Sam Shoemaker, January 31, transferred to February 4, 2026, 12-Step Eucharist 5:30 p.m. Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock

Sam Shoemaker, January 31, transferred to February 4, 2026, 12-step Eucharist 5:30 pm Saint Mark’s, Little Rock.

Do you ever wonder where the 12 steps we repeat every month came from? Listen to this story.

1934 Calvary Episcopal  Church, New York City

The Rev. Dr. Sam Shoemaker has been rector of Calvary for 10 years. He has developed Calvary House, a hostel and center for ministry and small groups in the city. He also runs Calvary Rescue Mission, a place for the “down and out” to get a meal and rest. Bill Wilson, an alcoholic New York stockbroker, visits there during his last days of drinking. Bill is influenced by Ebby Thacher, a friend who has become sober through a spiritual program called the Oxford Group led by Sam Shoemaker, while Ebby meets at Calvary House.

In 1935, Bill Wilson becomes sober and spends more time with Sam Shoemaker in Shoemaker's book-lined office, talks with Him, attends Oxford Group meetings, and visits Calvary Mission and Calvary House. Dr. Shoemaker sends Bill a letter when he is 60 days sober, thanking him for his help getting a chemistry professor sober.

 Later, Bill Wilson says, “Every river has a wellspring at its source. AA is like that. In the beginning, there was a spring which poured out of a clergyman, Dr. Samuel Shoemaker. He channeled to the few of us who then saw and heard him, the loving concern, the Grace.. to walk in the Consciousness of God- to live and to love again, as never before. 1 Dr. Sam Shoemaker was one of AA’s indispensables. Had it not been for his ministry to us in our early years, our Fellowship would not exist today. Sam Shoemaker passed on the spiritual keys that liberated us. He was a co-founder of AA.”  The first three Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous were inspired in part by Shoemaker. “The early AA got its ideas of self-examination, acknowledgement of character defects, restitution for harm done, and working with others straight from the Oxford Groups and directly from Sam Shoemaker, their former leader in America, and no one else.” I am quoting Bill Wilson directly.

So, Dr. Shoemaker provided a refuge for alcoholics in New York and directly influenced the Twelve Steps through his long and close friendship with Bill Wilson. 2,3,4

You have heard from Bill Wilson. Now here are the words Sam Shoemaker later said.

“I believe the church has a great deal to learn, not from any individual member of AA, but from the incredible collective experience of AA. I pray to God that what is happening pretty steadily and consistently throughout the fellowship could happen in every church. The AA fellowship is made up of people who are beginning to be changed, not saints and not perfect. We in the church can all learn by this example, and if we think we’re above it, we are in real danger.”5

Every January 31, the Episcopal Church remembers the ministry of this Episcopal priest in New York City who saved and changed the lives of so many people at this service today. One of my most spiritual moments was attending an AA meeting over ten years ago in Sam Shoemaker’s office at Calvary.

Perhaps you have seen an Episcopal presence in AA. Still, even more, perhaps you can see that Sam Shoemaker transmitted to AA a message that it is all about love, the same message we hope is transmitted at every church and at every Eucharist.

1Karen Plavan, “A Talk on Samuel Moor Shoemaker,” Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh, January 31, 2010

2. Dick B, “Calvary House and the Oxford Group,”  The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous, A Design for Living that Works, p. 114.

3“A Biography of Sam Shoemaker,” AlcoholicAnonymous.org.

4“AA Tributes, Samuel Shoemaker, ‘Co-founder’ of AA,” Dickb.com

5 Michael Fitzpatrick, “Rev Sam Shoemaker, His Role in Early AA Part 11,” Recoveryspeakers.com

Lessons Isaiah 51:17-52:1a,1 Corinthians 5:6-8,Luke 4:40-44. Preface   of God the Holy Spirit

Joanna Seibert   joannaseibert.com

Visit of the Wise Men 2026 12-Step Eucharist, January 7, 2026, Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock

Visit of the Wise Men 2026, 12-step Eucharist

January 7, 2026, Matthew 2:1-12, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock

As we celebrated the Epiphany last night,/ we heard about the wise men’s visit to Jesus. Epiphany in our tradition signifies the revelation, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, which is most of us, you and me./ The Christ child, the God of my understanding, is indeed manifested to me almost sensuously at Epiphany.

This first occurred in the mid-1950s, when I attended my first Epiphany Feast of Lights in a small Virginia church with a friend and his family when I was eleven years old. I still remember the unfamiliar liturgy,/ the candlelight, and the haunting mystic melodies. As we walked out of the small-town church on that bitter, cold January night, carrying our candles, we were surprised by the winter’s first snow. I knew that night that God spoke to me most clearly through this tradition.

 A decade later, I again encountered the beauty of the Feast of Lights at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Memphis, with its choral procession of costumed wise men bearing their extraordinary gifts.

Here in Little Rock at St. Mark’s, we could again experience that haunting call of Epiphany at the same candlelight evening service that started here in the early 1980s. The choir and candlelight recessional out of the church into the dark night is always breathtaking. I watch the beautiful, often familiar faces of those walking out before me. Their expressions seem to ask, “What will we encounter next in the night? Will this light be enough for me to see?”

 This service empowers us to think about carrying our single small candle out into the world. As the candlelight service concludes, we realize we can only see our path in the dark night because of the light from so many others./ This is also part of our 12-step program and our Christian tradition. Both are a we program. We stay sober and connected to God, the Christ, within us, because we remain connected to a community. Occasionally, our light shines brightly, but most often, we need the light of others to see the path ahead. We are called to keep seeking that light and to reflect it to others.//

There is also another scene from the wise men’s journey that speaks to our journey as Christians and to the journey of people in recovery. “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” “They were warned in a dream… and left for their country by another road.”  

This is our story. We were warned in a dream by another person, a judge, our family, the consequences of our behavior, an intervention, whatever brought us to a moment of clarity to return home,/ to a new life by another road. Living the path of the 12 steps and the Christian life is the other road we have been called to travel. It is often called the road less traveled.

What a privilege it is to trudge and to travel this road of happy destiny in this community with each of you.

Joanna     joannaseibert.com

Celebration of the Life of Jan Mauldin, February 13, 2026, 1 p.m. Saint Mark's Episcopal Church

Homily for Jan Mauldin, February 13, 2026, 1 p.m. Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church

We first met Jan Mauldin in December 1982, when we hosted a supper at our home for Saint Mark’s members, who had been confirmed that night at a central Arkansas confirmation service at Trinity Cathedral. Jan is the only person I remember from that evening meal of red beans and rice. She was quiet, kind, and engaging, and seemed unusually excited to have had Bishop Herbert Donovan lay hands on her head at Trinity. This is the Jan I hear people continue to talk about over forty years later. She made an immediate impression on you. This is the loving, caring Jan we all have known in every ministry at this church, the altar guild, the Daughters of the King, Women’s Bible Study, Episcopal Church Women, funerals, Walking the Mourner’s Path, her Christ Care Group, the Community of Hope,/ and, in addition,/ being  Saint Mark’s bookkeeper. I wonder how many churches have their bookkeeper attend every staff meeting? Every ministry Jan was involved in was carried out with a kind, quiet, forgiving, sacred care./

 After Jan’s son, Mason, was tragically killed in a plane crash at age 31 in January 2013, Jan participated in our grief support group called Walking the Mourner’s Path. Soon after that, she became a facilitator in all the following Mourner’s Path groups to be present with others who had experienced the death of a loved one. It was a privilege to watch Jan at these groups. She knew what the participants were going through. She rarely spoke up,/ but would sit with a different participant each week, simply being a presence with them. This may be what best describes Jan. She taught us about being a presence,/ a presence of love. We cannot console those who mourn with words,/ but we can bring a presence, a loving presence,/ and sit or walk or stand beside those who mourn. Jan modeled this for us. And Gail, Greg, Mark, Dayna, and Damon,/ that is what we each hope to be doing for you today: simply learning from your older sister,/ your amazing Mom, who taught us through her daily life about being a loving presence. I speak especially to Jan’s four grandchildren, Mel, Natalie, Tyson, and Collins, who affectionately called her by the best name ever, “Gran/Jan.” GranJan. We all have heard when your birthday or a graduation or a sports event or a recital or a play was coming up, because Jan loved to talk about it/ before and after. She was devoted to you and so proud of each of you. /

And we also speak to the host of other family members here. We do not know your faces, but we definitely know your names. Jan, who was your surrogate mother or grandmother, constantly told stories about you, her family, concerts, beach trips, camping, amazing trips, especially airport adventures, and how she dearly loved each of you. /

When I heard I was preaching this homily for Jan, I sat down, cried, and said, “I can’t do it.” Jan is too much like family. Indeed, Jan considered this church her family. Shortly after that, I heard on Little Rock’s classical music station one of my and our choir’s favorite anthems from Brahms’s German Requiem, “How Lovely Are Thy Dwelling Places.” Tim Allen tells me Brahms wrote this moving requiem funeral service after the death of his mother. Could this have been a message telling us about Jan’s new presence? Somehow, the music immediately calmed my soul.//

St. Paul describes death as one great hard truth we will all eventually feel. He goes further to call this truth the “sting” of death, which is an understatement for those of us who have been mourning Jan these past few days.

The hardness of this truth/ is a prelude/ to the greatest truth, which is that in death, Jan’s life is changed, but not ended,/ and the change is even better. And this is another understatement. That was the kind, loving message I heard from Brahms and maybe, the Holy Spirit through Jan earlier this week. “How Lovely Are Thy Dwelling Places.” I pray you feel that great truth this early afternoon, and if not now, then expect it at your most needed moments in the future.1

We know only a few things about the life in the resurrection that Jan is experiencing. “In my Father's house, there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”  Henri Nouwen2 writes that this passage from John 14 that Michael just read tells us that death for Jesus was a way of getting from one place to another. Death was not an ending for Jesus, but a passage to something greater for him/ and for us./ We know from Dayna and Damon that their Mom knew this./ Jan told them she did not fear death and looked forward to being with Mason. /

As I felt Jan’s presence on Monday, I was reminded that her presence and her love have moved to a new place, yet, in some strange way, her presence and her love are still present with us today./ All of this is a great mystery that will probably only be answered when we see Jesus face to face.

Scripture tells us love never dies. Jan’s love is still present with us. Her life is changed,/ not ended./ Our love for her also never dies. And Jan carries our love for her into the resurrection life, where Love lives eternally./ Death is not a period at the end of a sentence, but more like a comma. The God of our understanding does not give us the depth of such love as Jan’s and let it abruptly come to an end. It is still here,/ surrounding us by all those who received the love she shared with us in her presence./

Truly, Jan’s gift to each of us was the great truth of how presence and love/ can change the world, /one person at a time./ Many have described being in Jan’s presence as if Jan were unconsciously directly saying to them, “I think /I like your soul/ the way it is.” This is unconditional love. Jan looked for and saw the light of Christ/ in each of us/ and reflected it back to us. ///

Our prayer3 today is to our eternal God, who loves us with a greater love than we can know or understand. We give praise and thanks for your servant, Jan, who now is in the larger life of your heavenly Presence, who on this earth was a tower of strength to all of us, who stood by us with her presence and love, who looked not at outward appearances/ but lovingly into the hearts of men and women,/ whose loyalty was steadfast, and whose joy it was to know more about you and be of service./ May Jan continue to find abiding peace and wisdom in your heavenly kingdom, and that/ with your help,/ we may carry forward Jan’s unfinished ministry of presence and love on this earth,/ one person at a time,/ through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

1Christoph Keller, III, Funeral Sermon for Monty Scott, January 24, 2016.

2Henri Nouwen in Finding My Way Home, Pathway to Life and the Spirit (2004).

3 J. B. Bernardin Burial Services p. 117

Joanna Seibert

Longest Night, Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, December 20, 2025

Longest Night Saint Mark’s Saturday, December 20, 2025, Ezekiel 36:26-28, Romans 8:31-39, Luke 5:17-20, 24-25

During one of our recent storms with high winds, a tree fell on our next-door neighbor’s house, causing a waterfall to flood into her bedroom through a gaping hole in her roof. Soon after that, our neighbors across the street cut down all the trees in their yard, except for one./ Now, I am not certain whether cutting down the green space is the perfect remedy for further roof leaks, but it speaks to the fear and anxiety after a disaster.

If you connect to social media, you will believe that the world is comprised of beautiful people with even more spectacular children who have no troubles. They sail smoothly through life, with only an occasional bump in the road.

But we know in our hearts this is not true.1 We are all humans, wounded, with periods of anxiety, pain, and occasionally sheer terror. Terrible things do happen to all of us: divorce,/ death,/children in trouble,/job loss,/ illness. We sometimes live with anxiety, like a second skin. Fear becomes locked inside our bodies and our daily lives. We cry./ We try to talk./ We try not to talk./ Sometimes, we scream./ We try sleeping./ We take drugs or alcohol./ We eat ourselves sick./ We starve ourselves empty./ Nothing works entirely. /

This Christmas season of love can make our hearts ache even more. We remember when our children were small, all “snuggled in their beds,”/ and our parents and grandparents were alive, helping us out. Sometimes we even forget and put an extra table setting for dinner./ ”Oh,/ they are gone now.”2/

We are told that our fear and sadness will disappear if we have faith. We are not good Christians if we harbor fear or anxiety. This does not help./ We reach out to the gospel of self-help. “Try harder!” “Be positive!” But we feel like floating astronauts untethered. We realize we are no longer drivers of our own destiny. Eventually,/ finally,/ we realize we can no longer play this game of solitaire./ We need other people, a community, to help us through it./

Kate Bowler, an Episcopal priest teaching at Duke who developed stage 4 cancer at age 35, nicknamed her community “The Rowing or Crew Team.” They all take turns pulling on the oars. At times, there is a “man down”/ who needs to be carried. The members take turns/ carrying/ and rowing.

Betsy Singleton Snyder, a local Methodist minister, gave birth to triplets and developed a life-threatening heart condition after delivery. She called her team “The Squad” while her husband traveled to Washington as our congressman.3

Kate and Betsy’s stories relive tonight’s gospel./ Friends of a paralyzed man bring him on a bed to see Jesus. There is such a large crowd that they cannot even reach the door. They think outside the box,/ go up to the roof,/ break through the sycamore beams, clay, and earth plaster,/ and lower the man to Jesus. Jesus heals him./ The man who comes in through the roof/ now walks out through the front door. It is a sacred story of a community bringing to Jesus one of their crew members who is paralyzed.

We, as well, can be brought to a place of love when we become paralyzed with fear and anxiety, when we become ill,/when a loved one dies,/ when we lose our job,/ or when our family system breaks up. Healing is not fixing the situation/ but allowing a community to walk beside us, allowing us to be lowered into the unknown, into a new way of life./ In our grief recovery group, Walking the Mourner’s Path, which will begin in April, the new life is learning in community how to honor the person we loved who died./ In 12-step recovery, we have a moment of clarity/ when we decide we can no longer do this alone and seek out a community to hear stories / from those who walked our path/ and found a new life. These saints who help us/ put their own agenda on pause/ as they decide to remember/ what they sometimes would rather forget. /Our self-sufficiency is a sham. ///////

But, Wait! There is more! This is not the final message of Luke’s story.1 Jesus leaves the house,/ and the crowds follow,/continuously talking about the miracle they witnessed. The fortunate homeowner who entertained Jesus and the large crowds now looks down on his floor littered with broken

timber beams, clay, and dirt. We hope he also has a community that will come to place a tarp over his roof until he can fix it,/ as happened to our next-door neighbor. But then, suddenly, the homeowner looks up through the hole in his ceiling and sees only a beautiful/ dark blue sky/ filled with stars.// This is one more truth. When we can see even the slightest sign of “beauty or light” in these times of darkness,/ just something as simple as a flower, a note, a call, a bird, a song,/ or the blue sky, we can be guided by a north star out of darkness.

A post note to our neighbor, who cut down all his trees but one. Recently, that tree fell on his neighbor’s house! Trees are interconnected, maybe our best example of community. When the tree’s community died, so did its nourishment. /

The gospel homeowner is witnessing a fundamental Christian truth/: that there may be a hole in our roof once/ or several times in our lifetimes. God doesn’t promise us a prosperous, healthy, and happy life that we dream we deserve. But God promises to be present,/ often in the form of a community such as this one here tonight at Saint Mark’s./ God constantly calls us to a community where we find hope,/ and we realize our protection is the arms of our God beside us in the form of our community. Hope comes from releasing all the energy of trying to rearrange the past/ as we learn to forgive. Hope comes as we let go of our panic about the future. All that anxious energy can now be used to walk in the storm in the present moment, and know that our God is walking beside us like the paralytic’s friends. God’s loving arms through our community will never abandon us. This is hope, quaking hope.4 /Emily Dickinson even better describes this hope as “the thing with feathers that perches in the soul-

And sings the tune/ without the cords-

And never/ stops-at all- 5///

“Blessed are we, the anxious,

with eyes wide open to the lovely and the awful.

Blessed are we, the aware,

knowing that the only sane thing to do in such a world

is to admit the fear that sits in our peripheral vision.

Blessed are we, the hopeful,

eyes searching for the horizon,

ready to meet the next miracle,/ the next surprise.

Yes, blessed are we, the grateful/

Awake/ to the terrible,/ beautiful/ star-filled, longest night.” 1

1Kate Bowler, Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day! (Convergent Books 2024) preface.

2 Kate Bowler, “What is Advent,” Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day! (Convergent Books 2024) p. 184.

3Betsy Singleton Snyder, Stepping on Cheerios (Abington Press 2017).

4Sam Wells, interview with Kate Bowler at Duke Divinity’s Convocation and Pastors School

5 Emily Dickson, “’ Hope’ Is The Thing with Feathers,” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Funeral for Bill Phelps, Long Time Choir Member, December 12, 2026

Funeral for Bill Phelps, Friday, December 12, 2026, 1 p.m.

Lynn tells us that the two most important things in Bill's life were his family and his church. Lynn's daughter, Lisa, told her mom when she was 12 that she had won the prize when Lynn married Bill 44 years ago. Bill also adored his two children, Jo Kelly, a well-known artist, and Don Phelps, who followed in Bill's footsteps into the family business, Phelps Fan Company, which sold industrial fans worldwide. Don was the fifth generation in the family business, and now his son, Garrett, will be the sixth. What a legacy of continuity to be part of a family tradition so rare in our world today. Of course, Bill cherished his other two grandchildren, Jay and Keisey, and his five great-grandchildren./

The part of the church that Bill most loved was church music. Bill and Lynn met in the choir at Trinity Cathedral. He was a tenor, and she was an alto. It was a choir romance. They married and later moved to St. Mark's, where they sang in this choir for over 40 years. Bill and Lynn's love for this church and their choral experience are attested to by their wish that any memorials go to the Craig Chotard Music Fund, in honor of the former choir director at St. Mark's. Lynn also asked me to thank Kathy Roberts, who is still an alto in St. Mark's choir, for her great friendship since they moved back to Little Rock. Another story about how a church choir becomes family throughout a lifetime.

Maybe another reason Bill loved the Episcopal church, besides its music, was that we are one of the few churches having three Rogation Days, just before we celebrate Christ's ascension and Rogation Sunday, the sixth Sunday of Easter. These are four days when we say special prayers for farmers and ask for blessings on their crops. I will never forget hearing Ted Glusman, a former rector at St. Mark's, say Bill Phelps was the only farmer who was a Saint Mark's parishioner. This was Bill's other love, his pecan grove. Bill would slip away to the pecan trees south of the airport whenever he could. He was very active in the pecan industry and helped develop machinery and equipment to improve crop yields. Lynn was also involved in the business and was the head cracker. Many of the Phelps' friends were in the pecan business. Bill helped invent a special shaker to shake the pecans out of the trees at just the right time. Lynn and I laughed about that,/ as we decided to say Bill Phelps was a mover and shaker. But if you knew Bill, he was a quiet man with a total dry wit that would always amuse you.

Bill died in his ninety-third year, a non/a/genarian. If you sing in an Episcopal church choir, at least several times a year, you will sing Evensong, a traditional evening sung service of psalms, prayers, and canticles. At Saint Mark's, for Bill and Lynn, it was the Fourth Sunday at Four. Canticles are songs or chants of praise that are from holy scripture or other sacred texts, but not from the Psalms. The two canticles that Bill and Lynn most often sang were from Luke's Gospel: the Magnificat (Song of Mary) and the Nunc Di/mit/tis (Song of Simeon).//

The music we make on earth,/ which passes away in a moment,/is an anticipation, a rehearsal for music that is unending,/ that flows forth forever;/ the music of worship,/ the sound of praise,/ the eternal alleluia.1

Simeon2 was also a faithful, nonagenarian, like Bill. Simeon was a righteous and devout Jewish man waiting for the coming of the Messiah in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit had revealed that he would not die before seeing the Messiah. Guided by the Holy Spirit, Simeon went to the temple when Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus there/ eight days after his birth/ to be named. Simeon recognized Jesus as the promised Savior. Simeon took the child in his arms, blessed God, and proclaimed this beautiful prayer that Bill had sung so many times in his crystal clear tenor voice.

"Lord,/ you now have set your servant free////

to go in peace as you have promised;///

For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior,///

whom you have prepared for all the world to see;///

A  Light to enlighten the nations,//

 and the glory of your people, Israel.

Glory to the Father,/ and to the Son,/ and to the Holy Spirit,/

As it was in the beginning,/ is now,/ and will be for ever.3 Amen/////

We do believe that these words,// Bill so often sung,// became a reality on Monday of this week. Amen

1Charles Hoffacker, "Life as Music," A Matter of Life and Death, Preaching at Funerals (Cowley 2002) pp. 54-55.

2Luke 2:29-32,

3BCP 120.