The Thanksgiving Paradox

The Abilene Paradox is a phenomenon in which a group of people collectively make a decision that none of them, individually, is particularly happy about. The paradox was first described by management expert Jerry B. Harvey in 1974, and the name comes from the example he provides in which a family decides together to go on a long drive to Abilene, Texas, when, individually, none of them actually wants to go. Let’s bring it a little closer to home. It’s Thanksgiving morning and your in-laws are visiting. You, thinking that your father-in-law looks a little bored, suggest that you make the long trek down to the Ben Franklin Parkway to watch the 6abc Thanksgiving Day Parade. This is not what you want to do. You want to stay in your jammies for as long as possible, only rising from your coffee and your couch for a quick shave before heading over to church. But your father-in-law smiles and says, “Sure! I’m game.” Your mother-in-law says she’d love to go, and your husband nods and starts hunting through the closet for the thermos.

What you don’t know is that your father-in-law only agreed to go because he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings, your mother-in-law’s back is actually bothering her a bit, and your husband is secretly rolling his eyes as he digs around in the closet. But because none of you spoke up, the group decides to go, and later when you’re all grumpy and finally admit to each other that what you really wanted was to come to Mass instead, no one can understand how you all decided to go in the first place. Behold – the Abilene Paradox.

It’s kind of like when a group of ten lepers, upon hearing that Jesus is passing by, decides to follow the rules and keep their distance. They cry out to him, they call his name, they beg for healing, but they don’t budge an inch. “We should stay back here,” one says. “Right,” replies another. And the whole group mm-hmm’s and nods their heads even though all of them are secretly wishing they had decided to forget the rules just this once and run up to him. But the group thinks that’s a bad idea, and so they all stand still.

Remember that life for a leper during the time of the Gospels was about as bleak as life can possibly get. If it is difficult for you to imagine a world where someone could be exiled and treated so heartlessly simply because of a mysterious disease they had unwillingly contracted, think back only a very few years to the anxious meanness of the AIDS crisis. It was this same kind of comprehensive cruelty that lepers faced once they were declared ritually impure by their priests. In a world where germ theory was unknown and treatment for skin diseases ineffective, the only option for lepers was exile. They lost their livelihoods, their families, their sense of self-worth. They were treated with equal parts fear and disgust and lived their whole lives in total exclusion, slaves to the tyranny of their disease.

And then along comes Jesus – this man who seems to be able to heal almost anything. He’s healed a leper before, our group of ten has heard that, and when they hear that he is passing through their little town on his way to Jerusalem, they make their move. Cautiously. Keeping their distance, they call out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” And they stand still, every cell in their body longing to throw themselves at his feet, but standing still, and waiting.

When he tells them to go to the priests, they know that something is in the works. He wouldn’t ask them to go to the priests unless he thought that there was something to show them, some change, some healing. And as they go, Luke tells us, they were made clean. I wonder what that looked like. Did one of them just happen to look down at her hands and see that her skin was suddenly spotless? Did one of them look up at his companion and see a familiar face that was unfamiliarly whole? What happened when they saw that they had been healed? I can only imagine the cries of elation and leaps of joy that erupted in the middle of that dusty road.

But when they settle down, one of them says that they should continue on. And another says that he agrees. And a third nods. What they don’t know is that they’re only agreeing to go because they’re trying to be good and follow the rules. What they really want to do is run and jump and laugh and skip and then sprint at full speed back into the village, careening around each corner and finally sliding and skidding to a full stop at the feet of Jesus. This is what they want to do, and this time, one of them does. He breaks away, runs back to Jesus, praising God all the while at the top of his lungs. And when he finds him, he throws himself at Jesus’ feet, looks up, and, from the bottom of his bursting, happy heart, he says thank you.

Today, we have come together to enact a paradox of our own. This is the Thanksgiving Paradox. This is the day when a group of people decides together to give thanks, even though individually, we might not feel like it much. Today, instead of the group limiting our ability for true joy, the group strengthens us to do something we sometimes have a hard time doing on our own. For who of us wakes up every single Thanksgiving morning overflowing with gratitude? Maybe we’re feeling more fearful than grateful this morning, more lonely or frustrated or tired.

But here is the paradox – if you put together a group of not-quite-overflowing-with-gratitude individuals, and invite them to be thankful, suddenly, they can be. The group expectation of joy and thankfulness can transcend any personal reluctance any of us might have. When we come together and sing these cherished Thanksgiving hymns, when we hear these lessons where we are reminded of God’s great goodness, when we say Happy Thanksgiving! with a smile and a nod, suddenly, we find ourselves transformed. Suddenly, we find ourselves grateful, ready to throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet, hearts bursting and happy.

This is the power of what we do every week here at Saint Mark’s, every day, in fact. We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing, to thank God for his wondrous works, to lift up our prayers, so that we can, in this holy group, be transformed. So that when we go forth from this place, we will register everything we see as gift and cry out in a loud voice, thank you, thank you! So that when we go forth from this place, we will look for those people who are on the outside looking in and call out to them – sister! brother! – and reach out a hand. So that when we go forth from this place, we will dare to even break some of society’s rules if it means proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom. This kind of group – this congregation, this communion – creates Thanksgiving, and that gratitude changes the world – bringing about light where there is only darkness, hope where there is only despair, joy where there is only fear. So, you faithful congregation, it’s Thanksgiving morning. Do you feel like giving thanks to God? Maybe allowing your life to be healed, blessed, and utterly transformed in the process? I thought so. Me too.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

23 November 2017, Thanksgiving Day

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

The Parable of the Ill-Advised Workplace Evaluation

Let me suggest that the proper title for the parable we hear this morning is not “The Parable of the Talents.”  No, if you ask me, this story should be renamed “The Parable of the Ill-Advised Workplace Evaluation.”  You know that workplace ritual, right?  It sounds like a wonderful, holistic experience oriented toward your personal growth, but in practice, it can feel like judgment day.

Now you may think it’s the third servant who is being evaluated this morning, but I think the real problem in this story is that the third servant elects to do an uninvited evaluation of his master. For some reason, though this servant is apparently timid when it comes to investing, he is strangely bold about critiquing others, so instead of just reporting that he has done nothing with the money, he decides to lead with some helpful feedback.  “You are a harsh man,” says the servant, defensively.  “You reap where you did not sow.” And, in case the critique wasn’t strong enough, the servant makes the final point in bottom-line terms: “You scare me so much that I’m not really able to do my job for fear of your thundering disapproval.  Please take back the money you gave me.”

Rule number one of a performance evaluation: wait to give feedback until your boss has asked the magic, “and what could I do better?”  Don’t get out there ahead on your own.

This is a flippant reading of the parable, obviously, and I don’t want to stay with it for too long, but I do think it’s worth considering that the third servant has some kind of perceptual problem, and that his master’s eventual hard-heartedness is in some way a reflection of the servant’s fear. It’s true that there is no way around the intensity of the master, but let’s explore what’s wrong with the third servant anyway, shall we? Because it seems like the greatest obstacle in this story is his intrusive belief that the master will condemn him.

I can’t shake the thought that the third servant is somehow misreading his own situation. This is, after all, a master who entrusts his slaves with his property.  Yes, the first two servants manage a miraculous hundred-percent return on their investments, but even so, the master’s words to them are surprisingly grace-filled: “Well done, good and trustworthy servant….Enter into the joy of your master.”  There are good reasons that so many of us hope to hear these beautiful words at the end of our lives.  We don’t hear them every day. In fact, in our own ruthlessly perfectionistic times we may find it remarkable that the master has no nitpicking critique to offer along with the recognition that the job was done well.  He doesn’t offer them advice about branding.  He doesn’t ask them whether they are already working on a second project.  No questions about where they see themselves in five years or whether they’ve done a feasibility study.  By the standards of the modern workplace, that is, this master is remarkably supportive at first.  He is impressed and grateful and he expresses delight.  “Enter into the joy of your master”: is it too much to call that a kind of friendship?  At very least it’s an offer of security that most bosses would be unable to offer in the workplace today: “I’ve got plenty of work for you for as long as you want it.”

But for some reason the third servant has no access to that picture of his master. He has managed to work for him for some time, I guess, without seeing what’s strange and rich and complex about this admittedly irascible figure.

And we too have made some pretty one-dimensional pictures of God that keep us from the work of the kingdom. We have made our own economy into a master that is harsher and more demanding than this biblical slave owner.  We’ve submitted to notions of reward and punishment that are far more draconian than the ones that offend us in this parable.  And we are certain that God is a lot like the worst boss ever, just waiting to tell us that we’ve done it all wrong.  Waiting to take everything from us. 

Maybe we are secretly thinking that God’s decision to put the kingdom of heaven in our hands—to make us co-workers with God’s own grace—is a capricious, overwhelming, unfair arrangement. A set-up.  A test we can’t pass. And our complaints about this vision of God, like the third servant’s complaints about his master, may come rushing into our awareness when we are confronted with the truth that God has entrusted something precious and urgent to us.

But make no mistake.  God is not the same as our economy.  God is not the same as our culture of blame and guilt and shame and relentless critique.  God is not like the worst image of authority in our heads.  God wants us to be free and loving. The parallel between this master and our God is not in his ruthlessness, it’s in his slightly crazy willingness to put himself into our hands.  Yes, God’s trust forces a moment of decision for us, but not because God is waiting for us to get it wrong.

And yes, friends, this is Commitment Sunday, this is the Sunday in which we ask for financial pledges for the coming year. Right now, you and I are being asked to do this work.  Something of God’s kingdom has been put into our hands, crazy as that may seem. Look around you: we are it.  If the kingdom of heaven is going to flourish in Philadelphia, some Philadelphians are going to have to be involved, and that means us.  Our financial commitment to this parish and to the work of God’s church is not optional, not something we can turn away from.  The work of God is urgent, and like it or not you have been entrusted with one of God’s real treasures: a flourishing, vital, beautiful, flawed community of believers who, in spite of all the odds, have gathered together here this morning to take joy in Christian stewardship. 

We are stewards of all of this: this building, this glorious music, this rich heritage of worship and belief.  We are stewards of the faith and hope and love that have been poured out here since the late nineteenth century, and in that we are stewards of God’s very work in this world. We are stewards of the needs of the broken who come here for relief, of the joy of those who come here to be married, of the seekers who turn to us for hope that God is still possible in 2017 and beyond. There is a shelter for souls on Locust Street in Philadelphia.  There is a living monument to the joy of walking with God right here in this city. It has been entrusted to us, by the grace of God.

And we have no reason to doubt the grace of God. We have no reason to doubt God’s forgiveness when we fail, because we fail here all the time and God stays with us patiently. We have no reason to doubt that what we do here can work, because it has been working.  We have no reason to fear that this parish can’t grow, because it has been growing.  Sure, we have to be prudent about our own circumstances, but we can let this parable challenge us.  In the parable, the third servant is presented with proof that his master enjoys the bold efforts of others.  He is presented with proof that the master wants his servants to enter into his joy.  He can see the abundance that his peers are experiencing. But what he imagines is danger and failure and judgment.  And you too, are presented with proof today that God’s kingdom can flourish on this earth. A joyful life of faith is possible.  We are doing it.  Take that in.

In our world, visions of malicious power can be found without any effort at all.  We don’t have to look hard to find a culture of condemnation.  It’s easy to find somebody who will want to cast us into outer darkness, or invite us to expel others from the circle of the elect.  Recrimination is everywhere, and we are haunted by images of failure: the failed state, the failed career, failed relationships, deserted towns, failed businesses.  Closed churches.  If you get it wrong in our world, it can be hard to locate the source of help and forgiveness and new life.

What a profound statement it is to be here this morning, then, ready to offer our best.  We are ready to offer some of our security, precious though it is, because by God’s grace we are not too preoccupied with thoughts of getting it wrong.  Because we know God.  God has met us here and God’s life is offering itself to us and to others, in abundance.  That joy is available to us.  We can enter into it.  We can be part of its power.  We can be part of the transformation of the world by God’s grace.  How could we fail?

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson

19 November 2017

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Waiting Well

So imagine that this morning, over your second cup of coffee and your first bowl of granola, you decided to take a look at the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times. And, after perusing an article about what Taylor Swift is wearing, and flipping through the proliferation of articles about holiday cooking, you turned the page to glance through the Weddings and Celebrations. And after reading a couple of descriptions of glorious parties attended by glamorous people in glitzy hotels, you stumbled upon this peculiar headline: Wedding, November 11/12, 2017, Bridegroom and ? Intrigued, you read on: "The Bridegroom and his bride were married sometime between 11:45pm Saturday night, November 11, and 2:00am November 12. The exact time of the wedding is unknown, as the reporter covering this particular wedding got stuck outside the door and didn’t see the actual vows. Not much is known about the couple’s romance or the proposal, although it is reported that they first met over a glass of a most excellent wine at a recent wedding in Cana of Galilee.

"Their wedding took place in the city of Jerusalem at the bridegroom’s home, where there was presumably a lavish banquet prepared, although this reporter did not herself see said banquet (please reference the previous paragraph on how she was rudely shut out of the reception). The ceremony was significantly delayed by the fact that the bridegroom arrived several hours after his expected time. There was no official reason given for this lateness, but it is rumored that he got into an argument with his future father-in-law about the exact number of goats he was due to acquire along with his beloved.

"It is difficult to describe what the groom wore because it was midnight by the time he arrived and pitch black outside. There were long robes, for sure, and some kind of wrap, but the overall palate of the ensemble was impossible to see in the dark. This reporter can comfortably say, though, that it seemed to be an entirely appropriate wedding garment. The bride was dressed in – well, now come to think of it, I’m not at all sure what the bride wore because I never actually saw her. Is that true? Did I never actually see the bride? I think that’s true, I never saw her and I never got her name. Mostly this is due to the fact that for some reason that was never adequately conveyed to me, the door was slammed in my face when I tried to go inside.

"The other interesting event during these nuptials was the procession of the ten bridesmaids that led the bridegroom and…I guess the bride? Was she there?...anyway, the procession that led the wedding party into the actual party. The night was dark (reference earlier paragraph about the groom’s tardiness, etc.), and the light from the bridesmaids’ lamps added just the right touch to make the moment particularly magical. The bridesmaids themselves, to be honest, were a little disheveled, because they had been waiting for hours and hours (earlier reference, groom was kinda obnoxiously late) and they looked like they had been asleep. Some of the more elaborate up-dos had started to become un-dos and one of the girls had a line across her face from where she’d fallen asleep on the hem of her garment. But the light from their lamps provided a warm, romantic glow…except that, wait a minute, there was that whole scandal with the oil. Apparently the groom’s entrance was so delayed (earlier reference, you get the point), and the girls’ lamps had been burning for so long, that some of them started running out of oil. Where the wedding planner was during all of this, I have no idea, but there was this fraught moment when the five, let’s call them flakier, girls asked if they could borrow some oil. And the other girls actually said no. Ha! Apparently, caring means sharing unless you’re competing to be the bridesmaid who looks the best by lamplight. So the flaky five had to leave, and by the time they got back, the procession had already gone inside, and the door was shut. And when they knocked on the door (this was unbelievable) the groom actually looked right at them and said he didn’t know them! And he slammed the stinkin’ door right in their faces, which all happened to be right next to my face, which was so unbelievably rude that I turned on my dusty heel, walked right to the all-night falafel place, and then went home and filed this article."

When you take a close look at this parable, a couple of things become abundantly clear. First of all, Jesus is not actually interested in describing proper wedding etiquette. I mean, surely the man who provided buckets of wine to bail out an ill-prepared sommelier would let a few ill-prepared bridesmaids come in the door a little late. Secondly, and I’m going to have to offer my apologies to Saint Matthew on this one, Jesus is not actually interested in coaching his followers on how to keep awake. I know, I know, the last line of the Gospel reading is “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour,” but I suspect this is just the doings of an overly-excited editor who was trying to make this parable fit a particular pattern. Because the bridesmaids do not, in fact, keep awake. They conk out – completely – and only wake up when the town crier starts bellowing that the bridegroom is on the way.                        

No, when you look closely, this parable seems to be about waiting. The bridesmaids are rewarded or punished for the way that they wait. The bridegroom is late, no word on his e.t.a., and some of the bridesmaids wait well, and some of them wait not so well. They all seem to understand that in the waiting, it is their job to keep their lamps lit. No question about that. We don’t hear any tales of bridesmaids who tried to conserve their oil by snuffing out the flame. And they all seem to understand that the waiting is just that…waiting. There’s no anxiety, no running around trying to figure out why the bridegroom is so late. They’re just present in their waiting, un-anxious and relaxed – so relaxed, in fact, that they actually fall asleep. The only difference between the wise and the foolish bridesmaids is that the wise women bring reserves. The wise women know that the delay might just last longer than they expect, and they bring along extra fuel just in case. These are the women who will turn into mothers who always have a pack of crackers in their purses. They know that there’s a chance they might be here for a long time, and they know what it looks like when they start to run on empty, and so they make sure they’ll have enough fuel for the long, dark night.

And if this parable is about the waiting, then it is a good parable for today. Because you and I have been waiting for a long time, for so many things. We have been waiting for healing or for clarity or for real love. We have been waiting for that long longed-for peace that passes our understanding. We have been waiting to see somebody do something about the proliferation of guns and the ease with which they can get into anyone’s hands – wise or foolish. We have been waiting for some truly good news for the poor and the addicted, for the incarcerated and the recently incarcerated, for people of color, for women, and for all of those who live or work in systems where they have little to no power. We have been waiting for the Church to step up and start living like this Jesus we follow actually meant what he said. We have been waiting a long time for justice to roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream. We have been waiting and waiting and sometimes we feel like we cannot wait any more.

But hear Jesus’ words for us this day – we’re going to have to keep waiting. We’re not going to get peace and perfect righteousness today, somewhere between our second cup of coffee and the end of your Danish. We’re not going to get it all right now. We’re going to have to wait. But here’s the thing – we can wait well. We can wait like Christ wants us to wait, like we know he’s coming. We can wait without fear or anxiety. We can wait and do the job he has given us to do, to wait and let the light of our good works, of our good deeds, of our good lives shine before others. And most importantly, while we’re waiting, we can fill ourselves up. We know what we get like when we’re spiritually hangry, so we can head that off at the pass. We can fill ourselves up. We can pray. Read. Study. Talk. Listen. Sing. Give thanks. Give. It is a truth known by many wise people that the more we give of the gifts that God has given us, the more we become filled up, like a cup that runneth over. So give. Give some more. Do justice. Love mercy. And take and eat, take and eat, take and eat, here at this richly-set, lavish banquet table.

Yes, the eternal justice and complete peace we long for is delayed. And yes, sometimes it feels like we have been waiting in the darkness for a long time. But look around. Imagine that this morning, you are surrounded by bridesmaids, waiting. We are waiting with hope and expectation. We are waiting with our light shining bright into the world. We are waiting with a reserve of oil – of patience and love – fed by Christ’s very presence in this worship. Open your eyes and see that this is the very beginning of the kingdom of heaven, shining all around you.     

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

12 November 2017

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia