Homily for Rusty Barham, Friday September 16, 2022, St. Mark's Episcopal Church

 Homily for Rusty Barham. Friday September 16, 2022

We gather this morning to celebrate the life of Rusty Barham, a friend who died much too soon. As you have heard, he lived an amazing life, loved and cherished by his family and friends. I have only known Rusty and Jeanne since his illness, but I have never seen a man, a family, a couple fight so hard at every turn to keep Rusty alive and well, going to MD Anderson for experimental protocols. And Jeanne was right there with him at every step of the way. I was amazed by the many friends and family who came to visit Rusty. Their love, his love, was so evident. And we are here today to remind each other of that love, the love that never dies.

Remember this verse from 1 Corinthians, “Love never dies.” (1 Corinthians 13:8). Repeat. Rusty’s body has died to this world, but his love is still here with each of you. Love is the only thing we leave behind when we die, and it is the only thing we take with us into eternal life.

We don’t understand it. It is a mystery./ I look at pictures of my own loved ones who have died, my brother and my grandparents. I can feel their love as I send my love back to them. Frederick Buechner and Henri Nouwen tell us that our bodies die, but our mutual love somehow returns to God and is kept for all eternity.

Listen again to what St. Paul, Buechner, and Nouwen are saying. Love is kept for all eternity. That means love is what we leave on this earth, and love is also what we take with us to meet the God of love. So Rusty left his love to you, which is also now part of/ and is enlarging the love of our God/ in this greater life. If you are a mystic, you have no difficulty understanding all this. However, this may be a difficult concept if you are a person who comprehends mainly by rational thinking.

This belief is also in a closing sentence from Thornton Wilder’s fictional book, The Bridge of San Luis Rey( Sand Louise ray), where five people die on a bridge in South American. British Prime Minister Tony Blair read this passage at the memorial service in New York/ for British victims of the attack on the World Trade Center.//“There is a land of the living/ and a land of the dead/ and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” (Repeat)1

I know in my heart that the love Rusty had for each of you will always endure. You will never be lonely. His Love is always there inside of you./ Rusty’s love stays with each of us as we carry it forward to transform ourselves, transform others we meet, //and transform the universe./  My heart tells me this mystery is true, and I think you know it as well, because this is what Rusty taught us, and what you gave to him./

Unfortunately, the Bible does not answer most of our questions about resurrection. It refuses to approach resurrection as something rational for us to understand in our lifetime.2

However, in this mysterious universe, what we do know is that those who mean most to us// mean EVEN MORE to God. In God’s way, God will keep them, and because God keeps them, we are never separated from them, or they from us.3/

This morning as we carry the ashes of our dear friend, Rusty, in and out of this sacred space, we are sac/ra/men/tally carrying him back to God.4 We know he already is with God, but this funeral lit/ur/gy allows us, in effect, to shout out a prayerful petition to God, “God, get ready! Here comes Rusty! A sinner of your own 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 the prayers at the offertory, “We give thee, but thine own,”/ except today, the offering is not money but the life of a loved one.

It is an early Christian tradition4 to tell stories about the one who has died as the body is on its pilgrimage to its final burial place. You are a family of storytellers, so keep telling all of us/ and all you meet,  stories about Rusty/ as I know you will do at the reception and on the way to New Orleans. This is how we will continue to share his love. We tell stories because Christians believe that death changes but does not destroy. Death5 is not a period at the end of a sentence, but more like a comma/ where we die but go on to a new relationship with God AND with those we love. Our experience is that our God of love does not give us a loving relationship and then let it stop abruptly, as with Rusty’s death. This loving relationship is still there but in some different form of love. We tell stories of Rusty, especially at his death, to continue our relationship with him, to know Rusty’s never-ending love for you, to remember Rusty’s love for the God of love, as  seen through the prism of his life,/ as refractions of the grace and love of God/ in glad and sorrowful memories.////

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

And now O God,6 who loves us/ with a greater love than we can neither know nor understand:/ We give you most high praise and hearty thanks for the excellent example of your servant, Rusty, 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 and children; who rejoiced to serve all people;/ whose loyalty was steadfast,/ and his friendship unselfish and secure; whose joy it was to know more about You and be of service. Grant that Rusty 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. Amen.

1Thornton Wilder in The Bridge of San Luis Rey (HarperCollins, 1927), p. 107.

2Heaven, edited by Roger Ferlo (Seabury Books, 2007).

3 Theodore Farris,  Death and Transfiguration. (Forward Movement 1998).

4Thomas Long, “O Sing to Me of Heaven: Preaching at Funerals” in Journal for Preachers, vol. 29, No. 3, Easter 2006, pp.21-26.

5Edward Gleason, Dying we Live (Cowley 1990).

6 J. B. Bernardin Burial Services (Morehouse Publishing 1980) p. 117

21C Jeremiah St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, September 25, 2022

21 C Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15 September 25, 2022

Despair.com is an actual website. They sell posters, decals, hats, T-shirts with quotations to motivate people to new levels of despair. Here’s one: “It’s always darkest before it goes pitch black.”

The prophet Jeremiah would have loved despair.com. He probably had a mug that said, “It’s always darkest before it goes pitch black.” The word jer/e/mi/ad means a “speech expressing a bitter lament or a righteous prophecy of doom, a thunderous denunciation.” Jeremiah is the origin of the word. Jeremiah criticizes everything needing accusations. He denounces the king/ the clergy. He curses the rich for exploiting the poor. At the entrance to the temple, Jeremiah tells the leaders if they think God is impressed by all the mumbo-jumbo that goes on in worship, they should have their heads examined. Jeremiah takes a clay pot and smashes it into smithereens to show what God plans to do as soon as God gets around to it. He tells the people if they are so crazy about circumcision, then get their minds above their navels and try circumcising the foreskins of their hearts (4:4). Jeremiah writes pleasant devotions like, “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick, I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.” Jeremiah tells the king to “take a lowly seat, because your beautiful crown won’t be on your head for long” (13:18).

The prophet has been on a constant tirade, preaching despair for forty years.

Now, the nation of Judah is breathing its last. The Babylonians have returned to punish King Ze/de/ki/ah for his ill-advised rebellion and consequent siege of the city. Within weeks or even days, the siege will result in the total destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple, and the entire nation.

In this dire national crisis, Jeremiah’s message is, “We’re doomed. The Babylonians are going to destroy us, and God is not going to stop it.” Jeremiah not only predicts the invasion, but also tells the people to accept it. He looks them in the eye and tells them they have already lost.//

We are not surprised that no one welcomes Jeremiah’s message. The leaders decide that Jeremiah is a threat to national security. This may sound strange to hear that a preacher is considered unpatriotic because of what he preaches. But we can still remember the government keeping tabs on certain ministers during the civil rights days or the Vietnam War. Even today, churches have been warned of losing their tax-exempt status if political ideas come from the pulpit.// King Ze/de/ki/ah throws Jeremiah in prison so he won’t have to listen to him anymore.///

C.S. Lewis says, “Despair is a greater sin than any of the sins provoking it,”/but it can be difficult not to go there.//

 Countless nameless children die daily from hunger and disease. An Episcopal kindergarten teacher jogs down a major street in Memphis in the early morning and is kidnapped and killed. A thirty-year-old architect wakes up without the strength to get out of bed. An accountant receives a call not to come to work because he has been laid off. At. A fourth grader fails a spelling test. He hasn’t studied. His parents have been fighting. A senior drops out of school because his family needs him to get a job. A brokenhearted mother cannot sleep. A Sunday school teacher decides he doesn’t believe in God’s love anymore. A preacher working on her sermons thinks about giving up. A mother dies too soon, and her husband has no idea how to care for their children. Nineteen children and two adults die in a shooting in Uvalde, Texas at Robb Elementary School.//

We do have moments when the light seems to have gone out completely. So Jeremiah’s despair seems reasonable when we look honestly at the brokenness we can’t fix.

The prophet has more than enough reasons to give up, and YET,/ in the middle of the siege,/ God changes Jeremiah’s sermon/1 after forty years and thirty chapters of gloom.

His cousin Han/a/mel, like everyone else in Judah, would love to sell his land and buy a bus ticket out of town. Han/a/mel’s property is now for sale in an extremely depressed real estate market. The land will soon be utterly worthless. So Jeremiah does the most hopeful thing imaginable in the midst of his nation’s destruction. He buys the land and invests in the FUTURE. Someday, the ancestors of Jeremiah will claim his land with the deed he passes on to his family. There will be a new day. “Houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.” Jeremiah carries out the transaction with meticulous detail. He dots every legal i  /and crosses every t, /two copies of the deed, appropriate witnesses, and an earthen jar for a safety deposit box. Jeremiah sees a future rising from the ashes of a crumbling present. With the Babylonian armies camped outside Jerusalem’s walls, he talks about God bringing their world back to life./ With Atlanta about to go up in flames, he buys Tara.

At the very moment that people are finally starting to believe Jeremiah’s message of doom, he preaches about building,/ planting/ and a better life./

Jeremiah always takes the unrealistic position and is always at odds with popular opinion. That’s how it works with God’s prophets, offering challenges to people who think they are on top/ and hope to people who have no hope. Abraham Heschel describes prophets as “singing one octave too high.”

Jeremiah is not accustomed to preaching hope,/ so he makes it clear this is not his idea. His hope is in the faithfulness of God. It is because Jeremiah is honest about the darkness/ that he sees the light. If we look from God’s perspective, we will understand what looks big really isn’t. What seems small and unknown, often forgotten, is a sign of hope. We learn to look for the God moments in our lives that we never realized. The word visionary becomes part of our vocabulary. // At McNair Elementary School in Decatur, Georgia, Antoinette Tuff, the African American school bookkeeper, convinces a man armed with an AK-47 with 500 rounds of ammunition to lay down his gun.

An architect suffering from depression finds the strength to get help. An accountant receives a call from an old friend inviting him to lunch. A cab driver picks up a fare in a wheelchair takes her to the grocery store for no charge.

A preschooler learns to tie his shoes. A ten-year-old gets an A on a history test because her father helps her study. A boy in love points out a bright star in the eastern sky to the girl, who finally agrees to go to the football game with him. A college sophomore falls in love with Flannery O’Connor.

A visitor to the Crystal Bridges Museum looks at “ Kindred Spirits” by Durand and is grateful2. A composer sits at his piano and finds the right note. It is C sharp. A four-year-old hears the story of the Good Shepherd for the first time. A minister preparing her sermon remembers that her mother would never have been allowed to preach. A church has a vestry meeting, and no one gets angry./

An older woman in a nursing home gets a visit from some teenagers. A retired teacher laughs out loud for the first time since his wife’s death. A realtor reads Henri Nouwen and decides to be a Christian.

A gay couple of 25 years is allowed to marry.

And finally, we read from the letters of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,3 another prisoner of the state, who writes before his death about the great hope in this very passage from Jeremiah: “There remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely difficult to find, of living every day as if it were our last,/ and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a GREAT future. It is not easy to be brave and keep that spirit alive, /but it is imperative.”

1Brett Younger, “Living Towards Hope,” Lectionary Homiletics, vol. 21, no. 5,  pp. 79-80

2 Depicts the painter Thomas Cole who died in 1848, and his friend, the painter William Cullen Bryant, in the Catskills Mountains.

3Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (Enlarged Edition; London: SCM Press, 1971), 14-15

14 C Faith Hebrews 11: 1-16. August 7, 2022, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock

14 C Faith Hebrews 11:1-3 (4-7) 8-16,  August 7, 2022, St. Mark’s

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for,/ the conviction of things not seen.”

Some say the Age of Faith, the Christian Era, ended during our lifetime. Growing up in small-town Virginia, there is nothing to do on Sundays, but go to church. Everything else is closed./ My grandparents model observing the Sabbath. They do not work, sew or play cards, but spend the day at church and driving to the country to visit relatives. All my friends wear mustard seed necklaces, and most own child-sized New Testament Bibles bound in white leatherette, given to us by our parents at Easter. Vacation Bible School is the high point of summer. In school, we pray to God as routinely as we pledge allegiance to the flag.

 But, by the time we finish medical school, God is dead. John Kennedy is assassinated while I take a physics test my senior year in college. Martin Luther King is killed in Memphis when we are senior medical students in that city. Robert Kennedy is killed in California two months later, days before our graduation. People turn their outrage on what they have been taught about God. God does not seem good or answer prayers. We begin to construct our own realities and express our spirituality any way we please. When lightning does not strike, our confidence grows along with our fear. Perhaps we are alone in the universe.

Barbara Brown Taylor1,2 describes organized religion now as only ONE of many choices available in our search for meaning. Peers suggest only the unimaginative still go to church. Those wanting to commit themselves to more relevant causes turn to the peace movement, the environment, or the arts.

 All this is over 50 years ago, and the trend continues. Faith in God is no longer the rule. It is one “option” among many for people seeking to make sense of their lives. Moreover, many people have been so wounded by their religion that faith in God is too painful to consider.

Others feel betrayed by a God they believe broke a sacred promise. According to our Sunday school teachers in the 50s, God makes a bargain with us the moment we are born: “Do what I say, and I will take care of you.” So we do, and for years it seems to work. We obey our parents, teachers, and coaches and are taken care of, but one day the system fails. We do everything right, and everything goes wrong. Our prayers go unanswered, our beliefs go unrewarded, our God seems AWOL.

 I hear a mother mourning the death of her infant daughter. “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” she says. “I don’t know whom to pray to or what to pray. I try to be a good person; I do the best I can, but it doesn’t do any good. If God allows something like this to happen, why believe?” This mother’s dis/il/lu/sion/ment is emblematic of the post-Christian era, when perceived promises of Christianity lie broken, and God’s existence and God’s omnipotence seem fantasy.///

 But down in the darkness below our dreams, in the place where all our notions about God have been lost, there is hope,/ because dis/il/lu/sion/ment is not bad. That is where we find the living God. Disillusion is the loss of illusion, about ourselves, the world, and God. While it is always excruciatingly painful, it is not a bad thing to lose the lies we have mistaken for truth. Disillusioned, we discover what is not true. Then, we are set free to seek truth. The illusion is that bad things do not happen to God’s people. But the story of the people of God does not say that bad things will not happen to us. The truth is no matter what happens, God promises to be with us always, by our side. God is still there in bad times, grieving and caring for us.  

We are a resurrection people, constantly undergoing Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter. Our disillusions are Good Friday. They must die. That desert time where God seems absent is Holy Saturday. But we are always promised an Easter experience if we can make the journey through it. God gives us the promise of transformation if we can let illusions go.

Twenty-five years ago, the dearest person in my growing up years, my grandfather, dies. I am beyond despondent. The person who loves me unconditionally is gone. I am alone and lost. In desperation, I return to the church after years of absence, because I must believe I will see my grandfather again. Waiting for me,/ I find the unconditional love of God in a new Christian community. /

Putting one foot ahead of the other is the best way to survive disillusion, because the real danger is not the territory itself but getting stuck in it. We can’t prevent the birds from flying over us, but we can prevent them from building a nest in our heads. Things will change for those willing to continue to heave themselves toward the light. What has been lost gradually becomes less important than what we find. Curiosity pokes its green head up through the asphalt of grief,/ and fear of the unknown takes on an element of wonder.

In my junior year in medical school, I am in a car accident that disables me for life. I drop out of school. My life is in ruins. But, several painful months later, I return to a new class where I meet my future husband, whom I would never have known otherwise.

With each disillusionment, we learn that faith is a wide net spread beneath the most dangerous of our days. To have faith is not a one-time decision, but a daily, hourly choice to act as if it is true. That net, faith, is often the love of God most revealed to us by our Christian community and those we encounter actively seeking a relationship with this higher power. In community, we learn God’s power is not controlling/but redeeming, with the power to raise the dead. This resurrection power is sometimes most manifest in those destroying themselves. For example, resurrection occurs in 12-step work with alcoholics and addicts who are transformed in recovery after years of a living death. As I SEE THAT, THE RED BLOOD OF FAITH RETURNS TO MY VEINS. I see hopeless lives turn into miracles.

But there are also days we refuse to change, and we see others who will not change.

I have a dear friend who often says, “she has a deep and

abiding faith/that comes and goes.” Faith is not being sure where you’re going, but going anyway.

WE HAVE FAITH; WE LOSE FAITH. We find faith again, OR FAITH FINDS US, and God continues to redeem us through it all. And this is God’s call to each of us: to see and share with our neighbor our story of this redeeming faith and love God constantly shows us. Human grief becomes an ax that breaks down the door of human isolation, as we see so many wounded healers reaching out to other wounded ones in need.

Frederick Buechner3 describes faith as “the direction our feet start moving toward when we find that we are loved. Faith is stepping out into the unknown with nothing to guide us but a hand just beyond our grasp.”

 Every moment of our lives offers us a choice about how we will perceive that moment-- as happenstance or revelation, as a stumbling block or stepping stone. Is that event, that phone call, that person in our life, one more blind accident of time, or is it the veiled disclosure of an ever-present, compassionate God? 12-step friends say that synchronicity, co/in/ci/dences, are simply God’s way of staying anonymous. Faith sometimes may be nothing more than recognizing and assigning holy meaning to events that others call random.

 Martin Luther King describes this faith as “taking the first step even when we don’t see the whole staircase.” As we begin to have the slightest awareness of faith in God’s love, we begin to live a life of gratitude. Gratitude gives birth to forgiveness, which is the midwife of more love.

 We see through our own life and that of others that reality is not flat but deep, not opaque but transparent. Our life is no longer meaningless/ but overflows/with God’s grace/ and God’s love/ when we have the tiniest mustard seed of faith to believe that it is indeed TRUE.

Joanna Seibert

1Barbara Brown Taylor, “A church in ruins, “The Preaching Life, pp 5-12.

2Barbara Brown Taylor in When God Is Silent, pp 67-71.

3Frederick Buechner in The Magnificent Defeat. 

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/