Pentecost 18

           Today I want to talk about transformation — the kind that takes a group of people, different in all kinds of ways, and, as they work and walk together with curious hearts and open minds, turns them into beloved community — a community so alive, and so holy, that everyone who sees it wants to join. I want to talk about metamorphosis — the change that happens within each of us as we respond to God and to each other, re-forming and reshaping us from the inside out, like the monarch chrysalises in our pollinator garden. And I want to talk about the kingdom of God, leaven, and the bread of life. Our readings today are all about fear and anxiety, and our common but unhelpful human responses to FOMO (fear of missing out). This morning we find the Israelites thirsty. They've camped at Rephidim where there's no water, and they’re doing what frightened people do: quarreling, blaming others, and turning on each other and their leaders. Poor Moses.  Among other miracles God has brought about through Moses’s leadership, Moses literally just parted the Red Sea to bring the exiled Israelites safely out of New Pharaoh’s Amnesia in Egypt. 

           And now they’re thirsty. Maybe their thirst is a yearning for certainty or stability, or the assurance that they won’t be left out of God’s plan. Maybe they do just want a drink of water, but in any case, their voices are stressy and blamey. Instead of proposing solutions or offering support, they complain to Moses, Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst? After a few more querulous jabs at Moses’ leadership, they finally state what they’re really afraid of: Is the LORD among us or not? Wow. There it is. Moses follows God’s instructions (after a brief rant, which we should allow) — What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me! He strikes the rock with his staff (the same staff he used to part the Red Sea with, btw), water gushes out, and for the moment, the Israelites’ anxieties are soothed. Notice two things in this text: first, God is already there out ahead of the people before they even get to Horeb. Second, the water was inside the rock the whole time. God simply guided their community to the resource they needed. 

           We’re supposed to stop and notice the names Moses gives this place — Massah and Meribah, which actually mean testing and quarreling in Hebrew. Scripture is the story of our human experience with God, not an inerrant instruction book for how to do life — family, community, the economy, citizenship, and governance. Massah and Meribah — the quarreling and testing Israelites — is just another example in scripture of how NOT to do it. Our community has a head start here as we figure out how to do life together, in our transformation from an improbable combination of ages, genders, experiences, and backgrounds to a beloved community where we all belong. We are not Massah and Meribah — quarreling and testing and fearfully asking Is the Lord among us or not? Our name, Emmanuel, means God among us, and acting in that assurance every day — remembering that we represent in each of our unique iterations of individual difference the perfect image of God — transforms us into beloved community. Beloved community is so inviting and inclusive that everyone who sees it wants to join in. 

           Today’s gospel is also about quarreling and testing, both by the religious authorities and by Jesus’ parable of the two sons. One son says he won’t help but does anyway, and the other enthusiastically agrees but doesn’t go. Jesus asks, which son did the will of his father? Actions speak louder than words, our friend Berkeley at Yale Dean Andrew McGowan commented in this week’s blog, along with other fascinating scholarly analysis. The first son did the father’s will. I think that’s right, but I’m a bread baker, not a boss scheduling my offspring or other laborers for the harvest.  I find the lesson in today’s gospel easier to understand by thinking of, and trying to be, leaven. Yeast. The active ingredient that makes bread rise. One of Jesus' shortest parables precedes today’s gospel by just a few chapters: The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.           

           What happens when we act like leaven? What transformation takes place at Emmanuel and in the wider community when we actually go out, like the first son who said no first but showed up anyway, until we’re all mixed in and involved— out there and in here — until all of it is leavened? I believe what happens is that both we, and the whole community, are transformed — changed from within — metamorphosed. I believe we encounter the kingdom of God, just like Jesus says in the parable of the leaven. It’s the mixing in of the leaven that’s the most important part. My go-to recipe is James Lahey’s “no knead” bread, one of the most popular recipes the NYT ever published, as revised from time to time by bakers everywhere.  The first step is to measure out three cups of flour, add two teaspoons of salt, and a generous quarter teaspoon of yeast before whisking those dry ingredients together.  Whisking ensures that the yeast is completely distributed in the flour before any liquid is added. 

           Bread is a great image here for at least four reasons: First, bread feeds us. It stands in for all the nourishment our bodies need. Second, bread demonstrates our own work as leaven: mixing ourselves in, thoroughly, so the whole community can rise and thrive. Third — most important, actually — bread is holy.  It is the Body of Christ, which we take, bless, break, and share as Jesus asked us to do. And fourth, essential for this Celebration of Ministries Sunday, when we both notice our role as leaven in the community and ask for your support of the Fall Stewardship Campaign, both bread and dough are American slang for money. C.J. Cregg— press secretary to The West Wing’s fictional President Bartlet (in our house pretty much a doctor of the church) — sets up the essential link in campaign funding: early money is like yeast, she says, because it raises the dough. (Poor Jere is now enduring what is likely our tenth watch of this series that I consider the Shakespeare of our time.) Now’s our time to BE the yeast. Mix your time, talent, and treasure into the flour until all of it is leavened. 

           This morning, you'll hear from our senior warden, Val Martin, who will follow up with a letter inviting your faithful financial pledge for our work at Emmanuel in the coming year. Here's why your pledge matters — and why it matters early. Your pledge funds ministry, and knowing your intent in advance lets us budget for transformational ministry. Like the water in the rock at Horeb, your pledge is the resource we draw from all year long. It supports the people who lead our worship, fill the Nave with music, care for one another in joy and sorrow, welcome newcomers, and connect Emmanuel with our neighbors across Newport and around the world. When our worshiping community thrives, everything else becomes possible:  concerts, weddings, gardens, meals, and partnerships that bring the wider world through our doors and help sustain our historic home. Emmanuel, we know God is with us. BE the leaven. Amen