To Be a Saint

This past April, a man from Tennessee named Ben Stucki was reading his Facebook news feed. I wasn’t there, so I can’t know for sure, but if Ben is anything like me, he was in a marginally comatose state while doing so, scrolling halfheartedly past videos on how to make boeuf bourguignon in under 3 minutes in your microwave, advertisements for the world’s most comfortable yoga pants, and photos of friends-you-can-barely-remember’s kids/pets/dinners/vacations/new haircuts. But suddenly, like a beacon of light in the middle of the world’s most boring storm, there it was – the thing that Ben had been looking for, the thing that made his internet trolling worth it for the day.

The thing was a meme, which is, according to Google, “a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.” This particular meme looked like an ordinary political campaign sticker – you know, I’m With Her, or Make America Great Again – but the words on this sticker were anything but ordinary. Giant Meteor 2016, it read, and then under it in smaller, sadder print: Just end it already.

I’m guessing that many of you have seen this slogan around town, but you may not know that you have Ben Stucki to thank for it. Ben was the person who took that meme and turned it into a real bumper sticker. He made only a few at first. He really only wanted one for himself, but the printer he used sold only in blocks of 50, so Ben put the rest up for sale on Amazon. And someone bought it, and then someone else saw it, and someone famous tweeted it, and by June of this year he had sold over 1500 Giant Meteor bumper stickers. I can’t even imagine how many he’s sold by now.

You can see the appeal of the Giant Meteor campaign. No matter which candidate you’re planning on voting for by this time next week, this year’s presidential campaign has been an uglier version of the ugly campaigns we’re used to. The hyperbole is more hyper, the scare tactics scarier, the scandals wilder, the bruises bigger. No matter who we’re hoping will win, many of us are already feeling pretty defeated, so much so that a joke about the total annihilation of the world makes us shake our heads and chuckle a bit. Giant Meteor 2016 is funny, in a tired kind of way. It’s also a sign that over the past months we’ve lost something – something that was itself the theme of a rather significant campaign sticker from 8 years ago: hope.

What’s interesting is that the question this bumper sticker raises isn’t if we’ve lost hope or why – the question this bumper sticker raises is whether or not it really matters. So we’ve lost hope, so what? After all, it doesn’t seem like there’s much to be very hopeful about. Is it so unreasonable to feel anxiety, or anger, or apathy instead – I mean, look where we’ve ended up, and look what’s headed this way. Maybe it’s better to be brutally realistic, to prepare ourselves for a disappointing future so that we don’t find ourselves disappointed and surprised. Maybe the gallows humor of Giant Meteor 2016 is better for us in the end. Laugh, eat, and drink, for tomorrow we die.

We could have a long and complex discussion about the place of hope versus pragmatism in American politics, or about how we as American citizens can have a healthy emotional engagement with the political process – when to turn the other cheek, when to turn away, where to draw the line, when to click off the computer. But I’m going to suggest a different discussion tonight. Because tonight, we sit in this place not first and foremost as Americans, but as Christians, and as Christians, we can and should have an entirely different conversation about hope.

The conversation begins here: “In Christ, we have also obtained an inheritance…so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.” “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.” Notice that for the author of the letter to the Ephesians, hope is a given. You who were the first to set your hope on Christ, you who claim a hope to which you have been called. Not you who might sometimes feel hopeful, or you who imagine what hope might be like. For this community of early Christians, hope was a fact of their discipleship. It is just how they lived in the world.

And remember, this letter wasn’t written for a perfect world. This wasn’t some golden age when city states were free from tyranny, ego, corruption, and ignorance. This wasn’t some idyllic moment when everyone told the truth, gave generously, and loved perfectly. This time was as marked by as much hope-killing absurdity as ours is. And yet, for these Christians, there was no cynicism there. There was no weariness there. And there certainly was no Giant Meteor LXII bumper sticker there. Because this community of disciples did not find their hope in the future that the world dictated. This community of disciples did not ground their hope in the actions of women and men, even good women and men. This community of disciples knew that their hope was not a flittery, fluttery thing – not so much a thing with feathers* as a thing of iron that anchored them to a more profound reality. Because their hope was in the one seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. Their hope was in the one who fills all in all. Their hope was in the power and presence and persistence of Jesus Christ. And that hope does not fail.

This is the hope to which Christ called that community of disciples, and this is the hope to which Christ calls this community of disciples. Not hope in Donald Trump. Not hope in Hillary Clinton. Not even hope in the wisdom of the founders and the fail safes of our political process. Not hope that it’ll all just go away, but hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Hope in his power. Hope in his generosity. Hope in his tenacity. Hope that his life, death, and resurrection is making all things new, even this mess. Hope that in him, we are made one. Hope that we can be one whole body, not just the left arm and the right arm. Hope that our inheritance of light and life and mercy and justice can flood the world with grace. Hope that our hope can bring hope to all the hopeless.

This is what it means to be a saint. Saints are all of those Christians who have lived – and died – in the hope of Christ. Saints are people who claim hope as their birthright, who choose hope, day after day, no matter what storms rage around them. Saints are those who know themselves to be called by Christ to hope, even when the world seems dark and full of fear. 

Yes, the world seems hopeless to us right now. That’s okay. God does not see it that way. And God is giving us this gift, this inheritance of hope, free of charge, so that we don’t have to see it that way either. We have a chance to see the bigger picture tonight, God’s picture. This moment is a blessed opportunity to strip the sticky sourness and sad cynicism from our lives and to claim our inheritance as saints of God – to claim hope. This is our opportunity to set our hope on Christ and then to live like it, tonight, and tomorrow, and next Tuesday, and next Wednesday, to love our enemies, to do good to those who use us poorly, to give generously and freely, to do unto everyone we meet what we would have done to us. This is our chance to choose to hope that God is working in the world, that we have a part to play in that work, and that God will not quit until the work is finished.  

This is the work we have to do, you and I: to follow the saints who have come before in all virtuous and godly living and to hope in Christ. If you are starting to lose your hope, reach down into the darkness and grab it with both hands. Bear it into the light and set your hope on Christ. Be his. Be hopeful. Be a saint of God. Hope 2016. And forever and ever. Amen.

*from Emily Dickinson

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

All Saints Day, 2016

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Who Is James?

There are at least two, and possibly as many as four or five, or more, men named James who are mentioned by name in the New Testament. To arrive in church of a Sunday morning and be greeted by a leaflet that announces that we are observing today the Feast of St. James of Jerusalem is to be invited into confusion. Come on in; you are most welcome.

Without question, one of the twelve apostles was called James, who was the brother of John, both sons of Zebedee. This is St. James the Apostle, the Greater, the patron saint of Spain, the path to whose shrine at Santiago de Compostela countless pilgrims have trod – my own self three different times. And he has nothing whatsoever to do with today.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that two Jameses were among the Twelve: the aforementioned son of Zebedee, and another James, the son of Alpheus. This second James is usually nicknamed St. James the Less – probably because he was younger than James the Greater, or possibly because he was shorter. But chances are he is not the person we are here to celebrate either, because his feast day is May 3, so hold your horses.

Some people attribute the Epistle of James, wherein we are exhorted to be doers of the word and not hearers only, to this shorter, younger man. This authorship seems unlikely to me, but what do I know? Could this be yet another James?

More than once, in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, we are told that there is a James whose mother is Mary. Well, actually we are told that there is a Mary whose son is James, but you get the point. Is this, too, yet another James? And here is where things begin to get interesting or confusing, as the case may be. Because as you may recall, the mother of Jesus is also named Mary, and in some quarters of the church she is thought of with what you might call high regard. And the Scriptures, specifically the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as those of Paul, all attest that Jesus had brothers (and sisters, but we are by no means ready to deal with sisters today!).

What’s more, the writer of the Epistle of Jude claims to be a “brother” of James, but only a “servant” of Jesus, just in case you are trying to keep track of all the Jameses.

In other iterations of identity, some saintly James has been given the moniker “James the Just,” “James the brother of the Lord,” and eventually “James of Jerusalem,” this latter James, said by the church’s earliest historian to have been the bishop of Jerusalem.

And so, it would appear that it is this last James whose life, witness, and ministry we celebrate today. But I hope I have adequately demonstrated that to say such a thing is to say nearly nothing, for we hardly know about whom it is we are speaking.

Much of the problem in saying anything useful about any of the lesser Jameses is that it tends to bring up the thorny question of whether or not Jesus had brothers, as each and every one of the earliest biblical writers suggests he did, in what you might call no uncertain terms. In and of themselves, siblings would be unobjectionable for our Lord, except, of course, for the long-held tradition that such a thing is impossible since Mary, the Mother of our Lord, was a virgin before, during, and forever after the birth of Jesus. The perpetual virginity of Mary - a teaching with deep and ancient roots in the church - precludes the possibility of siblings for Jesus, making it difficult to say just what the biblical writers might mean when they call James the brother of Jesus, and refer to our Lord’s brothers and sisters.

All of this confusion makes it difficult to say just how many Jameses there were, and what the parentage of each may have been. And of course, all of it makes it difficult to know what or who we should be celebrating today.

It is tempting to turn the tables on James, and more or less ignore him. Taking a cue from this morning’s Gospel reading, and from the church’s preoccupation with what it is that James’s identity says about Mary, it is tempting, instead, to raise a song to our Lady – is not his mother called Mary? Yes! She is! And she has captured our hearts, and led us to faith! The church delights to claim Mary as our mother, too – her perpetual virginity proving no impediment to adopting all humanity as her own children. Hail Mary! Hail Mary! Hail Mary, full of grace!

But if we only fixate on Mary, then it seems likely that we are using her as a way to avoid discussing the elephant in the room, which is that we are deeply uncertain about our own relationship to Jesus. Our confusion about how James might or might not be related to Jesus, just might correlate pretty well to our confusion about how we relate to Jesus. Is Jesus, our friend, our brother, a casual acquaintance? A teacher, master, guru, rabbi? Is Jesus the light of the world? Our Lord and Savior? Or is he just cause for confusion in our lives, and therefore better left unexamined? Is not his mother called Mary? That’s good enough for me!

It is telling that the Gospel reading assigned for today’s feast does not only raise questions about Jesus’ family ties. In this passage we are also famously reminded that the prophet and his message are not without honor except where they are most familiar – like, say, here in church. So, here is a paradox: those most likely to ignore the teachings of the Lord are those to whom he is best known; but those to whom he is best known hardly know him at all. No wonder we have so often preferred to run to his mother, who might at least bake us cookies.

So, forget all the Jameses for a moment, and ask yourself, as I must ask myself, do you really want to know Jesus? Do you really want him in your life? Do you really want to explore what demands he makes, what promises he gives, and what expectations he brings? For Jesus is always asking us to live our lives not for ourselves but for others; to be generous in what we give away; to traverse the boundaries of class, race, religion, etc. that keep us comfortable; to accept pain and suffering as a necessary part of life; to trust in God more than we trust in ourselves; to become better at forgiving one another than we are at judging one another; to choose justice over purity or self-righteousness; to adopt a posture of humility; and to make knowing him – truly knowing him, and welcoming him into our hearts, and being transformed by his love – the object of life’s pilgrimage. Is any of this what you want? Is it why you have come to church today? Is it why I am here?

Perhaps it is one of the ironies of today that we celebrate the James who stayed in Jerusalem – where Jesus was well known – in contrast to Paul, who would carry the Name of Jesus to places where his story was entirely unknown. For if Jesus meant what he said, then it is likely that where he is most-well-known known that he is least-well-loved. This teaching should be a fairly chilling warning to us and to all his church.

And maybe we are destined to be uncertain and confused about the Jameses for as long as we are uncertain and confused about Jesus. But what difference does it make if we are?

At the end of our short Gospel reading today, St. Matthew tells us that Jesus “did not do many deeds of power there [in his hometown, where he was well known] because of their unbelief.”

Well, I need Jesus to do some deeds of power in my life, and I bet you do too. I want Jesus to do some deeds of power here in this church, and in the neighborhood around us, and in our city, our nation, and our world! And I don’t want my unbelief or yours to be an impediment to the power of Jesus in our lives and in the world.

So maybe we should embrace the possibility of being more like James – since someone named James seems to be lurking around practically every corner of the New Testament. James is an apostle, a brother, a cousin, a bishop, a friend. He is there in the company of Jesus at nearly every turn. His humility is such that he is hardly known. His grace is such that he is a leader of the church. His faith is such that he is willing to die for it. Maybe James, like a Waldo for his time, is found wherever we need him to be, as long as it’s near Jesus, encouraging us to be better followers, brothers, sisters, leaders, friends, since this is actually hard for us.

And if some day someone were to come to this place, to this community of people, and ask questions like the ones we hear in the Gospel –

“Where did this man [Jesus] get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?” –

then we could stand tall, and with confidence and faith cry out, “Yes! We are his brothers and his sisters. And Mary is our mother! Come, and let him be your brother too!”

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

The Feast of Saint James of Jerusalem

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Praying Always

When Jesus was finished speaking and looked up, his disciples looked completely miserable. James was sitting there shaking his head, a frown slowly spreading across his face. Peter scratched his head and furrowed his brow, trying to look tough even though his eyes were full of heartbreak. John just heaved a sad sigh and closed his eyes. They looked pitiful, tired, and scared, and so Jesus opened his mouth to tell them one more thing. A parable, this time, to ease their minds.

Before telling this story, Jesus had been speaking of the Kingdom of God. He had been telling his disciples all about what it would look like in the days when the Son of Man would be revealed and the Kingdom of God would come. But this Kingdom he spoke of was not the Kingdom of powerful, tiny mustard seeds or sweet yeast that leavens the whole loaf. This Kingdom of God, Jesus told them, was not comfortable or homey. And this Kingdom was not coming in any way that they could observe. People would say, “Look, there it is!” – but it would not be there. The Son of Man would come down from heaven in glory, but the disciples, Jesus told them, would not see it. They would seek and not find; they would knock and find the door barred shut against them. For the Kingdom of God would come at a most unexpected hour, a day that they would never see coming, a daythat, as much as they longed for it, they would just have to wait for. And wait for. And wait for.

And when Jesus was finished telling his disciples of this mysterious coming of the Kingdom, he looked down into their faces, into the eyes of these men who had followed him for so long and who had so much pain still to walk through, and he was moved with compassion. He saw the despair that started to take root, right there, in the center of their beings. He knew how frightening all of this must have sounded, how disorienting his words must have been to those who already had nowhere to lay their heads and no idea where this path was taking them. He wanted to reach down and mend their broken hearts, calm their anxious souls, strengthen their faith right at the core. And so he spoke to them again. He told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.

In this parable, there is a judge. He is a terrible person. There is a widow. She has been slighted and betrayed. She goes to the judge for justice; he offers her none. She goes back to him, again and again and again and again and again and again and finally he gives in and gives her what she deserves – not because he has had a change of heart, but because she is just so fantastically annoying. The judge’s conversation with himself is classic: “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” Or, in a slightly more colorful translation, I will give this woman her stupid justice just so I don’t end up with a black eye from all of her pounding.

On the surface, not exactly a parable to warm the heart. Not one to speak softly to your children as you tuck them in at night. Not one to inspire a painting by Rembrandt or name your church after. The Church of the Widow and the Unjust Judge, Paoli. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it? But while the characters in this parable might not be people we’d ever want to have a cup of coffee with, there is comfort here, finally.  Will not God grant justice to those who cry to him day and night? Jesus asks. How much more will God do for us than this awful judge did for this woman? If even a cold-hearted, self-centered autocrat can end up doing the right thing, how much more can an open-hearted, self-giving God do for you? Ah, there is the relief. There is the lightening of the heart. There is the comfort that should make us feel better as we, like the disciples, wait to see the signs of God’s kingdom like a rainbow in the heavens. Just keep praying, just keep praying. God will answer, and that right soon. 

But as I finish speaking, I look out upon you all, sitting there in your own lives, and I imagine that I can see questions in some of your eyes. Is this really the answer, to just keep pestering God? Does just keep praying really make everything better? Just keep praying sounds like something you tell people when they’re at the end of their rope, something you say when there’s nothing left to say. Just keep praying, and God will, I don’t know, do something. But you and I know that God doesn’t always do something, at least not the something we are looking for. Just keep praying can be cold comfort to those who have been praying for a sick family member but whose cancer just seems to be getting worse and worse. Just keep praying can ring a little false to someone who has been out of work for months, whose rent is overdue, and who has to take 3 buses to get to the grocery store. Just keep praying doesn’t help much when you’re waiting for clarity in a situation that seems messier and murkier by the day. Just keep praying feels like just one of those things you say when you sit in a world where words of hatred are flung at one another with such frequency they’re like arrows that block the sun. And for all of this, we have just keep praying, just keep praying?

But if that is the way we’re thinking about praying, then we’ve entered into the parable in the wrong way. Let me tell you what I mean – we’re clear, aren’t we, that Jesus isn’t trying to equate this unjust judge with God. Right? This parable is not an allegory; the judge is not a stand-in for the Triune God. This would be impossible. God is not unjust, or cruel, or selfish. There can be no simple one-to-one correlation here. So why would we imagine that Jesus’ vision of prayer looks exactly like the actions of this widow? Why would we think that he wants us to just keep praying the same prayer, over and over? That would be praying just like the woman – one question, repeated again and again, with only one possible answer, and we’re just waiting and waiting and waiting to see when that one answer is going to come out of the judge’s mouth.

If just keep praying means only, so that my family member will be cured, or so that I will get this job right now, or so that my lover will come back to me, or so that I will never have to hear words of hatred again, then whether we know it or not, we’re actually praying to the judge, not to God. We’re imagining that God will only hear us when he wants to, only act when we’ve prayed long enough, or hard enough. But this is not the prayer of Jesus.  Jesus wants far more for us than to stoically force ourselves to keep nagging God with the same question over and over while waiting, unchanged, for the answer that we’re expecting. Jesus wants us to not lose our hearts. Do not lose heart, he tell us, and the only way to do that is to pray always.

Praying always is different than just keep praying. Praying always is about listening as much as it is about speaking. Praying always is about taking all of our questions, all of our answers, all of ourselves, all of the time, and holding them up before the throne of Grace. Praying always is about expecting that God will answer and expecting that we will likely find that answer surprising. Praying always is about hoping that there is healing to be found even if the cancer doesn’t go away, that there is help to be found even when there is no job, that there is clarify to be found for one step even if the rest of the path is cloaked in shadow, that there is love to be found, peace to be found, righteousness to be found, mercy and truth and justice to be found even while people around us are hurling hatred and grief.

Praying always is about the entire kingdom of God coming, not just one specific answer to one specific question. It is about the whole of our lives, not just one moment. It is, then, a sign of great faith and hope in the persistence our God, not a proof of our persistence aimed at God. And praying always does more than just mark the Kingdom; it is also makes the Kingdom. Because praying always means that we are changed, not just our circumstances. We are shaped, we are molded, we are transformed, every moment that we pray. We learn to love God, and to see and love our neighbor. We pray always, and in each breath of prayer we become more of who we were meant to be, and so reveal one more part – one more beautiful, unique, glorious part – of God’s kingdom.

So pray always. Thy kingdom come. Do not lose heart. For the kingdom of God has come near.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

16 October 2016

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia