Building the Church

            When I was the rector of Christ Church, North Hills in Pittsburgh back in the now distant 80’s, we started a new Episcopal church in Franklin Park, in the Northern Suburbs of Pittsburgh.  St. Brendan’s was an attempt to attract people from the burgeoning areas that were being fed by a new expressway.  The parish started small, meeting for a time in a Presbyterian church in the area and growing slowly, but after a while began and built a new building.  It wasn’t an easy time.  There was a competing parish that also wanted to build a church in the area and we managed to get an agreement from them that they would hold off their effort for a year while we tried to get St. Brendan’s underway.  It really worked out well.  The competing parish also built their building, but decided to leave the Episcopal Church, which made the argument go away and the little parish managed to thrive.  Today, St. Brendan’s is an excellent parish with a solid membership and is a good presence in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. 

            I tell you this because what I want to describe is the building of the church.  That is what I believe the gospel is about, particularly today.  The miracle of Easter has happened and the disciples are wondering what it is that they do next.  At first they are frightened that they are next of the list of those to be arrested and killed for their faith; but Jesus comes to them and shows them what the resurrection means.  Slowly it dawns on them that their Lord is alive and well and that there is a mission before them that they can’t ignore.  They put their fears aside and begin to speak of the dynamic love that Jesus has exhibited toward humankind. 

            The stories that are told in the Acts of the Apostles are examples of what the building of the church was all about in the first century.  No longer afraid, the disciples begin to speak of what happened around the time of the crucifixion with frank judgement.  They talk to the people about the release of Barabbas rather than Jesus:  (Y)ou rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. Here is faithful witness without fear.  Disciples who understand that their mission is clear: the building of the church from this point onward.  And it worked well.  In small groups, mostly in homes, the church began and spread.  They celebrated and worked to become what we call today the Body of Christ.  The Lord visibly present in this world through the acts of the disciples who loved Jesus completely and who had witnessed his death and resurrection and understood their mandate to make the whole world understand what that meant. 

            It is still our job today to be witnesses of that wonder.  The purpose of the church is to show the love of God to the world around us.  We sometimes become obsessed with the bricks and mortar of the place.  We need to replace the windows or the roof, or whatever at the moment seems to be broken.  When we do that, we take away from our mission.  The point of all of this is to first of all, to be a community of faithful Christians who love each other so that we can be a beacon of hope to those who have nothing in this world.  We are not the place where the wealthy find comfort and where those who have much also discover that they also happen to possess eternal life; we are a refuge for those who discover in this world that they don’t have very much at all and they need the love that those of us who love God can provide.

            When my wife and I were in England, we visited a number of the great cathedrals that were built.  These great buildings were built by workers who found the work to be of great benefit to them.  They raised their families out of the pay that they received for the work of building these places.  When we visited them, they were all beginning to crumble.  Most of them had large boxes throughout the nave asking for donations from the visitors.  They had no other means of support. At Salisbury Cathedral, they were financing teams of carpenters and stoneworkers who were fixing the broken parts of the Cathedral.  This was how they were using their money.  When we visited Canterbury Cathedral, we discovered that there was a ticket booth where it was necessary to pay to enter the grounds, and when we went to the Sunday service, we were seated in the choir instead of the nave and the congregation consisted mostly of tourists.  It was for me a rude awakening of the condition of the church in that country.  It is still in decline and it will soon be in decline in this country unless we put aside our differences and begin again to be a source of the Gospel of Christ in this world.  What that means is to take care of those who have nothing and who are dependent on the gifts of others for their very existence.      

            One of my favorite places in England is a place in Yorkshire called Fountains Abbey.  It was built by Cistercian monks in the eleventh century using workers in the area who needed the work to survive.  Henry VIII kicked out the monks and closed the abbey and it fell into ruin. Today, it is a serene and beautiful place where you can walk among the stones and the former places of worship and experience a magnificent peace that tells me that God is still present in that place.  Down the street about a mile and a half is Ripon Cathedral, one of the places that is in the process of decline.  Both of those sites are ruins.  One of them doesn’t know it.

            Our mission a Christians is to keep the church always alive and well, no matter our size.  We need to attract those who have need of hope, faith and comfort to a place where we can show them what the resurrected Christ means to them and to all of us.  God will bless us as we do this marvelous work for the world.