Here We Go...

You may listen to Mother Erika's sermon here.

Short Term 12 is a new, independent film about the staff and residents of a group home for foster children. The movie opens with a scene in the yard outside the home and a conversation between Nate, a new volunteer who is visibly nervous, and Mason, a long- time staffer who is trying to reassure Nate by recounting a story about a particularly embarrassing experience he had during his first week at the home. The story hinges on the fact that residents of the home regularly try to escape, knowing that if they can get outside the gate, the staff literally can’t touch them. Inside the gate, the staff can physically restrain them; outside the gate, staff members can only follow them and try to talk them into coming back inside. As Mason tells his story, two other staff members gather around, already laughing at the punch line they know is coming. But just as Mason reaches the story’s climax, a high-pitched, ferocious scream comes from inside the house. Seconds later, a skinny, freckled, red-headed boy comes tearing out the front door, headed for the gate. Mason turns to Nate and says, “Here we go,” and he takes off. The boy is running as fast as he can, head back, arms pumping, but the adults catch up to him quickly. They flank him, grab hold of his arms, and pull him down into a seated position. Mason tells Nate to grab the boy’s legs and hold him still. The boy is wild, screaming, panting, kicking and squirming for all he’s worth. But the adults just sit there, holding him down, talking him down, telling him that it’s going to be alright, making jokes about how he was able to get a little further that time before being caught. They don’t ask him what’s wrong, they don’t tell him not to do it again. They don’t try to fix him; they just sit with him, squeezing him in from all sides, keeping him safe. Gradually the boy’s breathing slows, the screaming stops, and he settles down, head lowered, body slumped, exhausted and deflated. And when he’s settled, the adults simply help him up off the ground and walk him back into the house. Welcome to short term 12.

During the course of the movie, we never learn this boy’s full story. We learn that his name is Sammy; we learn that he seems to have a compulsion to play with any toy he can find. We see him getting his meds – four cups full of pills – and we see how he curls up into himself when his therapist orders that all of his toys must be taken away. But that’s all we know. We know that he is wounded; we know that he is broken. We know that he has suffered some kind of trauma that would likely shock and horrify us were it to be named. And we know that the staff and volunteers of the group home are committed to keeping a constant eye on him, to making sure that he is seen, that he is safe, this skinny little lost sheep.

The number of lost sheep in this country is astounding. On any given day there are 400,000 children in foster care in the United States. Most of these are placed in homes, but a full 15% of them have to live in group homes like short term 12. In the city of Philadelphia, approximately 3,000 children are added to the foster care system each year. Most of them are never adopted and remain in foster care for years. Many simply age out of the program, turn 18 and are sent into the world with precious little experience of how to live outside of an institution, on their own, alone.

And, of course, in the city of Philadelphia there are many more lost sheep than just those who are in the foster care system. Recent studies have revealed that 39% of Philadelphia’s children live below the poverty line and that almost 10% of Philadelphia’s high school students have at some point been homeless. And our public schools are in the direst of straits: A $304 million budget deficit. 24 fewer schools than last year. Class sizes as high as 48 students per class. 3700 teachers laid off at the end of last year, with only 1600 recalled this fall. 60% of Philadelphia’s schools without a full-time guidance counselor. Assistant principal positions slashed. I even read one article this week about a school principal who is now also serving as the school nurse. How in the world are those stalwart public educators who remain supposed to do their jobs? How can they possibly keep their eyes on all of these children, making sure they are safe, that they are fed, that Individual Education Programs are followed for those who have learning difficulties, that bullies are stopped in their tracks? How can all of these kids possibly be seen, kept safe and protected? How can they not be lost?

And yet, Jesus assures us that they are seen, that they are protected. In the strongest possible terms, Jesus assures us that all who are lost will be found, that those who are broken in body, mind, or spirit, those who come from broken homes, those who have lived a life of broken promises, those whose relationships with God or with others are broken because of sin, those who live with the constancy of a broken heart, will be found. The shepherd will “go after the one that is lost until he finds it.” No matter what stands in the way, no matter how much that lost sheep has hopelessly curled up into itself, God will search, God will look for the lost one until he is found. God keeps his eyes on each individual sheep and will not let even one be lost forever. As one biblical commentator puts it, this parable assures us that “God counts by ones.”* One sheep found, or one broken heart mended, or one sinner redeemed, or one child protected, or one beautiful new child baptized, all with one joyful celebration in heaven.

But here is my question for us this morning: what about those other 99 sheep? Commentators have always puzzled over the fact that the shepherd in this parable left his sheep behind. Did he just leave them alone in the wilderness? Or are we to assume that he left them in the care of another shepherd? The parable doesn’t really tell us. But what if, what if we imagined that the other 99 went with him? What if the other 99 somehow followed along, inspired by the shepherd’s bravery? What if they stretched out in a long line across the wilderness like a search party, baahing as loudly as they could to call their friend to safety? What if the other 99 helped as much as they could to find the one who was lost? Now if they did find him, of course, they couldn’t do much. They couldn’t pull him out of a crevasse or bind his wounds or pick him up on their little sheep shoulders to carry him home. But they certainly could sit with him, flank him with their wooly fluff, squeeze him tight, offer soft, reassuring sounds, and wait until more help, until a savior, comes.

            You and I, most of us, are the other 99. And we can, we must, join in the search for the lost sheep of this city. So many of you are doing this already. Some of you tutor or mentor at local schools. Some of you work for arts organizations like Play On, Philly, that prove how music can transform the life of any child. Some of our rectory residents work every day with after-school programs, or with young adults who have aged out of foster care programs. Many of you give your time or your money to that great sheepfold known as the Saint James School. And, of course, other opportunities abound. We can volunteer with our new boys and girls choir, help to plan and staff the after-school programs that we hope will accompany that program. We can join in with the parents who are helping to safely walk Philadelphia students to their new, and newly far-away, schools. We can contribute to the mayor’s Philadelphia Education Supplies Fund. We can volunteer with Boys and Girls Clubs, with Philadelphia foster care, or at the very least, we can get to know the children in our own neighborhoods. We can say to the children of this city, with one voice, in the name of Christ, you will not be lost. We will search and search and search for you until we find you.

The final scene of Short Term 12 finds the staff again outside sharing stories. And once again, a piercing, fierce scream interrupts them as Sammy, now with an American flag draped around his shoulders like a Superman cape, sprints out the front door. Mason looks at his co-workers, smiles a wry smile, and says again, “Here we go.” And the movie ends with this beautiful, slow-motion chase scene. Sammy is in the lead, the adults are following, four across on the lawn. Sammy ducks and dodges, the adults follow him, turn to the left, get behind him, around him. And we know at some level that this chase will never end, that those 4 adults, those 4 of the 99, will never be able to totally fix Sammy or make him whole. But they will keep chasing him, keep searching for him, keep their eyes on him, helping him never be utterly lost. My friends, the race is on. Here we go. 

* Stephen C. Barton, "Parables on God's Love and Forgiveness" from The Challenge of Jesus' Parables, Richard N. Longenecker, editor.

Preached by Mother Takacs

15 September 2013

Saint Mark's, Philadelphia

Catapult

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

Potentially embarrassing photos of me are floating around on the Internet.  They depict an eleven-year-old version of me at camp, with a haircut suitable for 1978, wearing blue jeans and a hastily fashioned cape of some sort made of a kind of rust colored fabric that is tied around my neck.  I am with three friends on a rock outcropping overlooking the lake, on the opposite shore from the camp.  We would have had to row boats over and scramble up the steep slope there 20 or 25 feet to the outcropping.

In our youthful enthusiasm, and fueled, no doubt, by a history lesson about the medieval period, the photos show that we had fashioned what we hoped could be classified as a catapult, made of fallen tree branches, a sapling, an old inner tube, and lots of twine.  I believe we intended to use water balloons as ammunition.  Although my memory is hazy, I think our tests of the weapon were all disappointments.  In truth, I cannot even recall what invader we thought we would repel – any and all, I suppose.

Although the details are fuzzy, I think the entire enterprise came to a quick end when one of the four of us took a wrong step and tumbled off the outcropping and partway down the steep hillside.  This emergency required a swift evacuation, and a fast row across the lake so the injured party could be taken to the nurse, who was able to tend to all wounds, as I recall.

What became of the failed catapult, whose design flaws would surely have become evident very quickly, I cannot say.

Children are supposed to make such mistakes and learn from them.  But we seem to live in a society where adults continue to act like children well into their more mature years; liable to make the same mistakes over and over again; doomed to repeat history because we are so inept at learning its lessons.

“What king,” Jesus asks, “going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?”  Jesus never meant this question as a lesson in geo-politics, and he was not asking his audience to consider the current affairs of his own day, nor of ours.

And if the New Testament is to be believed, Jesus never called anyone to battle, or even to take up arms – though he is heard from time to time telling someone to put his sword back in his sheath.

And from our particular vantage point of history, it would seem that anyone who ever claimed that Jesus was calling him to war has been proven to be a charlatan, misguided, or just plain daft.

Among the many things we adolescent boys had not considered in our lives by the time we built that catapult was what it would mean to be real followers of Jesus, although we were at a Christian camp, where worship and prayer were a part of every day’s agenda.  If you’d asked us to march around singing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” we’d have done so gleefully, with wooden swords shoved into our belts, homemade capes fastened around our necks, happily arranging ourselves into battalions of some configuration, unrecognizable as either real soldiers or real Christians.

But if you’d asked us what it would cost us to follow Jesus, we’d have looked at you blankly.  The best we could do, I’d guess, would be to tell you that during Lent we would have to put a coin or two aside every day to fill our mite boxes, but that would be a pretty neat summary of the cost of discipleship to our youthful minds.  And for our age, that would have been a reasonable limit of our imaginations.  It would not, at that time, have occurred to us that our worship and prayer cost us anything – for we had nothing else to do with our time, and no freedom to make decisions about it anyway.

But we are supposed to learn from our childhoods and to grow beyond the limits of them.

In the reading we heard today from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus was sitting at the table of a ruler of the Pharisees.  He was having an adult conversation.  He’d had difficult words for his hosts, and challenged them to be more humble and compassionate in their leadership.

The large crowds that were traveling with him must have been outside.  Maybe he had to lean out of a window and shout to them.  St. Luke does not say that these crowds were friendly to Jesus, they are not yet his disciples.   Maybe they were twittering outside that Jesus was giving the Pharisees a talking-to.

But now Jesus turns to the crowds – who it seems to him might be only too happy to be told to form into battalions and start singing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” especially if by so doing they could express their disdain for the Roman occupiers of their land.  But this is childish, and Jesus knows it.  No one has considered what kind of life God really wants them to lead.  They all want to know what God is going to give them.  But Jesus wants to know what they are willing to give to God.

And I suppose that Jesus knows they are not yet serious, he knows they have not yet grown up, he knows they are not yet ready to follow him.  So he exaggerates when he tells them, “You cannot be my disciples, for you have not considered the cost of it.  If you want to be my disciples,” he says, “give up everything you own, and then come follow me!” 

I am willing to bet that the crowd quickly dispersed – no so many were all that interested in Jesus any more!

And frankly, if that was the message of the Gospel to us today, who of us would stick around to hear the details?  Give up all our possessions?  Including my flatscreen TV?  I don’t think so!

So maybe Jesus is not teaching foreign policy, and maybe he is not truly advocating that we forsake all material goods.  Then what is he getting at?  I suppose that Jesus is trying to teach us to grow up, to consider carefully what it means to be a follower of his: to count the cost.

And I am reminded again of my childhood escapades by the lake with my friends at camp, and how our game came to a quick end when one of us took a wrong step, and went tumbling down the embankment.  We were, you recall, on the far side of the lake, meaning it was difficult to call for help.  So I suppose the three others of us went to the aid of our fallen comrade.  We’d have had to help him down the rest of the hillside to the tree where the row boat was tied up, and then we’d have to have gotten him into the boat with his injuries and rowed him across the lake to the other shore.  We’d have had to get him safely to the dock and let him lean on us as we helped him to the nurses’ station, and from there, as I say, I believe all was well.

It reminds me that every real soldier I have ever come across who’s fought in battle, has told me that in the end it’s the soldier next to you who matters far more than the enemy.  It’s the band of brothers (and now sisters) to whom you have been joined in trust.  It’s worrying about that guy, and what you can do for him – to keep him from getting shot, or to help him once the bullet or the grenade or the shrapnel has hit.

And it makes me grateful for that little childhood journey down the hillside with my wounded friend’s arm around my neck, rowing across the water back over to the other side of the lake, where, instead of weapons, there was a nurse, and a ping-pong table, and the circle of logs around which we’d sit every night, with a fire in the center, and we’d tell stories of what mattered to us that day, and we’d say prayers for the people we cared about, and we’d sing “They’ll know we are Christians by our love,” and “Kumbaya,” and “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

Which was all a process of growing up, learning about the different sides of the lake, learning how much more blessed it is to give than to receive, and how much more important it is to carry your friend down the hillside and to row him across the lake than to successfully launch your ordnance from a catapult.

And I hear Jesus calling from a window, saying, “Yeah, remember what happened last time I tried tell everyone what it would cost to be my disciple?  How hard it was going to be?  How much it was not going to be about you, but about living for others?  Where have the crowds gone?”  I hear him ask.

And I hear myself, answer: “We are just here on the other side of the lake, playing with our weapons!  Don’t worry, just as soon as one of us falls, we’ll come scrambling down, get him into the boat and row him across the water over to your side!  But for now we are doing what we must do!”

“You do what you must do,” says, Jesus, “and I will do what I must do.” 

And he stoops down to pick up the fallen branch of a sturdy old tree that still has some twine and a piece of an old inner-tube tied to it, but which is long enough for him to stretch his arms out on it when it comes time to nail his hands to it, and he carries it step by step toward a green hill, far away, across the water, hoping that when we grow up we will follow.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

8 September 2013

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Finding Your Seat

You may listen to Mother Erika's sermon here.

The book of Proverbs is, as its name implies, a collection of sayings, really a collection of collections of sayings that are intended to help its readers lead a better life. It is, in many ways, a book of good advice. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” it says…and here are a few other tidbits that might help you out along the way. Many of these tidbits are folksy and colorful and fun to read. There’s “Better is a dinner of vegetables where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it” and “Whoever blesses a neighbor with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing.” There’s the beautiful: “One who gives an honest answer gives a kiss on the lips” and the gross: “Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who reverts to his folly.” There’s the famous “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” and the infamous “Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.” And then there’s my personal favorite: “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without good sense.”

Today’s little tidbit is taken from a collection of sayings about how to act should you ever find yourself in the presence of a king: “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.” Good advice. Better to intentionally underestimate your place in society and be told you’re actually cooler than you thought you were than to be told that you are no longer on the A-list. That’s very practical, very smart good council for real, everyday living. 

And maybe this is all Jesus meant when he quoted this proverb in today’s Gospel from Luke. He was at a party, he saw the Pharisee’s guests pushing and shoving and jockeying for position, and he was reminded of this little verse from Proverbs. Better not to make a fool of yourself, he offers, by placing yourself in first class and then being told you can only afford coach. Better to sit in the cheap seats in the hope that you’ll get bumped up. Good advice. And maybe that’s all he meant. Maybe if he had seen different behavior at the dinner he would have told another proverb, like “If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, or else, having too much, you will vomit it,” or “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.”

Maybe. But maybe not. Because there are a couple of things here that seem to belie this impression of Jesus as Ben Franklin writing Poor Richard’s Almanac. The first is that word “parable.” “When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable,” Luke tells us. And we know that in parables, things are rarely simple, and they are rarely what they seem. We know that parables are not just about giving good advice, about helping us lead a better life here on earth; they are also about revealing to us something of the kingdom of God. Parables are about more than simply advising us on the best ways to act; they are about showing us who we are, who we’re meant to be, deep in our being, as sons and daughters of God.

The second thing that undercuts the image of Jesus-as-Emily-Post is that Jesus’ parable doesn’t end with his words about where to sit at a banquet. He goes on to offer a corresponding parable for the host: when you give a party, don’t invite the people in your social circle, knowing that they’ll return the favor. Invite those outside the circle – invite the poor, the lame, the blind, the sick, the needy. Put yourself in the company of the lowly, and you will be rewarded.

Jesus is not merely playing a game of quote-the-proverb here; he is upping the ante, maybe even changing the game entirely. His words are not advice on proper party etiquette or how to get ahead in the world of kings and powerful hosts; his words are about helping us to find the right seat in the kingdom of God. And he makes it very clear that that seat is with the lowly. We are meant to sit in the back of the room with the rest of the B- or C- or D-listers. Jesus doesn’t suggest this just because it will help us save face (although it might), or just because it means we can serve all of the lowly people we’re sitting with (although that’s never a bad idea). No, Jesus suggests this because these seats are where we actually belong. He is showing us, once again, that we really are lowly. When it comes to your life in the kingdom, he tells us, when it comes to your own soul, don’t bother trying to exalt yourself, because it just won’t work. So find your seat in the lowest place, the humblest place, the place where you really belong.

Now this may sound overly pessimistic or bleak. It may even sound unhealthy. But it is none of those things – it is Gospel truth, and it is good news. The truth is that you and I are lowly, we are broken and vulnerable and sinful and we need help. And why is this good news? Because there is always help to be found. Because when we find our seat with the lowly, when we know and feel the true nature of our sin-sick souls, something truly miraculous happens. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it best; he said that the point of accepting our seat with the lowly “… is not to make [the Christian] contemptible nor to disparage him in any way. On the contrary it is to accord him the one real dignity that man has, namely, that, though he is a sinner, he can share in God’s grace and glory and be God’s child.”* Knowing our sinfulness, knowing that our seats are truly with the lowly, knowing that it is impossible for us to exalt our own selves means that we can, with joy, claim our “one real dignity” – that we are, nonetheless, beloved, chosen, children of God.

And God is one who exalts. Jesus’ parables aren’t just about showing us that our seats are with the lowly; they are also about showing us that our God is one who will search us out in those seats and exalt us. Over and over again, when we are humble enough to see that we cannot save ourselves, when we are vulnerable enough to ask for help, when we are honest enough to choose a seat with the lowly, God helps, God reaches out to us and says, “Come, friend – come up higher. Sit here, with me.”

I wish that we didn’t forget this. I wish that we could always remember that God is there for us, a very present help in trouble. But we don’t always remember, we do forget. We become weighted down with hopelessness and imagine that there is no help to be found. Or we become seduced by our own self-sufficiency and imagine that we don’t need any help that’s out there. But this simply doesn’t work. The more we try to exalt ourselves, the more we fail, and the more we struggle. We struggle to forgive, we struggle to pray. We struggle to be generous, to be merciful, to speak truth with love. We struggle to love our neighbors, our enemies, ourselves. We struggle and fail, and struggle and fail, and this never ending cycle is frustrating and disheartening and exhausting and at worst we find ourselves giving up entirely and at not-quite-the-worst we find ourselves spinning out, off-center, and sick – stressed out beyond belief and sustainability; addicted to something that numbs the pain, like drugs or food or work or another person; hungry for love, desperate for home. On our own, we try, and we fail, and we struggle, and we hear again and again, no, no, get down from here, this isn’t your seat, this isn’t the place for you.

Without God, we can do nothing. But with God, nothing is impossible. So maybe we can stop trying to do the impossible on our own. Maybe we can finally stop struggling, stop laboring so hard to exalt ourselves. Maybe we can have the courage to be truly humble, to pull up a seat among the sick and the broken and the addicted and the lonely, and the lame and the poor and the unemployed and the heartsick and to know that we are at home, and that we are blessed to be there. We are blessed to know that we do not have to do this, this life, this walk, this discipleship, on our own. After all, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is not actually in the Bible, not even in the book of Proverbs. But “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid” is. “All who humble themselves will be exalted” is. And so is “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto you souls.” Come, friend, come up higher. Come unto me. That sounds like pretty good advice. 

*Taken from Life Together.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

1 September 2013

Saint Mark's, Philadelphia