Joseph of Arimathea and the 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.” —Luke 23:50-51.

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As we read this, all of us will know most of the results of this midterm election. Our prayers should be with those who win the election, for those who lose, and for those who voted for either side.

For some reason I am hoping 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 all are waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God and are hoping to find some part of it in all the people we voted for. 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 that anyone testified on Jesus’ behalf at his mock trial. We have sometimes been like Joseph of Arimathea— when we see injustice and wrongdoings in the lives of others and ourselves, but we do not speak up against them. We fear what might happen to us. We dread the consequences of speaking out. We fear what we do or say might be offensive and hurt someone, or—heaven forbid—we would 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 personally goes to Pilate. What bravery. He asks for Jesus’ body, personally and compassionately takes the nails out of 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 our lives concerned only about 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 of ourselves. We look to our inner core values and speak our truth and act on it. This certainly happens for people in recovery from addictions, as well as for spiritual friends seeking a deeper connection to God.

This also may be how we experienced voting recently. No matter the results of the election, we voted and let our voice be heard. We took a stand. For many of us, as with Joseph, it was only a beginning.

Think about it. We who are gathered today through the internet know what it is like to be Joseph of Arimathea. I believe there is a Joseph of Arimathea inside each of us, finally making a stand, changing the way we have been relating to ourselves, to God, and to the world—speaking out with love and compassion, becoming concerned for the plight of others.

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

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

Let us be that place for healing and resurrection.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Book Sale and Signing at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

               Between 8 and 10:30 services and after 10:30 service

                                 November 17th and 24th

   We will be studying  A Spiritual Rx for Advent,  Christmas and Epiphany during the forum at 9:15 am during Sundays in December                   

              A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

                  The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18. All Money from book sales goes to Camp Mitchell                 

Charleston: All Faithful Departed

“You have heard the whispers on quiet summer evenings when you have been walking alone. They are the sound of the ancestors, speaking softly just on the other side of what we call real. You have seen the strange lights at twilight, like candles lit in evening rooms, beckoning people home to houses you cannot see. You have felt the touch on your shoulder, when you were deep in prayer or bent with worry, and known the energy that hums along the wires of faith, the presence of a power that knows how to heal. You have experienced the physical mystery that surrounds us, the mystery of the Spirit, the thousand tiny proofs that we live next door to heaven, waking up in a wonder we are only beginning to discover.” —Bishop Steven Charleston, Facebook, October 31, 2018.

November 1st was All Saints’ Day, and November 2nd was The Celebration of All Faithful Departed. These two liturgical celebrations are our Church’s family reunion day. It is the time for us to pull out our family photograph album and remember where we came from and all the faithful who influenced our lives.

Where were you the night of April 4, 1968? My husband and I were seniors in medical school in Memphis. That night Martin Luther King was assassinated outside of the Lorraine Motel. Memphis became a police state. Clergy in Memphis decided to respond by marching to the office of the mayor, Henry Loeb, to ask for relief for the striking sanitation workers whose cause had brought King to Memphis. The ministers gathered at St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral. At the last moment, Dean William Dimmick, who later became the bishop of Northern Michigan (and eventually baptized our two sons), went into the Cathedral and took down the processional cross from the high altar. Holding it high above him (he was a very short man), he led the march down Poplar Avenue to City Hall.

The air was electric. Down the streets the clergy and supporters marched. A Methodist minister writes about one moment he will never forget: As the clergy are advancing down Poplar Avenue, up ahead, he sees an elderly woman sitting on her front porch. As the procession approaches her, she stands up and screams, “GET THAT CROSS BACK IN THE CHURCH WHERE IT BELONGS!”1

Dean Dimmick took the cross out of the cathedral into the streets of a city on the verge of riot. He taught us where Christ lives, especially in times of grief and oppression. Christ is out in the midst of the mess. Christ was out walking the streets of Memphis in 1968.

Today my prayer is that we will be able to emulate what we learned from Dean Dimmick and take Christ out to those who are sick and suffering, to those who are hungry, to those living in poverty, to victims and families of the many recent episodes of violence in our country, to immigrants around the world, to the lonely and fearful, to those who may be invisible to us much of the time.

On the days we remember saints, we especially affirm that, in some way we cannot explain, Dean Dimmick will always be there beside us, praying and cheering us on.

1Preaching Through the Year of Mark (Morehouse, 1999), “Stepping Out of the Tent,” by Katherine Moorehead (p. 75).

Joanna . joannaseibert.com

Book Sale and Signing at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

               Between 8 and 10:30 services and after 10:30 service

                                 November 17th and 24th

   We will be studying  A Spiritual Rx for Advent,  Christmas and Epiphany during the forum at 9:15 am during Sundays in December                   

              A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

                  The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18. All Money from book sales goes to Camp Mitchell                 

Remembering World War I

“This is a war to end all wars.” —Woodrow Wilson.

This week we remembered the one hundred and first anniversary of the end of World War I, the Great War, the War to End All Wars. The war officially ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Last year at eleven in the morning on November 11th or Veterans Day, bells tolled in churches all over the globe. to remember the 100th anniversary of the end of the War. Special programs about the war were held around the world, most notably in England and in Paris, France, where the world’s diplomats met to commemorate the peace accord that ended the war.

Both of my grandfathers served in the war and came home. I never heard one grandfather speak of his experience. The other, Grandfather Whaley, rarely talked about the war itself, but did have a lot to say about his experience in the army. He was born in what is now the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. Going into the armed service was his higher education.

When I was in college, my grandfather wrote to me every week on his old typewriter, on which several keys would often get stuck. The lines of type were uneven. Every letter, however, was full of his army experiences and how he related it to my new life in college. He would remind me that the best lessons were to be found in the people I would meet and the places where I would travel. Almost every sentence ended with etc., etc., etc.

I kept every one of his letters. The girls on my floor in my dorm would gather each week to hear about his wisdom from his life experiences a half-century earlier in the army in World War I—and about his present life in small-town Virginia.

Did I forget to tell you also that my grandfather always enclosed a dollar bill with each letter?

Joanna . joannaseibert.com