Of Threats & Promises

You may listen to Father Mullen's Sermon here

Friends of mine have a doggie-cam set up in their house so they can keep track of their two dogs while they are away.  It’s like a video-baby monitor.  Their dogs are full-grown, two Labradors, like mine, and as far as I know they are not especially mischievous, so I am not sure why they have the surveillance system set up, but there you have it.  And recently when we were out one night, my friends wanted to demonstrate to me both how well it worked, and how boring and predictable their dogs are.  They can check the feed from the video monitor on their cell phones of course, and they assured me that their dogs would be napping contentedly on their bed, where the camera is aimed.  This is not a sophisticated, multi-camera system.  So they opened up the app and consulted the screen, and showed me the perfectly clear image of their bed: rumpled covers, pillows re-arranged for canine comfort, but, to their surprise, not a dog in sight.  Where could the dogs be…?  We watched for a while, expecting them to return from the water bowl or wherever, but of course we didn’t wait too long, and I never actually caught any sight of the dogs on the little screen that night.  I have no doubt that the dogs eventually returned to the bed and snuggled there together until my friends returned home.  But the image of the unoccupied bed allows me to imagine another possibility, along somewhat biblical lines.

It allows me to consider the possibility that the two dogs had identified a location that they knew to be out of sight of the camera where they could meet in secret – maybe under the bed, or behind the hamper.  During these secret meetings the dogs would grumble to one another about the long absences of their owners.  Most days my friends are out of the house for the entire work-day and a dog walker comes in to make sure the dogs are taken out for exercise and to relieve themselves. 

But during their secret meetings the dogs express their dissatisfaction with this arrangement.  Sure, our owners have made certain that our needs are cared for:  we are well fed, always taken to the vet when required, up to date on our shots, surrounded by plush squeaky-toys, included in weekend plans, and even given the bed of our masters as our very own domain to do with what we will throughout the day.  But why are our masters gone all day long, they ask each other?  Why do they abandon us for such long periods?  They would not do this if they really cared about us, if they really had our best interests at heart, if they really loved us… or so the dogs’ thinking goes as they discuss the matter under the bed, or behind the hamper, confident that their gripes cannot be detected by the watchful eye of the camera.

Over time, these complaints begin to grow in significance in the minds of the dogs.  Although the pattern of life remains more or less the same, mere repetition seems to magnify the intensity of the insult the dogs have decided they are the object of, quite unbeknownst to their owners.  And so their meetings under the bed or behind the hamper grow in length as the intensity of their disgruntlement grows.  And if my friends had invested in a slightly better surveillance system that included sound, they could detect, if they tuned in at the right times, a low and sustained growling coming from behind the hamper for at least short periods of time.

Meanwhile my friends decide to upgrade the dogs’ food to one of the costly limited-ingredient varieties made with sweet potatoes and venison.  And they add more pillows to the bed, and they keep a regular supply of stuffed squeaky-toys on hand, since both the stuffing and the squeakers are regularly removed from those that are supplied, requiring constant clean-up and, of course, replacement.  But during their secret meetings, the dogs conclude that these steps have been taken only so their masters can assuage their own guilt – well-deserved guilt, in the dogs’ opinions.  And the dogs’ moods are turning darker and darker as time goes by.

And one day, while they meet and grumble behind the hamper or under the bed, the two dogs hatch a plan.  They are fed up with being treated this way, and they would be better off if they could be left to their own devices, rather than suffer at the hands of their absentee masters.  The plan is this: when the dog-walker comes they will resist him and refuse to go out for a walk.  Should he insist, they will become belligerent: they will bare their teeth, and raise their hackles.  They will put the fear of God in him.  They will advance on him and snap their jaws, and jump up on him and push him right back out the door before he can get their leashes on them.  They will give him what for, as the saying used to go.

But they will save their energy.  For, at the end of the work-day when their masters return, they will revolt, and they will use their teeth and their claws for the purposes for which God gave them to them.  They will rise up with righteous indignation and they will seize the house from their owners and have it for themselves so they can come and go freely.  And they will stop at nothing to accomplish their goal, even if it should mean tearing their masters apart with their teeth.

The flaw in this dark little fantasy is, of course, that dogs don’t think like this – certainly Labradors don’t.

Judging by the way they greet you when you get home, dogs – especially Labradors - think that it is marvelous to see you, and don’t trouble yourself with whether or not I was bored all day, that’s behind us now, and isn’t it grand that we have the evening together, and even if you can’t stay for more than a few minutes at least we can enjoy these few minutes together, and aren’t you marvelous for filling that bowl with food for me, and did I mention how lovely it is to see you again, as I bury my snout in this bowl of food?

Dogs, when they plot secretly, do not plot about insurrection, rather, they call to mind the last time they were swimming in the Wissahickon, and they suggest to each other that surely it will not be too long before we are taken there again, and if it is, well then, we shall have to make the best of it, which surely we can do, since there will be something fabulous in the world before too long, even if it is only a third of a discarded bagel that we can pick up off the street and devour without chewing, with or without cream cheese.

No, plotting insurrection is not the way dogs think; it is the way adolescent boys think during that period of their lives when they are sure the whole world is against them, and they have been deprived the rights and privileges that are justly due to them, all because their elders do not recognize them for the remarkable creatures that they surely are, or at least will shortly become; which thoughts they nurture while playing on-line video games on their iPads in their messy rooms, using the wifi provided by their parents.

Eventually, most adolescent boys will outgrow this way of thinking.  But it is also the way so many people nowadays think about God.  God is thought of as an absentee landlord at best, and religion is the NSA of God’s complex and annoying surveillance system while he keeps his distance.  God is checking on us from afar while he tends to other matters (who knows what?) but certainly he is not paying sufficient attention to us, goes this way of thinking.  Sure, we have been provided for, more or less, but does God really appreciate us for the marvelous creatures that we are, or at least we might become?

These thoughts we nurture while pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, drilling every last drop of oil and gas out of the shale that we can possibly find, polluting the seas with islands of trash, ruining our fresh-water supply with wild abandon, burning anything that will burn, fattening ourselves with the most creative processed foods, and waging war against one another with an expertise and technical precision heretofore only dreamt of by generations of warriors long gone.

Along comes Jesus, long after the dog walker has been rebuffed.  And he finds that we have been huddling secretly to plot the insurrection, to declare our independence from him, to dispose of him as we dispose of all those who get in the way of us getting what we want: our fangs are sharpened, our teeth are bared, our claws are out.  Jesus knew what it was to be treated like this when he walked throughout Palestine, and he knows what it’s like to be treated like this now.   And he asks, “When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do?”

Please note that in this morning’s Gospel reading it is the Pharisees who supply the answer from their own imaginations: “He will put those miserable wretches to death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants….”

How do you like that for divine justice?  How do you like that for divine righteousness?

It’s not entirely clear how Jesus likes it – for it was not his answer to the question (although he does not argue the point).  But to my ears it sure doesn’t sound like good news, and maybe not to your ears either.

But I also think that there is a secret to understanding Jesus, and it is a very simple secret, so simple, in fact, that it is surprising to me that it is not more widely suspected, not more broadly counted on.  It is a secret that you must keep in mind, when you hear Jesus talk about those who are cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.  It is a secret you must keep in mind when you hear him suggest that the door will be locked to those who are unprepared when the bridegroom comes.  It is a secret that you must keep in mind when Jesus answers the Pharisees, not by promising death to those miserable wretches, but by threatening them that “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you….”

Here is the secret:  Jesus’ threats are empty, but his promises are full.

Jesus’ threats are empty, but his promises are full.  You hear in Jesus’ response to the Pharisees a threat and a promise:  The kingdom of God will be taken away from you (empty threat)… but it will be given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom (fulsome promise).

I can’t speak for the dogs of my friends, but I can certainly speak for my own two Labradors, who seem to live their lives absolutely certain that nearly all threats are empty, and most promises are full.  And I believe that Jesus is challenging us, asking us, trying to convince us to live our lives the same way; to stop living like adolescent boys who feel the need for insurrection at every turn, like dogs who plot insurrection under the bed or behind the hamper… to turn from our fear that God is out to get us, and that his threats are loaded with brimstone and fire, and instead to begin to suspect that his promises are full.

Yes, God wants us to hear his call to amend our foolish ways  - and if shouting threats is the only way to get our attention, then I suppose he is willing to let us hear the threats we seem to need so badly to hear.  But God has a long history of making empty threats, but keeping fulsome promises.   And Jesus seems to pick the pattern seamlessly.

It’s a difficult truth that you can learn a lot from a dog.  And one of the things we could learn is the fruitlessness of cultivating our resentment of an absentee God, huddled under the bed, so to speak, or behind the hamper.  By all means, be frustrated, or confused, or unclear about what kind of God this is who can feel at times so horribly far away… but do not overlook the countless times he has been nearer to hand than you could bear or than you ever expected.  Like the dogs, do not fail to call to mind the last time you were swimming in God’s grace.

And do not fail to learn this secret about God, so wonderfully demonstrated in the life and ministry and teaching of his Son Jesus: that his threats are largely empty, and his promises always full.  For when we have learned this, we can go, together with our dogs, out to work in the vineyard, where the fruit is already on the vine.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

5 October 2014

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Small Turns

You may listen to Mother Erika's Sermon here. 

Dewitt Jones is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in National Geographic Magazine for decades. He is also a film maker and a motivational speaker. In one of his films, Everyday Creativity, Jones describes his process of crafting pictures – how he has honed his technique so that he is able to execute in that split second when the shot is right, how to put himself in the right place at the right time, and how to be open to new and unexpected possibilities. In one story, he talks about how he was setting up a shot of fishermen on a trout stream in Scotland at dawn. Time was obviously of the essence – the light was changing second by second, the mist on the water was dissipating, and he was clicking away, recording shot after shot, shots that were good, fine, beautiful, even, but not great. But suddenly, he says, he heard a voice in his head say, Turn around, Dewitt – and when he did, he found himself staring at a river set afire by the sunrise – bright oranges and deep reds with the mist swirling up like flame and the trees on the bank beautiful in bold silhouette. He quickly spun himself around, got into position, and found his great shot.

I watched this little inspirational film recently at a conference for clergy wellness called CREDO. CREDO is sponsored by the Church Pension Group and is a time offered to clergy of The Episcopal Church to take some time away from their lives to reflect on their spiritual, vocational, financial, and physical health. We leave the conference with a set of goals for our lives – new dreams and ways of being that God is calling us to and some practical steps we might take to live those goals. We also leave CREDO with a ton of swag – I came home with a CREDO mug, bag, flashlight, bookmark, antibacterial spray, and, I kid you not, my very own CREDO rock. So it’s no wonder that in an atmosphere marked by such bodacious branding, Jones’s “Turn around, Dewitt” became a bit of a catchphrase. Turn around, Dewitt. Not sure where God is calling you? Turn around, Dewitt. Unsure of how to position yourself financially in the world? Turn around, Dewitt. Of course, clergy being who we are, it also became a bit of a joke – someone’s waiting behind you for that first, life-saving cup of coffee? Turn around, Dewitt. You forgot something in your cabin on the other side of the conference site? Turn around, Dewitt became as much about a life-changing moment of revelation as a light-hearted reminder to check and see if there might be something else interesting behind you.

Turn, then, and live, the prophet Ezekiel tells us. He is speaking to a crowd of Israelites who have not only fallen away from following their God and turned to sin, they have also had the guts to complain to God about the repercussions of their loose living. The way of the Lord is unfair, they keep grumbling. We want to live the way we feel like, and we don’t want God to have anything to do with it – nothing to do with our decision-making, nothing to do with our feelings, and certainly nothing to do with the sour grapes we have to eat when we live in ways that are not according to his will. Forget his will, they say – forget his wrath, his forgiveness, his justice, and his mercy. We want what we want, and if we can’t get it, it just isn’t fair.

But, even in the midst of all of this whining, Ezekiel comes to them and brings them words of God’s absolute, unflappable love. I will judge you, God says. But I still have hope for you – hope that you will repent of your sin, hope that you will get for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, and that you’ll make new decisions. Even with your hard hearts, even with your eyes fixed firmly away from me, I have hope. “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God.” So live – come back to me, and live. Turn around, Dewitt.

I’m guessing that this idea of repentance as a turning around isn’t a new one for most of you. You’ve all heard sermons aplenty about how the word used in scripture for repent literally means to turn back – to spin about, to face in the right direction. Sometimes this repentance is an abrupt about-face – we stop walking down a particular path, turn completely around and begin to retrace our steps to God. Sometimes this turning around is a complete 180-degree spin, a turn from evil to good, from sin to obedient discipleship. I will turn away from my wickedness and do what is lawful and right. I will not, the first son answers his father, but then he changes his mind, turns, and goes. Turn around, all the way around, Dewitt.

We’ll see this kind of a turn in a few moments when we move into the baptism portion of this liturgy. As the parents and godparents come together in the West end of the church with Augustus, Father Mullen will ask them a series of six questions. First, as they face out West door of the church, there are three renunciations – do you renounce evil in all of its cosmic, global, and personal forms. And we will hear three times, “I renounce them, I renounce them, I renounce them.” And then we will watch as Augustus and parents and godparents literally turn about – spin in a circle to face the East end of the church – the place of the rising Son, the place where we do what he asked us to do in remembrance of him. And the first question Father Mullen will ask them is this: “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior.” And the answer is, of course, I do – because they already have. They have already turned around, enacted true repentance, showed us in the actions of this liturgy what God longs for us to do in our lives. Stop facing that way, stop facing away, turn around, Dewitt, and look at me.

But sometimes Turn around, Dewitt, is far less dramatic. Sometimes that turning is just a few steps in this direction, or a turn or two this way. Dewitt Jones wasn’t turning from something bleak and awful to something wondrously good – his first shots were actually pretty decent. But when he turned, he found his camera suddenly lit up with life, his heart radiant and full. He found joy, and the reassurance of the hope of his calling. He found God at work in him, enabling him to work for his good pleasure.

Turn, then, and live, isn’t just a call for us when we are living in the pit. Turn, then, and live, isn’t just intended for us when we are outright denying God and ourselves as God’s beloved, called children. Turn, then, and live, isn’t just about avoiding death – it is also about fully living life, about having life and having it abundantly. Turn, then, and live is also about Turn around, Dewitt – turning from something fine, okay…good, even, to something remarkable, something ordained, a gift, grace, poured out from God upon our little heads. Turn around, Dewitt, is sometimes about taking small turns, making little adjustments in our daily life and practices, in our prayer and in our speech, so that we find ourselves in the right place at the right time to receive all the beauty that God has to offer us.

So wherever you are in your life, turn around, Dewitt. God is always calling you into a deeper relationship with him. God is always pulling you into greater alignment with his purposes and plans for you. And God is giving you the strength and the courage, poured out upon you in your baptisms, remembered for you each time you come to this altar, to hear his voice and to follow him. So repent, spin about, turn around, Dewitt, and live. 

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

28 September 2014

Saint Mark's, Philadelphia

Mercy Not Sacrifice

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

Matthew writes: “And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples.”  It is entirely possible that after dinner, a small group of those tax collectors, who had obviously had too much to drink, started carousing around the neighborhood.  And it is possible (perhaps unlikely, but possible) that as the tax collectors caroused they came across two men holding hands and walking toward them on the sidewalk.

Their talk with Jesus at dinner was already forgotten, along with whatever he had been trying to teach them.  Girls had joined them, and young tax collectors are always eager to impress girls.  And for most of human history, two men holding hands and walking down the street have presented an opportunity for a certain type of man to try to impress girls at the expense of the hand-holding men.  Whether or not girls have ever been impressed by the display that ensues remains to be seen.

So there they are: tax collectors, moving steadily toward the two hand-holding men over the concrete sidewalk.  Somehow the sidewalk suddenly narrows, and contact becomes inevitable…  Was that your shoulder that bumped into my lady?

Was it an accident?  Was it forced?  There is actually plenty of room on the sidewalk, so how did it become so narrow all of a sudden?  Who knows?  But the gauntlet has been thrown down: Was that you that bumped into my girl?

And all eyes are on the two hands, still holding each other – a privilege none of the girls has yet granted any of the tax collectors.  So the ante has to be upped: What are you… boyfriends?

Comes the answer, a little defiant: Yes, we are.

Across the street there happens to be a small gaggle of Pharisees.  They had seen the tipsy tax collectors leave the dinner with Jesus, and they had been tsk-tsking as they watched the group stumble down the sidewalk, knowing full well in whose company they had been just minutes ago.

The Pharisees, too, saw the hand-holders coming.  And they tsked another tsk without much of a second thought.  They had real blasphemy to worry about without making up new categories of it, and besides, several of them had ample reasons to want to live and let live.  They were not thinking much about the hand-holding men at all, they were thinking of how shameful it was for Jesus to associate with people like these tax collectors.  The Pharisees did not anticipate the encounter on the sidewalk, however, and had almost walked by when the shouting started.

When the shouting did start, they heard the word hissed out, and they knew that it would lead to trouble, and they stopped in their tracks when they heard it the second time from the tax collectors: I’m sick of these faggots!

And one of the Pharisees quickly and quietly reached for his cell phone and dialed 911.

But before the cops could get there, the two young men had let go of each other’s hands the better to protect themselves.  But to little avail.  When the cops did arrive, the tax collectors fled, and the two young men were found face down on the sidewalk, their bloodied faces staining the concrete before they were lifted into the ambulance and taken to have their wounds tended to.

The problem with this story is, of course, that the real version of it took place only steps from this church, just around the corner on 16th and Chancellor Streets, ten days ago.

I like my version of the story better than the real version, first and foremost because mine is fiction and no one really gets hurt in my story.  But the two young men in the real story are in real pain.  And something tells me that the hurt is only beginning for the real perpetrators of the beating that took place around the corner from here.

But I also prefer my version of the story because it began with a dinner at which Jesus was teaching tax collectors and sinners.  And in my version of the story there’s always a chance to go back to that dinner, back to that table, back to Jesus, and try to remember what it was he was teaching.  The real version of the story seems to be altogether devoid of good news.  But I’m hoping there is some to be found in my version.

Here’s what Jesus was teaching the tax collectors and sinners at dinner: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice.’  For I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.”

It’s very hard to apply this teaching to the real version of the story of the two men who were beaten so badly on 16th Street.

And it’s not even easy to apply the lesson to my version of the story, but I think it is possible.  I think it is possible to find in my version of the story an explanation of what Jesus meant when he was teaching tax collectors and sinners this way.

Many of us have dreamed of the retribution that could be meted out by way of rough justice for the violent bullies who left two men bleeding on the street, their faces badly disfigured.  It’s hard for us to believe they could have come from a dinner with Jesus.  But Jesus seems to think that he will have to sit down with them again, perhaps as they await trial, or while they serve their sentence.  He says. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.”  So I am forced to allow myself to imagine what Jesus might say to them, these hateful tax collectors, knowing full well what evil they have wrought.

“Boys,” he might say, “the last time we spoke you did not listen.  You were drunk, and you were foolish, and you were cruel, and you were stupid, and now you are paying for what you have done.  And this is as it should be.

“You do not remember what I said to you.  And you do not remember what I said to the Pharisees who thought me despicable for sharing a meal with the likes of you.  You did not hear me stand up for you.

“I told them, as they passed by, ‘I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.’  And I was talking about you.  But you did not care.

“I told them, ‘Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”’ And you paid no heed when I said this, because it meant nothing to you.

“But now it means something to you.  Because now you would be glad for some mercy.  Now you know there are many who would be only too happy to sacrifice you, to throw you to the wolves, to let you rot in prison, or even worse, which many think is exactly what you deserve.

“That may be what you deserve, but it is not what you need.  What you need is to learn my teaching.

“You need to learn that I do not wish to see you locked up and someone throw away the key – though this is the way of the world you live in.

“You need to learn that I am not offended in the least by two men holding hands, and I never have been.  It never once in my life occurred to me to address the matter, except, of course, to invite two such men to sup with me, as I often have done.

“You need to learn that I am asking my Father to change this world you live in, and that he is asking me to teach that he will do so.

“You need to learn that when my Father’s will is finally done on earth as it is in heaven then there will be no tax collectors, there will be no sinners, there will be no faggots; there will only be neighbors and friends.

“You need to learn to come back to my table, to come back to my dinner, to come back to me over and over again, because you are woefully prone to do stupid things that hurt you more than they hurt anyone else.

“You need to learn what it means to stand in the shadow of my Cross; to see what happens when cruelty and hatred tries to kill true love.

“You need to learn that my love cannot be killed, that it rises from the grave with me, and that it always triumphs over those who wield the whip, the thorns, the hammer and nails, the spear.

“You need to learn to be on the right side of love, and leave your ugly slurs in the gutter where they belong.

“You need to learn that even the Pharisees, who think very little of me, think even less of you and what you did, since at their best they are trying to be on the right side of love.

“You need to learn what it means that I desire mercy and not sacrifice.  Because right now you are in far greater need of mercy than you ever imagined you would be.

“You need to learn from your fellow tax collector Matthew, how to follow me, without question, and without hesitation.

“And some day you will need to learn to hold the hands of those hand-holding men whose faces you beat to a pulp.  And, holding their hands, you will need to learn to ask them for forgiveness, and hope that they too have learned to desire mercy, not sacrifice.

“Until then you will need to keep coming back to my table, back to my dinner, back to my teaching, back to me, again and again, because you are deeply in need of a physician.

“But you are not alone in this world.  You have a great deal of company.  Which is why I have come to you, why my table is so expansive, and why my mercy is so great.”

And then Jesus will turn from the faces of the tax collectors he addressed, and to the faces of the hand-holding men, still battered and bruised.  And he will tend their wounds.

And then he will set his table again, and ask us all to follow him, to sit and to eat, and to learn, and to desire with him not sacrifice, but mercy.

 Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

The Feast of St. Matthew the Evangelist, 2014

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia