The Multiverse, Quarks, and All the Nesting Dolls Between

Ephesians 1:1-14

 The scholarly world isn’t in agreement about who wrote this letter to the Ephesians. It could have been Paul, but there are reasons to doubt that. And the scholarly world isn’t in agreement about to whom this letter was written. It could have been the Ephesians, but early manuscripts leave out any particular community name, suggesting the possibility that this was a form letter to be sent to all of the Christian churches in the Roman Empire. In other words, this letter could have been written by one very specific person to one very specific congregation. Or, this letter could have been written by anyone, for…everyone. That feels like, to me, the very heart of this whole passage. God’s grace is completely individual and intimate and particular. And God’s grace is completely universal and ubiquitous and comprehensive.

What is the biggest, farthest, most expansive thing you can think of? What’s the tiniest? All of reality is a series of nesting dolls, one inside the other, one encompassing the other. From the biggest that holds all the dolls within, even the smallest, to the tiniest doll, which occupies every doll, even to the biggest. You know, those Russian nesting dolls, the ones you can pop open and, surprise, there’s another inside it. And then you open that one, and there’s another, smaller, inside of it. And then you open that one, and the next, and on and on until you find the tiniest doll hidden amidst them all. The biggest doll holds them all. The tiniest is held within them all. The biggest doll encompasses them all. The tiniest doll is the very heart of them all. 

Scientists, at least so far, would venture to say that the biggest thing that we can conceive of is the multiverse, although its existence is yet to be proven. But, at least in theory, the multiverse holds all the universes, which hold all the galaxies, which hold all the solar systems, which hold all the planets and stars which hold all the building blocks of matter.

And scientists, at least so far, claim that the tiniest thing that exists is the quark. They call these quarks “elementary particles” - “the have no apparent structure and cannot be resolved into something smaller.” So far, quarks are indivisible. Leptons, too. But let’s stick with quarks for now. The quark makes up protons and neutrons, which are parts of atoms, which make up molecules, which can form into DNA and RNA, which occupy a fibrillar center, found inside a nucleolus, tucked in a nucleus, surrounded by a Golgi complex, endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, which are all surrounded by a cell membrane, which make up a cell, the very building block of all of life. Nesting “dolls”. 

From the hypothetical multiverse, to the elementary particles “the quarks,” and everything in between, all of our reality is experienced in this nesting doll, one inside the other inside the other inside the other, until we can’t hold anymore, and until we can’t get any smaller. In the nesting doll version of reality, everything belongs, everything is a part of something bigger, and everything is connected. You open one doll and surprise! There’s another. You look for another doll bigger than your own and surprise, there’s another. And infused through it all, the dolls holding all of these realities within realities together, is God’s grace. God’s grace is the doll that holds it all together. And God’s grace is the doll that is the elementary particle that makes all the rest possible in the first place. And God’s grace is all the dolls in between. 

God’s grace. Completely individual and intimate and particular. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. 

God’s grace. Completely universal and ubiquitous and comprehensive. Anyone’s letter to everybody. 

God’s grace. The building block of all of reality.

God’s grace. The ultimate reality that holds every other.

God’s grace. The creator of the universe.

God’s grace. Present in fullness in one particular person, in one particular space and time - Jesus Christ. 

God’s grace. In and through and among everything.

God’s grace. That which you do to the very least person, you do to me.

God’s grace. Present before the foundation of the world or atoms or reality itself.

God’s grace. Made known to us through the intimate, particular, actual presence of juice and bread transformed into the intimate, particular, actual presence of Jesus Christ. 

God’s grace. The quarks themselves.

God’s grace. The space between those quarks.

God’s grace. All the good we do in this world.

God’s grace. The redemption of all the bad.

God’s grace. We are God’s beloved creation.

God’s grace. We are God’s adopted children.

This letter to the Ephesians, this letter to all, is “an affirmation that God…is gracious beyond the wildest reaches of [our] imaginations.” The wildest reaches of our imaginations. The biggest big. The smallest small. 

This is amazing. And we should take a moment and just breathe it in. Breathe in God’s grace. Breathe out God’s love. 

But this is also unfathomable. This is beyond comprehension. I mean, can we really, truly understand or have any kind of notion of the multiverse? Of what it might be?  Can we really, truly understand or have any notion of a quark? Of what it might be? Even the mind of Einstein could not comprehend such things. 

So God gave us dolls of all sorts of shapes and sizes to help us. Dolls of every size. Dolls that hold bodies, families, communities. Dolls that hold insects and birds and forests and oceans. Dolls that hold just one breath, in a pair of lungs, in the atmosphere that protects us all. Dolls that connect to other dolls. Dolls inside of other dolls. Dolls that hold more and more dolls. 

If the multiverse is too big, and the quark is too small, then what, dear Goldilocksrs, is just the right size for you? Is it the way your hand fits around your favorite mug? Is it the toothless smile of your grandchild? Is it the feel of the soil under your nails, or the feel of the brush as it scrubs it away? Is it this place? Is it the fact that the place isn’t what it is called to be without you? All of these are containers of God’s grace. And they are God’s grace. Our only task, our one and only task in this world, is to see it, to recognize it, to name it, to protect it. 

These containers are our sign and seal of God’s grace for us. And we each have one - at the very least. This is our task as “little Christs” - To find our containers, the ones made precisely for us, to name them, to protect them and care for them, and then, to see, finally, how they are all connected to everything else. 

And when we find ours, that’s when the work begins. 

Because when we find our “doll” - our container of God’s grace - we want to know it, to really know it, to see how it works, what it’s made of, how it’s connected to everything else. And I promise you, if you start with your doll, and you look to find other dolls within it, and you seek to find the dolls that are holding it, you will, eventually, find yourself connected to the multiverse itself. You’ll find yourself, eventually, connected to the tiniest of quarks, and the spaces between the quarks. You’ll find yourself surrounded by and consisting of God’s grace. All around. In and through and above and beyond. 

And this is when we come back down to earth, back down to our country, our town, our church, the pews we are sitting in and the bodies we inhabit. Because sometimes we won’t believe it. Sometimes, we won’t see it. We won’t find the grace in ourselves. We won’t see the grace in each other. Some of the containers in this world have been so beat up and tarnished and abused that they won’t look like they hold much of anything worthwhile, let alone grace. But Jesus came to tell is that it is there. And we are called to find it, to call it out, to bring this grace into the light, to share it with others. Even when it feels as far away as a Biden and a Trump supporter. Even when it feels as far away as a Ukrainian from a Russian Soldier. Even when it feels as distant as a Palestinian and an Israeli. We must, we have to, we are called to see the dolls in each of us, in each other, no matter how broken or tarnished we may seem to be.

I don’t know exactly how to do it, but I think it starts with something I can hold, or feel, or hear, or understand. It starts with that unique seal that God has given you, and it works itself out from there. And it works itself in from there.

May we find our dolls. May we discover what is inside them. May we realize what is holding them. May we share them with the world, and the quarks, and the multiverse, and everything in between.

Thanks be to God. 

Treespinning

Acts 10:44-48 (but really, just read the whole chapter...)

It was just a retention pond. But we called it “the swamp.” My little brother would go over there and catch crayfish and turtles and frogs and bring them home in buckets to show our mom. One hot summer day, long before my brother’s catch and keep system, my sister, some neighborhood kids, and I rode our bikes the few city blocks to the end of the dead end street. We dumped our bikes on their sides, and raced forward toward the swampy wild. We were on an adventure.

I don’t remember the exact narrative that we had constructed. Were we knights in shining armor, coming to rescue the princess? Were we pioneers, discovering an untouched wilderness? Maybe we were wild horses, galloping along the sandy beach. I do remember, though, that I had just started to learn to read with some element of independence. I’d been learning letters and sounding out words for awhile, but now I was recognizing words more quickly, deciphering the more challenging ones a little more readily.

Well, we were traipsing through the boggy shoreline, mud seeping through our canvas Keds, when I came upon a strange sign. It was orange and black and nailed to a tree. I said, “Wait, guys, stop. Doesn’t that say, ‘No Trespassing’?” And my sister’s friend, being older and wiser, cocked her head to the side, laughed, and without skipping a beat said, “No silly. It says ‘No Treespinning.’ Duh. Come on. Let’s keep going.”

“Treespinning?” I wondered. What the heck was treespinning?

I guessed that if I didn’t know what it was, then I couldn’t exactly be arrested for doing it, right? But as we were vanquishing the evil queen or hunting down buffalo or feeling the salt spray against our shaggy manes, I looked up to my right, and at the top of the hill of a perfectly manicured, weedless and pristine lawn, was a tall, skinny old man. He was looking down at us, hands on his hips, ready, I’m sure, to shout “Git offa my lawn!” And then, in my little kid mind, he would call the police, and there the cops would be waiting for us when we returned to our bikes, handcuffs ready to take us to jail on four counts of criminal treespinning.

Although there were no cops, no sirens blaring, waiting to take us to the slammer that humid day, the memory of that tall old man, hands on his hips, glowering at us, was enough to keep me from ever going back to that magical place we called “the swamp” ever again.

To get to our passage today, we need a little background.

Cornelius is a walking, talking contradiction. He is an anomaly. An oxymoron. A Roman Centurion who owns slaves, owns property, and has power, and also gives alms to the poor, and prays constantly. He and his whole household. He is a “devout Gentile” who is the most Jewish non-Jew in all the land. He is constantly going where he’s not “supposed” to. And one day, as he is praying, he gets a vision. “Go, send a few of your men to Joppa. Find a man named Peter, whose real name is Simon, staying at some other Simon guy’s house.” (And try not to get the Simons confused – I can only imagine that there were a couple of Marys there, too.) So Cornelius does what he’s told. He sends his Gentile servants across boundary lines to the city of Joppa, to find a Jew, whom they will then bring back to Caesarea, a land full of Gentiles. Cornelius sends his men trespassing in search of Peter – to go where they are not allowed, where they are not welcome.

“Cornelius,” God says, “Send your servants to the dead end road, cut through the neighbor’s side yard, go to the swamp, and bring back what you find.” Use your imaginations, discover new things, expand your horizons.

“Cornelius,” the vision seems to say, “It’s time to go treespinning.”

Meanwhile, Peter is on a roof, praying, and he gets this crazy, radical vision of dramatic openness and radical inclusion. I mean, like, the knights who are supposed to save the princesses are riding the wild horses to join the pioneers in making friends with the buffalo -- that kind of crazy.

And as he’s having this vision, Cornelius’s guys show up, and Peter hears from the Spirit that they have been sent to him from God. These Gentiles. To a Jewish man’s house. Sent, not by tax collectors, or soldiers or the emperor himself, but rather instructed to cross dividing and boundaried lines by the Holy Spirit, God’s very self.

This is hard for us to imagine, but this is sitting at the front of the bus, protesting at the diner counter, crossing the battlelines to put a flower in the rifle kind of stuff. This is open borders, open drinking fountains, political aisle crossing stuff. The Gentiles invite the Jews to come with them to Cornelius’s house so that they can hear their story. And the Jews respond by inviting the Gentiles to cross the threshold, to enter their home, to sit, eat, and stay with them.

This is the equivalent of Muslims and Jews worshipping together. This is the same as de-segregating the schools. This is a crossing of boundaries, this is a tearing down of walls, this is God transgressing all the human rules of exclusion and division and segregation.

This is wild, radical, trespassing. Or, perhaps, rather, treespinning. 

And then they go further. Peter joins these Gentiles on a journey to Cornelius’s house. It takes two days. Two days of time together, eating, talking, walking the same road, drinking from the same canteen, sharing their Cornnuts, passing through the same gates into Caesarea. And when Peter gets there, Cornelius, who has been waiting for him, kneels before him, and begins to worship. And Peter essentially says, “Knock it off. I am only mortal, just like you.”

He says, “You know the rules, none of this is allowed! You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.”

Those divisions have dissolved. This is a crazy act of trespassing that they're all committing here. And so, Peter goes on to tell the impossible transgressing, trespassing, treespinning story of God come to earth to teach us that there is no trespassing, there is no division between the holy and the unholy, the clean or the unclean. Through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, all that is gone. There is no trespassing. There’s only treespinning.

Theologian and biblical scholar Willie James Jennings says that this is God’s divine transgression, that “God has pushed [Peter] over the line that separated Jewish bodies from Gentile bodies, holy bodies from unholy ones, and pressed Peter to change his speech acts by never again calling anyone holy or unclean.” Peter is learning to treespin.

And finally, as we get to our reading today, we see the result of this treespinning. Absolute, total, radical inclusion. And the circumcised believers are shocked.  It isn’t even Peter who witnesses to the Gentiles, but the reverse. The Gentiles begin to teach Peter about who God is.

Peter stops talking. And the Gentiles start praising. Things are turned topsy turvy in a radical act of spiritual vertigo. 

And then Peter takes the next step to radical inclusion. He takes a sledgehammer to the walls dividing east from west, north from south, wealthy from poor, Jew from Palestinian, Ukrainian from Russian, migrant from citizen, protesting college student from college administration. Like the Ethiopian eunuch, he asks, what’s to keep these people from being baptized? He says, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

Peter is treespinning.

He asks, rhetorically, who owns baptism? Who gets to say who is in and who is out? Who hangs these No Trespassing signs on God’s trees? Who owns the water? Who owns the faith?

No one. No one can withhold or own or say anything anymore. Only God, the owner of the swamp and the trees and the stories and perfectly manicured lawn, can withhold any of it. And God doesn’t. God says that we – all of us – belong to God. God says that we – all of us – belong here.

God isn’t the old man with his hands on his hips, staring at us with a threatening glare. 

All these lines and divisions are fabrications that we have put up against each other. God, instead, invites us treespinning. Jesus is God’s transgressing, Jesus is God’s trespassing, Jesus is God’s treespinning. And Jesus calls us to follow him into the swamp, to vanquish the evil queen, to explore the uncharted land, to gallop through the waves with the Holy Spirit wind whipping through our manes. 

This is a God who steps into our lives, the One who reaches for us, who crosses the picket lines and climbs the border walls and destroys militarized zones and flies through enemy airspace to get to us.

We like to say that entering in to someone else’s space is trespassing, but for God, when God does it, it’s treespinning. 

We are invited to treespin with God. To go where we “shouldn’t.” To have hard conversations, to invite others into our space, to be invited into their space, to ask uncomfortable questions and feed undeserving people. We are invited to follow where God leads. To see the face of God in the places and the people we think God has no business being. Even in the face of that grumpy old man as we went treespinning that warm summer afternoon. 

Let’s go treespinning. God knows what adventures await.

Thanks be to God.