Why a 12-Step Eucharist?

 Why a 12-Step Eucharist? This is what the press release says....     

Emmanuel Episcopal Church to host a 12-Step Eucharist Sunday, July 9 at 5pm

Why a 12-Step Eucharist?  Addiction touches almost every life in this country, either directly or through its effect on loved ones. In 2022, drug overdoses killed more Virginians than car crashes and gun violence combined. Although the worlds of law enforcement, politics, and medicine have had much to say about addiction and our response to it, the Church has remained mostly silent. We Christians believe firmly in hope, healing, redemption, and grace, yet we often lack the spiritual vocabulary to speak honestly about it when addiction knocks at our door. The 12-Step Eucharist provides all of us—whether in recovery or not—the chance to see both the need that is all around us and the resources we have to offer. This is a service of grace and hope.

 About the Twelve Steps

All Twelve Step recovery programs have their beginnings in a movement called the Oxford Group, which developed in the 1900’s in and around New York. One of their leaders was The Rev. Samuel Shoemaker, the rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City. They sought to build their faith around the practice of what they called “The Four Absolutes” - absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute love. These principles, they believed, were the definitive essence of Jesus’ moral teaching. They were convinced that action was the key to faith and spiritual growth, a premise that had been carried over into AA and subsequent programs - “to practice these principles in all our affairs.” The Oxford Group maintained that maintaining fellowship, keeping community, and sharing of one’s own experience - including public confession of wrongs - were the vital forms this action should take. As you’ll see in the service, our own Episcopal tradition is a natural path for following these principles. That, along with our open offering of the Sacraments and our gentle proclamation of the Gospel, positions us almost perfectly to offer to people in recovery and their loved ones a safe place to find that deep experience of God so many of us are seeking.

I've looked and looked for this quote and can't find it, but I'm almost 100% certain Nadia Bolz Weber, Lutheran pastor, and amazing author, said something to the effect of, "There is more truth in church basements than in the church on Sunday mornings." I read or heard that with suspicion before....

Before addiction entered our family's world. Or let's be honest before our family admitted addiction was and had been part of our family's world--maybe even for several generations. It was then I met some of the most amazing people. People in recovery and people who wanted to be, or maybe didn't want to be.  And it was also then I was punched in the gut and in the face and left stranded bleeding and weeping by some who spent every Sunday morning seated in church pews.

I was extended care and compassion through those I least expected over and over and over again. 

One such example happened very late one night or was it in the wee hours of the early morning. I was in a place I had never been, and  I was frantic. I was pacing without going anywhere while terror shot through my body. Two hands appeared out of seemingly nowhere, grabbed me by the shoulders and stared into my eyes with his bloodshot eyes, and said, "We've got this Preacher Lady. You go home. Nothing going to happen. Let me take care of things" I believed him, and I did go home. The next morning I stood in the pulpit and preached to people who had no idea where I had been or what had happened the night before and many I didn't trust to tell.

There was another time I was sharing with a friend who is in recovery a story about a particularly painful experience with another family member. She looked me straight in the eyes and said, "How can you love me and give me so much grace and understanding and not extend that to her?" Damn--another gut punch. I was the person in the pews that needed to be in the basement.

In April 2015, I was at the beach and just happened to stumble upon an announcement that Grace Church Cathedral was hosting a 12-Step Eucharist that very night. I went. It was packed, and to say I was profoundly moved is an understatement. The Rev. John Zahl preached. As I was leaving, I stopped, introduced myself as a priest (not sure why that mattered), and with tears streaming down my face told him I came in as a shell and left full of hope. I saved the bulletin for years. Two months ago John (I call him that now because he's now my friend) and I were together for a week at a clergy retreat. I told him how that service in April 2016 has been a part of the fabric of my being ever since. As we stood there talking I said, "John, I need you to hear this. I got to meet you again after 7 years and I get to tell you how much it transformed me. I know to the depths of my being there are many others who had the same experience that you may never meet. That night you truly made a difference. You preached the Gospel and changed lives. I want to be a vessel like that." 

Later that evening he emailed me a Google doc of the service, and with a few changes, that will be the 12-Step Eucharist on Sunday night. All are welcome those in church basements, those in church pews, and everyone else. We are all beloved children of God.