Marmite love and hate

There are certain things that, if you learn them early in life, they seem to leave an indelible mark. Those who grew up in the Depression for instance, like my grandmother, who despite forty or fifty years of plenty, has never been quite able to root out the, um, thriftiness, shall we say, when it comes to issues of money. I would certainly never say, “penny pinching” or “cheap” within a mile of my grandmother, but those words have occasionally crossed my mind.

In the same way, in my youth, I was exposed to a product, a yeast product, and have never been able to quite get away from it, and yet I understand that some people find the idea of it noxious, its scent horrible, its taste excruciating, the sight of it something to avoid. I am speaking here of Marmite, that most famous of British exports, short of the Beetles, the British Empire and Anglicanism. Now the cynic might say that the only reason that I like Marmite is because the yeast in it comes from a certain famous brewer in Burton-on-Trent, who brews one of my favorite beers. Those who are not of the elect, who fail to appreciate Marmite appropriately, can certainly say some very cruel things. I met a gentleman in England once, who was from the American South, who described Marmite as “toxic waste in a bottle.” But those of the Marmite persuasion understand the panacea that it is: powerful flavor for the mouth, health for mind and body, strength for arm and a sign of identification with that most significant and sublime of cultures: England. Unfortunately, not everyone is as advanced as I am: Those who love Marmite swear by it, those who do not, swear at it. There is no middle ground, no via media when it comes to Marmite.

There are, of course, lots of things in our lives which are as polarized as love or hatred of Marmite. In American culture today, this polarization runs most clearly as the demarcation between two very voluble extremes. One can only be pro-choice or pro-life; one can be either pro- or anti-gay marriage. One is either pro-drilling or pro-planet.

The way that one recognizes these extremes as issues in the culture wars is by a certain logical inconsistency. To be on the political right in America is to be pro-life as long as one is talking about the unborn, pro-death penalty when it comes to criminals, and agnostic when it comes to the deaths caused by ecological destruction, or poverty except in as much as either interferes with our economy or our American way of life.

And the left doesn't fare significantly better. To be on the left side of the political spectrum in America is to protect free speech (as long as I agree with it), to react against and stereotype those who feel strong emotions about flag and country, or simply fail to live on the coasts, and to scream about the destruction of the planet without worrying about the destruction of lives and livelihood that can result from the closure of coal mines and power plants, tobacco farms, and automotive plants.

And surely no one believes that the Church is in a much better state. Indeed, in the way that the church so often operates, we have simply baptized the wide-ranging debates and rhetoric of our cultures and transformed them into the political and ecclesiastical debates of our day. Which is not to say that the debates of our day are not significant and important, but that in the rhetoric which is flung to and fro between Fort Worth and New York, or the United States and Uganda, there is a great deal which is not actually about human sexuality or the role of women, which is instead about power, and culture, and a difference in linguistic and philosophical frameworks which we cannot truly ever escape. One either, in other words, loves Marmite or hates it.

But after all, you are not simply here to hear me share of my wisdom on the cultural or ecclesiastical debates of the day. You are here to hear me talk about the Gospel, and I started with Marmite, and with things that we have learned and the debates in our church because there seems to me to be an analogy here. I think of this polarization when I think about Thomas. The standard simplistic modern gloss on the passage is to think of it in terms of our own modern alienation from faith and myth, to think of Thomas as the post-Enlightenment skeptic, who is looking for tangible, scientific evidence of the resurrection, before he will make an intellectual assent to Jesus' being raised from the dead. But that is simply a projection of our own modern schizophrenia: of the false dichotomy that we tend to draw between science and faith, and of the modern understanding of belief as an intellectual process that one needs to flog oneself into.

The reality of the passage is more complicated, of course. The way we know that the passage is more complicated is that Thomas has already seen signs and wonders. He's not just your average skeptic, because he says “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” He has lived with and followed Jesus for a couple of years now. He's seen healings and signs and wonders. He may have had a draught or two of miraculous wine. He's not suddenly developed a scientific conscience. Oh no, something else is playing out in this story about Thomas and the Twelve and I have a sense that it is about defensiveness and about feeling hurt. In fact, I have a sense about Thomas generally: that he's sensitive, that when he goes for something, it is 110%, that he makes decisions like falling down a well, and that he gave his heart and soul to something, namely Jesus the Messiah, and he's been pretty bruised by the recent unpleasantness.

Even when his friends and companions in the roller-coaster ride that has been the past week in Jerusalem are telling him that they've seen the risen Jesus, Thomas isn't budging. Oh, he may hide behind the veil of skepticism, that’s the easy way, isn’t it? Who has ever heard of a dead person returning to life? But in reality I’m guessing that Thomas is simply hurt.

The importance of the Gospel this morning is not whether we resonate with Thomas and his defensiveness, or his espoused skepticism, or whether we resonate with the other apostles, but whether we recognize the graciousness of Jesus, to Thomas, to the apostles, to all of us wherever we fall in the polarizations of our lives. Because Jesus comes to the other apostles wherever they are, and he comes to Thomas under the terms that Thomas sets and he comes to all of us, whatever terms we may set for him.

The importance of the passage is not that Thomas should flog himself into belief, or feel guilty for his guardedness, nor that we should feel guilt in moments of doubt, but that Jesus still comes to Thomas and to us. Thomas doesn’t need to have it right, he doesn’t need to prepare himself to receive Jesus – because Jesus is already there, standing before him, showing his wounds.

It is a very human heresy that says we need to be in the right place to receive God's grace. There is no right place, there is no place at all, other than the one that we all find ourselves in: entrenched, guarded like Thomas, hackles up, and God comes to us on our own terms, and bids us see his own woundedness, and yet believe.

Which brings me back to Marmite and the culture wars and everything in our lives that is loved and hated.

Jesus comes to all of us, regardless of where we are. Jesus comes to us, whether we are convinced of the prophetic nature of the election of a certain suffragon in Los Angeles or not; whether we are certain liberal or curmudgeonly conservative, whether we are a garrulous curate or the entrenched bête noire of said curate. Whether we are any of the various ways that we are polarized in life, Jesus comes to all of us and bids us not to doubt but believe.

Believe that God comes even to the liberals and the conservatives; believe that God will bring about his purposes in the messy machinations of the frail Church, believe even that our guarded and defended entrenchments are not the final reality and truth.

Jesus comes to us wherever we are and asks us to believe that those who love Marmite and those who hate it will sit down together, one day, at the Supper of the Lamb. To believe that the judgment of God is not cruel and only for those whom we deem meet for it, but kind and universal, and that in that judgment we will come to be open to judgment and because we are open to God's gentle judgment, we are open also to his grace. For we are none of us, arrived, none of us home, none of us certain. We are all entrenched like Thomas or fled like the other apostles and still Christ comes into our lives, and shows us his very really wounds, and asks us to believe that in his resurrected glory, he is able to bring about unforeseen redemption in our individual lives, in the life of our culture, and in the life of our Church. 

Preached by Fr. Andrew Ashcroft

11 April 2010

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

An Easter App

The big news of the weekend – some would say the unquestionably good news of the weekend – is the release of the iPad, which went on sale at Apple computer stores yesterday.

Now, I realize that the regular congregation here at Saint Mark’s is more of letter-writing, land-line, rotary-phone, send-a-telegram group of people, who fondly remember party-lines and 6-cent stamps.  So I am counting on you folks who are not always here – you techies who, like me, gave up your land lines years ago, and can vaguely remember what a stamp looks like - to fill in the knowing laughter, and perhaps explain to your befuddled neighbor (who knows exactly when to kneel and when to stand, that’s how you can tell they are regulars here) what in iPad, an iPod, and an iPhone are.  You may also have to explain to them what an app is.

OK, I’ll try.  An app (short for application) is a feature of an electronic device that does something cool – like an alarm clock on your cell phone, or a calculator, or a GPS navigation feature, or a list of all the restaurants that serve Easter brunch within a block of where you are going to church.  You want to know where to go to eat after Mass?  There’s an app for that.

The story is told of an American man who was trapped in the rubble in the earthquake in Haiti who realized he had a First Aid and CPR app on his iPhone, which he used for instructions in treating his wounds, to stop the bleeding.  He also set the alarm on his iPhone to go off repeatedly so he would not fall asleep and go into shock. And he wrote letters to his family on some app or other, lest he should not survive, to tell them he loved them.  The man says that God gave him the tools he needed to survive, which I believe, but some will contend that it was only Steve Jobs.

All this i-excitement got me thinking about whether or not there is an app for Easter.  And I am an iPhone user, so I checked.

There is a Way of the Cross app that guides you through all 14 Stations of the Cross (99 cents).  There is a Good Friday app, which provides devotional material (99 cents).  There is an Easter Egg Painter app (Free) that “allows you to choose any color or size brush to paint a realistic Easter Egg….  When you are finished you can take a screenshot of the egg and send it to friends and family.”  There is the Easter Bunny Tracker app with an “interactive globe and radar map” to “add to the realism as you track the exact whereabouts of the Easter Bunny as he travels thousands of cities the night before Easter.”  It also allows you to “communicate with the Easter Bunny via text” (99 cents).

A search for a Resurrection app turns up nothing very useful – some video games, a Leo Tolstoy novel, something called “The Way to Heaven” which turns out to be a prayer that was revealed to St. Bridget of Sweden and “has 5 promises for those who recite this prayer for 12 years.”  It costs 99 cents, but there must be an app that helps you attain those five promises in less than 12 years, and it’s probably free.

All of which is to say that there is nothing meaningful in the way of an app for Easter.

What would a good Easter app do?

As the women who approached Jesus’ tomb that first Easter morning worried about who would roll away the stone, they might have consoled each other with the assurance that there’s an app for that, though how it works would remain a mystery.

In fact, much of any real Easter app would remain shrouded in a bit of mystery.  It would take time to realize exactly what is going on.  There’d be confusion and uncertainty at first.  There’s be the questions about what happened to Jesus’ body, about who had taken it away and why.  There’d be a scramble to get the men and begin a search.

But then there would be some kind of alert – maybe a “He is Risen” ring tone – that would send Peter and another disciple toward the tomb to see it empty, and the linens lying there, but would leave them unsure, and send them back to their homes to re-think.

A real Easter app would work better for women than men, since the Gospel tells us that they were the first to the tomb, and the ones who were brave enough, even in their confusion, to stay there and try to do something.

And it would have a feature for those who weep, as Mary Magdalene did outside the tomb.  There would be consolation for lost, unhappy, troubled souls like hers, who thought they had found in Jesus some hope, but now began to believe that all that hope was lost, not only buried, but now stolen, too.

There’d be some way it calmed fears, as the angels calmed the fears of the women to whom they appeared, all dazzling.

And there’d be this clear message that turns the world more or less upside down: “Why do you look for the living among the dead.  He is not here, but has risen.”

Why do you look for the living among the dead?  Why do you look for the living among the dead?  (Is there an app for that?)

An Easter app would not only cause spring flowers to bloom, gentle rains to fall at night, and the sun to shine brightly in the daytime.  It would not only bring healing to those who suffer, and strength to those whose healing is not to be given in this life.  It would not only repair broken relationships, bring an end to grudges, and offer forgiveness to hurts inflicted long ago.  It would not only replace the gloom that so easily falls over our hearts, our souls, and all the world with joy…

…  I myself would like to believe that an Easter app would also bring a conviction about the importance of doing something to curb carbon emissions, working to bring an end to warfare, and claiming the right of every American to have affordable health care, but it turns out that’s a White House app!

A meaningful Easter app probably would have some sort of tracking device.  Not to enable us to follow the movements of the Easter Bunny, but to lead us to the graves of every beloved, parent, child, sibling, spouse, and friend.  It would allow us to weep as we made our way there.  But soon there’d be a dazzling light, and the warmth of the sun, and the voices of two men, who frighten us at first but quickly calm our fears, as we dry the tears from our grieving faces, and hear them ask us what they asked Mary Magdalene all those years ago: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

This Easter app would leave us confused, stunned, unsure of how to respond.  But then it would speak in a voice unheard before, but strangely known to us.  And it would say your name to you, and mine to me.  You would turn, and I would.  And the app would somehow help us see the risen Jesus standing there, knowing us, and known by us.  That’s what an Easter app would do.

About five months ago, I ditched my old cell phone and got an iPhone.  I had been planning the move for months, since it meant switching from my old perfectly good cell phone company to AT&T, about which the less said the better.  I was so excited to be amongst the glitterati of iPhone users.  I immediately downloaded an app that helps me keep track of where I park my car, another that is a pitch pipe, and another that makes Star Wars light saber noises when I move my phone around.

May I confess to you that my life has not been changed?

And I am willing to bet that as excited as they may be, all those new iPad owners this weekend will soon discover, that wonderful though it may be, the iPad has not really changed their lives either.

A real Easter app would do that.  It would change your life, by giving you strength where you have been weak, healing where you have been sick, hope where you have known only despair, light where you could see only darkness, forgiveness where you could not find it or give it, joy where you knew only sadness, love where you could taste only bitterness, and, yes, life where you could only find death.

But there is, in fact, no app for that. There is only Jesus.

And if any of us came to church this morning uncertain as to why, thinking perhaps that we are only here remembering something that happened a long time ago, but which, historically speaking, is a little hard to prove.  If we came here remembering that the church chose this time of year for Easter because it meshed nicely with Jewish and pagan customs, of which the bunnies and the eggs are also reminders…

… this morning poses a question for you: Why do you seek the living among the dead?

Or were you only looking for an app, something a little cool to make today different?

Is it disappointing to discover that there is no app for Easter?  There is a sermon – which is not quite as cool as an app, and maybe about as useful

But there is no app for changing our lives, making all the things that are wrong right, all the things that are sick well, all the things that are dead restored to new life.

For that there is only Jesus.  And he is not to be found among the dead.  He is to be found among the living, which means here, with us, now. 

Only Jesus, risen from the grave, not among the dead, but among the living.  Calling my name and yours, hoping, expecting to be recognized, known and loved.

No, there is not app for that.  There is only Jesus, and he is not among the dead, he is risen, he is here.  Thanks be to God! 

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Easter Day 2010

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Four Elements

My parents, in a nice haphazard sort of a way exposed me early on to the basic classical literature and ideas that they thought I needed to know. The raciness of some of the Greco-Roman myths was not lost on them, but they thought that perhaps the myths were not much more risqué than the stories that I was likely to encounter in the Scriptures (which is true) and besides, surely it was better to learn about the birds and bees from the Greeks and Romans than from the gossip and innuendo of schoolchildren or the pages of a magazine. My father, being a scientist at heart, thought that it wouldn't be a bad idea to learn about the classical version of science, and so he taught me about the four elements, of which the ancients thought that all material was composed: earth, air, fire and water. All the elements are present in us: the water in our bodies, the earthy fleshiness of us, the air in our lungs and the fire in our minds and hearts.

I did not long remain with the Greeks and Romans, but moved on into Norse mythology and on from there into the stories of other religions, and soon it became relatively clear to me, even to the mind of a child, that there are certain images and themes, certain fears and hopes that cross the lines of faith, culture, and history. The hero with a thousand faces, the primal fear of darkness, of drowning in deep waters, the panic of the woods at night, the fear of death, the gift and danger of fire, these are images and stories that continue with force and power in all ages and cultures and faiths.

I always feel as if the Great Vigil of Easter is that most fundamental of Christian services because it is composed of those basic images: new fire kindled, water in the font, earth over a tomb, and air coming back into the stilled lungs. And the stories that we recollect tonight, the stories of God's great salvation wrought over many long years are stories that are fundamentally about who we are, why we are the way we are, and how God interacts with us.

First, there is the story of creation. God separates the waters, and draws forth land from the waters. God sets the lights in the sky, the fiery sun and stars, and then out of the earth draws trees and creatures and finally sculpts humans out of the earth, filled with the breath of God. The first act of God that we comprehend and know is that God has created, and created order and brought waters, and fire, and earth and air into some kind of miraculous balance, and declared it good.

But, as has always been, and will be until our final healing, human hearts and minds were capable of darkening, and so the waters that were kept in check were poured out upon the earth, but even in his wrath and destruction, God did not abandon his creation, and saved the earth and air that were animals and humans, and wrote in the air of the sky with water the sign and symbol of his covenant.

Ages later, when his covenanted people, those in the long lineage of Noah and Abraham, were enslaved, God sent his servant Moses to free them and lead them from bondage. He went before them in fire and cloud, and parted the waters so that they could walk on dry earth, and protected and saved them.

And although again their hearts and minds were darkened, God fed them in the wilderness and gave them water from the rock. Though they were forced to walk the earth for forty years, yet still God protected and fed them, and at the last brought them into the Promised Land, where they were home.

Even there, even full of the knowledge of God's sustenance and graciousness, brought into the fullness of God's covenant with them, symbolized in the gift of land, their hearts and minds were darkened, and so God sent the prophets to call them repentance, and to declare to them the graciousness of God: the God who gives waters to the thirsty, and rain and snow upon the earth; the God who transforms the skeletal wreck of death into flesh, and breathes upon that flesh, and restores life to it.

Earth and air, water and fire; the great elements that are present tonight in their primal way, that have deep places in the human mind and experience, and that are the signs of God's action and presence in the world throughout the long record of the forging of God's salvation.

Lent began forty days ago, on Ash Wednesday, with the reminder that we are dust and to dust we shall return. As quickly as the grass withers, the air will leave our lungs for the last time, and our loved ones will take our bodies, and cover them with earth, and we will return to the ground from which we and all that lives has been drawn. And so the question of tonight, or perhaps of our lives is a simple one: If after lives of unending struggle against the darkness that constantly invades our human minds and hearts, those hearts will stop beating, and we—you and I—will go down to death , what does the little fire we have kindled together in this night matter?

What does it matter if God is evident in occasional moments, in fire, water, air and earth; where is our salvation?

The question is, “Can these bones live?” My bones and your bones.

Tonight matters because the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. The Word became earth and air, was washed with the waters of Baptism and flamed with the fire of the Spirit. The God who is evident in the elements, who creates and sustains the creation, did not in the final peak of his salvation simply operate on the creation, on earth and air, fire and water, but became them. He tramped the earth of Palestine, and ate of the earth's bounty, he drank and sailed the waters, and breathed the wind blowing where it will. And his breathe ceased, and his body died, and he was laid under earth, like we all one day will be.

But the story doesn't end there. If it did, tonight might matter little. The air of his lungs dissipated, his flesh cold as the grave, the fire of his spirit extinguished; for three days there is silence. And yet he rises glorious. Here is the great reversal, not simply God's power acting again and again to save his people, and call Israel back and restore creation, but the death of death, the destruction of sinfulness, the freedom from bond and the restoration of our right humanity. For he carries us with him in his resurrection.

Since we have been baptized with Christ into his death, death no longer is terrible. Since we are the same earth and air as him, since we have been washed with the water of baptism, and burned with the fire of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection raises us up from the darkness and death of our lives and hearts and makes our humanity glorious; our flesh like until his own.

The Word became flesh, and gives of the things of earth to sustain us, wheat for bread, water for wine, the stuff of earth become the things of heaven, all of it changed, redeemed, restored, because Christ is risen.

And this is not mere rhetoric. The darkness of our hearts and minds is there still, the darkness of the world still evident all around us. But as the Word has become flesh, as the light of his fire has burned in the darkness, even so the darkness did not overcome it. Christ rises glorious, scattering matter about him like fire, his breathe is warm and moist, the dust of the tomb still on him, breaking the darkness around him. He comes into my darkness, into your darkness, the real inane darknesses in which we often find ourself, and he bids us rise, and follow him. Christ is arisen as he promised, death no longer has dominion; he is present to us always, and makes of our world an endless delight. He fills our mouths with laughter and fills the hungry with his own flesh and blood. Alleluia, alleluia. Christ is risen.

Preached by Fr. Andrew Ashcroft

The Great Vigil of Easter

3 April 2010

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia