Saint Mark's Church

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

A few years before he took his own life, the American author, David Foster Wallace delivered a college commencement address that has since become rather famous.  In it he said this 

…in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism.  There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships.  The only choice we get is what to worship.  And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship... is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.  If you worship money and things… then you will never have enough….  It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly.  And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.[i]

Wallace went on to make an interesting claim:

…the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

Now, we could debate whether or not the question of sin is only semantics, here, but that’s a discussion for another day.  If you agree with Wallace, as I do, that “everybody worships,” then the only question is: What are you going to worship?  And the next question is: Are you going to worship the things that eat you alive: power, money, beauty, youth?  Or are you going to worship something that gives you the freedom, as Wallace put it, that “involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.”

Earlier in his speech, the writer had deployed a little parable-like story in service to his discussion:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How's the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

Wallace would go on to say that we are prone to miss the whole world around us, to fail to notice that we are swimming in water, or even to regard the most elemental realities of our lives and the world around us.  He said that it is easy for us to get trapped inside the “tiny skull-sized kingdoms” of our own heads.  And he foreshadowed his own death as he talked about the challenge of “making it to 30, or maybe even 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head.”  The latter being a milestone he prevented himself from reaching, albeit, without the use of a firearm.

In the church, we are as prone as everyone else in the world to fall back on our default settings, to take things for granted, and to fail to understand something even as basic as the environment in which we live, the air we breath, the water through which we swim, the food we eat.

In the church we are as prone as everyone else to the temptation to worship the things that will eat us alive.  You have only to pick up the papers, or pay attention to the kinds of things that are happening in other denominations and our own at this very time to see that this is true.

In the church, we say that we are born in the water when we are baptized, but we then go quickly about the business of losing the memory and the meaning of that water.  Having once been dipped in pools of the stuff at our baptisms, that we say gave us new life and that promises us entry in to the life of the world to come, we can just as easily as the next fish turn to our neighbor in the pew and ask, “What the hell is water?”

No one will ever know why that hugely talented and thoughtful writer took his own life.  He was fighting severe depression.  And what can we do but surmise that he could find nothing worth worshiping in the world, and the water, so to speak, overwhelmed him.  In any case, I trust that God now cares for him and has shown him new light and new life.

Thank God, the water does not overwhelm most of us.  But it laps at our thighs and our buttocks; it creeps up to our armpits, and sometimes we find that we have to spit it out, as we fight to keep our heads above it.

So much in life gets ruined.  I found this to be true in the most mundane way not long ago when I wanted to make shortcakes for strawberry shortcake.  I reached up into my cupboard for the box of Bisquick – which is a blessing of untold measure in this world.  I opened the box and peeked inside, because I had a hunch that I was in for trouble – the box had been there, opened, for quite some time, since I last made shortbread or pancakes or anything else you make with Bisquick.

Sure enough, on examination, I could see that the Bisquick mix was speckled with the tiny black polka-dots of what are sometimes called flour beetles or weevils.  So the box had to be thrown out (which is a waste).  And it was a busy day; people were coming over to dinner, and I was running late, as usual.  The strawberries hadn’t even been washed and trimmed yet, but now I had to go out and get a new box of Bisquick.  And even though this was a mundane thing, it just made me think of how easily everything is ruined: all our plans, our schedules, and the cakes we mean to bake, so to speak.

And of course, it’s not like it’s only the Bisquick.  The same thing has happened with rice, and with sugar at various points.  And, I have finally begun keeping the flour in an air-tight container, but who knows if that will actually work; the flour has gotten ruined before: it could happen again.

And of course, it’s not like it’s only the things in the cupboard.  It’s how easily everything else in life gets ruined.  I have my list; you have yours – lists of things that have gotten ruined in our lives.  Let’s not argue over whose list is longer.

Things fall apart, remember. 

And as long as things are falling apart and everything gets ruined, I am likely to rely on the default settings of the way I respond to the world around me.  Which means that I am likely to mistakenly believe that the Bisquick was important, and that my powerlessness to keep it bug-free, or to produce strawberry shortcake, apparently effortlessly at the end of the meal – that these were important too.  What am I worshiping here?  Betty Crocker?  Who knows?

But the truth remains that things pile up in life – things far more important than the Bisquick.  And as they do, they seem to press against your chest – or if you want to stick with the fish metaphor, against your gills, making it hard to breathe, hard to swim through the day to day waters of life.  And you could be forgiven for beginning to think the way the Israelites thought when they were wandering in the desert – Why has God put us here, if only to kill us slowly?  If only to starve us to death in the desert?

And if you happen to go to church, as everything gets ruined in the world, and as everything falls apart around you, and as you feel the pressure mounting against your chest, against your gills.  And it’s harder and harder to swim, and you are not sure why you have been put into the world, just to swim meaninglessly amongst all the other fish…

… if you happen to go to church you might find that you are in an antique building surrounded by antique people singing antique music to an antique God.  And should you be unlucky enough to be there for the sermon, you could be congratulated, in many cases, for choosing to snooze rather than walking out in protest or boredom.

But by God’s grace, maybe, just maybe, you would stay long enough to toddle up to the altar rail with all the other fish, and to open your puckered lips for the morsel of food that is distributed there.  And although the little wafer resembles fish food at least as much as it resembles bread, maybe, just maybe, you will hear the words that the priest says as he or she presses it into your hands or onto your tongue: “The Body of Christ.”  And maybe, by God’s grace, at that moment, everything else would fall away from your consciousness, and you would just hear those words echoing in your ears as your saliva and the wine begin to dissolve the dry wafer in your mouth.  And maybe it will occur to you that everybody worships.  And you will ask yourself what you have been worshiping.  And you will ask yourself whether or not you have been worshiping things that eat you alive.

And it’s not much in the way of mental gymnastics for you to begin to see that here you have found an object of worship who prefers to feed you than to eat you alive.  And to feed you with his own self – his own Body, his own Blood, which, though mysterious, strikes you as intimate, as loving, as somehow able to save you and at least some of the things that have been ruined, some of what’s fallen apart in the world.

And it might be the case that when you get up from your knees, and turn to make your way back to your pew, and the unremarkable taste and texture of the bread you just swallowed, the wine you just sipped is already disappearing… it might be that you begin to see the world ever so slightly differently.  It might be that you begin to think to yourself, “This is water, this is water,” as you become aware of the world around you in a new way, rejoicing to think that it is all somehow the work of God’s fingers – just as you are.  And it occurs to you how marvelous it is that there is something to worship – someone to worship – who will not eat you alive, but who prefers to feed you with his Body and Blood.

Because you know what it is like to be eaten alive in this world by all that invites you to chase after money and power and looks and youth.  But here, in this somewhat antique setting, you find a God who wants to feed you, and who wants to do it more or less for free.

He wants to nourish you: body and soul.  He wants to heal everything that is broken, bind up everything that has splintered, restore everything that is ruined, and fix everything that has fallen apart in your life.  For he knows what it is like to swim in this water.  He knows how easily everything is ruined.  And he knows that this is not how it was meant to be.  He wants to feed you with a food that cannot spoil, and to give you a life that cannot be taken away from you, even when your life on this earth comes to an end.

All of which sounds foolish if you are still determined to worship the things that will eat you alive, and go on living your life oblivious even to the water through which you swim.

Or, you could worship something that gives you the freedom, as Wallace put it, that “involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.”  All of which is pretty good description of a life fed by the gifts of Christ’s Body and Blood.

This is water, this life you and I are living.  This is water.  This is water.  It can kill you, or it can give you life.  It can drown you, or it can quench your thirst.  Deciding what you worship plays a big role in determining which it’s going to be.

And you can decide to worship the things that will eat you alive.  People have been worshiping such gods for a long, long time.  Or you can decide to worship the God who feeds you with his own Body, as he makes all things new.

And you may begin to discover that the water is fine.  And then, you may begin to live.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Solemnity of Corpus Christi, 2012

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] David Foster Wallace, “This Is Water”, A Commencement Speech give at Kenyon College, 2005, published by Little Brown & Co., New York, 2009

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

As you approach what used to be called the Wailing Wall, at what was the base of the great Temple of Jerusalem, you encounter signs that address you thus:  “Dear Visitor, You are approaching the holy site of the Western Wall, where the Divine Presence always rests.  Please make sure you are appropriately and modestly dressed so as not to cause harm to this holy place or to the feelings of the worshipers.”

It’s easy to glean the wrong meaning from such a carefully worded injunction.  As with so much else in life, it’s easy to miss the point.  It’s easy to be put off by the enforced piety that doesn’t sit well with Americans.  It’s easy to ignore the sign altogether.  It’s easy to fixate on the demand for modesty, and to disregard the outrageous and daring claim contained in the white letters printed in a sans-serif font on a brown metal sign that bears the imprimatur of the un-named Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites.  It’s easy to overlook the possibility that you are about to tread very near the place where, in the words of the Rabbi, “the Divine Presence always rests.”   It’s easy to be distracted by the Orthodox men and boys with their long coats, their curls, their fringes, and their hats, and the gear they’ve brought with them to pray packed into a plastic kit, tucked under their arms as they make their way to the Wall.

How does one approach such a Wall; that marks the boundary of the place where the Divine Presence is said to have always dwelt?  How close does one get?  Is it safe to go right up to it?  Is it respectful to do so?  Does one touch the Wall?  Or kiss it? Or fall down on one’s face in front of it?   Have you brought a prayer scribbled onto a folded scrap of paper to nestle in its cracks?  Do you have a prayer ready in your heart?

You are nowhere near as well prepared to pray as the young IDF soldier who has produced Tefillin from somewhere, and has strapped one leather box to his head like a miner’s lamp, and is winding the other around his left arm seven times before beginning his prayers.

I walked up to the Wall, and I was very aware of my breathing.  It seemed wise to be cautious in one’s breathing in such precincts.  I stretched out my hand.  I reached for the Rock, and as my fingertips came into contact with it I closed my eyes, and checked my breathing, to slow it down a little.  I don’t remember what I prayed for – I suppose I prayed for peace.  I don’t know how long I stood there; it wasn’t very long.  The earth did not shake beneath my feet.  I opened my eyes, and in front of me I saw the Wall.  Just the Wall. Nothing else.

Why would anyone believe the Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites?  If the Divine Presence rests there, as it has for ever, why is that Presence not more evident?  Why is there only that Wall left standing, with its fanatic Orthodox believers davening before it?  Why must soldiers protect the resting place of God Almighty?  Why has peace not settled alongside the Divine Presence?  Why is there so little to see?

 I would have liked to see a vision like Isaiah’s.  I’d have liked to close my eyes, reach out my hand and discover that the rock has become supple in my fingertips: has taken on the texture of the hem of the robe of the Lord of hosts.  I’d have like to smell the scent of incense, and felt the wreaths of smoke winding past my face.  I’d have liked to have heard the suggestion, at least, of the sound of the beating of seraphic wings, and to have caught a hint of the echo of the threefold angelic Sanctus.  I’d have liked to have heard the voice of the Lord speaking to me as Isaiah did.  I’d have liked to have seen something as a I stood near the Divine Presence.  I’d have liked to have seen the Lord.  But I opened my eyes, and I saw the Wall.

Why is it so hard to see God?  Why was it that even Moses was only allowed to catch a glimpse of his sacred backside?  Why is it that in a world where faith is faltering, God delegates the announcement of his Divine Presence to whomever it is who happens to be the Rabbi of the Western Wall.  Why does he leave us to struggle with mysterious and complicated teachings about three persons in one God, as though we had to reconcile the identity issues of a pretty serious personality disorder?

In 1897, the African American artist Henry O. Tanner made his first trip to the Holy Land, financed by Rodman Wanamaker.  When he returned, he painted the scene that we heard described in the Gospel reading assigned for Trinity Sunday – the story of Nicodemus’s visit to Jesus by night.  Nearly thirty years later, Tanner would paint the scene again in a palate of more spectral blues as the influence of impressionism takes hold of his work.

In both versions of the scene, the meeting takes place on a rooftop terrace, and Tanner includes an important detail: the stairway to the roof is carefully located, and in both cases, the artist indicates that light is shining on the stairs.

Nothing about the paintings suggests that the importance of the stairway is as a point of egress for Nicodemus or for Jesus.  The feeling is given that the stairs are lit for the viewer: for you and for me.  This is to be our way up to the rooftop, whence we may eavesdrop on the sacred instruction taking place.

It is as though any of us could simply slip up the stairs to the rooftop and see the Lord.

Not long ago, I saw both paintings at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where Tanner had been a student.  As I think of them, I find myself fixated on the stairs in both paintings.  I allow myself to imagine that at the bottom of the stairs there might be a sign posted that would read something like this:

Dear Visitor, You are approaching the holy site where Nicodemus is visiting with Jesus; they have been talking here for a long time, and the Divine Presence does not seem prepared to leave any time soon.  Please make sure you are appropriately and modestly dressed so as not to cause harm to this holy place or to the feelings of the other visitors who are also spying from the top of the stairs.

How does one approach such a stairway?  How close to the top does one get?  Can you walk right out onto the terrace and join in the conversation with Nicodemus and Jesus?  Do you reach out to touch the Lord?  Do you fall on your face and kiss his feet?  Is your head covered?  Does it need to be 

I want to stare at Tanner’s paintings long enough to close my eyes and allow myself to creep up the lighted staircase and look and listen.  I want to feel the evening breeze in Jerusalem blow across my face.  I want to hear the words it carries reach my ears: “I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above….

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

I want to see what Tanner seems to have seen without ever having seen it.   I want to bring all the prayers I can remember with me up that staircase, and all the prayers I cannot remember.  I want to press a stack of them, scrawled on scraps of paper, into Jesus’ hand, and I want to implore him to answer them, or at least to answer the prayer for peace.  I want to feel the earth shift under my feet as I draw closer to him.  I want to hear the beat of seraphic wings, and the echo of the threefold angelic Sanctus.  I’d like to smell the certain odor of incense that hangs in the air in his nearer presence.  I want to be able to open my eyes and see the Lord, right there in front of me, in spectral but alive brushstrokes of blues.

But when I open my eyes, I find instead that I am in front of a brownstone wall.  And all I have in common with Tanner’s vision is Philadelphia.

And the cracks in the brownstone walls are not spaces to place prayers, but obvious signs of deferred maintenance.  And I am not on a rooftop in Jerusalem; I am right here with you in Saint Mark’s.

And I am stymied again by the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and wondering what in the world they can be saying about it in church over on the other side of the Square.

And I catch hint of the scent of incense in the air.  And I look up at you, who I see gathered here faithfully to pray.  And I think of the light burning on the staircase in the painting.  And of the sign: Dear Visitor, you are approaching the site where the Divine Presence always rests.

And I look down at the small disk of bread in my hands.

And I look again at you, and these stone walls around us.

And I think that perhaps that when I opened my eyes I saw the Lord too.

I think we are on a lighted staircase.

I think the Divine Presence has always rested here too.

And I know these are mysteries too deep to fathom.

But I am becoming more and more certain that I saw the Lord in this place.  And I feel like I want to post a sign outside that begins something like this: Dear Visitor, you are approaching the site where the Divine Presence dwells…

But I suspect I should let the light speak for itself, and I should simply guard the stairs to make sure anyone who wishes may climb them.

And if you want to do so, I shall hold the door to the stairway open for you.  And as you walk by, you might ask me, “What’s up there?  What did you see?”

And I’ll smile, with Nicodemus and with Isaiah, and I’ll tell you: “I saw the Lord.”

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Trinity Sunday 2012

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)

The war still drags on in Afghanistan, no matter how many new restaurants open in Philadelphia, no matter how glorious the spring weather has been here, no matter how lovely each mass offered at Saint Mark’s may be.  For ten years, we have sent soldiers in our names to fight a grisly war in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan, whence vicious armies have previously been sent home licking their wounds.

A few weeks ago, along a road that leads through an Afghan village where children were to be seen along the side of the road going about their day happily with their parents, a suicide bomber attacked a small American convoy of pickup trucks, after which waiting gunmen fired on the Marines who had been thrown or had jumped from their trucks. 

Except that one soldier, Master Sergeant Scott Pruitt, never left his truck: his injuries left him bleeding so much and so fast he did not survive the attack.

As it happens, in one of the trucks there was a reporter from the Wall Street Journal who wrote pointedly about the attack and who documented it with a series of photos.  In an interview about what happened, the reporter, Michael Phillips, talked about the difficulty of recording what actually took place:

“The world explodes,” he said.  “Some things I saw in my pictures, I don’t remember having seen.”  He goes on to say that “the pictures themselves are more solid than my memories of what happened.”[i]

In particular, Phillips tells of a photo that you can find in the slideshow that goes with his story.  In it, a Marine, Jewelie Hartshorne is seen taking aim at an enemy position; she kneels beside the mangled green pickup truck that has been hit by the bomber; and the body of Master Sergeant Pruitt, slumped forward as he bleeds to death, is clearly visible through the blasted-out, front, passenger-side window.[ii]

The reporter says that he cannot remember taking this photo, which I think is another way of saying he cannot remember seeing this happen.  He assumes he must have seen it, since, after all, it was his camera and he took all the photos.  But with only his own memory to resort to, it seems that Phillips would be unable to remember at least this one aspect of what happened, this one scene.  Without the photo, who’s to say that it did happen?  Who’s to say what else has been forgotten that was not captured by his camera?  And who’s to say that the images he did collect are what they appear to be?

Who is to say what really happens in the chaos of war?  Would the Afghanis whose children were on the street that day report it differently?  Where is the truth to be found?

Or as the question is found in the Gospel, on the lips of Pontius Pilate: What is truth?

As I ponder the mysterious nature of truth, I find myself fantasizing that I could somehow hack into the reporter’s camera, or his computer where I’m sure the images are stored.  And before he looked at all of them, before he’d published them and shared them with the world, I find myself imagining that I could go to work on the images with PhotoShop.  I think of the picture with Master Sergeant Pruitt slumped forward in the truck’s cab.  And I know that I could easily change this image.  I could push the Marine back in his seat so he could draw breath into his lungs.  I could replace the passenger seat window.  I could restore the mangled truck.  I could open its door and find the pool of blood at Pruitt’s feet, and I could erase it with a few clicks of the mouse.  I could mend the torn shreds of his uniform, and, so doing, mend the ruptured flesh beneath it.  I feel as though in doing so, I could place my cursor over his heart, and click and click and click and start his heart beating again.

I don’t feel the need to return everything to normal in the photo – this seems unrealistic to me.  But I do like the idea of going this far – far enough to save this one Marine.  And I imagine that I could do it without the reporter knowing it, so that when he turns on his computer and looks for the files, he will open this image up and see that Pruitt is not dead after all, and that he will soon be reunited with his two daughters.  And I feel as though I could make it so, since truth is hard to grasp, since even the man who took the photo cannot say for sure that he actually saw it happen.

Why should the photo get to decide what the truth is?  Why should the photo get to decide who lives and dies?  If the reporter who witnessed it cannot remember taking this photo, and relies on it to know what happened, why can’t we just change the image and thereby change the truth?

What is truth, after all?

As he was preparing to go to his own death, Jesus prayed a long prayer.  And in it we heard him say this morning a few things that stick out in my mind:

“While I was with them I guarded them….  I protected them….  I ask you to protect them from the evil one….  Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

Your word is truth.  What does this mean?  And why should it matter?

It matters, because, as the reporter Michael Phillips said, “The world explodes.”

The world explodes all the time, all around us.  Sometimes the explosions are obvious – as in the roadside battlefields of Afghanistan.  But sometimes the explosions are a lot less obvious.  Sometimes only you know that the world is exploding.  Sometimes it is only your world that is exploding, but the explosion is no less disastrous for it.  The world explodes.

In the interview, Michael Phillips said this, “Your notebook or your camera is a filter between you and reality.  It allows you to do your job even as you should be running for cover.”  But actually, his notebook and his camera proved to be more than that.  They were also means by which he would try to know the truth of what happened that Saturday, April 28, in a small village in the Nimroz province of Afghanistan.  His photos would show him parts of the truth he would never have remembered on his own: things he had seen but not really witnessed without some other way to claim the vision as his own.  And the truth that those images impart is painful and heart-racing, and terrifying, and final.  I can let my imagination run wild, but it will not bring Scott Pruitt back to life; it will not give his daughters back their father.

We like to pretend that the truth is whatever is empirically verifiable in the world, whatever is replicable in the lab, whatever can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.  But actually we know that even these standards bring no guarantee of establishing the truth.  Clever as we are, we are notoriously inept at truth.

If I were to say that faith is something like a filter between you and the world that allows you to live your life even as you should be running for cover, you might say that by such a definition of faith I am admitting it is just a form of denial of the reality around me.  But if a reporter uses the very same phrases in reference to his notebook and his camera, then we’d say that they are tools in service of the truth.

But why should a camera get to decide who lives and who dies?  Why should that sad image be the final arbiter of life and death?  Why should its pixilated images get to spell out the truth?

I’d rather trust God to do these things.  I’d rather let his word speak the truth.

And God’s word has truth to speak into that image that the photographer cannot recall taking, just as it has truth to speak to you and me, and to two young girls who lost their father on April 28^th, and of course to their father as well.

It might sound something like this:

I formed you, my child, with my own hands; I made you out of clay and dust.  I shaped not only your limbs, but the intricate works that make you who you are: that send the blood running through your veins, the air running through your lungs, and the ideas running through your head. 

I made you in my own image.  And when you were made, then I leaned over my workbench and blew my own breath into your nostrils so that you would have life – a gift that only I can give.

I gave you talents, and looks, and limits, too.  I gave you being.  And I looked at you and saw that you were marvelously made, and that it was good.

I have loved you since before you were born, while I was creating you in the inward parts of your mother’s womb.  I have desired for you only joy; but I know the realities of the world into which I set you.  I know that you are a sheep in the midst of wolves.  This is the nature of my creation – it is complicated, too complicated for you to understand, but it does not mean I love you any less – knowing this is the beginning of wisdom.

I have sought to protect you always with my whole being.  I have been your Father; I sent you my Son; you have been given my Holy Spirit.  Like the creation I made, I am complicated too.  Does it surprise you that the Mind from which all things sprang is complicated?  That the Life from which all life comes is complicated?

Let me try to simplify it for you.  You cannot see what I see.  You look at death and you see an end.  I look at it and see a new beginning.  Which of us do you suppose is right?  Which of us can see on both sides of death?

Do you think you know the truth?  Do you think you have captured it in photographs of dead people?  What does this prove?  You cannot even remember taking the photos.  How could you know the truth on your own?

But I have sanctified you in the truth; my word is truth.

This means that I see what you cannot, but that I have given you the lens of faith to help you see the truth.

Mostly this means that I have helped you see beyond the veil of death, though the world explodes.

You hear people tell you that they can show you the truth all the time.  The truth, they say, in that silly, rhyming slogan, is that might makes right.  They don’t use the slogan any more but they live by it.

They tell you that this war is truly necessary.  They have told you that wars can truly be won.  They have told you that they would rather not do it this way, but they must for the sake of the truth.

These are lies.  But the picture has been so altered that they appear to be true.  And since you cannot remember that far back, you cannot see how drastically the picture has been changed.  You cannot remember what joy and peace and mercy were supposed to look like.  You believe them, but you doubt my word.  And the world explodes.

But I have sanctified you in the truth; my word is truth.

This means that what I see is true, not what you see.  This means that Scott Pruitt is dead to you, which makes sense, since you killed him.

But I have sanctified him, and thousands upon thousands of others like him; I have sanctified them in the truth; my word is truth.

And this is the truth from above: that he is dead to you, but alive to me; that he could not survive in the world that you have made of my creation, but he breathes new life in the world beyond the grave.

You search all the evidence you can for proof, and you can only prove that he is dead.  Which is exactly the wrong conclusion to reach, even though you killed him.

Because you thought your might was true, you can repeat the results over and over again, they have been reviewed by your peers, who approve, more or less of your ways, your experts will testify that the life had left his body, which was just too full of holes to go on living.  And this looks true to you.  Because the world explodes.

But I have sanctified him in the truth; my word is truth.  When you were done with him, I took him again into my hands, I breathed again into his bloody nostrils, I filled him again with the spirit of life that I intended for him from the moment of creation.

And he lives today with me, where he will be forever.  He is not dead; he is alive.  Even while the world hurtles ever more furiously toward death.

You think you know the truth, but I am telling you, you are only looking at the pictures.  You can only see what you think you can see.  But there is more.

And my word is truth.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

20 May 2012

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] “Here and Now” on NPR, 18 May 2012, reported by Alex Ashlock,  

[ii] Phillips, Michael M, “Under Attack” in The Wall Street Journal, 12 May 2012

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

Most of us at one point or another in our lives have had to deal with the cruel reality of unrequited love.  Perhaps there was a date or two.  Or, more likely, there was a dinner that you thought was a date, but she didn’t.  Drinks that you hoped counted as a first date, but he clearly did not.  Maybe you managed to continue the fantasy for a week or two.  Maybe you went to the movies together.  Maybe there was a second dinner.  Maybe you both took a stab at romance for a week or two  – trying it on to see if it fit.  Maybe there were kisses good night that did not last long enough to suit you.  Maybe there was a third dinner, or more likely it was drinks this time, because, although you tried to convince yourself it was not true, the object of your affection had an agenda tonight.  The agenda was not to crush all the happiness out of your life; the agenda was not to stop the stars from shining in the night sky, or to quiet the songs of birds in their throats, but it had all those effects and more.  It was time for truth-telling, lest things go too far.  The news had to be broken to you: romance was not in the cards; he just wasn’t feeling it; she likes you very much, but not that way.  And in an effort to cushion your fall, looking warmly into your eyes, and holding your heart in his hands, he crushes it as he says to you, “Can’t we just be friends?”

Well, of course, we could just be friends.  But, NOOOOOOOO!  That is not the point! you want to scream, as you dig your fingernails into your flesh to prevent the tears from flowing.  And although you will try for a while, you will discover that you can’t just be friends.  You never wanted her to be your friend!  You wanted to give yourself to him body and soul!  Friendship seems a poor consolation prize, when true love is what you seek.

We often talk about the love of God.  Last week in church, one of the readings reminded us of that great simple truth: that God is love.  And I often feel that my job is to proclaim to you the unswerving love of God for you and all mankind: the height and depth and breadth of God’s love, and to convince you of the power and intensity of God’s love for you, and to urge you (as I am also urged) to requite God’s love with fervor and zeal akin to a romance – to be willing to give yourself to God, body and soul.

This is a tall order for most of us.  It is certainly a tall order for me.  Most of us are willing to give a part of ourselves to God – the church-going part, for an hour or two, here and there.  But many of us (and Episcopalians are famous for this) prefer to be restrained in our love of God, and to save plenty of room for the love of other things in our lives.  Romancing God is something best left to nuns and monks, who, we seem to remember, used to wear wedding rings with their habits.  When you and I hear the impassioned plea to give our lives to God, body and soul (even if I’m the one making the plea), I suspect we receive it with a certain steely resolve to keep things in perspective, to leave room for other things.  And we could, perhaps, sum up our response to the plea to fall in love with God with these words: Can’t we just be friends?

Can’t we just be friends with God?

Can’t we just be friends with Jesus?

Since this question almost always signals disappointment, and a relationship that is more than likely going nowhere at all, and will not, in fact, end in friendship, it would seem an unhelpful question in approaching our relationship to Jesus.  And yet, this morning, almost as if the tables have been turned, we seem to hear Jesus asking us that very thing, if we suppose that what he said to his disciples all those years ago, he is also saying to us today.  “I do not call you servants,” we hear Jesus say, “but I have called you friends.”  And then Jesus says a most astonishing thing to his friends: “You did not choose me but I chose you.”  Again, transpose the conversation to our present time: Jesus has chosen you to be his friend.

So much Christian religion these days has forgotten this little revelation: that we did not choose Jesus, but he chose us.  So often we feel we are being pressured or cajoled or duped into buying more religion than we wanted.  We are told by some that faith is all about that moment we finally break down and accept Jesus as our personal Savior – which he undoubtedly is.  There is a fervor in some modern religion that demands to know when it was that you accepted Jesus into your life – which might be alright for some.  You can watch this on TV as people are called to the altar, and every footstep on the way there is a step closer to choosing Jesus – a choice that may be accompanied by swooning into the arms of nearby attendants as you are overcome by the magnitude of your choice.

But wait a minute!  “You did not choose me,” Jesus says, “I chose you.”  And, he might well add, can’t we just be friends?  Jesus wants to be your friend; he has chosen you to be his friend, if you will have him.  Choosing Jesus, is surely a good thing to do, but perhaps it is not the beginning of faith.  Perhaps faith begins with Jesus, when he chose you to be his friend.

One of the most wonderful aspects of abiding friendship is this: the strength to endure long periods of silence, separation, and even neglect.  I hope you have, as I do, those long friendships with people you see maybe once a year, maybe less than that.  But it hardly matters.  You pick up right where you left off, as though it was only yesterday that you were swapping sandwiches from your lunch boxes.

Now, this is an odd virtue for a preacher to hold up in the pulpit.  Do I really mean to tell you that Jesus is inviting you to a friendship in which it’s perfectly OK if you ignore him, and visit with him once or twice a year (say, Christmas and Easter)?  Am I advocating a relationship with Jesus that is characterized by long periods of silence, separation, and neglect?  No, this is not my point.  But I have been around long enough to know that many of us have neglected our relationships with Jesus – and sometimes this includes those of us who go the church all the time.  Many of us have been separated from Jesus for a long time.  Many of us have maintained silence with Jesus for years, and we note that we haven’t heard from him much either, as far as we can tell.  And the demand for a fervent love affair with Jesus looks like a bridge too far for some, who shrug in the face of such a demand, and say, “Can’t we just be friends?”

And although the implied answer to that question is almost always “No, we can’t really just be friends,” in this case, Jesus has a ready reply.  “Of course we can be friends.  I chose you as a friend long ago.  I have longed to be your friend, when you thought I only ever wanted to be your Master.”

This little moment in the Gospel is one of the oft-neglected highlights of the story of Jesus: a turning point of great significance, when Jesus, who is teaching his disciples what it means to love one another, defines that love in terms of friendship.  Friendship is no consolation prize for Jesus: it is the goal. 

Every time we come to the altar, Jesus is there.  It doesn’t much resemble a date, but there is this one similarity, even if we don’t know it: Jesus holds our heart in his hands.  And every single time we kneel at the rail, it is as though we were looking into his eyes and wondering what will happen next.

Who is the hopeful lover here?  Is it me or Jesus?

Whose love seems to be unrequited? 

Whose longing is it that is unfulfilled?

Which of us is it who breaks the awkward silence with that telling question – Can’t we just be friends?

It’s a question that almost always leads to heartache – and as you realize that you also notice that Jesus still holds your heart in his hands.  And you wait for him to crush it, as you suppose he can, since he is the Son of the Most High God, Lord of all.  And since you know that this is the moment when hearts are crushed, the stars are dimmed, and the birds cease their singing.

There you are, face to face with Jesus, who always calls you to his altar.  And your heart is beating faster now; it is still in his hands.  But he does not crush it; he will not.

And the question hangs silently but palpably in the air between you: Can’t we just be friends?

“My dear,” he says to you: “I have called you my friend.  You did not choose me but I chose you.”

And he still holds your heart in his hands and he does not let go of it; he will not.  But now you know it’s safe, that he will never break your heart.   And you begin to see what a friend you have in Jesus.

Thanks be to God.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

13 May 2012

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

“The kingdom of God has come near.”  (Mark 1:15)

The first thing they want you to know upon entering Jordan is that it is a kingdom.

The second thing they want you to know is that when you are in Jordan you are in the Holy Land, which does not know modern international boundaries.

The third thing they want you to know is that an officer of the tourism police will soon be entering the coach to make sure you have your passports; please have your passport ready to show the officer.

The fourth thing they want you to know is that the bus will be advancing through the first gate, after a period of waiting for no apparent reason.  When the bus stops you are to exit it and retrieve your baggage from beneath it.  You are to carry the baggage into the building you see on your left, entering through the small door.  Place your baggage on the conveyor belt inside to be screened.  Your baggage may be searched by hand.

The fifth thing they want you to know is that you may then carry your baggage out to a waiting area, beneath a shelter.  They do not tell you that you will be profoundly glad for the shelter because even though it is October, the sun is high and hot, and you will find yourself seeking the shade.  They don’t need to tell you this; you figure it out for yourself.

The sixth thing they want you to know is that you must leave your baggage beneath the shelter while you go inside to the immigration and customs office.  There you will stand on line waiting for no apparent reason.  Do not allow yourself to become visibly annoyed; this may not bode well for you.  Wait patiently.  You will have figured out that your baggage will be unattended if you leave it beneath the shelter to enter the immigration and customs office.  This makes no sense – for anyone.  Never mind.  Arrange for a member of your group to stay with the baggage until the first person to clear immigration and customs exits the building.  He or she can now watch the baggage as the first watcher goes to the end of the line, still waiting.

The seventh thing they want you to know is that when you have cleared customs and immigration you may put your baggage back beneath the bus.  But you may not yet board the bus.  And you may no longer stand beneath the shelter; it is nowhere near the bus’s new location.  In fact, you discover that there is a new bus.  The old bus that came from Israel could be trusted this far, but only this far. 

In time, after waiting for no apparent reason, you are allowed to board a Jordanian bus, which comes complete with the benign presence of an officer of the Jordanian tourism police, lest….  well, lest anything should require such a benign presence.

You are pleased to discover that there are bottles of cold water on the bus, available for only a dollar.  And you open one and sip the cool water, as the diesel engine roars a little bit, and the gate tilts up and open, and you begin to make your way into the kingdom.

In various airport lounges, and baggage claim areas the discussion could be heard about whether it took longer to get into or out of Israel; about whether it was better going into or out of Jordan; about which border crossing was the most efficient, which most difficult. And guesses were made as to how long it would take to accomplish the border crossing each way.  It was, frankly neither a nightmare, nor a breeze for an American tourist to go either way.  It was simply a chore to get into and out of the kingdom of Jordan.

It would have been worth it under any circumstances, if only to make our way to Mount Nebo, where Moses is said to have been led by God to see the Promised Land that God would not permit him to enter.  If Moses could manage wandering for forty years in the desert with a troublesome people to see that sight, then we could endure an hour or two of being shuffled along from one waiting area to the next, with or without our baggage.

The view from Mount Nebo is not especially impressive, although you can certainly see a long way.  But you do begin to get the idea that God could be leading you someplace.  You do begin to get the feeling that God has done this before: led people on tiresome journeys.  You do begin to let go of the tiresomeness of the journey.  And you do begin to think about where God might be leading you.  You do begin to remember that the scriptures talk about a land flowing with milk and honey.  You do begin to think about the Promise – about the covenant between God and his people.

Mount Nebo is not even high enough for the air to become thin – only 2700 feet or so – but you do begin to see so much more than you could see before.  You can see the green stripe that follows the banks of the Jordan River.  You already know that the River is a border, because you have crossed it before and you know you are going to cross it again.  But now you can see where you will be going when you return.  You can look behind you and see the Desert, and look ahead of you and find the River snaking its way south to the Dead Sea.  And you can look off to the west, toward Jerusalem, and imagine that God is calling you there, too.  You may dread for a moment the few hours of inconvenience that you already know await you at the border crossing.  But that will not stop you from going.

From Mount Nebo you get back onto your bus, and as you listen to the Arabic-tinged lilt of the tour guide’s accent, you hear that you are returning to the capital city of the kingdom: Amman.  And he reminds you that in the biblical era, Amman was one of the cities of the so-called Decapolis, and in those days the city was known by a familiar-sounding name; the city was known as Philadelphia.  And you may think to yourself that the capital of this kingdom you are now in was once Philadelphia, although you realize you are mixing up time and languages and cultures.

Philadelphia was the southernmost city of the Decapolis, and the one closest to Jerusalem.  And for some irrational reason this thought brings a momentary warmth to your heart.  And you think that if you can look west from that ancient Philadelphia and almost see Jerusalem, then maybe it is not so silly to face east from this new Philadelphia and dream about the distant view to Jerusalem.  And even though it’s the wrong kingdom, it is helpful somehow, to be reminded of the idea of a kingdom.

The first thing on the lips of Jesus in the first Gospel, written by our patron, St. Mark, is this:  “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”  Every year on this day we hear those words of Jesus as we give thanks for our life together as a community of faith.  But do we remember the kingdom of God?  Do we believe in the kingdom of God?  De we trust that the kingdom of God has come near?

The first thing I want you to know tonight is that you are in a kingdom, for tonight the kingdom of God has come near, once again.

The second thing I want you to know is that from where I stand, this new Philadelphia is a holy land in which God’s power has been revealed before and where God’s power is at work even now.

The third thing I want you to know is that the gift of the saints is a benign and loving presence that links one generation of believers to another, and although we might never need to call on them, it is good to know of that benign and loving presence of the saints, which includes Saint Mark as well as other saints that maybe only you know, maybe only ever were sainted by you.

The fourth thing I want you to know is that as we make our way on our spiritual journey in life, not infrequently there are periods of waiting around for no apparent reason.  This waiting will make it seem as though you are not actually going anywhere, as though you are stuck where you are.  It will make it seem as though there is not actually anyplace for you to go.  But do not be fooled by the waiting, and do not be put off by it.  Do not expect to learn why you must wait, just get used to the idea that on this journey, from time to time, you will have to wait for no apparent reason.  But remember, God actually has someplace for you to go.

The fifth thing I want you to know is that sometimes the journey of faith is a lot more like a border crossing into and out of Jordan than it is like a tour through the Holy Land.  Some of the stops will make no sense, and you will be grateful for nothing but the shade – if there is any.  At least be grateful for the shade – if there is any.

The sixth think I want you to know is that most people do better on their journey with God when they make it with other people.  This is why we gather into communities.  Sometimes someone has to watch the baggage while others go to get their passports stamped.  Sometimes we need to switch places.  Sometimes you need to lean on someone as you walk uphill.  Sometimes you need to borrow money.  Sometimes you have food you want to share.  Sometimes it’s gin.  The journey to the kingdom is better in community.

The seventh thing I want you to know is that although the kingdom of God has come near, it is sometimes still far distant.  This is a mystery. The bus is ready to go, but you may not board it; and when you are at last allowed to board the bus, they may not let it depart for reasons unknown to you and me.  This feels nothing like the kingdom of God; how can the kingdom have come near.  You have travelled all this way and you feel nothing, you see nothing, you have learned nothing, except to sit and wait on this bus.

And then the microphone comes on, and an Arabic-tinged lilting accent whispers into it, as the Desert begins to roll past the windows: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”

So many of us have forgotten where we are going.  It is so easy to forget there is a kingdom, and that God is calling us to it, that God is constantly bringing us near to it, or bringing it near to us – whatever it is precisely that God does; I don’t know which. 

Why are you here?  What are you doing?  What do you believe?  How much have you forgotten?  Does any of this make sense?  Does God hear your prayers?  Does he ever answer them?  The way you want them to be answered?  What are you afraid of?  Will the fear ever go away? Why won’t the pain go away?  Why isn’t life fair?  Are you worthy of the love of God?  Do you care?  Why are you here?  What are you doing?

The first thing I want you to know is that you are in a kingdom.

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.

Now, where were we?

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

The Feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist 2012

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia