Ash Wednesday

My great-grandmother on my mother’s side lived on a farm in central Connecticut.  She was actually my great-step-grandmother, since my grandmother’s mother died in Europe during the First World War, having left her husband behind in Connecticut when she took my grandmother and her little sister back to Slovakia where they’d foolishly hoped the air would be good for her failing health.  By the time my grandmother and her sister had returned to Connecticut their father was remarried.  Though both my mother’s parents were born in this country, they had both spent time in their childhood in Slovakia, and both spoke English with noticeable accents, as though it was their second language.  My grandmother was “Baba” to me; that made my great-grandmother “Baba-on-the-farm.”

Once when I was a boy of seven or eight during a family visit to Baba-on-the-farm there was a dog tied by a chain to the side of the house, or to a stake, or the garage, or some such thing.  What I remember is that there was a dog and a chain.

I suppose I must have wanted to play with the dog.  I cannot remember if it was especially friendly.  I don’t think it was mean.  The dog must have chased me: dogs do chase little boys; it’s fun.  The dog must have circled around me, because my sole clear memory of that or any other visit to Baba-on-the-farm is that I ended up on the ground, my legs trapped by the dog’s chain wrapped around them, tears streaming down my face. 

I am certain no damage was done.  The dog did not bite me, nothing was broken, I’m not sure I even got scraped up.  But, off-balance, ankles bound together by the chain, I was pulled to the ground.  I was certainly scared.  And boy, was I crying.  And I believe my sister may have teased me, and I think I did not take it well.

Recently my great-uncle George died.  He had lived his whole life on that farm, all alone after his mother, Baba-on-the-farm, died.  The farm will now pass into the hands of my mother and her two cousins.  I don’t believe there has been a dog there for many years.  I know that I was never eager to visit the farm in my childhood; maybe it was because of the episode with the dog and the chain.

I don’t know if you have ever been tangled up in the long chain that tethers a dog to his post, or his doghouse, or whatever.  I don’t know if you had a great-grandmother on a farm, or what the details of your childhood were, but I suspect that you know what it feels like to be off-balance, bound-up, scared, knocked off your feet, with the tears welling (at the very least) or maybe overflowing. 

Sometimes this happens to us and we do not know why.  Other times we know the culprit, or at least we think we do.  Still other times we know that we have done this to ourselves.  Maybe we didn’t mean to do it, maybe we didn’t realize the dog was on a chain, maybe we didn’t think he would chase us, or run around us.  Maybe we thought we were fast enough, agile enough to avoid entrapment in this way, but in the end you are on the ground, feet tangled up, the dog making everything worse, and the tears are flowing – or at least they should be!

Maybe you feel this way tonight, or maybe you have recently.  Maybe you can remember the time you felt this way, but it is now, thankfully, receding into the past.  And maybe in your own story it is not a dog on a farm and a chain, but you know what it is: you know where it happened, what dog was chasing you, what chain you got tangled up in, what you were scared of, what caused you such pain, and brought you such tears.

I know that I have other stories, less benign and harder to share, that have left me feeling the same way: stories in which I am clearly more to blame than the dog, and in which nearly every link in the chain was forged by my own hands.  But these stories, I am not so eager to share with you tonight.

I am moved every Ash Wednesday by how many people want to come to church to receive their smudge of ashes.  People come early, they come at noon, they stop by during they day looking for ashes, and like you, they come late in the day, too.  Denominational lines are easily crossed: Episcopalian ashes are acceptable to Christians of almost any stripe, I’m relieved to notice.  And no one takes up an argument about the words I pronounce as I mark the sign of the cross on their foreheads: Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.  For a half a minute or so, at least, this argument seems unassailable.

I believe that those who come asking to wear this mark of mortality for an hour, or a morning, or an evening, do so in part because of the memory of the dogs who have chased them, the chains they have gotten tied up in, the frightened moments they’ve endured as they’ve been knocked to the ground, and because of the tears we’ve shed, especially when we remember that the dog, the chains, the fear were all of our own doing, could have been avoided if we’d been willing to avoid them.  And I believe most of us are willing to wear this little badge of mortality – which is more a badge of shame than of honor – recognizing our own complicity in what’s left us feeling trapped, knocked down, frightened, and crying.

But I am afraid that it is easy to leave church on Ash Wednesday believing that that is all your ashes mean, that having shown up to accept your ashes as a sign of humility, and walking out the church doors with them still on your head, you may believe that the ashes are all you get, along with the not-so-cheery reminder that you are dust and to dust you shall return (an argument that may seem less compelling to you with every step you take away from here tonight, but which will be proven to be true in the end).

Nevertheless, it is not for this sign of your mortality alone that you have been called here.  It is not for this message of cold finality that you have been led here.  There is more.  For God knows exactly what led you to that dog in the farmyard.  He knows whether it was all in good fun, or carelessness, or foolhardiness, or a cocky over-assuredness that got you into this.  God sees just how many turns of the chain have wrapped around your legs, how tight they are becoming, how many twists there are.  God knows how hard you hit the ground when you fell, and he knows that your tears are not just because of this dog, this chain, this fall to the ground, they are for so much more than that; they are for everything that has ever knocked you to the ground before.  And God knows that you feel trapped there in the dirt, with the dog still yapping, and the chain still tightening around your ankles, and you are gasping for breath between your sobs and your secret inner wailings for someone to help you, to stop this damn dog, un-do this chain, and give you a hand.

God has not called you here to tease you, to make you feel silly or stupid or guilty for the things that you have done or that have been done to you that have, from time to time, landed you on your butt in tears.  God has called you here to help you up, to un-bind the chain, to shoo the dog into his corner, and to wipe the tears from your face.  And as God is coming to your side to help you up, he is asking, as I am sure my mother or my grandmother or my father – whichever it was that rushed to my side – must have said to me, “Tell me what happened…?”

And tonight we are asked to use this act of humility to help us tell the truth about all that, to be honest, especially about the things we have done that we shouldn’t have done, and the things we might have done but failed to do.

Because God intends for us all to inherit his kingdom, when we have become nothing but dust in this world.  And the path to that inheritance demands of us an honest accounting of our sins, even as it promises freedom from the weight of them.

So if you came here tonight for the ashes, so be it, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  But if you have honestly and humbly also come here tonight to lay your sins – which have left you trapped, sobbing and dirty – to lay these at God’s feet, begging his forgiveness and asking him to help you get up, then you are leaving with far more than a cross of ashes on your head.  You are leaving as an inheritor of the kingdom of God.  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Ash Wednesday 2011

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Transfiguration

The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there.”  (Ex. 24:12)

Moses had never asked for a special relationship with God.   He was not especially prone to a life of prayer.  His first encounter with God came while he was tending the flock of his father-in-law and he stumbled across a burning bush.   Had God called Moses to the burning bush?  Or had Moses simply been the first one to come across it?  He had sometimes wondered about this, because it was by no means clear that he was a good choice to be God’s intermediary.  When the Lord said to Moses, “I have observed the misery of my people… and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians,” Moses was not enthusiastic.  “Who am I,” he asked, “that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

His experience as emissary to Pharaoh was not an entirely pleasant one.  Bringing word of the ten plagues, one by one, that would descend on Egypt was no easy task.  Overseeing the first Passover was a logistical and emotional nightmare, but nothing compared to leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, eventually with the Egyptians in hot pursuit.  The stunning crossing of the Red Sea did not fill Moses with confidence, (Though it did give him a song of praise to sing); he might never have managed without the pillar of cloud and fire to lead them.  And wandering in the wilderness had been no easy life for Moses or for Israel.  The Lord had once already given Moses a lengthy list of laws to follow, and we have every reason to believe that Moses took these seriously.  But now the Lord has called Moses up onto the mountain to wait.

You and I already know what will happen while Moses is waiting on Mount Sinai, covered in cloud.  God will write with his own finger the terms of his covenant with his people on the two tablets of stone.  Back on the ground, Aaron, unsteady in his faith and in his leadership, will make a golden calf for the people to worship.   In his anger and disappointment, Moses will throw the tablets to the ground on his return to his wayward brother and all the people.  And he will go back up the mountain to receive new tablets.  There Moses will ask God to at least let him see him, and God agrees to let Moses see his backside, but not his face, because, as he says, “No one shall see my face and live.”  And the Lord puts Moses in the cleft of a rock, for his own safety I suppose, and covers Moses with his hand as he passes by.  And when he has passed by, the Lord removes his hand and allows Moses to see him from behind.  And then God writes a new set of tablets and gives them to Moses and sends him back down the mountain.

But today the Lord asks Moses to come up to the mountain and wait.  And Moses waits for six days on the cloud-covered mountaintop.

Peter and James and John surely know the details of this story when Jesus leads them up a mountain.  I wonder if they were expecting to have to wait with Jesus on the mountain for six days before the purpose of their visit became clear.  But it does not take six days at all.  Very quickly, it seems, Jesus is transfigured, his face shining like the sun, and his clothes dazzling white, and Moses and Elijah appear and speak with him.

When reading this story, we normally assume that the appearance of Moses and Elijah is for our sake – or at least for the sake of Peter and James and John, who God intends to see this vision of Jesus flanked by these figures who represent the law and the prophets, as if the transfiguring light, the dazzling clothes, the bright cloud overshadowing them, and the voice from the cloud were not strong enough signs to make a point.  But I wonder if the unexpected appearance of Moses and Elijah is not intended primarily for the onlookers, but is intended for their own benefit, for Moses and Elijah.

Here, indeed, are two of God’s great men, the intermediaries of God’s work among and for his people.  Both of them share a link to Mount Horeb, Mount Sinai’s other name.  For, there, Elijah, protected by the mouth of a cave, was also allowed to witness the Lord passing by.  He was not permitted to see any part of God.  He was assaulted by earthquake, wind and fire, none of which revealed God, until, in the silence that followed, Elijah heard the still, small voice of God speaking to him, perhaps not very far from the place where Moses was allowed to see the back of God’s glory after he passed by.

And here they are on a mountain again, a cloud overhead, Peter and James and John looking on.  Moses and Elijah had both wished to see the face of the God they served.  Is this Transfiguration primarily for their benefit, primarily intended to give them, at long last, their heart’s desire, as the others look on and realize that they, too are looking at the face of God?

These stories, of course, are widely discredited, they are counted as little more than fairy tales in our society, even by many who profess and call themselves believers, but who find so much of this all too fanciful to be actually believed.  But I am encouraged by the thought that Moses was called by God up onto the mountain to wait there.  To me, this sounds very much like my own experience of God – who insists on doing things in his own time, at his own pace, and who seems to leave me waiting again and again, when what I want is to look him in the eye and get the answers I need, now!

Those six days of waiting may well have seemed like an eternity to Moses, the arrangements in the cleft of the rock, God’s hand holding him there, shielding his eyes must have seemed so restricting.  And Elijah’s frightening night in the cave, surrounded by wind and earthquake and fire must have been more than he had bargained for.

The waiting, the misdirection, the over-wrought drama are all very much the trademarks of God.  As is the very real suspicion that we shall never set eyes on him, never really know God, who has so much power over the things in life that we have no power over, and yet who makes us wait and wait and wait, we know not why.

What could it have meant to Moses and Elijah, I wonder, to see Peter and James and John standing there, watching it all unfold before them?  How could those three stand out there in the open – no rock surrounding them, no cloaks even to wrap around their faces, no hand of God pressing against them, holding them at bay, keeping their eyes from seeing things they are not meant to see?  Did the two old men allow themselves a smile, when at the blast of the voice from heaven those three puny disciples fell to the ground in fear, thinking “That’s more like it!”?

And in the moments that Peter, James, and John were all face down, did Moses and Elijah indulge in an embrace with Jesus, I wonder?  Did they each take his face into their hands, gaze into his eyes, and allow themselves to kiss him on the head, the cheek, or even right on the lips?

And did they then realize then that this would be God’s last mountaintop moment, could they see so clearly that from now on the Lord would be visiting his people, face to face, and his glory would be right here on the ground for anyone to see?

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

6 March 2011

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

The Lily Revolution

A cartoon has been hanging on the bulletin board in the Office for well over a year.  It depicts two men in suits in the back seat of a black limousine.  Their window is rolled down.  Behind them is a steel and glass office building in a suburban industrial “campus” they are driving away from.  One of the two men is clearly in charge; he is giving instructions to the other man as they look out the window together.  He says, “Johnson, look at the lilies of the field.  They neither spin nor toil.  Fire them.”

These two may be off to do many things from the commanding position of the back seat of their limousine, but one thing I am certain of: they are not setting off to seek to the kingdom of God, as they speed past the waving banks of lilies.

What they never pause to consider is why the lilies have been gathering there in front of HQ, why they had become so noticeable in their masses.  It never occurs to them that there is a lily protest going on: a lily revolution.  Inspired by what they have been reading in the papers and seeing on TV, the lilies of the field have lifted up their voices and sought to be heard.  If lilies could carry signs, their signs might read, “Consider us!”  If lilies could march and chant, that would be their cry!

And what Johnson and his boss do not realize is that the lilies are not protesting on their own behalf – lilies have no need to protest, no reason to protect collective bargaining rights, or to cry out in misery about their plight, for God looks after the lilies of the field without fail.  The lilies gather in their thousands and their tens of thousands for everyone who speeds by with never a thought for anything but toil and spinning, toil and spinning, and all the anxiety that is wrought by our toil and spinning.

Which is to say that the lilies gather in protest for you and for me.  They suspect that we are in the limo with Johnson and his thoughtless boss.  They believe that either we are in the middle seats, behind the tinted windows that cannot be rolled down, or that perhaps we have been tied up and put in the trunk – we are there either willingly or against our will, they don’t know – but they fear that we are being carried away by forces that do not care about us, that want us only for what we can do for them, not for who we can become, and the lilies are gathering to shout their silent protest on our behalf.

And so they planned a lily revolution: a movement to cry out for us all.  “Why are you anxious about so many things that do not matter?” They ask us through an interpreter on CNN.  “Why do you worry about what you will wear and what you will eat?  Do you not know that God will care for you?  Can you not trust in God?  Do you not see how beautiful he has made us, and we neither toil nor spin!?  Why have you stopped looking for his kingdom?”  This last question, though, is edited out of the news footage, because it made no sense to the reporter or to his editor back in New York, who assumed it was a mistake of the translator’s.  Everyone knows we live in a democracy, and that no one gathers in protest to ask for a kingdom, to demand a king.

And as we watch the news of the lily revolution, not entirely sure what the lilies are going on about, what their strange demands mean, we may begin to feel a certain uneasiness at how peaceful the lily revolution is.  Not a shot has been fired, since lilies cannot carry guns, and there is no reason for troops to shoot at them.  Lilies cannot throw grenades, or shove oil soaked rags into bottles and set them alight.  Lilies cannot wield sticks or stones.  They cannot even wave their shoes in the air in anger.  They can only gather in their masses and demand to be seen, demand to be heard as the wind whistles through them.

Lilies can only beg us to consider who we are and why we were put on this planet.  They can only urge us to look at the ways we use our energy, the causes we give most of the hours of our days to, and ask ourselves if we really mean it.  They can only push us to consider whether or not there is another kingdom we once dreamt about, with a king whose power was made perfect in weakness, whose strength was seen most clearly in the forgiveness he offered, who fed hungry crowds for no reason except that he cared for them, and who was willing to give his life for everyone who realized that they needed saving.

Sometimes, just as the lilies suspect, I am in the car, in that other seat, with Johnson and the boss just beside me, where the lilies cannot see me, but I can see them through the tinted windows, and I see them waving and calling to me about the kingdom, and it makes me want to weep, which I will not do, because of Johnson and the boss, who would think me an idiot if they saw a tear run down my cheek for all that we have given up for the sake of the company, if they saw me cry for the kingdom we left behind in order to toil and spin for the corporation.

And I am trying to remember if I raised my voice from my seat on that day when the boss said to Johnson, “Look at the lilies of the field.  They neither spin nor toil.  Fire them.”  I’m trying to remember if I objected, if I spoke up on the lilies’ behalf.  Or if it even occurred to me to think, “You idiot, you can’t fire the lilies of the field, and if you could it wouldn’t matter.  See how God cares for them, see how beautiful they are, even though they neither toil nor spin.”  And I wonder if I sighed then in my seat in the limo, and if Johnson turned to look at me with a raised eyebrow that said, “What’s the matter with you?  And why aren't you toiling?  Why aren’t you spinning?”

And when Johnson looks at me with that annoying raised eyebrow, it suddenly occurs to me to wonder about you.  Where are you?  Have they tied you up and thrown you into the trunk since you were asking questions about the lilies, and you might not have come along as easily as I did?

But as we drive to our meeting where we will toil and spin because that is what we are told we must do in order to get the things we must get and achieve the happiness that has been prescribed for us, the lilies fade into the distance and I can see that they are not protesting at all.  I was only daydreaming.  Why give the lilies of the field so much thought?  Why let my imagination run away like that, when there is work to be done, a salary to be earned, food to be put on the table, etc, etc, etc.

At home at night I sit down in front of the giant flat screen TV that I got on sale, and that I love, love, love, since it greets me so consistently and yields to my touch every time I push its buttons, doing what I want it to do and filling my dark room with light and color from other worlds.  And I sit there and flip through the channels, only to land on an old black and white film that gives me reason to pause since it is called The Lilies of the Field, and it puts me in mind of all those waving lilies who neither toil nor spin, who seemed to be trying to say something to me, seemed to be pleading for something on my behalf.

Sidney Poitier is driving his station wagon through the black and white deserts of the southwest, and the car is running hot, it needs water.  (How quaint!)  For reasons unknown, the handsome Poitier leaves the main road and discovers a small community of German nuns mending a fence in their black habits, beneath broad-brimmed straw hats to shield them from the hot southwestern sun.

Mother Maria is the nun who is clearly in charge.  She shows Poitier the pump for water, and as he pumps she says, “Gott is good, he has sent me a big, strong man.”

“He didn’t say anything to me about sending me anyplace,” says Schmidt, Poitier’s character, “I was just passing by.”

Mother Maria responds with a sure smile on her face, “Jah, but you did not pass.”

And I saw myself in that moment, glowing with the light from the big-screen TV, I saw myself in my mind’s eye driving swiftly past the rally of lilies all gathered for me, silently chanting on my behalf, pointing their faces to a kingdom I learned about in Sunday school and had put away with other childish things, as Johnson hit the button, and the window rolled up, and the lilies faded into the distance.  God didn’t say anything to me about sending me anyplace.  I was just passing by.  And I just kept passing by, and turned my attention back to Johnson, and to our boss in the seat next to him.

Tomorrow will be another day to toil and spin.  And although I normally take the short-cut which brings me into the parking lot from a back road that passes the dumpsters, not the front entrance that goes by the field where all the lilies are growing, tomorrow I think I will take the extra minute that I normally save and drive in the front way, past the phalanx of lilies that have gathered there. 

Maybe I will even go in early, before Johnson gets there so that I can slow down and consider the lilies, ask them about their protest, inquire about their mad revolution.  I know it will seem odd to others who see me there, pulled off on the side of the road talking to the lilies, when I could be using this time to get ahead, I might have come in early to toil and to spin some more.

Except that it seemed so simple to Mother Maria: but you did not pass by.

And although the work was hard, and the sun was hot, and he got paid nothing for it, Schmidt built a chapel there for the nuns, and he shared their meals with them, and sang with them, and built up an outpost of the kingdom of God with them there in the southwestern desert where lilies of the field do not easily thrive.

So, the next day I drive to work, and I don’t take the short-cut, I drive around to the front of HQ, with its well cared for plantings, and the swelling ranks of lilies that seem to be blooming in great profusion, earlier this year than perhaps in years past.  And I slow my car down, remembering the snide remark in the back of that limo, and the way Johnson laughed so agreeably, so readily at such a sad and lame and hopeless joke.  I am driving very slowly now; I can almost count the lilies, one by one.  But they are not saying anything, they are not waving signs, they do not appear to me now to be pitching a revolution from their flower beds.  They simply stand there by their thousands, holding their gorgeous faces up to the heavens.

And there are no reports on the news, as I had imagined there were, of a lily revolution.  Although last night I dreamt again that recurring dream I have been having about a kingdom that is not of this world, where all is peace, and justice flows down like water, and it matters more who your neighbor is than who your customer is.

I am still driving slowly by the lilies of the field, arrayed before me on my way to work.  But as I round the corner, I see Johnson standing by the big, black car, waiting.  I hear the driver honk the horn impatiently.  I hurry to get my car into its spot, grab my bag and my notes for the presentation, straighten my tie.  And I slide into the open door of the limo again, past the crossed legs of my boss, past the cynically smiling Johnson, and into my seat as the door slams shut and we are on our way, out the front way.

And I peer out the window at the disordered platoons of the lilies of the field, who seem to me to be getting stronger and more beautiful by the day.  And although everything in the car suggests otherwise, I find myself absolutely certain that these lilies of the field are mounting a magnificent rebellion, right here in the shadow of HQ, right here where I pass by with Johnson and the boss, nearly every day.

And I begin to dream of the day that I will not pass by, the day I’ll join the lily revolution.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

27 February 2011

Saint Mark's Church, Phialdelphia