Sermo tuus veritas est

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)

The war still drags on in Afghanistan, no matter how many new restaurants open in Philadelphia, no matter how glorious the spring weather has been here, no matter how lovely each mass offered at Saint Mark’s may be.  For ten years, we have sent soldiers in our names to fight a grisly war in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan, whence vicious armies have previously been sent home licking their wounds.

A few weeks ago, along a road that leads through an Afghan village where children were to be seen along the side of the road going about their day happily with their parents, a suicide bomber attacked a small American convoy of pickup trucks, after which waiting gunmen fired on the Marines who had been thrown or had jumped from their trucks. 

Except that one soldier, Master Sergeant Scott Pruitt, never left his truck: his injuries left him bleeding so much and so fast he did not survive the attack.

As it happens, in one of the trucks there was a reporter from the Wall Street Journal who wrote pointedly about the attack and who documented it with a series of photos.  In an interview about what happened, the reporter, Michael Phillips, talked about the difficulty of recording what actually took place:

“The world explodes,” he said.  “Some things I saw in my pictures, I don’t remember having seen.”  He goes on to say that “the pictures themselves are more solid than my memories of what happened.”[i]

In particular, Phillips tells of a photo that you can find in the slideshow that goes with his story.  In it, a Marine, Jewelie Hartshorne is seen taking aim at an enemy position; she kneels beside the mangled green pickup truck that has been hit by the bomber; and the body of Master Sergeant Pruitt, slumped forward as he bleeds to death, is clearly visible through the blasted-out, front, passenger-side window.[ii]

The reporter says that he cannot remember taking this photo, which I think is another way of saying he cannot remember seeing this happen.  He assumes he must have seen it, since, after all, it was his camera and he took all the photos.  But with only his own memory to resort to, it seems that Phillips would be unable to remember at least this one aspect of what happened, this one scene.  Without the photo, who’s to say that it did happen?  Who’s to say what else has been forgotten that was not captured by his camera?  And who’s to say that the images he did collect are what they appear to be?

Who is to say what really happens in the chaos of war?  Would the Afghanis whose children were on the street that day report it differently?  Where is the truth to be found?

Or as the question is found in the Gospel, on the lips of Pontius Pilate: What is truth?

As I ponder the mysterious nature of truth, I find myself fantasizing that I could somehow hack into the reporter’s camera, or his computer where I’m sure the images are stored.  And before he looked at all of them, before he’d published them and shared them with the world, I find myself imagining that I could go to work on the images with PhotoShop.  I think of the picture with Master Sergeant Pruitt slumped forward in the truck’s cab.  And I know that I could easily change this image.  I could push the Marine back in his seat so he could draw breath into his lungs.  I could replace the passenger seat window.  I could restore the mangled truck.  I could open its door and find the pool of blood at Pruitt’s feet, and I could erase it with a few clicks of the mouse.  I could mend the torn shreds of his uniform, and, so doing, mend the ruptured flesh beneath it.  I feel as though in doing so, I could place my cursor over his heart, and click and click and click and start his heart beating again.

I don’t feel the need to return everything to normal in the photo – this seems unrealistic to me.  But I do like the idea of going this far – far enough to save this one Marine.  And I imagine that I could do it without the reporter knowing it, so that when he turns on his computer and looks for the files, he will open this image up and see that Pruitt is not dead after all, and that he will soon be reunited with his two daughters.  And I feel as though I could make it so, since truth is hard to grasp, since even the man who took the photo cannot say for sure that he actually saw it happen.

Why should the photo get to decide what the truth is?  Why should the photo get to decide who lives and dies?  If the reporter who witnessed it cannot remember taking this photo, and relies on it to know what happened, why can’t we just change the image and thereby change the truth?

What is truth, after all?

As he was preparing to go to his own death, Jesus prayed a long prayer.  And in it we heard him say this morning a few things that stick out in my mind:

“While I was with them I guarded them….  I protected them….  I ask you to protect them from the evil one….  Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

Your word is truth.  What does this mean?  And why should it matter?

It matters, because, as the reporter Michael Phillips said, “The world explodes.”

The world explodes all the time, all around us.  Sometimes the explosions are obvious – as in the roadside battlefields of Afghanistan.  But sometimes the explosions are a lot less obvious.  Sometimes only you know that the world is exploding.  Sometimes it is only your world that is exploding, but the explosion is no less disastrous for it.  The world explodes.

In the interview, Michael Phillips said this, “Your notebook or your camera is a filter between you and reality.  It allows you to do your job even as you should be running for cover.”  But actually, his notebook and his camera proved to be more than that.  They were also means by which he would try to know the truth of what happened that Saturday, April 28, in a small village in the Nimroz province of Afghanistan.  His photos would show him parts of the truth he would never have remembered on his own: things he had seen but not really witnessed without some other way to claim the vision as his own.  And the truth that those images impart is painful and heart-racing, and terrifying, and final.  I can let my imagination run wild, but it will not bring Scott Pruitt back to life; it will not give his daughters back their father.

We like to pretend that the truth is whatever is empirically verifiable in the world, whatever is replicable in the lab, whatever can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.  But actually we know that even these standards bring no guarantee of establishing the truth.  Clever as we are, we are notoriously inept at truth.

If I were to say that faith is something like a filter between you and the world that allows you to live your life even as you should be running for cover, you might say that by such a definition of faith I am admitting it is just a form of denial of the reality around me.  But if a reporter uses the very same phrases in reference to his notebook and his camera, then we’d say that they are tools in service of the truth.

But why should a camera get to decide who lives and who dies?  Why should that sad image be the final arbiter of life and death?  Why should its pixilated images get to spell out the truth?

I’d rather trust God to do these things.  I’d rather let his word speak the truth.

And God’s word has truth to speak into that image that the photographer cannot recall taking, just as it has truth to speak to you and me, and to two young girls who lost their father on April 28^th, and of course to their father as well.

It might sound something like this:

I formed you, my child, with my own hands; I made you out of clay and dust.  I shaped not only your limbs, but the intricate works that make you who you are: that send the blood running through your veins, the air running through your lungs, and the ideas running through your head. 

I made you in my own image.  And when you were made, then I leaned over my workbench and blew my own breath into your nostrils so that you would have life – a gift that only I can give.

I gave you talents, and looks, and limits, too.  I gave you being.  And I looked at you and saw that you were marvelously made, and that it was good.

I have loved you since before you were born, while I was creating you in the inward parts of your mother’s womb.  I have desired for you only joy; but I know the realities of the world into which I set you.  I know that you are a sheep in the midst of wolves.  This is the nature of my creation – it is complicated, too complicated for you to understand, but it does not mean I love you any less – knowing this is the beginning of wisdom.

I have sought to protect you always with my whole being.  I have been your Father; I sent you my Son; you have been given my Holy Spirit.  Like the creation I made, I am complicated too.  Does it surprise you that the Mind from which all things sprang is complicated?  That the Life from which all life comes is complicated?

Let me try to simplify it for you.  You cannot see what I see.  You look at death and you see an end.  I look at it and see a new beginning.  Which of us do you suppose is right?  Which of us can see on both sides of death?

Do you think you know the truth?  Do you think you have captured it in photographs of dead people?  What does this prove?  You cannot even remember taking the photos.  How could you know the truth on your own?

But I have sanctified you in the truth; my word is truth.

This means that I see what you cannot, but that I have given you the lens of faith to help you see the truth.

Mostly this means that I have helped you see beyond the veil of death, though the world explodes.

You hear people tell you that they can show you the truth all the time.  The truth, they say, in that silly, rhyming slogan, is that might makes right.  They don’t use the slogan any more but they live by it.

They tell you that this war is truly necessary.  They have told you that wars can truly be won.  They have told you that they would rather not do it this way, but they must for the sake of the truth.

These are lies.  But the picture has been so altered that they appear to be true.  And since you cannot remember that far back, you cannot see how drastically the picture has been changed.  You cannot remember what joy and peace and mercy were supposed to look like.  You believe them, but you doubt my word.  And the world explodes.

But I have sanctified you in the truth; my word is truth.

This means that what I see is true, not what you see.  This means that Scott Pruitt is dead to you, which makes sense, since you killed him.

But I have sanctified him, and thousands upon thousands of others like him; I have sanctified them in the truth; my word is truth.

And this is the truth from above: that he is dead to you, but alive to me; that he could not survive in the world that you have made of my creation, but he breathes new life in the world beyond the grave.

You search all the evidence you can for proof, and you can only prove that he is dead.  Which is exactly the wrong conclusion to reach, even though you killed him.

Because you thought your might was true, you can repeat the results over and over again, they have been reviewed by your peers, who approve, more or less of your ways, your experts will testify that the life had left his body, which was just too full of holes to go on living.  And this looks true to you.  Because the world explodes.

But I have sanctified him in the truth; my word is truth.  When you were done with him, I took him again into my hands, I breathed again into his bloody nostrils, I filled him again with the spirit of life that I intended for him from the moment of creation.

And he lives today with me, where he will be forever.  He is not dead; he is alive.  Even while the world hurtles ever more furiously toward death.

You think you know the truth, but I am telling you, you are only looking at the pictures.  You can only see what you think you can see.  But there is more.

And my word is truth.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

20 May 2012

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

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[i] “Here and Now” on NPR, 18 May 2012, reported by Alex Ashlock,  

[ii] Phillips, Michael M, “Under Attack” in The Wall Street Journal, 12 May 2012

Commencement Exercises

Father Mullen, Mr. Glandorf, Mr. Sheehan, Mr. Marshall, acolytes, choir, esteemed guests, friends, family, congregation, and especially the class of post-resurrection disciples, welcome to the 2012 Ascension Day Exercises. It is such a joy to be here with you, such a privilege to have been asked to offer a few words of wisdom and counsel and congratulations as these eleven fresh-faced apostles and their companions graduate and begin to make their own way in the world. What a day this is! A day to look back over the past three years, to remember and celebrate the long, hard journey that has brought you to this place. And it is a day to look forward to the future, to gaze into the coming days with hope and courage, knowing that you have been prepared well for the challenges that lie ahead and that the friends you have made here, in this city of Jerusalem, will continue to shape your life powerfully for years to come. Indeed, what a day this is! It is the first day of the rest of your life. Today is truly your commencement.

It is always a challenge to know what to say on such an auspicious occasion, or even to whom I should say it. Should I speak to just the graduating class, reminding them of how far they’ve come? Should I tease them a little about how hard it was for them to learn their parables, or about that dark and stormy night on the Sea of Galilee when they nearly capsized their boat in panic? Should I recall the time they were all fighting over who was Jesus’ favorite until he put a child in their midst and invited them to be child-like but not child-ish?* Should I speak with gravity of the events of the past few days, remind them of how all of their Holy Week frailty was redeemed by Easter morning? Or should I just try to offer them words of wisdom, nuggets of truth that they can carry around in their pockets? Should I remind them to listen to their hearts, to go out into the world and make a difference, to live each day to the fullest, to love their neighbors as themselves, to follow their Passion?

Or should I speak to the whole crowd? Should I remind all of you who are sitting here of the important part you’ve played in the lives of these disciples? Should I thank you, encourage the graduating class to stand and applaud you, you with your open hearts and doors, with your wounds that needed healing, your sins that needed forgiving, your food that needed blessing and breaking? Or should I speak to a crowd that isn’t even here – should I rail against Roman tyranny or lambast the Pharisees because of their hard hearts that not even the Son of God could melt? Should I be political? Entertaining? Inspiring? Philosophical? Or should I just make sure that my speech is short, so that you all can get along to your graduation parties and brunches and family gatherings in the temple?

My job, of course, is not made any easier by the fact that Jesus has already said so much. In his remarks earlier, he has already offered an entire survey course on the history of the people of God. He has reviewed all of that which was said about him in the Law of Moses and in the prophets, even in the psalms. He has opened the minds of these faithful disciples to understand what was written in the scriptures, reminding them that he was always meant to be crucified, killed, and raised on the third day, that he was always meant to proclaim forgiveness to all people, that this shul in Jerusalem was always meant to be just the beginning. And he has charged the graduates with their future work and ministry, assuring them that after this day – and after a few weeks set aside for worship and blessing and celebration – they will be clothed with power from on high, sent out from this city to the ends of the earth as workers and witnesses. Jesus has already said so much. In this final speech of his earthly life, he has, in a way, already covered it all – looking back and looking forward, offering Wisdom and counsel and a sending forth. What more is there really to say?

Well, not much, except that I believe it falls to me to point out that while these may seem like your typical commencement exercises, they most certainly are not. At a normal graduation, after the speeches and the diplomas and throwing your mantles in the air, everyone goes their separate ways. The graduates go out into the world on their own, to live their life and make their mark; the teachers climb back up into their towers of learning, decreasing, as it were, to let their former students increase, hoping that what they’ve said and taught will endure in their absence; and the friends and family simply go back to living their regular, ordinary lives.  And what is so different about this commencement?, you may ask. Isn’t that what’s happening here? The disciples are being sent forth into the world to live independent lives that are full of grace, Jesus is ascending on high, going away, drawing back to let the disciples go out and bear fruit on their own, and you and I are just watching. There is something happily predictable about this pattern, something organic and familiar – the little chicks leave the nest, the students become the teachers, “the seasons go round and round and the painted ponies go up and down.”**

But the circle game is not what is going on here today. Yes, the disciples are being sent out into the world with a new sense of authority, mission, and purpose, but they are never – never – left on their own. Yes, Jesus is ascending into heaven, but he does this not to leave the disciples alone, but because it is only by ascending that he is able to be as close as he needs to be, to draw near as he wants to be. It is only by climbing into the very heights of heaven that he is able to fill all things, to see as far as the furthest corners of Jerusalem, to Corinth and Antioch and Rome, to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south, across the mountains, over the seas, over the years, to this little church in this little town with all of our worship and celebration and blessing and joy and sorrow and healing and pain. Jesus ascends, not to help us learn to fend for ourselves, but because it is only by ascending that he can be as present to is all as he needs to be.

And yes, you are here to witness these exercises, but you are not here just to watch, and you are not expected to simply go back to living your regular, ordinary lives. You are charged, too, you are sent, too. Because in the course of this ceremony, you have been grafted into the body of this graduating class. In this liturgy, you, too, have heard Jesus the teacher reminding you of all of the lessons he taught the disciples here on earth. In this commencement exercise, you, too, have been invited to look back over your life to remember the times that Christ has taught you, to remember the mistakes you’ve made, the forgiveness you’ve received, the infinite tiny graces that have been showered upon you like confetti. And you, too, have been encouraged to look forward; you’ve been offered nuggets of truth, words of Wisdom and vision, and presented with the gift of an eternal hope to which Christ has called you. In this commencement exercise, which we sometimes call the Mass, you have been shed your role as supportive bystander and put on the robes of a graduate, who is charged and called and sent. You have been changed here, transformed by the powerful presence of the resurrected and ascended Christ, who fills all things and fulfills all things, whose presence will never withdraw, never pull away, never leave you alone with just the lessons he taught. He has ascended to fill all things, even you, and you are hereby sent out in his powerful company. You are not here just to watch. You are now an apostle. You are a graduate. This is your commencement. And so I say to you, Congratulations.  

*These phrases taken from a recent talk given by Bill Gordh.

**Joni Mitchell, “The Circle Game.”

 Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

17 May 2012, The Feast of the Ascension of our Lord

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Can't We Just Be Friends?

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

Most of us at one point or another in our lives have had to deal with the cruel reality of unrequited love.  Perhaps there was a date or two.  Or, more likely, there was a dinner that you thought was a date, but she didn’t.  Drinks that you hoped counted as a first date, but he clearly did not.  Maybe you managed to continue the fantasy for a week or two.  Maybe you went to the movies together.  Maybe there was a second dinner.  Maybe you both took a stab at romance for a week or two  – trying it on to see if it fit.  Maybe there were kisses good night that did not last long enough to suit you.  Maybe there was a third dinner, or more likely it was drinks this time, because, although you tried to convince yourself it was not true, the object of your affection had an agenda tonight.  The agenda was not to crush all the happiness out of your life; the agenda was not to stop the stars from shining in the night sky, or to quiet the songs of birds in their throats, but it had all those effects and more.  It was time for truth-telling, lest things go too far.  The news had to be broken to you: romance was not in the cards; he just wasn’t feeling it; she likes you very much, but not that way.  And in an effort to cushion your fall, looking warmly into your eyes, and holding your heart in his hands, he crushes it as he says to you, “Can’t we just be friends?”

Well, of course, we could just be friends.  But, NOOOOOOOO!  That is not the point! you want to scream, as you dig your fingernails into your flesh to prevent the tears from flowing.  And although you will try for a while, you will discover that you can’t just be friends.  You never wanted her to be your friend!  You wanted to give yourself to him body and soul!  Friendship seems a poor consolation prize, when true love is what you seek.

We often talk about the love of God.  Last week in church, one of the readings reminded us of that great simple truth: that God is love.  And I often feel that my job is to proclaim to you the unswerving love of God for you and all mankind: the height and depth and breadth of God’s love, and to convince you of the power and intensity of God’s love for you, and to urge you (as I am also urged) to requite God’s love with fervor and zeal akin to a romance – to be willing to give yourself to God, body and soul.

This is a tall order for most of us.  It is certainly a tall order for me.  Most of us are willing to give a part of ourselves to God – the church-going part, for an hour or two, here and there.  But many of us (and Episcopalians are famous for this) prefer to be restrained in our love of God, and to save plenty of room for the love of other things in our lives.  Romancing God is something best left to nuns and monks, who, we seem to remember, used to wear wedding rings with their habits.  When you and I hear the impassioned plea to give our lives to God, body and soul (even if I’m the one making the plea), I suspect we receive it with a certain steely resolve to keep things in perspective, to leave room for other things.  And we could, perhaps, sum up our response to the plea to fall in love with God with these words: Can’t we just be friends?

Can’t we just be friends with God?

Can’t we just be friends with Jesus?

Since this question almost always signals disappointment, and a relationship that is more than likely going nowhere at all, and will not, in fact, end in friendship, it would seem an unhelpful question in approaching our relationship to Jesus.  And yet, this morning, almost as if the tables have been turned, we seem to hear Jesus asking us that very thing, if we suppose that what he said to his disciples all those years ago, he is also saying to us today.  “I do not call you servants,” we hear Jesus say, “but I have called you friends.”  And then Jesus says a most astonishing thing to his friends: “You did not choose me but I chose you.”  Again, transpose the conversation to our present time: Jesus has chosen you to be his friend.

So much Christian religion these days has forgotten this little revelation: that we did not choose Jesus, but he chose us.  So often we feel we are being pressured or cajoled or duped into buying more religion than we wanted.  We are told by some that faith is all about that moment we finally break down and accept Jesus as our personal Savior – which he undoubtedly is.  There is a fervor in some modern religion that demands to know when it was that you accepted Jesus into your life – which might be alright for some.  You can watch this on TV as people are called to the altar, and every footstep on the way there is a step closer to choosing Jesus – a choice that may be accompanied by swooning into the arms of nearby attendants as you are overcome by the magnitude of your choice.

But wait a minute!  “You did not choose me,” Jesus says, “I chose you.”  And, he might well add, can’t we just be friends?  Jesus wants to be your friend; he has chosen you to be his friend, if you will have him.  Choosing Jesus, is surely a good thing to do, but perhaps it is not the beginning of faith.  Perhaps faith begins with Jesus, when he chose you to be his friend.

One of the most wonderful aspects of abiding friendship is this: the strength to endure long periods of silence, separation, and even neglect.  I hope you have, as I do, those long friendships with people you see maybe once a year, maybe less than that.  But it hardly matters.  You pick up right where you left off, as though it was only yesterday that you were swapping sandwiches from your lunch boxes.

Now, this is an odd virtue for a preacher to hold up in the pulpit.  Do I really mean to tell you that Jesus is inviting you to a friendship in which it’s perfectly OK if you ignore him, and visit with him once or twice a year (say, Christmas and Easter)?  Am I advocating a relationship with Jesus that is characterized by long periods of silence, separation, and neglect?  No, this is not my point.  But I have been around long enough to know that many of us have neglected our relationships with Jesus – and sometimes this includes those of us who go the church all the time.  Many of us have been separated from Jesus for a long time.  Many of us have maintained silence with Jesus for years, and we note that we haven’t heard from him much either, as far as we can tell.  And the demand for a fervent love affair with Jesus looks like a bridge too far for some, who shrug in the face of such a demand, and say, “Can’t we just be friends?”

And although the implied answer to that question is almost always “No, we can’t really just be friends,” in this case, Jesus has a ready reply.  “Of course we can be friends.  I chose you as a friend long ago.  I have longed to be your friend, when you thought I only ever wanted to be your Master.”

This little moment in the Gospel is one of the oft-neglected highlights of the story of Jesus: a turning point of great significance, when Jesus, who is teaching his disciples what it means to love one another, defines that love in terms of friendship.  Friendship is no consolation prize for Jesus: it is the goal. 

Every time we come to the altar, Jesus is there.  It doesn’t much resemble a date, but there is this one similarity, even if we don’t know it: Jesus holds our heart in his hands.  And every single time we kneel at the rail, it is as though we were looking into his eyes and wondering what will happen next.

Who is the hopeful lover here?  Is it me or Jesus?

Whose love seems to be unrequited? 

Whose longing is it that is unfulfilled?

Which of us is it who breaks the awkward silence with that telling question – Can’t we just be friends?

It’s a question that almost always leads to heartache – and as you realize that you also notice that Jesus still holds your heart in his hands.  And you wait for him to crush it, as you suppose he can, since he is the Son of the Most High God, Lord of all.  And since you know that this is the moment when hearts are crushed, the stars are dimmed, and the birds cease their singing.

There you are, face to face with Jesus, who always calls you to his altar.  And your heart is beating faster now; it is still in his hands.  But he does not crush it; he will not.

And the question hangs silently but palpably in the air between you: Can’t we just be friends?

“My dear,” he says to you: “I have called you my friend.  You did not choose me but I chose you.”

And he still holds your heart in his hands and he does not let go of it; he will not.  But now you know it’s safe, that he will never break your heart.   And you begin to see what a friend you have in Jesus.

Thanks be to God.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

13 May 2012

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia