The lion that can't be tamed
Out of the fire, St. Mark's Altadena forges a new future, not their own
I worshiped with St. Mark’s Church, Altadena, CA, this past Sunday. I couldn’t worship at St. Mark’s because it burned up in the Eaton fire. Fifty families at St. Mark’s lost their homes in the fire, and many more were affected by smoke, ash and fumes. St. Mark’s now gathers in Eagle Rock, some eight miles away from its burned sanctuary, in a somewhat scruffy church that serves as a preschool during the week.
Aesthetically, it’s rather grim. The space has no altar, no linens, little silver and no candlesticks. They have no organ, but preludes and hymns come from a banged-up but serviceable piano. Acolytes and clergy go without vestments. The stained glass in their temporary home is not nearly as splendid as the stained glass, now molten, that lined their gorgeous sanctuary. There are no pews, just metal folding chairs—the kind that are never comfortable. There is a “smell,” not bad, as much as redolent of the preschool that gathers in the same space.
St. Mark’s is led by their rector, the indefatigable, optimistic, Spirit-filled Rev. Carri Patterson Grindon.
Her sermon delivered on the Sunday immediately following the burning is a masterpiece and should be studied in every seminary homiletics class. Without her careful pastoring and strong leadership, the congregation might be decimated and directionless. To the contrary, I’ve rarely encountered a community of faith so focused on mission, healing and restoration. Carri has provided this prophetic leadership while displaced from her home; though it did not burn, she and her husband Al are waiting for the necessary “remediation” that allows them to return.
St. Mark’s posts a 10:30 a.m. start, but by 10:45 a.m., the folks (I am guessing about 130 souls) were mostly standing around in intense and loud (rather than sanctuary whispers) conversation. As I eavesdropped, I heard information about FEMA applications and strategies for dealing with the Army Corps of Engineers. Equally, deep conversations started with, “How are you doing?” but it wasn’t in the casual, polite way that question is usually asked. Instead, one member of the community really wanted to know; the person responding, who was in tears, shared what it felt like to live in a motel in Glendora (twenty miles away) and still have to get their kids to childcare before heading off to work in a different direction. I heard information exchanged on doctors who’d see fire victims on an emergency basis for medication renewals, as well as which restaurants survived and were providing discounts to fire victims.
The same thing happened at “The Peace,” which must have lasted ten minutes. People immediately spread through the room, making connections and sharing stories. Finally, in the interest of moving on, Carri shouted out from a corner of the room—she has no lectern or pulpit to use—“St. Mark’s! The lion that can’t be tamed!”
I think this slogan, playing on the usual image of the lion to depict St. Mark’s gospel, had a dual meaning. Yes, this community wouldn’t be tamed into ending the Peace prematurely to get on with the Holy Communion. The sacrament of connection and Koinonia are just as important now as the bread and wine made holy.
More powerfully, “Can’t be tamed” meant “not defeated, still strong, and prepared to rise powerfully” as a witness to the Gospel for which their church is called.
All morning, I felt their powerful Koinonia—the powerful biblical word and theological concept that is nuanced and often translated as “Communion” and “Fellowship.” Paul describes Koinonia in the 12th Chapter of I Corinthians: “Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ,“ and “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” St. Mark’s embodies Paul’s description that in this body, the members have the same care for one another. “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”
We too often think (and I am guilty) that “Mission” is about serving people beyond the church community. Church, however, can be its most authentic self when it serves its community with the basic needs of life like housing, food, clothing, money, medicine, and most of all, love.
Clergy wonder if the church they serve could survive the loss of their building1. We regularly fantasize about it, as church buildings consume much available resources and time. They cringe when a visitor says, “You have such a beautiful church,” but only the building, not the people, is the object (or idol) of affection. The “church without walls” format has always been with low success and limited return; clergy acknowledge that a church building provides a sense of “home” and the necessary scaffolding to undergird and uphold a Christian community.
St. Mark’s has lost their home, but the hope of rebuilding that home provides the same scaffolding a building might. I hope St. Mark’s will thrive without a proper home, for now, and when a true home is realized, it does not tame the lion. Knowing a church that rebuilt after a fire, it is easy to become too tied to the narrative of, “We survived; we rebuilt after the fire.” That becomes a weight similar to maintaining a historic sanctuary or grand gothic church because it forces a community to define itself by what has happened in the past rather than leaning into the future God prepares.
In good theology, God did not bring the fire to test or purify St. Mark’s. But God can use the fire to help St. Mark’s find a future not of its own imagining but of God’s.
It is a human predilection to define our relationship with God by what has already happened to us, as in, “I feel loved by God because of my many blessings,” or, “I feel alienated from God by the hardships I’ve endured.” In calmer theological moments, we trust that God engages us from the perspective of what will happen to us in the unfolding of time. In our Easter hope, we trust that God sees our lives from the empty tomb—not only the empty tomb of Jesus but our own. There, on the other side of the resurrection, where we will be fully known and restored in ways that we cannot understand on this side of the poorly silvered mirror, all will be well; the struggles of the past will be inconsequential. What has already happened is over, and what awaits us we kiddingly call “the hereafter,” or more solemnly, “thy Kingdom come.” Jesus reminded us to bake tomorrow’s bread today because we will need it to find God’s future. The crumbs left from today’s bread and the ashes from the fires of life are meant to blow away.
I suspect that “The lion that can’t be tamed” feeds on tomorrow’s bread, today.
Learn how to support their emergency fund for those affected and the rebuilding of St. Mark’s here.
