Burial: Bill Albergotti

Jack Hardaway

“Father Jack”, as he is affectionately known, has served the parishioners of Grace Episcopal Church as their rector since 2004.

https://www.facebook.com/111206155580409/videos/1852403094794031/

https://www.facebook.com/111206155580409/videos/1852390331461974/

(Due to technical difficulties, these comprise a partial video feed of Bill Albergotti’s service)

Burial: Bill Albergotti
1 March 2018
Jack Hardaway

I have this very vivid memory of first meeting Bill.
I was being interviewed for the Rector position here at Grace and Bill and Donnie Roberts gave me the driving tour of Anderson.
I was in the back seat so I couldn’t really see much, so I mostly just watched Bill and Donnie. It was a great show.
The drive went on quite awhile. It involved all the neighborhoods, driving the wrong way on several one way streets, lots of zig zagging, “this way, no that way” and frequent stops at homes for me to convince various people to come back to Church.
It was a wonderfully bewildering drive with two men for whom I soon came to have great affection and admiration.

I’ve heard Bill called many things over the years. As far as I can tell they are all true.
The historian.
The ambassador.
A stubborn jackass.
The conscience of Grace Church.
A consummate gentleman.

Only John Edwards spoke more slowly.
He had a particular way of making peanut butter and jelly for the children of the Church, mixing them together first then spreading them on the bread.
Welcoming people to his Church was important to him, it was more than being polite, it was that holy calling that some feel so deeply to offer true hospitality.
Honoring all the ties that bind us together, from generation to generation, finding and making the connections that hold us together, that was how Bill saw the world and his place in it.
In other words a true gentleman indeed.

God is gentle.
God is considerate.
God is deeply and truly hospitable.
God is stubborn and relentless in loving us.

If Bill was our only scripture revealing God, that is who we would know God to be.
Bill’s Gospel.
The human vocation is to reveal God’s image to the world.
What do we reveal?
How do we break that image?
How do we restore that image of God as gentle?

The bad theology of our culture has lost the gentleness God.
The idea that God is considerate sounds strange to our ears.
Today we give God thanks for Bill Albergotti and for those like Bill, who show us the true history of God as the tie that binds.
Today we let go.
Today may we honor the divine image by being gentle with each other.