Burning at Both Ends

In the spring of 1918, a woman with a man’s name sat down in her apartment in Greenwich Village and began to write a poem. She wanted the poem to express something of the quality of her life, the kind of energy that she felt flowing around her in what felt like a new era, an era that was unfettered and unfiltered, where life felt fleeting and fragile and joy had to be clutched with both hands. She called her poem First Fig, but the poem has nothing to do with fruit or fruit trees or the fruits of our labors. Instead, it has to do with light: “My candle burns at both ends;/ It will not last the night;/ But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends – / It gives a lovely light!”

The woman’s name was Vincent, or at least that’s what her friends called her. We know her as Edna St. Vincent Millay, and First Fig became one of her most well-known poems. Its only 25 words perfectly encapsulate the witty, wild, devil-may-care worldview of Millay’s generation, the generation that would roar into the twenties with an eye for pleasure – pleasure now, pleasure on their own terms, pleasure no matter what the cost. Millay’s First Fig spoke particularly to the women of her age, who with their short hair and shorter hemlines heard in Millay’s verse a kind of rallying cry to be new, modern, and independent – women who could think and speak and vote and drink just as well as any man. Their candles were burning at both ends, and they were loving its lovely light for as long as it lasted.

This is a generalization, of course. Millay’s experience in the bohemian Village of the 1920’s was certainly different from that of the average housewife on a farm in Nebraska. But the world was changing, and the call of carpe diem was heard far and wide. The world seems to go through this from time to time. People have been burning candles at both ends forever, since first-century Corinth, where the apostle Paul quoted the well-known adage of his day: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. In times of chaos, in times of transition, or perhaps just from time to time, we humans long to just let go, to live without a view to the consequences, to burn and burn and burn and burn without worrying about our wick. My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night; but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends – it gives a lovely light!    

But burning our candle at both ends isn’t always just about wanton hedonism. Sometimes burning our candle at both ends feels like a response to the Gospel. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Let your light shine before others, Jesus commands, and so we do. Or, at least, so we try. We try to love God with our whole heart and soul and mind, even when our hearts are broken, are souls are conflicted, and our minds are distracted. We try to love our neighbors as ourselves, even when some of our neighbors seem completely disinterested, and others seem to hate us more and more each day. We try to do good works, giving food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting the prisoner, even when our supplies of food and drink and clothing are low and our energy even lower. We try to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, even when we have a Super Bowl party to get ready for. We try to resist evil, even when it seems justified or harmless or just plain fun. We try to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ, even when no one seems to be listening. We try to seek and serve Christ in all persons, even when we feel like we’re the ones who need to be found. And we try to strive for justice and peace among all people, even when the arc of the moral universe seems to be bending toward bigotry, intolerance, and hatred. We try, we try to claim ourselves as the light of the world without counting the cost; we try to burn our candle at both ends without worrying about the wick. We try to burn our candle without thinking about the night’s darkness, to think instead only of how we can invite both friend and foe into the circle of its lovely light.

But there are times, my brothers and sisters, when the candle is just too short. There are times when our light sputters and grows dim. There are times when there doesn’t seem to be enough oxygen in the room, enough space in our lives, to keep preaching and feeding and loving and striving and seeking and persevering and praying. There are times when, to borrow (and frankly probably misappropriate) a phrase from Carl Sagan, “The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”* Our efforts are defeated, our hearts are betrayed, our bodies are broken, our offers are rejected, and the need, the bottomless pit of need and suffering yawns ever wider. What use is our little candle, burning at both ends or not, against such darkness?

You know, the English language is a wonderful thing. It is quirky and inclusive and malleable. It is the language of Shakespeare and Cranmer and Herbert and Eliot and Frost and Millay. But it does have a few shortcomings. One of them is that we use the same word for both the second person singular and the second person plural. You can mean you, or it can mean you. Yes, our southern neighbors have y’all, and we in Philly have youse, but in written English we’re left to rely on context. Thankfully, because English was not the language of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we hear Jesus say “you,” we can always turn to the Greek to find out which you he means. And in this case, in this Sermon on the Mount, Jesus most emphatically means youse. Youse are the light of the world. Let the light of all youse shine before others, that they may see your works and give glory to their Father in heaven, their God, their ultimate Jawn.

Okay, maybe too far with the Philly-speak…but you get the point. Jesus commands us to let our light shine before others – not our lights, but our light. We are never left alone, trying to relight our own tiny candles. The light that we are to shine before others is a light that shines through all of us, that expands and grows because we are a we. The light that shines before others is fed by the light of these holy candles, blessed this past Thursday at the feast of the Presentation, when we prayed that they would aid us in becoming “inflamed with the fire of [God’s] love.” The light that shines before others is a light born of our common life, our shared baptism, our identity as the body of Christ.

Our light is a light of we, of youse, of us. Our candle can burn at both ends because the wick of faith that connects us to each other will never run out. When we gather in faith, as a community, serve in love, as a community, and proclaim hope, as a community, our candle can burn and burn and burn and burn. Our job isn’t to figure out how to keep our personal candle burning forever; our job is to allow ourselves to be drawn back in to this youse. Our job is to claim this youse as our own, to connect here, to pray here, to serve here, to speak here, to pledge here, to go forth into the world from here, to let our light shine before others from here.

This is just wonderful news. Because it means that whenever we feel our own personal light starting to fade, all we need do is reconnect ourselves here, to this community, to this Church, to the presence of Christ that dwells here. We don’t need to be particularly holy or brilliant. We don’t need to be particularly rich or talented. We just need to be within earshot of the living Christ. You are the light of the world, Jesus said, all of youse, every single person on this mount who can hear my voice. You are the light of the world because you can hear me; you are the light of the world because you’ve put yourself here, in this community, gathered at my feet.

So find your light here. Be inflamed here. Let your light grow and brighten in this holy place, with the rest of this holy community. And then let it burn, at both ends, burning into the darkness, burning for friends and foes, burning for faith, hope, and love. Let your candle – all of youse – burn at both ends. It gives a lovely light!

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

5 February 2017

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

*This quotation is taken from a book of Sagan's called The Demon-Haunted World. In Sagan's writing, the candle that is burning out is society's understanding of the importance of scientific truth, but his poetry applies to my candle as well. (And Sagan's point is also an important and timely one!)

Our Lady's Thumbs

Madonna of Montserrat

In Galicia

The High Altar in Sevilla

In the old cathedral of Salamanca

Virgen Peregrina, Xunqueria de Ambia 

Virgen de la leche, Oseira

Santa Maria del Mar, Barcelona

Travel around Spain visiting its churches and you could be forgiven for wondering what ever happened to Jesus.  By my reckoning, having now walked a couple of thousand kilometers across Spain on three separate pilgrimages, Spaniards are in love with Mary.  If Jesus is important to the Spaniards it may be only because he was a relation to this great Lady.

The quintessential Spanish image of Mary is the black Madonna of Montserrat: a Romanesque looking Mary is crowned and seated, her serene face a deep and beautiful black, with a similarly dark-skinned child seated in her lap, himself crowned, his right hand raised in blessing, while his mother holds an orb in her hand.

Everywhere you go in Spain you will inevitably find some image of Mary.  On the crucifixes found in village plazas throughout Galicia you will find Jesus hanging on one side of the Cross, and his mother, standing on the other side of the same Cross – sometimes cradling the Christ-child in her arms, sometimes holding the dead body of her Son.

At the base of the rich, golden reredos of the cathedral in Sevilla, right above the Altar where the crucifix should be, there sits a silver-gowned seated figure of Our Lady, who also appears in the panel above at the manger, in the panel above that at her crowning in heaven, but is absent in the panel above that, which depicts Jesus bursting from the tomb, while his mother, apparently, rests at home.

At Salamanca, in the old cathedral, a dramatic apse is covered with fifty-two 14th or 15th century images of stories from the life of Jesus and his mother; but in the most prominent place: enthroned, dressed all in gold, crowned, bejeweled, under a canopy, with a scepter-like lily in her hand, her child ensconced in her maternal lap – there is Mary.  Not a cross in sight.

Along the Via de la Plata, at the monastery in the little town of Xunqueira de Ambia you will find an image of the Virgen Peregrina – the virgin Pilgrim.  Mary is dressed in fine late-18th century dress, with a gold-trimmed tri-cornered hat, wearing a long floral gown, a buttoned bodice, and a cloak clasped at her throat; she holds her infant child in one hand, and the pilgrim’s walking stick in the other.

At the Monasterio de Santa Maria de Oseira – just a few days’ walk from Santiago de Compostela – the venerated 13th century image of la virgen de la leche, nursing her Holy Child, sits just behind and above the tabernacle at the High Altar, to leave no doubt as to who exactly is in charge.

There was a time when the feast we celebrate tonight was called the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but I had to go back to the King James Version, among the Bibles in my office, to find a translation that refers to the time for “her” purification, not “their” purification, following more closely the text of the Levitical law.  We are not Spaniards, and we chafe more than a little (today’s Spaniards do too, no doubt) at the idea of the urgent need for a mother to be cleansed and made pure after the sacred gift of childbirth.  For us tonight is the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple, or Candlemas – celebrating the same events, but looking at them from a different perspective.  Most Anglicans are more or less comfortable with such a shift, and would argue that feasts of Our Lady are all really feasts of Our Lord, looked at through a maternal lens.  Certainly that is the view I tend to promote here at Saint Mark’s.  But spend time in Spain and you will have a hard time resisting the influence of all these images of Mary, sometimes amid the complete and total absence of her Son.

Nowhere in the world, however, have I ever come across an image of Our Lady walking along, with her young Son at her side gripping her thumbs as he tries to keep up.  This is an image from my own childhood, and I remember more clearly than my mother does her complaints that I was tearing her thumbs away from her hands.  I suppose it was an uncomfortable way to be held onto by a child who knew, on the one hand, that he needed and wanted his mother, and did not want to lose track of her, and who, on the other hand, was eager to break free and explore in blessed independence, and to risk going where he was not supposed to go, because who knew what wonders might be found away from your mother’s skirts?

But of course one of the reasons for all those fabulous images of Mary in Spain is that we humans know that this is what we are like with our mothers: desperate for their love, care, and support, and oh so dependant on them; but equally desperate to break free of our mothers and follow our own independent paths through life.  In fact, the only biblical story of Jesus’ childhood tells of him doing just that – breaking free from his mother and father to return to the synagogue in Jerusalem to kibitz with the rabbis there.

Tonight, amid the candlelight, and the hopefulness of Simeon’s famous song, it is easy to miss that for Mary there must be great sadness.  For Simeon tells her that the child is a sign that will bring about division among God’s people, and that a sword will pierce her own soul also.  And while we don’t know exactly what Simeon meant by this strange prophecy, who can doubt that Mary’s heart has been broken (her soul pierced) more times since then than anyone could count?

Holding on to my mother’s thumbs as a child, it never occurred to me that we could go anywhere that she had not already been.  No need to worry, as long as I was latched onto that thumb, for nothing could happen if I was with my mother.  And I wonder if that’s how the Spaniards felt when they kept coming up with new ways to depict Mary – even dressing her up like a pilgrim; or placing on a pedestal an image of her engaged in that most motherly act of nursing her infant child; or showing her by the Cross undertaking that most devastating maternal duty of burying her own child?  Perhaps they thought, What harm can befall us if Mary is with us, if she has already been everywhere we might go, and done everything we will have to do, from the best of it to the worst of it?  There is this sense that no matter what, Mary has been there before us, has prepared the way for us, has allowed even her own soul to be pierced for us, as much as for her Son.

In the gorgeous 14th century Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar in the Barri Gótic of Barcelona there is hanging, high up in the vault, far out of sight, a simple wooden cross that must be a recent and maybe even a temporary addition, since most photos of the church show no such thing.

However, immediately behind the High Altar, itself impressively raised on seven steps from the nave, standing on a sturdy plinth, with a model of what is said to be one of Christopher Columbus’s ships at her feet, there stands an impressive statue of Mary, in fading polychrome of pink and blue.  Her clothes are draped elegantly around her, but the stone sculpture has clearly been through a lot.  A wreath of flowers that once crowned her head has been damaged badly, but she stands tall.  The Holy Child she carries on her left hip is no infant, he is a toddler by now for sure, and he carries his own orb in his left hand, his right hand is raised in blessing.  His face has been damaged, but all the features are still recognizable.

Perhaps Mary’s left hand is hidden beneath the child she supports with it, or in the folds of her gown – I could not tell.  But her right hand, which was clearly once outstretched, has been roughly broken off.  I know, of course, that with this hand she probably once held a lily or some other symbol of her status.  And I can see, I think, that the hand has been broken off somewhere above the wrist.

But in my imagination her hand has been broken off just at the thumb, where I, and many others like me, have been holding on to her, as if she was my own mother.  As if we had tugged and tugged at that thumb till it just broke off; knowing, as we do, that on the one hand, we need and want our mother, and we are afraid to lose track of her, and, on the other hand, we are eager to break free and explore in blessed independence, and to risk going where we are not supposed to go, because who knows what wonders might be found away from our mother’s skirts?

After all, don’t we know that this is what we are like with our mother: desperate for her love, care, and support, and oh so dependant on her; but equally desperate to break free of her and follow our own independent paths through life?

Of course tonight, like any Marian feast, is really about Jesus, who brings light to all people, even in the midst of darkness.  Let there be no doubt.

But I will forgive you if you will forgive me for feeling a little Spanish on a night like tonight, and wanting to take my mother by the thumb and hold on tight, at the same time that I know I want to run off and explore, and allowing myself (older now) to be aware of the inner conflict, and to thank God for our Mother and her strong thumbs.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, 2017

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Manifesto of the Meek

The Sermon on the Mount unfolds in three chapters of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and we will hear significant portions of it read in church over the next four weeks, beginning, as we did today, with the famous Beatitudes.  But the Sermon also contains hard sayings – “if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away,” and a difficult passage about divorce.   In it Jesus teaches that “if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”  And only a breath later, “You have heard that it was said, ‘you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

The Lord’s Prayer comes from the Sermon on the Mount, according to Matthew, and so does the saying, “Where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”  Jesus’ beautiful teaching about the pointlessness of worrying is found in the Sermon on the Mount: “consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”  Important teachings that can guide you for your entire life are found in the Sermon: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”  And throughout the Sermon Jesus teaches about God’s gracious goodness: “Ask, and it will be given you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened.”

St. Matthew tells us that “when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority.”

We have heard so many of these words so many times, that perhaps they leave us slightly less astonished than the original crowd.  Or perhaps we have just learned to ignore them, as we so often do when it comes to Jesus’ teaching, preferring our own versions of the Gospel to the ones provided to us by the evangelists.

What, for instance, are we to make of Jesus’ assertion that “blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth”?  A short investigation tells me that the “meek” are “gentle, courteous, kind, merciful, compassionate, indulgent.”  And that the usage of the English word in connection to a specifically Christian virtue connotes someone who is “free from haughtiness and self-will, piously humble, patient and unresentful under injury and reproach” as well as “non-violent.”[i]

To some, I am sure, this list of characteristics sounds a little sad.  And indeed there is only one person in the New Testament who ever describes himself as “meek” – that person in Jesus.

It should be said that the Beatitudes make great poetry, but as an assertion of fact, the idea that the meek, the mournful, the poor in spirit, the peacemakers, the pure of heart, those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and those who are persecuted for the sake of their faith appear to the world in any significant way to be “blessed” in any way… well, to much of the world this sounds like an “alternative fact,” to almost coin a phrase.  For everyone knows that these virtues are not winning, and will not get you very far; they certainly do not get you into positions of power.  In fact, when you sit down and read the Sermon on the Mount, with just a little common sense, and awareness of the real world, it’s possible to see the entire thing as an assertion of alternative facts, so to speak.  Love your enemies?  Turn the other cheek?  Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth?  Please!

If Jesus is asserting alternative facts, then he is either deluded, or he is revealing to us a new truth about how God works in the world.  Can it be that the God who spoke to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai, who routed the Egyptians at the Red Sea, who rained down fire on the sacrifices of Elijah in rebuke to the priests of Baal, whose voice brought creation into being, and whose breath gave life to the world… can it be that this powerful God – the one and only – sent to us a Son who is gentle, courteous, kind, merciful, compassionate, and indulgent, as well as free from haughtiness and self-will, piously humble, patient, non-violent and unresentful under injury?

Furthermore, if this is so, is it good news?  Saint Paul thought so, even though he knew it would sound confusing to people: “The message… is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

It’s possible to think of the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus’ Meekness Manifesto, and there is no doubt that he intends for it to be received as good news, although he knows it will be heard as foolishness by many.  And perhaps this is the right time for us to consider a savior who comes to us in meekness.

In meekness did his parents wander in search of a place for him to be born.

In meekness was he carried to exile for his safety.

In meekness did the Holy Family return from home.

In meekness did the child study and grow.

In meekness did he go out into the desert to confront the devil and prepare for his ministry.

In meekness did he call his disciples to follow him.

In meekness did he cure the sick, feed the hungry, and heal the injured.

In meekness did he grant merciful forgiveness to the penitent.

In meekness did he raise the dead to life again.

In meekness did he enter into the Holy City.

In meekness did he stoop to wash his disciples’ feet.

In meekness did he bestow to them the living promise that they would be fed by his Body and Blood.

In meekness was he betrayed by one of his own.

In meekness did he confront the powers that be.

In meekness was he led away to be crucified.

In meekness was his stripped, and whipped, and spat upon, when he was condemned to die.

In meekness was he crowned with thorns.

In meekness was he nailed to the tree.

In meekness did he give up the ghost.

And in meekness did the Lord of the meek descend to the dead to free all those whose sins had seemed to seal their fates.

In meekness did he break the bonds of death and burst from his tomb.

In meekness did he reveal himself to be newly alive.

In meekness did he ascend to heaven.

In meekness does he now reign at the right hand of God the Father.

With gentleness, courteous kindness, mercy, compassion, and indulgence; free from haughtiness and self-will; with humility, patience, without harming anyone has he become our savior!

And so, blessed are the meek, for they – by the grace of the Lord of Meekness – will inherit the earth!  Which is to say that the meek shall inherit a share of all that is his, which is everything that is.  These are the facts Jesus teaches as he lays out his manifesto on the mount.  And to those gathered they must surely have sounded like alternative facts – for how could it be so?  They did not know what we know now.  And what we know is that the Manifesto of the Meek sounds like foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God!

So, my friends, be gentle, be courteous; be kind, and be merciful; be compassionate, and yes, be indulgent.   Be, yourself, free from haughtiness and self-will, be humble, be patient, and (perhaps hardest for us) be unresentful under injury and reproach, and do no be violent.  For then you will be meek.

And blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

29 January 2017

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] Oxford English Dictionary