Saint Mark's Church

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.”  (Luke 17:5-6)

The old joke isn’t much told any more about how to get to Carnegie Hall…  Practice, practice, practice, being the answer.

When it comes to faith, it is tempting to suspect that the same thing is true.  How do we get to be good at faith?  Well… practice, practice, practice.  This is what we suspect the saints have done: practiced whatever aspect of faith it was they were good at so much that they became saintly at it.  Francis practiced poverty and preaching to the birds.  Mother Theresa practiced changing endless bedpans of those dying in Calcutta, until in sanctified her.  St. George must have practiced on something else – maybe squirrels – before he slew the dragon.  Practice, practice, practice your faith enough, and you will get good at it!

The apostles seem to be begging Jesus for this punch line when they say to him, “Increase our faith!”  This is another way of asking him, “How do we get good at faith?”  They assumed that the rabbis, who were good at faith, must have practiced, practiced, practiced reading the Scriptures.  The priests must have practiced their secret arts, the cantors must have practiced their incantations.  And so all of them were good at the specific aspects of faith for which they were responsible.  Now the apostles want to know: How can we get good at faith?  What, Lord, do you want us to do?  What shall we practice?

And Jesus gives them a quite unexpected answer.  He says, “Increase your faith?  If you had faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Don’t you think the apostles murmured a little about this?  Don’t you think they took offence?  Don’t you think they huffed and puffed a little; they snorted: a mustard seed!  Well, I think we’ve got faith the size of a mustard seed, Lord!  And what good would it do, anyway, to uproot a mulberry tree and plant it in the sea?

This mustard seed business is a biblical cliché.  And in it we normally think we hear Jesus enjoining his apostles to have a little more faith, will you?  We hear it as a put-down, a sarcastic remark that reinforces our image of the twelve stooges that follow Jesus and never get anything right (because they have not yet started taking their practicing seriously).  But I wonder if we are hearing Jesus correctly, when we hear his comment about the mustard seed that way?  I wonder if he really is telling the apostles that what they need is more faith, as if he was just providing the punch line to the old Carnegie Hall joke.

Remember that Jesus is responding to their plea that he increase their faith.  And when Jesus says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed…” maybe he is not saying, “have a little more faith,” maybe he is really saying something else.  Something like this:  Why should I increase your faith?  Your faith, though it be small, is enough, it is sufficient not only to the day but to accomplish greater things than you have yet imagined!  Your faith is enough.  Your little faith is enough – even if it is no bigger than a tiny mustard seed.  It is enough.  I am encouraged in this reading of this passage of Scripture for one significant reason: it sounds like Good News to me!

Don’t you sometimes worry that your faith is too small?  I do.

Don’t you sometimes worry that you don’t know how to believe?

Don’t you sometimes worry that you just don’t practice enough to be very good at faith?

Don’t you sometimes worry that you disappoint God with your miniscule faith?

Don’t you sometimes worry that God will punish you (or is punishing you) because your faith is too small?

If you do worry like this, you might pray (with the apostles), “Lord, increase my faith!”

If only you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to a mulberry tree, ‘be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.  And what good would that do? 

Such a tree, transplanted by faith into the middle of the sea, would constitute an island.  Let’s call it Mulberry Island.  And over time Mulberry Island would enlarge its shores so that people could live on it – but only people who heard Good News in Jesus’ mustard seed remark.

None of the residents of Mulberry Island has been sainted.  All of them have only a little faith.  But they have become convinced by the Gospel that even their little faith is enough.  It must be, for it was through their conviction that they arrived on Mulberry Island – there are no ferries to take you there.  The residents of Mulberry Island live in what could be described as peace and tranquility, in neighborhoods surrounding the great Mulberry Tree in the center of the Island.

The other plant that flourishes on Mulberry Island is the mustard bush – which is not actually a very large tree, nevertheless many birds do come to Mulberry Island to make their nests in and around the mustard bushes.  On Mulberry Island, the people use mustard seeds as currency.  Some people have a lot, others have a little, but each finds that she has enough.  No one is too poor or too rich on Mulberry Island.  Mulberry Island is non-sectarian and non-discriminatory.  Because of its origins, there are a lot of Christians there.  But they never wear crosses around their necks, as many Christians among us on the mainland do.  Their preferred symbol of faith happens to be the mustard seed. 

Many of the men will wear on their lapels a little mustard seed that’s been carefully attached to the end of a pin, as a sign of their faith (tiny though it may be).  And many women wear earrings made of mustard seeds – like tiny, yellow pearls in their ears.  (Some of the men wear earrings, too, and this is raises not an eyebrow on Mulberry Island!)

The clergy on Mulberry Island preach very short sermons, largely because the people on Mulberry Island long ago stopped being anxious about whether or not they had enough faith.  They realize that everyone’s faith seems small – small as a mustard seed – but that even a little faith is enough.  And a little faith thrives on short, but frequent, sermons.

The real problem on Mulberry Island is that it easily becomes crowded, as new people discover the Good News that even a little faith is enough to lead a happy life, and move onto the Island.  After the first wave of immigrants onto Mulberry Island, the original residents began to feel that old familiar anxiety rising in their throats.  They thought they had moved onto a near-paradise, where no one is too poor or too rich, and everyone has enough, and the birds twitter away as they make their nests in the mustard bushes that can be harvested for currency, as required.

But as the Island became crowded, those first settlers of Mulberry Island worried that their faith was not big enough, that they’d run out of room, that the new folks might have stronger faith than theirs, and then where would they be?!?  Falling back on old habits, those original residents, feeling the anxiety rising, fell to their knees and uttered a prayer they remembered from their past: “Lord, increase our faith!”  And as they got up from their knees, they felt a little rumbling in the rocks below them. And they looked and saw they roots of the Mulberry Tree that is at the center of the Island pushing out beyond the shores, further into the sea, and new rocks and new land forming around the roots, as the Island expanded, making room for more people of a little faith.

Geologists do not have a word for this process, that I know of.  And relatively few people have ever seen this expansion of Mulberry Island happen, since most people believe that Jesus is scolding them for having too little faith, and therefore never go near Mulberry Island, believing that it is childish to think that a mulberry tree could be uprooted and planted in the sea.

And most people do not notice that there is something missing in the Gospel reading assigned to us today.  Most people don’t suspect that the apostles didn’t just grumble among themselves, but actually answered Jesus when he said to them, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you.”

Most people do not believe that the apostles answered Jesus thus:  “Oh, but Lord Jesus, we do!  We do have faith the size of a mustard seed.  Not much more than that (a mustard seed being bigger than a grain of sand, but smaller than a pea or a pebble) but, yes, we can say with true conviction that our faith is at least about the size of a mustard seed!”

And most people do not believe that the apostles joined hands and prayed then, just to see if it would work.  And there, in front of their eyes, the mulberry tree was lifted from its terrestrial moorings, and carried some distance into the sea, where it was planted by the Lord, and dubbed “Mulberry Island.”

A few of them must have moved onto the Island then, tending to the first mustard bushes they planted, and establishing the practice of using mustard seeds for currency, for obvious reasons.  And every now and then, a few souls discover that although their faith is small, it is enough: enough to do whatever God requires.  Enough to care for the needy, to raise children happily, to feed and educate your family, enough to endure trials and tribulations, to weather storms, and to recover from sickness.  In fact, even just a little faith is enough to face death when it comes, as it will, as it must.  Yes, even a little faith is enough to find one’s way through all these struggles – all of which still take place on Mulberry Island.

And every month or every year a few souls who realize that even a little faith is enough find their way to Mulberry Island, guided by their tiny faith, and a lack of anxiety.  And so, by God’s grace, Mulberry Island is growing – albeit slowly, at this stage of the game.

Mulberry Island (where a little faith is enough) is growing: the old tree is stretching out its roots, and rocks and dirt and sand are building up around them to form new shores.  Little by little, the shores of Mulberry Island are expanding, so that some day folks like you and me, folks who have only a tiny bit of faith, will be able to hop or skip almost effortlessly right over the teeny inlet of the sea that will some day be all that separates our shore from the shore of Mulberry Island, where a little faith is enough.  After all, such a tiny jump – just a few inches, maybe – requires just a little faith, maybe only faith the size of a mustard seed!

And, God willing, by then we’ll be able to join with those early apostles, whose answer to Jesus has been mysteriously omitted from the Gospels, and say: “Oh yes, Lord, if faith that’s tiny as a mustard seed is what’s required to get from here to there, I can supply that.  Maybe not much, more, but I can summon up faith that is bigger than a grain of sand, and smaller than a pea or a pebble!”

And won’t Jesus smile then, to hear that we have finally discovered this good news: Oh ye of little faith, even a little faith is enough!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

6 October 2013

Saint Mark’s Church, Phialdelphia

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, the Lord has sworn by Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.  (Amos 8:4, 7)

The arrival in my apartment on the third floor of the Rectory of a mouse is not a wholly unusual occurrence; it has happened before.  Evidence of the mouse’s activity a few weeks ago prompted a little inspection of potential sources of its culinary interest, and some foodstuffs stashed on top of the refrigerator were discarded or otherwise dealt with.  Rectory mice can often be dealt with through a program of severe discouragement rather than outright extermination.  It’s a big city, after all, and there are lots of other places to forage for food.

The mouse in question had left telltale evidence of its presence on top of the refrigerator, where it conducted its raids presumably under the cover of darkness, or at least in the absence, during the day, of me and the two Labrador Retrievers.  After the super-refrigerator remediation program, the absence of such evidence strongly suggested that the mouse had been sufficiently discouraged and had moved on to greener pastures, so to speak.

So it came as a surprise to me the other day when from the sofa, with lights blaring, TV on, out of the corner of my eye I detected a momentary flash of murine movement.  I looked again, and, sure enough, the mouse was brazenly promenading across the little kitchen floor.  The dogs took no notice, so I shouted, and the mouse ran away.  The dogs looked at me quizzically.

A minute or two passed, and I saw it again: the mouse quite casually making its way across the kitchen floor.  I let another cry ring out, the mouse ran away, and the dogs again looked lazily up at me.  And in a moment of theatricality, that is admittedly a bit much even for me, I stood up and addressed the room:

“What is the meaning of this?!” I demanded to know.  “How can this mouse not only return to the scene of its earlier crimes, where it is now bound to be disappointed by the utter unavailability of any reward for its foragings, but, on top of that, how can this mouse have become so emboldened that it has now abandoned the safety of the cover of darkness?  How can it think that I will ignore its incursion into my space, and pay no mind to its intention to take what is mine, from under my very nose? 

“How can it violate the unspoken agreement that mice should slink in to do their dirty work while no one is looking?  How can it be so bold as to parade around while the lights are lit, the lamps burning, the watch is not yet ended?

“How can this mouse – this dirty little creature whose presence I have tolerated, whose life I have spared by forgoing the most obvious course of extermination – how can this mouse make its person known in these precincts as though it belonged here, as though it had a right to be in my kitchen foraging for food, (even if it be only scraps, or whatever was once stored on top of the refrigerator) as though it was entitled, as though I would tolerate its presence while the lights are on?  How can this be?!?”

The dogs looked up at me, unimpressed by my soliloquy, and supremely uninterested in the mouse.

Mice are, of course, by their nature poor.  Not hunters, they can only gather; and what they gather invariably belongs to someone else.  They are dependant on the leavings of others.  Even within mouse society there are no rich mice (although there may well be fatter mice who are better at scavenging than others).  There are no mouse millionaires, so to speak.  Mice are socialists – depending on a daily re-distribution of wealth that they are only too happy to tend to themselves in the absence of appropriate legislation.  Mice are poor.

And, true to the context of the moment in this American life, I was offended by the presence of the poor mouse in my space – a presence I could have tolerated if it had kept itself hidden, unseen, cloaked by darkness.  But once the poor mouse became bold enough to assert itself in the glare of the kitchen lights, its presence became intolerable to me.

Let me put that a slightly different way: true to the context of the moment in this American life, I was offended by the presence of the poor.

The prophet said, “Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, the Lord has sworn by Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.”

At least 46 million Americans – which is frankly a number far too vast for me to comprehend – 46 million fellow citizens of this beautiful, resourceful, and abundant nation live in poverty.  And how easy it has become to think of these poor people as mice whose mere right to be among is easily questioned, as if they chose poverty for themselves, as if at some point they stood before Door #1, Door #2, and Door #3 and were told to pick between industry and work, or privilege and wealth, or poverty and want, and they said, “Oh sure, I’ll take Door # 3.  Why not? How bad could it be?”

Of course, when you have 46 million poor people (at least 46 million, that is), you begin to notice them, intolerable as this may seem.  In our own city, about a quarter of the population lives in poverty – which is also hard to miss.  And how likely we are to react with indigence in the presence of the poor, when they are not cloaked in darkness.  As though they belong here, as though they have a right to be in our cities, our neighborhoods, our streets?  As though they are entitled…?

Jesus said, “the poor you will always have with you.”  And I suppose he knew whereof he spake.  For all the evidence suggests that Jesus lived his life more like a mouse than a millionaire.  He was always on the move, dependent on others for hospitality, always seen eating at other people’s tables (often in the company of unsavory people).

Maybe Jesus and his disciples even had to scavenge for food from time to time.  Maybe that’s why the scribes and Pharisees took them to task for “plucking the heads” off the grain on the Sabbath.  Maybe they were doing a little more than noshing, plucking more than a few heads of grain?  Maybe they were doing a little Sabbath re-distribution of grain, when no one else was likely to be in the fields?

When I allow myself to imagine the very likely possibility that Jesus was really quite poor, I am quickly reminded of my indignation with the mouse who had the nerve to show himself openly in my sight.  And I have to wonder: if Jesus is poor, how likely am I to welcome him into my life?

In the context of the present moment of this American life it would be easy to want to rant about the government’s treatment of the poor, to adopt a polemic stance of righteous indignation (which is fun to do from time to time) about the uncaring treatment of the poor.  And I believe I would be justified in doing so.  But my own tendency to treat poor people with the same attitudes that I addressed to the mouse in my house suggests that I am not ready to cloak myself in righteous indignation just yet.

My tendency to think of the girl who parks herself out on our doorstep for weeks at a time in just the same way, or to think the same of the familiar faces I see inhabiting the steps of First Baptist Church around the corner from here, prevents me from ranting too much about anyone else’s attitudes toward the poor.

And I give thanks that we have harnessed ourselves, here at Saint Mark’s, to the poor in several ways.  We have made Saturday mornings here all about serving poor, hungry people in the Saturday Soup Bowl.  And we have linked ourselves to a school that we founded that allows admission only to the children of needy families.  Maybe we did this as much or more out of need as out of virtue.  Maybe our best selves keep close to the poor because we cannot escape the Gospel insistence that we pay attention to the poor, that we find Christ among the poor, that God prefers the poor to the rich, and makes a readier pathway to his heart for the poor.

We happen to be living through an appalling moment in the context of this American life or ours, when our national, civic, corporate care and concern for the poor is at a very low ebb.  And there are those who tell us that this is as it should be, that no forces conspire to keep poor people poor except their own moral failings, and the complicity of a soft government.  But such lies must not be told in church.  Whether you know the Bible well or not, you have heard it said before that you cannot serve two masters, for you will either hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon.  You cannot serve God and money.

Very well, we say in the calculus of this American life, we know whom we will serve, and I guess we’ll see how it all works out in the end.

And so in this context we are told that caring for the poor makes us socialists.  Another lie.  Caring for the poor makes us Christians.  That is a surety I promise you can take to the bank!

Very few of us want to be poor, or to spend our time among the poor.  This is not unusual, and my sermon this morning will not end with the advice that you should sell everything you have, give your money to the poor, and follow me.  But I am left remembering how prone I am to think of poor people in the same terms as I think of that poor mouse, whose life I have so far spared.  See how confident I am that his life rests in my hands?  I can give it to him, or I can take it away.

But the prophet was not talking about mice, and neither was Jesus.  He was talking about people almost just like you and me, who also happen to be made in the image and likeness of God, though we mostly cannot see it, since we see them mostly as mice.  Maybe the lives of the poor – at least some of them – also rest in our hands, in some ways.  Maybe we have to remember that the ancient question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” was an evasion, not a sacred incantation.

And maybe I should stay at home in my kitchen, waiting for the mouse to come back, and greet him with a new soliloquy, saying something like this:

“Brother mouse, in days gone by I despised you, and wished to trample on you, and to bring about your ruin.  I could see no way to share with you the embarrassing riches I enjoy, even though you require very, very little.

“In days gone by, Brother mouse, I believed I could serve two masters, and I charmed myself to believe that this was so.  But I see now, Brother mouse, how foolish I was, how likely I am to choose to serve mammon in this American life of mine, since it is the way of this world.

“And I need you, Brother mouse.  I need to practice on you, so that I may serve another master – the God of love.  I need to learn to give you the little you need out of the plenty I have.  Because I have not yet learned how to share it all with the poor people who are my neighbors, my brothers, my sisters, my friends – or at least they should be.

“So I am practicing on you, Brother mouse, learning to put up with you, and to tolerate you in your poverty.  And I am praying that some day I will be ready to leave my kitchen, and live like a Christian in the rest of the world, with real people whose lives may depend on me, if only I would choose to share with them too.

“For the time being, Brother mouse, may I continue to practice on you?” 

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

22 September 2013

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

Potentially embarrassing photos of me are floating around on the Internet.  They depict an eleven-year-old version of me at camp, with a haircut suitable for 1978, wearing blue jeans and a hastily fashioned cape of some sort made of a kind of rust colored fabric that is tied around my neck.  I am with three friends on a rock outcropping overlooking the lake, on the opposite shore from the camp.  We would have had to row boats over and scramble up the steep slope there 20 or 25 feet to the outcropping.

In our youthful enthusiasm, and fueled, no doubt, by a history lesson about the medieval period, the photos show that we had fashioned what we hoped could be classified as a catapult, made of fallen tree branches, a sapling, an old inner tube, and lots of twine.  I believe we intended to use water balloons as ammunition.  Although my memory is hazy, I think our tests of the weapon were all disappointments.  In truth, I cannot even recall what invader we thought we would repel – any and all, I suppose.

Although the details are fuzzy, I think the entire enterprise came to a quick end when one of the four of us took a wrong step and tumbled off the outcropping and partway down the steep hillside.  This emergency required a swift evacuation, and a fast row across the lake so the injured party could be taken to the nurse, who was able to tend to all wounds, as I recall.

What became of the failed catapult, whose design flaws would surely have become evident very quickly, I cannot say.

Children are supposed to make such mistakes and learn from them.  But we seem to live in a society where adults continue to act like children well into their more mature years; liable to make the same mistakes over and over again; doomed to repeat history because we are so inept at learning its lessons.

“What king,” Jesus asks, “going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?”  Jesus never meant this question as a lesson in geo-politics, and he was not asking his audience to consider the current affairs of his own day, nor of ours.

And if the New Testament is to be believed, Jesus never called anyone to battle, or even to take up arms – though he is heard from time to time telling someone to put his sword back in his sheath.

And from our particular vantage point of history, it would seem that anyone who ever claimed that Jesus was calling him to war has been proven to be a charlatan, misguided, or just plain daft.

Among the many things we adolescent boys had not considered in our lives by the time we built that catapult was what it would mean to be real followers of Jesus, although we were at a Christian camp, where worship and prayer were a part of every day’s agenda.  If you’d asked us to march around singing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” we’d have done so gleefully, with wooden swords shoved into our belts, homemade capes fastened around our necks, happily arranging ourselves into battalions of some configuration, unrecognizable as either real soldiers or real Christians.

But if you’d asked us what it would cost us to follow Jesus, we’d have looked at you blankly.  The best we could do, I’d guess, would be to tell you that during Lent we would have to put a coin or two aside every day to fill our mite boxes, but that would be a pretty neat summary of the cost of discipleship to our youthful minds.  And for our age, that would have been a reasonable limit of our imaginations.  It would not, at that time, have occurred to us that our worship and prayer cost us anything – for we had nothing else to do with our time, and no freedom to make decisions about it anyway.

But we are supposed to learn from our childhoods and to grow beyond the limits of them.

In the reading we heard today from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus was sitting at the table of a ruler of the Pharisees.  He was having an adult conversation.  He’d had difficult words for his hosts, and challenged them to be more humble and compassionate in their leadership.

The large crowds that were traveling with him must have been outside.  Maybe he had to lean out of a window and shout to them.  St. Luke does not say that these crowds were friendly to Jesus, they are not yet his disciples.   Maybe they were twittering outside that Jesus was giving the Pharisees a talking-to.

But now Jesus turns to the crowds – who it seems to him might be only too happy to be told to form into battalions and start singing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” especially if by so doing they could express their disdain for the Roman occupiers of their land.  But this is childish, and Jesus knows it.  No one has considered what kind of life God really wants them to lead.  They all want to know what God is going to give them.  But Jesus wants to know what they are willing to give to God.

And I suppose that Jesus knows they are not yet serious, he knows they have not yet grown up, he knows they are not yet ready to follow him.  So he exaggerates when he tells them, “You cannot be my disciples, for you have not considered the cost of it.  If you want to be my disciples,” he says, “give up everything you own, and then come follow me!” 

I am willing to bet that the crowd quickly dispersed – no so many were all that interested in Jesus any more!

And frankly, if that was the message of the Gospel to us today, who of us would stick around to hear the details?  Give up all our possessions?  Including my flatscreen TV?  I don’t think so!

So maybe Jesus is not teaching foreign policy, and maybe he is not truly advocating that we forsake all material goods.  Then what is he getting at?  I suppose that Jesus is trying to teach us to grow up, to consider carefully what it means to be a follower of his: to count the cost.

And I am reminded again of my childhood escapades by the lake with my friends at camp, and how our game came to a quick end when one of us took a wrong step, and went tumbling down the embankment.  We were, you recall, on the far side of the lake, meaning it was difficult to call for help.  So I suppose the three others of us went to the aid of our fallen comrade.  We’d have had to help him down the rest of the hillside to the tree where the row boat was tied up, and then we’d have to have gotten him into the boat with his injuries and rowed him across the lake to the other shore.  We’d have had to get him safely to the dock and let him lean on us as we helped him to the nurses’ station, and from there, as I say, I believe all was well.

It reminds me that every real soldier I have ever come across who’s fought in battle, has told me that in the end it’s the soldier next to you who matters far more than the enemy.  It’s the band of brothers (and now sisters) to whom you have been joined in trust.  It’s worrying about that guy, and what you can do for him – to keep him from getting shot, or to help him once the bullet or the grenade or the shrapnel has hit.

And it makes me grateful for that little childhood journey down the hillside with my wounded friend’s arm around my neck, rowing across the water back over to the other side of the lake, where, instead of weapons, there was a nurse, and a ping-pong table, and the circle of logs around which we’d sit every night, with a fire in the center, and we’d tell stories of what mattered to us that day, and we’d say prayers for the people we cared about, and we’d sing “They’ll know we are Christians by our love,” and “Kumbaya,” and “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

Which was all a process of growing up, learning about the different sides of the lake, learning how much more blessed it is to give than to receive, and how much more important it is to carry your friend down the hillside and to row him across the lake than to successfully launch your ordnance from a catapult.

And I hear Jesus calling from a window, saying, “Yeah, remember what happened last time I tried tell everyone what it would cost to be my disciple?  How hard it was going to be?  How much it was not going to be about you, but about living for others?  Where have the crowds gone?”  I hear him ask.

And I hear myself, answer: “We are just here on the other side of the lake, playing with our weapons!  Don’t worry, just as soon as one of us falls, we’ll come scrambling down, get him into the boat and row him across the water over to your side!  But for now we are doing what we must do!”

“You do what you must do,” says, Jesus, “and I will do what I must do.” 

And he stoops down to pick up the fallen branch of a sturdy old tree that still has some twine and a piece of an old inner-tube tied to it, but which is long enough for him to stretch his arms out on it when it comes time to nail his hands to it, and he carries it step by step toward a green hill, far away, across the water, hoping that when we grow up we will follow.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

8 September 2013

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

For reasons I can’t entirely explain, it seemed important to me recently to reiterate to colleagues a lesson I was taught as a child: that one should not receive the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord more than once a day – that is, not receive communion more than once a day.  I feel certain that we were taught this lesson as children (in a church school) as a way of underscoring the sanctity and other-ness of the Eucharist; to help us learn that it is a special thing to take Christ’s Body into your hands and onto your tongue, a blessing of no ordinary kind to drink his Blood.  I’m sure the rule was intended to instill in us a reverence about communion, an attitude of piety.  This was only really ever an issue on Sundays when, as it happened, we were in church at least twice.  So this was not arbitrary: it was important!  And although we had no idea what punishment we would suffer in the event of an infraction of this rule, I’m sure none of us was interested in finding out whether it was a torment to be suffered in this world or the next.  It seemed really quite dangerous to us, as children, to entertain the thought of venturing close to the altar rail twice in one day.  Plus, as it happens, the Roman Catholic Church had long ago codified this ban in writing.  The point is that it was a rule: No seconds: communion once a day, and once only. 

As I say, I can’t be certain what prompted my recent reiteration of this old rule.  Of course, the Episcopal Church doesn’t really have such a rule written down anywhere (as is the case in most matters) – it’s more of a custom, borrowed (like so much else) from the old Roman Catholic rules.  But even Rome changed its rules thirty years ago to allow for the possibility that the faithful could receive communion twice in a given day.  So I might ask myself why it seemed important to me to keep this old rule.

And I do.  Ask myself that very thing.  Is it because we have so few rules in the Episcopal Church that it seems important to hang on to the few we (sort of) have?  This seems unlikely.  More likely is that I share something of the spirit of the leader of that synagogue who was indignant when he spied, out of the corner of his suspicious eye, Jesus healing a crippled woman on the Sabbath.

“Away, away, away,” he said to the crowd that had gathered.  “The rules do not allow this!  You have six days to come and be healed, but one day to keep the Sabbath.  Do not fail to keep the commandment – remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.  Away, away, away with you!”

And turning to Jesus, I imagine, he might have been incensed:

“HOW DARE YOU!” he would have scolded, with what he would have wanted to be understood as righteous indignation.  “Six days you have – six days of the week to do work: to heal, to teach, to preach, to gather your little band of disciples around you. 

“Six days you have to wow them with your parables, and your healings, and your miracles, and all the other tricks you seem to have up your sleeve. 

“Six days you have to wrap them around your little finger and tell them they have to give up everything to follow you.  Six days for YOU!

“But God gets a day!  God gets HIS day!  Remember the Sabbath Day to KEEP IT HOLY!

“This is not complicated.  That old woman has been stooped for years – she could wait one more day.  You could wait one more day.  Give God his due!  Give God his day!  I won’t sit by and watch you defile the Sabbath without saying anything!”

I know how the leader of the synagogue feels.  I know how ready I am to share in his righteous indignation.  I know what it’s like to survey the world passing by utterly oblivious to the claims of the creator upon his creatures, who have become largely disinterested in giving God his due.  I know what it feels like to want to wave a commandment in the air, and point emphatically to it, and shout out in shrill indignation, “God gets his day, you know.  God gets his day!”

And I know how hollow this teaching sounds to most ears these days.  The entire passage we read from Luke’s Gospel this morning is really like something from a National Geographic documentary about the way things were in biblical times – because they are most certainly not that way today.  To begin with, most people don’t go to synagogue or to church on the Sabbath.  And we don’t say that a spirit has caused the suffering of a woman stooped with osteoporosis, or whatever.  And we certainly do not come to church (or to synagogue) so that some guy in a collar can teach us the rules (that aren’t really even rules) that we are supposed to live by.  To begin with, we don’t need anybody imposing his rules on us, thank you very much.  This is why we became Episcopalians, isn’t it?  No rules!  A blessed silence when it comes to being told what you must and mustn’t do!  This is why we left the Roman Church, after all: all those damned rules!  But we don’t have to follow them.  We are Episcopalians – hear us roar!  Or not – you can’t make us roar, and you can’t make us stop: we have no rules!

And isn’t it pretty well established that Jesus – who may or may not be right about very much else – is certainly right about this: that the clergy are hypocrites: always insisting that people to keep rules that they don’t keep themselves!  On this we can surely agree.  Having thus agreed, can’t we quietly close our Bibles, get on with the next hymn and move a little more rapidly toward Coffee Hour?

We could, but we would be missing the chance to hear the Gospel speak to us.  And we’d be missing the point if we reached the conclusion that Jesus’ message is that rules were made to be broken, that as Lord of the Sabbath he will do what he jolly well pleases.

Because, in fact, Jesus demonstrates no desire to flout the rules of faith.  Jesus is deeply possessed of the tendency to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.  Jesus, above all, knows what this means.  Jesus knew the words of the prophet before they were ever written down:

“If your refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day,

“If you call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy day of the Lord honorable,

“If you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;

“Then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth!”

… if you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day…

Did you hear what Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue?  He did not assert his right to work on the Sabbath.  He did not say that he should be exempted from the rules and allowed to heal the woman.  He did not say that he was special and should therefore be allowed to teach his followers.  He did not say that time was short and he had much to accomplish, and that practicality demanded that he do as much as he could with the time that he had.  No.  He said this, “Don’t you, on the Sabbath, untie your ox or your donkey and lead it to water?”  Don’t you untie it?  Don’t you set it free so that it may drink, and live?

And what did he say to the woman?  He didn’t say to her, “Your faith has made you well.”  He didn’t tell her to throw down her cane and walk.  He didn’t command the spirit to come out and go find a herd of swine.  When he laid his hands on her he didn’t even offer a prayer for healing.  He just said this: “Woman, you are set free.”  You are set free!

For eighteen years her life had become a labor: just getting up in the morning, tending to the house, going about town had become what the Bible used to call “travail.”   The more stooped she became, the more difficult every day was to get through.  How could she keep the Sabbath?  There was no rest for her…  …until she was set free!

And Jesus said to her: You are set free.  You are set free.  You are set free.

Is there a spirit that cripples you?  That prevents you from standing up straight and being the person God made you to be, living the life God made you to live.  Is it something everyone can see?  Or is it a secret you keep deep in your heart.  Is there something that makes your life, or at least a part of it, what used to be called “travail”?  Are you heavy-laden, as we used to say?  Is there a burden that forces you to stoop through life as though you cannot straighten, stand up, and be the person you believe God made you to be?  How can you keep the Sabbath this way?   How can you find your rest in God?

How can we offer food to the hungry if we are stooped ourselves?  How can we satisfy the needs of the afflicted?  How will our light ever rise in the darkness if we are shooed away from God’s healing grace?  How will we ever slake our thirst in parched places?  How will our bones ever grow strong?  How will our ancient ruins ever be rebuilt, our streets restored, our foundations raised up…  … when we are stooped and stunted by so much heaviness, so much travail?

Six days of every week, burdens are piled onto our backs.  Six days of every week there are worries to tend to, chores to be done, responsibilities that we dare not overlook.  Six days of every week we are crippled by the demands of so much!

Why won’t we let God have his day with us?  Why won’t we give him his due?  Why won’t we bring our stooped and broken frames to him in all humility, and ask him to help us?  Are we afraid of the rules?  If they get in the way, then by all means let us reconsider them.

But the rule about keeping the Sabbath is, like all good rules, not a rule that imprisons us, it is a rule that offers to set us free:

If we refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing our own interests on God’s holy day.

If we call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord.

If we honor it, not going our own ways, serving our own interests, or pursuing our own affairs.

Then we shall take delight in the Lord, and he will make us ride upon the heights of the earth!

There is not much serious talk in the church these days about keeping the Sabbath holy.  We can hardly get past the quite boring semantics of whether the Sabbath is Saturday or Sunday – as though it matters to Jesus.  When what really matters to him is that we have become like so many oxen and asses: tied to the various things, duties, diversions, and inanities that prevent us even from making our way to water when we are thirsty.  So he comes to us every Sabbath – at least – and he whispers in our ears as he unties the rope around our necks: “You are set free!”

And I suppose I may have to reconsider whether it is more important to reiterate the rules, than to be sure that those who have ears to hear, do in fact hear it when their Lord sings out to them: You are set free!

May God help us all to learn to remember the Sabbath to keep it holy, and then, at least one day a week, may he help us hear him proclaim that wonderful news: You are set free!

And then we shall take delight in the Lord, and he will make us ride upon the heights of the earth!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

25 August 2013

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

From time to time I am compelled to give you all a report on Leo, the scaredy-cat of the Rectory.  Leo was brought to me about six years ago as a terrified kitten who’d been found by someone, shivering behind a dumpster, apparently abandoned by his mother.  He has lived these past six years in fear and isolation in the Rectory.  Change of any kind is a terror to him.  Visitors send him into quick flight.  One dog was bad enough, but when the second dog entered the equation four years ago, Leo probably should have been medicated or sought therapy.  Fortunately the Rectory is large, and over these six years Leo has claimed refugee status in one room or another, finding various sofas to live behind, beds to quiver under, and closets to hide out in.

Leo has become to me an icon of hopelessness and fear.  I can only conclude that he is a deeply un-Christian cat (sweet though his disposition has always been).  He stands in stark contrast to the two Labradors who live in the Rectory with me in a state of profound hope: constantly expectant that someone is coming to visit them, that they may be taken out for a walk, that they may find a morsel of food on the ground, that they may find a puddle to play in, a fountain to frolic in, a stream to swim in.  To the Labradors, treasures lie all around, and they give their hearts easily to each and every one of them.  Their lamps are lit, so to speak; they are dressed for action.  The little domes of their heads can sometimes be spotted in the windows of my office, as they wait for their Master (or anyone at all, really) to return, fasten his belt, and have them sit down to eat.

But Leo cowers in fear, (who knows where?): terrified of what the next footfall might bring.  No treasure possesses his heart, so it thumps hopelessly, nervously, ironically in his little leonine chest.

For some weeks I have been preparing to bring you sad news about Leo – uncertain about just how to do so.  Six weeks ago when I was traveling abroad, I emailed Kent John and asked him to check on Leo.  His reply brought concern: no sign that Leo was eating his food or using his litter box.  Some weeks previously the room Leo had been hiding out in for the past several years had been invaded by painters.  This incursion sent the cat in flight to the fourth floor, taking refuge in the old chapel up there, behind a pew.  But now, no sign of him was to be found.

On my return home, I searched the house: looking especially carefully in the basement, where I found a dead rat, but no Leo, and no sign that the carnage was his work.  I put food in his bowl in the chapel on the fourth floor, I went around opening closet doors to make sure he had not been shut in.  I returned again and again to the basement, calling his name, looking behind boxes, but still no sign of the cat.  I checked the fourth floor, too, but nothing.

After a month I was worried.  After five weeks, despairing.  And by the sixth week I had given up hope, and have been wondering how to break the news to you that Leo is gone.  Who knows where?  Did he flee out the back door between someone’s feet in a state of terror?  Did he slink out the front door while workmen were coming and going?  Might he come home again?  After all these weeks?

Of course I felt guilty.  I felt I have been a poor steward of one of God’s creatures – one who needed me more than most.  But I consoled myself with the reassurance that really it was Leo’s own issues that got the better of him, not my neglect.  It was his inability to adjust to the world around him – a world in which he was loved and cared for (even the Labradors would have liked to befriend him).  But he could find no hope, no treasure in which to place the trust of his heart.  “Do not be afraid” – the scriptures say, but these words would be an idle insult to a cat whose life was defined by fear and the avoidance of nearly anything that would get too close, anything or anyone who might protect him and care for him.  Leo’s disappearance was nobody’s fault but Leo’s, who chose his own fate when he walked out of the sanctuary of his Master’s house.

But still, a sense of sadness and responsibility rested heavily on my shoulders as I began to accept that Leo was gone, and hoped that you all would forgive me for not taking better care of him.

On Thursday I had not yet determined to share this news with you when I walked into the Rectory after Morning Prayer.  As soon as the door was shut behind me I heard a little squeak of some kind.  I stopped to listen.  Yes, it was either a squeak or a peep. In fact, it sounded familiar.  I opened the door to the basement.  “Leo?”  I called out.

And in reply came not a squeak or a peep, but a cry, a plaintive wail that I know well.

“Leo!” I shouted, as I skipped down the stairs, turned on the light and stooped under the ductwork.  His loud squawking moan wouldn’t stop now – calling to me out of equal parts fear and need. 

There was a wadded up sheet of plastic – a drop cloth the painters left behind – stuffed behind an old, immovable iron safe.  No movement there, but unquestionably the location of the cat.  I brushed aside the plastic sheet, and there was Leo!  He darted behind the safe, and continued to cry.

I raced up the stairs to the fourth floor to get his food and water bowl and his litter box.  I danced down the stairs to bring them to him, I was singing his name out in reassurance: “Leo!  Leo!  Leo!”  I placed his food down, and his water, and put his litter box nearby.  And my heart raced with joy.

He crept out from beside the safe far enough to allow me to scratch him behind the ears.  I dared not pick him up yet, since he doesn’t much like being held in the best of circumstances.

And I rejoiced to have found the lost cat, to know he was safe and alive, to be able to feed him, and do what I could to care for him.

I have to report to you that at the moment, Leo is still making his home in the basement.  I suspect he will stay there for a long time.  Maybe it’s the best place for him.  He can hide as much as he wants, and steal upstairs to patrol the rest of the house under the cover of darkness in the middle of the night if he so desires.

And so, although once he was lost, but now he’s found, Leo will probably remain an icon of hopelessness and fear.  His six-week sojourn in darkness and his miraculous return do not seem to have put a treasure in his heart; he shows no signs of desiring to move upstairs and live among the hopeful creatures of the household.

And, of course, this story would be only mildly amusing if not for the sad reality that so many people live their lives the way Leo does: captives of hopelessness and fear.  For some it is self-pity, or jealousy; for others it’s the result of addiction or co-dependence; for others it grief they cannot let go of; for others it’s the constant worry of scarcity in a world that has never provided them with anything other than plenty; for some it’s self-loathing, for others silly pride; for some it is greed of one kind or another.  There are a host of reasons to decide to live in fear and hopelessness – to live, as it were, under the bed, behind the sofa, deep in a closet, or in the darkest recesses of the basement – even if you have friends and family who love you and care for you and would do what they could to help you.  To live this way is to live without a treasure to trust your heart to.

And the truth of the matter is that there is only one Treasure worth entrusting your heart to.  There is only one Master worth waiting up for till he comes.  There is only one Light who will conquer the darkness.  There is only one Spirit to fill you with hope.

Most of us have our moments when we flee to the basement, and cower there in fear.  But the lesson of Leo is this: if you must hide in the basement, at least do not run for the door.  Do not take flight through the back door, or slink out the front when no one is watching.  At least stay in the basement till you find some way to overcome your fear and you are brave enough to squeak or to peep: to make the first sounds of a prayer.

Listen for footfalls on the floor above you as you hear the door creak open.  And do not be afraid to call out when your Master is looking for you – as he always is.

Do not be afraid, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom – yes, not just the basement, but the entire kingdom!

So open your mouth and wail, open your heart and cry out, reach out your paws and embrace the One for whom you have been waiting, although you did not know it. 

Blessed are you when he comes and finds you, and rescues you from your fear and your hopelessness, which at least kept you awake for this moment.

And for God’s sake, remember that you are not cat!  So when you have found this treasure worth giving your heart to, for the love of God, come on up out of the basement, and live!  For in him is treasure worth an entire kingdom, and it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.  Claim him, and him alone, as your treasure – who calls you out of darkness into his marvelous light – for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

11 August 2013

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia