The Response

Some of you may remember that I am not, as we say, a “cradle Episcopalian.”  I was raised a Christian Scientist.  One of the hallmarks of Christian Science is that members read daily not only from the Bible, but also from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health.  Now, Science and Health was first written in 1875 by the religion’s founder, Mary Baker Eddy, and although it went through hundreds of revisions by the time of her death, it always maintained its rather gilded Victorian literary style, with long, complicated sentences and an ornate, advanced vocabulary.  Some of my earliest memories are of struggling to read aloud from this book, stumbling over phrases like “animal magnetism” and “infinite manifestation.” But it certainly helped my reading comprehension!  As a little child, I could have easily told you the meaning of words like “omniscient” and “efficacious.” And it was because of this book that I first learned the meaning of the word “impetuous,” because it was used to describe your favorite disciple and mine, Peter. 

Peter, the "impetuous disciple," he was called.  I learned what impetuous meant not by looking it up in the dictionary, but by looking at what Peter did.  Impetuous, I discovered, meant to act without thinking – to run off the edge of a boat with all of your clothes on, to lash out at your leader when he says something you don’t want to hear, and, of course, to step out onto the surface of the sea in the middle of a furious storm.  To be impetuous is to be like Peter – impulsive, reactive, perhaps even a bit foolhardy.

At first glance, it would appear that today’s story from the Gospel of Matthew is the most extreme example of Peter and his impetuous nature.  The disciples are asea in the middle of a storm, bashed and beaten by the waves and the winds, struggling to steer their boat to shore but making little headway against the violent weather.  Suddenly, they see a figure walking towards them on the water.  They are, understandably, terrified, and reach for the first explanation that comes to mind – this must be a ghost, a specter, something extra-ordinary.  But then Jesus speaks, “Cheer up!  It is I.  I am – fear not!”  And here is where the impetuous Peter shows up.  He looks out across the water, sees Jesus standing on the surface of the waves, and decides, Hey – I want to try that too!  So he jumps out of the boat and tries to walk to Jesus.  But when he feels the water splashing against the hem of his robe and the rain slapping him across the face, his brain finally catches up with the rest of his body.  What am I doing, he asks?  He looks around, wild eyed in fear, and almost immediately begins to sink.  And so he cries out for help, Jesus reaches out and catches him, and they both get into the boat as the wind stills and the waves calm. 

As I said, at first glance, this story looks like just another tale of Peter leaping before he looks, another example of that hapless impulsivity that can make him such a charmingly irresistible figure.  But take a second glance, look carefully at these verses, because there is one sentence here, one moment, that completely changes the tenor of this story.  “Peter answered him, ‘Lord if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’”  Look what happens here in this one moment.  Peter pauses.  Command me to come to you, he says, say the word, and then I will step out.  Peter seems unable to move without this word; he is stuck in the bow of the boat like in some nautical version of Simon Says.  If we look carefully, we can see that here, in this moment, Peter actually does look before he leaps; he does think before acting.  He waits for Jesus’ command, for that one word: come.  This is not just another example of impetuous Peter.  Here, in this moment, Jesus is the impetus, and Peter’s action the response.

Now why does this matter?  Is it really so important to see Peter’s water-walking as a step of faithful response instead of just another impetuous leap?  It is really so important, because it completely changes the way we see Peter.  Suddenly, we see not just another knee-jerk reaction from an overly-excited disciple; we see brave, bold action from a disciple who is unafraid to risk his life, his all, to follow as his Lord commands.  We see Peter as a man – a real man, instead of a mere caricature of himself – a man who desperately wants to follow in Jesus’ footsteps even when they take him into the middle of the wild, wild sea.  It is only when we see that first step over the side of the boat as a faithful response to the call of Christ that we are able to let ourselves feel the very real terror that must have been raging inside of Peter’s heart, that we are able to recognize in this often impetuous disciple the mark of true courage, of faith in the face of real fear.

And if this change of perspective helps us to see Peter differently, then it also changes the way that we see ourselves.  Because if this is a picture of faithful discipleship, and not just of an overly-zealous disciple, then this is exactly what we are supposed to be doing.  We, too, are supposed to be stepping out of the boat.  We, too, are required to be brave, to have true courage, to act out in faith despite our fears.  We, too, are invited to step out of the comfort of our own lives right smack into the middle of the storm that is raging out there – a storm of fear, prejudice, hatred, judgment, blame, divisiveness, apathy, cynicism, and greed.  There is scary stuff out there.  We could so easily be swamped by any number of headlines – Climate of Fear!  Wall Street Volatile!  Brace for the Pain!  Brutal Crackdowns in the Middle East!  Flash mobs, church abuse, famine, starvation, climate change…wave after wave of truly terrifying stuff crashes against us every day, again and again, until we feel truly battered and bruised. 

But the simple fact is that even in the midst of this mess, Christ calls.  Jesus stands in the middle of the storm and speaks, a long list of imperatives, commands to which we are invited to be the response.  Come.  And pray and fast, yes, but also forgive, offer, visit, love.  Feed the hungry.  Heal the sick.  Cast out demons.  Step out of the boat.  Do unto others as you would have them to unto you.  Step out of the boat.  You give them something to eat.  Step out of the boat.  Repent, follow me, keep my commandments.  Eat, drink, do this for the remembrance of me.  Step out of the boat.  Love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Go and do likewise.  Make disciples.  Step out of the boat.      

If you’re thinking that none of this is likely to be very easy, I think you’re probably right.  Like Peter, we will have to screw our courage to the sticking point before offering the response that God requires.  Because it’s one thing to say that your response is to invite your friends and like-minded neighbors to pray with you in a stadium in Houston, that’s fine, perhaps, but it is quite another thing to say that your response is to truly love one another as Christ has loved us.  It’s another thing entirely to really love your neighbor as yourself, even when that neighbor thinks exactly the opposite of everything that you think and isn’t afraid to tell you about it.  It’s another thing to make disciples of all people.  To preach the Gospel…at work, or in the grocery store, or to our own families.  To feed the hungry…in Philadelphia and in Somalia.  To heal the sick who are dying from diseases caused by their poverty, to heal this sick world from the ravages of our consumerism.  Sometimes it’s quite another thing just to love yourself. 

So yes, you’re right – none of this is likely to be very easy.  And we’ll probably start to sink.  Peter did.  And that is okay, because we are never, ever asked to offer this response alone.  Christ is always present, standing in the center of the storm, speaking at surprising times and in extra-ordinary ways, calling us, beckoning, willing us to keep him in the center of our vision at all times.  Christ is here, front and center each week as we cry together, “Lord, have mercy!”  Christ is here each week reaching out his hand, ready to catch us in the cradle of this altar and lift us up into the stillness of heaven.  Our Lord Jesus Christ knows that the storm is scary.  He knows our fear, our weakness; he knows how much easier it is to just sit in the boat with the rest of the world and wait for the storm to blow over.  But he calls us anyway and waits for the response.  Come.  Step out of the boat. 

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

7 August 2011

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Raising the Bread Limit

The little-known back-story to the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 includes some eerily contemporary details.  You see, while Jesus was teaching and healing the crowd throughout the day, the disciples had been meeting behind some bushes.  They’d noticed time rolling by and the dinner hour approaching – they knew something was going to have to be done about food: stomachs would begin to rumble, bellies would demand to be fed.

As the discussion progressed, the disciples took stock of what food they could find.  On the one hand there were five loaves of bread, and on the other there were two fish; and for some reason the group seemed to be dividing along the lines of the bread-guys and the fish-guys.  The bread-guys thought that perhaps they could order out for delivery and divide the bill among everyone gathered (including tip, of course).  But the fish-guys thought that it would boost the local economy (which was clearly in need of a boost, being a desert place) if they sent everyone out to local restaurants in the village to eat.

There was no meaningful discussion of the five loaves and the two fish because, well, they amounted to five loaves and two fish, and what they had on their hands was a group of about five thousand men, besides women and children.  And what can you do with five loaves and two fish if you have 5,000–plus people to feed?  You see, you have a limit – what you might call a ceiling – with what you can do with five loaves and two fish in the company of 5,000 men, besides women and children.  And that ceiling feels pretty low as the dinner hour is approaching and tummies are grumbling and you know that soon things are going to get ugly.

So there they were, huddled behind a mustard shrub (which, if they had taken notice of it, they would have recalled began its life as a tiny seed, maybe even the tiniest of all seeds, but here it was, full-grown, concealing their deliberations from the crowd, and from Jesus), there they were, arguing about what to do about the bread limit, so to speak.  Of course, they could not agree – order delivery; or send the crowd to the local cafes – etc, etc.  They talked about the pros and cons of each.  The restaurant guys started to call the order-out guys socialists, and the order-out guys accused the restaurant guys of owning corporate jets (both of which accusations were fanciful to say the least).

The restaurant guys pointed out that when you split the bill that way, you never get everyone to put in what he actually owes, and Peter and Andrew and James and John had repeatedly been called on to make up the difference, and the coffers were getting low, they couldn’t keep deficit spending like this.

But the order-out guys made the argument that if you want to encourage ministry you have to prime the pump a little, you have to at least give people something to eat, and in a desert place you can’t rely on market forces to do everything, since the market is not actually functioning at what you might call meaningful capacity, etc. etc.  And that a bit of deficit spending now would have a big effect down the line in the ministry it stimulated, provided you didn’t try to do it on the cheap, and provided that you didn’t just give all your stimulus funds to the bankers and trust that they would do the right thing.

But, that bit about the bankers was, of course, a digression.

On one thing only could the two sides agree – five loaves and two fishes were meaningless, insufficient, a recipe for disaster.  There was not enough on hand to do anything, except maybe to have a little nosh themselves, later on.

As the day wore on, the implications of doing nothing began to dawn on them.  They could see, from behind the mustard bush, that Jesus was looking around for them, as he wrapped up his sermon.  It was becoming apparent that they were needed, but, of course, they were hesitant to come out from behind the mustard bush, because they had no solution to the problem.  They could hear the crowd becoming restless.  They saw the women sending their children out to look for food vendors, a Mr. Softee truck, a Halvah guy, a knish lady, something, anything; but there was nothing to be had, and the children were returning to their mothers with empty, upturned palms and hungry eyes.  And the men were beginning to shift restlessly in their places, and to stretch and yawn and glare demandingly at their wives and their children.

And still the disciples debated.  And as they did they noticed how similar was their debate to the dynamics of parliamentary procedure in a bicameral legislature. 

Think, said the order-out guys, of the high quality of debate in the Senate, where the rights of a minority can be preserved. 

Think, said the restaurant guys, of the will of the people represented in their own House by men and women in whose wisdom and care the people place their trust.

Think, said one of them more slyly, of the coming election next year, as he dreamed about how much commercial time you could buy with thirty pieces of silver.  And although none of the others would admit it, they all did think of this very thing, but kept it to themselves.

All the while the clock was ticking, and dinner-time was approaching.

The take-out places in the village had heard about the gathering and were hoping for a big order, their delivery guys at the ready.  The restaurants, too, were on alert and had ordered extra supplies, and were eager for a brisk business, since things had been slow for a few years, what with the wars, and all.  The proprietors of both sorts of establishments looked down the road, but no one seemed to be coming.  They began to get nervous, and to suspect that this crowd would amount to nothing – little business, no money in the coffers, and a lot of left-over food in the walk-ins to dispose of when all was said and done.  And they began to down-grade their expectations.

Jesus had stopped teaching by now and was tending to a long line of people coming up to him to be healed of various illnesses and injuries, one by one, which he accomplished as he laid his coarse hands on their heads and prayed softly to the Father, as a light breeze rustled around him.

Making an excuse, and leaving Mary and Martha to tend to the needy, he slipped over behind the mustard bush to find his disciples engaged in protracted discussion, having staked out opposing positions.  If he had troubled himself he might have discovered a willingness to negotiate on one side, and a complete refusal to compromise on the other, but frankly, this made no difference to him.

What, he demanded to know, is the meaning of all this?!?!

And so the accusations began to fly.  Socialists!  Corporate lap-dogs!  Etc., etc.  Some people just can’t seem to say yes to anything, said one side.  That’s right, said the other, some people just can’t seem to say yes to anything!

Jesus looked at them and had compassion on them, because they were pathetic, and although few people would, in fact, have compassion on a group of men having a childish debate over a problem of their own making that is not really that difficult to solve, Jesus always finds room to have compassion, even for those who only barely deserve it.  Looking into their eyes, he could see the fear deep in their souls that seemed to whimper, “We don’t have enough!”

My friends, he said, do you not remember those days long ago when our ancestors were hungry in the desert, and there was no food and no water, and the your great-great-great grandfathers went to Moses with their eyes full of the fear that is in your eyes now?  Do you not remember how long ago Joseph supplied grain to his father and his brothers (who had left him for dead) when famine was all around?  Can you not recall the flavor of manna, or the sound of quails in great abundance where no quail had ever been before?  Can you not hear the sound of water flowing down the face of a rock, just from the place where Moses struck it?  Did God not lead our forebears long ago to a land flowing with milk and honey, as he promised he would?  Have you really been so deprived?  Has God not always given you what you need and, in fact, so much more?

One of the disciples interrupted:

But this is a deserted place, and the hour is now late, send the crowds away, Rabbi, so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.

Jesus could see that this was a teaching moment.  He said to them, They need not go away; you give them something to eat.

And he could see the hearts of the disciples – on both sides of the issue – sink when he said that.  He saw eyes shift nervously to the basket that held five loaves and two fish.  But the eyes did not linger long on the baskets.  He could see worry cross their brows – how could they have quit their jobs to work with this man who could not even see that you can’t feed 5,000 men, besides women and children, with five loaves and two fish?  What had they gotten themselves into?  And how would they get themselves out?

Looking at them with his compassionate eyes, he could see that all their lives they had assumed they had not enough, even though they had never gone hungry.  They had heard the stories of Moses and the manna and the quail and the water from the rock, but they believed they were fairy tales – nice stories for children, but essentially without meaning in the grown-up world.  He could see that they had allowed fear to control them for so long, calling it prudence or caution to disguise it.  And he could see that they had only a little faith, which was pretty sad considering all they had seen and done with him, but he was not surprised; thus had it ever been.

And he knew that a little faith is enough.  Men and women had done extraordinary things with only a little faith – it was enough to move mountains, so to speak.  Yes, a little faith would do.  And although they were frightened, they still had a little faith.

My brothers, he said, how will you ever form a church when I am gone, if you act like this?  How will you ever build up my kingdom?  How will you ever draw others to yourselves if you imitate the bickering and the bargaining and the faithlessness of the world?  How will people know that you are about something completely different from those who seek only power?  How will those who have only a little realize how much they can accomplish if you don’t show them?  How will the hungry know where is their hope if you do not feed them; if you gather in your groups, behind your shrubbery, engrossed in your own arguments, while tummies grumble, and the would-be saints wander away to look for food elsewhere?  How will the church thrive if you operate from a posture of fear and a presumption of scarcity?  How will you change the world if you cannot change the way you do business?  How will you do great things if you master only petty politics?

Feeling chastened, they looked at him with still un-comprehending eyes, with little hope, and the still strong yearning to simply put forth their arguments one more time.

Anticipating their objection, he said to them again, You give them something to eat.

But, they said, We have nothing; nothing but these five loaves and two fish.

Yes, he thought to himself, How will you ever become who you were made to be if you never consider the loaves and the fishes; if you never account for what God has already given you. To them he said, Bring them to me.  And he told the crowd to sit down on the grass.

And he took the loaves and the fish, he blessed them, broke the bread, and gave it all to the disciples to distribute.  And the rest, as they say, is more or less history.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

31 July 2011

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Owen Meany Faith

One Christmas, Owen Meany, the remarkable title character in John Irving’s terrific novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany, plays the role of the Ghost of Christmas yet to Come in a local production of A Christmas Carol.  At the climactic scene when he shows Scrooge the empty grave that is waiting for him, with its carved tombstone, Owen, too, looks at the grave and the stone, and promptly faints.  The reason he fainted, Owen explains later, is that, in a kind of mystical vision, he had seen his own name on the tombstone. But, he reports to his best friend, there were no dates carved on the stone. 

It transpires in the novel that Owen Meany did see dates on the stone.  And since he was the son of a stone-carver, it also transpires that Owen Meany then carves his own tombstone and correctly inscribes on it the dates of his birth and his own death, on the basis of his vision during the childhood performance of the play.

Owen Meany believed in God, though he was surrounded by people who struggled with their belief, if they believed at all.  He’d have had no trouble with Saint Paul’s well-known assertion that all things work together for good for those who love God.  But most of us struggle with this idea, much as we struggle with the ideas of pre-destination, justification, and glorification that Paul writes about.  But it might be enough for us today to ask ourselves if it’s true that all things work together for good for those that love God?

Let us admit that there is ample evidence to the contrary.  There was certainly ample evidence to the contrary for Owen Meany.  He was a freakishly small boy with a strange voice that didn’t seem to change at puberty, and he was regarded by nearly one and all as an oddity.  Nothing in the plot of the novel hinges on Owen’s faith – it is simply a given.  The crucial moment of the novel, like the crucial moment of Owen’s life, actually hinges on a trick basketball shot that Owen and his best friend have practiced their entire life.

To recount the details of this rather intricate story would take more time than we have, since it involves, at the end of the story, a deranged psychopath, a gaggle of nuns, and a bunch of Vietnamese orphans, these latter two groups endangered by the psychopath, who encounters them with a hand grenade.  Owen and his best friend manage to save the day by using their trick basketball shot to dispense with the grenade through a small window, but their valor comes at the cost of Owen’s life.

It is typical of John Irving novels that a myriad of seemingly unrelated details come together in the end to be stitched together into a climax that shows you the meaning of all these things.  But the question we face is whether or not this is also true in real life – whether the myriad details of our lives are eventually stitched together with meaning: whether or not all things really do work together for good for those who love God.

We find this hard to believe – even in a novel, certainly in real life.  It would be hard to convey this message today, for instance, to the people of Oslo, after the massacre there that’s taken the lives of 92 innocent people there.  And it is a cruel and painful disappointment that the Scriptures contain no answer to the question of why such things happen in the world.

Christians, sharing in the Jewish heritage, have often searched for but never found the answer to why bad things happen to good people.  The entire Book of Job is concerned with this question, and never provides an answer.  Jesus himself did not offer much teaching on the subject.  It is a chronic mystery of our relationship with God and an equally chronic reality of our daily lives that terrible things happen to all kinds of people – the good and the bad. 

So the statement that all things work together for good for those who love God is not a report on the current condition of our lives or of the world.  It is, rather, an encouragement to begin to see the world differently.  Because sometimes faith is a matter of vision – of seeing things differently than we once saw them.

Whenever I hear this passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans, I remember a bishop I once heard preach on this very line: all things work together for those who love God.  He was a retired bishop who’d had a happy ministry and a long and happy marriage.  He told us from the pulpit how retirement had seemed to be a fulfillment of the promise in Paul’s letter.  He had landed a post as a chaplain on the QE-II and he and his wife had begun regular journeys on that great ship, always returning to their comfortable home in Newport, Rhode Island.  I’m sure there were other details, but these are enough to give you the picture that all things seemed to be working together for good for these two who had loved God so well and so long.

But, the bishop said, this dreamy existence did not last long.  Not long after retirement he was diagnosed with cancer – what form, I can’t recall, suffice it to say that treatment was only mildly effective at best - and it seemed that the number of his days was beginning to come into view.  The cruises on board the ocean liner came to an end.  The happy existence in Newport was disrupted for regular trips to New York for chemotherapy, or radiation, or whatever.  The ease of life was replaced by a battle with pain.  Walking now required a cane.  How could all things be working together for good for this man and his wife, who had loved God?

Now, let me tell you that this sermon impressed me greatly.  It was moving and hopeful and forceful in its proclamation of faith.  It must have been nearly twenty years ago that I heard it, and I have remembered these details of the story as far as it goes – I remember the bad things that happened to these good people.  But for years, though I have tried to recall it, I have been unable to remember what came next.  I have been unable to remember his answer to the question – why did this happen to you?  Why was your happiness cut off?  How is it that anything at all was working for good in your life as you gave up the things you thought you’d worked to enjoy, and as you endured the pain of your illness, and saw your own end move more clearly into sight?  How is it that all these things were working together for good?

And for years I have been unable to recall the answer to that question that the bishop might have supplied.  Did he tell us some secret of faith that I have foolishly forgotten?  Did he turn the key of wisdom and understanding in the lock of mystery and show us how it all made sense?  Did he reveal some insight that turned the cloud of his illness in-side-out so that it became all silver lining?  How could I be so silly as to forget this most important part of the sermon, which, frankly would come in handy right about now!?

The truth is that it is easy to end the sermon right where I started forgetting, just after the going got tough, and the gentle suasions of Saint Paul began to seem unlikely.  Isn’t that what most of us do?  We find it nearly impossible to believe that all things work together for good.  We are offended at the suggestion that if it were so, it might only be so for those who love God.  And we are affronted this week by havoc-wreaking gunfire, cloaking itself in the name of Christianity, that took the lives of 92 people in Norway.  And tomorrow there will be another atrocity somewhere else.

No wonder I have forgotten the good part of the bishop’s sermon!  Where is the good part for those 92 families now grieving their loved ones?  Where is the good part for the people whose lives have been ruined in spate of natural disasters recently?  Where is the good part for those who live in extreme poverty, as many millions in the world still do?  Where is the good part for the unemployed of this country?

As I say, it’s easy to end the sermon before you get to the good part – that’s how life often seems to be for so many people.

I have concluded that I have forgotten the good part of that sermon because it contained no answer to the question, “Why?” – which is what would have amounted to the good part under the circumstances.  And an answer never existed.  I do not think for one minute that that bishop could explain why his life took such a turn.  I do not think he believed he should be able to explain it.  What I remember is this – that that bishop, standing in the pulpit with his cane, talking about the cancer that would not too long thereafter take his life, said that he believed more than ever that all things work together for good for those who love God?

And I believe that the only thing that could account for this assertion is a change of vision, a way of seeing God’s mercy at work especially in the painful moments of life, of discovering that the love of a husband and wife, for instance, could endure not just the good life, but a hard sickness, too.

And Saint Paul was not trying teach about some secret that brings good out of bad, he was trying to teach a new way of seeing.  He was trying to talk about the God who knows the number of hairs on your head, and who accounts for you as of greater value than many sparrows.  He was reminding us that the greatest love ever known has been the love of God made know in the death of his Son on the Cross.  He was showing us that pain can be hallowed, that suffering is not punishment.

Paul knew, as God knows, that we would encounter hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword.  He knew that death lay ahead of him, as it lies ahead for each of us, as it is written, “we are being killed all day long.”  But Paul saw what God wants all of his children to see.  He saw the goodness in simply knowing you are a child of God and that God regards you as the apple of his eye, and holds you in his hand.

At the end of A Prayer for Owen Meany, Owen, having absorbed the blast of the grenade to save the children, lies dying as his oldest and best friend stands over him, unable to help.  Owen looks at his friend and says, “YOU’RE GETTING SMALLER, BUT I CAN STILL SEE YOU!”

“Then,” the narrator, his friend, writes, “he left us; he was gone.  I could tell by his almost cheerful expression that he was at least as high as the palm trees.”  And the date on which he died was the date he had carved onto his own tombstone.

It’s so easy to end the sermon before you get to the good part.  Because it’s hard to see with the eyes of faith that show us that all things working together for good, does not mean just the good parts; it also, and especially means that the bad parts are somehow, by God’s providence, working together for good for those who love God.

I thank God that at least once in my life I heard a man who happened to be a bishop, tell the story of how the bad parts didn’t deter him from believing that all things work together for good for those who love God.  Because having heard that sermon to the end, I at least know where to look – and looking, seeing, having a different kind of vision, is the thing.

It is the vision that assures us that in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  And the vision that convinces us that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!

Thanks be to God.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

24 July 2011

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia