Behind Closed Doors

Although the doors were shut Jesus came and stood among them, and said, “Peace be with you.”

A cartoon in this week’s New Yorker requires no caption.  It depicts a family inside their home: a young man, a young woman, a dog, and a cat.  The dog is holding his leash in his mouth.  They are all sitting there, staring at the front door, wishing they could go out.

We are all, of course, pining, not only to go out, but to be together.  We miss each other.  This is poignantly true in the church.  We are diminished when we cannot be together.  It’s a fact.  But it’s not a new fact.  It has always been this way.  And for now, we are behind closed doors.

St. John reminds us today that some of the first experiences of the risen Christ took place behind closed doors.  In fact, it’s an important detail that he includes in his account of the first two encounters the disciples have with their risen Lord.

On that first Easter morning, all those centuries ago, after Mary Magdalene has begun to spread the word that Jesus is risen, he came to his disciples when they were gathered behind closed doors, and the door was locked.  But it’s no bar to Jesus.

Then, a week later (today), he came to them again, and John is careful to include the detail that the doors were “shut.”   

Now obviously, John did not have the coronavirus pandemic in mind.  John was meaning to convey something about the power of the risen Christ.

But something beautiful translates to the current moment:  John writes, “although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them.”  Although the doors were shut.

Our doors are shut.  And your doors are shut.  And we have been thinking that these doors - all off them shut between us - we have been thinking that they are a barrier to our communion.

We are not all huddled together, but we are hunkered down, household by household.  The doors are shut. We are not going out, and we are not allowing anyone in.

I have to tell you that there are times when I have been inside this church with our little band of disciples - the Ministry Residents and me - and I have heard banging on the doors.  You can hear it ringing through the empty nave, as someone tries to insist that the doors be opened.

But they are shut fast.

And sometimes it feels like we are sitting just inside the doors, our leashes in our mouths, staring at the closed doors, wishing we could go out... or at least that someone else could come in.

But, no, the doors are shut.

I never imagined that that specific detail of the first Easter could resound so clearly in my own life, for I never imagined an Easter behind closed doors.  But that is precisely what we have had.  And while it has been profoundly unsettling, it also puts us in a kind of profound solidarity with the apostles’ experience of the first Easter.

Their doors were shut.  They assumed it kept them safe.  And they had no thought that Jesus would be able to make his way to them.  Yes, they were thinking of Jesus, wondering about Jesus, but they were not expecting Jesus.  If anything, they’d have been wondering when it would be safe to open the doors so they could try to find him.

Today is supposed to be all about Thomas, who of course was absent on that first Easter, when the doors were locked, and his friends and compatriots were all together without him, and Jesus came to them and shared with them the gift of his peace.

We’re supposed to focus on Thomas, in the house a week later, and on his declaration of faith, and on Jesus’ pronouncement that we should believe even if we haven’t seen for ourselves.

But for me, this year, the most poignant aspect of these stories is the detail that we most clearly have in common with them: that our doors are shut - yours and mine.

And we have reasonably assumed that this condition of being locked up, separated from one another, has made it harder for Jesus to be with us.

But of course, we are wrong.  The doors being shut is no impediment to Jesus, no impediment to our communion.

We want to cry out, “Jesus, we are behind closed doors and we cannot get out!”

“Never fear,” he calls,  “I have come to you.”

Notes for a sermon preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
Low Sunday, 19 April 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia 

An Easter Curve

It was just four Sundays ago that we reached the hard decision to close the church to public worship, and hold all our worship online.

I can’t count how many charts and graphs I have seen in these four weeks.  I’d be very surprised if you haven’t seen a few too. 

Those charts and graphs usually describe the rate of infection of the coronavirus, sometimes the amount of testing that’s been done in a given place, and sometimes the number of people who have been admitted to hospitals, sometimes even the number of people who are recovering from the virus, and of course there are the charts that describe the mortality rate: the number of people who have died from the virus.  All of these charts depict curves, and the most fundamental curve, the one we have been fixated on as a nation, is the curve that shows the rate of infection.  Actually, it’s a chart that shows two curves - or two potential curves.  One is steep and tall, and the other is gradual and flat.  And we all know that our collective goal has been to flatten the curve.

So much of life can be described as a curve - often a bell curve, like the one we have seen in the charts and graphs.  You don’t believe this when you are young, because you are nearly always on the upswing of the curve.  But the older you get, when you know that you can (and should) plot yourself on the down-side of the bell curve, you begin to see the inescapable insistence of the power of the curve.

The logic behind the campaign to flatten the curve in the face of the coronavirus has been inescapable, too.  But that logic brings with it a great cost, since the only way to flatten the curve is to adopt a kind of suspended animation.  Except that now, after only a month of social distancing, it’s become clear that on the other side of the flattened curve things won’t just pick up where they left off.  Because there are other charts and other graphs, too, somewhere, that show the effects of that sickness, the challenge of recovery, the reality of grief, the soaring rate of unemployment, the devastating economic losses.

All the same, like many of you, I have been convinced of the value of flattening the curve. I wear my mask when I go out to walk the dogs, and I remind people I see that most dog leashes are six feet long, so we know exactly how far apart to keep from each other.

So far I have not seen a chart or a graph (now do I believe that one could exist) that illustrates effects of an Easter morning whose only anthem is “Flatten the Curve.”

In four short weeks so much of our lives has been shaped by that chorus, that we could almost wonder if there is anything else to sing about this morning.

And when I look around and see the six faces that have been the only six faces in church for these weeks, and hear the same six voices, I have to wonder whether or not we could ever sing an Easter anthem with the the strength with which those anthems were once sung in this church, and whether they will ever be sung in strong voices again.

I hear the Easter Gospel this morning, and I have to wonder what would have happened if Mary Magdalene had seen the stone rolled away, and run back to Peter and said to him breathlessly, “Peter, I think Jesus may really be flattening the curve!”  Or if after her encounter with the risen Christ, she had gone back to the disciples and exclaimed, “I have seen the Lord,” and then gone on to tell them that he explained how by his death and resurrection he was flattening the curve.

I don’t think we’d have come this far if the best we could hope for is flattening the curve.  You understand, I’m not talking about the virus, I’m talking about our capacity for hope.

I’m wondering how deeply the experience we are going through is shaping our hopes, our vision, our faith.

Because sometime if a paradigm works in one area of our lives, we just apply that same paradigm to other areas of our life too, even if it is an insufficient paradigm.

And one thing we know about the coronavirus is that it doesn’t actually attack our souls - it just feels that way sometimes.

And on Easter morning, it seems like we should be able to claim with certainty that Jesus did not rise from the grave in order to flatten some curve.

Jesus doesn’t want us to just not be sick; he wants us to thrive.

He doesn’t want us to merely not be sad; he wants us to rejoice.

He doesn’t want us to only not be hungry; he wants us to have plenty.

He doesn’t want us to not be thirsty; he wants us to be drenched.

He doesn’t want us to simply not be separated from one another; he wants us to share communion with one another and with him.

He doesn’t want us to only not be dead; he wants us to live!

Indications are that where strict social distancing  is in effect the curve of coronavirus infection is indeed flattening, so by all means, let’s stick with it.

But since so much of our lives can be defined by curves on chart or a graph, let’s not learn the lesson of flattening the curve too well when it comes to our faith.

When you flatten the curve of injustice, for instance, you get less injustice, but you might not get more justice.

When you flatten the curve, you might get less violence, but you still don’t have peace.

When you flatten the curve, you might sin less, and you might even get forgiveness, but you still don’t have reconciliation.

When you flatten the curve you might get less hatred and bigotry, but you still don’t have love.

When you flatten the curve, you might lower your anxiety, but you still don’t have hope.

God did not send his Son to be incarnate in the world, to sacrifice himself for us, and to rise from the grave in order to flatten the curve.

Christ came into the world to invert the curve: to bring health and well-being where there is sickness, to bring light where there is darkness, to bring peace where there is war, to bring forgiveness where there is discord, to bring justice where there is none, and to bring life where there has been only death.

Christ came into the world to invert the curves that lead only to sickness, darkness, anxiety, worry, fear and death.  He came to invert the curve, and he has done it.  And it is beautiful.

Notes for a sermon by Fr. Sean Mullen
Easter Day 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia

A Pinprick of Hope

This is the night. This is the night of the vigil of the Day of Resurrection. But perhaps unlike any other in living memory, this is the night in which we linger[i] with the darkness that surrounds us. We remain in our homes, isolated from our friends and even our families. We are exiled from our beloved sacred spaces. In this darkness, filled with suffering and death all around, we linger with our questions. And these questions, like phantoms, haunt our present moment, emerging from the shadows and demanding answers. But there are no easy answers.

In this darkness which threatens to overwhelm us, we linger with the sacred stories of our faith, voiced in this empty church and illuminated by a tiny light from this Paschal Candle. We hear these stories as we have never heard them before, and with the darkness pressing in upon us, the questions prompted by each of these prophecies bubble up within us. They are difficult questions.

Do we look out on the world and see only chaos, disorder, and darkness? Where is the order that God wrought in the beginning of creation? Has all the order and security we ever knew been reduced to a formless void once again? How long will it be until God intervenes to give order and structure to the disorder around us? God called this creation good, but why, in the present moment, is it in such bad shape?

And are we not now, in some sense, sheltered in our own arks against the threat of a virus, just as Noah, his family, and the animals secured themselves within the ark against the threat of the flood? Like Noah and his companions, we are waiting things out, taking each day as it comes, trying to be patient, waiting for that moment when the dove released from the ark no longer has to return to seclusion but can fly freely out into the world, newly restored. We wait until we, too, can venture out without masks to greet each other with hugs once again.

And are we not waiting for our own exodus from this plague of sickness? Are we not waiting for deliverance? Like the Israelites who slipped out of Pharaoh’s grasp, do we also send up our seemingly irreverent questions to God, wondering if he set us free in the past into a land of knowledge, sophistication, and technology, only to leave us helpless in a wilderness with no cure for a dreaded virus?

And do we scoff at the unlimited bread and milk on offer from God in Isaiah’s image, regardless of whether we are in possession of money or not? Does this offer seem like a cruel joke at this point in time, when the store shelves are empty and businesses are closing and people are dying? Is it not torture because we, this night, thirst, too? Many of us thirst for the Wine of the Eucharist and hunger for the Bread of Life, unable to receive it in person. We long and we desire, but we are unfulfilled.

And how, this Easter Vigil, can we hear the story of the valley of dry bones and not be disturbed? Can we even hear the word “breath” without being chilled to our bones, when with each breath we take, we wonder if we will be inhaling the strands of an insidious virus?

Truth be told, even in normal circumstances in years past when we were able to gather together by the hundreds in our churches by the light of the New Fire and hear these sacred stories, our hearts were jumping ahead. If we had been arranging the Easter lilies or rehearsing Easter music with the choir earlier in the day, in the darkness of the Vigil, we might have found ourselves impatient with the prophecies and the psalms, waiting to leap ahead to that moment when we could proclaim the resurrection in loud voices.

It’s the temptation of every Easter Vigil to move as quickly through the darkness until we can throw all the lights on, fire up the organ, and ring bells to proclaim the first strains of Easter. The anticipation is part of the drama, the necessary tension before the release.

But this is the night when things are different. It is different this year. There is no way that any of us can run from the danger and anxieties around us, nor can we blithely leap ahead to the happy ending, as much as we may wish to. We can’t control who gets sick and who gets well, in large part. We are forced to isolate ourselves. We are deprived of the presence of physical community to celebrate this holiest time of our year.

This is the night when things are different, not because we want them to be, but because they are.

This Easter Vigil, we are perhaps experiencing the intersection of suffering and salvation in a way never experienced before. We are living in the midst of trauma, and as hard as we try, those of you watching virtually can’t experience the tactile fulfillment of your immediate desires. You can’t see the New Fire kindled in darkness in person. You can’t hear the beautiful strands of the Exsultet sung without being mediated through the web. There is a chance that the livestream will momentarily freeze up and the present moment will leap ahead of what you are experiencing. You can’t feel the sprinkle of holy water in the asperges. We know we won’t hear the Easter brass, none of us. And knowing that, here in this room tonight, my heart is heavy. Regardless of where we are, we find ourselves inhabiting a strange void.

So this year, we can’t take some things for granted. We can’t just assume that our easy expectations of fulfillment will happen in the same way. Our virtual reality at the present time is a living metaphor for our unfulfilled desires to obtain what we usually can expect. And so this is the night in which we must linger in an uncertain, unfamiliar space, even when it’s uncomfortable.

But now, I ask you to close your eyes for just a moment. Whether you are here in this tiny gathering in this nave or at home watching on your computer. Close your eyes. Go back into the darkness created by your lowered eyelids. Take this in for just a moment. Don’t be afraid of it. Because we all need to readjust our vision for just a moment. We have taken something for granted without even knowing it.

Now, open your eyes again and look with me, if you can, or imagine if you will, this tiny pinprick of light burning from the Paschal Candle. Had you forgotten it was there? Or had the vast darkness of even this large, nearly empty church seemed to overwhelm it or expel it from your vision? But this glorious light is here. It has been burning fiercely, all along, since we kindled that New Fire earlier this evening.

When we are holed up inside our homes, and we seem to be wandering in a formless void of darkness, that darkness appears to overwhelm the light. But look at this pinprick of light shining. Look at it. Do not avert your eyes. No matter how much dark there is in this large nave, you can still see this light of the New Fire, the sign of our hope, the sign of our salvation in Christ, the visible symbol of the eternal Light that has brightened the world. And the darkness cannot put it out or cover it up. It never has been able to put it out. It never will be able to.

We could throw the lights on right now, blare some glorious music, and ring out our Easter proclamations to make us all feel better. But tonight, we pause for a while, perhaps even uncomfortably, in this space of darkness. Not to torture ourselves, but to acknowledge where we are.

Because the pinprick of light from this Paschal Candle is also a sign of the pinprick of hope that comes to us in the darkness. It is the pinprick of light that pierced the darkness on Calvary and tore the temple veil on that somber day. It is the pinprick of light that descended to the darkness of hell and served as a light into heaven for those who had long been asleep. It is the pinprick of light that radiated through the dark, empty tomb on that first Easter morning.

Maybe this lets us into a deeper understanding of what God’s hope really is. It’s not something we move forward towards, but something that moves towards us and finds us where we are, especially when we realize we can’t achieve everything on our own, and especially when we feel captive to suffering and death.

Tonight, of all nights, is the night, when darkness is vanquished by our eternal King.

This is the night when, in the beginning of creation, God looked on that formless void, on that frightening chaos, on the unruly waters, and shaped it all with God’s loving hands and called it good.

This is the night when God restored creation in the waters of the flood and renewed, is renewing, our lives with the waters of baptism.

This is the night when God parted the waters of the Red Sea and delivered, and is delivering, God’s chosen people from captivity, even when we think we’ve been deserted.

This is the night when God offered waters to quench, and is quenching, the insatiable thirst that we all have, especially those of us who are unable to receive the Eucharist.

This is the night when God breathed, is breathing, into our dry, brittle bones, and building a community of believers to praise God and gain the hope of everlasting life.

And although in our isolation we seem removed from the things that give our life spiritual meaning, look at this light again. This tiny pinprick of light, which is our pinprick of hope in the darkness and suffering in which we are encompassed, this tiny pinprick of light proclaims that even when we keep our separation from others and shield our faces with masks, nothing, nothing, keeps Christ from getting into our hearts, where there he reigns, for ever and ever.

This pinprick of light in the midst of great darkness is how God saves us in the midst of our suffering, because this year, turning all the lights on and buoying ourselves into a false sense of well-being will simply not do the trick.

This is the night when seven of us are gathered in this lonely, empty nave. It is not the same without you. I, personally, miss the presence of living voices in this church singing boldly. I miss your faces and your personalities. And I feel a certain emptiness after these liturgies until I get home and log onto Facebook and see that all of you have been there with us all along, praying from your own sacred spaces. I worry sometimes that I have forgotten what the sound of congregational singing is like. I worry sometimes that our human, physical interaction will be changed forever. And if I think too much of last year’s Easter Vigil, it becomes too much.

But at this moment, I need to force myself and I ask you as well, to gaze on this tiny pinprick of light and remind ourselves that what appears to be a darkness that is greater than light is simply an illusion of the modern mind. And this is the night, perhaps of all other Easter Vigil nights we’ve ever experienced, when we might appreciate most fully the brightness of this tiny pinprick of light, which is the most concentrated and glorious sign of hope imaginable, even as we linger in this darkness.

This is the night in which we will end this liturgy unlike the ways in which we have in previous years, and I pray, will never have to do again. We will gather here at the font, whether physically or virtually, to renew our baptismal vows and to reaffirm that we have been marked as Christ’s own forever. And in that renewal, we will say that even amid all our uncertainties and seemingly irreverent questions, we believe, we believe, that this is the night in which God is restoring us to life and saving us, even this very night, especially this very night.

Will you join me? Will you join me in proclaiming our faith in the Risen Christ by the illumination of this tiny pinprick of light?

All it takes is a tiny pinprick of light, because we know, we believe, that the darkness can never extinguish this light. It never has, it is not doing so even now, and it never will.

Preached by Father Kyle Babin
The Great Vigil of Easter 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] With gratitude to the Rev. Dr. James Farwell, Professor of Theology and Liturgy at Virginia Theological Seminary, for suggesting the use of this verb in the context of the Easter Vigil during this unusual time of quarantine and self-isolation.