Pentecost XXIV - Skip Windsor

(This sermon was preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, Massachusetts.)
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 ---
From whence cometh my help?
My help cometh even from the Lord,
Who hath made heaven and earth.

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.
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.

The Feast of All Saints - Sally Bingham

John 11:32-44

Good morning and thank you for having me with you this morning. I bring greetings from the Bishop of California, Marc Andrus who installed me as a Canon last year largely because he couldn’t get me to shut up about the responsibility that Episcopalians have to care for Creation. I am often referred to as the Diocesan Loose Canon. I do not deny that I will blast you with stories and facts of environmental destruction that may just (to use a metaphor) knock you over. And I do go on about it if given the chance. I am a seeker of the truth and I do my very best to speak the truth.

But before I go further, I want to recognize that this is All Saints Day when we honor the Saints that have gone before and set the example for us to be good Christians. If you hoped for a sermon this morning that would address ALL the Saints you will be disappointed, because I will reference only one Saint-the patron saint of the city from which I come, San Francisco. Yes, St. Francis who loved all creatures great and small and treated the trees and plants with respect because they were created by God. While Francis is often referred to as an environmentalist, I don’t think he was. I believe that contrary to the folklore about him, he really was a man trying to recreate what it means to be human. He wanted to be as much like Christ as would be humanly possible and for him that meant defining the human purpose on earth. As he understood it, humans were created to care for all that is. It wasn’t the Sierra club that called earth good, first it was God.

Francis set out to set an example for us just as jesus had. He provide a voice for the poor, the underserved and the creation-all that needed a voice, but didn’t have one-all that was overlooked or beaten down by wealth- some segments of society then and now suffer the consequences of others irresponsibility. Often, it is the rich getting richer on the backs of the poor. Francis dedicated his life and ministry to trying to restore balance to a broken world that had fallen into dark times.

There is another reason that I am mentioning St. Francis and it is because I met Kathy and Skip Windsor in Assisi and together we explored the basilicas, caves and olive groves where Francis preached to the birds and gave food to the poor. Without that meeting-in St. Francis’s home town- I wouldn’t be here with you this morning. It was the beginning of a long and close friendship.

Back to my concern for Creation and I want to make it clear that Creation is what we are part of. God created us with special characteristics so we could look after the world he had made, but we are nontheless part of the Creation. The Creation often referred to as the environment, is not something out there------- it is here, it is us. We are the Creation. Understanding that deeply will help us change some of our behavior because we will connect how we treat the environment and how we treat each other as a reflection of how we feel about God. Furthermore it is in our own best interest to treat God’s creation with care. Harming it only harms our own ability to look after ourselves, not to mention everything else that God created.

I do have a passion for stewardship of God’s Creation and I believe that we, (you and I) the people in the pews who profess a love of God should be leading the charge to protect God’s Creation. And we should lead by example, just as Jesus and Francis did.

I know that are still folks in our church that are suspicious of environmentalism with the notion that the subject is political and doesn’t belong in church. I am often asked.

What does religion have to do with the environment, or isn’t the church getting involved with politics if we take stands on ecological issues. You already know my response ….. we, people of faith should be leading the environmental movement.

How can we sit in a pew and profess a love for God and praise the creation without wanting to protect it.

Unfortunately the environmental crisis HAS become political in part and it is too bad that happened because it is a far deeper issue than just politics. It is a scientific issue and I mention that particularly because I believe that contemporary scientist are the prophets of today- scientist like the ones that received last year’s Nobel peace prize. But care for creation is far deeper and far more important than politics or science, it is a spiritual issue and one that must be addressed by the faith community. How we care for Creation, today will dictate the future for many generations to come. It has become a matter of life and death: a matter that humans are the only ones in position to do something about. We created the problem and if we are going to keep this planet healthy for over 6 billion people to live on safely, we need to work hard to make real changes.

We have to have a healthy environment if we are going to survive as a species AND, as is becoming increasingly clear, if we are going to have a healthy economy we must have a healthy environment, too. For our society to be stable, we need three strong pillars for support. One is the economy, one is social/political stability and the third is a healthy environment. They share the weight equally, so if any one of those pillars collapse, the entire structure will fall. And right now, one of those pillars is on the verge of collapse.

The threat to our environment is largely due to an unhealthy reliance on fossil fuel for energy in this country and around the world. We are overly dependant on coal, oil and gas for our electricity, our transportation and our heating and cooling. The burning of these fuels is upsetting the balance of nature; the balance that God set into place in the beginning. We are witnessing the rise in temperature due to the rise in carbon dioxide that traps gasses from leaving the atmosphere. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is by far higher than it has ever been.

We are standing on the edge of two worlds. The one that God created and the one that humans are making. And the one we are making is not sustainable.

It is as serious as life and death. So I ask you to reflect back to the Lazarus story. Jesus chose to give life to his friend because he was a healer and I suspect that Jesus would choose to heal the planet, too.

Our readings this morning and the story of St. Francis are lessons in recreation, new birth, starting over - A new vision of heaven and a new earth.

There is something in the parable about Lazarus that I found

interesting. When Jesus called him out of the tomb, he asked for help from the others. Move the stone he said. Untie him and let him free. He didn’t do it for them, they had to participate in the action. They were part of the healing and had to act with Jesus to restore life.

We are in that kind of situation now. We need God to give us the courage and the will to restore balance in nature and to bring back life where things have already died. But we must participate. We cannot sit back and see if things work out. God will not do it for us. David Orr from Oberlin College says this well. To be optimistic is to assume that everything will turn out all right in the end, but hope is different. It is a verb with your sleeves rolled up. You have to be invested in the restoration

God asks us to roll up our sleeves and get to work. It won’t happen on its own.

The ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the leader of the 300 million Greek Orthodox has called environmental degradation a sin. I have to agree. If you love God and you believe that God created everything and called it good, then God loves the creation. God so loved the world, HE gave his only son……….Then isn’t it reasonable to think that insulting the creation, like taking tops of mountains to get coal is insulting to God. There are other ways to get coal that won’t destroy mountains, valley, rivers, streams and everything that lives in them. This can be said about deforestation and fishing with huge nets that capture and kill everything in its way when only fishing for one species. Wasting valuable life and resources. You have heard the expression-What would jesus do- well what would Francis do?

I don’t want to leave you with the idea that nothing is being done. There are thousands of people all over the world who are working hard to restore balance. Lots and lots of Francises who care as much about creation as they do themselves.

There is lots of good news.People are actually buying smaller more energy efficient cars, they are building houses at a more reasonable size. Recycling is becoming a normal thing and not a bother. It’s not everywhere, but I travel a lot and I am experiencing change. You may have a local coffee shop that gives a discount if you bring your own cup. Often there are signs in take out restaurants next to a paper napkin container that say--- Paper means trees- use only what you need. I have been to many hotels that suggest you leave your towels on the floor if you want clean ones, but if you think you could use a towel a second time, hang it up. Same with changing sheets. These efforts save water and energy. They are all steps in the right direction and will have an impact on how people behave. It simple raises consciousness. You can learn more about how to save energy and money at the Adult Forum this morning. Where you will hear from Vince, Clayton and Michael. People want to do the right thing, but often don’t know what to do. I say, just think before you do anything.

Think about justice and fairness for ALL of Creation, not just humans when you are making decision. It is people of faith, people who go to church and love Christ who can serve as models. It is up to us to show the way. We say we love God and love our neighbors then shouldn’t we demonstrate that behavior?

When you leave today, think of the healing messages and how Jesus could restore life, but he asked for help. If we have the faith in ourselves that we can heal this planet and we have the courage to make the changes we need to make AND a God beside us who is a healer- we will succeed. Indeed, as people of conscious and as Christians, there is no choice but to try.

And I will close with one last comment. Neither Jesus or Francis came to show us how to die, but rather to show us how to live.

amen