Saint Mark's Church

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Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord.... 

It is darkness, not light;

  as if someone fled from a lion,

  and was met by a bear.  (Amos 5:18-19)

The yard around St. Paul’s Cathedral in London has been occupied for the past several weeks by an encampment of protesters, similar to the camp that has sprung up around City Hall, here in Philadelphia.  The occupiers, who are a grubby group, by and large, have posted signs in London declaring that “Capitalism is crisis,” warning, “Rich beware, your days are numbered,” and of course, proclaiming that “We are the 99%.”  The legitimacy of the protest has been questioned by some because, late at night, thermal imaging suggests that many of the tents are unoccupied, leading some to suspect that the protesters prefer to go home to their warm, comfy beds, than to actually occupy – 24/7 – a segment of the City of London.  I’m sure I don’t know.

I do know that the leadership of Saint Paul’s, working hand-in-glove with the leadership of the City, deemed the protesters to be the greatest threat to the cathedral since the German bombs of World War II, prompting them to close the cathedral for nearly a week, before the embarrassment of such prissy precaution forced the resignation of the Dean and the re-opening of Christopher Wren’s famous landmark, whose neo-classical design I have always thought more suitable for banks than churches, anyway.  (But I digress.)

I have walked among the pitched tents at City Hall, a few blocks from here, and I must say I found the whole thing underwhelming.  There is almost nothing attractive to be found there; it does not lend the appearance of youthful idealism to the city, or even resurgent hippie-ness.  The only person I ran into whom I knew was a homeless woman who has never been on the winning side of her ongoing struggle with drug addiction, sad to say.  There was not much to inspire the heart as I walked through the encampment, but for just that reason, you had to be impressed that people were continuing to stick it out in what is anything but a utopian environment.

I have a theory that may be crazy.  My theory is this: most people want to be rich.  In America we are supposed to take this for granted, but as Christians we seldom talk about it; this is problematic.  In my Bible I keep stumbling upon this question on the lips of Jesus: "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?"  This rhetorical question is in line with Jesus' teaching that if you want to gain your life you have to lose it; if you want to be first you need to put yourself last; that you should let someone else take the more prominent seat at a dinner; that to be his disciple you must take up your cross (which is almost never pleasant) and follow him. Although we read this stuff in church, none of this really sounds like a good idea to most of us who profess to be Christians.  To the question, "What would it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his life?" Our implied answer is, "I'm not sure, but I'd be very interested in finding out." That is to say, I would rather be rich than follow your teachings, O Lord of the Universe.

So my theory is that most people want to be rich, or at least they think they want to be rich.  In America you can get fabulously, stinking, obscenely rich, and, what's more, you can make sure everyone knows how rich you are, which is part of the benefit of being rich.

I sometimes find myself wondering about the kind of wealth that has been amassed by certain people in this country.  I mean, after a few billion, what's the point, I'd say, in my warped way.   Until I remember that people have a thirst for power as well as money, and in our world money = power.  So even though you can't really do much more with, say, $10 billion than you could with, say, $5 billion, if you have $10 billion you are de facto twice as powerful as some schlub with only $5 billion, which, if you are in Russia, or China, or maybe even America, is important, because, well, it's better to be powerful than weak.

(I will not introduce here St. Paul's astounding revelation from the voice of Christ that his (ie Christ's) power is made perfect in weakness, because most Christians prefer to ignore this mysterious and counter-intuitive teaching, so why shouldn't I?)

Back when we had stunted imaginations, so many Americans thought the best they could do in the way of riches was to, say, own a house with a dishwasher, and a second car, and not be embarrassed by the way your kid looked in the clothes you dressed him or her in to go to school. Let's put this in shorthand - most people's imagination of richness extended only so far as being better off than their (very-likely immigrant) parents, and maybe not getting killed in a war (that would be good too, a sort of bonus, but that’s another sermon).

But time marches on and does its amazing thing. Here are some of the things time did in America.  Time watched the quality of public education (which had been a key to accomplishing the aforementioned goals of prosperity) decline dramatically, especially in urban areas; time watched manufacturing in America disappear; time watched saving in America turn into borrowing in America.

And time watched the so-called wisdom of the so-called markets decide that it was wise to create markets in which you didn't have to do anything but come up with new and convoluted ideas of how to get money to make money on its own, on paper, without the hassle of actually, like, making or doing or producing and selling something. This seemed like an especially good idea to people's whose bonuses (on which they got taxed at a lower rate than their much smaller salary) would be, shall we say, astronomically big at the end of the year, as long as paper kept making money, on paper. Yippee!

Now, what could be better than sitting back and getting rich because some of my money, on paper, made me some more money, on paper?  If compensation tells you anything, almost nothing could be better than this - not healing the sick, not teaching your kids how to read, not even defending you in court. The huge rise in financiers' compensation is a direct reflection of how much we, as a society, value this alchemy - the ability to make money with money on paper - more than we value nearly any other skill.

Remember, after all, most people want to be rich, want to "gain the whole world."  And we have created this society in which we put on display anyone who is able to get rich - we call this celebrity, which is no longer confined to movie stars, now it's also ballplayers (even if they don't win) and talk show hosts, and, lottery winners, and their counterparts: reality show stars, which is really just winning another kind of lottery.  The ne plus ultra, of this cultural lottery is, of course, winning American Idol, which allows you to become rich and famous in the span of one short TV season - yippee!  This is what we want to be: American Idols: rich and famous - fast!

Now, we know that some people work hard to get pretty rich, but we also know that some people just get lucky (sorry Winkelvoss twins, some people don’t). This is why I know what an IPO is - because implanted in my mind is the distant notion that I (who have no business ever getting involved in an IPO) could get rich if only I was in early on the right Initial Public Offering of stock.

All this is to say that we have decided that not only is there nothing wrong with being fabulously rich (sorry, French revolutionaries, you can keep your liberté, egalité and fraternité), we have decided that democracy rightly leads to the possibility that anyone at all has the right to do what they want in the pursuit of wealth; that, in fact, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are only second-rate stand-ins for money.

Put it another way, we actually believe that money does buy happiness, and we are looking for some serious happiness therapy.

Put it another way: most of us would very much like to know what it would profit us to gain the whole world, please, but with as little effort and in as little time as possible.

Now, because of this not-so-latent desire to be rich, and the expectation that it is somehow reasonable to think that I could be fabulously rich without being born to money, working especially hard, or selling all my organs, I have taken my pitchfork out of the garage and buried it deep in the backyard somewhere.  It's true that once my forebears would have grabbed their pitchforks and stormed a castle, (or a gated community, or an Upper East Side town house, or Bryn Mawr) to demand, say, a honest day's pay for an honest day's work, to see to it that a sick child got decent medical treatment, or to defend the small plot of land they had to till in order to harvest enough tubers to get through the winter.  But no one wants an American Idol with a menacing pitchfork in his hand, so many of us have buried those implements of outrage in the backyard.

Meanwhile, we are distracted by the shiny things we can easily afford at Wal-Mart despite that fact that our wages have not increased meaningfully in 30 years.  We don't care, we’re waiting for the IPO, or the lottery, or American Idol!  And while we wait we have a big-screen TVs!  And the most wonderful processed foods!  Life may not be perfect but our needs are met almost as quickly as we are told what they are!

By now you surely think I am crazy, that I have lost it.  But we are living in a nation in which I hear people vociferously arguing against their best interests all the time, in which people foolishly think that corporations, in the end, will represent the best interests of the people, but the government, in the end, can't possibly be interested in the best interests of the people.  And this, in the city where the entire bold and beautiful idea of American democratic government was hatched!  But somehow we have been convinced by the narrative that the marketplace cares about our well-being.  Maybe because of how much I love my iPhone, which seems to be meeting my needs so beautifully, as long as my needs are not, say, nutrition or healthcare or education.

And so, although every indication around us shows that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and the middle is a lot further away from the top than it used to be, but not so far away from the bottom, we live in a society where people who hope to be rich deride the grubby people who may or may not be sleeping in their tents as they wage a protest against this widening gap between those have and those who have not.

But I still wonder if there is wisdom in the ancient question that Jesus asked: "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world but forfeit his life?"  It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but I suspect there are a whole lot of people trying to discover the answer, or at the very least wishing they could.

Which is why the prophet Amos warned that the day of Lord might not be so pleasant, as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear, which is, I suspect, how the leaders of St. Paul’s Cathedral felt when they realized what they’d done by closing their doors, and seeking ways to evict the protesters.  It has been deeply gratifying to read in the papers, how the tide has shifted at St. Paul’s in London; to see the church remember that power and wealth have no currency in the kingdom of God, where justice will some day roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.  And to recognize that dis-organized, inarticulate, grubby, sometimes misguided, and perhaps even inclined-to-sleep-in-their-own-beds-at-home as the Occupy protesters may be, they are a reminder that our secret longings to be rich will not prevail against God’s desire for justice and righteousness – which have most often been at enmity with the amassing of great wealth.

And the real question for the church is this: when we encounter the possibility that justice is beginning to roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream, are we willing to get wet?  Or will we head for higher ground so we can keep our money dry?

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

6 November 2011

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

How refreshing it is to peruse Emily Post’s 1922 guide to proper Etiquette.  Here we learn that:

‘Invitations to a private ball, no matter whether the ball is to be given in a private house, or whether the hostess has engaged an entire floor of the biggest hotel in the world, announce merely that Mr. and Mrs. Somebody will be “At Home,” and the word “dancing” is added almost as though it were an afterthought in the lower left corner, the words “At Home” being slightly larger than those of the rest of the invitation.’

Oh, how delicious!

In the section on wedding invitations, this marvelous guide also provides instructions for what is called “The Train Card,” which, we are instructed, is to be used “if the wedding is in the country.”  It reads:

“A special train will leave Grand Central Station at 12:45 pm, arriving at Ridgefield at 2:45, pm,” etc.

Oh, how scrumptious!

Not only does Mrs. Post provide the proper form for wedding invitations of many variants, she also informs her readers of the proper form of acceptance and regret, with the interesting note that “an invitation to the church only requires no answer whatever.”  After all, who cares if you come to the church, when it’s the reception that costs all the money!

Long ago I fell afoul of Emily Post’s guidelines for wedding invitations and all manner of other things.  And I have recently earned a reputation for the serial committal of a new kind of faux pas: when in receipt of an e-vite invitation, I have more than once clicked the response that says, “Maybe,” and I have been mocked and derided by my friends for this weak and uncomplimentary response to invitations.

It turns out that the whole notion of allowing a “Maybe” response to an e-vite invitation is under attack by the Internet mavens.  Here’s what one blogger wrote:

‘As data, “maybe” is… useless…

‘Maybe is a magnet for neuroses. It salves guilt complexes and incites passive-aggressive avoidance behaviors.

‘“Maybe” sometimes means maybe, but it can also mean, “I’m not coming but I don’t want to hurt your feelings.” Or even, “I plan to come but I reserve the right to change my mind at the last minute if something better comes along.” Some people even use maybe to mean, “I won’t make dinner but I’ll come for dessert.”

‘When you invite twelve people to a restaurant dinner via a web service, at least four will say maybe. Do you reserve a table for twelve? When eight show up and range themselves at opposite ends of the table (“because other people might be joining us”) you have an awkward table filled with gaps. The empty seats haunt the meal, suggesting social failure.

‘But if you call the restaurant at the last minute to change the reservation to eight, two of the maybes will show up, like ants at a picnic. They’ll have nowhere to sit, and they’ll blame you. (“I told you I might come.”)

‘How can you know what “maybe” means?  … you can’t. All you can do is phone people and ask whether they’re leaning toward coming or not….  If they’re the passive-aggressive type, they will continue to evade the snare of commitment. “I’m probably coming,” they’ll say.’·

It is this failure to commit that makes the “Maybe” response so infuriating.  And if it’s infuriating to respond “Maybe” to an invitation to a friend’s dinner, what does it say to God if our response to his invitation to be a part of the kingdom of heaven is a tepid “Maybe”?

If Jesus had had a blog he might have posted on it today’s parable of the king who gave a wedding banquet that none of those invited decided to come to.  He might even have linked to the blogger I just mentioned, finding resonance with his rant against the “Maybe.”

“I have swung open the gates of the kingdom of heaven to you,” Jesus might say, “and your answer to me is that you plan to come but you reserve the right to change your mind at the last minute if something better comes along?!?!

“I have paved the way of righteousness for you and you want me to know that you can’t make it to dinner, but you might be there for dessert?!?!”

“I have prepared a table for you, I have anointed your heads with oil, your cups overflow, and still you are not coming, but you don’t want to hurt my feelings.”

Imagine what it would have been like if Jesus had given his disciples instructions to prepare an upper room for the Passover and reminded them to be there well before sundown, and they’d said to him, “Maybe we’ll come.”

Imagine that later in this Mass, after we have prepared the sacred vessels, chanted the sacred chants, we have invoked the Holy Spirit to come down, repeated Jesus’ own holy words, offered the Bread and the Wine… imagine that I hold up the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood for all to see.   “Behold,” I say, “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.  Happy are we who are called to his supper.”

And you look lazily up from you pews, and reply, “Maybe.”

The sad truth is that the world and the church are full of Maybes and probably always have been.

Maybes hear the invitation to God’s kingdom and do not take it seriously.

Maybes hear the call to work in God’s vineyard, and look for something else to do.

Maybes hear the promise of God’s love and suspect that there is something better to be had in the world.

Maybes see the shadow of Christ’s cross and think that it doesn’t mean very much.

Maybes can recognize a hymn tune but can’t, or simply won’t, sing the words.

Maybes tread the ground near God’s Sacraments but never look up to see them.

Imagine that I asked the parents and godparents of the child who is to be baptized today the questions I will ask them in just a few minutes:

Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?

Maybe.

Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?

Maybe.

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?

Maybe.

Do you turn to Christ and accept him as your Savior?

Maybe.

Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t; it’s hard to say.  It’s hard to put my whole trust in God’s grace and love.  It’s hard to follow and obey him as my Lord.  So maybe I will, but maybe I won’t.

And what about the rest of us?  At every baptism, we are asked to give a clear answer to some important questions:

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you sin, repent and return to the Lord?

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

Now, it may be that “Maybe” is, in fact, an honest answer to these questions.  But it is not the right answer.  And so the church gives us a better option, since merely saying “Yes, I will” is hard to believe.

“I will, with God’s help” is a lot more plausible.  It allows for the frank honesty that following through with these promises is hard to do, but that with God’s help it’s worth a try!

If you listened carefully to the Gospel this morning, you might be struggling with the details.  What is going on here?  A king gives a wedding banquet but no one comes?  And some of the invitees kill the slaves who bring the invitations?  So the king sends troops to avenge their deaths?  Then people are gathered up from the streets to come to the party, except that one guy, who can’t possibly have been planning on being at a ball, isn’t dressed properly and so is bound hand and foot and thrown into outer darkness?  What is going on here?!?!?

What we are seeing is the collision of two worlds.  It is as though the invitation to the wedding banquet was prepared with all the old world consideration of Emily Post.  The wording was just so, asking for the “honor of your presence,” not merely the “pleasure of your company,” and  “honour” was spelled the old-fashioned way, with a ‘u,’ as Mrs. Post instructs it must be.  The size of the invitation is 5 1/8 inches wide by 7 3/8 inches deep, precisely.  The invitations have been engraved.  Maybe even a special train has been arranged to leave 30^th Street Station.

And it is as though in the face of all this precision, all this effort, we have replied with an email that says with a shrug, “Maybe.”

Jesus is trying to convey the inadequacy of such a response to an invitation of this sort.  Jesus is trying to get past the maybes of our lives and to get us to Yes!  He is trying to show us how sad and boring it is to meet his invitation with a maybe, how much it misses the point to be constantly on the lookout for a better party.  And in his parable, he is asking us what he needs to do to convince us that the kingdom of heaven is worth it.  “Do I have to bind you hand and foot and threaten to toss you into outer darkness?!?”

Maybe….

Returning to Emily Post’s Etiquette; one of the more charming and antiquated bits of guidance in the weddings section of the book is the instruction about reserved seats in church.  The mothers of bride and groom are instructed how to write out cards if specific pews are reserved for specific people.  But, we are told, “a card for the reserved enclosure but no especial pew is often inscribed “Within the Ribbons.”

I think this is a marvelous turn of phrase: Within the Ribbons.  Who wouldn’t want to be within the ribbons, whatever that might mean.  It sounds lovely without being restrictive, special without being snooty, set apart without being inaccessible.  Within the Ribbons.

As I hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as I experience the call of Christ in my own life, and as I try to help you hear it in your lives, I believe that Jesus wants each and every one of his children – every breathing soul and every beating heart – to be “Within the Ribbons.”  He wants us all to be at the banquet of the kingdom of heaven.

And his teaching is the way he tries to get us there, past the maybes into the “Yes” that brings us within the ribbons.

It is as if a king had engaged an entire floor of the biggest hotel in the world, but the invitation, in that old-fashioned, maybe even snobby, way, simply reads “At Home”.

If I received such an invitation, it would be as if two worlds were colliding.  I’d have to look up Emily Post just to know I was being invited to a ball!

But God willing, I would finally understand the importance of the invitation, and I’d be eager to reply.

And of course, I’d be a fool to send a email reply that just said “Maybe.”  I’d be better advised to make sure my formal shoes are comfortable for dancing, which I see the invitation has included, almost as if it is an afterthought.  But dancing there will be, till late into the night.  And that, I trust, is what the kingdom of heaven is like.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

 9 October 2011

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia 

• · www.zeldman.com, 20 June 2007

"What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, `Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' He answered, `I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, `I go, sir'; but he did not go….”  (Matt 21:28-30)

Two brothers always cause a problem in the Bible.  Whenever a story starts with two brothers you can brace yourself for a bumpy ride.  Think of Cain and Abel.  Think of Esau and Jacob.  How about Moses and Aaron – they run into some trouble with each other.  Think of Joseph and all his brothers.  Think of the Prodigal son and his angry brother.  Two brothers are going to cause trouble.

The Bible is like a dollhouse in which two brothers always dwell and can be called upon to act out whatever lesson God has to teach, for which brothers will provide the best illustration.  But the Bible writers knew a secret about dollhouses and brothers: they knew that there is a dollhouse in each of our imaginations, too, where two brothers dwell, who can be called upon at any time.  It doesn’t matter if you had a brother of your own, or not; you don’t even need to have had a sister.

The two brothers in the dollhouse of our imaginations are identical twins, who always dress alike and comb their hair alike, and who deliberately try to confuse their friends, their parents, even you and me.  One of them was born a minute or two earlier than the other, and so is the older brother – a fact he never tires of reminding his identical younger sibling.  Of course the brothers in the dollhouse of our imaginations are rivals for their father’s affection.  One constantly seeks his father’s approval, the other, overcompensating, constantly challenges his father’s authority.  But both want nothing more than their father’s love.  (Sometimes the dollhouse of our imaginations seems like a single-parent household; sometimes Mother is nowhere in sight.)

Of course this biblical, imaginary dollhouse is located on a farm – or to be more precise, by a vineyard.  And of course, as soon as the brothers are old enough they are awakened early in the morning by their father and told to get up and work in the vineyard.  Now the brothers of our imaginations are not stupid.  They know that working in the vineyard is a metaphor with all kinds of possibilities.  But this does not make the hour any less early when their father comes knocking at their door; this does not make them any less sleepy; this does not prevent them from yawning deep yawns and rubbing their eyes in the dark of the bedroom they share in the dollhouse of our imaginations.

As they lie there in the dark, they talk to one another.

“What is this all about,” says one brother to the other, “what kind of metaphor is this?  Is this about the virtue of hard work”

“No,” says the other brother, “I don’t think so.”

“Is it about the harvest being plentiful but the laborers being few?”

“No,” says the other brother, “I don’t think so.”

“Is it about wearing the appropriate attire to a wedding?”

“No,” says the other brother, “it’s too early for a wedding.”

“Is one of us supposed to get up, ask Dad for our share of inheritance, go off and spend it on women and wine and come crawling back months later to test Dad’s love for us?”

“Different story,” says the other brother.

“Is there a wounded man lying beside the road outside that we are supposed to take care of?”

“We’re not Samaritans,” says the other brother.

“So, what gives?”

“I don’t know,” says the other brother, the older brother, “but I’m not getting up.”

A knock comes again at the door, and it opens, letting light in from the dollhouse hallway.  “Let’s go, you two,” says the father, “Up and at ‘em.”

“OK,” says the younger brother, “I’m going.”

“Aww, Dad,” says the older brother, “It’s too early, I’m not getting up, and I’m not working in the vineyard; just try to make me!”

“You realize this is a metaphor, son?” asks the Dad.

The response to which is a couple of groans from beneath a couple of sets of covers, in the sons’ room in the dollhouse of our imaginations.

Lying there in the dark, the younger brother, who generally tried to please his father, and so had assured him that he would go to work in the field, had not meant it when he’d said he’d wake up.  He was feeling self-righteous.  He had recently read the entire Bible from start to finish.  Had his brother done that?  No, he had not!  He had been going to Youth Group meetings every week, when his older brother often chose to stay home.  And he had recently been on a mission trip to some hot and sweaty place where for four whole days he had done good works rather than hang out at the beach, which he’d rather have done.  He could get away with skipping a day’s work in the vineyard, his father would never know.

But the older brother (only a few minutes older, mind you) feeling, I suppose, the weight of responsibility that comes with birth-order, was already regretting his defiance of his father’s direction to get up and work in the vineyard.  And he was musing on the possibilities of the metaphor.  Because he was a twin, he knew, without even asking, that his brother was feeling self-righteous.  His brother had this tendency, after all.  In fact, the older brother had often covered for his younger twin, to keep peace in the dollhouse.  It sometimes irked him that his younger brother got away with so much, but he was his brother, his twin, and he loved him; what could he do?

And besides, the brothers had recently been allowed to start drinking a little wine with dinner – wine that came from the grapes that grew in the vineyard – and both brothers discovered the pleasure of drinking wine (in moderation, of course).  Already they were both developing a palate not only for the depth of flavor from the fruit that grew on their vines, but for the secondary characteristics that came with careful blending of varieties and with aging in the barrels, and then in the bottles.  The younger brother was satisfied with a straightforward merlot, but the older twin was discovering a taste for the subtleties of pinot noir, although it was a much more difficult grape to grow.  It would be good, he began to think, to get out of bed and work in the vineyard, because the fruit of my labor is, quite literally, worth it.

His younger brother, lying there in his dollhouse bed, and being a twin, after all, knew that his slightly older sibling was thinking this way.  He knew how seriously his brother took the responsibility of being first-born.  And he knew how his brother was developing a fondness for the slim rewards (in his opinion) of the difficult-to-tend pinot noir grapes, (whereas merlot vines were so much easier to tend, and their grapes produced a wine that, if less complex of flavor, could nevertheless pack a decent wallop of alcohol).  He also knew that his slightly older twin would eventually get up out of bed and head to work in the vineyard, as their father had asked.  He knew that his older twin would rebel for a moment, but eventually he would take responsibility and do what was asked of him.  The work would get done.  If there was hell to pay later that day, for choosing to sleep in, the younger brother would start to quote the scriptures, drawing on his recent reading of the entire Bible, displaying his impressive ability to cite chapter and verse, particularly choosing those passages that point out that we are saved by grace alone, and not by our works.  He felt smug, as the verses ran through his mind and he rolled over in bed and pulled the covers over his head and heard his brother get out of bed and get dressed.

Now, this being a metaphor, as the brothers well know, the time has more or less come to figure out who is who; to separate the sheep from the goats (just to mix the metaphor), the men from the boys, Republicans from Democrats, the good from the bad and the ugly.  It would be a good time to name names, to assign blame, to point fingers.  The joy about standing in the pulpit is that one gets to feel self-righteous about this, as one pulls the covers back from the metaphor and reveals who is who; matches an identity to the lying and lazy younger brother, and another to the cranky but virtuous older brother.

Except, of course, that this metaphor is actually about being self-righteous.  It is about the gap between what you say and what you do; the faith you declare and the life you live.  This story is a story of self-righteousness and hypocrisy, and of the tendency of the overtly religious to these two faults.  It is story of people who seem to say in church that they will get up and work in the vineyard, but instead just end up quoting the Bible as if that justified them.

And it is a story about people who never go to church but who somehow seem to live out the Gospel of love and compassion without ever being able to tell you where in the Bible it says this is important, just as they cannot name names of those who the Bible says are going to burn in hell, since they believe that if the Bible ever seems to say such a thing, then clearly we who read it are misunderstanding some aspect of revelation of the God of love.

And if names must be named; if sheep must be separated from goats; if brothers must be shown to be who they really are in the dollhouses of our imaginations, then the truth is that both brothers live inside a dollhouse in each of us.  Both of these twins inhabit each of our lives.  There is a tax collector and a prostitute in each of us, and there is a chief priest and an elder in each of us.  There is one brother and the other in each of us.

Every morning God wakes us up with the sun, or with a knock, or an alarm, or the dog licking your face.  And every morning brings a call – not just to go to work (which we all have to do) but to work in the metaphorical vineyard of God’s kingdom.  Many people these days are so deaf to the metaphor that they don’t even know it is in play.  But if you are listening to me talk, you know, or at least you suspect that God is calling you to build up his kingdom, to work in his vineyard somehow, and if this has never occurred to you before, then I am here to tell you, he is calling you!

God is calling every one of us to work in his vineyard, which is not always easy.  It requires our time, our energy, our money, our commitment, our bodies, our souls, our relatives, and our friends.  And every morning the story of the two brothers could play out in the dollhouse of your hearts.  Every morning you might hear one or the other of the brothers answer:

“OK, Dad, I’m going,” on the one hand.

Or, “Aww Dad, it’s too early.  I’m not getting up, and I’m not working in the vineyard; just try to make me!”

Sitting here in church, of course we know what the right answer is; we know which brother we are supposed to be.  But, that, of course, is the point of the story.  We know the right answer; we can give the right answer!  But we are complicated people, with many ways of evading the call to work in God’s kingdom, and we are prone to not always do what we say we will do.  Furthermore, we are prone to feel self-righteous, especially if we have been going to church regularly, reading the Scriptures, and if we have given a little bit of our time, a little bit of our energy, a little bit of our money already to the work of God’s kingdom.

Enough is enough, already, we tend to think.  And we also tend to think that the work will get done; that someone else’s inner older brother will get out of bed and work in the vineyard, while our younger twin rolls over and goes back to sleep.

And then a knock comes again at the door, and it opens, letting light in from the dollhouse hallway of our hearts.  “Let’s go, you two,” says the father, “Up and at ‘em.”

And it only remains to be seen which brother will rule our hearts today.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

25 September 2011

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

'Because you are so small you cannot imagine how it looked from where I see, so far above.

You imagine either that it was as horrifying to me as it was for you, or that I barely noticed it at all.

You think either that I was there in the midst of it, or that I was nowhere to be found.

You believe that I can be either here or there, but not in more than one place at a time.

You have used the awful events of that day as a reason to abuse me or to dismiss me.  And some of you have re-shaped me in your own image.

Some of you have run to shelter beneath the shadow of my wings; others have vowed never again to speak my Name.

---

Once, long ago, from a whirlwind I asked a man, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth!?”

And what could he say, because he was so small?

And now, you, from your own whirlwinds, throw the question back at me: “Where were you?”  Demanding to know, as though it was your right to ask.  “Where were you?” you want to know.  As though you are not small.

You forget that I created mastodon and mammoth, leviathan and pachyderm.  You forget that with my finger I rippled the rocky ranges into majestic peaks; that to stir the oceans I dip my pinkie into depths of sea too dark and cold for you to bear.

You forget that from my mind came forth honeybees and hummingbirds, mosquitoes and amoebas; you do not realize that I know the shapes and colors of sub-atomic particles and can count them all from my bed.

You are, in your own way, smaller than the hummingbird or honeybee: more fragile, less stable, oddly enough: more flighty.  At least the honeybees ask no questions of me.  At least the hummingbirds wage no wars 

---

I can see that day, that is to you ten years ago, unfolding before me now.  The sky is clear and bright, you remember.

I can see the jets taking off.  I can hear the radio communications.  I can see the villainy and the heroism already in the hearts of men.  I know who is who.

I can feel the pounding hearts as the plan unfolds.  I can smell the cool slivers of steel as tiny blades are unfolded.

I hear my Name taken in vain.  I have heard this before.

I have dispatched my angels before you even know what is happening.  They are ministering to the dead in the cockpits before you even know the door is locked.

I know this is unfair.  I know you would prefer it if a legion of those angels would have carried the planes on their shoulders.  I would have preferred it, too, for that is my way. 

But this is going your way: the way of men, the way of wars, the way of pain, the way of death.  So long ago you chose this way, and really, you have never stopped choosing it.  And so it goes, as a writer once said 

---

I feel the explosive heat in Arlington.  I see the field in Shanksville that I know is being readied to become a quickly dug, and shallow grave.

And I see those two proud, slender towers, reaching up to me, as they have these thirty years or so.  Extended like a child’s fingers, waiting for me to grasp them and hold on tight, as though if I held on tight enough I could protect you from everything, as children imagine.

I hear the music of the breeze between the towers.  I do not wish to see this end; I have no desire to hear this music cease 

---

Angry men are only angry men – the shape or the name or the color of their anger makes no difference.  Rage sounds the same in almost any language.  The urge to destroy fits beneath almost any uniform.  The accents of hateful slogans are lost in the shouting – they sound more or less the same to me 

---

And I can hear every cry on every flight that day.  And I can hear every gasp for air on every floor of those towers.  I know the sound of every voice.  Do you think I didn’t hear?  Do you think I didn’t listen?

I hear every prayer, and I am answering every one – though I know how hard it is for you, in your time, to recognize this.

I see the bursts of flame, like violent incisions in those long, elegant fingers: fiery blood rushing out, and with it so much life.

I know what happens when the air is thick with smoke.  I know when the elevators stopped running, and I can see the chaos in the stairways.

I can count the firemen making their way up – and they have angels, too.  I can feel their valor climbing every step, and I know, as they do by now, that black bunting was made for days like this.

I see men and women peering out of vertiginous windows and making calculations of mortality.  They will jump, but not without my consort.

I hear the struggle of resistance over land the Quaker’s once claimed for peace.  And I know there are real martyrs on that plane – though not the ones who sought to claim the title for themselves.

Because you are so small, I know, I know how much this hurts.  I know how hard it is for you to bear 

---

I remember how long ago all the brothers of Joseph dreamt of murdering him for jealousy and spite.  Do you remember this, too?

I see them toss him into a pit, reluctantly letting him live.  And I hear them haggling with the slave traders, as they settle on a price – 20 pieces of silver is his life’s worth.  He is small, too.

I watch the brothers return to their father without the youngest, his favorite.  I remember his worry.  I see the cruel brothers take the boy’s coat and dip it in goat’s blood to convince the old man that the apple of his eye is dead, so they can be rid of him at last.

Where do you think Joseph’s dreams came from?  Who do you think guided him, like a boat downwind, through the highest corridors of Pharaoh’s court?  Who do you think blessed him, although he was so small?

I watched, years later, as his brothers made their journey toward Egypt, looking for grain, in the days of famine.  I saw the gleam of recognition in Joseph’s eye when they arrived.  I listened as he sent them back for his youngest brother.  I saw Benjamin return to Joseph.  I heard Joseph wail in mourning for the family that had been lost to him but was at last restored.  I saw Jacob rise from his sickbed to be reunited with his son.

And after their father was dead, I saw the crafty brothers stand beside their long-lost brother and beg for Joseph’s forgiveness.

And this is what I heard him say:  “Do not be afraid…  even though you intended to do harm to me; God intended it for good….” 

You intended evil; but God intended it for good.  Which sounds absurd –that God can bring good out of evil – which sounds like grasping at straws; which sounds like the worst kind of kitschy, feel-good theology you can imagine…

…Until you remember that it was only Joseph’s way of saying, “I forgive you." 

---

I remember all this as I watch men thinking evil against one another, and acting on their thinking.  I remember Joseph’s simple calculus, and his faith in my good intentions.

I remember how small he was; how small you are.

I remember it as I see again the flames, as I hear again the screams, as I feel again the horror that you felt that day.

And I remember it as I hear you demanding of me: “Where were you?!?  What were you doing when the planes were hijacked, when the Pentagon was on fire, when the fuselage dug out a grave in Shanksville, when the towers burned and fell?!?

“Where were you?!?  What were you doing?”

They intended it for evil; how can I intend it for good? 

---

And I fear you cannot comprehend or even hear this answer.  Maybe it is because you are so small.  For I know how much you have suffered.  I know how you now live with grief.  I know how satisfying vengeance would be.  I know how impossible justice is.

I know you need me to hold you in the palm of my hand, because you are so small.  I know you are fragile and beautiful.  I see my own image every time I look at you.  I know you are the most wonderful and most difficult thing I have ever made.

And I promise that because you are so small, I have never left you on your own – not even when flames engulfed you.  I have never removed my hand from you.  I have never let you out from beneath the shadow of my wings – especially when you could not fly and you needed to 

---

I know you want answers from me.  I know you want to know where I was, what I have been doing.

I will tell you, although I fear you will not believe me, and even if you do, I suspect you will not be satisfied with the answer.  I expect you will want more.

Where was I?  What was I doing?

I was forgiving, and forgiving, and forgiving.

When Cain took his brother’s life, I was forgiving.

When Moses killed an Egyptian, I was forgiving.

When Joseph was reunited with his brothers, I was forgiving.

When my own children prayed to a golden calf, I was forgiving.

When they were driven into exile, I was forgiving.

When my Son was denied a clean room in which to be born, I was forgiving.

When he was betrayed, mocked, and hung on a Cross, I was forgiving.

When my children were persecuted, I was forgiving.

When my church splintered into fragments, I was forgiving.

When my beloved were sent into gas chambers, I was forgiving.

When murderers stole my holy Name from the lips of the muezzin, I was forgiving.

Wherever men with evil intentions plot in their hearts and act out those plots, I intend it for good.  But there is only one way to do it: to forgive, and forgive, and forgive. 

Until then you are just brothers who have betrayed each other; who have thrown each other into a pit and are haggling over the price of a life’s worth.  Until then, all the evil intended cannot be intended for good.

For you men – who bear my image, the imprint of my thumb, the hallmark of my making – you continue to intend evil against one another; you continue to dig pits for one another; you continue to think that a life can be haggled over as though it was yours to give or take… because you are so small.

---

 You intend so much evil; but I intend it for good…

 …which is to say that I forgive, and I forgive, and I forgive.'

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

11 September 2011

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Having recently spent a week with my twin six-year-old nephews, I find myself wondering when in childhood we learn to make excuses.   Neither of them seems adept at it yet.  When confronted with a scold, a correction, or a withering look, it seemed to me that the boys, at this age, tend either to be sorry or not.  They don’t equivocate; they are not yet reaching for excuses; not even blaming each other yet.  I chalk this behavior up to developmental progress not the disposition of their own characters, but who knows?

I do know how easy it is to look for excuses – I do it all the time.  When I have left something undone  - a phone call I should have made, a letter I should have written, work I put off till later, etc – I find myself fabricating excuses in my mind, for I am a fairly reliable accuser of myself; it’s good to beat others to the punch!  And I’m sure if ever I had done something I ought not to have done I might be tempted to look for an excuse too.

The most common excuse we hear in politics these days is that so-and-so “mis-spoke” – which is a euphemism for “lied,” or “had no idea what he was talking about,” or “made it up completely.”  These are never admissions of wrong-doing, these are excuses.

In the newspaper the other day, I read of how leaders of another denomination, much accused, are relying on the excuse that “I didn’t know I was supposed to tell anyone.”  Or, “it was better to keep it out of the press.”  Or, “I had very little training in dealing with these matters.”  These, too, are only excuses.

One of the great ecclesiastical excuses is often mined from today’s Gospel reading: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.”  I know it doesn’t sound like am excuse, so let me try to explain.  During the past fifty years or so, we have learned to fashion this short sentence of our Lord’s into a first-rate excuse for failing to build up either his church or his kingdom.  And clerics have learned to be indignant at the crass suggestion that their work might be measured by the number of people they can count in their congregations.  Why focus, like accountants, they challenge, on such numbers, when all that’s needed are two or three?!?  After all, that’s what Jesus said!

There are certainly reasons that it is harder to get people into church these days.  There are reasons it can be an uphill climb to build God’s kingdom.  But there are also a lot of excuses that find smug satisfaction in Jesus’ promise that he would be in the midst of his people wherever only two or three are gathered together in his Name.

I don’t think Jesus intended this remark as an excuse.  I think he intended it as a brand of empowerment.  I think he was opening up possibilities that his disciples might have imagined were beyond them.  He told them only two of them had to agree on something and ask for it, and God could make it possible.  He knew there would be arguments, disagreements, and division – but these would not impede his kingdom.  Just bring two or three of you together, and there I will be, with power to change the world! 

+ + +

Some time in the morning of Wednesday, August 24, three children must have set out along a dusty road in the hills of northwestern Honduras.  They were unaccompanied by any parent – I don’t know why.  The eldest, was, I think, in his early teens, the others, each a couple of years younger.  They must have heard about the Gran Brigada Medicina – as our free medical clinic was advertised – from one of the flyers that were distributed, or by word of mouth.  Like many of the families we saw walking the rutted roads of the steep hillsides, their feet were the only mode of transportation available to them.

I first learned of the children when I reached for a slip of paper that was handed over to our makeshift pharmacy for every family of patients.  I did not notice the children’s names, I am embarrassed to say, or even their ages, at the time.  I saw that no medications were prescribed, except the anti-parasitic that we gave to everyone, and children’s multi-vitamins.  This was odd.  I turned the sheet of paper over to read the diagnosis.  There was a list of complaints – aches and pains of various kinds – but no diagnosis, and no treatment.  Maybe this was a mistake?  I identified the doctor’s handwriting and went into the adjacent building where the clinic was operating, and he was already seeing another patient.

“Is there some mistake here?” I interrupted.  “Is there something we should be doing, something we can give these children?”

He looked at me with sincere eyes.  “There is nothing to diagnose,” he said to me.  “Their condition is a result of poor hygiene and malnutrition, because they are poor.  They walked for two hours on their own to get here.  They need food, if we have any.”

If I’d been thinking, I’d have rummaged through everyone’s bags and collected various granola bars and scraps of food that we might have been carrying.  But I wasn’t thinking.  I didn’t do it, and I didn’t even find the children.  I went back to the pharmacy and I grabbed a big bundle of vitamins and a few children’s Tylenol, and I handed them over to be distributed when the three children’s turn came.  And I cannot tell you any more of what became of those three kids who walked so far to get so little. 

+ + +

While I was in Honduras, one of my dogs had to go to the vet, for a not especially expensive visit that cost about five times what it cost us to see one patient in Honduras.  I feel as though I need to make an excuse here, but I can’t even define what exactly it is for.  Except that what else can I do in the face of three children who walk for two hours to a free medical clinic that cannot treat them because their illness is poverty and their hunger I had not the wherewithal to feed.

+ + +

The Christian Church these days is something of a mess.  It is marked by scandal, hypocrisy, abuse, name-calling, foolishness, hatreds, self-absorption, and a too-often anemic enthusiasm for the Good News of God in Christ.  She consoles herself with excuses, and with the regular reminder that where two or three are gathered together in Christ’s name, there he is in the midst of them.

But every morning there are children who wake up with no one to care for them, no way to feed themselves, no access to clean water, and no way to find a doctor of the kind found by the dozen across the river at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  Unless we decide to go to them, as the doctors and nurses, and non-medical folks who went to Honduras in the name of this parish did two weeks ago.

It would be misleading to be self-congratulatory and tell you what a marvelous job we did – although we did a marvelous job.  It would be a mistake to believe, even for a moment, that all is well because of our week’s work in Concepcion del Norte.

But it would be wrong to miss the importance and the power of two or three or fifteen people agreeing on a mission of love and care and healing.  It would be blindness to miss the clear evidence of Christ’s presence among the men and women who you sent to do that work in Honduras.  And it would be tragic to fail to recognize the power of God to transform lives and even the whole world when we gather together by our twos and threes, our fifteens and fifties, our hundreds and our thousands.

This is precisely why three years ago this parish adopted an empty church in North Philadelphia as our mission.  And why we have founded there a school that is to open in two days at Saint James the Less, which seeks to serve children like those who walked to the Gran Brigada Medicina – children who have not enough to survive in this world.

This is why we cannot console ourselves with excuses, and why we must not be satisfied with two or three gathered together, when Christ has given us so much power, by calling his people together here on Locust Street for more than 160 years.

And Christ has given each and every one of us power when we were baptized with his Holy Spirit.

Christ gave you power to build up his kingdom.  Christ gave you power to reach out in love.  Christ gave you power to change your own life and the lives of those you touch.  Christ gave you power to bear with grace the image of your creator.  Christ gave you power to conquer darkness and despair.  Christ gave you power to heal brokenness and to forgive those who vex you.  Christ gave you power to live beyond the grave.  Christ gave you power to do whatever you ask in his Name. 

Christ has not given you or me an excuse… to be less than he calls us to be, smaller than we should be, timid of hope, puny in our dreaming, stagnant in our work, tight-fisted in our giving, reluctant in our hospitality, reserved in our loving.

Every day there are homes in this city where two or three children wake up hungry, without all they need, and no good parent to guide them in this difficult world.  But Christ is in their midst too – those beautiful children of his!  And they are walking towards us every day. 

What, I pray, do we intend to do?

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

4 September 2011

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia