Fit for the Kingdom

My sister-in-law is a psychotherapist. She and her husband - my wife’s brother - came for dinner last Sunday and as we sat outside enjoying the pleasantly warm evening, I asked her what she liked best about her job. Not surprisingly, a therapist’s job offers both rewards and disappointments. When people go to therapy they are admitting they need help. The therapist’s job is to help them identify the problem and guide them to new ways of thinking and living. The rewards are to see how people respond positively to therapy, make changes and turn their lives around. 

On the minus side, I was surprised to learn that psychotherapists can be sued by the family of a suicide. The grounds being that you have failed to prevent the death and so must bear the blame for the person’s tragic end.

I also asked my sister-in-law how easy it is for people to change, assuming that without change people get stuck in deadly routines. She replied that for one category of people change was almost impossible. She classified them as the people who say, “yes, but...” What did she mean? I asked. She explained that there is a person who is intelligent, insightful and who can see the need for change, but who in the end resists it. “Yes,” they will say, “I can see what I need to do, but I have all these other commitments and obligations right now which means the changes will have to wait.” There are subtle psychological reasons preventing change, such as fear of embracing new patterns of thought or new ways of living. Also, a person can become so invested in their misery that it becomes like a cloak that they wrap around themselves for comfort and for familiarity’s sake. 

It reminded me of an old saying of my father’s, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. When we intend to do something but end up doing nothing, we become a little like Shakespeare’s Hamlet. That’s what happens when our thoughts and intentions become an end in themselves. 

We all know what happened to Hamlet, but if you don’t, it’s in the section of Shakespeare marked Tragedies. Hamlet was paralyzed into inaction by having conflicting intentions which set one action against another. That seems to me similar in some ways to what happens to the people Jesus meets in this morning’s gospel. Jesus, along with his followers, sets out toward Jerusalem. On the way, he encounters a number of people. To them he says, “follow me”, and one replies “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Another replies, “Lord, let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus’ unequivocal reply is: “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

You will notice that what Jesus is offering is not a first century version of psychotherapy. What he offers is different: an invitation to follow him, to leave the past behind and travel with him on the way. That’s what the disciples did, when Jesus called them by the side of the lake or wherever they happened to be, and these words of his are as much for their benefit as for the new people he meets.

In this exchange Jesus makes clear that the kingdom of God is not fit for those whose commitments and obligations prevent them from immediately joining Jesus on the road. “Follow me!” Jesus calls, but he does not wait for those who have other priorities to attend to first. With him, the kingdom of God is always the first priority. Jesus is going to Jerusalem: are you going with him? “Yes, but let me bury my father first.” Jesus replies: “Let the dead bury their own dead.” Jesus asks you to go with him now. Are you ready? “Yes, but first let me say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus replies, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of heaven.”

I can feel some sympathy for the people Jesus meets and then reproaches. Are their responses that unreasonable as to deserve his rebuke? The answer is not that they are unreasonable, it is that they are not good enough. 

To be fit for the kingdom of heaven - something to which I hope everyone here aspires - first requires a leap of faith. By which I mean not that you believe at once everything that Jesus says, but that you trust God to know the way ahead for you. Second, it requires a commitment to serve - the kingdom of heaven is a place where you serve others, not yourself. Third, it requires you to look forward, not back. Looking forward and moving forward - that describes us, the Church, or at least it should do. The kingdom of heaven is a present reality, an immediate call to leave the past behind and step into the future, to realize that God is in your life now and if that is so then things will never be quite the same again. Something very exciting is happening - Christ is calling you to join him. He is on his way to the new Jerusalem. Will you journey with him? 

I know that when people take their first steps into the kingdom of heaven it often feels like swimming in Brighton Beach on a cold day. You put a toe in the water and then withdraw it quickly when you realize how cold the water is. Eventually, with courage you wade in and then there comes a moment when you have to take the plunge. In a split second you forget yourself and know only the sensation of the water. You swim with your whole body in the freedom of the water and it is bracing and exhilarating at the same time. That’s what we need to do as Christians: we need to reach a point where we immerse ourselves completely in the love of Christ. 

Once you are in Christ he will equip you for the work that is needed. Of course you won’t feel worthy, or saintly. In other words, you won’t feel ready. But Jesus doesn’t call saints or the worthy; he calls sinners. He calls people in the mess of their lives to follow him. That’s why he won’t wait for you to put your affairs in order first. You follow him as you are - whatever your circumstances. You can be nostalgic for the past, or feel sorry for yourself, or for what might have been, but really God is interested in you, now, and is calling you this very moment. Your sins are forgiven: awake and be healed; let his love set you free to enjoy life in its fullness, as a son or daughter of the Most High. 

That’s the invitation. He calls all of us to share in the life and work of the kingdom of heaven. So put your hand to the plow, and don’t look back, but follow Jesus and trust his way. Don’t say, “yes, but.” Say instead, “yes, now.”

Preached by Father David Beresford

26 June 2016

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Our Present Duty

Our Present Duty

Mtr. Erika Takacs

There is, in this morning’s Gospel, a truly terrifying moment. Jesus and his disciples cross over to Gentile country, and the second that Jesus’ sandaled foot hits the ground, he is accosted by a mad man, naked and filthy, with matted hair and wild eyes and skin that carries the stench of death from having lain so long among the tombs. He is wiry as a wolf but his body hums with an uncontrollable strength. He has smashed his shackles and bolted past his guard and now stands with his body pointed at Jesus like an arrow drawn back deep into the bowstring – muscles coiled, mind galloping, the whole of him out of control and threatening.

But this is not the terrifying moment.

When Jesus commands the man’s unclean spirit to be gone, the wild man collapses at Jesus’ feet and screams into his face, What have you to do with me? Jesus asks the demon his name, and the answer drops into the conversation like a boulder – I am Legion. I am not one but many, not many but thousands. I am evil with so many faces you will have a hard time keeping track of me, evil that can stare you in the face while also jumping out at you from over your shoulder. I am evil of such magnitude that I can overwhelm and subsume your entire being, leaving you with no name but mine. I am Legion.

But this is not the terrifying moment.

Jesus, unafraid, continues his conversation with the demons. They seem to realize that they have met their match and beg him not to cast him into the abyss where all things evil are dissolved of their power. Send us into those pigs, they cry – unclean, sure, but better than a watery grave. Jesus complies, and the demons surge out of the man’s body into the herd. The swine go mad. They tear down the hillside, ripping through any part of the crowd that stands in their way. They tumble down to the lake in a mob, and when they reach the shoreline, they just keep running – into the water, tumbling over each other, splashing and flailing and crying out until finally they are gone and the water is still and the air is silent.

But even this is not the terrifying moment.

The terrifying moment comes next. When the limp man is lifted from the ground, carried under the shade of a tree, washed, comforted, and dressed, and when the swineherds bring crowds from the town to see what has happened, and when those crowds see the wild man sitting peacefully at the feet of his teacher, clothed and in his right mind, the people find themselves terrifically afraid. They turn to Jesus, this man who had just faced down an army of darkness and cast it into the sea, and they ask him to please, please, just go away. And so Jesus gets into the boat and leaves. He just leaves.

And that is terrifying.   

It’s terrifying because Jesus lets them make the wrong decision. He knows that they are afraid, he knows that they’re acting blindly and stupidly, he knows that he has more good to offer them than they could ever desire or imagine, and yet he leaves them. He sees them reject him, and he allows himself to be rejected. He gets in his boat, and he leaves. He doesn’t stand and argue with them about why they’re being ridiculous. He doesn’t cajole them with parables or prayers. He doesn’t wow them with another miracle to prove he has their best interest at heart. He just leaves, leaves a hole where there could have been healing, a void of hopelessness that evil will be only too happy to fill up once again. He walks away, leaving them with a herd of dead pigs bloating in the lake and a swarm of fear in their hearts. They say no, and he says okay. And that’s terrifying.

It’s terrifying, and it happens in our world all the time. We reject Christ, and Christ allows himself to be rejected. We choose evil, and Christ allows us to choose it. Who knows why we do it. We choose evil because it’s familiar (better the Legion we know than the Savior we don’t). We choose it because it’s easy, or because we are so afraid of change that we’d rather die than try something new. We choose evil for any of a multitude of reasons, and Christ lets us choose it. Look around. We live in a world that is flooded with evil – evil choices, evil people, evil words, evil laws – because Christ allows us to reject him, because, if we want to, Christ will let us swim in the darkest possible waters of fear and death. And that is scary as hell.

It’s also necessary. Because Jesus will not force our choices, force our love, for love that is forced is not love. Jesus does not want our fealty out of fear. Jesus does not want to entertain us into following him or bribe us to choose him. Jesus wants more than half-hearted, wrong-hearted, or closed-hearted disciples. Jesus wants us to choose him for no less a reason than that we have realized that to truly live, we have no other choice. Jesus wants us to love him because we love him. He will always be ready to receive us – the prophet Isaiah tells us that God is always ready to be found, crying out “Here I am!” and holding out his hands for us all the day long – but he will not grab us and force us to come to him any more than we would force a flower to turn its face to the sun.

Now that may sound a little bleak, but let me tell you, there is good news here. First, it’s important to remember that Jesus is just the tiniest bit of a cheat. Because when by him all things were made, the eternal Word of God planted the seeds of love deep within our being. God made us to love. Loving one another and God feels right, feels like home, because our hearts were created with an infinite capacity to love and the eternal longing to do so. And so Jesus knows that there is no need to force our hearts; they are already his.

But there is more good news for us here. Because you’ll remember that in the Gospel, when Jesus gets into his boat and leaves the crowd, he does not leave them alone. He leaves them in the hands of the very man he had just healed; he leaves this man, washed and healed and saved, to stand before the people and continually proclaim the good news. Return to your home, Jesus tells him, and declare how much God has done for you. And that is exactly what the man does – he goes back into the city and tells everyone he sees that he has been healed, that God is here, that God is love, that God is good, that God is making all things new. Choose God, he tells the people. Turn your hearts back to him and find your home. Love the one who made you, he cries, because the one who made you made you to love him.

Jesus gives this man back to his people – just as Jesus gives us to our world. This man’s work is our work too; to proclaim – to shout out! – the good news. This is what you and I have got to do. We have been washed and healed and saved by the merits of our baptism, and each time we come into this church, each time we hold out our hands for holy bread, Jesus then sends us away saying, Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you. Preach the Gospel.

We live in a world where evil is legion, where evil has so many names and faces that it is hard for us to keep track of them. Evil is hate speech, evil is prejudice and fear, evil is bigotry spoken into microphones, evil is bullets fired into bodies at a nightclub, evil is apathy in the face of stupid, senseless tragedy. Evil is legion. But this is not a terrifying moment. Because you and I stand together in the world as the body of Christ. You and I are the baptized, who bring the very light of Christ into the world. You and I and all the whole Church can face down this evil without fear, because we know that in the presence of Christ, even Legion has no power. We are baptized! We have a voice to preach the Gospel, and we must use it. For if we did, if we all preached the good news of Christ crucified in word and action, we would send the voices of evil screaming into the abyss.

This is our solemn and holy task. To quote the old speech by Bishop Frank Weston, this is our present duty. We have got our baptisms, we have got our Mass. We have got our prayer and our service and our outreach. Now go out into the world and preach the Gospel. In the face of hatred, preach love. In the face of intolerance, preach mercy. In the face of despair, preach hope. Preach peace, preach peace, preach peace. And the God of peace, who made you and saved you and marked you as his own, will be with you.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

19 June 2016

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

A Sinful Woman Forgiven

A Sinful Woman Forgiven

Fr. David Beresford

What happens when you invite Jesus to come under your roof? The answer is, not always what you might expect. That, at least, was the experience of the Pharisee who invited Jesus to eat with him.

I want to talk about that encounter in a moment, but first let me begin by observing that throughout most of his earthly ministry Jesus had no home to speak of, which partly explains why there are so many stories of him in the homes of other people. “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58) It’s easy for us to forget that Jesus had to rely on the hospitality of others for basic things like food and shelter. What better way for the faithful to give as well as to receive? God’s coming among us was to be a two-way street: while Jesus taught and healed he needed hospitality and wherever he stayed he was usually, but not always, an honored guest.

Inviting Jesus to come under your roof was no guarantee of a quiet and peaceful evening. At the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus at Bethany, Jesus argued with Judas about money. In another home where Jesus stayed, the roof of the home literally came off, so that a paralysed man could be lowered into the same room as Jesus. In today’s gospel, Jesus dines with a Pharisee, and in the course of the meal conveys some uncomfortable home truths to his host.

Exercising hospitality is one of the ways we please God. Remember how the Lord appeared mysteriously as three men to Abraham and Sarah in the desert, and how Abraham gave them water, washed their feet and gave them shade under the oaks of Mamre? Sarah baked them some bread, and Abraham ordered a calf, “tender and good”, to be cooked and served to the strangers. Abraham was unstinting in his hospitality to the Lord. Remember too what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews states: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:2)

Showing hospitality is, or at least should be, integral to our lives as people of God. And like all things that matter, it is important that we get it right. I don’t think the Pharisee in today’s gospel got it right - he got part of it right, but left out some essential aspects of hospitality which exposed him to God’s anger, as expressed through Jesus. Let’s revisit the scene once more.

A Pharisee has asked Jesus to eat with him. There are few instances recorded in the gospels of Jesus eating with Pharisees. At a banquet such as the one to which Jesus is invited the guests left their sandals at the door and reclined on low couches with their feet behind them. We can assume that the Pharisee who invited Jesus respected Jesus to some degree and indeed at one point he refers to Jesus as “Teacher” or Rabbi. Nothing seems amiss until a third party - a woman whom the Pharisee describes as a “sinner” - enters the room. In ancient homes there was more public access than in modern ones, so the woman could simply have wandered in from outside. When she comes into the room she brings an unexpected emotional charge, for as soon as she sees Jesus, even before she utters a word or does anything, she is in tears.

Her tears remind me of a midday Mass I attended many years ago at St Peter’s, Eaton Square in London. There were no more than five people in the congregation. One man, whom I had not seen at Mass before, approached the altar at the giving of communion with tears in his eyes. As he held out his hand to receive the sacrament, his tears flowed ever more freely. Instead of saying “Amen” he said “Thank you” - I doubt I have ever heard those two words said with such gratitude or feeling. Because of him, I began to cry as well. Jesus was present under our roof and our emotions and feelings were being stirred at a deep level.

The woman in Jesus’ story has her sins forgiven: a generous act because her sins were many. Jesus tells her, “your faith has saved you.” It is important to note here that it was her faith, not her love, that saved her. Her love flows towards the man who does not condemn her, but who sees her faith and trust in God. And how beautifully she expresses that love, by kneeling down and washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and hair, and then anointing his feet with ointment.

Contrast her action to what the Pharisee does, or doesn’t do. Although he has provided Jesus with a meal, in other ways he is less than generous. Jesus judges him next to the woman, whom the Pharisee regarded as unclean; yet by Jesus’ reckoning it is the woman who is justified while it is the Pharisee who has fallen short. Jesus tells him:

“I entered your house [and] you gave me no water for my feet...You gave me no kiss...You did not anoint my head with oil.”

By contrast, Jesus says to the woman: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Yet God’s peace was not reserved solely for the woman - it was available to the Pharisee as well, but his half-hearted attempt at hospitality has denied him access to that peace. We can guess what was going through his mind; perhaps he was afraid of what the other Pharisees might think, by inviting this radical preacher and teacher into his house. He receives Jesus with formal politeness but no great warmth, refusing the small gestures of hospitality which make all the difference between a proper welcome and a perfunctory one. In effect he wishes to assert some misguided sense of superiority over his guest, but it only exposes him as a poor host, caring more about himself and about what others may think of him. It is the Pharisee, the so-called man of God, who is revealed to be deficient in the spirit of God. The woman, despite or perhaps because of her sinfulness, throws herself on the mercy of God who forgives her her sin.

This is a story about the risks you take in inviting Jesus to come under your roof. At some point in our faith journeys, we must all make this invitation. “Jesus, I want you to come into my life.” But what would happen if he did? That’s impossible to predict, and so it is a risky venture. Do you have a list of demands ready for him? My advice would be to tear them up and throw them away. Jesus knows what you need better than you know yourself. Do you wonder that Jesus would be interested in someone as unimportant as you? Jesus always honors and responds to those who call upon him.

When Jesus comes into your life there is every possibility of your life changing. If nothing changes, then your welcome is not whole hearted enough, as the Pharisee learned the hard way. Be wholehearted in your invitation, and trust God to do the right thing for you. If evidence were needed of the power of Jesus to change lives, we see it in the example of the woman whose gratitude overflowed in tears of love in response to God’s mercy. And for good measure, at the end of our reading, there is a roll call of women whose lives were cured by Jesus, and who in turn gave their lives and resources to support the mission of the church.

So practice the hospitality of a true believer. Invite Jesus in, treat him as an honored guest, and ask him for nothing more than mercy. For we are all sinners, and all have need of his healing and forgiving love.

Preached by Father David Beresford

12 June 2016

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia