Meeting Epiphany, 12 step Eucharist, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, AR, January 2, 2019

Meeting Epiphany 12 step January 2, 2019

Sunday we will be celebrating the Feast Day of Epiphany. I first met Epiphany when I was eleven or maybe twelve years old. A boyfriend and his parents took me to visit her on an icy winter night on January 6th in the mid 1950’s. I sat in the candlelight in the small Episcopal Church in my hometown in tidewater Virginia and heard her ancient liturgy and her haunting mystic melodies. As we walked out of the small-town white wooden church into the bitter cold January night carrying our small candles, the first winter’s snow also came down to celebrate her. Epiphany led me to an experience I wanted to have again and again.

Epiphany revealed to me a living presence, a God, greater than myself that was also greater than time, eminent and transcendent.

But like many epiphanies, I soon became caught up in growing up and going to school and succeeding in life and let her slip away and did not again seek her out for many years until I was a junior in medical school. I was studying and working at a frantic pace. My marriage had recently failed. I felt alone, exhausted, and damaged. I was open to Epiphany’s call. I connected to the dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in Memphis, William Dimmick, and he led me by the hand back to her feast day this time in St. Mary’s Cathedral.

This January 6th the darkened stone church was packed with young people. Now I heard haunting ancient as well as contemporary music. The priest of the Greek Orthodox Church read the gospel in Greek. At this service three ornately adorned wise men sang as they slowly and majestically processed down the long center aisle of the nave and laid their gifts on the memorial altar. The service ended as we sang hymns and the cathedral came ablaze with light as our candles were lighted. Like the wise men, we continued to sing as we processed now in the opposite direction, recessing away from the altar and out into the dark night taking our new light out into the world beyond the cathedral.

That January 6th I stayed with Epiphany and she has been my companion for fifty years. Each year we continue to celebrate her gifts twelve days after the feast day of Christmas. She is a reminder of God’s coming, God’s presence to the entire world, not just to a chosen few. We are strengthened by worshiping in new and old ways, the manifestation of the living, eminent, incarnate God, and as we also are strengthened and enlightened, we are called to take that light, that love, that enlightenment out, out into a world that is often cold and exhausted, and dark and damaged and lonely. Epiphany yearly also shows us one more revelation. Out in the world, we see her path in the dark night more clearly because of her great light from so many more candles than our own light. Like 12 step groups, Epiphany calls us to community, a larger community than we can ever imagine.

Joanna Seibert. joannaseibert.com

Deacon St. Mark’s, Little Rock, Arkansas

Christmas 1 John Christmas Pageants, December 30, 2018, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, AR

Christmas 1 John Christmas Pageants, December 30, 2018

John 1: 1-18 St. Mark’s

One of my favorite parts of Christmas are the pageants. On Christmas Eve night at five o’clock every child at St. Mark’s has the opportunity to be a part of a Christmas pageant where the nativity story from Luke is portrayed. Next Sunday on Epiphany we were reenact the nativity story from Matthew.

But today we are reading the Christmas story according to the gospel of John. A Christmas pageant based on this fourth gospel would be dramatically different. The birth story would feature one child,/ speaking one line/ in front of a black velvet curtain: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”/ While this certainly would be a great savings in costumes and props and relieve anxious parents and teachers about each child’s part, but we,/ and especially the children,/ would feel seasonally shortchanged./

However, I do know about several Christmas pageants where one child unknowingly does attempt to perform a John Christmas pageant.

I begin by sharing another clergy person’s first experiences with a children’s Christmas pageant.1 At her church, baby Jesus traditionally is a bright plastic baby swaddled in a blue and white blanket in the hay-filled manger. On her first year as the new rector she has the brilliant idea to have a real live baby Jesus when she discoveres that this year’s Mary has a brand new three-month-old baby brother, Jimmy. All goes well on Christmas Eve until, on cue, the choir sings “No crying he makes.”2 With the sharp hay stabbing holes in his backside, just at that moment, baby Jesus lets out a bloodcurdling scream./ Mary, in desperation, who has heard Jimmy’s wailing at home too many times, wheels around when to no avail, she cannot comfort the infant and looks straight at her baby brother and shouts, “ shut up, Jesus!”/Of course, this does not stop the infant playing Jesus from crying out,/ and neither will the hound of heaven ever stop trying to reach out to us, even when we do not want to hear what he is saying./ “And the word became flesh and” continually cries out to us, sometimes in a cooing whisper,/ sometimes in a bloodcurdling scream./

Frederick Buechner tells us about the second pageant which takes place at another unnamed Episcopal church.3 The manger is down in front at the chancel steps as always. Mary is there in a blue mantle and Joseph in a cotton beard. The wise men are there with a handful of shepherds, and of course in the midst of them the Christ child lies in the straw. The nativity story is read aloud by the rector as carols are sung at the appropriate places, and all goes like clockwork until it is time for the arrival of the angels of the heavenly host as represented by the children of the congregation who are robed in white/ and scattered throughout the pews sitting with their parents.

At the right moment they are all supposed to come forward and gather around the manger and say “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men,” and that is just what they do except there are so many of them that there is a great deal of crowding and jockeying for position with the result that one particular angel, a girl about nine years old who is smaller than most of them ends up so far out on the fringes of things that/ not even by craning her neck and standing on tiptoe can she see what is going on. “Glory to God in the highest,” they all sing on cue, and then/ in the momentary pause that follows,/ the small girl electrifies the entire church by crying out in a voice shrill with irritation and frustration and enormous sadness at having her view blocked, “Show me Jesus! Where is Jesus! I can’t see Jesus, show him to me!”

There is a lot of pageant still to come, but Buechner’s friend says that one of the best things she ever did in her life was to end everything precisely there. “Show me Jesus!” the child cries out again, and while the congregation is still sitting in stunned silence, the rector pronounces the benediction, and everybody files out of the church with those unforgettable words ringing in their ears. “Show me Jesus!” “And the word became flesh and lives among us.”/

“In the fullness of time, the Christmas story says, a girl gave birth ringed by animals. She lay the baby in one of their feeding troughs, where animal bodies would warm the air around his fresh-born human body. Mother and child fell asleep and woke to their chuffs and shuffling hooves, their calls and the shuddering of their hides… To recognize him they should look for a child at home among animals.”4

Not too far away in another church a third pageant begins to start.5 The second and third graders are the animals and are making their most realistic animal sounds. The new pageant director does not realize how long it takes to dress/ and move/ and fix the hair/ of the heavenly host, especially when they are thirty-two angels all between two and four years old. It is looking like a rough night in Bethlehem. Mary has been sick all morning and the bucket next to the manger is for her. Joseph may have been a “righteous man and unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace,” but he is also thirteen years old and decides about ten days ago that he is not going to enjoy this pageant at all. When the mooing and barking and meowing and baaing animals arrive behind the shepherds, any hope of heavenly peace vanishes. They take over the whole chancel and elevate “lowing”2 to a new cacophonous hip-hop rap-sounding art form. And the angels—well, the moms and dads working with the little angels backstage completely miss their cue, so the host arrive long after the wise men, even after the congregation has sung “Angels We Have Heard on High,”/ even after the teenaged narrator has said four times, “and suddenly there was with the angels a multitude of the heavenly host.” /But when the angels finally do arrive, they look good: their halos are perfect and their hair is just right./

But right near the end, right before everyone is to sing “Joy to the world!,” the narrator fights his way to center stage for his last line. He steps on and over an abundance of sheep and cows, even some dogs and cats and one child who came as a mouse. The angels’ parents in the congregation are paying no attention to the narrator, making up for lost picture-taking time and completely ignoring the request about no flash photography.

Mary is reaching for the bucket, and Joseph has rolled his eyes so many times that they just about fall out of his head. So our star narrator has to shout over the barnyard noise,/ and he never gets the parents’ attention. /He throws his folder down, stretches out his arms and with no small amount of exasperation yells, “Christ was born for this??”6 And the exhausted pageant director cries out, “It is an exclamation point, not a question mark!”/ //

BUT, INDEED, IN ALL OUR MESS… “The word did become flesh, and lives among us.”/

Some days the birth of Christ does feel like a question mark. Underneath the surface of our lives that look so good on the outside are hidden, secret hemorrhaging and fractured relationships. In our darkness we long to see Jesus’ love and peace and light. That scared inner child in each of us cries out,/ “Show me Jesus!”.//////

The child holding a single candle in John’s Christmas pageant says, “Here is the light we have been waiting for,/ the very presence of God among us, with us, beside us, at the table, and in us.” That light of Christ miraculously enters our wounds and daily will heal us most often through neighbors,/ friends/ and especially through this community gathered today/ if only we open our eyes and our hearts to see this light already in each other and ourselves, and at this table.

This light is a gift,/ but John tells us it is also an assignment. We are not called to “keep Christmas” in our hearts. We are called to give it away, to tell what has happened, to share our story,/ to share OUR OWN CHRISTMAS PAGEANT,/ about when that light of Christ came into our life,/ often when we least expected it./

In our rich pageant of life, we are called to be that child holding a candle and telling John’s Christmas story. Sometimes we will have to cry and shout over the world’s noise. But we are called to proclaim, not with a question mark, but with an exclamation point, “The word became flesh” and dwells among us.… “Christ was born for this!”

1Daniel Harrell, “Living the Word,” Christian Century, December 11, 2013.

2 “Away in a Manger,” The Hymnal 1982, 101.

3 Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark A Life in Sermons, p. 268. Harper Sanfrancisco 2006.

4 Gayle Boss,“Jesus, the Christ,” All Creation Waits.

5David Davis, A Kingdom we can Taste, Sermons for the Church Year. pp. 25-30.

6 “Good Christian Friends,” The Hymnal 1982. 107.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Advent 1C 12 step Eucharist End Times St. Mark's Episcopal Church LIttle Rock,Wednesday December 5, 2018

Advent 1C 12 step Eucharist End Times

Luke 21:25-36

The gospel on the first Sunday in Advent traditionally is about the end of times. Everything awful is happening. There is an eclipse of the sun, we cannot see the moon at night, shooting stars are plummeting to the earth, and earthquakes are erupting up into the sky all around us. Then Jesus comes with his angels and saves “the elect.” Pretty scary scene. Many of us may be thinking, I don’t know if I am really one of “the elect” that will survive all this.

The scene is about darkness, and disaster, and knowing what you know of your life has come to an end. Could Mark be writing about more than that second coming of Christ that the New Testament followers of Jesus expected any minute? This passage can also speak to us today, when disaster, and darkness are all around us. My experience is that this is when Jesus comes into our lives most profoundly. Only when we realize that we have no control over our lives, do we surrender and let God enter that door, that gate at which he has been knocking throughout time. Our only hope of leaving the darkness inside and around us is to open that gate. This is what happens in 12-step recovery. The life of the alcoholic or addict has become like a series of continuous erupting volcanoes. The addict and alcoholic live without the sun or moon. My experience is this is a time when a person is the most open to God coming into his life, and the answer out of the disaster is a surrender of will and life to that God.

And who are the elect? I haven’t met anyone yet who didn’t seem like a member of the elect. I think this offer is open to everyone of us but most especially in times of darkness and disaster, whether we are living with an addiction, a financial crisis, or the physical illness or death of someone who means the world to us. Christ comes with his angels from the ends of the earth and the ends of the heaven to gather us up. He is at the gate. He is very near. He is very near.

Joanna Seibert December 2018

Luke 21:25-36

Jesus said, "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

"Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."

12 Step Eucharist St. Mark's Episcopal Church November 7, 2018 All Faithful Departed

All Faithful Departed 2018 12 step Eucharist St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

Wisdom 3:1–9

Psalm 130 Psalm 116:10-17

The Gospel

John 5:24-27

Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.

“Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.”

This past week our church calendar was filled with three days of remembering those who have died, those we loved, many we did not know, and those we had read or heard about from our own ancestors. Wednesday was All Hallow’s Eve or the Vigil of All Saints, Thursday was All Saints, and Friday was All Souls or All Faithful Departed. At St. Mark’s we even made it into a four-day event as we celebrated on Sunday the Feast Day of All Saints with a baptism, a very appropriate liturgy of dying to sin and a rebirth. Particularly on All Souls we commemorate those we have known and those we have loved who have died. Some families try to visit graves of loved ones on the Day of All Faithful Departed.

One of my ministries as a deacon is working with people in recovery from addiction. Today I especially think about those in recovery who have died, and those in addiction who died without ever making it to recovery.

I am especially thinking about two men one in recovery, one not, who died on the same day almost ten years ago.

They both died within twenty-four hours of each other. One died alone. No friends were there. There was rarely anyone else there the few times I visited. The other died surrounded by his family and many friends. The death of the first was widely reported in the media and newspapers and on television. The other only had a very small obituary which appeared several days after he died. The first well known man had spent a life of perfection, making certain that procedures were carried out precisely the right way. The second lesser known man had been an alcoholic for much of his life. He had an awakening in a recovery center seven years before he died. He spent the rest of his life helping others find and stay in recovery. His was a life of progress not perfection. He died on his seventh AA birthday. That afternoon his AA friends brought a meeting to his house and gave him his seven-year AA coin. His daughter and his two grandchildren had made a birthday cake. The grandsons wanted to know why there was a number seven on Pops’ birthday cake. “Isn’t he 100 years old?” Pops laughed himself into a coughing fit when he heard that, as did all his other friends and family in his room. After the meeting was over, he collapsed and died surrounded by those who loved him so dearly. His daughter writes, “Not a day goes by that we do not talk about him. The boys have asked if he will ever come back down from heaven.”

I learned so much from these two very great men. From the first, I had a second-hand experience of the price of being right, of the ending to a life lived demanding perfection in yourself and others. From all accounts, his life as well as his ending was in isolation and lonely. From the second man I learned what happens when we live a life of recovery, relationship, of progress, not perfection. There will always be a community to support us if we are only open to that relationship and are aware and accepting of our own humanness, as well as the imperfection in our neighbor who is just like us.

Daily we are given the choice of which life to try to live…progress or perfection,/ and from these two souls who now rest in the hands of God, I learned the consequences of these two paths.. progress or perfection. I also have learned that progress is a road less traveled.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

23B Mark 10:17-31 Rich Young Ruler and Relationships, Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, Gulf Shores, Alabama, October 14, 2018

23B Mark 10:17-31Rich Young Ruler and Relationships

Holy Spirit, Gulf Shores October 14, 2018

Bishop Steven Charleston recently posted on his Facebook Page a short piece called, “ How we are remembered.”

“Not many of us will be remembered for what we have done, though we may have accomplished a lot. As important as we once were, what remains is not what we have built, but who we have inspired. The lives we touched will go on. The minds we opened, the hearts we cherished, the spirits we set free, It is in relationship that our names are remembered. It is in how well we shared our love that will live on in ways unchanging.”1

This reminds me of the beginning of Paul’s second letter to Timothy. “I am grateful to God.. whom I worship.. as my ancestors did..when I remember you constantly in my prayers… recalling your tears… I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.” 2

Do you think about what will be your legacy, how people will remember you? I think of Phillips Brooks, a legendary preacher, writer, social activist, innovator of modern architectural and liturgical tastes at Trinity Copley Square in Boston, briefly bishop of Massachusetts before his early death at age 58. When you see his life size, six feet four-inches statue at Trinity Boston you realize what a formidable, physically imposing man he was. Of all his accomplishments, he is now most remembered for one short poem he wrote one night on a visit to the Holy Land, “O Little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie” What is your “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” your life in your words by which you will be remembered? /

What about John Chrysostom, named a golden-mouth preacher of his day in the early church, archbishop of Constantinople, recognized among the Three Holy Fathers, with Basil the Great and Gregory of Naz/i/an/zus? Those who read Morning Prayer say his prayer of St. Chrysostom near the closing of the service each morning, “you have promised that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them.” That is how we remember him./ What is your Prayer of St. Chrysostom, your prayer by which people will remember you when “two or three or gathered?’/

How about St. Francis who was honored with the blessing of your beloved animals here last Sunday? He changed the church’s view on our ministry to the poor and the sacredness of God in Nature, but he is still best remembered for his prayer just attributed to St. Francis. “Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.” So, we still do not even know if he ever wrote it. What is your Prayer of St. Francis, your relationship to those in need that brought peace and love by which you will be remembered?

My Grandparents, Joe and Annie Whaley, whom by the way I am named after, mostly raised me. They nurtured me and cared for me and loved me without conditions. My greatest memory of my grandmother, however, is one single event occurring one of the days I went back to college in another state. I always go to say goodbye to my grandparent at their nearby home on my way out of town. I only stay a few minutes. This day my grandmother is playing canasta with her sisters. I kiss her goodbye and leave. Then I remember I have forgotten something. I go back to their house and my grandmother is not at the card table. I ask her sisters, “Where is she?” After a pause my Aunt Julia whispers, “She went upstairs to her bedroom to cry. She misses you so much when you are gone.”

I suddenly realize how little time I spend with my grandparents on these infrequent visits home from college. I am usually absorbed with my friends or schoolwork I bring home. I become acutely aware of how much my grandmother loves me. I run up the stairs, hug her one more time, and witness her love embarrassed by her tears. I can still feel today that love my grandmother showed me with her secretly concealed bedroom tears./ Where are your tears of love by which you will be remembered?

It is possible that you may be most remembered like my grandmother for just one small act of love?/////

We first meet the rich young ruler as children in Sunday school. Matthew is the only gospel that says he is young, and Luke is the only one who calls him a ruler. Since our familiar friend makes an appearance in all three synoptic gospels, this must be a true story, even though most of us wish that the young man had stayed home. Barbara Brown Taylor3 says because of him, we have two of the hardest sayings in the whole Bible: “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me…It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” /

This is not just a story for the Rockefellers or the Trumps. We all know that by the world’s standards, everyone in this room is “rich,” and we are all the man in this story.

Our young man is posed, respectful with impeccable manners. He kneels at Jesus’ feet. He addresses Jesus as “Good Teacher.” Then he lets it slip about his wealth, “What must I do TO INHERIT eternal life?” This is a rich person’s question, someone thinking about a trust so his children can avoid probate at his death, considering whether to develop a charitable lead or a charitable remainder trust for his estate, not preoccupied by lesser questions such as, “Where can I find work?” or “Where can I find food for my family today?” 3

Jesus looks down at the man kneeling before him and sees an exceptional, successful hard-working leader, who innocently asks about achieving a good portfolio in heaven as he has been developing on earth. He sees eternal life as a good investment.

Jesus, as he so often does, reframes the question in terms of living in “God’s kingdom” today, in the present, not just in the future.5 Jesus tries to get him back on track by saying, “You know the commandments,” and without hesitation, the young man recites half of them and adds a little extra one, “You shall not defraud.”

“Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth,” he says, and Jesus looks directly into his eyes with unconditional love. Jesus looks at him with those X-ray eyes that parents have. He loves what he sees, a real seeker. Some translations use the Greek word agapao indicating that Jesus actually reaches out and gently “caresses” him. This is the answer that we often miss in this story. Jesus loves the young man. Jesus comes into relationship with the young man and sees what is lacking. He is missing a real relationship with God and especially others.

Jesus’ examination then goes deeper into his soul, and like a physician making an astute diagnosis, he says, “You lack one thing.” Jesus sees a man whose relationship is to his wealth, not to the people around him.

How the young man’ heart must be pounding. At last! Jesus will write a prescription to satisfy that deep hunger, the answer to the emptiness, the longing that money and work cannot buy.

Then like the blade of a skilled surgeon’s knife, Jesus cuts to the heart of the achievement issue, “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” Wow! Do you feel the impact of that?.

“At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.”///

Do you wonder what happens next? What is the ending? My midrash is that the man follows Jesus from afar but at some point, as we all do on our journey, is moved even more by Jesus’ teachings, or maybe by the events of Good Friday. He decides to give all to the poor. He meets up with some of the disciples he has gotten to know and after the resurrection is present at Pentecost. I believe this ending because this true story is so well told in all the gospels. I think the rich young ruler also told his own story to so many people that most Christians knew it when the gospels were written. Telling our story is a part of following Jesus.///

One last message in this story is is often missed. When Jesus tells the man to give everything away, Jesus is simply speeding up the process that he and each of us will go through. We have no choice but to give it all away, for it most certainly is not going with us into eternal life. Even if we plan on leaving everything to our children, we are still giving it all away.4 //

Today Jesus offers a prescription for the kingdom of God, right now, right here, not at a later date. Jesus looks with love into the eyes of each of us as he did for the young man and asks us to come and follow him, turn our lives and our will over to him, tell our story, be in relationship with him and in relationship with each other, especially with those around us who are in need.// ////

This is how we will be remembered.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

1 Steven Charleston Daily Facebook Meditation

2 2 Timothy 1:3-6.

3 Stephen Crotts, “The One That Got Away,” Lectionary Homiletics, October 2000.

4 Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Opposite of Rich,” The Preaching Life, 121-126.

5 David Howell, Feasting on the Word, year B vol. 4, pp. 164-169.