Awkwardly Strutting Upon Stage

One thing William Shakespeare knew about his audiences was that they were hungry to see something wonderful.  The public theaters of early modern England were built on the premise that the public would pay for novelty, for spectacle, and for either a happy ending or a savagely bitter one, depending on the story at hand.  We are of course familiar with this logic.  Entertainment is a huge industry for us, and there are theme parks and malls and entire chunks of Florida devoted to keeping us fascinated by the latest spectacle.  But in Shakespeare’s day the notion of selling a big spectacle was quite new, and it required his genius, among others, to win over a big audience and the profits they brought with them.  Needless to say, he won.

Of all the spectacles Shakespeare promulgated, one of the most fascinating is his depiction of Cleopatra.  It’s a real tour de force, although it’s laden with attitudes about women and Egyptians that should have ended right there in the early seventeenth century.  Think about it: Shakespeare is asking his actors to present the legendary queen in all her glory, able to captivate Antony and Caesar (more than one Caesar, actually) and any number of lesser folk.  And whom does he have to play this supremely captivating role?  Just a thirteen year-old boy with a squeaky voice.  It’s a famous mismatch, and a famous moment of theatrical audacity.  Because all the women’s roles in Shakespeare’s day were played by boy actors, Shakespeare wrote this play about an aging Cleopatra knowing that his writing would have to turn an adolescent into a famous seductress.

I won’t go on and on about the strategies he uses, except to suggest that the play works in part by telling us over and over again, that what we see isn’t anywhere near as wonderful as the original.  At one moment, Cleopatra actually says that she doesn’t want to be captured by Rome because the Romans will want to display her as a trophy, and they will put on stupid plays with boy actors in them, trying to imitate her.  Incredible!  Here is Cleopatra in her own play, telling us that she literally wouldn’t be caught dead in a play like the one we are seeing.  Here is a boy actor playing Cleopatra and looking us right in the eye to say that no boy actor is ever going to be able to play Cleopatra.

Well I have a new theory about all of this: that’s evangelism.  Being a squeaky adolescent who tries to play Cleopatra is what evangelism looks like in practice.  It’s part of what it means to say “We have seen the risen Lord!” while we strut awkwardly about on the stage of this world, doing a very poor imitation of being a close friend of Jesus.

Ask the disciples who were locked in an upper room for fear of the religious authorities in John’s gospel this morning.  Their performance was so unconvincing that their own friend Thomas gave it a terrible review.  “You’ve seen the risen Lord? This is what your salvation looks like?  What kind of bad theater is this?” 

Bad theater indeed.  And anyone coming into the church in our day could say the same thing.  These people--huddled together, fearful of what the world has to say about us, uncertain about our role, baffled by the resurrected Christ—surely these people aren’t the church of God.  Surely God hasn’t entrusted the keys of the kingdom to such spiritual adolescents. 

But God has.  And along with the unconvincing performance, God has given us the Thomas’s of this world, the theater critics who challenge us to be authentic.  “No,” Thomas tells them, “this thing you are doing in a closed room is not enough for me.  Your religion is not enough for me.  Give me Jesus.”

Thomas wants to see Jesus.  Thomas wants to touch Jesus.  Thomas wants Jesus to be vulnerable to him, available to him, real, personal.  Above all, Thomas doesn’t want to pretend that he has seen Jesus if he has not.  He knows that he cannot be an apostle if Jesus is dead for him. 

And Thomas’s reluctance to applaud their bad performance tells us something new and wonderful about what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus.  It’s not what we might have been expecting.  

It appears that what is required to be a follower of Jesus is not exactly faith, or at least not faith as we commonly represent it.  What’s required is dissatisfaction.  What’s required is the ability to look at the church—huddled up behind a locked door, fearful, discouraged even though we have seen the Lord—the ability to look that church in the eye and say “This is not enough for me.” 

We need the ability to look at our lives, which may be very pleasant and good lives, and say, “This is not enough.  I haven’t seen Jesus.  I haven’t seen Jesus in a life that has been focused on doing what pleases and distracts me.  I haven’t seen Jesus in a life that’s tame and complacent.  Jesus hasn’t been real for me yet, and sometimes when I look at you I wonder whether you’ve seen him, either.”

Was Easter enough for you?  It doesn’t have to have been!  Yes, it was gorgeous and stirring here and deeply moving.  But that doesn’t have to have been enough.  Jesus isn’t through with us.  No, far from being satisfied with Easter—I don’t care how great our church is—far from being satisfied with Easter, we need to stay clear that the full life of our risen Lord is something we haven’t seen yet.

Jesus is the real Cleopatra, far surpassing Shakespeare’s exotic English fantasies about an ancient Egyptian queen.  This is what Shakespeare says about Cleopatra:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.

If a seventeenth-century English playwright can put into words what it means to gaze on Cleopatra and still be unsatisfied, surely the church can learn, as Shakespeare did, to turn our defects into a virtue.

No, when you look at us, you aren’t getting the whole picture of Jesus no matter how hard we try to make that happen.  Yes, Jesus is here, hands outstretched, available, intimate.  And always calling us to want to see him more fully.

In truth, most of us need to need more from God.  We need to be hungrier. We’ve picked up the idea, subtly or not so subtly, that it’s in bad taste to be desperate for God, haunted by our need to see God.  Somewhere along the road, we’ve learned that real adults tuck their spiritual needs away discretely out of sight.  We are grateful for experiences and people and communities that draw us closer to Jesus but we don’t make a big deal out of our need for them. 

But God doesn’t work that way.  God needs us to need more.  Like Cleopatra, God wants to arouse our hunger every time God feeds us.  Jesus didn’t call us to be his friends so that we could politely stifle our need for him.  Jesus isn’t one of those friends who doesn’t want to know you. 

Thank God what happened last week wasn’t enough!  Thank God there are still the dissatisfied among us who are looking for more!  Hungry for more.  For the whole thing, the whole life of Jesus in us that makes no sense and that brings peace where peace has not been possible before.  Thank God that what we’re up to in our lives of faith is not a performance that can be perfected in one Holy Week.  Let’s hold out for more.  Let’s hold out for the spirit of God in us doing something we could never have predicted. 

And like that boy actor, performing an impossible role, let us look one another in the eye with supreme, knowing, confidence, certain that our playwright reigns.

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson
The Second Sunday of Easter, 8 April 2018
Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia
 

Isle of Dogs

The dogs from Isle of Dogs, along with their little pilot, Atari.

Mid-week during Holy Week I went to see the new Wes Anderson film, Isle of Dogs.  I was eager to see it, in part I guess, because just a couple of weeks ago I had a near-disastrous emergency with my own dog Ozzie.  Plus, I am a big fan of Wes Anderson movies, and I had heard a great review on NPR.  Additionally, I had a hunch that something about the film would provide inspiration for an Easter sermon.

In fact, the plot of this animated film, set in Japan, twenty years from now, tells of a corrupt and mean-spirited government that has set out to eradicate dogs from the nation, and that begins by banishing them to an island used as a trash dump, just off the coast.  But a lone child - an orphaned twelve year old boy -  manages to pilot a small plane to the trash-island-cum-dog-prison, where he goes in search of his own dog, Spots.

A small pack of dogs agrees to help the boy search for his own lost pet, leading him at first to a heart-breakingly bare and sun-bleached set of bones inside a tightly locked dog crate that had obviously become a death chamber for its occupant, when he could not escape its locked door.  But it transpires that this set of bones is mis-identified, and the band of dogs and their boy continue their search for Spots.  One of the most inspiring moments of the film takes place when the leader of the pack assures the boy, “Wherever he is, if he’s alive we’ll find your dog.”

You can see, I think, why I had suspected there would be Easter material in this film.  A child travels to a dangerous island, the inhabitants of which are doomed to die.  But the child brings with him the determined intention to save at least the one dog that belongs to him.  The entire film is full of the promise - no, the hope - of the unlikely triumph of life over the near certainty of death, of justice over wrong-doing, of kindness over cruelty, of loyalty over self-interest, and of the truth over the kinds of lies that governments tell their people.

I went to see Isle of Dogs really wanting to fall in love with the movie, as I have with so many other Wes Anderson movies.  And I did enjoy it, I will say.  But I have to confess to you that as I sat there watching the credits, I was a little disappointed.  I liked the film, but I had wanted to love it.  I was impressed with so many aspects of it, but I wasn’t swept up and away by it.  I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t changed by it in any way, and I didn’t feel that I wanted to gush about it to my friends, or to a congregation full of people on Easter morning (although I certainly do think you should see it).  I almost - but not quite - wanted to respond to the movie with a, “Meh...” that useful three-letter word that says so much by saying so little when there isn’t much to say.

It wasn’t until I was walking out of the theatre, that I heard someone pronounce the pun that is in the title of the film, and that I had completely missed.  Isle of Dogs: isle-of-dogs: I love dogs.  How could I be so stupid?  How could I have missed this lovely proclamation?  

Something changed when I realized that I had not even known what I was saying when I pronounced the title of the film: I love dogs... which, as a simple statement on my lips is, in fact profoundly true!  I love dogs!  I do love dogs!  I love my dog, and I love other people’s dogs!  I think everyone should have a dog or two!  I love dogs!  And I had just sat through a 101-minute film, the whole point of which, in a sense, is to get me to say that I love dogs - and I had missed it altogether.  In fact, I had been saying exactly what the film-maker wanted me to say, and what I wanted to say... but I had not even realized what I was saying - nor how true it is: I love dogs!

Now, here is a point of congruence with Easter.  We pile into church at Easter, for all the right reasons, I think, even if we don’t know what those reasons are.  But we get ourselves here.  And we sing the hymns, and we enjoy the flowers, and the hats, and the brass, and the pageantry.  And at the beginning of the Mass, you followed the instructions, and you sang (didn’t you?) the words of the Opening Acclamation, with which we will begin every Mass for the next fifty days:

“Alleluia, Christ is risen!”  I sang.

And you sang, “The Lord is risen, indeed, Alleluia!”  Didn’t you?

Let’s try it again, for good measure... and for those of you who were late (you know who you are)!  We can just say it this time:

- Alleluia, Christ is risen!
- The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!

Anyway, here’s my point.  When we pronounce the Easter Acclamation, when we shout out the good news that Christ is risen, do we have any idea what we are saying?  Do we even know what it means?  What are the implications of these words?  What does “Alleluia” even mean?  Scholars will explain its Hebrew roots, but I think most likely it is a word that springs from the dialects of angels.  Here you are, speaking Angelic, and do you have any idea what you are saying?!?!  And do we realize that it is true?  Or are we pronouncing this wonderful truth, without actually realizing what we are saying, as I did with the movie: “Isle of Dogs: it’s an island of dogs.  You know?  Isle. Of. Dogs.  Al. Le. Lu. Yah.  Yeah, the Lord is risen indeed.  Sure.  Meh.”

Is it entirely possible to come to church on Easter morning, to sing the hymns, to fall on our knees, to kneel at the altar, to say the sacred words that express a profound and mysterious truth, and then to walk out the door carry on our day with a, “Meh...” as if there isn’t much to say about today; maybe even missing the the truth of the lovely proclamation we make together: the Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!

These few little words cost us nothing to repeat, and yet, they articulate a truth that has changed the world, and that has changed your life, whether you know it or not... by giving you the promise of new life in Jesus Christ, the Lord of Life, who makes all things new: the tired, the sinful, the broken, the inept, the warped, the disappointing, the ineffectual, the puny, the mongrel, the weak, the filthy, the washed-up, the dim, the chronic, the forgotten, the mangy, the battered, the runt, the second-rate, the sickly, the bent-out-of-shape, the mutt, the inadequate, the locked-up-and-forgotten, the maimed, the abused, the malnourished, the abandoned, the underachiever, the foolish, the mean-spirited, and the hopeless - all will be made new by the power of the Resurrection!  But, do we realize that this is what we are saying when we say that the Lord is risen indeed?  

Despite the fact that we live on a planet of astounding beauty, isn’t it sometimes easy to feel as if we are marooned on a Trash Island, where we are doomed to simply live out our days and then die?  Have we just been dumped here to fend for ourselves amidst the vagaries of the marketplace, and some kind of social Darwinism?  Will our lives amount to nothing more than a pile of bare, sun-bleached bones?  These questions are the context in which we approach Easter morning.  

And here is a child, whose presence among us is a mystery.  He was sent to this dangerous place, the inhabitants of which are doomed to die, bringing with him the intention of salvation.  And when he grew up, his life and his ministry, and even the circumstances of his execution, turned out to be full of the promise - no, the hope - of the unlikely triumph of life over the near certainty of death, of justice over wrong-doing, of kindness over cruelty, and of the actual truth over the kinds of self-serving lies that governments tell their people.  And he began making all things new.  And we spend, I don’t know, something like 101 minutes in church this morning, the whole point of which, is to get us to see this truth, and to say it out loud with conviction, and to know what we are saying!

But it is all too easy for us to leave here thinking, well... I did enjoy it, but in the end we have to confess we’re a little disappointed.  Sure, we like Easter, but do we love it?  Are we swept up and away by it.  Are we changed in any way by what we hear today, by what we say and sing?  Do we want to gush about it to our friends?  Do we have any idea what we are saying when we proclaim that Christ is risen?  And can we make this simple statement, and realize that it is profoundly true?  

Yes, indeed the Lord is risen!  He died for my sins and yours, and he rose from death to put an end to the burden of those sins.  I love Jesus for what he did for us, for who he is!  I love him, because he loved me first, and because he is love!  Heck, I think everyone ought to love Jesus!  My life is changed because Christ is risen!  Yes, the Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

In the film, the dogs don’t realize that the boy has come to save them.  Neither does he realize it, for that matter.  Everyone thinks that the child has come only to find his own dog, Spots.  But it will become clear that no other path is possible except for him to save them all, not just his own dog.  And in the process, he will vanquish evil, and put an end to the death-driven regime that suppressed any but its own preferences, (and that also wickedly allowed cats to do whatever they please).  But in the end, the dogs will discover that not only have they been saved, they have been transformed, their lives are changed, and they have become creatures far more wonderful than they imagined themselves to be.

Do you think that Jesus intends anything less for you and for me than the happy ending of a Wes Anderson film?

And do you hear the promise of this good news, that not only have our lives been saved, we have been transformed by the power of God’s love?!  We are changed, and we will be changed again!  By God’s grace, you are far more wonderful than you imagined yourself to be!  And don’t worry, wherever you are, if you’re alive, he’ll find you.

All of which we can say, in the fullness of its wonderful truth, with these few words:

Alleluia, Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
Easter Day 2018
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Even Better

It is a little-known fact of biblical history that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were, in their hearts, profound optimists. They both were women who liked to look on the bright side, women for whom the chalice was always half full. So when they left their house in the dark hours before dawn on that first day of the week, both of them were trying, even after the events of two days before, even after a Sabbath spent weeping through their prayers, even after a second sleepless night of worry and fear – they were still trying to look on the bright side. They were trying to imagine the best thing that could happen that morning, even if the best was not particularly great.

Mary Magdalene’s thoughts went something like this, “At least the Sabbath is finally over. At least we know where they buried him. At least the other Mary is with me. And wouldn’t it be great if, when we get there, the guards are just gone? Then we would be able to prepare his body for burial as we should. If we can do our work in peace – that would be the best I could ask for.”

The other Mary was thinking this, “At least we’re out doing something. At least the two of us are here to check on his body and make sure no one has stolen it. At least we’re women, and no one will ever see us as a threat. And wouldn’t it be great if some of the disciples have come to see his body as well? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if John and Peter have managed to suck it up and come out of hiding for just a moment? Wouldn’t it also be wonderful if they finally remembered my full name instead of just ‘the other Mary’…but no! I’m trying to look on the bright side. I’m trying to imagine the best possible outcome of this trip – that the disciples will be there, that the guards will be kind and helpful, that we will be able to care for his body properly, and that someone, at some time, will call me Mary Bat-Jonah.* That would be the best I could ever hope for.”  

But when Mary Magdalene and Mary Bat-Jonah get to the tomb, of course, nothing is as they had hoped. There are no disciples waiting there to greet them; the guards are still there, menacing as ever; and the stone that sealed the tomb is still solidly in place. But then, in an instant, everything changes. Still nothing is as they’d hoped, but everything is much, much better. The earth trembles and an angel blazes down from heaven to roll away the stone. The guards pass out from fear – ha! – and the angel tells the two Marys that Jesus has risen. The tomb is empty; he is gone. Jesus is already on his way to Galilee; go and tell his disciples where he is, the angel commands, go and share the good news! And so the women run from the tomb, their hearts pounding with excitement, their eyes glistening with excitement and tears, their breath coming short in little giddy laughs. They run from the tomb, back down the road to Jerusalem to share this astonishing new bright side with their friends.

Can you imagine? they say to each other, panting as they run. Can you imagine their faces when we tell them? I can see them now, Mary Magdalene says. They’ll be all huddled in the dark, and when we come back so soon they’ll imagine that we’ll have had trouble. Mary Bat-Jonah tosses her head back and hoots with laughter. And then we’ll say that we’ve been to the tomb and he isn’t there…but there was an angel, Mary Magdalene interrupts her, who told us that Jesus is alive!  The women look at each other and grin, and that grin says it all: this is the best that they could ever hope for.

Except that it isn’t. Because suddenly, as they are running along the road, they look up, and Jesus is there, standing before them. He is not on his way back to Galilee, he is right there, arms wide to greet them. Their hearts leap in their chests, and they fall down at his feet, surprised by joy once more. Isn’t this a glorious moment? The Marys are already bursting with happiness, filled beyond their wildest imaginings with a kind of joy they have never felt before. They are flying back to Jerusalem on wings of pure delight, but even this miracle is not good enough. Our Lord cannot help himself; he cannot help but to meet them himself and to make this good, this great, even better. And in this moment, the Marys witness an important truth of this Easter morning, a truth that their story reveals also to us – that the best that we could ever hope for still falls far short of the best that God has given us. The best that we could ever hope for is still not all that God has in mind. God’s imaginings for us are far greater than our own; God’s bright side is far beyond even our sunniest, most optimistic dreams. God’s dreams are not the best that we could ever hope for. God’s dreams are always even better.

It’s so easy for us to miss the breadth and depth of God’s dreams for us. We imagine what the best we could hope for could be, and then we somehow convince ourselves that that must be what God hopes for too. If I could just get that job, if I could just get that boy, if I could just find more time, more money – if I could just stay healthy forever. But God’s imagination is bigger than all that. God’s grace, God’s generosity, God’s mercy and love are all exponentially greater – no, not exponentially – infinitely greater than our own. Whatever our hopes are, whatever our desires, whatever our best-case scenarios, God’s are always even better.

Now here’s just a little disclaimer – God’s even better is also usually a bit of a surprise. The two Marys might have been trying to imagine a scenario where the temple guards were kind and helpful, but please notice that God’s better idea was not for them to show up to find the guards smiling and rolling back the stone for them, calling them by their given names, picking them bouquets of fresh flowers, and offering to rub their tired feet. God’s dreams are better – truly better – than what we can imagine, which sometimes means that they look quite different. You don’t get the job you wanted, but that helps you to realize that maybe your true calling is to go back to school. You don’t get the boy back, but you find someone else, someone perfect for you, someone who unbeknownst to you is an incredible baker. You don’t get more money, but this helps you to see and serve those who have less than you do. You don’t find more time, but you find more meaning in your time. You don’t stay healthy forever, but in your weakness you find new clarity, an acceptance of others’ brokenness, and the capacity to let others care for you and love you as Christ commanded them.

This is why we pray every day that God’s will be done – not because our own will is always wrong, but because it is always limited. God’s will for us is far, far better than our own. My thoughts are not our thoughts, God says, neither are your ways my ways. And thanks be to Him! Because if our salvation were limited to the kinds of things that you or I could imagine, we would never have this night.

For we would never have been able to imagine a night like this. We would never have been able to imagine a night when darkness itself is vanquished by the eternal bright side of this holy fire. We would never have been able to imagine a night when wickedness is put to flight, when earth and heaven are joined and women and men are reconciled to God. We would never have been able to imagine a night when death is defeated, once for all. We would never have been able to imagine a night when the whole body of Christ is strengthened and expanded when we call two new members by their names in baptism. We would never have been able to imagine a night when we could proclaim with one voice, Alleluia! Christ is risen! Death is conquered, we are free! Love wins! We could have imagined for all our lives and never imagined the kind of Grace that is given to us on this holy night. For this is night when Christ is raised and we are raised up with him. This is the night of even better.

*I am as sure that this was not actually "the other Mary's" name as I am that she actually did have one.

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

Easter Vigil 2018

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia