Joseph of Arimathea and the Election

Joseph of Arimathea and the Election

Chapel of Joseph of Arimathea, National Cathedral Washington DC

“He was a good and righteous man… and had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea and was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God.”—Luke 23:50-51. 

As we read this, we may not yet know many of the results of this election. Our prayers should be with those who win the election and for those who lose.

For some reason, I hope to remember Joseph of Arimathea after this election. “He was a good and righteous man… and had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God.” That’s us!! I think we’re all waiting expectantly for God’s kingdom and hoping to find some part of it in the people we voted for. So we have much in common with Joseph of Arimathea.

“He did not agree to their plan and action.” But what DID he do about it? Did he speak up for Jesus? There is no record of anyone testifying on Jesus’ behalf at his mock trial. We have sometimes been like Joseph of Arimathea—seeing injustice and wrongdoing in the lives of others and ourselves, yet not speaking up against them. We fear what might happen to us. We dread the consequences of speaking out. We fear that what we do or say might be offensive and hurt someone, or—Heaven forbid—we might become unpopular. We are afraid that our voice will not make a difference.

But then a transformation occurs in Joseph, what we might call a moment of clarity. Joseph goes to Pilate. What bravery. He asks for Jesus’ body, then personally and compassionately removes the nails from Jesus’ hands and feet, washes the blood from his head, hands, feet, side, and back, wraps the body in a linen cloth, and lays Jesus in what presumably was his own tomb. 

Are we Joseph of Arimathea? Is there a point at which we can no longer live only for our own well-being, focused on issues that affect only us? We no longer pretend to go along with the old crowd, inside and outside ourselves. Instead, we look to our core values, speak our truth, and act on it. This happens to people in recovery from addiction and to spiritual friends who seek a deeper connection to God. 

This may also be how we experienced voting recently or today. No matter the election’s results, we voted and let our voices be heard. We took a stand. As with Joseph, it was only the beginning for many of us.

Think about it. We gather today through the internet and may know what it is like to be Joseph of Arimathea. I believe there is a Joseph of Arimathea within each of us, finally making a stand and changing how we relate to ourselves, God, and the world—speaking out with love and compassion and becoming concerned for the plight of others. 

Remember the quiet, compassionate, loving courage of Joseph of Arimathea, who is in each of us, the courage to change and the determination to foster love and understanding between ourselves and others. We need that courage to bring compassionate healing to our country, especially in the days ahead.  

Joseph provided the tomb for the resurrection to take place. That is now our job. We have learned about resurrection and compassion from spiritual friends and in the thin places where we worship. We are now called to be that same vessel for compassion and resurrection in today’s world, where reconciliation is desperately needed—perhaps even more now than before the election. 

Let us be that place for healing and resurrection.

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

All Saints and All Souls: Generous Heart, Columbus

All Saints and All Souls: Generous Heart, Columbus

“In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a pocket handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.

Many people think of saints as plaster saints —men and women of such paralyzing virtue that they never thought a nasty thought or committed an evil deed their whole lives long. As far as I know, real saints never even come close to characterizing themselves that way.”–Frederick Buechner initially published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words. 

Buechner reminds us that being a saint is less about being ourselves and more about the way God, for some reason, works through and redeems the mess of our lives. November 1 is All Saints Day, when we remember the saints of the church who have died. November 2 is All Souls Day, when we remember all the faithful departed.

 I cannot help but remember Columbus, well known in the recovery community in Little Rock, Arkansas, only by his first name. Every year, usually early in the morning on the anniversary of your sobriety, you receive a phone call from Columbus. You wait in anticipation for that call, celebrating one more year of an alternative life with someone you knew only over the phone.

Columbus’s wife of forty-six years would leave him three times before he entered his final rehabilitation, after many DWIs, missed work, and days when she admitted she did not know where he was. Columbus died in the thirty-eighth year of his sobriety and was credited with leading thousands of men and women worldwide to sobriety.

Columbus made 15,000 calls a year and almost half a million calls before his death. He also called people he knew were no longer in recovery, telling them he cared about them. As a result, many people say they returned to recovery because of Columbus.

Columbus’ wife described his change during his recovery as “truly unbelievable. He became a dedicated and involved father and grandfather after he came so close to losing his family.”

When I hear people ask what they could do to make a difference in the world, I tell them Columbus’s story: one man with a generous heart, picking up the phone every day to change lives with a simple call. One day at a time. 

This may be how saints live. They are resurrection people. They know all too well what Good Friday is like. Yet God continues to change them and the world, one day, one phone call at a time.  

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

All Saints Day

 All Saints Day

St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church David Sanger

Guest Writer: Karen Dubert

All Saints’ Day: a Crowd of Saints  2020

 “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation.”— Rev 7:9.

My solitude of social distance is suddenly congested

by reminders of the great cloud:

that crowd of witnesses huddled over there in eternity,

peering into time

from vast margins of timelessness,

voids of space.

How is it that we eternal beings—

embedded in time,

prehistoric insects in amber—

How is it we so obsess over the amber

that we imagine ourselves the focus?

We sing of saints “who from their labours rest”

possibly imagining

eternity as an endless “rest" of watching us—

Dreary infinitude.

This amber chamber in which we live and move and be

confounds, imprisons us

defining our vision

regulating our expression;

so we envision the ancestors of millennia

eagerly peering over each other’s shoulders

to catch glimpses of us—

“the living ones”

The irony catches in my throat,

a log hung up on the flotsam of a cosmic flood.

That our amber-vision defines us

rather than enabling us

to gaze beyond and marvel that

out of here, somewhere

amberlessness means

movement.

(revised 2 Nov 2021)

Karen Dubert

Grace Chapter Daughters of the King at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock, will lead a prayer vigil on Election Day, November 3, 2026. The chapel at Saint Mark’s will be open for prayers from 8:30 a.m. after Morning Prayer to 5:00 p.m.

Joanna joannaseibert.com