The Lamp of God Has Not Yet Gone Out

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

If I were a betting man, I would put a lot of money on the bet that you could hear a lot of sermons this morning in Episcopal churches on this question from the 46th verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of John: Can anything good come out of that dump Nazareth?  Frankly, what could be easier this morning than preaching on this text?  We are, in this nation, in the midst of an uproar over immigration, and over racism, and over (in a sense) the national soul.  And sometimes weak and inadequate leaders make themselves easy targets by virtue of their many and obvious inadequacies.  And who doesn’t love an easy target?  I do.  And who doesn’t love to preach to the choir?  I do.  What sweeter music can be heard from a pulpit than the anthem that you already wished to sing?  Maybe you were humming the tune on your way here?  How gratifying to hear that tune harmonized from the privileged perch of the preacher!

And no doubt there are powerful and important sermons that will be preached this morning on the rude question that Nathanael asks about why anyone would have anything to do with someone from a place like Nazareth.  There are words that need to be spoken, and that need to be heard.  But Nathanael didn’t get what he was expecting when he asked that question, and maybe we we shouldn’t get what we are expecting either.  If we go another way, perhaps we will see greater things than these....

For, if you ask me, much of the church is sleeping most of the time.  Take this comment any way you like.  There are places, I believe - like in Africa, and in Haiti - where this is not the case, and the church is alive to the persistent call of God, where the poor awaken every morning to their poverty, and have no particular need to be otherwise woke.  The Gospel of Jesus has a way of thriving among the poor who can ill afford the idols that the rest of us take for granted, and who sometimes plate those idols in gold.  

But in so much of the Christian church in America - in any denomination and all - and certainly in Europe, and across the continent of Australia... in these places, the church is sleeping, rousing herself for an hour or two on Saturday nights or on Sunday mornings for a dose of something a little less bracing than aftershave, before going back to her slumber, during which her members accomplish all kinds of things that are fun, or demanding, or gratifying, and sometimes even noble, and that are making a lot of people rich, more or less, but which have little or nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I don’t make this comment with bitterness.  If getting rich (or at least well-to-do) had been a goal of mine, I was in a reasonable position to choose such a path as a young man, but I felt called to do otherwise.  So why should I spend my time in the pulpit doing what the op-ed writers of the New York Times can do nearly as well as I could, when they will get paid a lot better to do it?

Meanwhile, the church is sleeping, prone - her activity level greatly diminished, her heart-rate slow.  If she dreams she can do nothing much about those dreams and maybe not even remember them in the morning.  In some places perhaps she even has sleep apnea, and appears to be be dying or dead.  But she is sleeping.

The sitz in leben of the Gospel story, in which Nathanael delivers his famous and provocative zinger about Nazareth is reported by St. John simply to be “Galilee.”  But the context of the passage we heard from the First Book of Samuel this morning is much more interesting.  The reporter of that remarkable story tells us three important things:

“The word of the Lord was rare in those days;

“Visions were not widespread...

And, more locally, in the temple of the Lord, where the ark was located, and where young Samuel was sleeping, the writer tells us that “the lamp of God had not yet gone out.”

Sleeping.  Samuel was sleeping.  And so was his mentor, Eli - sleeping.  Both of them were sleeping.

And the word of the Lord was rare in those days.  Visions were not widespread.  Sound familiar?

But, but, but - and this is vitally important - but, the lamp of God had not yet gone out.  Not yet!

And the LORD called Samuel by name.  Three times.  To rouse him from his sleep.  

Now, the first thing we can take away from this story is that even if the voice of the LORD calling you from sleep wakes you up, it’s easy to go back to bed.

And, the second thing we  can take away from this story is that sometimes you need to seek guidance from someone older and wiser than you - especially in spiritual matters - and that you are not always in a position to hear, let alone to understand what God is calling you to, nor how you should respond.

But the third thing we can take away from this well-story is contained in a detail that I have hardly ever noticed before.  In my memory and in my retelling of the call of Samuel, which was instrumental in my own discernment of my vocation to priesthood, I have always appreciated the triple call of God to Samuel.  Additionally, I have appreciated the writer’s very specific description that “Samuel did not yet know the LORD,” even though he had been sleeping right there in the temple, in the presence of the lamp of God, having been lent by his mother to the temple priests for the service of the LORD.  But still, Samuel did not yet know the Lord.  So, three times, God calls, and three times, Samuel - even with Eli available to consult - three times he misses it.

But, after the third time, and now that Samuel has been told by Eli what to do, has been instructed in the way to respond, is prepared again for the voice to disrupt his sleep...  It is not just that God calls again...  It is not the mere repetition of the call that brings Samuel into sacred conversation with God...  It is not that Samuel keeps one ear open when he returns to sleep...  No, the LORD does not just call again...  Not by a long shot.  The writer of this account is very clear that God does something different this time.  No, the LORD does not just call again.

We are told, “Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before.”  The LORD came and stood there.  God comes and stands there by Samuel - who may not even realize the the LORD, the great I AM, is standing there by his side.  But it is not just the voice of God that awakens Samuel this time, it is the living Presence of the LORD that Samuel cannot ignore, and to which he is prepared to respond, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

The LORD came and stood there, calling as before.

Here we are on a cold Sunday morning, following an Eagles victory in the playoffs, with the question ringing in our ears, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  On a day when, oh, I could set that question to the music of the current political climate and sing it with the choir!  But the church is sleeping!  Maybe not you, maybe not any of us here at this moment, per se.  But we’ve got to be careful that our message is not aimed at the choir, so to speak, lest we sing ourselves back to sleep!  And I am pretty certain that, yes, much of the church throughout the world is still sleeping, even in their pews.

The church is asleep in so many places.  And I can’t speak for anyone else, but in this moment of sleepiness, God is not calling me to chastise the President, who isn’t listening anyway.

If anything, God is reminding us how easy it is for us all to go back to sleep, even after we have heard him call; how easy it is for us to decide not to seek or to heed the advice of older generations, who have been down these paths before...  and to choose instead just to go back to bed.

God is reminding us that we will see greater things than anything we can imagine... but only if we are not still sleeping!

And above all God is coming to us to stand here, in the midst of us, so that we may at last heed his call - moved to do so by his living Presence, of which we may not even be aware!

The sermons that are being preached elsewhere this morning will, in fact, remind us why it is so important that the church must not remain sleeping.  Because the very meaning of justice has been forgotten.  Because the very possibility of telling the truth is being discarded.  Because the virtue of mercy is being denied.  Because the pursuit of wisdom is being abandoned.  Because the possibility of hope is being dampened.  Because the desire to help the poor and confer upon them the respect and love they deserve is being squelched.  These are virtues of the Christian Gospel that the church has spent the better part of 2,000 years pursuing: justice, truth, mercy, wisdom, hope, and sincere and loving care for the poor.

At this particular moment, when the church’s values are so much in doubt, and so undervalued by those who would lead this nation, it will accomplish little if I wag my finger at Washington from here on Locust Street, other than to assure me of my own self-righteousness… which is always gratifying: to me.

But there is no more urgent message for the church right now than that the LORD is standing here, calling as before!  Which means that God has something for you to do, something for us to do.  God is calling us to get up, and to stay awake!  And there is no greater danger than that we, the ones whom God is calling, will simply go back to sleep!

For the lamp of God has not yet gone out!  Thanks be to God!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
14 January 2018
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

The Word IV

Somewhere in the secret places of the universe
burns a fire beneath a kettle of strongest steel.
and in the kettle there simmers an elixir
comprising the most intense concentration
of all the love and grace of God, distilled,
and here, reducing to a version stronger still.

And when that lovely broth is cooked
down to only barely more than a vapor,
it is drawn into the nib of God’s finger,
to become the sanctified ink with which, 
in elegant lettering, he spells out
across the parchment of his creation
that one perfect Word, 
that contains the fullness of his own being,
in letters too small to be read,
but immense enough to encompass the universe.

The Word exists in every language and in none.
It is impossible to spell, 
but tolerates any number of variant spellings.
It is uttered all over the world, 
and yet it is unutterable -
defying feeble speech,
and the conventions of our language.

God never stops writing this sacred Word
and he never began.
From before time the ink was fermenting;
and for ever will the Lord draw more
into his almighty finger, to scrawl, or dab, or paint,
or illuminate the Word wherever it is called for,
and even where it is not.
And as he writes, does he also whisper, or shout,
to be carried on the wind, the sound of the Word
forever being written by his finger?  Forever speaking it, too?

And did he not draw with that finger
the manger scene, with the exquisite figure
of a child - that perfect calligraphy of the Word
made flesh, breathing the same breath
that carries the living Word on the breeze?

He was in the world, but the world knew him not.
He came unto his own, but his own received him not.

And does not that Word still
glow with a light that enlightens us all?

The darkness comprehends it not; 
the darkness cannot overcome it:
cannot overcome the light, the Word.

Nothing can overcome it.  Do not be fooled.
Not a lazy church, or an overzealous evangelical.
Not a death sentence, or solitary confinement.
Not a lie, or insidious innuendo.
Not a cancerous cell, or a pain killer.
Not the changing climate; or the denial of it.
Not a bomb on a rocket, or one made at home.
Not a truck charging through the crowd, 
or a man with a bump-stock, among other things,
on the thirty-second floor.
Not a fire coming down from the California hills,
or one raging into the upstairs apartments.
Not a man who thinks he can, when he should not.
And certainly not a tax bill, its carelessness codified.
Not warfare or murder; not fire or brimstone; 
not injury, insult, or indignity; not unrequited love; 
not loneliness, not grudge-bearing; not addiction, not jealousy;
not failure, and not fear; 
not betrayal, and not even the loss of everything you own.
Not fire or flood, or the failure to have the correct insurance.
Not grief - no - not even that precious grief
of one taken too soon, no.
The darkness cannot overcome the light.
God knows it has tried.

And these few lines of mine - what weak potion
in comparison with the omnipotent ink of that eternal Word.
There comes a time when other words must bow
in deference to the one true Word: 
prostrate themselves before it in humility and veneration.
For I will never in a lifetime manage to scribble or speak
so much as a jot or a tittle of that Word
that gave me all of mine.  I am only trying to repeat
some small syllable, in hopes of making it repeatable
to you.

The closest we can come to the Word, I suppose is Love,
although that is not what the scholars say about it:
that’s not what it means.
Love is what the Word would signify to us,
if Love carried much meaning;
if we hadn’t made Love cheap,
by saying how much we love every damned thing;
when what we really mean is that we want to take
every damned thing for ourselves;
when there are only a few things we would give our selves for:
like our children.  Maybe.  
For Love is giving, not taking.

The Word was given to us.  Just given.
No questions asked.
No need to ask for more - there is plenty to go around.
And while it can be easily ignored, written over, garbled;
It cannot be erased.  
From God’s fullness we have all received grace upon grace,
which was grace upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, 
before love was love, was love, was love, 
to borrow a coined phrase.

Thanks be to God for the fire, and for the kettle;
for the liquid version of his grace and love,
distilled to almost a vapor.
Thanks be to God for the ink, and for the nib of his finger.
Thanks be to God for writing and speaking that Word
for eternity.
Thanks be to God for giving us power to become his children- 
and if his children, then his heirs: born of his love.

Thanks be to God for the grace upon grace.
And thanks be to God for sending us
that Word
made flesh
to dwell among us, 
full of grace and truth.

Thanks be to God.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
31 December 2017
Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Someone Special

In August of 1984, a man sat in the heat in a run-down music studio painstakingly recording a new song that he had just written. I say “painstakingly” because the man didn’t play any instruments. At all. Nonetheless, he was determined to make this recording without any help. He felt that the song was different, special, and he wanted to shape every element himself, even if that meant working out on the fly how to find the right sound on the drum machine or how to play the keyboard parts with just two fingers. He sat alone in a room, recording drum tracks and synth parts and, of course, his own vocals, with only a producer in the booth and Christmas lights for company.

Christmas lights, because the song he was recording was the classic Wham! hit “Last Christmas,” written – lyrics and music – and performed – down to every last jingling sleighbell – by the late great George Michael. And his efforts in the August heat were well worth it; the song was a huge hit. It sold and sold and was securely on track to make the UK’s Christmas Number One – that is, until the release of Bob Geldoff’s little song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” which featured every single famous pop singer in the 1984 universe, including George Michael. And, as the old showbiz adage goes, don’t ever try to compete with a song that’s raising money for famine relief in Africa. So no Christmas Number 1 for George Michael that year. But Last Christmas has continued to sell. It’s been on the charts almost every year since 1984, and it’s been re-recorded by dozens of other singers, in multiple languages including German, Polish, and Cantonese. It is the biggest-selling record in the UK never to reach #1 on the charts. This year there was a massive publicity push to try to boost the song into the number one slot for Christmas in honor of George Michael, who died exactly one year ago today. Alas, it was not to be; Ed Sheeran took the spot, and Last Christmas, I guess, will have to wait until next Christmas.

A friend and I were in the car recently when Last Christmas came on the radio…for approximately the 3700th time since Thanksgiving Day. My friend asked me to change the channel, and I jokingly asked if she, too, was a little tired of hearing it (and by “a little tired of hearing it,” I meant was it starting to haunt her dreams like it was mine). But she said no, that actually she didn’t want to hear it because she thought it was just too depressing to be truly Christmas-y. And it is, let’s face it, a little depressing. It’s a song of the broken-hearted, with lyrics that swing from bitterness to longing and back again. You remember the words: “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day, you gave it away. This year, to save me from tears, I’ll give it to someone special.” A little bitter, a little blue, and yes, a little bit depressing.   

All of which leads me to this question: is “a little bit depressing” okay for Christmas? Is a little bitter, a little blue allowed on Christmas morning? Is there room for Blue Christmas, or is Christmas morning limited to Joy to the World and Jingle Bell Rock? Do the words of celebration we sing this morning leave space for any lyrics that might swing from bitterness to longing and back again? Does the exuberant gladness of this worship allow for broken hearts? Or would this Christmas prefer that we leave our worries at the door, stashed away behind some obliging poinsettia? Would this Christmas prefer that, for a moment, we try to put away those things that grieve us, the memories of loved ones we miss terribly, the fears we cannot shake, the images of a world ravaged by mistrust, abuse, and greed? Does this Christmas morning really ask us to just shut up and be happy, because darn it, Christ is born? Is there any room on this Christmas Day for a little bitter, a little blue?

Honestly, I don’t see how there can’t be. How can there not be room for a little bitter, a little blue this morning? Because there has to be room for us this morning, and let’s face it, sometimes we’re just a little bitter or blue. We don’t wake up every Christmas morning light as a feather and merry as a schoolboy, like Ebenezer Scrooge hopping around in his dressing gown. Our lives are not actually like the Hallmark Christmas movies we love so much – the girl doesn’t always get the boy (or the girl), the family isn’t always reunited, the mom and dad don’t always get back together and buy us the magical Christmas present we have always wanted, all our life. Yes, Christmas morning is a glorious morning; yes, these hymns and this crèche and even these poinsettias offer a very particular delight that we can find only at this time of year in only this kind of place. And that is something for which we are grateful. But we are human, too, imperfect and broken, and our lives are imperfect and broken, and that doesn’t change just because we’re singing The First Nowell. There must be room for a little bitter, a little blue on Christmas.

More than that, though, a little bitter, a little blue is at the very heart of Christmas. A little bitter, a little blue is exactly why this baby was born in the first place; it’s why the herald angels sing, why the Lord is come, why unto us a boy is born. Came he to a world forlorn, the hymn tells us; the Word was made flesh in a world forlorn, a world so full of darkness that we, on our own, could not overcome it. And so God sent his Son into that darkness, God sent his Son because of that darkness, so that his strength of his true light would enlighten everyone.

Yes, the Christ child is born this happy morning. But this morning is about more than just happy. This morning is about marvelous things, about true, transformational joy, precisely because it does not ask us to leave our sadness at the door. The morning is about real joy precisely because of the child who was born into the midst of our sorrows in order to bear them with us and sometimes even to save us from tears. This morning can be a little bitter, a little blue, and still wonderfully glorious, because Christ the babe was born for you, whether you’re light as a feather or heavy as a rock. When you are effervescently happy, Christ is born for you. When you are all forlorn, Christ is born for you. When your heart is full and your faith** is strong, Christ is born for you. When your soul feels trapped and is longing for freedom, Christ is born for you. When you are so full of joy you want to play the harp and the trumpets and shawms all by yourself, even with two fingers, Christ is born for you. When you are just a little depressed, and the thought of giving it one more try makes you weep, Christ is born for you. When you are grateful and humbled and moved, Christ is born for you. When you are frightened and lonely and praying for time, Christ is born for you. Christ the babe was born for you.

Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem, Isaiah tells us, for the Lord has comforted his people. The Lord has comforted you, for he has given you his heart. Even though he knew that the very next day, the world might lose it or break it or even give it away. This year, to save us from tears, he’ll give it to someone special. He’s given it again to you. Joy to the world.

 *Much of this information is taken from an article in the Guardian written by Rachel Aroesti.

**Italicized words are titles of George Michael songs - a little homage.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

Christmas Day 2017

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia