Saint Mark's Church

There is a story told on seminary campuses of a theology professor who every year would tell his students that they had the option of skipping their final exam if they could complete one, simple requirement: they had to invent a new heresy. Seeing as this professor’s final exams were known for being particularly brutal, every year a handful of students would set about the task of creating their own, fresh new heresy. And every year, they all would fail. No matter what crazy, cockamamie idea they would come up with about the nature of Jesus, or the creation of the world, or the second coming, the professor could always find someone who’d had the same crazy, cockamamie idea twelve hundred years ago. The lesson was a simple one: there is very little, perhaps nothing at all, about the Christian faith that hasn’t already been harmfully twisted by someone. That sounds like bad news, perhaps, but it is not. Because that also means that there is very little, perhaps nothing at all, of that twistedness that the Church hasn’t already put in its place: namely, a large box labeled “Untrue and truly unhelpful.”

And yet, year after year, preachers stand before their congregations with trembling knees on this Sunday, terrified that they are going to spout some new – or old – heresy. Why? Because today is Trinity Sunday, the day when the Church focuses on the great mystery of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This week, my Facebook feed has been abuzz with preachers joking about their struggles with their sermons for today. One of them created a “meme,” essentially a photo with a funny caption, that shows a small, fluffy kitten and reads, “Want to avoid heresy on Trinity Sunday? Forget the sermon and show pictures of kittens instead.” Someone else went so far as to create an animated short of two ginger-haired Irishmen haranguing Saint Patrick for his use of the shamrock as an analogy for the nature of the Trinity. (The heresy there is apparently tritheism – ask me later if you’re interested.)

Now this is all a bit over the top, of course, but there is some real grounding to the fears about preaching on the Trinity. Because the blessed and glorious Trinity is not exactly the easiest theological concept to explain. Heck, forget about explaining it, the Trinity is just hard to talk about. We have a God, one God, revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ, the co-eternal Word, who was made flesh by the Virgin Mary his mother, who prayed to God as his Father, and yet said that he and the Father were one, but then seemed to be abandoned by his Father on the cross, who then after his resurrection promised to send a comforter, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the one who stands beside us, but who seems not to have been just sent, but always been standing beside us, the ruach who moved over the waters of creation, who alighted on kings and prophets, who was present at Jesus’ baptism and in the wilderness, who speaks what he hears of the father and of the Son and reveals to us all truth. Three persons, all God; God who is one.

Obviously the doctrine of the Holy Trinity can easily lead to serious confusion. To simplify things for ourselves, we might start thinking about Jesus as a person, wholly separate from God, or of the Holy Spirit as a kind of force field that Jesus, like some ascended superhero, shoots out of his fingertips from heaven. But if Jesus is just a person, then how did his crucifixion change anything? And if the Holy Spirit is just a watered-down, less-present stand-in for Jesus, then how can He (or She) know enough to reveal anything of the truth? You can see how easily we get tied up here. We need some help. We need some greater understanding, some greater wisdom.

And look what we have here, in Proverbs! "Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?" Huzzah! We are saved. Here is the wisdom we have been seeking. And as we read on, this just keeps sounding better and better. Because this Wisdom isn’t hiding her light under a bushel; no! She is standing out on the street corners, parking herself by the entrance to the PATCO line, or working her way down the outdoor tables that line Rittenhouse Square, offering her insights to all people everywhere. She is ready to share her knowledge, and what a knowledge it is! She was created first at the beginning of everything, present when God hung the stars and the moon, cradled in the crook of God’s arm as he bent to separate the waters, to bring forth dry land, to make mountains and rills and sheep and spiders and begonias and crabgrass…and us! Wisdom was there when we were made, when God breathed life into the first dust man and made for him his very own dust woman. Wisdom has been around long enough to know the truth of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and so we read on, anxious to see Wisdom get down to business, explaining, codifying, enlightening us about this tricky, testy doctrine of the Trinity.

But wait, what is this? When we read on, we find that there is actually no explaining to be found. None at all! It’s crazy making! Here is Wisdom, Wisdom herself, who knows the truth of all that has ever been and ever will be, and when she is presented with the infinity and majesty of the Triune God, she dances. She who knows the intricacy and immensity of all of God and God’s Creation explains nothing. Apparently all she wants to do is dance, to whirl about in wonder. “I was beside him,” she says, “like a master worker;…rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” She offers no explanations, codifies nothing; she just dances before God in joy.

And perhaps here is where we realize an important truth: that today is not really about a puzzle. Of course we will always continue to ponder the mystery of the Holy Trinity. We will always be drawn to the Trinity, running around it in circles as we try to find where it stops and where it starts, trying to sketch out a family tree of who begot whom and who is made from what. We will always try to figure out the Trinity. And that’s fine, we should – some of us should try a little and some of us, with brains more nimble than mine, should try a lot.

But today is not about a puzzle. Today, we recognize that the Holy and Blessed Trinity is not, at its core, something to be figured out. It is not a set of cosmic magic rings that need to be pulled apart and then slid back together. For Trinity Sunday is not really a day to celebrate a doctrine; it is a day to celebrate a God, three persons in one God and one God of three persons. We are here to celebrate persons, not a puzzle, to celebrate the fact that our God is a Trinity of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with whom we actually have a relationship. This Trinity of persons knows us, more than knows us, loves us, delights in us, pours out upon us all of the gifts of Creation, all of the Wisdom of the ages, all of the forgiveness and mercy and love and truth and justice that we will ever need. This Trinity, this great and majestic mystery, is persons and therefore personal. And, most importantly, these persons are for us.

And that just leaves us in absolute wonder. That understanding that God is for us, that the Father chose to pour himself out to you and to me through the revelation of Jesus Christ and by the workings of the Holy Spirit, that Wisdom leaves me openmouthed with awe. Because truly, what other response can there be to this much love? I cannot explain whence it comes. Why does God love us this much? Why does God delight in us, in the human race, when we like to spend so much of our time ignoring Him and crucifying each other? Why? Why so much grace poured out on us who are so undeserving? “When I consider your heavens, O Lord, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what is man that you should be mindful of him? the son of man that you should seek him out?”

But this question seems to provide its own answer, and that is: who knows? Who knows why God loves us so much? Who knows why the glory of the eternal Trinity is offered to us free of charge? Who knows, other than the God who made us? And perhaps we are meant not to know; perhaps we are just meant to see. Perhaps we aren’t meant to explain; perhaps we are just meant to dance, as the very Trinity dances in itself, to rejoice in the Trinity as the Trinity is so obviously rejoicing in us. Perhaps that is what this broken world really, truly needs: not people who can explain their faith, but a community of Christians dancing their faith in gratitude and joy, pointing again and again to the wonderful mystery of the Trinity and saying Wow! Perhaps this is the gift of Trinity Sunday – to remind us that it is enough, enough to rejoice, enough to give thanks, enough to fall to our knees, enough to sing Holy, Holy, Holy, enough to dance.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

26 May 2013 - Trinity Sunday

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Reading and understanding the Greek of the New Testament have never been strengths of mine.  My seminary professor of New Testament Greek accurately predicted that I would forget nearly everything she taught me, except how to use a few reference books.  I can’t say I’m proud of this, I’m only being honest.

But sometimes I sit alone in the church here, when no one else is around.  Sometimes I am praying, or thinking, or sometimes my mind just wanders; sometimes I am just looking around, listening.  And sometimes I hear in my head the words of the Gospels, like words Jesus spoke to his disciples in the Gospel reading today - “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever” – and I think to myself, What are you going on about Jesus?

Today is the Feast of Pentecost – the very day that we rejoice that the Holy Spirit has come into the world and filled God’s people with power!  Today is about wind and fire and the force and majesty of the Divine Presence that transcends language, nation, race, color, or culture. Today is about BIG THINGS!

But I hear Jesus preparing us for it, and all I hear is this: “I will ask the Father, and he will send you an Advocate.”  To my ears it sounds as though Jesus is promising us that in time God will provide us with a court appointed lawyer.  And this is not the biggest wish I could hope for!  To my ears, it sounds like Jesus is saying, “I will ask the Father, and he will send you a Public Defender.”   And I think – that’s Nathan!  We already have Nathan.  Is this the best God can do?  So I assume that something gets lost in translation, when we hear Jesus say that God wills end us an Advocate or a Comforter.

I mean, we live in a world that is full of uncertainty and anxiety and fear.  And I myself am not without my own uncertainties, anxieties, and fears.  Couldn’t you and I use more than an Advocate, more than a Comforter?  It makes me wish I knew more New Testament Greek.  But I only know enough to look up the words in some reference books, where I am told that the word translated as Advocate or Comforter is, in its Anglicized version actually the word, “Paraclete.”  And I think, Wow, big help!

If I look up “Paraclete” I find out that the word means something like, “one who is called near.”  And I think of Jesus promising to his followers, his friends that God the Father will send to us one who is called near, and I start to think maybe we are getting somewhere.  (And I should have worked at my Greek when I had the chance.)

For reasons that I can’t recall, my mind drifts to the Oscar-winning film, Argo.  Even if you didn’t see the movie, you probably know something about the story of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.  The movie tells the improbable tale of the rescue of six American diplomats who managed to avoid being taken hostage and were secretly given refuge in the Canadian Ambassador’s home.  The movie – which is by no means a strictly historically accurate account of what actually happened – depicts a CIA operative, Tony Mendez, who comes up with a plan to rescue the six diplomats by getting them to pose as a Canadian film crew preparing to shoot a film in Iran.

In the film, the six Americans are going a little stir crazy, holed up in the Ambassador’s residence, and they are reluctant to go along with Mendez’s plan, because it seems far-fetched to them, with a pretty good chance of failure.  They are gripped by uncertainty, anxiety and fear, taking the specific shape that they might end up being caught and executed in the heated anti-American atmosphere of Tehran at that time.

In one scene, Mendez is explaining that they will each have to pose as a different member of a film production company, they’ll have to learn their fake identities, and stick to their cover stories, no matter what.  One of diplomats most opposed to the plan objects, “We can’t stand up to that.  We don’t know what the hell movie people do.”

Mendez, the CIA agent replies, “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

As the film unfolds (and indeed as history did unfold) Mendez manages to shepherd the six safely out of Iran, just as planned, using the slightly goofy cover story he’d cooked up, and some really helpful passports provided by the Canadian government.

Whatever other merits Argo may or may not have, it does a good job of depicting the atmosphere of uncertainty, anxiety, and fear among the six Americans hiding inside the Ambassador’s home.  You have no trouble believing that they are really afraid for their lives, and have reason to be.  You can feel the tension build, the longer they are in hiding, and the more likely it becomes that they will be found out.  But the only thing more frightening to them than remaining hidden is taking the risk of leaving their fragile sanctuary under any circumstances whatsoever.  Their dilemma is not helped by the measure of the resources sent to them: a guy with a flimsy cover story and some Canadian passports.  No Marines, no stash of secret firepower, no helicopters to whisk them away.  Only a guy urging them to play along with a fairly outlandish cover story, and who promises, “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do. 

In the church, we often cling to the idea that the feast of Pentecost is a stunning moment of dazzling effect: a rushing wind, and divided tongues of fire resting over the heads of the disciples of Jesus.  We are willfully in denial that this image is merely quaint in a world that has known the battles at Gettysburg and Normandy, or that has sent rovers to Mars, or that has pulled bodies out of wreckage in Haiti or more recently in Bangladesh, or that has watched the footage of an un-manned drone doing its work, or that can recall the implication of the mushroom clouds we caused to rise over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or that is still coming to terms with the destructive potential of a pressure cooker.

The church celebrates the Feast of Pentecost – which is the very day, 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection, when the gift of the Holy Spirit was given to our spiritual ancestors.  This Spirit is supposed to be our promise, our power, the source of what will sustain us through good times and bad.  This Spirit is God’s power moving through us – the power of the almighty, the maker of heaven and earth…

… and we get what – a strong breeze and Bunson burners?  Speaking in tongues?  Like that is going to help?  The Spirit is supposed to be our Marines, our firepower,  our helicopters, not just our translator!

The disciples were gathered together in one place – probably more or less in hiding – but a crowd gathered at the sound of the wind, and the din of voices grows.  And even in that moment there is skepticism about what this event might have meant.  Is it a wonderful sign from God, a manifestation of his amazing power?  Or is everyone here just drunk?

It’s easy for us to forget that the disciples were huddling together, probably to deal with their uncertainty, anxiety, and fear.  By no means was it clear that having followed Jesus and cast their lot with him had been a good idea.  He had been hung a cross; who was to say that others among their number wouldn’t be next to be marched up to Calvary, especially after the word of his supposed resurrection spread?

Were they reminding themselves of what he had said to them – “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever”?

Now, I’m thinking that their Greek was better than mine.  So I’m thinking that this promise spoke to them in ways that it may not immediately speak to us.  I’m thinking that, yes, they were uncertain, anxious, and afraid.  And when they heard Jesus say that God would send them an Advocate, a Comforter, a Paraclete, they heard something like this: “That’s what I’m hear for.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do,” except the voice wasn’t the familiar voice of Jesus, it was, rather, a voice carried to them on certain breeze, speaking to them in a tongue they could clearly understand.

For reasons known only to God himself, the days of rushing winds, divided tongues of fires, and multi-lingual confabulations seem to be well and truly over.  Not that those particular forces would do much these days to quell our uncertainty, anxiety, and fear.  But what isn’t over is this gentle and confident promise of Jesus’, whenever we tell him we can’t do it, we are afraid to go outside, we are too weak, or too scared, or just too ready to give up: “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

And the promise comes to us not so much from the lips of Jesus, as from a certain breeze, that is probably blowing through the pews right now.  Maybe you can feel it rustling the hairs on the back of your neck.  And maybe you can hear it in a language that is crystal clear to you – clearer than anything I could ever say to you: “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

This is the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to you.  It is the voice of the one who is called near, the Comforter, the Advocate.  “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

And this is a big promise, a big thing for God to say to us, because, of course, our greatest fear is just this: that God is not here, that he won’t be with us, and that he is not doing anything at all…  which would mean that all our uncertainties, anxieties, and fears are amazingly well founded.

Maybe the world we live in has made puny the power of a Spirit who arrives on the breath of the wind, and alights with tongues of fire, and takes over the tongues or ears of those within a certain radius of his voice.  It can certainly seem that way.  But there is nothing puny about this promise from the one who is called near: “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

It is the promise that once turned the whole world upside down – for the better. 

The powers of this world keep asserting themselves, as they try to keep the world in an alignment that suits them best.  And this leaves many of us with uncertainty, anxiety, and fear.

But to the church, God has sent an Advocate, a Comforter, one who is called near to you and to me in our time of trouble.  And when we object that there is no way this can work, that we can’t do it, then he smiles, and says to us, “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

The Feast of Pentecost 2013

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

My grandmother always says the same grace before meals. She knows others, I’m sure, but she has only ever said one: Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and grant that all these gifts be blessed. This is Grandmom’s grace, said at every family gathering and on every major holiday, said in the same sweet, melodious voice each time, even if five minutes before this 85-year-old, 5-foot-nothing, bold, beautiful, feisty Italian woman was standing in the kitchen pointing a wooden spoon and railing against Congress or anyone who has ever or will ever play for the New York Mets. But come grace-time, and she’s all softness and light: Come Lord Jesus, be our guest and grant that all these gifts be blessed.

Now as a child, I thought that this grace was a little, well, lame. This is because I was a complete grace snob. In my immediate family, we quoted scripture before mealtime. We had standard grace quotes, like “He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love, or, if you were hungry: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” And if you felt like showing off: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” These verses didn’t always relate directly to mealtime, per se, but they were beautiful, and in their King James English, they sounded awfully official and important. As a child, I was far more impressed with the seriousness of these quotes than with the sing-songy-ness of Grandmom’s grace. Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and grant that all these gifts be blessed, always seemed childish compared to, you know, THE BIBLE.

What I did not realize in my childish snobbery is that the first part of my grandmother’s prayer actually is THE BIBLE. And not only is it from THE BIBLE, it is given privilege of place by being the last prayer in the entire canon of scripture. “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.” Here ends the Bible. Come, Lord Jesus is one of the oldest prayers in Christendom, found not only in Revelation but in one of Paul’s letters and in the first liturgy of the Church. Come, Lord Jesus is a prayer that has been offered over and over by millions of Christians in thousands of places and times. It is the most ancient, the most scriptural, the most important of prayers.

What I also did not recognize as a child sitting at my grandmother’s dinner table was that it is also a hugely ambitious prayer, a prayer of epic proportions. I never stopped to think what we really asking. Come, Lord Jesus. What if Jesus had actually taken us up on our offer? What if he really had come? Well, he certainly would have come in and sat right down to eat, probably in that chair – you know, the extra chair from the study, the low one that makes the dinner table hit you right around here. Jesus would have sat in that lowest chair, probably at the spot in the middle of the table where the crack makes your plate wobble back and forth. Or, more likely, he would have sat at the kiddies table, with his knees tucked up around his chin, just suffering the little children all over the place. He would have cleared the table, stayed in the kitchen drying dishes, recycled the empty cans, driven the leftovers over to the homeless shelter. He would have asked provocative questions about forgiveness, invited unusual people to the table, told daring stories about a kindhearted Mets fan caring for a man who had been beaten up along the road to Citizens Bank Park. He would have challenged us by his words and his actions to truly be his disciples in our words and our actions. He would have come, our Lord Jesus, so that our dinner, and our lives, would never have been the same.  

Come, Lord Jesus is a serious, powerful prayer. It is a bold ask. Because Jesus can come in only one way – the same way he has always come, with the same purpose he has always had. Which means that when we pray this prayer, Come, Lord Jesus, we are really asking for Jesus to come and turn our world upside down. For he came, and so he will always come, to exalt the humble and meek and to fill the hungry with good things. He comes as the master to act as the servant; he comes as the highest to sit with the lowest. He comes as the purest of heart, without sin, to walk among brokenhearted sinners. He comes to manifest the glory of God in the shame of the cross. He comes with great power to give it away for great love.  He comes to shake up the world, to shake us into our right minds, to show us again and again how God rejects the priorities of this world for the grace of his heavenly kingdom.

Now all of that shaking up can be supremely uncomfortable. That’s why this prayer takes so much courage, because it means that we are inviting Jesus to change things, to change us. And that means admitting that we need that change, because sometimes you and I find it easier to adopt the priorities of this world than to fight them. We get sucked in to believing unhelpful, unholy untruths – that our worth is somehow tied to our wallets or our waistlines, that we are loved because we are powerful or perfect, that our sin is justified because of need or expediency, that faster is better, that busier is better. We get sucked into believing that when Christ said to love our enemies he surely didn’t mean dead terrorists, or kidnappers, and that when he said to give away two robes instead of one he surely didn’t mean actual clothes, or at least not our nice ones, and that when he said to serve the poor he must have meant only those who are properly grateful, or clean, or pleasant. In the Church, too, we are often tempted by these worldly priorities, tempted to look to our bottom line as the Alpha and the Omega, or to measure our success only in terms of how many people are sitting in the pews instead of how many hearts – in and out of the pews – are transformed by the Gospel.

Opening ourselves up to admitting these failings and owning our own sin, can be a vulnerable, scary business. True transformation always is. This is why this prayer has always been a prayer of the whole Church, a prayer that we offer together, as one body with Christ in us and us in Christ. Together we can have the courage to lift up our hearts and to cry out Come, Lord Jesus! Come down and shake us up. Come down right in the middle of the world’s lies and speak truth. Come down right in the center of our weakness and comfort – be strong with – us. Come down into our selfishness or apathy to help us love as we should, to help us follow you as we should, to help us wash our robes in whatever sacrifice is required to follow in the path of discipleship. Come, Lord Jesus. This is the boldest and bravest of asks, a serious, important, beautiful prayer.

And it is a prayer that is a gift. Because here is the thing: Christ is coming. He has promised that he is coming and that right soon. He is coming in a thousand little ways, this day and at the last day, to bring justice to places where the strong lord it over the weak, to bring mercy to the sick or the sin-sick souls, to bring peace and love where there is only violence and hardness of heart. Ready or not, here he comes. And Christ just wants us to be ready. So he offers us this prayer. I am the Alpha and the Omega, he says, I am the bright morning star, and I am coming. So get ready, and let everyone who hears say, “Come.” You, say Come! Let everyone who hears the great good news boldly say come. Let the Church and the city say, come. Let the faithful say come. Let the doubters say come. Let the joyful say come. Let the addicted say come. Let the children say come. Let the heartbroken say come. Let the survivors say come. Let the oppressed say come. Let the frustrated say come. Let the grandmothers and the mothers the grandfathers and the fathers say come. Let the angry, the exhausted, the jubilant, the lost, the found, the poor, the hungry say come. Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and grant that all these gifts be blessed. Amen. Come Lord Jesus.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

12 May 2013

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia