At the Foot of the Cross

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. (John 12: 32)

When Pilate turns to Jesus and asks “What is truth?” he may be speaking for the majority of those present there that day. Something is happening in front of these people, something world-changing. They are taking part in it. But they don’t know what it is. They are drawn by fear, drawn by the desire for someone to blame, drawn by the vain hope that they might put this episode to rest and go on with their lives and their careers. They make decisions, mostly for their own self-protection in the short term. Their decisions make everything worse.

I don’t know about you, but this is a condition I feel that I am in often lately, and an anxiety I hear all around me. What’s going on? Where are we heading? What is unfolding among us right now? What are we participating in? What are we making worse? We watch our electoral process take a sickening turn toward violence. We wonder about what technology will mean for our futures. We watch in what seems to be mostly numb silence as our environment suffers severe degradation. And we watch as victims surround us: refugees, casualties, the downtrodden, those who have been forgotten, those whose lives are being consumed by war and poverty and disaster. There is a strong stench of violation in the air. There is blasphemy all around us today, just as surely as there was blasphemy that day at the foot of the cross.

We are unmistakably standing at the foot of the cross. And we are no more able to announce with certainty what it is that we are witnessing than Peter or Pilate were. We feel anxiety and complicity, and we are probably all hoping that we will be able to put this moment behind us and go on with our lives and our careers.

But coming here today, we are admitting that even in our anxiety we sense salvation. We are here today because we are drawn to the cross, maybe in spite of ourselves. We are here today because Jesus is calling to us in some way we may not be able to explain. We seem to be compelled to do this today, as the church has been compelled to do it for centuries. We’ve been moved, all of us, in one way or another, to join a community of people who gaze upon the cross, revere the cross, follow the cross. A community of people for whom Jesus crucified is the redemption we are hoping for, our own redemption and the redemption of the world.

We sense that there is degradation here, but also that there is something precious. And we dare to act out of a sense of tenderness and gratitude. Doesn’t it seem astonishing to you that you are here today, for all of the world’s pain, drawn by tenderness and gratitude? That you hope for forgiveness and new life?

Nicodemus is drawn to the cross just as we are. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, who had once gone to Jesus by dark of night and asked him foolish questions about being reborn. Nicodemus has no great virtues, as far as I can tell, and there isn’t much heroic about him, except that he has quietly never stopped being drawn to Jesus. And this Joseph of Arimathea, this secret, fearful disciple, finds that he too is moved to come. What do they understand? It can’t have been much. But the broken body of Jesus calls to them, as it calls to us. They are moved to stay with the broken body of Christ, as perhaps we are moved to stay with the church and with one another. They receive the body, as perhaps we receive communion, perhaps surprised to find our hands outstretched and our hearts willing. They show their reverence for the body by wrapping it in linens and spices, and laying it in a tomb, as perhaps we show our own reverence here today.

No, they couldn’t have told us then what it was that was unfolding in front of them. They didn’t know, any more than we do today, what they were part of. They could not have told us then that the body they held in their arms was the body of God who dwells “in light inaccessible from before time and for ever.” They had no way of saying at that moment that they were participating in God’s great transformation of death into life. But God gave them the gift of profoundly eloquent gesture. God gave Nicodemus and Joseph a calling, a desire to stretch out their hands and receive him, and hold onto him, and wait. Even if they don’t know exactly why.

There is, they observe, a garden right there, right in the place where Jesus is crucified. There is a garden right there. Kindness and beauty and grace open up right in the place where Jesus dies, right in the place where failure and bafflement and powerlessness seem to reign. Where others have found only bitterness and violence, Joseph and Nicodemus have found a place of contemplation, a calling, a longing to take the broken body of Christ into their own hands. Whatever else happens that day, these two are given the inestimable gift of honoring Jesus in the most improbable circumstances.  

A church is beginning right here, right in the place where the body of Jesus is broken. Even as he is laid in the tomb, his presence fills this garden as the presence of God filled the garden of Paradise. And Joseph and Nicodemus have a part in making that presence palpable, by their tender acts of reverence and even by the rich scent of the spices with which they prepare the body.

The tenderness and reverence we practice today are eloquent. On our knees today, asking forgiveness, we are dwelling in that light that is the light of the world. We proclaim, entirely by the grace of God, that Jesus has been lifted up and is drawing us to him, drawing all people to himself.

And today, this place of degradation becomes a garden of Paradise, filled with God’s presence and God’s light. From it will flow acts of charity and healing and grace. From it will flow reassurance, the confidence we need, timid as we are, to witness to the truth.

In the beginning was the Word. And though actual words fail us, we come here today to learn eloquent gestures. And our gestures proclaim, even to ourselves, in our unknowing, that the light shines in the darkness. Our gestures teach us that together we are drawn to Jesus with profound hope, even in our unknowing. That we are dwelling in God and with God, in that inaccessible light. That light is our life. That light shines in the darkness. And we behold it, full of grace and truth.

Empty and Full

It was late by the time the chief steward made it back up to the room. The space was dark, and silent, but the homey smell of bread still hung in the air along with the honeyed scent of apple. He stood for a moment in the cool of the night air, enjoying the quiet, and then took a deep breath and looked around. All things considered, the steward was impressed. From what he could tell by the starlight, the room was remarkably clean, especially considering what it had looked like a few hours ago. Feasts in this room took a long time to clean up, and Passover feasts took even longer. For every single plate and cup, all the food and the wine, the napkins and bowls and candlesticks and lanterns and cushions and olive pits and pomegranate peels not only had to be gathered up but then walked downstairs. Each leftover bit of lamb, each dirty dish had to be carried down not one but two flights of stairs to the outside kitchens. It was, the steward thought to himself, a real pain in the neck, not to mention the back.

Not that it wasn’t worth it, of course. At least to his master, and to his master’s guests. When this room was set for a dinner, there was not another place to rival it in all of Jerusalem. Scores of candles burning in their sconces gave the walls a rich, buttery glow. The low, U-shaped table sparkled with newly-shined silver; the cushions set about on the floor were as vibrant and rich as the finest robes of the temple and yet still as soft as lamb’s wool. It was a large room but always felt cozy and comfortable, and when the soft evening breezes purred in through the open windows – well, the steward thought, there was no finer place to be in all the world.

Except now, perhaps. Now when the room seemed so naked and plain. Without all the jewel-colored cushions and the light glinting off silver, the room looked a bit – well – dull. Dull walls, dull ceiling, dull floor. Dull table – enormous dull table, but still dull. Still, the steward thought, the dull was clean, at least, except for a jug of something fragrant still sitting on the floor, and one napkin left folded on the table. Clean. His staff had done well. He was pleased. The owner would be pleased. His job here was done.

And yet, the steward found himself still standing there, looking from floor to table to ceiling. He moved over to the table and sat down on the edge – something he never would have done in the owner’s presence – and tried to coax out a word for the feeling that was pricking at the depths of his heart. Sadness, he thought. Or perhaps loneliness. But no, not exactly the word he was looking for. His eyes moved to the center of the table, and suddenly it hit him. Empty. The room was so empty, so utterly, unavoidably empty.

It hadn’t been so earlier in the evening. For into the space that was already full of glossy cushions and shining silver had come a whole troop of men. Twelve, thirteen of them, the steward remembered. He had known the number ever since two of them had approached him a few days ago when on his way back from the well, and the steward had set up the room accordingly. He was, after all, very good at his job. Just enough space for each man to recline and eat, just enough support from the cushions to make him comfortable, just enough food on the table for it to look voluptuously full without being so crowded that the men might be in danger of knocking over the oil while reaching for the sweets.

But no, the steward thought, it wasn’t the number of men that made the room feel full. It was the men themselves, their intensity, their energy – the look in their faces, simultaneously full of joy and full of fear; the way they leaned in to listen to each other; the way each breath seemed pregnant with expectation. There was energy in that room, energy between the men, and wave upon wave of energy swirling around their leader, who had eyes that were so full they looked broken with love.

And all of that energy had spilled over into the feast. The men ate voraciously, licked their lips and ate some more. They drank the wine down to the dregs, talked and argued and sang and prayed like it was their last night on earth. And the night had been filled with other things, too, the steward thought. The leader had washed their feet, filling the room with the scent of sweet water and a pile of wet towel. And then he had talked. So much talking! So many words – of prayer and prophecy, of advice and warning, words that spun in and around themselves for so long and with such speed and fluidity that the steward, standing in his corner, felt dizzy with them.

And in the midst of all of this – the food and the drink, the water and the words – there was something even more, something that filled up every single nook and cranny in that room like seawater finds the space between grains of sand. Not fear, although that was certainly there. Not love, although that was there too. No, the presence the steward felt was more than just some commonplace, if complicated, human emotion. It was something Other, something Large. It was Holiness itself, that which has a name that must not be spoken, and it filled all the space between the men in the room. It seeped into their clothes and their hearts. It permeated the bread and the wine, blew into the candle flame and soaked into the napkins until every person, every thing, was entirely, incomparably full.

But no more. Now all was gone – the men, the wine, the words, the Other. And the steward felt it. Instead of just seeing a clean room that would need no extra work from him in the morning, he found himself filled with a keen sense of loss. So strange, he thought. Never before had he been so attached to a group that had sat in this room. And there had been many – hundreds, probably, during his time. But this one, this group and the holiness they brought with them seemed to have gotten inside him in a particular way – and now, now he felt the presence of their absence so sharply.* He felt empty, in an empty room, in the still and empty hours of the night.

He sat for a moment, feeling the hollowness in his chest, until the breeze through the window reminded him of home and bed and sleep. He stood, and stretched his back, and something in the starlight caught his eye. Ah, he thought, better pick up that stray napkin while I’m up here. He bent and took the cloth in his hand, felt something inside it. Probably a bit of rind, he thought, and opened the cloth in his palm. But what sat there, wrapped within the cloth, was not a rind or some other bit of rubbish. It was bread, a small, round piece of bread, wrapped up in that cloth as if it had been a baby in swaddling clothes. How strange, the steward thought, this one piece of bread left here, in this empty space. He sat down and looked at the bread. Just bread, really, not even much smell to it anymore. And yet he didn’t put the bread down, or wrap it up, or take it downstairs. He just sat and looked at it, and as he sat, he remembered what he had heard the man with the sad eyes say earlier that evening: This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. He had said it so clearly, so directly, as if he were saying it individually to each person in the room. His voice was soft, but his eyes were ablaze – not sad eyes, the steward thought now, or not just sad, but also full of purpose and infinitely kind. He could hear that voice just here, next to his ear, as if it were speaking to him, now. This is my body that is for you. For you. Do this in remembrance of me.

And suddenly, without warning, the steward felt his heart grow full. He looked at the bread and heard the words and the eyes of his heart were opened. For he saw that even in that space that seemed as empty as death, that presence was still there. That presence was still there – not dissipated into the night, as he had thought, but condensed into this moment, this bit of bread and all of the promise and hope and love that had been in this place. That presence was still there inside him, and he knew, somehow he just knew, that he would take it out into the night with him, into his home and his bed, into his dreams and his waking, his loving and his working, his life and his death. He knew that that presence would be with him, even to the end of the ages, even when his life felt empty, even when his world echoed with the sounds of faded dreams and hopes, of lost comforts and assurances. He sat gazing down upon that bread, and he knew that that presence was still with him, and not just with him, but for him. And he knew that his heart, and this room, and this night, and this world, would never, never, never be empty again. That this world, and this night, and this room, and all hearts will never be empty again.

*The phrase "presence of absence" borrowed from a letter of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

24 March 2016 - Maundy Thursday

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Tree Protection Zone

At a construction site on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, here in Philadelphia, on a median strip that faces the front of the Barnes Gallery (or is it the back of the gallery?), on a block that encompasses the twin cenotaphs of the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, there is a tall fence - maybe twelve feet high - that rings the entire space of the median strip.  The fence encloses a stand of trees planted in a double row – mostly London Plane trees, if I am not mistaken.  And all along the fence, just above eye level, every ten of fifteen feet or so, there are signs posted that proclaim in an understated typeface, that has not, for some reason, been printed in bold letters, the following declaration: WARNING!  TREE PROTECTION ZONE

These signs intrigue me.  They fill me with questions. I suppose it is somewhat obvious that it is the trees that are being protected from the outside forces of the adjacent construction project; and not, say, pedestrians who are being protected from the trees.

I cannot find the provision of Philadelphia construction rules and regulations, or the requirements of this particular project that call for a Tree Protection Zone.  But I am able to locate literature that explains that a Tree Protection Zone is “the means by which we protect trees on development sites and should protect both roots and crown spread simultaneously.  The TPZ should be considered as sacrosanct….”[i]  And Philadelphia seems to be employing guidelines like other cities that require that the area “be delineated with chain link fencing and posted to alert contractors on the site and others that no equipment, materials, debris, supplies or fill soil shall be located within the TPZ.”[ii]

This information helps me address the most vexing of the questions that I have about the signs around the Tree Protection Zone on the Ben Franklin Parkway, that is the matter of the first word on the signs: WARNING!

It is a curious way to announce something as apparently wholesome as a Tree Protection Zone: with a warning.  What is the nature of the warning?  What danger is posed to or by these trees that requires the urgency of a warning?  Who is at risk in the vicinity of these trees?  Why must we be warned? The obvious answer is, of course, the least interesting: that the signs announce the possibility of penalty to the contractors working nearby. But once I got the idea of a Tree Protection Zone in my head, I couldn’t chase it away; especially a Tree Protection Zone that comes with a Warning.  It all seems too rich.  It seems impossible to me that the words themselves do not possess homiletic potential: WARNING!  TREE PROTECTION ZONE.

English translations of the New Testament more than once refer to the instrument of Jesus’ execution as a “tree.”  And the Christian literary tradition of our language has become easily comfortable with this sleight of hand.  “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree,” St. Luke reports in the English version of the words of St. Peter.  The actual Greek word used in the scriptures is a bit more ambiguous, a bit more generic.  It could just mean “a piece of wood.”  But tree sounds better, doesn’t it?

So let it be a tree – the Cross of Christ.  If you’ll allow the poetic license, is it too much to think of this church as a kind of Tree Protection Zone?  If so, would that assertion raise questions?  Who is being protected from what?  Should there be signs with a WARNING on the exterior of the building?    Is the Cross in danger? What danger is posed to or by this tree that requires the urgency of a warning?  Who is at risk in the vicinity of this tree?  Why must we be warned in its Presence?

John Calvin once said that there are enough relics of the True Cross to fill a ship.[iii]  And while we do not possess such a relic in this church, it’s true that this place is replete with glorious images of the Cross, that we venerate and treat with dignity and signs of reverence.  And it’s true that in some sense that we protect in this church the idea of the Cross, and the saving ministry of Jesus for which it stands. And it is also true that the Cross does not need our protection. 

But we need the Cross for our protection. A protection is a “person or thing that prevents someone or something from suffering harm or injury.”[iv] It is a notoriously complicated thing to try to say precisely what God is doing with Jesus by subjecting him to crucifixion.  We say that by this act of love our salvation is wrought – but what does that mean?  In part, at least, it means that Jesus on the Cross is preventing us – his people- from suffering harm or injury.  This comes as a shock to us, if we stop to think about it, or at least as unlikely.  Our lives are full of harm and injury; what good has the Cross done us?  As a talisman to protect us, perhaps it has kept vampires at bay, but what other danger has not befallen us?  Sickness, old age, accident, betrayal, warfare, assault, insult, degradation, failure, calamity.  You name it; it has happened to someone clutching a Cross to his breast.

In my extremely limited experience, however, there is one thing against which the Cross has regularly and consistently provided superb protection, and it is part and parcel of nearly every other hazard we could name: fear.  Fear is the antithesis of faith; most poignantly the fear of death.  For when we are possessed by fear, we can do nothing, we are frozen, subject to the whims of every evil in the world, every possible threat that comes our way.

But the Cross is the antithesis of fear; for from it, Jesus confronts not only his own scourging and mockery, not only the persecution of the imperial state, not only the indignity of insult, not only the agony of his own injuries, not only the misgivings of doubt, not only the failure of religion, not only the abandonment of his friends, not only humiliation on a grand scale, not only the reversal of the great expectations proclaimed as he entered into Jerusalem, not only the apparent vindication of his enemies, not only bloodshed, tears, sorrow, and pain, but also death itself. The Cross puts Jesus as immediately and entirely as possible in the midst of a comprehensive catalog of fear.  And then, behold, and see, says the Cross, what comes of such fear, as Jesus’ Body is taken down from it and carried to its borrowed tomb.

The saving work of Jesus on the Cross is his demonstration of the failure of the Cross to achieve its intended aims, and his triumph in dying a real death there that nevertheless could not claim with finality his abundant life. And we know that Jesus meant to share his triumph on the Cross with his followers precisely because he told them, before they could possibly know what it meant, that they must take up their crosses and follow him.  Not only for the suffering, but also for the triumph!  When life confronts you with abuse, injustice, insult, injury, doubt, inadequate religion, friendlessness, humiliation, loss, betrayal, bloodshed, tears, sorrow, and pain…  and when death itself lies at hand… do not be afraid!  But take up your Cross and share in Jesus’ triumph that was won for you there!  See how the Cross vanquishes our fear!

That is why here, in this church, on this very morning, we have become a Tree Protection Zone.  I suppose we always have been such.  For the Cross of Christ is planted here, from roots to crown.  And there are times when we do our feeble best, I suppose, to protect the idea of the Cross.  But, quite in contrast to the construction zone on the Parkway, where the trees are being protected from damage by construction workers, here in our Tree Protection Zone, we are being protected by a tree of life on which the prince of glory died!  Perhaps, from time to time, it seems to us that the protection afforded us by this tree does, in fact, prevent harm or injury from befalling us.  But more especially in this Tree Protection Zone, we are being protected from all the fears that confront us, none more powerfully than the fear of death.

I don’t, frankly, know whether or not this protection should come with a warning.  I am sure there is risk involved when you embrace the love of Jesus – that perfect love that casts out fear – because it will lead you to places you never dreamt you’d go; it will transform you (if you let it) into a different person than the one you thought you were going to be; it will free you from all kinds of bonds that you hardly knew entrapped you.  Is it better to warn you and the whole world about these possibilities, or not? 

On reflection, I suppose that it is better not to post a warning, since the promise of transformation so often seems worrying to us, accustomed as we have become to our own shortcomings and failings.  The possibility of giving them up, like quitting any addiction, seems daunting, maybe even unwelcome.  And it might be tempting for us to put fences around the Cross – our new tree of life – and post warnings for the timid, lest their lives be changed.  But this impulse would be wrong-headed.  Because ever since his Body was taken down from it, Jesus’ Cross has, rather, beckoned to any and all who would listen, and come and take shelter beneath its boughs, to share the glories of its crown, to find security in its deep roots, and to enjoy its protection, and live.

But you, here this morning, you may consider yourselves warned that on this Palm Sunday, you have entered into a Tree Protection Zone.  The tree is unlike any other in the world.  And it doesn’t require your protection or mine.  This new tree of life is the tree of perfect love, which casts out fear, and thereby protects all who come beneath its boughs.  Pray God, let its roots grow deep within us, and may its branches crown all our days.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Palm Sunday 2016

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] Queensland Arboriocultural Association, 2014

[ii] City of Santa Monica, Community Maintenance Department, Public Landscape Division

[iii] John Calvin, A Treatise on Relics

[iv] Google