A Great Gift

You may listen to Mother Takacs' sermon here.

Have you ever given a truly great gift? Not been given a truly great gift, but given a truly great gift? It’s a pretty amazing feeling. You know, there’s this one person in your family who is impossible to shop for – your brother, perhaps. He’s one of those annoying people who are truly content with the things they already have. He likes movies, but he already has all of his favorites. He loves music, but he says he has all the tunes he needs. He’s not all that into clothes, he doesn’t like cologne, he would never wear a man purse. He has already been given an iPhone and an iPad and a kindle. A kindle…and suddenly you’ve got it. There’s a book that would be perfect for him – something he’ll definitely like but that isn’t so obvious that he would have thought of it himself. Something within his interests but that will also stretch him just a bit. It’s perfect! And so you go buy it, and wrap it (yes, the real book, not the ebook version) and bear it proudly to his house on Christmas Day. You can’t wait for that moment when you get to give it to him and watch him unwrap it. You do have one brief moment when you worry that this gift is so perfect that maybe you’ve actually given it to him before, but when he tears off the wrapping and smiles in surprise and delight, all of your fears evaporate like mist in the sun. You are filled up from within, happy in his happiness, glowing with the sheer pleasure of giving.

What does it take to give a truly great gift? First of all, it requires really knowing the person you’re giving to. What does she like? What are her interests, her passions? What does she need for work or want for play? What does she already have? What kind of gift will be so perfect and yet so completely unexpected? What gift will cause her eyes to light up because it’s just so her? Who is she?

Of course, a great gift also has to take into account who she is to you. What is your relationship like? Are you close? New friends, old friends? What kinds of conversations have you had, what kinds of things do you like to do together? What moments and memories have deep meaning for both of you? Who is she to you?

And any person who has given a really great gift will tell you that it takes a while to sift through all of these questions. It takes time to come up with just the right gift. While the answer may come in a flash of inspiration, it usually has taken some effort to get there. You’ve had to go round and round in your mind, thinking and mulling and pondering, before you stumble upon The Great Gift, before you recognize that wonderful thing that will be just perfect for her, especially coming from you.

Tonight is a night of great gifts. A child has been born, a son has been given. Tonight we recall together the journey of wise men from the East to the sleepy hamlet of Bethlehem, to the house of Joseph and Mary and the child Jesus. And we remember how these magi fell on their knees before this child, how they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts – magnificent, wonderful, truly great gifts. These gifts showed that the wise men knew who Jesus was; he was Messiah, the anointed one, and so they gave him precious, costly gifts that were fit for one who would someday wear a crown. But these gifts also showed that the wise men knew who Jesus was to them. Gold for the king of kings who would rule over them, over all nations, with justice and mercy. Frankincense for the great High Priest who would serve as their intercessor and offer forgiveness of sins and the bread of life to all people.  And myrrh for the one whose sacrifice would offer them a new life in God and redeem the entire world.

And of course we know that the wise men had to make a great journey to this great moment of gift-giving. They had to walk, and ride, and sweat, and ache, and wander round and round in the wilderness to come upon the answer. I wonder when they knew what gifts they would bring.  Did the answer come upon them mid-journey in a flash of inspiration, coming only after long hours of hunching over a camel’s back, fighting off the sickening false sweetness of Herod’s smile, and staring, always staring, up at the skies? Or was it only when they reached their journey’s end that they knew for certain, knew in that sure place of truth-telling in the base of their gut, that their gifts were right for this child and this moment? Whenever it was that they stumbled upon these great gifts, they knew them when they saw them and offered them on their knees under the light of a star. And they were filled up with that holy light, shining with joy to have made just the right offering, to have given a truly great gift.

What gift will you give to Jesus? He is not, of course, an easy person to shop for. He is immensely satisfied with what he already has. He never worries about what he will eat or what he will drink, or about his body, what he will put on. You’ve heard him talk about the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and so you’ve silently crossed the bottle of Veuve-Clicquot and the gift card to Abercrombie & Fitch off of your list. What book would you buy him that he doesn’t already know, what music would you offer him that he hasn’t already sung? What do you get for the man who not only has everything, he made everything? We may have a pretty good idea of who he is, and who he is to us. We may have even journeyed far to get to him, passing through the joys and sorrows of life, making up time after the left turns and the backtracking and the missteps that have led us away from him. But even at the end of all of this, what gift can we possibly offer him?

The answer is that I don’t know the answer – for you. But I have the sneaking suspicion that right now, the answer, for you, is one thing. There is one thing in your life that has been pulling at your attention, one thing that nudges your soul each time you pray. One thing – one great gift that you haven’t yet offered to Christ. It is not the same thing for each of us. My gift is not the same as yours, and both of our gifts might change next month. But let’s not worry about next month or the person sitting next to you in the pew or standing in the pulpit. Let’s just worry about you, right now, kneeling before this little tiny child. What gift can you give him?

Perhaps, like the kings, you have something of great value to offer him. Perhaps your gift is money to help fund the ministry and mission of this Church in Christ’s name. Maybe your great gift is the gift of your talent – maybe you have no gift to bring that’s fit to give a King, but you can play your drum for him, or sing a song for him, or paint or dance or write or build something for him. Maybe you are like Amahl from the opera Amahl and the Night Visitors and your gift is that one thing in your life that is a kind of surrogate support, that crutch without which you think you can’t possibly stand. Maybe your gift is the gift of friendship and mentoring to a student at the St. James School. Maybe if you were a shepherd, you would bring a lamb, and if you were a wise man, you would do your part, but what you can you give him, give him your heart. Or maybe Christ already has your heart, and now you want to give him your hands. Maybe your great gift is the gift of your time and your energy. Maybe your gift is trust. Maybe it is the gift of holy listening or of prayerful conversation. Maybe it is the gift of speaking Christ’s name in the world, of telling your story, his story, the Gospel story. Maybe it is your repentance, your forgiveness, your love.

And maybe you don’t feel like you have anything to give at all. Maybe you feel like you don’t belong at this cradle, that you’re an imposter, that surely you’ve followed the wrong star. Maybe you feel like a Gentile kneeling at the foot of a Jewish Messiah. If you do, fear not, you’re in good company. “Lift up your eyes and look around,” Isaiah says to you, “they all gather together.” We all come here at the feet of this holy child, Gentiles and Jews, rich and poor, white and black, gay and straight, men and women, and we all belong, not because of who we are, but because of who he is. And so we all have a great gift to give him, a gift that shows who Jesus is and who he is to us. So offer your gift before him – your perfect, truly great gift. “Then,” the prophet says, “you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice.” Then a “new light [will] shine in our hearts,” a light that will reveal God’s “glory in the face of [His] Son Jesus Christ.” And that light that glows from the sheer pleasure of giving is itself a gift, because it is the gift of proclamation, of witness to the entire world. And that is exactly what Jesus has always wanted. 

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

The Feast of the Epiphany

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Name this Child

You may listen to Father Mullen's Sermon here.

On a hot August morning in the summer of love, at a little church, St Peter’s, on the corner of 244^th Street and 138^th Avenue in Queens, Fr. Rix Pierce Butler turned to my parents and godparents and said to them, “Name this Child.”  Most families in Queens didn’t have family names that they were especially keen to pass on and preserve, so my parents gave me names that they liked: Sean Edward.

Just yesterday, I turned to a young couple who I married here at Saint Mark’s more than eight years ago, and who now live in Oklahoma but who returned here for the baptism of their second child - a little girl who was born eleven weeks ago – and I did what an older version of the Prayer Book used to instruct:  the rubrics of the old book say, “Then shall the Minister take the Child into his arms, and shall say to the Godfathers and Godmothers, ‘Name this Child.’”

“Margaret Rose,” they answered me.

The newer version of the Prayer Book that we use here has dropped this instruction, along with the pretense that somehow a child’s actual parents are not responsible for seeing that he or she is brought up in the Christian faith.  There are lots of complicated, and no doubt good reasons that this detail has been dropped from modern liturgies, not the least of which is that we no longer expect that the person being baptized is an infant.  But since many children are still baptized in church, it has seemed a shame to me to fail to ask for the child to be named at that point. 

Margaret Rose’s names – her given, or Christian names, as they are sometimes called – are borrowed from her maternal grandmothers.  I often explain to parents at baptism that they don’t need to include the family name since God will not be looking us up in the phone book.  He knows us each by name, and in some cases, I expect, even by nickname.  He has no need to keep track of us in alphabetical order by last name.

And so the instruction has been given here many times: Name this Child.

Name this Child: Henry.

Name this Child: Claire.

Name this Child: Nico.

Name this Child: Maximillian.

Name this Child: Nathan.

Name this Child: Cornelius.

Name this Child: Jude

Just to call to mind the names that have been given in this church in the last few months.

Do you remember what happened when the angel Gabriel visited an old priest named Zechariah and told him that his wife would have a child and that this child should be named John?  The old man finds it heard to believe that his wife will give birth in her old age, and so he is made mute for the duration of the pregnancy. 

And on the eighth day after the child was born, it came time to circumcise him, according to Jewish custom, and to give him his name on that day.  After the baby’s foreskin was cut, his father should have recited a prayer of thanksgiving, but he could not.  He was silent, too, as a drop of wine was put into the child’s mouth.  Now it was time to recite the prayer that would give the boy his name.  And all those gathered expected that he would be named for his father, Zechariah.  But Elizabeth, his mother, tells them, “ He is to be called John.”

“But none of your relatives has this name,” they argue with her.  And they turn to Zechariah to ask his opinion.  And Zechariah, who must have been feeling a little sorry for himself, asks for a writing tablet, and he writes, “His name is John,”

And St, Luke tells us that “immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God.”  He had named his child, just as God had instructed.

Now, Zechariah was a priest of the Temple, a descendent of Aaron, to whom had been entrusted the blessing that God wished to see pronounced on his people:

“The LORD bless you and keep you;

The LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

“So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” God had said to Moses.

Zechariah was not a high priest.  It did not fall to him to pronounce the name of God ten times in the inner precincts of the Temple on Yom Kippur.  But he knew something of the power of a name.  And when he was asked to name his child, it was not a casual thing to recall the angel Gabriel standing before him, with his wings still unfurled, and tell him the name by which his son would be known to God.

Name this Child: His name is John.

Just so, a few months later, still camping out in Bethlehem, the little family of Elizabeth’s cousin Mary, and Joseph, her fiancé, and their baby would have made arrangements for the circumcision of their child.  Joseph’s tongue had not been tied, his lips were not sealed, but how uneasy might it have been for him to say the words of blessing and thanksgiving that a father says for his son on this day, knowing full well that he was not the father of this child?  Did he argue with Mary about it the night before?

The shepherds wouldn’t have cared, but they had returned to their flocks.  Were questions asked before the ceremony began?  Or did a tacit agreement to leave the matter of parentage unmentioned hold sway?  Who was it that recited the kiddush over the wine after Joseph’s prayer of thanksgiving?  And who said this prayer or something like it:

“Creator of the universe, may it be your will to regard and accept this act of circumcision as if I had brought this baby before your glorious throne.  And in your abundant mercy, through your holy angels, give a pure heart to Yeshua, to Jesus, the son of… who?  Of Joseph?  Of Mary?  ...  who was just now circumcised in honor of your great Name.  May his heart be wide open to comprehend your holy Law, that he may learn and teach, keep and fulfill your laws.  Amen.”

Did the rabbi, or the mohel, or the cantor, or whoever it was that stumbled through those prayers with Mary and Joseph know what it was to name that child?  Could they tell in the speaking of his name that the world was shifting now beneath their feet?

Did Zechariah, however many miles away he was, perhaps bouncing his own son on his knee, feel the ancient blessing stirred inside of him? 

Could they tell, only a few miles away from Jerusalem, that they were now speaking with great ease and fluency a name as holy as the Name of God that they had meticulously avoided saying out loud, lest they should blaspheme and take that holy Name in vain?

Did they remember who it was who had named this child?  That like his cousin, John, his name had been delivered by message of the archangel Gabriel who told Mary that she would bear a son, and that she should name him Jesus?

But God delights to allow us all to Name this Child Jesus: to call him by his name; to know him by it, and to be known by him, by name.  Year after year, month after month, day after day, God allows us to Name this Child in our hearts… because to name him is to know who he is, and who his father is, and to claim the power of the Holy Spirit whose over-shadowing conceived him in the womb of his mother.

You and I will name other children.  Some of you have known the joy of naming your own children, and offering prayers of thanksgiving to the God who knows us each by name.  But when we Name this Child we speak the name of our salvation, and heaven’s portals open, and hell quakes with the echoes of the name that spells its doom, and the angels delight to hear the Name given to God’s Son.

So let us make only one new year’s resolution this year, and let us keep it together right now: Let us Name this Child, Jesus.  Name him as your Lord and Savior.  Name him as your friend and Companion.  Name him as your joy and your love.

Name this Child.  Name him Jesus, and then hear him call you by Name, and tell you that he loves you, and always has, since he, too, knows you by Name.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

1 January 2012

Saint Mark’s Church, Phialdelphia

Searching for a Nativity

You may listen to Mother Tackas' sermon here.

For many years now, I have been searching for a nativity. I’ve never had a nativity set of my own, and I have yet to find one that I really like. Part of the problem, I think, is that I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for. When I was a child, my family had a very simple white ceramic nativity that my mother had made. It was quite small, with just the figures of Mary, Joseph, Jesus lying in the manger, and one angel keeping watch. This nativity always seemed very pure and precious to me, and we put it out year after year even after the baby Jesus lost an arm somewhere in his journey to or from the attic in the Christmas boxes. Now my grandmother also had a ceramic nativity set, but hers was far grander and more ornate, in bright, bold colors with tall, intricately-painted wise men and shepherds and all. And I like both of these sets, but I’m not sure which kind I’d like for myself? Do I want something rich and romantic and Renaissance-y, like the crèche here at Saint Mark’s? Or do I want something simple and minimalistic? Or what about something rustic and hand carved, like the olivewood sets from the Holy Land? I just don’t know! I know I can certainly cross some nativities off my list, like some of those I’ve seen floating around the internet this week – the supercute “kittycat” nativity, for example, or the set that depicts Mary and Joseph as emperor penguins. I can do without the Irish nativity where everyone is decked all in green; I can definitely do without the nativity made of carved butter, or – the worst! – the all-meat nativity, with a manger made of bacon that cradles a tiny swaddled sausage. One hopes that the sausage is turkey sausage at least….

Well, one thing is for certain – in my search for a nativity set, I will almost certainly end up with a set that depicts the nativity stories from both the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew. I’ll want a set that has Luke’s shy shepherds and singing angels…and Matthew’s wise men from the East that I can move closer and closer to the cradle as we approach the Feast of the Epiphany just like we do here in church. I’ll want it all – the shepherds and the wise men and the stable and the hay – even though Jesus was probably really born in a cave and laid in a hewn-out stone drinking trough and even though the shepherds and wise men don’t actually appear in the same story in the Bible. Doesn’t matter – I may not know what I want my nativity to look like, but I know that I want everybody to be there. I want the whole story – the whole picture.

But is this really the whole story? Do the nativities of Luke and Matthew really show us the complete picture? And the answer – somewhat surprisingly – is no. Because there is another nativity story, here in the prologue to the Gospel of John. You have to search for this nativity, you have to dig around for it a bit, but it is most certainly there. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” There is the story of the nativity in John’s language, spoken in poetry, clothed in mystery. But how does this story add to our image of the nativity? What does John’s nativity look like?

Well, first of all, it’s big. Really big. It is the entire universe, in the beginning, black as pitch and without form, where the earth is “wild and waste” and darkness moves over the face of the deep. And into that darkness, God speaks a Word, a Word that has always been on the tip of God’s tongue, a Word that is God. “Y’hi or” (because in our nativity God always speaks in Hebrew)….and suddenly and miraculously, there is light. There, in the center, one single flame, burning its way into the darkness, even though the darkness, which is always so self-absorbed, doesn’t even notice that something new has been born. And that light continues to burn, bright and steady, as the years go by and the scene in our nativity changes from a garden to a wilderness to a promised land, as prophets and kings and mothers enter our nativity and leave it again, as a temple is built there and is destroyed and another built in its place. And in the midst of all of this, the light burns, with a constant, and faithful, and righteous light. Sometimes men and women walk into the center of our nativity, point to the light and say, “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord” and “Behold, a virgin shall conceive!” Sometimes others pay attention to them and sometimes not. And still the light burns. Until finally, after centuries of shining into the darkness, the light in the center of our nativity is surrounded by other words and other lights, as the glow of the angel Gabriel settles around a young girl named Mary, and he speaks to her words of promise and hope and challenge: “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.” And the light shines on a woman with bowed head who says, “Be it unto me according to your word.” And the Word is made flesh and grows in her womb, and is born this day in the city of David, Christ the Lord.

This is the nativity of John – a nativity so enormous that it encompasses the entire universe – every shining star, every nebula and supernova. It is a nativity so complete that it shows us the entire scope of history, down to each prayer, each breath, each blade of grass. And yet, for all of its cosmic immensity, it still leads us to the same place, to a tiny, simple manger – to God’s choice, God’s infinitely mysterious, inexplicably generous choice to take on a human life to redeem you and me. This is the magnitude of this morning, this is what we kneel before at this crèche – a nativity that is precious but also powerful, beautiful but also terrifying, simple and pure and majestic and mighty. This is the nativity of John, of Luke and Matthew, of Mary and Joseph and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and in this nativity we find what we’ve all been searching for, the eternal Word made flesh, God among us, a babe in a manger, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

Christmas Day 2011

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia