Inherit the Kingdom

“This Jesus, far from saving the world, might struggle to save himself a seat on a crosstown bus.”  (Jason Farago in the New York Times, 15 Nov. 2017, on the auction of Leonardo daVinci’s Salvator Mundi, at auction for $450 million.)

Two men board a crosstown bus at the same place and sit down in seats across from each other.  Each man is carrying something important to him.  One man has a wooden crate, carefully screwed shut, with a sort of canvas handle that has been fashioned and attached to the crate so he can carry it like a suitcase.  The other man has a canvas tote bag that cradles a plastic bucket with a lid covering it tightly.  The bucket could hold, maybe 2-3 gallons of liquid, it’s not as large as a five gallon bucket.  It’s contents are sloshing around a little.  

As the bus makes its journey, more people board, and it fills up, but not uncomfortably so.  Eventually a third man takes up a place standing in between the other two men who are seated on either side of the aisle.  Not much distinguishes this third man, who draws no attention to himself, but he is the only person on the bus who is standing.

As the bus travels, without warning there is an enormous flash of light - like an explosion with neither sound nor impact.  It is like the most brilliant flash of lighting you have ever seen, but the sound of thunder never follows.  The passengers are momentarily blinded by the light, and shocked for a moment.  They cannot tell if the bus has stopped moving or is still going.  They can no longer see anything out the windows but a pale blue/whitish glow.  They think they have the sensation of motion, but they cannot tell: is the bus hurtling forward, propelled by some blast?  Or are they dropping into an endless abyss that has swallowed them up?  Or are they standing still.

No one is sick to his stomach.  No one has been flung from her seat.  There is no cry of anguish or alarm - there was no time, no warning, and strangely it seems as though there is nothing to worry about.  You would say that the noise was deafening, except that there was no noise, and although there is no sound, everyone is quite certain that they can hear everything there is to hear around them.  Everyone is still, without being frozen in place.  It is this impossibly odd combination of the simultaneous sensation of tremendous velocity and complete stillness.  And there is the light.

And it’s impossible to say whether time seems to have slowed down, or sped up, or stood still.  Clearly time is not passing at the same rate as it had when each person stepped onto the bus.  Something has happened.  No one can hear his own heartbeat, or her own breathing.  None of them seems to be breathing, none has a pulse.  Maybe they are trapped here in the time between two breaths, between two heartbeats?  But there is the light and the motion and the stillness.

Then there is a sound like a tremendous rush of wind that becomes more like the beating of powerful wings, or helicopter blades.  And now the passengers on the bus have the sensation that they are floating gently down, and they feel as though the bus is being set down someplace.  And once they stop, the sound of the wings or the helicopter blades fades up and away.  The light outside seems to intensify for a moment, and then with a flash it begins to subside to a bearable glare, and a gentle blue sky fills in to soften the glare.  And as they look out the windows, they can see that they have been set down in a broad green meadow which stretches as far as the horizon in every direction.

The man with the wooden crate notices that his crate is still there by his feet, just where he set it.  Like everyone on the bus, he is deeply confused; he has no idea what has just happened or where he is.  The man with the plastic bucket also does not know where he is or what has just happened.  He checks his bucket carefully to see that the contents of it have not spilled. He often seals the lid shut with duct tape when he takes the crosstown bus to prevent leakage of any kind, which would not be good.  But on this occasion he had been running late and had not taken the time to do so.  But no worries, the contents of the bucket are still safely inside.

Everyone is still sitting calmly, almost motionlessly in his or her seat.  Some are listening for a heartbeat or a breath.  They are wondering now, am I dead or alive?  They find themselves wondering whether they should be afraid, and some begin to suspect that indeed they should be.

Only one person moves with confidence, or as though he is not suspended in some in-between state of animation: the man who was standing between the seats.  He has remained standing the entire time.  Before the flash of light, he seemed entirely unremarkable, but now he seems uniquely to have some control of himself, some command of his surroundings, some knowledge of what is going on.  He begins to move.

As he moves, the entire environment around them all begins to shift, like a changing scene in a movie or on a stage, except that the people all stay in place.  The walls of the bus disappear, and the passengers find that they are all seated in comfortable velvet chairs, arranged on two sides of an aisle, like on a bus, or in a church.  They are all seated in the meadow, which extends as far as the eye can see.  There is no sun in the sky, but all is light above the pale blue sky and beyond.

The standing man is now at the head of the aisle, and the passengers, still not sure what is happening, see now that they sit in two groups: one on the right and one on the left.  The driver of the bus appears, and he brings for the standing man a golden throne, which the driver places at the head of the aisle, raised on a little platform.  The throne is glorious, and the man who was standing now takes his seat on it, as the driver seems to float away into the sky with the sound of quietly beating wings or helicopter blades.  And the face of the mysterious man seated on the throne becomes visible to the passengers.  He is rather wan, and his hair is long, falling over his shoulders in long, curled, golden tresses.  He begins to speak:

“My children, your time has come.  Your bodies and your souls have finished their earthly journeys.  The details of what happened to you are unimportant right now; all will be revealed in time.

“I am the Son of the Living God.  I was sent to be your Savior, to be the Savior of the world, and there is no one who is or ever was beyond my grasp, if only you would come when I called you.  Many’s the person who could not hear me call, or who would not.  Many’s the person who refused to do what was so obviously right.  Many’s the person who indulged his own deepest desires, and thought precious little of those in need.  Still, I was sent to all, to everyone.  In the life you lived, the choosing was to be done by you, not by me.

“But here we are on the journey toward the life that awaits beyond the grave.  You have heard that I would come to separate the sheep from the goats, and that the righteous would be rewarded with eternal life, but the unrighteous with eternal punishment.”

At this short speech, the group of those who sit at the left hand of the throne (that is, on the right, as you face the throne), being not entirely unfamiliar with Scriptures, began to shift nervously in their seats.  All except the man with the wooden crate, over whom an apparently inexplicable calm had fallen.

Seeing the quiet assurance of the man with the wooden crate, the Son of Man asks him to rise.  Then he says from the throne,  “My child, you have a look of assurance on your face, while all your neighbors at my left hand, knowing, as they do, something of the Scriptures, have begun to suspect, as they examine their lives perhaps for the first time, that my judgment of them may be hard.  What is the source of your quiet assurance?  Could it be the treasure you carry in that crate?”

“Indeed,” says the man, “it is.”

“Please, then, open it.”

With a quiet smile, the man pulls a screwdriver from his pocket.  He gently lays the crate on its back, and carefully unscrews the face, lifting it from the crate.  Inside, a second layer of protective material has to be removed, and when it is, the man reaches inside and from the crate and lifts out a painting.  Everyone knows as soon as they see it that it is a very famous painting, by the hand of Leonardo da Vinci, and that it had sold at auction for the staggering sum of nearly a half a billion dollars.  And when he lifts the painting up, everyone is even more stunned to see that the face depicted in the painting was the very face of the Man who sits on the throne, with his strange expression, and his golden curls.  And they can see that the Man even holds in his hand a crystal orb, like the one in the painting, although at the moment his other hand (his right) is not raised in blessing.  And he even wears a blue robe of the same lapis lazuli of the robe in the painting, with golden embroidery on it.

Everyone is stunned.  And the man who had just  unpacked this treasure takes a deep bow as he stands before the throne, and says, “My Lord, I paid the sum of $450 million to possess this image of your own face, never knowing what a likeness it truly was.  From my store of great wealth, I used a goodly portion to take possession of this extraordinary painting.  Surely my reward will be great for this act of homage to you, the Savior of the World.”

Calmly, the Son of Man responds, “We shall see.”  

Then he turns to his right, and looks at the man with the bucket that he was carrying inside a canvas tote bag. “My child,” he says, “you seem nervous and uncertain.  You have barely been able or willing to lift your eyes to look at this painting, let alone to look me in the face, as though you are frightened of what might befall you in my Presence.  What is the source of your anxiety?  Could it be whatever you carry in that bucket, that you are so afraid might spill?”

The man with the bucket could barely lift his face to look upon the Son of Man, let alone provide an answer to the question.  He only mumbles and averts his eyes.  So, from the throne the Son of Man speaks again, “Please, open it.”

Nervously, the man kneels down and takes the bucket out of the tote bag.  His fingers fumble as he loosened the lid all around its perimeter.  Gently he pries the lid off the bucket, and as he does, the familiar scent of chicken soup fills the air around them all.  And there is a little giggle of nervous laughter from some who sit watching, when they realize what is in this man’s bucket.  But they do not know what the Son of Man knows.

He speaks, “This man was carrying soup, as he does every week, to feed to those who are hungry.  Sometimes he takes it to a prison.  Sometimes he ladles it out to strangers.  Sometimes he visits the sick with his bucket of soup and his ladle.  Sometimes he brings clothes to those who have not enough to keep them warm.  And always he is careful not to spill a drop.  This bucket of soup cost him less than $20 to make.”  And turning to the man, he looks down and says, “My child, do not be afraid to look upon my face.  Lift up thine eyes, and behold.”

Suddenly the sound of loudly flapping wings or of helicopter blades fills the air, and the sky above them all is filled with sparkling color as varied as the spectrum: with wings, and eyes, and wheels.  And above the sound of the flapping and the rotors, a hymn can be heard being sung by heavenly voices.

And the Son of Man turns to the man with his bucket of soup, and to all those gathered with him at his right hand and said to them, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  (Matt. 25:34)

And the angels of mercy swoop in on those to the right and carry them away to the nearer Presence of the Lord.  And the angels of death swoop in on those to the left and carry them away to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

“And for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” (Ephesians 1:15-18)

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

26 November 2017

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

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