buildings & grounds

 

“Do you see these great buildings?”

And now a word from our building committee…

Do you see these great buildings?

Well, guess what…

It’s a heck of a time to bring up such things. This is Stewardship Season, after all. So it’s a good thing it is also Gratitude Season. 

Traditionally this time of year is called, with some derision, the October Ask-a-thon. That is because once a year congregations plan their budgets and how to meet them. And so, modeling on the old sobriety pledge, many congregations ask for a simple commitment, based on faith, that will guide their financial movements during the next year. 

This causes some anxiety. After all, who knows what is going to happen? And who knows, really, if they will be able to meet any promise they make ahead of time?

Piled on top of that are the real worries that gather. Personal tragedies, uncertainties, infirmities. Social and public problems. Extreme weather events that make the inconvenient truth of climate change all too real. It is scary. 

And there is frustration. But we are not the first to face these fears. The people of God have experienced fear before.

Anticipations and predictions of the end of all things are not new. 

For the people huddled around the reassuring, well somewhat reassuring, figure of Jesus, there was personal impoverishment, the oppression of an occupation under the Roman Empire, and the frequent rumors of revolutionary change.

Since their time, there have been times of plague and times of war. Empires rose and fell. Strange new places have become home. And familiar places have been transformed.

Through all these times there has been a thread of hope. We sing the songs of ancient times, brought forward into the present, because they remind us of things that last, that remain true.

We pray. We sing. We celebrate the Eucharist, we baptize the new to faith and welcome the stranger. We tell the story of love.

We can see beyond our anxiety and predictions of destruction to something that lasts. And that is God’s faithfulness.

 

“My heart exults; my strength is exalted in my God;” even, “my mouth derides my enemies”, all these are words of praise and even joy from Hannah which we hear echoed from Mary in the Magnificat when she sings “my soul magnifies the Lord”. 

Hannah says “those were full now scrounge for bread” and Mary says “the rich he sends empty away”--  these are words of joyous praise for that they are certainly words of assurance of God’s faithfulness and vindication.

The letter to the Hebrews assures us that having been forgiven and accepted by God we can approach his throne -- and we can approach life -- with confidence: for he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. He is faithful and our hope is sure.

And so we pass from gratitude to confidence in knowing that the promise of the one in whom we put our trust is sure: he is faithful and this gives us the attitude, the fortitude, the ---,  to face the new possibilities that come with troubled times. He is faithful: confidence, gratitude, Steadfast hope.

Martin Luther put his finger on something we do well to remember today. We do not give out of fear or obligation, we do not obey in order to be safe: we are saved. That single offering by Christ has once for all made our hopes sure and our faith complete.

We respond to God’s grace with gratitude and in gratitude we respond with our lives, our hearts, all we have to offer; and this is what it means to say all things come from God and of his own I have given him. For he is the source of all being and from him is the satisfaction of our hearts: all we do in gratitude is from the eternal words spoken for all. “You are my beloved child.”

When David dedicated the site of the temple he offered the first fruits of the harvest in thanksgiving. Even of the building materials he brought to the site he said “all this abundance we have provided for a house for your holy name comes from you and is all your own”. In that new confidence in the love of God the gifts, the faith in the Lord, and obedience of a faithful servant, are all offerings given freely and joyfully.

Over and over again we hear in the Hebrew Scriptures, including the Song of Hannah that was our response to the first reading today, of God’s steadfastness. We hear of the grace of God and love of God that last forever. And we hear also of how the people of God have responded with gratitude and love. 

And we hear of how God has vindicated the downfallen, protected the poor, and liberated the oppressed. And the people of God have been the hands of hope that have fashioned the future.

In other words (and council, cover your ears) what really lasts is not our structures, or even our achievements, but the love of God and our love for God and of each other and all of creation.

But don’t shred that pledge card yet!

It still has a purpose.

For the living church that is built is built out of our hearts, our hands, and our response of gratitude for all that God is accomplishing – including in us and through us … and despite us.

Christ’s work in us is not on some ethereal, ideal, unreal plane, but is accomplished here and now, where we can see it.

Indeed, we recall the apostle who said, “I speak to you of what I have seen and heard and held in my arms.”

“We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—” (1 Jn 1.1)

God’s love is physical – manifest – at work in the world. That this world is made by God and saved by God and charged with the power of God is what Incarnation is all about.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (Jn 3.16)

Therefore we acknowledge that all is gift: every day is a gift, every breath, even all we accomplish, comes as a gift from God and so we pray, along with the ancient servant of God, “…all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.” (1 Ch 29:14b)

That familiar prayer of offering comes from the first book of Chronicles, from the story of how David, at the end of his long and eventful life, came within an inch of his dream, to build a house for God, and indeed laid the foundation for what his son Solomon would accomplish. The building of the first Temple, the magnificent structure and opulent furnishings the Torah describes.

That Temple was destroyed, the people it sheltered scattered and dispersed among the nations surrounding them. Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and forgotten lands beyond, became the new homes of a generation of pilgrims, of refugees that would never see what they had left behind. 

Instead their children and grandchildren who returned found a lot of work to be done, to reclaim what they could of what had been lost, and to build a shallow replica of what had gone before.

Among them also were those who did the more glorious work of reclaiming the spiritual heritage, bringing back with them solid achievements of preserving past teachings and developing new understanding of the living truth of the love of God for humankind.

And the Temple that was eventually built was grand indeed, great indeed, and its builders were put to the work by a king himself called Great, Herod, whose monuments still rear above the inhabitants of Palestine and Israel. His tomb, his retreat at Masada, the Temple remnant we now call the Western Wall. 

When Jesus asked, “Do you see these great buildings?” it was those proud structures he was talking about. 

What was happening, on the surface, was an occupation, an oppression, a time of turmoil, disturbance, and woe. But what was really going on, deep in the hidden purposes of God, was the building of a new Temple, a new house of God, that is his people.

Those are the living stones: the people to whom Jesus preached and ministered and brought salvation. And it is the building up of that living Temple, not made by hands, to which we are called. 

Direct our hearts to you O God:

For you are the source of all being, eternal word and Holy Spirit. Amen.

November 14th 2021

BProper28(33) 

https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Pentecost/BProp28_RCL.html

Daniel 12:1-3

1 Samuel 2:1-10

Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25

Mark 13:1-8

BProper28

In the name of God, source of all being, eternal Word, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Lord, what is man, that Thou hast

       regard for him?

Or the son of man, that Thou takest

       account of him?

       Man is like a breath,

       His days are as a fleeting shadow.

In the morning he flourishes and grows up

       like grass,

In the evening he is cut down and withers.

       So teach us to number our days,

       That we may get us a heart of wisdom.

This prayer, read at funerals, is adapted from Psalms 144 and 90.

(Barbara Myerhoff, Number Our Days, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1978, xiv.)

So teach us to number our days, says the Psalmist, and when we try, we find we cannot, not to the end— no one knows it. So we learn: we can accept the gifts our days offer, and to receive those gifts in both hands, with delicate reverence, and in our hearts, with joyful fullness.

The people we love, the place we know, the times we live in, and the blessings we receive, large and small: treasured moments, new friends, and old movies…

We cannot number our days, not to the end, but we can treasure them—

and release them at last, trusting in the hope of resurrection, knowing that our God loves us and death is not the end. We do not see beyond it but we know we shall be united in the presence of a living God.

Living in hope — as we are living now, between the already and the not-yet of God —
is about expectation;

is about assurance;

is about yearning for the end of the world — not to stop the pain of present existence but to begin the new life now!

Living in hope is about the already-but-not-yet reign of our Savior. It is the hope of eternal life, of the resurrection.

Beyond that, it is the hope of the beginning of the larger drama of which resurrection is a part: the inevitable triumph of God’s justice and righteousness in a transformation of all things. In the consummation of time, God will make all things new. 

(Fred B. Craddock et al., Preaching Through the Lectionary, Year B, Harrisburg PA: Trinity Press International, 471)

And so our hope is found in faith, in confidence in God our resurrection as part of the fate of the people of God: the hungry and thirsty, the sick and the lame, the naked, the captive, the sorrowful; all those to whom Jesus proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord.

We live with that hope, in confidence and trust, knowing the light of Christ shines already – and darkness cannot put it out.

God of all power and might, give us grace to trust you in the darkness as well as the light. In the face of danger and adversity, sorrow and loneliness, be our strength and hope, so that we may live and work to your praise and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever.

(David Adam, Traces of Glory, London: SPCK, 146-147)

Forgiven and accepted by God, in the confidence of new life,

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

(Hebrews 10:23-25)

May God, who gives grace to us, give us grace to give others; may God, who is merciful to us and kind, bring kindness and generosity into our lives; that we may share the abundant love of Christ with those around us.

May we, seeking to do your will, find it in serving you; in seeking you to serve you; and find you in the face of others, friend and stranger.

May we, serving you in others, find ourselves at home; and find our home in you, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

BProper28, Twenty Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Daniel 12:1-3, Psalm 16, Hebrews 10:11-25, Mark 13:1-8,

O Lord, what are we that you should care for us?*

       mere mortals that you should think of us?

We are like a puff of wind;*

       our days are like a passing shadow.

You sweep us away like a dream;*

       we fade away suddenly like the grass.

In the morning it is green and flourishes;*

       in the evening it is dried up and withered.

So teach us to number our days*

       that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. 

(The Book of Common Prayer, Psalm 144: 3-4, Psalm 90:5-6, 12)

what her heart most longed for

The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. (Isaiah 40:5)

In the name of God, the merciful Father, the compassionate Son, the Spirit of wisdom. Amen.

The good news of the story of God, the long story of the love of God for humanity, is the story that we tell throughout the Christian year:

• from Advent, the coming of the Messiah, the coming of the Christ Child,

• through Christmas season, celebrating the birth of our Lord,

• on into Epiphany – the season of showings, revelations, epiphanies, that make manifest the presence of God in human history, in our lives;

• into Lent, with its sober wisdom that we must prepare our hearts to receive the full assurance of God’s grace,

• into the compressed season of the Church year that is Holy Week – running from the absurd spectacle of Palm Sunday through the horrendous events of Good Friday and beyond hope into the transcending glory of Easter morning;

• absorbing the good news of Christ’s triumphant vitality through the Easter season, and

• then experiencing Pentecost, the long season of coming into the fullness of God’s kingdom, and

• then, again, as December approaches, to find ourselves waiting once again, in hope, in preparation, in anticipation, for the coming of the King.

This is the second Sunday before Advent – in some quarters, this is the Kingdom season.

It is the time of year in which at last we realize that the kingdom of Heaven is with us, within us, around us, waiting to be recognized, lived into as a present reality – it is not some story of a fantastic future but a present which is more than we recognize. God is with us, the glory and the grace are among us; we are called to embody their reality.

This is no easy task. The kingdom is often invisible, even when it is right before our eyes. You lose your job; you contract a disease; you hear bad news from far away or close by.

Where is God in this, in this world? Where is the hope? It is in the whole story of the people of God.

We have a story that will last forever – the story of the love of God for God’s people, and that’s us.

Begin with the child – the child of Hannah.

Hannah, the barren second wife of Elkanah, was mocked by Peninnah, the fruitful one.

Every year she prayed, every year she was tormented. Hannah would not eat she was so upset. And then she prayed – and God answered.

At first the priest thought she was drunk – he was not used to people praying like that.

I am not drunk; I’m desperate. I am praying to the Lord – give me a son! I will give him to you, as a servant in the Temple.

God answered, and gave Hannah her heart’s longing: so she named the boy child Samuel, “I have asked him of the Lord.”

She left him there for the Lord. He would serve the Lord faithfully, as a prophet.

And then she sang: in the exultation of her heart she sang a triumphant song, like the song of Moses, and the song of the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, who took a tambourine in her hand and led the women out with dancing, as Israel was freed from Pharaoh.

And Miriam sang to them:
‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.’
(Exodus 15:21)

Hannah sang, as Mary mother of Jesus would sing, of the victory of her God – a victory long awaited, long prayed for.

For the people of Israel in bondage in Egypt, the people of Israel in exile in Babylon, and the people of Israel in bondage under Rome, prayed too: for their deliverance, their vindication, in the sight of their adversaries – that God would save them, bring them hope – and bring them freedom from what bound them.

The story of liberation, of God’s people released from bondage, is a story of a people, and it is the story of a person, any person who feels enslaved or exiled, a-wander in the desert, unable to find their way, or their freedom, or their home, and then appeals to God.

God my savior – the people cry. God my deliverer – says the one who is freed. God my vindicator, my sure defense – this is the one who brought Israel out of Egypt and across the desert to the Holy Land; this is the one who called them home from exile in Babylon – and this is the one who calls to you and me to come to him now for our own freedom.

For we too seek vindication, deliverance, freedom – and our hope is in our God.

That is the story of God – the story that is told throughout the Bible, the Scriptures. And that is why the collect today reminds us, that the whole story of the people of God, which is told throughout the pages of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, is a story of hope.

This hope finds its final fulfillment in the One that Mary sang about, her son the Savior:

The Song of Mary – Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.


This is the child of the promise:

This is the One that the people of God were waiting for, through all the ages. It is the Son who God gave, who gave of himself unsparingly, One once offered for the freedom of all.

At last this is the hope of the ages: that God would in the flesh dwell among us. That is what we wait for, too – to know that we are not left alone but that God is with us. Right here, right now, in the midst of our own situation, however glorious, however painful,

Throughout the Scriptures we hear the story of the love of God for the people of God.

God walks with us, beside us, from our beginning to our ending. He is the beginning and the ending of all our days, and in him is our hope. That is the story of the hope of Glory.

That is what the Bible tells us – that is why we pray, today, in the words of the Collect,

Blessed Lord,
who has caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our edification:
Grant us so to
hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that,
by the encouragement the Scriptures give us,
we may embrace and ever hold fast
the blessed hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


St Alban’s Episcopal Church, Edmonds, Wash., Sunday, November 15, 2009.


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