Gaudí & The Dreams Of God

Pr. Jaz Bowen-Waring | Pentecost 19

September 29, 2024

We had just enough money left over from our wedding to spend the week in Barcelona, Spain for our honeymoon. It is a beautiful city, rich in history and culture. We ate our weight in Iberian ham, bread, and sangrias. We saw may historic sites on our trip, but the one site I was most excited to see was the Sagrada Familia, a basilica dedicated to the Holy Family. [First image of the facades of Sagrada Familia] It is the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world. Designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, when completed (2026, about 145 years later) its planned height at the tallest spire will be 170 m (560 ft) tall. On March 19, 1882, construction of Sagrada Família began under architect Francisco de Paula del Villar. A year later, when Villar resigned, Gaudí took over as chief architect, transforming the project with his unique architectural and engineering style, combining Gothic and Art Nouveau forms. These two images are two out of the three facades. The first is the “Passion” side with the stations of the cross, and the second is the “Nativity” side. You can see the stark differences between the two facades, with the Passion side being very stark, angular and minimalistic, and the Nativity side being highly textured, rich, and abundant with life from animals to angels. When gazing up on the sheer magnitude and beauty of this basilica, I was enraptured in awe and wonder. [Next image of my reaction] The inside of Sagrada Familia is just as awe inspiring as it’s exterior. [Image of interior] Gaudí was greatly inspired by nature and his faith. When designing the interior, he wanted the columns to resemble tall trees, with the vaulting creating a canopy of lines and sacred geometry, pulling your attention to the heavens. The stained glass windows are vibrant, and color the pale stone walls and pillars with the colors of the rainbow. Gaudí devoted the remainder of his life to the project. He attended mass everyday and would at times walk door to door asking for donations to fund his project. Over the years his appearance transformed from a hip fashion forward man with expensive taste, to a humble, unkept appearance wearing old suits, and often mistaken as a beggar. At the time of his death in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete. Gaudí knew that he would not live to see his work completed. It made me wonder, what if I will not see the fruits of my life’s work completed in my lifetime? When asked about this by one of this peers, he replied, “My client is not in a hurry, God has all the time in the world.” Mel and I went out to dinner with a friend on our last night in Barcelona, and we enthusiastically recommended our friend to go visit the Sagrada Familia. He had already done his own research before the trip, but I still had to info-dump about it for an additional 20 min. As we lingered over our late night sangrias and bites of crispy pan con tomate, he turned to me with a question. “I see how beautiful and amazing the church is, but…what is the point?” What’s the point? I was struck by the question, but I was immediately reminded of the awe and wonder I felt when seeing the basilica for the first time. The truth is, God doesn’t need all this. God existed and was at work before time began, before the building of Solomon’s temple, during its existence, and after. We know God is not confined to our modern buildings, because we experienced God everywhere. God doesn’t need all this, but maybe God wants to be apart of co-creating with us. God doesn’t create out of utility, but out of love. Makoto Fujimura writes in his book, Art + Faith: a theology of making, “God created because it is in God’s nature to make and create…God created out of abundance and exuberance, and the universe (and we) exist because God loves to create.” Our industrialized minds resist the idea of creating just for the sake of Beauty. Theologian Alfred North Whitehead has described God as “the poet of the world…who feels our pain and transforms our suffering with all the creative energies of a divine Poet.” He believed that Beauty is God’s vision for the world, the very dream of God. God uses Beauty, and the process of co-creating art to draw us closer into relationship with God and God’s dream for the world. This is what Gaudí called, “aesthetic refinement.” Aesthetic refers to the philosophy of appreciating beautiful things through the senses, and refinement is the formation or discipline of crafting one’s taste or appreciation of beauty. Aesthetic refinement can seem or become very shallow and vain, but the Beauty we’re talking about goes much deeper than we can imagine. Whitehead describes Beauty as intense harmony. “Beauty is not just harmony, which can sometimes be shallow and exclusive; Beauty is not just intensity, which can be stormy and dissonant and chaotic. Beauty, at its most divine, integrates both elements into a larger frame: that is, Beauty as intense harmony is a celebration of contrasts within a larger, harmonious whole. Beauty, then, is the very yearning of God for our evolving world—a world of creative movement, where the diverse elements strive not toward bland sameness, but rather toward rich complex forms of well-being.” (Patricia Adams Farmer, Beauty and Process Theology) This re-frame of Beauty goes far beyond our superficial, plastic, toxically positive understandings. It expands and transcends our understanding of Beauty by including all of the complicated, messy, tragic, and powerful moments in life. Like the birth of a child, with all of its mess, pain, and struggle bringing in new life; or witnessing the power of a thunderstorm; or finding a flower blooming through a crack in the sidewalk. Perhaps even finding Beauty in the painstaking long construction of a basilica. When we experience divine Beauty, we are living into God’s dream for the world. You might say, “But Pastor Jaz, what does this have to do with me? I’m not an artist or a creative person.” To that I would say, “Lies!” Everyone is creative and can bring divine Beauty in the world, we just tend to think about creativity at an individual level. True divine Beauty, in my opinion, is created in community. If you have been apart of a church for any amount of time, you might already have an understanding of intense harmony. Church community can be intense sometimes! It is messy, joyful, and complicated. Full of love for one another. Antoni Gaudí once said, “The church makes use of all the arts, both those involving space (architecture, sculpture, etc.) and those involving time (poetry and music), the liturgy offer us lessons in aesthetic refinement.” We all have a place and opportunity to participate in artistic expression. Every time we meet together, we are creating and building upon a legacy of Beauty. We are like the Wise Man who built his house upon the rock, which is the word and wisdom of God, Jesus Christ. On this cornerstone, it is built upon brick by brick by the apostles and prophets who came before us, and our own contributions. Even if the worst thing imaginable comes, and we are exiled and the temple is destroyed, divine Beauty gathers us together to start over, and rebuild something intensely harmonious through our joy and tears. My beloved First Lutheran Church Fullerton, you all are creating something Beautiful here! The intense harmony of sharing your building with three other congregations from different denominations, generations, and backgrounds is living into God’s dream. The way you have creatively fed people in your community, body and soul, is living into God’s dream. We have an almost empty church house, yearning to be filled with people and organizations who want to create more Beauty and live into God’s dream for Orange County. Beloveds, let this Beauty refine you. Let it form you and shape you into what God yearns for the world to be. So what’s the point of the Sagrada Familia? I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Gaudí in heaven when you get there. I know God doesn’t need big glorious buildings to be in relationship with me, but maybe I do. I experience God in the awe and wonder of Beauty, and it inspires me to create Beauty in my own life and with others. The process of creativity shapes something in me; a drive, a discipline, an energy I don’t experience anywhere else. I get to create not because I need it, but because I love it. May you create just for the joy of it. May stumble up intense harmony in the most unexpected places. And may Beauty lure and draw you into the dreams of God. Amen.

Sermon on Mark 9:30-37

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Today’s Gospel reading is the second in a pattern in Markwhere Jesus predicts his death and resurrection, the disciples don’t get it, and then Jesus teaches them more about what it means to follow him.

Last week, we read the first one, and today, we read the second. There’s one more, which we won’t be reading next week, but you’ve probably caught on faster than the disciples.

In today’s story, the disciples were confused, but they didn’t want to ask Jesus any questions. Maybe they didn’t want to get another “Get behind me, Satan!” Maybe they didn’t want to look dumb in front of the other disciples. Maybe they were afraid of the answer Jesus would give them.

One way or another, they got sidetracked. They started arguing about which of them was the greatest.

Yet again, they had profoundly misunderstood Jesus’ mission. He was the Messiah, but his mission was not to defeat the Romans and establish an earthly empire.

Jesus had just described for a second time that he would be handed over to the authorities, killed, and would rise again. That doesn’t sound much like a military victory. That doesn’t sound like someone concerned with “greatness.”

And yet, there the disciples were, trying to one up each other, trying to establish their dominance.

That behavior so often comes from a sense of inferiority, though. We read right before this that the disciples were too scared to admit they didn’t understand what Jesus was saying.

So, they turned to each other to diffuse their discomfort. They put each other down to make themselves feel better for not understanding. They started focusing on the wrong thing.

It’s easy for us to shake our heads and roll our eyes at the clueless disciples.

But all these years later, doesn’t the Church do the same thing?

Congregations see other churches with greater worship attendance, larger Sunday school classes, bigger budgets, and flashier worship bands and start feeling insecure.

So, we start to put down other denominations, disparage larger churches, or voice pity about those poor congregations that are smaller than ours.

Or, we start blaming the culture, making demeaning remarks that entire generations don’t seem to care about church anymore.

In our insecurity, we start striving to prove that we are the greatest. We, like the disciples, start focusing on the wrong things.

It seems fitting that we’re reading this Gospel story on the first day of fall. We’re at the tipping point between seasons, when day and night are equal.

The disciples were at a kind of tipping point, too. They were at a tipping point in their understanding of Jesus.

The Gospel of Mark shows Jesus being pretty secretive. He often tells people not to share about him healing them or instructs his disciples not to tell people who he is. At this point, Jesus starts to reveal more to his disciples. He’s starting to prepare them for what’s to come and entrust them with more understanding of who he is and why he’s here.

But the disciples weren’t getting it. They were projecting their own expectations of Jesus getting earthly power and glory and were missing what he was actually saying.

Last week, he told them that following him involved taking up their crosses and being willing to lose their lives.

This week, he brought over a child and told them that welcoming a child was like welcoming Jesus, and therefore God.

Children were really low on the social scale. They had no power and no status. There’s a reason why the Hebrew Bible so often instructs God’s people to care for widows and orphans. Neither group had people to protect and support them(namely husbands or parents). They had the least power in society.

Jesus was teaching them to focus on who had the least power, not who was the greatest.

How they treated the least was how they treated their beloved rabbi and their God.

They were at a tipping point where they would either keep focusing on obtaining earthly power or start welcoming those who had the least.

And because they were human, sometimes they would get it and sometimes they wouldn’t. Just like us.

God knows we won’t get it right all the time. Sometimes our actions overflow with love for our neighbor. And sometimes, we’re insecure, petty, and selfish. Welcome to being simultaneously saints and sinners.

Our congregation does amazing work loving our neighbors every week through Caring Hands and supporting other organizations. We share our space with other congregations. We check on each other and pray for each other. We learn and worship and laugh and hope.

And sometimes, we too get caught up in insecurity and wondering if we’re enough. We remember times when we had more people in the pews, more pitter-patter of tiny feet, more programs, and a greater capacity to serve. It’s okay and even important to grieve our changing reality.

What we need to be careful of, though, is not letting our grief lead us to despair or to jealousy of other congregations.

Jesus reminds us that whenever two or three are gathered, he is there. And he reminded his disciples in today’s reading that what’s important is not “greatness” by worldly standards, but welcoming those with the least power and support among us. And this congregation’s mission is to do just that.

So, at this turning point in the seasons, let’s make sure we’re focusing on what’s really important.This congregation does that so well—let’s not forget that.Fall is a great time to reorient and refocus.

We’re about three quarters of the way through our Sabbath year—can you believe it?

What have you learned by practicing Sabbath this year?

How has it helped you focus on what’s most important?

I encourage you to share with each other today and in the weeks ahead what Sabbath means to you.

And as we move into this final quarter and round the bend toward Advent, Christmas, and the New Year, how can we continue or adapt our Sabbath practices into the future?

How can we keep our focus on welcoming our least likely neighbors and therefore welcoming God?

At this tipping point in the seasons, let’s let go of despair, insecurity, and striving for “greatness” and focus instead on loving our neighbors as we would welcome Jesus himself, who loves us more than anything.

Now, that is great.

Sermon on Mark 8:27-38

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Our reading from James reminds us of the power of our speech. We can use our mouths to tear down or to build up.

Peter does both in our Gospel reading.

He started off well by answering Jesus correctly: that Jesus is the Messiah.

Messiah (or Christ in Greek) is a title, meaning “anointed one.” Throughout the Hebrew Bible, you can read about God sending prophets to anoint people God has chosen to be king: Saul, David, and so on.

God’s anointed one is a king, a leader who will save God’s people, presumably by defeating their enemies and ushering in a time of peace and prosperity.

In Jesus’ day, God’s people were living under the oppressive Roman Empire. They were taxed heavily, ruled by a foreign power, and under constant threat of violence. It’s understandable that they expected the Messiah, God’s anointed one, to rise up, overthrow the Romans by military force, and establish a new kingdom of strength and might.

Also, when Jesus was asking these questions, he and his disciples were on their way to “the villages of Caesarea Philippi.” This was near a temple built by King Herod, dedicated to Emperor Augustus, whose title of was “Son of the Divine.” It makes sense that Peter and the disciples would have thought Jesus, God’s anointed one, was going to Caesarea Philippito defeat the sacrilegious, oppressive Romans.

So, when Jesus said he was supposed to suffer, be killed, and rise again, that went against everything Peter thought the Messiah would be. So, Peter used his mouth, which had correctly proclaimed Jesus’ identity as the Messiah, to scold Jesus for describing what he would undergo in service of his messianic mission.

But, Peter’s understanding of the Messiah’s mission was different from what Jesus’ mission actually was.

Of course, we know, and Peter would find out,the true form of Jesus’ mission. It was far beyond a political victory, a military triumph, or an earthly empire.

The Reign of God, the Beloved Community, is so much more.

It’s the picture of eternity we see in Revelation—with all the peoples of the world united in singing to God.

It’s the completion of the glimpses we get of the beauty of creation.

It’s the fulfillment of the peace, justice, unity, and joy that we can only dream about on this side of life.

Our human imaginations, though amazingly powerful, are not big enough to capture the fullness of the Beloved Community.

It’s so much bigger than a military victory.

And the people in power would kill Jesus over it.

Jesus was warning his disciples of what was to come and what would be required to endure it. His disciples and all his followers would have to lay down their egos, their dreams of military might, their hopes for glory and power and riches, even their own safety. That is what it means to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus.

Jesus’ disciples would need to expand their idea of what it meant to be the Messiah.

Jesus and his mission were so much more than they imagined.

But Jesus’ instructions were and are incredibly challenging. They go against our basic instincts as human beings—instincts to protect our reputations, our power, and our very lives.

It’s so counter to what we see and hear in our culture, too. We’re told to “look after #1” and to work hard to make the most money and buy the best things.

We see and hear people protecting their egos by putting others down—from government officials to celebrities to social media. Unless we’re vigilant, that kind of language can trickle into our everyday conversations with friends and neighbors.

We’re surrounded by fearmongering, name-calling, and cynicism.When it’s all around us, it’s hard not to be affected by it.

As our reading from James says, “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire.”Unfortunately, fire has been a too-present reality for Southern California this week. Let’s continue praying for everyone affected.

But the metaphor is vivid. We’re surrounded by words that are often negative and anxiety-inducing—tv, radio, social media, advertisements, political commentary, random people’s opinions about some public figure’s faux pas, hyperbolic predictions of any number of devastating futures…It’s unending and inescapable.

If our reading from James is right and “no one can tame the tongue,” what are we supposed to do?

Maybe silence is the answer, or at least a step toward an answer.

Our society doesn’t tolerate much silence. Our world is full of noise.

What if we stemmed the flow of words washing over us?

What if we turned off the volume on all our devices and closed our eyes, just for a moment?

Maybe in even a moment of silence, we could hear the still, small voice of God.

Just three weeks ago, we heard Peter say that Jesus has “the words of eternal life.”[1] Yet, so often we get caught up in listening to words that aren’t life-giving.

It can be hard to hear God above all the noise we’re surrounded with. It’s up to us to find moments of silence or it isn’t likely to happen.

Silence can be intimidating when we’re not used to it.But even a minute of paying attention to your breath can make a huge difference. You can always work up from there. Chances are you can tolerate more silence than you think. Extraverts included.

In my own imperfect experiments with silence, I tend to find myself more aware of the noise around me the rest of the time. It’s easier to notice when social media is making me anxious or when the radio is overwhelming. And that makes it easier to turn them off until I’m less flooded.

In the meantime, I’m more mindful of what is life-giving: books, walks, a text to a friend, daydreaming out the window.

In Philippians, Paul exhorts his readers to meditate on good things: “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”[2]

What if we replaced even one minute a day of the life-draining noise around us with a minute of silence?

What difference might that make in your life?

What could the Holy Spirit do with that empty space?

Author and educator Parker Palmer wrote, “In our culture, we tend to gather information in ways that do not work very well when the source is the human soul: the soul is not responsive to subpoenas or cross-examinations.

At best it will stand in the dock only long enough to plead the Fifth Amendment. At worst it will jump bail and never be heard from again. The soul speaks its truth only under quiet, inviting, and trustworthy conditions.”

As uncomfortable as our culture is with silence, there’s a reason why it’s got such a lengthy history in the Christian tradition and in many other faiths as well. God is always with us, of course, but we so often only hear God when we slow down and quiet down enough to hear the still, small voice.

Our reading from James reminds us of the power of words to tear down or build up.In our Gospel reading, Peter illustrates that very power.

Jesus warns his followers that he isn’t here to build an earthly empire but a Beloved Community of peace, justice, joy, and love that will last forever. And it’s worth risking everything.

Silence can help us hear God past the life-draining noise that surrounds us.

Let’s take one minute now to sit in silence.Then, we’ll sing together in praise of our Messiah, God’s Anointed One.Let’s begin now. The Lord be with you.

[1] John 6:68

[2] Philippians 4:8