I feel like I have known Jeff McGinnis all of his life. In fact, I have only known him less than one-third of his life. But, I, like many of you, feel so incredibly bonded to him. He appeared at Christ and Saint Luke's at just about the same time I did. Actually, he came a little bit earlier and he seemed to be waiting for me.      He came for the music: the choir, the Cantata Chorus, the organ and the organist. In those early years, when our church's life was less complicated, he had a key to the church. He would come by late at night, let himself in and play the organ into the wee hours.      His tastes in music were far broader than yours. He could go to the country nightclub, "The Banque" and rock to a twangy country string band. Or he could be totally enraptured by Allen Shaffer's loftiest adventures in the sacred repertory.      But, friends, as much as he loved the music, it wasn't just the music that brought him here. There were other reasons. Jeff came from religious experiences in his childhood that Episcopalians might find restrictive and confining. He found them restrictive and confining. But, they made him a man of deep faith. In the world of religious language, he was a once-born Christian. Faith was natural to him. It wasn't a struggle or a challenge. It was woven into the very fabric of his existence. This church fed his soul, through the Eucharist and prayer.      But, there was a least one other element that he needed in a church. It was the sense of inclusivity he felt here.      Jeff and I were privileged to have many long talks in the years that we were friends. I learned so much from him. On more than one occasion, we found comparisons between people with AIDS and the lepers of Jesus' day. The fear and the prejudice some faith communities either subtly or blatantly display, simply did not exist here. Jeff knew that he was loved, admired, welcomed and cared about.      Maybe it was because he had AIDS from before the time I met him that gave me a feeling that I had always known him. AIDS did not define him, but it did focus his values and his priorities. Somehow, it was not exactly a death sentence. His infection came in the second generation of victims. The first wave, those generally identified in the AIDS Quilt, were virtually defenseless. By the time Jeff got sick, there were many defenses available and he took them all. The doctors called it his "cocktail," a carefully formulated assortment of drugs that held the demon at bay.      And, at the same time Jeff took exceptional care of himself. Muscular and athletic, he exercised vigorously, ate intelligently and kept his mind focused on, first, the Navy, and later his computer educator career. He stayed in love, too. He loved his family, and his dear friends. And, one day, he went out to San Diego and came back with the most perfect life partner he could have ever hoped for. We celebrated their love.      He wasn't dying of AIDS. He was living with AIDS. Oh, dumb us. Somehow, we pretended that he had the thing licked.      But, he knew better. He knew there was no way out. As far as seven years ago, he began making plans for this day. Even before that, he told Allen and me of a major bequest he would be making to the music program. He anticipated the inevitable, long before any of the rest of us did.      And, then, one day a year or more ago something happened. It was horrible. The cocktail was no longer able to do its thing. Revisions were made. New products were tried. A sense of urgency was followed by panic and, then, futility. The demon that had so long clawed at the door, had found an opening and came relentlessly, remorselessly in. And, on a warm October evening, as this church was enraptured by an organ concert unlike any other in the history of Hampton Roads, he quietly slipped away. On his way to heaven, surely, passed this way. He simply would not have missed it.      Jeff was every inch the full stature of a man. And, as I said, it was not the AIDS that defined him. It wasn't his orientation that defined him. It wasn't his love of computers or the U. S. Navy that defined him. And it wasn't even his passion for music that defined him.      They are all a piece of the puzzle. But what truly defined Jeffrey Lyn McGinnis was that he knew deeply, abidingly, reverently, that to be every inch a man, one must be a child a child of God. And he was. And the prize for being a child of God is to be an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. And he is.      At this very moment, he is in the heavenly chorus and playing that great celestial Cassevant-Letournau. Thanks be to God, who has given him the victory through our lord, Jesus Christ. AMEN.