17B Honoring with our lips, not our hearts, Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation,” Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23, 12-step Eucharist September 4, 2024, Saint Mark’s Little Rock Joanna Seibert

17B Honoring with our lips, not our hearts, Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation,” Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23, 12-step Eucharist

September 4, 2024, Saint Mark’s Little Rock Joanna Seibert

“This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;

in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

If Jesus told a story today about honoring God with our lips but not our hearts, he might share Flannery O’Connor’s last short story, “Revelation.”

The story begins in a southern doctor’s waiting room, where a smug Ruby Turpin surveys and assesses the others seated around her. Next to her is the mother of an overweight, homely daughter, Mary Grace, whose face is blue with acne and is reading a thick blue book. She is home from a school in the north called Wellesley.

Mrs. Turpin feels tremendous self-satisfaction regarding her position in the waiting room and the world. Her caste classification boils down to race and property.

Inevitably, Ruby Turpin’s reflections about her superior position break into a joyful speech, “When I think who all I could have been besides myself and what all I got, I just feel like shouting, ‘Thank you, Jesus, for making everything the way it is!’ It could have been different!... Oh, thank you, Jesus, thank you!”//

 At that moment,/ Mary Grace can no longer tolerate this self-satisfaction and hurls her book, Human Development, at Mrs. Turpin, hitting her over the left eye. Mary Grace then lurches across the waiting room and lunges for Ruby’s throat, yelling, “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog!”

Mrs. Turpin finds this comment unsettling and wonders if it may be a message from God ( Mary Grace, Catholic, Holy Mother): “How,” she asks God, “am I both a hog and me? How am I both saved and from hell?”

  Ruby returns home and now questions God out loud. As she contemplates the “message,” she has a vision of the souls of the characters from the waiting room walking up to Heaven. “There were whole companies of the dirt poor, clean for the first time, bands of blacks in white robes, battalions of people she considers freaks and the lowest dregs of society shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession is a tribe of people she recognizes like herself, having always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right...They march behind the others with great dignity and are accountable for good order, common sense, and respectable behavior. They alone sing on key. Yet she can see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues are being burned away.” And all the souls are shouting Hallelujah.

There is, of course, a difference between Mrs. Turpin and the chief priests and elders. When Ruby has “the book thrown at her,” she stops to see if there is a message. The priests never do. Jesus’ message of change is too painful. The Mary Graces of our lives represent “Holy people,” whom we do not see as authority figures since we feel superior to them due to our education, social standing, and race.”

We are here tonight because we all also encountered the holy Mary Graces and listened to them. They are sponsors and those we meet in 12-step groups. Mary Grace can also speak to us from inside of us as well as outside. O’Connor says Mary Grace may not be pretty. Mary Grace was probably not the authority we would ever listen to./ Let us continue to look the Mary Graces in the eye,/ attempt to sit closer to them in the waiting room,/ and, if possible, ask them to tell us a little more about Human Development so that we may continue to sing Hallelujah.

Joanna Seibert. joannaseibert.com

12-Step Eucharist, Transfiguration, August 7, 2024 Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rcok

12-step Eucharist St. Marks, August 7, 2024

Tonight, at this 12-step Eucharist, we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration, which officially was yesterday. We hear the story about Jesus’ divinity being revealed to three disciples on a high mountain. Anyone in 12-step recovery can identify immediately with transfiguration, seeing the light, a moment of clarity, and encountering the God who has been there all along within us and others. Still, we never saw this before because we were too busy making “dwellings” for other idols, alcohol, food, drugs, work, etc.

Bill W. saw that light in the “fresh-skinned, glowing face, with a different look in his eyes” of his friend Ebby, who had become sober using the principles of the Oxford Group.1

Later, Bill W.  prayed, “I’ll do anything, anything at all! If there be a God, let Him show Himself!” Then Bill writes:

“What happened next was electric. Suddenly, my room blazed with an indescribably white light. I was seized with an ecstasy beyond description. Every joy I had known was pale by comparison. The light, the ecstasy – I was conscious of nothing else for a time.

Then, seen in the mind’s eye, there was a mountain. I stood upon its summit, where a great wind blew. A wind, not of air, but of spirit. In great, clean strength, it blew right through me. Then came the blazing thought, “You are a free man.” I know not at all how long I remained in this state, but finally, the light and the ecstasy subsided. I again saw the wall of my room. As I became more quiet, a great peace stole over me, and this was accompanied by a sensation difficult to describe. I became acutely conscious of a Presence, which seemed like a veritable sea of living spirit. I lay on the shores of a new world.”2

Moments of transfiguration occur when we are transported from a deep unconscious sleep to a moment of conscious bright light when we see, feel, taste, and touch God’s presence. Transfiguration is about experiencing our true nature, the part of God inside ourselves and others. It is the moment when the veil of all else starts to fall away, and we connect to the presence of God within us, and eventually desire to turn our life and our will over to the care of God. That is that moment when we let go and let God.

Richard Rohr believes we cannot see God in others until we first see God within ourselves. That moment of clarity speaks from within us that we are better than the life we are leading. So, recovery is seeing that spark of God first within ourselves, which leads us to see God in others. We encounter that person who once annoyed us and caused us to have a resentment, and we begin to notice a tiny glimpse of the face of God in our neighbor and possibly can respond in love./

“If we want to find God, then connect to God within ourselves, and we will always then see God beyond us. For it is only God in us who knows where and how to look for God.” 3

Frederick Buechner reminds us that as we see God within ourselves, we then begin to see God in situations we never saw before: “the face of a man walking his child in the park, a woman picking peas in the garden, sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert, standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just sitting with friends at a Saturday football game in September. Every once and a while, something so touching, incandescent, and alive transfigures another human face that it’s almost beyond bearing.” 4

If you are having difficulty seeing the face of God, stop for a moment and look at our young children. God’s presence seems to burst force from them. I have been overwhelmed by a heavy dose of God’s presence this week in the 100 children at our Vacation Bible School at Saint Mark’s.

Transfiguration is the message and the promise of recovery, seeing the face of God first in ourselves and then in others. Tonight, we celebrate the transfiguration that recovery continually brings to our lives and the face of every person we encounter. Transfiguration is a daily living reality.

1 Silkworth.net.

2 Pass It On, Silkworth.net.

3 Richard Rohr Adapted from The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2009), 159-161.

4Frederick Buechner in Whistling in the Dark (HarperSanFrancisco 1988), p. 120.

12B Behind the Scenes of Feeding of the 5000, John 6:1-21, July 28, 2024, Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Joanna Seibert

12B Behind the Scenes of Feeding of 5000 John 6:1-21 July 28,  2024, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church,  Little Rock, Joanna Seibert 

Once, I took a six-month sabbatical from my medical practice at Children’s Hospital, planning an international meeting for my specialty. The meeting went well, but few people knew about the many behind-the-scenes events that made it happen. The conference was in Colorado Springs in early May. As the meeting began, I looked/ in disbelief /out a window and saw a heavy snowfall/ on the spring tulips. Quickly, overnight, we changed the planned golf and tennis events to winter sports. We taped the speakers after their session, as this was the first year of our specialty’s re-certification. I casually asked another pediatric radiologist, Marilyn Goske, to look in on the taping. Marilyn ended up never attending the meeting sessions, spending time with one speaker, never satisfied with his recording, who redid his talk five times. Perhaps the most innovative behind-the-scenes event was the spontaneous, impromptu marriage of two pediatric radiologists who lived continents apart. Our “yes, we can do it” meeting planner set up the ceremony in less than twenty-four hours. That wedding stands as the only nuptial event at this annual conference to date! ////

John’s telling of the feeding of the 5000 also lets us in at a rare/ behind-the-scenes look at how miracles take place.1 A large crowd follows Jesus as he heals the sick. Jesus goes up a mountain and sits down with his disciples. Unlike in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), JESUS, /not the disciples,/ initiates a discussion about how to feed the now-hungry multitude. Phillip is practical and realistic, does the math, and sees no possible plan. Andrew, resourceful and observant, reports that a boy offers five barley loaves and two fish. However, Andrew, known for bringing people to Jesus, like this boy, his brother Peter, and later some Greeks,/ min/i/miz/es the possibility that this plan will work. Jesus then asks the disciples to have the crowd sit in a grassy area. He takes the barley loaves, the bread of the poor, and the fish, offers thanksgiving, and then Jesus distributes the food./ In the synoptic gospels, the disciples hand out the food. John reiterates that Jesus is always the giver, even if the gift is mediated through us./

 After the people are satisfied, Jesus asks the disciples to gather the fragments so “nothing may be lost.” They fill twelve baskets. The people are so astonished that they want to make Jesus king, but he withdraws up the mountain by himself. Jesus knows well that being king of the Jewish people is not his calling. He comes to teach us about a different kingdom.//

So much of this miracle, the movement of the Spirit, happens behind the scenes in this story/ and in our everyday lives. We witness Jesus’ resourcefulness bursting open our notion of limits and possibilities in our lives, work, callings, and relationships,/ possibilities we have missed in our shortsightedness. Here is a story of resourcefulness and generosity, using what we have, our small gift, that can have a significant impact. It is about having faith that God’s power is operational and overabundant. Andrew and Phillip especially remind us of the times we minimize how God works in our lives. Sometimes, our gifts are ready to be used, but we wait until we might be even more prepared. The enemy of good is perfection! That desire for perfection turns into a miserable, isolating, never-ending addiction. This story also reminds us how Jesus cares for our physical needs as much as our spiritual concerns. Jesus cares for the whole person. This is why the Benedictine rule of life is so vital for us to consider: time for prayer, study, eating, sleeping, working, and recreation.

Jesus doesn’t meet the minimum requirements for feeding the 5000. He lavishes food on them until they are satisfied, and then gathers the leftovers to take to those not there. There should be no waste. Jesus does not want anyone to be left out. The story is not just about abundance, but an overwhelming cup full,/ running over.//

Do you remember when Jesus asked Saint Mark’s, “How will you feed the hungry crowd?” There had been a capital campaign where money was left over. The Spirit moves the people of Saint Mark’s to remember the miracle of that abundance. They put that money into an outreach account, with part going to outreach and the other to Mustard Seed start-up grants for new outreach projects. We all know the story. Here comes another behind-the-scenes miracle. At about that time in 2016, another church on Mississippi cannot sustain its food pantry and asks if Saint Mark’s can support it. There are discussions similar to Phillip’s that Saint Mark’s might not take in enough money to support it, and Andrew’s that the proposed food pantry’s needs might exceed their allotted amount. Established ministries may have to share space. How will people needing food impact the day school? But again, somehow, there is another miracle. One person speaks up, saying, “Saint Mark’s needs this ministry. I hope we can find a way to work together to say yes.” The whole direction changes. The Holy Spirit takes over and turns a food pantry serving 500 people and 90 families monthly into a large-scale weekly food ministry to our neighbors that this May serves 3000 people and 650 families, with a continued yearly increase in people served. In the meantime, another behind-the-scenes miracle. Long-time members of Saint Mark’s, Gladys Beal, a VA operating nurse, and her husband leave money in their will to renovate the youth area and enlarge the food pantry to its present state. Need and abundance that keeps on growing. Thank you to so many who make the core value of Saint Mark’s identity a place of miracles and abundance.////

Lastly, in this feeding story, Jesus embraces a child’s extravagant generosity,/ reminiscent of a child offering to help their parents buy a new house by offering up their piggy bank. This takes us back to another behind-the-scene story at our Colorado Springs meeting. We engaged the nearby Air Force Academy chorus to sing at our banquet, but overnight, they go on maneuvers. Our meeting planner again responds, “We can make this work,” and books a local children’s chorus. I am distressed,/ thinking they will be amateurish. But they are amazing professional voices, leaving the audience in tears. As the children conclude the program, they go to each pediatric physician, sing directly to them, and give them a gentle hug and a thank you. The children bring to each person that source of abundant love we so often learn from the young. ///

 Today’s final adventure with the disciples finds them in a storm in the Sea of Galilee. Jesus walks on the water toward them. They are terrified and initially cannot recognize him. Jesus speaks one of his favorite lines, “It is I, do not be afraid,” and “The boat reaches land where they were going.” This is how Jesus works when we are in difficult situations. He walks in “behind the scenes.” Often, we do not recognize his presence. Finally, when we do, we come to a safe harbor. When we lose our capacity to wonder, we become skeptical about the extraordinary and miss the extraordinary within the ordinary. The miracle in this last story is that Christ’s presence in ordinary, fearful people can calm their anxieties and cause them to walk where they feared to walk before. I believe Christ was present in that person at Saint Mark’s,/ you know who you are, /who finally speaks up and says, “Saint Mark’s needs this ministry. I hope we can find a way to say yes.”/

May each of us say our prayers and stay connected to the Christ, the Holy Spirit within us. May we be that person at Saint Mark’s who has experienced abundance and love, who can speak truth at the right moment,/ often behind the scenes, and says, “Saint Mark’s needs this ministry. I hope we can find a way/ to reach out of ourselves/ and support/ the needs of  our community around us and in the world.”

1Jean Greenwood in Feasting on the Gospels ( Westminster John Knox Press 2015), pp.10-174.

Joanna Seibert

12-Step Eucharist, July 3, 2024, Interruptions, Mark 5:21-43, Healing Jarius Daughter and the Hemorrhaging Woman

12-step Eucharist July 3, 2024. Interruptions, Mark 5:21-43, Healing Jarius’ Daughter and the Hemorrhaging Woman

Here, we are gathered in community on the eve of our country’s birthday to discern if Jesus has a last-minute message for us and our country before we celebrate this nation’s founding with family and friends./

Jesus has just crossed the Sea of Galilee from the region of the Gerasenes, outside the bounds of Galilee, where he immediately met and healed a man possessed with demons. Tonight’s story takes place now on the western shores of the Sea of Galilee, which isn’t really a sea but a large freshwater lake some thirteen miles long and eight miles across, surrounded by high mountains and roughly in the shape of a heart, which fits well into this story. Now back home, Jesus is immediately met on the shoreline by a great crowd, including Jarius, a leader of the synagogue whose 12-year-old daughter is dying. On his way to Jarius’ house, a woman who has endured a GYN illness for 12 years touches his garment and is healed. Immediately, Jesus senses power has left him, stops, and asks, “Who touched me?”/

Are you getting any sense of a pattern here in Jesus’ life described by Mark?///

“While visiting the University of Notre Dame, Henri Nouwen met with an older professor, and while they strolled, the professor said with a certain melancholy, ‘You know, my whole life, I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.’” 2

 Jesus’ life in Mark often seems to be a series of interruptions. Jesus stops and meets people exactly where they are in the present moment. This is how and where he heals.

I don’t know about you, but I have an agenda. But I am slowly, often painfully, learning that God continually meets me in the interruptions in my life that are not on my schedule. There is a call from a friend or family member when I think I am too busy to talk. This is a sure sign that I am in trouble, losing priority of what life is about if I cannot stop and chat. Interruptions are like a stop or yield sign to go off script and listen for a grace note. Interruptions remind us of how powerless we are. If we think we are in charge, the interruptions remind us that this is a myth. There is a power greater than ourselves, who constantly tries to lead us. Jesus daily teaches us this. He responds to what God presents to him in the present moment throughout his day.

To everyone here, especially those in recovery, “How do you think we got here?” Somehow, we received a message to interrupt what was going on in our life in addiction and reach out for something better. In recovery, it is called “a moment of clarity,” but it is truly a “God call,” interrupting what we have planned for the day./

My personal experience is that it is so easy to become EXPONENTIALLY ISOLATED, sealing ourselves off and refusing to respond to anything but what has become “our agenda, our lifestyle.” Our world, our God, becomes too small. We become the center of the universe, fossilized, like the Pharisees. As a result, we also develop a high hubris titer. A fallacy lurks in our ears that we will lose our thoughts or creativity if we stop and meet the interruption. But, when I return after an interruption, I almost always have fresh and new ideas about the next path, leading to becoming the person God created me to be.//   

Consider the interruptions in our lives. Always remember that, most probably, our lives and the lives of our friends here in recovery were saved by a God-Call that was an interruption.

1 Frederick Buechner in Secrets in the Dark (HarperOne, 2006).

2 Henri Nouwen in Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (Image Books, 1975), p. 52.

Joanna Seibert  joannaseibert.com

8B Healing of Jairus' Daughter, June 30, 2024, Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Mark 5:22-24, 35b-43.

8B Healing of Jairus’ Daughter June 30, 2024, St. Mark’s, Mark 5:22-24, 35b-43 

If Sunday lectionary readings followed our secular calendar, the story about Jesus, Jairus (Ji rus), and his daughter would have appeared two weeks ago for Father’s Day. Every parent who has had a severely ill child identifies with Jairus. This father risks his reputation, his social standing, his career to ask for alternative medicine for his twelve-year-old daughter. With absolute humility, this public figure,/ pillar of the community,/ frantically throws himself at Jesus’ feet, an itinerant vagabond prophet, uncredentialed rabbi,/ and begs for help for his dying child,/ a GIRL,/ one of the most marginalized members of that society. For the synagogue’s CEO, seeking help from the likes of Jesus must have caused a lot of talk. With the large crowd around Jesus, we would breathlessly follow Jairus home to see what happens next/ when a friend arrives, announcing it is all over; Jairus’ daughter is dead./ Jesus ignores this news, delivering one of his shortest sermons, “Do not fear, just believe.” Is Jesus telling Jarius, “Believe there is nothing you must be afraid of?”1

Later/ inside Jairus’ home, in an intimate moment with James, John, Peter, and the girl’s parents, Jesus takes the young child by the hand and calls her “little girl,” a name of fa/mili/al endearment. The moment makes such an impression on those present that this is only one of three times when Mark records Jesus’ exact words in Aramaic,

“Talitha cum (Tal/i/taa coom), little girl, arise.” The young Jewish girl gets up, walks about, astounding everyone. Jesus instructs the parents then to give her something to eat./ Medical historians hypothesize this suggests that Jairus’ daughter is in some hypoglycemic or low blood sugar state/ and that Jesus, the great physician, revives her from a near-death insulin-like coma. However, my image of this scene comes from contemporary art, where Jesus brings back a young maiden/ to life /who is really dead,/ really dead. 

The healing of Jairus’ only daughter (Luke) is about healing when there is no hope, a miracle outside of time and space,/ a mystery not rationally understood. I do believe miraculous recoveries occur. Every day, I see Jairus’s daughter healed. In 12-step groups, young people with alcohol and drug addiction, indeed dead to life, come alive./ At Children’s Hospital, I saw critically ill little ones survive diseases that five years ago, one year ago, would have killed them; children like Alexandria, Justin, Sam miraculously recover from deadly cancers, trauma, or lethal congenital heart diseases when all hope is lost.///

But/ what about all the beautiful children not healed of their painful illnesses? What about Laura, Tara, Christopher, and nine-month-old Hallie, who lived her whole life in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital?/ After her death, Hallie’s mom sent me a picture album titled “Will Hallie Go Home?” (repeat)///

 What about millions of people still trapped in addiction to alcohol and drugs, dying from their disease, raising havoc in lives around them? Did their loved ones not pray hard enough? Did their parents not have enough faith?

Barbara Brown Taylor2 writes the problem with miracles is that not everyone who prays for a miracle seems to get one, and some people receive them who never ask for them./

Religious people often spend time working out a formula for miracles: two parts prayer, three parts faith, one part good works. We study miracle stories to find out who did what right. We imitate their actions, hoping to become irresistible to God. But God rarely does anything the same way twice.

This miracle story is about a desperate father, Jairus, breaking every rule to save his daughter’s life. He surrenders himself to Jesus,/ and when all seems lost, he hears a voice tell him, “Do not fear; only believe.” Could this be the formula? If you have enough faith, things will turn out all right. It seems to work for Jairus. His daughter is saved. The kingdom breaks through in that bedroom, and all the angels sing “Alleluia.”/

But more times than we remember, we observe a different scene where parents do not experience the obvious miracle,/ and one of the meanest things religious people say is: “Your child was not healed because you lacked enough faith.” Sometimes, well-intentioned church people get mixed up about what causes miracles. They think miracles work like the strength tests at state fairs, those giant thermometers with a red bell at the top. We win the prize if we are strong enough to hit the thing with a sledgehammer and ring the bell.

In other words, people believe miracles are something we control. If our child is not recovering, it is our fault. We must try harder. Pump up our faith and ring the bell. Impress God with the power of our belief and claim our miracle. Only this is idolatry. This is one more example of our egocentric attempts to manipulate the world, thinking we are in charge of our lives instead of owning up to the truth that every single breath we take is a free gift from God. Concentrating on the strength of our own beliefs means practicing magic. Concentrating on the strength of God, turning our lives over to the care/ of our loving God, and trusting the RESULTS to God/ is practicing faith. This is the difference between believing that our lives are in our own hands/ and believing they are in God’s hands.//

“Do not fear, only believe.” Frederick Buechner3 defines believing as a journey rather than a position,/ and a relationship rather than a realization. (repeat) /This is what Jairus did, what Hallie’s mother did. They went on a journey with Jesus and stayed in relationship with him./

Consider what happened to Hallie’s mom’s prayers when Hallie died. Prayers change us in more ways than what we pray for. Miracles do occur, but they may not be what we expected. Hallie’s mom practiced seeing miracles by being alert and tuning in to the daily miracles in her everyday life with Hallie. Miracles are all around us if we only have eyes to see. Consider how God opens our hearts and minds when we pray for others. We step out of our egocentric world into a universe larger than ourselves.

 At our five o’clock service, I sit behind my harp and experience the power of a Spirit-filled synthesis of corporate and individual intercessory prayers. Men and women light candles as they offer prayers silently for themselves and others./ The light from many candles soon brings brighter light to the church’s darkened nave. The scene is an icon teaching us what happens when we pray. Prayers germinate from the darkened nave and are born to transform the world’s darkness/ into light. These silent prayers transported by candlelight change the appearance of the church, the pray-ers, and indeed, they change me. //

Remember Jesus also had a personal relationship with prayer, fear, faith, and miracles. Jesus prayed for a miracle on the night before he died. “For you, all things are possible.” He prayed to his Abba. “Remove this cup from me.” Only when he opens his eyes, the cup is still there. Does Jesus lack faith? I do not think so. The miracle is that he drinks the cup, believing in the power of God more than he believes in his own. This is the miracle when we turn our life and will over to God’s loving care.

 Similar/ly, Jairus turns the situation over to Jesus, follows Jesus home, and watches the holy man do his work. Perhaps the turning point in the story is not at the healing, but earlier, after Jesus gives his sermon, “Do not fear, only believe.” If Jairus does that, he will survive whatever happens next,/ even if Jesus had walked into his daughter’s room, as Jesus does for Hallie/ one stormy night/ when Jesus says prayers with her mother, gently closes Hallie’s eyes with his fingertips,/ and tenderly places Hallie in his own loving arms/ and takes Hallie home./// At this point, Jairus’ faith, Hallie’s mother’s faith, is the miracle, their willingness to believe that their daughters are STILL/ in God’s loving hands/ even if/ they have slipped/ out of theirs./

1Frederick Buechner in Secrets in the Dark (HarperSanfrancisco 1973), pp.272-278.

2Barbara Brown Taylor in “The Problem with Miracles,” Bread of Angels (Cowley 1997), pp. 136-140.

3Frederick Buechner in Whistling in the Dark, p. 21.

Barbara Brown Taylor in “One Step at a Time,” The Preaching Life (Cowley 1993), pp. 89-94.               

Joanna Seibert. joannaseibert.com