Already There

It isn’t so surprising, really, that no one noticed him. After all, there was quite a scene happening, and he was far from the center of the action. He was standing on the edge of a growing crowd made up of a hodge podge of religious fanatics, seekers, skeptics, and the merely curious. At the heart of the crowd was a cluster of powerful men – priests from the Levitical tribe, leaders of the synagogue, members of the liturgical elite. And in the center of it all was John, his feet still wet from the water of the Jordan, his eyes bright with the passion of clarity and purpose.

So it isn’t so surprising that no one noticed one quiet, undistinguished man standing alone outside the crowd. After all, he wasn’t nearly as entertaining as the showdown happening in the center. Now, I say showdown, but it was more of a conversation, really, and not a particularly unexpected conversation either. The people standing around this inner circle of baptizer and priests had been saying for weeks that it wouldn’t be too long before the temple in Jerusalem sent envoys out into the desert to check out this wilderness prophet. And there they were, just as expected. The priests and Levites, faithful servants of the Lord and his temple, had finally come to find out who John was…and who John thought he was, what he was doing…and why he thought he was allowed to do it.

These are not surprising questions. After all, these men were experts in ritual purification. These were the priests who were responsible for the offerings in the temple, those sacrifices of blood and flesh and food that were intended to make right one’s relationship with God. So if this John was offering a baptism that was intended to do the same thing, well, then, it made sense that these priests would want to come see for themselves.  

So on the surface, this conversation is nothing more than a kind of on-site inspection. Who are you, what are you doing, do you have the proper licenses and permits. But almost immediately, John makes this routine review something far more extraordinary, far more entertaining for the gathering crowds. Because right away, without an ounce of fear or irony, John says the word, “Messiah.” And suddenly this conversation is not just about the technicalities of ritual law; suddenly this conversation is about that thing that is of ultimate importance: the Savior, the Son of Man, the Hope that lies in the heart of every faithful Jew. And John has the audacity to say that that Hope, that Messiah, is coming – not someday-my-prince-will-come coming, but coming right now. In fact, John says, he is already among you. He is already here.

Now this is a surprise. The Messiah is here? Already? But where are all the signs and portents? And where the heck is Elijah? He’s supposed to come first, isn’t he? The priests and Levites take a breath as if to speak, but let it out again. They shake their heads, fold in to one another, and the conversation is over. The show suddenly ended and the curtain closed, the people begin to wander off in twos and threes, some following John back to the Jordan, some heading to their homes, others hanging around to see if anyone else has anything interesting to say.

But still no one notices the man who continues to stand very still as the current of the crowd swirls around him. No one, that is, except John, who gives his cousin a nod and a serious smile before he heads back down to the water. John knows that it is not yet time. And John knows what to do in the meantime. He is to wait, and hope, and keep his feet wet. All while the man continues to stand alone, watching these beautiful, broken people, feeling their excitement and their longing, knowing that their world has already begun to change. He stands, waiting for the moment when he will move into the center, for the moment when he will finally transform everything, for everyone, for all time. He stands, the one they are all desperately searching for, already there.

It isn’t surprising, really, that we don’t notice him, either. There is so much in our lives that grabs at our attention. The scene at the center is so often taken up by other things, some very, very good, and some horrid. It can be taken up by brilliant conversation or by gossip, by a great love or by infatuation, by the appreciation of art and music and dance or by acquisition of things and things and more things, by the full agenda that feeds our hearts or by the busyness that empties our souls, by the conviction that leads to righteous action or by the undirected anger that leads to destruction, by the celebration of health and the beauty of our bodies or by the objectification and harassment of those bodies, or the sickening terror upon hearing the word “cancer,” or the slow agony of watching a family member slide into depression or dementia.

In the presence of these scenes – some good, some bad, some merely diverting, some wholly arresting – it is no wonder that we don’t always notice him. Even when we pray or come to worship, looking for him, hoping that he will come to us, that he will fix this, forgive this, free us from this, we sometimes just don’t notice him.

But he is already there. He is there when we are blessed or brokenhearted, when we are praised or persecuted, when we make merry and when we mourn. He is there with the oppressed, with the captives, with the prisoners. He is there in the ruined cities and in the former devastations. He is there with the missing, the abused, and the lost. He is there with those who march in protest, in Hong Kong and Ferguson and Washington, D.C. He is there with the families of Tamir Rice and Michael Brown, just as he is there with the police officers who shot them. He is there with women who have been raped and received no justice, just as he is there with the men who raped them. He is there in Olney, in Kensington, in Frankford, with the drug-dealers and prostitutes just as he is there with the priests who minister to them. He is there in our city schools, he is there in City Hall, he is there in the halls of Congress. He is already there.

And he is there with you. He is there with you at your home and at your work. He is there with you in the hospital and in the nursing home. He is there with you in your families and in the strangers you pass on the street. He is there with you at your sleeping and at your waking. He is there with you in your Advent and in your “Christmas season.” He is there with you in your pew and on this altar. He is already there.

He is already there, and that has changed everything. But he has not yet come fully to the center, not yet come again in great power and glory, putting all things in subjection under his feet. So what do we do to notice him in the meantime? We do what John did. For even with all his self-proclaimed unworthiness in the face of the one who will come after him and baptize with the Holy Spirit, John continued to baptize with water. He just kept doing the thing that he did.

Now if John was unworthy even to untie the thong of his sandal, surely you and I are unworthy to take out the recycling bin that holds the shoe box that his sandals came in. But we can still keep doing the thing that we do, with the passion of clarity and purpose. We can teach and preach, sing and bake. We can fix policies and fix bones, we can study and sell and serve and stitch. We can do that thing that we do, and we can do what we can. If he will come again to restore all of Creation, we can at least bring our own bag to the grocery store. If he will come again to cover us all with the garments of salvation, we can at least knit a scarf for a Soup Bowl guest. If he will come again in great power to judge the living and the dead, we can at least stop judging ourselves. If he will come again to execute judgment and righteousness, we can speak out against marriage inequality, unequal pay for equal work, and systematic torture, and we can speak up when we see the ugliness of racism in this city, especially those of us who are white and therefore privileged.

This is how we notice that he is there. Because when we walk in his way, we find the true center – of our hearts, of our lives, of our own priesthoods. And in that center he stands, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, already there. O come, let us notice him.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

14 December 2014

Saint Mark's, Philadelphia

Mtr. Erika Takacs, - Nov 23, 2014, Feast of Christ the King

Beehive Hope

“In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”  (Mk 13:24-25)

Back at the beehive, when the Gospel reading for today is read, the anxiety level is somewhat elevated.  Those unsettling words are a little too close to home at the beehive, what with millions of bees continuing to perish for unknown reasons, as the phenomenon we call “colony collapse disorder” continues to plague the world population of honeybees.  Words of foreboding and warnings of woe are a dime a dozen around beehives, as so many bees have seen their way of life threatened.  And the coming of winter is precisely the season when beehives are in danger – it’s during the winter months that things go badly for the bees.  Last winter the rate of loss was a bit improved – 23.2% of managed bee colonies came to their end in the US, down from more than a 30% decline the previous winter.[i]

Still, if you want to look for communities in crisis, you need look no further than the nearest beehive.  A pattern of un-explained, large scale demise has been plaguing honeybees for years now.  Troublesome as this is for us, just imagine how it feels to the bees.

You’d expect the bees to feel a bit defeated.  You’d expect them to do a bit of self-examination and reflection about why things are going so badly.  You’d expect them to make demands of their leaders.  You might even expect to find some protests taking place at your local hive.  You’d expect frustration at the inability to find solutions to intractable problems that leave so many honeybees dead for no good reason at all.  Why, you’d expect some of the bees to blame the whole thing on illegal immigrants.  You’d expect the bees to be setting up check-posts for the Ebola virus, or some other ague, lest that be the real cause of colony collapse.  You’d expect see a rise of mean-spirited religious fundamentalism among the honeybees.  You’d expect to see warring adventurism on the part of the stronger colonies, and perhaps you’d expect to see the less well-armed bees resort to terrorism.  You’d expect old ethnic and racial tensions to rear their ugly heads among the bees.  You’d expect to see clashes between the honeybee police and the drones.  You might expect to see some looting in the hives when tensions get particularly high.  You’d expect the gap between rich bees and poor bees to be ever-widening.  You’d expect the economy to struggle and that wages of the average worker-bee would be static.  You’d expect to see a kind of intransigence in the halls of beehive governance, and a culture of name-calling, deception, and self-serving to permeate those halls.  And you’d expect the most inane, unhelpful, and polarizing coverage of all this on the 24-hour-bee-news-networks.  With so much death, so much destruction, such dire circumstances among honeybee colonies – and with no good explanation - you’d expect to see all these things – wouldn’t you?  If the honeybees are anything like us, you’d expect to see all that and a whole lot more.  I can’t find any social research about these aspects of the inner workings of honeybee society, so I leave it to your imagination and to mine.

But in a related matter, it is time that I told you of a semi-secret plan that several of us have been working on here at Saint Mark’s.  There have been meetings that we have not told you about – mostly they have taken place at undisclosed locations.  There have been discussions with consultants.  Experts have been brought in.  Construction is being planned; site selection has been carefully evaluated.  So it’s time you heard about it from me.  Some time this coming spring, we’ll be adding a new structure to the property: we’ll be adding a beehive to the gardens of Saint Mark’s – or more likely, we‘ll be adding several hives over on the east end of the property, somewhere near the Lady Chapel.

This is not the time or the place to discuss the details.  But from time to time in the planning for this experiment, people have asked me: “Why bees?”  And this is a sensible question that deserves an answer.  I have several.

For one thing, bees are a symbol of the Resurrection.  If you look at the detail of the carving on the pulpit I am standing in, you will find, among the flowers and butterflies and vines depicted there, the regularly recurring form of the honeybee, whose emergence from apparent disappearance all winter long has long put Christians in mind of the Resurrection, not to mention the sweetness of their honey!

For another thing, bees are a symbol of Christian virtue because of their diligence at their work – and there are plenty of you here who know how much diligence is required at this sandstone hive here on Locust Street, where prayer and outreach go on each and every day, week in and week out.

For another thing, the world needs bees.  Even here in the city, we need bees to pollinate our trees, and flowers, and community gardens.  Bees are fantastic contributors the to the general welfare, so providing a home and a refuge for bees, a place for them to thrive, is a service to our neighbors and to our city.

So there are three good reasons to have honeybees here on Locust Street.

But here is another reason that bees make good sense for us, why this ancient symbol is important for a modern people: because despite years of colony collapse, the bees haven’t disappeared altogether; because even though the honeybee world is crashing and burning in many places, the bees still keep making honey; because even though the hives are in trouble, the bees have not given up. 

In this day and age honeybees are a sign of hope, when everything is falling apart, precisely because everything has already fallen apart for the honeybees – but they are far from finished off.  Yes, honeybees are a sign of hope in a collapsing world!  And all too often this world seems like it is falling down around us.

Jesus said to his disciples, "In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken….”  Lord, have mercy – he was expecting things to fall apart!  But that’s not all he said:  “Then,” he said, “they will see `the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”

No one who heard him seemed to worry about whether or not they themselves would be among the elect - who’d be in and who’d be out - and I suggest to you that this is exactly how Jesus intended them to hear him – not pre-occupied with themselves and their own sense of identity.  Rather, when they heard these warnings, they were attentive to Jesus and what he was disclosing about himself and the hope that awaits his people, even after the whole world has fallen apart.

“Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.” Keep awake!  For you will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with power and great glory!

My friends, the honeybees may give us a run for our money when it comes to troubles, but if you want a picture of a world that is falling apart, you hardly need me to draw it for you.  We cannot even speak to one another in this country, let alone speak peaceably.  We can hardly speak to other Christians, let alone speak lovingly to Muslims, as we are called to do.  We cannot seem to find solutions to the problems that plague us, even though most of them are problems of our own making.  Colony collapse is too quaint a picture for the misery we visit upon one another in our own city, our nation, and abroad.  Our drones alone are more deadly – more apocalyptic – than any swarm of bees could ever be.  Mind you, we’ve got a lot worse than drones flying around the skies – and so do others, who have poorer judgment than we can imagine.

If you are looking for reasons to riot in the streets you will find them.  If you are wondering whether justice has faltered in the public square, it is probably worse than you think.  If you fear for the future of the planet, your fears look well founded to me.  If the wounds of war have left you frightened, uncertain, and hopeless, you are not crazy, you are a casualty.  And if you suspect that collapse is not so far away, just ask the bees.

Which is why - in the middle of a troubled city, in the middle of a troubled world - we need a beehive right here!  God willing it will survive, but if it doesn’t we will try again.  We need a beehive as a living icon of the ruin that pervades the created order on the one hand, and of Christ’s insistent Resurrection on the other.

We need a beehive to remind us that when all goes dark, and winter seems like it will never end, and everything has collapsed, the promise of the coming of the Son of Man with power and great glory still lies close at hand.

We need a beehive as a sign of solidarity with all those who suffer and who perish without explanation, without justice, without a chance.

We need a beehive where the buzzing bees remind us that Christ’s call to us is a call to hear his good news even in the midst of adversity, a call to follow him even though the way is hard, a call to be hopeful even though the winter is long.

Some people, no doubt, will find it a bit nervous-making to walk along the street in the vicinity of a beehive.  Some fear the bees’ stingers more than they value their social contributions.  Some will check to make sure they have their EpiPens close at hand when they get near the Lady Chapel.  Thus will it ever be.

God willing, the plague of colony collapse disorder among honeybees will come to an end before long.  But until it does, I pray that a beehive at Saint Mark’s will be a quietly buzzing sign of the hope in Christ that we proclaim even though the world seems to be falling apart around us.

And when this hope becomes hard to believe in, and we are ready to dismiss Jesus because, after all, things didn’t unfold just exactly in the way he said they would, and the threat of darkness presses in on us again, and the winter has chilled us to our bones, then we will go together to the hive, and collect the honey that the bees have made there, and we will feed it to one another, and by God’s grace and the diligence of his bees, we shall delight in its sweetness.

Thanks be to God!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

30 November 2014

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

[i] Alex B. Jones, et al, for the Bee Informed Partnership (beeinformed.com), preliminary report, May 23, 2014