In his excellent book that the whole city is now meant to be reading, Dave Eggers tells a creation story that comes from the Dinka tribes of the southern Sudan:
“When God created the earth, he made… the first [men]… tall and strong, and he made their women beautiful, more beautiful than any of the creatures of the land….
“… and when God was done and the [men and women] were standing on the earth waiting for instruction, God asked the man, ‘Now that you are here, on the most sacred and fertile land I have, I can give you one more thing. I can give you this creature, which is called the cow….
“… God showed the man… the cattle, and the cattle were magnificent. They were in every way exactly what the [man and woman] would want… [they] would bring them milk and meat and prosperity of every kind. But God was not finished….
“You can either have these cattle, as my gift to you, or you can have the What.
“… the first man lifted his head to God and asked what this was, this What. ‘What is the What?’ the first man asked. And God said to the man, ‘I cannot tell you. Still, you have to choose. You have to choose between the cattle and the What.”
Of course the man can see what an excellent gift the cattle are. He can imagine the health and happiness to be had in its milk and its meat, he can see that it is a peaceable animal and a great blessing from God and so the first man chooses the cattle, and leaves the What well enough alone. But throughout time the memory of the mystery persists. What other gift might God have had in store? Something better, more wonderful, more frightening, more excellent than the cattle? Or is the What a second prize, of clearly lesser value than a cow? What is the What?
Thus God guides the human heart in imagining the beginning of all things: a garden planted in the east of Eden, a man, and a woman formed from a rib, rivers flowing, a tree of Life, and a tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. And somehow, choices to be made, even in paradise. To accept God’s obvious blessing or to go with what’s behind Door #2, since, after all the fruit of the tree looks to be good for food, and it was a delight to the eyes?
Our own creation story is universal in its outlook but in many ways it hews pretty closely to the African one. And as Adam and Eve stand naked before the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, there is a sense in which they are being faced with the same kind of choice: accept God’s obvious blessing, or risk it all and find out what is the What?
There is missing, in the African story, a crucial character, slithering and sliming along: the subtle serpent is absent from this tale. Had he been there, we can only assume that he would have bargained with the first Dinka man and the first Dinka women, convincing them that the What was worth looking into, pointing out ways that they might keep their cattle and still get the What. He could sell snake oil to a snake! But he has no role in this story... not in those early days of story-telling.
But in Sudan the story continues, jumping forward to our own times: a chronicle of the horrific slaughter of men and women all across southern Sudan. An exodus of Lost Boys (and others) walking across the desert into Ethiopia. A decade of childhood spent in a refugee camp. And finally deliverance to the promised land of these United States where the main character of the book finds himself beaten, robbed, and left sitting in an Emergency Room for hours since he has no insurance. Perhaps the serpent, subtle as ever, has been there all along.
And the memory of the mystery persists. What is the What? What is that secret that God once withheld? Was it right to choose the cattle – which had seemed such an obvious blessing? Or would the What have been a better choice that could have delivered the people from this awful fate?
What is the What? It is such an odd question! We can let it take us into our own story, too. What is it that leads us so quickly from paradise to murder? It wasn’t the cows, surely! It wasn’t Abel’s goats that so incited Cain! What is the What?
What is it that has organized this great nation of ours into the aisles of a discount super-store? What is it that puts guns in the hands of children and then recruits them for warfare? Is it some twisted version of a gift that once was given by God? Is it the backwash from the rivers that flowed through Eden? How did this garden get so polluted? What is the What?
Is it some Holy Grail that has inspired men perversely to fight to the death across a holy land? Is it the power of the tree of Life, rolled up into a belt, strapped around a young girl’s midsection, and then detonated in a public square? What is the What?
What gift did we decline? Or is it that we have never stopped pursuing its mystery? What fruit could we have eaten that brought things to this? What parasite has burrowed into the human being that has made the street corners of Camden so awful and so bloody? What is the What?
Or is the What the deceptive power that courses through corporations and congresses as they spend ever more money on weapons and less on anything else? Or is the What light sweet crude oil – that sounds so scrumptious, but grips us with all the determined and corrupting power of a heroin addiction? What is the What?
Perhaps our own story is not so different from the story of those tall, dark Dinka from Sudan. Perhaps we, too, have been possessed by the memory of the mystery of what might have been (what is the What?) How delightfully naive it must have been to see the hopes of the future possessed by a cow! How delightfully simple it would have been to stay away from just one tree! But that was long ago and now we are modern, sophisticated, busy people! Give us the What – whatever it may be! For at last we must know what we might have had - What is the What?!
If the truth is that our story is intertwined with the Africans’ story, then let us let the story take us to the desert – since it is the desert that the Lost Boys of Sudan had to cross. But let us let our story take us to a different desert, where Jesus has gone, and where after forty days of fasting he encounters that slithering, slimy, subtle tempter. And it turns out that the devil has been harboring the memory of the mystery all these ages. He’s packaged it differently for Jesus.
Wouldn’t you like some bread, he asks. Wouldn’t you like to let me help you out? No?
Wouldn’t you like to show me just how powerful you are? Flex your muscles? Won’t you take my suggestion? No?
Wouldn’t you like to add to your power? Wouldn’t you like to rule men’s hearts with an iron fist? No?
The devil’s temptations suggest the contours of that old mystery. Wouldn’t Jesus like to have the What – the alternative to God’s obvious blessing? Wouldn’t Jesus like to have it all? What is the What?
Somehow fortified by his fasting, Jesus, who now seems to know himself more fully, also knows the folly of these false choices. He knows, of course, about the garden and the tree. He knows about the Dinka and the cattle. And he knows about the What. Jesus knows about the false choice between God’s obvious blessing and whatever it is that’s behind Door # 2, or down Aisle 12, or in the firing chamber of a gun, or gushing up from an oil well, or strapped around a suicide bomber’s waist. Jesus knows that there was never really any good choice to be made, that accepting God’s obvious blessing is blessing enough for any people.
So Jesus goes into the desert like a new first man to confront the memory of the mystery of this ancient, nagging question – what might have been? And when we see Jesus confront this tempting question, do we finally see it for what it is: something like a curse on our lips?
Even though that first Dinka man chose wisely, his children, or their children, would find themselves in the exact same boat as the children of Adam and Eve. That persistent question always haunting them, unable to simply be grateful for the cows, the question hung in the air: What is the What?
So Jesus goes into the desert to become a new first man who will take the question from our lips. Because a story like that – or a story like the folly of Eve and Adam – is a story that we are bound to go on repeating over and over until we find a new story to replace it. This seems to be the way we are made.
Which is why today the Sudan has become a place of un-imaginable bloodshed and misery. Far from the most sacred and beautiful land that God could give, Sudan and its people have been raped and slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands over the last ten years or more. Africans are unwilling or unable to put a stop to this. The Chinese are unwilling, the Europeans are unwilling. And although we Americans will read about it and preach about the carnage that has befallen Darfur and other parts of Sudan, we have shown precious little willingness to do much about it.
We are all too willing, it would seem, to live with the What – with whatever the alternative to God’s obvious blessing is. We are all too willing to be beguiled by smooth-talking serpents who tell us we don’t have to have it God’s way, we’ll do perfectly well on our own. And we have not yet convinced ourselves that it is time to let this new first man take over our lives, our history.
Which is why, as Lent begins, the Church drags us into the desert with Jesus to overhear his confrontation with that old serpent.
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
“You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”
“Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”
And there is no What anymore. When Jesus comes out of the desert he begins his ministry of healing and teaching and preaching and feeding. He holds no false bargain up to those who would hear him and follow him. He leaves no lingering question in the air. He only starts to call out, “Follow me, follow me!” And soon we learn that to follow him is no easy task. It might be easier to wonder about what God is hiding behind another door, what secret answer he may hold to an ancient question.
But there is no question. There is only the Cross to go to with this new first man, who will take every ancient tragedy there with him to be crucified with him – and every modern tragedy as well.
And there is no What anymore – no alternative to God’s obvious blessing in this new man, who has given us a new story to tell, and who has beaten that slithering, subtle serpent at his own game.
Forty days and forty nights he is giving us to think about that old story, or to repeat the old question in our heads over and over: What is the What, what is the What?
Forty days and forty nights to leave these things in the desert, where, with the serpent, they will finally shrivel and die.
Forty days and forty nights to discover this new first man, who the devil is forced to leave, and to whom angels come, to bring him to us, if we will have him.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
10 February 2008
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia
Galilees of the Gentiles
How seldom do we think of the lost tribes of Israel! We forget that the history of God’s chosen people is a history of a fractured people: the ten Northern tribes of Israel declared their independence from the Southern tribes of Judah after the reign of King Solomon. These ten tribes were eventually driven out of their lands by the Assyrians in the eighth century BC, never to be heard of again. The fate of these lost tribes has been fodder for wild speculation in our own modern times.
But in Jesus’ day the fate of the Northern kingdom was not a matter of speculation: the divided kingdom had lost its Northern half to a godless imperial power. This is not to say that all differences had been forgotten or forgiven; not to say that there was a nostalgic longing for those ten lost tribes. It is simply to state the fact that the surviving Southern kingdom of Judah knew themselves to be a remnant of the larger family born of Abraham’s hope.
That hope had seemed to swell during the reign of David. The people had wanted a king – begged for a king – and finally God relented and gave them David, who turned out to be a difficult character to say the least. Still, after David came Solomon – the paragon of wisdom and virtue, who built the first temple in Jerusalem. The temple would stand for more than 300 years, but the kingdom would split after the death of the great king.
And so the history of God’s people continued in parallel motion, on two tracks: north and south. Then, late in the eighth century came the Assyrian hoarde to drive the northern tribes from their lands. No king could now recover the long-lost tribes. The prophets might sing of them but they were gone. And the region of Galilee, which once had been home to the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali (two of the ten) remained a symbol (at least to the prophet Isaiah) of the broken state of the family of God.
The Southern kingdom would know its own troubles. In the sixth century the Babylonians would destroy Solomon’s temple and send the remnant kingdom into exile for forty or fifty years. And although they would eventually return and the temple would be rebuilt, things were different, as they would have to be, for this devastated people.
What had become of Israel?
What had become of the promise?
What had become of the covenant?
What had become of Galilee?
It was to Galilee, to a town called Capernaum , that Jesus went to make his home after hearing that his cousin John the Baptist had been put in jail. And now, Jesus becomes the hope of Galilee, although no one yet knows it. The lost tribes will not be restored. But the king who renews the promise of God has now arrived on the scene to little fanfare.
‘The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, toward the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and the shadow of death light has dawned’
The evangelist remembers the prophet’s words. The prophet remembers the lost tribes. Galilee is more than a place on the map. It is a region of loss, a district of waiting, an area of silent hope. And it is now no longer a hope confined to the children who sprung from Abraham’s loins and Sarah’s womb. It is Galilee of the Gentiles – of the nations – a hope for all people.
To those of us for whom land has become little more than a commodity it is hard to imagine that some piece of land could stand for so much. Can it be sold to developers? – we ask ourselves. If not, what is the great fuss about. Our inability to understand how closely the land itself is tied to the story of Israel and its fractious history is part of what makes even current conflicts there so incomprehensible to us. But the land has always been more to Abraham’s offspring than a place to build a house or a city. It is the landscape of God’s promise, of his deliverance, and of his hope.
And what of Galilee, once the home of Zebulun and Naphtali? Is hope ever to return to Galilee?
Can we allow our imaginations to consider our own lost tribes? Can we map out in our mind’s eye the contours and features and boundaries of regions where once we had hope and now we have little or none? Do we remember the dreams we once had?
Plot out on this map the sibling taken from you too early in life, or the one you haven’t spoken to for years. Locate the fever of love that once kept you awake for someone. Identify the coordinates of innocence and joy you knew as a child. See the place where your mother nursed you and your father still cared to rest you on his knee. Are some of these lost places in your life?
In my own family’s story there is a farm on this map, and a house in Brooklyn, and another in Queens. There are churches on the map and priests, there are schools and teachers. There are times before injury or illness. There are grandparents and old friends and even pets on this map.
And if we can see all this in the personal map of our imaginations, are there not also landmarks that we share? A church not torn by strife and constantly out of breath for trying to keep up with the world around it. A city or a town that once was so much easier to live in. The smoldering shadow of the Twin Towers mark an important memorial on this map. For some of us there are places of great danger on this map – in Vietnam, or now in Iraq, or maybe right here in our own country.
See on this map all the places that God might have come to us and we have wondered if he ever would. See the deserts spreading out for miles on this map – places we never wanted to go but found ourselves there anyway, quite against our will. See the vistas of places we dreamed we’d travel to but that now seem well beyond our means to get there. See all these regions of loss, these districts of waiting, these areas of silent hope.
These are all the Galilees of our lives – Galilees of the Gentiles. These are lands across the Jordan that have seemed lost to us as we take stock of our own fractured lives and histories and find a lot of places on the maps of our imaginations that now seem foreboding, unhappy, or just plain lost to us.
Into these lost regions of our lives Jesus is moving, making his home, somewhere by the water.
Have we longed for someone to put back together the fractured picture of our lives? And do we tell ourselves, during this political season, that a new president will do it? A bit of change and it will all come together? We know better than that. And because we know better, we may have given up on ever restoring hope to the Galilees of our lives – where once there was hope but now it is gone.
But Jesus is always moving in to such places, quite un-noticed by us most of the time. It is with little fanfare that Jesus begins to walk by the Sea of Galilee and calls out to fishermen, “Follow me.”
Did they hear in that simple invitation the power of an almighty hand to re-draw all the maps of their lives (imaginary and otherwise)? Could they tell that here was the one who could fulfill promises long forgotten, hopes long given up on, and dreams left for dead? Did they see in him a great light? Did they even know that they sat in darkness? Do we?
‘The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.’
Where have we been living all these years? How did our eyes become so accustomed to the dark? When did we give up on hope in these Galilees of ours?
And when will we realize that Jesus has made his home in Galilee precisely for this reason: to be a light to lighten the Galilee of the Gentiles. To live next door to us and to encounter us daily with his gentle and simple invitation: “Follow me.”
And we don’t really need to ask where we are going. For we have already drawn the maps in our heads. We are going to every region of loss, every district of waiting, every area of silent hope – into every dark Galilee of our lives, Jesus invites us to go when he says, “Follow me.” And behold, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
27 January 2008
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia
The Beginning is Near
Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth
I tell you of them. (Is. 42:9)
A cartoon published in the New Yorker magazine last October depicts a fish who has sprouted little hind legs emerging from a body of water onto dry land. With his front fins the fish carries a sign that reads: “The beginning is near.” The artist, Robert Leighton, deftly teases us about both the origins and the ends of the universe, while taking a clever swipe at the stock in trade of cartoonists. What can we do in the face of this cartoon but laugh?
As a biblical commentary, Leighton’s image is not so bad. The second verse of the Book of Genesis tells us that ‘the earth was without form and void, and the darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” As the creation story unfolds, there is a sense in Genesis that everything God calls forth rises up out of those dark waters as the Spirit blows his breath and beats his great wings, uncovering continents and islands, the planets and the stars, fields and forests, birds and cattle and even fish, and finally that last, wondrous creation made in God’s own image: the human person. All rising up out of the dark waters of creation.
What God began in the water he also continued in the water. Noah would be delivered from the flood and brought to a rainbow of hope. The children of Israel would be led out of captivity across the Red Sea. And today we heard that it was as Jesus was coming up from the waters of the Jordan River that the heavens opened and that same Spirit spread his wings and blew his breath to carry the voice from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
The beginning is near.
Jesus emerges from the waters of the Jordan and the promise of the Star of Bethlehem is uncovered. The hope of Israel is revealed. The light to lighten the Gentiles breaks forth. Behold, the former things had all come to pass, and a new thing God now declares in the person of his beloved Son. The beginning is near.
Christians are born in water. We are brought up out of water by the great power of God’s Holy Spirit, breathing his holy breath into our lives, our lungs. We are reborn into the world God made long ago, when God leads us through the fresh springs of a baptismal font, whether it’s three meters deep or three inches deep. In water are Christians born by the power of God’s breath. In water does God declare new things, new hope, new life.
Much has come to pass since the beginning: the creation of God’s majestic hand has been defaced by any means we can imagine. As a people made in God’s image, we have erred and strayed from our ways like lost sheep. As inheritors of light we have so often preferred the dark. So much has come to pass. But at the waters of baptism – so still and unassuming (not even a ripple) – the beginning is near. The awesome power of God’s hand to make a new thing, to bring life, to bless, to anoint, to hallow, and to heal is right here at the edge of the water, where the beginning is near.
In baptism God calls us, his children, back to the beginning. God buries us for a moment beneath the face of the deep, submerging us in those primeval waters so that we can be positioned beneath the wings of the Holy Spirit to uncover us and breathe his holy breath into us. God, who has led us through the ages of human history, allows each of his children to begin at the beginning, unburdened by the baggage of what has been an admittedly checkered past. So he leads each one of us to a place where the beginning is near in order to soak us in the gift of his blessing, his grace, his mercy, his love.
What God began in the water he also continues in the water. For this reason you will find water somewhere near every door of this church, so that whether coming or going we can remind ourselves of who we are and what God has done for us. He has brought us, by baptism, to a holy place in our lives where the beginning is near, so that we can be whomever it is he calls us to be. Washed and reborn by baptism we emerge from the water onto dry ground so that we might evolve, day by day, into the creatures God made us to be: bearers of his own image and likeness, and members of the Body of his beloved Son.
Long ago there was a man named John who came to bear witness to that Son. He baptized people with water, and his call to repentance was demanding, urgent, with not a little fury. Even listening to him all these centuries later, we could be forgiven for thinking that his message finally, was that the end is near and if you don’t want to get left behind you’d better listen up!
But then came Jesus, to fulfill all righteousness. And in the waters of the Jordan, John’s message was transposed: the fear of the end of time transformed into the hope of the beginning of time. And a new world was born, full of promise and hope. And the wings of a dove stirred the air with the power of the Spirit’s wings. And a wind blew in with a voice from heaven. And the Son of God was made known. And the beginning was near.
Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth
I tell you of them.
And that same Spirit hovers over us, always leading us to the water, beckoning us to be washed or to remember that once we were washed there in the water where God began his work of love and where he continues it day by day. And where, day by day, the beginning is near. Thanks be to God.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
13 January 2008
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia