Cui servire est regnare

Re: “To Serve is to Rule” essay by Doug Henwood, Harper’s Magazine, November 2019, p. 37-45. https://harpers.org/archive/2019/11/to-serve-is-to-rule-wasps-doug-henwood/

One a day early in 1882 a dust-covered young gentleman, newly arrived by rail from the East, rode the stage from Benson to Tombstone, regaled en route by the driver’s tales of a holdup on the line the previous year and a gunfight that past October behind a corral only a block from where that young man would build his church. He was Endicott Peabody, seminarian on leave from Episcopal Theological Seminary, whom the town fathers had invited west. And he saw that church building to completion by the fall of that year. (“The oldest Episcopal Church in Arizona, and the only Adobe Gothic Revival church in the world”--current advertisement.) He had a fine time introducing muscular Christianity to the magnates and miners of the boom town at the height of its prosperity. Then, feeling his talents better deployed as rector of a boys’ school than of a parish, he went home and founded Groton. Readers of Henwood’s essay will be pleased to learn that Endicott Peabody Day is now a feast day in the Episcopal diocese of Arizona, and its celebration this November 17th will be led by the Rt. Rev. Jennifer Reddall, and led by the current pastor, the Rev. Heather Rose. As one who has served in the same pulpit as Peabody, for the same length of time, -- only 135 years later -- I wouldn’t miss this celebration. P.S. Peabody presided at the wedding of Eleanor Roosevelt to her cousin Franklin, the latter of whom paid tribute to his former schoolmaster by saying: “I’m still afraid of the old son of a bitch.”

The Rev. Dr. John R. Leech

Tucson, Arizona.

October 21, 2019.

“Preacher in Helldorado” by Henry Walker, Journal of Arizona History, 1974

Thomas Peterson, MA thesis on Tombstone stage lines. 

That's not my Tombstone.

The New Yorker magazine posted a story online on June 3rd, 2019, about modern-day vigilantes and re-enactors of the old days of the Wild West. The author visited Tombstone as a tourist, and paid her way into such tourist attractions as Boot Hill Cemetery, the Bird Cage Theatre, and the reenactment of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. 

That's not my Tombstone.

Visitors come to the southwest and they find what they are looking for.

It's an old story. These days, we call it confirmation bias.

In the case of Tombstone it's a place easily associated with a colorful past. For many visitors Tombstone is a place of stories of the old, wild west. Of rustlers and gunmen.

And that is what they expect to find when they visit. That, and some modern-day vigilantes.

Put the two together and call it a continuum.

There is some explanation for that equation, but that is not my Tombstone.

Let me tell you about my Tombstone.

For six months a couple of years ago I was the vicar of Tombstone. That is, I was the priest who served Saint Paul's Episcopal Church in Tombstone. Like many a predecessor of mine I arrived from the direction of Benson. Approaching from the northwest the first sight I had of town was of the steeple of its church. For 137 years that has been a prominent feature of the town.

And I'll tell you about it through its people. Four sets of them.

First, the pastor and people of Saint Paul's Episcopal Church. When the town was new, things were a little dusty, and leaders of the community called a young seminarian to lead the effort to organize and build a building for the church. Over six months of effort, using plans by Richard Upjohn and with the aid of resident mining experts, the congregation laid a solid stone foundation. The members of the congregation, including their young minister,  made adobe bricks on site, and put them in place. They've been there ever since. And the church, the living church that is composed of its people and its leaders, thrives. Their pastor now is the Reverend Heather Rose.

As vicar I used to pull on my boots and put on my hat and walk down the wooden sidewalks of the old town. "Here comes another one," I heard once. Apparently some visitors thought I was a re-enactor. An understandable mistake - but I was just walking the bounds of my parish. On Sunday morning sure enough you could find me at the liars' table in the O.K. Cafe on Allen Street. There is a picture over the table - I'm the one in the black clericals, my hat is on the table. In that group is someone whose family has been there since before the church was built. My closest relative in town has been there a much shorter time than that.

Second, the founder of the Tombstone Hearse and Trike company, Jack Feather. A few years ago he called my cousins in Eureka, California, and invited them into an extraordinary project. Two crews made almost entirely of veterans, in northern California and southeastern Arizona, built a replica of Abraham Lincoln's hearse. They delivered it for the 150th anniversary reenactment (there's that word) of the funeral procession to the 16th President's final resting place in Springfield, Illinois. It's in the museum there now.

Third, the single parents I met who work in the businesses on Toughnut Street and Allen Street. You wouldn't know it, as they serve you a beer or a sarsaparilla, but they have children to raise that are growing up in the local schools. They drop them off on the way to work and pick them up at the end of the day.

And fourth, there are those guys at the liars' table at the O.K. Cafe on Sunday mornings. Dressed up, some of them, as the period characters they portray on weekends, they get together and, well, tell stories. They are part of the town. Don't be surprised to see the mayor, or the tourism director, thereabouts, discussing what next to do for the community.

These people are all part of the living community. They are my Tombstone, the town I came to know in six months as vicar of Tombstone, one in a long line of ministers that continues. This fall that town, and the church, will celebrate Endicott Peabody Day, celebrating that young seminarian who came to town on a dusty stage 137 years ago, and the people who built the church, and the building they built, and the town so blessed it thrives.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/10/the-wild-west-meets-the-southern-border

Photograph by Jon Donahue. Used with permission.

The Vicar of Tombstone

The Vicar of Tombstone

For the last six months, since Palm Sunday, I have been the priest principally serving the small congregation of Saint Paul's Episcopal Church in Tombstone. As I came here the first time to serve, I thought of a predecessor, young Endicott Peabody, who had taken the same road 135 years ago and served about six months. He had a predecessor, who had a brief and unsatisfactory tenure around the time of the gunfight behind the O.K. Corral. He arrived with the blessing of the new missionary bishop of the Arizona Territory and at the invitation of a town resident, a friend of the family. I arrived at the suggestion of the bishop and at the invitation of the congregation.

Young Peabody had arrived atop a stagecoach; the driver regaling him with stories of a stagecoach robbery on that route not six months before. I arrived by automobile, on the same road, with stories of that same robbery, and other crimes, regaled upon me by sources written and oral.

That robbery was or was not with the connivance of John (Doc) Holliday, who did or did not leave town on a rented horse at exactly the time of the robbery.

It seems like every incident in Tombstone and environs has at least two versions. Everybody has an opinion, and a couple of spares. Most recently, gunfire erupted in a saloon named for the same hot-headed dentist. In this case, versions diverge. The bar owner, and the man charged for discharging a pistol inside a saloon, have published versions of their own, the former in his own newspaper and on his own Facebook page, while the person receiving the bullet, and law enforcement, and other interested parties, have a different tale to tell.

The medevac helicopter from Saint David did or did not airlift the injured party to the medical center in Tucson. And so forth.

Back in the day the stagecoach driver did not take selfies, nor did his paying passengers post anything on social media about their experience. Nevertheless versions of the story abounded, and rebounded, on said doctor. For as noted above, that fall also saw the infamous shootout in the narrow confines of an alley behind a livery stable. The mortally wounded fell on the street corner of Third and Fremont. My church was across the street and a block north of that corner....

(To be continued.)


http://www.myheraldreview.com/news/celebrating-years/article_0560cc58-b9fa-11e7-94a7-5ba336cf3200.html

http://www.myheraldreview.com/news/prostitution-paid-for-st-paul-s-church/article_16ffca36-4f1f-11e7-a0ad-e7e94609d909.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/01/17/tombstone-site-of-the-gunfight-at-the-o-k-corral-dubs-itself-americas-second-amendment-city/?utm_term=.fa3fd67f0335

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/man-wounded-in-shooting-during-fight-in-tombstone-saloon/2017/10/14/219043da-b122-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html?utm_term=.128c91591009

Eliza Linley My ancestor, Martin Ruter Peel, was a mining engineer in Tombstone, shot and killed for the copper mine payroll he was carrying from the bank to the mine in 1882. His father was the judge. Wyatt Earp came to the house to offer to find and kill the two men who shot him, but Judge Peel would have none of it, as it was not a legal solution. Never mind,the two murderers fled across the border and were killed for the stolen payroll. Exciting times. Welcome to Tombstone, vicar! (Martin is buried at Boot Hill).

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lamentations

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth;
and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God;
whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold,
and not as a stranger.

A reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah (25:6-9):

And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.
And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.
And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

O God, whose mercies cannot be numbered: Accept our prayers on behalf of thy servants, who have died in war, civil strife, natural disaster, gang violence, and massacre, and grant them an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of thy saints; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP 470)

Have you ever been shot at?
Has anyone ever pointed a loaded gun at you?
Has anyone ever pointed a gun at you and pulled the trigger?
Have you ever heard automatic weapons fire as you laid in your bed at night?
Has a place where you worked, or played, been destroyed by a terrorist act?

 Do any of these questions make you impatient?

They are the sort of past experiences that may have come to mind this past week. By Sunday evening, we knew that people had lost their lives in war, civil strife, gang violence, natural disaster, and a massacre at a Las Vegas concert.

It kind of hits you in the gut. Or not. But if it does, if it is the sort of thing that lingers and eats at you, you are not alone. Here on the border - we are well within 100 miles of Mexico - many of our friends and neighbors have been touched by tragedy, personally or in community.

Veterans, refugees, law enforcement, everyday ordinary people - we all have something to mourn when a mass tragedy occurs. And some of us carry with us the seeds of reaction from a past tragedy. Seed of trauma relived - and also perhaps seeds of compassion.

Newspapers tell us to pray - or forget about it. They tell us to take action - of some sort - for the good of our own souls, if nothing else. That may be wise.

But we as Christians, as a church, have something more to offer - to ourselves, to each other, to God. Yes, we offer prayer - and live and act, knowing our faith is true - knowing that our own Lord was bent by trauma, by the horrific experience of betrayal, interrogation, torture, and death.

And he endured the shock of resurrection. We celebrate all this as we come together this Sunday, as every Sunday, in the Eucharist. And from here, as we take it all in, death, sorrow, comfort, and joy, from here we go forward remembering that God is with us, all of us, in these moments of compassion, remembered grief, cheap advice, and even anger. We go forward -

We go forward in the name of Christ, to bring comfort, honesty, compassion, and fortitude, with resolution, to build, and continue to build, a world in which tragedy does not go unnoticed, where one does not go alone, but where we continue painfully to seek answers, and solutions, even as we know they may be hidden from us.

What we do know is that we are with each other, beyond mourning, because God is with us.

What we do now - and maybe from now on - may look the same as what others do - but we do it in the name of Christ, as servants of the prince of peace. We may look at causes, debate actions, give of ourselves, look out for others, listen patiently - all of it that we do, or don't do, we do knowing we are not alone, we are people of faith, for we know the end of the story: that love is strong, strong as death, and love will last - as God is with us.

Where was God last Sunday? At a country music festival. At a hurricane relief station, lining up for water and food. Carrying a stranger's child across the border from Burma to Bangladesh. In the waiting area of an emergency room. And at a child's bedside as she fell softly to sleep.

God was with us.

God is with us.

God be with you. And me.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen. (BCP 833)

Hidden

seed, yeast, treasure, and pearl

A man sows seed in a field. It starts small, but grows.

A woman hides yeast in a big batch of flour, but it shows itself: it causes the whole batch to rise.

A man discovers that a field holds a treasure and quickly quietly giddily goes to buy that field and claim the treasure.

Equally foolishly a businessman liquidates his assets to devote all his resources to the acquisition of a single pearl.

Two children lean over a basin and get their hair wet.

Yet somehow all these people with their outrageous gestures of abandonment to joy find themselves fulfilled far beyond the dreams of avarice.

The little bitty seed outgrows all expectations and furnishes the nesting place for birds of all the air.

The little leaven is enough to season ⅔ of a bushel - plenty of bread for everybody. (Is this one of Jesus’ lakeside feasts?)

These two clever fellows with their secret deals - a treasure in a field, a pearl of great price - outmaneuver themselves, right out of the market, for now they have nothing - nothing but the one thing that matters above all else.

Leaving the rest behind, they find that one perfect pearl, that seed of a great tree, that hidden hoard of unreasoned happiness, that overwhelming blessing of bread, that redeems all of life.

The one thing that matters.

For hidden in all these parables is the one true thing that makes all else make sense: the same thing that two little kids are dedicated to today: following Jesus.

That is what the kingdom of heaven means: a way of living that makes sense of life.

And behind it is an unbreakable promise by the maker of all things:

I will never leave you. I will never stop loving you.

In the midst of your worst trials and tribulations, your greatest loves and greatest fears, I will stay by your side.

That is God’s promise to all of us: that now that we have called upon him,

Nothing can separate us from the love of the Eternal One. Nothing is that strong.

And so the stamp is indelible. The watermark is unerasable. The oil stain cannot be washed out.

You are marked as Christ’s own for ever.

July 30, 2017.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost.

Proper 12, Year A.

Baptism

Romans 8:26-39

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-46

The Parable of the Mustard Seed. (31-32)

The Parable of the Yeast. (33)

The Parable of the treasure hidden in a field. (44)

The Pearl of Great Price (45-46).

weeds, wheat, and time

Mary of Magdala

There is a mine south and east of here once called the Irish Mag., from the false association of this woman of Galilee with a woman caught in adultery or a woman anointing Jesus' feet with precious oil. She was as desperate as the woman about to be stoned, she was as grateful as the woman preparing Jesus for his Burial.

What we do know about her is her dilemma and distress, her deliverance and dignity restored, her response of love and faithful follower-ship, and her witness to the one who delivered her from demons and who was himself to lead us all from death to life.

She was a witness: one of the last to see him living and the first to see him raised. She was a witness; the messenger to the apostles of the risen Lord, the first to proclaim the good news.

What we know of her helps us sort out the meaning of this strange parable of the wheat and the weeds. The farmer takes a puzzling course. He could have had the workers pull or hoe or poison the weeds once they'd sprouted and been spotted. But instead his patience and wisdom led to something that makes more sense if we realize Jesus was talking about a harvest of souls - and that the time was ripe.

Remember, he said that "the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few." (Matthew 9:37, Luke 10:2) The harvest time is now - for Mary of Magdala. A woman worn down by afflictions, she becomes one of the greatest of disciples.

Magdala is a small ancient town site along the lakeshore of Gennesaret better known in the Bible stories as the Sea of Galilee. On the west side of the lake south of the incoming stream of the Jordan are a series of places well known to pilgrim: Capernaum (where Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law) then Tabgha (the multiplication of the fishes), Ginosaur, and Magdala. Inland from the ancient site is a modern Arab/Israeli village, Migdal. Recent excavations show the importance anew of these small ancient villages.

Along the lakeshore where Jesus first began his ministry, proclaiming and healing, he encountered this woman. (Luke 8:2, Mark 16:9) And something extraordinary happened. He encountered her in the midst of her affliction with unconditional love. He never confused her quandary with the person that God loved. And as a result of this personal encounter with Jesus her dignity was restored. She became an icon of hope for all who are broken in heart or spirit or body or mind.

And this freedom, and her devoted discipleship, prepared her for something even more extraordinary. For she was a witness - one of the last to see Jesus living, and then - the first to see him risen. A personal encounter with Jesus that transformed the world. For she, the first witness of the resurrection, was sent by Jesus to proclaim the good news to his apostles, the ones commissioned to take this message to all peoples.


St. Paul's, Tombstone.

July 23, 2017. Seventh Sunday after Pentecost.
Proper 11. Year A. Track 2.
Isaiah 44:6-8.
Psalm 86:11-17.
Romans 8:12-25.
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.
The Parable of the Weeds of the Field (the Wheat and the Tares).

Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene (July 22)
Judith 9:1,11-14
2 Corinthians 5:14-18
John 20:11-18
Psalm 42:1-7

"Mary Magdalene: Icon of Hope" by Jennifer Ristine, RC. http://www.magdala.org/2017/07/mary-magdalene-icon-hope/ accessed July 22, 2017.

Summer Sunday Readings

Summer Sunday Readings for St. Paul’s, Tombstone.


For your reference here are summer Sunday readings from the Revised Common Lectionary, Episcopal Edition. At St Paul’s Tombstone we are following track two - with the Old Testament reading complementing the themes of the Gospel.


9 July 2017
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 9
Zechariah 9:9-12
Psalm 145:8-15
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30


16 July 2017
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 10
Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9,18-23


23 July 2017
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 11
Isaiah 44:6-8
Psalm 86:11-17
Romans 8:12-25
Matthew 13:24-30,36-43


30 July 2017
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 12
1 Kings 3:5-12
Psalm 119:129-136
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33,44-52
________________



6 August 2017
The Transfiguration
Exodus 34:29-35
2 Peter 1:13-21
Luke 9:28-36
Psalm 99 or 99:5-9


13 August 2017
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 14
1 Kings 19:9-18
Psalm 85:8-13
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33


20 August 2017
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 15
Isaiah 56:1,6-8
Psalm 67
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28


27 August 2017
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 16
Isaiah 51:1-6
Psalm 138
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20
________________



3 September 2017
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 17
Jeremiah 15:15-21
Psalm 26:1-8
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28


10 September 2017
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 18
Ezekiel 33:7-11
Psalm 119:33-40
Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20


17 September 2017
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 19
Genesis 50:15-21
Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13
Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35


24 September 2017
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 20
Jonah 3:10-4:11
Psalm 145:1-8
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16
________________


1 October 2017
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 21
Ezekiel 18:1-4,25-32
Psalm 25:1-8
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32


8 October 2017
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 22
Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:7-14
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46


15 October 2017
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 23
Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14


22 October 2017
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 24
Isaiah 45:1-7
Psalm 96:1-9, (10-13)
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22


29 October 2017
Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 25
Leviticus 19:1-2,15-18
Psalm 1
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Matthew 22:34-46
________________



5 November 2017
All Saints Sunday
Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12


12 November 2017
Twenty Third Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 27
Wisdom of Solomon 6:12-16
Wisdom of Solomon 6:17-20
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13


19 November 2017
Twenty Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 28
Zephaniah 1:7,12-18
Psalm 90:1-8, (9-11), 12
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30


26 November 2017
Last Sunday after Pentecost:
Christ the King
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 95:1-7a
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25:31-46
________________



http://www.lectionarypage.net/CalndrsIndexes/Calendar2017.html accessed July 4, 2017. JRL+