Proper 28-B, Mark 13:1-8
A New Hope
Let us pray: Be with us, O God, and give us the Spirit of Christ. Amen.
I bring you greetings from the people of Christ Church in Needham. I also want to thank your canon pastor, Steve, for his hospitality and my gratitude to your Dean, Jep, for suggesting the idea of making this pulpit exchange between us last summer. Our two communities share in the vibrant and important Monday Lunch Program when people from Needham come the second Monday of the month to work with members of the Cathedral and to serve a healthy lunch to the men and women who come off the streets for a meal every week.
It is a pleasure to return to the Cathedral where I began my ordained ministry here over twenty years ago as the Cox Fellow. My wife, Kathy, and I have very fond memories of our time here being supported by wonderful people such as Gloria Watt and Dorothy Dottin, as well as, those who have gone before us and abide in the nearer presence of God: People such as Rose Burke, Pearl Blackman, Blossom Frederick and Jeanne Sprout.
As I look around today, I can remember back to important moments in our ministry together: Ordinations, Episcopal elections, baptisms, marriages, and funerals. But, with the passing of the years, I see many changes in the Cathedral congregation and in the Cathedral itself. One of those changes, I have appreciated is the addition of the Labyrinth in the floor of Sprout Hall.
From time to time, when I’ve come to a Monday Lunch program or have attended a meeting in Sprout Hall, I am always aware of the Labyrinth and what it represents about the pilgrim’s journey towards God. I have had the privilege of seeing the real one at Chartres Cathedral in France. It is approximately forty-two feet in diameter, inlaid in the stone floor. The most majestic stained glass windows in the world surround it. Blues. Greens. Yellows. The light seems to dance off the floors.
Like downstairs, the original Labyrinth is normally covered with chairs for worship services. On occasion, the sextons of Chartres will move the chairs for a couple of days so that visitors can walk the Labyrinth finding a serenity and peace given to thousands of men and women over the centuries. I remember vividly several decades ago when I traveled from Paris to Chartres and saw the majestic Cathedral for the first time. It stands strikingly above everything else on a hillside among miles of wheat fields. Only when a traveler gets closer does one know there is a whole city that surrounds it.
Seeing Chartres Cathedral for the first time has always reminded me of those early pilgrims who saw the ancient Temple in Jerusalem for the first time singing those familiar words from Psalm 121,
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills ---I think every Cathedral such as St. Paul’s or Chartres is a reminder of the Temple of Jerusalem where people would make their pilgrimage to their “Mother Church.” I know that many Anglicans who have come from the islands of the Caribbean and West Indies over the decades have made St. Paul’s their home because it is the mother church of the diocese. Many of us around the diocese would consider St. Paul’s our Cathedral; and, I suspect that the early pilgrims of Jesus’ time would consider the Temple their temple.
From whence cometh my help?
My help cometh even from the Lord,
Who hath made heaven and earth.
The gospel lesson today from Mark is instructive about the true nature of cathedrals, churches and communities. The evangelist recounts how Jesus and four of his disciples – Peter and Andrew and James and John – leaving the temple precincts and going across to the Mount of Olives gives them a panoramic view to see the full measure of King Herod’s power and wealth. As the disciples look with awe at its sheer majesty, Jesus remembers all of them had just come from inside the Temple and had witnessed a poor widow drop all she owned into the treasury. What is to be more important: buildings or people? This question is one of the underlying themes of today’s gospel text.
“Wow!” “What a building!” “ Just look at the size of those stones!” They exclaim. Perhaps, they were seeing the beautiful buildings of the Temple for the first time just like my first visit to Chartres or someone’s first visit to Washington, D.C. or New York City. And then Jesus pours cold water on their enthusiasm predicting, “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” If ever there were a double take in scripture this would be one of those moments. Did they hear what they thought they heard? Say again?
The disciples ask Jesus when it will happen; and he tells them all these stones will fall but to know the time and hour when they fall is unknown. Not much later, those stones did fall. The Romans destroyed the marvelous Temple in 70 AD tearing it down stone by stone, rock by rock, until there was nothing left. Seeing the Temple leveled must have seemed like the end of the world to the people of Jerusalem. For them, the Temple symbolized the presence of God. And now their Temple was destroyed and it seemed to them that God was gone from their sight.
But, God did not abandon them. While the greed of the Temple treasurers was destroyed and the idolatry of Herod was decimated, there came up from the smoke and ashes, debris and detritus, a new hope to claim the hearts of faithful people. The destruction of the Temple was a signal that the place where people and God met had shifted from a place to a person. Sitting on the Mount of Olives with Jesus that day, the four apostles would later come to know that the temple of God was not made of stones on the temple mount but right in front of them, close as a heartbeat, in the person of Jesus.
Jesus was the new temple; and if it was true then, it is true now. In Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, the apostle writes that the Spirit of God dwells within us. So many times when people think of a cathedral or a church they think of a building.
In Needham, people will ask me, “Where is your church?” And, I will automatically, but incorrectly say, “At the corner of Rosemary Street and Highland Avenue.” What I should say is that the church is the people, the Laos, who are the true stones that make up Christ Church. The spirit dwells within the people of churches and cathedrals. No matter how beautiful a building, the Spirit rests upon its people.
I love to tell the story of the time when I was the Cox Fellow here at the Cathedral. As you know better than any congregation, you host most of the diocesan services and that some of these services are filled with pageantry and beauty. The music soars. The choir is angelic. The readers are eloquent. And the clergy are wearing their most resplendent vestments. One time we had such a service. It was simply stated -- a magnificent service. The bishops in their mitres, the Cathedral clergy in their purple cassocks, and the deacons and sub-deacons looking like angels it looked like we just came out of central casting. After the service, I asked Mazie Graham what she thought of the service; and I never forgot what Mazie said. She said, “Skip, remember this. You clergy may look like the flowers but we laity are the roots.”
My brothers and sisters of the Cathedral, you are the roots of this diocese. Because of your hospitality, we have most of our special diocesan services here. Because of your vision, we have outreach programs like the Crossing that are engaging the emerging church. Because of your compassion, thousands of people who are hungry and homeless are fed. One of the reasons I wanted to preach today is to tell you that this Cathedral, as venerable as it is, and its ancient stones erected in 1818 and consecrated as a cathedral by Bishop Lawrence in 1912, is not the Cathedral. No. You are the Cathedral along with those who came before you and those who will come after you. I know I speak for countless clergy and laity around the diocese who would echo my sentiments saying you are the roots of the Cathedral and therefore have the deepest roots among us anchoring us as a diocesan community.
I come to visit you today both as messenger and scout. As messenger, I offer greetings from the people of Christ Church. I also come as a scout to return to my church and my deanery telling them about the good work you are doing every day, every Sunday, in this location on Tremont Street and beyond.
Through our baptisms, we all are members of the Body of Christ and carry within us the Spirit of God. Each of us is called to special ministries according to the gifts given us by the spirit. Christ Church has a special ministry given us as a community. It is not about the size of attendance or how big the pledges are. Ministry is more than numbers. And as I have reflected on the Cathedral and its ministry and the people I have known here, I believe part of your ministry is to show the rest of us in the diocese how to do the right thing.
I am reminded of television series aired in 2004 called Angel: Down Under when the hero finds himself trapped in an underwater tomb and fears that no one will find him. After he is finally rescued he tells a friend,
“Nothing in this world is the way it ought to be. It’s harsh and cruel. But that is why there’s us. Champions. It doesn’t matter where we come from. What we have done or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were what it should be, to show it what it can be.”
Brothers and sisters of the Cathedral, you live as though the world, were what it should be, to show the rest of us what it can be.
Keep it up and God bless you. And now to God, be the honor and the glory. Amen.
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