Here is a disquieting piece of information: in the past twenty-five years, about 40 million people in America have stopped going to church. A lot could be said about that statistic. And I have wondered about the wisdom of sharing it with you in this way, at this time. After all, it’s my job to proclaim good news from this pulpit; and the statistic I’ve shared would not seem to provide a premise for good news. That twenty-five years pretty closely tracks the duration of my ordained ministry. But I’m not going to take responsibility for all 40 million people who have stopped going to church in that time. Researchers who know a lot more than I do can say a great deal about what’s behind that number. They have spent a lot of time poring over surveys and data. In books and articles that data and analysis is available for review: you can see it for yourself.
The realization that comes with this information would seem to prompt two questions: “What happened?” And, “What are we going to do?” I’m sure there is merit in asking those questions. But these are not the questions I want to address this morning. I want to simply stop and ask, “What are we doing here?”
I suppose that many people may have gone to church looking for something. But when they got there, they did not find what they were looking for. This is not their fault. They thought, perhaps, that there was something to be seen, certainly something to be found, when they went looking. And when they got to church, even if they spent a long time looking, they may have discovered something that we are not often forthcoming about in the church. They may have discovered that there is nothing to see here. Of course, there is plenty to look at here. And it is perfectly alright to come to church and look at the windows, and the carvings, and the vestments, etc. There’s all of that. But if that’s what you come to church for, eventually you will realize that all of these things you have been looking at are only glass, and stone, and wood, and fabric. If you came to church looking for something… really looking for something meaningful… then these objects might leave you feeling unrewarded, and might lead you to believe that when all is said and done here, there’s nothing much to see here.
And you’d be right. Because, much as it would seem that this church was built to be a place with a lot to look at, actually this church was built to be a place where there is nothing to see, because the most important things that ever happen here are entirely invisible. God calls his people to come together precisely because so much of God’s most important work is invisible. But these days, people have lost a tolerance for the invisible. And too often the church has not helped them, even though churches like this were built precisely to be lenses through which people could stare at the invisible; not only because of all the imagery here, but because this is the place where we come to bear witness to the invisible work of God.
I try to explain this situation to couples when I am preparing them for marriage. I tell them that we come to church for a wedding so that we can bear witness together to the work that God has been doing in their lives that no one can see, not even them. So we fuss over their hands. I tell them to take each other by the right hand as they exchange their vows. And at the climax of the ceremony, when I declare that they are married, I bind the two right hands of the couple together with my stole - not because doing so accomplishes anything, but because it intensifies the attention being paid to the sacramental symbol of the marriage. It draws attention to the sign of marriage that we can see (the joining of hands) which is only a sign of the real work that God is doing invisibly in the secret and silent space between their two hands, between their two lives: joining them together and making them one. This is sacramental life.
But marriage is a minor sacrament. And this church was put here for the principal sacraments, the dominical sacraments: the sacraments that were given to us by Our Lord. Those two sacraments are gifts that help us bear witness to the invisible work that God is doing in our lives all the time. Which is to say that there is nothing to see here… except those signs which help us to perceive what we cannot see, and will never be able to see: the awesome power of God.
Water is, of course, the sign and symbol of the sacrament of Holy Baptism. In this sacrament, we witness ceremonially as someone is splashed, or sprinkled, or dunked, or bathed in water, which we can see, showing us that God is incorporating that person into the Body of Christ, welcoming that person into the holiness of his own death so that he can share with them the glory of his resurrection life, washing away whatever needs washing, and leaving the baptisan refreshed and new!
Likewise, bread and wine are the signs and symbols, (the accidents) of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, the Mass, Holy Communion. In this sacrament, we eat and drink ritually, to participate in the life and death and love of Jesus, who gave his Body and his Blood for the salvation of the world, in an act of divine grace the calculus of which is quite beyond us.
It’s true that at Saint Mark’s we maximize the ritual of the Mass, so that there is a lot going on: vestments, and sounds, and smoke, and gesture, and music. You would almost think there is something to see here. But the truth is that there is nothing to see here. The truth is that the church has been given something to look at precisely because there is nothing to see. God’s work in giving us the blessings of Jesus, the life of Jesus, then hope of Jesus is entirely invisible to us.
And the possibility that God’s work is invisible to us, that there is nothing to see here, has made religion intolerable for a lot of people. Because as I look at the world, I suspect that part of what has been happening over the past twenty-five years and more is that we have been trying to reduce and maybe even eliminate the category of things that are invisible to us. We want to discover. We want to solve. We want to prove. We want to know. We want to see. We do not like invisibility these days. Transparency is good (and for many of the right reasons); but we are not sure that very much should remain in the realm of the invisible. For one thing, we have little-to-no control over the invisible. So, that’s enough to put us off. Mostly we regard it as a triumph of our excellence, our skill, and ingenuity that there is so little that is left that’s invisible to us. We have looked into the vast expanse of interstellar space. We have peered at the bottom of the oceans. We can see through things and around things and into things. We can magnify the tiniest specks of anything. Seeing all of this is good!
But, my friends, you wonderful, faithful people who still come to church, it is my job to remind you that there is nothing to see here. If you come to a church like Saint Mark’s, you are coming to a place and to a community that is called here in order to spend time with things we cannot see. We are here precisely because God’s work, like God’s being, is mostly invisible, and I think that God intends to keep it that way.
Here is another piece of information. During the period of time from 1870 to 1895, in the first fifty years of this parish’s existence, covering most of the time when my hero, Dr. Eugene Augustus Hoffman, was the fourth rector here, church attendance in America more than doubled. It was “the largest religious shift in church attendance in the US” up till now.* The shift taking place right now is bigger - and in the opposite direction. Hoffman, who was also the richest clergyman in America**, had it kind of easy.
We will have to take it on faith that it is good news that I am not the richest clergyman in America. But there is more good news to be found if we can accept the proposition that there is nothing to see here. Whatever you come to see, eventually it will disappoint you; either because you will finally realize that it is only made of glass, or stone, or wood, or fabric, or because it is made of nothing but the frailty of human flesh, which is something that Hoffman and I do have in common. Even the church may disappoint you, wherever and whenever there is something to see. Because whatever or whomever you might see in the church is prone to sin and failure, just like everyone else.
But you have been called here precisely because there is nothing to see here. There is only the awesome and immediate, and wonderful Presence of the Lord of Life, who promised to his own followers that “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Or as the King James Version puts it, “there I am in the midst of them.”
This place is a gloriously multicolored, smoky, jingling, singing, organ-playing lens through which to gaze at the invisible, the constant, the eternal Presence of the living God, which, of course, we cannot see, and never will see. This church occupies a place on a spectrum of something between 40 million people, on the one hand, and two or three people on the other hand. Isn’t it good that Jesus didn’t leave his church with the instructions that wherever 40 million people are gathered in my name, I will be among them? All it takes is two or three to be assured of the marvelous goodness of the Presence of the Lord. All it takes is two or three of us to gather here and remember that there is nothing here to see.
When we stop looking for whatever it is we were looking for, then maybe we will become aware of the Presence of the Son of God in this place; when we simply open ourselves to whatever it is that God wants us to be open to, in the company of a few others. And when word gets out that there is nothing to see here, then it may be that many others will come to join us so that they can not see it too! And the more people who are freed from the need to see something, the more of us may be open to the real work of God which is nearly always invisible; and which requires a company of saints who have trained themselves in the ways to look through the lens of glass, and carvings and fabric, and song, and everything else, and to be attentive to the simple signs of water, and bread, and wine, that make it clear to us that One we cannot see is here with us, in our very midst. And there is nothing better in the world worth not seeing!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
10 September 2023
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
*”The Great Dechurching” Jim Davis and Michael Graham, Zondervan Reflective, 2023
**according to his obituary in the NY Times
