The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman's homily from August 6, 2023, at Christ Episcopal

 

Before & After

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph

Year A, The Transfiguration

Exodus 34:29-35, 2 Peter 1:13-21, Luke 9:28-36

Some stories just don’t mean much until you know the “before” and the “after. Here’s an example, a rather mundane one to be sure, but…

Wednesday of the last week of July, I was standing on a wide, sunny path in a section of the Kisatchie National Forest way down in Vernon Parish in the southwest area of the state. I was walking along slowly with several other equally crazy folks sweating bullets and counting butterflies on the wildflowers that bordered the path.

And my phone rings. Now, I’m pretty good at ignoring my phone. First of all, I do not like talking on the phone. I find it to be an awkward way to try to communicate. Second, I do not believe that I am so very important to the rest of the world that every call must be answered immediately regardless of where I am or what I am doing. Caller ID is my fave invention of all time!

So it’s a bit of a miracle that I even pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked at it, but I did. Lo and behold, the Diocese of Western Louisiana was calling. That’s the Bishop’s office! Oh, my. The Bishop does not call me very often. And so indeed I hastened to answer the phone.

Well, it wasn’t the Bishop. But it was the bookkeeper in the Diocesan office—the man who pays bills and keeps track of the money. And the Diocesan Treasurer was on the phone with him. And they had questions about checks to Canterbury@ULM that had not been cashed. I explained where I was and that I sometimes didn’t deposit Canterbury checks right away, and I asked them to please send me an email and I’d check into it as soon as possible. They said “sure,” and that was that. Or so I thought at that moment.

Later that day, after I was showered and cooled off and not focused on butterflies anymore, I began to reflect on that phone call. And the more I reflected on the phone call, the more concerned I became, and the more concerned I became the more conflicted I became.

So here’s the telling context: I knew perfectly well that I had allowed other priorities to push Canterbury bookkeeping to a back burner. Yes, I could account for how I had spent Diocesan funds, but… it was going to take me some time going through a box of receipts, bank statements, and deposited checks—maybe undeposited checks—to answer their questions.

And what happened next? The next day my concern overcame my desire to finish my vacation. That was the conflict! I was supposed to be on vacation through the end of the week. But I cut it short, went home two days early, and spent those days organizing and updating Canterbury records and answering their questions. Lesson painfully learned.

The Transfiguration is one of those kinds of stories. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal. Jesus goes up on a mountain to pray. He takes his closest disciples with him. They are heavy with sleep, but their sleepiness is penetrated by a vision of Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah. They might very well have thought they were dreaming.

Peter says something rather silly, and then it’s over and they go back down the mountain. They’ve had a mountaintop experience—as have most of us. And then life goes on.

Or does it? Does life simply “go on” or do true mountaintop experiences change things fundamentally? I’m going to offer some thoughts on that in a few minutes, but first, some backstory.

Our lectionary readings take a bit of liberty with the actual biblical text. We only read a short piece out of a longer text on Sunday morning, so adjustments are made to the text so that it will stand alone and make sense. For example, if the lectionary text begins in the middle of Jesus preaching or teaching, the words “Jesus said” might be added so that listeners will know who they are hearing.

For the story of the Transfiguration, some words have been removed from the biblical text. If you go to Luke 9:28, the first verse of today’s passage, it actually says, 

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.

What “sayings”? There’s a clue right there in the Transfiguration story. It says that Jesus, Elijah and Moses are discussing Jesus’ “…departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” In other words, the Transfiguration comes right after Jesus has tried to teach his disciples that he must undergo great suffering and be killed and be raised on the third day. And he has also just said that becoming his follower means taking up their crosses daily and following him.

Not a comforting message. Not “good news” to the disciples. It is not clear that the disciples understood it. They were certainly not eager to hear it. No wonder they wanted to linger on the mountaintop. It must have seemed a much more wonderful reality than that which Jesus had predicted.

So what comes next? Does the mountaintop experience change everything? Well, yes. And no. Yes, in that Jesus comes down off the mountain and sets his face toward Jerusalem. There’s no more wandering from town to town, no more sermons on the mount. No more agonized prayer to the Father asking if the “cup” he faced could be taken away. Just a steady march to Jerusalem, his triumphant ride into town on a donkey, his trial and his agony on the cross.

His disciples trail along. John stays with him, presumably the whole way because he is there at the foot of the cross. Peter trails and falters and returns and… we’re not sure where Peter is all of the time but we know he was ultimately faithful and faced his own suffering for the sake of the Gospel.

But there’s one thing that did not change, and I love this moment in the story. Luke tells us in verse 37, the very next verse after the passage we read this morning, that when Jesus comes down from the mountain, a great crowd met him and in that crowd a man who shouts out to Jesus, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son.”

Now Jesus has every good reason to just keep walking. To retain his focus on the agony that is to come. To get on with it. But of course he doesn’t. Of course, he goes right back to doing God’s work in the here and now. His compassion and commitment to his earthly work, his toil in the valleys of human experience, has not been changed by his mountaintop experience.

He responds to the father and his son. He calms the demon, restores the child and gives him back to the father… before he continues on his way to Jerusalem.

Brothers and sisters, may we be as steadfast in the work God has given us to walk in. I hope we all have mountaintop experiences—at the very least times or places we have met God, have had the glory of God revealed to us. For some, those times and places might be in church. For me, they tend to be out somewhere in nature. I hope we spend time in those places often. And may they fortify us for the long haul, keep us focused on the big picture.

But let us not be distracted from the work we have been given to walk in. Let us respond faithfully to the needs right in front of us, the jobs that need doing at the end of our nose.

 

  In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

 

The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman's homily from July 2, 2023

God’s Hospitality

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, Year A, Pentecost V, Matthew 10:40-42

Jesus says, Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

Such a short, seemingly simple statement. Welcoming others is a good thing, it tells us. And we pride ourselves on our hospitality, right? Down here in the south, we call it “southern hospitality,” and that is a thing.

But I’ve never gone anywhere that didn’t claim to be hospitable. Well, possible exception: New York City!

Most every town, village, city across the country posts signs on its outskirts saying “welcome.” If you arrive by plane, the flight attendants will inevitably say “welcome to… (fill in the blank)” the moment you land. You walk into the airport and head to baggage claim and there’s a huge sign over the escalator: “Welcome to… (fill in the blank).”

I just got back from a trip to Jamestown, NY. It involved three flights, the last one being a small, single-engine turboprop that seated 11 passengers and two pilots. When we landed, the captain leaned around the back of his seat and said, “Welcome to Bradford, PA.”

We have an entire industry—global—called “the hospitality industry.” It’s all about welcoming people. So when Jesus tells us welcoming is a good thing, we might well be tempted to say, “Hey, yes, Jesus, we got this! We know what you’re talking about and we’re doing it.”

But, of course, all these human endeavors—from “southern hospitality” to flight attendants saying welcome in the name of a city they don’t even live in—are not really about the kind of welcoming Jesus is talking about here. All these human endeavors are better thought of as ways of being polite while NOT welcoming people in the way Jesus is talking about.

So… how can we talk about the deeper, more profound way of welcoming that Jesus is actually talking about? That’s the challenge. And it’s a challenge because most of us have not had the kind of human experience that might teach us about that kind of welcome.

Here’s the difference: Acting in the name of, for example, southern hospitality, we can meet and greet and perhaps share food and drink with strangers, visitors to our community, whomever, maybe even provide a bed for the night, do all those polite things we do—and walk away from the interaction with our lives unchanged, or relatively unchanged. We might have lovely memories of our time spent with folks we might never see again, but… our lives remain fundamentally unchanged.

That’s NOT what Jesus is talking about! That’s nice, polite, a good thing to do.., but not what Jesus is talking about.

Jesus is talking about the kind of welcoming that changes lives. Jesus is talking about God’s hospitality, and God’s hospitality is total. It’s an “all in” kind of hospitality. It’s an “abide with me and I with you” kind of hospitality.

I love that word “abide.” It conveys so much more than “visit” or even “live with.” It implies “hang in with you no matter what.”

God’s hospitality literally saves lives, both the life of the welcomer and the life of the one being welcomed. If you’ve ever had to flee from war or violence or starvation to another country seeking refuge, or if you have been the one to extend hospitality to such a person, you understand this kind of welcome.

But God’s hospitality also takes risks. You never know exactly whom you might be welcoming. Remember Hebrews 13:2: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” So.., the ones you welcome might be angels. But they also might be jerks. The might accept your hospitality and not be grateful, might even resent it.

Author Margaret Guenther, At Home in the World: A Rule of Life for the Rest of Us tells about riding NY subway and wondering about fellow passengers, “who are the angels?” Surely there are some in this motley crew. Recalling Jacob sleeping in wilderness, she would look up the grimy, smelly, urine-stained stairs to the street and wonder, which of these people ascending and descending are the angels?

We always have the option of shaking the dust off our shoes, but not the option of not offering hospitality. Not those of us who claim to follow Jesus.

God did not give us the power to discern the worthiness of whom we welcome. That’s God’s job. Because if we could, we would offer hospitality according to our own biases and prejudices. And that’s not God’s hospitality.

God’s hospitality is open. It takes risks. Again and again.

Jesus says when we welcome another we are welcoming him. If we take him at his word, how can that NOT transform our relationships with others?

Maybe if a do a better job of channeling God’s hospitality in the world and remembering that I am encountering Jesus in every other person, then perhaps rather than curse and fling the finger at the guy or gal who cuts me off in traffic, I will just make space for him or her.

“Making space” is another way of thinking about God’s hospitality. Making space for others, in all their strangeness and knobbiness, all their unacceptable beliefs and opinions, their orneryness and unlovableness.

As agents of God’s hospitality, we offer hospitality and what others do with it is, as my mother would say, none of our beeswax. As followers of Jesus, we offer a cup of cold water. To everyone. What they do with it is between them and God.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman's homily from May 28, 2023

  “Extravagant, Furious Love”

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph

Year A, Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13; John 20:12-23

I have wracked my brain for the past two days trying to come up with an experience or story to begin this sermon with that would enable you—and me; all of us—to connect with and experience fully the drama.. and the trauma.. of the first Pentecost—the coming of the Holy Spirit.

And I have come up empty handed. I have not thought of a single thing that would do that trick any better than the words St. Luke came up with to describe those events of the first Pentecost.

But simply rereading those words doesn’t make for much of a sermon, right? So I did what any other self-respecting academic would do. I looked up what some other people said about it!

And I found some gems. Here’s one:

Pentecost reminds us that Christ's spirit is not mild or temperate but a disrupting force, a caring love that disconcerts and unsettles the systems of this world, redefining power from the inside out and from the bottom up.

That was said in a sermon by Ivan Nicoletto, a Benedictine monk.

Remember that I referred to the drama and the trauma of Pentecost in my opening sentence. Did you ever think of Pentecost as a traumatic event? But it was and that is what Brother Nicoletto is talking about.

See, to the extent that the Holy Spirit is “mild and temperate,” WE have made it that way. And not just us; most of Christendom has conspired in making Christianity safely and solidly middle class, confirming of the status quo, all about pretty buildings and stained glass and candles.

And, boy, we Episcopalians are really good at “mild and temperate”! We like our religion calm, orderly, even a little boring. Certainly better boring than on fire with the Holy Spirit!

But as Brother Nicoletto says, the Spirit of God is a disrupting force, a love that disconcerts and unsettles and redefines the systems and the forces at work in the world.

Look what it did to those first recipients—the disciples of Jesus—and by “disciples” I do not mean merely the 12 Apostles but ALL of the many followers of Jesus. Remember the stories we have been reading since Easter.

The disciples were in disarray. Some headed back home, like the ones on the road to Emmaus. The fishermen went back to fishing. Jesus had to go cook breakfast for them on the beach to get their attention again. They huddled fearfully in upper rooms with the doors locked. Jesus had to appear to them over and over to keep them from fading into the woodwork.

Finally comes the ascension, and they stand their gazing up into heaven as Jesus disappears. An angel has to come jar them out of their stupor and tell them to go on into town and get ready for the next big thing. 

Then comes the Spirit and builds a fire under them. Artists always depict the coming of the Spirit as dainty little flames dancing over their heads, and that’s kind of what Luke says, but… I’ve always thought building a fire under them a better description of what happened! There they were: Propelled onto the streets to preach and carry on so wildly that people thought they were drunk at 9:00 in the morning.

The Holy Spirit of God is a disrupting force. It changes things—all things. It transforms lives.

What was the miracle of Pentecost anyway? We tend to think it had to do only with language. We read this story every year and marvel that this bunch of English speakers—I mean, they must be English speakers because there it is in the Bible in plain English, right?

So we think the miracle is that this bunch of English speakers suddenly could speak a bunch of different languages! No, no. The miracle is that this bunch of people who had been moping around for weeks thinking and acting like the story was over..,, that the story had died with their friend…, suddenly these people are on fire for sharing the good news of the living God., the God who is up to something new under the sun, the God who snatches victory from the jaws of death and builds a fire under ordinary people such that they go out and change the world.

Hear that again. A bunch of ordinary people are lit on fire by the power of the Holy Spirit and they go out and change the world. That is the miracle of Pentecost.

Today, we wear our red and say “happy birthday” to the church.

Oh, my. We are sooo boring. Nobody will ever accuse US of being drunk at 10:00 on a Sunday morning, right?

Another of the gems I found in my search for words to convey the meaning of Pentecost is a guy by the name of Brennan Manning. I’m paraphrasing here in order to pull out a couple of phrases that strike true to me today.

Manning says that the whole story of the New Testament, the very life of Jesus, is absurd and meaningless, unless we get that God’s purpose was and is to make something new in the world—a new creation.

And that new creation, he says, is not just people with better morals. We get so tied up in morality, don’t we? And in evaluating people and judging whether they are sufficiently moral—according to our standards—and with trying to get others to live by our moral code. But that was not and is not God’s purpose.

Rather, God’s purpose, says Manning, is to “create a community of prophets and professional lovers.” Think about that. That’s what God wants us to be, a community of prophets and professional lovers who speak the truth of God’s love in a hurting world.

Manning goes on to describe that community as ‘men and women who surrender to the fire of the Spirit, who enter into the very heart of Christ, which is a flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness and extravagant, furious love.’

Imagine that! “Extravagant, furious love” afoot in the world. That’s the miracle of Pentecost. And that, brothers and sisters, is our call today. What a different world we will create, with God’s help and extravagant, furious love!

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Services at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

 

The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman will lead us in Morning Prayer with communion, Sunday, May 28th at 10am in observation of Pentecost.  Our tradition is to wear red on Pentecost Sunday.

Other Sunday services will be Morning Prayer also at 10am as usual.

Pentecost, also called Whitsunday, (Pentecost from Greek pentecostē, “50th day”), major festival in the Christian church, celebrated on the Sunday that falls on the 50th day of Easter. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and other disciples following the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ (Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2), and it marks the beginning of the Christian church’s mission to the world.

(from www.britannica.com)

Information regarding Mr. Lutken's book regarding WWII Burma Warfare

 

Ms. Emily Lutken sent a note to say her father's book: "A Thousand Places Left Behind: One Soldier's Account of Jungle Warfare in WWII Burma" is now available:

A Thousand Places Left Behind | University Press of Mississippi (state.ms.us)

The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman's homily, May 7, 2023

 

God With Us

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph

Year A, 5 Easter

Acts 7:55-60; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14

During Easter season, our first lesson every Sunday comes not from the Old Testament, but from Acts of the Apostles—the New Testament book that tells the story of the founding of Christianity.

It’s worth pointing out—because so many people seem to miss this—that Jesus did not found Christianity. The Apostles did. Acts 1 tells the story of Jesus’ ascension into heaven, and then proceeds to tell the story of the founding of Christianity by the Apostles.

As a teacher of religion, I have been asked the question in a most incredulous tone of voice, “You mean Jesus was not a Christian?” The correct answer is, “No, he was not. He was born, lived and died a Jew!” In some quarters, that is almost enough to get one stoned to death!

From my perspective, the story we read this morning of the stoning of Stephen in Acts Chapter 7 does not get enough attention in the church today. We read it just once every three years—on the 5^th Sunday of Easter, Year A. That’s it.

Stephen might get mentions at other times, for example, on his feast day. But that’s Dec. 26, the day after Christmas, a “low church day” if ever there was one! And when he does get mentioned, it is typically focused on the fact that he was the very first martyr.

Another thing that will often get mentioned is that bit about people laying their coats at the feet of Saul. And we all know the next chapter of that story. Saul encounters the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, is struck down, blinded and converted into a believer and Apostle, and, indeed, pretty much the author of the New Testament. So that’s important, for sure.

But… what about Stephen? Who was he? Why was he stoned to death? What was his death-deserving sin? And who, in fact, stoned him to death?

Don’t feel bad if you haven’t a clue about any of that. It really doesn’t get talked about much. So… guess what?

The first thing to know about Stephen, which will give you a bit of insight into why I think he is important, is that he was not an Apostle and he was not a priest. He was a deacon.

The second thing to know is that he was not stoned for feeding the poor, which was his ministry, nor for being a activist on behalf of the poor, as so many deacons are. Rather, he was stoned for preaching.

Hmmm. Does that make you wonder a bit about his sermon? What in heaven’s name did he say?

Well, it’s all there in Acts Chapter 7! You might want to go home and read the whole thing because I’m not going to read it to you. I am going to tell you a bit about it, but first….

To whom was he preaching? That’s an important question because it was precisely the people to whom he was preaching who rose up, dragged him out of the city and stoned him to death.

So who do you think? A bunch of pagans who didn’t want to hear about a bigger, better god than the ones they worshiped? Nope. A bunch of Romans who didn’t want to hear about a god greater than Caesar? Or perhaps didn’t want to hear that they had executed an innocent man? No, and no.

Here’s a quickie version of the back story: In Acts 6, Stephen and six others are chosen and ordained as the first deacons, their job being to correct bias that had developed in the daily distribution of food, such that poorer and less powerful people were getting less than their fair share. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Acts 6 goes on to tell us that Stephen stood out from the beginning, that he was full of grace and did many “wonders and signs among the people.” The powers-that-be who ran the synagogue became more and more worried. They tried to argue with Stephen to no avail because Stephen spoke with wisdom and the power of the Spirit. Quite literally, Stephen became a threat to their power and control over the spiritual lives of the people.

What did they do? They pressured some men to lie that Stephen had blasphemed against Moses and God. Stephen is arrested and hauled before the Council—that is, the priests and elders who ran the synagogue, and thereby control the people because the synagogue was the people’s access to God.

So that’s the context in which Chapter 7 begins with the high priest asking Stephen, “Are these things so?” Did you, in fact, blaspheme against Moses and God? Stephen’s sermon is his answer. In sum, Stephen is preaching to the high priest himself and the group that runs the synagogue—the good church people of the day—and he is defending himself against lies told about him.

So, what does he say? Well, most of it sounds pretty non-controversial. Verse 2 through verse 47, over a thousand words, is the history if the Israelites. Stephen begins with Abraham and God’s covenant with him. He tells the story of Joseph sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, becoming ruler there and bringing the Israelites to Egypt, who in turn became slaves there. He tells of Moses and the burning bush and leading the people out of Egypt, and, of course, he tells of their wandering in the wilderness for 40 years because they didn’t trust God, begged to be taken back to Egypt and made themselves a golden calf to worship.

Then comes the punch line. Stephen tells these powerful religious men that they are wrong about God. God, he says, does not live in houses made by human hands. God is everywhere; the creation that God made is God’s house.

This is a direct affront to their power. If people come to believe that God is everywhere and that they can worship God—in spirit and in truth, just as Jesus had taught—then those who rule via the synagogue are little more than custodians of a building.

Finally, Stephen drives his point home by explicitly connecting their dishonest power—power based on keeping God in a box of their own construction—and their rejection of Jesus. He says,

You stiff-necked people… you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers.

And that drove them right over the edge. Enraged, they drag Stephen out of the city and stone him to death.

So… what is the lesson in all of that for us today? I think of two things, and they are related. First, don’t try to keep God in a box. Humans of all races and nations have a strong tendency to believe that their “God box” is the best, even the only “right” one. We really want to think that we have God figured out and that if everyone else just thought the way we did, the world would be a hunk-dory place.

Second, don’t get between God and people. Don’t try to build earthly power by inserting earthly institutions and constructs between God and people. “The church” is not God. “Christianity” is not God and most assuredly is not the only way to God. Those are our God boxes, and they can easily become idolatries. God will find a way around or through every barrier we seek to put between people and God.

The high priest and the Council perhaps appeared to have prevailed by killing Stephen, but at best they had won a small skirmish. Saul went from guarding the coats of the killers to encountering the risen Christ on the road and to becoming the chief herald and preacher of the liberating news of God with us, everywhere, at all times.

 

  In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

 

Easter 2023 services at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph and Presiding Bishop Curry's Easter Message

 Reminders:

Good Friday service with Deacon Bette at 5pm today (April7)

Easter service with Rev. Ed Lovelady at 10am Easter Sunday. Please bring fresh cut flowers for 'flowering of the cross'.

Here is a link to Presiding Bishop Curry's Easter Message:

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry: Easter 2023 Message – The Episcopal Church

Here is the text from Bishop Curry's message from EpiscopalChurch.org:

“We are here in a world struggling to find its soul, but the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not, cannot, and will not overcome it,” Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop and Primate Michael B. Curry said in his Easter 2023 message. “Jesus lives. He has been raised from the dead. That is the message of Easter, and that is the good news of great tidings.”

The festive day of Easter is Sunday, April 9.

The following is the full text of the presiding bishop’s Easter 2023 message, lightly edited for clarity:

This is a different Easter message. I’ve shared Easter messages from Jerusalem some years ago, and I have shared Easter and Christmas messages from a variety of locations. Last year for Christmas, we were in San Diego. Today I’m in Paris, part of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe. We just finished a revival—over 50 young people and some 300-400 people from all over Europe who came for this revival service. It was a remarkable thing to behold and be part of.

The Convocation here in Europe is engaged in incredible ministries, with some joining together with Episcopal Relief & Development to make it possible for resettlement of those who are refugees from war and famine, particularly those who are refugees from Ukraine.

Thinking about it—I realize not only with this view—but with the reality of Easter looming on our horizon, John’s Gospel opens: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Then there is a point in which it says, of Christ coming into the world, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.”

On that early Easter morning, John says in his 20th chapter, that early in the morning while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene and some of the other women went to the tomb. They went to the tomb after the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. They went to the tomb of their world having fallen apart. They went to the tomb of all their hopes and dreams having collapsed.

But they got up and they went anyway. They went to perform the rites of burial, to do for a loved one what you would want to do for them. They went, following the liturgies of their religion and their tradition, and, lo and behold, when they went, they discovered that, even in the darkness, the light of God’s love, the light of Jesus Christ—the light of Christ, as we say in the Great Vigil—in fact, was shining in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Jesus had been raised from the dead. He was alive, and darkness and evil and selfishness could not stop him. Love—as the old song says—love lifted him up.

We are here in Paris, this wonderful city. While there are protests going on in the city—garbage has not been collected, and it’s all over the city—we are here in Paris, in Europe, with refugees streaming into this continent from all over the world, impacted by changes in weather pattern, impacted by war and famine. We are here in a world struggling to find its soul, but the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not, cannot, and will not overcome it. Jesus lives. He has been raised from the dead. That is the message of Easter, and that is the good news of great tidings. From Paris, I’m Michael Curry. God love you. God bless you, and the light shines in the darkness, wherever there is darkness. This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Amen.