Where He Must Go

Here’s what it looks like when someone tries to gain the whole world, and loses his life in the process.  It looks like Peter, taking Jesus aside and attempting to save him with a friendly rebuke: “God forbid it, Lord,” he says, “[crucifixion] must never happen to you.”  

It’s hard for me to believe that Peter started out to follow Jesus in hopes of becoming a stumbling block, in hopes of missing the message.  Just last week we heard him making excellent progress and recognizing that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God.  How did he get it so wrong here?  How did he end up like this, attempting to talk Jesus out of his mission, talk our savior out of saving us?

It’s often said that Peter just can’t imagine Jesus being the kind of Messiah who dies on the cross.  It’s easier for him, maybe, to believe that Jesus is the heroic Messiah than it is to believe that the Messiah is not heroic.  That sounds true enough to me.  But what’s under that?  Why, if you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, are you unwilling to believe that the Messiah is the kind of Messiah he tells you he is?

Jesus’s death means so many kinds of things for Peter.  It means personal loss, personal danger, personal vulnerability.  It means that Peter is not going to be second in command of a revolution.  It means that there will be no glory in which to bask.  The crucifixion of Jesus will mean that God’s relationship to Israel is not waiting for fulfillment in some way that Peter recognizes.  It means embarrassment and disillusionment.  It looks like the triumph of injustice, too, the solidifying of Rome’s brutal power over Peter’s people, once again.  

Those are all things to worry about and I’d like to talk Jesus out of them too.  But I’m going to try to hear what Jesus is saying to Peter when he rejects Peter’s version of success.  I’m going to try to accept the implicit diagnosis that Jesus is giving Peter here: you are trying to keep the world by losing your life.

What would it have looked like in this context for Peter to have gotten what he wanted?  What would it have meant for him to gain the world?  I guess it’s that second in command fantasy.  Jesus would win some earthly contest—maybe a defeat of the Romans or at least the religious authorities—and Peter would be his lieutenant.  But then what?  What new wave of oppression or dissent would arise to be done away with by Peter on behalf of Jesus?  When do battles end?  And for how long does anyone want to be second in command?  Why not first?  Peter had better ideas about winning than Jesus did, it seems.  Why not step up and actualize his real potential for leadership?

So it’s easy enough to see how Peter would have lost his life by saving Jesus from crucifixion.  He’d have turned Jesus into a vehicle for his own fantasies of gain.  And gone from Peter’s life would be forgiveness, humility, true strength, love, hope, the actual kingdom of God: Jesus.    

I imagine that if they had had a longer conversation about all this, if Peter hadn’t more or less been stopped in his tracks by Jesus’s sharp response and his cryptic wisdom, Jesus might have gone into more detail about this business of gaining the world and losing life. 

Jesus might have pointed out, first, that nobody ever gains the world.  The world is not a gainable thing.  It can’t be had for any price, and even if you could have it, you could never keep it long enough for the ink to dry on your contract.  Having the world, gaining the world, is a fantasy of control.  Invulnerability.  For Peter it meant being second in command.  For us it might mean never facing hunger, not even when the supply chains break down.  Gaining the world for us might mean that no virus and no natural disaster would ever topple our kingdom.  It might mean that our economy could keep expanding without environmental consequences.  It might mean some kind of mythical freedom not to wear masks.  

If Jesus were to ask us today what it would profit us to gain the world and lose our lives, we could provide a very detailed answer.  We would have statistics about gross national products and trade balances.  We would be able to point proudly to skyscrapers and virtual realities and recreational drugs and plans for success and any number of other things that allow us that feeling of having gained the world.

And Jesus could, in turn, tell us very specifically about how, in gaining this world we live in, we are losing our lives.  Without Jesus and his cross we are only aiming like Peter to control the things that scare us.  And like Peter we will try to keep our savior from saving us if we can’t face the cross.  If we can’t face our own sin, our own death, our own vulnerability, our Christian faith becomes a shield against reality.  It’s a bad shield, a costly one, one that ultimately takes our own lives from us and denies others the chance to live and flourish.  It takes away our eternal life, and it also takes away the feeling of eternal life that we may be blessed to experience right now on earth.  

Sometimes on a Sunday morning a preacher likes to turn to the week’s events to see whether there is a gospel lesson in there for us.  I wouldn’t know where to start this week, or more honestly I wouldn’t be able to stop once I got going.  So much anxious clinging to control.  So many fantasies of invulnerability.  So much lost life on every level: physical, moral, spiritual.  How many times do you imagine Christians turned away from Jesus this week to focus on some fleeting fantasy of strength and power?  

I don’t know whether you had time to focus on the basketball strike this week, in the midst of so much else, but there was a real word of truth spoken from the depths of that conflict.  Doc Rivers, head coach for the Los Angeles Clippers, gave us a powerful secular version of the truth that Jesus was giving Peter.  Coach Rivers was talking about the way white communities bond together in fear of black people.  He didn’t mention Jesus but he was deeply honest and I swear I heard Jesus in his diagnosis. 

"What stands out to me,” he said, “is, just watching [and then he names recent political events], and they're spewing this fear. All you hear is… all of them talking about fear. We're the ones getting killed,” he said, speaking of the black community. “We're the ones getting shot. We're the ones that, we're denied to live in certain communities. We've been hung. We've been shot. And all you do is keep hearing about fear."

That’s as clear a description as even Peter could need of the price all of us pay when some of us try to gain the world.  White America looks to control, looks to build walls around suburbs and along national borders.  And seeking to keep that imaginary all-white life, we shut Jesus right out.  I wasn’t expecting it, but Jesus was speaking right to us, to the world, in that basketball coach.  You want to save your life, your vision of life, he tells us.  And all you get from that is fear.  You are losing your life, and taking mine too.  You are in power and all you can talk about is fear of losing power to black and brown people.  

It doesn’t take much to figure out why fear is has such a grip on so many people these days.  It’s not hard to understand why Peter was afraid of Jesus’s strange prediction.  What Jesus tells us, as he told Peter, is that we are not following him if we are looking to him to shore up our sense of invulnerability.  Jesus is the Messiah who saves us by leading us right to the heart of the loss.  Right into sin and death.  No less honest savior can save us.  

And our fear is the symptom of a misunderstanding about Jesus and his cross.  It’s perfectly reasonable to be afraid of the cross, but what we do with that fear, how we react in self-defense, what we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of escaping fear: that makes us dangerous.  When we live in fear of the cross we are dangerous to other people and we are dangerous to ourselves.  

For your own sake, let Jesus do his job.  Let Jesus be about his Father’s business.  Let him take us with him, where he is going.  

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson
30 August 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Knowing Jesus When You See Him

In a box in my office there are thirteen little stuffed, beanie-baby-type animals.  They are: a tiger, a pelican, an ostrich, a walrus, a beagle, a bluebird, a moose (with orange antlers), an eagle, three frogs, a bunny rabbit, and a horse.

The stuffed animals often come with me - all or some of them - to the 9 am Family Mass, when the homily is designed for children.  Remember the days when we used to have three Masses on Sundays, and a gaggle of children gathered here at 9, in the choir and in the congregation?  Those were the days.

Since the stuffed animals are recurring visitors to the Family Mass, kids (and adults) have gotten to know them a little.  I have tried to affix a certain churchiness to the animals.  It’s not just a pelican; it’s a “penitential pelican.”  And it’s not just an ostrich; it’s an “offertory ostrich.”  The horse is one of the less distinctive-looking stuffed animals.  It’s not so easy to represent a horse’s body or head in beanie-baby style.  But his mane and his tail are unmistakable.

One Sunday, not too long ago, I experienced a moment of great joy at the Family Mass, when I brought out some of the stuffed animals, and I held aloft the horse, with his tan body and his short, brown mane, and his tail made of yarn, and I asked the kids who it was.  And without hesitating, the children of Saint Mark’s looked at a little seven-inch long, four-legged, stuffed animal, with no other distinctive traits, and they exclaimed, more or less as one, “That’s Jesus!”

You don’t know how my heart swelled to discover that our kids know Jesus when they see him.  I did not instruct them to tell no one what they knew.  I did not tell them to keep this  insight to themselves.  I did not suggest that it might be confusing if they told their friends that the priest at their church has taught them that Jesus is a small, equine stuffed animal.  I wanted them to shout it to the world!  That’s Jesus!

Some of the kids, at least, remembered that there is a very specific story that explains why, in my world, the horse always gets to be Jesus.  It’s a story that involves me on a horse and a charging hippopotamus in the African bush, and the specific instruction that in the event of a dangerous encounter, you should trust your horse to get you to safety.  It was an instruction that I was glad I followed.  More generally, I have explained that the horse is a friend, who will carry you on his back.  He will jump over obstacles that you could never cross yourself, he will run faster than you can possibly run, and he will take you places that you could never get to on your own.  (I have not explained to the kids that the horse I ride most weeks these days is a mare, and that they should not take the personal pronouns too literally, but we’ll get there some day.)  Above all, though, there remains that advice that I was given when I spent a week on horseback in the African bush: in the event of danger, trust your horse to get you to safety: he knows what to do, and he will do it.  That’s why the horse always gets to be Jesus.

And, oh, how it filled me with two-fold joy to see not only that the children of this parish had begun to suspect that Jesus has a place in their lives, but also that they had begun to know Jesus when they see him.

I have the same hope for the grown-ups of the parish, for whom these two spiritual goals are not any easier to achieve than they are for children.  In fact, it’s probably harder for many adults to see that Jesus has a place in their lives, and to know Jesus when you see him in the world.  Yes, I think it can be a lot harder for adults to keep Jesus in their lives.

When Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” he was already aware of how difficult it would be for many of us to keep him in our lives.  And their answers demonstrated that there was not a lot of clarity out there.

And then he asked them, more pointedly, “But who do you say that I am?”

Was there an awkward silence?  I bet there was.  Did they all look down into their laps, to avoid his glance?  I expect so.  What courage did it take for Peter to lift up his head, and to look Jesus in the eye, and say to him “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Did Jesus see then, that Peter knew that he could trust Jesus; and that Jesus would carry him over obstacles that he (Peter) could never cross by himself; and that Jesus would take him (Peter) to places that he could never reach on his own?  Did Peter, in fact, know it then?  Was he guessing?  Was he certain?  Does it matter?  As long as he knew who Jesus was, and as long as he’d always know him when he sees him?

Not many people I know are waiting for a messiah these days.  So, when we hear about Peter uttering this profound insight, it doesn’t strike as all that momentous.  But everyone I know is in need of a God whom they can trust to carry us over obstacles that we can never cross by ourselves, and to take us to places that we can never reach on our own.  We need that help in this life, and we will surely need it on the other side of the grave.

I miss those 9 am Family Masses dreadfully.  I miss those children and their families.  I know that some of you are out there, online, praying along with us, worshiping with us, connecting with us through our screens.  But I also know it’s not easy; it’s not the same; it’s not what we want it to be.

Oh, how we need a God whom we can trust... to carry us over so many obstacles in our lives and in the world these days.  Oh how we need Jesus to take us to places that we cannot get to on our own!  I am so glad that the children of this parish have begun to find that Jesus has a place in their lives, and have been learning to know him when they see him.

And I pray that our kids know that, the virus notwithstanding, Jesus is still there for them.  Jesus is still here for them.  And he’s here for you, too.

In times of trouble, trust Jesus to carry you away from danger.  Jesus will save you.  In fact, in so many ways, Jesus already has saved us.  He is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.  Make room for him in your life.  Learn to know him when you see him.  Trust him to carry you to safety.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
23 August 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia

The View from Above

I have enjoyed many things about my office at Saint Mark’s. It’s cozy, and sitting at the desk, I have enjoyed lovely views of the garden. I have watched children playing happily before choir rehearsals. I have witnessed faithful parishioners welcoming the stranger. And I have observed Gus, the rectory cat, chasing his prey. The only downside to that office, in my opinion, is its location. It seems that every time I would sit down to write a sermon, someone would buzz at the office door, and on Fridays, I was only one of a handful of people around to answer it.

Inevitably, after I answered the door, I would resume my sermon preparation, and alas, someone else would ring the buzzer, and I’d have to let them in, too. It could be hard to focus. Not to mention, that even after nearly two years, I still have no idea how to set my office phone on “do not disturb.”

In today’s Gospel story, it rather seems like the Canaanite woman is a disturbance to Jesus and his disciples. She is the intruding call during sermon preparation, or the mail delivery during lunch. As soon as Jesus and his disciples venture into Gentile territory, their hearts presumably set on whatever their task is ahead, this woman suddenly appears on the scene, shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!” Let’s name the elephant in the room: Jesus’ uncharacteristic behavior in this story is troubling.

What are we to make of Jesus ignoring this woman, who only asks for mercy and, indirectly, for her daughter’s healing? Why does Jesus not directly address the woman but, instead, reply to his disciples with an answer that seems to be directed at the woman? It’s as if Jesus cannot be bothered to speak to the Canaanite woman face to face. All of our modern hackles are raised: a man, and a well-known one at that, is dismissive of an unnamed woman, who represents the other, an ethnic group that is all too easily sidelined. Jesus says he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

And when we are desperately longing for Jesus to help this poor woman, his words are capable of giving offense. He says that it’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.

Just sit with that for a minute. If I had ever talked to anyone using such words and my parents heard it, I would have been in serious trouble. How does any of this pair with Jesus’ injunctions of neighborly love?

Jesus has had his eye on his future ministry in the region around Tyre and Sidon since he left Galilee, and this Canaanite woman has the temerity to blindside him with her request. He has no time for this. He has a mission to accomplish, and it would appear as if this woman has no place in that mission.

We might easily identify with not wanting to be distracted from important business, but what does it feel like to be in the shoes of the Canaanite woman? What painful memories does it stir up for you to be desperately in need of help and yet ignored and shunned? What is it like to desperately entreat God for relief from sickness, for a job, or for the protection of a loved one?

Five months after we closed the doors at Saint Mark’s to our normal public worship, we continue to grapple in the dark through this pandemic, looking for the light switch that will illuminate everything and help us understand why we are in this mess. Daily, it seems, we are screaming to God, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!” And the reply is discouraging silence, as if we have been set on ignore or “do not disturb.” Or maybe, like that Canaanite woman, our needs are just in the way of some other more important mission that God has in store.

And yet we continue to plead: Lord, send us a vaccine! Lord, give me a job! Lord, let my children go back to school safely so I can work from home! Lord, heal my sister! Lord, deliver us from the sin of racism! And the demoralizing reply, if unvoiced and translated by our skewed perspective, is this: “I was sent only to certain groups of people, to the privileged, to the wealthy, to those who can afford healthcare, to those who are cruising up high, even while many are slugging away down below.”

Some who beg for God’s mercy never make it past the first time they feel ignored. They cease their pleading and steer their begging toward the gods of science or secular humanism. Others, like the Canaanite woman, continue imploring God until their knees hurt, crying, “Lord, help me!”, only to be dismissed yet again. The conclusion, too often reached, is that the prayers and the pleas are just a nuisance. God has other plans, and we are just in the way.

But we know that the Canaanite woman’s story doesn’t stop with her being ignored. Our hasty assessment that God’s mission is directed somewhere other than to us does not feel accurate. And it’s in the ending of the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman that we find some hope, even though it doesn’t immediately eliminate the problems stirred up around Jesus’ problematic behavior. We know that at the story’s conclusion, the Canaanite woman’s faith wins the day, and her daughter is instantly healed. And Jesus commends her faith.

And still, it is understandable if we remain bothered that it took so much groveling to get there in the first place. We might be rightly frustrated that we have to demean ourselves in order to earn God’s mercy and compassion. How many times must we ask for help? How many times do the downtrodden have to scream until they are heard?

This, I think, is the view from below. In this perplexing story, Jesus is, in some sense and for a time, locked into history in the first century AD. Jesus, in his full humanity, has his blinders on as he zealously pursues God’s mission. But in his divine glory, Jesus is also open to being surprised at the enlargement of his mission by God through the sending of this beautiful Canaanite woman, who is not an annoyance but part of God’s generous plan.

The Canaanite woman doesn’t know how she is a part of this plan, for she, too, is locked into the view from below. Even while she pleads with God, she is otherwise content with her place on ground level. At that level, to us, Jesus’ actions seem rude, and the Canaanite woman appears to be a distraction to him. She has disrupted his trajectory, which follows a gradual ethnic arc in Matthew’s Gospel, from Jews to Gentiles. This woman is like a breadcrumb leading to the end of Matthew’s Gospel, a foretaste of what is to come, where all nations are brought under the reign of Christ.

And did you notice how much Jesus’ final words to the Canaanite woman are a mirror of Mary’s words to the angel Gabriel? Jesus, when he finally praises the faith of this Canaanite woman, says, “Let it be done for you as you wish.” This Canaanite woman is lauded, because she has followed in the footsteps of blessed Mary by asking nothing for herself except for God’s mercy and indirectly for her daughter’s healing.

And how different is this woman from the disciples! Seeing her as a nuisance, they order Jesus—not ask, but order him—to make her go away. But the Canaanite woman, ensconced in history and bound by the view from below, does not presume to know how God will help her, but she knows that God will, in some incomprehensible way, help.

The view from above, however, is more expansive. In God’s eyes, this incredible woman is no inconvenience. She is a shining example of the tenacity of faith. She refuses to take no for an answer because she understands somehow that God’s answer is always, if mysteriously, yes. If she can’t get the full meal, she is content with just a crumb. And she knows that her asking for help is inseparably, if asynchronously, bound up with God’s eternal yes.

She has no presumptions about her status, but if she can merely be granted the opportunity to hang around the edges of the table, just maybe she can experience something of God’s healing power. The woman is not willing to let even one crumb go to waste, not one ounce of God’s mercy will go unabsorbed by her.

How different is this Canaanite woman from us, too! How often do we cry out, “Listen, Lord, for your servant is speaking!” “Lord, let it be done to me as I wish!” And when we are locked into that view from below, when every specific request seems to be greeted by silence or denial, we end up believing we are pestering God or that God has put us on “do not disturb.” At worst, we give up.

And so often, we have no clue about how the crumbs we are receiving line up into a continuous trail of crumbs from God’s end of things. When I first sat in a pew on the Epistle side here at Saint Mark’s eighteen years ago, visiting Philadelphia for the first time, I had no idea I would ever serve in this place, much less as a priest. But I now have received some fleeting glimpse of the view from above, knowing that God has blessed me profoundly for future service by the generous spirit, deep wisdom, and love of this parish. And I am so grateful for it. The view from below is often confusing, even if everything makes sense to God.

And so, it might be that if we were to stand more firmly in the shoes of the Canaanite woman and let her be our patron saint of prayer, we could get a fleeting glimpse of the view from above without needing to fully understand the end of the story. We would see that does God not expect us to grovel before him before pronouncing mercy or before healing. God’s property is always to have mercy. Always. But we might also learn to be grateful for even one tiny morsel falling from the table. From below, each morsel seems like it’s not enough, but from above, it’s an eternal shower of heavenly manna.

When we are so blessed to witness someone’s great faith, like that of the Canaanite woman or that of Blessed Mary, we see things from above. From that perspective, crumbs scattered on a path lead miles and miles in a sinuous line to a heavenly kingdom where there is no pain or sighing. And there is a throng of saints, the Canaanite woman among them, who are kneeling before God’s throne, pleading, “Lord, have mercy!”

May we, like those in that holy crowd, offer in our hearts that prayer of faith, “Lord, let it be done to me according to your word. Lord, we know you will help us. Let your will be done.”

Preached by Father Kyle Babin
16 August 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia