July 26, 2015
John 6:1-21
It’s good to be back here at St. Aidan’s after three weeks away! My family was in Spain and while we didn’t get to an actual church service, we definitely went to our fair share of churches, including three cathedrals.
I took the kids to walk around the Cathedral in Seville (apparently, it is the largest Gothic church in the world and the third largest church).
and walk up the big tower for great views of the city.
I learned later that there was a closed-off section where they were actually having a service while we were there, but that section was walled off from visiting tourists and accessible only from the outside to locals in the know.
We felt more welcomed and more surrounded by God at the old monastery on the outskirts of Seville that had been turned into a contemporary art museum,
where they let us in for free when they heard we came from so far away and the guards smiled rather than sneered as the kids raced by and interacted with the sacred pieces.
That was where I found this piece on the wall, which had me thinking about the intersection of faith and life and the ways in which we search for God:
In Barcelona we got to two Cathedrals. First there was the old serious one in the center of town.
By the door were posted signs about appropriate attire for going inside. Women could not wear tank tops or anything above their knees. (There were restrictions on mens’ clothing as well, but they didn’t seem to be enforced.)
There were two men dressed in security gear that were eyeing everyone as they went in, determining who was fit to go inside, and refusing entrance to the rest. Nearby was an angry group of tank-top and shorts clad young women. You could imagine that all of their worst conceptions about the Church had just been affirmed — that it was unwelcoming, judgmental, out-of-touch, irrelevant. I made the cut, having happened to wear a t-shirt and skirt that day. Once inside, we could see on TV screens that a service was actually going on, but the participants were behind gates manned by more guards protecting the wheat from the chaff. In another corner was a section designated for prayer, roped off and watched over by yet another guard. I headed that way with my daughter Sophie, but without a word the guard shook his head “no” and turned his back on us. Apparently we did not appear to be serious enough pray-ers and had been deemed chaff.
The wild Sagrada Familia Cathedral on the outskirts of Barcelona, wackily and wonderfully designed by Antoni Gaudi, felt better initially.
to the colorful fruit representations on the tops of the towers, to the eye-catching geometric forms. Best of all were the stained glass windows that somehow caught the light and swirled it around inside the sanctuary so you felt like you were swimming in a rainbow.
But even here, we could only peek through to the altar behind massive gates, and a guard decided when to open a rope to the prayer area. Again a group of peeved women in tank tops muttered to each other, though at least this time they hadn’t been denied access to the church entirely, just the section designated for prayer. It still felt to me more like an elite museum with a gift shop than a church.
I think that might have been what Jesus sometimes saw when he looked out at the religious institution he’d grown up in and the people who chose to follow him as disciples. In other stories we see his disciples trying to protect Jesus from connection to children and women, people that were sick or sinners. We see the religious leaders of the time enforcing restrictions aimed at preserving sanctity and cleanliness at the expense of hurting people. All of them putting felt ropes around God and requiring people to prove themselves in order to enter.
In our gospel for today we join Jesus and his disciples on a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. You can imagine the comfortable breeze rippling on the Sea, the clouds wafting in the blue sky, the disciples sitting around Jesus hungry for more of what they’ve heard from him, words of loving challenge, feelings of utter acceptance and understanding, stories that break them open and make God feel closer than they’ve ever imagined. And then they look behind them and see this throng of people coming towards them. Like little ants following the scent of something sweet, 5000 intruders climb unswervingly up the hill toward Jesus. Here they come to once again disturb the peace and comfort the disciples have found, requiring them yet again get up and turn their attention away from Jesus to all these needy, unformed people.
His disciples looked out and and all they could see was the impossibility of sharing what they had with the crowd. They wanted Jesus’ attention and stories and healing and love for themselves. It wasn’t really about the bread and the fish. But the impossibility of providing food for this crowd was a handy felt rope to put up and Phillip was willing to act as a guard at the door, checking each dirty, desperate newcomer for tank tops and right intentions. "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little,” he said, hoping Jesus would send them off somewhere before this magic moment was broken once again. Andrew also focused on the scarcity, afraid that what they had to offer - their energy, their good intentions, their newly awakened faith, and more specifically their loaves and fish - were not enough for a crowd like this.
But Jesus, as always, had eyes to see differently and a heart to love more fully. This wasn’t a demanding crowd whose needs couldn’t possibly be met infringing upon his quiet time and his personal space. This was a crowd of God’s created children hungry for more of what he had to offer. He took what little the disciples had collected, thanked God for it, and shared it. And when the leftovers were gathered they filled 12 baskets. 12 baskets full of fragments that Jesus insisted be gathered up so they would not be lost.
At first I thought that all those ropes and rules and guards in those Cathedrals in Spain were methods of control. The churches were wanting to decide who is in and who is out. What the appropriate way to worship or show reverence to God should be. How God should be understood and who was worthy of God.
But then I began to wonder if all the ways they were keeping people out weren't really ways they were desperately trying to keep God in. Maybe the fences around the holy spaces were there because they were scared that the holiness and grace of God were contained only in certain places. Maybe the limits on the prayer room were based on their fear that there wasn’t enough God to go around. Maybe the rules on clothing stemmed from their unspoken worry that they had to earn God’s love and there was no way they could measure up. Maybe they were anxious that if anything shifted or opened something might have to change, and maybe it would be them.
There was something about coming in as a stranger and a foreigner that helped me to see how completely they had underestimated God, even in the midst of their reverence and faithfulness. I found myself thinking about how I’d transform the place if I were in charge. Throw open the doors to all comers, despite tank tops or inability to pay. Turn on the massive organ and have meditative music floating in the rainbow air. Provide greeters with joyful smiles to welcome visitors and answer questions without judgment. Try to win visitors over not just to the building, but to the Church as a place of love and inclusion and celebration, and to the God who created all things and pronounced them good, including shoulders and knees and all the pieces of ourselves that we try so hard to hide.
So now I return here after three weeks away and I wonder how we at St. Aidan’s underestimate God. How do we put limits on how God should be experienced or try to restrict access to the God that we journey toward? Are there ways that we unintentionally exclude people or visions in our fear that there is not enough God to go around? How are wasting our energy trying to capture the rainbow beauty of God wafting all around us rather than throwing open our doors to let it overflow into our lives and the world around us? What can we offer of ourselves that God might transform into abundance? What are the fragments in this place and in our community that Jesus would have us gather up so they are not lost?
May we all have eyes to see differently and hearts to love more fully. Amen.
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