Saint Mark's Church

You may listen to Mother Takacs' sermon here.

Have you ever given a truly great gift? Not been given a truly great gift, but given a truly great gift? It’s a pretty amazing feeling. You know, there’s this one person in your family who is impossible to shop for – your brother, perhaps. He’s one of those annoying people who are truly content with the things they already have. He likes movies, but he already has all of his favorites. He loves music, but he says he has all the tunes he needs. He’s not all that into clothes, he doesn’t like cologne, he would never wear a man purse. He has already been given an iPhone and an iPad and a kindle. A kindle…and suddenly you’ve got it. There’s a book that would be perfect for him – something he’ll definitely like but that isn’t so obvious that he would have thought of it himself. Something within his interests but that will also stretch him just a bit. It’s perfect! And so you go buy it, and wrap it (yes, the real book, not the ebook version) and bear it proudly to his house on Christmas Day. You can’t wait for that moment when you get to give it to him and watch him unwrap it. You do have one brief moment when you worry that this gift is so perfect that maybe you’ve actually given it to him before, but when he tears off the wrapping and smiles in surprise and delight, all of your fears evaporate like mist in the sun. You are filled up from within, happy in his happiness, glowing with the sheer pleasure of giving.

What does it take to give a truly great gift? First of all, it requires really knowing the person you’re giving to. What does she like? What are her interests, her passions? What does she need for work or want for play? What does she already have? What kind of gift will be so perfect and yet so completely unexpected? What gift will cause her eyes to light up because it’s just so her? Who is she?

Of course, a great gift also has to take into account who she is to you. What is your relationship like? Are you close? New friends, old friends? What kinds of conversations have you had, what kinds of things do you like to do together? What moments and memories have deep meaning for both of you? Who is she to you?

And any person who has given a really great gift will tell you that it takes a while to sift through all of these questions. It takes time to come up with just the right gift. While the answer may come in a flash of inspiration, it usually has taken some effort to get there. You’ve had to go round and round in your mind, thinking and mulling and pondering, before you stumble upon The Great Gift, before you recognize that wonderful thing that will be just perfect for her, especially coming from you.

Tonight is a night of great gifts. A child has been born, a son has been given. Tonight we recall together the journey of wise men from the East to the sleepy hamlet of Bethlehem, to the house of Joseph and Mary and the child Jesus. And we remember how these magi fell on their knees before this child, how they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts – magnificent, wonderful, truly great gifts. These gifts showed that the wise men knew who Jesus was; he was Messiah, the anointed one, and so they gave him precious, costly gifts that were fit for one who would someday wear a crown. But these gifts also showed that the wise men knew who Jesus was to them. Gold for the king of kings who would rule over them, over all nations, with justice and mercy. Frankincense for the great High Priest who would serve as their intercessor and offer forgiveness of sins and the bread of life to all people.  And myrrh for the one whose sacrifice would offer them a new life in God and redeem the entire world.

And of course we know that the wise men had to make a great journey to this great moment of gift-giving. They had to walk, and ride, and sweat, and ache, and wander round and round in the wilderness to come upon the answer. I wonder when they knew what gifts they would bring.  Did the answer come upon them mid-journey in a flash of inspiration, coming only after long hours of hunching over a camel’s back, fighting off the sickening false sweetness of Herod’s smile, and staring, always staring, up at the skies? Or was it only when they reached their journey’s end that they knew for certain, knew in that sure place of truth-telling in the base of their gut, that their gifts were right for this child and this moment? Whenever it was that they stumbled upon these great gifts, they knew them when they saw them and offered them on their knees under the light of a star. And they were filled up with that holy light, shining with joy to have made just the right offering, to have given a truly great gift.

What gift will you give to Jesus? He is not, of course, an easy person to shop for. He is immensely satisfied with what he already has. He never worries about what he will eat or what he will drink, or about his body, what he will put on. You’ve heard him talk about the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and so you’ve silently crossed the bottle of Veuve-Clicquot and the gift card to Abercrombie & Fitch off of your list. What book would you buy him that he doesn’t already know, what music would you offer him that he hasn’t already sung? What do you get for the man who not only has everything, he made everything? We may have a pretty good idea of who he is, and who he is to us. We may have even journeyed far to get to him, passing through the joys and sorrows of life, making up time after the left turns and the backtracking and the missteps that have led us away from him. But even at the end of all of this, what gift can we possibly offer him?

The answer is that I don’t know the answer – for you. But I have the sneaking suspicion that right now, the answer, for you, is one thing. There is one thing in your life that has been pulling at your attention, one thing that nudges your soul each time you pray. One thing – one great gift that you haven’t yet offered to Christ. It is not the same thing for each of us. My gift is not the same as yours, and both of our gifts might change next month. But let’s not worry about next month or the person sitting next to you in the pew or standing in the pulpit. Let’s just worry about you, right now, kneeling before this little tiny child. What gift can you give him?

Perhaps, like the kings, you have something of great value to offer him. Perhaps your gift is money to help fund the ministry and mission of this Church in Christ’s name. Maybe your great gift is the gift of your talent – maybe you have no gift to bring that’s fit to give a King, but you can play your drum for him, or sing a song for him, or paint or dance or write or build something for him. Maybe you are like Amahl from the opera Amahl and the Night Visitors and your gift is that one thing in your life that is a kind of surrogate support, that crutch without which you think you can’t possibly stand. Maybe your gift is the gift of friendship and mentoring to a student at the St. James School. Maybe if you were a shepherd, you would bring a lamb, and if you were a wise man, you would do your part, but what you can you give him, give him your heart. Or maybe Christ already has your heart, and now you want to give him your hands. Maybe your great gift is the gift of your time and your energy. Maybe your gift is trust. Maybe it is the gift of holy listening or of prayerful conversation. Maybe it is the gift of speaking Christ’s name in the world, of telling your story, his story, the Gospel story. Maybe it is your repentance, your forgiveness, your love.

And maybe you don’t feel like you have anything to give at all. Maybe you feel like you don’t belong at this cradle, that you’re an imposter, that surely you’ve followed the wrong star. Maybe you feel like a Gentile kneeling at the foot of a Jewish Messiah. If you do, fear not, you’re in good company. “Lift up your eyes and look around,” Isaiah says to you, “they all gather together.” We all come here at the feet of this holy child, Gentiles and Jews, rich and poor, white and black, gay and straight, men and women, and we all belong, not because of who we are, but because of who he is. And so we all have a great gift to give him, a gift that shows who Jesus is and who he is to us. So offer your gift before him – your perfect, truly great gift. “Then,” the prophet says, “you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice.” Then a “new light [will] shine in our hearts,” a light that will reveal God’s “glory in the face of [His] Son Jesus Christ.” And that light that glows from the sheer pleasure of giving is itself a gift, because it is the gift of proclamation, of witness to the entire world. And that is exactly what Jesus has always wanted. 

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

The Feast of the Epiphany

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

You may listen to Mother Tackas' sermon here.

For many years now, I have been searching for a nativity. I’ve never had a nativity set of my own, and I have yet to find one that I really like. Part of the problem, I think, is that I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for. When I was a child, my family had a very simple white ceramic nativity that my mother had made. It was quite small, with just the figures of Mary, Joseph, Jesus lying in the manger, and one angel keeping watch. This nativity always seemed very pure and precious to me, and we put it out year after year even after the baby Jesus lost an arm somewhere in his journey to or from the attic in the Christmas boxes. Now my grandmother also had a ceramic nativity set, but hers was far grander and more ornate, in bright, bold colors with tall, intricately-painted wise men and shepherds and all. And I like both of these sets, but I’m not sure which kind I’d like for myself? Do I want something rich and romantic and Renaissance-y, like the crèche here at Saint Mark’s? Or do I want something simple and minimalistic? Or what about something rustic and hand carved, like the olivewood sets from the Holy Land? I just don’t know! I know I can certainly cross some nativities off my list, like some of those I’ve seen floating around the internet this week – the supercute “kittycat” nativity, for example, or the set that depicts Mary and Joseph as emperor penguins. I can do without the Irish nativity where everyone is decked all in green; I can definitely do without the nativity made of carved butter, or – the worst! – the all-meat nativity, with a manger made of bacon that cradles a tiny swaddled sausage. One hopes that the sausage is turkey sausage at least….

Well, one thing is for certain – in my search for a nativity set, I will almost certainly end up with a set that depicts the nativity stories from both the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew. I’ll want a set that has Luke’s shy shepherds and singing angels…and Matthew’s wise men from the East that I can move closer and closer to the cradle as we approach the Feast of the Epiphany just like we do here in church. I’ll want it all – the shepherds and the wise men and the stable and the hay – even though Jesus was probably really born in a cave and laid in a hewn-out stone drinking trough and even though the shepherds and wise men don’t actually appear in the same story in the Bible. Doesn’t matter – I may not know what I want my nativity to look like, but I know that I want everybody to be there. I want the whole story – the whole picture.

But is this really the whole story? Do the nativities of Luke and Matthew really show us the complete picture? And the answer – somewhat surprisingly – is no. Because there is another nativity story, here in the prologue to the Gospel of John. You have to search for this nativity, you have to dig around for it a bit, but it is most certainly there. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” There is the story of the nativity in John’s language, spoken in poetry, clothed in mystery. But how does this story add to our image of the nativity? What does John’s nativity look like?

Well, first of all, it’s big. Really big. It is the entire universe, in the beginning, black as pitch and without form, where the earth is “wild and waste” and darkness moves over the face of the deep. And into that darkness, God speaks a Word, a Word that has always been on the tip of God’s tongue, a Word that is God. “Y’hi or” (because in our nativity God always speaks in Hebrew)….and suddenly and miraculously, there is light. There, in the center, one single flame, burning its way into the darkness, even though the darkness, which is always so self-absorbed, doesn’t even notice that something new has been born. And that light continues to burn, bright and steady, as the years go by and the scene in our nativity changes from a garden to a wilderness to a promised land, as prophets and kings and mothers enter our nativity and leave it again, as a temple is built there and is destroyed and another built in its place. And in the midst of all of this, the light burns, with a constant, and faithful, and righteous light. Sometimes men and women walk into the center of our nativity, point to the light and say, “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord” and “Behold, a virgin shall conceive!” Sometimes others pay attention to them and sometimes not. And still the light burns. Until finally, after centuries of shining into the darkness, the light in the center of our nativity is surrounded by other words and other lights, as the glow of the angel Gabriel settles around a young girl named Mary, and he speaks to her words of promise and hope and challenge: “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.” And the light shines on a woman with bowed head who says, “Be it unto me according to your word.” And the Word is made flesh and grows in her womb, and is born this day in the city of David, Christ the Lord.

This is the nativity of John – a nativity so enormous that it encompasses the entire universe – every shining star, every nebula and supernova. It is a nativity so complete that it shows us the entire scope of history, down to each prayer, each breath, each blade of grass. And yet, for all of its cosmic immensity, it still leads us to the same place, to a tiny, simple manger – to God’s choice, God’s infinitely mysterious, inexplicably generous choice to take on a human life to redeem you and me. This is the magnitude of this morning, this is what we kneel before at this crèche – a nativity that is precious but also powerful, beautiful but also terrifying, simple and pure and majestic and mighty. This is the nativity of John, of Luke and Matthew, of Mary and Joseph and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and in this nativity we find what we’ve all been searching for, the eternal Word made flesh, God among us, a babe in a manger, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

Christmas Day 2011

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

You may listen to Mother Erika's sermon here.

How do you make something pink?  Well, it depends on what the “something” is, of course, but the easiest way to make pink is to start with something white and add in a little red. For example, you can start with a palate of white oil paints and swirl in just the tiniest crimson drop. You can shine a red stage light overtop of a white one. You can squeeze one pinch of red food coloring into cream cheese frosting. You can place a fresh, white carnation into a vase filled with red-tinted water. And there are other ways to make pink. You can add more water to wash out a red watercolor. You can leave your favorite red t-shirt in the wash with your white socks. You can walk your own little nose outside on a cold day, or press and pinch your lips together like before a ball in a Jane Austin novel. You can suck on a candy cane until all of the stripes run together, or you can tell your new love how beautiful she looks in the candlelight and watch her cheeks begin to glow.

But how do you make a Sunday pink? Well, you start by taking out these stunningly beautiful vestments. Then you arrange beautiful pink roses and light the third candle in the Advent wreath. And you might imagine that all of this pink comes from starting with some white and adding a bit of red to it – taking the white of the resurrection that we celebrate each week on this, the Lord’s Day, and mixing in a splash of Holy Spirit red, a drop of that “Spirit of the Lord” from today’s lesson from Isaiah. But the more proper, liturgically correct way to think about the color of this Sunday is that we start with the deep violet of Advent and add in a drop of incarnation white, one pure white dewdrop of Christmas morning, to create the color rose.

The real question, though, is not how you make a Sunday pink – or rose – but why you make a Sunday pink. What is the purpose of all this rose on this third Sunday of Advent? Many of you will know that the name “Gaudete” Sunday comes from the first word of the ancient Introit appointed for today: Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete, or, “Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, Rejoice!” This text from Paul’s letter to the Philippians has served as the opening scripture for this service for centuries, and it reminds us, right at the midpoint of this season, of the Advent we are preparing for – the Advent of the light of the world, the coming of the Word made flesh, God incarnate, Jesus Christ. And why would we not rejoice in that happy reminder? “For Christ is coming, is coming soon, and night shall be no more. We’ll need no light, nor lamp, nor sun, for Christ will be our all.” In the middle of this Advent season of waiting, preparation, waiting, looking, watching, and again I say waiting, this Rose Sunday reminds us to wait with a smile on our lips and a song in our heart. Like its twin in Lent called Laetare Sunday, Gaudete Sunday in Advent reminds us not to let the burden of heavy violet become so great that we cannot still dance. Gaudete Sunday opens a door in this season of solemn preparation and lets a fresh breeze blow through, warmed by the morning sun and sweetened by the scent with roses. 

But here we must be careful – because while Gaudete Sunday is about the easing of the violet Advent solemnity, it is not necessarily easy. The rejoicing of this day is not simple. We do not rejoice this day because everything is fine and life is perfect – we rejoice because God tells us to. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” This is God’s will for you, says the apostle Paul – to rejoice all the time, to pray all the time, and to give thanks all the time. But there is nothing easy about this. How can we rejoice all the time? How can we possibly rejoice when we hear about entire populations decimated by famine in Africa? How can we rejoice when Syrians are killed for speaking their minds and fighting for freedom? How can we rejoice when a police officer is killed and an entire college campus held hostage by one disturbed man with a gun? How can we rejoice to hear tale after tale of the sexual abuse of children, of the bullying and persecution of gays and lesbians, of the rising suffering of the poor in this country? How can we rejoice when we are newly diagnosed or dying, when we have sinned greatly and caused the one we love terrible pain, or when the sound of sleighbells and the smell of gingerbread this time of year remind us that we are all alone? How can we rejoice in the face of all of the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives and prisoners and those who mourn? Rejoice always? Bah, humbug.

But I have met someone who does rejoice always. When I met Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and heard him speak, I saw a man filled with a kind of joy unlike any I have ever seen. Now I cannot say for certain how he got to be that way, but my suspicion is this: that Desmond Tutu understands that these three imperatives of Paul must go together – rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all things. These three commands support each other – take out one piece and the whole tower falls. I have only met Desmond Tutu twice in my life – once at Christ Church, Alexandria, and once at Virginia Seminary. He came to Christ Church to attend a reception for the clergy resident program of which I was a part, which just happened to be on my first day on the job – wow! But what I remember more than anything else about that day was that upon arriving at Christ Church that afternoon, Archbishop Tutu immediately went into the church to pray. He stayed in a pew for hours that afternoon, kneeling, in T.S. Eliot’s words, “where prayer had been valid” for hundreds of years. It was only when the Archbishop was finished with his prayers that he came in for the reception. Pray without ceasing.

It is this foundation of prayer, this running dialogue with God, that allows Desmond Tutu to live into the other two imperatives. Because, although he is a man who has seen suffering like most of us will never see, Desmond Tutu is also a man who almost literally glows with gratitude. When I saw him speak at the seminary, he practically danced around in his 75-year-old bones as he spoke to us of the love of God. He cupped his hands like this and said something like:  “What a wonder to think that God is holding you in his hands right now…just like this…and that God chooses to breathe life into you at every moment.” And then he blew into his hands, and looked up at us, his eyes twinkling. “Imagine!” he said, “If he were to stop – poof! – we would be gone. But he doesn’t stop – he keeps breathing into us every second of every day.” And he stood before us, grinning like a fool and bouncing up and down like a child on Christmas morning. Give thanks for all things, starting with the air you breathe, and rejoice.

Archbishop Tutu’s life, I think, also shows us how not to live out Paul’s imperatives. We are not to rejoice always by just pretending everything is okay, by imagining that there is no violet in the world and looking only for the roses. We are not to rejoice because we have blinders on, just as we are not to give thanks just because things could be worse. This is certainly not how Desmond Tutu has lived his life, nor is it how Paul lived his. Both men saw true evil in the world, experienced real pain and persecution, and yet were able to rejoice and give thanks anyway. Because of their practice of prayer, because of their constant conversation with God, they learned how to be grateful for the way God transformed their pain, used the difficult things in life to draw them in closer. And that gave them the strength to transform the world.

Our practice of daily prayer accomplishes the same thing – in our prayer, we begin to be able to rejoice in all things because we can know God’s grace and can see God’s blessings poured out over all things. So, as difficult as it is, we can give thanks, say, for an illness – not because it could be worse but isn’t, but because it reminds us of our dependence on God alone, softens our hearts, helps us to hold onto this life loosely and to keep our eyes fixed on the things eternal. In the same way our prayer gives us the strength to rejoice in the face of bigotry, violence, hatred, and crushing poverty because we see the bigotry, violence, hatred, and poverty and choose to do something about them. We can greatly rejoice in the LORD, for he has clothed us with the garments of salvation and the robes of righteousness; anointed us to bring good news, to bind up, to proclaim liberty to captives of all kinds. Rejoice, pray, give thanks, because the light has come, is come, and will come again, and in that light God has sent us to transform the world. This is not easy. It is hard work. It requires discipline, practice, and preparation. Rose Sunday is as demanding a task as the rest of violet Advent. But it is also as much of a gift as the rest of violet Advent; it is what God desires of us, it is the work that God sanctifies in us. So go – rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks for all things. Get to work being joyful – put on your pink.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

11 December 2011

St. Mark's Church, Philadelphia   

You may listen to this sermon here.

There once was a man who was in a line. He was not a dot; he was part of a line. But his line was not a line of hope, nor was it a line of fear – it was just a line. A queue, actually, in a grey, empty town “by the side of a long, mean street.” The man was the narrator of C.S. Lewis’s little book The Great Divorce, and he had queued up, like any good Brit would do, in a long line to wait for a bus. When the bus arrived, he got on and, like any good Anglican would do, took a seat near the very back. After a moment, the bus started out… and rose up off of the ground, carrying its passengers up and away into the sky. For you see, the man was dead, the bus stop had been in hell, and the bus was taking him to heaven.

As they flew, the man looked out the window and saw nothing but more and more grey, empty town. He asked the person sitting next to him why there were so few people down there. He was told that in fact, there were many people living in the city; it’s just that they all lived on the very outskirts of town, as far away from one another as they could. You see, in hell, you simply had to think up a new house, a few more blocks down the road, and it would appear. So if you had an argument with your neighbor, you just imagined a house a little further away, and – voila! – there it was. And of course people kept arguing, and the town kept getting bigger and bigger. The oldest residents of hell, Genghis Khan and Napoleon and the like, lived millions of miles away from the bus stop – so far away that the man on the bus would never be able to see their homes, even from high up in the sky. Hell, the man discovers, is a place of infinite separation; to be in hell is to be divided, one from another, again and again and again.

C.S. Lewis’s vision of hell is an utterly modern depiction – not a kingdom of fire and brimstone, not Dante’s world of frozen stillness, but a place of emptiness and of complete and utter disconnection. It’s brilliant, actually, because I think this exactly the hell that we fear – being out of the loop, separated and scattered. Why else would we spend so much time and money getting “connected” with new smartphones and easier wireless access? Why else do we feel the need to check philly.com five times a day, to constantly update our twitter feed, to text while walking? Because we are scared, terrified, shaking in our Uggs, that we might someday find ourselves alone on a grey, empty street, with no one and nothing in sight.

But of course, these means of being “connected” are simply surrogates for the real thing. And we know this. We know that we cannot satisfy our need for communion simply by owning the right equipment. We know deep in our being that an email is not the same as a handwritten note, that writing “Happy birthday, buddy!” on someone’s Facebook page is not the same as sending a card, that texting is not the same as a phone call, and that none of these is the same as actually standing face to face, watching someone’s face as she talks, looking into her eyes, breathing the same air. We know this, and yet we still allow ourselves to be led astray by the false promises of the world with all of its stuff. We fall in line behind those who tell us that true connection can be easy and effortless and as fast as 4G. But the longer we follow this path, the more we realize that we are, in fact, moving further and further away from our neighbors, and soon we’re living on the outskirts of our own life, divided from all meaning and all connection by the sin of separation. Because it’s hard to love God, neighbor, or yourself when you feel millions of miles away from everything.

This is where God’s people find themselves in the book of Ezekiel. They are scattered all over the place, utterly disconnected from each other and from God. They had been counting on their leaders to hold them together, but their leaders, these shepherds of Israel, have made a real wreck of things. They haven’t done a thing to care for their sheep; they haven’t fed them or healed them or kept them safe. And the sheep, broken and hungry and suffering, have wandered off and abandoned the flock. They are fighting among themselves. Some are lean and some are fat, and they are all separated and lonely and anxious. They are, in a word, in hell. Finally, God looks down on this mess and says, enough. The false shepherds are finished. “I myself will search for my sheep,” God says; I myself “will seek them out.” No longer will God use a surrogate shepherd. God Himself will go and get the people; God himself will find the lost and bring them to good pasture, bind up the wounded, feed the hungry. God has taken over; God will personally restore His kingdom, where all people are gathered in and cared for, where all people feed and rest together on one mountain, breathing the same air, and following one shepherd.

And that gathering is still going on. Here, in our worship, week after week, God seeks us out and draw us in, takes scattered sheep and makes them a flock, takes individual dots and makes them a line. Where else on earth are people gathered and fed, assembled and cared for, called together and offered rest like they are in church on Sunday morning? Where else in the world do all kinds of people – youth and old, rich and poor, the weak and the hungry and the sinners and the broken – sit together in the same pasture, look into each other’s eyes, breathe the same air and know themselves to be connected in the way that we are here? This, right here, is God’s gathering, God’s holy kingdom. Our worship creates the connection that God desires for us, the connection that we are all so desperate to find. It is not quick, and it is not effortless, but it is real. There is no need for surrogate shepherds or cell phones, only the single shepherd, Christ the King, who gathers us in, and connects us to ourselves, to our neighbors, and to our God.

And so I ask you: why in the world would we ever miss this? Why in the world would we ever choose not to come to worship on Sunday morning? And I do mean “we,” because I’ve been as guilty as anyone of hitting the snooze button and making the executive decision to attend the church of the Holy Comforter by the Springs. (Get it?) And we’re not alone. Churches everywhere – including Saint Mark’s – are seeing decreased attendance on Sunday mornings. Generally, fewer people are going to church, and, specifically, fewer churchgoers are going every week. More and more people are choosing brunch, or the Sunday New York Times, or family time or a field hockey game over weekly worship. I don’t think this means that we’ve stopped seeking deep connections; I just think it means that we’ve forgotten where to find them. We forget how wondrous and miraculous this gathering is; we forget that this is where our deepest connections are made, where our deepest hungers are satisfied by the richest food. We forget what a gift of gathering this worship is. Why in the world would we ever miss this?

And we also know, of course, that this – our worship – is not the end of the story. Today’s Gospel makes it very clear that after being gathered in, we are to go out from this place and to keep watch for the Christ that we have met here – to look for him in the faces of the poor and in the prisoner and in the hungry. To quote that great old sermon Our Present Duty by the Anglo-Catholic Bishop Frank Weston, “You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the Tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slum.” But we must not forget that in order to pity Jesus in the slum we must also worship Him in the Tabernacle. Because it is here that we study his face so that we can see it in the least of these. It is here that we learn true connection again and again, that we learn what true love really feels like, so that we can recognize the real thing when we see it and fight to keep it, no matter what. It is in this place, on this very day, that God has gathered us in, connected us deeply one to another in the bread and the wine. It is in this worship that God help us to find our neighbors, and it is from this font that God will grow our flock today with the baptism of Nico and Claire. Why would we ever miss that? I mean, it’s just like…heaven.

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

20 November 2011 - Christ the King

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

In September of 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, made a short film and posted it on the internet. The video isn’t particularly beautiful or well-produced; it’s just a head-on, somewhat grainy shot of the couple sitting in a booth in a noisy restaurant. But this little home movie started a revolution. In the video, Dan and Terry talk about growing up as gay men, about how excruciating it was to be bullied, and beat up by their school peers, about how difficult it was to be rejected by their families. Then they talk about their lives now –about how they found each other, how they found acceptance from each other’s families, how they found a beautiful son to adopt as their own, how they found themselves living lives that were and are full of love. It is a heartening story. But the truly revolutionary thing about all this is not what they were talking about, but who they were talking to. Dan and Terry made this video specifically for people they had never met – young people in the GLBT community, so many of whom find themselves depressed or even suicidal because of constant and merciless ridicule and abuse. Dan and Terry made their video to offer hope to these teens; they wanted to tell these young people – indeed, all people – that life will not always be so hard, that they can and will find support and love, that it gets better. And their simple video was so powerful that other people wanted to reach out and make their own, and soon Dan and Terry had so many videos that they had to start hosting them on their own website – and a movement was born.

If you haven’t been to the “It Gets Better” website, I invite you (grown-ups) to check it out. There are thousands of videos there from people all over the world, each with the same message – that no matter what you are suffering right now, no matter why you’re being excluded or teased or tormented, it gets better. Some of the people in the videos are gay, some straight, some are celebrities, politicians, or religious leaders. President Obama made a video, as did Bishop Gene Robinson, as did General Motors and the Phillies and even Kermit the Frog, who describes with detailed vulnerability the moment he finally realized that he was green. 

But the most powerful videos, I think, are the ones created by ordinary folks. These are people who just set up a video camera at home and talked about their lives – moments of struggle, moments of grace, moments when they thought they could no longer go on, and then the moments that made them grateful that they had decided to live. There is rarely anything particularly new or earthshattering in these videos. The people in them do not tell you how things are going to get better, and they certainly don’t say that things won’t sometimes get worse. They are just people, sitting down and telling their stories, painting a picture of the world as it can be, sharing a vision of the world as it should be. They smile, they laugh, and they offer hope and reassurance that the current moment is not the end of the story. Again and again they say, it gets better.

In the 5^th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus sits down in front of his disciples and tells a story. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. With these powerfully comforting words, Jesus paints a picture of the world as it will be, a vision of the kingdom of God as it truly is. He offers hope and reassurance to all of his followers that no matter what they might be suffering right now, no matter how difficult things may be, it will not always be thus. Follow him; it gets better. The kingdom of heaven awaits them, where they will be richly rewarded.

But notice that Jesus does not tell his followers that they will be blessed. You will be blessed when you’re hungry because you will be filled. You will – eventually – be blessed when you show mercy or make peace. No, for Jesus and his followers, the blessing happens now. Jesus’ disciples are blessed now, in the present, why? Because they know what the future looks like. They have seen Christ’s vision of the kingdom of heaven, where all are comforted and fed and called children of God, and just seeing this vision, just hearing this story, blesses them now. They see what is to come and so they know that the present moment is not the end of the story. Jesus’ mountaintop proclamations change the disciples’ lives now; they are already blessed, because they know that it gets better.

Telling the story of the future matters. Bearing witness to the promise that it gets better is one of the greatest gifts that we human beings can give one another. And this is not only because that witness reassures us that our lives will be better in that far-off, great gettin’-up mornin’, not only because the hope of future happiness helps us to suffer through our lives in a grit-your-teeth-and-bear-it kind of way, but because the gift of that promise blesses us now. Dan Savage knows that. He knows that hearing stories of hope can change lives now. And Jesus, of course, knows that too. The great difference is, of course, that Jesus can tell us how things are going to get better. Through his own incarnation, death, and resurrection, Jesus shows us the way. All we need do is look. Jesus makes things better, no matter who we are, no matter how we’ve suffered, no matter what we’ve done, no matter how dark the world might seem. It all gets better, because Christ makes it so.

This is what we celebrate here on this All Saints’ Day – that there is more to this life than simply the here and now. This great Feast of the Church reminds us again of what our future looks like in the kingdom of God. In this feast, we recollect all of the Saints who have come before, all of those holy women and men who have been through the great gift and ordeal of life. We recall their stories of rejoicing and suffering and loving and enduring. And we reaffirm that all of those Saints still are, that they now sit before the throne of God, worshipping him day and night, that they hunger no more and thirst no more, and that God has wiped away every tear from their eyes. And in this remembering, in this recollection, in this recalling and reaffirmation, we recognize that we are all made one, past, present, and future, Saints in heaven and on earth, “knit together into the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord.” Thank God for the gift of this story, for the hopeful witness of the Saints. Thank God that we know their stories and that in those stories we hear the Saints saying to us again and again, It gets better.        

But thanking God is not enough. Being grateful is not enough. Because you and I also have a story to tell. We have a picture to paint, a vision to share that the world desperately needs to hear. Our story is the greatest gift that we can offer to another human being. For we know what glories the future holds – the hungry will be fed, the dead will be raised, the meek will inherit the earth, and there will be peace like a river. We lift up our voices to heaven and sing that lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day; the saints triumphant rise in bright array; the King of glory passes on his way. Alleluia. What better gift could we offer to the world than the chance to know the wonders of the kingdom of heaven, to sing as one with those who shine in glory, to see this great vision glorious. So celebrate with us – sing these hymns and come to the altar and embrace this hope and be changed…now. And then sit down and share this story with someone else. Tell them of your life, tell them of your hope, tell them how tonight we sing with joy because we know that not only will it get better, it already is.

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

1 November 2011

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia