Photo by Jay Blossom
If you dig the city up, you find more city underneath it. We see this all over town, even during the pandemic. Streets and construction sites are dug up by heavy machinery, and when we look down we see the miles of cables and pipes, and sewers, and tunnels, and concrete, etc that undergirds our city. Very little of the city is susceptible to rainfall, except in inconvenient ways, like the sewer drain at the corner of 17th and Locust that hasn’t drained properly for almost a year now, and that results in a huge puddle on that corner every time it rains.
But Saint Mark’s is surrounded on three sides by gardens, we are one of the few patches of land in the city that is really susceptible to the rainfall. Thankfully, in this city there are other places too, like Rittenhouse Square, which is looking lush and gorgeous this spring. These are the places, where if you dig them up what you find underneath is the earth. You put a shovel in the ground around Saint Mark’s and you won’t find more city underneath; you find the earth there, in all its lovely susceptibility to rainfall.
It’s because of my gratitude for this gift that I am willing to listen to the angels who addressed the apostles at the Ascension. I am inclined to want to ignore them when they chide the apostles, “Men of Galilee, why are you looking up toward heaven?” Isn’t the answer obvious? And is it really so wrong-minded to fix our gazes and our hearts on heaven? But because of this gift of the green earth by which we are nearly surrounded at this church, in a city that needs such green spaces, I am willing to listen to the angels’ direction.
It’s the Psalmist’s voice that speaks the clearest word of good news to me today. Even though scholars tell us that Psalm 68 is complicated and convoluted, and that it’s nearly impossible to identify a singular thematic thread that runs through it, I still hear something that makes me want to stop and take it on board. It’s in the ninth verse, where the Psalmist says this, “You sent a gracious rain, O God, upon your inheritance; you refreshed the land when it was weary.”
And it’s not just because the spring rains this year have caused our gardens to blossom in great profusion. (The roses are fantastic, and the peonies are spectacular!). Because I don’t think the Psalmist intends us to hear this verse only literally (although we may hear it that way.). It’s not just because we all know of real deserts (in California, in Australia, etc.) where the dry earth literally blossoms when God sends a gracious rain. It’s because I think the Psalmist also allows us to hear this lovely thought not just about the land when it’s weary, but in relation to every weariness we are likely to endure.
And aren’t we weary? Hasn’t the social distancing, and the sickness, and the grief, and the death (O, God, the death) and this whole pandemic left us weary? Not that there isn’t anything else to weary us too - you’ve got your stuff and I’ve got mine. There is weariness aplenty to go around. And we need to be reminded that God can and will and does refresh us in our weariness. In a city where so much of the terrain is not susceptible to the effects of the rainfall, we need reminders that God does send a gracious rain on his inheritance, that God refreshes the land when it’s weary. God refreshes us when we are weary
That’s why I’m willing to pay attention to the angels of the Ascension, and to look down here, and see what God is doing. Because God sends a gracious rain upon his inheritance; he refreshes us all when we are weary.
Notes for a sermon by Fr. Sean Mullen
24 May 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia