Saint Mark's Church

You may listen to Father Phelps's sermon here.

Preached by Fr. Nicholas Phelps

10 November 2013

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

Of necessity, along with preaching the gospel and celebrating the mysteries of our Lord’s sacramental Presence among his people, I have, in my ministry as a priest of the church, been learning to raise money.  Almost no one that I know of offers his or her self to the church for the work and ministry of the Gospel because he or she feels called to raise money, but all the clergy are expected to do it anyway.  Like learning about building maintenance, and fund accounting, raising money is just one of those things you have to do if you want to build up God’s kingdom and strengthen his church in the world today.  I’m not complaining here; I’m giving you context.

One of the things I have learned about raising money is that you need a case.  A case is not a valise into which you place all the money you have raised.  A case is an argument – hopefully a compelling one – that lays out why a person might want freely to make a contribution of his or her money to your cause.  Arboretums must make the case for growing trees.  Orchestras must make the case for playing music.  Museums must make the case for displaying art.  Schools must make the case for educating children.  Hospitals must make the case for caring for the sick and curing illness.  And so on.  Churches, I suppose, must make the case for their various ministries: the worship, the music, the outreach, the pastoral care, the teaching, the preaching, the buildings, the gardens.  And so on.  I would like to think that by so doing, churches are making the case for the kingdom of God, but I suppose that remains to be seen in many cases.

An essential, underlying pre-condition of making the case is the tax-exempt status of an organization.  Philanthropy in America – which is to say charitable giving in America – is enabled largely by a tool supplied by the federal government, namely the charitable contributions tax deduction, facilitated by the granting of 501c(3) status to churches and other charitable organizations.  This arrangement has not always been in place – Rodman Wanamaker received no tax benefit when he paid for the construction of the Lady Chapel (then again, there was no federal income tax then, either!) - but for nearly 100 years the tax deduction has defined the landscape of giving in America.  Again, I’m not complaining; I’m giving you context.

And in any context, Saint Mark’s has been a parish that has benefitted from extraordinarily generous giving.  From our founders, to men and women who are sitting in the pews today, this parish has known the enormous blessings of a community of cheerful givers – some of significant means, but many of lesser means.  And you and I are the inheritors of a great legacy of Christian stewardship in this place, where the case for the Gospel and for God’s kingdom has been made for 166 years.

It is surprising to see how inept Jesus is at the basics of fund-raising, and how un-informed he seems to be about the need to make his case.  In today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus encounters a rich man, Zacchaeus – someone who in fund-raising terms would be called a “prospect.”  There is a suggestion that Jesus has done some prospect research on Zacchaeus, maybe he has even gone to seek him out as he passed through Jericho, for he knows the tax-collector by sight when he spies him in the sycamore tree, and he calls out to Zacchaeus by name, and Jesus invites himself over to tea at Zacchaeus’ home.  (This is a lot like an Every Member Canvass visit!)  But here, if Jesus has any acumen as a fund-raiser, there is no evidence of it.  Saint Luke mentions not a word of the case that Jesus may have made to Zacchaeus, he says nothing of the glossy brochure that Jesus brought with him, or the well-produced video he showed on his iPad.  Not so much as a PowerPoint presentation is made, as far as I can tell!

And yet, astonishingly, Zacchaeus stands before Jesus and announces in the hearing of onlookers, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” 

I have been looking for a couple of parishioners like Zacchaeus!

Now, I hear you fund-raisers in the congregation objecting silently.  How do we know Jesus didn’t make the case to Zacchaeus?  Maybe that’s what he did inside?  Maybe it was his miracles and his teaching that Zacchaeus had heard about that had already made the case, and Zacchaeus was ready to offer his gifts!  Maybe one of the disciples had some bullet-points scratched out on a slate, or a scrap of parchment that they discussed inside?  And I suppose any of these scenarios is possible.

But I want to suggest another possibility to you:  I want to suggest to you that as far as Zacchaeus was concerned there was no case to be made, for Jesus was himself the case.  His presence, his call to Zacchaeus, his desire to be invited into the tax-collector’s home, his sitting down at table with him, and his friendship – all these seem to have been the elements of their encounter, and the steps that led to Zacchaeus’ astonishing act of generosity, his extraordinary gift!  Jesus makes no case to Zacchaeus; Jesus is the case!

In this parish, we are currently in the midst of what we have been calling a “season of stewardship.”  Such a season demands that we talk about money, demands that the Vestry and I make the case for your financial support of this parish and its ministries.  And we are happy to do so – for a lovely and compelling and happy case there is to be made, I have no doubt!  But the truth is that Saint Mark’s has always been a parish that has tried to make Jesus the case, because we know that when all is said and done, he is the case, and the only case to be made!  We are here to meet Jesus: to let him into our lives, and allow him to change us, to perfect us, to lift us, to hold us, to enlighten us, to forgive us, to delight us, to mold us, and to love us.  Jesus is the case!

I want to make up a story, now.  I want to tell you a fanciful tale of how the wood that was used to build our pews in this beautiful church was harvested from a grove of sycamore trees in Jericho that is thought to be the place where Zacchaeus climbed up into the tree to see Jesus.  But the tree in question in the scriptures is a sycamore fig tree (ficus sycamorus), not very useful in furniture making, unlike the American sycamore (platanis occidentalis) from which furniture can be made.  And anyway, anyone can see that our pews are made of oak (genus: Quercus).  So my story-telling is squelched by the intrusion of facts and real life.

Neverthless, I wish you would imagine that the uncomfortable wooden planks on which you sit are, in fact, the branches of a tree – never mind the species.  I want you to imagine that you have climbed up into those branches to see Jesus.  This is not so far-fetched, after all you have made your way here this morning for some similar reason.

While you are up there, enjoying the view, I want you to imagine - not that you are Zacchaeus, not that you are a tax-collector, not that you are short of stature - but that you are rich!  And for many of us, this is not so far-fetched either, but for some, I know it is a stretch.  But we are just imagining, so don’t worry!

And since you are perched up there in your branch, and I am perched up here in my pulpit, we have time to talk.  And since you are feeling rich, I want to make the case for your support for Saint Mark’s.  I want to remind you of our elegant liturgy and our glorious music.  I want to recite for you the numbers of hungry people we feed.  I want you to recall the fine work at St. James School – founded by this parish and still supported by us in so many ways.  I want you to look around at our historic and lovely buildings.  I want you to see how the gardens continue to become lovelier.  I want to count with you the growing number of children who are becoming a part of the life of this parish. And I want to listen with you to the Boys & Girls Choir.  I want to talk with you about the importance of the Ministry Residents.  And so on.  I want to spend time with you, up in your branch, making the case for Saint Mark’s – and I know this would be time well spent, and I believe you would respond well to it.

But I sense another presence below us, calling us each by name, as we sit here in our perches.  And as he calls, I know that there is nothing else really to talk about, for it is Jesus calling, as he always does.  And Jesus is the case, and he is calling you and me.  It’s almost as if he has researched us as likely prospects for the kingdom of God!

It is because of Jesus that we come here day in and day out to worship, which means to open our hearts to God’s living presence, to beseech him to inhabit our lives, and to listen for his call to us to ask him into our homes.

It is because of Jesus that we lift our voices in song, and work to perfect that song with careful preparation.

It is because of Jesus that we care for the poor – not only because he tells us to, but because he was poor himself.

It is because of Jesus that we have been trying to bend our ministry toward children – because we remember how he called children to himself, and how he taught that the kingdom was meant for them.

It is because of Jesus that we want to ensure that the ministry of this place continues for generations.

All for Jesus, all for Jesus, as the old hymn says.

Remember that up here in our branches we are feeling rich!  But Jesus is calling us down, asking to come home with us, to be invited into our lives so that he can invite us more deeply into his life.

And if we hear him call, and if we are feeling even a little bit rich, the question is: what are we going to do about it?

What did Zacchaeus do?

Zacchaeus gave away half his money, and then some.  And remember that Zacchaeus didn’t even receive a tax benefit; in fact he gave others a four-fold tax benefit by his generosity!  And Zaccaeus didn’t give away his money because of the great case for support that Jesus presented to him over tea, so far as I can tell.  No, Zacchaeus gave his money away because it was good for him to do it; because Jesus is, himself, the case.  Zaccaeus must have discovered that in a world that encourages us to be greedy, selfish, murderous, and mean; Jesus calls us to be good.  In a world that enables our sins, Jesus calls us to repent.  In a world that revels in darkness, Jesus calls us to bask in the light of his love.

There is no greater case I can make to you for the support of the work of this parish than the case that is Jesus.  And there is no greater promise I can make to you than that we will always work to make Jesus the case here at Saint Mark’s.  And there is no better place I could be with you at the moment, than up here in this tree with you.  To help you hear the voice of Jesus calling you and me.  And to encourage you to get down out of the tree with me, to bring Jesus home with us, just as Zacchaeus did.  To let him into our lives, into our homes, to let him make his case of love and self-offering.  And then to do as Zacchaeus did: to open our hearts, and to give.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

3 November 2013

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

You may listen to Mother Takacs's sermon here.

It’s amazing what you can get used to. An example: last week I was on my way home, walking down Broad Street, lost in my own musings and enjoying the crisp fall weather. As I crossed South Street, I looked up to see a man about halfway down the block, walking in my direction. Immediately the great question that haunts all city-dwellers popped into my mind: do I make eye contact and smile, or do I pretend like I don’t see him at all? I usually opt for the former, even if it makes me seem less cosmopolitan and chic. So as the gentleman and I approach one another, I look up, ready to smile, and suddenly he says, “Right…right. That’s exactly what I said. What in the world is she thinking?” At which point, I realized that he was, in fact, on the phone, and I laughed to myself and continued on my way.

These kinds of surprise outbursts are so common anymore that I barely even notice them. Remember the good old days, when to talk on your cell phone, you had to actually, you know, talk on your cell phone? Remember how strange it was at first to hear these one-sided conversations in public, as you sat in the train station or did your grocery shopping? But by now we’ve been through the era giant blue-blinking earpieces and the speakerphone, where people just kind of yelled in the general direction of their phone and moved on to the era of the headphones with the attached microphone. The man I saw had no visible communication device at all – no earpiece, no headphones, no phone to be seen. For all I could tell he’d had a microphone surgically implanted in his face. Nonetheless, I didn’t think a thing of it. That man who appears to be talking to himself as he walks alone down the street? Why, of course, he must be on the phone. Amazing what we can get used to.   

That man who appears to be talking to himself as he stands in the midst of the temple compound? Why, of course, he must be praying. We are, of course, completely used to the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. We have heard this story so many times that the behavior of the Pharisee hardly strikes us as odd. The fact that he stands alone in the middle of a crowd and talks out loud is no surprise to us, because we have long ago realized that he is really talking to God, trying to pray. He gets it wrong, we know this; we’re used to watching him boast about his piety, his holiness, about how much he tithes and fasts. We’re also used to the actions of his foil, the tax collector, who stands far off and cannot even lift his eyes for shame. And, of course, we’re used to Jesus’ punchline: “I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other….” These two men, who appear to be talking to themselves in the courts of the temple? Why, of course, they must be praying – one of them well, and one of them not-so-well. We’re used to it.

This is, of course, dangerous. Whenever we find ourselves thinking that we “get” a parable, we should take a breath, take a step back, and sit at Jesus’ feet once more. Because we know that the parables of Jesus were intended to be shocking, to describe a world that was unlike anything his listeners were used to. Those to whom Jesus told this tale would have never seen this punchline coming in a million years. It would have seemed to them entirely outlandish, nonsensical. They would have walked away shaking their heads, wondering what color the sky was in Jesus’ world, this world where a lowlife like a tax collector, a corrupt, abusive, puppet of Rome, is held up as a model over and above a Pharisee, a faithful, righteous, strict keeper of the law.

And why is it so dangerous for us to think that we know better? After all, we have the gift of hindsight; we see the whole story, and we know how it ends. We see the color of the sky in Jesus’ world because we’re trying to live in that world, too. We know a bit better, don’t we? Ah, dangerous thinking. The risk here is two-fold: first, that we might get so used to this story, so comfortable with the caricature of Pharisee as fool and tax collector as diamond in the rough, that we will fall headlong into the parable’s trap by saying something like, “God, I thank you that I am not like this Pharisee.” Dangerous.

But the second risk here, if we are too quick to get used to this parable, is that we might miss the fact this Pharisee is not, actually, like the man I saw walking down Broad Street. That man looked like he was talking to himself but was actually talking to someone else. The Pharisee in this story looks like he’s talking to God but is actually talking to himself. He doesn’t speak as if God is actually listening; he’s just thinking out loud, talking to himself about what he’s done, and how he feels about it. God doesn’t have much to do with it. Even the text itself is unclear here. The Greek phrase which describes his prayer translates to something like, “he prayed thus to himself.” Does this mean he prayed under his breath so that no one else could year? Or does it literally mean that he was praying to himself? Or, perhaps, does the ambiguity simply lie there, challenging us to think differently, about him and about ourselves?  

There are times in all of our lives when we find ourselves praying thus to us? It’s an easy trap to fall into. It’s easy to get so used to our prayers that we are blinded to the fact that they actually do ascend to heaven like incense. We pray without actually praying, start a conversation with the expectation that no one is really listening. An example: we confess our sins often in this place – every Sunday, every day, in fact. We offer a weekly opportunity for private confession. But do we say those words as if God is actually listening? When we say, “Most merciful Father,” do we feel, in the speaking of those words, that we are demanding the attention of Almighty God? When we pray, “we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed,” are we just talking to ourselves, going over a list in our own heads and for our own sakes, waiting for the priest to turn around with words of absolution, waiting to get up off our knees? Are we talking to God, or to ourselves?

This parable reminds us that whether we recognize it or not, God is listening. God is always listening. God does hear us talking. This confession that we make week after week, day after day, can never be an empty gesture, because it’s real. It’s efficacious. It matters. We have really sinned, you and I have sinned, the Church has sinned, the country has sinned, our forebears have sinned. And God knows it, knows all of our sins already, even those that we are too afraid to bring to mind. God listens. If we were able to really grasp this, if we were to feel the sharp reality of this conversation, to acknowledge God’s Almighty, Omnipotent presence, our regular confessions would feel far different. We might even find ourselves beating our breasts, kneeling with heads bowed low, foreheads on the ground, unable to speak at all. We might find ourselves echoing the words of God’s people in Jeremiah, praying that God will not completely reject us, hoping that God does not loathe us, longing for peace and healing, hoping against all hope that God will continue to be righteous, that God will continue to forgive.

But this is not meant to scare us. Because the truth is that if we let ourselves become so used to speech of our confession that we are only really giving it lip service, we miss out. We miss out on the opportunity to feel the transformational grace of God’s mercy, the unearned and unmerited gift that God gives us when he says to us again and again, yes, I hear you, yes, you are mine, and yes, I forgive you, I cherish you, I see you and seek you out, and yes, through the merits of my only son, your beloved Savior, Jesus Christ, I even exalt you.       

So go ahead. Make your humble confession before Almighty God, devoutly kneeling. Pray as if he is listening, talk not to yourself but to him, and know his infinite mercy and love. Speak, you humble, beautiful sinners, speak you servants, for your God is listening.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

27 October 2013

Saint Mark's, Philadelphia

As the sun rose upon Penuel, Jacob crossed back over the Jabbok River, collected his two wives, two maids, and eleven children, and continued on his way home, limping back toward the Promised Land, repeating his new name over and over in his head: Israel, Israel, Israel.  He knew that his brother Esau – with whom he had a bad history – was waiting for him somewhere along the way with an army reported to be 400-strong.  Jacob had every reason to believe that Esau was holding a grudge and had amassed the army with the express purpose of getting even with his twin brother after all these years.

On the one hand, Jacob was feeling pretty good about himself.  After all, he had just spent the night wrestling with someone who he strongly suspected was the angel of God – or maybe even God himself (though how such a thing could be was, frankly, beyond Jacob’s imagination).  He had spent the night entwined in conflict – a conflict, he knew, that was about something bigger, something beyond himself, something deeply existential - and he had prevailed.  And even after he’d been injured in the wrestling match, Jacob had held on to the angel (or whoever it was), and refused to let go without a blessing from him.  And the blessing he received was an affirmation of his fortitude, and more than that, an affirmation of his destiny: it was his new name, Israel, and the explanation that the angel gave with it (“you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed”).  So, on the one hand, he had been tested by God and had done well, so well that he’d been given a new name as a reward.

On the other hand, he was limping badly, because the angel had struck him in the hip socket and put his hip out of joint.  And the resulting limp tended to take a little bit of the shine off of the victory of the divine wrestling match, and also made him a slightly less formidable opponent for his brother, whose anger would have been seething for years in anticipation of the meeting that was about to occur.

This well-known episode of Jacob wrestling with the angel (or God himself) takes up about the last third of the 32^nd chapter of the Book of Genesis, and goes to the end of the chapter.  But for reasons at which I can easily guess, the Episcopal Church has omitted the last verse of the chapter from our reading this morning.  It’s a verse that follows the description of Jacob limping away because of his hip, and it says this: “Therefore to this day Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.”

Now, I assume that we do not read this verse because almost no Episcopalians these days keep kosher.

Were I to delve into my understanding of kashrut, the kosher laws, I wouldn’t get very far, so I should be careful here.  But my research leads me to understand that, indeed, the prohibition against eating the thigh muscle of an animal is still in force amongst Jews who keep kosher.  In fact the rules require such a complicated preparation of the meat from this area of a cow, and so few people possess the knowledge and skill to perform it, that the hind-quarter of the cow is often simply sent off by kosher butchers to be sold to Episcopalians and other Gentiles.  Be that as it may, what remains in the consciousness of at least a certain set of Jews who forego eating the meat from the thigh muscle is a tangible link to the lingering memory of Jacob’s test under the stars beside the Jabbok River, when he was all alone, about to face the music for his past dishonesty with his brother, worried for the lives of his wives and his children, and he didn’t really know what lay ahead of him.

The story of Jacob wrestling with the angel is a little mysterious, a little complicated, and full of interesting details.  It has many possible points, many possible morals, many possible conclusions to be reached, including the possibility that Jews should no longer indulge in rump roasts.  Asking what is the singular point of this story is a little bit like asking what’s the most important color in a kaleidoscope?  But if I have to choose, today I’d say the most important points of the story are these:

…that God tests people – it is a regular feature of the way he deals with those he calls into relationship with him.

…and that the community of faith is given a blessing through the tangible links of the lingering memories of our encounters with God.

It is commonplace these days for people to reject the idea of God because getting to know God is not so easy.  Part and parcel of the difficulty of getting to know God is God’s tendency to test people.  Abraham was tested by being asked to sacrifice his son Isaac; Noah was tested just by being asked to build the ark; Moses was tested by being asked to confront Pharaoh; David was tested in his confrontation with Goliath; the prophets were constantly being tested; Jesus himself was tested during his forty days of fasting in the wilderness.  God tests those he calls into relationship with him.

It is important to see that God does this testing not for his own benefit (God already knows the outcome) but for the benefit of the one being tested.  This tendency of God’s offends modern sensibilities, since today we think that God ought to be selling us on himself, and all this testing really is off-putting.  But Jacob would never have become Israel without his test.  Not because God needed him to pass the test, but because Jacob needed it himself.  Jacob needed to know that he could prevail, not through trickery or deceit, but through his own determination and fortitude.  Jacob needed to know that he could prevail on his own.  Jacob needed to overcome his own self-doubt.  Jacob needed to know that God wished to be entangled with him.  God already knew all these things.  But Jacob only discovered them in his test by the Jabbok River.

And, of course, Jacob needed to be ready to receive a new name, to take on an identity bigger than his own, to become the third patriarch of God’s chosen people.  Jacob needed to become Israel.  And the moment that Jacob does become Israel is commemorated for him by his injury, and by the limp that impedes his footsteps as he crosses back over the river, toward both his past and his future, and toward the destiny that God has in store for him.  Jacob’s destiny was to become Israel and to return home to the Promised Land.

So Israel adopted the commemoration of the limp by refusing to eat the meat of the thigh muscle of the hip socket in order to remember all that Jacob learned in his test, in order to fix that memory to the daily routines of their lives, in order to have a constant reminder that even if you must do so limping, you should follow God’s call back to his Promised Land.

All of which might or might not be interesting to you and to me.  But that is not the question.  The question is this: Have you ever felt tempted to reject God because of a night, or a season of torment?  Have you grappled with God, found him difficult, confrontational, maybe even wounding to you in some way, and concluded that God is not worth the angst, not worth the struggle, not worth the injury?

Jacob limps toward you to beg you to consider otherwise; to remind you that the struggle was not for God’s benefit, but for his own; to tell you that he wouldn’t even know who he was, had it not been for his night of testing by the Jabbok River.  And he wants you to know that he wouldn’t trade his limp – by which the memory of that night of wrestling is brought constantly to mind – for anything!

Where God is concerned, sometimes we need to embrace the struggle, to refuse to let go of it until God gives us the blessing that is meant to come from it.  Our tendency to think that religion ought to deliver Nirvana on demand from a standstill is naïve, childish, and has little basis in the human experience.  But of course, it’s what we all want!

Is God testing you?  Don’t let go of him!  Don’t give up on him!  And don’t assume that the test has no purpose.  You have no more idea what God is going to show you than Jacob did.  For all you know God may have a new name to give you!  Hold on to God, and demand from him the blessing you seek.

It’s true that Episcopalians are not so good at keeping kosher.  But we are quite good at rehearsing the tangible link of our lingering memories of our encounters with God.  If you let your imagination go for a minute, you can see how the Mass is its own little set of dietary laws – controlling only these two ingredients: bread and wine.  Why do we fuss with them so?  Bread is baked into little, crumb-less wafers.  Wine is poured into elaborate chalices.  They are carried into the church, just so.  We dress up in this out-moded gear when we gather this way.  We ring bells, sing hymns, and then pronounce the prayers – the same old prayers, time and time again – just for this Bread, just for this Wine.  But we do not remember Jacob, wrestling with angel.  We remember Jesus.  And with these tangible links – the Bread, the Wine, the words he used, the bells, and the smoke, and the gathered people - our memory comes alive, so that Jesus is really with us, right here among us.

And maybe last night was a night of struggle for some of us.  Maybe you felt alone, entangled in conflict.  Maybe you feel separated from everyone you love; maybe they have crossed over to the other side of the river, but you have had to stay on your side alone.  Maybe you are feeling unimpressed by God, who has not been doing a very good job of selling himself to you lately.  Maybe you suspect that, in fact, all this God talk is just so much talk about angels and rivers, but that it doesn’t make much difference in your life.  Maybe there is an old enmity – with your brother, or your sister, or your parents, or your spouse, for which you feel angry, or guilty, or both, and that has dogged you for years.  Maybe you fear that inevitable confrontation lies ahead of you tomorrow, and you just wish you could get away from it.  And maybe all this has happened before, and you have been left limping – but to what end and for what purpose?  Maybe God is testing you  - I don’t know why, it’s just the way God does things.

But remember that God is not testing you because he does not know how things will work out for you; God is testing you to teach you how things will work out for you.

In the story of Jacob wrestling the angel, it is not entirely clear that Jacob has won the match when the sun begins to rise over the Jabbok River.  What is clear is that Jacob refuses to let go.  Even when injured by the angel, he refuses to let go.  Even when the angel will not answer his question, politely asked (“Please tell me your name.”) he will not let go.  He will not let go until the blessing comes.  And he is right to hang on, for the angel blesses him; God blesses him right there, in the place of his loneliness, his anxiety, and his struggle, God blesses him.

And Jacob gets up, limping badly.  But there is a joyfulness to his step, nonetheless, as he limps across the Jabbok, reciting his new name over and over, and collects his two wives, and his two maids, and his eleven children.  And, knowing that his angry brother Esau awaits him, he sends gifts ahead - camels and flocks and herds - acting with generosity toward his brother for perhaps the first time.  And Esau tells his men to stand down, and embraces his brother instead of attacking him.  And they part company, and Jacob continues on his way home, toward the Promised Land he’d left behind, teaching everyone to pronounce his new name: Israel, Israel, Israel.

God tests his people from time to time – not because God needs to, but because we generally do need to be tested, though it is highly frustrating, and sometimes much worse than that. 

And God has given us a living memory of the gift of salvation – he gives us his Body and his Blood over and over again, to bring to mind the journey he calls us all to make: across the river, past all our fears and doubts, and all our enemies, and all our old failures, probably limping as we go.

And there is a name has given to each of us – a new name that he hopes we will keep repeating in our heads till we have learned what it means: Christian, Christian, Christian.  Which reminds us of the new name he gave to Jacob, when he called him Israel, and of the Promised Land that we are so ready to forget, because we left it far behind so long ago.

And it turns out that the test is mostly this: to see if we are willing to keep limping toward the Promised Land that God is building in our hearts.  This is our destiny, if only we will refuse to let go of God till he has given us his blessing, which he will surely do, as surely as the sun rises over the river.  And we give thanks to Jacob, we give thanks to Israel, for teaching us over and over again that important lesson in our struggle with God: that the most important thing to do is to refuse to let go to be confident of the blessing, to hang on till you receive it…

… and then to go limping toward the Promised Land with your new name rolling around in your head: Christian, Christian, Christian.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

20 October 2013

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

You may listen to Mother Takacs's sermon here.

As many of you know, this past week, Saint Mark’s hosted the fifth national conference of the Society of Catholic Priests.  We had a really wonderful week together, with powerful liturgies, beautiful singing, inspiring presentations, and a truly transformational afternoon spent at the Saint James School. I am so grateful to all of you who helped Saint Mark's be so wonderfully hospitable to all of our conference guests and society members who came to Philadelphia from all over the country.

One of the joys of hosting a conference like this, of course, is getting to show off the city in which you live. Many of our guests were coming to Philadelphia for the first time, and it was great fun for me to watch them explore this city that I love so much. Our conference agenda was quite full, so I didn’t make so many recommendations about what to do as I did about where to eat – introducing guests to the wonders of Steven Starr; assuring them that yes, I’m not kidding, that vegan restaurant is supposed to be really, really good; trying to convince them that the gelato at capogiro is truly legit; and, of course, naming all of the places within a four block radius that know how to pour a good pint. I enjoyed listening to the conferees report back the next morning on where they’d gone – and on what they’d experienced when they got there.

What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that I had at least half a dozen priest colleagues tell me with great wonder and awe of their experience that showing up in a bar in Philadelphia in a collar will get you a free round. And these colleagues of mine just couldn’t believe it. Now remember, many of these priests live in rural areas, or in the south, where the sight of a priest might raise an eyebrow but probably not a pint glass. But Philly, as you know, is still a pretty intensely Roman Catholic city, and when a gaggle of priests walks into a bar, and there isn’t an obvious joke to follow, well, some of our hospitable neighbors reach into their wallets and tell the barkeep to buy the nice fathers (and maybe the lone and slightly confusing mother) a whiskey chaser on them. My colleagues were blown away by this and many of them have, I’m sure, gone home to update their profile pages on the church deployment website in the hopes of working here permanently.

Now as someone who lives here, I can say that this does not actually happen regularly. At least not to me. It probably does to Father Mullen. And I’m sure that part of the reason for the free rounds was that there were so many of us. Four full tables of priests in the Irish pub; a baker’s dozen of collars at a karaoke bar (I was not there for that, just FYI) – and, on Friday night, ten priestly types around a common table at The Farmer’s Cabinet. That much black clerical wear tends to attract a bit of attention.

So on Friday night, at The Farmer’s Cabinet, we decided that since everyone was already looking at us anyway, we would go whole hog, and when our food came out, we stood up around our table and sang the doxology. Now I have to admit, I feel a little sheepish telling you that. I’m a little nervous admitting to you that I stood up in a restaurant in Philadelphia on a Friday night and sang praises to God in a loud and lusty voice. And there are a thousand little voices in my head whispering all of the reasons why: because it isn’t very elegant, because we Episcopalians just don’t do that, because it was show-offy, because it inconvenienced other diners, because Jesus said to go into your closet to pray, because it was rude or pushy or gauche. And maybe there is some truth there, I don’t know. But I can say that in the moment, I didn’t feel any of those things. I just felt incredibly grateful. Grateful for the friends around the table, grateful for the week we had just shared, grateful that that week was over, grateful for the fact that I get to serve a parish as generous and beautiful as Saint Mark’s with musicians as generous and beautiful as ours, grateful that I get to work with a priest as fine as Father Mullen, so grateful that another fine priest, Mother Johnson, had offered to take the Mass for me yesterday so I could recuperate a bit – I was so grateful, filled with joy, and happy to sing out my praises to God. It felt good, it felt right, it felt necessary.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus seems to expect this behavior from the lepers he has healed. “Were not ten made clean?” he asks. “But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Only one has returned, a Samaritan, who has not only come back to thank Jesus for this miracle but praised God “with a loud voice.” Now it’s easy for us with our twenty-first century eyes to imagine that this kind of thing happening all of the time in first century Palestine. People must have been running around praising God with a loud voice all of the time – common occurrence, the running and the leaping and the prostrating yourself before an itinerant preacher. Common occurrence, more acceptable in those times…except that it obviously wasn’t. Because only one of the lepers returned, only one of them came tearing back down the street towards Jesus making a complete spectacle of himself by shouting out his praises and thanks to God right in the middle of the village square. Only one of them was filled up enough with the Holy Spirit to just not care if he was being inelegant or rude, if he was inconveniencing people with his songs of praise, if he was fitting in with commonly accepted village etiquette. Only one of them felt good enough to be loud about it.

And Jesus seems okay with this. He doesn’t shush him (which, after all, Jesus has been known to do from time to time); he doesn’t say, oh, yes, that’s very nice, thanks, but would you mind taking that exuberance over to the synagogue, there are people here who don’t want to hear that kind of thing. No – Jesus says that his faith, that enthusiastic, raucous faith has made him well. His loud voice of praise isn’t just okay; it’s actually an active and living force, a force for healing, a force for good, a force for the kingdom.

Now I’m not saying that we should all go running out into the street praising God with a loud voice. Although maybe that is what I should be saying, honestly. And the point isn’t really to just be braver about saying grace, although that isn’t such a bad idea either. The point is to find ways to be that grateful, to dig for the taproot of our gratitude and to let it well up within us, to look at our lives and to be so filled up full with thanks that we cannot help but sing out in a loud voice – for the food we eat, for the jobs we have, for the city we live in, for the people we love, for the bodies we are, for the God we worship. If we take the time to notice all that we have, to stop and breathe and actually look at the grace that really does flow through all of our lives, running around praising God with a loud voice won’t feel so ridiculous. It will feel good; it will feel right; it will feel necessary.

This is what we’re doing during this stewardship season. Our vestry and other leadership of this parish are coming to you, to each of you, to spend some time tapping into that root of gratitude. What do you love about your life, about this church? What do you love about the holy work of God in this world? I am convinced that when we do that, when we stop and notice and talk about the many gifts in our lives, the praising God with a loud voice just comes. It will look like the number of your pledge, written boldly on a card and offered to God on Commitment Sunday. It will look like using words like “grateful” and “blessed” and “grace” in our regular, ordinary, everyday lives. It will look like smiling at strangers, like reaching out in love, maybe even like singing.  

I’ll bet you’re wondering what the response was to our impromptu hymn fest at The Farmer’s Cabinet. Not much. We got a smattering of applause, which was interesting. Later in the evening a woman from the table next to us came over and asked us if we would sing Happy Birthday to her husband Bob, obviously confusing us with that next hot singing group The Ten Episcopal Priests. I left early, I must admit, so I’m not sure if there was more of a response later on in the night. Maybe not. Maybe we were just an oddity, these people dressed in black and singing a strange old chorale in the middle of cheese plates and cocktails. But maybe, just maybe, there was a young woman in the back corner of the restaurant singing with us under her breath. Maybe, just maybe, there was a college student who remembered that hymn from his old church and felt a swell of gratitude for his old youth group from those days. Maybe as we sang about blessings that flow, there was an old man who offered a silent prayer of thanksgiving to God for his recent recovery from surgery, and a mother who thanked God that her daughter-in-law is finally pregnant, or a couple who felt a surge of gratitude just because they were together. Maybe, right? So go, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

13 October 2013

Saint Mark's, Philadelphia