Siege Mentality

Siege Mentality

Mtr. Nora Johnson

My brothers and sisters, I stand before you today as a fellow citizen of a city under siege. The barricades are up, the guards are at attention, and the jumbotrons are broadcasting steadily. They’ve taken over the art museum and Independence Hall, two important symbolic locations for reasons both cultural and political. The invading forces are led by an elderly man dressed all in white who rides a strange vehicle that allows him to wave to his followers at all times. Sometimes he keeps a lower profile, riding a smaller car with the symbolic name “Fiat.” The foot soldiers of this army include an astonishing number of women and children, distinguished by their supernatural ability to withstand hours of walking and standing. They seem just like us, but if you talk to them for a while you will discover that they have unfamiliar ideas about transubstantiation and apostolic succession, and a notable preoccupation with family values. They are known to carry their possessions in clear backpacks, which suggests to me a puzzling failure to worry about getting mugged.

Is this the wrong way to start the sermon? It doesn’t seem to be heading anywhere good, does it? Let me try again: My brothers and sisters, I stand before you today as a fellow citizen of what has temporarily and quite wonderfully begun to look just a little bit like the city of God. Most improbably, residents of Philadelphia have gone along with the plan to clear out their cars, and in some cases themselves, in order to make room to honor the religious beliefs of a group notably more conservative than many in this liberal city. But it goes beyond that, really. It’s more than just honoring someone else’s religious belief. It has become acceptable for many to acknowledge that the sheer presence of someone good, the sheer presence of Pope Francis, is electrifying. It has become acceptable to admit that, in a city numbed by the failure of its school systems and the violence of its streets, we long to speak and act boldly about caring for the poor and the suffering and the weak. It has become acceptable this weekend to welcome immigrants and praise them for their courage and their determination. In Spanish. Proudly. We can admit, in this country with a broken political system and a dangerous, caustic political discourse, that we long for things to be different. Suddenly everybody likes humility. When did that happen? I look around and it’s the same Philadelphia, the same USA, the same broken world, but it has been turned inside out and suddenly we can all admit that we are longing to live together in peace.

So which is it for you? The City of God or a city under siege? Are you like me, moving between the two from moment to moment? How strange to be in this condition, to be unable to tell whether I feel that my life has been invaded or whether I am feeling the stirrings of hope. And how very unexpected that this bright feeling of blessedness should come from straining to welcome people who may indeed disagree with me sharply. I suspect that this unusual feeling has something to do with the Holy Spirit. And I suspect that following God has always felt a bit like being under siege. The Israelites were liberated from Egypt, yes, but also subject to a long wandering in the desert and a set of strict rules that marked them as God’s people, and then exile from Jerusalem, and then the return home to a painful task of rebuilding.

And the disciples of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel this morning are also hearing about tough discipline and painful tasks. Jesus told them last week that they must learn to welcome a little child and be like a little child. It sounds lovely. And this week he is still talking about tender care for little ones, and welcoming strangers who don’t follow him. But it turns out that if they mess that up, if they put stumbling blocks in the way of the child or the stranger, they would be better off drowning in the sea with a millstone around their necks. And Jesus goes on: cutting off your hand is better than letting that hand offend you! And you don’t really need two feet, do you? And couldn’t you get along with one eye? This is totally outrageous. Yes, we want to be a “welcoming church,” but how many of us are willing to feel so radically dispossessed in the name of the Gospel? It’s one thing to welcome a little child, but who wants to welcome crazy Jesus?

It’s just possible that living in the City of God, or at least having a foretaste of what that could be, feels like living in a city under siege. It’s possible that there are places we can’t go and things we can’t do. Maybe there are things we just can’t carry with us if we want that special glimpse of blessedness as the Fiat rides by. Maybe that feeling that the world is ours, designed for our pleasure and our convenience, has to change if we are to live in peace and in real joy.

After all, what are we out there hoping to see? A man who represents the peace and love of Christ and Christ’s joyous, forgiving embrace of all humanity. And how does he represent it? By giving up much of what we demand for ourselves: freedom, ease of movement, comfort. Pope Francis is 78 years old and he is visibly exhausting himself in our midst, on our behalf. He seems sincerely joyful and humble, and tough. I’m not sure, but I suspect that for many bishops he feels more like crazy Jesus than the “Papa Francisco” we think we know and love.

Everyone will be salted with fire, Jesus tells us. Salt will flavor us and will also purify us. We crave it but we dare not make use of its sharp metallic tang without some sense of discipline and limitation. Living the life God has planned for is never going to be the same as doing what comes easily. When Jesus comes to town he takes up a lot of space and brings with him a whole giant crowd of people that we may or may not feel like loving. We may or may not want to be identified with his followers. The joy of his presence will be real, I suspect, exactly in relation to the extent that his presence makes us uncomfortable.

But the celebration is real. If we are feeling nudged in some way by the presence of this leader in our city, even if we are only moved to watch a bit of television coverage and marvel at his stamina, we are marveling at something about God’s very real call to each one of us. It seems that we are hard wired to respond to grace. Humility and self-giving speak to us. Something reaches us, as it reached the disciples, even when they balked at what God was telling them. Mark’s Gospel ends with the disciples in fear and doubt. Their experience of God among them is a trial by fire. Nothing comes easily, and they don’t get it right. And out of that baffling experience comes their salvation and ours. Out of that discomfort comes the joy that we are looking for. Only a figure as austere as this Jesus can speak to our world, with all its willful, self-induced suffering in the name of pleasure.

We are all salted with fire. The words may never make sense to us but the experience is visceral. And the hope is real.

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson

27 September 2015

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Little Lamb

Many of you, perhaps even all of you, have seen Aylan Kurdi. You may not know his name, but you do know him. You have seen him, seen his little red t-shirt rucked up around his tummy, seen his blue pants pushed up to the knees and his tiny shoes lined up one right beside the other. You have seen him, God help you, lying face down in the surf, his forehead pressing into the sucking sand, his arms tucked into close to his sides, palms up to heaven. You have seen him, God help you, in a photograph that shot around the world two and a half weeks ago, on Wednesday, September 2, the day that Aylan and eleven other Syrian refugees drowned as they tried to find passage to safety; the day that Aylan washed ashore on a lonely beach in Turkey, his body still and silent, waiting for someone to see.

What you may not have seen is another picture of him, released after Aylan’s death. He is still at home in this photograph, sitting and facing the camera in a bright yellow sweatshirt, holding his right ear in that way that children do. He sits next to his big brother, Galip, who drowned with him, and he is looking out past the frame of the shot with a sly smile on his face, looking at someone who is undoubtedly trying to make him laugh, perhaps at his mother, Rehen, who also drowned with him. He is, in this second photo, just a two-year-old like any two-year-old, with chubby cheeks and soft brown eyes, a kid like the kids in our photo albums, on our Facebook pages, the wallpaper of our iPhones.

I don’t know which picture is more devastating – the photo of what could have been or the photo that never should have been. I do know that it’s almost impossible to look at either of these photos and not feel your heart break with longing, with a pity that is beyond the limits of our vocabulary but that hits us right in the center of our guts. I know that it’s almost impossible to look at these photos and not want to cry out, Enough! No more. And I know that it’s almost impossible to look at these photos and not want to somehow step inside them, to run down that beach to Aylan and pick him up, just pick him up – hold him, pat his back and rub some warmth back into his limbs, brush the sand from his lips and breathe life back into him, watch the color come back into those chubby cheeks and the light into those soft brown eyes, hold his little salty soaked body and tell him over and over that it is going to be all right, that he’s safe, that he’s finally safe, that he’s seen and known and loved.

I will confess that, other than mourning and wishing and praying, I am not sure how to address the refugee crisis that is swamping the world right now. It is a maelstrom of complications, a storm that has swept across continents, wave upon wave, a sea of need and hurt fed from a stream of intolerance and injustice that springs from the sins of so many nations and peoples it hardly matters who started what anymore. As the Archbishop of Canterbury said recently, any real solution to this crisis will have to address not only the almost overwhelming humanitarian need but also the structures that have allowed for the systematic slaughter and dispossession of so many peoples. And how do you do both? And how do you do both from here, from America, which feels a world away from the sad shores of Turkey? Our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, encouraged Episcopal churches to support Episcopal Migration Ministries, which helps to aid and relocate refugee families here in the States. But how do you do this when you click on the link in her article and find that the Episcopal Church didn’t list one single organization in Pennsylvania – not in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, but in the entire state of Pennsylvania. How do you and I do something, fix this, help? I have no simple answers. I know that it will take prayer and thought and, more than anything, attention. I know that it will take leadership from those among us who already know something of this work. I know that it will take time and courage, the Holy Spirit, the bread of the Eucharist, the comfort of God our Father. I know this, at least, even if I do not know the rest of the steps along the path.

I also know that it is important to start with that photo of little Aylan, to start with that feeling that rises up in our guts, the howl that threatens to escape from our throats, the tears that come when we see such a beautiful thing spoiled, such innocence abused, such wild waste. It is important to start with that feeling we have of so much love poured out on such a tiny, fragile thing. For do you know, little ones, that this is exactly how God feels when he looks at you? Do you know that it is this longing of love that God feels each time he looks at you in times of trouble, when you are lost, sick, alone, scared, frustrated, hungry, beaten, drowning in pain or sorrow or guilt or addiction or illness or confusion or doubt?

God has always looked at you this way, at all of the tiny, fragile things created by his almighty hand. He has always known this agonizing heartbreak when he has seen his little ones hurting and broken. And when our human sin and selfishness and silliness had led to so much beauty spoiled, so much wild waste that we were drowning in death, God looked down upon us his children and said, Enough. No more. And then God did that thing that we only wish we could. He looked down upon us sprawling and lost, palms opened up to heaven, and he stepped into the picture, ran out to us with arms spread wide and took us up in his embrace. God stepped into the picture and showed us that the little, lonely, and last would always be first; he stepped into the picture and let himself be taken and abused, betrayed, drowned under his own weight upon the heights of the cross. And then, then, three days after being killed, he rose again, breathed new life into the world, brought color back into our sin-saddened cheeks and light back into the darkness of our eyes. He transformed the terrifying waters of death into the waters of eternal life, waters that make us into one body, hallowed and whole, waters that welcome us home.

It is in remembering how we first were welcomed that we will find the strength to welcome others, to serve others, to help bring them home. It is in remembering how we first were welcomed that we will gain clarity of sight, the vision to find a way forward, and a new lens through which to see that photo of Aylan Kurdi. Look at that photo again. There is something there that we did not see before. Right there in the photograph, on the beach behind Aylan’s red t-shirt and bright blue pants is his Father, kneeling beside him. His Father, bending over him, brushing the hair out of his eyes with the same love and tenderness as he would do – as he will do – for you and me. His Father, looking at this little child made in his image and likeness and letting his heart break open with love. His Father, taking him up in his arms, holding him close to his heart and whispering into his perfect tiny ear:

Little Lamb who made thee        
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed. 
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice! 
         Little Lamb who made thee
         Dost thou know who made thee

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
         Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb: 
He is meek & he is mild, 
He became a little child: 
I a child & thou a lamb, 
We are called by his name.
         Little Lamb God bless thee. 
         Little Lamb, God bless thee.*

Little lambs, God bless you.

*The Lamb, William Blake (1757-1827)

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs
20 September 2015
Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

The Broken-hearted Savior

The Broken-hearted Savior

Fr. Sean Mullen

Recently I listened in as two men chatted about the sufferings of life and the loss of loved ones.  Each had experienced a tragically painful loss in his life.  One had lost a spouse and an infant child to a car accident, and had recently experienced the death of another child.  The other had years ago lost his father and two of his brothers in a plane crash.  Maybe you were listening too, to Vice President Joe Biden, and to Stephen Colbert on late night TV last week.[i]  And maybe you were struck, as I was, by the wonderfully acerbic expression that Stephen Colbert attributes to his mother in the face of such suffering: “What’s the use of being Irish if you don’t know that life is going to break your heart?”  Indeed!

Well, the Irish have not cornered the market in broken hearts, even if they have set a high standard for wearing those broken hearts on their sleeves.  There are plenty of broken hearts to go around for every family, language, people, and nation.  But the next time I return to Ireland I will try that line out in the pub.  What’s the use of being Irish if you don’t know that life is going to break your heart? For today, however, let me borrow Mrs. Colbert’s pithy observation and apply it even more broadly: what’s the use of being a Christian if you don’t know that life is going to break your heart?  Can you hear Jesus asking that question, when he calls out to anyone who will listen to him: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” This is not happy stuff!  This is hard news to hear, and Jesus knows we don’t want to hear it.  Why else would he ask the next ridiculous question he asks: “For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”  This is a timely question in latter day America: what would it profit you to gain the whole world but forfeit your life?  Most of us could find an easy answer to this question: I don’t know, we’d say, but I’d sure be interested in finding out!  Just how much money are we talking about anyway…?

But Jesus is all but telling his would-be followers that if they follow him they need not expect riches, fame, glory, or success – all of which were at least as appealing obsessions back then as they are now.  He might as well have said, What’s the point of following me if you don’t know that life is going to break your heart? Because, of course, life is going to break your heart.  There are broken hearts here today, I know, for sure.  The real question is whether or not there are any hearts here that haven’t been broken?  If so, I’m afraid the bad news is that life is going to break your heart.  Maybe it won’t be a car accident, or a plane crash.  Maybe it won’t even be death.  It could be lost love, failed business, a crippling addiction, a degenerative illness, a war that drives you from your homeland, or who knows what.  Irish or not, life is going to break your heart.  I suppose you could phrase the question still more broadly: What’s the point of being a human if you don’t know that life is going to break your heart?

When Jesus starts talking this way, it does not go over well.  Peter, for one, thinks the message needs a bit of re-tooling, and he tells Jesus as much. But Peter is young, and his heart, I suppose, had not yet been broken.  And when Jesus predicts that the Son of Man (by which he means himself) would undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, Peter can’t follow his thinking, he can’t even listen to the end of the sentence.  After all, how could the Messiah have a broken heart?  The anointed one of God must be a winner, a champion, a victor, a hero; not a schlub whose humiliated heart is broken in shameful disgrace and defeat.  Peter doesn’t see the point.

But it’s a point that those whose hearts have been broken are able to see.  The point is that Jesus’ heart is broken too.  It’s broken when his dear friend Lazarus dies.  It’s broken by his religion and its leaders who disappoint him and fail their own people.  It’s broken by his fiercest friend who denies even knowing him when the going gets tough.  It’s broken by his neighbors, friends, and kinsman in Nazareth.  It’s broken by an un-just system that arrests him, and flogs him, and eventually kills him, not because he is guilty of anything, but because it is expedient to treat him thus.  Yes, Jesus’ heart is broken too.  Like a wise and loving teacher, he told his disciples that his heart was breaking, just like theirs.

Peter couldn’t hear him, and he speaks for all the people who don’t want to hear him, who want a winner in their corner, not a fellow-sufferer.[ii] And Jesus might have said, What’s the point of being the Messiah if you don’t know that life is going to break your heart?  But instead he said to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” which, to my reading, amounts to pretty much the same thing, under the circumstances. Because Jesus actually has more to say about that than Mrs. Colbert, if only Peter would stop and listen.  Once my heart is thoroughly broken – as broken or more-so than every human heart - Jesus says, then I will rise again.  Yes, my heart will be broken, but I will rise again.

This morning we have the great joy of welcoming an infant child, Teddy, into the household of God as we baptize her. In a few minutes I will stand at the font and sing about the water in it and what that water means to us.  And if you listen closely you will hear me sing these odd and somewhat off-putting words about the water: “in it we are buried with Christ in his death.”  Why would I sing such a thing?  It sounds so dark and deadly, not at all the kind of thing you want to sing around a child.  You might as well sing, “What’s the point of being baptized if you don’t know that life is going to break you heart?”  And this is not the kind of song one generally sings to children (unless, perhaps, you are Irish).

But the Christian faith is not merely a proclamation of sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.  The Christian faith is a proclamation of sunshine that dawns after the darkest night; of sweetness that soothes the bitterest taste; and of a rainbow that appears after the murderous devastation of storm, flood, and disaster. The Christian faith is placed in a Savior who rises in solidarity with every broken-hearted human, only after his heart has been broken, too; whose resurrected life is lived only after he has passed through the veil of suffering and death; whose divine power of love is most perfectly displayed in his moment of greatest weakness on the Cross. For not only are we buried with Christ in his death in the water of baptism.  By it we also share in his resurrection, and through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit! What’s the point of being a Christian if you don’t know that life is going to break your heart?

Life is going to break your heart and mine – probably more than once.  And it is a broken-hearted Savior who calls to us, and tells us that if we want to follow him we should bring our broken hearts with us, and be prepared to have them broken again – that’s what it means to deny yourself and take up your cross: it means to follow the way of heartbreak, and not to be afraid of it. For we know what Peter did not know – that only a broken-hearted Savior can truly save the broken-hearted.  Only a Son of Man who has known deep suffering can redeem the bottomless suffering of this world.  And only a Messiah who has lost everything and died a shameful death of disgrace can win real victory that triumphs over death.

In a widely read recent profile, Stephen Colbert, talked about the death of his father and his brothers, and referred to a letter of J.R.R. Tolkien’s, in which the great English author responds to the objection that he seems to treat death not as a punishment for original sin but as a gift. Colbert says that “Tolkien says in a letter back [to his critic]: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’”[iii] Although Tolkien didn’t exactly write those words, they are probably close enough.[iv]  And they surely point us to the Cross, that looks for all the world like a severe punishment (no matter how artfully you dress it up), the condemnation of a loser, and that certainly sounds like a punishment when Jesus tells his followers to take up their crosses and follow him. Until you stop and are patient enough to listen to end of the sentence, to hear Jesus promise that he will rise; and you learn that the Cross is the surest way, the only way, to the Resurrection, and it always points the way to new life – and always for those whose hearts are broken. 

What’s the point of being a Christian if you don’t know that life is going to break your heart? Take up your Cross – that gift of God’s – and see it for the gift that it is, and follow Jesus, and let his broken heart make your heart whole again.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

13 September 2015

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Thursday, 10 Sept 2015

[ii] You know the type.

[iii] Joel Lovell, “The Late, Great Stephen Colbert,” in GQ, August 2015

[iv] It seems likely that Colbert is referring to Letter 212 in Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.  “A divine ‘punishment’ is also a divine gift.”