Act III

Some of you know that for about a week each summer I try to get over to Ireland to a little area of east Galway where I ride horses over the dark green Irish grass during the day, and sip pints of Guinness in the evening.  Over one such pint this past summer I was given, by an acquaintance of mine who had in his prime been a champion equestrian show jumper, a short list of rules to live by.  “Sean,” he said to me, “three things you need in life: quality shoes, a quality mattress, and a good, safe horse.”  This is a highly idiosyncratic, and slightly eccentric list of priorities; and almost anyone could quibble with it.  At any given time in my life I have been lucky to be in possession of two out of the list of three.  The horse has been elusive.  But so appealing was the straightforward simplicity of the list that I wrote it down and have been carrying it with me ever since.  With this advice in my pocket, I started to evaluate my life just a little.  What kind of shoes was I wearing?  How is my mattress?  And what about a horse?  What am I going to do about a horse? 

The more I look at all three items, the more I start to question how far I have come in my fifty years on this earth.  Maybe I don’t have any of the basics that I really need in life.  Wouldn’t I be glad to have all three?  What have I been doing with my life?  And yet, I haven’t done a thing by way of heeding this advice.  I haven’t bought new shoes; I haven’t bought a new mattress; and I haven’t bought a horse.

I hadn’t exactly walked into the pub that night in search of advice.  I wonder if people like you come to church on a day like today in search of advice.  Are you hoping that I will offer three little gems that you can hold onto as rules for life?  Wouldn’t it be simple, in a way, if you left here with the news that all that stands between you and salvation are quality shoes, a quality mattress, and a good, safe horse?  Oh, if only Jesus had given that kind of advice – how happy we would be!

But Jesus spends nearly every word of the eighteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel teaching about sin and forgiveness – part of which we heard just now.  He’s not talking about sins that we commit against God (e.g. I ate meat on Friday; forgot to go to Mass on Sunday, etc), but specifically about sins we commit against each other: offenses against our family, our friends, our neighbors.  Jesus provides a detailed, multi-step processes for seeking and granting forgiveness.  It’s like he thinks it’s important.  I don’t know too many people who take Jesus very seriously on this point.  I’m not sure most of us spend a lot of time evaluating our record of sins and forgiveness, to ask what we are doing with our lives.  Though, I’m sure some do.

The question Jesus was responding to, when he began his roughly thirty-verse-long discussion of sin and forgiveness was this: “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  I don’t think the disciples were merely curious.  I think they were angling for a good spot.  They were known to do that.  But Jesus takes a child in his arms and tells them, “whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  And then he launches in on sins against one another and on how to forgive one another.  I don’t know how the first disciples took it, but for us, Jesus might as well be talking about quality shoes, a quality mattress, and a good, safe horse.  Right, Jesus.  Got it.  Thanks.

What would people think if they came in here and saw you sitting there silently, looking up at me while I told you how you should “tell it to the church” if you need to resolve a dispute with your friend, your neighbor, your sibling, or your spouse?  They would think that they had stumbled into a highly idiosyncratic, and slightly eccentric approach to conflict mediation, and they’d ask why you’d bother listening to me, anyway.

Sitting there in that pub in east Galway, listing to a former champion show jumper impart wisdom about shoes, mattresses, and horses, made me wonder for a moment what I did to prompt that bit of advice, since my friend was answering a question I did not ask.  Listening to Jesus impart wisdom about the ways we hurt each other and forgive each other has a similar effect.  I wonder why he is going on like this, and I am afraid Jesus is answering a question that nobody has asked him.  Or is it just a highly idiosyncratic, and slightly eccentric discussion?

After all, what is the kingdom of heaven?

Now, I know that there are a good number of people in this congregation who think the kingdom of heaven is sort of like going to the Metropolitan Opera, but with lower ticket prices.  But for me, I want to suggest that the kingdom of heaven is more like a musical than an opera.  To be specific, I’d say the kingdom of heaven is like Act III of a musical theatre production.  Because in Act III of a musical, the conflict that was set up in Act I, and reached its climax in Act II, is finally going to be resolved, and love will win the day.  In Act III of an opera, everything (and everyone) could still be going straight to hell, with no sign of redemption.  But in a musical, everything is going to work out just fine by the end of Act III.

So the kingdom of heaven is like a musical with the most wonderful cast, and the best score, and with choreography that just keeps building and building, and there are more and more dancers on the stage, and you wonder how they could possibly fit more on… and the costumes are stunning, and the lights are ethereal… and the stage is of crystal, and the seats are spacious and covered in velvet, and you can recline in them if you want, and still see the stage, even if there is a tall person sitting in front of you… and the story sweeps you up into it, with the music, and the dancing… and the reprise of the big show-stopper at the end of Act II left tears streaming down your face, and you can hardly image that the big, full-company finale at the end of the next act could surpass it, but you know it will… and you look around and the theatre is filled with everyone you have ever loved, and with people you never knew you loved, but you now discover that you do, and you can’t believe how wonderful it is that you get to enjoy this extraordinary experience with them, and you feel that you are being positively lifted out of your seat by the sheer joy of it… and the sadness and the loss of Act II are still very much present in your mind.  It’s because the sadness and the loss were so real, the betrayal so awful, the estrangement so poignant, the suffering so great… because this is not just theatre, this is real… but with the first notes of the entre-act, and the way the strings shimmer softly, as the curtain rises on Act III… you just know that hope is in the air…!

So… yes, I want to say that the kingdom of heaven could be like a musical… but it’s a musical you can’t get tickets for yet, although you’ve heard great things about.  It’s like Hamilton, but better.

In one version of my musical (working title: The Kingdom of Heaven) during Act I there is a scene in an Irish pub where a young, handsome innocent abroad is told by a mysterious character with a thick brogue that there are three things you need in life: quality shoes, a quality mattress, and a good, safe horse.  A production number ensues (I’ve Got the Shoes Right Here).

In another version of the show there are terrible floods in Act II, or a hurricane slamming into Florida, or the Caribbean. In another version there is an earthquake in Mexico, and in another version forest fires are raging across the west.  All the while in each of these versions, the director of the EPA is gleefully cutting red tape while he sings a song in a minor key.

There’s a version in which a white supremacist drives his car into a crowd in Act II; another in which North Korea builds a hydrogen bomb.  There’s even a scene in which the pastor of a church bolts the church doors from the inside as disaster victims, or homeless people, or the hungry and the poor try to get inside.  You get the idea.

There are versions with more poignant, quiet scenes of more personal betrayal in Act II, too, where children lie to their parents, couples are unfaithful to one another, disease cuts life short, addiction destroys relationships, accidents leave people broken beyond repair, and where over and over again a solitary figure is found on the stage, evaluating life, wondering if he’s gotten anywhere in the decades that have been given to him, standing all alone, down stage center, in a small pool of light, singing a song that might as well be Where is love?

In one of my least favorite versions of the show, a young father is shot and killed on the streets of Philadelphia by two criminals trying to steal his car while his two-year-old daughter sits in her car seat, still inside the car.

These first two acts are admittedly a little operatic in the scale and acuity of their disaster, betrayal, and pain.  But throughout, a mysterious and misunderstood figure has been promising that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and urging forgiveness of one another by any means possible.  He even sings about forgiveness in a song called Seventy Times Seven, but by the end of the song no one is listening.  And by the end of Act II, this unnamed, mysterious character seems like a tragically comic figure, woefully delusional, on whom we can only look with cheap pity.

Writers and dramatists understand why Act III is so important.  Because Act I may present you with an equestrian offering advice in a pub; and Act II may lead you through disaster, betrayal, and hurt.  But Act III is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.  Maybe in Act III the delusional, mysterious character who has been preaching forgiveness in Act II will turn out to be the same funny guy who gave kooky advice in the Irish pub in Act I.  Who knows?

But Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of heaven is a promise that Act III will come, and that it will be worth the wait.  In fact, Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of heaven is that Act III is already in the making, has begun in some other sphere: the sets, and the songs, and the steps; the forgiveness, and the redemption; the salvation, and the hope are already being built, written, choreographed, orchestrated, and sung, even if you and I have not gotten there yet.

And in one version of Act III, the big finale may be a reprise of a song that was introduced earlier – Where Two or Three Are Gathered – in which the mysterious figure reveals himself to be the Lord of Love and Life, and in which minor characters who have wronged one another are reconciled to each other, as they help to repair the damage done by natural disasters, and they seek to care for those who have been maimed by war, and they work to clean and care for the planet that his supported their lives.

In that version of the show, the finale begins around a table, where the various injured, insulted, impaired characters have gathered, having seen their hopes shattered that they would ever be among the greatest in heaven or anywhere else.  In their midst is the mysterious figure, who urges them to seek forgiveness from one another and to offer it freely.  And as they do, a feast appears on the table, and wine flows, and the tempo of the music picks up, and the lights begin to brighten, and the song is taken up.  And you can see that everyone on stage is wearing quality shoes, and somehow you just know that at home everyone has a quality mattress, and you feel certain that for those who need it, there is somewhere, in a stable, a good, safe horse.

And you realize that it hardly matters who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, just as long as we don’t get stuck in Act II, and the promise is real.  And the opening chords of Where Two or Three Are Gathered can be heard from the orchestra… and you thank God for Act III, and you sit back, and let the music wash over you, ready to forgive, and ready to be forgiven.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

10 September 2017

Saint Mark’s, Philadelphia

Of Wrath and Rainbows

Nothing says “the wrath of God” quite like a flood.  And the floods we have seen covering parts of Texas and Louisiana as Hurricane Harvey came through have been enough to make you wonder about the power of God, and what it would be like to be required to endure the wrath of God.  It would be reassuring today to come to church and hear the story of the rainbow that Noah saw as the great flood receded in the aftermath of God’s wrath; and to be reminded that that wrath was replaced by a promise never to do such a thing again, and in fact to give a lasting sign of the covenant of love between God and humanity in the brilliant colors of the rainbow.  It’s worth remembering that promise and that covenant as we try to account for all the rain that’s fallen.

Few snippets of theological wisdom have worked their way into the modern consciousness with as much clarity and precision as the old trope that the God of the Old Testament is an angry, wrathful God, but the God of the New Testament (the God of Jesus) is a loving God.  This kind of hogwash is repeated over and over again as if there was the slightest grain of truth in it – which there is not.  It must make some Christians feel better to convince themselves that although the Scriptures report that God grew weary, impatient, frustrated, and angry with the children of Israel for their repeated backsliding, idolatry, sinfulness, and faithlessness, he harbors no such responses toward us – sprinkled, as we have been, in the waters of Baptism – when we engage in backsliding, idolatry, sinfulness, and faithlessness.

More to the point, however, some of us really believe, despite everything he tells us, that Jesus has brought with him a Pollyanna Gospel that has nothing but happy thoughts for us.  Learning from our great forebear Thomas Jefferson, we have omitted and forgotten whatever portions of the Gospel don’t sit easily with us, judging our own wisdom (with a little help from the sage of Monticello) to be superior to whatever wisdom of God has been enshrined by the Church in the Holy Scriptures.

It is jarring, therefore, to come across phrases in St. Paul’s great epistle to the Romans that don’t sit easily with our common expectations of the cheery God of the New Testament, to wit these words: “but leave room for the wrath of God.”  Admittedly, in this passage the words come in a highly specific context regarding God’s claim that vengeance is his and not yours, so you should leave well enough alone when your mind turns toward avenging yourself, your family, your friends, or your neighbors.  And the passage in which these highly contextualized words appears is one that most of us decided to ignore long before we arrived in church this morning: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them… live in harmony, do not be haughty but associate with the lowly… do not repay anyone evil for evil… live peaceably with all….”  Insofar as we heed St. Paul’s advice at all, in our mouths these phrases may amount to the lip service we pay to our “loving” God, who can and will level no judgment toward us that could cause us any worry.

And yet, there remain those strange words: “leave room for the wrath of God.”  How could St. Paul have failed to see how misguided he was – still looking backward at the ancient, angry, Jewish God?  Doesn’t he know how outmoded his outlook is?  Our God is a loving God; we don’t need to leave room for the wrath of God, since we have no more of that in the world… do we?  Here we stand at the edge of a flood and we hear St. Paul tell us to “leave room for the wrath of God.”  Is he kidding us?

Everywhere we turn these days we are confronted by wrath.  If it’s not at home then it’s abroad.  If it’s not about missiles and nuclear war, then it’s about a war on drugs, or poverty, or cancer, or some other foe against whom we have decided that war is the only answer.  If it’s not the president, it’s the Congress.  And if it’s not them, then it’s a gaggle of Christian folk issuing “statements” about things they really don’t need to be making statements about.  There is always someone to be angry, and always someone to be angry with.  We have wrath enough to go around.  We don’t need the wrath of God any more than we needed a flood.

St. Paul knows that wrath is a sharp and a powerful weapon, and when he says to leave room for the wrath of God he is trying to take such a weapon out of our hands and leave it to God.  In this passage, he is not so much telling us what God is like, as reminding us what we are like: haughty, presumptuous, willing to repay evil for evil, disinclined toward peacefulness, full of curses, and thirsty for vengeance.  Wrathful.

Taking the weapon gingerly from our hand, Paul entreats us to let God handle that, especially as the flood waters are receding.  Paul knows how ready we are to expect the worst of God and the best of ourselves, but he also knows that the reverse has always been true: that we should expect the best of God and the worst of ourselves.  We’ll be surprised with much less frequency.

I don’t know what Jesus and Peter expected from each other.  But in the famous exchange we hear today, Peter gets a bit of the wrath of God: “Get thee behind me Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me!”  It would have stung.  For Peter wanted only to advance the cause of Jesus.  But Peter here represents anyone and everyone who has ever suspected that he or she could show God how to do things a better way.  Suffering, death, and resurrection?  Peter must wonder.  No!  Let’s do it a better way!  Peter does not yet see how different Jesus’ kingdom is, how distinct is the power of love, or how purposeful is the wrath of God.  He does not know that Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness.

“Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?”  Jesus had never heard of the Powerball.  Jesus never imagined the Dow above 20,000.  Jesus hadn’t anticipated Manhattan real estate being sold for $9,000 a square foot.  All the same, he knew what a fortune was.  He meant his question to be rhetorical, but it turns out that it is provocative: what would it profit me to gain the whole world…?  Jesus never thought in numbers as big as we do, all the same he knew.  We are deeply interested in what it might profit us to gain the whole world.

And yet the daily invitation of Jesus is to lose your life with him.  This is why we come to the altar every day in this church to remind ourselves that the path of righteousness leads through suffering, death, and resurrection.  This path looked problematic to Saint Peter, so you should expect it to look a little complicated to you and me, too.

I can’t possibly claim to understand the many and complex causes that led to a catastrophic hurricane like Hurricane Harvey.  I am prepared to accept that human pollution of our natural environment has contributed greatly to the occurrence of weather events such as this.  It is interesting to contemplate that one lens through which to view the national debate on climate change is a theological lens.  Floods, after all, have traditionally been thought of as “acts of God.”  But nowadays we are not so sure.  And many of us see our own hands at work in the clouds that gather and the rain that falls, and the heat that scorches, and the snow that melts.  Which is to say that many of us are willing to admit that we have been meddling in things that belong to God.  Thus has it ever been.

If we see things this way, we might hear Jesus hissing in our own ears this morning, “Get thee behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me!”  We might peruse the front pages of the papers and wonder what it would mean to leave room for the wrath of God.  Could God really do anything to us that’s worse than the things we’ve done to ourselves?

The headlines in this morning’s New York Times have replaced the news of the flood with news that “North Korea Says It Tested Hydrogen Bomb.”  If only the wrath of God was our only worry.

Jesus is among us in his church to tell us again that the path to righteousness leads through suffering, death, and resurrection.  But this covenant – that our pain is sanctified by his pain, that our death has been trampled by his death, and that our resurrection is assured by his resurrection is extremely difficult for us to hear, let alone to believe.  Mostly, we would rather hit the Lottery, or at least own a few hundred shares in Facebook.  We would like to exercise vengeance on our own.  We would like to claim all the wrath we want for our own.  We would like to do things our way.  We would like to skip the pain, the death, and even the resurrection – it’s just not our way.  We would like to set our minds not on divine things, but on human things.

I hear Jesus hissing in our ears, “Get thee behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me!”

And I wonder if anything less than the wrath of God will ever lead us to that path of righteousness that leads through suffering, death, and resurrection.  Speaking for myself, I would rather be led there by love, which I think is what St. Paul had in mind, too.

So, I’m watching as the waters of the flood recede.  I am looking to the heavens.  And I am praying for a rainbow.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

3 September 2017

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Irrevocable Grace

When food editor Jonathan Gold of the LA Times sat down this past April to select the paper’s first restaurant of the year, he decided to do something bold. He didn't choose an elegant LA bistro where plates are crafted like landscapes, with pools of brightly colored sauces and shrub-like arrangements of carefully manicured microgreens. He didn't choose a hip up-and-coming foodie hotspot – you know, vegan Korean barbecue tapas where all of the food is local, organic, and brought into town on a burro. Instead, Gold chose a burger joint. And not just any burger joint, but a burger joint in the distinctly non-foodie LA location of Watts. 

The restaurant the Gold chose is called LocoL, spelled l-o-c-o-l. LocoL* is the brainchild of food truck wunderkind Roy Choi and Michelin-starred chef Daniel Patterson. The restaurant is their David-sized attempt to bring down the Goliath of the fast food industry. With LocoL, Choi and Patterson are bringing a chef’s eye and palate to fast food, creating dishes that people want to eat but with healthy, sustainable, ingredients. They believe, as their website says, “…that wholesomeness, deliciousness and affordability don't have to be mutually exclusive concepts in fast food,” and “…that fast food restaurants can truly empower the communities they currently underserve.”

Last weekend, I visited LocoL Watts as one of five Zoe Fellows from Saint Mark’s who had traveled to Los Angeles on a learning expedition. The Zoe Fellows, just to remind you, are five members of Saint Mark’s who are participating in a grant project with Princeton Theological Seminary to explore new ways of partnering in ministry with young adults in our community. This trip was an opportunity for us, along with teams from eleven other congregations, to explore the varied ways this kind of ministry can take place. And as a part of our exploration, two of us got to visit LocoL.

The first thing to know about LocoL is that the food is delicious. Our group sat in the LA sunshine sipping lemonade and eating burgers and fries and collard greens that tasted like heaven. As we enjoyed this wonderful, rich, real food, we met with one of the assistant managers, who talked about his life in Watts and why this restaurant is so important in his neighborhood.** He told us of his co-workers, many of whom were out of work before being hired for jobs for which they had little to no experience but who now, after being trained in the kitchen by Roy and Daniel, are cooking incredible food for the people in their own community. Our host also talked about the place of LocoL as a sanctuary in the heart of a neighborhood shaped by violence. There are any number of rival gangs operating within blocks of the restaurant, gangs made up of men and women who have pledged their lives to each other in violent desperation. In these lives, there is room for only one community; there is only the gang, a family forged in the fiercest brutality and bloodshed.

And yet. And yet, within the walls of LocoL, these opposing groups, these enemies, find a place where they can put aside their animosities, literally lay down their weapons, and simply inhabit the same space together. LocoL is a safe haven, a neutral zone, a place where all sides come together and eat. Gang members who would never walk on the same side of the street, let alone be in the same building, can sit together on the back patio under the LA sunshine, drink lemonade, chew on a burger with an artisanal bun and homemade ketchup, and, for just a few moments, forget that they have vowed to forever hate the person chewing on a burger at the opposite table. LocoL is a place all of the gangs see as their own, a place worth coming to, a sanctuary worth protecting.

Now LocoL didn't get to be this way just because of the food – the food is great, but savory, smoky collard greens does not a sanctuary make. No, this place is a safe haven, our host said, because “it provides something that we’re not used to having.” LocoL is “untouchable” because it offers the men and women of Watts a gift they are not used to getting. Because at LocoL, they are seen as people worthy of good things. At LocoL, they are recognized as those who have been broken and bruised by the society in which they live, that they are people, primarily people of color, who continue to be tragically underserved and underrepresented. Some of them have made bad decisions in response to the need and fear in their lives – who among us has not? – but at LocoL, all are welcomed in as family. LocoL offers the people of Watts something beautiful, something rich and real, made just for them, because they are a people who could really use some mercy in their lives. And so LocoL says to them, here, all of this is for you, so come, take and eat.

LocoL is a restaurant I think Paul would have appreciated. Because Paul too was dealing with rival communities – the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians in Rome, who were duking it out over who were the “real” Christians in the hood.      How much easier might it have been for Paul if there had been a LocoL in Rome where he could have delivered his message to them in person – sat down over a burger and fries and said to these people, C’mon, guys, do you really think that God has turned his back on these faithful Jews whom he has nurtured and loved and blessed all these years? Not a chance! But does that mean that there is no place for these new Gentiles that have recently moved into our neighborhood? Of course not! There is a place for all of you here. God built this Church for all you. God planned for this, offered up his Son that you might find a place where all are seen and welcomed and fed, where all are family.

And then Paul would have leaned over the half-eaten fries and looked into the eyes of these beautiful, broken people. And here in this place, he would have said, God sees what you need. God sees that what you most need is mercy. God knows that you are disobedient, that you have all been selfish and cruel and judgmental. God sees that you have all made bad decisions in response to need or fear, but my friends, listen, to me – this is good news. It is not the easiest truth to hear, for who among us likes to be reminded of their sin? And yet, in the middle of this seemingly bitter truth lies this delicious morsel of Grace: that this gift of God is irrevocable. God’s gift of extraordinary mercy is irrevocable. God’s gift of identity, of holy calling that invites us into a better way of being in the world is irrevocable. God’s gifts of forgiveness, grace, and love are irrevocable. There is nothing we can do to make God close up shop and move out of town – not then, in first-century Rome, and not now, in twenty-first century America.. The gifts of God are irrevocable.

If in these times we are called to find the courage and the footing to speak out in the name of the one we follow, if we are called to find the heart to reach out in the name of Jesus Christ to those who have been bruised and broken by this society in which we live, if in these times we are called to, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “maintain justice and do what is right,” as I know we are, then we must first see ourselves as recipients of that irrevocable Grace, how sweet the sound. We must see ourselves first as those in need of mercy, as those standing in the need of prayer. We must first “receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work,” so that we can “follow daily in the blessed steps of [our Savior’s] most holy life.” If we skip this step and start pointing fingers and casting blame, we risk finding ourselves walking with gangs shaped by pride and self-righteousness. But when we see ourselves as those most in need of God’s gift, when we can fall down at the feet of Jesus and ask for mercy, for a few crumbs of Grace, knowing that we are unworthy of it but that we will receive it nonetheless, then there is hope. Then there is hope that we can speak real truth born of real love, then there is hope that we can feed the hungry and comfort the frightened. Then there is hope, and we are in the right place, in the very heart of the place we were always meant to be, and that we will be able to speak a word into the world – a world of love and grace and justice, that will be itself irrevocable. Then we find ourselves deep within the very heart of Christ, where “all races meet, their ancient feuds forgetting, the whole round world complete, from sunrise to its setting.” May God be merciful to us and bless us.

*To learn more about LocoL, visit their website at www.welocol.com

**Unfortunately, our host's name is lost to me in the swirl of information deposited in my brain after four more days of such visits. His name I may have forgotten; his story remains.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

20 August 2017

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia