Homily for Dan Dennis July 30, 2022, Luke 24:13-31, An Eight O'clocker, On the Road to Emmaus, St/ Stephen's Episcopal Church

 Homily for Dan Dennis July 30, 2022, Luke 24:13-31, An Eight O’clocker, On the Road to Emmaus

“O God of grace and glory, we remember before you this day our brother, Dan. We thank you for giving him to us..to know and to love as a companion on our earthly pilgrimage. Amen”1

Dan was an exceptional person. He was an eight o’clocker. He was among that rare breed of churchgoers who attend Sunday services at the earliest hour. I know them well as my brother was one. Since fewer people are at these services, they often wear many hats. Dan was an usher, greeter, lector and sometimes eucharistic minister. They serve on vestries, finance committees, search committees, and go to diocesan conventions. I loved getting to St. Luke’s on Sunday morning when I knew Dan would be there. I could be assured everything was ready for the service, and we wouldn’t be scrambling at the last moment. He would have checked the candles, the altar, and had all the bulletins ready. So, it was understandable how we became fast friends. Dan was always there for funerals, and at St. Luke’s, he also was in charge of the Columbarium. This gave him the title of funeral director for that church.

But he did more/that many people are not aware of. At St. Luke’s, he also hired the nursery personnel. I learned about Dan’s compassion and love for others in this role. He didn’t simply hire people. He got to know them and care about them. He learned about their trials and triumphs of life. Once when one became ill and died, he arranged for her service and reception there at St. Luke’s and probably covered the cost. The nursery women gave him the name of Father Dan, and it stuck.

We would suggest an event at church, and Dan was immediately there to help. I remember Dan and Gary serving breakfasts at St. Luke’s that were outstanding, but not very healthy. My husband called them guilty pleasures.

Dan helped keep the men’s group going at St. Luke’s so that other men could enjoy each other’s fellowship. I treasure that I was even invited one Saturday morning to the men’s sacred meeting.

We remember Dan’s devotion to the men of St. Francis House and the veterans living there. His dinners for them with Gary and Dicky and others were like none others. He would have gifts for the men and sit and talk and hear their stories. I know he continued that tradition here at St. Stephens.

Dan was indeed a sharing person. We will miss finding fresh corn, tomatoes, or peaches at our door at various times during the year.

Even though this all sounds like so much, I am only sharing the small part of Dan’s life that I knew for the five years we were together at St. Luke’s. I know Dan’s work was important to him, and people in that part of his life would tell similar stories to mine. I know he loved and was devoted to Jennifer and his family, and I hope they will share their stories of his love, compassion, and caring with so many of you today. //

This morning, as we carry the ashes of Dan Dennis in and out of this sacred space, we are sacramentally carrying him back to God. We know Dan is already with God, but this funeral liturgy allows us, in effect, to shout out a prayerful petition to God, “God, get ready! Here comes Dan! A sinner of your redeeming, and a lamb of your own flock. You have given him to us, and now with gratitude for the gift of his life, we are returning him to you.” Our prayers are like prayers with the offering, “We give thee, but thine own,” except, in this case, the offering is not money but the life of one we love.2

Dan was an Easter person, a resurrection person. The gospel we just heard is an Easter gospel. It is about two disciples leaving Jerusalem after Jesus’ death to return home to Emmaus,/ who meet Jesus on the road but do not recognize him. This afternoon, we are friends walking the road to Emmaus, coming to St. Stephen’s, trying to find a safe place to process the life and death of our dearly beloved friend. Like those on the road, we  talk to each other about our friend, Dan, who touched so many lives.

It is indeed an early Christian tradition to tell stories about the one who died, as his body is on its pilgrimage to its final burial place. We tell stories because Christians believe death changes/but does not destroy. Death is not the period at the end of a sentence, but more like a comma where Dan, in death, enters a new relationship with God AND a new relationship with us. Our experience is that God does not give us a loving relationship like his and then let it stop abruptly with death. The relationship is still there/but in some different form. So we tell stories about Dan to continue that relationship as we see through the prism of his life, both in glad and sorrowful memories, refractions of the grace and love of God.

As you have heard from Gary, so many will miss our friend, Dan, St. Stephen’s senior warden.//

Can our Anglican tools of Scripture, tradition, and reason help us process Dan’s life/ and his physical departure from us, much too soon?

What does Scripture tell us about death? The New Testament describes how Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. Our mentor is telling us that weeping is what we should do. At his own death, Jesus asks God, “God, where are you?” He is telling us that doubting, arguing, feeling abandoned are feelings just as Christian as feeling held in God’s arms. 3,4

What does our reason tell us about death, which includes our own experience with grief and death? Just like Jesus on the road to Emmaus, our loved ones who have died are not only in a new relationship with God, but also with us. We may only recognize their presence at certain times. Death changes, but does not destroy our communion with the saints, those we love. We all have shared experiences of knowing the presence of loved ones after they died, doing things we knew we had never been able to do before because of some presence very near, guiding, still caring for us. The Hebrew Bible or Old Testament gives an excellent description of this experience. As Elijah is about to die, he asks his beloved companion, Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha responds, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” Elijah says, “You have asked a hard thing.” You know the story. As Elijah ascends in a whirlwind into heaven, he leaves his mantle or shawl for Elisha. That will also be our experience. Dan has left us a mantle that all of us here will be wearing. Dan, like Jesus, is resurrected and will be with us always throughout all eternity. His presence no longer depends on time and space.

When our loneliness is so deep that we cannot see or feel anything else, our reason, our experience, our tradition, our Scripture tell us that even though our pain is true,/ it is not the ultimate truth. Beyond all our pain is the beauty, truth, and love of God in Jesus Christ, which never dies. This love surrounds us with all the saints, who are with us throughout all eternity.

 And finally, today, our Scripture offers members of Dan’s family and his friends another image/ to hold onto/ as we process his death. The image will be a road,/ the road to Emmaus,/ the road we travel when our loneliness is great,/ because we will so miss the person who taught us about unconditional love./ But, suddenly, at some time, like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus,/ the one/ they thought/ they had lost /is there by their side,/ with Jesus and all the saints with him. Sometimes he may be challenging to recognize. But we will know them when we invite them in. This is better expressed in this prayer we offer for Dan: 

“Eternal God, you love us with a greater love than we can neither know nor understand: We give you the highest praise and hearty thanks for the good example of your servant, Dan, who now is in the larger life of your heavenly Presence; who here on this earth was a tower of strength for all of us, who stood by us and helped us; who cheered us by his sympathy and encouraged us by his example; who looked not disdainfully on the outward appearance, but lovingly into the hearts of men and women; he rejoiced to serve all people; his loyalty was steadfast, and his friendship unselfish and secure; his joy was to know more about you and be of service. Grant that he may continue to find abiding peace and wisdom in your heavenly kingdom, and that we may carry forward his unfinished work for you on this earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”5 Amen

Joanna Seibert

1Burial II in BCP, p. 493.

2Thomas Long, “O Sing to Me of Heaven: Preaching at Funerals,” Journal for Preachers, 21-26, vol. 29, no. 3, Easter 2006.

3Jeffrey J. Newlin, “Standing at the Grave,” This Incomplete One, pp. 121-130.   

4Gary W. Charles, “The E Prayer,” Journal for Preachers, 47-50, vol. 29, no. 3, Easter 2006.

5. J. B. Bernardin in Burial Services p. 117

12C The Lord's Prayer, Mantra and Oxygen of the Holy Spirit, Luke 11:1-13, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, July 24, 2022

12C Lord's Prayer and long green tube Luke 11:1-13

July 24, 2022, St. Mark's

A disciple asks Jesus, "Teach us to pray."

While visiting patients in the hospital, I often notice a slim green hose that runs from a machine on the wall to each person's nostrils, piping in pure oxygen, making breathing easier. I try not to step on that slim green hose as I move closer to say prayers. The two of us can then look directly at the other, hold hands, and say the Lord's Prayer together. I am continually amazed by the strength with which people pray the Lord's Prayer even when their bodies are weakened. Their eyes suddenly open wide, and even sparkle as this prayer flows vigorously from their lips. It is as if this prayer, like the oxygen, supports each breath./

Soon, Michael will introduce the Lord’s Prayer by saying, “As our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say.” Bold. I need to share several stories of bold people who taught me about the Lord’s Prayer. /

He is a Cursillo friend, dying of cancer, and the first person I visit pastorally. I regularly travel to St. Vincent's to visit him in the early morning on my way to Children's Hospital. I long to be with him, but do not know the words to say. One morning as I leave, I timidly ask, "Shall we pray?" We sit in silence, and then he begins the Lord's Prayer. From then on, each visit is the same. We end by holding hands and praying the Lord's Prayer. We say no other prayers. I go to touch Bruce's hand and bring him a pastoral presence. Instead, I am touched by the hand of God, the Holy Spirit, within Bruce, and learn from him how to be a pastor. Years later, I still think of Bruce Kennedy and even feel his presence when I pray our Lord's Prayer. They are the words to say when it is too painful to say anything else. It is indeed our Lord's Prayer, and our God, through the Holy Spirit, prays it for us and with us./

 A disciple asks Jesus, "Teach us to pray."

He is 91 years old, the grandfather of a member of St. Margaret's. He fell and sustained a blood clot on the brain, and is recovering from surgery. I meet this wiry, thin gentleman in surgical intensive care at Baptist Hospital for the first time, as his favorite nurse feeds him. He eats only soft foods, since he has only a few remaining teeth. We talk about his granddaughter, his great-grandchildren, money, and mostly about how he hates being in a nursing home, but misses those familiar surroundings and longs to be back there. He then tells me he is "Church of Christ." He knows I am an Episcopalian. He tells me that those who think their religion is "the one" are significantly in error. Am I listening to a prophet?/ I ask if we may say prayers. We pray the Lord's Prayer. Tears fill his eyes, and he can barely speak. I see longing in his eyes for spiritual food. I experience what Deb Cooper, another deacon, describes in her visits. The Lord's Prayer can bring communion without the sacred elements. As his voice cracks, I feel barriers between the two of us and obstacles between God and us crack and crumble. We walk together through a door that was always open but was obscured by doctrinal differences in our faith groups. My church does not have all the answers; his "Church of Christ" does not have all the answers. But somehow, praying, a prayer central to both our traditions, is a pathway to/and through a door to the living Christ, the Holy Spirit. I stay and pray in sync with his calm, rhythmic breaths until he falls asleep./

The disciples ask Jesus, "Help us learn what we have seen you do."

I visit a nursing home training Community of Hope chaplains. We visit a man we do not know near death from Alzheimer's. He is alone. He does not recognize our presence and does not speak. I turn to the Psalms, place his hand on the Bible, and began reading. Soon his family joins us. We circle around his bed, hold hands, and pray. During the Lord's Prayer, there are a few moments when his eyes open wide, his mouth moves, and his breathing seems present with us. /

“Teach is to pray.”

Linda calls to ask for a visit and prayers. Her prayers are for the return of her voice, which has become swollen and transformed by massive doses of steroids for her autoimmune disease. She is an opera singer. She coached one of our children when he sang in the opera. I stood beside her in St. Mark's choir and followed her lead. But unfortunately, she has lost her major talent and sense of ministry. As I listen to her raspy voice struggle through the Lord’s Prayer, I again follow her lead. I think of other talented and gifted ones I visited and prayed with, who also lost their most prized possession, their sense of identity.

        Margaret Metcalf, a renowned speech teacher at several schools, including Catholic High, shared our front row pew at St. Marks many years ago (or, more appropriately, we shared her pew in the east transept). After her retirement, she suffered a devastating stroke. Her meticulous speech became not understandable, but her will to recover was like none I have ever seen. When we first visited, it was evening, and we said Compline. Her words were like another language, but when we came to the Lord's Prayer, she was even more determined. I could understand her first words—Our Father./ Weeks later, at our next visit, as soon as we embraced, she brought out a card for an abbreviated service she had been saying with our priest, and she pointed to the Lord's Prayer. We said it together, and already so many more words were recognizable. Tears flowed from both of us. The Holy Spirit spoke so clearly through her and her heavenly language. I can no longer say this prayer without hearing Mrs. Metcalf.

A disciple asks Jesus, "Teach us to pray."

Another friend I visited in a nursing home had lost most of his material possessions. Yet, Mr. Carstens still survived years of poor health with a rare sense of joy. Like Linda, the opera singer, and Mrs. Metcalf, his speech was changed, this time by surgery for throat cancer. I can still hear his carbonated burp-like sounds as he sang the doxology without restraint when he attended services at St. Mark's. He, too, was a role model of determination to live fully despite tragedy, loss of loved ones, and physical well-being. When I visited, he always greeted me with a holy kiss and a look of love. His voice was distorted, his hair and clothes unkempt, but his eyes emitted a brightness that could illuminate a room. He introduced me as his girlfriend. He showed me the latest travel books piled by his bedside. We said evening prayers—actually, I said evening prayers. But when we came to the Lord's Prayer, his beautiful guttural, earthy speech boomed above my softness. There was God, the Holy Spirit, suffering and loving and giving praise in that nursing home. Each time I left him, I was always moved to ask Mr. Carstens to pray for me. I knew I had visited a Holy Place in the presence of the living God, the Holy Spirit. When he died, Mr. Carstens gave what remained of his body to our medical school for students to learn how to care for others./

I learn from so many others that God surrounds us, loves, and still uses us to minister to others, even when we think we have lost what once was our greatest treasure or personal identity. Our true identity is loving, praising, and serving God as in the words of the Lord's Prayer. We do not require exceptional talent. God calls us to honor the holy, the Holy Spirit, in ourselves, and recognize and honor the sacred, that Spirit in our neighbor./ Today, remember the bold people you have boldly said the Lord’s Prayer with./

In this long green season of the Holy Spirit, the words of the prayer Jesus taught the disciples are like the very air we breathe. This prayer, we say daily, weekly, becomes so ingrained in our hearts and minds that it is as wonderfully automatic as the motion of the diaphragm, pushing our lungs to inhale and exhale. But the Holy Spirit so often seems particularly to breathe into us when we say the Lord's Prayer together. The Holy Spirit is like that thin green hose carrying oxygen into our nostrils to sustain life. The Holy Spirit gives us the words, the desire, and persistence to speak with God. This Lord's Prayer is the mantra,/the oxygen of the Holy Spirit.

Stephanie Frey, "On God's case," Christian Century, July   15, 2004. p. 17.  

Joanna Seibert https://www.joannaseibert.com/

12 Step Eucharist America the Beautiful, July 6, 2022, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock

July 6, 2022 12 step America the Beautiful

“America! America! God mend thine every flaw,

confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.”

—Katherine Lee Bates

Our church has some beautiful patriotic hymns. One of my favorites is the music to Katherine Lee Bates’ poem, “America the Beautiful.” O beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain”. Bates wrote the hymn after she arrived in a prairie wagon on top of the 14,000-foot Pike’s Peak near Colorado Springs in the summer of 1893.

 I connected to the poem and the hymn when I helped plan a pediatric radiology meeting at nearby Colorado Springs in 1994. I took a six-month sabbatical from Children’s Hospital to prepare for the international pediatric radiology meeting. I had much help from people worldwide, but I had a touch of what Parker Palmer calls “functional atheism,” believing I was the “only” one who needed to get most of the work done.

After a year of planning and everything was ready, I vividly remember sitting in a board meeting in May at the event hotel just before the conference began. I looked out of the adjacent large bay window and saw, to my horror, the beginning of the last snow of winter. I had planned in detail a multitude of outdoor activities that now would never

see the light of day. I now keep this beautiful picture of snow on the tulips in front of the hotel to remind me how little I can control in life.

There was a multitude of other hiccups. We recorded speakers for a meeting video. One speaker did not like his recording and required us to redo his filming at least five times. I will always be indebted to Marilyn Goske, whom I had casually asked to watch over the videoing of the speakers. She patiently stayed with the speakers and missed the whole meeting to get this done. Another hiccup was our evening entertainment after dinner. We had scheduled the Air Force Academy Cadet Choir. Then without warning, they were called to maneuvers. Our meeting planner booked a local children’s chorus. I was embarrassed that this would be amateurish and poorly performed. But, as you might expect, they were some of the most charming, talented, and poised children performers I have ever seen. They ended their concert by going to individual members of this highly-educated, sophisticated audience and holding their hands and singing directly to them. We all gave them a standing ovation through our tears, remembering that the children we serve as physicians can teach us so much about life as “American the Beautiful.”  

 I  learned like Naaman and the seventy sent out that I am not in charge, and that God provides impressive people around me who will take over overwhelming situations. I especially learned at this meeting that when a door unexpectantly closes, the next door that opens often is surprisingly magnificent. All of these principles are in the 12 steps, as well as our church’s scripture, tradition, and reason. I had learned all this from both directions, recovery and my church. I don’t know about you, but for me, I seem to need to relearn them almost every day. What a gift that God keeps giving us a new chance every day, one day at a time.

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/

7C The Sound and Music of Silence, Kings 19:1-4, 5-7, 8-15a, June 19, 2022, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Joanna Seibert

7C The Sound and Music of Silence, Kings 19:1-4, 5-7, 8-15a, June 19, 2022, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Joanna Seibert

Thomas Keating, one of the leaders of the revival of contemplative or centering prayer, writes, “Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation.”1 Many years ago, Keating’s message gets my attention. I long to spend time in silence, but the busyness of our lives prevents it. I have this committee in my head that likes to run the show, especially when I try to quiet my mind, body, and spirit. I see how silence has changed the lives of friends. I will not give up./

 Music quiets my soul. I start listening to the popular Chant series of Gregorian chants. My mind is quieted, but am I doing it all wrong? Is music keeping us from silence? Sometime later, I pick off my shelf/the book accompanying Chant. Its title is The Music of Silence. Interesting. This companion book to the chants is an invitation to journey through the day by keeping the monastic hours in some form. Each of the eight hours is prayerfully described, using the images of the Fra Angelico angels. 

Two cards drop out of, The Music of Silence, both from deceased spiritual friends. The one from Nyna Keeton is an encouraging note about writing. Another from Joanne Meadors is on a card from San Marco Museum in Florence depicting the Fra Angelico angel beating the drum. Cards of angels playing the harp and the trumpet from another spiritual friend also drop out of the book. 

There is even a photograph of the musical Fra Angelico Angels on the altarpiece of Pierce Chapel at Trinity Cathedral. This book, the cards, led me on a journey to Florence solely to see these angels. Also, between the pages of the book is a Forward Day by Day pamphlet about following the monastic hours. One of our young children picked it up from a tract rack at All Saints Russellville many years ago when we visited Pat Murray, their priest there, and friends from Cursillo. Our younger son, John, brought the pamphlet to me and said, “Mom, I think you will like this.”/

 Our third-grade son, Fra Angelico angels, The Music of Silence introduces me to praying the hours over thirty years ago. Later, I read Phyllis Tickle’s writings about keeping the monastic hours.

A book full of angels, a young son, a search for silence, a book full of memories still being communicated from spiritual friends I no longer see physically—calling me to the spiritual life of connection and silence.

This has been my road to silence. I long for it, but there no longer seemed time for it. Instead, with the help of art, friends, and family,/ the Holy Spirit leads me to music to quiet my soul, then introduces a daily prayer routine to quiet the mind. I confess I still have spurts and stops with the Daily Hours, but I am changed when I can do it./ Today, our children are grown with their own children, and my husband and I have hours of daily silence. I hope Nyna is pleased that I spend a great deal of time writing in the silence. Writing has become my best prayer and spiritual practice for the present. Experience tells me this can change./

This is how the Holy Spirit has worked in my life, knowing I am not ready for certain practices, so introducing me to others until it is time.

A longing for silence, however, has always been the driver. The famous Simon and Garfunkel song “The Sound of Silence” lives in my head whenever I hear it. It explores the difficulty of communicating truth, so we will hear it. While we may believe that truth is told in the booming shouts of the powerful,/ in fact, it is often uttered in the whispers of the vulnerable:/ “The words of the prophets / Are written on the subway walls / And tenement halls / And whispered in the sound of silence.”

Much earlier than Garfunkel, Elijah’s experience from

I Kings tells us the same story. Elijah is scared and exhausted. He flees to the desert, attempting to escape his calling, overwhelmed by the task ahead, mistakenly believing he alone must eradicate idolatry./ God then answers Elijah by feeding him for the journey and coaxing him out of his cave with a powerful wind, earthquake, fire, and finally with the “sound of sheer silence.” In silence, Elijah encounters God and receives direction. God later instructs Elijah to return to his ministry and mentor a new prophet, Elisha. Elijah must complete his part of the task at hand, but God assures him there are others called to the ministry as well. God never intended for Elijah to carry the full weight of challenging the halls of power on his own shoulders. /

Does this story speak to you? It does to me. Elijah’s encounter with God/ in the sound of sheer silence/ tells us God offers us that same nourishment and hope as we peer out from our caves, overwhelmed by the work God has left for us to do. When dismayed, we need only remember where to listen for God’s voice. We are to seek silence.2

Our Community of Hope training taught us that our church is like a wheel. The hub is silence, community, prayer, worship, Eucharist, spiritual practices, and a rule of life. Our different pastoral ministries are spokes radiating from that hub that generates our momentum and growth. The rim represents the Trinity that Michael talked about last week. Our Triune God, whose love and constant presence nourishes, circles, and sustains us. This was Elijah’s story, and it is ours as well.

In silence, we begin to live in the moment, which is the only moment we have. God meets us in that present moment, not in the past or future, but in the present. The past is irretrievable. The future is unknowable. In the present, we connect to the Christ within ourselves and the Christ within our neighbor.3/

I hope my story tells you that finding silence is not an instant experience. It is a process similar to settling impurities in a glass of water. At first, the impurities swirl around, making the water cloudy and opaque. But if we go with the flow, don’t interfere with the glass, let the Spirit lead us, the impurities settle. The water becomes still and clear. When the water is opaque, the water reflects. When it is clear, we can see right through it. 4

Joan Chittister reminds us that silence has two functions. The development of outer silence leads to a sense of inner peace. Inner silence then provides the stillness/ that enables/ the ear of the heart/ to hear the God/ who is not in the “powerful wind, earthquake, fire, but  in the “sound of sheer silence.”5/

I offer to you my journey and longing for silence. I encourage you to spend time with silence. Do not be afraid of it. It is a friend. If this is not the time for silence in your life, let the Holy Spirit lead you to other spiritual practices, as it did for me. But do not give up on Silence. It is a straight path to living in the present moment, the dwelling place of God in our mind, body, and spirit. So, join me for a moment as we briefly honor and give thanks for God’s gift of silence./ Quiet your mind by being aware of your breath,/ in and out. With each breath, pray for the Holy Spirit to come into your life. Come, Holy Spirit, Come.

Joanna Seibert

1Thomas Keating in Invitation to Love: The Way of Christian Contemplation (Bloomsbury Academic, 1994).

2 Elizabeth Evans, “Living by the Word, June 19 Ordinary 12C, 1 Kings 19:1-15a,” Christian Century, May 24, 2022.

3The Community of  Hope International Lay Pastoral Caregiver Notebook, “Module Five: Prayer, Christian Meditation, and Silence, 2013.

4Laurence Freeman in Christian Meditation: Your Daily Practice(Medio Media 1996).

5Joan Chittister in The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century, p. 195.

Lent 4C Prodigal Son and a Seat at the Table, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, AR, March 27, 2022, Luke15:1-3,11b-32.

Lent 4C Prodigal Son and a Seat at the Table

St. Mark’s March 27, 2022, Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32

One time-honored method of studying scripture is practicing Ignatian Spirituality. Saint Ignatius calls us to place ourselves into the biblical scene with each character, get into their clothes, their minds, their skins./ When we first approach today’s familiar parable, we might try to be the father, the elder son, the younger son, or maybe even the mother who is not directly in the story. Instead, let’s get into the hearts and minds of the audience for the story, the Pharisees. This is not hard. Pharisees have so many qualities we admire. They are dutiful, responsible, faithful in worship, love scriptures, are faithful givers, caring for the poor and the hungry as God’s law commands. Sounds like good upstanding Episcopalians to me!

For the Pharisees, a meal is literally a religious experience. To eat together is to celebrate their faith with specific rules about what happens around the table. This is getting closer to home. Cleanliness is paramount: clean food, clean dishes, clean hands, clean hearts. A proper Jewish meal is a worship service where believers honor God by sanctifying the most ordinary details of their lives. Sounds something like a sacrament, one we practice here several times a week./

But Jesus seems to have a different view of the Jewish sacrament. He frequently offends people with his table manners at meals. He ignores the finger bowl by his plate. He eats whatever is put in front of him. He thinks nothing of sitting down to eat with filthy people whose lives proclaim their contempt for religion. The Pharisees see Jesus as someone who has lost all sense of what is right; who condones eating with sinners, condones eating with those who dishonor God. What’s more, Jesus seems to enjoy it, actually takes pleasure in their company!! Even more, at these meals, Jesus forgives people freely, without demanding proof of repentance first. Sounds like Jesus is soft on sin and low on church ritual./ 

One fine day, when Jesus sees some Pharisees frowning and muttering about how he ought not to be so accepting of sinners, Jesus tells three stories about how God sees sinners. The first story in the 15th chapter of Luke is about the good shepherd, who never gives up looking for the lost sheep, until he finds it, and how his joy is so great that he calls everybody to celebrate with him. You remember the second story about the woman who keeps looking for the lost coin until she finds it, and calls everyone she knows to rejoice that this single lost coin is found. And then there is today’s story of two lost children and a parent who never gives up on them. 

In Jesus’ day, sinners fall into five basic categories: people who do unclean things for a living (pig farmers, tax collectors), those who do immoral things (liars, adulterers), people who do not keep the law up to religious standards, foreigners such as Samaritans, and lastly gentiles.

So let’s put together a sinners’ table at Boulevard Bread Company in the Heights. The table might include a quack doctor over-prescribing narcotics, a suspected murderer, a Russian oligarch, the young man who breaks into our cars in the early a.m., a Muslim extremist terrorist, a homeless young man who has just come from St. Francis House, an illegal Mexican chicken plucker who gets food from our Food Pantry, a teenage crack dealer, a well known alcoholic hitting bottom, a politician on the take, and an unmarried woman on welfare with five children by three different fathers. Did I miss anyone? Let’s put Jesus at the head of the table, asking the young man to please hand him a Greek Sampler,/ and offering the doctor half of his Caprese Panini.

If this offends you even a little, then we are ready for the next part of our story. What then happens is the appearance of a group of proper Episcopalians, clergy, and lay, mind you not from St. Mark’s but from another nearby Episcopal churches stopping at Boulevard for lunch on their way to a meeting at the diocesan office… or they could be Episcopalians from out of state. The proper Episcopalians sit down at a large table across from the sinners. They all have good teeth, and there is no dirt under their fingernails. When their food arrives at the table, they hold hands and pray before eating. (Maybe not) They are all charming people, but they can hardly eat their Pastrami and Smoked Turkey sandwiches without staring at the strange crowd at the table by the window with Jesus.

The chicken plucker is still wearing his white hairnet, and the alcoholic reeks of cheap wine. The addict cannot seem to find his mouth with his spoon. But none of this is the heartbreaker. The heartbreaker is Jesus, sitting there as if everything were just fine. Doesn’t he know what kind of message he sends? Who will believe he speaks for God if he keeps this kind of company?/

As I keep imagining this story, I see other meals, which many of you prepare for the homeless, veterans at St. Francis House,  lunches at Stewpot or the library, or filling orders for groceries at our food pantry. I see you who not only handout, cook, or serve food, but also sit down and eat and talk with these men and women who are so different /and yet so similar to all of us.

All of these stories may seem different from the one about the man with two sons, but they really are not. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them,” the Pharisees grumble, and everything that follows is Jesus’ reply.

Jesus in his preposterous love for all of us, connects God to the man with two sons, who also has difficulty getting his family to sit down around the same table. His sense of unworthiness so warps the younger son that he is prepared to eat his meals in the bunkhouse with the hired hands. His sense of entitlement so inflates the older son that he will not eat with anyone who has not earned a place at the table. Both sons suffer from the illusion that they can be in a relationship with their father/ but do not need to be in relationship with each other. So, what’s a father to do?

This loving compassionate father prepares a meal for both of them and lets them figure out what to do about each other. This is relatively easy for the younger son, who is so glad to be back at the table again that he is not going to cause trouble for his older brother or anyone else. It is more difficult for the older son, who isn’t even told when dinner is ready. When he shows up and finds out who has come slithering back home, he is convinced that he has been displaced. He only sees two chairs at the table, as if no one father can love equally two such different sons. This is zero-sum love. There is not enough love from the father for both sons. Despite his father’s assurance that everything he has is his, the story ends with the older son standing in the yard, while the father goes back inside to sit down with the sinner. Buechner likens the older son to what Mark Twain calls a good man in the worst sense of the word. He is a caricature of all that is joyless, petty, and self-serving about all of us./

Any way you look at it, this is a disturbing story about  unending love, mercy and forgiveness. It is about hanging out with the wrong people. It is about throwing parties for losers and asking winners to pay the bill. It is about giving up the idea that we can love God and despise each other. We simply cannot, no matter how wronged any of us has been. The only way to work out our relationship with God is to work out our relationship with each other.//

As I mentioned, Jesus tells this story to a group of proper Episcopalians, who question his luncheon guests at Boulevard Bread. Jesus sees this respectable group eating,/ and knows them/ and compassionately loves them,/ so clean, so proper, so confused. He also wants to be in relationship with them. Jesus turns to the Episcopalians and says, “I cannot hear what you are mumbling about from across the restaurant. Come on over! Pull up some chairs.”/// “Come meet my friends. Dessert is on me!” /

And as far as we know, Jesus is still waiting to see how this story ends.

Joanna Seibert

Mary Harris Todd, “A House of Joy,” Lectionary Homiletics, March 2010, p. 51.

Barbara Brown Taylor, “Table Manners,” Christian Century, March 11, 1998. p. 257.

Frederick Buechner, “The Gospel as Comedy,” Telling The Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy & Fairy Tale, p. 68.