The bishop entered the nave and made his way down the
side aisle. He was dressed in
rotchet and chimere, crosier in hand.
The front pews were full of children and their parents gathered for the
start of Sunday School to meet this day’s special guest. As he approached the young
congregation, the bishop said loudly, “I am looking for the church. Has anyone seen the church?” At first the children did not know what
to make of this strangely attired person or his odd inquiry. Again the bishop said, “I am looking
for the church. Has anyone seen
the church?” With this second
prompting, a brave young soul spoke up, “You are in the church.” “No,” the bishop said, who was now
standing in front of the children and holding his hand to his brow as if to
shield the sun from his eyes as he scanned to and fro, “I’m in a building, but
I’m looking for the church. Has
anyone seen it?” By now the
children were whipped up into a perplexed frenzy. “You are standing in the church,” they screamed over and
over. That is when the bishop said
to the children very clearly, “The church is not a building. The church is a group of people. You are the church and I am looking for
you.”
He was right, of course. The church is not a building, it is the people. If some one asks you “Where is your
church?” the appropriate answer might be to say, “Well, a little bit of it is
right here with me, but my whole church gathers at St. Paul’s every Sunday
morning and at various times throughout the week.” Think about it: you can worship in an edifice that is
derelict and drab, but still be part of a vital, dynamic church. Conversely, people can congregate in a
magnificent cathedral adorned with inspirational treasures of art and yet the
church can be on its last gasp.
Church as people and church as building are linked, to be sure, but they
are not one in the same thing.
In today’s Gospel reading we hear of a time when
Jesus is walking out of the Jerusalem temple with his disciples. Far and away it was the most impressive
structure they would see in their life time. It was enormous.
It was elaborate. It was
inspiring. Taking it all in, one
disciple must have imagined that the temple would exist forever and said so:
“Look at the size of these stones.”
Jesus’ response is quick and cutting: “Not one stone will be left upon
another. All will be thrown down.”
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written
in and around the time when the Roman army destroyed the Jerusalem temple in 70
A.D. after nationalists had occupied the city for four years. Titus, who would eventually become the
emperor, led an military siege of the holy city and when it succeed his forces
saw to the complete demolition of the temple. The Jewish people where trying to make sense of what
religion would look like in a post-temple era. Christians, who at the time were a small subset within the
Hebrew tradition, were especially keen to remember Jesus’ teachings that might
help them make sense of this new world.
For weeks now our New Testament readings have been
taken from the Letter to the Hebrews.
Throughout the document the author has dealt with various temple functions
– important aspects of the religious tradition that could not happen after the
temple was in ruins – and describes how Jesus fulfills those functions once and
for all. In today’s reading, for
example, the author describes how the temple’s work as a place for offering
sacrifices to achieve the forgiveness of sins – something that was on-going
each and every day – has been completed once and for all through Jesus’
offering of himself.
The author then points the readers of the time to
what religion in a post-temple era should look like:
· Have
confidence that in Christ you are acceptable to God.
· Hold
on to this hope without wavering.
· Encourage
each other to demonstrate love and to do good deeds.
· Meet
together on a regular basis.
Not one stone was left on top of another, but,
because the church is not a building, the church continued.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not anti-building. The space where the church gathers forms and shapes the
people in important ways. The
building we call St. Paul’s Church is a legacy from our ancestors and the place
where we gather together to encounter God. It is from here that minister to one another and to the
community. We hold this building
as our shared responsibility to preserve for the future. But while the building and the church
exist in relationship to one another, they are not one in the same… as the
bishop reminded those children.
The building exists to serve various functions. The church as people exists because
Jesus Christ calls it into being.
This point was sharply driven home to me years ago
not long after I graduated from Virginia Seminary. Now, I love VTS and my time there was powerful and
formative. Once ordained and back
in the Diocese of Ohio I worked to create an alumni reunion event to be attended
by the seminary’s development officer.
A couple dozen people attended the lunch and (as they say) a good time
was had by all. The development
officer gave a short speech to bring everyone up to date on school
happenings. I will never forget
what he said:
“Right now God is seeing fit to use the Virginia
Theological Seminary in certain ways.
There will come a time however when God will not need to use the
seminary and it will exist no longer; certainly by the second coming, if not
well before.”
A time when the seminary won’t exist? What kind of heresy is this, I
thought. But as I considered the
matter a little more, I realized I was the playing the role of the disciple
admiring the large stones and he playing the role of Jesus reminding me that
institutions don’t remain standing forever. It is the church as God’s people that endures for all time
and beyond.
Many are suggesting that the church now exists in a
time similar to when the temple was under siege. Change is in the air and it is hard to know what religious
life will look like in the coming years.
This much is clear: the fastest growing religious group in America is
‘none’ – people who identify themselves as having no church or religious
affiliation. All Christian
denominations across the board are experiencing declining membership and
attendance; thus our institutions are charged with anxiety about the future and
grief around our diminishing standing in today’s society.
Jesus’ word to us this morning is shocking before it
is comforting: the church is not the stones of the building nor is it the
structure of an institution. The
church is the people and thus the church will endure. The reason the church will endure is because God wants to be
in relationship with us. Thus,
there will always be those who are gathered around Jesus Christ, who is the
head of the Church. That gathering
may look very similar to how we are gathered this morning, or it may look very
different, but those gathered, in whatever form or fashion it takes, will be
the church.
If our time is similar to the period when the temple
was destroyed then the counsel of the author of the Letter to the Hebrews takes
on even more significance:
· Have
confidence that in Christ you are acceptable to God.
· Hold
on to this hope without wavering.
· Encourage
each other to demonstrate love and to do good deeds
· Meet
together on a regular basis.
