Homily 12 step Eucharist
Feast of Transfiguration, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock AR
August 2, 2017
Welcome to the 12 step Eucharist at St. Mark’s every first Wednesday. To me this Eucharist is a reminder of how the 12 steps are an integral part of the liturgy of our communion service practiced by the people of God for almost two thousand years. For anyone who knows very little about 12 step groups, this liturgy is an introduction to the spirituality of the 12 steps.
I frequently hear in 12 step meetings how the church has failed people in their attempts at recovery. For many, the church could not keep them clean and sober because the God of their understanding in church was a judgmental God, pointing a finger at every wrong doing with promises of hell for all our actions. Those in addiction as well as their families and friends were already in a life of a living hell. They did not have to consider some future event. They were already there.
On the other hand. I knew from the beginning that God loved me and suffered with me daily in my addictions… and that God prayed for and with me for my recovery. I was taught that the story of God and God’s people as revealed from Genesis to Revelation is the story of a God who lives with and beside oppressed people. Those of us in addiction and our families were certainly oppressed by this life style.
The message of the 12 steps came as you know from the Oxford group, a renewal group out of the church. So, from the beginning, the spirituality of the 12 steps has been steeped in a religious foundation.
However, I could not find recovery in the message I heard at church. Recovery did not begin until I went to 12 step meetings. The same message is there in both my church and in 12 step groups; what is the difference? Some say we must reach a certain bottom before we hear the message. Some say that churches are for people who are afraid of going to hell, and 12 step groups are for people who have already been there.
Some say people in 12 step groups realize that their spirituality is a life and death matter, and when I speak of life and death, I am talking about a living death, which is what living in addiction is like.
Tonight, we remind ourselves that the message was there in our religious life all along. Just because our church could not initially keep us clean or sober, we should not throw the baby out with the bath water. We are returning to our roots and finding the answer still here, but we can hear and see it now that we have on a new pair of glasses./
Sunday, we will celebrate the feast of the transfiguration, when Jesus reveals himself on a high mountain to three of his disciples as the incarnation of God. Anyone in 12 step recovery can identify immediately with transfiguration, seeing the light, a moment of clarity, seeing the God who has been there all along,/ but we never saw because we were busy making “dwellings” for other idols. Moments of transfiguration happen in our lives when we are transported from our deep sleep to a moment of bright light when we see, feel, taste, and touch God. Transfiguration is about knowing our own true nature, the part of us that is of God,
that part of God that is in others. It is the moment when all else falls away and we are simply of God, and have the desire to turn our life and our will over to the care of God. It is that moment when we let go,/ and let God. Transfiguration is the message and the promise of recovery. Tonight, we gather here to celebrate recovery/ and transfiguration.
Joanna joannaseibert.com