John Terry and Victoria Street, Co-Directors of Worship
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O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, and make us faithful interpreters of life to our fellows.
Amen.
(John:) Those of you who have been around for a while may recognize that prayer as one that Jim Adams often said at the beginning of a sermon.
For me it says something about the importance of worship at St. Mark’s — why we keep coming back here every Sunday, and what we take with us when we
leave. I’ve been a card-carrying member of St. Mark’s for almost forty years, and throughout that time I have been involved in many aspects of parish
life. I have taken more classes than I can remember. I have led or co-led at least thirty worship task forces as a LION. I have taught classes, been
a member of many committees, helped to clean out the basement when it really was a basement, gone into people’s homes and asked them to pledge money,
served as a Vestry Member and as Senior Warden. But what ties the whole St. Mark’s experience together for me is the Sunday morning worship service.
Why? Why do I keep coming back here, Sunday after Sunday? Why do we all keep coming? I think at least part of the answer may lie in that little
prayer that I just read a couple of minutes ago.
“Lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours.” At the heart of our worship experience — indeed, at the heart of the Christian
religion that we profess — is a great mystery, a magnum mysterium, as an ancient hymn calls it, so profound and incomprehensible that we can’t even
describe it in words, though people have been trying for 2000 years to do just that. The Wise Men, whose story we just heard in the Gospel, were
among the first to experience this mystery. They were almost certainly not kings, despite the impression we may have received from the carol that we
just sang, or from Renaissance paintings or stained glass windows or greeting cards. Matthew refers to them only as “wise men” — or “magi”, which is
simply a Latin word meaning wise men. Most likely they were philosophers, or maybe astrologers, probably followers of some eastern religion such as
Zoroastrianism. They were led by a star to Bethlehem, and when they came to the stable and saw Jesus in the manger, Matthew tells us that they “fell
down and worshiped him,” and offered him gifts. They didn’t say, “Now we have all the answers to our questions; we know who this baby is, and why he
is here.” No, all they could do was to acknowledge that a great event had just happened in their lives, and they didn’t have a clue as to what it
meant. It was, simply, a mystery. As we learn in many of our functional classes here at St. Mark’s, there are some questions that have no answers,
and we just have to live with that.
We also acknowledge the mystery in many ways every Sunday in this place, especially when we say the Nicene Creed and, a little later, when we gather
around the altar to receive the bread and wine, as Jesus instructed us: “do this in remembrance of me.” I wouldn’t even try to explain the meaning
of what happens at that moment. I doubt that I could, and I know that there are many understandings — and enormous differences of opinion — among
theologians and scholars about what happened around that supper table somewhere in Jerusalem almost 2000 years ago. But we keep coming back here
every week for the same little tidbit of bread and sip of wine (or grape juice). Why? Because, I think, we find in it a kind of nourishment that
we can’t get anywhere else. As we gather around the altar, we sense that we are all members of a Christian community — and not just members of this
parish, lively and wonderful as it is, but of a group of people who have shared in this experience, dating back 2000 years and forward, we hope, into
infinity. We are, in short, members of what the Prayer Book calls “the blessed company of all faithful people.”
Which leads me to my second point. For me, being aware of the mystery at the heart of our religion is not enough. That kind of knowledge doesn’t help
me through the ups and downs of daily life, and I doubt that it does much for you either. One of the definitions of religion that we sometimes hear
around St. Mark’s is that religion is what helps us to live from one day to the next without going crazy. I think that’s true, but it needs some
explanation.
A lot of people say that they come here on Sundays to recharge their batteries, or to refuel for the rest of the week, or something like that. This
kind of nourishment doesn’t come only from a worship service, of course. Here at St. Mark’s we place great emphasis on the word “functional.” One of
the basic ideas behind our Christian education system is the notion that the courses we take, both as children and as adults, can help us to function
better in our daily lives. And when we say “better,” what we really mean is more responsibly, more faithfully, more effectively in our relations with
other people — our families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, fellow citizens, even the folks we don’t like very much.
Our worship life at St. Mark’s can be functional in this sense as well. We can learn useful lessons from the scripture passages that are read every
Sunday, lessons about how to live our lives as followers of Jesus. We can learn from the sermons that we hear, both from our own wonderful clergy and
from visiting preachers, like the ones who will be coming next week and the week after. The hymns, the prayers, and everything else in the liturgy
can enrich our worship experience and enhance its total effect. We can take those lessons and apply them in our daily lives away from this place,
and then come back next Sunday for more nourishment — to refill our tanks and recharge our batteries for another week.
So why does it matter that we learn these lessons here at St. Mark’s Church, rather than in, say, a group therapy session? Why don’t we think of this
enterprise here as St. Mark’s Social Club? or St. Mark’s Civic Association? Perhaps part of the answer to that question lies in another part of Jim
Adams’ little prayer, which addresses God as “our great companion.” Thinking of God in those terms serves to remind us — to remind me — that whatever
happens in my life, God is always there. I may deny his presence, or ignore it, but he remains my companion nevertheless — and he always will.
Amen.
(Vicki:) Today our tradition holds that God our Great Companion has become incarnate, in a tiny human body, with three wise men paying homage to
him. Today Jesus is a baby; next week in this spot he’ll be a 30-year-old man getting baptized in the Jordan River. After an intense period of fasting
and meditation, he’ll teach world-changing ideas, and perform miraculous healings. His inspired and empowering words and actions will touch enough of
the disenfranchised to make them a threat to the established order – and three months from now he’ll be executed, in part because he won’t retract what
he said. But then he’ll rise from the grave, to be with us for another few weeks in some mystical yet tangible form – and then he’s gone from our sight,
and it’s the disciples’ turn to carry on his teachings and miracles in the world.
Today, those disciples are us – all of us here at St. Mark’s, all Christians. I wonder sometimes if God really appreciated the ragtag group he was
delegating the job to, then or now. Good thing we have our weekly sustenance here! Truthfully, I suspect that like a caring parent, God appreciates
us a lot more than we do – that God understands that life is short, and there is so much for us to learn. We are taught that, among many qualities, God
is compassionate and merciful. If we are made in God’s image, can we choose to be compassionate and merciful as well? Maybe toward ourselves, as well
as others?
We’ve been spending the last six months at St. Mark’s exploring the mystery of what it means to be in conversation with those who are different from us,
without trying to change them into “like us”. A conversation that can be even more challenging is with those who would on the surface appear to be like
us, but who hold views in opposition to ours. To my knowledge we haven’t had any direct conversations with the Falls Church or Truro parishes since they
voted to leave the Episcopal Church USA, or before the vote, for that matter. We talked about reaching out to them in some way, but never came to
consensus about if or how we should, and so we defaulted to inaction. But we sure have talked ABOUT them. In our private conversations, we are likely
to claim that their choice was based in fear. I’m sure they would claim it was based in faith. Who is right? It’s a mystery to us that intelligent,
faithful people could make such a decision. But what do we really know about their long-debated and, I’m sure, angst-ridden vote? How can we know
compassion and mercy toward them, and still be faithful to our own stand for inclusion and empowerment for all?
Changing someone else’s point of view doesn’t happen often, and when it does it’s because the other is ready to change. That timing isn’t ours to
choose. To paraphrase Charles Penniman, our faithful response is just to be ourselves simply, and in the power that created that self.
I got a lot of practice in just listening to someone I couldn’t change with my Dad, who died three years ago this week. He was a gracious, generous,
brilliant, loving man, whose life was overshadowed by his battle with long-cycling bipolar disorder. He’d be stable for months or years, then climb
up the manic mountain for about three months, becoming progressively more hyper, manipulative, impulsive, self-destructive and eventually paranoid.
My brothers and I would go through the machinations of getting him committed to a psychiatric facility, and he would hate us for it, though when he
recovered he would acknowledge that it was what he needed. Talking with him during manic phases was like listening to someone from a different planet,
who wasn’t much interested in how I perceived things here on earth. My Dad loved me deeply -- yet when he was in the grips of mania he would
intentionally say things that he knew would wound me. Long into adulthood, I eventually stopped feeling hurt, by changing MY point of view. I told
myself that the person inhabiting my Dad’s body at that time really was from another planet! “Dad’s not home right now,” I remember saying. He
himself, in a stable period, once called his manic times “Mr. Hyde.” Near the end of his life they became more frequent, but thankfully of shorter
duration.
The last time I saw Dad, he was flat on his back with an IV and oxygen, insisting that I wheel his hospital bed into the nursing home’s smoking room
so he could indulge the pack-a-day habit that had ravaged his lungs and was killing him. When I told him I couldn’t do that, he told me that I was
no damn good to him and to get the hell out. After futile attempts at negotiation, I left. But I was practiced by that point; I walked out telling
myself, “That wasn’t my Dad.” Thankfully, he came down from manic mountain a few days later, and was able to call early one morning, just to tell me
he loved me. Those were his last words to me. Now that was my Dad.
I’m not suggesting that those who disagree with us are suffering from mental illness. Usually far from it, which can make it all the more aggravating
when perfectly sane, intelligent people just can’t “see the light.” But we’re likely to be about as successful at changing their minds through
intellectual arguments. Sometimes new information is helpful, but rarely when it’s presented as a challenge. How can we share our point of view,
and reach out to others with dignity and respect, not just between religions but within our own Episcopal church, and even to “the other” here at
St. Mark’s? How can we be faithful interpreters of life to our fellows, in a way that we are heard, and that we hear?
I’d like to share an old story with you, that some of you have probably heard, called “The Rabbi’s Gift.”[1] A monastery had
fallen upon hard times. The order had become decimated; it was dying. There were just five monks left in the decaying mother house: an abbot and four
others, all over age seventy.
In the woods around the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a retreat. As he agonized over the
imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot to ask the rabbi for advice.
The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. “I know
how it is,” he said. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” The abbot
and the rabbi wept together. They read from the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things. When the abbot had to leave, they embraced each other, and
again, the abbot plaintively asked, “Is there nothing you can tell me that might help me save my dying order?”
“No, I am sorry,” the rabbi responded. “I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”
When the abbot returned to the monastery, his fellow monks asked about his visit with the rabbi. "He couldn't help," the abbot answered. "We just wept
and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving -- it was something cryptic -- the Messiah is one of us. I don't know
what he meant."
In the months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi's words. The Messiah is
one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that's the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot?
Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant
Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred!
Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people's sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always
right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then,
almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the
Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn't mean me. He couldn't possibly have meant me. I'm just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am
the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn't be that much for you, could I?
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect, on the off chance that one among them might
be the Messiah. And on the off, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.
Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, people still occasionally came to visit the monastery, to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander
along its paths, even now and then to go into the chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed the aura of
extraordinary respect that now seemed to radiate out from the five old monks and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely
attractive, even compelling about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray.
They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought friends.
Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one
asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order, and thanks
to the rabbi's gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm.
We are fortunate at here St. Mark’s. Fifty years ago we too were a dying parish – and today we’re a vibrant community, full of enriching worship,
Christian education, arts, of caring for each other, and caring for the wider world. We have families picnicking on the lawn, and young men and
women choosing a life of ministry. Could it be because the Messiah is one of us? Could we have something extraordinary to share with the world?
Amen.
[1] Excerpt from the Prologue of A Different Drum, M. Scott Peck, 1987.
