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]