12-Step Eucharist Easter 7C John 17:20-26 Being One Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock , AR

Easter 7C John 17:20-26. Being One 12-Step Eucharist

 Saint Mark’s,  June 4, 2025 

The gospel for this last Sunday of Easter between Ascension and Pentecost is always from Jesus’ high priestly prayer the night before he dies. Jesus prays for his disciples and us: “Father, the world does not know you, but I know you.”

Every evening, we channel surf CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and PBS, viewing the world’s news. We peek out from our comfortable chairs to that larger world where the Father sends Jesus and us.

Every evening, details are different, but significant themes recur./ Stocks plunge. Stocks rise. Gunman Opens Fire. Wars./ Wildfires. Floods. Hungry. Homelessness.

A search for peace.

“As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.. that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have loved them.” ///

We change channels to the headline news story in our private world, where often our anchor newscaster is the Christ within us. 

The best time to hear this private news channel is at night after the lights are out. We lie in the dark, waiting for sleep as we listen to the sound of silence whispering inside of us. It is a time to reflect on our own search for peace and connection, which is our own nightly, high priestly prayer.

We are churchgoers, lovely people. We fight battles well camouflaged. We are snipers rather than bombardiers. Our weapons are more likely chilly silences than hot words. But our wars and disasters are no less real, and the stakes no less high.

We recently celebrated Memorial Day, a day when we remember Americans who have died in wars. Memorial Day began three years after the end of the Civil War in 1868. Ken Burns’s PBS series on the Civil War describes a remarkable scene on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913 when the remnants of the two armies reenact Pickett’s charge. The old Union veterans on the ridge take their places among the rocks. The old Confederate veterans start marching toward them across the field below./ Then something extraordinary happens./ As the older men among the rocks rush down at the older men coming across the field,/ a great cry goes up,/ only instead of doing battle as they had a century earlier,/ this time they throw their arms around each other, embrace, and openly weep./“They become one.”//

As we lie in the dark digesting the daily news of our world, if only we could see what those older men saw as they fell into each other’s arms at Gettysburg. If only we could see the people in the world we are at war with through the lens of the Christ within us and the Christ light within them..////

When we stay together in a Christian community, such as St. Mark’s, even when we disagree, like the veterans of the Civil War, the Father and the Son within us will continue to speak to us, even if we fail to talk to each other. The Father and the Son will not allow us to stay disconnected from someone we meet weekly, pray with, and kneel with before this altar.//

We lie in our beds in the dark. It is still difficult to see ourselves hungry or homeless in our personal newscast.

For you and me, to be at home is staying connected to the Christ within ourselves and our neighbor./That is truly being at peace./ / We do this by living our lives so intricately interwoven with the Christ within our community, within recovery groups, the Christ within this congregation, the Christ within our families, the Christ within our mothers and fathers, the Christ within the homeless in our city, the Christ within our neighbors on Mississippi, the Christ within the people of Ukraine, Gaza, Israel, Russia, Syria, Afghanistan, Texas, Florida./ We realize there can be no real peace for any of us until there is real peace for all of us. As we all begin to become one, we experience in ourselves the love between the Father and the Son./ This is the love offered here, especially at this table.

Frederick Buechner, “The News of the Day,” in Secrets in the Dark (2006 HarperSanFrancisco) pp.245-250.

Joanna Seibert. joannaseibert.com

Easter Vigil Gaiilean Women C Luke, April 24, 2025 Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Joanna Seibert

Easter Vigil C Luke 24:1-12 April 24, 2025, Saint Mark’s Galilean Women

Mary reaches for the bag she brought from Galilee holding pilgrim water flasks filled with spices. The most precious spice is cinnamon, more valuable than gold. She brought them for healing and to embellish food,/ but they will use them in the morning for embalming. She searches for the fragrant myrrh and aloe, recently used to anoint Jesus’ feet but now deployed to mask his whole de/com/posing body in the dry, hot, late spring.1 Her tears do not stop. They form tiny round droplets on the oil as she mixes in the dry spices.

Joanna cries even more as she realizes all the spices they brought from Galilee now have a sad, unexpected, completely different purpose. Mary, the mother of James, comforts the younger Galilean women who cannot hide their grief with more silent tears. The women who usually share stories about Jesus’ ministry now work silently,/ for no words can express how they feel. They are comforted only by each other’s presence and their tears.

The day before, a young Roman Guard orders them to stand at a distance from the crucifixion area. Even so, they are among the only witnesses to the horror and ignoble nature of Jesus’ death beyond words. His body is so disfigured that sometimes, they pretend it is not really Jesus./ They very carefully watch to see where his body is placed: unwashed, naked, hair unbrushed, simply wrapped in a linen cloth. //

No one mentions that they are now working on the Sabbath. They all unconsciously know their preparation of spices for Jesus’ body is a liturgy of prayers for the dead. They are on that auto-pilot that allows them to function in acute, raw grief but leaves no room for rational thinking. No one mentions that these are the last of their spices and ointments—the last of their money. No one mentions that there is a large stone to roll away to enter Jesus’ tomb. /Instead, they sit expectantly as dawn approaches.

Mary Magdalene convinces them to leave in the early pre-dawn. “It will be safer if we leave when there is still darkness.” The spices and ointments are heavy, so the women take turns carrying them./ So far, they see no one as the pink and orange sky pro/cesses before the sun.

They reach the tomb. /

The stone has been rolled away! What is going on? The last insult. Someone has removed Jesus’ body. Mary, the mother of James, inches toward the tomb’s entrance, followed closely by the other Galilean women. They are barely inside when they see dazzling light coming from the clothes of two men. Joanna faints into Mary’s arms. All the women drop their faces to the ground and drop the spices as they race back to the entrance. Suddenly, the dazzling men shout out, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. Remember  how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified,/ and on the third  day rise again.”

The startled women all nod their heads with a loud chorus of “Yes, yes, we now remember!” The women are no longer silent. They begin telling all the stories about Jesus they had wanted to say the night before, but Grief could not bear to hear or speak. They excitedly run back to the disciples, presumably hiding out in the upper room. They fling open the door and breathlessly shout, “Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia.”/// But, alas,/ the disciples believe it is an idle tale! ///////////

So take a deep breath./ Open your weary eyes./ Do you have any idea what just happened? We, you and I, are here tonight with Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the other Galilean women. At this Easter Vigil, we and these beautiful children are the first to hear that Christ has Risen from the grave. We hear the first Easter sermon from the women.

Should we run out tonight, fling open doors, and tell everyone the Good News? There is a chance they will think we are telling an idle tale. The women’s news is life-changing, life-changing. It is so startling that we may decide to tell our families tonight, sleep on it, and start telling other friends the good news tomorrow at the coffee hour or brunch, the flowering of the cross, or even the Easter egg hunt./

This/ is how the story spreads, from friend to friend, /and we who hear the story first/ are especially obligated to share the good news with those we meet/ in our everyday lives.// And when we do, we will occasionally/ still/ catch a hint in the air/ of the ar/o/mat/ic spices/ the Galilean women/ left behind// at the empty tomb.//// Alleluia, Christ is Risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!!!!!!

 Joanna joannaseibert.com

1Sean Gladding, “Resurrection of the Lord,  Christian Century, p. 30, April 2025.

2Herbert O’Driscoll, “Standing By,” A Greening of Imaginations (Church Publishing 2019). p. 55-58.

Last Epiphany C Transfiguration Experiences

Last Epiphany C Transfiguration Experiences

March 2, 2025, Luke 9:28-36 St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock

 My husband’s father develops excruciating back pain. Tests reveal Bob has advanced metastatic cancer to the spine. Our oldest son, Rob, takes a leave of absence from graduate school to move home to care for his grandfather. Six months later, Bob falls and breaks his hip. We can no longer care for him at home and go through assisted living decisions many of you face. Each day presents a new, unfamiliar, often exhausting challenge of ministering to someone we dearly love.//

Today’s disciples in our story also are exhausted, facing one new challenge after another. Jesus sends them to heal the sick, and they return with great success. Jesus takes them for a well-earned respite, but crowds interrupt. The weary disciples beg Jesus to send the crowd away, but what happens—“fish sandwiches” for 5000, maybe 15,000, adding women and children. Next, Jesus cheers them up with alarming news about crosses and that he is going to die, but he will rise again.

Eight days later, the confused disciples are not in shape for mountain climbing even to pray. //

On top of this mountain, Peter, James, and John can’t keep their eyes open as Jesus does all the praying./ Suddenly, an indescribable brightness startles them. Jesus shines like the sun, leaking light everywhere, says Matthew,/ and his clothes, Mark says, become “dazzling white as no earthly bleach could make them.” The three disciples experience the divinity of Jesus./

But they are mystified, dumbfounded by Jesus’ dramatic change in appearance from man to God.1////

We all have had brief mountaintop experiences of seeing God, even when we barely comprehend them, often at Camp Mitchell in the Chapel of Transfiguration./ Yet, truthfully,/ most transfiguration experiences occur below /at the bottom of the mountain, / where we daily work and play,/ where theological bones take on flesh. Flesh becomes divinity. / This is where we see the transfigured Face of God, in places where patients’ appearances change as they return to life from near-fatal illnesses, where addicts and alcoholics find recovery, where we forgive those who have harmed us, and we are forgiven; where we see Jesus, the Christ, in the Face of a homeless man at a traffic stop, or in our neighbor who irritates us. We see someone as a real person. We see Christ in each other.////

Many have also described seeing God’s presence in others in our lifetime.   

Caryll Houselander, the 20th-century English mystic, describes a powerful vision of Christ’s presence in an ordinary underground train journey in London. “I was in a crowded underground train, with all sorts of people crowded together, workers of every description going home at the end of the day. Quite suddenly, I saw with my mind, as vividly as a wonderful picture,/ Christ in them all./ But I saw more; not only was Christ in every one of them,/ living in them,/ dying in them,/ rejoicing in them,/ sorrowing in them—but because He was in them, and because they were here,/ the whole world was here too … all those people who had lived in the past, and all those yet to come.” 2 

Caryll’s revelation is similar to Thomas Merton’s epiphany in Kentucky.

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, /that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.” 3 

Merton, a Trappist monk for seventeen years, is on an errand for the monastery on March 18th, 1958. His revelation becomes so famous that Louisville erects a plaque at the site. Ordinary people and popes continue visiting the corner of Fourth and Walnut.

 James Finley describes a similar experience as “having a finger in the pulse of Christ, realizing oneness with God in life itself.” 4

 This experience may be similar to St. Francis’s realization in Nature, where he calls the sun his brother and the moon his sister. Richard Rohr calls it finding our True Self, “our basic and unchangeable identity in God.” 1

Methodists might relate to John Wesley’s experience at 8:45 pm on May 24th, 1738, at a Society meeting in Aldersgate Street when someone reads from Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to Romans, and Wesley says, “I felt my heart strangely warmed.” 5

 Pat Murray, beloved Episcopal priest, believes that in reality, Transfiguration occurs all the time, but only at certain moments can we see the likeness of God in each other,/ perhaps most often when we live in the present moment/ or in stressful times where we are experiencing “altitude sickness.” We, humans, seem unable to bear much reality, writes T. S Eliot. It is too incomprehensible to look God in the face/ for any length of time.5 //////

We take turns taking Bob for his many treatments.

 At one visit, Bob is too weak to dress himself after his examination. I see our older son, who looks like his grandfather at an earlier age, / dress Bob, / pull up Bob’s baggy trousers, / tighten his belt/ and lift Bob up to stand. / The young and the older man hug each other./ I witness the look they give to the other; one, the look of loving surrender,/ the other, the look of a loving servant. / They see the Face of God in each other. / They are each transfigured in front of each other at the bottom of the mountain. / “Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human Face that it is almost beyond bearing.6”

We observe Transfiguration again the night Bob dies, as his two grandsons care for him in his final hours. Bob lies in his nursing home bed/ unable to speak/, but his face shines like the sun as he radiantly,/ continuously/ smiles at his two beloved grandsons/ as we sit at the bottom of the mountain/ and he begins his ascent. ////

The Transfiguration reminds us that the Bible is less a book about certainties but instead a continuous parade of stories of encounters with God where people run into God and are changed forever. Faith is more about staying present to what happens in front of us than knowing what it all means.7,8///////

 On the mountain top with Jesus, answers soon come in God’s voice, interrupting Peter and lifting the hairs on the back of his neck.4 “Listen to him.” Listen for dear life. Listen to words of forgiveness and mercy, promises of hope and paradise, words we will soon hear from the cross. We heard this voice before at Jesus’ baptism, “Here is my only begotten son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” Listen on this hill today, but also listen again on another hill when darkness closes in, and all hope seems lost.1////

“When cures and healing are beyond our powers, when the shine on a loved one’s face comes from tears reflected in the fluorescent lights of intensive care, / remember to put ourselves inside THIS story. Listen for the voice urging us to stop, look, and listen for his Voice,/ his Face, his Light./ That voice, that light,/ may be from a friend, a minister, a nurse, a doctor, a stranger. Hold on to that light, no matter how small,/ and it will lead you through the darkness.

When we are overcome with weariness and difficulty, remember to look for the ever-present light in the transfigured Face of God./ Scripture reminds us God was there in the past. We see it today. Remember. Remember. The Beloved, the Son of God, will always, always be there/ beside us/ and shine in the darkness,/ again, and again, and again,/ and the darkness will never,/ ever overcome it.1”

1Heidi Neumark, “Altitude Adjustment” in Christian Century, February 6, 2007, p. 16.

2 Caryll Houselander in A Rocking-Horse Catholic (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955), 137–139, 140. 

3 Thomas Merton in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. pp. 140-142.

4 James Finley in Christian Meditation: Experiencing God’s Presence.

5Barbara Crafton “Last Epiphany” in The Geranium Farm, February 1, 2008.

6 Frederick Buechner in Whistling in the Dark.

7Barbara Brown Taylor, Always a Guest (Westminster John Knox Press 2020)

8Rt Rev. Dr. Bonnie Anne Perry, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, sermon, 2022.

Joanna Seibert  joannaseibert.com

28B Hannah and Lending Children 1 Samuel 1:4-20 November 17, 2024, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock, AR

28B Hannah and Lending Children 1 Samuel 1:4-20 November 17, 2024, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock, AR

 Several months ago, some of us from Saint Mark’s helped perform school physicals at our sister African American Church, Saint Mark Baptist. We thought we would be seeing mostly elementary school children, but instead, we first saw 150 freshmen football players from Arkansas Baptist College vying for 28 scholarships on their team. The young men were from all over the country: Dallas, Detroit, Memphis, Mississippi, California, and a few from Arkansas.

We learned a lot about football and a little bit about them. Playing football was their ticket out of poverty. My husband told one player as he left, “We will see you on Sunday night Football!” His response was, “That’s my dream!.”

We kidded one large player as he came in, “You’re the quarterback!” He replied, “I’m smart enough to be a quarterback! You know linemen need to be smart, too. We watch the moves and know where to go.” I asked one receiver for his secret of catching the football. He answered, “I keep my eye on the ball at all times. Many receivers watch what is happening around them instead and miss the ball.” I will never forget another receiver, one of the few from small-town Arkansas, about three hours away. He seemed depressed. He said, “I miss my family. They are so far away.”/ I asked him, “Tell us about your family.” “There is my mother, two sisters, and a brother. I rarely saw my father growing up. He was in and out of prison. We often didn’t know if we would have food to eat each day. I am dreaming of a better life.”/ /////

Later, young children did come in to our make-shift examining room. Beautiful. Shy. We will especially remember one woman who brought four foster children, which she keeps. Two were obviously look-alike young sisters close in age. They clung to each other,/ sat huddled in the same chair,/ and did not move from each other’s side./ The foster mother works at a grocery store all day,/ picks up the children,/ and starts her next job of feeding and bathing them at night./////

Before we retired from our pediatric specialties, we cared for patients in these circumstances, but not one right after another. We had forgotten what it was like.

We tried to imagine why the four foster children were no longer with their parents. It must be an unbelievable situation to have to give up your child. I think of parents in England during World War II sending their children to the country to avoid bombings in London/ or Jewish children sent by their parents to this country. Of course, we well know that it is possible for them to find new and loving homes. ////

This leads us to the story of Hannah/ as she so bitterly weeps while praying,/ desperately pouring out her heart to God so dramatically/ that Eli thinks she is drunk. Hannah does not offer a sacrifice or ask the priest to intercede. She prays directly to God. Except she does offer a sacrifice. She vows to give up her first-born son to God.  

Fertility for women in that culture was their role in life. Even though Hannah’s husband profoundly loves her, what she wants is a child, preferably a son. Like the Arkansas Baptist College freshmen football players who dream of escaping poverty with a football scholarship, Hannah dreams of changing her situation with her husband, his other wife, and society by having a son.

Hannah, of course, is not alone with infertility difficulties in the Bible. Many Old and New Testament matriarchs share Hannah’s story: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Sampson’s unnamed mother, a Shu/nam/mite Woman who cares for Elisha, and, of course, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Spoiler Alert! Whenever the Bible mentions that a woman is barren, she most probably will soon be having a baby!

Hannah’s Song, which we also hear today, hints at Hannah’s joy after her son is born. She,/ not her husband, names him Samuel and “lends” him to God. The story goes on to say that Hannah comes to Shiloh every year and brings Samuel a little robe. Later she gives birth to three more sons and two daughters./ Samuel goes on to change the structure of Israel by anointing two kings, Saul and David, who finally lead the Israelites to defeat the Philistines. Walter Brueggemann suggests that the Song of Hannah paves the way for a major theme of the Book of Samuel, the “power and willingness of Yahweh to intrude, intervene and invert.” 1

The Song of Hannah is so similar to the Song of Mary which we will hear next month. Both are songs of praise for God and thanksgiving, like none other, from two strong women with miraculous conceptions. Hannah and Mary sing about a God who has turned the world upside down. Both women have sons who do just that as they dramatically change the world of the Israelites. In fact, there is such similarity between the two songs that some believe Mary knew Hannah’s song and spontaneously praised God using words of Scripture that she had “hidden in her heart.”

At the end of this chapter, Hannah uses the word “lent” in our translation when she presents young Samuel to old Eli.// Hannah’s words remind us of Khalil Gibran’s (kuh·leel juh·braan) writing in The Prophet. “Our children are not really ours, but ‘lent’ to us by God.” They are the most important guests we will have in our homes, but they are not ours for the keeping. Gibran compares God to the archer and our job to be a bow, sending our children out into the world as arrows to become the person God created them to be. Listen to Gibran:

“Your children are not your children.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.” 2////

So, as parents and lovers of children, we are called to be the “steady bow.” The steady bow.//////

Of course, we wanted to take home the two sisters at Saint Mark Baptist and ensure all 150 freshmen football players received a scholarship. We remembered that at least one of the foster-care sisters was around five years old, about Samuel’s age, when Hannah lent him to God.

But what could we really do? First, we become aware of the needs of children and their parents right here in our county and in our own state. We read about it, but actually seeing it in person produces an insight like none other.

 Awareness is the first step, and that is where we are. We are keeping those children and young men at St. Mark in our prayers. We can relate more to the children who come to our food pantry./ We can respond to children needing scholarships at Camp Mitchell,/ especially the Dick Johnston Camp for children of incarcerated parents./ We can respond to Free Read,/ giving books to men and women incarcerated at Hawkins./ We can partner more with Saint Mark Baptist in their programs./ We can dream of a time when all children will be loved and cared for./ /

My hope is that we will each be guided to hear a call to make a change for the children and parents of our state and our country.//

We have a responsibility to be a “steady bow” to our own children,/ but we also have a God-given responsibility to be the “steady bow” to the children outside this congregation in the world.

1.  Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel (Interpretation; Louisville; John Knox, 1990), 21.

2 Khalil Gibran “On Children” in The Prophet (1923).

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

All Souls November 2, 2024, Columbarium, noon Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Arkansas

All Souls November 2, 2024, Columbarium noon, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church

Last Sunday, one of our youth approached me and said, “It has been three years today!” Immediately, I knew he was talking about the death of his grandmother three years ago. I suddenly realized how our youth and children are just as vulnerable to grief as we adults are and may be better at expressing it than we are. I responded by telling him that just mentioning the anniversary of his grandmother’s death was honoring her. His being at the church she loved was honoring her.

Honoring and celebrating the lives of those we love who have died are significant ways of working through grief. We remember their love. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we hear, “Love never dies.” Their love, which was given to us as a gift from God, is still here. This love never dies. Barkley’s selection for the December Rector’s Book Club is The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. At the memorial service in New York for British victims of the attack on the World Trade Center, British Prime Minister Tony Blair read these closing sentences of Thornton Wilder’s novel. “There is a land of the living,/ and a land of the dead,/ and the bridge is love,/ the only survival, /the only meaning.”

We honor our loved ones who have died by remembering and feeling that love. I told our young friend about today’s workday and the service where Saint Mark’s honors all whose ashes are in this columbarium, including his grandmother.

We still have more ways to honor and celebrate the lives of those in our congregation. Today, we placed flowers on each grave in this columbarium. On Sunday, at the All Saints service, the celebrant at the Eucharist will pray for those at Saint Mark’s who have died in the last year. All the names of those in this columbarium will be read Sunday afternoon at four here in the columbarium, followed by the Faure Requiem by our choir in the church.

There are so many other ways to remember those we loved who died. We write letters and talk to them. We do things with others we once did or planned with our loved ones. We try new things. We tell stories about our loved ones and show pictures, especially to our children. //

“The communion of saints links us with our loved ones who have gone before – and because this union is in Christ, it cannot be broken, even by death. This is a communion at the very deepest level, beyond language, heart speaking to heart.1”

We are here today to honor the life, the love, the support of each member of Saint Mark’s interred here. Love is all we have to contribute to this life that will be lasting. Love is all we will carry with us into the life of the resurrection. Love is the bridge between these two worlds.

Today, we celebrate the love from so many here in Saint Mark’s Columbarium, known and unknown.

1Br. Geoffrey Tristram SSJE Society of St. John the Evangelist

Joanna Seibert  joannaseibert.com