tim's blog http://www.chapelsjd.org/blog/4/atom/feed 2007-07-27T14:41:18-05:00 Chapel Builders - A Sermon on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, 2008 http://www.chapelsjd.org/chapel-builders-sermon-fourth-sunday-easter-2008 2008-07-10T11:11:18-05:00 2008-07-10T11:11:18-05:00 tim 1 Peter 2:2-10

There’s a poem by John Ormond called “Cathedral Builders.” It's been running around in my head as construction of the Chapel nears completion:

They climbed on sketchy ladders towards God,
With wince and pulley hoisted hewn rock into heaven,
Inhabited sky with hammers, defied gravity,
Deified stone, took up God's house to meet Him.

It could just as well be called “Chapel Builders.”

They climbed on sketchy ladders towards God,
With wince and pulley hoisted hewn rock into heaven,
Inhabited sky with hammers, defied gravity,
Deified stone, took up God's house to meet Him.

One of the graceful things about the building rising next door is the pride the workmen are taking in it, and their care in workmanship. One of them told me, “I tell all my buddies to come around and take a look at what we’re doing because it’s like we’re building a cathedral.”

]]> 1 Peter 2:2-10

There’s a poem by John Ormond called “Cathedral Builders.” It's been running around in my head as construction of the Chapel nears completion:

They climbed on sketchy ladders towards God,
With wince and pulley hoisted hewn rock into heaven,
Inhabited sky with hammers, defied gravity,
Deified stone, took up God's house to meet Him.

It could just as well be called “Chapel Builders.”

They climbed on sketchy ladders towards God,
With wince and pulley hoisted hewn rock into heaven,
Inhabited sky with hammers, defied gravity,
Deified stone, took up God's house to meet Him.

One of the graceful things about the building rising next door is the pride the workmen are taking in it, and their care in workmanship. One of them told me, “I tell all my buddies to come around and take a look at what we’re doing because it’s like we’re building a cathedral.”
…hoisting hewn rock into heaven, defying gravity, deifying stone, taking God’s house up to meet Him.

You’ve got to have the stone, of course. That was one of the things that held things up, getting the stone here from the quarries. You’ve got to have the stone, good stone. The builders will soon be finished and will turn their work over to us. The Chapel will be built, but not necessarily alive. That will be our work.

“Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

Today’s reading from the First Epistle of Peter shows the early church struggling to make sense of Jesus’ rejection and death, and of the continuing rejection of their conviction that the crucified one is the Messiah. They were people who knew their Bible, and they scoured it for passages that might help them interpret what had happened and what was going on. They found in Psalm 118: “The same stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” (22-23)

And they found in the Prophet Isaiah: “See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: ‘One who trusts will not panic.’ And I will make justice the line and righteousness the plummet.” (28:16)

Seen in the light of their own experience and conviction, things began to come together, make sense. So we have in 1 Peter: “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture: ‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’ To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner.’

The stone imagery finds voice in some of our most magnificent hymns: “Christ is made the sure foundation, Christ the head and cornerstone…” “Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God…on the Rock of Ages founded what can shake thy sure repose…” “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord.”

But it always comes back to us too: Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

The limestone over there has taken shape. Now we begin to build with living stones, we begin to build with us living stones to see what the real shape of things will be. I hope we can build with the love and care shown by the workmen, and with the same awareness of what we’re building. How we build, how we are built, how we living stones come together will determine whether the Chapel is just a beautifully finished building or, as we claim in the rose window: “This is none other than the house of God.” Let us pray that is not presumptuous. The life we build in it, the life we bring to it and take from it, the lives we live will tell the tale. The workers have built a building square and true. It’s up to us to make justice the line and righteousness the plummet.

You are, if you will be—I’m talkin’ to you—you are, if you will be a royal priesthood, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Blockheads that we are, dense as rock, hard as flint, God is working overtime to shape us into the living stones that will make that building over their God’s building. Never forget that unless the Lord builds the house, their labor is in vain who build it. Don’t let the workmen have built for nothing. You are God’s building. Take it into that building. Take up God’s house to meet him.

]]> Pentecost 2007 http://www.chapelsjd.org/pentecost-2007 2007-07-31T16:22:19-05:00 2007-08-20T20:27:46-05:00 tim The period between Ascension and Pentecost is a time of waiting for the disciples. They’d been through the tumult of Holy Week; they’d known the joy of Easter; they’d known more than once the presence of the Risen Lord; their meals continued their communion with him. The Acts of the Apostles, in the chapter before the story of Pentecost, tells of the Ascension, which presents some cosmological difficulties for those of us who are overly right-brained. But the point of the story isn’t cosmological; it’s theological. And it’s the counterpoise to the Incarnation. In the Incarnation, God takes on humanity; in the Ascension humanity is taken into God. The circle is complete. Now humanity—our humanity—is forever part of the Godhead. But it took awhile to figure all that out. Even the disciples, the witnesses of all these things, couldn’t articulate it yet. They went back to Jerusalem, did some community housekeeping, replacing Judas with Matthias to bring the number of the Twelve back to Twelve. They said their prayers. And they waited. They were filled with hope, not quite knowing what their hopes were or how to live into them. They were living in between: between earth-shattering events and who knows what. The German language has a lovely word for where they were. It was a Zwischenzeit, a time between. They gathered again in the Upper Room—you remember that place, the supper place. It was sort of their headquarters. They waited there. And then Whoosh! Wind, Spirit, Fire! They were filled with the Spirit, on fire, possessed, changed forever. No more Zwischenzeit for them. The event that changed them had come. They knew what to do now. They were to take on Christ’s work of changing the world. They were to bring hope into the world. The gospel on Pentecost is also a Spirit story, this one set on the evening of Easter Day. Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples—perhaps in that same Upper Room. He breathes on them, breathes the Spirit into them, the breath of God. This Pentecost our congregation gathered in Lower Room—the lower level of Canterbury House. It’s become our headquarters, our hang-out, our place of communion during our own time between: the Zwischenzeit between old Chapel and Completion. We’ve been through the excitement of planning and the completion campaign. Now we wait. We’re a little anxious, not knowing quite what’s next. But we’re filled with hope for what is to come and what it will mean for our ministry. We hope it will help us bring more hope to the world. We’re waiting to see. Except that Pentecost won’t let us wait. Here we are in our Lower Room and Whoosh! Wind, Spirit, Fire! We’re baptized with the Spirit and fire. And we can’t pretend we don’t know what to do; and the Spirit won’t let us wait to get started. Postponing things doesn’t lead to completion. Our ministry isn’t in the future. It’s here. Now. Remember that moment in the baptismal rite when we’re anointed, christened? The priest says, “N., you are sealed with the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” It means we’re not only our own anymore. We’re possessed, Christ’s own, the Spirit’s own. Possessed. In baptism, we also promise to seek Christ in all persons. But to do that we need to remember to seek Christ in ourselves, Christ in us. We won’t do very well at identifying Christ in others until we get a grip on the fact that Christ is in us. Christ is in you and don’t you dare doubt or forget it. William Porcher Du Bose, perhaps the greatest theologian the Episcopal Church has produced puts it this way: “God in Christ is only half the truth and mystery of the incarnation; Christ in us is the full other half.” Christ in us is the full other half. The breath of God is hot upon you friends, and has lit a candle that shall not be put out. There’s a world that needs changing out there. Do it. There’s a world that needs hope. Give it. Christ in you is the other half of the incarnation, full circle. Make Christ’s work complete.

]]> The period between Ascension and Pentecost is a time of waiting for the disciples. They’d been through the tumult of Holy Week; they’d known the joy of Easter; they’d known more than once the presence of the Risen Lord; their meals continued their communion with him. The Acts of the Apostles, in the chapter before the story of Pentecost, tells of the Ascension, which presents some cosmological difficulties for those of us who are overly right-brained. But the point of the story isn’t cosmological; it’s theological. And it’s the counterpoise to the Incarnation. In the Incarnation, God takes on humanity; in the Ascension humanity is taken into God. The circle is complete. Now humanity—our humanity—is forever part of the Godhead. But it took awhile to figure all that out. Even the disciples, the witnesses of all these things, couldn’t articulate it yet. They went back to Jerusalem, did some community housekeeping, replacing Judas with Matthias to bring the number of the Twelve back to Twelve. They said their prayers. And they waited. They were filled with hope, not quite knowing what their hopes were or how to live into them. They were living in between: between earth-shattering events and who knows what. The German language has a lovely word for where they were. It was a Zwischenzeit, a time between. They gathered again in the Upper Room—you remember that place, the supper place. It was sort of their headquarters. They waited there. And then Whoosh! Wind, Spirit, Fire! They were filled with the Spirit, on fire, possessed, changed forever. No more Zwischenzeit for them. The event that changed them had come. They knew what to do now. They were to take on Christ’s work of changing the world. They were to bring hope into the world. The gospel on Pentecost is also a Spirit story, this one set on the evening of Easter Day. Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples—perhaps in that same Upper Room. He breathes on them, breathes the Spirit into them, the breath of God. This Pentecost our congregation gathered in Lower Room—the lower level of Canterbury House. It’s become our headquarters, our hang-out, our place of communion during our own time between: the Zwischenzeit between old Chapel and Completion. We’ve been through the excitement of planning and the completion campaign. Now we wait. We’re a little anxious, not knowing quite what’s next. But we’re filled with hope for what is to come and what it will mean for our ministry. We hope it will help us bring more hope to the world. We’re waiting to see. Except that Pentecost won’t let us wait. Here we are in our Lower Room and Whoosh! Wind, Spirit, Fire! We’re baptized with the Spirit and fire. And we can’t pretend we don’t know what to do; and the Spirit won’t let us wait to get started. Postponing things doesn’t lead to completion. Our ministry isn’t in the future. It’s here. Now. Remember that moment in the baptismal rite when we’re anointed, christened? The priest says, “N., you are sealed with the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” It means we’re not only our own anymore. We’re possessed, Christ’s own, the Spirit’s own. Possessed. In baptism, we also promise to seek Christ in all persons. But to do that we need to remember to seek Christ in ourselves, Christ in us. We won’t do very well at identifying Christ in others until we get a grip on the fact that Christ is in us. Christ is in you and don’t you dare doubt or forget it. William Porcher Du Bose, perhaps the greatest theologian the Episcopal Church has produced puts it this way: “God in Christ is only half the truth and mystery of the incarnation; Christ in us is the full other half.” Christ in us is the full other half. The breath of God is hot upon you friends, and has lit a candle that shall not be put out. There’s a world that needs changing out there. Do it. There’s a world that needs hope. Give it. Christ in you is the other half of the incarnation, full circle. Make Christ’s work complete.

]]> Eastertide http://www.chapelsjd.org/eastertide 2007-04-06T11:26:46-05:00 2007-07-27T14:41:18-05:00 tim Easter is a season of new life in Christ. This is true for us as persons, of course, but also for our life together at St. John’s. The new Chapel is rising and soon will be filled with new life too. In the next few months, we’ll be thinking of what that new life will be. We want to find new ways to make the Chapel a house of prayer for all people. And we want what happens in the Chapel to energize us for new ministries. The General Convention of 2006 adopted the United Nations Millenium Development Goals as the Church’s mission priority. We’ll be sharing information around these goals with the congregation in the coming weeks, and we’ll be looking for ways to implement them as congregation and as persons. We hope you’ll help us discover new ways to be part of God’s action in the community, the university, and the world.

]]> Easter is a season of new life in Christ. This is true for us as persons, of course, but also for our life together at St. John’s. The new Chapel is rising and soon will be filled with new life too. In the next few months, we’ll be thinking of what that new life will be. We want to find new ways to make the Chapel a house of prayer for all people. And we want what happens in the Chapel to energize us for new ministries. The General Convention of 2006 adopted the United Nations Millenium Development Goals as the Church’s mission priority. We’ll be sharing information around these goals with the congregation in the coming weeks, and we’ll be looking for ways to implement them as congregation and as persons. We hope you’ll help us discover new ways to be part of God’s action in the community, the university, and the world.

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