The Right 10%

In 1966, the American Council on Education conducted a study of college freshmen. They were attempting to create a set of national norms for college students – where they had come from, what they were like, and what they wanted to be when they grew up. The ACE survey has been executed every year since. The questions have changed a bit; for example, in 1966 the first possible answer to the question “Where were you raised?” was “On a farm.” In 1966 the freshmen were offered only four choices for religious affiliation; in 2015 they were offered 24. The 2015 survey asked questions about the students’ gender identify and sexual orientation; the 1966 survey asked them how likely they would be to listen to New Orleans’ Dixieland jazz. But one of the most interesting differences is the result for the question which asked these students how they compared themselves academically to their peers. Did they see themselves as above average or below? In 1966, 56.4% of students said that they thought they were above average academically. Interesting, but not entirely surprising. But in 2015, 73.5% of students claimed to be above average – and not just above average, but within the top 10% of their peers. 73.5% thought that they belonged in the top 10%. That must be a tight top 10%!

Now I am no expert in statistics, nor am I an expert in the emotional or academic lives of freshmen on our college campuses. I’m sure if you were to read the full report on the survey or to talk with Mother Johnson or another of the professors in our midst, you would learn a lot more about how these numbers actually work and what they can tell us about young people in our society. I just found myself fascinated by that image – of 73.5% trying to squish into that top 10%. Of 7 out of 10 people claiming the label of extraordinary. Of 7 out of 10 people expecting that special seat, the highest chair, the most exclusive place at the party.

This must have been what Jesus saw at the gathering we hear about in today’s Gospel reading. He had been invited to dinner at the home of a leader of the Pharisees – not exactly the recipe for a relaxing evening. For this was no ordinary dinner; it was a dinner on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees were watching – watching him closely, or, in the words of another translation, watching his every move.* Suspicion was in the air, and the Pharisees were scrutinizing Jesus’ every move as if they thought he might steal a salt shaker or break Grandmother’s fine china.

They were so intent on spying on him, in fact, that they neglected to notice that they, too, were being watched. They didn’t see that Jesus was also watching them – steadily, intently, observing where they went and what they did. He saw them – not all of them, but some of them – cozying up to the host, bringing him an extra drink, a napkin when he dripped wine onto his robes. He saw them ignoring the man standing in shabby clothes in the corner, ashamed that he had nothing else to wear. As the time for dinner approached, he saw them as they swarmed closer and closer to the host like so many ecclesiastical gnats. And when the host sat down, Jesus saw some of them dive for their places like some ancient near-Eastern version of musical chairs, elbows jabbing, hips checking, bellies bumping. He saw it all, and when he took his seat at the last place, next to the man still blushing over the worn patches in his robes, he decided to tell them what he’d seen.

And what Jesus offers them is sound practical advice, an echo of wise counsel from the book of Proverbs. When looking for a place to land, better to underestimate than to overestimate. If you choose to sit in the bottom 10%, imagine how wonderful it will be when someone tells you to please, move up. You’ve placed yourself too far down; you belong up here, with the elite. But if you try to squeeze yourself into the top 10% and you don’t belong there, imagine how humiliating it will be to have someone call you out on it. You there, leave space for the truly exceptional. Make way for the truly deserving, you know, the right sort of chair sitters.

So humble yourself, Jesus says. Aim low, and you might just end up being surprised. It’s good advice for not embarrassing yourself in social situations. But Jesus isn’t just giving etiquette advice here; he’s telling all who will listen about a fundamental truth of God’s kingdom. There is no earning the top 10% in the Kingdom of God.  The high place at the table is always freely given, unmerited and undeserved. So there’s no need to throw elbows for it; instead, we should be reaching out our arms to those who imagine that they don’t have a place at the table at all, those who stand alone in corners, feeling ashamed and unworthy. Those who claim that last 10% show the world what it is to truly be a follower of Christ, a disciple who views all gifts with wonder and gratitude, who gives thanks for everything with joy and delight.

I wonder what Jesus would see if he were watching us now? Or, more accurately, I wonder what he does see as he does watch us right now. Does he see us throwing elbows, trying to get ahead by some standard that only this world can measure? Does he see us casually ignoring those among us who don’t seem to belong? Does he peer into the dark corners of our minds and see the complex inventories we make there – well, she’s smarter than I am, but I have better legs. He’s not nearly as well-liked as I am at the office, even if he does seem to come up with all of the best ideas. I may not have her generous heart, but at least I’m secure financially. Does Jesus look into our hearts and see humility there, or only insecurity and fear wrought by the constant comparisons we make to each other, by our constant need to try to earn acceptance, peace, love?

But what if Jesus were to see us claiming a seat in the bottom 10%? What if he saw us choosing to sit down with those who are needy, or unsure, or troubled? What if he saw us looking for ways to help others move up higher, to invite others to the feast, to welcome a stranger and perhaps entertain an angel unawares?  What if he saw us loving our neighbors instead of comparing ourselves to them, letting God be the arbiter of justice? What if he saw us truly humbling ourselves in our prayer, confessing our sins, acknowledging our ongoing need for Grace? What if he saw us giving thanks for the bottom 10% instead of gunning for the top 10?

You know, we never hear what happens with the seating arrangement at the Pharisee’s dinner. There’s no line in the Gospel that says, “Then the Pharisees realized the error of their ways and invited Jesus and his shabby friend to sit at the head of the table.” For all we know, Jesus stayed right there, at the tail of the table, in the bottom 10%, with the poor and the crippled and the lame and the blind. And really, that is right where he wants to be. "For Christ, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."**

You know, in the Kingdom of God, below average is just fine. In the Kingdom of God, the bottom 10% is brilliant. For it is there that we are more than likely to find Christ. It is there that we are more than likely find real gratitude. It is there that we are more than likely to find ourselves no longer so distracted by all of the ways that we can get ahead. In the bottom 10%, we can truly see the people around us, and see Christ in them; we can truly strive for mutual love. In the bottom 10%, we can be content with what we have, which is nothing less than the never-failing love of God, a God who gives us his own Son, born in human likeness, who reaches down to us, to the very bottom, and says, you are mine, please, come up higher. When we have all of this, how can we not be content with what we have? For we have a seat at the table with Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This is everything, all we need. 100%.  

* From Eugene Peterson's The Message

**Philippians 2

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

28 August 2016

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

The Right Time

I heard a story once about a boy who was alone with his father when news came over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.  The father heard the news, turned to his son, and said, “Just don’t tell your mother.” 

It sounds crazy now, doesn’t it?  She was bound to find out.  It’s clear to us now that even the most delicate and sheltered wife would sooner or later have had a look at the papers and would have figured out that World War II was happening.  All these years later we can see that that man was in a state of shock, and that his attempt to keep his wife from finding out about Pearl Harbor was an effort to keep his own fear in check.  We can easily imagine that he was reaching for some kind of habitual emotion that felt safe: “I’ll protect my wife; that’s my role.”  It’s what we do when we go numb: we look for habitual patterns to protect us from overwhelming truths.  “Your mother can’t handle this” is a way of thinking that lets the husband feel like he is still in control.  It’s a way for him to stay in a safe place.

It's always the wrong time to tell the truth, isn't it? It’s always the wrong time to encounter God. The leader of the synagogue in this morning’s Gospel stumbles right into that problem.  Listen to him: "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day."  It feels stunningly wrong.  It’s just like “Don’t tell your mother.”  It’s the voice of a man desperate to hold onto the world he knows, even if, in this case, it’s a world full of pain and limitation, and the voice breaking through to him is bringing news not of war but of healing and peace.  It doesn’t really matter. As long as we want the lives we already know more than we want the truth, we will respond to Jesus this way.

No, we’ll say to ourselves, this isn’t the right time to go to my room and pray.  I’m never going to be a contemplative. No, this isn’t the right Sunday to come to church.  It’s hot. No, daily Mass is something for other people.  The daily office is too hard for me.  There is no need to reconcile with that estranged family member today; I can call her on her birthday.  Or Christmas.  Or next Christmas.  Everyone drinks this heavily.  It’s normal to live a life filled with resentments.

No, I don’t need to be an active member of that parish.  No, I’m not needed for that service position.  Sure, I have sins, but there is no need to confess them this week.  I have questions but there is no need to ask them right now.  I need to tell someone what God once meant to me but I can’t face that whole story right now.  That person wouldn’t understand.  I can’t find the spiritual teacher I’m really looking for.  Maybe I’m not meant to have a radiant faith.

Is it ever the right moment to encounter the living God?  Is it ever the right time to tell the truth?  Could this be the moment? 

We have so many reasons to think that this is not the right time.  Christianity doesn’t really seem to be in ascendancy in twenty-first century America, does it?  Faith in Jesus is not really in vogue.  Religions across the board seem to be under so much pressure from fundamentalism, and under so much pressure from the distracting demands of practical life: keeping a job, keeping our heads above water, keeping up with the rushing tide of history, keeping our families and our relationships intact.  It’s all fantastically complicated, and sometimes it’s truly bleak.  I wonder whether we really experience our relationship with Jesus as commensurate with the pain of the lives we are living.  I wonder whether our faith in Jesus feels like salvation, for ourselves and for the world.  I wonder whether secretly we aren’t tempted to give up on that idea, and keep God at arm’s length.  Aren’t we tempted to postpone our encounter with God in hopes that there will be another day when prayer will beckon to us more powerfully, or God will seem present, or it will make sense to us to let go of the possessions and the habits and the attitudes that keep us apart?  I have a feeling I’m not the only one who imagines becoming a real Christian one day in the future. 

What would our lives be like if we were willing to believe that today was the best day to meet God breaking through to us?  That today was the best day to let God into the problems that baffle us?  That there would never be a better moment, that we were in exactly the right place to hear from God?  Not in spite of our very real problems and limitations but precisely because of them?  What Gospel story is being written among us today?  What story would be written if we would step out from our hiding places?  What turning point would this be?  We are the best people God could possibly choose for the lives God has given us, imperfections and all.  And this is exactly the right time to hear that message.

That’s what Jesus saw when he was teaching the synagogue, as Luke tells us.  He saw a woman who had been bent over, unable to stand up straight, for eighteen years.  That’s a long, long, time.  Long enough for the woman and everyone around her to take that physical limitation as inevitable, so much so that it ceased to be visible.  She ceased to be visible.  But not to Jesus.  When Jesus sees her he calls her to him and he puts his hands on her and he sets her free.  It’s the wrong time for the leader of the synagogue, who is no doubt as shocked as we would be to feel God’s presence so profoundly and in such a new way.  But it’s the right time for Jesus, and it becomes the right time for the woman, who immediately stands up straight and begins praising God.

She didn’t ask to be healed, any more than most of us ask to be transformed radically by God’s grace.  She is just the kind of person Jesus is looking for, precisely because she is as shut down as we are.  Precisely because her pain and her limitations have become business as usual.  Precisely because she belongs to a religious congregation that has quietly abandoned the desire to be startled by God’s actions in the world.  Jesus didn’t do anything in the synagogue that morning that he doesn’t do all the time among us.

There isn’t anything we can be that those people in Luke’s Gospel haven’t already been.  We can’t keep Jesus out with our complacency or our resignation or our hypocrisy or our need to maintain control.  Jesus simply calls, and touches us, and sets us on our feet and fills our mouths with praise.  It’s not so much that he triumphed in spite of the resistance of the congregation that morning in the synagogue.  Let’s think of it a different way: he went there looking for the woman whose limitations were chronic and the religious community that didn’t want to have to face the living God.  He went there looking for people like us.

And although this is a story of great, miraculous healing, it’s no different than a hundred healings that might be happening here and now among us.  We don’t see it, because we don’t jump up and start praising.  But we surely could.  We could make it more visible than we do.  We could hear the sound of a hundred hearts slipping open, a hundred backs straightening, a hundred burdens being dropped.

This story condenses and magnifies what we know to be true, what we experience in smaller ways all the time.  This story presents us with one big healing and doesn’t tell us what the woman’s life is like after that, but we know about life with Jesus.  We know that we have within us not only the woman who is to be healed, but also the religious leader who is desperate to control and hide from the power of God so as to remain in the world he knows.  And it’s possible, too, that sometimes we have in us Jesus himself.  Sometimes there will be the voice of Jesus calling to another with healing grace.  Sometimes our own hands will be the hands of Jesus reaching out to touch another who is in pain.  Sometimes the time will be right for us, and we will witness the grace of God working in our midst.

 Praise God that we are given the gift of this healing in all of its dimensions.  Praise God that we are sometimes ready to be healed in whatever way God prepares for us.  Praise God that the religious leader within us, the one afraid to let God work in ways he can’t control, may be only a passing moment in the larger story of our lives in Christ.

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson

21 August 2016

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

More Than Just One

There once was a man, a leader, who looked out upon his people and saw that they were broken apart. It had been his hope to make them one, to unite them in one triumphant band. But watching them as they went about their daily work, he saw that they were deeply and hopelessly divided, and that without help they would continue to live lives of separation and regret. And so this man, this leader, made a decision. He himself would make things right. He would offer himself up as a sacrifice, turn himself over to be hated and abused, and in his sacrifice, his people would find their way. In his sacrifice, his people would see how they were bound to each other, and they would ultimately take hold of the glorious victory that was rightly theirs. In other words, they might just take home the gold medal.

Like many of you, I have had the Olympics on the brain this week, and I've found myself thinking back to one of the greatest Olympic moments of all time – not in 2016 in the sunny carnival of Rio de Janeiro, but in 1980 in the “frozen tundra”* that was Lake Placid, New York. Herb Brooks was the coach of the American men’s hockey team that year, a team that was expected – no, guaranteed – to lose. The fearsome engine of Soviet sports was in full swing then, and the teams of the Soviet bloc were unstoppable. The men had played together for years; they skated like lightning and moved across the ice like a machine. Brooks’ team, on the other hand, was composed mostly of college hot-shots, who not only had never played together but had actively played against each other. Their inter-collegiate rivalries ran deep, and Brooks found himself coaching a team that hated the idea of playing with each other more than they hated the idea of losing to the Soviets.

But Brooks had an idea. He would sacrifice himself before the altar of Olympic glory in order to give his team of bull-headed, fractious young men a whisper of a chance of winning. He did the only thing he could do to stop them from hating each other so much; he made himself so hard-nosed, so tyrannical, so despicable, that they all started to hate him. And when they all started hating him, they finally found something in common. They were still infuriated, but now, they were all infuriated about the same thing. Suddenly, they started playing as a team. And you know the end of the story – they beat the Soviets, and then beat Finland, and took home the gold. Do you believe in miracles? Yes!

But this wasn’t, actually, a miracle. It was a masterful plan, made by one man, who was willing to sacrifice himself, his own likeability, to make his team one. For Herb Brooks, unity was everything. It was worth any cost he might have to pay. It was worth it to be hated if he could give those young men the chance to earn what they had long desired – a gold medal and a place in those Olympic legends we all like to tell this time of year. Okay, so his plan was just the slightest bit manipulative, but Herb Brooks made those players a team, made them one, and we admire him for it.

There is something innately admirable about unity. There’s something noble about the idea of a group of disparate people uniting for a common purpose or against a common enemy. It’s truly American, it’s truly human, to seek unity and to place those who bring it about on a pedestal, or, often, in office. When there is work to be done, when there is an impossible mountain to climb, or when fear is all around, unity can feel like the only thing that matters, the highest good, no matter what price we might have to pay for it. Unity at any cost can begin to sound almost like Gospel…right up until the moment we hear Jesus’ message to his disciples in today’s passage from Luke. “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled,” he says. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” Hearing that, we realize that there is more to the story than unity at any cost.

But to be honest, I’m not sure how much of that story I want to hear. I mean, last week we heard Jesus say, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” And this week he says he’s coming to bring division? Is there any promise, any news, anything we would like to hear less right now? Have mercy, O Lord, have mercy, for we have had more than enough of division. The maelstrom of our division threatens to swamp us at any moment. Wave after wave crashes down on us every day, in every news cycle – white and black, men and women, rich and poor, undocumented workers and American citizens, gun-owners and non-gun-owners, Muslims and everybody else, black lives matter and blue lives matter and all lives matter, Republican and Democrat and all of their various and sundry sub-divisions. And then there are the divisions that don’t make the news – the divisions in our workplaces or in our households or hearts, the ugly divisions that splinter our Church. We live amongst the wreckage of these divisions every moment of every day. So wouldn’t it be nice to hear Jesus say to us, Do not be afraid, little flock, for I have a masterful plan to take all of those divisions away. You won’t even know what’s happening. I’ll fix it to make you all one, and we’ll worry about everything else later. Sounds promising, right? Sounds like a bit of a miracle. And should we expect anything less of our Savior than this?

But this is not what our Savior says. Jesus does not promise us unity at all costs, because Jesus is interested in more than that. Jesus is interested in more than a unity built upon hypocrisy and hatred. Jesus is interested in more than a unity held together by disgust and disdain. Jesus is interested in more than a unity of some that builds walls to keep others out. Jesus is interested in more than a unity that is only on our own terms, a unity that is built upon the sand of our partial understandings. Jesus wants more than just cheap unity.** Jesus wants us to be more than just one; Jesus wants us to be one in him.

And to be made one in him, Jesus offers us a hope that less like the promise of gold and glory and more like a sword that slices into our world and reorders everything – the top on the bottom, the bottom on the top, the secret truth brought to the fore, the lowly asked to sit up higher, our every expectation turned downside up in the light of Christ’s refining fire. Remember, this is a Messiah whose mother sang him to sleep each night with the words of the Magnificat. A unity that ignores these Gospel truths is worth nothing at all. What is the point of such unity if it keeps the mighty in their seat and puts down the humble and meek? What good is a unity that continues to fill the rich with good things and sends the hungry empty away?

Jesus wants more for us than this, he longs for a unity that connects us not just to each other but to the very heart of God. And so, he tells us, we are to do this one thing. We are to pay attention. We are to interpret the present time. And that time, our time, needs us to live the words of Our Lady’s Magnificat. Our time needs us to save the weak and the orphan, to defend the humble and needy, and to deliver them from the power of the wicked. Our time needs us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. Our time needs us to refuse to see any of our neighbors as less worthy of love then we are. Our time needs us to embrace all those who differ from us, especially those who differ the most. Our time needs us to unite not to defeat our enemies but to love them. Our time needs us to refuse, again and again, to use words that threaten and harm. Our time needs us to embrace, again and again, the language of the gospel, which shines the light of the truth of God’s love into the world like a beacon of hope. Our time needs us to pay attention, to live the promises we hold, to seek a costly unity.

And the gift, the unearned prize, the real miracle, is that Jesus Christ our Savior has already accomplished the one thing that makes that kind of deep, enduring, transformative unity possible. He has been baptized with his own unique baptism, raised up high – not upon a pedestal, but upon the cross, to draw all people to himself. He has offered himself up as a sacrifice, not through hatred, but through love. All we need do is come to the foot of that cross, here – receive this bread and this wine and be re-membered into one body, confess our sins and return to the Lord, sing psalms and spiritual songs with one voice, let the truth of the Gospel catch fire in our hearts that it may shine out into our time, into our world. Come and count the cost of this unity, paid for you and for me by a God who is very near to you. Come, and do not be afraid. For it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

14 August 2016

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

*Borrowed shamelessly from NFL films

**Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "cheap grace"