Goodness Has Nothing To Do With It

Some of the most insightful and helpful words I ever heard spoken about God in a church were pronounced from this very pulpit years ago by a monk visiting from the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield in Britain[I].  Only some of the words were his.  The opening words of his sermon had been borrowed, in turn, from Mae West, who also used them as the title for her autobiography.  They come from a scene in the 1932 film, Night After Night[ii].  In the scene, Mae West has just made an entrance into a swanky club, wrapped in a white coat with an extravagant white fur collar.  She approaches the coat-check girl, removes the coat, and hands it to the girl.  Underneath, she’s dressed in a sparkly, white, sleeveless dress with a V-neckline, and as she hands the coat to the girl at the counter, her wrists glisten with diamond bracelets.  The coat-check girl can’t help but notice the bracelets, and comments, “Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!”  To which Mae West responds, “Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.”

The burden of the sermon that day was to make a theological virtue of Mae West’s quip, and it’s an enterprise that is worth taking up again and again.  I trust I shall repeat some version of this sermon over and over more than a few times in the course of my ministry.

So often we convince ourselves, or perhaps others convince us, that if we can be good enough, God will love us.  We often consider this the most fundamental religious equation: that the Good will be rewarded by God and the Bad will suffer eternal torment.  And it’s true that there is a sufficient body of scriptural material with which to spin this particular theological yarn.  And sometimes Jesus himself seems to be spinning it.  But not too much.  And if threads of it run through the New Testament, the fabric of which they’re a part is a more complex and nuanced weave.

Take the parable we heard today about the laborers in the vineyard.  Some laborers were there all day, but others were there for only part of the day.  When the time came to be paid, and those who worked a shorter day got a full day’s pay, the laborers who’d worked a full day were irked that their pay was exactly the same as the others, who’d worked so much less.  They were annoyed because, in the terms of the story, they were the good ones who’d worked all day.  Whatever merits the other laborers might have had, they had not worked as long, hadn’t sweated as much, weren’t quite as good.  How could they possibly be paid as much?  Why weren’t all the laborers rewarded in kind – the Good with greater blessings, and the Less Good with a lesser bounty?

The landowner asks them, “Are you envious because I am generous?”  To which the obvious but unspoken reply is, “Yes!  Of course!”

But those good laborers had not figured out that the parable was not about them.  In fact the parable was not about the other laborers either, who had worked only part of the day.  It is not a parable about work ethics, labor relations, or fair-pay practices.

The parable is a parable about God, and it is meant, I think, to address the issue of how good God thinks we need to be in order to love us.

Like the good laborers, we generally suspect that the better you are, the more God loves you.  The implication is that there is a sliding scale of God’s love, and that you can improve your position on the scale with your diligence, your hard work, your attentiveness to some law, your adherence to some orthodoxy, or the sheer number of hours you clock in church.  If only you can be good enough, you can be assured that God loves you and that you will be taken care of come pay time, rewarded richly at the end of the day.

More to the point, the laborers who were late to work share this same suspicion, and like them, we also expect that they will very likely receive a lesser blessing because of their late arrival.  And this outlook would be a very sensible way of seeing things if God loved us because we are good.  But Jesus seems to be telling us that goodness has nothing to do with it.

And here’s where the words of wisdom from that monastic preacher in this pulpit come in.  It wasn’t just that he could quote Mae West effectively from the pulpit – an admittedly impressive feat for a British monk – it was also that he knew what to say next.  And what he said next were words that I find myself returning to over and over again as the years go by.

No, God does not love us because we are good.  Goodness has nothing to do with it.  God loves us because we are weak and stupid.

God loves us because we are weak and stupid.

True though it is that we are made in the image and likeness of God, there is more still to be said about us.  Correct though the Psalmist was when he sang that we are marvelously made, he was not singing the whole truth.

And sometimes it has to be said about us that we are weak and stupid.  God knows it could be said about me on any given day of the week.  Maybe you know this about yourself as well.

The problem with the idea that God will only love us if we are good enough, is that it will never sound like good news to those of us who know our own weakness and stupidity.  And, sinners that we are, it will never sound like good news to those who are honest with themselves.

If God loves those who get there first, then what need have the rest of us for God?

If God’s generosity is reserved for the finest and the best, then what will be left for the broken and the lost?

But the kingdom of heaven, Jesus tells us, is not like that.  Maybe the kingdom of heaven is more like this:

Years ago, the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver opened up a restaurant in London that provides training for working-aged kids with troubled backgrounds.  He intended it to be a place where disadvantaged young people could come to get experience and support as they try to put their lives together and make it in the world.

The early days of the project were filmed and made into a TV series[iii].  And one poignant episode featured a girl – maybe 18 years old – who kept missing work, kept showing up late, kept doing everything worng.  She may have had a child to care for already, I can’t remember.  Her life was a mess, that’s for sure.  And in this one episode, when she shows up to work late again, for the umpteenth time, we find her crumpled up in tears, her head sunk into her folded arms, at the bottom of the stairs at the back of the kitchen.

Jamie Oliver arrives on the scene and crouches beside her.  Maybe his arm is around her, I can’t remember.  But I remember the substance of the short discussion that followed because it is such a succinct version of today’s parable.  It went something like this:

- Why are you crying, he asks.  What’s the matter?

- Because I’m late again, and I keep doing things wrong, and I know I’m going to get fired, she says through her sobs.

- Oh no, Jamie assures her.  Don’t you realize that anyplace else you’d have been fired long ago, you’d never have made it this far.  But it’s not like that here.  It’s not like that here.

What a remarkable and unexpected thing for an employer to say: Anyplace else you’d have been fired long ago, you’d never have made it this far, they’d have given up on you ages ago. You’d have been the last and the least, and your life would take shape accordingly.  But it’s not like that here.

If a celebrity chef can show such graceful compassion, how much more will God show compassion in the kingdom of heaven?

How easy it is to believe that God will only love us if we are good enough.

In this church we admit every day that we are not worthy to come under God’s roof, but we know that at his word our souls will be healed.  Can we also then admit that God loves us because we are weak and stupid, albeit marvelously made?

We can and we should try to be good, for somewhere along the way it will matter, no doubt, that we have chosen to be good, tried to be good, and sometimes even succeeded at being good.  And I am sure that Jesus wants us to be as good as we can be.  It’s good to be good. 

But Jesus’ salvation is not founded on your goodness or mine.  When he teaches us what God’s love is like – the love that ushers in his kingdom – he does not tell us about our selves, or how good we have to be, for the kingdom of heaven is not measured in our goodness.

The kingdom of heaven is measured in the boundlessness of God’s merciful loving kindness.  Which is immense good news to those of us who know ourselves to be weak and stupid. 

Christ died once, and for all.  He shed his blood to open the gates of the kingdom for all.  His love knows no bounds.  And for us, goodness has nothing to do with it.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

24 September 2017

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

[i] The monk in question was Br. Nicolas Stebbing, CR

[ii] Paramount Pictures, directed by Archie Mayo

[iii] Jamie’s Kitchen, 2002, produced by Peter Moore for Talkback Productions

A Forgiveness Story

There is a story in the Bible that goes like this. A man is sitting with a group of his friends in a town that some of them call home. There are thirteen of them – the man and twelve companions, let’s call them twelve disc…erning followers. They have been traveling together, hiking up mountains and passing through new towns, healing the sick and talking about taxes, and they have stopped here for a moment to rest and catch their breaths. Inexplicably, the followers choose this moment to ask their guide questions about status and prestige. Who is the greatest in this kingdom he talks so much about? They aren’t quite jockeying for position – at least not yet – but you can see that the question of “…and which one of us is most like that person who is the greatest?’ isn’t too far off.

Except, in our story, that question never gets asked. Because the leader, as he often does, redirects the conversation. You want to talk about who is the greatest? Okay, let’s talk about that. The greatest in my kingdom is like – he looks around – her. He points to a little girl romping up the hill towards them with her mother. This is what the greatest in my kingdom looks like, and woe to anyone who puts a stumbling-block in front of any children such as these.

Suddenly the twelve followers aren’t so interested in asking their follow-up question, which now seems to be, “…and which one of us is most like this little girl.” And anyway, their guide is still talking. He tells them that they should be on the lookout for those who are weak, those who are powerless and dependent, the one lost sheep amongst a hundred. These are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, where the humble players are given pride of place.

And if you’re looking for a place to start practicing finding these little lost ones, he goes on, why don’t you begin in your own community? Rather than letting people simply fall away from this movement, he tells them, you should follow after them and find them. If someone has sinned against you and the Church, go find them. Go find them and offer them a chance to repent. Go find them, even if it takes three tries. Go find them so that you can forgive them, mend that relationship, and bring a lost sheep home.

One of the followers, who has recently been a bit of a stumbling-block himself, asks what he thinks should be a simple follow-up question. And how many times should we forgive this lost sheep? He searches in his mind for a number that seems appropriate, a number that’s generous, even overly-generous, without seeming preposterous. 7? 7 times? 7 times I should slog around looking for the same lost sheep before deciding that he just really wants to be lost? 7 sounds good. I mean, 7 is a lot. Let’s say my brother here, oh, I don’t know, abandons and betrays me. I go to him, we talk it out, he realizes the error of his ways, asks for forgiveness, I say okay. Then, two days later, he abandons and betrays me again. I go to him, we talk it out, he realizes the error of his ways, asks for forgiveness, I say okay. He does it again, I forgive him again. He does it again, I forgive him again.  He does it again, I forgive him again.  He does it again, I forgive him again. He does it again, I forgive him again. That’s 7. Seems fair. Seems like a goodly, biblical number.

But the leader, once again, redirects the conversation. He isn’t interested in the lowest-common denominator, the reasonable, or the limited. Not 7, he says, but 77 times. He sins, you forgive him. And again and again and again and again and again and again…and we, who are listening to this story, begin to get the point. This story is about not just forgiveness, but extreme forgiveness. This story is about forgiveness that is truly massive, the fatberg of forgiveness. And if we’re going to forgive this way, we need to get ready, to start training for this Iron Man seventy-septathon of Forgiveness.

We’ve seen examples of this kind of extreme forgiveness before. The Amish community that reached out to the family of the man who had walked into their schoolhouse and killed three of their children. The families of those killed at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston who prayed for the killer. The grieving father who publically forgave the shooter at Sandy Hook, the mother who reached out to the man who had killed her daughter in a drunk driving incident, the child at Our Little Roses whose mother had abandoned her who wrote in a poem that her time without her family felt like “a knife trying to get inside a rock” but then told God “when I am finally somebody in this world…I will go straight to Mexico where my mother lives and I will stare at her like I stare at the stars and with a voice that cracks like thunder I will say: i forgive you.”*

We’ve heard of examples of this kind of extreme, Iron Man forgiveness in the world, and it seems that our story is telling us to prepare ourselves for just this kind of forgiveness. Let’s go, the leader seems to say, get out your cross-trainers, set your alarm for oh-dark-hundred, and get ready to work. Get ready to forgive even if it’s through gritted teeth, get ready to sweat as you welcome someone back into the flock, get ready to wake up morning after morning aching from the grind of your extreme forgiveness.

Except that our story does not end there. In our story, the guide decides to tell his twelve disc…erning followers a story of his own. There once was a man who owed his master a great debt. Not just a great debt, but like, a million-bagillion dollars. And when he could not pay his master back the million-bagillion dollars, and his master was threatening to ruin his life, the man fell on his knees and begged his master to forgive what he owed. Which, unbelievably, his master did. The man, chuffed with this new development, immediately walked over to his nearest companion and asked for the hundred bucks he owed him. When his companion couldn’t fork over the money, the man had him arrested and locked up without bail. The master, getting wind of this, changed his mind about the million-bagillion dollars and had the man tortured until he could pay every single cent back. And so – the leader tells his followers – so will happen to you if you do not forgive your sisters and brothers from your heart.

Now the first story is true. It is, of course, the story of Jesus of Nazareth teaching his disciples about forgiveness. The second story is, of course, also true. It may not be factual, but it is certainly true. Because in this parable, Jesus reminds his disciples and us of the great truth that in order to forgive others, we must first know ourselves to be so forgiven. And to begin to know ourselves as those who are forgiven, we must take that one additional, challenging step deep into truth: we must first acknowledge that we ourselves have sinned. We are sinners, we sin: we abandon and betray, we deny Christ three times thirty times, we lie and gossip and hate and steal and misuse our bodies and neglect our prayers and forget the poor and blame the victim and make bad choices again and again and again. We are part of systems that have spent centuries setting up stumbling blocks before people of color, women, the gay, lesbian, and trans community, and countless other least of these. We have sinned, O Lord, we have sinned, and we know our wickedness only too well.  

All this is true. Also true is that God will forgive us. If we confess our sins, repent and return to the Lord, the Lord forgives us, forgives all, every cent of sin that we have misspent during our lifetimes. This, finally, is the point of our story – not that we need to buckle down and forgive 77 times, but that God freely forgives us a million-bagillion times. This is the true extreme forgiveness – not that we must become Iron Men of Forgiveness but that this man stretched out his arms upon a cross of wood and iron and offered himself in obedience for the sins of the whole world. We have sinned, O Lord, we have sinned, and we need to know our forgiveness too, and well.   

As followers ourselves of this Jesus of Nazareth, we must learn to forgive. But in order to do this, we must first learn the whole story. We must read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the truth of God’s forgiveness. We must recognize ourselves as broken and humble, as those who are as weak and helpless and dependent as a little child, so that we can move into our world with mercy and love, looking for the connection of our mutual brokenness so that we can first speak truth with love, work for justice with kindness, empathy, and compassion, and finally forgive others in the radical, life-changing way that we have been forgiven. "For as the heavens are high above the earth, so is his mercy great upon those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us. And as a father cares for his children, so does the Lord care for those who fear him." This is forgiveness; this is our own true story.

*This poem may be found in Voices Beyond the Wall: Twelve Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

17 September 2017

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

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