Ring the Bells that Still Can Ring

March 7, 2026 - Thanksgiving for the Life of Fr. Jeff Wilhelm

My friends, I speak to you today in the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you to all of you for being here today to celebrate and remember Jeff; I know some of you flew in this morning, a few of you came back from vacations. And for some of you, this is the second funeral in two Saturdays here at Epiphany. Thank you for gathering here again, for coming together in support and love.

I’m going to start with a personal story and try not to get too emotional, but no promises. Last December, I had a health scare, spent a few hours in the hospital. It turned out that I needed to take better care of my heart, that my stress levels as a priest and a son and a husband and a dad were a little too high. When I told the church about it the next Sunday morning, the first person to approach me, still during the service, was Father Jeff. As a priest himself, he told me he had been through similar scares, had dealt with similar stress, and that I really did need to take care of myself and my own body and my spiritual life if I wanted to have anything to give anyone else. But beyond that, he told me that he would help take care of me. He insisted that he could step up more, in his own retirement, that he would find ways to lighten my load, because he loved me and he loved this place.

And he did. Jeff put together a schedule where I would get a Sunday away each month during the winter and spring, where he and Pastor Bob and Father Jim would all fill in. Because of him, I was able to take a vacation with my wife for our anniversary. Because of that, he preached and presided for me on a Sunday morning less than three weeks ago.

Now the sermon he preached that morning, his last sermon, it resonated deeply with our congregation; it touched on current events, politics, on our own responsibilities. Jeff had a deep passion for loving his neighbor, for loving us here at Epiphany, and for engaging the world. That passion informed his preaching, and it informed his life; though he was only in South Haven for a short time, he was active in this community, he was involved. He was out at several protests this last year, and he was connected to our work with the poor in Pullman and here in town with We Care. He served on our liturgy team and here in service too, throughout retirement. Jeff was not hesitant to connect the gospel, the lectionary, our faith, with real action, loving others, loving neighbors, loving our world.

And his final sermon did just that. I am not preaching a eulogy today, I am not reading an obituary, I’m not really even preaching a traditional homily, this is a strange mix of all those things, and none of them at all. Instead, I am going to lean on and reiterate the words Jeff himself preached in his final sermon, because they encompass so much about this man that we loved, and because they are the gospel we clergy are here to preach and we Christians are here to follow. I’m also doing it because I know Jeff would want me to, not out of his own egoism, but because it makes preaching today that much easier for me.

His sermon from February 15, the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, it told the story of the entire season of Epiphany, how our church season revolves around Jesus being revealed as God’s Son, how this “Jesus of justice and mercy,” this “Jesus who spreads the power of love,” how this is what God looks like too. And then, he dove into how this particular year’s season of Epiphany was so full of difficulty and anxiety for so many of us, with ICE ravaging Minnesota, with deaths of American citizens and brutal imprisonment of seemingly anyone and everyone who stood in our own government’s path, including five-year-old Liam Conejo-Ramos. Jeff drew a direct correlation between the gospel of a loving Jesus Christ and our real-life response to injustice today, how we are to love, how we are to work for justice and mercy, how we, all of us, how we are to be the light.

Jeff said, “If you're a protester, protest; if you're an organizer, organize; if you're a donor, donate; if you're a helper, help; if you're a knitter, knit. How ever you can be the light, be the light. Because light illuminates, light reveals, light shows the way, light drives out the darkness. In fact, the only thing that makes the darkness disappear is the light.” Now today, I would argue that the only thing that will help our sorrows fade, too, is the light, the love, joy, and peace that we can and must continue to share together, with each other, because Jeff certainly shared them with us. “How ever you can be the light, be the light.”

Jeff ended his last sermon with lyrics from Leonard Cohen; as you’ll see throughout the service today, music spoke truth for Jeff, and he had a deep love of it. (As Episcopalians are fond of saying, “singing is praying twice.”) The song he quoted, called “Anthem,” was written in 1992 amid global (and Cohen’s own personal) unrest, and it urges us to continue working and living despite despair, despite the world’s flaws and failures.

I’m going to read the full lyrics of this song as a tribute to Jeff today because I think they're unbelievably appropriate for this moment, reading them as a way to end this eulogy-obituary-homily, a way I know he would have connected with. Jeff focused on a few specific phrases from it for his final sermon; I think we need to all be blessed by that song and his sermon one more time today. Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” goes like this:

“The birds they sang, at the break of day, start again, I heard them say. Don't dwell on what has passed away, or what is yet to be. The wars they will be fought again. The holy dove, she will be caught again; bought and sold and bought again, the dove is never free.

“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

“We asked for signs, the signs were sent, the birth betrayed, the marriage spent, yeah, the widowhood of every government, signs for all to see. I can't run no more, with that lawless crowd, while the killers in high places, say their prayers out loud. But they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud. They're going to hear from me.

“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

“You can add up the parts, but you won't have the sum. You can strike up the march, but there is no drum. Every heart, every heart, to love will come, but like a refugee.

“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. That's how the light gets in. That's how the light gets in.”

Now that song, those lyrics, that was Leonard Cohen. This last line, it is by the Rev. Joseph Franklin Wilhelm, our Father Jeff, your Jeff:

“How ever you can be the light, be the light. Be the light. Be the light. Be the light.”

May we all go forth from this service this afternoon, to ring the bells that still can ring for as long as we can possibly ring them... to be the light in this world.

Amen.