Ignition

At the end of 2022, I learned a new definition for a word I already knew.  I knew “ignition” was the act of setting something on fire.  More specifically, like everyone else, I mostly associate the word with the process of starting a car powered by an internal combustion engine.  The ignition used to be the place my key went - signaling the process that turning the key initiated.  Now it’s just a button I press.  And if you drive an electric car I guess you don’t need ignition at all, since, without internal combustion, there is nothing to ignite.

But last month I learned about the specific meaning of “ignition” in the field of nuclear fusion.  On December 5th, scientists at the Nuclear Ignition Facility, using 192 lasers focused on a pea-sized pellet of hydrogen isotopes, caused a nuclear reaction that generated more energy than it consumed.  It was the first time this feat has ever been accomplished by human agency, and it lasted for less than a hundred trillionths of a second.

I am told that this accomplishment was not a violation of the first law of thermodynamics, which states that, as a rule, energy cannot be created or destroyed.  The details of nuclear ignition I will not get into, not only because they are beyond my ken, but also since the nay-sayers point out that the achievement of ignition on December 5th did not take into account all the substantial energy that was required just to run the facility, all of which actually matters in the equation.  But people get excited at the prospect of a powerful and plentiful source of renewable energy.

The question that I’ve been asking myself since the announcement of successful nuclear ignition just twenty days before Christmas, is this: Was the birth of Jesus a kind of ignition that generated more energy than it consumed?  Nuclear fusion, after all, is the process that powers the sun and the stars, which sounds an awful lot like the power of God to me, when I consider the heavens, the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars that he set in their courses (to borrow a phrase from the Psalmist).

Normally on the Sunday after Christmas we would be reading again the prologue to St. John’s Gospel which is at pains to remind us that the mystery of the Incarnation is the en-flesh-ment of the eternal Word of God, who was, and is, and is to be.  We have a different reading because today is the Feast of the Holy Name.  Although St. John didn’t have the language for it, I suspect that he would say that the fact of the Incarnation of the divine Word of God is not a violation of the first law of thermodynamics, since “he was in the beginning with God, [and] all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”

It’s not just a coincidence, is it, that a star figures in the story of the Nativity?  A twinkling, distant ball of nuclear fusion that generates more energy than is consumed (for a long, long time).  It’s almost like it’s a sign, or a symbol.  It’s almost like these guys knew what they were talking about.

I am not qualified to make any definitive statements about the first law of thermodynamics.  Or about ignition.  Or about nuclear fusion.  Here’s what I have to say: Jesus is ignition.  Jesus generates more energy than he consumes. He is the power of the sun and of the stars.  And we know him by name.  Scientists spent something like 70 years trying generate this kind of power, and they were able to do so (sort of) for less than a hundred trillionths of a second.  But Jesus is the power of the sun and the stars, and he came to be with us.

There’s an interesting detail that St. Luke reminds us of in his account of the circumcision of Jesus, since that occasion, eight days after his birth, is the time that a boy-child would have been given his name.  But the evangelist reports to us that Jesus was not given his name that day.  St. Luke tells us that “he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”  Jesus’ name was given to him before he was conceived, since Jesus was before, as he always has been and he always will be.  Jesus is ignition: he is the power of the sun and the stars, and he is the power that called them into being with whatever sized bang was appropriate or required.

If the birth of Jesus was a kind of ignition, generating more power than it consumes, what does that power look like in the world?  For some time now, I have been asserting four attributes of Jesus that the world is in desperate need of.  Now that I know about ignition, I can see how these four attributes generate more energy than they consume.

First, Jesus is the Prince of Peace, against whom are arrayed enormous arsenals of energy to prevent him from establishing his kingdom.  Warfare consumes vast amounts of energy and leaves everyone and everything around it depleted.  But peace - which is the natural state of God, and the aim of the divine will - generates vastly more energy than it consumes.

Second, Jesus (with the Father and with the Spirit) is the maker of all human persons, each of whom is the work of his fingers, and each of whom shares in his holiness.  This means that each of us carries something of the potential energy of the sun and the stars with us, just as we bear something of the divine imprint within us.  We are much more than the sum of our physical parts.

Third, Jesus is the source and origin of all forgiveness, and forgiveness, since it is a function of profound grace, generates more energy than it consumes, and restores all the energy that we use up when we are at odds with God and with one another.

Fourth, Jesus is the chief minister of the divine economy of giftedness.  He gives himself as a pattern of giving that all people, made in his image, and whose humanity he shares, are invited to imitate in some small measure.  Whenever we give we are entering a state in which we may generate more energy than we consume: it is the nature of giving, which is a process born in the heart of God, that is not described by the laws of thermodynamics

These four attributes are not laws of thermodynamics or any other aspect of physics: they are characteristics of the One who was born in a stable; who was, and is, and is-to-be; who is himself ignition: the power of the sun and the stars; who was sent to us as the perfect manifestation of God’s love; and whose holy Name we know because he is not only our God and our Savior, our Light and our Life: he is also our friend, and our love; he generates more energy by far than he consumes; and his Name is Jesus.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
1 January 2023
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia

The target chamber of the US Nuclear Ignition Facility

How To Disable A Tank

Thanks to Charlie Brown, most of us have been convinced that we ought to be in search of the meaning of Christmas.  We already know what Christmas is: the celebration of the Incarnation of God in the fact of the birth of Jesus.  But because it has become so commercialized, Christmas seems to be easily trivialized.  And so we have been convinced of the need to look deeper for its meaning.  And you never know where that search for the meaning of Christmas might lead you.

I was surprised to discover that it could lead me to the Royal Tank Regiment in Bovington, in the south of England, where I traveled last month with the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, whose men I serve as a chaplain.

At the Royal Tank Regiment, I was surprised to learn some important but esoteric and potentially life-saving information.  Frankly, I wondered at first if this information could ever be of any use to me.  Christmas makes me think that it could certainly be of use to someone.  Let me try to explain.  The information was shared with us by an expert in military history at the Tank Museum, which is just down the road from the Tank Regiment HQ.  On being introduced to tanks in large numbers, I quickly realized the my chief interest in tanks is in learning how to turn them off.  So I was very pleased indeed to pick up this valuable piece of information at the Tank Museum.  What I learned was this: how to disable a tank.

In truth, I only learned how to disable one specific type of tank: the T72.  But the T72 happens to be one of the most commonly used tanks in the Russian Army.  About 25,000 of them were built in the former Soviet bloc, and I’m told the Russians have about 9,000 of them, still.

It seems the T72 has a blind spot directly behind it, so that if it is advancing with its turret (and its gun) pointed forward, the crew can’t see someone sneaking up from behind.  This is handy to know.  More to the point - and I am a little fuzzy on the details here (I should have been taking notes) - apparently, unless the tank has fully and freshly charged batteries (which I’m told is not the norm for tanks in the field), for some reason or other, the tank’s water supply is required in order for it to start.  This was explained to us, but, as I say, I wasn’t taking notes.*  And if I remember correctly, on the back of a T72 tank, on the right-hand side, as you look at it, from your sneaking-up-on-them vantage point, at about chest height, there is a little nut, or screw-cap, or bolt-head, maybe a little less than an inch across.  And if you can open up that little nut, or screw-cap, or bolt-head, using a knife or a screw-driver, or a Leatherman multi-tool, then you can pretty easily drain the water from the system - water that is crucially needed in order to start the tank.  All you’d need is some plastic tubing.  And what I’m told is this: that if the water has been drained from that little access point, and the batteries are not like-new, then the operator of that tank will not be able to start the tank when they want to.  I am not making this up; this is an actual fact.  And a tank that cannot start is a tank that cannot go anywhere.  And a tank that cannot go anywhere is a tank that has been largely disabled.

Now, I do not know that I will ever be in a position to use this knowledge, which seems actually kind of difficult to come by, and yet potentially extremely useful, maybe even life-saving.  And so I am passing it on to you, dear friends in Christ, and to anyone else who can hear me… just in case the information might come in handy for you some day!

I call a sermon like this practical religion.

There’s a part of me that wants to spend Christmas recruiting a band of acolytes to come with me around the world, armed only with Leatherman multi-tools, sneaking up behind T72 tanks and disabling them.  That would be a crusade I could get behind!

Of course, if you got good at disabling one kind of tank, you might start to wonder if you could disable other models too.  And eventually, if you came from a nation with a mighty army, you would not only dream about disabling the weapons of the enemy, you’d start to imagine that your own tanks might be better off standing still, too.  This is a risk of being taught how to disable a tank: it could become addictive.  You’d surely grow to like it, wouldn’t you?

So I’m sharing this esoteric knowledge, which consists of information that I don’t know what to do with.  I take it seriously, and want to make known what has been told to me about these tanks, in case you ever need to disable a tank, or in case there is someone listening from far away, who could disable a tank this very Christmas, and bring a little more peace into the world.

Come with me now to Bethlehem, where the shepherds have heard the message of the angel and the singing of the multitude of the heavenly host.  What the shepherds found when they arrived at the manger in Bethlehem, was, in fact, not an unusual sight.  They found a newborn child, with his parents, in a certain amount of discomfort.  The shepherds had assisted at many births during lambing season, and probably a few childbirths at home, too.  And the circumstances they found by the manger in Bethlehem were less than perfect.  Parents unmarried and unprepared.  Stuck in the shed out back.  The baby  clothed not in radiant beams of heavenly light, but in ordinary swaddling bands that might not keep him warm enough.  What the shepherds found in Bethlehem may not have quite lived up to the hype the angels gave it.  But of course, it also amounted to precisely the sign the shepherds were told they would find when they got there.

When they arrived, maybe they knelt beside the manger and cooed at the little baby there.  Maybe there was a shepherd among who encouraged his friends to gather there at the manger with him, and bow their heads, and say a prayer, thanking God for this child, and praying that God would protect the little baby and his parents, all of whom were clearly in need of a bit of protection.  Maybe they put their arms around each other’s shoulders as they knelt there, or maybe they held hands, linking up with each other, and with Mary and Joseph, too, as they said their prayers, and concluded them saying, “Amen.  Amen.  Amen,” on that not-quite-silent night.

As they departed, maybe one of the other shepherds, asked of his friends, “Guys, didn’t that seem awfully normal to you?  I mean I know that the angel was terrifying and everything, but where’s the good news of great joy to all people?  Sure, every child gives glory to God; but seriously, what was that multitude of the heavenly host going on about?  It’s a baby… in a manger.  I mean, come on…”

But maybe another shepherd (the one who prayed?) replied, “My friends, what we have seen tonight we may not completely understand or comprehend, but we know this: that this Child is a gift from God, and that he will be our Savior, our Messiah, and our living Lord.  The prophets foretold that such a One, anointed by God, would come.  They said that he would bring righteousness, that he would  bring forgiveness, that he would bring healing, and that he would bring peace.  In fact, they called him the Prince of Peace.  And somewhere they said that a little child would lead us into God’s promises for us.  It’s true that this situation is confusing and a bit unclear.  It’s true that we seem to have been supplied with a revelation the meaning of which is uncertain to us.  It’s true that we have information that we don’t know what to do with.  But I say we take the angel seriously, and make known what has been told to us about this child.  Even if we don’t yet know what the meaning of it is, for it sounds like good news to me!”

And when they told people about what they had seen, St. Luke tells us, “all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.”  The shepherds, despite all that is unclear to them, seem to have grasped the meaning of Christmas.  So, what is it?

Maybe it’s something like this: You’re there at the manger, and you have been given this piece of esoteric information that doesn’t entirely make sense to you, and you can’t quite see how you could make use of it, but it does seem like it could be important information, at the right time and in the right circumstances.

As I reflected on the information I acquired at the Tank Musuem, I had the sensation that it was somehow similar: that I had been given this piece of esoteric information that didn’t entirely make sense to me, and that I couldn’t quite see how I could make use of it, but it did seem like  it could be important information, at the right time and in the right circumstances.

Look, I know it seems absurd that I purport to be sharing with you actual and legitimate information on how to disable a tank.  But I promise you that what I have told you is true.  And I know for a fact there are people in the world for whom this information could be life-saving at this very moment.

And to many it seems absurd that I purport to be sharing with you actual and legitimate information about the Savior of the world!  But I promise you that what I am telling you is true.  And I know for a fact that there are people in the world for whom this information could be life-saving at this very moment: that to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord!

I know that to many, many people this information doesn’t entirely make sense, and that they can’t quite see how they could make use of it.   But I promise you that  at the right time, and in the right circumstances, this is just exactly the information you need, and it will save your life!

Let me put it another way.  Yes, I want you to know how to disable a tank if you ever need to.  But more importantly, I want you to know how to kneel at the crib of this child Jesus, who was born to bring righteousness, who was born to bring forgiveness, who was born to bring healing, who was born to bring peace.  And I want you to know how to take him into your heart.

Of course, it breaks my heart to think on Christmas Eve that there are tanks that need to be disabled.  In a way, it breaks my heart that I know how to disable a tank.  At least, I know how to disable a stationary T72, with less-than-new batteries, and an engine that hasn’t been started yet, provided I can sneak up from behind while the turret is facing forward, and I happen to have a Leatherman multi-tool with me, and some plastic tubing.

Lucky for me, the possibility that I will ever need to disable a tank - a T72 or any other kind - is pretty remote.  Not everyone is so lucky.

But I already know that I need a Savior, a Messiah, a living Lord.  The better I know myself, the more I know how much I need God.  And I already know that the rest of the world needs a Savior, a Messiah, a Lord.   I know this because of the tanks, you see, among other reasons.  I know that we need a Prince of Peace.

And I suppose that that’s the meaning of Christmas: when, like a shepherd, you realize that the gift you have been given of knowing Jesus is a gift that seems strange, and confusing, and you are not always sure what to do with it.  But you know somehow that something very important has been given to you, and that what you know could save someone’s life, could save your own life, and might even bring peace to the world, if only we could tell enough people about it, and get it into all the right hands, and find ways to spread it even more effectively: we could disable all the tanks, and we could beat them into these incredible plowshares.

And on Christmas Eve, we remember that we don’t need to sneak up behind anyone to share this good news.  We can stand on our feet, stay up late at night, and sing at the top our lungs the same songs the angels sang.

And some day, with nothing but a Christmas carol, maybe that’s how we’ll disable all the tanks!

I don’t know for sure, Charlie Brown, but I sure hope that’s at least a part of the meaning of Christmas!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
Christmas Eve 2022
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia

• It transpires that it may be the case that the release of the little nut or screw-cap or bolt-head may actually empty compressed air that the tank requires to start without fresh batteries. A Trooper who as paying closer attention than me, has pointed this out, and it actually sounds correct to me. The fact remains that if you opened that seal you’d accomplish the task of disabling the tank. You wouldn’t even need plastic tubing!

A Russian T72 tank

Are You The One?

Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?  (Matt 11:3)

Are you the one?  This question is asked of Jesus by the disciples of John the Baptist, but it sounds like a very modern question to me.  It’s also a theme of a certain kind of story-telling that’s been at the forefront of popular consciousness and culture for fifty years or more.  These stories frame the struggle between good and evil as a cosmic battle that also takes place on a personal level, a battle for the human soul, both corporate and individual.  Blockbuster films for these last fifty years, sometimes borrowing from books, have often been concerned with this question.  Think of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, of Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings, or of Harry Potter - around each of whom swirls this question: Are you the one?

Or think of Neo in The Matrix.  This is how the character Morpheus in that film describes the One:

“It was he who freed the first of us, taught us the truth - as long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free.  After he died, the Oracle prophesied his return and that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to our people.  That is why there are those who have spent our entire lives searching the Matrix looking for him.”  The question haunts Neo: Are you the one?

By contrast, that question does not permeate ancient mythology in quite the same way.  My theory is that if you have a pantheon of gods, you don’t have to worry so much about which one is “the one;” there’s always another god available; there’s always another god at the ready to do what some other god failed to do or wasn’t interested in doing.

Perhaps it’s the case that the question, “Are you the one” is more likely to arise in a monotheistic culture that takes for granted that there is only one God.  And if there is only one God, then perhaps there can be only one true and complete manifestation of God or of God’s chosen one in the world.

We see an expression of this possibility in the Hebrew scriptures when the Lord sends Samuel to Jesse’s house to identify a new king for Israel.  One by one, the sons of Jesse are brought to Samuel, but none of them is the one chosen by God.  Samuel asks Jesse, “Are all your sons here?”  And it turns out that there is one more - the youngest son.

And when David comes before the prophet, the Lord says to him, “Rise and anoint him; for he is the one.” (1 Sam 16:12)

He is the one.  No wonder that the New Testament writers are often at pains to link Jesus to the house and lineage of David, to the family tree of which Jesse is the root.  Of whom else was it ever said so plainly, “He is the one”?

So, John the Baptist, whose life had been devoted to Jesus since before either of them was born, is obviously deeply concerned with this question: Is he the one?  Is Jesus the one who is to come?  Is Jesus the one who will finally hail the destruction of the Roman oppressors, end warfare, and bring freedom to the Jewish people?  Are you the one, Jesus?  Are you the one?

Despite the recent tradition of blockbuster films posing this question, it remains to be seen whether modern people are really very interested in this question outside of fiction.  Does this story-telling tradition reveal a desire for a true faith in the one, living God, and a deep longing to know him and his chosen one?  Or are we simply responding to something embedded in our psyches that yearns for stories with a hero?

I suppose that answering that question also depends on whether or not we perceive that there is an actual struggle taking place between the forces of good and the forces of evil in the world; and whether or not we believe there is a force that is powerful enough to win that battle decisively.  And I suspect that Americans are actually pretty deeply uncertain about this question, maybe even suspicious of it.  You’d not be without reason for wondering whether this is a helpful question to ask, since you can see that to answer it brings power; and that power can easily be abused.

More fundamentally, western culture has become an intentionally consumerist society that loves to be distracted by amusements.  Isn’t this why I am asking the question through the lens of films most of us have probably seen?  And consumers who are devoted to their entertainments are, it seems to me, very likely to prefer a pantheon to one God and one God only.  Whether we admit it or not, we often live our lives like people for whom there is always another god available, and we rather like it this way.  We like to be able to shop, after all.  And besides, what difference does it make if you don’t believe that you need a chosen one to do anything for you, anyway?  What difference does it make if you believe you are already free, and if you don’t mind being at war?

It’s typical of Jesus, of course, that he does not actually answer the question posed to him by John the Baptist’s disciples.  But it behoves us to look closely at what Jesus does say when asked, Are you the one?

“Go and tell John what you hear and see,” he says.  “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”  He might as well have added, “What do you think?”

But this answer is not what most people expected in the Messiah, the anointed one of God.  They were not wondering if someone was coming to bring freedom and release to the blind and the halt, the sick and the impaired.  They had already given up hope for the dead.  And they already knew that, as far as they were concerned, there was no good news to be had for the poor - only misery and shame.  And perhaps they did not see the blind, the deaf, the lame, and the sick as casualties of a conflict between good and evil.  These conditions were just the results of someone’s sin.  They had forgotten that death came about as the result of a failure to love God enough to obey him.  And they saw the poor as a necessary, possibly unfortunate, part of the system, but not a result of injustice in a world that could easily provide for everyone.

But what about us?  What do we care about those who have less than we have and less than they need?  Or about the sick, and the troubled, and those in want?  What do we care about the dead?  Are we interested in a Savior who has come first and foremost for them?  Do we care if good triumphs over evil, if we get the stuff we want, all the same?  Do we think we could be freer than we are?

As Christmas comes, we hear the question posed to Jesus: Are you the one?

As we prepare to try to welcome this little Lord into our hearts, we are prepared with that question ringing in our ears: Are you the one?

Do we believe that there is an actual struggle taking place between the forces of good and the forces of evil in the world; and that there is a force that is powerful enough to win that battle decisively.  And do we think that the answer to that question could be meaningful not only to us, but also to the many, many souls who are in greater need than we are, whose lives are less easy, and who are poor for no good reason except the injustice of a world that could easily provide enough for everyone?

For my own sake, I find it helpful to be reminded of those many times that the culture around us has asked some fictional character, “Are you the one?”  Be it Luke Skywalker, or Bilbo Baggins, or Harry Potter, or Neo.  I don’t mind one bit, engaging with fictions that point us to the question of whether or not there is a conflict between good and evil, and whether or not there is one who is powerful enough to win that conflict decisively.  I think these questions nag at us for a reason.

Because as far as I am concerned, Jesus answered with all the clarity that’s needed, when John’s disciples came to ask him, “Are you the one?”

What do you think?  The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.  Could there be a more powerful witness that there is only one God, and that he has the power to decide the conflict between good and evil?

Come, quickly, Lord, and complete the work that you began so long ago in Palestine.  Hear our prayers, and be for us the Savior that we need, not the hero we think we might want.  Teach us that there is no other God but you, and that living our lives as though there will always be another god available gets us nowhere.  Come to us, Lord.  For, yes, you are the one!

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
11 December 2022
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia