Real Estate

People in southern California have a habit of talking incessantly about real estate.  It seems to make no difference whether or not they are looking for a house or selling a house, the topic of real estate is in idée fixe in southern California: a preoccupation they can not let go of.  No wonder the reality-TV industry is full of shows about real estate: how to improve your property value, your curb appeal, your neighbor’s curb appeal; how to add a rental apartment to your house, how to flip a house, how to unload a house you can’t seem to flip, how to be a first-time buyer, whether or not to put your house on the market, etc., etc., etc.

You would think southern Californians have other things to talk about – like what to do when they run out of water – but nothing fascinates them like real estate.  And it drives me crazy when I go there to visit family and friends and the conversation inevitably turns to real estate – a topic I have no desire whatsoever to hear about and about which I have absolutely nothing to say.

Except that once, and once only that I can think of, Jesus chimed in on the theme of real estate.  We heard it today in the newer translation, but I admit a preference for the older one: “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”

If you think about these things at all, you probably do not think about this as a discussion about real estate.  If this text has made any impression on you at all it may be because you heard it at a funeral – this is a very commonly read lesson at funerals.  In that context, Jesus is making the ultimate sales pitch – Have I got a place for you to spend eternity!  The real estate in question is literally heavenly: Jesus is promising that there is a place prepared for his followers in the realms to which he must travel first.  And the poetic King James translation deliberately stretches the imagination with its promise of a house that comprises many mansions. 

Jesus is not only making a sales pitch, he is also making a promise: there is a place for you wherever I am going; do not let your hearts be troubled.  Among all the mansions of my Father’s house there will surely be one that’s right for you.  But very quickly, Jesus tires of the real estate conversation.  “And,” he says, “you know the way to the place where I am going….”  Eventually landing on his signature line: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  We are not talking about real estate any longer.  And here’s why: Jesus is not peddling a faith that is primarily about securing heavenly real estate.  Jesus is gathering a community that needs to do the work of the kingdom of heaven on this side of the grave.

Now remember, Jesus has already promised the real estate: in my Father’s house are many mansions.  OK – that’s the stuff in the life to come.  But nearly all of Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, is about what we do with our lives on this side of the grave.  For the kingdom of God is at hand. 

And when Jesus speaks with his disciples about his Father’s house with many mansions, he is preparing them for his departure from this world, not theirs.  He is teaching them about how to get on with the work of the kingdom after he has gone, because that work must continue here on the ground.  And if those were important lessons for the first disciples, then they are even more important for us, since we continue the work of the kingdom here on the ground, long after Jesus ascended into heaven.  And it would not be surprising if we felt a bit like Thomas, who says to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going.  How can we know the way?”  Thomas thinks he is asking about a reward that awaits him.  He thinks he is asking about real estate.  He wants to tell Jesus that wherever he is going, he’ll follow and meet him there.  He thinks he’s asking for directions – How do I get to the mansions?

And Jesus’ reply essentially shifts the topic – Let’s not make it about the mansions.  Let’s make it about the Way; let’s make it about Truth; let’s make it about Life.  And let me define all those for you, since when you try to define them you are likely to make them all about the real estate.

The difference here is about what becomes important to us.  Because when you are fixated on real estate, then your appliances and your paint colors, and your hardwood floors, and your bathroom fixtures become matters of great importance.

But when you are more concerned with the Way, the Truth, and the Life, then other things matter; things like: who you are traveling with, and how prepared you are to treat someone’s wounds, and whether or not you can share your food with a hungry traveler who has lost hers, and whether or not your opinion really is the final definition of truth, and whether or not you can help alleviate a friend’s pain, and how to let someone die with compassion and dignity – these become real and immediate concerns.  And when these kinds of questions become real and immediate concerns, then your faith is shaped less by the promises of real estate in heaven, and more by the urgency that the kingdom of God is at hand in the here and now.

Of course, when you stop to think about it, the term “real estate” is meant to define something concrete (so to speak), more or less immoveable, permanent, and lasting.  And we want to proclaim that the kingdom of God is, if not concrete, then immoveable, permanent, and lasting.  This partly explains the church’s own penchant for real estate like this bit of property on Locust Street, about which we care a great deal.  But if our own real estate (or anyone else’s) became our chief preoccupation then we would probably be forgetting to make our lives about following the Way, standing up for the Truth, and finding real meaning in Life.

Jesus promises us that in his Father’s house there are many mansions.  This is promise of life in the world to come that we can count on.  But you would think that as Christians in a world full of pain and suffering and confusion and injustice that we might have a few other things to talk about before we spend too much time and energy talking about the real estate in heaven – which comprises many mansions: surely one to fit every style and need.

Jesus tells us that we already know how to talk about the way to address the pain and suffering, the confusion and injustice, and everything else that troubles us in the world.  Talk about him.  Make Jesus our idée fixe, our great preoccupation, the thing about which we just can’t stop talking, who just keeps coming up in conversation after conversation, about whose words and teaching there is much to be explored.  Then we might begin to discover the Way; we might begin to learn Truth; we might begin to live Life.

And let not your hearts be troubled, when at last we shall be with him in the world to come, there will be a mansion prepared in one of the many rooms of his Father’s house.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

18 May 2014

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

I am the Gate

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

There’s a village inside most of our heads.  And in the village there’s a little square where trades are practiced and craftsmen set up shop, and where the things we want to buy are readily for sale at prices we can afford.  There are plays and movies and poems and music all on offer in the village inside our heads – and they are usually our favorites.  There’s a doctor or two that some of us avoid like the plague and on whom others of us call at all hours of the day and night.  There’s a therapist too – but it’s not always clear that the therapist in the village inside our heads is the right therapist for us.  There’s a critic who stands on a street-corner and who calls out comments and posts daily critiques – stapling them to a kiosk on the corner where they can be read by anyone in the village.

Your mother sits in a rocking chair on a porch not far from the center of town, and chances are good that your father’s voice can be heard with more or less resonance in certain locations, and from certain rooms in the house in which you grew up, which is always to be found in the village inside your head.

And there’s an inner architect who works with us inside our heads to help us build and to develop the village inside our heads.  This is the architect with whom you image the addition that will double the size of your house, or the renovation of the kitchen that requires no compromise.  It’s the architect with whom you first make plans for the cottage on the shore, or the house in the country, or the condo on the square. 

In the village inside your head your pied-a-terre in the city is only minutes away from your place in the country – takes no time to get there, and the traffic is never bad.  You can have it all: a place in the mountains, and a spot right on the beach, as well as a Tuscan villa, and a little apartment in Paris.  Not only do you have an architect in the village inside your head, you also have the best real estate agent around!

All your dearest friends are also your nearest friends in the village inside your head, and they never move further away than you want them to.

Since you are listening to this sermon, chances are good that there is a church in the square in the village inside your head, and the priest or the pastor, the minister or the vicar of the church in the middle of the village inside your head is the best one for miles: knows just the right way to do things, preaches the best (and the shortest) sermons, always makes you feel good about who you are and your relationship with God.  (You have never met such a vicar outside the village inside your head, but you cling to hope.)

And there’s a mason, or a carpenter, or a handyman, or a fence-builder in the village inside your head whom eventually you and your architect hire to build a wall or a fence or a barrier of some sort around the village inside your head. Only if you have the most medieval fantasies do you also require a moat to surround the village inside your head – but some of you might.  I don’t know why you must build the wall or the fence or the barrier or the moat – after all it’s only a village inside your head – but you do, we do. We build our defenses, and there are some things that must be defended, and many of them reside in the village inside our heads.

Are there sheep in the village inside your head?  There are in mine… along with Labradors and horses.  The sheep in the village inside my head need to be protected – that’s one reason (but only one) for the wall, which in my case is made of dry-stacked field stones.

When I hear Jesus teaching, I know that he is talking about the sheep that graze in the pastures around the village inside my head.  And when I survey the lovely scene inside my head, I become aware that I am not the rector of the church in that village, nor am I the critic, or the baker, or a singer, I am not even one of the Labradors: I see that I am one of the sheep in the village inside my head, surrounded by the lovely, dry-stacked, fieldstone wall.  And I hear Jesus teaching. I hear him promising to keep we sheep safe.  I hear him assuring me from the other side of the wall: “Fear not,” he says.  “It’s true that there are thieves and bandits, there are strangers who will call your name, but fear not, for I am your shepherd.”

I am munching grass on my side of the wall, and it had not even occurred to me that I needed a shepherd, here inside my village, where everything is constructed just so, just as I want, just as it ought to be to please me.  “Don’t worry about me, Jesus,” I bleat out.  “I’m just fine here in the village inside my head.  My architect has designed this lovely wall, and my craftsmen have built it with skill and artistry.  We have no thieves or robbers here, not even any strangers – they cannot get in, for it is a very fine wall, and the grass in here is yummy!  Thanks, though!”

“My child,” Jesus calls back over the wall, “that would all be fine and well, but you do not actually live in the perfect village inside your head.  You live in the real world.  And in the real world there are indeed thieves and robbers and strangers and worse!”

And just like that, a heavy, grey cloud rolls in to darken the once bright sky of the perfect village inside my head, where I begin to quickly walk along the perimeter of the wall, with mounting anxiety.

With the cloud overhead, and me tracing the perimeter inside the wall that surrounds it, the village inside my head begins to feel small and claustrophobic, and I begin to worry if there can possibly be enough grass in here to sustain me and the other sheep.  And I keep tracing the inside of the wall, and as I do, the interior of my village feels smaller and smaller, and the cloud still hangs overhead.

And I hear a voice calling me by name, and I know the voice, for some reason I know it is Jesus, and it is the only thing that takes the edge off the mounting anxiety, as the village seems to grow smaller and smaller and the grass supply looks less and less likely to be able to feed me and the other sheep for very long.  And I begin to realize that I have been walking along the perimeter of the wall, and that there is one big problem with this wall: the wall has no gate!

I dial up the architect in my head to check with him.  “Where’s the gate in the wall?”  I ask.

“No gate,” he replies, “we didn’t see the need for it.”

No gate.  Didn’t see the need for it.

And I see the vicar standing over by the lovely church in the square in the village, and I trot over to her, panting.

“Vicar,” I say, “are we trapped inside this village?  Is this where we are meant to be?  Is it safe here inside the wall that I have built without any gate?”

And the vicar strokes my soft, wooly coat, and feels the lanolin on her fingers, and says to me, “Oh, I suppose it’s safe,” she says, “but you do not really live in the village inside your head.  I do (which is why my sermons are so good and so short) but you do not.  You live in the real world.”

The vicar can see by the look on my face that I am distraught.  She knows that I am thinking of all the disaster, plague, poverty, famine, and war that one encounters in the real world.  And I look up at her with a face that says, “Why?  Why must I live in the real world?  Why can’t I live in this lovely, perfect village inside my head, if only that blasted cloud would go away?”

The vicar smiles a kindly smile, knowing what I am thinking, and says to me, “That’s easy, child.  You must live in the real world because that’s where Jesus lives, that’s where Jesus is to be found, not here in the perfect constructs of your mind – pleasant though that thought might be.”

As the implications of what the vicar is saying begin to dawn on me, I become anxious again, even hopeless, for around the perfect village inside my head I have built a wall with no gate; didn’t see the reason.  And I wonder if I am trapped.

As if she can read my mind, the vicar addresses me: “Child, you thought that you would build an inner wall to protect you from all the evils of the world around you.  Doing so, you saw no need to include a gate.  But now you cannot tell if the wall you have built has kept your adversaries out, or kept you in.  Is it a bulwark or a prison?  Hard to say.  But since it has no gate, it could easily be either, or.  But I hear someone calling you from beyond the wall.  If I were you, child, I would listen.”

And because she has always been the perfect vicar, I take her advice.  I stand quietly, let my heartbeat slow down, and listen.

And I hear Jesus calling me by name – yes, I know his voice.  And I am expecting him to give me a carefully reasoned argument about the existence of God, and explaining the problem of evil, and unraveling the mysteries of the origins of the universe, and providing me with a light-filled vision of heavenly promises that await me in the world to come.  But he does none of that.

Instead, he calls my name again and says, “I know you have built a lovely village inside your head.  I have been there; I have spent many days with you there, as I think you know.

“There is nothing wrong with the village inside your head, and much that is right with it.  The only problem is, it is not the real world in which you and I must live.  We cannot escape all that you shut out beyond the wall that you so beautifully designed and had so beautifully built – except without a gate; you saw no need.

“Now you see the need.  And I am calling you by name to tell you that I am the gate.

“I am the gate that provides passage between the real world and all the possibilities of your dreams, your hopes, your plans, and more.

“I am the gate between sorrow and joy.

“I am the gate between darkness and light.

“I am the gate between hatred and love.

“I am the gate between sin and forgiveness.

"I am the gate between cruelty and justice.

“I am the gate between famine and plenty.

“I am the gate between foolishness and wisdom.

“I am the gate between death and life.

“You built a wall with no gate.  And in time you could no longer tell if it was good for you or bad for you.  You do need a gate.

“And I am the gate.  You may go in and come out; you will find pasture.  And you will be saved, even though you are not even sure why you need to be.

“Remember, you were not sure you needed a gate, either.

“I am the gate.  And I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly.”

And just like that, the cloud lifts, the sun is shining.  And a lovely, architecturally perfect gate appears in the wall before me, and the latch is un-done, and the gate swings open.

And it’s noisier, and more complicated and confusing out here than it was in the village inside my head.  But I look over my shoulder and see that the gate is not disappearing nor locking behind me: I can go in and come out. I leave nothing behind that I cannot return to.

But a great deal lies before me, I can see.  And a voice that I know is calling my name.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

11 May 2014

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

The Power of Walking

You may listen to Mother Takacs's sermon here.

There are a few things that the rector enjoys teasing me about. He teases me that my cassock is too short, which he sees as some sort of low-church shortcoming of my education at the Protestant Episcopal Seminary of Virginia. He teases me because when the temperature dips below 65 degrees I start showing up to work in sweaters. Most recently, he teases me because a few months ago I converted to a standing desk in my office. Some of you have seen this – I have my computer monitor and keyboard up on a shelf so that I can stand while I work at my computer. This is actually a pretty hip trend in office ergonomics – the human body, experts tell us, is not designed to sit in a desk chair all day long week after week. Standing up, even if standing still, is better for you.

I enjoy my standing desk. It’s been much better for my back, for sure, and it helps me to feel a little more engaged, more active, even if what I’m doing are mostly mental exercises. The rector thinks that I am insane. But what he doesn’t know is that if I had my druthers, I would replace the anti-fatigue mat that I stand on with a small, low-speed treadmill. Because those same experts that tell us that standing is better than sitting also tell us that walking is better than standing, not only better for your body but better for your brain. Walking, even very, very slowly, increases blood flow, feeds your brain with delicious oxygen, thereby stimulating creative thinking, aiding your ability to make connections and reach conclusions, and helping with problem solving. If you’re stuck, experts tell us, go for a walk. It doesn’t just clear your head; it actually fills it up.

Jesus must have known this. He was always walking and doing something else at the same time – walking and talking, walking and teaching, walking and telling stories or posing questions or making prophecies. As they were going along the way, we read again and again in scripture, Jesus said, or Jesus asked them, or Jesus began to teach them. Sure we have the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain, but there are also dozens of little sermons on the road.

Today’s Gospel is a prime example of this. These two followers of Jesus leave Jerusalem on Easter morning and decide to go for a walk. They head off to Emmaus with no apparent purpose in mind except to get moving and to get out of Dodge. And while they are walking and talking, the resurrected Christ comes up beside them and begins to walk along with them. Now, as we know, this resurrected Christ is not exactly like the Jesus they followed before. He seems to have the ability to transcend the laws of natural physics; he shows up out of nowhere and disappears again just as quickly. And there is something about him that makes it difficult for people to know him when they see him, something about his body that makes it difficult to recognize – perhaps, most obviously, that it is miraculously, surprisingly, not dead.

So if Jesus could show up anywhere at any time, he could have chosen to show up once these two travelers had gotten to where they were going. He could have taken the afternoon off, spent some more time with the Marys, put his feet up and enjoyed the sunny Sunday, and then popped up in Emmaus later. He could have knocked on the door, said, Hail, Cleopas, and…other guy, I am a poor wayfaring stranger, who suspects that you might be about to eat dinner. He could have talked to them about the events in Jerusalem, offered his refresher course on Moses and the prophets, all while they were setting an extra place at the table and still had plenty of time to take, bless, break, and hand over the bread. He still could have accomplished his purpose – to reveal himself to these two disciples in the act of breaking bread and send them scurrying along their way back to Jerusalem.

But Jesus doesn’t do this. Instead, he chooses to go out for a walk. He shows up along the road and uses the walk to teach, to ask questions, to begin the process of helping these two followers to see the truth of that wild Easter morning. For Jesus knows the power of walking. He knows the power of getting out there and moving. He knows that these disciples will do better with all of this if they’re walking, that they’ll make stronger connections, see the truth more clearly, love him more dearly. He knows that their hearts and minds will be more open, more alive, more energized if they’re walking. When they stop and stand still, looking sad, as they tell him of their lost best hope, Jesus gets them moving again, asking them questions, offering them new possibilities. He knows the power of walking, a power so great that it doesn’t apparently even matter where you’re going. The disciples are headed to Emmaus, and Jesus walks right along with them, even though he knows that they are going to end up running right back in the opposite direction and that all of this is essentially a fourteen mile round trip out of the way. But that’s okay. Because they’re walking, and the walking makes all the difference.

The disciples knew the Lord Jesus in the breaking of the bread. We know this to be true – the moment when Jesus reenacts the Last Supper for these two disciples is the moment when their eyes are opened, when they see that he is the Lord, the risen one, Jesus new and in the flesh. And we know that we, too, pray for our eyes to be opened to see Jesus in this way. It is the prayer that we pray in the sacristy before Mass every day – “Be present, be present, O Jesus, our great high priest, as you were present with the disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of the bread.” It is a good prayer, a reminder of the importance of kneeling here at this altar and knowing that Christ is present here and that what is put into your hands and into your mouths is, as one of my teachers used to say, the miraculous condensation of that presence, made real, touchable and tasteable for you and for me.  This morning and again this afternoon at Benediction we are powerfully reminded of the gift that is this bread broken for us, a holy food, worthy of not only our gratitude but also our humble adoration.

But we know we cannot stay on our knees forever. At some point we must rise up and walk, especially during those times when you and I can get a little stuck. We get stuck in our faith, in our discipleship. We get a kind of followers block. So what is the best thing to do? Go for a walk. And I don’t just mean go for a walk to church, although that’s always a good idea. I mean just get out and go for a walk.

You can walk with a particular destination in mind – walk to the store to buy ingredients so you can make soup for the soup bowl, walk to choir practice so that you can offer your voice in praise, walk to see a holy person or a holy place, walk to the St. James School to mentor a student or to a neighbor’s house to check in on them after their surgery. You can walk with a particular motivation in mind – walk to raise money to support breast cancer research or to raise awareness about hunger or domestic violence or sex trafficking. You can walk in protest, like those who demand action about the horrible kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria, or the assurance of a reasonable wage for all employees in this country, or the fair treatment and respect for all of those who are incarcerated.

Or you can just walk, without aim or direction but with mindfulness and intent. You can walk the streets of Philadelphia without your iPod-induced soundscape* and talk with Jesus about what you see there. What can I do for those who suffer from addictions? How can I help those who experience homelessness? How can I pray for those who rush by me looking stressed and overworked and anxious? How can I care for Creation here in this place? How can I share my joy, my smile, my eyes, my story? How can I tell those I see all around me that my heart is burning within me, that Christ is risen?

It doesn’t really matter where we’re going when we do this kind of walking, and we may end up somewhere we completely did not expect. We may even end up backtracking and ending up in the place where we started, perhaps, in T.S. Eliot’s words, “to know the place for the first time.”** So come and know Christ revealed here in this broken bread, but then rise up and walk. Go find your faith with your feet. And don’t be surprised to see Jesus, who is himself the way, fall in beside you along the road, happy, as ever to share in your walk.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

4 May 2014

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

*This suggestion taken from an article on the BBC website about the UK's National Month of Walking.

**From Eliot's "Little Gidding."