Tending to the Crumbs

On this great Solemnity of Corpus Christi, it is tempting to speak of many things. I could wax enthusiastically about the theology of bread, because my hands are frequently in the dough these days. Saint Mark’s Rise ministry is making bread twice a month, and I can now see why bread is the perfect metaphor for Christ’s Body. Little yeast particles look like they have no life within them until you mix them with water, salt, honey, and flour. Let me tell you: they are indeed quite alive. But in the past year, you’ve heard a richly theological sermon on bread from Fr. Mullen, and I won’t be able to say it any better than he already has.

Or on this sublime feast of the church, I could engage in wistful reveries about my childhood, about how I came to appreciate the magnificent mystery of the most holy Sacrament of the Altar in preparing for First Communion. I could recount my eager expectation of receiving Christ’s Body and Blood and that overpowering, joyful instance when I actually extended my hands in faith for the first time and the tiny host was placed upon my palm. But this day is not about me; it’s about Jesus’s extraordinary presence among us in ordinary bread and wine.

Or on this day of great devotion, I could muse on the inexplicable magnetic quality of the Blessed Sacrament, a quality that inspires intense piety and that beckons people to gaze with awe and reverence at a tiny circle of bread. But I suspect that we are gathered here today because we already have some notion of the irresistible attraction of what has been called “the jewel in the crown among the sacraments.”[1]

So what I want to talk about on this feast, perhaps paradoxically, are crumbs. Yes, crumbs. Now, before you imagine that I’m about to stray into a precious lecture about ablutions, rest assured, I am not. But in thinking about crumbs, I couldn’t help but recall a curious sentence contained in an obscure footnote in that rather antiquated tome of liturgical ceremonial, Ritual Notes.

The author offers this advice to the priest on spreading the corporal on the altar at the beginning of Low Mass:

“If there is a large cross embroidered on the corporal, it is better if this is placed so as to be at the back; if it is in front, the embroidery may very easily retain some fragments of the Blessed Sacrament.”[2]

Now, you might both appreciate this advice and chuckle a bit at it, too. This sentence comes, of course, from a well-intentioned place in the heart. It is concerned, as we should very well be, with treating the Blessed Sacrament with great reverence. This rather fussy ceremonial instruction, though, springs from such reverence that even the tiniest particles of the consecrated host are worthy of attention.

Without being too obsessive with perfection in tending to the crumbs, I do wonder if this somewhat over-scrupulous sentence from Ritual Notes might actually have something important to teach us about why this feast matters, why our devotions on this day are important for the sake of the world.

It was St. Augustine of Hippo who brilliantly proclaimed that in the Sacrament of the Mass the mystery of ourselves is, in fact, placed on the altar. We are the living Body of Christ, and so by the final Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer, we gaze upon ourselves in the Bread and Wine of the Mass. It’s an extraordinary theological statement: so simple and yet so profound. When we adore the Blessed Sacrament, it’s as if we are looking into a mirror at ourselves—or maybe seeing who we should be, who we hope to be.

Because peering into this mirror is so often shrouded with the dimness of human myopia, an inability to discern the true nature of the Body of Christ. Does the miraculous become mundane by its revelation in ordinary crumbs of bread and drops of wine? Has the greatest of mysteries lost its mystery because we frequently fail to discern the body, because our inner vision is indeed not clear?

St. Augustine also exhorted the newly baptized in a famous sermon on the Eucharist saying this about the bread:

“Let it not appear common to you because you see it. That which you see passes away: the invisible thing which is signified thereby passes not away, but abides.”[3]

Let it not appear common to you because you see it.

Perhaps the question isn’t so much whether we believe that Christ’s Body and Blood are truly present in the Bread and Wine of the Mass but has more to do with how we tend to the crumbs. Do we believe the crumbs really matter, and not just the crumbs of the sacred Host on the altar?

If we are indeed to have holy admiration for a tiny crumb of that infinitely abundant loaf of the Bread of life, a wafer held aloft and adored, genuflected to, and carried around in a monstrance, and if we are truly Christ’s living Body, then shouldn’t we also be affectionately tending to the crumbs of Christ’s Body sprinkled all around us? In God’s estimation, is not the tiniest morsel of humanity, made in the image of God, to be treated as a worthy crumb? Does not our adoration of Christ in Bread and Wine teach us how to love God as we ought and therefore to love others with truer intention because they contain God’s image?

There is more than meets the eye in the crumbs of the human race, strewn all around us. Beneath the ragged exteriors, beneath the gruff voices, beneath the foul smells, there is precious life. These are not stale crumbs of bread; these are living members of Christ’s Body. Let it not appear common to you because you see it.

Sadly, in this very city, it’s all too common, isn’t it, to find brothers and sisters in need of proper nourishment or comfortable places to sleep? The crumbs of Christ’s Body are themselves begging for crumbs. How has the image in the mirror become so distorted?

It’s a cruelly wasteful world in which we live, too. Crumbs constantly slip through the cracks and are carelessly or even maliciously stomped on because, well, they seem like the scraps of society. Crumbs are treated as disposable, are seen as waste products that are worthy of no other place than the refuse bins of our cities. They are regarded as if they have no life in them, as dormant yeast particles or worse yet, as yeast that is past its shelf life and relegated to the trash. But just because we see it doesn’t mean it should appear common to us.

I could further list the uncountable drops of blood spilled in needless violence here in this city and of course all over the world. Or should I tell of the ways in which blood is used to pull people apart rather than to unite? But just because we see it, let it not appear common to us.

If the world has ever needed a feast like today’s great feast, it is now. For the most holy Sacrament of the altar teaches us reverence, and I don’t need to tell you that reverence is a rare commodity these days. Adoration of Jesus Christ in the most Blessed Sacrament compels us to have respect for the crumbs, at the altar and in the world. And the more that the crumbs seem common to us, the more that we fail to discern the real presence of Christ’s body and blood dwelling among us. And as St. Paul says, this is our judgment. 

But thankfully, this day is really about God and about what God has promised us in the Blessed Sacrament, for he has promised that what we receive in Bread and Wine, although it is invisible, is not at all common. It is the living Bread come down from heaven. It is true food and true drink. It enables us to live forever. It is bread given for the life of the world. It is broken for a church that is to live vibrantly, to rise abundantly, not to die slowly. It is shared with a world that is waiting to be leavened by God.

When Christ feeds us with himself in the Mass, nothing is wasted. There is no particle of humanity too tiny to be cared for. There is no hunger or thirst too vast to be quenched with his true food and drink. The feast of Corpus Christi might seem to be the most private of devotions, but it is, in fact, the most corporate of them all. Corpus Christi is devotion for nothing less than a holy Crumb that bestows eternal life and that commands us to honor life in all the crumbs of the world.

Here and now, in our earthly pilgrimage, Christ’s Body and Blood are our sustaining food for the journey towards greater communion with God, that God may ever more deeply dwell in us and we in him. We should yearn always for this food, as if in a barren and dry land where there is nothing to eat or drink. Let our appetite be insatiable for this heavenly repast.

God does not waste the crumbs; God tends to them. As Jesus urged his disciples to gather up the leftover crumbs from the feeding of the five thousand, one day God will mold into one loaf the discarded crumbs of humanity. From east and west, from north and south, those seemingly desiccated particles of bread and those precious drops of blood spilled because of human sinfulness will be gathered up into a heavenly feast where no one goes hungry and where no one suffers and where glorious feasting has no end. May we be inspired by that most holy Crumb in the sacrament of the altar, which we shall shortly worship, adore, and receive. May we lovingly tend to the crumbs with God’s grace. Let those crumbs not appear common to you, and let not a single crumb, not a single grain be lost.

Preached by Father Kyle Babin
23 June 2019
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[1] John Macquarrie, A Guide to the Sacraments (London: SCM Press LTD, 1997), 102.

[2] E.C.R. Lamburn, Ritual Notes, 11th ed., London: W. Knott & Son, 1964), p. 124.

[3] Ibid., 86.

Hear Jerusalem Moan

Trinity Sunday is not a good day for preachers.  To speak about the Holy Trinity is to speak about that which is mostly unspeakable, to reflect on a deep truth about God that is apparent to us, but mostly beyond our knowing.  A preacher like me is looking for a story, but Trinity stories are hard to find.  You don’t run into the holy and undivided unity of the Trinity every day on the street - at least not in too many obvious ways.  Almost everything that you can try to say about the Trinity to make the mystery a little less mysterious ends up flirting with heresy, or sounds just plain dumb, unhelpful, or beside the point.

The historian of religion, Karen Armstrong points out part of what makes it so hard for us to train our attention on this mystery of God’s transcendent being.  These days, she says, “we concentrate so much on defining what we're transcending to  - God - whereas in the past they concentrated more what we're transcending from: selfishness, greed, hatred, all of which springs from ego.”  Her assessment sounds right to me, especially when she reminds us that in the doctrine of the Trinity “ancient theologians were trying to remind Christians that it was impossible to think about God as a simple personality.”  The three persons of the Trinity, she says - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - “these are the external, like my gestures and my clothes and my words are me. But they don't exactly define what "me" is. We know God's external qualities, but we can never know his ousia or inner nature.”*

Fair enough.  But what help is that to the preacher?

I’m With Her

Then I hear music.  Recently, in the form of three women standing around a single microphone.  Each woman holds an instrument.  They are bluegrass musicians, so one holds a guitar, another a mandolin, and the third carries a fiddle.  And they are singing in the twangy, tight harmony of bluegrass.  In their set, they segue from song to song, trading places in the center, all leaning in to balance their voices at the microphone.  One takes the lead in one song, then they change positions and another is in the lead.  It is hard to say who is in charge.  No one of the three is more important that the others.  Their bodies are swaying gently together with the rhythm of the music.  The singers are present to the audience, and providing much enjoyment to us, but clearly their attention is mostly on one another.  They are listening to each other, and singing to and with each other.  Sometimes only one is singing, or playing.  Sometimes they stand a little farther apart, sometimes closer, but always the three are together.**

It’s a useful icon of the Trinity, if you ask me.  Probably as informative as the classic Russian icon of the Trinity that shows the three angels visiting Abraham by the Oaks of Mamre.  And a lot better than a shamrock.  The performance of these three women echoes many of the classic descriptions of the Trinity.

Then they start to sing a song I have never heard before, but I guess it’s an old folk song or spiritual:

Well I got a home on the other shore
Don’t you hear Jerusalem moan
I know I’ll live there for evermore
Don’t you hear Jerusalem moan.

Don’t you hear Jerusalem moan,
Don’t you hear Jerusalem moan.
Thank God there’s a Heaven 
and a ringin’ in my soul
and my soul set free
Don’t you hear Jerusalem moan.

At one point they stop playing their instruments, and first one voice takes up the melody, then the second, and then the third, in the beautiful and simple imitative polyphony of a round.  You can hear the melody intertwining with itself.  And the second or third time around, you can hear the voices embellish the melody further, each voice sharing the embellishment in turn, as the song becomes more intense, more plaintive, and more beautiful.  And the audience is rapturous; you hear them calling out as this simple music carries them away.  You could feel the excitement building as these three women weave their three voices and this pleading song together.  And finally the three women bring the round to a conclusion, not by singing the melody together in unison, but in thrilling and commanding harmony that still knits all three voices together.

I was driving as I heard the three women sing, and I nearly had to stop the car at this point.  All they were doing was singing this one melody (that I had never heard before) over and over as a round, in simple imitation.  And it was stunning.  When I got home, I found the recording of the performance on line, so I could see and hear it again.  And I listened to them sing this round over and over again.   Don’t you hear Jerusalem moan?  Don’t you hear Jerusalem moan?  I feel as though I want to hear it again right now.  And I want you to hear it, too!

And I wonder if it might be easier to know what the scriptures mean when they say that God created us in his own image and likeness, when three women stand up at a microphone with a guitar, a mandolin, and a fiddle, and sing.

As it happens, older versions of the song, Hear Jerusalem Moan, make fun of preachers of various denominations.  One verse goes like this:

Presbyterian preacher don’t never take the blues,
He chews his own tobacco and he drinks his own booze.
Don’t you hear Jerusalem moan.

There is, fortunately, no verse about Episcopalian preachers.

But it’s a fitting song for Trinity Sunday, when a preacher might easily make Jerusalem (or Philadelphia) moan.

Thank God there’s a Heaven 
and a ringin’ in my soul
and my soul set free.
Don’t you hear Jerusalem moan.

If three woman singing bluegrass can stir the soul, what could a triune God do to us, and for us, and with us?  And why wouldn’t we want to believe in such a God?

Karen Armstrong thinks that the reason we struggle to reflect on the transcendent and triune God is because of what she calls our “preening, prancing” egos.  “You won't get transcendence,” she says, “unless you are compassionate. To be compassionate is to dethrone yourself from the center of your world and put another there, to transcend yourself. You go beyond the selfishness and hatred that imprisons us and limits our vision."

Dethrone yourself from the center of the world, and put another there.  Is this what God is constantly doing within God’s own self?  De-throning himself from the center, to put another there?  Such is the majesty of the true and living God that he excels even in humility, as one person of the Trinity says repeatedly to another, “Friend, go up higher”?

Trinity Sunday is not a good day for preachers.  It’s a better day for singers.

Thank God there’s a Heaven 
and a ringin’ in my soul
and my soul set free.
Don’t you hear Jerusalem moan.

Up there in heaven, I suppose it is entirely possible that there are three women standing around a microphone singing.  One of them might be holding a guitar, another a mandolin, and another a heavenly fiddle.  They might be changing places at the microphone, as they trade places leading the song, and as they repeat to one another in a glorious, imitative, and intertwining round, “Friend, go up higher!”  And they might be looking down on us, listening to this sermon, and singing to one another, “Don’t you hear Jerusalem moan.”

I really can’t say.  But I am fairly certain that if there are, then the three of them are trading places in the center, all leaning in to balance their voices.  One takes the lead, then they change positions and another is in the lead.  It is hard to say who is in charge.  No one of the three is more important that the others.  Their bodies are swaying gently together with the rhythm of the music.  They are present to the world, and providing much enjoyment to us, but clearly their attention is mostly on one another.  They are listening to each other, and singing to and with each other.  Sometimes only one is singing, or playing.  Sometimes they stand a little farther apart, sometimes closer, but always the three are together.  Their song has an intertwining melody, that they sometimes sing in a round of beautiful imitative polyphony.  As they sing on, their voices embellish the melody further, each voice sharing the embellishment in turn, as the song becomes more intense, more plaintive, and more beautiful.

And some day, the singing will build to a climax of thrilling and commanding harmony that knits the three voices together in unsurpassed beauty, that no one will be able to mistake for anything other than the voice of God.

And then, at last, no more will we hear Jerusalem moan.  No more will we hear Jerusalem moan.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
Trinity Sunday 2019
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

* interview with Karen Armstrong in US Catholic, January 2010, (Vol 75, No 1)

** the perfromance was the group I’m With Her singing on Live From Here, 15 June 2019 at Tanglewood

What Language Shall We Speak?

When the state of Louisiana was first settled by Europeans in the late seventeenth century, the French language settled there, too. Louisiana or Cajun French, as it has come to be known, is a curious blend of many influences, what might be termed a “linguistic gumbo.” In this gumbo, you will find different varieties of the French language itself, Canary Island Spanish, German, and even some English.[1]

Until the twentieth century, spoken Louisiana French was widespread in the state. But with the forced teaching of English in public schools in 1921, mandated by the state, a slow attrition of Cajun culture occurred. The evolution of the mass media into somewhat isolated communities, as well as a general bias against French culture in Louisiana, contributed to the decline of Louisiana French. Those speaking this seemingly anachronistic dialect were considered uneducated, and speaking French was often discouraged. Despite a resurgence of Cajun pride in the mid-twentieth century, to this day, some still worry about losing essential aspects of French heritage in Louisiana.

If you can’t tell by my last name, I’m practically one-hundred percent French—Cajun French, that is. I remember a conversation some years ago with my grandfather, who grew up speaking Louisiana French in the south central portion of the state. He told me about a conversation he’d had with a native French speaker. When I asked him whether the two of them were able to communicate, he said yes. . . but only up to a point, and then there was a breakdown in communication. At some moment, they ceased to be intelligible to one another.

Over time, the French spoken in Louisiana had acquired the barnacles of other dialects and languages and had accommodated itself to the needs of a culture in a different part of the world from the mother country. It had linguistically wandered ever so gradually from its native roots, hence the inevitable breakdown of communication between so-called pure French and Louisiana French.

It might not be too far of a stretch to suggest that the human race has, in many ways, experienced a breakdown in communication. I don’t mean, of course, an inability to understand or speak non-native languages or ones we have never studied. I’m not talking about linguistics per se. I’m talking about comprehension of an implicit, native language of compassion, of brotherly and sisterly affection, of philadelphia, that at its most basic level honors our common humanity. We could add that even we Christians are not doing such a good job of talking to each other. But unlike an innocuous conversation between two French speakers, in this communication failure people get hurt, people suffer, and the name of Christ is sullied.

It seems that we can no longer agree or speak on the same wavelength about many things, or sometimes anything at all. Nations would rather lob missiles at one another rather than enter into dialogue in order to find common ground. We no longer know what is true or what is not because words have lost their meaning in the public sphere. Hatred and vitriol often seem to be the essence of speech and of wordless action. And is it too much to think that two women or two men can ride the Tube in London together and not be subject to homophobic assault? We might also ask why we seem incapable of engaging in constructive discussions about caring for this good earth that God has entrusted to our care. And I could go on…

People who supposedly share a common humanity, who should have some respect for a proto-language of compassion, mercy, and love breathed into existence by God have ceased to be intelligible to one another. And I wonder how this has happened. When did the breakdown happen?

Is it that humanity’s original sinfulness—its fallen state—has ever so gradually whittled away at any understanding of decency? Like an original language that morphs over time, has the language of godly love been adulterated by more sinister languages of apathy, heartlessness, and selfishness? Have our own closed communities—whether nations, races, or clans—gained such narrow understandings of the human vernacular of fellowship that we have lost even non-verbal communication skills?

Or like the official state discouragement of Louisiana French in the 1920s, is it that certain forces among us are discouraging the maintenance of a language of love, a God-language that seeks to build up rather than to destroy, to proclaim hope and not despair? And perhaps, when we try to uphold that language we seem delusional or out of our minds.

When we feel compelled to speak God’s dialect into the world, do others ridicule us, just like some sneered on that first day of Pentecost? Does it seem like madness to imagine that Christ might have something marvelous to proclaim to people in all manner of languages and tongues? Is it a fantastical dream that despite cultural and linguistic differences we might all be able to share some hope together, to proclaim that the sordid affairs of the human condition might be different?

Oh, how I wish, in spite of our various viewpoints, opinions, places of origin, races, and denominations we might be able to speak, and speak boldly, of God’s deeds of power! For in order to believe that we have not completely lost our grasp on the original language of goodness that God consummated with the sending of his beloved Son into the world, we need someone, just like Peter on that first Pentecost, to set the record straight. We need people, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to confidently stand up, raise their voices, and interpret the times. “Let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved!”

On that day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit roared into the place where the disciples were gathered together, it must have been utter pandemonium. Who could blame some in the crowd of devout Jews for being amazed and perplexed and for wondering what it all meant? You might even forgive the more cynical among them for sneering and thinking the babbling disciples were drunk. But the incontrovertible truth of that Pentecostal event was that by a miracle of God, the distinct tongues of many different races and cultures all gave witness to one thing alone: the incredible deeds of God’s power.

And it was up to Peter, that so-frequently stumbling, inconsistent, and impetuous disciple to interpret the times in accordance with God’s divine plan. This was God’s promise coming true in his Son, the long-awaited Messiah! This was the initial in-breaking of God’s kingdom into this fallen world, a time in which God was pouring out his Spirit upon all flesh, sons and daughters, the young and the old, all sorts and conditions of humanity. And in spite of the diversity of languages, the proclamation of the mighty acts of God as shown in the life, death, and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ was taking place.

I long for some strong voices today, like Peter, to stand up in the midst of the babbling crowds around us to bear witness to God’s awesome deeds that are indeed happening, to interpret the times in light of God’s action in Jesus Christ. Yes, we could easily be fooled into thinking that God’s wondrous acts were manifested only in the first days of the early Church, but that simply isn’t the case.

Just as easily as we might recount all the ways in which we seem to have lost our first language of love, we could yet even more readily enumerate ways in which that language still exists, where God’s children speak in varied languages of compassion, mercy, and justice and are still intelligible to one another. We wouldn’t have to look too hard to discover young men and women with dreams that the dismal news we so often hear of is not the end of the story. We wouldn’t have to look hard to see visions of how things could be if we just put a bit more trust in the saving power of God, if we just called on the name of the Lord a bit more.

And here we are, gathered in this one place, like those disciples, on our own Pentecost. We might not hear a violent wind or see flames of fire, but shortly, we will accompany Eliot Hicks Gray to the font and we will recall the mighty action of God breathing his Spirit over the waters in the beginning of creation, ordering chaos into a splendid creation. And, Eliot Hicks, when you grow older and a little wiser and perhaps a little more cynical, and when you think the world has lost all sense of the original language of love, remember your baptism. Remember that the tongue of God’s Holy Spirit rested on you this day and called you, like Peter, to stand up above the crowd and address those around you with a bold proclamation of God’s mighty power and of the salvation available to all who call upon the name of Christ.

I imagine if I were to ask my grandfather today again about that breakdown in communication between him and the native French speaker, he would probably tell me that even when their words failed them, he and his fellow Frenchman would have been able to wend their way back to some mutual understanding. Just because their words temporarily hit an impasse didn’t mean that the conversation was lost.

So, too, with our broken human conversations. What is at the present time unintelligible can be made intelligible, for in the power of the Spirit, anything is possible. Visions will be seen, and dreams will be dreamed, and all flesh will see the salvation of God. And you and I have been called. So stand up, raise your voice above the babble, set the record straight, and call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for God is still working his mighty deeds among us!

[1] https://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/cajun/

Preached by Father Kyle Babin
9 June 2019
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia