Sad news and service schedule

Service Schedule:

December 20: 5pm Holy Eucharist The Rev. Don Smith

December 24: 2pm Morning Prayer with Communion, The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman

December 28: 1pm visitation and 2pm memorial service for Nicholas Isaiah Dorrell with Rev. Don and Deacon Bette

Nicholas Isaiah Dorrell

July 13, 1996 - December 18, 2023

It is with great sadness that we announce Nicholas Isaiah Dorrell, a member of our congregational family, passed away on December 18, 2023, from an overdose of fentanyl. He was 27 years old. Incredibly intelligent and funny, he was loved by all who met him, and his joyous laughter will now bless heaven. He enjoyed boating, the beach, and anything to do with the great outdoors. Over his too-short lifespan, Nick enjoyed work as a deck hand and engineer for tow boat companies ranging from the northern reaches of the Mississippi River, east to Panama City, FL, and west in the Intracoastal Waterway to Texas. He also had jobs cooking crawfish, working as a farm hand and construction work including heavy equipment and boat operations. Nick lived in Tensas Parish for numerous years and became friends with many of the officers of the Tensas Parish Sheriff’s Office due to his exuberant driving habits. Nick also had a love for animals, several of whom he brought home, including chickens, turkens, an opossum, a calf, and most recently a kitten named PJ. He will be greeted in heaven by his first puppy Money Dog and his later dogs, Maggie and Beaudreaux. He is preceded in death by his maternal and paternal great-grandparents, and two second cousins. He is survived by his parents Shelley and Laurence Leyens, David and Kim Dorrell, brothers Corey Leyens and Junior Dorrell, and sister Madison Leyens.  Nick is also survived by his grandparents Nancy and Brent Smith of Vicksburg, MS and Faye and Sam Corson of Saint Joseph, LA. Visitation and service will be held at Christ Episcopal Church in St. Joseph, Louisiana, on December 28, 2023. Visitation is at 1:00 p.m. in the Parish House and the service at 2:00 p.m. Prior to fentanyl addiction, Nicholas lived life to its fullest. In lieu of flowers, please mail donations in memory of Nicholas to Home of Grace, Donation Services, PO Box 5009, Vancleave, MS. Or, via their website @ https://www.homeofgrace.org/give/

The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman's homily from December 10, 2023

 Hanging Out

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph

(Year B, Advent II, Isaiah 49:1-11, 2 Peter 3:8-15a, Mark 1:1-8)

It is easy to rush through Advent. Indeed, our lives at this time of year seem especially geared to push us relentlessly forward at an ever more frantic pace.

In my life, this past week was especially tiring. Our Grace Episcopal Day School & Nursery celebrated with our annual Christmas Festival Thursday afternoon. The first few days of the week were all preparation: working out last minute logistics, sending out messages to teachers and parents, pulling festival games out of storage and setting them up, decorating. Then Friday was all clean up, put away, etc. 

It seems that our approach to that other penitential season—Lent—is so different. Easter seems far away as we gather Ash Wednesday to begin weeks of abstaining from something important to us, and commitment to fasting, reflection and alms-giving.

In contrast, the beginning of Advent is a mad dash into planning, shopping, decorating, office receptions and parties with their special foods and beverages, and more. It is a time of year when our society does everything in its power to entice us to over-indulge in every way possible, beginning with Thanksgiving and going all the way to Christmas.

For the past few years, many Christians have been quick to complain of a so-called “attack on Christmas.” I am far more likely to bemoan the attack on Advent! The first Christmas tree I saw this year appeared in Sam’s Club… before Halloween! I was stunned and dismayed.

Today’s lessons—Isaiah’s cry on behalf of the Israelites, John the Baptist’s rough-hewn lifestyle and in-your-face preaching—seem truly misplaced amongst the cheery holiday music, fresh greenery and glittering ornaments that have already filled our lives. Who wants to go into the wilderness when we can hang out here in Christmasland?!

But the wilderness has things to offer that we cannot find in the hustle and bustle and beauty of Christmasland. Holy things. And these passages give us some clues. This morning I invite you to hang out for a time in the Holy Land of Advent.

Let’s begin with the words of Isaiah (Isaiah 40:1-11, NRSV):

Comfort, O comfort my people, 

says your God. 

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, 

and cry to her 

that she has served her term, 

that her penalty is paid, 

that she has received from the LORD's hand 

double for all her sins. 

Of course, Western Christians can hardly hear these words without hearing the soaring music of Handel’s Messiah. But the prophet does not allow us to simply rush straight to the triumph of the Allelujah chorus!

First, even as we are comforted, we are reminded that we need comfort due to the magnitude of our sins and the penalty we have paid. We have suffered as a result of our estrangement from God.

Please do not hear that as a theology of retribution. The bad things that happen in our lives are not God’s punishment for our sins. Rather, things go wrong in our lives and we lose sight of God. We try to comfort ourselves with all the wrong things—mood-altering substances like alcohol, extreme busy-ness, spending money, whatever—and the more we do that, the farther away God seems to be. And we suffer.

Second, Isaiah draws attention to the one thing that most reliably causes humankind to suffer, and that is our mortality. We are flowers, beautiful but fragile, for flowers do not last. The wind blows. We wither and die. All of us in this space this morning are old enough to have dealt with loss.

Memento morí…?

This world often seems devoid of the comforting presence of God! We often feel forsaken by God! Isaiah reassures us that God is there in the wilderness of our lives. That God patiently waits to speak tenderly to us, to feed us and to gather us and to gently lead us home.

Turning to today’s Gospel lesson (Mark 1:1-8, NRSV), I’m again struck by these opening words:

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

"See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, 

who will prepare your way; 

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 

`Prepare the way of the Lord, 

make his paths straight,'" 

With this enigmatic opening, St. Mark connects his main character, Jesus the Christ, with the God of Hebrew Scripture, through his lead character, John the Baptizer.

John the Baptizer hung out in the wilderness, and people went in droves to hear him—in spite of the fact that he bore the bad news of sin and the need for repentance. Indeed, in Matthew’s account, John calls the religious elite of his day a brood of vipers!

So why did the people flock to him? As Mark says, he also bore the good news of another to come, one who would share with us the forgiving waters of baptism, but one who had more—much more—to offer.

The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me, John says. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

We go into the wilderness to repent, wait and prepare. In today’s epistle (1 Peter 3:8-15a, NRSV), St. Peter tells us how: Patiently, because God’s days are unlike ours and God has been more than patient with we. Keeping awake, for we do not know when God comes again. Living godly lives, doing the things God has called us to do to hasten the kingdom—which we know from Jesus’ teaching means loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.

Dear friends, let us hang out for a while in the holy land of Advent. For here we find God’s comforting promise of mercy and grace bestowed in the coming of the one for whom we prepare—the one of power and glory who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

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

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon from October 22, 2023

 

 

            Finally.  Today we hear Jesus saying something that we can instantly understand.  For the last several weeks we’ve had a series of cryptic sayings, parables and allegories.  But this morning we get a good old saying that we can sink our teeth into.  “Give … to (Caesar) the things that are (Caesar’s), and to God the things that are God's.” 

            This morning we find Jesus in the Temple teaching.  The Pharisees are still trying to trap him into saying something that will make him appear in a bad light.  So, they send some of their disciples to ask him a very carefully crafted question.  “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”  It is not often that someone of my limited Greek scholarship disagrees with translators, but this is one such time.  The original Greek does not use the word, “pay,” here, but rather the word doumai (doumai) meaning, “give,” or “give back.”  That will be important in a minute.  Now the trap that they set is obvious for modern readers who know the story.  If Jesus says yes, it is lawful under Torah to give back your taxes, he incurs the wrath of faithful Jews who resent Roman occupation and dominance.  If he says, “No, it is not lawful under Torah,” then the Romans have grounds to arrest him for sedition.  But Jesus knows this. 

            Jesus’ response to his questioners though, is truly inspired by the Holy Spirit.  He asks these disciples of the most scrupulous adherents of Jewish law, the Pharisees, to give him the coin used for taxes.  Apparently one of them whipped out a denarius.  This is interesting because the denarius was equal to a full day’s wages – some say that it would be roughly equivalent to $100.00 today – and this disciple (a student of the religious leaders) had this much in his pocket.  More interesting though is the fact that one of these devout Jews had this coin in his pocket, in the Temple.  After all, they only used Temple currency in the Temple, not Roman coinage.  Jesus asks the pointed question, “whose image is on the coin?”  His questioners respond that it is Caesar’s image.  In actuality, what was on the denarius was the reason that no devout Jew would have been carrying one in the Temple.  The coin indeed had Caesar’s face on it.  But it also had an inscription that said, “Tiberius Caesar, August son of the divine Augustus, high priest,” which made it blasphemous (for holding Augustus out as being divine).  So, Jesus had already exposed the questioners as being hypocrites. 

But then comes the coup de gras.  Here, the Greek uses the word, apodote (apodote), which is related to the word doumai (doumai) but means, “to give back.”  So, Jesus tells them to give back to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to give back to God that which is God’s.  And it is here that our lesson this morning takes its interesting turn.

            Rather than what we have most often been taught in our lives, Jesus was not trying to define a distinction between the secular and religious worlds here.  Not at all.  Rather, what Jesus was doing was pointing out the absolute and awesome truth of the world.  That which bears Caesar’s image, belongs to Caesar.  Caesar minted it.  Caesar decided its value.  Caesar circulated it.  Therefore, Jesus says, if you believe it appropriate to give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, then do so.  However – and this is a huge “however” – you must also give back to God that which belongs to God.  The implications there are a big deal.

In the first chapter of Genesis, we get the stage set for this statement, when it says that God made human beings in God’s image, “He made them in His image.  Male and female, He made them.”  Give to Caesar all that bears his image and was made by him.  Give to God all that bears God’s image and was created by God.  Suddenly we’re not talking about giving a part of what we have as our weekly, monthly or quarterly offering.  Suddenly we are talking about all that we have – indeed, all that we are, belonging to God and our need to give that back.

            I will tell you that part of what Jesus is talking about – just a part, but part nonetheless – is money.  Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that we should “lay not up for ourselves treasure on earth, … for where your treasure is, there also will be your heart.”  Truly, Jesus knew that if you follow the money, you will most often find people’s priorities.  But here, Jesus is not saying, just give the first 10% to God and all will be well.  This goes much farther than that.  This is about dedicating our lives to God.

            How it will look when we take the opportunity to give back to God, to answer God’s call, will completely depend upon where each one of us is in life.  Remember a couple of weeks ago when the Gospel was the parable of the wicked tenants?  Well, what God wanted from the tenants was for them to give back to God that which God had given them.  What did Isaiah say to us that day about what to give back?  Justice and righteousness. 

Some of us don’t feel like we’re in any position to greatly impact issues of justice and righteousness.  Some of us don’t feel like we have much in the way of money to give back.  Some of us have what we believe to be an absolute dearth of time to give back.

            It is up to each of us to look deep inside – to look critically at our own lives and to actively listen for God’s call as we try to discern what it is that God is calling us to give back.  What, in each of our lives, will be so central to who we are that when we give it, it will feel like we have given it all back to God?

            At the church where I interned while I was in seminary, there was a man who was, by most standards, wealthy.  He gave more to the church than any other, single giver in the parish.  But to him that did not feel like he was giving it all back.  That’s why he volunteered to handle all of the building and grounds issues at the church.  He didn’t write checks to repairmen, he learned how to do the repairs himself and spent his precious time and energy getting them done.

            I knew a young woman in another church, who really struggled financially, but went out of her way to come a long distance to the church so that she could help with the children’s education program.  It felt like it was what God was calling her to do, so she gave the time – difficult though it might be on any given Sunday.

            And I know many people who have given up lives that were successful and full in many ways, in order to follow God’s individual calls to them and to seek ordination, with all of the secular uncertainty that that decision brings.  They have given back their careers because that is what they believe God called them to do.

            Are these people better, or more holy, or closer to God than all of us?  No, just different.  Everyone is called by God, but as St. Paul says, it is to exercise the individual gifts we’ve been given.  So this week, let’s all look critically at where the things are that can separate us from God and begin to rid ourselves of them.  Then let’s starts, one day at a time, to try to discern God’s call, heed that call and give back to God ALL that God has given us, by walking in the path God has given us and living into the wonder of a life lived, faithfully serving.  We all have to give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s.  Now let’s see if we can treat God as well and give to God ALL of that which is God’s.

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

Proper 24A Sermon 102223, Isaiah 45:1-7; Psalm 96:1-9, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

 

 

Sermon by The Rev. John Payne (Ret.) from September 24, 2023, in Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

 

God’s Grace by The Rev. John Payne (Ret.)

Sermon given in Christ Episcopal September 24, 2023

 

One of the great inventions of modern Western society is the labor union. Far too long those with money, land and privilege shamelessly exploited those who had none. The novels of Charles Dickens bear this out. When, after a long struggle, workers with no power, except their own labor, managed to stand together and force the issue with the wealthy and the strong, it was a great day for freedom and justice. By and large, the unions did a good job checking exploitation or reversing it. The unions were not perfect and other issues change the role of some from what their founders had envisaged. My father worked for the railroad for 40 years and was a union man. As far as my memory serves, the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen never made unreasonable demands or called for a strike. However, my father’s union, as most others, would have been horrified at the story of the laborers in the vineyard in today’s Gospel (Matthew 20:1-16). If you found the idea of forgiveness without limits rough going, then strap yourself in for more turbulence.

 This is another parable of the kingdom, and the purpose of the story is to say something about God. Jesus also probably intends the parable as a warning to the disciples about their own attitudes regarding a perceived favored status.

 The incident of the rich young man who clung to his possessions rather than follow Jesus (Matthew 19:16-30) completely flabbergasted the disciples; and Peter asked the “64 Thousand Dollar Queston”: “Look, we have left everything and followed you, what then will we have?” The flip-side of today’s parable may well be a warning to the disciples: don’t think that, because you’ve been close to me so far, you are now the favored few for all time.  However, notes N.T. Wright, Jesus is accepting, for the purpose of the story, the social and economic power of the landowner in order to say something about God. What is he saying? We need to look closely at the last group of workers, the ones who were hired with only one hour of the workday remaining. Had they not been in the marketplace earlier? So the landowner questioned them: why haven’t you been working? The answer is revealing: “Because no one has hired us” (v.7). Nobody, in other words, wanted them. Perhaps they were the sort of people employers go to great lengths to avoid. But the landowner did not hesitate to hire them.

 What’s more, they were paid a full day’s wage for one hour’s work! Here is the rub. The story is very irritating if you see yourself as one of the conscientious, hardworking, deserving people who worked all day. But it’s very reassuring if you identify with the latecomers who don’t get what they deserve, but get something better. C. S. Lewis would call this being “surprised by joy”. When grace cuts through our moral calculus, it elicits grumbling, not gratitude. When someone else whom we perceive to be unworthy receives grace, we grumble. When we receive grace, well, that’s different, because we think we’ve earned it. There is a striking parallel in the Old Testament when David, in face of protests, decides to reward equally the soldiers who fought bravely and those who, because of exhaustion, remained behind to guard the camp (1 Sam. 30:21-25).

 Underlying both stories is the idea that God’s grace is not on the basis of merit but of  his compassion. Jesus’ vision of the divine compassion is greater that divine justice. Those who worship this God must imitate his generosity.

 However, most of us still identify with the laborers who worked all day; after all, here we are in the “vineyard”. We’ve been in the church all our lives, from the first, put there by loving parents. It’s only natural for us to think that we’re the most deserving because we’ve been here all along: working, praying, giving for the kingdom of God. This ought to entitle us to something special. If the truth be known, most of us think in terms of merit rather than grace and somehow deep down believe that we’ve earned salvation by our faithful service. However, as N. T. Wright notes, God’s grace is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot and someone else only a little.

 The point of the parable is that what people get from having served God is not, strictly, a reward for the work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us. He makes covenants in which he promises everything and asks of us everything.

 A devout Episcopalian died and appeared before St. Peter who said, “Welcome to heaven. It takes 1000 points to get inside the Pearly Gates. Tell me about yourself.” The man proudly told of his perfect attendance in Sunday school, service as an acolyte, participation in the youth group and his many years as a lay Eucharistic minister.  Peter said, “Very good. That’s worth one point.” The man wrinkled his brow and continued, “I’m 90 years old and was a faithful communicant my whole life. I tithed my income, served on the vestry, volunteered in many organizations to help the poor and needy.” Peter replied, “Excellent! That’s also worth one point. You now have two points. Please continue.” The man’s face turned bright red and in a burst of anger, blurted, “Damn it! At this rate the only way I’ll get into heaven is by the grace of God. That’s right, by the sheer grace of God.” Peter extended his hand and exuberantly proclaimed, “Congratulations, that is worth 998 points. You now have 1000 points, so welcome aboard.” How easy it is to forget that Christianity is essentially a consummate love story.

 How is it that we get lost in the subplots of law, sin and judgment?  Because it’s easier to be legal rather than loving. It’s ever so easy to overlook, in the parable, that, although the first hired hand did indeed bear “the day’s burden and the heat”, that is not what earned their reward. Our labor alongside Christ is its own reward, and working in God’s vineyard for any other reason is bound to disappoint, because God “pays” all who enter the whole of what there is to give, his saving grace. Devout church people can easily assume that they are the special ones. In reality, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tries to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace.

 God promises a world big enough for those whose lives don’t add up to anything to have everything. Actually, we’re all the “eleventh-hour” workers whose debts have been paid and whose forgiveness has been secured by Jesus Christ our Lord.

 In the world’s mathematics, one plus one always equals two. But in the mathematics of the kingdom, one sheep is equal in value to 99, and a landowner pays the first and the last workers the same, because he wants to give to everyone according to their needs and not what they think they deserve. The haunting words in the parable are the landowner’s remark, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (v.7). Today’s first reading (Jonah 3:10-4:11) speaks to the limitless forgiveness  of God that defies all human boundaries. It’s like a mirror held up to our face to reveal how we take ourselves and our tendency to divide up the world as God’s way.

 The book of Jonah is also a vision of God at its best: compassion, inclusive, emphasis on sovereign grace and freedom, and mercies wider than the universe. Little wonder that we often find God working on the “wrong side” of the street.

The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman's homily from September 4, 2023

 

Touched by the Hand of God

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph

Year A, Pentecost XIV, Season of Creation 1

Jeremiah 15:15-21, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28

 

Friday was World Day of Prayer for Creation. It is a special day of prayer that seeks to remind us of our responsibility as caretakers of God’s creation and to renew our right relationship with God through creation. It was established in 1989 by Dimitrios I, Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church.

The World Council of Churches liked the idea very much and turned it into a movement and season, the Season of Creation, which begins September 1 and ends October 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi.

Today, millions of Christians of many denominations recognize and celebrate the Season of Creation as a time of renewal of our relationship with our Creator through creation and of our commitment together to be the worthy caretakers God calls us to be.

The movement has a website called “Season of Creation,” and every year a large steering committee of bishops and lay leaders devises a theme and a logo and develops a myriad of worship resources for individuals and churches to use. We will use one this morning—a special set of suffrages in place of the usual ones.

You might recall that I first learned about this movement one year ago and spoke about it the first Sunday of September from this very pulpit. And I must in fairness warn you that for as long as you are stuck with me the first Sunday of every month, you most likely will hear about it again when the season rolls around again!

So.. let us look at today’s Gospel lesson through a Season of Creation lens. Notice that it begins with Jesus summarizing his mission on Earth for his disciples. In just one sentence—a handful of words—he goes from life to death and back to life again. That was the path for him and it is the path for his followers. Jesus was about life, first and finally. The passage through death, the way of the cross, is neither beginning nor end. As he himself says in John’s Gospel, I came to bring life and to bring it abundantly.

From a Season of Creation perspective, what is striking about Earth is that it is teeming with life. Cosmologically speaking, it is a speck of rock spinning through the emptiness and darkness of space but through the miracles of atmosphere and water, it is crawling with and blooming with life in myriad and complex forms—biodiversity so rich and complex as to be declared “good” over and over again by its Creator (first chapter of Genesis) and to be loved by its Creator.

So here are a few statistics, just because I happen to know them! In 2019, I went on a wildlife photography trip to the Osa Peninsula: one little finger of land sticking out into the Pacific Ocean: 10,000 insect species, 700 trees, 463 birds, 140 mammals, and 25 dolphins and whales. One little finger of land, perhaps the most biologically rich place on Earth.

But unless you live under a rock, you also know that we are losing the richness and fullness of life on Earth at an alarming rate. I could stand here and cite dismal statistics all day. Instead, I’ll refer you to a wonderful book called Rescuing Biodiversity, Johnny Armstrong, retired MD, Wafer Creek Ranch near Ruston.

And why is Earth losing biological richness at an alarming rate? Us. That’s why. Habitat loss, Invasive species (because we do dumb things), Pollution,   Population growth (human), Overharvesting. (E.O. Wilson: HIPPO) Note that even though “human” is named in only one of them, we humans are responsible for all of them.

In sum, friends we are interfering with God’s plan for abundant life to flourish on Earth. We are not valuing, conserving, caring for what God declared to be “good.”

And that leads me to Jesus’ dialogue with Peter. It’s about values. It’s about priorities. It’s about where our heads are at! Which is fixed on human things, not divine things.

Our human minds are set on things like… making money. Not a bad thing in itself; we all need money. But when we look at creation through a lens of economics, rather than through God’s lens of “good” in and of itself, we destroy, we overharvest, we fill wetlands with dirt to build shopping malls.

Perhaps THE paradigm for long-term destruction in exchange for short-term cash is the clear-cutting of millions of acres of longleaf and shortleaf pine across the state of Louisiana back in the late 1800s.

We’re still paying for that folly. Today when I get home, one of the things I must do is write a letter from Louisiana Master Naturalist Association in support of a project Louisiana Dept. Wildlife and Fisheries is doing to restore longleaf pine savannah in an area that was clear cut all those years ago.

Another human mindset that leads to desecration of God’s sacred creation is.. convenience. We’re too busy to wash dishes! We’re in too much of a hurry to get to the next thing to be bothered with cleaning and refilling a water bottle.

Last week cleaning up after Canterbury, I needed to take home left over food, and heard myself ask for “something I don’t have to wash and bring back…”

In other words, we stumble, like Peter. We get caught up in the destructive cycle of instant gratification, addicted to our busy busy life style, caught in the snare of an economic system that allows a small minority to over-indulge while the majority struggle to make ends meet, and nearly 800 million of our sisters and brothers – one out of ten! – go to bed hungry every day!

Jesus calls us to sacrifice, to generosity, to a simple life-style that values creation as “good” in and of itself. Jesus calls us to share, and of those of us who have more, to share more.

Care of creation is about responsible living. It is, of course, about big decisions—like working with other nations to reduce carbon emissions worldwide. But it is first and always about the daily choices we each make.. about what we buy, what we drive, where we set the thermostat, how we love our neighbor—and all of our fellow creatures on planet earth.

End with Brothers of St. John the Evangelist:

Creation–Jesus was intimately involved with the natural world. When he spoke of God and God’s Kingdom, he almost always pointed to the natural world:  seeds, the harvest, the clouds, vines, weeds, sheep, fire, water, lilies, bread, wine. Walk out into God’s wonderful creation – and be touched by the very hand of God. –Bro. Tristam

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

 

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.