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NO PLACE TO PARK

 The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Second Sunday after Christmas Day
January 5, 2025

The sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young; by the side of your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God (Psalm 84:2)

Two summers ago the Waring family traveled to the Pacific northwest for vacation.  From Seattle we made our way down the Oregon coast.  The area was in the grips of an uncommon heat wave, so when a beach day presented itself, we jumped at the chance.  Cannon Beach in Oregon is amazing.  It is often ranked among the most beautiful places on earth, and if you ever go there you’ll understand why.  Unfortunately, we were not the only tourists who thought it would be a good day to visit.  The parking lot was an angry, churning sea of cars.  We began traveling up and down every row, searching for a place. 

Suddenly, as if by a miracle, right before my eyes was an open spot – not just any spot, but the first one in a row beneath a shady tree.  I couldn’t believe my eyes, but there it was.  Do you know the lineup of angel statues at Rockefeller Center, how they point their trumpets and lead the tourists towards the lighted tree?  Well, it was as if a choir of angels were singing to me: “Park here.”  So there I parked.  And yes, the sparrow may have found her a house and the swallow a nest by the side of the altars of the Lord of hosts, but I had found a place to park at Cannon Beach beneath a shady tree. 

Later in the day we began the trek back to the car.  In the parking lot we found the same, congested mess: too many cars searching in vain for too few spaces.  As we walked, a number drivers slowed to our pace and began following us.  One woman lowered her window and asked impatiently if we were leaving.  Strangely, I became reluctant to vacate the parking place.  Correction: my parking place.  I thought to myself, why should I relinquish my space to a pushy millennial in a Subaru?  We should go back to the beach.  Let’s linger for photos by the Dodge Charger we had rented.  It was quite a car.  People could admire us as we posed by it.  Let’s stay here in this parking place that is mine.  This is as good as it gets, I reasoned.  Alas, the place wasn’t mine to keep.  We had to move on, just as we always have to move on.  As we pulled away, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that my happy parking place was already taken. 

In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew (2:13-15, 19-23), we hear how the holy family of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus had to move on from where they had temporarily parked.  In moving on, perhaps they took a last grateful look back at the place in Bethlehem where Jesus had been born.  Matthew says the place was a house.  Luke implies it was a stable.  Whatever it was, the place had been an island of peace for Mary and Joseph.  It had sheltered them when they badly needed to be sheltered.  They had received visitors from the East.  A lineup of angels had directed the shepherds in the fields to the location. 

Indeed, Bethlehem had been a place of mystery and joy, but it was not a spot where they could remain.  Now it was time to move on: “Get up,” said an angel of the Lord to Joseph in a dream.  “Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, for Herod is about to search for the child , to destroy him.”  As Matthew tells the story of Jesus’ early childhood, the holy family was constantly on the move.  They lived as refugees in Egypt until, once again, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.”  So it was back again to Israel, and eventually, finally, to Nazareth where the family finally settled. 

The story that Matthew tells of Jesus’ first few years is that of a family traveling up and down, but having to move on from every parking place they found, whether they wanted to or not.  Matthew and Luke tell different infancy stories, but both agree that an arduous journey was involved.  Perhaps Jesus’ parents’ need to keep moving set a tone for the rest of his life.  During his ministry, Jesus was always on the move, saying such things as, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”  He had a destination in mind, and those who wanted to follow him would need a good pair of walking shoes, a willingness to leave behind much, and a readiness to move on.  Their hearts would need to be set on the pilgrim’s way, as we read in Psalm 84.

Today, in many ways, represents a time for us to move on and continue on the pilgrim’s way.  Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas.  Do you know the Christmas carol, “Tomorrow shall be my dancing day?”  Well, forget it.  Tomorrow is not your dancing day.  Tomorrow is Epiphany.  Tomorrow is time for the Christmas tree and the decorations and the lights to come down and be packed away.  Tomorrow is time for the three most despicable words in a child’s vocabulary: back to school.  Tomorrow the pressures of life will re-assert themselves.  For us, Christmas 2024 is fading into the rear-view mirror, as did Bethlehem for Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. 

But this Second Sunday after Christmas Day allows to linger for one more moment.  When most of the world has already returned to their routines, we have an opportunity to take one final look back before we move on.  So let me ask you: Was Christmas a time of mystery and joy for you?  Was it a place of peace and serenity, as we imagine Bethlehem turned out to be for the holy family?  Did you have moments that you wanted to occupy more permanently than we are allowed to occupy any moment?  Moments like: your whole family crammed into a pew on Christmas Eve; little children rushing toward the tree to open their presents; three generations of culinary artists at work in the kitchen preparing the afternoon feast; everyone you love gathered around the dining room table.  Such radiant times.  You want to stop the clock right then and park there indefinitely.  This is as good as it gets. 

The troubling truth is this: no matter how good your parking place is, sooner or later you have to relinquish it.  You have to move on.  Last fall we celebrated my 20^th anniversary as Rector of Grace Church.  Before we came here I was the rector of a church in Cincinnati.  We lived in a house that Stacie and I had bought and made our own.  We transformed one bedroom into a nursery.  I’ll never forget installing the Noah’s Ark wallpaper while Stacie was great with child.  In the backyard we had buried a beloved cat who had died before her time.  The house was more than a house, it was home.  Then Grace Church came calling, and we knew that God was opening the door to a new chapter of life and ministry.  In heart and mind we were ready to get up and go.  Or so we thought. 

To make a long story short, the movers packed up our belongings and finally pulled away.  It was time for us to roll.  Stacie and I thought one final sweep of the house was in order.  Thus, with the boys already strapped in their car seats, we went from room to room in the empty house.  So far so good.  Then we eventually came to the nursery with the Noah’s Ark wallpaper.  Blast that Noah’s Ark wallpaper!  I am not a person who cries easily or often, but suddenly we were both sobbing.  The Noah’s Ark wallpaper got me.  Moving on can be a wrenching experience, even when we know it is a calling from God.  “Thou must leave thy lowly dwelling, the humble crib, the stable bare,” is how the choir will sing it today.  As we set ourselves on the pilgrim’s way, somehow our strange yearning for permanence – for Home with a capital “H” – is never quiet fulfilled. 

Whoever it was that wrote what we call Psalm 84 had the same yearning and unfulfilled desire for home that we do.  Listen: My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.  The sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young; by the side of your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.  Happy are they who dwell in your house!  They will always be praising you.  The point that the Psalmist is trying to make is this: we have no permanent home here on earth.  We are all displaced persons who wander through this life as nomads.  We are all homeless people who are homesick for heaven.  St. Augustine put it this way when he prayed, Thou hast made us for thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.  People often quote Augustine’s prayer because it rings true.  We will always be restless until we find our rest in God.  We will always be homeless until we find our home in God.  We will always need to move on until we finally arrive Home.  We are not meant to park here forever.  Get up, says the angel.  Move on.

So it is that on this Twelfth Day of Christmas we prepare to move on.  We look back on another Christmas that we gratefully inhabited.  We head into all the uncertainties of 2025 with no way of knowing what a new year will bring for any of us.  But before you conclude that things can only get worse, before you decide that God has nothing new under the sun to show you in 2025, before you become reluctant to give up your parking place, remember Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus.  Remember that the time came for Mary and Joseph also to leave Bethlehem and head into an uncertain future in an unknown land. 

How did they find the courage to move ahead?  I can imagine how they might have glanced back over their shoulders at the place where Jesus was born.  Looking back sometimes can give us the strength to go forward.  Looking back they might have realized that the humblest of places, the least likely of people, and the most unexpected of times can be charged with God’s presence.  If God had made himself present in those surroundings, God could make himself present wherever they were headed.  It can work the same way for us.  We can look back on our own radiant moments and realize how God made himself present – how God became incarnate in the people that inhabited those times and places with us.

As Mary and Joseph moved on from Bethlehem, Matthew writes how they discovered God to be powerfully with them as they traveled.  They did not leave God behind in Bethlehem.  God would be present in front of them, leading them and directing them – even protecting them.  God sent angels to warn Joseph in his dreams.  God saved Jesus from Herod and eventually established the Holy Family in Nazareth.  God was leading them all the way, all the time.  Fun fact alert: the Greek word on the angel’s lips that we translate into the English “get up,” or “arise,” is significant.  This word – “arise,” “get up” – pronounced “egi’ro” in Greek, is the main New Testament word for nothing less than resurrection.  “He is not here; for he has been ‘gotten up,” said the Easter angel at the tomb of Jesus.  “Get up,” said Jesus to the dead daughter of Jairus.  “Get up,” said the angel to Mary and Joseph.  “Get up,” says the angel to us.  Thus when we obey the angelic summons, when we look ahead, when we un-dig our heals, when we arise and move on, we practice resurrection.  We anticipate what some have called “that great getting-up morning.” 

What of our final destination?  What of the homesickness for heaven that afflicts us as we travel?  The reason that God moves us on through this life and never lets us settle is precisely to satisfy our longing for the courts of the Lord.  We have a desire that no parking place on earth can satisfy, so God is prodding us, calling us, cajoling us, and urging us to that Place of all places, where Christ has gone ahead to prepare us a room.  He is leading us to dwell in his house.  There the only moving on will be from height to height, to ever closer revelations of the Lord of hosts, as we read in Psalm 84. 

Even the sparrow has found her a house, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, by the side of the altar of the Lord of hosts.  If such is true for the birds of the air, which neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, imagine how much more true it is for those who belong to Christ.  You are of much more value than the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, says the Lord Jesus. 

So arise.  Get up.  Move on.  Your destination is God, and your heart will always be restless until you find your rest in Him. 

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GOD COMES DOWN

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
Christmas 2024

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.  (Isaiah 9:6) 

In the sermon that follows, I am going to tell you about two, high and lofty people who reached down from their impossible heights to bless me.  Long ago and far away, my first job out of seminary was on the clergy staff of a big church in suburban Detroit.  I was the lowest of the low in the pecking order.  My title was something like “Second Assistant to the Night Vicar.”  My office was accessible only by walking through the vesting room for choir women – meaning I was barred from entry on Sunday mornings.  Silly me: I had always assumed that beneath their vestments, the ladies of the choir were fully clothed. 

In those days, at the other end of the power spectrum, the CEOs of both GM and Ford – Roger Smith and Donald E. Petersen – were members of the church.  Imagine, on any given Sunday, one if not two of Detroit’s three kings – or wise men, if you like – might be in attendance (the third being Lee Iacocca, who was a Roman Catholic).  I remember Mr. Petersen especially as an active, engaged, and generous parishioner.  I was sad to read of his death earlier this year at the age of 97. 

One Sunday I preached a sermon about the lure of possessions.  Ford recently had redesigned a model called the Probe, and I thought it was the most attractive thing on four wheels.  I confessed in the sermon how tempted I was to do the truly financially reckless thing and go buy one.  As luck would have it, Mr. Petersen was there and heard the sermon.  At the door of the church he said that if I’d really like to drive a new Probe he’d have his assistant call me the very next day.  “Sure,” I said, knowing full well I couldn’t afford it.  You see, I’d finally finished making payments on my Chevy, and didn’t want to go into debt again.  I was living on a steady diet of peanut butter and aerosol cheese.  Now one of the most powerful executives in all of corporate America was trying to sell me a car.  Or so I thought.  I figured he didn’t get to the corner office by giving cars away.  He was trying to sell me a car.  He wanted to report to his shareholders that he, personally, had sold another one. 

Sure enough, Mr. Petersen’s assistant called the next day, offering to put me behind the wheel of a Probe.  But with faulty reasoning swimming in my brain, I politely declined.  I never thought to ask the simple question: what’s this going to cost me?  It was only much later when I learned what the price would have been: nothing.  By the authority vested in him at Ford, Mr. Petersen had cars to give, and he wanted to reach way down to my lowly estate and give one to me. 

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.  Of course, at the sound of these familiar words our minds turn towards Christmas.  But the truth is, they date from a time over seven centuries before the birth of Jesus.  To understand them fully we must encounter a man who has never appeared in any Christmas pageant or nativity scene.  The man’s name was Ahaz, and he was the king of Judah and heir of David.  Ahaz was the latest in the long line to rule in the Davidic Dynasty, which itself was a sign of God’s presence with the Jewish people.  The understanding was that as long as an heir of David reigned, God would be in the midst of the people. 

The reign of Ahaz was troubled.  In 732 BC he faced an international crisis that put the dynasty in danger of extinction.  Three stronger and hostile kings threatened to move against tiny Judah.  Two of them had already taken up siege positions around Jerusalem, and the biggest of them all, Assyria, loomed in the background.  In the seventh chapter of Isaiah the prophet describes how the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook with fear as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.  Ahaz didn’t know what to do.  Just then, God reached down from the heights, and spoke through the prophet Isaiah.  God gave the king a gift.  Isaiah told Ahaz not to fear.  Judah would not perish at the hands of her enemies.  God’s gift was an invitation to trust.  Fear not.  Do nothing.  You can wait this one out.  God is with you.  Ahaz found Isaiah’s words impossible to believe, so the prophet gave him a sign that would be a tangible token of God’s presence.  Isaiah pointed to a young woman standing nearby and said, “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”  By the time the child is about two years old, this crisis before you will be forgotten. 

Who was the young, pregnant woman?  What makes the most sense is that she was the wife of Ahaz, the king.  The child she carried would be Immanuel – God with us.  The sign of God’s presence was the Davidic Dynasty.  Only a child of Ahaz could continue the line and embody the promise.  What is more, Isaiah went on in chapter nine to announce just such a royal birth, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  But the question that bedevils Biblical scholars is whether the Immanuel child in chapter seven the same as the Royal child in chapter nine of Isaiah.  Let me put the matter to rest for you.  Yes, they are one and the same.  Now, finally, you can breathe easier.  Now you know the answer to the age-old question, “What Child is This?  Merry Christmas, people.  You’re welcome, everyone.  What does it mean?  It means that God follows through with his promises.  Isaiah’s words were the gift of hope and promise for Ahaz.  If you focus on the child, Ahaz – on your child – and not on the problems surrounding you, you will endure.  The child is a sign that God is with you from this time forth, even forever. 

How do you think Ahaz responded to God’s gift?  Sadly, with faulty reasoning swimming in his brain, Ahaz declined the gift.  Rather than trusting God’s sign of Immanuel, Ahaz tried to play power politics.  He panicked and sold himself and his people into the service of the biggest bully on the block – the Assyrian king.  Judah became a vassal state. 

Seven centuries later God was preparing to reach down and give the gift again.  This time some people were willing to receive it.  Not all of them, mind you, but some of them.  You know the cast of characters all too well.  You know Mary, barely a teenager when the angel Gabriel visited her with the news that she would conceive and bear a son named Jesus.  It was hardly the perfect gift for an unmarried Jewish peasant girl, but Mary said, Yes, behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.  You know Joseph, Mary’s espoused husband.  When he learned of Mary’s unusual pregnancy, he no more understood nor trusted her story than Ahaz did Isaiah’s words.  Joseph contemplated calling off the marriage.  But unlike Ahaz he decided not to fear, and to receive the child as a gift from God.  You know the shepherds.  We’ve heard how the angels said to them: For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  Immanuel.  God is with us.  Here was the same invitation to trust and not to fear.  Unlike Ahaz of long ago, they received the gift.  They came in haste to see the child, and went away glorifying God. 

Make of the pageant cast what you will.  If the skeptic in you registers alarm over choirs of angels singing to shepherds, and a star in the sky guiding two or three wise men to Bethlehem, be of good cheer.  Fear not.  You can still celebrate Christmas in all its depth of meaning and glory.  You see, apart from Mary and Joseph, we stake no truth claims whatsoever on who might have peered into the crib of Jesus: be they shepherds, wise men, or even extra-Biblical friendly beasts and a little drummer boy.  Rather, what the Gospel writers Matthew and Luke want us to take from the story is essentially two things: First, that when Mary was great with child, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.  And she brought forth her firstborn son.  At a certain time and place, Jesus was born.  Second, they want us to understand that in the birth of Jesus, God visited us in a unique way.  “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19),” is how St. Paul would phrase it. 

So let’s turn the clock forward again – this time two-thousand years until we reach today.  Today, God is giving the gift of himself again.  Yes, Christmas comes once more, but we needn’t think that it’s only in this season when God comes to us.  By the power of the Spirit, God is available and accessible to us each and every day.  I’m sure you know the unwritten rule of the social climber: always entertain up.  Well, God respects no such rule of engagement.  God entertains down.  God comes down from the heights of transcendent otherness through the mysteries of being and existence to visit humanity.  Down he comes through the dimensions of time and space to dwell among us, so that we could behold his glory.  Down he comes through culture, myth, and prophecy to be born of Mary at a specific time in a certain place.  Down from heaven above to earth he came in the birth of Jesus.  When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, God came down.  Love came down at Christmas.  In Jesus, God humbled himself to be born in our likeness.  God emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. 

The question is, will you accept the gift that God has to offer?  Will you accept the gift of God’s presence?  Of course, we can say no thank you.  People said no thank you to Jesus all the time.  Jesus would know rejection.  St. John records that he came into his own, but his own received him not (1:11).  But he went on to write that as many as received him, to them he gave power to become children of God (1:12). 

At the beginning of the sermon I mentioned that I would tell you about two high and lofty people who reached down to bless me.  The first was Donald E. Petersen.  Now let me tell you about the second.  When I was in elementary school my parents would send my older brother and me to a basketball day camp at Seton Hall University.  The highlight of the week was on Friday, the last day, when Dick Barnett, one of the starting five of the New York Knicks’ championship teams, would visit.  This was the early 1970’s, so I’d see him on TV playing with Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, and other stars.  All week long the buzz was, “Dick Barnett is coming!”  “Work hard, because Dick Barnett is coming.”  When Dick Barnett finally walked into the gymnasium on the last great day, it was as if a god had entered the room.  He would spend hours dazzling us with his ability and teaching us. 

At the end of the day all the campers had the opportunity to have their picture taken with Dick Barnett.  Then Seton Hall would send the photos to your hometown newspaper, and you’d be famous.  When it came to be our turn, my brother and I stood before Dick Barnett quaking in fear.  He was 6’4 – not overly tall by today’s standards – but it seemed as if we only came up to his knee caps.  The photographer was trying to get us to smile or look natural but we were too nervous.  Finally Dick Barnett, star of the world champion New York Knicks who had spent the whole day with us, stooped way, way down to my eye level and said, “Just look at my pretty face.”  I’ll never forget it.  I still have the picture that appeared in the Glen Ridge, NJ paper. 

What we celebrate at Christmas is that through the birth of Jesus, God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, has entered the room of time and space.  God in Christ stooped way, way down to our level.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, from this time forth, even for ever, God says to all of humanity: “Just look at my pretty face.” 

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. 

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HOLIDAY JOY?

 The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Third Sunday of Advent
December 15, 2024

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Let your gentleness be known to everyone.  The Lord is near.  Do not worry about anything.  (Philippians 4:4-6). 

Last Friday afternoon – just two days ago – I realized that if the Waring family were ever to get our Christmas cards in the mail, I would need to purchase postage stamps.  So I made my way through the Christmas pageant rehearsal that was underway in Tuttle Hall, and across 4^th Avenue to the post office.  The line was not long, and I was quickly at the counter making my order.  I had calculated that to send a card to all of our Grace Church households I would need 300 stamps.  The postal attendant pointed to a chart in front of me offering six different holiday options. 

The first possibility was a stamp entitled “Holiday Joy,” and it depicted a hanging holiday ornament.  The second, called “Winter Whimsy,” showed an art-deco snowflake.  The third was Christmas, portrayed by a classical painting of the Madonna and Child – Mary and Jesus.  Fourth was Hanukkah with a menorah.  Fifth came a dancing family celebrating Kwanzaa.  Finally, a stamp for the Muslim holy day, Eid, that breaks the Ramadan fast.  “Which one do you want?” asked the attendant.  I was not wearing my clerical collar and black shirt, so she could not have known that of the six, only one would suit my purposes.  However, for a nanosecond my impish mind thought what fun it would be to mail our card with a completely unexpected stamp on it, and see if anyone noticed.  Of course, I chose the Christmas stamp, meaning that Mary and Jesus are coming your way. 

The attendant thoroughly counted out the appropriate number of pages with the stamps on them.  Then, to be safe, she counted them again.  As she was ringing me up, she said, “That’s the biggest order of Christmas stamps I’ve had all year.  People look at this one and say, ‘it’s too religious.’  They don’t want it because it’s too religious.”  I smiled and replied, “Well, they are missing out on all the cool stuff.”  She agreed, and wished me a merry Christmas. 

Which stamp do you think St. Paul would have chosen?  We can probably rule out Winter Whimsy, given the climate of Palestine.  Eid would be unknown to Paul, as Islam was still 600 years away from being a thing.  Kwanzaa was even further off in the future.  But what about Hanukkah?  Paul identified as Jewish to the end, and Christmas as a Christian feast didn’t appear on the calendar until the 4^th century.  Nothing Grinchy about it, but Paul was not wishing anyone a Merry Christmas.  A case could be made that he would have chosen Holiday Joy.  Toward the end of his life Paul wrote a letter to the Christians in the city of Philippi.  The letter contains some of the most familiar verses in the Bible, and the selection we heard today is all about joy: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.  Let your gentleness be known to everyone.  The Lord is near.  Do not worry about anything … And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 

Rejoice in the Lord, always.  “Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!”  Today is the Third Sunday of Advent, otherwise known to liturgical nerds like me as Gaudete – Latin for Rejoice.  We light the pink candle of the Advent wreath, and our challenge is to experience and express Holiday Joy.  How goes it for you?  Are you feeling joyful yet?  Are you experiencing the peace of God which surpasses all understanding?  Or are you worried about how you will do all the things you ought to do over the next nine days?  Or did you give up chasing holiday joy years ago?  My guess is that St. Paul would have given a rousing two-cheers to the Holiday Joy stamp.  Two cheers?  Why not three?  Paul would have held back on the third cheer because Holiday Joy does not rest on a firm foundation.  The joy that Paul was writing about is not a baseless thing.  It is always grounded “in the Lord.”  Rejoice in the Lord, is what he wrote.  Don’t overlook the importance of those three little words.  Rejoice in the Lord, because of what God in Christ has done for us and our salvation.  Rejoice in the Lord, because the Lord is near.  Rejoice in the Lord, because God can and will at any time make his presence known. 

Perhaps you are thinking that I am suddenly sounding too religious.  Perhaps you are thinking that it was easy for Paul to say, Rejoice in the Lord.  After all, he was a saint.  Life in Christ came easily for him.  Actually, when Paul wrote to the Philippians he was not in a place of ease and contentment.  He was confined to a Roman prison where he was awaiting trial.  The charges against him had been deliberately orchestrated in Jerusalem.  But rather than taking his chances with the corrupt court there, Paul appealed to Caesar in Rome.  He was sent off to Rome and shipwrecked on the way.  Paul was a man who cared little for creature comforts, but shipwrecks and prison had to make life difficult even for him.  Yet still he was able to say, Rejoice in the Lord.  Paul’s witness tells me that the joy in the Lord he speaks of transcends our present, outward circumstances.  It is not controlled by externals.  It doesn’t rise and fall with how well or how badly your day or your life happens to be going.  You can have the peace of God and joy in the Lord no matter what the circumstances of your life – no matter how much you have, no matter how little you have, no matter who is in your life, no matter who isn’t in your life. 

Joy in the Lord transcends not only a difficult present, but also a painful past.  People find it difficult to rejoice because they look back with regret on the sins and offenses of their youth.  Paul, too, had a past that he easily could have looked back upon with regret, and stewed over for the rest of his life.  Prior to his Damascus Road conversion, Paul was a zealous Pharisee involved in the hunting down and rooting out of Christians.  He approved of and presided over the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr.  Imagine the potential for such a brutal crime to burden Paul’s conscience in his later years.  Imagine the mantle of guilt he could have carried on his shoulders.  Yet still he was able to say, Rejoice in the Lord always.  Paul’s witness tells me something else: that joy in the Lord is able to transcend the sins and the regrets and the heartaches of anyone’s past.  What a shame it is that often we continue to condemn ourselves long after God Himself has forgiven us.  God’s grace is this: no matter where you have been or what you have done, you are not exempt eternally from experiencing God’s peace and joy. 

If we are to take Paul seriously, then we must conclude something more: that joy in the Lord is able to transcend not just our present circumstances and our guilty past, but even the prospect of a bleak future.  Paul was not a young man when he wrote to the Philippians.  With his trial delayed indefinitely, he must have suspected that he would never leave his prison.  To the best of our knowledge, he never did.  Yet he was able to say, Rejoice in the Lord.  Paul’s witness tells me that joy in the Lord is available to us no matter how short, or grim, or uncertain our future is shaping up to be.  So do not worry about anything, is what Paul went on to say.  The Lord is near, he added.  Indeed, a quiet trust in the proposition of God’s near presence was the foundation of St. Paul’s joy.  An awareness of God’s close companionship was why he could rejoice in the Lord always, and urge us to do the same. 

Ah, but there’s that problem again of being too religious.  Would you rather have Holiday Joy?  If so, you don’t need to worry.  Let me offer you two words for Advent, based on today’s readings, to help you rejoice in the Lord without being overly religious.  The first word sounds religious, but turns out to be not so much in the end.  The first word is repent.  Did you hear in the Gospel reading (Luke 3:7-18) how John the Baptist angrily charged the people to bear fruit that is worthy of repentance?  Person after person came up to him and asked, “What should I do?”  Once John got past the bluster of his unquenchable fire and winnowing fork, his reply bore little resemblance to the strictly religious ideas we have of what it means to repent.  Instead of telling the people to go make groveling apologies or burn down their whole lives, John told them to make simple, concrete changes.  Those with two coats can share with those who have none.  Those who have food can do the same.  Tax collectors and soldiers can go about their business honestly.  What do you think John would have told you?  Repentance means turn – turn to a better thing.  We don’t like to hear it, but the truth is this: repentance is a prelude to rejoicing. 

The second word is one that we have a difficult time translating into English.  In Paul’s letter today it has been rendered as gentleness, as in Let your gentleness be known to everyone.  Other versions of the Bible translate the word as moderation, softness, kindness, reasonableness, and mildness.  Sad to say, moderate and gentle are not adjectives that would describe our society these days.  Instead of moderation we think joy is to be found in the uncompromising extremes.  Instead of gentleness, we seek to find joy in competitiveness, or toughness.  Instead of kindness, we think meanness will lead to rejoicing.  Guess what?  It’s not working!  These attitudes are poisonous to joy.  But imagine how our society, and how your life and mine would be different if we each sought to outdo one another in works of kindness and gentleness.  We would find ourselves walking in the footsteps of Jesus, along the pathway to God’s peace and joy.  Let your gentleness be known to all, so that by your very presence, they suspect the Lord is near. 

If St. Paul remains too remote and religious a figure for you, you might consider the words and witness of someone more contemporary.  Alexei Navalny was the Russian opposition leader who opposed Putin’s corrupt regime, gave up his freedom, and died in prison earlier this year.  Recently, Navalny’s memoirs have been published posthumously.  The book is entitled Patriot, and it consists of diary entries and reflections on his three years of imprisonment.  His notebooks had to be smuggled out of the prison or they never would have seen the light of day.  Navalny’s words are pertinent for Advent, and the anxious times in which we live.  He can help us prepare the way of the Lord, and make straight in our souls a highway for God.  He writes:

I have always thought and said openly that being a believer makes it easier to live your life and, to an even greater extent, engage in opposition politics.  Faith makes life simpler.  Ask yourself whether you are a Christian in your heart of hearts.  It is not essential for you to believe that some old guys in the desert once lived to be eight-hundred years old, or that the sea was literally parted in front of someone.  But are you a disciple of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others, paying the price for their sins?  Do you believe in the immortality of the soul and the rest of that cool stuff?  If you can honestly answer yes, what is there left for you to worry about?  Don’t worry about the morrow, because the morrow is perfectly capable of taking care of itself. 

 My job is to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and leave it to good old Jesus and the rest of his family to deal with everything else.  They won’t let me down and will sort out all my headaches.  As they say in prison here: they will take my punches for me.[1]  

Dear People of Grace Church: good old Jesus, along with Mary, and the rest of his family are coming to you.  Over the next nine days, I do wish you Holiday Joy.  But even more, I pray that God gives you the grace to Rejoice in the Lord always, and to let your gentleness be known to everyone.  Remember, the Lord is near, so do not worry about anything.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 

[1] The excerpt is found in “Prison Diaries,” The New Yorker, October 21, 2024, p. 40.

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HIGHWAY TO HELL

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Second Sunday of Advent
December 8, 2024

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.  (Baruch 5:1)

Last Tuesday I read a news article about an unthinkable tragedy that occurred just over a year and a half ago.  It was April 28, 2023, the wedding day of a south Carolina couple named Samantha Miller and Aric Hutchinson.  The day was supposed to be the happiest of their life, and for five hours it was.  In fact, in the midst of the celebration, the bride remarked that she wished it would never end.  When the time came for them to leave the reception, the newly married husband and wife, along with two others from the bridal party, climbed aboard a specially decorated golf cart, for the short ride to the next event. 

Suddenly, a car came careening down the road at 65 mph – 40 mph faster than the posted speed limit.  The car slammed into the back of the golf cart with deadly force, killing Samantha Miller and seriously injuring the three other riders.  The driver of the car, Jamie Lee Komoroski, was drunk, with a blood-alcohol level of more than three times the legal limit.  She was arrested, finally pled guilty, and last week sentenced to 25 years in prison.  The bride’s father, a man named Brad Warner, had this to say to Komoroski in his impact statement before the sentencing: “For the rest of my life I’m going to hate you.  And when I arrive in hell and you come there, I’m going to open the door for you.” 

I do not presume to judge Brad Warner.  The burden of his grief and pain must be intolerable.  But upon reading his words it struck me that he is quite clear about three things, at least.  First, he knows that hatred is the highway to hell.  Second, he knows that he himself is on it.  Third, he seems to confess that he will be powerless to prevent himself from arriving at the road’s inevitable, grim destination.  What can be done, what can be said to  help him off the highway to hell? 

In today’s first reading, we heard from Baruch (5:1-9), a mysterious figure in the Hebrew prophetic tradition.  Who is Baruch?  The fact is, we don’t really know.  It could be that he was a scribe of the prophet Jeremiah, who preached during the Babylonian exile.  All we can say for sure is that when the time came to close the canon of the Old Testament, and declare that certain books were in and others were out, Baruch didn’t make the cut.  We have thirty-nine books in the Old Testament, including major and minor prophets.  Then we have something called the Apocrypha.  What is the Apocrypha?  Well, if the books of the Bible were an NFL roster, you can think of the Apocrypha as the practice squad.  Players on the practice squad obviously have some skills, but also some serious flaws in their game.  You will rarely see them suited up on a Sunday.  Baruch is in the Apocrypha.  Baruch is on the practice squad.  But here he is on Sunday, not only in uniform, but on the playing field.  What does he have to say?  Baruch would say this to Brad Warner and any others full of anger and rage: Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.  Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting. 

What do you think of Baruch’s counsel?  To me, on first reading, it reminds me of the song by Bobby McFerrin: Don’t worry, be happy.  Here’s a little song I wrote.  You might want to sing it note for note.  Don’t worry, be happy.  Don’t worry.  Cheer up.  Always look on the bright side of life, is what Baruch seems to be saying.  Is that all that Baruch has to offer?  No, his words run much deeper than an admonishment to put on a happy face.  To those who were conquered, those whose daughters and sons were carried away into exile, Baruch encourages them to take the long view.  No one is lost in the kingdom of God.  God forgets no one.  What is more, God is planning a reunion: Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east, at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them.  For they went out from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne.  Baruch is reminding his community and us too that God’s love always wins out over the powers of evil.  For this reason we can take off the garment of our sorrow and affliction.  For this reason we can rejoice. 

Surely, we can take comfort in the promise of a future, joyful reunion with those we have loved and lost.  But in the meantime, the temptation to get on the highway to hell can be almost irresistible.  Full confession: last week I realized that I myself was taking steps along the road that leads to no good end.  This fall we’ve had a series of overnight brazen break-ins at Grace Church.  It’s been the same thing, twice, involving the exterior scaffolding.  I can’t give you any more details because the police are investigating.  After the first incident we installed an elaborate security system with a surveillance camera.  So the second time we were able to see the three perpetrators.  And one was a villain, and one was a vandal, and the third must have been a Visigoth.  A Visigoth?  What does a Visigoth look like?  Well, this one was an overstuffed guy with a bad hairdo and an ill-fitting leather jacket.  He looked like a Visigoth to me.  Fortunately, the villain, vandal, and Visigoth took nothing of value, except for my faith in the goodness of human nature.  It was a very small thing to begin with – smaller even than a mustard seed.  I don’t know how they found it, but they did. 

In addition to these old-style break-ins, I’ve glimpsed other threats we face.  A few weeks ago we invited the church’s I.T. professional to visit our staff meeting and review the latest in online security.  The consultant opened his laptop and showed us a screen that was recording the number of outside hits to our router.  These were not friendly visitors to our website, but hackers – BOTS – bombarding our firewall with hundreds of different passwords every minute.  The number stunned me.  Here we are, trying to restore what moth and rust have corrupted, and all the while thieves are trying to break in a steal.  We are trying to build up, they are trying to tear down.  I found myself growing in hatred.  I indulged in the scenario of coming face to face with these hackers and hooligans.  Every time I did, I realized I was taking another willing step along the highway to hell. 

So it was that I realized I was out of sorts with the things that are supposed to be most dear to me: the promises we all make in the Baptismal Covenant, and my ordination vows, just to name two.  I needed something more than Baruch’s future oriented promises of justice and restoration.  I needed what we hear about today in the Gospel of Luke (3:1-6) – what John called “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  How does one go about obtaining a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins?  Let me tell you what I did.  Last Sunday I came to church.  You’re thinking, “Not a big deal, Don.  Of course you came to church.  You’re the rector.  You’re paid to come to church.”  Right you are.  But last Sunday, having been out on Broadway with the NYPD at 2:30 am the night before, I didn’t just come to church.  Rather, I let church come to me.  I decided to immerse my spirit in everything the church has to offer.  Fun fact: “to immerse” is the meaning of the verb, to baptize. 

I immersed myself in church to uproot the hatred that was growing in my soul.  It wasn’t long into the 9 am service before I encountered the Word.  I wasn’t preaching last week, so I could listen to the reading from the Gospel of Luke as if for the first time.  In Advent we hear the strange, apocalyptic readings about the second coming of Jesus, in power and great glory.  Luke (21:25-36) records Jesus himself urging his followers to be ready: Be alert at all times, praying that you have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.  We had begun with the majestic hymn, “Lo, he comes with clouds descending.”  Once verse of the hymn includes the warning,

Those who set at naught and sold him,
pierced and nailed him to the tree,
deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
shall the true Messiah see. 

The hymn has always been my very favorite in all the Hymnal.  The funny thing is, I had always assumed it would be other people who were deeply wailing.  But the hymn and the reading put me on notice.  The wailing could be mine if I didn’t get off the highway to hell. 

Then came the Eucharist.  Thanks be to God, our redemption does not come to us by way of our own merits or effort.  It’s not just a matter of saying, “Oh, I’m walking along a bad path here.  I’d better amend my ways.”  Sometimes we are powerless to amend our ways.  It is the power of God that gives us strength to escape the road to perdition.  It is the life of Christ, given to us through bread and wine, that emboldens us to follow Jesus, rather than the devices and desires of our own hearts.  And so it was last week at the altar, reading the words of the Eucharistic prayer, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ struck me as seldom before.  Imagine: we and all God’s whole church are made one body with Jesus, so that he may dwell in us and we in him.  Indeed, St. Paul would write that filled with the Spirit of Christ, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13,” and also, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20).” 

So the Word and the Sacrament conspired to bring about a good work in me.  Finally, it was this Christian community, gathered together in Jesus’ name, that restored me to my right perspective.  At coffee hour after the 11 am service, a number of families and individuals were working on Advent wreathes.  The Advent wreath is a lovely custom that encourages us to count the weeks till the arrival of Jesus, the true light that is coming into the world.  But an Advent wreath is also a subversive thing.  As much as it is about the advance of light, it also proclaims the demise of darkness.  The good people of Grace Church thought they were simply making Advent wreathes.  Little did they know that with every branch of evergreen wrapped about the base of a candle, they were putting the darkness on notice.  The message is, “time is running out, and soon the time will be up for evil and death.”  The urgent summons to you and me is to be alert and ready, so that we can be among those singing Alleluia, and not among those deeply wailing. 

I heard a funny little story recently, somewhat in the vein of C.S. Lewis and the Screwtape Letters.  It seems that Satan was trying to devise a plan to corrupt the people of New York City, and completely possess their souls.  Lacking just the right idea, the devil consulted with three of his demonic understudies.  The first said, “Let me go talk to them.  I will convince them that there is no heaven.  They’ll fall into despair, and cease striving after the moral life.  They’ll be all yours.”  Satan thought for a moment and then concluded, “No, that won’t work.  They know there’s a heaven.  They have too many foretastes of it already.  They live in the greatest city in the world.  They have Central Park.  They have the best pizza on earth.  They have Broadway musicals with big tap dance numbers that can go on for 15 minutes.  They know what heaven is like.” 

The second demon proposed this: “Let me go talk to them.  I’ll convince them that there is no hell.  With no fear of consequences, they’ll run wild and live immoral lives.  They’ll be all yours.”  Again, Satan thought for a moment, and then concluded, “It’s a good idea, but it won’t work.  They know there’s a hell.  They have the New York Giants.  They have the New York Jets.  They have Broadway musicals with big tap dance numbers that can go on for 15 minutes.  They know what hell is like.” 

Finally, the third demon proposed a truly novel idea.  “Let me go talk to them.  I’ll convince them there is no hurry.  The hatreds they are harboring and the grudges they are nursing – they’ll have time enough tomorrow to repent.  There is no hurry.”  Satan nodded his head approvingly and said, “Perfect.  Go and tell them that there is no hurry.” 

My friends, it is not for nothing today that we sing:

Lo! the Lamb so long expected,
comes with pardon down from heaven. 
Let us haste with tears of sorrow,
one and all to be forgiven. 

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A manuscript of Bishop Heyd’s sermon is not available.

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MY FAVORITE THINGS

 The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost
November 17, 2024

Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh) … let us approach with a true heart, in full assurance of faith.  (Hebrews 10:19ff)

 Today’s readings from the Letter to the Hebrews and the Gospel of Mark have me thinking of a song from The Sound of Music.  Why?  Well, if you hang with me for a few moments, I’ll tell you why.  As many of you know, The Sound of Music is the story of a young, aspiring nun named Maria who, instead of the cloistered life, becomes the governess in a houseful of seven children.  The show was first a Broadway musical, then in 1965 a Hollywood hit that broke all sorts of box office records.  Julie Andrews, who stars as Maria, often bursts spontaneously into song, as people in musicals are inclined to do.  In one of the songs, Maria sings about her favorite things.  The list includes raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles, warm woolen mittens, and brown paper packages tied up in strings.  These are just a few of her favorite things. 

Lo and behold, through many years of parenthood, my two sons have compiled a list for me – not of my favorite things, but of things I have denounced as unwelcome intrusions into my otherwise happy, cheerful life.  What things?  These are a few of my least favorite things: The Los Angeles Dodgers, cilantro, the over and misused word “iconic,” going by my middle name, non-dishwasher safe kitchen ware, traffic circles, and one more – valet parking.  No matter where I am, I just never want to hand over my car keys to some teenager named Todd.  What is more, Todd is going to expect a sizable tip for doing something I didn’t want him to do in the first place.  There you have it: a few of my least favorite things.  And in case you were wondering, my sons do not have permission to reveal anything else on the list, so don’t ask them at coffee hour. 

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark (13:1-8), the disciples of Jesus talked about the Jerusalem temple as if it topped the list of their favorite things.  “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” they said.  Obviously, we don’t have any photographs of the temple, but various written sources describe it as enormous.  It sat atop Mt. Moriah, and was by far the largest building in the region, with stones measuring 40-feet long, 12-feet high, and 18-feet wide.  By the time of Jesus it had taken forty years to build and they still weren’t finished.  But the temple was not only big, it was beautiful, almost blindingly so.  The historian Josephus writes that much of the exterior was clad in gold plates so that the rays of the rising sun reflected off it with dazzling intensity.  To say that the temple had an emotional hold on the Jews would be a vast understatement.  It was the focal point of their identity, even the dwelling place of God on earth. 

Nevertheless, Jesus foresaw the worst of times ahead for the temple.  “Do you see these great buildings?  Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down,” is what he said.  Jesus’ prediction of the temple’s impending destruction was a lament over the favorite building of all the Jews.  Why would he say it?  Perhaps he speaking politically, gauging the revolutionary foment in Jerusalem, and realizing it was headed towards a suicidal rebellion against Rome, the occupying power.  Or perhaps he was speaking theologically, understanding that the offering of himself on the cross he saw looming before him would be the perfect sacrifice for the whole world, rendering the temple sacrifices redundant.  We heard echoes of these latter thoughts in today’s reading from Hebrews (10:11-25).  Whoever it was who wrote Hebrews also had concerns about the temple’s viability.  Every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins, is what the author wrote.  In other words, the rituals of the temple were empty and futile.  The blood of bulls and goats could not atone for sins.  Only the offering of Jesus could bring peace with God. 

In either case, whether the gloomy prediction about the temple was politically or theologically motivated, Jesus’ words proved to be true.  Mark 13 is often called “the little Apocalypse” because it purports to unveil the things that were to come.  Indeed, in AD 70, approximately 40 years after Jesus spoke, the Romans sent troops with catapults and siege engines to retake and ransack the city.  Nation rose up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, but it was never a fair fight.  Nowhere in Jerusalem was safe, but especially not the temple.  The Romans set the temple ablaze with a fire so big that Josephus compared Mt. Moriah to an erupting volcano.  Then it was all gone.  If nothing else, it was a lesson for the Jews not to put their trust in a building made with hands, but only in the true and living God. 

So here we are, two-thousand years after Jesus warned that not one stone of the temple would be left on top of another.  He warned not to put our trust in a building made with hands.  What has been a major focus of our parish life in the past year?  It has been making sure that the stones of this temple – of this church – stay on top of each other.  It is striving to prevent from happening here what happened there.  To this end we raised over $5 million last spring.  Today, I am pleased to report that we can all see progress.  In fact, with the plastic tenting down, we even have an unveiling of sorts.  You can look inside the scaffolding and see what has been our own little apocalypse: destruction, yes, but also glimmers of what is to come. 

What is coming is good news.  By next Sunday, all the interior scaffolding that you see will be gone, except for a remnant up against the south wall itself.  The south aisle will be clear for all the important Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas gatherings that will fill the church in the weeks to come.  Yes, at he pageant on Christmas Eve, the villagers with their torches, including the infamous Jeanette and Isabella, will hurry and run to the manger along the same route they take every year. 

Now for the challenging news about the south aisle project.  To quote Winston Churchill: “Now this is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”  Beginning in 2025, our construction team will be staging the next critical phases of the work, and filing important documents with Landmarks Preservation and the Department of Buildings.  These things take time, I’m told.  Also, we will conduct what is called a “make safe survey,” by which workers on lifts will handle every exterior stone that protrudes over public spaces to assure than none are thrown down.  Then, immediately after Easter, some iteration of the scaffolding that you see now will return.  We will remove four stained-glass windows and send them off to a studio for a complete restoration, because they and the stone tracery supporting them were a source of water infiltration.  If all goes well, the stained-glass windows will be back in place – wait for it – a year from now.  No doubt they will shine with dazzling intensity. 

Understand, the south aisle project was supposed to be finished last month, not next fall.  But when we opened this brown paper package tied up with string, what we found inside was a water-logged sponge.  You know those silver white winters that melt into spring?  Well, the water goes somewhere.  Over the past few weeks I have been absorbing the reality of how long it is going to take, and how many other projects we were hoping to do.  Believe me, I have been tempted to instruct my sons to add the south aisle to the list of my least favorite things.  If Rogers and Hammerstein were to set it to song, the lyrics might include:

 “Raindrops on marble, and windows in pieces; 
Plaster dissolving, the toll never ceases.” 

No, I will not sing it, because preachers who burst spontaneously into song in the middle of their sermons happen to be another entry on my list of least favorite things. 

Am I losing heart?  No, we have come too far over the years to sink into despair now.  Besides, Jesus implied that difficult times are the birth pangs preceding new life.  What is more, the author of Hebrews writes, Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh) … let us approach with a true heart, in full assurance of faith.  The author turns the corner from futility to purpose, from fear to confidence, from sin to forgiveness, and invites us to come along on the new and living way.  True, the old temple and its former function are gone.  No longer do we throng the temple in order to be forgiven.  The new and living way is to gather here because God in Christ has already forgiven us.  It is accomplished.  Note the earthy components of the new way: the body and blood of Jesus, the curtain that he opens for us, a sanctuary that we can approach, and the importance of meeting together in a sacred space. 

We live in a sacramental universe, in which every common, earthy thing can open a doorway to God.  Not to belabor the song, but raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens are iconic in the true sense of the word.  They become gateways to heaven.  They open windows, they pull back the curtain, they reveal the presence and love of God, and even declare God’s glory.  Stained glass and stone, wood and plaster, fabric and flowers also sing the praises of God for those who train their ears to listen.  In The Sound of Music, Maria sings: “When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I’m feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don’t feel so bad.” 

Let me tell you about a favorite thing I remember whenever the building challenges at Grace Church tempt me to feel sad.  Back in 2015 our choristers sang a concert tour in France, and one of the venues was Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  It was amazing.  Our choristers did more than hold their own in that ancient and holy place.  Their voices soared, and hundreds of tourists stopped their milling about and listened.  After the concert I was outside waiting for them in the plaza in front of the cathedral.  I looked up at the great west towers, the rose window, and the blue sky.  I remember thinking that someone 800 years ago, standing right where I was, would have seen exactly the same glorious sight.  The continuity with souls long dead was moving and meaningful.  Notre Dame Cathedral became one of my favorite things. 

Then four years later came the terrible fire that consumed the cathedral’s roof, brought the central spire crashing to earth, and filled the Parisian sky with smoke.  Only by the genius of medieval architects and the heroics of modern firefighters was the cathedral not entirely lost.  But it came close.  Nevertheless, the people of France and supporters around the world did not lose heart.  The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, declared that they would restore Notre Dame to its former glory within five years.  They raised $900 million.  Architects, engineers, and artists swarmed the place, and set themselves to the task.  Now the cathedral is ready to open its doors again to the public on December 7^th of this year.  Once again the stained glass and stone, the wood and the nails, the bread and the wine, the choirs and the organ, and all the common things of earth that constitute Notre Dame will become sacramental.  They will declare the glory of God, and show forth the handiwork of God’s people. 

I like to think that the same Spirit of God that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ has been stirring the hearts of the people raising Notre Dame out of the ashes.  It is the same Spirit of God at work in us, the people of Grace Church, as we seek to make new that which has grown old.  We press on because Grace Church, and all that composes it, is one of our favorite things.  A verse from the majestic hymn (360) that began our service says it well:

Hallowed this dwelling, where the Lord abideth,
This is none other than the gate of heaven;
Strangers and pilgrims, seeking homes eternal,
Pass through its portals.