But miracles do happen and the week before last and then again last week the protective scaffolding over the front paths which we have endured for 12 months was removed some two months earlier than we had been promised. Small mercies are important and worth noting. Suddenly our entrance and garden were flooded with light. It was exciting to experience and gave one a sense of hope; of life after death; of a new beginning. Upon reflection I felt the scaffolding is a metaphor for something; perhaps for the transitory nature of buildings. They do come and they do go; they crumble and need restoration; they have no further use or significance and they need demolition; they grow old and need renovation. And to do that you need to scaffold so that work can proceed and people be protected. In some ways we could say that the church is always in a state of scaffold. Whatever it is and whatever it will be the church is always being built; the church on earth is never complete until the Last Day when it will be superceded by the Reign of Christ. For above all things the church is a living institution; a live entity of which each of us is part.

With those opening remarks I come to today’s festivities, our Foundation Day commemorations. On that first Sunday in October 1848 Father George Hendric Houghton held a service in a private home in East 24th Street which was the formal beginning of Transfiguration parish. So the day we celebrate had nothing to do with this building (that was come later) but rather with a community of faithful people and with a priest with a vision of a church open to all. I say that because it is too easy to get caught up with this building and this pile of bricks and mortar when we think of our church. But we know of course that the church is so much more than the building, no matter how beautiful and special that building was or is or will become.

To turn to the readings for today which are those appointed for the commemoration of the dedication of a church we start with a dream, Jacob’s Dream. And what a dream it was.

Years ago I spent several nights in the Sinai Desert sleeping under the stars. And each night you felt the heavenly presence with the brilliantly clear and star- studded night sky. Lying on the warm sand looking up at the canopy of stars was something I shall never forget. Heaven and earth seemed so close. When Jacob had that dream he was in fear of his life. His brother, Esau, who had been done out of his rightful inheritance by his brother, was undoubtedly mad at Jacob and so Jacob had good reason to flee for his life. But precisely at that low point in his life his eyes were opened to greater reality. Canon Andrew preaching last Sunday at St Thomas’ for St Michael and All Angels opened his sermon with the arresting words, “For God’s sake use your imagination.” Those words struck me as so apposite for today. As members of the church both in this parish and in the church universal we need to open our eyes, to look about us, to dream dreams and see visions, and begin to grasp the greater reality of God. That reality of the angels ascending and descending the heavenly ladder, as it were the whole divine reality, puts all our immediate problems, our differences, our challenges whether they be personal, parochial or institutional, into some sort of perspective. Above all Jacob received a promise that there was a future before him and that that future was God’s.

How we need to hear that today both as human beings and as members of the church. As Episcopalians, as Anglicans, as members of Transfiguration, we are not in the business of giving up, of winding down, of closing up shop, because the business we are in, the firm of which we are part, is God’s and nothing will limit God’s Spirit in reaching our ultimate goal. That experience led Jacob to proclaim “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” I love those words and like seeing them in old churches where they are displayed in fine lettering across the chancel arch or over the altar. But it is worth pointing out that there was no building involved in their utterance. The vision of God can happen any place and especially in our hearts and in human community. Of course we know that Father Houghton’s vision included a building and above all one that would be free and open to all. That may sound funny to us but that was in the days when churches got their income from pew rents (that is people paid for their seats; you can see the brass labels on our pews). But Father Houghton wanted a free church, one where the poor could come and find a good seat. But even the best visions sometimes founder on economics. In the end when this church opened for worship in 1850 most of the pews had to be rented in the normal way so that the church could survive. There is always a tension between vision and reality. But that is the tension we live in as Christians. We know that Christ has died; Christ has risen; Christ will come again. That is the faith we are baptized into; that is the faith we celebrate at each eucharist; that is the faith we proclaim. And that is our vision. But we also know we live in between the times: in between the Resurrection and the Day when all things shall be consummated in the Reign of Christ. We know that what we experience now is only a foretaste of things to come.

The well-known 1 Peter reading starts with the Christian community using the metaphor of stones formed into a building to describe its life. The writer first calls the community to repentance: “Rid yourselves of all malice and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.” Human community to be effective community needs to be aware of its shortcomings and sinfulness. Too often we see well meaning people lurching into petty politics and rivalries that destroy all that they hoped to achieve. It happens in political and community groups all the time; sadly it happens in the church. So on this day as we celebrate our foundation and recommit ourselves to our continuing life we need to reflect on our own lives, how we are doing as a community of faith. “Come to him, a living stone” says 1 Peter. As a community of faith we need always to come to Jesus: to make Jesus the arbiter and architect of our life. “And like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.”

The church will always be a living entity, built upon the faith and commitment of people like us and ultimately on Christ himself. The image the writer uses is that of the Temple in Jerusalem with its sacrificial life and priesthood; that Temple already raised to the ground by Vespasian’s armies when this epistle was written making the language even more poignant. The great challenge before us as a Christian community is to allow ourselves to be built and rebuilt into Christ; to be open to the formation of the Holy Spirit so that we may be seen as a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, as God’s own people.” I shudder to read in the media of the political machinations in the church; I am saddened by accounts of clerical abuse or the oppressive practices carried out in the name of religion. But that it is precisely when we need to turn to Christ yet again and fall on our knees; to receive absolution; and be revived and renewed and press on with the vision of living God in Christ; of loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.

And the last image, in the Gospel passage, is that of Christ dramatically cleansing the Temple; throwing out the detritus of ages which inhibited the true worship of God. It is an image beloved of church reformers of every age. What it enabled in the Gospel passage was for the lame and the blind, those classically excluded groups to come to Jesus and receive the healing power of God. It enabled children to cry out for joy in the Temple. All that amazed and then scandalized the scribes and the Pharisees and became further ammunition in Jesus’ downfall.

These rich passages give us much food for reflection. We rejoice today in our Foundation; in the vision of Father Houghton; in the faith and commitment of generations of clergy and parishioners here. But above all we rejoice in our life together and commit ourselves to continue to be built as living stones into the spiritual reality of Christ and his Church. Amen

Return to "Sermons"