Fermentation

You take some flour and some water, mix it together, leave it out on the counter for a while – maybe a few days – and it is going to start to change, as wild yeasts that are just floating around in the air find their way to the mixture.  The flour and water will begin to bubble as the yeasts feed on the sugars in the flour and the process of fermentation begins.  Eventually, you add more flour and some salt, and let the yeast continue to do its work: the fermentation continues, the dough rises, and you can bake your bread.

You take some grapes and you crush them and you leave the juice out in a barrel, and that juice is going to start to change, as wild yeasts that are just floating around in the air find their way to the grape juice, which will begin to bubble as the yeasts feed on the sugars in the grape juice and the process of fermentation begins.  Eventually you make wine from this fermented juice.

You don’t take the flour and the water, mix it together and just eat it - that is wallpaper paste.  You let it change first!  And you don’t take the grape juice and just drink it (not if you have any sense, anyway).  You let it change!  These things are better after they have fermented and changed.

Saint Mark’s was founded a few years before Louis Pasteur’s work was published, showing that the fermentation in bread and wine and other things is the product of the work of living organisms.  And by the 1880s - just around the time scientists were coming to understand how the anciently employed process of fermentation works; just as they were beginning to understand that the bubbling levain used to make bread is alive, that the bubbling must used to make wine is alive – this parish began to celebrate the Mass every single day, as we have done ever since.

You take these simple things and you let God work with them, and they are changed.

You need four ingredients to have a Mass.  You need bread and wine, you need the Gospel, and you need the people of God.  You bring all these ingredients together, and you mix them up inside a Gothic revival building, and you let them sit there for a while.  Maybe an hour or two, or a day or two, or a decade or two, or a century or more.  Something starts to bubble when these ingredients come together.  And it’s not wild yeasts this time.  It’s something about the way the Gospel of Jesus Christ goes to work on the people of God that starts a process of fermentation, and, by God’s grace, we are changed.  We begin to look beyond our own selfishness and start to think that maybe we are being called to feed others, to celebrate with others, to rejoice with others, to care for others.  We begin to come to grips with all the ways we need to change, and we start to seek forgiveness from our neighbor, and from God.  We begin to see that the stories of limitation and failure we have told ourselves are transformed by the message of hope.  We begin to see that we don’t need to be wallpaper paste – that if we let God do his work on us, we can be transformed into wonderful bread!  And we don’t need to be grape juice – that if we let God do his work on us, we can be transformed into fabulous wine!

Fermentation is becoming something of a fad in the food world, but it has been the model for Christian life since long before science even understood how it worked, before we knew that the bubbling levain and the bubbling must were actually alive in a meaningful sense, and that being alive is what changed them.  You don’t settle for what you were when you started this process.  You don’t come and sit here in this hot sandstone cauldron hoping that nothing will ever start to bubble.  You come here for the bubbles, for the fermentation; you come here for the change.  Wallpaper paste and grape juice will not do; you come for bread and wine.  And the old you – the old us – will not do either.  We come for whatever new thing it is that God is making of us now!

And do we need science to tell us that whatever makes this process happen is alive?  Do you even need me to tell you that the bubbling, the fermentation, the transformation that God is effecting all takes places because a living Word goes to work on a living people?  We feast on that Word and it begins to convert us, to ferment us, to change us, and transform us, and make us into something new.  And behold, we become the Body of Christ.  We are alive in Christ, and being alive in him is what changes us!

You take some bread and some wine, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And you take the people of God – take you – and you mix them together, and let them sit, for just a while.  And it is not long before things are bubbling, and God is at work, forming again the Body of Christ, and changing everything in the process, because he is alive, his Word is living and he has changed us and given us new life, too!

Thanks be to God!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi, 2013

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

I Hope You Dance

There is a story told on seminary campuses of a theology professor who every year would tell his students that they had the option of skipping their final exam if they could complete one, simple requirement: they had to invent a new heresy. Seeing as this professor’s final exams were known for being particularly brutal, every year a handful of students would set about the task of creating their own, fresh new heresy. And every year, they all would fail. No matter what crazy, cockamamie idea they would come up with about the nature of Jesus, or the creation of the world, or the second coming, the professor could always find someone who’d had the same crazy, cockamamie idea twelve hundred years ago. The lesson was a simple one: there is very little, perhaps nothing at all, about the Christian faith that hasn’t already been harmfully twisted by someone. That sounds like bad news, perhaps, but it is not. Because that also means that there is very little, perhaps nothing at all, of that twistedness that the Church hasn’t already put in its place: namely, a large box labeled “Untrue and truly unhelpful.”

And yet, year after year, preachers stand before their congregations with trembling knees on this Sunday, terrified that they are going to spout some new – or old – heresy. Why? Because today is Trinity Sunday, the day when the Church focuses on the great mystery of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This week, my Facebook feed has been abuzz with preachers joking about their struggles with their sermons for today. One of them created a “meme,” essentially a photo with a funny caption, that shows a small, fluffy kitten and reads, “Want to avoid heresy on Trinity Sunday? Forget the sermon and show pictures of kittens instead.” Someone else went so far as to create an animated short of two ginger-haired Irishmen haranguing Saint Patrick for his use of the shamrock as an analogy for the nature of the Trinity. (The heresy there is apparently tritheism – ask me later if you’re interested.)

Now this is all a bit over the top, of course, but there is some real grounding to the fears about preaching on the Trinity. Because the blessed and glorious Trinity is not exactly the easiest theological concept to explain. Heck, forget about explaining it, the Trinity is just hard to talk about. We have a God, one God, revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ, the co-eternal Word, who was made flesh by the Virgin Mary his mother, who prayed to God as his Father, and yet said that he and the Father were one, but then seemed to be abandoned by his Father on the cross, who then after his resurrection promised to send a comforter, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the one who stands beside us, but who seems not to have been just sent, but always been standing beside us, the ruach who moved over the waters of creation, who alighted on kings and prophets, who was present at Jesus’ baptism and in the wilderness, who speaks what he hears of the father and of the Son and reveals to us all truth. Three persons, all God; God who is one.

Obviously the doctrine of the Holy Trinity can easily lead to serious confusion. To simplify things for ourselves, we might start thinking about Jesus as a person, wholly separate from God, or of the Holy Spirit as a kind of force field that Jesus, like some ascended superhero, shoots out of his fingertips from heaven. But if Jesus is just a person, then how did his crucifixion change anything? And if the Holy Spirit is just a watered-down, less-present stand-in for Jesus, then how can He (or She) know enough to reveal anything of the truth? You can see how easily we get tied up here. We need some help. We need some greater understanding, some greater wisdom.

And look what we have here, in Proverbs! "Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?" Huzzah! We are saved. Here is the wisdom we have been seeking. And as we read on, this just keeps sounding better and better. Because this Wisdom isn’t hiding her light under a bushel; no! She is standing out on the street corners, parking herself by the entrance to the PATCO line, or working her way down the outdoor tables that line Rittenhouse Square, offering her insights to all people everywhere. She is ready to share her knowledge, and what a knowledge it is! She was created first at the beginning of everything, present when God hung the stars and the moon, cradled in the crook of God’s arm as he bent to separate the waters, to bring forth dry land, to make mountains and rills and sheep and spiders and begonias and crabgrass…and us! Wisdom was there when we were made, when God breathed life into the first dust man and made for him his very own dust woman. Wisdom has been around long enough to know the truth of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and so we read on, anxious to see Wisdom get down to business, explaining, codifying, enlightening us about this tricky, testy doctrine of the Trinity.

But wait, what is this? When we read on, we find that there is actually no explaining to be found. None at all! It’s crazy making! Here is Wisdom, Wisdom herself, who knows the truth of all that has ever been and ever will be, and when she is presented with the infinity and majesty of the Triune God, she dances. She who knows the intricacy and immensity of all of God and God’s Creation explains nothing. Apparently all she wants to do is dance, to whirl about in wonder. “I was beside him,” she says, “like a master worker;…rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” She offers no explanations, codifies nothing; she just dances before God in joy.

And perhaps here is where we realize an important truth: that today is not really about a puzzle. Of course we will always continue to ponder the mystery of the Holy Trinity. We will always be drawn to the Trinity, running around it in circles as we try to find where it stops and where it starts, trying to sketch out a family tree of who begot whom and who is made from what. We will always try to figure out the Trinity. And that’s fine, we should – some of us should try a little and some of us, with brains more nimble than mine, should try a lot.

But today is not about a puzzle. Today, we recognize that the Holy and Blessed Trinity is not, at its core, something to be figured out. It is not a set of cosmic magic rings that need to be pulled apart and then slid back together. For Trinity Sunday is not really a day to celebrate a doctrine; it is a day to celebrate a God, three persons in one God and one God of three persons. We are here to celebrate persons, not a puzzle, to celebrate the fact that our God is a Trinity of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with whom we actually have a relationship. This Trinity of persons knows us, more than knows us, loves us, delights in us, pours out upon us all of the gifts of Creation, all of the Wisdom of the ages, all of the forgiveness and mercy and love and truth and justice that we will ever need. This Trinity, this great and majestic mystery, is persons and therefore personal. And, most importantly, these persons are for us.

And that just leaves us in absolute wonder. That understanding that God is for us, that the Father chose to pour himself out to you and to me through the revelation of Jesus Christ and by the workings of the Holy Spirit, that Wisdom leaves me openmouthed with awe. Because truly, what other response can there be to this much love? I cannot explain whence it comes. Why does God love us this much? Why does God delight in us, in the human race, when we like to spend so much of our time ignoring Him and crucifying each other? Why? Why so much grace poured out on us who are so undeserving? “When I consider your heavens, O Lord, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what is man that you should be mindful of him? the son of man that you should seek him out?”

But this question seems to provide its own answer, and that is: who knows? Who knows why God loves us so much? Who knows why the glory of the eternal Trinity is offered to us free of charge? Who knows, other than the God who made us? And perhaps we are meant not to know; perhaps we are just meant to see. Perhaps we aren’t meant to explain; perhaps we are just meant to dance, as the very Trinity dances in itself, to rejoice in the Trinity as the Trinity is so obviously rejoicing in us. Perhaps that is what this broken world really, truly needs: not people who can explain their faith, but a community of Christians dancing their faith in gratitude and joy, pointing again and again to the wonderful mystery of the Trinity and saying Wow! Perhaps this is the gift of Trinity Sunday – to remind us that it is enough, enough to rejoice, enough to give thanks, enough to fall to our knees, enough to sing Holy, Holy, Holy, enough to dance.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

26 May 2013 - Trinity Sunday

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Pentecost 2013

Reading and understanding the Greek of the New Testament have never been strengths of mine.  My seminary professor of New Testament Greek accurately predicted that I would forget nearly everything she taught me, except how to use a few reference books.  I can’t say I’m proud of this, I’m only being honest.

But sometimes I sit alone in the church here, when no one else is around.  Sometimes I am praying, or thinking, or sometimes my mind just wanders; sometimes I am just looking around, listening.  And sometimes I hear in my head the words of the Gospels, like words Jesus spoke to his disciples in the Gospel reading today - “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever” – and I think to myself, What are you going on about Jesus?

Today is the Feast of Pentecost – the very day that we rejoice that the Holy Spirit has come into the world and filled God’s people with power!  Today is about wind and fire and the force and majesty of the Divine Presence that transcends language, nation, race, color, or culture. Today is about BIG THINGS!

But I hear Jesus preparing us for it, and all I hear is this: “I will ask the Father, and he will send you an Advocate.”  To my ears it sounds as though Jesus is promising us that in time God will provide us with a court appointed lawyer.  And this is not the biggest wish I could hope for!  To my ears, it sounds like Jesus is saying, “I will ask the Father, and he will send you a Public Defender.”   And I think – that’s Nathan!  We already have Nathan.  Is this the best God can do?  So I assume that something gets lost in translation, when we hear Jesus say that God wills end us an Advocate or a Comforter.

I mean, we live in a world that is full of uncertainty and anxiety and fear.  And I myself am not without my own uncertainties, anxieties, and fears.  Couldn’t you and I use more than an Advocate, more than a Comforter?  It makes me wish I knew more New Testament Greek.  But I only know enough to look up the words in some reference books, where I am told that the word translated as Advocate or Comforter is, in its Anglicized version actually the word, “Paraclete.”  And I think, Wow, big help!

If I look up “Paraclete” I find out that the word means something like, “one who is called near.”  And I think of Jesus promising to his followers, his friends that God the Father will send to us one who is called near, and I start to think maybe we are getting somewhere.  (And I should have worked at my Greek when I had the chance.)

For reasons that I can’t recall, my mind drifts to the Oscar-winning film, Argo.  Even if you didn’t see the movie, you probably know something about the story of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.  The movie tells the improbable tale of the rescue of six American diplomats who managed to avoid being taken hostage and were secretly given refuge in the Canadian Ambassador’s home.  The movie – which is by no means a strictly historically accurate account of what actually happened – depicts a CIA operative, Tony Mendez, who comes up with a plan to rescue the six diplomats by getting them to pose as a Canadian film crew preparing to shoot a film in Iran.

In the film, the six Americans are going a little stir crazy, holed up in the Ambassador’s residence, and they are reluctant to go along with Mendez’s plan, because it seems far-fetched to them, with a pretty good chance of failure.  They are gripped by uncertainty, anxiety and fear, taking the specific shape that they might end up being caught and executed in the heated anti-American atmosphere of Tehran at that time.

In one scene, Mendez is explaining that they will each have to pose as a different member of a film production company, they’ll have to learn their fake identities, and stick to their cover stories, no matter what.  One of diplomats most opposed to the plan objects, “We can’t stand up to that.  We don’t know what the hell movie people do.”

Mendez, the CIA agent replies, “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

As the film unfolds (and indeed as history did unfold) Mendez manages to shepherd the six safely out of Iran, just as planned, using the slightly goofy cover story he’d cooked up, and some really helpful passports provided by the Canadian government.

Whatever other merits Argo may or may not have, it does a good job of depicting the atmosphere of uncertainty, anxiety, and fear among the six Americans hiding inside the Ambassador’s home.  You have no trouble believing that they are really afraid for their lives, and have reason to be.  You can feel the tension build, the longer they are in hiding, and the more likely it becomes that they will be found out.  But the only thing more frightening to them than remaining hidden is taking the risk of leaving their fragile sanctuary under any circumstances whatsoever.  Their dilemma is not helped by the measure of the resources sent to them: a guy with a flimsy cover story and some Canadian passports.  No Marines, no stash of secret firepower, no helicopters to whisk them away.  Only a guy urging them to play along with a fairly outlandish cover story, and who promises, “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do. 

In the church, we often cling to the idea that the feast of Pentecost is a stunning moment of dazzling effect: a rushing wind, and divided tongues of fire resting over the heads of the disciples of Jesus.  We are willfully in denial that this image is merely quaint in a world that has known the battles at Gettysburg and Normandy, or that has sent rovers to Mars, or that has pulled bodies out of wreckage in Haiti or more recently in Bangladesh, or that has watched the footage of an un-manned drone doing its work, or that can recall the implication of the mushroom clouds we caused to rise over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or that is still coming to terms with the destructive potential of a pressure cooker.

The church celebrates the Feast of Pentecost – which is the very day, 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection, when the gift of the Holy Spirit was given to our spiritual ancestors.  This Spirit is supposed to be our promise, our power, the source of what will sustain us through good times and bad.  This Spirit is God’s power moving through us – the power of the almighty, the maker of heaven and earth…

… and we get what – a strong breeze and Bunson burners?  Speaking in tongues?  Like that is going to help?  The Spirit is supposed to be our Marines, our firepower,  our helicopters, not just our translator!

The disciples were gathered together in one place – probably more or less in hiding – but a crowd gathered at the sound of the wind, and the din of voices grows.  And even in that moment there is skepticism about what this event might have meant.  Is it a wonderful sign from God, a manifestation of his amazing power?  Or is everyone here just drunk?

It’s easy for us to forget that the disciples were huddling together, probably to deal with their uncertainty, anxiety, and fear.  By no means was it clear that having followed Jesus and cast their lot with him had been a good idea.  He had been hung a cross; who was to say that others among their number wouldn’t be next to be marched up to Calvary, especially after the word of his supposed resurrection spread?

Were they reminding themselves of what he had said to them – “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever”?

Now, I’m thinking that their Greek was better than mine.  So I’m thinking that this promise spoke to them in ways that it may not immediately speak to us.  I’m thinking that, yes, they were uncertain, anxious, and afraid.  And when they heard Jesus say that God would send them an Advocate, a Comforter, a Paraclete, they heard something like this: “That’s what I’m hear for.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do,” except the voice wasn’t the familiar voice of Jesus, it was, rather, a voice carried to them on certain breeze, speaking to them in a tongue they could clearly understand.

For reasons known only to God himself, the days of rushing winds, divided tongues of fires, and multi-lingual confabulations seem to be well and truly over.  Not that those particular forces would do much these days to quell our uncertainty, anxiety, and fear.  But what isn’t over is this gentle and confident promise of Jesus’, whenever we tell him we can’t do it, we are afraid to go outside, we are too weak, or too scared, or just too ready to give up: “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

And the promise comes to us not so much from the lips of Jesus, as from a certain breeze, that is probably blowing through the pews right now.  Maybe you can feel it rustling the hairs on the back of your neck.  And maybe you can hear it in a language that is crystal clear to you – clearer than anything I could ever say to you: “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

This is the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to you.  It is the voice of the one who is called near, the Comforter, the Advocate.  “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

And this is a big promise, a big thing for God to say to us, because, of course, our greatest fear is just this: that God is not here, that he won’t be with us, and that he is not doing anything at all…  which would mean that all our uncertainties, anxieties, and fears are amazingly well founded.

Maybe the world we live in has made puny the power of a Spirit who arrives on the breath of the wind, and alights with tongues of fire, and takes over the tongues or ears of those within a certain radius of his voice.  It can certainly seem that way.  But there is nothing puny about this promise from the one who is called near: “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

It is the promise that once turned the whole world upside down – for the better. 

The powers of this world keep asserting themselves, as they try to keep the world in an alignment that suits them best.  And this leaves many of us with uncertainty, anxiety, and fear.

But to the church, God has sent an Advocate, a Comforter, one who is called near to you and to me in our time of trouble.  And when we object that there is no way this can work, that we can’t do it, then he smiles, and says to us, “That’s why I’m here.  I’ll be with you.  This is what I do.”

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

The Feast of Pentecost 2013

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia