As We Proclaim the Mystery

I'm not a scientist and I have a difficult time describing ordinary things that have perfectly logical scientific explanations. Scientists can explain all the processes that produce rockets and rocket fuel. To me - it's a mystery. Somebody, maybe even at Verizon, can explain how telephones work. To me - it's a mystery. My kids can figure out the TV remote. To me - it's a mystery. Post-it notes? It's a mystery. Justin Beiber? It's a mystery.

So this week I went looking for some answers to one of those mysteries. Peter and I have started this sermon series about communion and the themes of Holy Communion. Two weeks ago I started by talking about the ways that the theme of sacrifice is incorporated into the meal. Last week Peter talked about thanksgiving, both the holiday and the ways that we give thanks through the meal.

Today I want to talk about mystery and there's one big mystery right up front. How does bread happen? Humans have been making it for centuries, but how do they do it? And what's the deal with yeast? Where does it come from? So I went on a little journey....

[video of the Yellow Duck]

So what I learned from spending time with Beth was several things:
1) Making bread is an art that requires all of your senses. There may be a recipe and the things that you put in it may be defined, but did you catch what Beth said about when to do things? She knows the sponge, the starter, is ready when it starts to smell. And sure enough, when I went back after those seven hours that the sponge sat, it had this wonderfully strong yeasty smell. She also said that she knows when to stop kneading when the dough feels right - somewhere on that fine line between too sticky and too dry, when it feels like "the skin of an old person." It's a matter of smell, sight, touch, and eventually taste. She is a great baker because she has learned to pay attention over the course of many, many loaves of bread.

2) Secondly, making bread is itself a spiritual practice. Beth talked about the joy she gets from taking simple ingredients - just four things - and turning them into something that she can share with others. She talked about kneading the dough with her hands gave her enjoyment. She ends up by saying, "It makes me feel good so it must be spiritual." The experience of it - the physicality of it - the embodiment of doing something that can't be done in an instant over a computer but has to be done over time, with actual physical stuff, and which produces an effect in your body and in the world - this makes making bread a powerful thing.

3) Finally, she said that for all of her experience, (and Beth has been doing this since she had a Barbie oven as a child), making bread is still a mystery for her. The reason I asked Beth to do this with me is that I have heard her talking about bread and wondering about it for a long time. You would think that someone who cooks like this every day would get bored with the process, but she still experiments. She wonders why the same recipe used in the same way by someone else doesn't work. She is still fascinated by how all of those ingredients, even yeast!, somehow come together to produce bread. And she loves what she does.

Jesus appeared to his disciples as they were gathered in a room together. It was after the crucifixion. After Jesus had appeared to two of them on the road to Emmaus and was made known to them, how? - in the breaking of the bread. Now they were gathered again - some believing, some doubting, some not knowing what to believe.

Jesus just showed up in the midst of them. Just out of nowhere. Even a scientist would have a hard time explaining this one. It was a mystery. And the disciples were mostly just terrified. They thought he was a ghost.

Listen to what Jesus does, though. He shows them that he still has a body. We don't have any idea what that resurrected body was like or how it could be...it's a mystery...but Jesus says to the disciples, "Look at my hands and my feet" (the places where the wounds from the crucifixion would still be visible). "Touch me and see. A ghost doesn't have flesh like you see that I have."

Then to seal the deal, he does that thing that every body needs to do - he asks for something to eat. They scare up a broiled fish and he eats it in front of them. It's almost as if Jesus is saying, "When you are scared. When you are doubting. When you find it hard to believe that life overcomes death. When you think I have gone away or that I can't be trusted to do the things I have said I will do. When the holiness and wonder of the world has drained away so that all you have left are your fears - touch me and see. Eat a meal in the presence of others who believe and doubt just as you do." Behold, I tell you a mystery - Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.

This is the mystery of faith. That's what we say in the communion liturgy. And this is a mystery much deeper than yeast. The Greek word that the early church to describe the sacrament of Holy Communion is mystery - or mysterion. It doesn't mean exactly what our word does today. A mystery novel poses a puzzle that you hope will unravel in a satisfying way at the end. All the loose ends will be tied up and you can know the answer. But this mystery is different. In this sacrament God reveals things that are beyond the capacity of human minds to know through reason alone. You can explain to me how post-it notes work and I might eventually get some grasp on it, but the meaning of this communion bread is always going to slip away. And to say that Christ has died, Christ has risen and that Christ will come again is to say something that reorganizes the world in a way I cannot ever fully comprehend.

But we are more than our reason alone. We put a lot of stock in our reason, in our ability to think through things. But we have fallen into the trap of thinking that reason alone is what makes being a human being unique among God's creatures. We are more than that. We have the capacity to know things through our bodies. Our senses tell us that a full moon shining on the fields like last night is a spiritual thing. The flood of memories that came in when we opened our window for the first time after a long, cold winter - that's not reason that told you that was special. The kiss of a lover, the gaze of an infant, the long goodbye when a loved one is leaving on a journey - all of these things don't have weight because of our minds. We know they are mysteries to be attended to.

So we come to the table and we prepare ourselves the best we can. We recite the story of God's saving work. We remember Jesus and his death and sacrifice. And we call the Holy Spirit to make this bread be for us the body of Christ. But then we have to come and look and touch and smell and taste, because there are some things words can't say. Words alone can't tell you how to make good bread. And words alone can't say how fully God loves this world.

What did we learn from Beth? That bread making is an art requiring all your senses. That the physical act of making bread is a spiritual practice. And the more you do it, the more you see, the more you experience. This is why John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, took communion four to five times a week and why he encouraged all of his Methodists to "the duty of constant communion." We worry that it will become less special to do communion more often, but Wesley believed that the reverse was true. The more you do it, the more you experience the mystery, the more you have opportunity to see God in these elements, to experience the presence of Christ.

Finally, we learn that Beth feels that even though she has been making bread for years, it remains a mystery - one that she loves and that she ponders and that she wants to experience even more fully. A mystery novel without a satisfying conclusion leaves us disappointed. This mystery leads us into something so rich and so deep and so filled with the presence of God that to be satisfied is not even the point. When we eat this bread we hunger for more and it is a hunger that taps into the deepest desires of our hearts for peace, for joy, for truth, for wisdom, for love, for God. Thanks be to God.