Sermon: Rebuilding the Walls

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Rebuilding the Walls

By Rev Charles Rush

September 9, 2001

hool is back in session, committees are meeting again, family schedules resemble air traffic control pattern vectors. Time moves faster. A couple days ago, I was getting in the shower at 5:30 a.m., not really ready for this, so I put the CD in of the Rolling Stones with “Start Me Up”. I punched the button, turned on the water, my mind went back to sleep in that nether land between dreaming and consciousness. I didn't hear Mick Jagger. Instead, I got Bing Crosby singing, “I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas”- a CD of Christmas music, very soothing. I was completely absorbed. My heart stopped and I said out loud, “have you got Kate a present yet?” Almost immediately, I gasped, “Where are we going to have the Advent Workshop?” I was wide awake. Remembering that the water was cold because the air was hot. “It is only Labor Day”, I thought. “Manana”. If you, too, are feeling a little anxiety about the hyper “to do list” time of the year impending, I beam you out the last rays of peace from the summer's end.

Unfortunately, our text this morning has a tragic and timely ring to it. With the spiraling cycle of violence in Israel, these words could have literally been written this month. “Jerusalem lies in ruins; your gates destroyed by fire.” Over 100 Israeli citizens have been killed by terrorist bombs in the past few months and scores of Palestinian citizens injured or killed in retaliation. The swirling vortex of violence appears to be dragging everything in its grasp down the toilet. I think it is important to remember, on this day, that we have been privileged and blessed to build out of our abundance, not out of tragic necessity, so often the motivation in human history.

I went to Italy this summer. I looked at a lot of churches, prayed at a number of altars. This time, I spent more time reading the inscriptions. Not surprisingly, I was wondering what motivated these people to give the money to build these beautiful chapels, adorned with marble altars and altar screens painted by the likes of Raphael and Titian?

On the positive side, they built those altars because they were religious folks. They had an immediate sense that their personal life was fleeting in the face of eternity, that religion preceded and outlived them and that the religious life was what was fundamentally real. Positively, spirituality and religion were simply much more central in their lives, in large part because they were not cluttered with all of the sophistication of the modern world yet. One time a friend was walking with the great 20th century poet, Heinrich Heine. They were standing in front of the towering cathedral at Chartres. The friend said, “Heinrich, how come we can't build cathedrals like that anymore?”

Heine said, “because back then they had convictions. Today people only have opinions.” And there is a lot of truth to that. Religion was important to people then in a fundamental way that has eroded since the Enlightenment.

But I noticed some other reasons to build as well.

Unquestionably, the most popular reason, was to commemorate the end of a plague. Even in the 16th century, when the Renaissance was fully underway, it is hard for us to fathom just how many people died by plague. Grateful people who had lived through difficult times that killed their loved ones, built altars and chapels to honor some saint they believe intervened to save their city from even greater devastation. You can read between the lines of some of these inscriptions and detect a plaintive cry to the Almighty even. “Please take this altar and give us a break from ignominious suffering.”

The second most popular reason was victory in battle. Sometimes this had to do with imperialistic conquest but most of the time it was gratitude for a defense secured when the city had been under siege and survived. Indeed, almost every church has somewhere, however tucked away it might be today, an altar with a knight in armor, pretty much like our War Memorials for World War II. Many of these altars have been mitigated or moved because present day sensibilities do not want to glorify war. I can only say that after reading an account this summer of a three day rape and pillage session written by the citizens of a vanquished city in the 1400's, you can appreciate the gratitude of being spared such an ordeal.

I think it is important on a day like this to pause and give grateful thanks. Compared to earlier eras, we have an incredible health care system. We live in an age of peace and prosperity. We are able to live out of our abundance.

And the third most popular reason, almost completely lost on us today, was good old civic pride that often manifested itself as architectural osentation. I'm thinking of the Dome over the Duomo in Florence, built by the great Architect and Engineer Brunelesci. At the time it was built it was the largest in the world, so commissioned by the Elders of Florence because, in their words, “it befits a city of our stature.” In American parlance, “it has never been done but we are going to do it because we can… so there”.

I say that this is almost lost on us because they had an advantage then, we no longer have, they could tax people to raise money to build churches.

It was humbling too for this parish Minister. You go to these churches. Everyone knows the architect 500 years later. Everyone knows the artists and sculptors. Most of the time, we remember the great benefactors. But nobody… nobody recalls remembers the priest at the time. Sic transit Gloria.

I saw Dave Graepel and Dennis Bushe, two of our leaders in the Barnwell renovation project, in Italy just after being in Florence. I told them I'd been visiting churches. I pulled out a wad of papers from my back pocket and said, “The Barnwell plans… They are all off… I'm thinking brass doors to start with.” They were not amused.

Standing in the Duomo in Florence at the top of the morning, with very few people in it at the time. It is so tall and you feel so small in it's presence. Thinking of how many different people had passed through it's doors in the past five hundred years, how many great thinkers had been sheltered in its walls, I was reminded of just how deep buildings are in the imagination of the West.

One of the very oldest Epics we have- from the ancient civilization of Sumer- records the Western feeling about building. It is called the Gilgamesh epic, its roots are about 5000 years old. The protagonist in the story tries to attain immortality but he cannot. So he goes back to the Capital city. On the city walls, he has the sculptors inscribe the feats of his life and other great deeds that have been done. And he turns to the rest of the city, all of it's magnificent buildings and he says ‘this is my legacy. Herein lies my immortality.' And ever after, books and buildings (history and civilization) have been the hallmark of the way Westerner's leave a legacy. So now we leave a legacy, in our own very small way.

As we do, I have two hopes for us, one retrospective, the other prospective. The retrospective hope has to do with roots. This summer, I went looking for a 300 year old Etruscan temple but I couldn't find it. So I went into a 12th century church and I asked a woman there where it was. She led me downstairs to the basement. There, in the basement, were the foundations of the Etruscan temple from about 300 b.c A thousand years later, some Christians built another church right on top of this old pagan temple. later. I cannot say why for sure, but I bet you anything that once a holy place, always a holy place. Religious doctrine may come and go, but the sacred space for the community at prayer has an enduring power.

My hope, looking to the past, is that we remember our roots in the best sense of memory. Our sanctuary is a sacred space too and it has been made sacred by so many people that have gone before us, gathered here in prayer, pulled together in love. As I've said before, we have all been blest to enjoy a beautiful sanctuary, built by an earlier generation for our benefit. I hope we invest what was best about the tradition that we inherited, the great ideals of Liberal Protestantism- their concern to live out our faith socially, their commitment to being ecumenical and developing an inclusive rather than an exclusive faith, their courage to integrate faith in a changing scientific worldview. I got a note last year, a note of thanks, and this is what it said, “You showed me that it was okay to be a Christian, at least a thinking Christian.” I thought at the time, you could probably frame that and put it on my tombstone. I hope that in the future more people will come through this place able to recover what is best about our Christian tradition- and there is quite a lot of stuff that is worth recovering.

It is a day for us to say thanks for all those who went before us, who got us to this place, and showed us how to do service, how to do worship, how to do community. I assume that they are present with us rooting us on. I can't help thinking on a day like this of Emma Ridings sitting over in that Christian Education building registering a new generation of kids for Sunday School. She is pulling for us today. Isabelle Devenney, she is smiling. Jim O'Brien, Bob Bland, Bob Fisk, Emma York, Dave Barnwell-so many people that have gone before us that made Christ Church what it is. They are all blessing us.

I recall the words of Hebrews, chapter 12, when Paul says, “seeing as how you are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” We, too, are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, even though they have passed on, that are rooting for us. We can live out the best we have learned from them. I hope we draw on the strength of our past.

And a prospective hope that must necessarily be open ended because we can only see the future through a glass dimly as St. Paul used to say. I found a corner stone with an inset plaque on it in a little church, located in a very small town in Italy, whose name I can't even recall. It was not a big showy Church in the middle of the action of some bustling metropolis. It was an ordinary church built by some ordinary people with hopeful aspirations. Translated, the inscription said something like this: “That what we start this day might find it's fulfillment in the generations to come and that they might be edified.” I think that is a hope we can live with.

And I like the open-endedness of it because you never know, something great might come from a humble beginning if it has spiritual integrity. It reminded me of another simple beginning with a sense of destiny about it. John Winthrop, in 1630, off the coast of Massachussetts, speaking to his little band of Pilgrims, embarked on a new experiment in political and religious freedom, spoke of the life that they would have in a land they had never seen. They were simple but momentous words: “We shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world” (A Model to Christian Charity). Whether you put it positively, like the cornerstone on the little church, or negatively, as Rev. Winthrop did, the point is that small beginnings with spiritual and moral integrity can blossom into movements the scope and breadth of which you could never have imagined. It was Jesus who said that faith is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all the seeds that grows into this huge plant. Who woulda thunk.

I hope we keep our focus on the integrity piece. The Church, on it's best days, is the bearer of values that make for spiritual wholeness and profound living. This is the place where we keep those values alive and we make them available for the next generation, to learn about, to try to live together, to grow together. I am absolutely convinced of the importance of having places where we can nurture and develop spiritual values in the next generation of leadership. I'm convinced it is critical and there is no one doing it any better than the Church today, for better and worse. We are forming the character of the rising generation and trying to embody those values and live them with each other. A lot of us here grew up in Churches that were boring, that were rule bound. We are here today to say, we can do better, much better than the past. Some of us grew up in families that had no religious life or very shallow spiritual roots and we know first hand what it means to live a spiritually anemic life. And we are here to say, we can do better, much better. But values don't happen automatically. They have to be given a structure, they are taught through education, and that has to be organized.

Someone asked me recently why Florence flourished with so many painters in the 1400's and the 1500's and why not today? Part of the answer, of course, lies in our cultural values. This summer, we all read about the father in the Bronx that lied about his son's age so that he could play in the World Series of Little League baseball. Can you imagine a father today lying about their son's age, so they could get into Art school?

In the Renaissance, it is fairly safe to say that every Italian boy couldn't wait to pick up either a sword or a paint-brush. Today, if you follow the trail of fame and money, kids want to be either Basketball players, Rock stars or Actors. They reflect our cultural commitments, for better and worse.

Values don't just arise spontaneously and no movement is sustained without some kind of structure. In Renaissance Florence, Coisimo d'Medici and a number of other patrons built an art school. Donatello, Michaelangelo, Lenardo D'Vinci, Raphael, all of them spent some time at the school. The cultural values that inspired great painters didn't just happen spontaneously. There had to be a school, a workshop where skills were developed, ideas were exchanged, and humane values were nurtured.

Perhaps, it is important to remember just now that those ideas ran against the culture at the time. It was a very small movement against the tied that gradually found acceptance, and 500 years later people say a whole new generation of leadership, a whole new movement was born right out of that one little area in Tuscany that spread to all of Europe, the West, and the world over.

Who can say what leaders will develop here? But I do know this, the challenges for the next generation will need some mature spiritual values to address them.

We are going to need scientists filled with mature spiritual values if we are explore stem cell research and genetic engineering in ways that heal and make us humane rather than manipulate, exploit, and degrade our humanity.

We are going to need politicians filled with mature spiritual values if we are to find ways to move beyond violent conflict and terrorism and seek a way to realize the higher reasons for which we live: in Jerusalem, in the Balkans, in India and Pakistan, in the Sudan and throughout Africa, in the Caucuses, and even, as we were reminded this week with our neighbors in Mexico.

We are going to need businessmen with mature spiritual values if we are to find ways to promote global capitalization that encourage stable growth and self-development for all parts of the world rather than anarchic, short-term profit schemes that leave in their trail the human detritus of economic disaster.

We are going to need Information Technology people with mature spiritual values if we are to find ways to use our considerable technical prowess in the Information Age to enhance humane exchange rather than invade our private space in the pursuit of market data and mere prurient interest.

We are going to need physicians with mature spiritual values if we are to find ways to harness our unprecedented medical skill to develop a system that can deliver health care to all people with dignity rather than create a two-tiered behemoth- one for the haves, the other for the have not's- that treats health as a mere commodity.

We are going to need social workers with mature spiritual values if we are to find ways to speak candidly and humanely about our sex lives and our social mores if we are to grow from the deadly disease of AID's rather than allow another plague to swamp us.

The spiritual challenges are considerable. For in all the different dimensions of our lives together, we can see that fundamentally, there is a spiritual root that has to be addressed if the political, economic, scientific, and social ideas are to be effective. You have to get to the spiritual foundation.

So let us pledge ourselves this day to not just a new building, but a new generation of leaders, to the promotion of people with spiritual substance. May they say of our children and our grandchildren, they were part of the solution, not just part of the problem.

Brothers and sisters, this is a small beginning but who knows what may come of it? Stranger things have happened. As we start out, let us remember the words of Reinhold Niebuhr “Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we must be saved by love.”

Amen.