Render to God

This past August at a Starbucks in Florida there was another outbreak of the “Pay-It-Forward” phenomenon.  What happens is this: You drive up and place your order, and by the time you move up to the next window to collect your latte and pay for it, the guy behind you has ordered, and the guy in front of you has paid.  You are told that the guy in front of you also paid for you, and so you are presented with the opportunity to do the same for the guy behind you.

Various different episodes of this “caffeinated kindness,” as one writer called it, have been reported in recent years.  In Connecticut last Christmas, the kindness lasted for four days and nearly 1500 customers who paid for the coffee of the car behind them.  In Florida this past summer, it seems that 378 people paid for the coffee of the car behind them at the drive-thru, over the course of about eleven hours.  The charity came to an end when finally a customer was not willing to pay for the car behind him or her.  The barista who served this customer tried to find a way to forgive him or her, saying he didn’t “believe the final customer understood the pay-it-forward concept.”[i]

The next day the media were reporting, I guess, that the whole thing had started again – people paying for the coffee of the car behind them.  And here’s where it gets interesting…  Because some guy who is hearing this on the radio or TV, or on the web, or wherever, decides that it’s an outrage.  He decides that this is not a pattern of spontaneous generosity because the baristas are suggesting (maybe even asking) that drivers pay for the car behind them.  That information puts this guy – whose name I will withhold to protect him – in a tizzy.  That’s not generosity, he decides, that’s guilt.  So he drives over to the Starbucks in question, orders two Venti Mocha Frappuccinos (one for him and one for his wife), and declines, flat out, to pay for the car behind him.[ii]

So let’s cast this guy in the role of the villain.  Let’s say he’s the bad guy in this story.  I’m not saying he has horns and is marked with the sign of the beast, I’m saying, for my purposes, he is going to be the villain toda… not only because he insisted that his way of seeing things must be the only good and proper way of seeing things; not only because he put an end to a good thing for no good reason; not only because he squelched the spirit of generosity and kindness that this world is sorely in need of (even if only at the drive-thru of a Starbucks); not only because he felt moved to get up and into his car and make the effort to drive to this coffee shop with the sole purpose of choking off the good and decent impulses of his fellow citizens; but also because, if you think about it, he is the only guy all day who actually got free coffee out of the deal!  Yes, in his self-righteousness our villain remains the only person who benefited from the generosity of the guy in front of him without assuming any cost at all for the guy behind him, so he drives away with coffee that cost him nothing.

There’s more than a hint of self-righteousness in the attitude of the guys who track down Jesus to challenge him about paying taxes to Caesar.  The situation is different, but similar.  They have been hearing that this guy Jesus is challenging their authority.  He’s been telling parables that suggest that the poor and the outcast are every bit as likely to be favored by God – and maybe more so – than those who hold high status in the religious pecking order.  But who is Jesus to be turning over the tables in the Temple?  Who is he to speak well of tax-collectors and prostitutes?  Who is he to criticize them?

So when news reaches them of this guy who is upsetting the established order of things, they get up and take themselves over to find him and put a stop to all this, possessed of pretty much the same attitude of self-righteousness with which our villain was possessed.  And although times have changed, they must not have changed all that much because these guys decide that they will try to trip Jesus up with a challenge about taxes, which, just like in current American political discourse, you must never ever actually say are acceptable, because then you will identify yourself as a socialist at best, and probably something much more subversive than that.  I don’t know what the label they would have pinned on Jesus would have been, but I am sure they had one at the ready.

And how frustrating it must have been to find that this guy, Jesus, who has actually only recently arrived in Jerusalem, is able so successfully to turn the tables on them by refusing to let the conversation be about taxes.  “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  Pay it forward, boys, he might have said.  Pay it forward.

You can always find a good reason not to do so.  You can always find a reason to take offense.  You can always decide that one man’s generosity is another man’s guilt, and that you are not going to play that game.  So you can always put a stop to the spirit of generosity and kindness, and choke off the good and decent impulses of others by impugning them one way or another.  You can always find a way to justify not rendering to Caesar what Caesar thinks you owe him – and this ancient tradition is enshrined in the insane American tax code, and keeps a lot of political and commercial wheels turning in our own day and age.

The flip side, of course, is that you can always find a way to justify not rendering to God the things that might be God’s, because, well, who I am or – or anyone else – to tell you what you should be paying to God?

And it is absolutely correct that I have no idea what you should be giving to God.  I have no idea what number of hours you might offer in God’s service.  I have no idea what talents you might share with the church.  I have no idea how much money you should give away to strengthen God’s church and to build up God’s kingdom.  I have no idea how much.

But I do know how easy it is to decide not to do it at all.  It’s actually even easier than it is to put an end to the Starbuck’s Pay-It-Forward, because at Starbucks you at least have to confront the barista who has asked you if you’ll pay for the car behind you.  But to decide not to give to God, you don’t have to confront anyone at all.  All you have to do is say nothing, and do as little, and give as little as you want, or less.

Thank God people give at Saint Mark’s.  Every year a goodly number of us make a pledge to give all year long, and a fair number also just give something as the plate is passed.  The story we have to tell here at Saint Mark’s is definitely a story of people who give.

Now, paying-it-forward is not by any means the perfect model of Christian stewardship; I don’t think that the sole reason we should give is because the person before you gave.  But it is useful to remember that we are standing in a line here – a long line that stretches back about 165 years, over which time people have been giving and giving and giving.  And at Saint Mark’s we are surrounded by signs of deeply generous giving.

And every year there comes a time when I am going to stand in front of you like a barista and ask if you are willing to give, too, if you are willing to continue that good spirit of generosity and kindness.  And, as I say, the story here is that we usually get a pretty long line of people who are willing to say yes, and who find the good and decent impulse to give near at hand.

But I suppose that there are some who just don’t understand the giving concept.  And I suppose that in each of us there is a little bit of that guy inside us who thinks maybe this is more about guilt than about generosity, and who thinks to himself: why should I be forced to give, just because people ahead of me in line have been convinced to do so?  And since the people ahead of me in line have already been convinced to give, why do I even need to give at all, since everything seems to be paid for already?

Of course the little bit of that guy who occupies a space inside us never actually acknowledges that he is the only guy who benefits from the generosity of the guy in front of him without assuming any cost at all for the guy behind him; the only guy who drives away with free coffee.  So that’s one thing.

But here’s another thing: Render to God the things that are God’s. 

There are those who, in their self-righteousness, actually believe that everything they have belongs to them, and who cannot see that everything we have comes from God’s graciousness.  And that’s another sermon.

But to those of us who recognize that God is the giver of all good things, it is not the question of paying taxes that we have to think carefully about, it’s the giving to God the things that are God’s that takes careful consideration.

And for that there is another kind of guy about whom we never hear in the papers or on the news, or on the Internet.  There is this guy who is sitting at home, listening to the news that there are people lined up someplace at a drive-thru, paying for the car behind them.  And this guy thinks that this is a pretty good idea, and so he gets in his car and drives down to Starbucks, even though he doesn’t like the coffee there and thinks it costs too much, and he feels ridiculous ordering a “Venti” anything when you could just say “Extra Large.”

And he lines up behind the cars in front of him and keeps looking in his rear view mirror, hoping to get a glimpse of whomever it is going to be who gets behind him.  And he is hoping it will be a mom in a minivan who is harried by her kids, or a couple who have been recently arguing and need to find a way to forgive each other, or a guy in a beat up old Buick who is frustrated with his job search, or a older person who is wondering whether or not she should still be driving.  You know, someone who is in need of something more than just caffeine.

And this guy is the hero of our story – the truly un-sung hero.  He has adjusted his day for the sole purpose of keeping the pay-it-forward going.  He has gone out of his way to encourage the spirit of generosity and kindness; to add his own jolt of energy to the good impulses of his neighbors.  And remember, he doesn’t even like Starbucks coffee that much!  You know you are giving to God the things that are God’s when you are behaving like this guy – who, remember, doesn’t even get any credit for it.

It’s not because he did a careful calculation of how many coffees he could afford to buy, and then prayed that a car with only one person and who’d order only a Short Macchiato would pull up behind him.  In fact, I strongly suspect that after he paid for one car behind him, this guy circled around the block, came back, and did it again!  And he probably gave away the first coffee he bought as he drove around the block!

There is part of that guy in each of us too.  I want to be like that guy.  And I want you to be like that guy, too.  Because when we become like that guy then we begin to know what it is we have that is really God’s, so we can give to God the things that are God’s.  Then we begin to see our lives as the gifts they are – given to us by God, so much paid for by someone else in front of us, who knew that her life was a gift from God.  And this guy, so far, has no name; remains, so far, un-identified.  We don’t even know, to tell the truth, whether or not this guy exists.  Which means that this guy could be me, and this guy could be you, if we will render to God the things that are God’s!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

19 October 2014

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] USA Today online, August 21, 2014

[ii] saintpetersblog.com, August 21, 2014, by Peter Schorsch

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