| THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER BROOKHAVEN, MISSISSIPPI |
| HOLY EUCHARIST SUNDAY 10:00 AM |
Announcements:
EYC will meet Sunday Evenings
from 5:00-6:30 PM
ECW meets the first Monday after
the third Sunday.
Children's Christian Education
at 10:00 AM Sunday Morning.
Nursery Provided during Services.
Angels Attic: Open Friday and
Saturday from 8:00Am - 3:00 PM
EMAIL:
redeemer39601@bellsouth.net
EYC will meet Sunday Evenings
from 5:00-6:30 PM
ECW meets the first Monday after
the third Sunday.
Children's Christian Education
at 10:00 AM Sunday Morning.
Nursery Provided during Services.
Angels Attic: Open Friday and
Saturday from 8:00Am - 3:00 PM
EMAIL:
redeemer39601@bellsouth.net
Sermon by The Rev. Dr. E. Gene Bennett
Episcopal Church of the Redeemer
Brookhaven, Mississippi
December 27, 2009
Baptism of Maddux
As I stand in this pulpit and shortly by the font for the last time as your Rector, I am
recalling an electrifying play entitled Talking With, and I may have mentioned this
play to you before. The play reveals the lives and souls of some women who talk
about their life experiences. One of the most powerful voices from the play is still
with me. In that scene, a woman holds a bowl full of clear glass marbles and talks
about her mother. She says that one day, after discovering that she had about
three months to live, her mother went out and bought 90 marbles. Each day she
selected one and held on to it all day, dropping it when she went to sleep each
night. Those marbles were important. She explained to her daughter that it made
the day go longer. And when her daughter bent over to pick them up she would say
sharply to her, "Leave them alone! I'm learning to let them go."
One evening they heard the sound of many marbles tumbling to the floor, and then
silence. Somehow knowing what had happened, they rushed upstairs to discover
her dead, the marbles scattered all around and her hand on the empty bowl.
She may have miscalculated the number of her days, but not their importance. I can
still hear the sound of those marbles as they dropped on the stage, and I'm
recalling that scene now because in leaving you I hear one of my marbles strike the
floor. We leave a job, and a marble falls to the floor; we end a marriage, and there
goes another marble; we move from a house where we've spent a piece of
ourselves living, and there's another.
What is it that brings you such awareness? No matter how ready we are for the
occasion, part of what lends significance to these milestones is the knowledge that
we are crossing another bridge, closing another door, dropping another marble.
I will miss you and this place where we have had the good fortune to work together
in the ministry of Jesus Christ, and in leaving you one of my marbles falls to the
floor. I will miss your willingness to make things happen, your generosity of spirit,
your friendship, our worship together, and the opportunity to love and be loved by
you. We have comforted and shared honestly with each other, and I have grown in
both spirit and girth with you.
In leaving you, however, I take with me some beautiful memories. I take memories
of a community of people connected mysteriously by God's grace. Somewhere in
that grace, in that space between memory and forgetfulness, we will lay our
relationship, and whatever effect I have had on this church will tumble into your
history.
Memories! That is what we take with us when we leave a family or a community of
faith. I'm remembering now something that a wise woman said to me when I was
leaving the first parish I served in my priesthood. She said that she had seen many
rectors come and go, and they were rather like street cars. You climbed aboard
one for a while and then you caught the next one. There is much truth in her
metaphor, for we all come and go. I hope, however, as a result of what we have
done that the Church of the Redeemer looks less glowingly at its past and more
hopefully to its future. While we may be proud of who we have been, what is
important now is to work intentionally on who we will become.
I see you as a community of faith eager to respond to the invitation to become
disciples of Christ, to become lovers of people, helpers and healers of people and
progressive in thought and action. That has been my experience with you.
Driving to Jackson not too long ago on a misty, rainy day I espied a rainbow amid
the clouds; that arc of colors lifted my spirits and caused a quiet chuckle in my
throat. Well, that rainbow has become something of a symbol for this parish in my
mind. You are now a rainbow people to me, a symbol of God's grace, and I shall
carry that memory with me on my journey wherever it may lead. In stressful times, in
boring and despairing times, as well as joyful times, I shall recall you with love and
affection. And I shall be eternally thankful that Carole and I decided to retire just a
few blocks down the road from you. That, like the rainbow, puts a note of laughter
in my throat and reminds me that I am not saying goodbye.
I hope you will remember that laughter has been part of my priesthood with you -
part of my teaching, preaching and sharing with you. I ask you to remember that
laughter may be one of the sounds of God's presence with us. I believe that
laughter may be a sacramental sound of Christ moving among us. So keep
laughing, my pilgrim friends, because you are Easter People - people who know the
power and the freedom of the resurrection!
In a few minutes I will step from this pulpit and move to the baptismal font and a
marble will fall to the floor, but you will be reaching out to embrace Maddux Lee as
he begins his journey as a disciple of Christ. We, along with his parents and
extended family, will promise to teach him the Christian faith and to serve as
examples of the freedom of Christian life. We will promise to assist him in
developing a discerning and inquiring heart and mind; we will help him to be kind,
to love mercy, to practice forgiveness, and to share God's unconditional
acceptance with the people he will meet.
Mostly, we are saying to young Maddux: "Listen to your life. See it for the
fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the
excitement and gladness: touch, tastes, smell your way to the holy and hidden
heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself
is grace."
Finally, little Maddux, as you live your life, may you forever hear God's eternal
promise to you:
"Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party
wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible
things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's
for you I created the universe. I love you.
I want you to accept my gift. I want you to live your life boldly and fully; to be who
you are and to give that gift to others. I want you to make music, to put things
together, to be quiet sometimes and listen to yourself. I want you to laugh, even at
the midnight of your life. I want to share in your suffering and your joy. I want you to
know that I love you."
Attribution is due the following for words, thinking and influence in preparing this
sermon: Frederick Buechner and Parker Palmer for the immortal quoted words
near the close of the homily.
Episcopal Church of the Redeemer
Brookhaven, Mississippi
December 27, 2009
Baptism of Maddux
As I stand in this pulpit and shortly by the font for the last time as your Rector, I am
recalling an electrifying play entitled Talking With, and I may have mentioned this
play to you before. The play reveals the lives and souls of some women who talk
about their life experiences. One of the most powerful voices from the play is still
with me. In that scene, a woman holds a bowl full of clear glass marbles and talks
about her mother. She says that one day, after discovering that she had about
three months to live, her mother went out and bought 90 marbles. Each day she
selected one and held on to it all day, dropping it when she went to sleep each
night. Those marbles were important. She explained to her daughter that it made
the day go longer. And when her daughter bent over to pick them up she would say
sharply to her, "Leave them alone! I'm learning to let them go."
One evening they heard the sound of many marbles tumbling to the floor, and then
silence. Somehow knowing what had happened, they rushed upstairs to discover
her dead, the marbles scattered all around and her hand on the empty bowl.
She may have miscalculated the number of her days, but not their importance. I can
still hear the sound of those marbles as they dropped on the stage, and I'm
recalling that scene now because in leaving you I hear one of my marbles strike the
floor. We leave a job, and a marble falls to the floor; we end a marriage, and there
goes another marble; we move from a house where we've spent a piece of
ourselves living, and there's another.
What is it that brings you such awareness? No matter how ready we are for the
occasion, part of what lends significance to these milestones is the knowledge that
we are crossing another bridge, closing another door, dropping another marble.
I will miss you and this place where we have had the good fortune to work together
in the ministry of Jesus Christ, and in leaving you one of my marbles falls to the
floor. I will miss your willingness to make things happen, your generosity of spirit,
your friendship, our worship together, and the opportunity to love and be loved by
you. We have comforted and shared honestly with each other, and I have grown in
both spirit and girth with you.
In leaving you, however, I take with me some beautiful memories. I take memories
of a community of people connected mysteriously by God's grace. Somewhere in
that grace, in that space between memory and forgetfulness, we will lay our
relationship, and whatever effect I have had on this church will tumble into your
history.
Memories! That is what we take with us when we leave a family or a community of
faith. I'm remembering now something that a wise woman said to me when I was
leaving the first parish I served in my priesthood. She said that she had seen many
rectors come and go, and they were rather like street cars. You climbed aboard
one for a while and then you caught the next one. There is much truth in her
metaphor, for we all come and go. I hope, however, as a result of what we have
done that the Church of the Redeemer looks less glowingly at its past and more
hopefully to its future. While we may be proud of who we have been, what is
important now is to work intentionally on who we will become.
I see you as a community of faith eager to respond to the invitation to become
disciples of Christ, to become lovers of people, helpers and healers of people and
progressive in thought and action. That has been my experience with you.
Driving to Jackson not too long ago on a misty, rainy day I espied a rainbow amid
the clouds; that arc of colors lifted my spirits and caused a quiet chuckle in my
throat. Well, that rainbow has become something of a symbol for this parish in my
mind. You are now a rainbow people to me, a symbol of God's grace, and I shall
carry that memory with me on my journey wherever it may lead. In stressful times, in
boring and despairing times, as well as joyful times, I shall recall you with love and
affection. And I shall be eternally thankful that Carole and I decided to retire just a
few blocks down the road from you. That, like the rainbow, puts a note of laughter
in my throat and reminds me that I am not saying goodbye.
I hope you will remember that laughter has been part of my priesthood with you -
part of my teaching, preaching and sharing with you. I ask you to remember that
laughter may be one of the sounds of God's presence with us. I believe that
laughter may be a sacramental sound of Christ moving among us. So keep
laughing, my pilgrim friends, because you are Easter People - people who know the
power and the freedom of the resurrection!
In a few minutes I will step from this pulpit and move to the baptismal font and a
marble will fall to the floor, but you will be reaching out to embrace Maddux Lee as
he begins his journey as a disciple of Christ. We, along with his parents and
extended family, will promise to teach him the Christian faith and to serve as
examples of the freedom of Christian life. We will promise to assist him in
developing a discerning and inquiring heart and mind; we will help him to be kind,
to love mercy, to practice forgiveness, and to share God's unconditional
acceptance with the people he will meet.
Mostly, we are saying to young Maddux: "Listen to your life. See it for the
fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the
excitement and gladness: touch, tastes, smell your way to the holy and hidden
heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself
is grace."
Finally, little Maddux, as you live your life, may you forever hear God's eternal
promise to you:
"Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party
wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible
things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's
for you I created the universe. I love you.
I want you to accept my gift. I want you to live your life boldly and fully; to be who
you are and to give that gift to others. I want you to make music, to put things
together, to be quiet sometimes and listen to yourself. I want you to laugh, even at
the midnight of your life. I want to share in your suffering and your joy. I want you to
know that I love you."
Attribution is due the following for words, thinking and influence in preparing this
sermon: Frederick Buechner and Parker Palmer for the immortal quoted words
near the close of the homily.
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