Rejoicing Among the Communion of Saints

Happy All Hallows Day. In the Middle Ages, this day - the first of November: All Saints Day - was known as the beginning of the “dark half of the year.” It is six months precisely from May Day - the recognized beginning of spring. The days in the north are shorter. Mornings surprise us on those first steps out the doorway as the chill from the evening persists. Illuminated pumpkins line the porch steps, and soon - though hopefully not too soon - the lights of the Advent season will brighten the winter.

This brief little season of Hallowtide - All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day - hovers in a sort of middle space. It is a season between the seasons. A liturgical bridge from the celebration of life to the remembrance of death. The year grows dark - and yet - and yet there is a particular tending of the light. These sister Feasts - All Saints and All Souls - do not just teach us something about remembering those who have loved God before us. They do not simply help us to recall something past or someone who has set a good example of the Christian life. In fact what these Feasts are up to is a re-authorship of time and space as we know it.

No, this is not some particularly pious episode of Star Trek. This is the mind of God. For us humans, we think in terms of a linear time that evolves - one day to the next - and we think of space as being the locations right in front of us, or perhaps somewhere far away - but still able to be plotted and discovered on a map. We think in three dimensions - near, far, here, there. And we think in terms of the passage of time: now. Back then. In the future. But on All Saints and All Souls, we encounter a glimpse of something greater. Something holier and suffused with promise. We set aside these earthly limitations, and permit our hearts to be turned toward the vastness and perfection of God.

Traditionally, All Saints Day is a day in the church for baptisms. During the baptismal liturgy, the blessing over the water proclaims this: We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” Later the congregation welcomes the newly baptized, declaring together: “We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.”

These words, too, show us the mind of God. It is only appropriate that baptisms are often celebrated on this holy day, for in baptism, our own selves - our souls and bodies - shake free from the bonds of time and space to become destined for union with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. A new life. A new love . A new light in the darkness.

And so in baptism we are welcomed into fellowship with the communion of saints. And this is not some exercise in high theology, this is a great and immediate gift. Because when we enter into fellowship with the communion of saints, a few remarkable things happen:

First, we are never alone. We are never left to fend for ourselves in our journey toward holiness or hopefulness. We are accompanied by the ones who have come before us and the ones who God has placed alongside us who show us the way. We are not the only one left to tend the lamps. We have friends in heaven, who behold God face to face, and who cheer us on and pick us up and hold our prayers before Jesus on the throne of glory by which they sing their songs of praise. We are never, ever alone. And while of course it is Jesus who knows us first and best, what a blessing it is to have others who love him with us.

Second, we are called to sainthood too. This is true. I remember I had a teacher once who would say this to my class, and I’d look around and think, yeah right. There is no way this collection of heathens is going to become saints. But I was wrong. Because saints aren’t perfect people. They aren’t angels or superhuman demi-gods. They are simply people of faith who continue, throughout their lives, to say “yes” to loving God. They may do brave things or smart things or holy things - but all of those things are simply parts of what it means for them to say “yes” when God calls them. They continue in love, and sometimes they stumble, but sanctity is the slow, steady work of a continuous “yes” to the Living God.

And third: when we enter into fellowship with the communion of saints, we come to know Jesus. We come to see how Jesus’ love was made known to his very first apostles. We see how the grace of Christ covered those in those first monastic communities in the Egyptian desert. We see how the Resurrection inspired great deeds in nobles and kings, but also how that same promise blossomed in the hearts of little girls who led armies, joined convents, had families, prayed faithfully, left all they had and turned to Christ. We see how new birth in baptism inspired some to turn away from lives of selfishness and violence, and how there is not a gender, race, age, location, circumstance, or shuttered heart into which God cannot speak of grace.

On All Saints Day, we remember that the heart of each saint is a bright prism through which shines the light of Christ. In their fellowship, even the dark half of the year is blessed by a radiant hope indeed.

Preached by Mtr. Brit Frazier
1 November 2021
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia

The Easy-To-Miss Message of Verse 49

It is easy to mistake as a story of a healing miracle the brief narrative we have just heard from St. Mark’s Gospel, in which we hear that the vision of the blind beggar Bartimaeus was restored.  It sounds like a healing miracle, does it not?  The editors of my study Bible have put a heading at the top of this passage that tells me that they think it is a story of “The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus.”  And, to be sure, all the elements of a healing miracle are present.  You could call this story a healing miracle and not be entirely wrong.  But you would have missed a very significant point that St. Mark is making, which I would say is the central point of the story.  If all you see in this story is a healing miracle, then you miss seeing what Jesus is really doing for Bartimaeus.

To support my argument that this episode is not primarily a matter of a healing miracle, I proffer to you the evidence that at no point is the word “healing” ever mentioned by St. Mark or anyone else.  Bartimaeus doesn’t ask to be healed, and Jesus doesn’t say that healing is what he’s doing.  Maybe this is a minor point, but I’m only getting warmed up.  It’s not primarily a matter of what’s missing in this story, that makes it clear to me that it is not a story of a healing miracle.  It’s a matter of what’s there in the text that we might fail to see, even though St. Mark has gone to pains to make it very clear that something even more important than the restoration of Bartimaeus’s sight is taking place here.

But the fact of the matter is, that in many ways, it’s easier for us to hear this narrative as the story of a healing miracle.  Because if we hear it that way, then it’s got nothing to do with us, no bearing on our lives, since we are not expecting miracles of any kind these days.  And we generally go elsewhere for our healing needs.  Mostly, then, this story has the status, more or less, as one of Aesop’s fables, even for those of us who bother to come to church to hear it.  We are willing to agree that it probably has a moral of some kind that’s good for somebody, but it’s probably something best told to children.  But if you could see what is actually happening here for Bartimaeus, then you might start to wonder if it could happen for you, too.  Because what’s actually happening here isn’t even a miracle.

St. Mark tells us that Jesus and his disciples “came to Jericho.”  There they encountered Bartimaeus, “a blind beggar… sitting by the roadside.”  He was not, I think, an immediately sympathetic figure, which is why the neighbors told him to shut up when he started shouting at Jesus.  The neighbors knew this guy.  They knew who he was, whose son he was.  They probably knew how he lost his sight - there’s a story there.  I think they had probably heard him become unruly before.  Bartimaeus also knew that his plight was worse than just his blindness.  He was shouting out to Jesus, and he was begging for mercy.  Perhaps he had been self-medicating with too much wine.  Perhaps it was too much wine that led to his blindness.  Like I say, there’s a story; I’m certain.

And at first glance, we might think that the crux of this whole story occurs in verse 51, when Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?”  That would suit us.  We’d love it if that was Jesus’ principal ministry, to go around asking his followers what he can do for them, maybe even offering three wishes… or more!   That’s a religion worth signing up for!  What do you want Jesus to do for you?  Bartimaeus thought so too, and he wasn’t sure he’d get more than one wish.  “My teacher,” he said, “let me see again.”

Verse 52: Jesus says, “Go, your faith has made you well,” and “immediately he [Bartimaeus] regained his sight….”  Yeah!  It’s a miracle!  And it is, indeed, oh so easy to see the story that way, as a healing miracle.  The story makes perfect sense that way, even though just now, in re-telling it to you, I left out verse 49.  (No, don’t look!  Let me tell this to you.)

Verse 49 is like a little bell ringing three times that St. Mark put into the text to get our attention, as if to say, “Look, here, this is what this story is really about.”  It’s a little Sanctus bell.  Ding!  Ding!  Ding!  If you pay no attention to the bell, then you might think this is a healing miracle.  But I want us to hear the bell, which rings three times in verse 49.

In verse 49, St. Mark tells us that “Jesus stood still,” which is a pretty good indicator that what he’s about to say or do is important.  And, I’m going to paraphrase a little here, to collapse the text just a little bit, so you can hear how St. Mark tells us what he tells us.  He says that “Jesus stood still and said ‘Call him here.’  And they called [him], saying… ‘he is calling you.’”

Did you hear that?  Jesus said, “Call him.”  And they called him, and said, “He is calling you.”

Call him.  So they called him and said, he’s calling you.  Ding!  Ding!  Ding!

This is not the story of a healing miracle.  This is the story of a call!

And I can prove it!  Because  in verse 52, after Jesus has said, “Go, your faith has made you well,” and immediately Bartimaeus regained his sight, he did not, in fact “go” to wherever it is he might have gone.  Rather, he responded to Jesus’ call.  St. Mark tells us that “immediately he regained his sight and followed [Jesus] on his way.”  Jesus called, and Bartimaeus followed.  And that was no miracle.  It was, rather, Bartimaeus following the one who had the power to change his life.

Call him.  So they called, and said, he’s calling you.  Jesus called; Bartimaeus followed.  As it happens, where they went was to Jerusalem, so that Jesus could give his life on the Cross.  And that’s not another story, but it is another chapter.

Now, what has this story of Bartimaeus’s call got to do with you and me?  Well, I can’t stand here and promise you a healing miracle in your life or the life of someone you love.  For reasons that God keeps to himself, examples of healing miracles have always been extremely rare.  But I can try to persuade you that Jesus has the power to change your life and that he is calling you, as he is calling me, too.

Today, if I’m listening to the Gospel message, if I’m reading Mark carefully, if I hear the little bell ringing, then it’s my job to point out to you that Jesus is calling you:  Call them, he says.  So I call to you: he’s calling you.  You don’t need to be blind to be in need of that call.  You only need to know you stand in need of mercy, that you need someone with the power to change your life.  Someone who could make you less anxious, less fearful, less selfish, less angry, less callous, less mean, less fragile, less despondent, less self-destructive, less brittle, less proud, less insecure, less unruly, less of whatever it is that puts you in need of God’s mercy.

Many of us these days don’t really know what to do with Jesus if we encounter him primarily as a miracle-worker of the distant past, whose fame depends on stories that frame the disabled as hapless victims, and whose followers for these many generations have been entirely unable to work miracles ourselves.  I mean, if all that happened to Bartimaeus was that his sight was restored, great, -  but what’s it got to do with us?

But, if this is really the story of a call that goes out to someone who knows themselves to be in need of mercy, and who knows that mercy is not much to be found elsewhere in the world, and who feels that it would be so much better if their life could be less unruly, and who might have been trying all kinds of other remedies, including self-medicating with God-knows-what; a call to anyone who is looking for real power to change, the power to change your life, then I think a lot of us have something to pay attention to!  Because the bell is still ringing, all these centuries later.  Call him.  So they called: he’s calling you.  Ding!  Ding!  Ding!

You may not be blind, and I may not be blind.  But, Lord, am I in need of mercy, aren’t you?!  Lord, is this whole world ever in need of mercy!  And since it is the God of love who brings mercy and healing in his wings, it comes, nearly always, with a call that you and I must answer before our lives will change.

And that’s why the story of Bartimaeus the blind beggar, has everything to do with you and me.  Because our lives are not especially in need of a miracle.  But we are in need of someone who has the power to change our lives, by the grace of his mercy.

How would we ever find such a One as this?  We don’t need to find him, for he is always finding us.  And he says, “Call them."  So I call: he’s calling you!

Ding!  Ding!  Ding!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
24 October 2021
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia

Service Is Perfect Freedom

“…the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”  (Mark 10:45)

Sometimes we have to ask ourselves: what is Jesus going on about?  These past weeks reading through chapters 9 and 10 of Mark’s Gospel should have provided ample opportunity for us to raise this question.  And here in church, we should feel free to put the question directly to Jesus: Jesus, what are you going on about?  Because Jesus has been pulling the rug out from under a lot that matters to most of us.

Back in chapter 9, when the disciples were arguing about which of them was the greatest, Jesus told them that they couldn’t vie for status, and still be fit for the kingdom of heaven.

Next he undermined their easy sense of self-righteousness when he wouldn’t let them interfere with good works being done by someone who was not following him.

Then, in no uncertain terms he knocked the stool out from under them if they thought they could evade personal responsibility for their decisions and actions when he told them, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off!

Next he attacked patterns of male dominance which came quite naturally to them, when he told them that God only allowed Moses to permit divorce because of their hardness of heart.

In blessing little children and telling his disciples that it is to children that the kingdom of God belongs, he  was reversing common power dynamics.

When he told them that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, he repudiated the supposed virtue of wealth and the wealthy, and he rejected the love of money.

Week after week, if you’ve been listening to the Gospel in church on Sundays, Jesus has been unsettling the priorities that make our world go ‘round.  And although many of us have heard these teachings before, like so much else, we have learned to rationalize and dismiss them.  Well, we say… Jesus didn’t really mean it the way it sounds.  And from pulpits to Bible study groups, we find ways to ‘splain all these teachings to one another in ways that avoid their real implications - namely, that if we were really listening to Jesus, if we were really learning from him, if we were really following him, we’d have to live our lives differently.

Today, we hear that James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are back at it, wondering what positions they will have in the court of honor when Jesus comes into his kingdom.  Jesus pulls another rug out from under them.  The rulers of the Gentiles, he says “lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.  But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”

Oh, Jesus, what are you on about?  How can we ‘splain this to you?  Don’t you know that we can evade your teaching a thousand different ways?

There are ways, I suppose, to ‘splain to one another that Jesus didn’t mean that real greatness is to be found in serving others… just as there are ways to ‘splain, I suppose, that when five thousand hungry people had gathered to hear him, and he said to his disciples, “You give them something to eat,” he didn’t actually mean, “You give them something to eat.” … just as there are ways to ‘splain, I suppose, that when he told them that his new commandment was to love one another as he had loved them, he didn’t actually mean that such love would extend to washing one another’s feet, even though he had just washed their feet on his hands and knees.  So maybe there is a way around hearing Jesus’ teaching that access to the kingdom of God is a function of servanthood.  I’m going to try to sit with that for a while and see what I come up with.  Maybe I can ‘splain it to myself and to you.  I don’t know.

But then Jesus really throws us for a loop, with what you’d have to call an apparent non-sequitur, when he adds to this teaching not only that the Son of Man (by which he means himself) came not to be served but to serve… but then, he adds “and to give his life a ransom for many.”  What’s that?  A ransom?  Jesus, what are you on about?  How am I going to ‘splain this?

Now, everybody knows that a ransom is what you pay, when you have a hostage situation on your hands.  And a hostage situation is one in which a person or persons are being held as surety to try to effect a particular outcome of a negotiation, normally under duress.  Definitions of the word “hostage” are actually quite nuanced, because the keeping and exchange of hostages was, in ages past, a part of diplomacy, and not, strictly speaking, a matter of criminal conduct.  But today, the taking of hostages is invariably considered a crime, very likely an act of terrorism.

And here, toward the end of a section of the Gospel in which Jesus has undermined all kinds of norms in society, he declares that he is a ransom for many.  But who is the hostage?  You see, there is no hostage situation here, never was. James and John were prattling on about the seat of honor.  So, Jesus, what are you going on about?  How are we to ‘splain your claim that you are a ransom for many?

It is a fact of modern life that you can be a hostage and not know it.  The fact that we live so much of our lives online means that we can easily be taken hostage electronically.  Hence: identity theft.  Hence: Russian hackers with organization names like EvilCorp and Dark Side (I kid you not).  Hence: ransomware.  Ransomware: a kind of malware (yes, malware: that is, software designed with malicious intent); ransomware is malware used to hold your electronic information (which usually means access to your money and/or your reputation) hostage until you pay a ransom.  You can be taken hostage without anyone ever laying a finger on you, and without even knowing it, until they tell you.

So, what is Jesus on about when, after trying to disrupt all our social norms, he says that he gives his life as a ransom for many?  Where’s the hostage?

Oh, twenty-first century American, says Jesus, have I been with you this long and still you have not learned that you can be taken hostage without even knowing it?  You, of all generations should have been able to understand this.  Do you not see how your status-driven, self-righteous, irresponsible, male-dominated, power-mad, money-hungry society has made you all hostages, without even knowing it?

No.  Nope.  Sorry, no.  We do not see that.  Let us ‘splain to you, Lord, that generally speaking, everything is just fine, as far as we are concerned.  There are no hostages here!  The role of hostage, implied by the language of ransom, is not one that most of us are ready to accept.  

In fact, the word that we hear translated as “ransom” had a very specific meaning in first century Palestine under Roman occupation, and it did not have to do with paying off kidnappers or hackers in order to free a hostage.  It is the word that was used for the money paid to buy the freedom of a slave.  It is the word for the price of freedom, not from some criminal act of kidnapping, but from being forced into servitude by a status-driven, self-righteous, irresponsible, male-dominated, power-mad, money-hungry society.

Now, if you are keeping track, this piece of information should be a little confusing, since Jesus has just held up servanthood as an ideal.  He has literally just said “whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”  And now, he says that he gives his life as ransom - as payment for the freedom of those held in slavery.  Jesus, what are you on about?

Now, look, you know that this is not the type of sermon I like to preach.  You know that I would rather tell you a story about foxes, or horses, or Oscar Wilde.  But you also know that I like, at just the right moment, an opportune turn of phrase.  And Thomas Cranmer provided one of the most densely compact an insightful turns of phrase in the Christian tradition, when he wrote what was essentially a flourish at the beginning of his Collect for Peace from Morning Prayer, and he addressed God as “the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom.”

“Whose service is perfect freedom.”  It sounds like a nice turn of phrase.  But in fact, it shows us in five words that Cranmer understood what Jesus was on about.  That Cranmer gave his life (martyred by his own church, his own queen) in order to deliver to us a phrase like this is further evidence that Cranmer knew what Jesus was on about.  Cranmer knew not only the freedom that came from choosing to serve the Lord Jesus, he also knew that he, like all of us, was a hostage in need of ransom, a slave to sin and to the world in need of freedom.  And Cranmer knew that he could never ‘splain this to us.  Instead, he packed an explanation into five words at the beginning of a prayer, addressing the Lord “whose service is perfect freedom.”  With these words, Cranmer shows us that he knew that our status-driven, self-righteous, irresponsible, male-dominated, power-mad, money-hungry society has made us all hostages in need of a ransom, slaves in need of freedom that would only come in the service of the Lord of love.

There is a great deal of machinery in this nation and throughout the world, working to keep you and me from understanding any of this.  There is a tremendous amount of advertising and marketing that does not want us to hear what Jesus really taught, since if we did, we would treat each other differently, and we would buy fewer things; if we really wanted to call ourselves Christians.  The result leaves us very uncomfortable when we hear all this teaching from Jesus, even for those of us called upon to preach the Gospel.  And so, we often find ways to ‘splain it to on another instead.  Which is to say, we find ways to pretend that Jesus’ teaching does not in fact, unsettle the priorities that make our world go ‘round, or disrupt our social norms.  We find ways to argue that we are not, in fact, participating in a status-driven, self-righteous, irresponsible, male-dominated, power-mad, money-hungry society that has made us all hostages.

But if that’s true, what was the point of Jesus?

The point of Jesus is to free us from the power of sin, from all that misery that makes us less than we are meant to be, and then to free us from even more: to free us even from the power of death.  That’s the point of Jesus.

No amount of ‘splaining can un-do the truth of that.  But all that ‘splaining can prevent us from ever knowing that were are hostages, which would also mean that we’d never know that we can be free… if we’d give our selves to the One whose service is perfect freedom.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
17 October 2021
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia