Two Words and a Promise

The Gospel reading this morning would seem to play perfectly into the hand of a preacher seeking to comment on this week’s election.  Saint Luke reports that Jesus paints a picture of apparent doom, social and environmental destruction, and false leadership, as well as suffering and disdain for the righteous.  “Beware that you are not led astray,” Jesus says.  “… there will be dreadful portents… they will arrest you and persecute you… you will be betrayed… and they will put some of you to death”  Many Episcopalians will find in these verses pitch-perfect echoes of how this year’s election feels.

But, to be a little flippant, to me the present moment feels a little more Old Testament than New, so why not reach for the short excerpt from Malachi instead.  For here, too, this morning, we are not disappointed if we are looking for biblical commentary on the national moment:  “See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble;” we hear the prophet Malachi warn, “the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.”  Now we are getting close to fire and brimstone!

Unfortunately for the preacher, if you check the context, you will find that, as was the case with Saint Luke, the prophet Malachi was not writing in an election year: a detail that impresses upon the preacher the need to step back, and a take a deep breath, and just check himself for a moment.

It turns out that the prophet Malachi was not, in fact, addressing American voters, neither Republicans nor Democrats.  His prophetic rant was actually addressed not only to the children of Israel, but specifically to their priests, who were responsible for the sacrificial offerings to the Lord, and whose offerings were found in the sight of God to be wanting.  And the prophetic complaint is not about the politics of the priests, it is about the insufficiency of their offerings.  Yes, it turns out that the prophecies of Malachi are essentially a stewardship sermon, which, of course, suits the purposes of a preacher perfectly on Commitment Sunday, when you are asked to consider your offerings for God’s church.

The prophet announces that God holds the priests in contempt, and with them all of Israel, because of their lax and un-generous giving.  By being so cheap, he tells them, they “despise” God’s name.  And he clarifies his thinking: “You say, how have we despised thy name?”

“By thinking that the Lord’s table may be despised,” he asserts, going on to list the ways the offerings have been inadequate.

But Malachi knows how easily the priests are bored by stewardship sermons.  He can already hear their indifference: “’What a weariness this is,’ you say, and you sniff at me, says the Lord of hosts.  You bring what has been taken by violence, or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering….  Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and I will put you out of my presence.”

Admittedly, as stewardship campaigns go, the thing with the dung is not a tactic that has been often used.  We will continue here at Saint Mark’s to go instead with the pledge cards, and the celebration brunch, and the word of thanks for your giving, rather than employing dung in any way, shape, or form whatsoever.  But I joke about it mostly because God’s impatience with cheap offerings actually cuts a bit close to the bone.  And it’s always easier to laugh at God, to sniff at him, when he’s getting especially close to the truth about us, than to take his rebuke seriously to heart.

The clever preacher, having thus far avoided serious mention of the election (and having justified said avoidance early in the sermon, with the suggestion of high-mindedness) might continue to steer clear of this particular mine-field.  Having successfully alighted on the ironically safe theme of giving… I mean giving your money… which, you see, is not normally considered the welcomest of topics… but under the circumstances… well …he might bask in the moment and remind himself to “stay on point, Sean, stay on point.  Nice and cool….”  But to do so, the preacher would have to ignore the fact that this particular moment in America is somewhat fraught, and that a resounding rejoinder to give generously might be counted as somewhat less balm than is required to soothe the present moment, if indeed soothing is what’s called for.

To steer wide of such commentary would also be to ignore the fact that even if it was not an election year when he was writing, Saint Luke tells us that Jesus himself did not avoid this kind of talk when he painted that picture of apparent doom, of social and environmental destruction, of false leadership, as well as of suffering and disdain that await the righteous – a picture that overlays our own moment a little imperfectly, perhaps, but maybe only a little imperfectly.  And it turns out that Jesus does, in fact, have advice for his followers under circumstances like these, and this is his advice: “Beware that you are not led astray.”  Beware.

The careful preacher this morning, is careful to reassure his flock that God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.  I have been reading and hearing such assurances from preachers for the past four days.  But Jesus is not always a careful preacher, and he does not always give his preachers a careful word.  And following an election in which an air of convenient religiosity was occasionally and cheaply borrowed with what appeared even at the time to be complete insincerity, the dominical injunction to beware seems timely.  Beware that you are not led astray.  Beware.

We should be able to say conclusively, incontrovertibly, and un-controversially after this campaign and election, in the words of another prophet, that truth has stumbled in the public square.  Indeed, truth is still lying bleeding in the public square, if you ask me.  It remains to be seen what shall become of it, since basic honesty seems to have been seldom in evidence these past months.  And where can truth be found if the conversation we are having is not even honest?

Now, the United States is not a Christian nation, thank God, and has never really set out to be.  But Christians in America, like all Christians, should be concerned about the truth – always elusive, but never insignificant – since our Lord prayed that we would be sanctified by the truth, reminding us by his prayer that God’s word is truth.

But after this sad electoral cycle, what can one say about the truth, except to stand uncomfortably with Pontius Pilate asking, “What is truth?”  And if the position we have found ourselves in is one of ready communion with Pontius Pilate, then by all means beware, beware, beware that you are not led astray.

And for now, I’d say, the church has given us the perfect response to the present moment by leading us directly to Jesus’ own instruction to beware in times of trouble, for indeed the moment is fraught in all kinds of ways.  So, beware.  I, for one, will be watching, to see if we are being led astray, for this moment of our history calls for wariness.

But the moment may not call for the preacher to end his remarks with a warning – few moments do.  And every preacher should be driven by the desire to proclaim the Good News that comes by Jesus, and perhaps never moreso than in times that are fraught with anxiety.  For which word, we may turn back to the Old Testament, where the prophet Malachi, so adept at the language and imagery of doom and gloom, is nevertheless able to turn a brilliant phrase of hopefulness.  Having given voice to a full-throated warning, he is ready with God’s still more fulsome reassurance that “for you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”

Two words, then, this morning, and one promise.  Give and beware.  Give because it’s what God requires of us to whom he has given so much.  Beware that you are not led astray because many there are who would lead you.

But even in times fraught with anxiety and danger, remember the promise of God, embedded even in the ancient prophets: that after the dark night of suffering, after the truth has stumbled and bled, after you have been arrested and persecuted, after you have been thrown into prison, after you have been brought in chains before kings and presidents because of your faith in and fear of the name of the Lord, then the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings!

Two words and one promise.  Give.  Beware.  And wait with me for the sun of righteousness to rise!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

13 November 2016

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Resurrection Policy

Throughout this entire campaign our man has been all too ready to make his case about behavior and character, but he has been what you might call notoriously light on policy. Some Sadducees realize this state of affairs and they decide to try to corner the guy: to get an answer out of him on a hotly debated, and really very important matter of policy. The Sadducees do not want to see a miracle. They are not interested in a healing, and they don’t even want to argue about the Sabbath. They are not going to be deterred by a clever put-down (“Woe to you who are laughing now!”). And they are not going to be satisfied with easy moralizing (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”) A compliant press is taken in by these theatrics, but not the Sadducees: People! Jesus was not the first person to utter the Golden Rule! Jews were already teaching their children to be nice - had been for centuries! And in time, Muslims would do the same… along with just about every religion you can find!

But none of this was on the minds of the Sadducees. They were looking for a substantial policy discussion, and a commitment to a firm position from Jesus. They wanted to know where he stood. They did not want to see a leper healed, nor were they interested in what this rabbi could do with some loaves and a few fish; they could care less if he turned water into wine. No, these were serious men with serious questions, and they expected Jesus to treat the questions seriously too. They would not be satisfied by the optics that so impressed the masses. This was a question of life and death. This was about resurrection!

Ask any Sunday School child about resurrection and chances are that the bold ones will tell you that Jesus was raised from the dead – and that’s where resurrection begins and ends. And that answer will be right, as far as it goes. But as an answer, it will also be severely attenuated, for that’s not all that Jesus taught, and it’s not all that the church is supposed to believe, even if we are a little uncertain about the details. Do not be confused by the way the discussion is presented in Luke’s Gospel. Do not be distracted by all the talk of wives and marriage. The Sadducees have not asked Jesus a question about marriage, or inheritance rights, or any other such thing. They have asked him about one very important thing: about resurrection – because they don’t believe in it. The Sadducees believe that, as the saying went when I was younger, life’s a bit difficult, and then you die. Period. End of discussion.

But other Jews believed that God made us for a life that extended beyond the grave – and that’s what the Sadducees are asking Jesus about. This is a big policy question, and the Sadducees have asked it in a way that they suspect Jesus cannot wriggle out of a real answer.

Jesus does not wriggle! “In the resurrection [they] neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.” This question of resurrection was an open question when Jesus was confronted by the Sadducees all those centuries ago. Since it was a question about what happens after death, it was naturally difficult to back up one’s position with proof, other than the Scriptures (which is precisely what Jesus does) since no one had yet seen anything of resurrection life.

Not that we often stop to think about it much, but you might say that there is confusion, and maybe even disagreement, about resurrection in our own day too. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are satisfied with the Sunday School answer: resurrection is what happened to Jesus. But as policy statements go, this is an inadequate one, since it fails to take seriously the Sadducees question, which I’ll appropriate and rephrase for my own purposes: But what about us? What happens to us after we are dead? Will we be resurrected too? This is a serious policy question. And it tends to shift the discussion, for in order to address this question, you have to decide that God has not called us to gather as a church just to learn to be nice to one another – although we should learn that too. We are also here to learn about who we are, and what kind of life has been given to us.

We are here to learn that our lives were fashioned by God’s own hand, that he made us and knows us, down to the number of hairs on our heads. We are here to learn that God guides us, challenges us, protects us, and loves us in the turbulent reality of the world we live in. We are here to learn that the life God gave us in this world is heading inevitably toward death, and that our sometimes beautiful, always imperfect bodies come with strict limitations in this life – affected as they are by gravity, the environment, the passage of time, and the blows we inflict upon one another. And that the earth itself will take our bodies and return what came from the earth right back to the earth from whence it came.

But there is more to us – to our bodies and to our souls – than came from the earth. There are secrets to how we are made that we have not yet discovered, and that include both body and soul. These secrets, like the question of resurrection, used to be an open question, long ago, even when Jesus walked the earth. But then this man, this rabbi, this figure of controversy, was seized, restrained, flogged, nailed to a cross, and killed. And his body was placed in a tomb. But when that tomb was reopened just a few days later, the long-open question of resurrection was at last closed. Because Jesus was himself risen - body and soul. He was not there, he had arisen from death, and he is risen now, too! And if Jesus was telling the truth about his own resurrection, then he was telling the truth about ours, as well. He said: we “are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.”

There is so much I don’t know about the implications of this policy of resurrection. I don’t know, for instance, how it’s done. I don’t know what form our bodies will be in when we are resurrected, though I believe that they will be repaired, restored, and renewed to some state of perfection, thank God. I don’t know whether the process is fast or slow, or how time will even be measured beyond the grave. I don’t know how we will be held accountable for our sins, but I believe we will be. I don’t know if I will recognize you, or be recognizable to you, although I am counting on it, in the same way that I am counting on having my dogs with me in the life to come. I don’t know if we’ll be issued wings, but I have reason to believe that the wardrobe will be predominantly white. And I don’t know what the music sounds like, but I am certain there will be music. The list of what I don’t know about the life to come goes on and on.

But I know, I know, I know, that resurrection life awaits us beyond the grave. I know that we were made for more than the organic process of growth and decay. I know that when we return to dust, that is not the end of the story. How do I know this? I know it because I know that my Redeemer lives! I know that if we are children of the resurrection, as Jesus taught, then we will be resurrected, too! I know that the Word of God took on flesh in order to redeem flesh – that was the point of his coming! Yes, I know that my Redeemer lives! With Job, whose suffering far surpassed any trouble I have ever known, I know that he shall stand at the last day! And I know that after my skin – my flesh – has been destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God, as a child of the resurrection!

Saint Luke doesn’t tell us how the Sadducees reacted to Jesus’ clear policy statement about resurrection. Were they satisfied to have found out what his position was, so they could rally against him when the time came? Were they disappointed that so charismatic a leader took a policy position so diametrically opposed to their own? We don’t know. But there is this wonderful good news that we do know, because Christ himself led the way through the grave and gate of death, and when he did, death itself was swallowed up in victory – for all who follow him.

There is so much I do not know, but thanks be to God I know that my redeemer and yours lives! And though worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God, as you shall, too. We will, I think, be dressed in white, very much like angels, and unmistakably children of the resurrection! That’s a policy I can live and die with! Thanks be to God!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

6 November 2016

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Creating Barriers to God

Zacchaeus is the chief tax collector and a wealthy man. What would drive him up a tree?

It’s easy to like Zacchaeus’s story. It’s easy to admire his spunk, or his zeal. He’s fantastically ready to give away half of what he has, and to repay what he may justly owe. I’d love to be able to identify with that particular readiness. I don’t think I can. Sometimes, though I think I do identify with Zacchaeus as he climbs the sycamore. Because like many of you I know something about what it is to feel faintly ridiculous about my own desire to see Jesus. That feeling of having gone out on a limb is familiar to many Christians in the twenty-first century. Nice story. I’m glad to see him get his reward.

Still, why should he have to climb a tree? We know he wants to see Jesus. Everybody does. That’s a good thing, right? They want to cast eyes upon Jesus as he passes through, and it’s hard not to feel some kinship with them. There is some kind of ardor, or at least a powerful curiosity, that leads that crowd to stand by the side of the road, just hoping to get a glimpse of this healer and teacher on his way to Jerusalem. They know something is happening in their midst, and as New Testament crowds go, that makes them pretty enlightened. Just last week, the Gospel of Matthew told us about Jesus being unable to do anything much in a crowd of people from his own hometown, because they lacked faith and they took offense at him. But Luke’s crowd from Jericho is all fired up. They aren’t hiding their interest in Jesus. They’ve turned out for Jesus in large numbers, it seems. We would do well to learn from them.

But it still bothers me that Zacchaeus has to climb a tree. While that crowd has come together to seek Jesus, while their eyes are trained on this itinerant holy man, they seem unable or unwilling to notice their short friend Zacchaeus. Do you ever wonder about this? It’s fun to imagine him climbing a tree, but what are the unspoken rules of that crowd that make him climb in the first place?

I wonder who else can’t see Jesus in that crowd. I wonder whom else it would be awkward for them to acknowledge. Are the children lifted up on their parents’ shoulders or do they stand in a sea of adults, wondering what all the excitement is about? Are they left to their own devices? I wonder what the man on crutches or the woman with the hemorrhage have to do to get close to the healer. What about the one with the demonic spirit or the leper or the one who is too hungry to focus on anything other than begging right at that moment? What do you do in that crowd if you are blind?

What would it feel like to be standing in a crowd and to realize that there is no way that particular group of people are going to get you close to what you’re looking for in your life with God? They’ll let you stand there, sure, but their backs are firmly turned away from your actual needs, your honest stature. They may have taken your measure silently—I guess everybody knows Zacchaeus is short—but they don’t want to talk about why you feel diminished among them. It would apparently feel awkward to turn to Zacchaeus and ask whether he would like to move up to the front of the line.

Zacchaeus knows how the game is played. He knows what kind of community that is. He is the chief tax collector, a collaborator with the Roman forces that dominate the people, and he knows that whatever he needs in that crowd, he has to take. He knows enough to know that no friendly invitation will be forthcoming. No one will overcome the awkwardness and shoo him on up to the front. So he runs ahead and climbs a tree. Like you do.

All this while, Jesus has been passing through the crowd of people eager to see him. He must intuit something about the spirit of that community. Maybe he just knows that they are like everybody else, and they come to see him in the same way they set about trying to get power or riches or approval or a good parcel of land or the best place at a banqueting table. You take what you want because it’s not going to be given to you. Jesus knows that for that crowd, even desire for holiness has become a kind of a scarce commodity. There are only so many places at the front of the line, only so many people who can be touched by the holy man, only so many chances to have an encounter.

Maybe Jesus knows that we can’t stop ourselves from thinking that his love is a scarce commodity. We know that God’s love is infinite and ever-abundant but how often are we really willing to let that knowledge change how we live? How many people come and go among us, without a deep sense of having been known and loved? How many people can’t see Jesus here because of a feeling of elitism or exclusivity? What are the barriers to entry at Saint Mark’s, physical and social? Is there self-satisfaction? Competition?

The answer is “Yes, of course.” Not because this isn’t a great church. I know a lot about the warmth and forgiveness and faith and creative outreach that are available here, and it blows my mind sometimes to think about what happens in this place. But we are still sinners, aren’t we. This is and always will be a church full of sinners on a long, uneven, journey of healing and transformation. And every one of us will want to jockey for a position at some time or another. Every one of us will foolishly try to measure our own closeness to God by measuring the between us and the nearest competitor. Every one of us will slip into imagining that Jesus is the object of our desire, something out there to attain.

But Jesus is no object. Jesus is no commodity. Jesus is the desire itself. Jesus is the whole process of transformation: the curiosity, the heart warming. And Jesus is the excluded one, too: the short one, the forgotten one, the one who comes out on the wrong end of the social interaction, the one who has already been written off before the competition starts.

And so while all the good people of Jericho, with their growing sense of spiritual desire, jockey for the chance to feast their eyes upon Jesus, our Lord turns his own eyes upon Zacchaeus, and he reorders that whole community. He redirects their quest. “Zacchaeus,” he says, “I need your hospitality.”

Now, I guess, if that crowd wants to get close to Jesus, they will have to go find him in uncomfortable proximity to the people they ignore. They will have to risk looking like the awkward people who hang out at Zacchaeus’s house. They will have to stop straining to achieve something for themselves, and start seeing the people Jesus sees, loving the people Jesus loves, choosing the people with whom Jesus has publicly cast his lot.

That’s a challenge for every one of us, every day. We will have to stop imagining that if we could just feel like insiders within these walls we could win the love of Jesus. We will have to become people who know that if our eyes are really on the Lord, they are constantly being trained to see our neighbors. What we want to receive, we will have to learn to offer. Instead of competing for something we imagine we can own, we have to learn to celebrate what God has in store for someone else.

We’ll have to engage that question that has been coming up again and again at Saint Mark’s in recent weeks: who is our neighbor? And the good news is that a great feast awaits those who are willing to ask that question and bear the answer. It’s a feast at which no scarcity need be feared, no outsider need ever be turned away, no sinner need hold back out of a sense of unworthiness. It’s a feast at which we find the community and belonging we have really always sought, a feast at which we drop the burdens of our own difference and our own isolation. Jesus is not far away, not just passing through our town on the way to Jerusalem. We don’t have to jockey for a place with him. Jesus is here with us, now, and he is playing host at the table of your least valued acquaintance. Let us seek him together. Let us find him. Let us dine with him in incomparable grace and splendor.  Today and every day, salvation is coming to our house.

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson

October 30, 2016

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia