Christmas message from The Rev. Alan Akridge, Saint Mark's Episcopal, Brunswick, Ga

[In case it is too cold for you to get out on this Christmas Eve day, here is a message from afar.]

Merry Christmas!

Dear Parish Family:  

Did you read what I read?  In the gospel above, the shepherd's respond strangely to the announcement that the savior of the world, the messiah, had been born.  Their response is peculiar because there's a catch!  They are told that the savior's  nursery is a BARN and his crib is a HAY TROUGH.  Their response is that they "...went with haste..."  

Do you think what I think?  If are like me, then you can admit that at least a small part of you would have scoffed at the announcement that the savior of the universe had been born in the local equivalent of Sterling behind the Friendly Express (nothing against Sterling or Friendly Express)!  

Do you hear what I hear?  But also if you are like me, then you can relate that THIS pattern is exactly how God works.  It seems God is always picking up the little people and turning them into Big People.  Moses was a criminal foster kid from a slave people running from the law.  David was the runt of the litter whose own dad almost didn't acknowledge him, etc. etc.   It almost seems as if God favors the ones that everyone else ignores.  

Do you see what I see?  Still, if you are like me, then you are a bit cynical about the announcement because the world seems too tragically broken to be fixed from a hay trough in no-where'sville.  It just doesn't make sense that a nobody with nothing is going to be able to save us all.   

But, and here's the  Amazing Grace, if you are like me, then you also see the GREAT GOOD NEWS reminder in every December 25th.  

This Good News is that the ultimate proof of God's power is precisely:

·  that even the smallest most vulnerable human

·  from the smallest most oppressed people

·  from a tiny nowhere town

·  who's parents aren't anyone special

Is STILL big enough to beat all the powers of darkness and all the brokenness under heaven and all the hurt that we cause one another.    

Then, amidst all this too-ing and fro-ing (like me) we'd all come to see  exactly what the Shepherd's saw.  

A child, lying in a manger, and saving the whole universe.

Merry Christmas,

Fr. Alan+

 [The Rev. Alan Akridge, Rector, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Brunswick, Ga]

Deacon Bette's sermon from December 11, 2022, at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

 

Choose Joy

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph

The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman

Year A, Advent 3

Isaiah 35:1-10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11

 

Today is the 3^rd Sunday of Advent, the “Joy” Sunday. We celebrate this departure from the solemnity of Advent with a pink candle.

But for John the Baptizer in today’s Gospel story, “joy” is most likely not what he is experiencing. He is in prison. His preaching has gotten him there. You will recall from other readings of his story other Advent Sundays that even though he preached hellfire and brimstone to the religious elite of his day and called everyone to repentance, people flocked to him to be baptized—people, including Jesus himself.

At the time of today’s Gospel account, John did not know yet what we know—that he would not leave that prison alive. Nevertheless, I must believe he was anxious, perhaps a bit fearful. I must believe he knew his prospects were not good.

Because.. as he faces an uncertain future, he needs to know one thing—one thing… for certain. And so he sends his followers to ask Jesus for a definitive answer: Are you the one? Or are we to wait for another?

Before we look at Jesus’ answer, we need to consider the nature of joy. We humans have a strong tendency to think of emotions—like joy, happiness, contentment—as things we experience in response to… well, other things. Our lives are going well, so we are content. Our grandchildren are born; we experience joy. Our families gather for the holidays, and we are happy.

Moreover, we come to depend on these other things to bring us joy or happiness or contentment. We look to the world around us and wait for the feelings to happen.

Brothers and sisters, consider the possibility that joy is something we must choose, and we have good reason to choose it—regardless of what’s happening in the world around us.

Here’s how I came to that realization. A number of years ago—probably at least 17 years ago—I went on a mission trip with a small group of Episcopalians to the Dominican Republic. We met a woman missionary there who had arranged for us to work for most of a week cleaning and painting and getting an Episcopal day school ready for the school year.

Toward the end of the week, after we had finished our work for the day, our host took us to tour the community. And she took us to the most utterly poverty-stricken neighborhood I had ever seen, and to this day have ever seen. We drove down dirt streets. Trash was everywhere. Children played in the dirt and trash and weeds in front of houses built of scrap wood, rusty sheet metal, cardboard. Emaciated dogs scavenged for food. Open doorways and windows but no doors, no screens, no window panes.

I was haunted by what I had seen. We finished our work in the next day or two and caught our flight back to the U.S. But I couldn’t get that neighborhood out of my mind. I had not the slightest idea how to help, and I still don’t!

Oddly enough, very shortly after getting home, I was asked to speak at a “praise service” over at St. Thomas’. A group of lay folks were, at that time, meeting Sunday evenings for an informal worship of singing, prayer, and sharing experiences of God in our lives.

And within days of getting back from that mission trip, I was asked to speak at that service. I did not know what to say. I was still haunted by the utter poverty of that neighborhood. It weighed on me. I did not feel like singing. I did not feel like praising God. If anything, I wanted to chew God out for letting that happen—even though I fully understand that God is not responsible for the messes created by human societies.

I did not feel joy. And so, I told the story, and then I said what I am saying to you today: We must choose joy. Joy is not a feeling we get when good things happen, when the stars align, when our children behave and our spouse gives us just what we wanted for Christmas. Joy is a choice we make. Regardless of what is going on in the world, we must choose joy.

And why? Why must we choose joy?

Well, consider that Jesus’ response to John gives us a clue. His answer is classic Hebrew Scripture code: Look at the signs: People are healed. Their eyes and ears are opened. Good news has come to poor people.

In other words, Messiah is here. God is with you.

We choose joy because God is with us in this troubled and troubling world. We choose joy because no mess we humans have ever made is beneath God’s presence. We choose joy because we know that God has never and will never give up on us. We choose joy because we are God’s beloved, and that is enough.

Does that mean we are always going to feel joyful? Of course not. Does choosing joy let us off the hook of caring about a hurting world? Relieve us of responsibility for cleaning up the horrific messes we humans have created? Of course not. I’m not preaching this sermon to let us off the hook!

So here’s where I want to look back at the good news in John the Baptizer’s sermons. He preached repentance in no uncertain terms, and indeed people repented. In Luke’s account, the people then say to John, What should we do?

And John answers: If you have two coats, give one to your neighbor who has none. Share the food you have. He does NOT say, go create world peace. Solve the problem of hunger. Fix the broken political system.

See, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the troubles of the world. It is possible to be frozen in our tracks by seemingly insurmountable problems. It is tempting to do nothing because we know we can’t do everything. Sometimes we decide that we didn’t cause a situation therefore it’s not our job to fix it.

But where is God in that? Where is God in those truly human—but truly joyless responses to a hurting world and to our hurting neighbors? We are Christ’s body in this world. We must be the agents of the good news.

Choosing joy is choosing something deeper than the transitory emotions that come from those external events and situations. It’s remembering who we are and who we belong to—in spite of what is going on around us, and then sharing that good news in whatever ways we, individually and corporately, can. Choosing joy is making God’s love known to our neighbor however we can—remembering what Jesus taught us: That of those who have much, more is expected.

Brothers and sisters, do not sit around waiting for the feels. Choose joy, for the Lord our God is in our midst.

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

December services for Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, 2022

The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman sent a note with plans for our December services:

Dec. 11 – 10am with Deacon Bette Kauffman, Morning Prayer & communion

Dec. 18 – 10am with Sam Corson, Morning Prayer

Dec. 21 – 5pm with Fr. Don Smith, Wednesday evening Eucharist

Dec. 24 – 5pm with Fr. Paul Martin, Christmas Eve Eucharist

Dec. 25 – Christmas Day–no service.

The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman's sermon from November, 13 2022

 Where’s God?

I had the great fun and joy of spending Friday with my grandbabies. You might recall that I have two, a boy and a girl, born December 23, 2021. So they are rapidly approaching their first birthday. Jaxson, the boy, is walking. Madison, the girl, was born tiny and spent her first 48 hours in the NICU, so she’s physically a bit behind him.

Nevertheless, the two of them can get into a lot of trouble together already. So… Friday I’m sitting on the couch keeping an eye on them while they travel the living room together, Jaxson walking and Madison right behind with her odd but efficient crawl method.

Now I do not understand fully the fascination that draperies hold for kids, but soon they ended up on the floor with their heads behind the living room drapes that were just long enough to cover their heads and not their bodies. And so…. a game of peekaboo ensured.

I’m sure you know how it goes. I’d call out, “Where’s Jaxon? Where’s Maddie?” And they’d push back the curtain to reveal their faces and I’d say, “There’s Maddie! There’s Jaxson!” and they would giggle, and go back under the curtain for round… umpteen.

A childish game for sure. But this morning I propose that we are a lot like those toddlers when it comes to seeing God and being seen by God. One of the ways we are like them, is that we cover our faces and think we are hiding from God. Well, we aren’t, and at some level we know that. Nevertheless, we keep trying to hide from God. But that’s a different sermon, and I’m not going there this morning.

Here's where I’m going this morning: We wear veils over our faces—fairly thick ones—most of the time. And those veils prevent us from seeing God.

Remember that two weeks ago, I preached here at Christ Church about the story of Zaccheus. I said that he was seen by God and that it transformed his life. I didn’t mention it then, but, in fact, an historian of his time records that Zaccheus went on to become the First Bishop of Caesarea. Pretty remarkable: From despised tax collector to honored Bishop.

I also noted that Zaccheus, as well as the rich young ruler, and truthfully lots of people in the New Testament, met Jesus on the road into Jericho. And then I said, “I think there’s a lesson for us in there somewhere! If church is the only place you are looking for Jesus, you’re not looking very hard!”

Today I will say, if the only place you are finding God is in church, then that veil you wear over your face most of the time is blocking your view.

See, that’s what I think today’s Gospel story is all about: It’s about looking for God in all the wrong places. More accurately, it’s about looking for the limitless, unbounded, living God.. in limited, bounded, mortal places.

God does not need this building. Any more than God needed an elaborate “tabernacle” constructed of fine wood and gilded with gold to be carried across the wilderness by our early ancestors, the Israelites. God did not need the First Temple, built of fine materials by Solomon and decked out in gold and jewels. God did not need the Second Temple, begun by Herod the Great and under construction for 46 years.

Of course, God graciously met the faithful in those temples and continues to meet people of faith in all manner of temple and synagogue and church across the face of this planet. But God does not need these buildings. Every one of them will, one day, crumble to the ground.

We need them. We humans need the buildings. Or at least we think we do!

Because the limitless, unbounded, living God does meet us in these limited, bounded, mortal places. And it is good for us to take a shower, dress up nice, put on our best behavior and come to meet God here on a weekly basis. Good on us for doing that!

The problem comes when we confuse “a house of God,” like this church, with God’s home, which is the universe and everything in it, including us. We are the home of God! How many times does the Bible tell us that? How many ways did Jesus say it? The one I remember best is when he said, “The Kingdom is among and within you.”

So what is the nature of the veil we wear that leads us into the trap of conflating our “houses of God” with the constant and ubiquitous presence of God “out there” and everywhere we turn?

Well, I think part of it is we’re not so sure we want God everywhere out there and with us constantly. Maybe this sermon is a little bit about hiding from God after all! Because if God is everywhere and within me, how can I curse and flip a bird at the guy or gal who’s driving way under the speed limit in the passing lane?

More seriously, if the home of God is the universe, how can I continue a lifestyle that produces the almost 6 pounds of trash per day that is the average per person in the U.S.A. BTW, only about 1.5 pounds of that gets recycled. The rest of it ends up in massive, smelly landfills in God’s living room, and acres of trash clogging God’s—and our—water supply and tons of plastic in the bellies of one of God’s most extraordinary creations—the whale.

In other words, we really prefer to meet God primarily on Sundays when we are scrubbed and dressed nicely and on our best behavior!

I think another thing that contributes to our tendency to seek God here and not out there is fear. Because.. what if we really did see God in the face of all other human beings? How would that change our lives? We would have to give up our most fondly held prejudices, the ones we use to reassure ourselves that we are the “good guys” and those other folks over there who do not behave or think or value as we do are the “bad guys.”

In his letter to the Thesselonians, Paul says that people should work, and if they don’t work, they shouldn’t eat. I don’t have to ask for a show of hands to be pretty sure we all agree with that. But let us not get self-righteous about it, because our very agreement raises a question we would probably all rather avoid.

That question is, if we work so we can eat, why then do we have in the United States about 38.1 million people, that’s 11.8% of us, who are classified as “working poor,” meaning that they work—real jobs, essential jobs—but live below the poverty line. They make daily choices between food for the table and repairing the only vehicle they have to get to work, or between food and medication, or food and paying the electric bill.

The veil we wear over our faces that inhibits our seeing God everywhere, in the Universe and in everything in it, including our fellow humans, protects us from uncomfortable truths. It protects us from having to consider how we might need to change our own lives so to honor God’s creation and treat it justly and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Pulling aside that veil is not child’s play. It takes courage. As Jesus says, it will separate you from family and friends, who do not want to hear about the working poor, or how human behavior is destroying God’s creation at an alarming rate, people who prefer to keep the veil in place.

But there is also joy to be found in lifting the veil. It’s the joy of meeting God at every turn. As Jesus says, the joy of gaining your own soul.

In the name of God, father, son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

(Year C, Pentecost 23, Malachi 4:1-2a; 2 Thesselonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19)

Ms. Tamara Graves baptized in Christ Episcopal

The Rev. Dr. Bette Kauffman will lead our service at 10am Sunday, November 13th.  Come early to get a good seat! 

"On November 6, Ms. Tamara Graves was baptized into our Christian family by The Rev. Paul Martin at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph. A reception was enjoyed by all following Tamara's baptism service. Welcome Tamara."

The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman's sermon from Sunday, October 30, 2022

 "Being Seen"

by The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman

A few weeks ago, I saw a cartoon in a friend’s Facebook feed that really grabbed me. I do not remember exactly what it said, but it was about something I do a lot. It poked gentle fun at people like me, who continue to buy books long after they already own many, many books they have not yet read.

It said something along the lines of, ‘Really, I am on track to read all the books I own. I should be finished by the time I’m 564 years old.’

I laughed. And then I posted a comment. “I feel seen,” I said.

I’m guessing most of us have had that experience. We look at a screen or a show or a meme, we watch a movie or read a cartoon, and we feel seen. We feel understood. We recognize our selves. Often we laugh.

And perhaps most powerful of all, we realize that we’re not alone. Someone else in the world is like us in at least some way.

Today our Gospel story is about a guy who ‘gets seen’ in the most powerful, life-changing way possible. He gets seen by God.

I think it’s important that Zaccheus gets seen by God because he goes to extraordinary lengths to get a look at God. Of course, he didn’t know it was God he was trying to see. I’m sure he thought Jesus was just an itinerant prophet passing through town.

But something he had heard or something about his own life, or maybe some combination of Jesus’ reputation and Zaccheus’ circumstances or experiences, came together and compelled him to go get a look at Jesus, indeed, to go the great indignity of climbing a tree to try to get a glimpse of him.

See, Zaccheus was not exactly just an “ordinary guy.” He was not the town drunk who climbed the tree in a stupor. He was not a kid who climbed trees for the fun of it. He was a wealthy man, very wealthy, because he was a tax collector and not just a tax collector but the chief tax collector for the town of Jericho.

And that means he might well have been the most powerful and the most despised guy in town. He had the backing of the oppressive Roman regime to collect taxes as he saw fit—lining his own pockets as he wished, as long as he gave the Romans their due. But the social price he paid for that was to be thought of pretty much as a traitor, a Jew who worked for the enemy.

I’m sure his wife dressed in finery. But I wonder how she felt about being the wife of the town pariah. I’m sure his kids had everything they wanted, but I’ll bet they got teased unbearably in school. I imagine Zaccheus knew the hard way that money and power do not bring happiness or contentment. Maybe that’s why he was so ripe for the picking.

But ripe for the picking he was. Here’s this wealthy, powerful guy climbing up a tree, risking everybody on the ground looking right up his skirt…  hoping to get a glimpse of Jesus and, in all likelihood, assuming Jesus will never once look up at him.

Why would he? Why would the prophet and healer, the most righteous man he had ever heard of, take note of the biggest sinner of them all?

But of course he did. Indeed, Jesus calls out to Zaccheus before he even gets to the tree. He doesn’t just happen to look up and see this guy perched in the tree. He doesn’t wait for the fruit to fall. He calls out, “Come down, man, I’m on my way to your house!”

Wouldn’t you love to have seen Zaccheus come down from that tree? I’m betting it took a fraction of the time it took to climb up. I’m guessing he grabbed a limb and swung to the ground, because there he is in the blink of an eye, face to face with Jesus.

I said earlier that Zaccheus was “ripe for the picking.” At this point it is worth comparing this story to another well known story about a man who goes looking for Jesus.

I’m speaking of the man known as the “rich young ruler” in the story told in Matthew. So there’s similarity right away. Both Zaccheus and the young ruler are wealthy.

And there’s a second similarity: They both go to encounter Jesus on a road Jesus is traveling, Zaccheus on the road into Jerisho, the young ruler while Jesus is traveling about Judea healing and teaching.

Neither of them, you will notice, goes to church or the synagogue to find Jesus. Indeed, the people Jesus encountered in the synagogue mostly criticized him, argued with him, or chased him out of town!

I think there’s a lesson for us in there somewhere! If church is the only place you are looking for Jesus, well… you’re not looking very hard! You’re taking the easy way out. However hard it is for us to drag ourselves out of bed on a Sunday morning, it’s nothing like actually following Jesus out into the world where he carried out his ministry and called upon us to follow him!

As the Franciscan friar and priest Richard Rohr has somewhat famously said, “It’s a whole lot easier to go to church than it is to follow Jesus.” It’s perhaps my favorite of his sayings.

But back to the rich young ruler and Zaccheus the tax collector: there the similarity ends. The rich young ruler walks away shaking his head. He encountered God with a capital “G,” but it did not change him. He already had his god with a small “g,” namely his wealth.

Zaccheus is transformed. He does not wait to be told what he needed to do. The words tumble out of his mouth. He has been seen by God and he knows he has been seen. He is humbled, and he knows what to do.

Again, notice the contrast. The rich young ruler asks, “Teacher, what must I do…” “What must I do…” He had an agenda. He was looking for another rule to follow. He did not expect or want to be seen for who he really was.

Zaccheus came with no agenda other than to see. And he got more than he bargained for. He seeks God with an open heart and mind, and so he accepts the gift of being seen. You’ve seen me Lord, he acknowledges, now here’s what I’m going to do.

And that’s the most powerful lesson of all: Being seen by God can transform us. It can heal us. It can change our lives.

But we must be ripe for the picking. We must put our own agendas aside. We must know that we have been seen as the sinners we really are, not as “the good church people” we imagine ourselves to be. Only then will we be transformed.

In the name of God, father, son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

30 October 2022, Christ Episcopal, St. Joseph 

(Isaiah 1:10-18; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12; Luke 19:1-10)

Service Schedule for Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph Oct 30 and Nov 6

 

Sunday October 30, The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman, 10am

Sunday November 6, The Rev. Paul Martin, 10am

Check out the Care of Creation blog at:

Care of Creation – a grassroots ministry of the Episcopal Church in Western Louisiana (wordpress.com)

The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman's sermon from October 2, 2022

You Have All You Need

The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman

2 October 2022, Christ Church, St. Joseph

Season of Creation Week 4 (Year C, Pentecost 17)

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

In today’s Gospel lesson, the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith. It’s like they think faith is some kind of magic potion, or some kind of credit account—and if they could just get their hands on more of it—drink more of the potion, build up more credit in the account—they’d “have more faith.”

I’m not sure what they thought “having more faith” would look like. Maybe they are thinking that if they could somehow accumulate more faith they would no longer have questions about who Jesus was, and what he was here on earth to do.

Maybe if they could accumulate more faith they could answer the difficult questions of their religious traditions. Like, is this man the Messiah, or are we to wait for another/

Maybe if they had more faith, they could quit wondering about the strange and radical teachings and, frankly, demands of this man and just accept them and live by them. Maybe they would understand why he insisted on eating with notorious crooks and women of ill-repute.

Maybe more faith would enable them to forgive and forgive again and forgive some more, as Jesus said they must. Maybe with more faith they would be able to understand and accept the disabled, the highly contagious, the dirt poor, and the foreigner, like Jesus did and asked them to do.

Today I think we often associate increasing our faith with talking ourselves into intellectual agreement with something we actually find to be quite preposterous, or that we are persuading ourselves—as one author put it—to believe 6 impossible things before breakfast.

That’s not faith; that’s self-deception. And probably not very successful self-deception. I think some perfectly good Christians suffer a bit of embarrassment and discomfort every time they say the creeds.

I had an interesting discussion with my women’s bible study group in Monroe about “resurrection of the body.” Turns out most of us don’t really expect our bodies to be resurrected at all. We believe a lot more easily in having an eternal soul that flies off and leaves the body behind.

But I don’t think what we believe, what we intellectually agree to, has anything to do with faith. Faith is not about some process we go through to accumulate all the “right beliefs and doctrines.”

Here’s a wonderful statement about faith from the lectionary blog of a woman by the name of Sarah Dylan Breuer. She says, “Faith is relationship -- a relationship of trust, of allegiance. When Jesus talks about ‘faith,’ he's not talking about what you do in your head; he's talking about what you do with your hands and your feet, your wallet and your privilege, your power and your time. Faith in Jesus is not shown by saying or thinking things about him, but by following him.”

I can’t say it better than that. And following Jesus is a day to day, moment to moment thing. It’s doing what he calls us to do and not expecting great accolades and high praise for doing what we ought to do.

Faith is less in the grand gestures, less in reciting the creed in a loud voice, less in making a big showy gift to the church, than in the moment to moment being true to Jesus and his call to us to love the unlovable, to forgive even the boneheads who will never change, to reconcile with those we would rather duke it out with.

Sometimes when life’s pains and sorrows hit us hardest, faith is just putting one foot in front of the other, getting through the next hour, the next day. Trusting God even when there’s no evidence that God gives a hoot.

I’m going to have a bit of coffee with you right after the service, and then I’m heading straight back to Monroe. I sometimes like to wander through the Tensas Refuge on my way home from St. Joseph, but not today. We have a funeral at Grace this afternoon.

A young man, early 40s, died of an overdose. His parents are long-time members. He served as our sexton for a number of years. He had been through rehab many years ago and was sober for 16 years. Then he and his wife, whom he had met in rehab, came into some money when her father died. The temptation was too much. They spent it on heroin.

They got arrested, were sent back into rehab and after about a month, he got out. He had dinner with his parents and his own children; a lovely evening together, by all accounts. Then he went to his own house and promptly overdosed. His wife, still in rehab, called his parents and said, ‘Something’s wrong. He’s not answering the phone.” They went; he was dead.

When I spoke with his mother on the phone a few days ago, she said, “We’re getting through a half day at a time.” That’s faith. It’s putting one foot in front of the other. It’s keeping your eyes on Jesus in the midst of agony. It’s not escaping the agony with glib declarations of what you believe. It is plodding through the agony, and the mundane, but especially the agony, keeping your eyes on Jesus.

I used to think the saying, “What would Jesus do?” was pretty hokey, a cliché, for sure. But more and more I think it is exactly the right question to ask. What would Jesus do?

By and large, we know what Jesus would do. We know Jesus would choose love, reconciliation, inclusion of all.

Sometimes the church likes to portray Jesus as obsessed with wrong and with people’s sin, as judgmental, as morally smug. That would be us, friends. We’re the ones obsessed with people’s sin; we’re judgmental and morally smug.

God understands that we are wounded, irascible, quarrelsome beings who inevitably fall far short of the standards God sets for us. That’s why God became one of us and lived among us and continues to dwell in our hearts. We are not in this alone.

Nurture that mustard seed of God in your heart. It’s everything you need. 

In the name of God, father, son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

 

The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman's sermon from September 4, 2022

 The Cost of Discipleship

Somewhere in the bulging folders and stacks of paper in my study, a Far Side cartoon I saved from a desk calendar (I think…) a number of years ago is, I’m sure, still hiding out. Since I have no idea how to find it, I’m stuck with describing it for you!

It’s a 2-panel cartoon. The left panel depicts a guy—a rather nerdy, hapless looking guy—walking down a street beside a tall brick building. Two or three stories up the side of the building, right over the spot he will walk through momentarily, an old-fashioned upright piano is being lowered from a window by a rickety rope sling and pulley apparatus.

In the righthand panel, God sits at his computer. You can tell it’s God because he is an old white guy with long white hair and beard! The image on God’s computer screen is of the scene we see in the left panel: the same hapless looking guy walking down a street completely oblivious that he is about to walk under a piano dangling from a rickety contraption.

God’s computer has just two buttons: A big, green “Save” button and a big, red “Smite” button. In this cartoon, God’s finger hovers over the “Smite” button. 

Of course, the cartoon is open-ended. We are left wondering: Does God smite the poor schmuck? And what in heaven’s name has he done to deserve God dropping a piano on him?

I collected that cartoon because it so accurately and humorously depicts how millions of humans throughout the centuries have imagined God’s role in the universe. The OT is rife with stories of God visiting disaster upon people for behaving badly. Certainly Moses, the presumed author of Deuteronomy, thought it.

It’s as if God sits at a massive control panel somewhere, watches our behavior, rewards us if we are good and smites us if we are bad. From Sodom and Gomorrah to New Orleans, Louisiana, God sends disasters like hurricanes and floods to punish sinful cities, and according to the preachers of the prosperity Gospel, if you are sufficiently pious and give enough money to the televangelist, you will be rewarded with great wealth yourself—and if you aren’t wealthy, it’s because you haven’t yet sent enough to the televangelist.

It's a popular belief. It’s all over the Old Testament. But it’s not how it works. God does not micromanage the universe. Indeed, Genesis makes it pretty clear that humankind was left in charge of caring for planet earth.

Nevertheless, our lessons this morning have something important to say to us about the consequences of action and the cost of following Jesus. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first I must make a brief detour to share something I just learned about.

In 1989, the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church—Dimitrios the First by name—declared Sept. 1 to be “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation” and called on people of faith worldwide to join in honoring God’s Creation and praying for humankind to actively seek to restore our seriously neglected and damaged relationship with Creation.

The World Council of Churches jumped on board quickly and energetically, and soon a day of prayer became a Season of Creation, to be celebrated by a long list of denominations and organizational partners from Sept. 1 until Oct. 4, which is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology. The Episcopal Church is a partner in the movement. We are represented on the Advisory Committee by Bishop Mark Andrus of California.

Every year the Season of Creation movement chooses a theme and leads individuals and churches worldwide in celebrating and taking action to restore our relationship with Creation and thereby with the God of Creation. Their website is a myriad of creative and compelling resources for worship and action on behalf of Creation.

Here’s what’s a bit shocking to me: I became an Episcopalian in 1998—9 years after the founding event—and I’ve been an ordained deacon since 2008, and never once in all that time and in all of the many Episcopal churches and hundreds of services I’ve attended.. have I heard mention of the Season of Creation. I found out about it a couple of weeks ago in an email from Mthr Meg Lovejoy, who serves the little church down in Moss Bluff.

So, Brothers and Sisters, we are in Week 1 of the Season of Creation 2022, and what you will hear from me this morning is a Care of Creation take on today’s lessons. For week 2 of the Season of Creation I’ll be preaching at Grace in Monroe and they will get same song, second verse!

Now let’s return to Deuteronomy, even better Jeremiah, the alternative OT reading for today, and think about it in terms of today’s escalating disastrous climate events, which a massive body of science tells us is due largely to our own behavior, to our overconsumption, our fossil-fuel addiction, destruction of nature, and—as one who earned her keep as a kid washing dishes for a family of 8—what looks to me like pure laziness in our addiction to the Styrofoam and plastic that are choking our oceans, killing critters and creating mountains of landfill!

Now let’s reread and know that the next disastrous storm about to tear our coastline apart is not God sitting at his computer hitting the smite button, but our own reckless disregard for and estrangement from the very Creation that is our home and life-breath—the dirt of which we are made.

But Jeremiah and Moses also give us hope. They both say we can repent of our evil ways and reform our ways and actions. God has not given up on us. We can restore our right relation with God and Creation and turn away from the disastrous path we are on.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Luke is talking about the cost of following Jesus, and he is making it clear that the Gospel is not cheap. Grace and forgiveness are readily offered and freely received, but following Jesus comes with a price tag.

If we are to be disciples, to really follow Jesus, we are called to put him, and his Kingdom values, before all else. The examples Jesus gives fall in two areas which, then and now, can easily distract us from or get between us and our desire to follow Jesus: family and material possessions.

Importantly, I do not believe that Jesus literally means we should “hate” our family, or anyone else. Jesus taught love above all else. Here he is using hyperbole to make the point that our focus on following him must be single-minded and highest of our priorities.

And to follow Jesus is to walk humbly. It is to see God in all of Creation. It is to reject consumerism and to recognize that from those who have much, much more is expected. It is to reject reckless exploitation of Creation for profit motives and to fight against the injustice caused by greed and over-consumption.

To put it in the most down to earth terms I can think of, it is to swear off all those “disposables” and wash the cotton pickin’ dishes! Yes, there you have it: I think washing dishes is a sacred act of following Jesus!

Jesus’ words here calling us to give up everything we have to follow him might well be our biggest challenge. And please note, in Luke’s account, Jesus delivers these words while in the house of a prominent, and no doubt wealthy, Pharisee. So they have particular relevance to those of us from affluent and religiously devout backgrounds.

Friends, we are called to follow Jesus, whatever the cost. Today, his challenging words on family, money and possessions call us to follow Jesus to a life of greater simplicity, to repenting from our selfish consumerism, and to uniting with all Creation in building community that models the way of God’s kingdom.

In the name of God, father, son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

[Season of Creation Week 1 (Year C, Pentecost 13), Jeremiah 18:1-11; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33]

Updated service schedule for Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

 

Here is the updated service schedule for Christ Episcopal:

 Sunday, Aug 28          10am Morning Prayer, Mrs. Jane Barnett

Sunday, Sep 4             10am MP with Communion, The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman

Sunday, Sep 11           10am Holy Eucharist, The Rev. Paul Martin

Sunday, Sep 18           10am Morning Prayer, Mrs. Jane Barnett

Wednesday, Sep 21    5pm Holy Eucharist, The Rev. Don Smith

Sunday, Sep 25           10am Morning Prayer, Mrs. Jane Barnett           

The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman's sermon from August 7, 2022, and service schedule for Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

Service schedule for August 2022:

Sundays August 14, 21; 28:  Morning Prayer, 10am with Mrs. Jane Barnett

Wednesday August 17: Holy Eucharist, 5pm with The Rev. Don Smith

 Stuff & Treasure 

On the windowsill over the sink in my kitchen is a treasure. It’s a little brown rock, about the size of a meatball—the kind you see in chafing dishes at receptions. It’s a pretty ordinary looking rock, except…  It has a heart!

I don’t know how it came to be, but this plain brown rock has one kind of flat side and there on the flat side, if you tilt it at just the right angle, is a perfectly heart-shaped opening. A friend who knows that I collect treasures gave me “Rock with a Heart.” She found it lying on the ground, “in plain sight,” she said.

But… on the windowsill, right next to Rock with a Heart, is… well, a bunch of stuff: A tic tac container with several ancient tic tacs in it. One of those joke half-mugs that cleverly declares, “You asked for half a cup of coffee.” That was a treasure—briefly. Now it’s a dust collector.

On a shelf above the TV is a couple of inches of armadillo tail, picked clean of tissue such that its intricate bony architecture is clearly revealed. Why so homely a critter requires such an extraordinary tail structure I don’t know. To me it’s an exuberant, over-the-top expression of its Creator—here just for the glory of it. A treasure.

But right next to it? More dust collectors: Things you thought you couldn’t live without.. for some brief moment in the distant past. Today? Meh.

We could continue. My house is strewn with treasures. Among the rocks, bones and shells, you will also find human-made treasures, like the glass ibis figurine my sister gave me when I admired it in her home.

But for every treasure... an equal or larger portion of stuff. How did I come to have… All. This. Stuff? Lately, my house full of stuff has come to feel burdensome, stifling, a huge distraction from the things that really matter. And so I am in the process of down-sizing! I got rid of stuff this summer, but, alas, I have far to go….

Many people take today’s Gospel lesson to be about long-term planning. There’s that reference to “laying up treasures in heaven,” and so we want to make this teaching an evacuation plan for that next place we’ll go to someday after we die. ‘Be good now—moral, pious—and go to heaven later.’

I beg to disagree. Jesus tells us over and over throughout his ministry on earth: The kingdom is at hand. The kingdom is within and among you.

And today’s lesson: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms.

That’s all present tense! I’m reminded of how my sister gave me that glass ibis. I was visiting her and noticed it sitting on her windowsill. And I told her the story of waking up one morning to a flock of ibises in my back yard feasting on crawfish brought up by a heavy rain.

And my sister insisted on giving me the figurine. Right then. On the spot. She didn’t put it in her will, she picked it up and put it in my hands. And when I protested she said much the same thing Jesus says on this occasion: It is my pleasure to give it to you.

But here’s the tricky part. Yes, the glass ibis is a sort of treasure. But it’s not.. the real.. treasure. The glass ibis could get knocked off my windowsill to shatter on the floor today, and I’d still have the real treasure—my relationship with my sister and an act of solidarity between us that carried that relationship forward.

We humans easily confuse things, mementos, STUFF… with the real treasure—namely our relationships with each other, and with Creation, and thereby.. with God.

That’s what I think today’s lesson is all about: Recognizing and cultivating the real treasure, our relationship with God manifested in the here and now in our relationships with people and God’s Creation.

How, indeed, would we treat people if, at every moment, we were awake to the presence of God in them and viewed them as the Master coming to fasten his belt and have [us] sit down to eat? And, indeed, to serve us?

How’s that for a reversal! Let me say it again in a slightly different way. Our relationships with people are the real treasures. Our relationships are the Kingdom here and now. Relationships with each other are the purses that will last. They are the result and the medium of our relationship with God!

Now that is somewhat easy to see when it comes to family, as the story about the glass ibis and my sister illustrates. We don’t need to be admonished to be ready and awake to accept the gift of family relationships. That kind of comes naturally.

Other folks, not so much. Other folks often appear to us as one more burdensome issue or problem we must deal with. And the more different from us they are, in terms of skin color, religion, social class, work ethic, values, ways of being in the world… the less likely we are to be ready and open to the fact that a relationship with them just might be a feast served by the Master himself.

But Jesus told us, you must be willing to leave your family behind. Jesus modeled for us a different way, a way contrary to our instincts, a reversal of our “natural attitude,” by inviting relationships with everyone he encountered.

My friends, we all have a God-shaped hole in the side of our heart. And that is the truest treasure, the treasure that makes all of the other treasures—the treasure of relationship with God, self and neighbor—possible.

But the God-shaped hole in the side of our heart often gets… well, full of dirt. Stuff falls in! Sometimes we literally cover it over with whatever we can! We wall over the God-shaped hole in our heart, and we do it for a variety of reasons.

One really big, important reason we do it is fear. We fear those who are different from us. And sometimes our fears are fanned by hateful language on social media and from people in power who ought to know and act better.

Who remembers Pogo? I love cartoons. They so often express things we find hard to say straight up. And perhaps my favorite of all time is Pogo saying, We have met the enemy, and he is us!

But we are and can be bigger than our fears. Or our hurt. Or our anger, which often goes hand in hand with both fear and hurt. These are the things that build walls around human hearts.

But the treasure is inside us. It is a God-shaped, Love-shaped hole in the side of our hearts. And how we tend to that hole in our heart matters.

One of my favorite poets is Emily Dickinson, and she has addressed precisely this thing. Here’s her poem, “To Fill a Gap.”

To fill a Gap
Insert the Thing that caused it—
Block it up
With Other—and ’twill yawn the more—
You cannot solder an Abyss
With Air.

Brothers and Sisters, we must fill the hole in our hearts with God, which is to say with Love. Because if it’s not about Love, it’s not about God.

God wants to give us the Kingdom. Here. Now. Are we ready?

 

In the name of God, father, son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

 

[Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40]

 

 

Sunday service for August 7, 2022 with The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman

 

The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman will lead us in Morning Prayer with Communion Sunday, August 7, 2022 10am at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph.

SATURDAY, August 6
[The Transfiguration]

Luke 9:28b-29 Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.

Today, as we celebrate the Transfiguration, I think about the disciples. They followed Jesus up the mountain, expecting a quiet time of prayer. As ever, God turns their expectations upside down.

There on the mountain, they see Jesus for who he is. They are so astonished that Peter offers to build dwelling places for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. That is when a voice thunders out of the cloud, “This is my Son. Listen to him.”

Listen to him! What does he say? What happens when we, too, are transfigured by the presence of Christ? With Peter, James, and John, we come down the mountain and back amid the crowds; we roll up our sleeves and feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the sick. We help transfigure the world.

Service schedule for Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, LA

 

Service schedule for Christ Episcopal:

Sunday, Morning Prayer July 17th, 10am led by Mrs. Jane Barnett

Wednesday,  TBD:   The Rev. Donald Smith tested positive for covid, therefore, plans are underway

The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman's homily from July 3, 2022 at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

“Choose Love”

Let me tell you about my friend John.

John was a paraplegic. He and his partner Roger had both contracted HIV some years back. Roger died; John survived, but an opportunistic infection left him paralyzed from the waist down.

I was introduced to John by a member of St. Andrew’s in Mer Rouge, who had met John through GoCare—a non-profit that provides comprehensive medical care to low income, marginalized folks, especially LGBT folks. He had been ministering to John for some time but was moving to NOLA. Would I take over taking communion to John? he asked me.

John lived in rural La., down in the Eros area. His mother was his primary caretaker, but she worked swing shift in the paper mill. John was often alone. He became proficient at rolling around the house in his wheelchair doing laundry, fixing meals, and so forth.

John was a very thin man but boney man. Through the years, he struggled constantly with the kind of pressure wounds people get when they spend all of their time sitting or lying down. It was as if he just couldn’t keep enough flesh between his bones and his skin.

So John had surgery, over and over again, to try to graft skin of flesh in a ways that would enable his wounds to heal. And sure enough, one day I got a joyful message from him: “I am wound free!” But that lasted about a month, and then new wounds, a new round of surgeries.

After surgery, again being confined to flat on his back in bed, John occasionally developed pneumonia. He’d be on a vent; it didn’t look good. How can his body keep on fighting? But he did. And he’d recover.

John and his family were basically unchurched, but John had been baptized and wanted to be confirmed. He wanted his mother to be baptized, and when Johns set his mind to something, he could make it happen. and did, at the St. Alban’s Easter Vigil probably 5 or 6 years ago.

I never saw John grumpy, bitter, or feeling sorry for himself. He might sound a bit discouraged, but just me showing up with communion and he’d be over the hump.

This coming Tuesday, I will officiate John’s funeral. I had not seen John for a couple of years, due in part because he had sort of dropped off social media—how we communicated—and then the pandemic. But I learned from his mother via FB that he had had yet another surgery. At first he improved, and then he took a turn for the worse. I got to the Glenwood ICU in time to read a Psalm and say prayers.

He did not open his eyes, but I have to believe at some level he knew I was there. And this time, his body just couldn’t pull him through. Less than 48 hours later, John died.

John had a sweet, indomitable spirit. So many times I would head out into rural La. west and south of West Monroe feeling overwhelmed by all I had to do, somewhat annoyed by this drive into the countryside I didn’t have time for—only to be leave John’s side after an hour or so… restored, grateful… rejoicing.

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus sends the seventy ahead two by two to heal the sick and proclaim the Kingdom of God. They return rejoicing.

That’s the point I want to focus on today: They return rejoicing.

You have perhaps experienced this phenomenon. You have perhaps heard others talk about their experience. We go to minister and we are ministered to.

But this phenomenon is not merely the joy of a job well done. It’s not merely the good feeling we get when those we minister to are grateful. Or that glow of virtue we get from having done a good deed. There’s something deeper than all of that going on.

The people Jesus sent out were ordinary folks, probably what we would consider working class—literally laborers. We know that because those are the kind of folks who followed Jesus: fishermen, carpenters and such. They most assuredly were not religious leaders—pharisees, sadducees, priests and such—because those folks spent their time arguing with Jesus and plotting against him, NOT following him.

These ordinary folks lived in a terrible time, a time of oppression by a brutal foreign power, a time of local corruption and food insecurity. Life was fragile.

And Jesus warned them that it would not be easy. Some would reject them. They were like sheep going among wolves.

But these ordinary folks went as sent by Jesus, and they were changed by their acts of mercy. They came back rejoicing, exulting in what they had been able to accomplish—which clearly exceeded their fondest hopes and expectations. You can hear the glee in Jesus’ voice as he greets them, proclaiming that he had seen Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightening.

Jesus also explains to them that he had given them power over enemies, but then he cautions: don’t rejoice over the power; rejoice that your name is written in heaven.

Here’s what I think all this means: Our actions are not what brings about the Kingdom of God. Rather, the Kingdom of God comes forth in us through our action and interaction with those we serve. We do not first love God then serve others. We serve others and in serving others become God lovers. Love’s demands transform us.

Here’s how Mother Teresa of Calcutta put it: “Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God the better because of them.”

Today we are sent into a world full of “wolves” of war, violence, greed, and conflict over scarce resources—like food and water—due not only to war and greed but climate change accelerated by our own behavior.

Today’s primary disease is no longer leprosy or tuberculosis, but possibly the utter loss of hope that comes from feeling unwanted, uncared for, abandoned by everyone and unable to make a difference in one’s own life, much less the world.

It is hard to have hope in today’s world. Yet we are sent, and as we go, I think we will find that hope is like love: It’s not something we have that enables us to act, it’s something that we create by acting.

Moreover, love and hope are contagious. Our acting transforms not only us, but those around us. Our hopeful act, our loving act make us more hopeful and loving, and those around us start acting in a more loving and hopeful way.

In sum, love and hope are not feelings we have so much as choices we make. And by making and acting on those choices, we are transformed into loving, hope-filled people.

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

[2 Kings 5:1-14; Galatians 6:1-16; Luke 10:1-11,26-20]

 

Christ Episcopal services for June 15 and 19, 2022

 

The following services are scheduled for Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph:

Wednesday, June 15 Holy Eucharist with The Rev. Don Smith, 5pm

Sunday, June 19 Morning Prayer with Mrs. Jane Barnett, 10am

The Rev. Dr. Mitzi George Installation Invitation

 

The Rev. Paul Martin offering Holy Eucharist Sunday 10am, June 5th at Christ Episcopal

 

The Rev. Paul Martin will be leading us in Holy Eucharist Sunday, June 5 at 10am.  Please wear your red to celebrate The Day of Pentecost.

From the Forward Day by Day:

SATURDAY, June 4

Matthew 9:20-21 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”

When Jesus heals the woman suffering from hemorrhages, he does more than restore bodily health. Her twelve years of physical suffering are compounded by being defined as unclean and thus unable to participate in much of religious and social life. By healing her, Jesus restores her to her place in society.

It can be tempting to think that modern people are past such exclusionary practices toward the suffering, but that’s not the case. The many residents of the long-term care facility where my mother-in-law lives can testify to that. So can those whose grief over a lost loved one outlives the brief time that society’s norms set aside for mourning.

Jesus calls us to follow him to the cross, which means he calls us to dwell with people in their suffering. True Christian community is found where illness, pain, and grief are borne together. In such a place, sorrows are eased, and burdens are made light.

Services update from Mrs. Jane Barnett for Christ Episcopal

 

Mrs. Jane Barnett sent many a text that provides dates, times and info for upcoming services at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph:

...Every Wednesday, Morning Prayer, 10am at The Shepherd Center.

...Wednesday. April 20th, Communion from reserve sacrament, 5pm, The Rev. Deacon Bette Kaufmann, followed by makeup Lenten lesson and meal.

...Sunday, April 24, Morning Prayer, 10am, Mrs. Jane Barnett.

...Sunday, May 1, Communion from reserve sacrament, 10am, Deacon Bette.

...Sundays, May 8, 15, 22, Morning Prayer, 10am, Mrs. Jane Barnett.

...SATURDAY,  May 28, Holy Communion, 5pm, The Rev. Whit Stodghill.

...Sunday, June 5, Holy Communion, 10am, The Rev. Paul Martin.