November 5, 2017, had all the potential of being an exceptional Sunday. The weather was nice and, in my denomination, it was All Saint's Sunday. On this day in our denomination, it is our custom to remember our baptismal covenant and to recite the necrology of the congregation's asking. We remember those near and dear to us who have died. I also knew that a baby girl was going to be baptized into the Body of Christ "and sealed and marked as Christ's own forever."
The drive from Bella Vista to St. Thomas, Springdale, was enhanced by the view of the Fall dressing of the trees along I-49. A wonderful metaphor for that morning.
As I was about to leave, I received a telephone call from our daughter informing me that our oldest grandson was ill and they were at a Mercy Care Center. I stopped by and then went home to look over the sermon I planned to preach that night at the Northwest Arkansas Women's Community Correctional Unit in Fayetteville.
Then it happened. My cell phone notified me through the Breaking News app that there had been a second murder in a church, the first being in the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch near Nashville, Tennessee. At first, I only knew it was in a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, near San Antonio, Texas. We lived for eight years in South Texas and I knew where the church was located.
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Ken Parks is the former rector of St. Theodore's Episcopal Church in Bella Vista. He can be reached by email to [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
Religion on 11/15/2017