A Garland for Ashes

It seems safe to assume that John the Baptist had dreams.  And if he had dreams, it seems likely that he sometimes dreamed about the prophecies of Isaiah, with which his own ministry would become so closely linked, as the “voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord!’”

I think that John the Baptist had a recurring dream, in which he found himself out in the wilderness trapping rabbits, not so that he could eat them, since they were not a part of his diet, but so that he could take them (in his dream) to a small stone altar that he had set up near a tree, and sacrifice the rabbits to God.  The dream was recurring and unsettling to John, because after he had ritually killed the rabbit (in his dream) and burnt its body on the stone altar as an offering to God, he found himself sitting there, staring at the small pile of ashes that was all that was left of the rabbit and the wood from which the fire had been made, after the flames had burnt out.  And every time he had the dream, at the very end, when he hoped for some sign that his sacrifice was accepted by God, instead, a small breeze came along and scattered the ashes, and whispered in his ear: “... a garland instead of ashes...”

Now, John immediately got the reference in his dream to the prophecy of Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

Because he has anointed me;

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,

to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and release to the prisoners;

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,

and the day of vengeance of our God; 

to comfort all who mourn;

to provide for those who mourn in Zion—

to give them a garland instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

But it brought John sadness, to say the least, that every time his sacrifice was offered, it seemed to be found wanting.  For what else could John give to God, having already given his life over to the Lord?  What more could he do as he prepared himself for holiness, but make the sacrifice of an animal?  What access did he have to the divine, outside of his prayers?  What means was at his disposal to wring from his sacrifice a garland instead of ashes?  Or to bring the promise of such a thing to others?  And why did God insist, in the deep corners of John’s sub-conscience, on suggesting that there was something he wanted that John could not produce - a garland instead of ashes?

“A garland for ashes” is how some older translations put the text, or in the words of the King James Version, “beauty for ashes.”  It is shorthand for something green rather than something grey; for hope rather than despair; for mercy rather than punishment; for loveliness rather than spite; for grace rather than sternness; for softness rather than sharp edges; for celebration rather than mourning; for life rather than death.

I imagine that John would wake from his dream in the middle of the night with a start, in a bit of a sweat.  For he knew in his heart that God was sending his anointed to fulfill the prophecy.  And he knew that he had been called to prepare the way of the Lord.  But this dream left him feeling inadequate and uncertain about himself.  He was not even certain that he knew the identity of the One whose Way he was supposed to prepare.  He had his suspicions, but he did not know for sure; and the dreams didn’t help.

I suspect that people in those days were no less uncertain about the world they lived in than we are in our own time.  I suspect that they were frustrated with their rulers, concerned about the availability of resources, wary about the threat of war, and troubled by the disparity between the rich and the poor.  We know that there was political squabbling every bit as petty, nevertheless consequential, as the political squabbling today.  We know that the voices of the poor were ignored and their dignity trampled upon, just as the poor are sidelined and ignored today, in favor of those who are already rich but seek to amass more for themselves.  We know that there were powerful men then who thought that if you could get away with it - whatever it was - then it must not be wrong.  This is not a new script.

So the promises of the prophet that good news would come to the oppressed, hope would come to the broken-hearted, prisoners would find release, mourners would find comfort, and that God would give to his people a garland instead of ashes -  these were not idle promises of only casual interest to John.  Nor might they fall on our ears as mere poetic phrases that describe how things might be some day in another universe far, far away.  A garland instead of ashes would signal the beginning of God’s reign in a world ruled by petty tyrants who were only out for themselves.  But in John’s dreams, where he hoped his spirit was being prepared for the work he was called to do, over and over again he was left with nothing but ashes... and the clear message that the ashes were not what was called for.

At Bethany, across the Jordan, where John was baptizing, he remained full of uncertainty.  A company of priests and Levites came to question John: “Who are you?  What do you say about yourself?” they demanded.  And John found his voice stuck in his throat, for he wondered if he was a sham, a fake, a nobody, whose dreams told the real truth: that there was no garland, only ashes.  But he looked up from his doubt, as he had when he’d been tutored as a boy by his father, and he answered them: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord!’”

That same night John had a dream: the same dream with the rabbit and altar and the fire and the ashes.  He sat there (in his dream) and let the ashes cool.  And before the breeze could come along to scatter them, he scooped up the ashes into a white linen cloth, and made a little bundle of them.  And he tucked them into his shirt and went off in search of his cousin, Jesus, whom he suspected and hoped was the object of his ministry.

Still dreaming, John finds Jesus, and he goes to him, the little bundle of ashes held close to his breast.  The two embrace without exchanging so much as a word.  Then Jesus, still close, touches his head to John’s head in that odd way of embracing, with his hand holding John’s head close, his hand on the back of John’s neck, just at the base of the skull, so they can still hold each other’s gaze in moment of silent intimacy.  

Now John reaches into his shirt to retrieve the bundle of ashes.  He pulls away from Jesus to hold them out to him, and John is crying, ashamed of himself and of the ashes.  Jesus takes the tied-up bundle from John, and holds it in both hands, he brings it up to his lips, and he kisses the bundle of ashes, places it back in John’s hands and then begins to untie it.  When he does, the bundle no longer contains ashes to be blown on the breeze to the winds, but now, a garland of delicate green boughs, which Jesus takes and passes over his cousin’s head, around his neck, and drapes it down over his shoulders, as he kisses John on the forehead.

We live in world of ashes.  Everything is destined for ashes, whether in the grave, or as a result of a nuclear war, or because what else will become of all the piles of money that we have placed at the center of our universe: they can become nothing but ashes in time.  So much of the time it seems that nothing will ever become of us except the ashes for which we are destined.  What hope is there, really, in this world that good news will come to the oppressed, hope will come to the broken-hearted, prisoners will find release, mourners will find comfort, and that God will give to his chosen people a garland instead of ashes?  There is no hope if it’s up to us.  In the end we will produce nothing but ashes, and we have no ability of our own ever to do anything more than that.

But the prophecy of Isaiah that was passed on to John has, in fact, been fulfilled, the acceptable year of the Lord has been proclaimed, and the anointed One has come.  Just because we may be filled with uncertainty and self-doubt does not change this marvelous truth.  Thank God that John has marked out the Way, and shown us where to go.  

In this last week before Christmas, among all the other things that we are wrapping, we might take the time to wrap up: all the proverbial ashes of our lives that we are sure can amount to nothing.  Let us bring them to Jesus and pray that he’ll kiss them for us.

And let us be ready, in the face of that love, to discover that we have been given a garland instead of ashes: something green rather than something grey; hope rather than despair; mercy rather than punishment; loveliness rather than spite; grace rather than sternness; softness rather than sharp edges; celebration rather than mourning; life rather than death.  A garland, instead of ashes.

“There was a man sent by God whose name was John.  He came as a witness to testify to the light so that all might believe through him.  He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.  The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world."  A garland for ashes.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

17 December 2017

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Advent in the Wilderness

I have been to the wilderness. It was the spring of 2009, in the weeks just after Easter. I was on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a journey that took me from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to Galilee and then back again to Jerusalem. One day early in my journey, my group was taken out into the wilderness. We were loaded up onto buses and driven out, far out, I know not where. Eventually we pulled onto a dusty gravel road and, after our guide gave us the requisite Holy Land warning about keeping ourselves hydrated, we stepped off the buses into a landscape unlike anything I had ever seen before. My first thought when I looked across that expanse of naked earth was, My God. It’s all exactly the same color. As far as I could stretch my eyes, it was all beige, like a page from a coloring book where the child used only one tan crayon. The earth beneath our feet was sandy and tan; there was a valley below us that was sandy and tan. There were hills in the distance, and they, too, were sandy and tan. There was so much tan that it became difficult for me to see any depth in what I was looking at. My sense of perspective was completely fooled, and the tan upon tan upon tan made the view seem oddly and somewhat frighteningly two-dimensional. The hills were far off – my brain could somehow comprehend that – but I felt off-kilter and even dizzy, as if the hills were pressing in on me, leaning in and looming large.

I stood for a moment on the edge of a cliff, alone, far from the group, and tried to absorb what lay before me. I could see one road, a track, really, that I could easily imagine as that dangerous stretch from Jerusalem down to Jericho where traveling worshipers might be set upon by brutal robbers. But beyond that, there was nothing that even whispered of civilization. Vacant hills jagged up from the ground, pressing in on each other in rows like shark’s teeth. They seemed an impossible maze to me, a tangle no path could ever penetrate. The view was bleak and hopeless, a world of stumbling over rocks and skidding down dusty hills, a world of disorientation, where you risked losing not only your water or your way, but also yourself.

So I have been to the wilderness. And I have also been to the wilderness. I have known what it is to stand before the landscape of my own life and to see only one drab, lifeless color. I have known what it is to look out, far out into the future and to see only threats and disasters, each looming on top of the other. I have known what it to find myself in a hostile universe I could have never imagined, where my grief and anger and confusion and fear became so intensely tangled that I could see no way forward, no path to pierce the thicket of my soul. I have known what it to see only obstacles to stumble over, only crooked tracks to get lost on and dead ends to crash into. I have known what it is to feel the utter desolation of a wild, unfamiliar world stretching out before me, from the bare pathway under my feet to the stark, vacant horizon. 

I imagine that you, like me, have been to the wilderness. Because I imagine that you, like me, have known pain. Perhaps you, like me, have known what it is to watch someone you love be devoured by illness and then, finally, die. Perhaps you, like me, have known what it is to wait, panicked, for a doctor’s call, for a diagnosis, for a decision. Perhaps you, like me, have known what it is to feel a relationship sliding away from you, to feel your faith falter and fail, to feel unfamiliar with the person looking back at you in the mirror. Perhaps you have known what it is to be so unsure of your next step that you can’t step at all. Perhaps you have known what it is to have a loved one ripped away so suddenly that you lose your breath. Perhaps you have known what it is to watch someone you love tumbling into addiction and to know that you cannot catch them. Perhaps you have known what it is to be hated simply because of who God made you to be. Perhaps you have known what it is to feel your last safety net fall away, or to feel yourself so alone that the simple touch of a stranger’s handshake almost makes you weep, or to feel that unwanted familiar companion of depression lurking around the corner. Perhaps you have known what it is to find yourself so far down the wrong path that it seems easier to just keep walking, even if it’s off a cliff, than to try to wend your way back. Perhaps you have known what it is to wake up to one more news cycle that pushes you over into despair, wondering how truth will ever spring up from this earth, how righteousness and peace will live long enough to kiss each other, how Jerusalem will ever again hear words spoken tenderly to her. Perhaps you have known what it is to find yourself looking out, far out, seeing only the color of desolation, pain upon pain upon pain.

We have been to the wilderness. And God has been there too. God has spent a great deal of time there, in fact, with Abraham and Sarah, with Jacob and Leah and Rachel, with Moses and Miriam. God has journeyed through the wilderness with the people of Israel, listening to them complain and watching them wander away and loving them all the while. God has sat down in the wilderness with Elijah and flown through it with David when they were on the run. God knows the wilderness. But when God looks out upon that world, God does not see a land of uniform hopelessness; God sees a blank canvas, ready for something new. God sees a template with no limits, no bounds, where anything might happen. When God looks out upon the wilderness, God sees a place that is ripe for miracles.

When God looks out upon the wilderness, God sees a place where water can spring from rocks, where food can appear like dew upon the ground. God sees a place where angels can have free reign, where they can show us a ladder into grace or feed us with wild honey cakes or, if necessary, wrestle us into revelation. When God looks out upon the wilderness, God sees a place where a people can find their way to a holy home, and then find their way back again. God sees a place for new birth, for baptisms and holy doves and words that fall from heaven. God sees that the wilderness is a good place for miracles, the best place, perhaps, for there is nothing there – no security, no accomplishments, no pride, no self-confidence – that can distract us from his presence. When we stand before God in that blank canvas of despair or worry or loneliness or grief, our sins and our false selves and even our virtues can fall away* until all that remains is what is most true about us – that we are still wet with the waters of baptism, that we are still beloved, that we are still God’s.

The wilderness is a place of miracles. Why else would God tell Isaiah that he would come on a highway in the wilderness? Why else would God send John the Baptizer out into the wilderness to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom? Why else would God promise to make the valleys of the wilderness lifted up and the mountains low and the uneven ground level and the rough places a plain? Because the wilderness is a holy place, a place God chooses again and again as the setting of his righteous, merciful, miraculous acts.

For some of us, Advent invites us into the wilderness, invites us to repent and to let go of those things that tether us to that which withers and fades. But for some of us, Advent finds us already there, wandering through our grief or frustration or fear. Either way, Advent reminds us, assures us, that the wilderness has gifts to offer, and if we can only be still and listen, we can find comfort there, and tenderness; forgiveness and relief, joy and reward, and the glory of the Lord. For there is one who is coming for whom the wilderness holds no fear. There is one who is coming for whom the wilderness marks the very heart of good news. There is one who is coming.      

There is another part of my story of the wilderness in the Holy Land. And that is that when we got off the bus, and my eyes tried to adjust to the eternal sea of tan, our guide gasped and said, Oh! Look at all the color! The spring rains had just ended, you see, and the desert that I was looking at was actually in bloom. And as I looked, I began to notice the little fuzz of rusty umber that crowned the tops of the hills. I saw the rich veins of dark green that ran through the tucks and creases in the valley. And as I stepped over those sandy rocks that lay at my feet, I saw, growing out of nowhere, tiny yellow flowers stretching their little faces to the heavens. And the more I looked, the more of them I saw. Little hopeful blossoms, woven together in a carpet of yellow that covered the wilderness with color for as far as I could see. Little miraculous blooms, lifting up their faces as if to proclaim to the world, as if to proclaim to us, Here, right here in the wilderness, with you, Here is your God.

*with thanks to Flannery O'Connor for the idea of this line, though not the exact text

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

Advent II, 10 December 2017

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

The Great Migration

So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.  (Mark 13:29)

Late in July of 2016, I had traveled with a friend to the grasslands of the Serengeti in northern Tanzania, where I hoped to witness something of a spectacle: the great annual migration of wildebeest.  This last full-scale migration of land animals on earth is the stuff that National Geographic films are made of: vast herds of wildebeest following the rains across hundreds of miles of the African bush in search of greener grass to feed on.  With the wildebeest go the zebras and gazelles, among others.  The migration begins after the wildebeest calving season has concluded, and the herd travels with tens of thousands of young calves, drawing the attention of the lions, hyenas, crocodiles, cheetahs, leopard and other predators.  The National Geographic moments come most famously on the many occasions that the wildebeest cross the Mara River, putting the animals at risk of falling prey to dramatic crocodile attacks.

In Swahili the word Serengeti means something like, “the place where the land runs on for ever,” and to say that the broad, flat expanses of tall grass are beautiful is an understatement.  The wildlife all across the ecosystem are plentiful, and by the end of the first day of safari in a Land Rover we had seen four out of the “big five.”  Not all wildebeest join the migration, so we had seen a fair number of these, too.  But the word was that the migrating herd was far to the north of us.

I asked our guide, Jonas, if we could travel north in search of the herd, and he was discouraging.  “I hear the migration is not so good this year,” he said.  

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means there is not a large concentration of animals in any one place in the Serengeti,” he replied.

“But is there a chance we might see some of the migration?” I asked.

“Yes, there’s always a chance we could get lucky,” he said, but he was not enthusiastic about this possibility.

But I persisted, and convinced my friend and our guide that on the penultimate day of our time in the Serengeti we should drive as far north as we could in search of the great migration.  So we did.

In a Land Rover with one broken shock absorber, we drove for hours and hours over rough dirt roads, through miles of African bush, past villages, and in sight of countless herds of cattle being tended by Masai boys.  At last we came to the dry dusty bank of the Mara River, close to the Kenyan border.  Jonas expertly took us along the riverbank in search of some part of the wildebeest herd that might be crossing the river.

More than 1.5 million wildebeest make the migration each year, and if you think about film or television clips you’ve seen of this incredible phenomenon, you’d think it would not be so hard to find a herd of 1.5 million wildebeest in flat, open land.  But the wildebeest break up into smaller groups; they don’t travel as a monolithic herd, and we could hardly find any of them as we meandered in our Land Rover along the riverbank.

The little group of wildebeest that would not cross the river.

Our long drive was beginning to feel like something of a folly, when at last Jonas spotted a small group of about forty wildebeest on the far bank of the river, standing there looking bored.  We drove to a good vantage point to watch what was an admittedly underwhelming retinue of the great migration.  And as we watched, over the course of a good half hour or so, the wildebeest did nothing but stand there at the edge of the water and stare at it suspiciously.

Patiently we waited.  In due course, on a little rise above our company of wildebeest, along comes another entourage of the homely animals, this one numbering closer to 100, and headed toward our little, water-averse band of wildebeest below.  Great! - we thought - this larger group of wildebeest will come down to the water and their momentum will encourage the others forward and across the river, right below us!  And as the larger company of wildebeest made their way to the place where they could turn and join their colleagues at the water’s edge, they halted, before proceeding, and adopted an air of devoted indifference to the thought of crossing the river.

Patiently we waited, sending all our mental energy across the river, and hoping to telepathically encourage the herd mentality to go, but to no avail.  After another half hour of waiting for something to happen, at last something did happen: the small group of wildebeest at the water’s edge looked up at the recent arrivals, turned away from the river, marched lazily to join the others, and they all trotted wearily away from us in the opposite direction, without the vaguest sense that anyone was disappointed or unhappy that a river-crossing had not been ventured.

Year by year you and I, and countless other Christians arrive here at the same place at more or less the same time of year in late November, early December, on Advent Sunday.  It’s common to say that today is the beginning of the church year, because it is, but there is something inadequate about that measure of what it is that today signifies - as though all that’s happening today is a flip of the calendar page.  What a minuscule way of seeing things!  In fact, we are beginning our great migration, and this migration is more than a passage over distance or time.  We have not come to follow the rains, but we are in search of nourishment for our souls.  And thank God we have children to come along with us!

The church bids us set out each year on this great migration that prepares us for the coming of a Savior, that delights in his birth, that follows him into the wilderness, that attends to his teaching, prepares for his death, witnesses his suffering, weeps at his crucifixion, discovers his empty tomb, rejoices at his rising, ponders his new life, receives the gift of his Spirit, and then marches through the green grass during the long rainy season in order to return to this same place at around the same time next year.

A nice enough metaphor for an Advent Sunday.  But it remains only a metaphor if we position ourselves as mere observers of Advent and not participants in it.  It remains to be seen whether you and I are actually participating in this great migration.  That is, it remains to be seen whether we are watching from the far bank, or whether we are standing together at the water’s edge wondering if it is safe to proceed.

So many Christians today will be satisfied to watch from that far bank.  But I am here to tell you that if you will allow it, you will discover that God is calling you to come to water’s edge where you may listen for God to tell you to go, maybe even to cross the river.  It is true that all kinds of danger lurks ahead of us.  Whether it’s the stars falling from heaven, or the threat of a nuclear war, or the challenge of navigating another year in this sprawling American herd, or your own spiritual hunger, or a sickness that may yet kill you before next spring, or the conversation you have been putting off for ever because you are afraid that it will change everything, or the phone call that you dread.  Or, it could be that if you begin this migration you will find that, having heeded God’s call at the outset, you are drawn to be more and more attentive to his voice in your life.  And you may begin to hear the urging of the Spirit to live your life in a pattern of holiness that means you are more and more attentive to what God wants, before you consider what you want.  And you will be amazed at how this perspective changes things.

So, year by year we arrive here, and you have a choice either to watch the migration go by, or to cross the river and get on with it.  No one is compelled anymore merely by hunger or instinct to go on this migration.  The great annual Christian migration is about an intentionality of the heart, a commitment of the self, and a willingness to go more often than to stay put.

As a metaphor, my description of my underwhelming experience of the great migration in the Serengeti can be misleading if it suggests that the wildebeest at the water’s edge somehow failed because they didn’t cross the river over toward me.  In fact, those wildebeest did exactly what they were supposed to do: they got on with the migration.  The fact that they didn’t cross the river in sight of our Land Rover is of no consequence to them or anyone else but me and my friend.  It was me and my friend and our guide who were left wanting, because we could not join in the migration, we could not follow, we could not go.  We had a schedule to keep, places to return to, we were not free to go off with the wildebeest in search of greener grass or a safer place to cross the river.  We could not see, and will never know what happened next.  Because, although I had travelled half way around the world to catch a glimpse of the great migration, I actually didn’t have more than an hour or so to watch and wait.

Maybe you feel the same way about church.  Maybe you feel the same way about your spiritual life, or your relationship with God, or your attentiveness to your prayers.  Maybe you are interested, but you haven’t got time, if these damn wildebeest are just going to stand around and not do very much!

But here you are at the outset of a new church year, on the first steps of a new migration.  Every year at the same time God makes the same promises: that his kingdom is coming, that the reign of his Son will bring the justice, and the mercy, and the healing we so desperately long for.  But, of course, the signs that he warns of do not come to pass.  The sun is not darkened, and the stars do not fall from heaven, and the Son of Man has not come with great power and glory, and his angels have not gathered his elect from the four winds.  The kingdom has not come, the reign of God is not established, and what of the justice, the mercy, and the healing?  It would seem that God’s seasons last longer than ours; his time is not synched with our time.  Is this a disappointment to us?  Are we ready for the end of time?  Do we desire the reaping of the angels?  Do we suppose we are prepared for judgment?

In the Gospel passage we heard this morning, Jesus describes the signs of the coming of the kingdom, and tells his disciples to be attentive to those signs, even as they are attentive to the signs of the seasons.  “So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.”  More than once, our Lord suggests that although the time is not yet fulfilled, we should know that God is near, and his purposes are close at and hand.  I suppose it’s not much different in the Serengeti: the lion does not need to strike in order for the herd to move, being near is close enough.

If the portents Jesus told of do not appear, nevertheless, we are not without many other signs of the season that a new migration is beginning: the Advent wreath with its candles, the violet vestments, and the grey December sky, and the great hymns reminding us that lo, he comes, so long expected.  But as long as we remain casual observers of the great migration, we will never know what happens next.

At the entrance to the Serengeti National Park

I have a photo from my few days in the Serengeti of my friend and me standing at the gate of the Serengeti National Park.  You would think there’d be a long fence line stretching out in either direction to enclose this vast land, but there is not.  And that there would be iron gates that swing shut to lock the lions inside and keep the poachers out, but there are not.  There is a just a sort of pitched roof erected over the dirt road to mark the entrance of this amazing land.  There is almost nothing to prevent you from entering in.

It makes me think how glad I am of all these signs and signals in our own midst: the wreath, and the candles, and the violet, and the hymns, and the grey December sky, and so many others.  And it reminds me that the herd begins its migration simply because it must if the wildebeest are to stay healthy and strong for another year, and so they go when the signs appear.

A lion in the Serengeti

And I remember the ancient symbol of the lion, as a sign of God’s presence in the midst of a dangerous world.  And I believe that these Advent signs assure us that the Lion of Judah will appear one way or another.  And this Lion will come not to ravage us, but to our aid and defense; he will save us.  No gates can prevent him from coming to us, and no fence impedes his progress.  So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates!

And I pray the Lion will come to us, and roar!  And I think we can linger no longer at the river’s edge: it is time to go!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

3 December 2017

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia