Sermon: Follow The Yellow Brick Road

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Follow The Yellow Brick Road: Dedicating the New Building

By Charles Rush

September 14, 2003

day, we are living in fulfilled time, the end of expectant waiting that we usually lift up during the season of Advent, waiting for the coming of the Christ Child into the world.

On September 9th, 2001 we broke ground in front of our Christian education building. Two days later the World Trade Towers were attacked, along with the Pentagon, and the warm memory of that beginning receded into deep history. It seemed that our whole world was covered in dust and shortly after that, the demolition crew came to Christ Church, slammed out all our old offices, and our world was filled with dust too.

For the next two years, we put something up. After those two big pillars of our world came down, it has been wonderfully cathartic to put something up around us, something spiritual at that.

And I've been waiting, dreaming. I've had this vision of me sitting at a nice desk, in an office with bookcases. I'm walking around, choosing volumes off the shelf, perusing the literature, thinking deep thoughts, and writing something important. This, all the while, as my books have been boxed, my files in the garage, and my desk strewn with papers like a mechanics work station. Reportedly, the boys are beginning work on those bookshelves tomorrow, two years later. I can't wait.

Real expectant waiting is far more profound still. Last spring, I had the opportunity to go through a simple but important ritual, many of you have already been through. I was at my daughter's graduation from college. We met all of her friends and sorority sisters. They were all so grown up and interesting and polite. We met some of her professors. All the faculty was arrayed in their academic plumage, and my what fine plumage it is. Banners preceded them, Episcopal priests followed. The Chapel was packed with men in bow ties and women with hats. Passages were recited in Latin. A fine oration was delivered. As the diplomas were being handed out, my mind wandered back down memory lane. I remembered lying in bed with this child as a baby. Watching Bruce Springsteen with her on Sesame Street singing “Baby, we were born to Read”. I remember bringing a change of underwear to Kindergarten after an accident. Taking her to camp the first time, at the beach with her friends down the way because we weren't cool enough to be near them, the police, dropping her off at college. I remembered all these things and I'm watching her walking up to get her diploma, so poised and pretty and interesting. I leaned over to my wife and I said, ‘We did a good job'. I was just grateful to have lived to see this and gotten to this place. You wait, you wait, and then one day, you are really there. One chapter closes and another one opens. It is very moving.

Speaking of that new chapter, I have her resume and I'd be glad to circulate it during coffee hour…

Our text this morning, one of my favorites, reminds us of both these elements. Abraham is in his retirement phase of life. He thinks his best work is behind him and he is content to ride out his remaining years in quiet peace, when God summons him to the greatest adventure of this life. That is the starting out part. And at some point on this adventure, he senses that he is actually in the place that God wants him to get to, that this is the fulfillment, so he builds an altar, a permanent dedication, not forever permanent, but substantial. That is the dedication part.

It is a profound insight about our spiritual lives. As Saint Augustine once said, “Inititium ut esset, homo creatus est.” That a new beginning be made, for that we were created. And this comes to us many times in our lives, sometimes after we think we are already retired and ready to just ride it out.

I think of the moving story of the Pilgrims and the simple words that were penned in the Mayflower Compact. Most of them at mid-life, desperately wanting to just stay settled and live out their lives in peace. But they came to a point, where they realized that they and their children would be subject to relentless persecution for their religion if they stayed in England, and they left it all behind, banded together and made a pact together, come what may for support and God's guidance, and they sailed out into the wilderness. They started over, literally from scratch. They set a new direction for their children and their grandchildren.

And that is the critical thing, the new direction because nothing stays fixed in our world, nothing is permanent. This summer I was visiting a cave complex where 50,000 years ago Neanderthal people and Cro Magnon people lived side by side. One of the archeologists that I was with was describing the terrain and explained to us that a million years ago this whole area was under water and the top of the mountain where we were standing was an island, which explained the layer of shells in the soil. I turned to the other guys I was with and said, “In light of the ever changing topography of the region, perhaps we should consider leasing.” In the broadest sense, it is all leased. Our tenure on this earth is short, very short. And nothing stays fixed when you think in terms of centuries or millennia. But it is very important the direction that we set for our children and our grandchildren.

In the last 2000 years, how much truer that is with Churches. Unlike other real estate, Churches tend to stay around for centuries, not decades. For that reason alone, when you undertake a major renovation project, it is not wise to do it half-way or half-hearted. In the past two summers, I was fortunately able to spend quite a lot of time in Europe and visit lots of villages in a number of different countries where the Church is still the central building. Even relatively modest churches can nevertheless be quite moving if they are given artistic attention. Conversely, ugly plus old only adds up to old ugly. By the way, Americans do not have a corner on the market for ugly church architecture, particularly in the new churches.

One thing becomes clear pretty fast and that is material. Wood only lasts several centuries under the best of circumstances. Brick only a couple centuries more. The only material that really stands the test of time is stone. So when we had the opportunity to renovate here, we chose stone.

And, we also took to heart, the ethic in the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm”. So, to unburden the next generation, we removed all the asbestos, all of the oil tanks, made the new building out of non-flamable materials, brought it up to fire code, and made it handicapped accessible. And it wasn't easy. In 1963, the previous generation built Barnwell hall for $350,000. We spent over $200,000 taking hazardous materials out of the building in the demolition phase alone. But, we have a letter from the E.P.A. saying that we are free and clear of all envoirnmental problems. I got that letter, made a dozen copies, sent them right over to our lawyer, Cary Hardy to file prominently.

More than that, we hoped to be able to inspire the next generation, even as we have been inspired. All of us have been given this beautiful sanctuary to worship in. In particular, we were given these beautiful stain-glassed windows which can no longer be produced with this quality, the wonderful rosetta window, and an organ. Week in week out, we take advantage of these wonderful gifts to us. And we wanted to give the next generation a wonderful gift in gratitude for what a previous generation did for us.

The design for the building actually comes from a 14th century town in the South of France. The bronzed aluminum windows in the original town were made of wood to allow soldiers to pass back and forth from the towers. We replaced the wood with the best product available at the moment and windows that have filters to limit the heat intake and brightness in the summer. On the outside, we continued the theme of Celtic Christians symbols, replicating the Celtic cross that is on the top of the sanctuary outside in the middle tower in the new building.

We also in laid another Celtic Christian item, a labyrinth, the pattern we took from the Cathedral at Amiens and put it on the floor in the new atrium. And we tried to facilitate a flow from inside to outside with the Atrium itself, putting in a large slate patio our front and more stone leading to the memorial garden out back, thinking of those wonderful days in the fall and spring when families can gather after worship and share fellowship.

We expanded our social hall, added a new kitchen, put in a stage that will eventually have lights and sound, added an art room because our children's education program always has art as a component. We added a computer room because our children's education has interactive computer programs regularly. We added a small video room because we regularly use video as well. I might add that our children often bake in the kitchen because our education tries to engage multi-dimensional learning, left and right brain activity.

We had hoped to have a free-standing arch out front. One day we will put it in but for now we are out of cash. And we put an inscription on the front of the building, carved in stone. Personally that was one of the most challenging parts of the job, knowing that it will be read by generations to come. What would you have generations to read? I was commissioned to study all such inscriptions when I was on sabbatical in Europe. And it was surprising. What I found is that vast majority of inscriptions are dedications to fallen dead in War. At the end of the summer we were back to square one. Church has tried the guilt approach to religion for the past 1000 years and my sense is that it hasn't worked too well. So we thought we would try the positive approach going forward. So we took the inscription from the end of Paul's letter to the Phillipians, shortened it a bit, and had Immanuel Kant edit some of St. Paul's language. Kant had a wonderful summary of the role of philosophy that stuck with me ever since I had to read his three critiques in college. He said that philosophy was the quest for the True (epistemology) the Good (morality) and the Beautiful (aesthetics). I like the roundedness of it. So for our inscription, we chose “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable (moral), whatever is beautiful, anything worthy of praise, think on these things”. My hope for the rising generation is that they will be rounded.

But the Church is not just a building, it is the community of people. I said last week that our principal job as parents is to infuse our children with substantial values and that is what we do here at church. One of our members made this project one of his principal charitable contributions for this period of time and I asked him why. He said, ‘because here we are developing leadership in the rising generation and that has radial effects on our world.

I believe that. That is what we are really about, developing tomorrow's leaders with rounded values to make our world more godly in the broad and good sense of godly. We are helped enormously by our schools and other institutions that reinforce these values. I like Franklin elementary school's motto ‘Character counts' because it does. But the schools can only go so far as secular institutions and our kids need more.

Judge Roy Moore, the notorious Supreme Court justice in Alabama who put the Ten Commandments in the entrance hall of the Court house was right when he said that good law needs grounding in solid morality. The only problem was that he neglected to mention the fact that only two of the 10 commandments are actually law in the United States- Thou shalt not murder, nor steal. The other 8 legal because they are religious strictures. It is not a good spiritual idea to covet your neighbors wife, but it is not against the law. It is not a good idea to take the Lord's name in vain but several of the fathers gathered here today will do it later this afternoon on the sidelines of a soccer match.

Great leadership needs moral values that are spiritually grounded. And the place for that is the Church, Synagogue, the Mosque, the Temple. We can go deeper and reinforce these morals in ways that we cannot in other settings. So our commitment is really to the leaders of tomorrow and that is important.

Finally, one of the most important things we learned together through this building project is that Church is important to you. We are a liberal congregation. We don't ask people to make a commitment to a creed. We don't have many rules. As a result, you don't really know where you stand most of the time.

But you can get a pretty quick idea when people pull out their check books and we had no idea what to expect on this project. All told, we raised right at $30,000/per family to build the building. Even if you take out the top pledges that make that figure what it is, we still averaged $10,000/family, over and above their annual pledge.

People knew that we were headed into a recession. We couldn't know that it would be helped along with the tragedy of September 11th. But we knew that it would hurt and it has. But through it all, the financial people tell me that, by and large, everyone is on track with meeting their pledge.

Let me just say that I am grateful and for all of the staff that it is a privilege to serve this congregation. I'm proud of you, which isn't to say I won't ask you for any more money, I probably will. I've learned from you how to invest money in things that are worthwhile and not just collect more stuff than you really need. And you are living proof that you can be open-minded, critical, have some fun, and become people with spiritual substance as well. As a minister, what a relief.

So, here goes, we start off on a new journey. As the good witch said to Dorothy, ‘just follow the yellow brick road'. It is not given us to know the actual destination towards which we are headed, nor what challenges that our children shall meet in the rising generations to follow after us. But we do know how. Critically appropriating the best from our tradition, building one another up with encouragement, love, and support, wrestling with the critical issues that are facing our world, let us together discern where the Spirit is taking us in the future. And may the next generation get it better. May we be privileged to see in our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren something of the true, the good and the beautiful.

Amen.