It is appropriate to consider Deaconess Bedell, whose feast day always comes around the time of the Baptism of Our Lord. For those of you who’ve been at St Stephen’s for awhile you know her story and her connection to St Stephen’s and also know that it was through the efforts of Jack Geist that she ultimately was voted into the calendar of saints by General Convention That’s how folks become saints in the Episcopal Church — they get voted in.
For those of you who are fairly new here, the thumbnail sketch of her life and ministry is that Deaconess Harriet Bedell, after graduating from the New York Training School for Deaconesses became a missionary and teacher among the Cheyenne in Oklahoma, then served among the indigenous people in Alaska. In 1932, after hearing about the plight of the Seminoles in Florida, she used her own salary to reopen a mission among the Miccosukee. She worked to revive some of their traditional crafts, the sale of which improved the local economy. She worked well into her 80’s, and often came through the local Episcopal churches in South Dade — including St Stephen’s — to tell people about the ministry and raise funds for it. Those of you who remember Deaconess Bedell please raise your hands.
The Holy Spirit throughout the centuries has given us guides and role models in just how we go about being the Body of Christ, just how we go about living out the vows we each took in baptism. We call them saints, but they really are, as the song says “just folk like me.” And the song also goes on to say “and I mean to be one too.” Harriet Bedell certainly understood what the baptismal vows meant for her and she used her particular gifts to be the hands and feet and eyes and voice of Christ. She is a model for us. Perhaps there’s no need any more to improve the livelihood of the Miccosukee as she did, but she used her God-given gifts to make the world better.
As this season of Epiphany begins, this season in which we mark the light of Christ coming into the world and then spreading throughout the world, we also mark the fact that it is through us, the members of his body, that this good news and this light is spread. What are the gifts that God has given you? And how is God calling you to use them to spread the love and light of Christ to a world hungry to know it? As this new year and this season of Epiphany begin, I leave you with that question. Amen.