Remembering Father Kirk Lee

Father Kirk Lee passed away today. Full-time financier, he was a part-time priest at St. James Episcopal Church, Marietta until 2012, when the photo was made.

An avuncular man, a bit portly but small, he had an outsize influence on me. I looked forward to his sermons. He would poke at cultural and political elephants in the room with wry humor that united us in laughter. I've blogged about two of his sermons in detail.

Ten Commandments as Ten Beatitudes (10/2008) I didn't think there was much new to say about the Ten Commandments, but Rev. Kirk Lee tried. He questioned the advisability or even possibility to "put aside" the "overlap between public and private spheres of moral and religious life." He capped his sermon with a new spin on the old "Shalt nots." Here are excerpts:

We live in a day where the very concept of some type of objective, independent morality is being questioned. ...Where are we going to find such a standard? We could depend on human feelings, as illustrated in [the] song, "how can it be wrong when it feels so right?" Or ... we could rely on majority vote. How can it be wrong if 55% of the people voted for it? Right?

The problem with these choices, Fr. Kirk said, is that feelings change, and the majority often shifts its position. "We need something or someone who stands outside of the world, outside of just being human, outside of the community, who can look in and give us direction. That someone can only be God."

To people who complain that the Ten Commandments are just too inflexible, too narrow and negative, Fr. Kirk turned the laws around to make "the ten most positive statements about life ever written":

Blessed are they who put God first.
Blessed are they who need no substitutes for God.
Blessed are they who honor God's name.
Blessed are they who honor God's day.
Blessed are they who honor their parents.
Blessed are they who value life.
Blessed are they who keep their marriage vows.
Blessed are they who respect the property of others.
Blessed are they who love the truth.
Blessed are they who learn the art of contentment.

Little Jesus at Large (12/2018) Fr. Kirk's sermon in 2006 made such an impression on me that I wrote about it years later from notes. Kirk began, "I have a hard time believing that God raises up oppressive and evil people simply as a means for showing his ultimate power." He could have been referring to Herod in the birth narrative, or to the apocalyptic readings we've had in Advent about earthquakes, persecutions, and wars to come. Kirk continues,

I do believe that ordinary people like you and me allow oppressive and evil people to rise up. We do so because we are not by nature proactive in denouncing wrongdoing. We give the oppressors and the evil ones the benefit of time to prove themselves, before we act. Usually, this is at the expense of many kind and innocent people.

Kirk wonders at how we wait until the problem gets so much worse: "Do any of us allow an infection to spread through the body by not treating it as early as possible?" His pointed message is that God shows his power through us, moving us "to right the wrong perpetrated on kind and innocent people." 

Postscript, July 18, 2021:

Friends and family gathered in the beautiful cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta to celebrate Kirk. 

Fr. Wallace Marsh IV, formerly associate rector at St. James, remembered Kirk from those days when Fr. Lee was assistant priest.  Wallace emphasized the sense of humor.  He told about a breakfast following the Rite I service where an elderly parishioner spoke to Kirk at a round table crowded with nine other parishioners: "Kirk, you are the best preacher in this church, you're handsome, you're so knowledgeable. You lack only one thing:  A good woman in your life."  Wallace said everyone at the table nearly choked, knowing the open secret that Kirk was a gay man in a longtime loving relationship with David, organist at the Cathedral.   "But Kirk gave a reply that was honest, theologically sound, and diplomatic: 'My life is absolutely wonderful.  I wouldn't change a thing.'"

The cathedral choir sand Howell's heartbreaking "Like as the Hart" and Sumsion's "Song of Simeon," along with a psalm tone by Peter Walford Davies.