Sermons

In Times of Great Uncertainty

God, with you as our ruler and guide, let us pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal. Amen.

Let me first begin with three scenes that shed light on where we are as a community today.

Scene 1: The Resurrection (according to John)

Mary Magdalene appears at the tomb of her teacher, Jesus. She is carrying a jar of ointment to anoint his body. But when she looks in the tomb, it is empty. Then she hears Jesus calling her name, sees his resurrected form, and the world will never be the same. For a short time, Mary Magdalene is the whole church. She is the living testimony of a risen Christ. Indeed, on the church calendar, this past Monday, we celebrated the Feast of Mary Magdalene. She’s the figure we commemorate in our clerestory window, the one in the very northeast corner. If you take a look, you see that she is holding a jar of ointment, standing in front of the light of the resurrection, which is radiating color and joy. Just a few decades after this world-altering moment, the writings that come down to us today are put down on papyrus scrolls, the letter to the Ephesians, and the Gospel of John. At that time, Christians were persecuted and martyred by the Roman Empire. It was a time of great uncertainty.

Scene 2: The Founding

In the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War, the United States is deeply broken. But out of that uncertain time comes new life. The Rev. Mark Olds, Rector of Christ Church Capitol Hill starts a mission that will become the community we know as St. Mark’s today. Regular people, like you and me, start meeting in small Sunday gatherings. Their first service in a frame chapel, just across the street from here, took place on Easter Day, April 12, 1868. Twenty years later, the foundational cornerstone of this building was laid. It was a time when the nation attempted to heal the wounds of a war that had killed over 600,000 Americans. It was a time of great uncertainty.

Scene 3: Today

A devoted group of Christians has continued to gather at St. Mark’s Church in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. We have weathered the lockdowns and isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have seen an attack on the US Capitol. And through it all, we have kept St Mark’s at the center of civic and religious life in this neighborhood. We feel the deep, alarming fears about increasing polarization and extremism in our nation. In just the last several days, we have seen an assassination attempt against one presidential candidate, and the sitting president step down from contention as a candidate in the next election. It is a time of great uncertainty.

In the Collect appointed for today (found in your bulletin at the bottom of page 3) we prayed that we may pass through things temporal, that we may not lose things eternal. And in the noise of our current time and space, the push notifications, pop-up ads, and the cable news, it’s hard to be anything but mired in things temporal. We are creatures of time and creatures our time, just as Mary Magdalene was, just as the people who built this place were.

But how might we stay focused on things eternal, looking outward for the holy that transcends our time and space? The collect implies that we might lose the eternal, which seems like it might be counter intuitive. How can we lose the very grounding of our being? But I know for me, how easy to be distracted, to be caught up in the day-to-day that I do lose track of the things that are important, things like who God is calling me to be in this time and space.

I might guess that for some of us, the hour we spend around this altar is the only time we spend each week reaching past the utter time-bound nature of our lives. Or I could be wrong about that. Maybe you practice centering prayer or meditation. Maybe you experience the awe in nature, in art, in music, in dance, that can, even if just for a moment, transcend our time-boundness.
In the Ephessians reading today, we receive a blessing across thousands of years, that we may be rooted in love and be filled with the fullness of God. Earlier this month we heard sermons from Nat White, Thom our deacon, and Michele our rector. Each of them wrestled with the American story and where it fits with our Christian story, especially in this time and place. What does it mean to be rooted in love and filled with the fullness of God as a Christian in Washington DC in 2024?

As Christians we are called, not to turn our backs on the world, but to be utterly present within it, to work for justice, to care for our neighbors, to do all the things we are engaged with at St. Mark’s: the refugee ministry, Samaritan ministry, Middle East peace, incarceration justice, the list goes on. And. And it is our calling to not lose sight of God’s time. Everything we do in our own time, we do in the context of the death and resurrection of Christ.

One place that we know that we experience God’s time again and again is at this table. In the Holy Eucharist, time collapses in on itself, as we remember the paschal mystery, Christ crucified and risen. Our gospel reading today reminds us that our offerings are never enough. The loaves and fishes aren’t so different from our own offerings which we bring each week: the bread and wine we bring from home, the few boxes of cereal and cans of soup we put in the basket, the money we put into the offering plate, ourselves as imperfect as we are. But through the blessing of an abundant God, we are given back more than we have presented. Our gifts are transformed into more than enough for all. And here we also join with saints and angels in praising God. We join with Mary Magdalene, with the founders of St. Mark’s, with everyone who struggled to find resurrection in their own time. They are the great cloud of witnesses.

I call your attention to the resurrection of Christ and to the founding of this place both because those are two events that affect our very being in this place and time, but also because, like our own time, there was much strife and conflict. How will we, like the early church, and like our founders, step into this moment? What resurrection is awaiting us on the other side?
And so, too return to Ephesians, I’ll end with these words: Glory to God, whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. May we have time to make it so.

Amen.