An Enhanced Finding Experience

An Enhanced Finding Experience

Father Mullen

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Living, as we do, in a part of the world with less and less religion, at least we have our phones. They are a little god-like.  For one thing, if most of us spent as much time paying attention to God as we do to our phones, we’d be better off.   Just don’t lose your phone.  But if you do, you will still be able to find it.  The Times tells me that if I lose my phone in the middle of nowhere, where even the “Find My Phone” feature will not work because there is no internet connection, Apple has found another way.  They have “turned the world’s 1.4 billion other iPhones, iPads, and Macs into remote detectors for your phone. Any passing iOS 13 iPhone will, unbeknown to its owner, pick up your phone’s silent Bluetooth beacon signal and relay its location back to you.”  (David Pogue in The NY Times, Oct 27, 2019)

This solution to a lost phone is fool-proof in a way that losing your keys has yet to catch up with.  To address that problem, you could attach a Tile to your keys, so you can track them when you lose them.  Tiles are the little plastic square that allow you to keep electronic track of everything from your keys to your kids.  The people at Tile tell me that if you upgrade to Tile Premium, for just $2.99 a month, they promise an “enhanced finding experience.” Wow!  I can only imagine!

We may still lose our things from time to time, but with all this ability to detect silent beacon signals, and with Global Positioning Systems in nearly every child’s pocket, almost no one ever gets lost anymore.  And since we almost never get lost any more, we have become disassociated from that queasy, nervous-making feeling that we don’t know where we are and aren’t sure we will ever find a way out.  Instead, we play games - as our parish kids did recently - to remind us what it used to feel like: the feeling of being trapped, with no apparent way out, no escape... the feeling of being lost, without knowing if we will ever be found.

Of course, in real life, people are trapped all the time - in relationships that don’t work, jobs that aren’t rewarding, and debt they can’t pay, etc.  But when the sweat breaks out on the back of our necks, we don’t, any more, associate that clammy wariness with the feeling of being lost.  Because usually there is a nice woman in our phones who tells us that in five hundred feet we can make a U-turn, then turn Right, and thus return to the route.

We are less and less likely than we used to be to experience the sense of disorientation and anxiety in actual space and time.  So as a metaphor, being lost has lost a bit of its zing.  So it is that it’s only when we’ve lost things that we believe ourselves to be in need of an  “enhanced finding experience.”  Now, this is a phrase so luscious that I want to roll it around on my tongue a little: enhanced finding experience: Yum!

You know who would have been attracted to a sales pitch for an “enhanced finding experience?”  Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus did not have a cell phone, but he would have if he could have, because he was rich.  This is almost the only thing we know about him - except for the source of his wealth, and that he was short.  It’s possible that these details about Zachaeus are important, especially if the principal purpose in hearing this story is to learn about Zacchaeus.  And since we are only two weeks away from Commitment Sunday, and since this story includes the very important development that Zacchaeus gave away half of his possessions, and gave generously to the poor, as a result of his encounter with Jesus… well, I’d like very much to point out this virtue of costly and generous giving, and how Jesus commends these characteristics to us.  But I think it is probably a mistake to suppose that the primary purpose of this story is to teach us about Zacchaeus.  I think the principal reason that St. Luke includes this story in his Gospel is, rather, to teach us about Jesus.

Zacchaeus, as a rich man, was not accustomed to being lost.  He didn’t have an iPhone, and he didn’t have a Tile.  But he had many resources available to him, and I strongly suspect that he seldom found himself feeling trapped or disoriented, and unsure that he would be able to find his way home.  This is one of the pleasures of wealth: it imparts the frequent sense that you are where you belong, and you belong where you are (whether it’s true or not).   And it brings with it the reassurance that if you lose something, you can probably replace it.

Zacchaeus did not know himself to be be in need of an enhanced finding experience.  But that was what he was about to get.  Thanks to his wealth, from the branches of the sycamore tree, even Zacchaeus’s shortness was no hindrance to him.  Who is going to tell a rich man to get out of that tree?  Zacchaeus knew exactly where he was, and he was confident that he belonged there.  He had not the slightest thought that he was lost.

But of course, Zacchaeus was desperately lost.  He was lost in his wealth and in the smug self-assurance that so often comes with it.  Worst of all, Zacchaeus was nearly lost to God.  Not that God could not find him, but that Zacchaeus could not have located God (had he tried to look) through the opaque tarp of money that he had wrapped around his life.  Oh, everything seemed fine inside the money; it’s just that there are so few ways to see past it, especially when you have a lot of it.

Now, in this way, Zacchaeus was a very modern man.  For no truth has been so challenged in our own day as the oft-quoted but tenuously-subscribed-to maxim that money can’t buy happiness.  Significant indicators all around us suggest that, indeed, money can buy happiness, and that, conversely, the lack of money is a guarantee of misery.  You don’t really need me to provide you with a catalog of these indicators; the Christmas versions will be mailed to you soon, and you can see it all easily enough for your self.

So, you and I might as well be up there in that tree with Zacchaeus.  Most of us are very like him.  Maybe we are not as rich.  Maybe we made our money a bit more honestly than he did.  But still.  We are self- assured, and un-worried about being lost.  The only thing for which we require an “enhanced finding experience” is the occasional loss of our keys.  For everything else, we have our phones.

In fact, when we come to church, it might be for the very same reasons that Zacchaeus climbed up into that tree: to get a good look, to satisfy some curiosity, or some craving, to take it in from the best vantage point we can claim.

But we have not come to church for an enhanced finding experience... which is too bad, since that is what is waiting for us, if we would only listen, and hear that Jesus is not calling Zacchaeus’s name... not any more.

Now, Jesus is calling to you and to me.  Sean!  Nora!  Bill!  Susan!  Martha!  Barbara!  Kyle!  Kevin!  George!  Bob!  Claire!  Henry!  Gabi!  Thomas!  Betsy!  Joshua!  Yes, you, up in that tree!  Hurry and come down, for I must stay with you today!

Like Zacchaeus, most of us do not realize any more that we are lost.  We think that we have come here today to satisfy our own agenda.  But actually, we are here because of Jesus’ agenda.  And his agenda is to seek out and to save the lost.  And one of the great modern spiritual challenges for Americans is to realize that we are frequently lost.  The exception to this condition is that the poor often know themselves to be lost and in need of and enhanced finding experience by the hand of God.  But we are Episcopalians, so…. we seldom know ourselves to be in need of an enhanced finding experience by the hand of God.

It is precisely because we have been taught at some deep level to believe that money can buy happiness that we are need of finding.  For us, too, it is harder and harder to find ways to see past all that money can buy.  It becomes harder and harder, this way, for us to other people around us, and harder and harder to see God.

At this point in the sermon, I should now illustrate for you the ways that we are lost - spiritually, for one.  Maybe intellectually.  Maybe emotionally.  I’m sure there’s more.  But actually, if we are able to identify at all with Zacchaeus, it should be a little obvious.  I mean, all St. Luke thought we needed to know about him was that he was rich, a tax collector, and short: two out of three are meant to serve as obvious indicators that he is lost.  Do I really need to make more of a case for you and me? 

Next, the sermon should point out what Jesus did to change Zacchaeus’s life.  And it would be good if I could do that.  But St. Luke doesn’t tell us what Jesus did, except that Jesus called to the little guy in the tree: “hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”  And all we know is that Zacchaeus let him in.  

Zacchaeus let Jesus in.  That’s it.  I call that an enhanced finding experience. 

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, who, these days, mostly don’t even know we are lost. But still Jesus calls.  And all we have to do is let him in.  Everything else follows.

Logic dictates that we cannot know we have been found if we never knew that we were lost.  But  we have so little practice at recognizing the feeling, that we might not know it when it dawns on us.

So, learn the lessons of Zacchaeus:

Lesson 1: Money cannot buy happiness. No matter how much you make.  No matter how strong the markets are.  No matter what every signal in American society tells you.  Money cannot buy happiness.  It is an idol that has wormed its way into every aspect of American society, and it makes us sick.

Lesson 2: Jesus is calling you.  He has been calling you since before you knew your own name, and he will never stop calling you, because he loves you, and he will never stop loving you, no matter who you are.

Lesson 3: You are lost, as I am, and we will get lost again, most likely.  But we don’t need to stay lost for ever, or even for long.

Lesson 4: Invite Jesus into your life.  If you thought you had already done this, do it again.  Wake up in the morning, and invite Jesus in, lest you locked more doors and windows in the night than you realized.  Welcome Jesus into your life.

Lesson 5: Give your money away.  Not all of it, but some of it.  When you give money away then you learn what it is really useful for: it is useful for teaching you and me how to share, how to be generous, how to look after those who have less than we have.

Lesson 6: Knowing that you are lost, know also that Jesus is here to find you, and that his desire for you is to live your life near to him, wrapped in his warmth, protected by his power, illuminated by his light, pardoned by his grace, restored by his love.  For he came to seek and to save the lost.

And today, for free, an enhanced finding experience can be yours, if you want it.  All you need to do is ask Jesus in!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
3 November 2019
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Big on the Inside

When I was a child, it was always a treat for my parents, brother, and me to pile into the car and pay a visit to my great-grandparents. We called them Big MawMaw and Big PawPaw, but it wasn’t because they were of considerable physical stature; they were, in fact, not. Big PawPaw was on the short side, and by the time I knew both my great-grandparents, they were looking a bit frail. Nor were their magnified grand-parental titles because they had large personalities. They were quiet, gentle, unassuming people. They were not terribly well educated. They certainly wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. But they were spiritual giants on the inside.

Big MawMaw and Big PawPaw were devout Roman Catholics, and it seemed as if every time we visited their house, they were in the middle of saying the rosary. It was clear that they spent much of their time in prayer. I still remember entering their simple home in the small southeast Texas town where they lived. They each had their own armchair, with Kleenexes often stuffed in the sides of the cushions. I’m sure they spent many hours in those chairs, praying and engaging in conversation with one another.

Big MawMaw and Big PawPaw both had striking, beautiful blue eyes. They were kind and loving eyes, and they seemed to look right through you into your soul. The most touching part of a visit to their home was the departure. At the door of their modest house, my great-grandfather would put his hands on each of our heads and send us off with a blessing and prayer. We simply couldn’t leave their home without a proper dismissal; everything in their lives was rooted in prayer. I was young and not yet a church snob and I didn’t care that Big PawPaw wasn’t a priest but was still blessing us. Even now, I don’t care. I see that there was nothing pretentious in what he did. His was a sheer, gracious gesture of love.

In my youthful understanding of the world, it was sort of family lore that Big MawMaw and Big PawPaw were both saintly people. Sure, they prayed a lot, but their holiness was something more than that. Their demeanor pointed beyond themselves to something greater. It was clear that they were very, very close to God.

But the retiring simplicity and deep faith of my great grandparents belied the complicated experiences of their lives. They were the source of a massive family, including fourteen children, dozens of grandchildren, and hundreds of great-grandchildren. Big MawMaw and Big PawPaw were both born in poor, rural Louisiana and later moved to southeast Texas to make a living and establish a home. I’m sure they never had much money in the bank, and yet they raised fourteen beautiful children to have love for Christ. I can only imagine how tiring and difficult it must have been to put food on the table.

And my great-grandparents knew sadness and grief, too. Both survived by nearly twenty years the early death to cancer of their eldest daughter, my grandmother. I wonder, too, if they ever felt reviled for their faith, especially as devout Roman Catholics in southeast Texas where anti-Catholic sentiment was common.

Yes, Big MawMaw and Big PawPaw were unassuming folk, but they’d led a rich life of experiences over which to sorrow and rejoice. And what I remember most about them was that in spite of their long lives full of blessings and woes, in spite of all that could have made them cranky, jaded, and bitter in their old age, they exhibited nothing but a quiet grace that could only come from the hand of God.

Big MawMaw and Big PawPaw aren’t on any calendar of saints in the church, and they never will be. And I have no way of knowing where they are on their pilgrimage towards the presence of God, but I have a sense that they are already rejoicing in the nearer company of God. And I do know that when I was in their company, I felt more nearly in the presence of God. By God’s grace, they had become so large on the inside, and Christ had so filled and overflowed their hearts, that they communicated God’s love simply by who they were.

What a gift it is this evening to celebrate those unknown blessed ones, those quiet, gentle, and faithful examples of Christ-shaped lives who we trust are now bathed in God’s eternal light. These saints have emptied themselves so that they could be capacious enough on the inside to be filled with the radiant love of God. These are holy people who have made God seem closer to us through their lives, who have encouraged us to open our hearts more to God’s grace. Such humble folk may not have journeyed from this earthly life to the next in spectacular ways. Many died quietly in their own beds of old age or illness. Some did indeed suffer violent deaths for the name of Christ. But all were, in fact, imperfect human beings, just like we are. They were sinners in need of redeeming, just like we are. They prayerfully and patiently awaited a different kingdom than the one they inhabited on earth, just like we do, and we believe they are now rejoicing in that eternal kingdom, praying and interceding for us.

This is why I have a particular fondness for the hymn, “I sing a song of the saints of God.” In my experience, you either love this hymn or you hate it, so if you hate it, don’t judge me. But underneath the Romantic veneer of this simple hymn is a vivid testament to those ordinary human beings who have radiated something of God’s glory here on earth. In an age of attention-seeking antics and lust for fame, saintliness in the quotidian existence of daily life deserves some attention, too, don’t you think?

True, “I sing a song of the saints of God” does mention heroic saintliness—saints mauled by wild beasts and soldiers fighting for the faith—but there’s also a whole host of other folk in that litany of saints: there’s a doctor, a queen, a shepherdess, even—can you believe it?—a priest! And there are saints enjoying cups of hot tea, taking the train, or sailing the waters of the sea. Apart from the context of a romanticized England, they are rather similar to some people we might have known in our lives. These ordinary saints include ones who are near to our own hearts and contexts, not simply those who sacrificed their lives for Christ in the days of medieval torture or ones who died in the Crusades or others who were sent to the guillotine by the edicts of kings and queens. These saints are ones who might have been small on the outside but were large enough on the inside to let God fill every inch of their hearts.

Maybe you have known some of these saints, those who have endured the trials of poverty, hunger, tragedy, and persecution and have yet remained faithful to Christ. Look around, and you might see saints in formation all around us, those who maintain a steadfast gaze on the crown of glory even in the midst of a brutal world that wreaks misfortune on so many unfortunate souls. The saints are those blessed ones who have not let the constricting ills of the world constrain their expansive hearts. Their hearts have instead been filled to the brim with love for God, and that love has spilled over into the broken world around them, evidence that God’s blessings have greater power than earth’s woes.

The real challenge of saintliness lies in keeping our own hearts spacious and generous, in continuing to set our hope on Christ and God’s promised blessings, even when, and especially when, we are besieged by earthly woes. Because it is so easy to let our hearts narrow with fear or become hardened with skepticism, and there are plenty of reasons for hopelessness. When the poor are only getting poorer and the hungry hungrier and tragedy follows upon tragedy and persecutions only multiply, the hope to which we have been called can seem like a crazy pipedream.

But God demands more of his saints than jaded despair. God has upped the ante because the more we give of ourselves, especially in the midst of woes, the more we can receive of his love. The answer to all the sorrows that surround us is not to become smaller and more turned inwards on ourselves in defense but instead to keep our eyes set on the hope of glory, to fling wide the doors of our hearts, and to let Christ come in and fill our cups so that his love can run over into the world around us.

Imagine a world like that, full of saints in the subway and at the grocery store and even in Rittenhouse Square. Notice the love of God bursting forth in the dazzling faces of those saints who have made themselves vast enough on the inside to receive God’s grace, no matter how insignificant they appear on the outside. And then imagine how infinitely better it is in that world on the other side of the veil, where God is gathering his saints to himself, and they are singing in unison for ever and ever around God’s dazzling throne. O what their joy and their glory must be!  

Tomorrow, at the All Souls’ Requiem, I will be praying for my Big MawMaw and Big PawPaw, because it’s only for God to know where they are in their journey towards union with him. I can’t officially say that they are saints and are now in heaven. But I have a strong feeling that they are very close to God right now, I hope in heaven, praying for me and for us. All those saints we have known and loved, and so many that we have never known but who yet love us simply because we are their brothers and sisters in Christ, they are there, too. I imagine that they are all completely filled with God’s light and glory and are yearning for us to rejoice and to open our hearts so that God can fill us completely. So, “let us sing a song of the saints of God, patient, and brave and true.”* And, God helping, couldn’t each of us be one, too?

Preached by Father Kyle Babin
All Saints’ Day 2019
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

*text from “I sing a song of the saints of God,” by Lesbia Scott, from The Hymnal 1982

A Struggle to Remember

A Struggle to Remember

Mr. Noah Stansbury

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It should be acknowledged that Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, is not the most upstanding hero we encounter in Holy Scripture. In one of the stories that lead up to the passage we hear today, Jacob is on the run. He has just finished deceiving his blind, ailing father in order to swindle his twin brother out of his inheritance and their father’s blessing and is understandably fleeing for his life. You might say he’s made a mess of things. He spends that first night out in the open air where he has his famous vision of angels ascending and descending from heaven on a ladder. God comes to Jacob and assures him of God’s unlikely favor: “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised.” And so Jacob goes on his way. He comes to the house of his uncle, where he proceeds to do quite well for himself, gaining a large family and an impressive array of livestock and servants. A year turns into seven, turns into twenty, and having finally worn out his welcome, Jacob decides it is time to go home.

He is, of course, still quite aware that he didn’t leave on the best of terms. He sends word ahead to Esau that he and his household are on their way, and the ambiguous reply comes that Esau has set out to meet him, accompanied by 400 men. This does not seem to Jacob to be a good omen. Scripture tells us that Jacob spirals into “great fear and distress.” He divides his camp in the hope that if things go poorly, half of his family may yet survive, and then we spend whole paragraphs reading about how Jacob sends ahead gifts in hopes of appeasing his brother.

And so finally we find Jacob here on the bank of the river. The family home and the promised land and Esau are just on the other side. Tomorrow is a day of reckoning decades in the making. The sun is setting, and Jacob sends his family and the last of his earthly possessions ahead. “And Jacob was left alone.” It is dark, it is quiet, the air is thick with anxiety, and if Jacob remembers the promise that God made to him all those years before, it does not seem as though he is putting much hope in it.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a man appears and attacks Jacob, and there is no one left to save him. Could it be Esau, come to take care of things personally? As the struggle continues, Jacob and his assailant find that they are equally matched. Jacob, for all his success, is still the scrappy, wily character he has always been, and it appears that, at the very least, he is on his way to having the upper hand, even when the other man pulls the unsportsmanlike move of dislocating Jacob’s hip. Neither can completely subdue the other, and so they grapple and sweat and strain with one another, a tangle of limbs and wills as the night drags on.

Somewhere in the midst of this, Jacob notices something feels familiar about this man. He remembers a night not unlike this one all those years ago, the last time he was alone in the wilderness with God. He realizes that he is not wrestling the source of his anxiety and fears, but that God has, improbably, fallen into his hands. He realizes here on the edge of the promised land, that somehow God has come to make good on the promise to walk closely with him. We can imagine, as the dawn begins to creep over the horizon, Jacob with God in a headlock, uttering this unlikely demand, dripping with hubris: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” I will not let you go until you do what you said you would do, because I know I serve a God who is faithful to promise. I will not let you go, even if it kills me. And it might.

In this encounter, God shows up, but not in a dream or in an overpowering expression of God’s glory. Strange as it may seem, God shows up in a way that is not obvious, in a way that invites Jacob’s response. This is not a God who is aloof or disinterested in human affairs, but a God who has chosen to be bound to us. God recognizes that they have as much invested in this relationship as Jacob does. As Jacob and God wrestle with one another, intimately entangled, their relationship takes on a new dimension. Jacob comes away with a better understanding of himself, named as one who struggles with powers both human and divine and is not overcome. But he also comes to a better understanding of God than if God had remained someone who is out there somewhere, a God of dreams and visions. He learns that the God he serves is one who is right here, right now, a God who cannot be ignored and a God who cannot be pinned down for long. 

A few years ago I was grappling with a situation that left me anxious, angry, and wounded, and I sought out the counsel of a wise and discerning priest. As we talked, what she said shifted my prayer life forever: “Bring your whole self to the altar: anger, sadness, grief and all. God can handle it.” God shows up for us first. God wants to be close to us, at this altar and in every place. Whatever you are wrestling with today, whether it’s the grief of a broken relationship, or the burden of depression or anxiety, or worry about the survival of the nation or the planet, or sorrow about the racism that infects our lives, or the simple question of whether there is a place for you at God’s table at all - whatever it is, God can handle it. If we find that we are wrestling God when we thought we were only wrestling our fear, God can handle it. God desires that. Whatever situation in life has you in great fear and distress, God is asking you to show up in whatever way you can and remember that you have been blessed, time out of memory, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as God’s own forever. In baptism, God promises us new life where our mistakes do not define us. God promises us that reconciliation with God and each other is coming and is here even now. God promises to give us the strength we need to resist the power of sin in our own lives, in this church, and in our society. God promises to draw us ever deeper into the mystery of God’s own self, resting in the knowledge that we are deeply known and deeply loved.

God shows up and offers us all these things time and again - claim them. Have the audacity to remind God and yourself about those graces which are already yours, and that the time to make good on the promise is now. This God who encounters us in our moments of greatest vulnerability is the same God who neither slumbers nor sleeps, the maker of heaven and earth who watches over you always. As we pray for the peace which passes our own understanding and for God to bring justice to the earth, we know that our persistence cannot be in vain, for it is rooted in the One who persists in pursuing peace and justice for us.

As the sunrise breaks over the horizon, we see Jacob limping toward the river as he prepares to cross and meet Esau, and he does so in the knowledge that his fears do not have the last word. His fear no longer stands in the way of Love’s healing power - and in the end, Esau is eager to see him. Estrangement turns to reconciliation. Fear turns to healing and wholeness. God is here. God is faithful. And as we struggle, we hear the invitation to remember whose we are and claim God’s promises with boldness.

Preached by Mr. Noah Stansbury
20 October 2019
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia