The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman will lead us Sunday, January 2, 2022

The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman will lead Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, in prayers and offer distribution of communion this Sunday, January 2, 2022.  10am as usual. 

Christmas Eve service, 5pm, Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

 

Please join us for our 2021 Christmas Eve service at 5pm in Christ Episcopal Church.  The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman will lead the service including distribution of communion.

Suzie Rush, Vicki Sanders, and Lesley Thompson will offer beautiful Christmas music: A gorgeous setting to welcome Christ and the Christmas season.

The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman sermon for December 19, 2021 at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, LA

Mary Mother, Not So Meek & Mild

My grandbabies are about to be born! Yes, you heard correctly: Babies! My daughter-in-law will deliver twins—a boy and a girl—probably by C-section, right after Christmas. I couldn’t be more excited.

I don’t need to tell most of you that becoming a grandparent is fun. And part of the fun of, at least for me, has been watching my son—the kid who wasted untold hours playing video games, who had to be nagged incessantly to make a walking path through the mess in his room, who couldn’t be depended on to take out the garbage until the can was overflowing—that kid! Watching him become a dad before my very eyes has been a delight. He’s a good one already, full of anticipation and love for his “munchkins.”

But he’s had to learn a few lessons along the way, not only about being a dad, but about being husband to the mother of his children. I’ll never forget the day he reported that he couldn’t argue with his pregnant wife about anything anymore. No matter what his complaint or concern, she would say, “I made organs today. What did you do?” 

He laughed ruefully and conceded, “There’s just nothing you can say in response to that.” I would sum up the lesson my son learned as you mess with pregnant women at your own peril.

Today’s Gospel story is about the powerful, spirit-filled meeting of two pregnant women, Mary, the mother of our Lord, and Elizabeth, her cousin and the mother of John the Baptist. We know the story well. The messenger meets the message. John the Unborn leaps in his mother’s womb. He recognizes Mary’s Unborn, just as John the Baptist would later recognize Jesus the Son of God on the banks of the Jordan River. 

There’s a 15th Century English Christmas carol called Mary Mother, Meek and Mild. I was surprised when I searched on YouTube yesterday for a recording of it, that all I found was two versions under the title “Maiden Mother, Meek and Mild.” 

I have no idea what inspired that title change, but if you search via Google for the lyrics, you will find them:

Mary mother, meek and mild,

From shame and sin that ye us shield,

For great on ground ye go with child,

Gabriele nuncio. (Gabriel’s messenger.)

Much art and much popular culture tends to think of Mary in those terms. In most representations, she sits or stands with her head bowed and canted slightly to the side. Dressed in the white of purity with a cloak of calm, serene blue, she is the very picture of submissive, demure womanhood.

She said “yes” to God. Her response to Gabriel, when he tells her she is pregnant, is mild indeed. I cannot image myself—or any woman I know—being quite so calm under the same circumstances. She refers to herself in her song as “lowly servant.” 

So Mary comes by the “meek and mild” description somewhat honestly. She does say “yes” to God, even when it means a tough road ahead, and that’s an important lesson for all of us.

But if we leave it there, we have done Mary a disservice. We have ignored an equally important aspect of this story. We have downplayed the absolutely subversive aspect of what is happening here.

Diana Butler Bass is a prolific author of books to inspire, challenge and support people determined to follow Jesus, come what may. And she is one of a handful of contemporary Christian leaders who skillfully employs social media to counter the negative forces of divisive politics and Christian nationalism.

So yesterday I paused during sermon writing to check my own Twitter feed, and came across her take on today’s Gospel story. “The only Christmas action movie I want to see,” she wrote, “is about two pregnant women plotting to overthrow empire.”

“Plotting to overthrow empire”? Well, yes, if you take Mary’s song seriously!

See, we read the Song of Mary every year—every single year—on Advent 4. It is also a required piece of Evening Prayer. So if you do Evening Prayer with any regularity, you read the Song of Mary often. Suffice it to say, we are familiar with the Song of Mary.

Perhaps too familiar with it. So familiar with it that the words roll off our lips without a thought about the implication of them. So let’s hear them again, but without that disarming bit at the beginning about being a “lowly servant.” Indeed, let’s get to the heart of it. Mary sings,

He has shown the strength of his arm, *

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, *

and the rich he has sent away empty.

Notice that Mary does not put these subversive actions in the future. She does not say, “He will scatter the proud…,” or “He will lift up the lowly…” Rather, she says, with this pregnancy, God has already done these things. And, indeed, that is exactly what Jesus taught and preached and stood for: lifting up the lowly, challenging and rejecting the proud, self-righteous, and powerful.

As for the rich, recall the rich young ruler. When Jesus declined to give him the excuse he was looking for, he went away, sad but empty, for he valued his wealth more than following Jesus.

This story of two pregnant women and a babe leaping in the womb of one of them, in recognition of the Holy One in the womb of the other, is a call to us. It is a call to make space for Jesus the Christ to come alive in our hearts.

But more than that. Brothers and sisters, no matter how hard we try to make the Gospel message an affirmation of the status quo, we cannot. To sing the Song of Mary is to say that the Gospel message resists and rejects the status quo, and the relationships of power and wealth that so dominate human societies.

Yes, we should be good church people. We should come to church, study the Bible, break bread as siblings in Christ, love one another. But that’s the beginning. It was precisely the good church people of his time that Jesus was most critical of and with whom he argued the most.

So be subversive! See Christ in everyone. Love them. Share what you have. Seek the common good. Consider the most powerless, poorest person you know and walk a mile in their shoes.

When you make room in your heart for Jesus the Christ to come alive and leap for joy, you will also know joy. It will change your priorities. It will change how you view your neighbors. You will not be able to help yourself.

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

[19 December 2021 Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, LA, Year C, Advent 4,Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)]

Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph upcoming services

 The Rev. Deacon Bette Kauffman will lead us in Holy Communion this Sunday, December 19th at 10am.  Also, Deacon Bette will offer our 2021 Christmas Eve Service beginning at 5pm in Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph.  Please join us and invite others for this wonderful time to gather.

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon for November 14, 2021 at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

 

As we draw near the end of the church year, our lectionary brings things to a close by having us look at the Gospel of Mark’s use of what are known as “apocalyptic” images.  Now we all know from the use of the term in modern culture, that apocalypse refers to the “end of the world.”  It seems that we go through cycles where we spend a good deal of time waiting, wondering and worrying about the end of time.  

Believe it or not, the first book in the Left Behind series about the end of the world and the Second Coming of Jesus was published twenty-six years ago, in 1995.  For a few years there, it seemed that everyone was talking about “The Rapture,” the “tribulation,” and what life would be like as the world prepared for the return of Jesus.  Then we took a break for a while.  Then, about ten years ago, there was much written, and even a movie that purported to show us what it would be like on December 21, 2012, when an unknown planet would crash into the earth – ostensibly as predicted by the Mayan calendar, which was created on Aug 11, 3114, before Jesus was born.  We are all here today, safe and sound.  So clearly there was no apocalypse as some had predicted.  But that didn’t stop the hype for a while.

It seems that every once in a while, people get frightened by the present and have to try to see the future, in order to hopefully prepare for some unseen disaster that is headed our way; so that we can be some of the “elect,” the chosen, who are spared as all others die horribly (or least suffer a lot).

Much of what people “know,” on the subject of the apocalypse, or the Second Coming of Christ, is taken from the Book of Revelation, which I referenced a couple of weeks ago.  “Revelation” is the actual definition of “apocalypse.”  But there are other apocalyptic writings in Scripture.  The Books of the prophets: Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Joel, and Zachariah, as well as the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament; Mark 13, and 2 Thessalonians 2 in the New Testament; and several passages in the Apocrypha, are all written in apocalyptic style.  And it is crucial for us to understand apocalyptic literature in order to understand what Jesus is saying in today’s Gospel.

When things get bad; when things seem hopeless; when it seems that the present situation is beyond redemption; apocalyptic literature shows us that hope still exists.  No matter what happens in life, there is always hope.  That’s what apocalyptic writings are all about.

Jesus told the disciples that the Temple would be destroyed.  The Temple in Jerusalem took over 40 years to build.  It stood over fifteen modern stories tall and the perimeter was 1,420 yards.  It was built to last forever, out of stones, some of which weighed in excess of 100 tons each.  And Jesus said it would be destroyed.  Not only that, but Jewish theology said that the Temple was literally God’s house.  It was the place where God actually lived.  And Jesus said it would be destroyed.  But look at what He said next.  “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”  In other words, out of absolute desolation and destruction; out of the most irredeemable of circumstances, comes new birth – renewal – new life.  That’s hope!

One of the mistakes we make as modern Christians, is to read apocalyptic literature as being word-for-word, literally accurate.  That is what the Left Behind series – all 16 volumes of it – sought to do in the beginning.  But then as time went on and there was more money to be made from scaring people, the authors embellished more and more until finally they had gone beyond simply misreading Scripture and were selling nothing more than science fiction with bad theology attached to it.

You see, the dualism that is set up by modern apocalyptic writers is not true at all.  Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHay (and all the others of their ilk) would have you believe that the world is split in two.  One part is ruled by Satan and the other part is ruled by God.  And the two are locked in a mighty cosmic struggle.  In point of fact though, Satan is not God’s opposite.  Satan is the opposite of Michael the Archangel.  They were both, at one time, angels in the service of God who is the master of both of them.  And God does not need to have Jesus return bodily to earth in order to redeem the world.  Jesus accomplished that on the cross.  As one writer puts it, “All appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, God reigns.  Purposeful Evil is a creature, a parasite, a lamprey (eel) that lives off life, not the author of life itself.”  

If we are to take all of Scripture seriously – not just a misreading of the Book of Revelation – we must note that God made a covenant with Noah after the flood.  In that covenant, God promised never again to destroy the world in order to start over.  But again, as the Episcopal writer, King Oehmig puts it,

On the other hand, Scripture does maintain that history as we know it will end.  There will come a day, the Lord’s Day, when the architecture of this present age will be supplanted by the rule of God.  Nothing in this dimension is permanent.

We are meant to have hope in the sovereignty of God.  That’s why we should consider the end of time.  Not so that we will be frozen by fear.  Not so that we will cease to care about what is happening in the world around us.  But so that we can know that the postscript that might be written on the end of the Book of Revelation could be, “the world and all that is in it belongs to the God of creation and love!”

When we look around today we see trouble.  It is the way things are.  Trouble appears, no matter how much we would like for it not to.  Bad things happen.  People treat other people horribly because of the color of their skin, or their sexual orientation, or even their political affiliation.  Sick and poor people get ignored by those with the means to help them.  For reasons that may never be fully known, someone guns down a group of strangers.  Bad people act in the world, and in our lives.  Sometimes it seems that no matter which direction we look, someone is after us.  It is at these times that the hope of God in Christ is so important.

In his collection of sermons entitled, Strength to Love, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote:

Our capacity to deal creatively with shattered dreams is ultimately determined by our faith in God.  Genuine faith imbues us with the conviction that beyond time is a divine Spirit and beyond life is Life.  However dismal and catastrophic may be the present circumstances, we know we are not alone, for God dwells with us in life's most confining and oppressive cells.  

And even if we die there without having received the earthly promise, he shall lead us down that mysterious road called death and at last to that indescribable city he has prepared for us....

The Christian faith makes it possible for us nobly to accept that which cannot be changed, to meet disappointments and sorrow with an inner poise, and to absorb the most intense pain without abandoning our sense of hope....

Dr. King understood what it was that Jesus – and all apocalyptic writers – are really trying to tell us through the scary images of the end of it all.  God is with us.  And once we have fully experienced that reality and embraced the love of God in Christ as an actual thing, as a tangible thing, rather than something we read in the Bible and hear about on Sundays, there is no longer any need to be ruled by fear of the future.  Whatever comes, no matter how frightening, we will handle it – with God’s help.

I’ll leave you this morning with something written by a pastor who was facing his own death in a very real and immediate way.  Here is how he expressed the hope that we find in the loving God who gave His only Son to redeem us and whose very real Spirit dwells with us in this moment.

So here I stand, looking at the ground, smelling the faint fragrance of God. Never once did it occur to me that when I found God's trail again, it would ruin my life forever for once you feel the breath of God on your skin, you can never turn back, you can never settle for what was, you can only move on recklessly, with abandon, your heart filled with fear, your ears ringing with the constant whisper, “Fear not.”

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

[Proper 28B Sermon 111421, 1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10; Psalm 16, Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25; Mark 13:1-8]

The Rev. Canon John Bedingfield's sermon for November 7, 2021, Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

The story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath is one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament.  It takes place at the beginning of Elijah’s ministry.  He has declared that there will be a drought in the land, because the Lord is angry with the people – including King Ahab – who are worshipping Baal, the Canaanite god of life and rain.  And the drought comes.  God then tells Elijah to go out to a little stream near the Jordan to hide from King Ahab, who will be very angry with him for bringing the drought, and there God will take care of Elijah.  

In faith, the prophet goes out in the desert and lives for a while, drinking water from a previously dry creek and eating bread and meat that are brought to him twice a day by ravens.  One has to believe that this experience would have sharpened Elijah’s faith somewhat – living where water flows during a drought and being fed twice daily by wild birds of prey, all on the Word of God alone.  In time, the stream dries up and the Lord tells Elijah to go to Zarephath to meet a widow who will feed him and give him drink.  And off he goes.  That’s where we pick up the story this morning.

We don’t know the name of the widow of Zarephath, but we do know a couple of important things.  First, she is not a child of Israel.  She lives in Samaria and refers to God as Elijah’s God, thereby not identifying herself with the God of Israel.  

Second, we know that she is a widow – Bible code for a completely destitute woman.  She has no husband and no way to make a living.  On top of that, there is a drought and nothing in the area is growing, so she can’t even collect the 10% of the crops that God commands the people to leave in their fields for the widows and orphans to live on.  She’s flat broke; nothing coming in and no way to get more.  Just when things can’t get any worse for her, they do.  Along comes Elijah, whom she has never seen nor heard of before, and he asks her to give him some of her precious water – and not just water, but he also wants her to bake bread for him.  

The widow is much more polite to Elijah than most of us would have been.  She gently tells him that there is not even enough for her and her son to eat; that she intends to bake the last of her supply and then she and her son will go off to die of starvation because everything is gone.  Elijah tells her to have faith.  “Don’t be afraid,” he says.  If you do what I ask, “the jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.”  Faithfully she does as she is asked, and miraculously the promise is fulfilled.

There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus thought of this story as He and the disciples watched the widow go up to the Temple in Jerusalem.  They had been watching all of the wealthy folks go up and make a big show of putting their money into the Temple treasury.  When the poor widow came up, she put in two small, copper coins that the NRSV tells us were worth one penny.  Jesus tells the disciples that her offering is worth more than all of the wealthy folks’ offerings.  They gave from abundance, whereas she gave all she had to live on.

Two widows – two different generations of believers – but they share one very important attribute: high risk giving.  Both of the widows in these stories gave recklessly to God, to further the work of God in the world.  Both gave everything they had back to the God from whom all gifts come.  After this story we never hear anything else about the widow with the two copper coins, but we certainly know what happened with widow of Zarephath, her food and water supply were exactly as much as she, her son, and Elijah needed to live on until the drought was over.  There is every reason to believe that the same thing happened to the widow in Mark’s Gospel account; that God provided for her, just as she gave what she had to provide for God’s work.  

But so what?  These are nice Bible stories.  They’re good mythological accounts that are meant to make people reflect on God’s good gifts to us, right?  Wrong.  I believe that these two stories are very real.  Real stories of real people whose lives were really touched by a very real God, simply because they had enough faith to give recklessly, over-abundantly and trust that God would somehow, miraculously provide for them.  And God did just that.

These kinds of stories happen every day.  We all know stories of people who have given over everything to God and have received amazing gifts in return.  Most people chalk them up to luck or coincidence, but make no mistake, high risk giving – done joyfully, faithfully and without overriding ulterior motives – regularly results in amazing returns.  

This is not the prosperity Gospel that you hear televangelists talking about.  I don’t mean to say that if you give a tithe to the church you’ll receive a Rolls Royce out of nowhere.  That is not what God has ever promised us.  God promises us our “daily bread,” that which will sustain us as we carry on The Way.  But more importantly, God promises us the Kingdom of Heaven on earth if we will just trust God enough to give recklessly, dangerously to a God who loves us the same way.

When I entered seminary, I gave up my job as an assistant city attorney in Austin.  Now assistant city attorneys don’t make great money, but they make a heck of a lot more money than seminarians – or most priests do.  While I worked part-time in seminary, the work – like day labor – was sporadic and didn’t always pay well.  As a result, there were often times where there seemed to be very little meal left in the Bedingfield family jar and not much oil either.  But every time we got desperate – and I mean every time we got desperate – someone would send us a little money out of the blue, or we would find a $20.00 bill in the pocket of a coat we hadn’t worn in a year, or someone would invite us over for dinner and send us home with the leftovers.  You can call it luck if you like, but God calls it high risk giving of reckless love to God’s children.

Donna recklessly gave everything she had in order for me to follow my call to ordained ministry.  She gave up the income I had always earned, a house, a lifestyle, friends and extended family, and every bit of certainty that she knew.  And she gave up her own career.  That is high risk giving!  In order for me to follow the call God had started me on, Donna trusted in me, but more importantly, in God, enough to give it all away.  And in return for this high risk giving, God provided our daily bread.  That’s the way it works.  Period.  End of sentence.

This is stewardship season in the Church.  It’s the time when sermons are written to support the congregation’s stewardship programmatic theme.  But as far as I’m aware, y’all are small enough that a formal program typically isn’t done.  So, this Sunday let me just say, Christ Church needs to have a budget for next year.  And what you promise to give makes up the entirety of that budget.  Keep that in mind as you decide what to give the church.

I have no doubt that every one of you has had an experience like those that I described in this sermon.  Look back on your life, at those times, and don’t dismiss them as coincidences.  Recognize God at work in your life.  And remember that that’s always the way God is.  God is a high-risk giver.

God engaged in the ultimate high-risk giving when God gave the only Son to suffer on the cross, so that all who believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  All God asks in return is that we give – everything we have – recklessly, joyously and with the same love God shows us.

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

[Proper 27B November 7, 2021, 1 Kings 17:8-16, Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:24-28, Mark 12:38-44]

Breaking News Update for Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

 

Reminder # 1:  

Daylight Savings Time begins this coming weekend.  Be sure to set you clocks BACK one hour Saturday night. Or....be an hour early to church.

Reminder # 2:

Morning Prayer (Mrs. Jane Barnett will lead) will be offered:

Nov 21

Holy Eucharist (Canon John Bedingfield will lead) will be offered:

Nov 7, 14, 28;

Dec 5, 12, 19, 24 (at 5pm), 26