survived by his grandparents Nancy and Brent Smith of Vicksburg, MS and Faye and Sam Corson of Saint Joseph, LA. Visitation and service will be held at Christ Episcopal Church in St. Joseph, Louisiana, on December 28, 2023. Visitation is at 1:00 p.m. in the Parish House and the service at 2:00 p.m. Prior to fentanyl addiction, Nicholas lived life to its fullest. In lieu of flowers, please mail donations in memory of Nicholas to Home of Grace, Donation Services, PO Box 5009, Vancleave, MS. Or, via their website @ https://www.homeofgrace.org/give/
Hanging Out
Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph
(Year B, Advent II, Isaiah 49:1-11, 2 Peter 3:8-15a, Mark 1:1-8)
It is easy to rush through Advent. Indeed, our lives at this time of year seem especially geared to push us relentlessly forward at an ever more frantic pace.
In my life, this past week was especially tiring. Our Grace Episcopal Day School & Nursery celebrated with our annual Christmas Festival Thursday afternoon. The first few days of the week were all preparation: working out last minute logistics, sending out messages to teachers and parents, pulling festival games out of storage and setting them up, decorating. Then Friday was all clean up, put away, etc.
It seems that our approach to that other penitential season—Lent—is so different. Easter seems far away as we gather Ash Wednesday to begin weeks of abstaining from something important to us, and commitment to fasting, reflection and alms-giving.
In contrast, the beginning of Advent is a mad dash into planning, shopping, decorating, office receptions and parties with their special foods and beverages, and more. It is a time of year when our society does everything in its power to entice us to over-indulge in every way possible, beginning with Thanksgiving and going all the way to Christmas.
For the past few years, many Christians have been quick to complain of a so-called “attack on Christmas.” I am far more likely to bemoan the attack on Advent! The first Christmas tree I saw this year appeared in Sam’s Club… before Halloween! I was stunned and dismayed.
Today’s lessons—Isaiah’s cry on behalf of the Israelites, John the Baptist’s rough-hewn lifestyle and in-your-face preaching—seem truly misplaced amongst the cheery holiday music, fresh greenery and glittering ornaments that have already filled our lives. Who wants to go into the wilderness when we can hang out here in Christmasland?!
But the wilderness has things to offer that we cannot find in the hustle and bustle and beauty of Christmasland. Holy things. And these passages give us some clues. This morning I invite you to hang out for a time in the Holy Land of Advent.
Let’s begin with the words of Isaiah (Isaiah 40:1-11, NRSV):
Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the LORD's hand
double for all her sins.
Of course, Western Christians can hardly hear these words without hearing the soaring music of Handel’s Messiah. But the prophet does not allow us to simply rush straight to the triumph of the Allelujah chorus!
First, even as we are comforted, we are reminded that we need comfort due to the magnitude of our sins and the penalty we have paid. We have suffered as a result of our estrangement from God.
Please do not hear that as a theology of retribution. The bad things that happen in our lives are not God’s punishment for our sins. Rather, things go wrong in our lives and we lose sight of God. We try to comfort ourselves with all the wrong things—mood-altering substances like alcohol, extreme busy-ness, spending money, whatever—and the more we do that, the farther away God seems to be. And we suffer.
Second, Isaiah draws attention to the one thing that most reliably causes humankind to suffer, and that is our mortality. We are flowers, beautiful but fragile, for flowers do not last. The wind blows. We wither and die. All of us in this space this morning are old enough to have dealt with loss.
Memento morí…?
This world often seems devoid of the comforting presence of God! We often feel forsaken by God! Isaiah reassures us that God is there in the wilderness of our lives. That God patiently waits to speak tenderly to us, to feed us and to gather us and to gently lead us home.
Turning to today’s Gospel lesson (Mark 1:1-8, NRSV), I’m again struck by these opening words:
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
"See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
`Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,'"
With this enigmatic opening, St. Mark connects his main character, Jesus the Christ, with the God of Hebrew Scripture, through his lead character, John the Baptizer.
John the Baptizer hung out in the wilderness, and people went in droves to hear him—in spite of the fact that he bore the bad news of sin and the need for repentance. Indeed, in Matthew’s account, John calls the religious elite of his day a brood of vipers!
So why did the people flock to him? As Mark says, he also bore the good news of another to come, one who would share with us the forgiving waters of baptism, but one who had more—much more—to offer.
The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me, John says. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
We go into the wilderness to repent, wait and prepare. In today’s epistle (1 Peter 3:8-15a, NRSV), St. Peter tells us how: Patiently, because God’s days are unlike ours and God has been more than patient with we. Keeping awake, for we do not know when God comes again. Living godly lives, doing the things God has called us to do to hasten the kingdom—which we know from Jesus’ teaching means loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.
Dear friends, let us hang out for a while in the holy land of Advent. For here we find God’s comforting promise of mercy and grace bestowed in the coming of the one for whom we prepare—the one of power and glory who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Finally. Today we hear Jesus saying something that we
can instantly understand. For the last
several weeks we’ve had a series of cryptic sayings, parables and
allegories. But this morning we get a
good old saying that we can sink our teeth into. “Give … to (Caesar) the things that are
(Caesar’s), and to God the things that are God's.”
This morning we find Jesus in the
Jesus’ response to his questioners
though, is truly inspired by the Holy Spirit.
He asks these disciples of the most scrupulous adherents of Jewish law,
the Pharisees, to give him the coin used for taxes. Apparently one of them whipped out a denarius. This is interesting because the denarius was
equal to a full day’s wages – some say that it would be roughly equivalent to
$100.00 today – and this disciple (a student of the religious leaders) had this
much in his pocket. More interesting
though is the fact that one of these devout Jews had this coin in his pocket, in
the
But then
comes the coup de gras. Here, the
Greek uses the word, apodote (apodote), which is related to the word doumai (doumai) but means, “to give
back.” So, Jesus tells them to give
back to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to give back to God that
which is God’s. And it is here that our
lesson this morning takes its interesting turn.
Rather than what we have most often
been taught in our lives, Jesus was not trying to define a
distinction between the secular and religious worlds here. Not at all.
Rather, what Jesus was doing was pointing out the absolute and awesome
truth of the world. That which bears
Caesar’s image, belongs to Caesar.
Caesar minted it. Caesar decided
its value. Caesar circulated it. Therefore, Jesus says, if you believe it
appropriate to give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, then do so. However – and this is a huge “however” – you
must also give back to God that which belongs to God. The implications there are a big deal.
In the
first chapter of Genesis, we get the stage set for this statement, when it says
that God made human beings in God’s image, “He made them in His image. Male and female, He made them.” Give to Caesar all that bears his image and
was made by him. Give to God all
that bears God’s image and was created by God.
Suddenly we’re not talking about giving a part of what we have as our
weekly, monthly or quarterly offering.
Suddenly we are talking about all that we have – indeed, all that we are,
belonging to God and our need to give that back.
I will tell you that part of what
Jesus is talking about – just a part, but part nonetheless – is money. Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells us
that we should “lay not up for ourselves treasure on earth, … for where your
treasure is, there also will be your heart.”
Truly, Jesus knew that if you follow the money, you will most often find
people’s priorities. But here, Jesus is
not saying, just give the first 10% to God and all will be well. This goes much farther than that. This is about dedicating our lives to God.
How it will look when we take the
opportunity to give back to God, to answer God’s call, will completely depend
upon where each one of us is in life.
Remember a couple of weeks ago when the Gospel was the parable of the
wicked tenants? Well, what God wanted
from the tenants was for them to give back to God that which God had given
them. What did Isaiah say to us that day
about what to give back? Justice and
righteousness.
Some of us
don’t feel like we’re in any position to greatly impact issues of justice and
righteousness. Some of us don’t feel like
we have much in the way of money to give back.
Some of us have what we believe to be an absolute dearth of time to give
back.
It is up to each of us to look deep
inside – to look critically at our own lives and to actively listen for God’s
call as we try to discern what it is that God is calling us to give back. What, in each of our lives, will be so
central to who we are that when we give it, it will feel like we have given it all
back to God?
At the church where I interned while
I was in seminary, there was a man who was, by most standards, wealthy. He gave more to the church than any other,
single giver in the parish. But to him
that did not feel like he was giving it all back. That’s why he volunteered to handle all of
the building and grounds issues at the church.
He didn’t write checks to repairmen, he learned how to do the repairs
himself and spent his precious time and energy getting them done.
I knew a young woman in another
church, who really struggled financially, but went out of her way to come a
long distance to the church so that she could help with the children’s
education program. It felt like it was
what God was calling her to do, so she gave the time – difficult though it
might be on any given Sunday.
And I know many people who have
given up lives that were successful and full in many ways, in order to follow
God’s individual calls to them and to seek ordination, with all of the secular
uncertainty that that decision brings.
They have given back their careers because that is what they believe God
called them to do.
Are these people better, or more
holy, or closer to God than all of us?
No, just different. Everyone is
called by God, but as
In the name of
one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Proper 24A Sermon 102223, Isaiah 45:1-7;
Psalm 96:1-9, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22
God’s Grace by The Rev. John Payne (Ret.)
Sermon given in Christ Episcopal September 24, 2023
One of the great inventions of modern Western society is the labor union. Far too long those with money, land and privilege shamelessly exploited those who had none. The novels of Charles Dickens bear this out. When, after a long struggle, workers with no power, except their own labor, managed to stand together and force the issue with the wealthy and the strong, it was a great day for freedom and justice. By and large, the unions did a good job checking exploitation or reversing it. The unions were not perfect and other issues change the role of some from what their founders had envisaged. My father worked for the railroad for 40 years and was a union man. As far as my memory serves, the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen never made unreasonable demands or called for a strike. However, my father’s union, as most others, would have been horrified at the story of the laborers in the vineyard in today’s Gospel (Matthew 20:1-16). If you found the idea of forgiveness without limits rough going, then strap yourself in for more turbulence.
