ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEDICATION

Sunday, September 18, 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury

 

I Kings 8:22-33

Psalm 84:1-6(7)

I Peter 2:1-5,9-10

Matthew 21:12-16

 

Today is the one day of the year when we get to celebrate the gift of this church building. Most Sundays, the building is the medium through which we direct our attention to higher things. When we look at the stars through a telescope, our primary attention isn’t on the apparatus itself but on the heavenly bodies we’re looking at through it. Similarly, the church building is a kind of lens through which we lift our hearts and minds to God. But today we step back, as it were, to appreciate and give thanks for the architectural setting itself. 

 

In confirmation classes, I’ve often asked young people to define “church.” Their first answer is usually something like the place where we go on Sundays. That kicks off a discussion of the various meanings of the word “church”—not just a building but also a parish community, and beyond that the whole body of all Christians throughout the world, the Church Universal. It often comes as a new thought that we’re the Church and the Church is us. So, the Church isn’t just a building.

But we can also go too far in the opposite direction. I once attended a clergy gathering in which an earnest young curate argued that the church building is—and I quote—“just a tool.” His contention was that so long as we’re preaching the Gospel and engaging in Christian mission, it really doesn’t matter whether we meet for worship in a storefront, warehouse, or gymnasium. He warned that congregations with beautiful historic churches often end up worshiping the building rather than God. I suppose he had a point. Yet it seems to me that he was overlooking at least three profound truths.

 

First, a church’s consecration really does make a difference. This building was consecrated 165 years ago yesterday, on September 17^th, 1857, by George Washington Doane, the second Bishop of New Jersey. In the preceding decades, Bishop Doane had visited Woodbury regularly and had preached to large crowds in the courthouse. But these crowds included few Episcopalians in a town that was then predominantly Quaker. Then, in 1854, he appointed the Reverend William Norris Missionary to Woodbury. Norris began holding services in the third floor “Upper Room” of the Temperance Hall, located on the site of the Jubilee Garden; and the present church building was constructed in 1856.

 

In his last diocesan convention address in 1858, Bishop Doane reflected on the consecration service:

 

On Thursday 17 September, I consecrated Christ Church, Woodbury. … This was a day of gladness, and of gratitude, in many hearts, besides my own. Year after year, for many years, I have preached to large congregations, in the courthouse; never to more than two or three families, that professed and called themselves Churchmen; and it has passed into a proverb, of the vicinage, that the Church could never be planted in Woodbury. Nor could it, in the ordinary way. But the Missionary and his admirable wife gave themselves to the work. They had counted the cost, and they had incurred it … Their vocation was to build a church … God has blessed them … From that upper room, up the steepest of all stairs, their worship was transferred to the holy and beautiful house, which has been the object of so much exertion, and so many prayers. And Christ Church, Woodbury, solid in stone and “beautiful, exceedingly,” stands, in the eye of God, the very gem of the Diocese.

 

A consecrated church can never be thought of in purely instrumental terms, as we might think of a civic auditorium or convention center. Before September 17^th, 1857, this building was no more than an exalted meeting hall. But on that date, it became a church in the true sense of the word: an edifice set apart, standing on holy ground and enclosing sacred space, where the God whom heaven and earth cannot contain has promised to be specially present and available for his people.

 

Second, there’s a deep and intimate relationship between a church building and a worshiping congregation. Over the years, the community shapes the building—adding a stained glass window here or a memorial there, and undertaking periodic renovation and remodeling projects. Gradually, the building’s physical characteristics come to reflect the very human stories of its people, their joys and heartbreaks.

 

Conversely, in subtle and subliminal ways, the building shapes the community. Because God has created us as embodied creatures and not disembodied spirits, our material surroundings profoundly influence our spiritual lives. As we worship in a particular place over the years, its physical surroundings become part of who we are. I submit that if the same group of people were to worship for a period of years in a different church building, their corporate character would be different—not necessarily worse or better, but different. So, it’s a reciprocal relationship: the community shapes the building; and the building shapes the community.

 

Third, the old canard that “the church is the people, not the building” misses the most profound point of all: namely, that the Church is a mystery. It can’t be reduced to any particular building or any particular community. It’s greater than the sum of its parts. With Christ as head, it comprises all Christians who’ve ever lived and all those yet to be born. For the Church isn’t just a human institution, but a divine society, a supernatural organism.

 

Still, today’s liturgy celebrates the Universal Church’s physical embodiment in one particular place: this building. Here we encounter the basic incarnational principle of the Christian faith: just as the eternal Son of God came down from heaven and made himself present to us as the human being Jesus of Nazareth, so the invisible Church, the mystical Body of Christ, takes concrete expression not only in human communities and institutions, but also in material edifices such as cathedrals, churches, chapels, and shrines.

 

As embodied creatures, after all, our principal way of knowing the spiritual realm is sacramental. That is, we encounter the infinite in and through the finite, the invisible in and through the visible. An ancient text associated with today’s liturgy remarks that these visible buildings “are but the figures” of God’s true House of Prayer in heaven. Nonetheless, it’s precisely in and through these earthly figures that we catch glimpses of heaven itself.

 

So, a church building isn’t just a utilitarian meeting place, but a spiritual home to a living community of faith. A congregation without a church building is like a family without a dwelling—homeless: a condition of deprivation to be remedied at the first opportunity. 

 

Today, then, we give thanks for all the ways in which this church building has shaped our lives. We recommit ourselves to its care as a gift entrusted to us by those who’ve gone before us. We give thanks for the parish family that worships here and calls this place home. Above all, we rejoice in our membership in the Church Universal, of which this building stands as the visible symbol here, in this time and place.

PROPER 19, YEAR C

September 11, 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Exodus 32:1,7-14

Psalm 51:1-11

I Timothy 1:12-17

Luke 15:1-10

 

A key theme running through today’s readings is repentance. When we hear the word repentance, the first image that may come to mind is being sorry for our sins and resolving to sin no more. But in the biblical languages, the term’s original meaning is something more like to turn around or to change one’s mind.

 

For this reason, our Old Testament reading today is able to speak, somewhat surprisingly, of God repenting. God has no sins of which he needs to repent—otherwise he wouldn’t be God as our Judeo-Christian tradition understands him. But many stories in the Bible suggest that God is fully able to repent, in the sense of changing his mind and turning away from some course of action that he’d previously decided upon.

 

When the Israelites fashion a golden calf to worship in the wilderness while Moses is up on Mount Sinai, God’s initial reaction is to write them off completely and start over: “I have seen this people, and behold it is a stiff-necked people; now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; but of you I will make a great nation.”

 

But instead of just accepting God’s judgment and letting him get on with it, Moses intercedes on behalf of the people. (In this way, incidentally, Moses foreshadows Christ. Just as on the mountaintop Moses pleads with God to spare his people the condemnation they deserve on account of their apostasy and rebellion, so the risen and ascended Christ pleads before his Father’s throne in heaven to spare us the condemnation we deserve on account of our sins.)

 

And the truly remarkable twist in the story is that Moses actually succeeds in persuading God to change his mind. He does this by reminding God of his promises made to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to multiply their descendants and to give them a land for their inheritance. And so, the reading concludes, “the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people.”

 

This divine repentance teaches us something about God’s nature. First and foremost, he’s a God of mercy. The people have forsaken him by worshiping false gods, so he would be entirely justified to forsake them and let them die in the wilderness. But unlike a despotic king whose sentence of condemnation is irrevocable once uttered, God shows himself more than willing to change his mind and give his people another chance: and not just once, but again, and again, and again.

 

And this willingness on God’s part to change his mind opens up a whole new world of possibilities for us, allowing us to change our minds, turn around, and return to the Lord even when we’ve previously turned our backs on him. In short, because God is able to repent, we’re able to repent as well.

 

Psalm 51 expresses the joy of repentance. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. Wash me through and through from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin.” Notice that the Psalmist makes no attempt to plead his innocence or to offer excuses. “For indeed I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me … And so you are justified when you speak, and upright in your judgment.” Yet the Psalmist trusts God not only to forgive him by washing him clean from his sins, but also to give him a new heart so that he’ll no longer even want to sin: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” The “right spirit” of which he speaks is, of course, none other than the Holy Spirit. 

 

Today’s Collect makes a similar prayer for God’s gift of his Holy Spirit to reform us from within: “O God, forasmuch as without thee, we are not able to please thee: mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may direct and rule our hearts, through Jesus Christ our Lord …”

 

Occasionally, however, I talk with people who believe that their sins are so bad, and who are so wracked with guilt, that they’re convinced that God could not possibly forgive them. That might indeed be true if, somehow, we had to earn or merit God’s forgiveness on our own. But the heart of the Christian Gospel is the reassurance that by the merits of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, no sin is beyond forgiveness, no sinner beyond redemption.

 

More than that, in today’s Epistle reading Saint Paul expresses the wonderful paradox that God sometimes calls the worst sinners to be the chosen instruments of his saving purposes. All his life, Paul was acutely conscious that before he became the Apostle to the Gentiles, he’d been the persecutor of the Church, who’d even aided and abetted the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. So, Paul writes to his youthful protégé Timothy: “though I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted [Christ] … I received mercy … and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”  So, even though he was the foremost of sinners—or even because he was the foremost of sinners—he received mercy so that “Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”

 

In the same reading, Paul writes: “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” And today’s Gospel rounds out this picture by describing the amazing lengths to which God goes to find those who’ve become lost, and to rescue those who’ve strayed from the right path.

 

When the scribes and Pharisees complain that Jesus is associating with all the wrong people, even breaking bread with notorious sinners, Jesus tells the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. His point is precisely that he’s come to seek and save the lost. Just as a shepherd rejoices at recovering one lost sheep out of a hundred, or a woman rejoices over finding one lost coin out of ten, so the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents. 

 

In other words, there’s nothing grudging or resentful about God’s forgiveness. No matter how far we’ve strayed, we’re always welcome back: with no reproach, no recrimination, no humiliation, no dishonor, no shame—only eternal celebration. Such is the infinite depth of God’s love and mercy that he runs to embrace us joyfully with open arms whenever we repent and return to him.

 

PROPER 18, YEAR C

September 4, 2022

(Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.)

 

Luke 14:25-33

 

Today’s Gospel captures a basic paradox of the Christian life. On one hand, we have the popular appeal of our Lord’s ministry: “Great multitudes accompanied Jesus.” But then follow some hard sayings that appear to restrict discipleship to a committed and faithful few willing to make difficult sacrifices: “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” So, let’s look at both sides of this equation.

 

“Great multitudes accompanied Jesus.” We must not gloss over this initial statement. Our Lord was no elitist, either socially or spiritually. He did not seek out only the learned, the holy, the rich, or the powerful as worthy of his attention; quite the opposite. He went into the towns and villages, and he preached, taught, and performed miracles amongst the common people. He broke bread with tax collectors and sinners. In today’s jargon, Jesus was open and inclusive. He welcomed everybody. And if we measure success by numbers, he was quite successful. Great multitudes followed him. At the outset, at least, he appeared as the leader of a mass movement.

 

But then come the hard sayings in which Jesus emphasizes how difficult it is to follow him. Stop and count the cost. Take warning from the builder who proves unable to finish his tower, or the general who raises an army but then is forced to seek peace terms from a superior enemy. Are you sure you’re up to this? To follow me, you must hate your mother, father, spouse, children, brothers and sisters. To be my disciple you must take up your cross and follow me. Here the all-inclusive Jesus seems to have become the rigorously exclusive Jesus, who demands that his followers be willing to give up everything, even life itself, for his sake.

 

So, we have two contrasting images of our Lord: the inclusive Jesus and the rigorist Jesus. My point is simply that we can never finally reduce our Lord to one or the other of these opposites. When we describe Jesus as the one who loves, welcomes, and accepts us just as we are, we speak the truth—but we must always remember at the same time his radical and uncompromising demands of us. 

 

Conversely, when we describe Jesus as the one who requires complete self-renunciation and total self-sacrifice, we also speak the truth—but we must always remember at the same time the unconditional love he extends to all. Both halves of the picture are true, and neither is complete without the other. To emphasize either half to the exclusion of the other is to distort the full picture and misrepresent the whole truth.

 

This paradox extends to our life together in the Church. On one hand, the Church is called to be an inclusive community where all without exception find welcome and acceptance. Following Our Lord’s example, we do our best to minister to the needs of all people. And if great multitudes choose to accompany us, as they accompanied him, we rejoice.

 

But on the other hand, we cannot water down our beliefs, convictions, or practices. So, the Church is also called to be a community that challenges us to total commitment and heroic self-sacrifice. G. K. Chesterton once said that Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it’s been tried and found difficult, and therefore left largely untried. Being a practicing Christian is not always easy. And not everyone is up to the challenge.

 

So, here again, we have two contrasting pictures of the Church: the all-inclusive Church and the rigorously exclusive Church; the Church of the Multitudes and the Church of the Faithful Few. 

 

Again, both descriptions are true, but neither is complete without the other. A Church where all are welcome and anything goes soon ceases to be the Church, becoming instead a mere reflection of the surrounding society: what is sometimes called cultural Christianity. Such an institution may provide with some comfort, fellowship, and good cheer, but it lacks the power to transform our lives. 

At some times in its history, the Church has veered too far in this direction, becoming apathetic, lax, and worldly. One need only think of large segments of the Renaissance Church under the Medici and Borgia Popes, or of the establishment Church of England during the eighteenth century: which has been caricatured (perhaps only a bit unfairly) as a Church of “fox-hunting parsons and absentee bishops.”

 

By contrast, a Church that excludes all but the small spiritual elite who can meet the demands of total commitment also soon ceases to be the Church and becomes instead what sociologists call a sect or even a cult—a holy huddle made up of narrow minded, judgmental, and often unattractive people. And in some times and places, the Church has also gone too far in that direction, becoming puritanical, intolerant, and tyrannical. We need only think of Savonarola’s Florence, Calvin’s Geneva, or (closer to where I live) the early Massachusetts Bay Colony.

 

So, the paradox is that to be the Church, the Church must be both inclusive and rigorist. The challenge is not to find some midpoint halfway between these two endpoints—for that would produce only a dull mediocrity—but rather, at one and the same time, to fully express and embody both ideals: to be simultaneously the Church of the Multitudes and the Church of the Faithful Few; the Church where all are welcomed and accepted, and yet the Church where all are invited and challenged to follow Jesus in the way of the cross.

 

We need to hold on to both ideals as we think, pray, and deliberate about what kind of parish God is calling Christ Church to be. On one hand: an inclusive community where all without exception are welcome, accepted, valued, and loved. On the other hand: a challenging community where all have the opportunity to grow in obedience to God’s laws and in fidelity to the Christian life’s practices and spiritual disciplines. 

 

It’s true that God loves and accepts us all just as we are. But it’s also true that God calls us to keep on growing in the ways of Christian discipleship: and sometimes that growth can entail difficult, costly, and painful sacrifices, although in the end it always turns out to be more than worthwhile. Crucifixion leads to Resurrection. Sorrow is transformed into joy; death becomes the doorway to eternal life. 

 

In the past several decades, sociologists of religion have identified another paradox: namely, that the churches experiencing the greatest numerical growth are often the very churches that ask the most of their members, rather than those that ask the least. So again, the question before us is how we can make Christ Church more and more a community that welcomes everyone without exception—while at the same time challenging us all to respond to God’s call to continual growth in faithful discipleship.