First reading; Psalm, Epistle, and Gospel text
That your Church may be filled with the Holy Spirit. Amen.
That prayer is one that was used weekly from 1924 to 1926 as this building was being constructed. Grace Church was established in 1873 and Saint Stephen’s in 1893, merging in 1923. As they came together, they set out to construct this gem of a building and the first liturgies held in this space were on Sunday, October 10, 1926—100 years ago yesterday. This is certainly something to celebrate—100 years of worship and community in this space. And our prayer remains the same: that this church might be filled with the Holy Spirit.
We’re also marking the feast of our patron, Saint Stephen, today. The Feast of Stephen falls on December 26th, which is already a fairly busy time of the year. Churches that have a patron saint whose feast falls in Christmastide often mark that feast at another time during the year. Whether or not we’ll continue remembering Stephen in mid–October, I’m not sure. But given the 100th anniversary of this building, it is a great occasion to remember Saint Stephen as well.
In this sermon, I want to reflect on these two legacies—of this parish and of Saint Stephen. Guiding these reflections will be the story of Stephen’s martyrdom, from which we derive our sense of identity and mission as a parish: beauty, wisdom, and witness; and a sermon from the archives that our Archivist, Marianna McJimsey, so helpfully gave me, which was preached by one of my predecessors, the Reverend Arthur Taft, on October 10, 1926.
We heard in the reading from Acts that when everyone looked at Stephen, they saw his face was like that of an angel; it shone with a celestial brightness. This is where our emphasis on beauty is grounded. A valid question though is “Why should we focus on beauty?”
One way of viewing this is that beauty is excessive, expensive, and unnecessary. Beauty is not efficient. All the more, our focus on beauty in architecture, in music, and in how we present our congregation to the wider community is not just essential, but vital. As Dostoevsky famously wrote, “Beauty will save the world.”
This can be said of beauty because the source from which all beauty flows is the Holy Trinity. Whenever we are moved by beauty, we are communing with God. Appreciating beauty puts us in harmony with God and helps us to “lift up our hearts” to the goodness and truth that undergird what it means to be beautiful. In a world that does not have time for beauty and can be fully of ugliness, our insistence that beauty matters might just bring others, and ourselves, to the saving and beautiful grace of Jesus.
Beauty is seen in Stephen’s final words, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and do not hold this sin against them.” Stephen echoes the words of Jesus on cross, showing us that beauty is about alignment with Jesus. So, when we say that at Grace & Saint Stephen’s we value and invest in beauty, it is because the beauty of forgiveness, of mercy, of generosity bring us closer to the life of Jesus.
And in Taft’s sermon preached 100 years ago, he said, “For a church is not a club house: it is not a convenient and pleasant shelter in which we can sit at ease and hear sermons. A church is above all else a reminder of God, an opportunity given by God by which he can reach us, a form of a sacrament through which is spiritual and eternal can enter into us… if you open your heart to its influence.”
Now what could be more beautiful than that? When eternity intersects with the temporal? Our opening hymn sings, “This is thy temple; here thy presence chamber.” Or as Taft put it, this building is sacramental in that it connects us to the Divine. The beauty of this building connects us to God, as do the beautiful things that you create and appreciate on a daily basis.
Next is wisdom, which I believe might be the most important thing a church can be about these days. Godly wisdom is a sort of life–preserver that might save us from drowning in our divisions, discord, and discontentment.
The first reading from Exodus tells a story that happened thousands of years ago, and has been happening ever since—when our unwillingness to let God be God leads us to idolatry. Wisdom isn’t the same thing as being street–smart or book–smart. Wisdom doesn’t come with age. No, wisdom is a gift, a grace, from God which is about being able to see things as God does. In that sense, Stephen’s forgiveness isn’t just beautiful, it’s wise, as he seeing beyond their closed–mindedness and into the reconciliation and redemption of all things.
In the time of Jesus, they had a different sense of how vision and light work. Our understanding is that light emanates from outside of us and then our eyes perceive and process that light into visual images. Their view was that the light comes from within us and allows us to see external realities, sort of like a lantern. Using that framework, wisdom is when the light that we use to see the world isn’t the light of selfish ambition, or fearful suspicion, or greedy stinginess, or exclusionary superiority, but rather the light of the Resurrection. In a sense, wisdom is saying, trusting, and following Jesus’ own prayer, “Not my will, but God’s will be done.”
One–hundred years ago, Taft said “But, my friends, here comes the call upon us. A new set of associations and memories must be formed in this new church to allow God to do his work for those who follow us.” As I was reading this sermon, it gave me chills to think that we are the inheritors of this legacy. The temptation is to play things safe and to focus on what has worked in the past. That is what the people did at the foot of the mountain in Exodus—they wanted a God they could understand, so they fashioned a golden calf because it was familiar, recognizable, and unthreatening.
That was a temptation for those who built this church as well. The Gazette articles from the 1920s refer to this building as the most–beautiful church west of the Mississippi. And as someone who lived more than 40 years east of the Mississippi, I’ll can attest it’s a stunning building, regardless of longitude. The point is: they had a sense that God was calling them to do something big and grand for the betterment of this community. And, beloved, God calls us to do the same—to see our mission not in terms of what makes the most sense in terms of best–practices or anticipated outcomes, but to see thing through the lens of eternity and ground our lives in the blessedly different wisdom of that Resurrection light.
And there is witness. The Greek word for “martyr” is usually translated as “witness.” Stephen embodies what we heard in Psalm 31, “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” In doing so, Stephen witnesses to the power of God to redeem all things, even his death and the sins of those who caused it. His martyrdom reminds us that faith is a gift not just for ourselves. Faith isn’t merely something that helps us to navigate life and find peace in such an unpeaceful world. Yes, faith often does that. But our faith is also something like arrow that points others to the source of faith. We are all witnesses.
In England, the world “parish” isn’t just a synonym for congregation, it’s a geographic area and the idea is that every parish, every community, has a church in it to attend the spiritual and temporal needs of the community. At Grace & Saint Stephen’s, we excel in manifesting beauty, and we’re going to continue doing that. We have strong offerings that help us to grow and wisdom, and we’ll continue to develop those opportunities to see things through the light the Resurrection. But if there’s an area for us to really focus on, it’s witness, particularly within our parish, within our community.
I don’t have any specific plans or intentions, only hopes and longings at this point. So I ask that you will join me in praying for wisdom and clarity about what sort of witness God intends us to be. The prayer that we might be filled with the Holy Spirit is one for us all to pray. Over the past two weeks, I’ve talked about the importance of Monday in our faith—when the peace, wisdom, and comfort we receive here on Sunday is manifest in our schools, our jobs, our community. It’s my hope that Grace & Saint Stephen’s will have a Monday witness that is just as profound as the beauty of our Sunday worship.
In the first worship service in this space, Taft said, “Religion is not primarily a matter of creed and doctrines… What religion is primarily concerned with is to set us living lives too big for earth to complete.” I absolutely love that sentiment. Taft and those gathered on October 10, 1926 were building something they did not finish, and it is now our turn to take up that task of witnessing to the love of God in this community before we entrust this holy work to those who will come after us.
Said differently, faith is about audacious things, faith is about dreaming big dreams, and hoping grand hopes. Because when we dare to hope in such a way, we testify, we witness, to the God who enables, inspires, and fulfills such hopes. Many, many of you have commented to me that you have a sense that great things are coming to fruition at Grace & Saint Stephen’s. And I agree with your noticings of the Spirit’s movement in this place.
Wanting to be faithful to this movement of the Spirit, it’s our hope that all of us will be involved in one ministry that is oriented towards beauty, one towards wisdom, and one towards witness. Beauty is the upward dimension of our faith—our connection with God. So that could be choir, Altar Guild, Morning Prayer, or ushering, any of the ministries related to worship. Wisdom is about the inward journey to know God more deeply. Being involved with Youth Group, Sunday School, formation classes, EfM, or one of our book groups are great ways to grow in wisdom. And witness is our outward facing ministries, such as Environmental Sustainability, Outreach, or Greeters.
Another important way to further our witness is through the invitation that you received in the mail or can find in the pews—the invitation to invest in what the Spirit is doing here. Our goal is to have 15 new households make an intention of giving for next year, and to ask all those who currently give to increase that amount by 3%.
More than what we hope to receive though your generosity though is what generosity does for the giver. It’s back to Exodus and idolatry. Money is the most dangerous idol we face, which is why Jesus spoke about money more than pretty much anything else. Money is an incredibly powerful tool that represents our time and work. But if we cannot give our money away, it is a clear sign that our money has power over us instead of us having power over our money. So give.
As a family, we find that giving 5% to the church and 5% to other charitable organizations is a good goal, as it requires intentionality and sacrifice. But the goal isn’t a specific number, it’s to experience the liberation of the Gospel, which includes freedom from all forms of idolatry. So, if you don’t think the Spirit is up to anything worthwhile here, don’t give here. But for your sake, give your money away before your bank account becomes a golden calf. How we give is a part of our witness.
The reason why we’re here a hundred years later, and God–willing, people will be here a hundred years from now, is the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who leads us into beautiful harmony with God, who deepens us in wisdom, and inspires our witness to the Risen Jesus. Come, Holy Spirit, and guide us into doing things that are too big for us to complete on our own. Amen.
