Leafless

Adam and Eve by Gustave Courtois

It may be that the second most important question in all of holy scripture is asked in the few verses of the Book of Genesis we heard read just a few minutes ago.  The most important question in the scriptures is asked by Pontus Pilate, when Jesus is on trial before him, and Pilate asks, “What is truth?”

But the scene of the second most important question in the Bible is familiar: the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve hear the sound of God walking in the garden.  The couple has only recently completed their first sewing project together: loincloths made of fig leaves to cover their nakedness.  The crafty serpent has duped Eve, and she has shared the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with Adam.  They have discerned that an encounter with God will not go well for them, from this point on.  The first question we hear in the garden is poignant, but not in the top-two questions of scripture: “Where are you?” the Lord God calls out to Adam.

Adam replies, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

And now comes what may be the second most important question in all of the scriptures, when God asks this: “Who told you that you were naked?”

Who told you that you were naked?

Now, how you ask a question matters.  And how you read the scriptures matters.  And how you read the way that God asks this question matters, too.  I, for one, have nearly always read this question the same way, with the emphasis on the verb: Who told you that you were naked?  To me, this way of reading the question has made sense.  It turns the scene into an interrogation, and the emphasis is on the act of deception, establishing what went wrong in Paradise.  When you read the question this way, you can hear, can’t you, that God is annoyed that the serpent has told Adam and Eve something that the two humans are not supposed to know.  The problem being that what the serpent has told the couple appears manifestly to be true: they are naked.  OK.

But there is at least another way of reading the question: if you put the emphasis on the subject: Who told you that you were naked?  Reading the question this way tends to emphasize the culpability of the serpent, and effectively underscores the matter of blame, and where it should lie: that is, with the who in question.  The difference between the two readings may be subtle, but I think it could matter.

There is, however, also at least a third way of reading this question.  And I have to admit, that it had never really occurred to me before.  But when you read the question in this third new way, the entire question takes on a whole new significance.  You can read this question on God’s lips, with the emphasis on the adjective that is the crucial part of the clause that forms the direct object of the question: Who told you that you were naked?  

By now, I expect you are asking yourself, What’s with all the grammar?  So let’s leave the grammar aside for a moment and skip over to vocabulary, and particularly to this word, naked.

The indispensable, long-version of the Oxford English Dictionary, once again comes to hand.

“Naked: unclothed, having no clothing upon the body, stripped to the skin, nude.”  This seems obvious, and maybe bordering on inappropriate for the pulpit.  But the entry in the OED goes on a great deal longer.  And when you continue reading, you start to get a picture of the depth and breadth of meaning of this word.

Naked, the OED, tells us, is often used “in comparison,” in phrases such as, “naked as a...” jaybird, although the OED does not actually provide that well-known phrase.  The dictionary then goes on to describe all kinds of nakedness, and the implications of nakedness.

“Of a horse: unharnessed, or unsaddled.”

“Of parts of the body: not covered or protected by clothing, bare, exposed.”

Naked means “bare or destitute of means.”

You can be considered naked if you are “without weapons or armor, unarmed.”

If you are naked you are “without defense or protection: defenseless, unprotected.”

Even a sword can be naked - “unprotected by its sheath.”

Naked means “bare, destitute, or devoid of something.”

“Bare, lacking, or defective in some respect.”

The landscape is naked is it is “devoid of trees or other vegetation; bare, barren, waste.”

Naked means “bare of leaves or foliage; leafless.”

“Of ground, rock, etc; devoid of any covering or overlaying matter, exposed.”

A boat without sails is naked.

A floor with carpets is naked too.

“Uncovered, unprotected, exposed.”

“Seeds not enclosed in a covering” are naked.

“Stalks destitute of leaves.”

Snails without shells are naked, and so is an idea unsupported by proof or evidence.

According to the dictionary, the naked eye, as you know, cannot see as far as the assisted eye.

In paragraph after paragraph, definition after definition, to be naked is to be weak, defenseless, exposed, lesser, vulnerable, and embarrassing.  Ironically, the only really positive connotation we associate with nakedness is when the truth is naked.  But faced with the naked truth, someone has usually been put in a compromising or unwelcome position.  Otherwise naked means bare, barren, stripped, destitute, exposed, deficient, devoid, lacking, unprotected, waste, defenseless, leafless.  Every single one of these definitions of naked is a negative, a deficit, a problem.

And God comes walking through Paradise to find the creatures he has formed with his own hand, and given life with his own breath, and they tell him that they hid, because they were naked.

Who told you that you were naked?  God asks.

Who told you that you were bare, barren, stripped, destitute, exposed, deficient, devoid, lacking, unprotected, waste, defenseless, leafless?  Who told you to think so little of yourself?  Who told you that you were less than you are supposed to be?  Who told you that you are anything other than beautiful?  Who told you that you bear any image or likeness that does not reflect my own image and likeness?  Who told you that you are not marvelously made?  Who told you that the sun does not glisten gorgeously in your eyes, and that even when you sweat you don’t look marvelous?  Who told you that there is anything wrong with the way the hair falls down on your shoulders?  Who told you your armpits are an embarrassment, and your feet would look better with shoes on?  Who told you your cheeks are not adorable?  And who told you that you’d look better with leaves on than you look leafless?  Who told you that you were naked?

Just a little while ago, God had taken the rib from Adam’s side, and formed Eve from it.  Adam had rejoiced and said, “this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Paradise was still boundless for Adam and Eve.  

The writer of this part of Genesis, inspired though he may have been, had never known a time when he had not known all about nakedness, and the shame that comes with it.  So he reports to us what is to him this strange non-sequitur, that indeed, Adam and Eve had been naked, and they were not ashamed.  Even to the writer of God’s sacred story, this is a conundrum, since he knows what it means to be naked.  Ever since the word has been used, it has been used to shame and insult and belittle; the serpent was crafty, after all.  Perhaps his greatest craftiness was in convincing Adam and Eve that they had something to be ashamed of, in and of themselves.  The best the biblical writer can do is tell us that they were naked, but not ashamed.  This is a condition he can’t quite make sense of, but it was true.  So he lets it just hang there, as if to say, “You figure it out.”

But to God, for whom this man and this woman are the pinnacle of his creation, who loves every curve of their flesh, and who delights in the mechanics of their thumbs, and the intricate eco-system in their guts, and in the bonus of pleasure that he provided to their reproductive systems, and who determined every fold of their grey matter in their skulls, and who shaped the arches of their feet, and who tuned the inner workings of their vocal chords... to God it must be a moment of severe and heart-wrenching grief at the realization that the perfection of his creation has been spoiled so quickly and damaged so deeply.  Who told you, my dear children, that you were naked?

An old friend of this parish, now gone to God, Fr. Julius Jackson, used to say to his prison congregation at Graterford Maximum Security Prison, not far from here, where I had the privilege of visiting once or twice; he used to say, “know who you are, and let the rest of the world figure it out.”  Fr. Jackson was quick to point out that the world prefers things the other way: the world wants to tell you who you are, and then make you figure it out.  This was Julius’s summary of the Gospel to those who had been sentenced to dwell for year after year in the confines of their shame, their rebuke, their deficiency, their offense.

But Julius knew that those men in that prison need desperately to know who they really are, which is to say that they are children of the God of love, for whom he sent his Son to save them from their sins, just like the rest of us.  The rest of the world had long ago decided that they were naked, so to speak: that they are bare, barren, stripped, destitute, exposed, deficient, devoid, lacking, unprotected, waste, defenseless, leafless - and that’s putting it kindly for a bunch of men in orange prison coveralls.  But Julius knew that every single one of those prisoners is a creature whom God has formed with his own hand, and a beloved child to whom God has given life with his own breath.

That’s just accounting for the prisoners.  How many other categories, groups, and individuals on this earth have been made to feel by some beguiling tongue that they are bare, barren, stripped, destitute, exposed, deficient, devoid, lacking, unprotected, waste, defenseless, leafless?  Why else do we need a #MeToo movement?  Why else do we need a Pride parade?  Why else do we need an Anti-Defamation League, and an NAACP?

Who told you that he could have his way with you just because he is a man?  Who told you that you are a sissy, and an abomination in the sight of the Lord?  Who told you that you should be shut up into ghettoes, rounded up and exterminated?  Who told you that you should be slaves; and then gave you a moniker so disgusting and demeaning that most decent people will no longer even allow that word to cross their lips?  Who told you that you were naked?

Who told you that you were bare, barren, stripped, destitute, exposed, deficient, devoid, lacking, unprotected, waste, defenseless, leafless?  Who told you to think so little of yourself?  Who told you that you were less than you are supposed to be?  Who told you that you are anything other than beautiful?  Who told you that you bear any image or likeness that does not reflect the image and likeness of God?  Who told you that you are not marvelously made?  Who told you that the sun does not glisten gorgeously in your eyes, and that even when you sweat you don’t look marvelous?  Who told you that there is anything wrong with your hair?  Who told you your armpits are an embarrassment, and your feet look better with shoes on?  Who told you your cheeks are not adorable?  And who told you that you look better with leaves on than you look leafless?  Who told you that you were naked?

Once, when you really were leafless, naked as a jaybird, God came looking for you, so that he could gaze for a while on the crowning glory of his creation.  Maybe he was looking for you so he could tell you how beautiful you are.

And when he found you, you were hiding from him.  Which was inexplicable to him.  And he called out to you.  And when you answered, you broke his heart, when you said that you heard him coming and you were afraid because you were naked, and you hid.

And with tears welling up in his eyes, because he surely already knew the answer to the question, (God knew exactly who it was that we’d been talking to), God asks that awful question that foreshadows so much of the rest of human history, “Who told you that you were naked?”

And the rest is history.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
10 June 2018
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Food Enough

The disciples were spellbound. Rapt. They were barely breathing, held in that place of quiet where they could hear only the sound of their own hearts and the gutter and pop of the candles on the table. If you had asked them later, they would have told you that in that moment, they felt the whole world stop and be still. All was centered on the one holding up a morsel of bread; all time, all space, all of life was contained in that moment. Everything was found in the eyes of the one who said this is my body, and it is for you. The disciples were transfixed, captivated by the one to whom they had given their lives and the bread of life he offered.

All of the disciples, that is, except one. I’m not sure which one, and I’m not sure that it really matters. It wouldn’t have been John, who’d spent the entire meal reclining next to Jesus, his whole being hungry for every word spoken by his Lord. It wasn’t Peter, although after supper he felt more torn up and confused than he had ever been. It could have been Thomas, but Thomas had too much self-discipline to be distracted by his own concerns at a moment like this. It could have been Simon the Zealot, or James the Less, but I’m going to say that it was Bartholomew. The disciples were all spellbound and rapt except for one, and that one was Bartholomew. Let’s say, for the sake of my thought experiment, that this experience was not so unusual for Bartholomew, which is fairly easy to do since we know so very little about him. Let’s say that Bartholomew had always struggled with moments like this, that when the others were ready to go all in, he often found himself holding back – evaluating, second-guessing, wondering what it was that he had missed and why he still felt so uncertain. Bartholomew had always been the one who had trouble with prayer; he was a thinker, and settling into the stillness of the Spirit was not something that came very naturally to him. Watching all of his friends locked in to a holy moment only seemed to make things worse. Why did this seem so easy for them? Why was he the one who always seemed to have another question, who still, even after all this time, wanted more?

And here he was again, sitting in the upper room, watching his friends be drawn deeper and deeper into this moment, and watching himself sitting on the outside. The moment hadn’t started as something that seemed particularly significant. They were eating together, sharing supper in an upper room, at Passover time. The group was tense and quiet; there was a sense that something was coming, although no one, not even Peter and James and John, seemed to know exactly what that something was. The palm-strewn journey into Jerusalem should have cheered them up, but Jesus’ words about suffering and death resounded in their ears even through all the cries of Hosanna. So they sat, each man in his own thoughts, waiting for the food to arrive, waiting for a distraction.

But when Jesus took the bread in his hands to bless it, Bartholomew felt the whole room shift. Suddenly, this wasn’t just a normal blessing before a meal. The air felt charged somehow, and not because of their own anxiety. This was something else, something entirely outside of them. The night pulsed with it, this energy that drew the disciples in like iron to a magnet. Bartholomew felt himself being drawn in, his eyes focusing on the hand holding the bread, his heart yearning for the mystery found there. He felt the power of this presence tugging on him, and he saw his friends give themselves over to it one by one. He saw them surrender; he saw the wonder in their eyes, the gratitude, even the joy. And part of him wanted to surrender, too, to find himself locked in like in all of those other moments of prayer, to find himself without questions, without wanting anything more. He wanted this bread to be enough.

But even as he wished for all of this, he felt objections start to flood into in his mind. Why bread? Why just bread? Why, in this moment of fear and uncertainty was bread the only thing that Jesus could offer? Why not something more useful, why not something more powerful? Why not a grand miracle where truth would rain down like manna upon the heads of all those who spoke lies about them? Why not a platform large enough that they could finally convince the leaders of the synagogue that this Jesus was their Messiah too? Why not a fire to burn in the hearts of the people so that they would all leave everything and follow him? Why not an army of heaven to wipe Rome from the earth? Why not more power, more persuasion? Why not more? This may be holy food, Bartholomew thought, but against the evils of the world, this food was wholly inadequate. It was simply not enough.

The world, our world, is quick to agree with Bartholomew’s objections. When the world looks in our solemn festivals, it sees something incomprehensible and irrelevant. At best, the world – including, let’s be honest, some parts of our own Church – sees the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on this Solemnity of Corpus Christi as a harmless but slightly pitiful ritual, a devotion run ever-so-slightly amok, a superstition full of sound, and smoky, but signifying nothing. At worst, those same people see our actions this day as woefully misguided. Why bread? Why pay so much attention to this tiny, translucent wafer? Is this the best the Church can do? Is this truly our answer to the heartbreak and evil of the world? Why bread – why not a bullhorn, why not a sword? Why not more?

I will admit that at times I find these same objections flooding into my own mind. Like our story’s Bartholomew I am grateful, of course, for this food, but I also wonder if there could be more. I find myself wishing that God would just come down, now, wielding the power of truth like a saber, cutting down the powers of darkness in this world, turning the hearts of all humankind to the well-being of the poor and the helpless, the widow and orphan, the outcast and the unseen. I wish sometimes that this bread could do more, that the light that shines from this tabernacle would slice through this city, breaking the spell of sin and suffering. I wish that this holy bread would do more, would be more, that it would reveal itself as a power that is undeniable and irresistible, as truly food enough.

But then I hear the words of our Savior come to me, resounding through the noise of my impatience and doubt. I hear the words of Jesus speaking to me and to you, words that have been speaking into the world for thousands of years now. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, will have eternal life.” Whoever eats of this bread, in other words, will be changed. Whoever eats of this bread will live a life transformed, will be bound not only to the everlasting life of God but also to God’s presence with us in the eternal and blessed now. Whoever eats of this bread takes the real presence of Christ into our selves and so is fed, not for a moment, but forever. Whoever eats of this bread is not only refreshed and renewed but also reformed, remade into our true identity – the very Body of Christ.

So why, in this moment of fear and uncertainty is bread what Jesus offers? Because this bread is the most powerful thing in the world. Because, by his death and resurrection, Christ has changed everything, and this bread continues this work. This is my body, Jesus tells us, and so are we. We are his body, and we carry the power of this bread with us as we move from this altar out into the world. We eat this bread, and we become the power of righteousness, the light in the darkness. We become the voice of truth and the face of love. We become the platform for justice and the fire for transformation. We eat this bread and it shapes us from the inside out, changes us into that thing that we have been searching for. We eat this bread, and we become more – more of who God made us to be, more of who Jesus has called us to be, more of who the world needs us to be. For this bread brings Christ close, makes us one, and sends us into the world abiding in him. We eat this bread and become more. And we know then, as Bartholomew came to know, that this bread is truly food enough. God himself is with us. God is within us. Come let us adore the most holy Sacrament. 

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi, 3 June 2018

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

In Search of the Holy Trinity

If I could go to Jesus by night, under the cover of darkness, so as not to get caught, with even half an expectation that he could deliver to me something like John 3:16, more or less on a platter - the Gospel in compact form - I might ask him to explain himself to me, or at least to explain how God works.  Why does it have to be so difficult? I might ask. Why so much mystery?  Why this confusing business about three persons in one God?  And why, if I try to say that the Father does this, and the Son does that, and the Spirit blows where it wills... why will I be accused of heresy, when it is so much easier to talk this way, than of the undivided unity, without confusion, change, division, separation, or what have you?  And why must we be stuck with this unhelpful, patriarchal language, stubbornly rooted in the old ways?  That in so many other ways, it seems we must outgrow?

If I could sit with Jesus, I’d like to ask him how God works: how the Father works; how the Son works; how the Spirit works, blowing as it does, where it wills.  How does the holy, blessed, and undivided Trinity work?  I’d like to tell Jesus a thing or two about how difficult it can be to spread a religion whose inner workings are so opaque.  I’d like to explain to him the value of transparency.  I’d like to point out that even the “born again” thing has proved difficult and confusing, as evidenced by that early conversation with Nicodemus, let alone the Gon-in-three-persons-blessed-trinity thing.  Easy to sing about: harder to talk about.

I wouldn’t need much time: no more than Nicodemus had, I think.  Not that Jesus let Nicodemus get much of a word in.  Not that Jesus even let him ask whatever question he arrived with.  Not that Nicodemus left understanding something that he hadn’t understood before.

But still.

I’d like to get my question out - how does God work? -  and at least give Jesus a chance to reply.

And if I sit quietly, and prayerfully, and think about it, I wonder if Jesus would say this in response.

“You want to know how God works.  You say you hear talk of the Father, you hear talk of the Son, you hear talk of the Spirit, and you want to understand the inner workings of the divine.  You are frustrated by the mystery of it, and you want to know.

“Of course you want to know, but how can you know?  You do not even know what questions to ask, let alone how to accept the answers.

“You want to know how God works, how it is that I am, if I am is what I am.  You say you are confused by the way we speak of ourself.  And you would like to dissect the various parts, autopsy-style, and see how they work, as if by speaking of the Father, by speaking of the Son, by speaking of the Spirit, I am speaking of the way we work; when what I am speaking of is who we are, who I am, who I will be, but not of how I work.

“ I am speaking of eternal love, which is not a beacon, or a flag, or even a river that runs down from a mountain; it is a relationship of constant giving, constant receiving, constant dancing.

“You imagine the throne of heaven, as though the Godhead is is seated upon it, as if for a portrait, and your two dimensional imagination.  You imagine that you can say something meaningful about God by writing it on a page, which is a little like comparing a sheet of paper to a tree: they may have a thing or two in common, but they are far from the same thing.

“When I speak of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, I am speaking of who I am.  If the language seems awkward, unhelpfully bound to a particular time and place and power structure, then you begin to see the limits of speaking of me, for you are correct that it is wrong to think that I am rooted in one-sided, either-or vocabulary, in the same way that describing a rainbow in terms of seven colors is embarrassing in its paucity.

“And yet, you struggle to perceive that in speaking of who I am, I wish for you to know who I am.  And I am using language that gets as close as it can, flawed and damaged though that language now may be.  I have been employing the flawed and the damaged for my purposes for a long time, with reasonable results.  Have a look around.

“I desire that you should understand that even what Isaiah saw was inadequate - only a flash - as if there is some throne somewhere that could contain what the heavens themselves cannot contain.

“But still.

“You think that when you hear it said that you were made in my image and likeness, that it means that you can see something of me when you look in the mirror.  When actually what it means is that when you also hear that you could not bear to be alone in the garden, it was then that you were displaying my image within you.  

“For if you are to bear my image you need someone to give to and to receive from; you need someone to dance with; you need someone to love and to love you back.  But you can’t see that in the mirror.

“I am beauty.  I am wisdom.  I am truth.  I am love.  

“Light is my diadem, darkness is my mantle, and the earth is a pebble.

“Pi is the dust that collects in my pocket, and that I delight to know is always there, always accumulating, just as I delight when you gather its specks, beginning with 3.14.  You want to be able to calculate me, like the digits of Pi.  You think you should be able to dismantle me, to freeze me and slice me into sections to see how I work, to isolate me as though I am hardly more than an atom.  But I created every atomic structure and property without much effort, and I could buff my fingernails with atomic power if I wanted to.

“But I want you to see that I am always in splendid communion, but never in isolation.  I am always we, I am always us.

“I am not a problem for you to solve, for I am beyond solving.  I am not a machine with moving parts to be monitored, identified, and schematized.  I am motion.

“I am not a series of actions, or a series of accomplishments, or a series of tasks.  I am the origin of all action.

“I have no meaning to be articulated in carefully defined terms, for I am meaning.

“And the meaning, the action, the motion is fluid, and expressive, and inter-relating.

“The music in heaven never stops, and I never stop dancing, embracing, holding, letting go, leaping, and landing, nor did I ever start dancing, embracing, holding, letting go, leaping, and landing.  I was always like this, and I always shall be: always more dimensional than you can imagine or describe, always more vibrant than you allow for, always more love than you believe in or have room for.

“In and of myself, I am love, which gives me direction and purpose in and of myself, so that anything I do carries the direction and purpose of love.

“I am holy - thrice holy, which is the perfection of holiness.  And you do not even know what holiness means.  You are not sure how to define it.  But my entire being is holiness itself.

“And I have given you my Son.  I have allowed you to call me Father.  I have anointed you with my Spirit.

“I have given you myself, I have shown you so much more than I ever allowed Moses to see.  I have poured myself over you.

“But you insist on coming to me in the night to complain that you do not understand.

“You cannot understand, because I am beyond understanding.   And love does not rest on understanding.  

“Love rests on acceptance, as I have accepted you.  For I am in a constant process of accepting and offering, in and of myself.

“I have accepted you.  I have shown myself to you.  I have poured out my holiness upon you, and I have called you.

“Will you now do more than come to me by night with your questions?  Will you love me, as I love you?”

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
Trinity Sunday 2018
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia