Miracle Enough

You may listen to Mother Takacs's sermon here.

 She was too much of a good girl to leave it at that first statement. If ever there were a good girl in the Gospels, it would be Martha, the sister of Mary and Lazarus. She was the one who took care of everyone, who set aside her own needs time after time, who always put herself second or third. Scripture does not tell us about the birth order of these siblings, but surely, surely, Martha was the eldest; she was the big sister, the responsible one, the good girl.

And so when her baby brother died suddenly, and too young, she was the one who bathed the body. She was the one who wrapped him in his shroud, who arranged for the burial, and who set out dates and grapes and bread and wine for the neighbors who came to share in her family’s mourning. And when she heard that Jesus had come – finally – she was the one who rose from up from her sackcloth and ashes and went outside first to meet him.

But when she saw him, on the road, away from her house of mourning, away from her sad-eyed guests, away from her sister with her river of tears, she knew that she just had to say something, and before she could stop herself, she, the good girl, blurted it out. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She heard the words slice through the air and watched as they pierced Jesus’ already broken heart. And as good as it felt to get them off her own aching chest, she was too much of a good girl to leave it at that. And so she went on: “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” She knew as she said this what she was doing. Perhaps she did hope against hope that Jesus could actually do something for her brother or for her pain, but mostly she felt herself doing her old Martha thing – caring for others, refusing to wound with her words, not letting her own pain overwhelm anyone else.

And so it was easy to let herself be drawn into this deep but slightly abstract theological conversation. Your brother will rise again. Well, I know; he will rise again on the last day. I am the resurrection, I am the life, and those who believe in me will never die. Well, yes, Lord, she said, I do believe this. But even as she said it, she wondered if this was just one of those things that people say, like – Your brother is finally at peace now, he’s in a better place, God just needed a new angel, Lazarus was too good for this world. I believe in eternal life. It didn’t make her feel better, with the pain of her first statement still throbbing in her body. If you had been here, Jesus, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and that I believe with all my heart.

If you had been here, Jesus…and why weren’t you? It’s the question that has been circling in our own minds, filling our hearts with a prickling unease, a disquiet made worse by the fact that, unlike Martha, we have heard the beginning of the story. We know for sure that Jesus did get the report that Lazarus was sick – he knew, and he did nothing. He sat on his heels, reassuring his disciples that all of this would lead to God’s glory. He knew and yet he waited, two long days, before setting off towards Bethany. This seems callous and cold, a kind of stunt to show off for God. But surely that was not Jesus’ intent? Lord, we want to say, where were you? If you had been here, her brother would not have died. What do you have to say to that?!

Now Jesus doesn’t have much to say that, but John does. Jesus is far away, John tells us, beyond the Jordan, when word comes to him about Lazarus. He waits two days, then takes at least one more to travel all the way past Jerusalem to Bethany, only to find out that Lazarus has been dead for four days, dead, in all likelihood, before Jesus first heard that he was ill. Clearly, Jesus could not have gotten there in time to heal him; he may have multiplied loaves and fishes and walked on water but as far as we know the Gospels hold no record of his teleporting himself, at least, not until after the resurrection. So these two days of waiting are not about missing an opportunity to raise Lazarus from his sick bed; they are about being sure of the opportunity to raise Lazarus from the tomb. Four days was enough in ancient times to be certain that someone was really and truly dead, dead enough that to be brought back to life would be a true miracle.

But this grand miracle moment was not about Jesus’ showing off. He did say that this event was for God’s glory, but remember, “glory” is a loaded word in John. This glory does not look like Jesus standing before the tomb with the wind whipping his hair, crying, “Lazarus come forth” while the timpani rolls and Lazarus leaps out and men gasp and women swoon and Jesus is mobbed by an adoring crowd. That’s not glory in John. Glory in John looks like this. This is what this event leads to. Jesus’ raising of Lazarus is the straw that breaks the Sanhedrin’s back, that finally pushes the Jewish leadership to actually sit down and make plans to have him killed. This is the glory of which Jesus speaks, the only glory that he will accept.

But as reassuring as these truths are, Martha’s statement is still out there, ringing in our ears. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Couldn’t you have sensed that he was sick; couldn’t you have healed him from afar? Lord, if you had been here…it is a challenge that lingers, heavy in the air like smog, a challenge that resonates in the hearts of all of those others who were looking for their own miracle and didn’t find it. It is the challenge of the man in Capernaum whose son wasn’t healed from his fever from far away. It is the challenge of the other invalids who had to remain at the edges of the bubbling pool by the Sheep Gate. It is the challenge of the blind man’s friend who had been deaf from birth, of the sailors whose boat was swamped in the same storm that the disciples survived, of the other women caught in adultery, the other men possessed by demons, the other sisters of dead men. Lord, if you had been here, this wouldn’t have happened.

And it is a challenge that echoes through the centuries into the chambers of our own broken hearts. Lord, if you had been here, my father would not have had a stroke. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have first tried heroin. Lord, if you had been here, my student would not have been killed by that drunk driver, my nephew would not have come home safe from Afghanistan only to shoot himself, my mother would not have died from cancer at 45. Lord, if you had been here, none of this would have happened.  

When Martha has finished her conversation with Jesus, she dutifully fetches her sister Mary. She pulls her aside and tells her, Mary, my beloved, the teacher is outside and wants to see you. And Mary, impulsive, runs from the house, runs up to Jesus on the road and then lets the words run right out of her mouth. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And she, unlike her sister, lets this challenge just hang there with all of its withering implications. You could have changed this. Where were you?

And Jesus, remarkably, has no answer. He says not one word. He doesn’t equivocate, or explain. He doesn’t offer platitudes or prophecies. Because he knows that ultimately there is no satisfying response to this challenge. He knows better than anyone that he has not healed everyone. There are still sick people in Galilee, still possessed people in Tyre and Sidon, still dying people in Jerusalem. He knows that he cannot, he will not, he does not choose to take all of the suffering out of this world. He never did, and he never will. He knows that sometimes the blind do not see, the lame do not walk, the dead are not raised. He knows that sometimes people’s minds are so broken that they start shooting their colleagues on a military base; he knows that sometimes babies die from SIDS, which means for absolutely no reason at all. He knows that sometimes the chemo doesn’t work, that the recovery doesn’t stick, that the heart just gives out. He knows that sometimes dry bones are just dry bones.

He also knows that he is the resurrection and the life and that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. He knows that there is a balm in Gilead, that there is a kingdom where sorrow and sighing flee away, where God reigns. He knows that he will raise this friend, this brother, this disciple from the dead. He knows that what he will do in a few short weeks on the cross will change the world. But he also knows that none of this – none of this – makes suffering go away. It just doesn’t. And so he does the only thing he can. He stands with Mary and Martha, with the mourners and the neighbors, and weeps. See how he loved him, the crowds say. See how much he loved; how God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, to live and die as one of us, to walk with us, to stand with you and with me and with all the world and sometimes, to weep with us. To stay with us and weep. And perhaps that is miracle enough.    

There ought to be a unicorn

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

Night is coming when no one can work.  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.  (John 9:4-5)

They say that dog-owners start to look like their dogs, or in some cases that dog owners share the personalities of their dogs.  In my case, you can decide whether or not I look anything like my dogs, but I have to admit that if there is a breed whose characteristics I share, it is probably the Labrador.  Labradors are happy, optimistic, tail-wagging dogs, whose besetting sin is their love of food.  Labradors are not prone to frequent incidences of depression, addiction, or suicide, so those of us who are Labrador-like should tread more than a bit lightly if we speak of such things.  And of course such things are seldom spoken of in church.

Today’s Gospel reading invites me most obviously to speak of blindness – but of course blindness is a stand-in here for whatever malady disrupts, distorts, or disfigures the life God gives us.  It’s a lot easier to speak of things that are not our problem, than to speak of problems that secretly and silently grip people and families in our midst, and even some of us.  There may be no good reason to lump depression, addiction and suicide together, except that these three are all tendencies that the Labradors among us sometimes have trouble understanding: they are easily mistaken for something they are not, the sufferer is frequently blamed for the suffering, and the suggestion of moral failing is often tied up with the experience of each – a suggestion sometimes advanced by the church.

Not far beneath the veneer of American life, however, lies a great deal of depression, addiction, and suicide.  It’s not my aim to discuss any of these clinically, and it’s certainly none of my business to do so.  It is my aim to acknowledge that even we Labradors are affected by depression, addiction, and suicide when the people we love suffer.  And we know that all the tail-wagging in the world cannot bring an end to their suffering.  And it is my aim to ask whether or not Jesus can do anything for those who suffer from depression, addiction, or suicidal tendencies.

I’m looking at the story of the man who was born blind, and who sits and begs, since this is the only occupation available to him in first century Palestine.  And it begins with a question that is often asked of those who suffer with depression or addiction, or who commit suicide: Whose fault is it?  Was it his own short-comings?  Or was it a failure of his parents, who should have brought him up better?  Whose fault is it?  I’m not saying this is the right question, or a good or a reasonable question.  I’m saying that lingering around depression and addiction and suicide you will often find this question:  Whose fault is it?

Now, this is not one of those stories where the afflicted calls out for Jesus’ help; Jesus takes the initiative here (after his disciples ask whose fault the man’s blindness is).  And there is this unusual moment when Jesus spits into the dirt to make mud, which he spreads on the blind man’s eyes, then sends him to the Pool of Siloam to wash, and the blind man’s sight is given to him – not restored - but given to him for the first time in his life.  What are we to make of this?  If it is not a prescription for curing blindness (which it most certainly is not), how can it be a prescription for depression, addiction, or suicidal ideation?  Where are we supposed to smear the mud for these troublesome realities?  What are we supposed to wash?

A few weeks ago I got a message that a young man I knew when he was a boy had died.  I hadn’t seen him in years.  I guess he’d be in his early thirties now, but in my mind he is eleven or twelve years old.  No details accompanied the news of his death, only the suggestion that he had been sick.

Sick?  I wondered.  What kind of sick?

A day later, maybe less, came the smallest detail – he’d been suffering with depression for a long time.  ___  ___  ___  And now he’s dead.  A gap was left between these two pieces of information for me to fill in, and it was obvious to me how I was supposed to fill it.  As if there is anything obvious here.  As if there’s a cause and effect that are immediately apparent.  As if such a tidy explanation might make sense of either the depression or the death.

There is nothing obvious about depression, or about addiction, or about suicide.   The causes and effects are deeply shrouded.  There are no tidy explanations to be found.  There is only the often secret truth that life is disrupted, distorted, disfigured in the face of these afflictions.  And there is no single story that neatly wraps these three painful realities into a neat package.  What they share is a lot of secret, silent suffering.  You’ve got your story – your stories – and I’ve got mine.  I could stack up the stories of depression of people I love and care about.  I could stack up the stories of ruinous addiction.  I could catalog the stories of suicide.  The details are important – but not right now.

Another thing that depression, addiction, and suicide have in common is how the sufferer is rendered powerless over the affliction.  We Labradors find this hard to grasp.  Shake out of it! – we want to cry.  Just stop drinking!  Just say no! – we want to counsel.  See how much you have to live for! – we want to advise….  As if advice was what was needed in the face of a dark power, more powerful than the sufferer.  As if determination could lift the cloud.  As if you could ever really be stronger than the addiction.

So, I’m looking at this story of the blind man and the mud, and the pool.  And I think, that’s right, there ought to be a kind of mud we could use.  There ought to be a vial of holy spit.  There ought to be a pool somewhere in which people could go wash.  There ought to be a rock you could go kiss, or a statue you could touch.  There ought to be a secret incantation they teach us priests to sing over the suffering.  There ought to be a trail you could walk, or a spring from which you could drink.  There ought to be a shroud you could lie under, or a hallucinogenic you could ingest.  There ought to be a shaman who could visit you and smoke that could surround you.  There ought to be a mountain you could climb, or a cave whose depths you could go down into.  There ought to be a sacred fire you could burn things in, or oil that you could be anointed with.  There ought to be a dance we could dance around you.  There ought to be a holy person with healing touch you could visit.  There ought to be a rainbow whose end you could locate.  There ought to be star whose light could reach you with a special power.  There ought to be a unicorn somewhere to which you could make a heroic journey, to find him in his sylvan glade, to approach him softly, and to reach out or lie down and entreat him to heal you with the touch of his mystical horn.

There ought to be.  But there is not.

Another thing that depression, addiction, and suicide share is darkness.  They afflict because they block the light, obscure the sun, and cloud the vision.  I’m speaking figuratively, of course, but it might as well be literal.  Maybe if you stretch it, you can even think of these afflictions as kinds of blindness.  If you do, you can connect back to the story of Jesus and the man born blind.  And I’m trying to discover if Jesus can do anything for those who are depressed, addicted, or suicidal, absent the spit, the mud, the pool, or the unicorn.  And I notice that Jesus did not say that it was the spit, the mud, or the pool that gave the blind man his sight.  He said that what gave the man his sight was he, himself: “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Jesus warned that night was coming when no one could work.  What did he mean by this?  I imagine that people who struggle with depression, addiction, and suicidal thoughts know too well what he might have meant, are all too familiar with the coming night, with the darkness that settles over the body, the mind, the heart.  And what’s needed when the darkness settles is not a pep talk.  And it may or may not be medication, or rehab… what’s needed is light: light powerful enough to pierce the gloom that settles over the body, the mind, the heart.

Jesus said, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  This is why he can do something for those who struggle with depression, addiction, and whose thoughts turn to suicide.  Because their lives have become shrouded by night, but he is the light of the world – as long as he is in the world.

How does the light of Christ make its way into the lives of those who suffer the despair of depression, addiction, or suicide?  If there is no spit, no mud, no pool, no unicorn, how does the light find its way in to the darkness?

Light bends.  Darkness sinks to cover what it will, but light bends to find its way to where it is needed.  Interestingly, light only bends when it passes through some other substance: through a prism, or through water, for instance.

Maybe you are that substance that will bend light for someone who needs you.  Maybe your doctor is the substance through which light will bend to find its way to you.  Maybe a twelve-step group is the prism through which the light bends.  Maybe it’s getting your meds right, or maybe it’s figuring out that you can do without the meds, at last.  Maybe it’s the hour you spend here in church, which is the only hour of peace you can find.  Maybe it’s the visits to your mother’s grave, or re-reading the letter your father wrote at the end of his life.  Maybe it’s keeping the appointment with the shrink for another week, even though it has become tiresome.  Maybe it’s the hour you spend in service to someone else who needs you.  Maybe it’s the sound of bells calling you to prayer, or the words of a hymn that you can’t get out of your head.  Maybe it’s an image of our Lady that sometimes appears repeatedly in your imagination even though you don’t believe in that sort of thing.  Maybe it’s something as obvious as the stars that twinkle on a clear night, or the sun that shines on a clear day.  Maybe it’s a passage from Scripture that begins with a question – whose fault is this man’s misfortune, his own or his parents? – that sounds just like the accusations of fault you hear about your own affliction, your own depression, your addiction, your thoughts of ending it all.  And maybe it’s the reminder from Jesus that it’s not your fault or your parents, and it never was.  Maybe it’s the silence after a bout of difficult prayer.

It could be any of these things – the substance which causes the light to bend, and the realization to dawn that yes, Jesus is still with us, and as long as he is with us, he is the light of the world…  And the light is bending ever toward you in a thousand different ways, trying to pierce the darkness, working to find its way to you.

There is a light in the world.  Isn’t that the answer to the question?  There is light in the world that’s meant for you.  The light may need to pass through some other substance to bend toward you – so reach for the thing that will let it bend.  Or else, just let him shine on you.  Let him be your unicorn.  Let him shine his light directly in your heart, to end the night that has settled there for so long.

But do not doubt, do not forget, do not give up hope that there is light in the world.  Darkness has settled on others who nonetheless found the light, let it bend its way toward them.  And the darkness that threatens you now is not more powerful than this light – for nothing is more powerful than him, and his name is Jesus!

May the light of Jesus Christ our Lord pierce the gloom that settles over those who struggle with depression, addiction, and suicide.  May countless people, objects, sights and sounds serve as prisms to bend that marvelous light.  And may it shine in the hearts of us all, and especially on those who believed that night had fallen, and the darkness would never end.

Or, in the well-worn words of an old song: shine, Jesus, shine, and by your mercy help us all to see!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

30 March 2014

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Little Annunciations

Little Annunciations

Mtr. Erika Takacs

Imagine, for a moment, that I were to ask you to picture the Annunciation, to hold in your mind an image of the meeting between Mary and her angel. And then imagine, for a moment, that we could project those images onto the walls of the church. Pop, pop, pop – little Annunciations all over the walls. If we could do that, I would guess that we might see that our images have some things in common – all of our Marys might be wearing blue, perhaps, or all of our angels might have great fluffy wings. I would guess, too, that we might see in our projections certain echoes of great art – the gentle grace of Mary with crossed arms and bowed head from the great Annunciation of Fra Angelico; Gabriel’s flashy rainbow wings from Van Eyck’s masterpiece; or the brilliant line of angelic light that illuminates a tired, or sheepish, or scared Mary huddling in the corner in the Annunciation of Henry Ossawa Tanner.

But now, imagine for a moment, that I were to ask you to picture the moment in this story that comes right at the very, very end. No, not the “Let it be” moment – after that. After the bright greeting, after Mary’s perplexed pondering, after the angel’s announcing and Mary’s questioning and the angel’s explaining and Mary’s assenting, right there at the very end, the moment when we hear, “Then the angel departed from her.” What if I were to ask you to picture that moment – the moment when the angel left? What would those images look like projected along the walls? As far as I can tell, there is little great art to help us here, no frescos entitled After the Annunciation, no triptychs devoted to depicting Mary sitting alone in a room with angel feathers floating down upon her head.

“Then the angel departed from her.” What did Mary do then? Did she shake her head, rub her eyes, press her hand to her heart? Did she jump up and peer around the corner just to see if maybe the angel were still there? Did she sit, still for a moment, place her hands on her still-flat stomach and wonder what it would feel like to be – how had the angel put it? – overshadowed by the power of the Most High? Did she stand up, brush off her cloak, and get back to weaving or walking or churning or cheesemaking or whatever it was she was doing before her world had spun up and out of her control? Did she laugh? Did she cry? Did she bow down and worship?

We, of course, can have no idea. There is no way for us to know what Mary did in that moment right after the angel departed from her. Scripture leaves this a blank. The annunciation is over, the message has been conveyed. Mary says yes, and so the angel departs from her. His business is done. There are no further instructions, no more details, no timelines, no explanations. There is no specificity about the coming of the Holy Spirit, no Lucan equivalent of the Dickensian “You will be visited by three ghosts, one at the stroke of one, and one at the stroke of two and the third, more mercurial will appear in his own good time.” There is no angelic strategy session on how to deal with the whisperings and sideways glances of nosy neighbors, no pre-partum planning with instructions about how to let out her robes or what herbs are good for morning sickness or what to do for swollen feet or a sore back. No, the angel just does his announcing and leaves. The annunciation is this great, holy, mysterious, enormous moment, but then it is over. The angel leaves, and the silence of his absence must have been absolutely deafening. If we take any time at all to imagine what that moment after must have looked like, to imagine what that moment alone must have felt like, we could easily be left wondering if Gabriel left too soon. Why did he leave her so unprepared for what she was about to face? Why didn’t he leave her with a guidebook, a plan, a mentor, a midwife, something, anything, to help her, this young, young girl, to bear up under this burden she had just faithfully and righteously accepted?

But look carefully at what the angel said before he left. Tucked inside his great Annunciation are these words, “And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing is impossible with God.” Ah-hah! Here is a second announcement, a little baby annunciation nestled inside the big one. You, Mary, are going to bear a child, and look! – your cousin Elizabeth is going to bear her own. And with this second, little annunciation, the angel gives the girl Mary something wonderful. He gives her the gift of a next step. No, he doesn’t explain every detail of what is going to happen to her. No, he doesn’t give her any practical advice for how to be ready for any of this. But he does give her, in this little annunciation, an idea of what to do next. Elizabeth is pregnant too, he says – six months along, too, so hurry up, go and see her.

And this is, of course, exactly what Mary does. In the very next verse, she goes right away “in great haste” to see her cousin Elizabeth, to sit with her, and learn from her, to watch her and share with her and confide in her and be held by her and finally to witness the miraculous birth of son and the miraculous opening of her husband’s mouth, and the fulfillment of God’s promises to them all. And in these beautiful moments of the Visitation, Mary grew in faith and in strength and in surety about her own miracle, about her own “Let it be,” her own future, her own song, and her soul magnified the Lord, and her spirit rejoiced in God her savior.

In our lives, we will have moments of Great Annunciations and Little Annunciations. We will all, I hope, have moments when we hear the bells ring and the angels sing, when the path that God has laid before us is as well-lit as an airplane runway, when we know and feel that God is showing us something of great significance. In these moments, we will feel the solemn weight of God’s great announcement.  Do this. Go here. Serve her. Leave this behind, pick this up, follow this path. But, I hope, we will also have lots and lots of little annunciations – dozens of them, hundreds of them – little tiny signs that we just might miss if we aren’t looking closely enough. These little annunciations might be casual words spoken by a friend that seemed meaningless at the time but that return again and again to us in our dreams, or an unexpected meeting with someone on the street who tells us just what we need to hear just when we need to hear it. These little annunciations might be symbols or signs or images that pop out at us in the middle of the day, in the middle of nowhere, or coincidences or accidents or serendipities that ultimately are proven far from coincidental or accidental or serendipitous.  

Our God is a God of big signs and little ones, of grand annunciations and little, everyday announcements. God longs to reveal himself to us in both of these ways. No, perhaps not all of himself; perhaps he will not reveal to us the full plan with every single contingency or answer every single question we have. But he will always give us enough. He will always give us one more little step. The Lord himself will give us one more little sign, one more little annunciations, pop, pop, pop, all along the surface of our lives, showing us not only the way, but that even when the angels depart from us, we do not walk that way alone.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

25 March 2014, The Feast of the Annunciation

Saint Mark's, Philadelphia