What We Will Be

“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.”  (1 John 3:2)

Everyone has had this experience, I am sure: you walk into the hospital room, or into the house for the first time since the baby was born.  Or you run into the exhausted new mother or father on the street or in the grocery store.  Or you see them at church for the first time since bringing the baby home… and you look down at that little bundle of joy in her arms, or in the stroller, or maybe you are allowed to hold the precious child yourself… you peer into her eyes, and you put your finger into the tiny clutch of his little hand… and you wonder to yourself for a moment, and then you make a decision, and you say, “Oh, she looks just like you!”

Or maybe you declare that she looks just like her father.  Or that she has his eyes, but your nose.  Maybe you don’t see any resemblance at all, but you will look for one.  And if you look hard enough, you will find it!

She looks just like her father!  We were praying for little Emery that she would be spared this particular fate.  And so far, at least, she does not seem especially tall.  (Of course that trait could come from either of her parents!)

What are we looking for when we look for such resemblances in a child?  I suppose we are looking back, on the one hand, to see who she came from.  And we are looking forward, on the other hand, to imagine who she will be.  But the one thing we can say for sure, with St. John, is that “what she will be has not yet been revealed.”  And I want to stop and ask for a moment whether or not that statement counts as good news.  Stop, and hear it again, in context: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.”

Little Emery was at the forefront of the most recent vanguard of babies that is fast advancing on this parish, thank God.  In the past two weeks, little Miles has been born, and little Truman came lurching into the world with a speed, I am told, that astonished his mother (to put it mildly).  And many of us have been looking earnestly into these babies’ faces and wondering who we see.  Which parent does she most nearly resemble?  Is he big or small, fair or dark, long hair or not?  Can we see some hint of their parents in their pudgy faces, and can we guess what kind of people they will become?  Can we imagine what kind of musician Miles will be, what kind of artist Truman will be, what kind of rower Emery will be?  What they will be has not yet been revealed. But is this good news or not?

What about for you and me?  It’s been a long time for most of us since anyone looked at us and wondered whether we looked more like Mom or Dad.  It’s been a long time since anyone stared into our open faces and wondered what we would be.  For many of us (but not all) the question has become moot.  We’ve grown into our looks, made our big decisions about life, accepted our limits, realized our gifts, cast our lot, and set out on our course long ago.  We look ahead and we see mostly straight paths in front of us – where there are curves or turn-offs they look dangerous, not promising.  If we are faithful, we are content to say with St. John, that we are God’s children.  This is enough for us.

And as we look at the world, we think it should be enough for the world too.  We think it would be good, in fact, if the whole world could only master this simple statement: we are God’s children!  Oh, if only we could!  Could we bring an end to the wars, and the hostilities, and the murder, and the hate, and the injustice, and awful, awful ways we treat each other if we could only just agree that we are God’s children!?!  We are all God’s children!

Wouldn’t it be wonderful!  Wouldn’t it be enough to spread the word abroad – that you are God’s child, and you are God’s child, and you are God’s child, for we all are God’s children!

Set it to music and sing it on Sesame Street!  And there, on the front stoop of Sesame Street, it would be a fine anthem, worthy of being taught to our children. But it is not the Gospel.

And today, when we have come here during Eastertide to baptize Emery, and welcome her into the household of God, it is not enough to say to her: you are God’s child, dear Emery.  Whatever her little consciousness knows, it knows this by now, probably better than we do.  Only newly arrived in the world, she remembers better than any of us whatever force it was that constructed her life, cell by cell, and nourished it in the womb.  It is not enough to tell her in these early days of her life what she already knows – that she is God’s child.  But there is something that Emery needs to hear today, and it is this: Dear child, you are God’s child now; but what you will be has not yet been revealed.  What you will be has not yet been revealed.

Is St. John wondering about what will become of the believers after the Second Coming of Christ, when God will bring this world to and end, time itself will come to its termination, and a new creation will be made?  Perhaps he is!

Is St. John wondering about what will become of us after we have died, and our bodies lie buried, and the promises of heaven await us?  Perhaps he is!

Is St. John wondering about tomorrow, and the next day, and the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that?  Is he looking down into somebody’s arms, at the wide open face of a newborn child, or into a stroller, or a car seat, and wondering (at the same time that he wonders whether she looks more like Mom or Dad) what this child will be?  Perhaps he is!

Perhaps St. John is wondering all these things: about the end of time, the end of this life, or only the end of tomorrow.  For our purposes it hardly matters, because we are stuck in our time, and have no access now to God’s time.  What matters is this: it is not enough, even now, to say that we are God’s children; for what we will be has not yet been revealed – but we will be something else!  We will be more than the dust from which we have been formed – in the life to come, at the end of time – yes!  And maybe even tomorrow!

This is the Gospel of hope – that you are called to be more than you appear to be, more that you thought you were, more than you have been told you amount to!

Maybe it is the case that what you will be has not yet been revealed – but don’t let that bother you, for as God’s child, there is always more for you to become!

That’s why you go to North Philadelphia, and you take a church that everyone else has left, and where the boiler keeps breaking down, and you take the kids from the neighborhood – whose parents are in prison, if they can be accounted for at all, and whose siblings have been raising them, and who have never been told that they will amount to very much.  And you tell them, not only that they are God’s children: you tell them that what they will be has not yet been revealed – but when it is, it’s gonna be something good!

That’s why you show up early on Saturday mornings with your soup, and why you greet people at the door, and seat them at the table, and you serve them, like it’s a restaurant, even though they are homeless and unkempt.  Because they are not only God’s children, but what they will be has not yet been revealed!

That’s why you take children – who have been all but banished from so many Episcopal churches, and certainly from urban, Anglo-catholic parishes like ours – and you make sure there is a place for them in the church to grow in faith and in their sense of self, and to participate in the worship of God.  Not only because they are God’s children, but because what they will be has not yet been revealed!

And that’s why you take a little, beautiful child, like Emery, and you carry her to the font, where the water is chilly, but a candle flickers nearby. And you ask her questions she cannot yet answer for herself, and you say things that she cannot yet understand: you remember the people of Israel crossing the Red Sea, and you tell her she is being buried with Christ, and that she is sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own for ever… not only because she is one of God’s children.  But because God has given us this gift of the water, and the candle, and the promise to remind us that what we will be has not yet been revealed – but that we are becoming more that we ever thought we could be!  And if it’s true for Emery, then it is also true for every one of us who renews our baptismal covenant with her today.

This was God’s promise to Abraham and to everyone who would listen to him since then: what you will be has not yet been revealed, but you will be more than you are now.  Abraham laughed when he first heard this; Sarah laughed when she heard it too – preposterous!  But this is the good news encapsulated in the flame of the candle we’ll give to Emery’s godparents: that what you will be has not yet been revealed, little child of God, but it will be wonderful.

The salvation of God is a transforming grace!  It does not drop you off and make you wait.  It takes you from here to there; it carries you further than you thought you could go, and maybe further than you wanted to go.

The salvation of God is a transforming grace!  It does not leave you alone, untouched, unchanged, and unperturbed: it bothers you, and chafes you, and sometimes burns within you.

The salvation of God is a transforming grace!  It does not care if you are rich or poor, gorgeous or repulsive, brilliant or simple; for it knows that whatever you are, whoever you are, you are destined to be more, because that’s the way God made you.

The salvation of God is a transforming grace!  It does not, frankly, distinguish from the child who flies swiftly out into the world, the way Truman did, or the child who never makes it out alive, or the child who only barely makes it out and whose time in this life is too short, and there are many such children – all of them children of God - and what they will be has not yet been revealed, thank God!

I call this good news, come to think of it – that what we will be has not yet been revealed.  Because some mornings I wake up and look in the mirror, and all I can do is hope that there is more to me that meets the eye. 

And there will be days when even blessed, little Emery tries the patience of her parents, and Miles and Truman, and every other child.  And there will be days, years from now, long after you thought life was settled on its course, but everything goes wrong, and your child or your parent or your brother is completely off the rails, and you think, God, what is going on?  And you hear the promise again that what we will be has not yet been revealed, and you think, Well, I certainly hope not!  And you wonder if your prayers will be answered, if God pays any attention at all, and what difference it makes to be told that we are children of God.

But you cannot see the warm and loving eye of God looking down on his children – on Emery, and on each one of us – and wondering for a moment, and then deciding with all his divine wisdom, and all the knowledge of the universe, and with a vision of every face that ever looked out on the world, that yes (God thinks) she looks just like me!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

19 April 2015

Saint Mark’s Philadelphia

Easter II -- Mother Nora Johnson -- April 12, 2015

Who will roll away the stone?

Once years ago I was a part of a long procession that covered a route of several kilometers, and went from a quaint village church on the Eastern Cape of South Africa, leading out of town, and proceeding to the bishop’s compound where a new, mostly outdoor cathedral had been built.  The village church had a congregation that was mostly white.  But many of the Anglicans in that diocese were out in bush churches in the region once called the Transkei, a long, long way from town, and most of those congregations were made up of black people.  I had not ever been involved in such a procession (walking and singing) that covered such a distance, and neither had the white folks from the village church.  In fact, most of them stayed behind: this was not their thing.  But the black folks knew how to make a proper procession.  There were crosses held high, and there was singing and ululating, and sometimes it was hard to tell if we were walking or dancing, so rhythmic was the movement of the men and women in that procession.  And the harmonies were strong, and the weather was clear, and no one was in hurry to get anywhere.

As I said, the route covered something like 4 or 5 kilometers, I don’t know how long was the line of worshipers stretched out along that route.  It is the only outdoor procession I have ever been in that actually picked up people along the way and grew bigger, rather than losing people, and steam, and getting smaller as you go, as happens when we try to do this sort of thing in urban America.  It was amazing!

But it was also long!  And, as I said, no one was in much of a hurry.  And from time to time the procession would stop, and someone would be called on to preach for a bit.  It wasn’t just the clergy who were called on – in fact, I’m sure I never was: they could tell that this was not my milieu!  The whole procession would just stop and someone would stand up on a bank by the side of the road and start to preach.  And the shouts and the “Amens!” would be offered from those who listened on the roadside.  And we’d stop and listen for as long as the group could tolerate it, as long as the preacher held their interest, and when that interest began to wane, someone would shout out, “It’s time for a chorus!”  And the singing would begin – usually some English hymn in four-part harmony - and the preacher would be drowned out, and would have to shut up, and the procession would move on (singing and swaying), and everybody knew it was for the best that the preaching had come to an end.  It’s a brilliant system!

And this went on and on. 

I can’t remember much specific about the preaching on that dirt road in the Diocese of Umzimvubu on the Eastern Cape of South Africa, except that I remember there was a theme that all the preachers were to share, somehow this had been worked out and understood in advance.  And while I can’t remember the details of the preaching, I can remember the theme, as we stopped by the roadside under the warm sun, on the outskirts of the village, and the theme was this: Who will roll away the stone?  The Easter question: Who will roll away the stone from the tomb?

Two specific things I can remember about those little homilies that were preached by men and women in thick, lilting accents.  I remember that many of the preachers talked about the stone that closed the tomb not as an historical object, but as an obstacle in daily life that needed to be rolled away from our hearts.  And I remember that at one point, as we were paused by the side of the road, a friend of mine from Australia, for whom this was also a new experience, turned to me with a wink and said, “If they wouldn’t keep rolling the stone back we could get there a whole lot faster!”

Who will roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb?  Oh, who will roll away the stone?  This is the question with which Easter begins.  And it seems to us like a rhetorical question, especially since we already know the answer: no worries, the stone has been rolled away!  But if you look at the scriptures, you will see that St. Mark, who whose Gospel was the first of the four to be written, puts the question on the lips of the women who are making their way to the tomb.  St. Matthew provides a direct answer, asserting that “an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.”  Saints Luke and John simply allow that the stone has been rolled away by the time the women get there.  But for all four evangelists the stone is noteworthy.  For the women it must have been a real concern, and the evangelists know this.  How the women thought they were going to deal with it, I cannot imagine; maybe they thought they’d sit outside the tomb until some burly men came along to roll the stone away.

The stone is the first and most obvious obstacle to the Resurrection.  Clearly it is a potential obstacle to the women who want to get into the tomb.  But of course, we imagine that the stone is also the thing that would have prevented Jesus from escaping his tomb.  And in the event, the stone accomplished neither thing – prevented neither exit from nor entrance to the tomb - but still the stone is a detail of all four Gospel accounts of the resurrection.

As a literary device the stone, of course, stands for all the things that make the resurrection unlikely, unbelievable, and unexpected – an obstacle to the resurrection.

But I think there were insights to be found about that stone on the dusty road in South Africa.  I think the stone is included as an important detail for our sakes – because there are still so many obstacles to the resurrection in our lives.  There are obstacles, of course, to believing that Jesus could really get out of the tomb, could rise from the dead; and there are obstacles for us to be able to get inside and see for ourselves that he is risen.  And I vaguely remember that that’s how the preaching went on that warm day in the procession.  There is a stone in front of your heart that keeps the risen Lord from getting to you, and that keeps you from getting to him – who will roll away that stone?  Who will roll it away?  You can decide for yourself if this assertion is true.  (I suspect it is for most of us.)

And of course, my Australian friend had a different take on the stone – we keep rolling it back in front of the tomb: we keep replacing the chief obstacle to the resurrection, as though we want to keep the tomb closed up; as though we want to keep Jesus inside, and us outside; as though we are not ready for this new thing that Jesus is going to do in the world and in our lives.  We keep rolling back the stone, and it takes us longer to get where we are going than it needs to.

But I want to add a third possibility to these insights, so here it is: you are the stone, and I am the stone.  We are the principal obstacles to the resurrection.  We are the thing that is most likely to keep Jesus in the tomb, most likely to keep those who seek him out.  I say this, because when it comes to our relationship with God, we are often like big lumps of stone.  We are not good at tending to that relationship.  We don’t know how to talk with God and we don’t know how to listen to God.  We don’t know how to do the things we think we ought to do, and we are not sure we even want to do the things we “ought to do.”  We are like big lumps of stone.  We turn our backs to Jesus, and if that keeps him dead and buried, well then so be it.  And we are so silent about Jesus (silent as stones) that we could never be accused of allowing anyone access to the good news that he is risen!  We are big lumps of stone: awkward, heavy, and stupid.

How’s that for an Easter message?

Well, of course, that’s not really the Easter message; it’s just the context for it.

The Easter message becomes clear as the sun rises, and some women are moving cautiously, sadly, mournfully from their homes to a tomb, with that famous question on their minds: Who will roll away the stone?  This is a small and sad procession, and they have no ready answer for their question, and certainly nothing to sing about.  And they are expecting to encounter you and me – big, heavy, dopey, silent, stupid stones who are the chief obstacles that morning between them and the body of their Lord, the dead and buried body of Jesus.  Who will roll away the stone, they wonder?

And the good news of Easter begins with this unexpected surprise: the stone (that’s you; that’s me) is not in the way.  The stone has been pushed or pulled, or lifted, or somehow pried, coaxed, or levitated out of the way.  The obstacle to the Resurrection – the obstacle to Jesus – is no obstacle at all!

Whatever is going on in your life this Easter morning, it would be reasonable to expect that you would have showed up, whether you knew it or not, as an obstacle to the Resurrection, as an obstacle to hope, and to new life, and to the possibility that things are not the way they appear to be (they are much, much better, in fact).  Yes, it would be reasonable to expect you and me to show up on Easter morning and feel just like the big, bulky, stupid stones we sometimes seem to be, or think we are.

And if your heart has been heavy, you might have shown up with this question in your mind: who will roll away the stone?  Who will roll away the stone from the dark, dead places of my soul, of the nations, of the whole entire universe?  Who will roll away the stone?  Who can make me less of a stone, less of an obstacle, less of a heavy lump of rock that can do nothing but sink lower, and weigh down the world?  Who will roll away the stone that is me?  That is the Easter question, after all, and it is natural to find it on our lips, no matter what we think the stone is: whether it’s me or you, or the person sitting two rows back and three seats over, who you are pretty certain is more stony than you are.  Oh, who will roll away the stone?

After all, we know that the stones just keep getting rolled back, just when we think everything is good, and we can get on with life, we feel like someone rolls the stone back into place, and we have to start all over again.  Oh, who will roll away the stone?!?

And even though we have heard this story before, we so easily forget that we already know the answer.  Just when we think we are up against the greatest obstacle that the Resurrection ever faced, the greatest obstacle that Jesus ever faced.  Just when we think that Jesus could not possibly get past this stone on his side, and that we can not possible move it on our side…  we forget that we already know the answer to the question, who will roll away the stone?

The answer is this:  “When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back!”  The stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.

Yes, it’s true that there are stones that get in the way of Jesus, and that get in your way in your life; it’s true that there are obstacles to grace that work in at least two directions, and seem to be confounding the possibility of God’s love and salvation in the world.  Yes, it’s true that somehow those stones keep getting rolled back, dammit, and we would get where we are going so much quicker if that weren’t the case.  Yes, it’s true that you and I are often the greatest obstacles to Jesus’ resurrection in our own lives, and who knows whether we might be just as obstructive in the lives of others, I surely have been from time to time.  Oh, who will roll away the stone!?!

And when we look up, we see that the stone, which is very large, has already been rolled back!

(By now, it must surely be time for a chorus, and this preaching must come to an end!)

Look up, my friends, look up!  You have been looking down, as though you might stub your toe on this stone.  But the stone is very large – it is a serious obstacle, no doubt!  So look up, look up!  And see, the stone has already been rolled back, and although you and I hardly thought it possible, the Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Easter Day, 2015

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia