August 27, 2006
(Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 16)

Katrina One Year Later

By The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean

Joshua 24:1-2a,14-25  •  Psalm 16 or 34:15-22  •  Ephesians 5:21-33  •  John 6:60-69
(From The Lectionary Page)

One year ago, here in the cathedral we prayed for the people of New Orleans and the gulf coast as they prepared for Hurricane Katrina. We had no idea what we were praying for.

All through the region services are planned this week in Louisiana and Mississippi. Here’s a bit of the respective Bishop’s calendars:

Mississippi Bishop Duncan Gray III will celebrate Holy Eucharist at the ruins of St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in Long Beach at 9 a.m. St. Patrick's congregation has been worshipping at Coast Episcopal School, since it was one of six Mississippi Episcopal church facilities destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The storm left between a third and half of the congregation's families without homes.

Gray will then travel to St. Mark's in Gulfport for a noon groundbreaking service. St. Mark's, one of Mississippi's oldest churches, was destroyed August 29, 2005 when Katrina made landfall at Gulfport.

Christ Church Cathedral, New Orleans, will host an interfaith service to commemorate the anniversary at 4 p.m. Bishop Charles Jenkins will officiate with Rabbi Cohn of Temple Sinai and Imam Rafeeq Numan. Musicians will include the Cathedral Choir, Artist-in-Residence Irvin Mayfield, a brass and percussion ensemble, and Shades of Praise Gospel Choir.

August 29 Gray will celebrate services at several locations, beginning at the ruins of St. Peter's By-the-Sea, Gulfport, at 9 a.m., then a chapel service at Coast Episcopal School, Long Beach, 11:30 a.m., followed by another service at 6 p.m. at the ruins of the Church of the Redeemer, Biloxi.

Bp Jenkins has been invited as one of the guest speakers for the Katrina commemoration service hosted by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans at 7 p.m. The service will be held at St. Louis Roman Catholic Cathedral and Minor Basilica in the French Quarter.

This is not merely a list of services for an anniversary of an event that is somewhat removed for many of us. It is a call to engage in performing sacred ritual, a kind of second Holy Week for those who have survived. There will be mourning, remembering, honoring and giving thanks. And all of the liturgies will end with people in some way recommitting themselves to God and one another. As has been said so many times, it’s a shame that it takes a tragedy to get such a commitment.

In our first lesson from the Book of Joshua, we come upon a covenant renewal ceremony underway. Joshua sets before the people of Israel the starkest choice: serve the Lord exclusively, or reject the Lord and accept the gods of the Amorites a.k.a. the Canaanites. The people swear loyalty to the Lord as they recall their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. But the choice was a hard one. The people of Israel were seduced by those parts of Canaanite culture that caused them to forget God and the Law. Joshua warns Israel of God’s judgment just as Moses did before him when the Hebrews worshiped a golden calf. But the covenant is renewed, and Yahweh is Israel’s Lord.

Ritual of any kind has a restorative effect. Returning to a favorite vacation spot, tasting a dish that recalls a wonderful moment or tradition, even coming across a shirt one has long – how shall I say – outgrown, that reminds one of simpler and more innocent times. These kinds of rituals refresh us, but they lack a long-term effect. And in most cases, such rituals appeal to the past, and a past that has grown rosier thanks to the passage of time and loss of memory.

However, the ritual described in Joshua is not back-remembering, but forward-looking covenant. It is based not on what has happened but much more on faith, that no matter what may come, God will always be faithful. And with the covenant comes responsibilities, not in order to ensure results, but to illustrate the peoples’ commitment and the intention of their hearts.

I’ve never visited St. Patrick’s Church in Long Beach MS, but I have a tremendous fondness for it. St. Patrick’s rector, Fr. David Knight, was a Seabury-Western seminarian who performed his field education with me several years ago. When Katrina hit, St. Patrick’s was planning a building addition, because despite my influence in his formation, David’s parish was growing.

St. Patrick’s was destroyed in the hurricane. Correction. The building bearing the name St. Patrick’s was destroyed, but the church was not. Over half of David’s parishioner’s homes were destroyed, and many have not come back. David’s home was spared. The parish moved to a school, and David and wife Jennifer, an RN, began to minister in ways too many to mention this morning. Camp Coast Care was established to provide medical services to survivors and volunteers, as an alarming number of doctors left the region. When our Diocese raised funds for 21 electric generators for the gulf coast, I asked that our cathedral generator go to David at Camp Coast Care. He said it must have because when it was running is smelled like barbecue. We at the Cathedral have assisted David and Jennifer and the people of St. Patrick’s several times this past year.

This past Holy Week, David emailed saying that he needed my special recipe for creating the new fire at the Easter Vigil indoors in the school. And he got the Epsom salts and rubbing alcohol mixture just right he said, so that the fire was kindled without problem. And what an Easter it was. Resurrection was celebrated in its many forms.

This week Katrina survivors renew a sacred covenant. Not only with their lips, but with their lives. We are called upon to doing less. Our covenant with God depends upon solemn words and ritual, and solemn action. True forgiveness, generosity of spirit as well as of money, and an undefended heart.

The food we need for this covenant will be offered here soon. Peter said that we can go nowhere else but to Jesus if we wish the words of eternal life. Joshua asked his people plainly: who is god for you? Along the gulf coast this week, the choice of who is God will be obvious, proclaimed loud and strong. May the choice be just as obvious for us all here because resurrection is all around us, too.