Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Wesley Borden
The Anniversary of the Dedication of the Monastic Church
Click here for an audio of the sermon
Today we celebrate the anniversary of the dedication of this church – and we could do no better than to hear again the words of Jacob from the book of Genesis... “How awesome is this place! It is none other than the house of God and gate of heaven.” Stirring and powerful words...
Of course, back when this church was dedicated those words would have read a little differently, as you may have noticed in the Sequence Hymn penned by Isaac Watts: how awful is this place... That conjures a somewhat different experience... and even before it was awesome or awful, the King James translation used the word “dreadful” as in “How dreadful is this place...” That does not seem like the basis for much of a celebration...
In fact, through the awesome and awful miracle of Google, I can tell you that this place is awesome and awful... fearful, terrifying, sacred, terrible, holy, worshipful and more. Translators clearly struggle to find just the right word. How challenging is this place...
The problem is not with the translators. It's not that they have failed to find the right word. The problem is that a single word is not enough. All these various words bring particular insights in describing this place – it is awesome and dreadful, terrible and holy. It is, after all, the house of God – who is beyond description and comprehension. How could one word be enough?
Our Orthodox brothers and sisters like to refer to God in contradictions – a way of acknowledging that human language, human comprehension, is never adequate to fully express or comprehend God.
Of course, a story involving Jacob must, like Jacob, be conflicted. Jacob has, after all, lied his way into his position – he impersonated Esau his brother to steal Esau’s rightful inheritance. Jacob is a fraud and a cheat. He has good reason to be fearful in the presence of God... And yet, Jacob will become Israel – the progenitor and namesake of God’s chosen people. Jacob is a very deeply flawed person. Yet he is the foundation of Israel, and by extension a foundation stone of Christianity. The story we call to mind to celebrate this building is not a simple, easy story.
For more than a century people, specifically Monkish sorts of people, have prayed in this awful place. I like numbers, so I had to do some calculations... I calculate that, over that time, perhaps one hundred and ninety thousand hours of worship and prayer have been offered in this terrible place. That is something like fourteen continuous years of prayer and praise... how sacred is this place...
When we think of the house of God, the gate of heaven, we must think of Jesus. In today's Gospel Jesus is quite angry that God's house is turned into a den of thieves. We could comfort ourselves by reminding ourselves that Jesus has in mind the folks nestled around the temple in Jerusalem – so that lets us off the hook... except it doesn't, any more than it lets Jacob off the hook. If we think God is confined to just the inside of that house, or this house, or any house, we are wrong. God’s house is not just this place, not just this neighborhood, not just this entire planet. God’s house is all of God’s creation and we are stewards of God’s house.
Can we be proud of our stewardship... of how our world is functioning today? Do we live in a land where peace and justice flow like a mighty river? Or even trickle like a little stream... How frightening is this place because here we must answer to God...
Sometimes I wonder at Jesus walking among us and visiting the great and marvelous edifices we have built just for him... the cathedrals and shrines and sprawling mega-churches, and yes, monasteries with their chapels... And I hear Jesus saying, “its lovely, but what is it?”
There is also a darker history we must not forget... a history of exclusion – when in this country, for example, some churches were built with special galleries so that black people could be kept away from white people... in Jesus' name. Or when our industrial scale greed allows us to despoil much of the planet destroying the homes of countless of God’s creatures... in Jesus’ name.
When this church was built it had many steps... you could not enter without facing a barrage of steps, of physical barriers... those who had physical disabilities would have struggled mightily to enter; or more likely would have just stayed away... been excluded. But now, starting with the vision of Br Timothy and others over decades and with great effort and expense, we are barrier free so that all are not just welcome but can actually enter. How accessible is this place... (no, I didn't find that in any known translation, but it could be).
This minster, this monastery church is certainly worthy of honor and praise. It is a very prayerful place. But it is not the stones and timber, the parging and paint, the crosses and icons that make it holy. It isn't even the altar standing in the east. This place is holy because this is where we gather to praise God.
Two thousand years ago in Bethlehem a group of shepherds gathered to make a stable holy by greeting Jesus, praising God in heaven, and praying for peace on earth. How awesome, and how fertile, how smelly, how humble was that place.
This place is certainly less smelly and less humble... but that doesn’t make it more awesome. There is no place in which God does not make a home, an awesome, awful, wonderful, and terrifying home.
In this awesome and awful, dreadful and sacred, frightening and accessible place, we do just what those shepherds did – nothing more and nothing less. We meet Jesus. We pray glory to God in the highest. And having met Jesus – having become one flesh with Jesus in the mystery of the Eucharist – we are called go forth from this holy place to make peace on earth – just like those shepherds...
God is present in the place, but God is not confined to it, or any of the houses we build... God is just as surely present in Sing Sing Prison, a little way down the Hudson from here. God is also surely present in the Manhattan Psychiatric Center which started its life as Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum, still further down the river. God is not just present in the beautiful places we create to honor God. God is present in all places – the beautiful and the wretched – the places we would feel better if God never saw...
London’s infamous Bedlam Hospital, a place so horrendous that it gave its name to our language to mean chaos, was not actually named Bedlam. It was Bethlehem Royal Hospital. That wild and notorious hospital was named for the place where God took on human flesh and entered our world. How appropriate – because Jesus entered a world that was more bedlam than beauty.
We remember that Jesus always had special affection for those furthest on the margin – for lepers, for prostitutes, for prisoners, for lunatics... The example of Jesus is one of incredible, reckless, endless love... for everyone... As followers of Jesus, we are called to that same love for all of God’s creation.
We might think of this church, on its dedication anniversary, not so much as God’s house as God’s womb – a womb where we can be reformed (born again, if you will)... a womb where we can be nurtured ever more into God’s likeness, where we can learn to love as God loves. It is a tall order, but God is patient and infinitely forgiving. So, we pray with those shepherds: glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth.
And as we celebrate the dedication of this church, we call to mind the founding of the whole church in all forms, in all places, and at all times. The foundation of God’s Church is not made of stone, but rather of that incredible, reckless, boundless love to which Jesus calls us. How awesome is this place! It is none other than the house of God and gate of heaven.
Of course, back when this church was dedicated those words would have read a little differently, as you may have noticed in the Sequence Hymn penned by Isaac Watts: how awful is this place... That conjures a somewhat different experience... and even before it was awesome or awful, the King James translation used the word “dreadful” as in “How dreadful is this place...” That does not seem like the basis for much of a celebration...
In fact, through the awesome and awful miracle of Google, I can tell you that this place is awesome and awful... fearful, terrifying, sacred, terrible, holy, worshipful and more. Translators clearly struggle to find just the right word. How challenging is this place...
The problem is not with the translators. It's not that they have failed to find the right word. The problem is that a single word is not enough. All these various words bring particular insights in describing this place – it is awesome and dreadful, terrible and holy. It is, after all, the house of God – who is beyond description and comprehension. How could one word be enough?
Our Orthodox brothers and sisters like to refer to God in contradictions – a way of acknowledging that human language, human comprehension, is never adequate to fully express or comprehend God.
Of course, a story involving Jacob must, like Jacob, be conflicted. Jacob has, after all, lied his way into his position – he impersonated Esau his brother to steal Esau’s rightful inheritance. Jacob is a fraud and a cheat. He has good reason to be fearful in the presence of God... And yet, Jacob will become Israel – the progenitor and namesake of God’s chosen people. Jacob is a very deeply flawed person. Yet he is the foundation of Israel, and by extension a foundation stone of Christianity. The story we call to mind to celebrate this building is not a simple, easy story.
For more than a century people, specifically Monkish sorts of people, have prayed in this awful place. I like numbers, so I had to do some calculations... I calculate that, over that time, perhaps one hundred and ninety thousand hours of worship and prayer have been offered in this terrible place. That is something like fourteen continuous years of prayer and praise... how sacred is this place...
When we think of the house of God, the gate of heaven, we must think of Jesus. In today's Gospel Jesus is quite angry that God's house is turned into a den of thieves. We could comfort ourselves by reminding ourselves that Jesus has in mind the folks nestled around the temple in Jerusalem – so that lets us off the hook... except it doesn't, any more than it lets Jacob off the hook. If we think God is confined to just the inside of that house, or this house, or any house, we are wrong. God’s house is not just this place, not just this neighborhood, not just this entire planet. God’s house is all of God’s creation and we are stewards of God’s house.
Can we be proud of our stewardship... of how our world is functioning today? Do we live in a land where peace and justice flow like a mighty river? Or even trickle like a little stream... How frightening is this place because here we must answer to God...
Sometimes I wonder at Jesus walking among us and visiting the great and marvelous edifices we have built just for him... the cathedrals and shrines and sprawling mega-churches, and yes, monasteries with their chapels... And I hear Jesus saying, “its lovely, but what is it?”
There is also a darker history we must not forget... a history of exclusion – when in this country, for example, some churches were built with special galleries so that black people could be kept away from white people... in Jesus' name. Or when our industrial scale greed allows us to despoil much of the planet destroying the homes of countless of God’s creatures... in Jesus’ name.
When this church was built it had many steps... you could not enter without facing a barrage of steps, of physical barriers... those who had physical disabilities would have struggled mightily to enter; or more likely would have just stayed away... been excluded. But now, starting with the vision of Br Timothy and others over decades and with great effort and expense, we are barrier free so that all are not just welcome but can actually enter. How accessible is this place... (no, I didn't find that in any known translation, but it could be).
This minster, this monastery church is certainly worthy of honor and praise. It is a very prayerful place. But it is not the stones and timber, the parging and paint, the crosses and icons that make it holy. It isn't even the altar standing in the east. This place is holy because this is where we gather to praise God.
Two thousand years ago in Bethlehem a group of shepherds gathered to make a stable holy by greeting Jesus, praising God in heaven, and praying for peace on earth. How awesome, and how fertile, how smelly, how humble was that place.
This place is certainly less smelly and less humble... but that doesn’t make it more awesome. There is no place in which God does not make a home, an awesome, awful, wonderful, and terrifying home.
In this awesome and awful, dreadful and sacred, frightening and accessible place, we do just what those shepherds did – nothing more and nothing less. We meet Jesus. We pray glory to God in the highest. And having met Jesus – having become one flesh with Jesus in the mystery of the Eucharist – we are called go forth from this holy place to make peace on earth – just like those shepherds...
God is present in the place, but God is not confined to it, or any of the houses we build... God is just as surely present in Sing Sing Prison, a little way down the Hudson from here. God is also surely present in the Manhattan Psychiatric Center which started its life as Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum, still further down the river. God is not just present in the beautiful places we create to honor God. God is present in all places – the beautiful and the wretched – the places we would feel better if God never saw...
London’s infamous Bedlam Hospital, a place so horrendous that it gave its name to our language to mean chaos, was not actually named Bedlam. It was Bethlehem Royal Hospital. That wild and notorious hospital was named for the place where God took on human flesh and entered our world. How appropriate – because Jesus entered a world that was more bedlam than beauty.
We remember that Jesus always had special affection for those furthest on the margin – for lepers, for prostitutes, for prisoners, for lunatics... The example of Jesus is one of incredible, reckless, endless love... for everyone... As followers of Jesus, we are called to that same love for all of God’s creation.
We might think of this church, on its dedication anniversary, not so much as God’s house as God’s womb – a womb where we can be reformed (born again, if you will)... a womb where we can be nurtured ever more into God’s likeness, where we can learn to love as God loves. It is a tall order, but God is patient and infinitely forgiving. So, we pray with those shepherds: glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth.
And as we celebrate the dedication of this church, we call to mind the founding of the whole church in all forms, in all places, and at all times. The foundation of God’s Church is not made of stone, but rather of that incredible, reckless, boundless love to which Jesus calls us. How awesome is this place! It is none other than the house of God and gate of heaven.
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