Saint Mark's Church

You may listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

Death was not unknown to Simeon.  His mother had died in childbirth – it was not uncommon in those days.  And he had been raised by an older sister – barely a teenager herself.  But his sister died of consumption when she was still a young woman.  And Simeon had nursed her during her last, long, fitful, coughing, dying days.  He could not, of course, remember his mother, though her death was very much a part of who he was; missing her was a part of who he was; he was a motherless child.

He could, however, remember the death of his sister.  He remembered the pallor of her vacant face on the day she died.  He remembered closing her eyelids, and letting go of her hand for the last time.  He remembered the women from their neighborhood who came to prepare her body for burial.  He remembered their tears, and their sobs of mourning, and he remembered the business-like way they went about caring for her body: they had done this before, more than once.  He remembered filling in her grave with his cousins, her own children, whose sibling he’d always considered himself, and not without some cause, if not by reason of blood.

It was not too many years later that his father was taken from him, too, in an accident involving an ox-cart hauling stone.  The accident didn’t kill Simeon’s father, it only broke his leg.  But the fix for a broken leg was not so easy in those days.  A recovering invalid for a few weeks; eventually infection set in, causing his father great pain.  The fever did not last for too long; Simeon witnessed this too.  He saw the sickness and the pain wrack his old man, and eventually take him without too much of a fight.  And again the women came to deal with the body.  And again there was the mound of dry, dusty dirt to be shoveled on top of the corpse in the ground, one silent, tearful scoop at a time.

For a while, death seemed at bay.  It was never far, of course, in a city like Jerusalem, but it would at least be some years before it invaded his own household again.  Simeon married – a sweet, plain, strong girl who bore children easily and was a good mother to them.  They lived not far from her family.  His four children all survived the dangerous first year when infants are so vulnerable to so many things, at which point so many families those days lost at least one.  But not Simeon’s kids.  They were growing up fast. 

Then, in middle school, his second oldest came down with something – spots all over, a soaring fever that wouldn’t go away for days.  The three other children were sent away to their cousin’s house.  Spices and incense and prayers were deployed in and around and on the child. Wet compresses.  Olive oil was rubbed into his skin for relief.  But the fever wouldn’t leave.  The boy stopped eating – too weak.  And they couldn’t get enough water into him.  He was shrinking – this beautiful healthy boy with thick hair and dark eyes – shrinking right before their eyes, wasting away.  Because he was a strong boy he held on.  But his eyes were now sunken, and it was almost as though he was aging in fast-forward.  If only he would eat!  If only he could drink!  But he became weaker and weaker.  His voice – still years away from dropping into lower registers – became little more than a squeak.  If the fever abated for a day, it came back stronger over night.  Until, at last, it took him.

What does a father do on the day his ten-year old son dies?   Is it enough to cry?  Do you let the women who come for the body see your tears?  Do you let your wife glimpse them through the vale of her own?  Do you accuse God and make demands of him?  How do you tell his brothers and his sisters, who, of course, already know?  How do you stare down again into the grave?  What are you to make of that small-ish bundle swaddled too well in these last bed clothes?  Why would a father cast dirt on his son’s body?  There is something wrong about this, and yet inescapably necessary.  You can’t leave him uncovered, any more than you would fail to pull the covers over his sleeping body at night.  But this blanket of earth will never be drawn back.  No sleepy child will emerge from it in the morning looking for his breakfast. 

And so you do what you must; he did what he must.  Tightening his jaw, and fixing his eyes into stare that would not peek to the left or to the right; he heard the prayers sung, the women cry.  He stepped to his place by the grave and the mound of dirt beside it.  His hands knew the feel of this shovel; he had used it before.  He decided that he would pretend he did not know what was in the hole he was filling back in with earth.  He was just doing a job that needed doing.  He was not burying his son – that would be too cruel.  But someone had to fill in this dangerous hole, and here he was to do it.  If anyone spoke to him, he had no idea what they said.  He just had to finish with this pile of dirt and get it over with.  He didn’t know who took the shovel from him.  He didn’t know who kept it, and where it came from when it was needed at times like this, to be thrust into his hands.  But now it was back in whose-ever custody, and out of his hands.  He was finished with this awful work.

Not long after the boy died, Simeon started to have dreams.  First he dreamt of his mother, and he wondered if she had actually been so beautiful in real life.  She was beautiful in his dreams, bathed with light from somewhere.  And she sang to him in his dreams, as though he was still a child.

Before long, in his dreams, his mother was joined by his sister, who added harmony to the songs their mother sang.  It was as though they had been able to rehearse for just this purpose: to sing the songs to him in his dreams that they could not sing to him in his waking hours.

In time the two women’s voices were joined by a man’s voice.  It was his father.  Sometimes his father came to him alone in his dreams, sometimes he was with the others, as though they were reunited in his dreams.  And Simeon dreamt that he sang along with the three of them.  Perhaps he did sing in his sleep; he had no idea.

These were not bad dreams; they were sweet dreams.  Simeon was not jolted out of his sleep by them, rather, he was lulled into a deeper, more contented and restful sleep.  It was not disturbing to him to be visited in his dreams by his mother, his sister, his father.  There was a soft embrace in these dreams, that sometimes seemed perfectly matched to the soft embrace of his wife sleeping beside him, her breath on the back of his neck, her arm resting on his shoulder, her deep breathing adding a gentle rhythm to the songs of his dreams.

Some nights he dreamt of his son.  And when his son entered his dreams there was no one else in them.  All other voices stopped their singing, all the other night visitors left his dreams to make room for the boy: his body restored, his eyes dark and alive again, his hair, a little longer than his father would have wanted it, glistening from the light around him.  And when the boy began to sing his clear treble voice, still unchanged, was almost too much, almost too beautiful.  He sang from the Psalms, Simeon recognized the words. 

Sometimes he sang laments:

“By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept.” 

But more often he sang of hope:

“Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young….

“Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are thy ways…

“Who, going through the vale of misery use it for a well, and the pools are filled with water.”

In the darkest hours of the night, the deepest hours of his sleep, the singing voices of his beloved dead would cease.  And he would dream of a bright light – the light that surrounded those who sang to him in his dreams.  The light had no voice, and there was nothing written in it.  There was no music coming from it, but there was a message in the light, a message meant for Simeon.  The only sound he could hear was something like the beating of wings, softly but powerfully, as though the wings could beat that way forever to carry whatever creature they belonged to across the universe without effort.

The message came to him this way: without words or language, only somehow spelled out in the light, heard in the long, slow beating of the mighty wings.  It took many nights of dreams for Simeon to put the message together, to remember it in his waking hours.  And he could not have explained it to you if he had to, but he knew from his dreams that Messiah was coming, and that he would not taste death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.

For years Simeon dreamed like this.  He told no one of his dreams; he had no need to; not even his wife.  And death stayed at bay.

Then his wife began to get forgetful, and to look at him, from time to time with a vacant look, as though she didn’t know where she was, or who he was.  She would snap out of it, and they both pretended that nothing had happened, because almost nothing had happened.  But these episodes began to become more frequent, and to last a little longer.

Simeon’s dreams occurred less frequently now, but the memory of them was palpable.  He sometimes felt he could hear the beating of those mighty wings even while he was awake.  He sometimes felt as though there was a light somewhere inside of him, guiding him while he was awake.  And he sometimes felt as though he understood what it would mean that he would not die before he had seen Messiah – though at other times merely thinking such a thought seemed like an exercise in nonsense.

Simeon had known death so well and so personally all his life; he felt as though death had been a nearly constant, unwanted neighbor who sometimes moved into his own home.  And death had always brought with it the tears, the sadness, the women to care for the body, and the shovel to fill in the grave.

His dreams did not come to him from death – they were a kind of gift that came from somewhere else, from the light.  But they were few and far between now, and not much consolation as he watched his wife slip deeper and deeper into dementia.

Mostly she was quiet and somewhat absent, staring off into some vague middle distance.  But when he had to move her from one place to another -for meals, for instance – she could easily become ornery.  Sometimes she remembered his name, but when she did, it was often when she would lean into his shoulder and whimper as he stroked her hair, and she would ask him, “Why, Simeon, why?  How long, Simeon, how long?”

Eventually even this communication came to an end.  More and more she was confined to her bed; there was no reason to get up out of it anyway.  He brought her her meals on a tray, and propped pillows behind her back to make her comfortable.  He made her Cream of Wheat when she could not eat anything more solid.  And he fed her spoons-full of yogurt, and when the children brought over containers of homemade chicken soup, he shared the meal with her from the same bowl, the same spoon.

He would have appreciated dreams in the night, but there were almost no dreams any more.  There was only the sound of her weaker, less-steady breathing.  And there was the faint echo in his head of the beating of a pair of wings, and a slight glimmer of light in his mind’s eye as he tried to fall asleep.

When she finally died, his own daughters brought with them the women, and sang with them the songs of mourning, and organized the sitting of shiva.  His first-born son was there at the graveside – a man now.  And he helped with the shovel when the time came to fill in the grave, using only the backside of the shovel.  Like his father, he fixed his eyes straight ahead, and tightened his jaw, and did the work that needed to be done.  He shed his tears, but not too many, like his father.  And when he stood by the now-covered grave, holding the shovel with his right hand leaning just on the top of the handle, his father Simeon, standing next to him, put his left hand on top of his son’s right hand, leaning on him, leaning on the shovel, and they dared not look at each other then.

And when Simeon went to bed that night, and for night after night for many months after that, he lay there awake, with nobody next to him.  He remembered his mother, and his sister, his father, his second son, his sweet, plain, strong wife.  He strained to hear singing in the night, but he could hear none.  He thought he could see a light far away in his mind’s eye.  He could still hear the faintest memory of the echo of the beating of wings.  Eventually he would drift off to sleep.

For months he had nothing to do.  His children provided for his needs.  They brought him food on the nights that he refused to accept their invitations to dinner.  His grandchildren delivered bowls of stew and loaves of bread wrapped in clean kitchen towels.  There was nothing for him to do.

He started to go for walks through Jerusalem – and always he found himself drawn to the temple.  He did not venture in through the gates.  For months he only walked around the outer wall of the temple.  As he walked, he hummed to himself songs – and since they were not songs he had ever heard before, he suspected that they were the songs that the dead had sung to him in his dreams.  He did not know anymore whether or not death was something to be feared or welcomed; he could not tell if death would be his friend or his enemy.  He only knew how much a part of his life death had been, and that it had never brought happiness.

One day he ventured in through the gates, into the outer courts of the temple.  Here it was OK for a lay person like him to wander, to sit, to pray, and to watch the transactions take place of those buying and selling for the temple sacrifices.  So he walked, and he sat, and he hummed to himself the songs that he hoped were the songs of the dead.  And from time to time he would weep, quietly, gently, shedding only a few tears, but no less real for the scarcity of them.  And so he sat or paced about the outer court of the temple for month after month, in good weather and in bad.

And one day, as he sat on a stone bench by the wall, half dozing, he heard a sound that sounded like the clear, strong beating of a pair of wings, a sound he remembered well.  And before he could even open his eyes (he knew they were still shut) he could see a bright light, brighter than the sun. 

And when he opened his eyes he saw coming in his direction, a grungy couple carrying an infant child in their arms.

The sound of beating wings was growing louder and louder.  And the light was still shining – his eyes were now open, but he could see that a light bathed them all around, though he suspected none of them could see the light, and he was right.

Simeon felt himself lifted up onto his feet, almost as if the wings were his.  He felt himself carried forward.  And he could see in the light that no one else could see, the faces of his mother, his sister, his father, his second-born son.  And he could hear their voices singing the same songs they had always sung in his dreams.  He was carried in this way to the little family of three making their way to a table to buy a pair of doves.

Everything seemed to stop.  The money changers stopped changing money, the vendors stopped vending, the little family stopped their progress.  A hush fell on the outer court – who knows what was happening inside the temple now?  And no one knew why any of this was happening.

Simeon seemed taller than he had ever been.  Although his feet were on the ground, he seemed somehow to be seeing all this from a few inches above.  To his eyes, the entire courtyard was bathed in the light that he had only known inside his dreams before, but now it was shining out in the open, and he could see where it was coming from.

The light was coming from the child in the girl’s arms.  He had no idea if anyone else could see it – and he knew it hardly mattered.  The sound of the beating of the wings was ferocious but completely unthreatening: he drew power from it, as though they were his wings.

And he opened his mouth, knowing that he was about to sing, but he didn’t know what he was to sing.  And this is what it was:

“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace;

for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,

which thou hast prepared before the face of thy people;

to be a light to lighten the Gentiles;

and to be the glory of thy people Israel.”

A few days later Simeon’s son listened as his father breathed his last breath.  With his own fingers he closed his father’s eyelids, and his heart ached as he pulled his hand out of the grasp of his father’s hand for the last time.  And when the women came he let them do their work.  And he stood by the grave the next day, and he took hold of the shovel that his father had held before him, and flipped it the wrong way round so as to use only the back of the head of the shovel to fill in his father’s grave.  And his own son helped him to do it.

And that night when he fell asleep he had a dream that he couldn’t quite remember the next day, but he knew it was a dream bathed in light, and he thought he could hear the beating of wings somewhere.  And somehow he knew that he was dreaming a dream that his father had dreamed before him, except that at the end of the dream there was something he knew his father had not dreamed:  there was just the image of this child Jesus, carried in his mother’s arms through the outer court of the temple.  And with this vision he could hear the voice of his father singing a song in a clear voice.  And when he heard this song in his dreams, Simeon’s son knew that it was more than a song of the dead, it was a song of the living:

“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”

You may listen to Mother Takacs' sermon here.

This is a peaceful place. This space, right here, within these magnificent, dark walls, is a place of peace. You don’t have to be a mystic or a great spiritual guru to feel that this is a holy place; in fact, this is often the first thing that people say when they see the church for the first time. It’s so beautiful in here; it’s so peaceful. I feel God here, I feel safe here. When you step into the nave and hear the gentle thump and shudder of the doors as they shut behind you, you can feel a presence in here with you, and suddenly the traffic and the noise and the busy-ness of the world seem a million miles away.  And you know that the presence you feel is the very presence of the Almighty, made palpable by the patina of prayers that have been spoken and sung here for a hundred and sixty years, prayers that have soaked into the wood and the mortar, prayers that make the very stones themselves seem to hum with life. This is the holy space T. S. Eliot speaks of in his poem Little Gidding, when he reminds us: “You are not here to verify,/Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity/Or carry report. You are here to kneel/Where prayer has been valid.” You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid, where holiness has been beautiful, where people have known peace.

And isn’t that exactly what we long for? To know a place of peace? We come to this place because it is a refuge, because the state of our lives often leaves us seeking sanctuary. We live, many of us, in a constant state of war; we are at war with our schedules, at war with the incessant barrage of information that assaults our brains. We are at war with our waistlines, our bank accounts, our impulses. We are at war with those voices in our head that tell us we will never be good enough, that we are no longer useful, that we are unloved, unworthy, and alone. We war against cancer, against unemployment, against wrinkles, aging, death.

And in those moments when we are blessed enough to find a grace-filled way to calm the chaos in our lives, we are always reminded that there is still plenty of chaos in the rest of the world. There are protesters slaughtered in Syria, gay men murdered in Uganda, children starving in Somalia, innocents shot in Philadelphia. There is a 22% unemployment rate in Spain, the constant threat of riots in Greece, a vitriolic election process in America. There is certainly enough turmoil in this world to make us yearn desperately for a place where we can feel God’s mighty arm wrapped around us, holding us and keeping us safe. There is enough cruelty and injustice and anguish in the world to make all of us cry out to the Lord, in the words of today’s collect, “Almighty God, in our time grant us your peace.” In our time, please God, grant us your peace, and in the meantime, give us this place where prayer has been valid and peace is present.

I wonder if that is what this poor, sick, desperate man from Capernaum felt when he entered the synagogue on that Sabbath morning. He must have lived a life of torture, tormented every moment of every day, exhausted by the effort of continuously fighting off the voices of those evil spirits that fed like parasites on his soul. Was it only in the synagogue that he was able to find some peace? Was it only when he stepped out of the sun into the cool, dark building, only when he heard the shuffle of his own sandals on the sandy stone floor, that those voices finally became muffled and still? Why else was he there, if not to find some measure of calm, to feel God’s arms wrapped around him, to sit for a few moments in the eye of the raging storm of his life?

But into this place of peace walks a new rabbi, accompanied by four shiny new disciples, fresh-faced and following. And instead of the predictable, pedantic words of the scribes, this new teacher, this Jesus, offers words of power, words spoken with real authority, that amaze and astound his listeners. And the peace that our poor, bedeviled man had been trying to wrap around himself like a blanket is suddenly and completely shredded. The dark voices within him that had always lain dormant in the shade of the synagogue suddenly erupt in protest, howling out of his mouth with words that are not his own: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” His peace is shattered; the chaos of his life has returned with the sudden ferocity of a storm whipping up across the Sea of Galilee. He finds himself not wrapped in the protective arms of God but facing down the fist of this Jesus of Nazareth, whose arm stretches out against the devils who dare to speak his name. “Be silent!” Jesus commands, or, more accurately, “Shut up! Put a muzzle on it. And come. Out. Of. Him.” And this poor, fraught man, who had come to the synagogue only to find some measure of peace, is suddenly in the middle of a war, as the powers of good and evil battle in his very body, as he feels the demons torn out of him, screaming their pain and frustration out of his mouth, sending him into convulsions as they fight to keep their hooks in him.     

And then, just as quickly as they had risen up, the spirits are gone. And the crowds are amazed at what they have seen, not least of all the man, who lies panting in a pool of sweat on the ground. Mark doesn’t tell us so, but I imagine people in the crowd helping him up, brushing him off, getting him a glass of cool water to drink. How do you feel? they ask him. Are they really gone? And looking up into the powerful, joyful, radiant face of Christ, the man whispers his answer hoarsely through a rough throat. Yes, he says. They are gone, and I feel…I feel…peace.

Do you think it’s possible that this is what God wants for us too? That part of the peace that we are offered in this place is not just a moment of reprieve from the voices of pain, anger, and fear that whisper war in our hearts but also the strength to face those destructive voices and be wholly rid of them? Do you think it’s possible that the peace God wants to give us is more rich, more complicated, more lasting than an occasional breath of calm? Do you think that maybe God loves us, loves you, too much to offer you anything less than real, transformative peace?

After reading this Gospel story, I do think so. As much as we love the idea of peace without risk, of a calm that effortlessly soaks into our souls like water seeping into cracks in the sidewalk, the truth is that peace is more work than that. Finding our peace involves facing down those dark voices that battle within us and telling them once and for all that they are unwelcome. And those voices will not go quietly. They will cry out again and again, fight us fiercely until we are thoroughly worn out. But we face these voices standing alongside Jesus Christ, the Holy One of God, who speaks for us when we have no voice, who stretches out his arm against the dark forces of this world when we have no strength and heals us when we think we are beyond all hope. Those voices that tell us that we are unlovable or good for nothing, that tempt us to eat more than we need or drink more than we should, that try to convince us that injustice will always reign on the earth, that tell us to be afraid, always to be afraid – those voices will be grow more and more muted until they are finally muzzled forever. For we have this promise: that the peace of Christ is ours to claim; it is our inheritance, the peace that passes all understanding, the peace that only the Son of God can give. This peace is an active, life-changing, real, redeeming force in the world that rebukes the powers of darkness and bathes all people in light.

So in this holy place, pray for that kind of peace. Pray for that kind of transformation, for you and for the world. Pray that God will call you here and send you out into the world in that peace, and grant you strength and courage to love and serve Him with gladness and singleness of heart. And carry with you this beautiful poetry from our own Hymnal: “The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod. And yet we pray for but one thing – the marvelous peace of God.” 

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

29 January 2012

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

The Bible is full of signs from God.  You remember recently we heard about the star that was a sign to the wise men.  Way back in the stories of Moses you may recall all kinds of signs God gave back in the day: from turning his staff into a serpent to dividing the waters of the Red Sea.  The message is: if you want to know where to find God – and especially if you want to know whose side God is on – then look for the signs.  Water flowing from a rock; manna raining down from heaven; a dove and a voice from heaven; a rainbow in the sky; a vision of the heavenly court; a ladder that stretches into heaven; angels singing sweetly through the night.  The pages of the Bible regularly supply us with vivid images of signs from God meant to prove that God is in charge, or to demonstrate something that someone might normally be reluctant or unprepared to believe.

The desire for signs has not diminished in our own times.  The recent best-seller that tells of a “little boy’s astounding story of his trip to heaven and back” is touted as a sign that “Heaven is for Real.”  Religious leaders regularly see signs of God in weather events and natural disasters. The work of the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider has recently been linked to the possible discovery of the so-called God-particle, which, if identified, would, I guess, provide a sign - proof that God actually does exist, but can only been found with a really, really big particle accelerator!  This would be a more satisfying sign to many of us than the face of Jesus appearing in a piece of burnt toast.

You might say that it is very hard to be a person of faith – or a person looking for faith – and not to look for signs.  How are you supposed to know whether God is up there, out there, or wherever he or she or it is?  How are you supposed to know what God wants you to do?  And how are you supposed to know that the signs you see aren’t actually delusions, as a great many people would like you to believe?  If God isn’t going to post videos on YouTube to make his presence and his will known, then how can believers avoid looking for signs?

The view from a mountaintop, the breeze across a lake, the gurgle of a stream can all provide signs of God in the world.  And so can the cries of a newborn, the outstretched hand of a homeless person, or the purring of a kitten.  This season of the church year, in fact, is meant to be all about signs – all about remembering the signs of God’s revelation of his presence in the world in the person of his Son, Jesus of Nazareth.  Healthy young fishermen will leave their boats at his beckoning, demons will quit their sorry victims, illness will be put to flight – just wait and see in the stories that we read in the coming weeks.  Sadly, this year we will not read about the wine being turned into water, but it is a favorite sign, and one most Episcopalians have never stopped hoping to see repeated.

Today we hear about one of the silliest and least convincing signs of all: Jesus claims to have seen Nathanael under a fig tree at some earlier point in time.  That’s it.  Which, if any of you were to believe was a sign that you had had a personal encounter with the messiah, I would suggest more therapy.

Moments ago, Nathaniel was sneering at Jesus as a redneck from Nazareth, but when Jesus, says, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree,” Nathaniel believes he has seen a sign that here indeed is the Son of God, the King of Israel.  It wasn’t much of a sign to go on, but apparently it was all Nathanael needed.

If you are preoccupied with signs, you might leave here today thinking that this is the point of the story.  If I was preoccupied with signs, I might spend the next few minutes trying to convince you what an absolutely terrifically important sign this is, not only to Nathanael, but to you.  I might suggest that I have seen you sitting under proverbial fig trees, that Jesus sees you under them even now, and that he has sent me to you to give you a sign!  But I am not preoccupied with signs – not today anyway – and I hope that today you are not either.  Because if we were preoccupied with signs we might have stopped listening to Jesus already, and we might not hear what comes next.  Don’t look!  Can you remember what Jesus says to Nathanael after he more or less laughs at Nathaniel’s simple-minded preoccupation with what may or may not have been a sign?

This is what Jesus says: “You will see greater things than these.”

It is by no means clear that Nathanael believes Jesus, or has any idea what he means by this, but it will transpire, twenty chapters later in John’s Gospel, that Nathanael will be there by the Sea of Galilee when the risen Jesus appears to his disciples, although they do not know it is him until he gives them a sign.  And Nathanael, who might have been known only for his quick-witted insult of Jesus, is among the first to see and know that the promises of new life through Jesus are true, because the Lord is risen, and the gates of death and hell would not prevail against him!  “You will see greater things than these,” Jesus had said to Nathanael. And so it will prove to be.

You come to church, maybe every week – maybe not so often.  What signs do you see here?  What signs have you seen in your life?

Do you see signs of God’s real presence in the Bread and the Wine as I lift them up for you to see and the bells are rung?

Do you see signs in the faces of the hungry people we feed here every Saturday morning?

Do you see signs in the colors of light streaming through the windows just now?

Do you hear signs in the notes that the choir sings, the organ plays, or in the hymns to which you join your voices?

Have you seen signs in the wilderness when the beauty of God’s creation is spread out before you?

Have you seen signs in the twinkle of your little child’s eyes?

Did you pray for a sign of God’s presence as you stood vigil at your loved one’s death bed?

Have you tasted a sign of God’s work in a loaf of bread that was baked for you, or in a piece of fruit that was picked or peeled or squeezed for you?  Or in a meal that was served to you?

Has the rain brought you signs of God’s work?  Or the sunshine?

All of these are places that I believe I have seen signs of God.  And yet, somehow they can all fall short.  Signs are great as long as they last, but they don’t last long, and it’s not always clear what we are to make of them, and there is this modern nagging suspicion that all those signs are just delusions anyway.

But believing in Jesus is not just about seeing signs in things where other people see delusions.  Believing in Jesus is believing in the promise that you will see greater things than these.

This was God’s promise to Abraham, who assumed he had nothing before him but the waning years of his childless old age. You will see greater things than these.

This was God’s promise to Joseph, who was left in a pit and sold into slavery by his brothers.  You will see greater things than these.

This was God’s promise to his people through Moses, who had nothing to look forward to but increasing hardship and abuse at the hand of Pharaoh.  You will see greater things than these.

This was God’s promise through his prophets to his people when they were carried into exile.  You will see greater things than these.

This was God’s promise to all who came to visit the straw-strewn manger where a child was nursed by his mother beneath the light of a twinkling star.  You will see greater things than these.

And this is God’s promise to every one of us, when we sometimes feel as though we have to grasp at straws for signs of God’s promise.  You will see greater things than these.

Was that a message from God spelled out in your Cheerios yesterday morning?  And have you missed the fleeting chance to know what God is doing in your life because you gobbled them up too soon?  No, you will see greater things than these.

Does the faith you once felt long ago, but which has slipped away as you’ve gotten older, and begun to lose your friends, and your family, and your soul-mate, feel worn and flimsy?  You will see greater things than these.

Have the songs that once you could sing out in full voice become hard to sing?  You will see greater things than these.

Does it seem that maybe once, long ago it seemed possible that Jesus saw you, sitting under a fig tree or wherever, but now, the signs of his love are distant memories, that seem less real to you, and that your children are inclined to ignore?  You will see greater things than these.

What can you do if your faith was built on signs, but the signs have all faded, and you have begun to wonder if you ever saw them in the first place?  Did you believe just because someone once told you that Jesus sees you under your fig tree?  Did you believe just because of the signs?

Let me promise you that God is not done with you and with me; we will see greater things.

The life of faith is not just a life in which you receive the worn out old promises of a rickety old God and his dusty old religion.  It is a life that carries with it the promise of greater things: a land flowing with milk and honey, for instance.  The whole story of the Bible is the promise of greater things, and all the heroes of the Bible clung fast to this promise: that you will see greater things.

But too many of us have somehow concluded that there is not much more to faith than reading the tea leaves of the world around us and seeing God in them, or not.  And if your faith rests on whether or not God is going to provide a sign on a piece of toast, then that faith can be smothered with nothing more than a spoonful of marmalade.

Faith in God has always been built on the promise of greater things, and it has always been delivered to those who are in need of them: the childless, the homeless, the wandering, the depressed, the poor, the hungry, the battered, the frightened, the abused, the war-torn, the abandoned, and the out-of-luck.

Perhaps some small sign is given: a birdsong, a passage of Scripture, the helping hand of a stranger.  And now what?  Will I see greater things?  Or is this all there is, these little signs to be embraced or dismissed?  Yes, you will see greater things than these.  The Christian puts one foot in front of the other every day because of this hope – you will see greater things.  And from time to time we have glimpses of the greater things God has in store.

From time to time we approach the altar with nothing left in our souls, and no confidence even in the signs that led us there.  We are ready to give up, but we are still going through the motions out of habit.  And in a moment of silence, no sign is given, but we discover the assurance that God is in the world.  How do you know it?  You don’t.  You have received no sign; you only ate the bread and sipped the wine like you always do, but you knew that you had met Christ for a moment at his table, and he reminded you that he is not done with you yet.

From time to time we realize how desperately we are in need of forgiveness.  We put off dealing with it, we avoid certain people, we make excuses for ourselves.  But by God’s grace we have a moment of weakness when we are able to confess and to seek forgiveness.  We know we don’t deserve it, but we kneel before God and ask him to forgive us.  And without any sign at all of his work, God waves his hand over our heads and wipes away the sin that has troubled us so, and sends us on our way.

God has planted the vision of a promised land in our hearts.  And although many signs point to it, none of them leads us directly there.  Not yet.  But you will see greater things.

I thank God for the signs he allows us to see, and I pray that not too many of them are delusions (though probably a few of them are).  And I hope that you see signs of God’s work in the world and in your life, too.

But there is something very important to remember, both when the signs seem to be coming at you fast and furious, and when they are but a distant memory.  You will see greater things than these.

God is not done with you or with me. He has greater things in store.  He has a place, a promised land, to which he is leading us, and if we forget that, then there will be no point in paying attention to the signs anyway.  By all means, look for the signs of God’s work in your life and in the world.  Be a skeptic about the signs if you want.  But never forget that there are greater things in store for you.

One day you will be on the shore of a distant lake, and there will be a figure there who you do not recognize.  Perhaps he will show you a sign, and it will all make sense.  Or maybe there will be no sign at all; maybe he will just call you by name.  And you will remember that once, in the midst of your search for signs, he promised you that you would see greater things.

And now that you can see them all unfolding before you, you feel that you can finally breathe, and at last in this new world of greater things, you discover that you are meant to live!

Thanks be to God.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

15 January, 2012

Saint Mark's Church, Phialdelphia

You may listen to Mother Takacs' sermon here.

Picture the scene. A Sunday morning at Saint Mark’s. 11:00 Choral High Mass. Ushers are helping people to find their seats, handing out leaflets, and welcoming newcomers. The congregation is settling into pews or scanning ahead to see who is preaching today or bent in prayer after shuffling a red kneeler across the floor. The candles are lit; the organ begins to play. Altar servers are gliding about the chancel, in that amazing, unique way that says, “I’m going as fast as I possibly can, but I will darn well look dignified while I do it.” Then the servers disappear, the prelude rolls into the Introit, a breath!, and the first hymn. The congregation stands and opens their mouths wide in joyful song, the choir and altar party and clergy process in – and the Mass is underway.

But just as soon as it’s begun, you notice something different. After the opening acclamation, the Celebrant chants, “There is one Body and one Spirit….” Ah-hah!, you think. A baptism today. I wondered why the pews seemed so full. Come to think of it, the church is really full – really, really full. Bursting at the seams, in fact. What a joyful occasion, you think, I love baptisms. They’re so beautiful, so tender, so sweet. And so you travel through the liturgy of the word, listening to the readings, reminding yourself – again – to let someone know that you’d like to become a lector, praying the psalm as the choir sings, rising for the Gospel, attentively following the sermon, getting lost in the middle, finding the preacher again when she gets near the end, and then – finally! – the altar party stands, the choir begins to sing Palestrina’s Sicut cervus (which you now know so well that you like to sing along quietly under your breath) and the baptism has begun.

When the baptizands and their families gather with the priests at the back of the church, it looks like half the congregation is trying to squeeze back there. The crowds turn into more of a mob as they try to find their spots, and you find yourself worrying about the safety of Father Mullen – but he eventually emerges from the fray and all is right with the world again. When all has settled down and the candidates begin to be presented by name, you realize why there is such a crowd – there are twelve people to be baptized today. Twelve! Amazing! What are they doing in that confirmation class these days? After all the names are read and the promises are made, the candidates make their renunciations and affirmations, prayers are sung, the water is blessed, and the baptisms finally begin.

And for a while, all is going quite well. The candidates are processing up to the font in order, receiving the baptism with water and anointing with oil and a baptismal candle. But then you notice that after they are baptized, the candidates seem to be a little dazed. One of them has wandered up the North aisle and seems transfixed by the stained glass window of Jesus walking on water. Another has started some kind of davening in the soft space, rocking and muttering under his breath while holding a little stuffed lion. And yet another has marched straight down the center aisle and is smiling up at the rood beam with his arms extended. You think to yourself that all of this is starting to get a little unseemly when suddenly, from the font, you hear a strange, alien sound. The man who has just been baptized is standing on the step, his hair dripping wet, and, well, he’s moaning. Or talking or rapping or scatting or something, you really can’t tell…and as soon as he starts to make noise all heaven breaks loose. The davening man begins to sing, the window man is now rocking back and forth, a woman has jumped up on a back pew, pointed at the congregation and belted out, “Hear, O people, repent and return to the Lord!” Another woman has begun witnessing earnestly to the people seated by the St. John’s altar, and yet another has run up into the choir yelling, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the kingdom of heaven is like a fugue.” All of the newly baptized are dancing and singing, lighting every candle they can find, praying and prophesying and speaking in tongues. All is finally brought to order again when the Master of Ceremonies, who just happens to be Dan Devlin, calmly approaches each new prophet and quietly reminds them of their place in line, which they, of course, are happy to find if only because he asked them to.

It sounds crazy. It sounds absurd. It sounds like it could never happen and that Erika was a little giddy when she was writing her sermon this week. But this is exactly what is described in our reading from Acts today. Twelve disciples, living in Ephesus, meet up with Paul. When he asks them if they received the Holy Spirit when they were baptized, they answer him that no, they don’t even know what a Holy Spirit is. They were baptized with the baptism of John, a baptism of repentance and preparation for the one who is to come. But, Paul says, the one who is to come has already come, and gone, and come again, and when he ascended into heaven he promised the disciples that they would receive a comforter, the Holy Spirit who would come upon them and bless their preaching and their healing, offer strength and consolation for the journey. Well, give us this baptism, these twelve disciples say, and “when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.”

So why does my little scene seem so crazy to us? The Bible is full of stories of baptisms gone wild – impulsive baptisms in an obliging stream; baptisms of dozens, hundreds, thousands, after a particularly dynamic sermon. And in today’s Gospel, in Jesus’ own baptism, “the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove” and the voice of God thundering from the clouds. But you and I have rarely seen a wild baptism like this. Most of the baptisms I have seen or performed have been quite orderly, some even stately, and the wildest they’ve ever gotten is when an infant thinks that the water is too hot or too cold and decides to test out his lung power. No wonder we’re tempted to think of baptism as something domestic, as merely a “rite of initiation” meant to be witnessed by family and friends and followed up with fluffy white cake.

Now I have nothing against family and friends and fluffy white cake. And baptism is the rite of initiation in the Church. But it is so much bigger than that, so much more powerful, so much wilder than anything we could ever contain in a small marble font. Any invocation of the Holy Spirit is bound to get wild, but baptism particularly so because of the astonishing promises of the baptismal covenant. In our baptisms, we promised, or someone promised on our behalf, to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers; to persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord; to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ; to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves; and to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. These are the promises that we made; this is covenant that we entered into. They’re crazy; they’re impossible – we’ll never, ever be able to keep them all all the time. But, remember, we never promised to do these things alone – we promised to do them only with God’s help.

It is God’s help that makes the wildness of these promises something creative and life-giving instead of fantastical. And this help is found most powerfully here, in the Mass itself. Each week, in this liturgy, we enact these promises and remind ourselves of what they feel like. We learn the apostles’ teaching through the Holy Word of Scripture, break bread and pray; we confess our sins; we proclaim the Gospel and hear sermons that hope to share the Good News; we seek Christ in all persons by gazing into their eyes and offering them his peace; we love our neighbors and effect peace and justice through our prayers and thanksgivings; and we respect each human being by kneeling shoulder to shoulder to receive the bread and the wine. The preacher Barbara Brown Taylor compares this facet of our worship to strength training – a workout that helps us to be fit and ready to run when we enter the mission field.  

And in our worship, we are reminded, too, that this covenant has never been one-sided. God has also made promises – to be faithful to us, to be present in the body and blood, to “raise us to a new life in grace” day after day after day. And God keeps his promises. Without his righteousness, made manifest in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we would be utterly lost. The wildness we would face then would be utter chaos with no hope and only the rule of Death. But that is not the life into which we have been baptized. Our baptisms had power, have power, the power of this holy covenant that, when lived out by you and me, transforms the world. So keep this covenant, or if you have not been baptized, seek it out. Embrace the wildness of these promises; practice them together here week after week. And then listen for that mighty voice of God proclaiming again and again that You are my son, my daughter, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. And do you know what the really wild thing is? He really means it.

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

8 January 2012 - The Baptism of our Lord

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

You may listen to Mother Takacs' sermon here.

Have you ever given a truly great gift? Not been given a truly great gift, but given a truly great gift? It’s a pretty amazing feeling. You know, there’s this one person in your family who is impossible to shop for – your brother, perhaps. He’s one of those annoying people who are truly content with the things they already have. He likes movies, but he already has all of his favorites. He loves music, but he says he has all the tunes he needs. He’s not all that into clothes, he doesn’t like cologne, he would never wear a man purse. He has already been given an iPhone and an iPad and a kindle. A kindle…and suddenly you’ve got it. There’s a book that would be perfect for him – something he’ll definitely like but that isn’t so obvious that he would have thought of it himself. Something within his interests but that will also stretch him just a bit. It’s perfect! And so you go buy it, and wrap it (yes, the real book, not the ebook version) and bear it proudly to his house on Christmas Day. You can’t wait for that moment when you get to give it to him and watch him unwrap it. You do have one brief moment when you worry that this gift is so perfect that maybe you’ve actually given it to him before, but when he tears off the wrapping and smiles in surprise and delight, all of your fears evaporate like mist in the sun. You are filled up from within, happy in his happiness, glowing with the sheer pleasure of giving.

What does it take to give a truly great gift? First of all, it requires really knowing the person you’re giving to. What does she like? What are her interests, her passions? What does she need for work or want for play? What does she already have? What kind of gift will be so perfect and yet so completely unexpected? What gift will cause her eyes to light up because it’s just so her? Who is she?

Of course, a great gift also has to take into account who she is to you. What is your relationship like? Are you close? New friends, old friends? What kinds of conversations have you had, what kinds of things do you like to do together? What moments and memories have deep meaning for both of you? Who is she to you?

And any person who has given a really great gift will tell you that it takes a while to sift through all of these questions. It takes time to come up with just the right gift. While the answer may come in a flash of inspiration, it usually has taken some effort to get there. You’ve had to go round and round in your mind, thinking and mulling and pondering, before you stumble upon The Great Gift, before you recognize that wonderful thing that will be just perfect for her, especially coming from you.

Tonight is a night of great gifts. A child has been born, a son has been given. Tonight we recall together the journey of wise men from the East to the sleepy hamlet of Bethlehem, to the house of Joseph and Mary and the child Jesus. And we remember how these magi fell on their knees before this child, how they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts – magnificent, wonderful, truly great gifts. These gifts showed that the wise men knew who Jesus was; he was Messiah, the anointed one, and so they gave him precious, costly gifts that were fit for one who would someday wear a crown. But these gifts also showed that the wise men knew who Jesus was to them. Gold for the king of kings who would rule over them, over all nations, with justice and mercy. Frankincense for the great High Priest who would serve as their intercessor and offer forgiveness of sins and the bread of life to all people.  And myrrh for the one whose sacrifice would offer them a new life in God and redeem the entire world.

And of course we know that the wise men had to make a great journey to this great moment of gift-giving. They had to walk, and ride, and sweat, and ache, and wander round and round in the wilderness to come upon the answer. I wonder when they knew what gifts they would bring.  Did the answer come upon them mid-journey in a flash of inspiration, coming only after long hours of hunching over a camel’s back, fighting off the sickening false sweetness of Herod’s smile, and staring, always staring, up at the skies? Or was it only when they reached their journey’s end that they knew for certain, knew in that sure place of truth-telling in the base of their gut, that their gifts were right for this child and this moment? Whenever it was that they stumbled upon these great gifts, they knew them when they saw them and offered them on their knees under the light of a star. And they were filled up with that holy light, shining with joy to have made just the right offering, to have given a truly great gift.

What gift will you give to Jesus? He is not, of course, an easy person to shop for. He is immensely satisfied with what he already has. He never worries about what he will eat or what he will drink, or about his body, what he will put on. You’ve heard him talk about the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and so you’ve silently crossed the bottle of Veuve-Clicquot and the gift card to Abercrombie & Fitch off of your list. What book would you buy him that he doesn’t already know, what music would you offer him that he hasn’t already sung? What do you get for the man who not only has everything, he made everything? We may have a pretty good idea of who he is, and who he is to us. We may have even journeyed far to get to him, passing through the joys and sorrows of life, making up time after the left turns and the backtracking and the missteps that have led us away from him. But even at the end of all of this, what gift can we possibly offer him?

The answer is that I don’t know the answer – for you. But I have the sneaking suspicion that right now, the answer, for you, is one thing. There is one thing in your life that has been pulling at your attention, one thing that nudges your soul each time you pray. One thing – one great gift that you haven’t yet offered to Christ. It is not the same thing for each of us. My gift is not the same as yours, and both of our gifts might change next month. But let’s not worry about next month or the person sitting next to you in the pew or standing in the pulpit. Let’s just worry about you, right now, kneeling before this little tiny child. What gift can you give him?

Perhaps, like the kings, you have something of great value to offer him. Perhaps your gift is money to help fund the ministry and mission of this Church in Christ’s name. Maybe your great gift is the gift of your talent – maybe you have no gift to bring that’s fit to give a King, but you can play your drum for him, or sing a song for him, or paint or dance or write or build something for him. Maybe you are like Amahl from the opera Amahl and the Night Visitors and your gift is that one thing in your life that is a kind of surrogate support, that crutch without which you think you can’t possibly stand. Maybe your gift is the gift of friendship and mentoring to a student at the St. James School. Maybe if you were a shepherd, you would bring a lamb, and if you were a wise man, you would do your part, but what you can you give him, give him your heart. Or maybe Christ already has your heart, and now you want to give him your hands. Maybe your great gift is the gift of your time and your energy. Maybe your gift is trust. Maybe it is the gift of holy listening or of prayerful conversation. Maybe it is the gift of speaking Christ’s name in the world, of telling your story, his story, the Gospel story. Maybe it is your repentance, your forgiveness, your love.

And maybe you don’t feel like you have anything to give at all. Maybe you feel like you don’t belong at this cradle, that you’re an imposter, that surely you’ve followed the wrong star. Maybe you feel like a Gentile kneeling at the foot of a Jewish Messiah. If you do, fear not, you’re in good company. “Lift up your eyes and look around,” Isaiah says to you, “they all gather together.” We all come here at the feet of this holy child, Gentiles and Jews, rich and poor, white and black, gay and straight, men and women, and we all belong, not because of who we are, but because of who he is. And so we all have a great gift to give him, a gift that shows who Jesus is and who he is to us. So offer your gift before him – your perfect, truly great gift. “Then,” the prophet says, “you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice.” Then a “new light [will] shine in our hearts,” a light that will reveal God’s “glory in the face of [His] Son Jesus Christ.” And that light that glows from the sheer pleasure of giving is itself a gift, because it is the gift of proclamation, of witness to the entire world. And that is exactly what Jesus has always wanted. 

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

The Feast of the Epiphany

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia