Peace, Grace, and Jazz!

{Lent 2021 has brought some faithful folk back into their church sanctuaries for worship, but others of us are still waiting until the coast is clear. Thus, I’ve been looking at my files of photos from our various travels and some of the churches I’ve served as pastor, and posting one a day since Ash Wednesday. Along with writing. Good grief. The writing. You’d be surprised how long it takes each day to do this. I can’t wait until Easter!}

I don’t know when I first noticed the “Stations of the Cross” in Roman Catholic Churches. But having discovered them, I am drawn to the many creative ways those fourteen scenes of Jesus’ last days are depicted along sanctuary walls, or in this case, in the aisles of Southwell Minster, the Cathedral and Parish Church of the Virgin Mary in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, England. (Southwell Minster is not, by the way, a Roman Catholic Church, but in the Church of England.)

In some churches, the “stations” are relatively small paintings; in others sculptures. Usually the stations are attached to the side walls of the church so that worshippers can walk the aisles and stop at each one to meditate on each scene. I won’t go into details here except to note that the first station shows Pilate condemning Jesus to die. And the last is Jesus being placed in the tomb.

In this series of Lenten reflections, I’ve already mentioned Southwell Minster and noted its 900 year history. And once one has stood in awe of its soaring beauty, one looks for detail. The detail I centered on previously was the mice there. The ones playfully carved into various wooden structures like pews and columns. On the way down a side aisle, we saw these metal sculptures. I took the time to frame several of them with my compact Sony. Here are a few.

Jonathan Clarke is the artist who created these. His website describes his process this way:

Jonathan works in sand-cast aluminium, initially carving his sculpture in polystyrene. This method – pioneered by his father and mastered by Jonathan – relies on the destruction of the original mould as it is vaporised by molten aluminium. The result is an entirely unique, one-off sculpture.

As you look at the figures there, your assignment is to link the art to the stations along the way of the cross that you perceive there.

The Stations of the Cross are not only absent from Protestant churches in the U.S. (but if you know of exceptions, please add a comment here), but most Protestants would rather not be bothered by the darker days of Holy Week to begin with. The faithful choose to move from one festival to another, from the “glory, laud, and honor” of Palm Sunday’s procession to Easter’s joy and praise. When it comes to Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, attendance at our churches is way lower. We’re really into the good news stuff, but don’t want to make time for Jesus’ pain, the betrayals, the denials, the nails. The tomb. Our complicity. Paying more attention to the scriptural stories of Jesus’ last days would help us appreciate to a fuller extent Easter’s ultimate surprise.

The Stations took on significant meaning for me when I served my last church before retirement. Each Thursday, most of the ministers in our small village met for breakfast at a local restaurant. Besides me (the Presbyterian), a couple of Methodist pastors, the Episcopal rector, one of the Baptist pastors (the other was too holy to join us commoners), and the Catholic priest enjoyed meeting without an agenda except pancakes, eggs, and coffee. Lent and Holy Week were the exceptions to that no-agenda thing, for we recognized the value of sharing that part of the liturgical calendar ecumenically. So we did some planning together. We had our own individual Maundy Thursday services, but on Good Friday the Protestants joined for a noontime service at the Episcopal Church, and the priest invited us to the Stations of the Cross service at his church that evening. He’d greet us in his office, distribute little devotional booklets to the gathered (and vested) clergy, and we’d move to the sanctuary where the Catholic congregation was awaiting the journey to the cross. We would rotate the readings and prayers among us as we walked the aisles of the church, stopping at each station. The people would shift their gaze to each station as we paused to read the booklet’s pages.

I loved the sharing of our common faith in that way, and yearned for other occasions when the people of the village could gather across denominational lines to pray and sing together. One in the Spirit.

Those stark gray aluminum stations pictured above prompt us to place ourselves along Jesus’ path. We can imagine the fear of his followers, their sorrow, perhaps disillusionment, as well as Jesus’ own suffering heading to the cross, his death, and burial. We would do well to pay more attention to the hard days between the easy festivals.

I doubt these stations will ever become a “thing” for churches outside the Roman Catholic or other “high” liturgical churches. That’s our loss.

{Each day in Lent 2021, I am posting photos of various sanctuaries from my files of churches my wife Joan and I have worshipped in or simply visited while traveling. Today, early in Holy Week, we see a sanctuary without walls.}

Early on in this series, I made a reference to sanctuaries other than the ones in church buildings. While I’ve previously posted places of worship from massive cathedrals to rural churches, I’ve not yet used an image of a sacred space in nature. Yet, since many of us have found spiritual strength in places of natural wonder, let’s look outside today.

It may not be evident at first glance, but beyond the firepit and cross is one of the New York State’s Finger Lakes. Geneva Presbytery’s Camp Whitman is on Seneca Lake. The lake is that blue-gray field beyond the grass and trees. The camp mission statement is straightforward:

Camp Whitman on Seneca Lake lives for those who are longing for belonging, seeking connection with community and creation, respite from chaos and competition, and an opportunity to encounter both the Holy and themselves.

The photo here is a captured frame from a video I did for the camp many years ago. I have this disclaimer to make: I have never actually spent a night there, nor worshipped in that outdoor setting, lovely as it is. I’ve gone to meetings there, met some campers and made the video, but not really “camped.” (My daughter’s family has enjoyed its family camp experience there though, and they recommend it.)

I once served a church which had a wooded campus and there was a small chapel area among the trees, under-utilized as I recall. It had such potential, but the south’s summer heat and mosquitoes made sitting for any length of time uncomfortable. Still, these natural settings do seem perfect for quiet reflection, for time and space away from racket and routine, and for prayer where I suspect prayer began– under God’s canopied sky, breathing in fresh air, paying attention to nature’s gifts from delicate wild flowers to sunsets. The wonder of creation moves even the agnostic to grateful awe. 

I didn’t come from a camping family. Maybe Dad had had enough of that in the army during WW2. Or, just maybe, camping with six kids wasn’t that much fun. I also didn’t learn to swim (ever), so church camp during my childhood years was not in the cards. I didn’t want to be forced to “swim” in a camp lake whose muddy bottom might drop off into oblivion. In my last two years of high school, however, “church camp” was held at Watson Homestead, a conference center near Thomas J. Watson’s birthplace near Painted Post, NY. There was a safe pool there (in addition to the lake), and accommodations for us high schoolers were in a motel-like wing off the main building. Now that was my style of camping. So, late in my youth, I caught up with peers who had gone to week-long church camp for years. It was more than OK.

I enjoyed the community spirit, the fellowship, of the place. I loved the natural setting: hikes in the woods, campfires after sunset, even the “chapel talks” by adult leaders whom I grew fond of and kept in touch with for years to come. And the shallow end of the pool was refreshing too. By this time in high school, I was already feeling a call to ministry. And for some reason, my last night at that second church camp experience is especially memorable…so memorable, that some fifty years later my wife and I drove to the homestead to look for the exact place I had that experience.

As a high school senior this would be my last night at camp with these friends and adult mentors. As is typical of such weeks, the final activity was a worship service with favorite camp songs, prayers, and a message designed to send us home with our spiritual batteries fully charged. The service ended with this assignment: we were to take a small candle, light it, and carry it into the darkness of some corner in the camp where we would stay until the candle burned down. In silence. That may have been the hardest part for fifty or so teenagers who had engaged in rambunctious skits, splashy pool play, flirtatious pranks, and constant chatter from wake-up calls to taps…and late into the night. Silence? I took it seriously.

I found a small bridge over a stream that ran through the grounds, and I stood there. And stood there. And prayed. It wasn’t long before the less pious campers pretty much helped their candles go out, and ran by me over the bridge, giggling, shouting after summer friends whom they would not see for another year. And I stood there. I remember feeling a little annoyed that my friends weren’t taking this assignment as seriously as I did. Yes, judgey even back then. When my candle finally went out, I maintained my personal vow of silence all the way back to my room. I have no idea what my prayers were; probably my first experience with “interior prayer,” that is, deep meditation without words. What I do remember was a kind of “God-consciousness,” just being aware that God and I (we were fairly tight) had a plan of some sort. College. Seminary. Ministry. 

All these years later, Joan and I never found that bridge. But we found the sky, the woods and fields, the homestead buildings, the lake, the fresh air. And I was glad that after retirement, another camp, Whitman, asked me to help tell the story of its summer gifts for kids and families. It helped me recall how special it was for me in another time, another camp, so long ago and far away. I still consider that a formative spiritual experience. For some reason, candles are still a big deal for me. And silence.

In college, I had still another spiritual high at a camp retreat not far from campus. And seminary started with a retreat at Central Virginia’s Camp Hanover. Six of us got lost there on a hike, rescued by a local farmer. But that’s another story. Mostly I wanted to write not of getting lost, but of being found in nature’s entralling sanctuary. 

[A related footnote: 31 years after my time at Watson Homestead, I was attending my first meeting of Northern New England Presbytery, which owns Camp Whitman. I had left Virginia for a pastorate in Vermont and was moving from one presbytery to another. At lunch, as one among strangers, I found myself sitting next to someone who looked vaguely familiar. We introduced ourselves and played that game, the one where you try to guess where your paths might have crossed. Was it at seminary in Richmond? No. What about meetings in New York or Atlanta? No. Any media connections? No again. When my table mate asked where I was from originally, we discovered he had served a church not far from my hometown. And he, now retired, had been a camp counselor in his first years of ministry, at Watson Homestead…when I was kid there. Aha! I smiled and told him that I now remembered him from there, and I told him a story he had told us campers three decades before. It turned out that he and his wife were attending the church I was called to serve. The Rev. Jim MacKellar would become my Parish Associate in his retirement. I wrote about him in my first Lenten series, “Forty I Have Followed.”]

 

{Each day during Lent 2021 I am writing of those sacred spaces we call sanctuaries, now referred to by the “we-don’t-want-to-sound-too-pious” folk as “worship centers.” No matter what we call those big rooms, some of us more COVID-cautious church members have missed being there, so I share these images and reflections. My wife can’t wait for this writing discipline to be over; it’s spring, and we have other things to do! I’m with her, by the way. It always feels this way in the last days of Lent!}

We enter Holy Week. And today I proclaim that this is Palm Monday. Today’s sanctuary is filled with music, tunes provided by the Presbybop Jazz Quintet.

As Marcus Borg writes

Less well-known is the historical fact that a Roman imperial procession was also entering Jerusalem for Passover from the other side of the city. It happened every year: the Roman governor of Judea, whose residence was in Caesarea on the coast, rode up to Jerusalem in order to be present in the city in case there were riots at Passover, the most politically volatile of the annual Jewish festivals. With him came soldiers and cavalry to reinforce the imperial garrison in Jerusalem.

It is clear what Pilate’s procession was about. By proclaiming the pomp and power of empire, its purpose was to intimidate.

from the webpage of the Marcus Borg Foundation

So, Pilate came in a shiny new Cadillac Escalade, and Jesus rode in an old Ford Maverick, unintimidated. Palm branches were waved at Jesus; no word on what was waved at Pilate. But what about the next day? Here’s where the jazz comes in. Not the blue notes yet. On that Palm Sunday, the music was festive, Dixieland meets driving Swing. Jesus’ people jitterbugged, jived, and jumped in jubilation! Their hero, their Savior, Messiah, and King — the leader of their band — had achieved his triumph over the powers of oppression and occupation, those powers on the other side of town. We’ll show them!

And the next day? Monday morning they got up, hung-over. But the music still sang in their souls, its rhythm persistant and every note true, syncopated but true. Like the music of that concert pictured above in the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church in Clarks Summit, PA where the Rev. Bill Carter preaches from the pulpit and the piano. In the pulpit, his words are creative and profound (something he might deny out of humility). From the piano, his music is, well, Brubeckian! Whether he is interpreting the jazz masters of the keyboard or playing his own powerful jazz compositions, his music inspires and moves listeners to at the very least tap their feet. At the most? It melts the frozen chosen of the pews and brings life both more abundant and more fun.

And yet. Not all jazz is joy-filled. There is, after all, “the blues.” As Bill Carter has said, if a church has to have a praise band, it also needs a band of lament, for the song book of the Bible is filled with both kinds of musical offerings to the God who puts music into the human spirit. Palm Sunday’s rejoicing carries over into what I am calling Palm Monday, but it won’t take long for the followers of Jesus to realize the road to Jerusalem also leads out of the city, toward the place of the skull, Golgotha. The final destination may not have been evident for several more hours, but Jesus seemed to grow more quiet, more sober, more…grave…as that Monday moved toward Tuesday. So, eventually…the blues.

Blue notes are flatted, bent, shaped for enshadowed hearts. Whether the trumpet wails its lament at lost love, or Billie Holiday’s voice cries in pain at “Strange Fruit:” Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees, the music shares our deepest pain. Jesus hangin’ on a tree will bring an end to any sense of “triumph” felt by his followers during his palm days. Things had burst with upbeat energy on Sunday, slowed down on Monday, and as this week called “holy” moves toward its end, the skies and the music grow darker.

Thursday’s dinner music will be fit for a last supper. Farewell.

By Friday night, Jesus’ followers will be as rare as the audience in the photo listening to blue notes for Lent.

And Saturday? Don’t even bother to open the keyboard cover or wet the reed or oil the slide. No mood even for the blues. Beyond that? We’ll have to let you know. But hang on to your charts just in case.

{During Lent 2021, I’ve been perusing my photo files, choosing pics of church sanctuaries, and writing random reflections prompted by the images, while drinking fair trade coffee. OK, that last phrase was irrelevant. The main thing is that the pandemic has kept many of us away from the sanctuaries that welcomed us as people of faith, and this blog is one way to reconnect with those special places.}

Pictured here is the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church, Champaign, IL. I took the photo, but have never been in the room. Throughout the global pandemic, we have worshipped with many congregations via video streaming, and this church is one of our favorites. (So, my camera was aimed at the TV screen.) On this day before Palm Sunday I thought this image might be appropriate. See the guy in the back there? He’s waving a palm branch. All by his lonesome.

That’s one of my best friends, the Rev. Matt Matthews. He’s the “Senior Pastor,” something difficult for me to grasp since I’ve known him since his college days, just a couple of years ago. Or three decades? Anyway, he’s the head of staff there, and you’d think he could have found some underling to wave that branch, but there he is. Hosanna, and all that.

The scene pictured here was from a year ago when churches were beginning ro realize that things would be different for some time to come. As Lent 2020 was nearing an end (an end that really didn’t seem to arrive), Palm Sunday insisted on happening. (Church calendars don’t pay attention to mere human events or circumstances…wars, pandemics, whatever…Christmas and Easter persist on their quirky schedules.) The usual procedure for many churches of all kinds of stripes is to buy palms of some sort (unless they happen to grow nearby, and here in Upstate New York they don’t), hand them out to parishioners and force even the introverts to leave their pews and march around the sanctuary singing “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.” Some shouting of Hosanna! is also encouraged. Did I say “around the sanctuary?” Yes, it says so just above this query. Many churches take the parade a bit further; they parade around the block, or around the periphery of the church exterior, a public display of affection for Jesus.

Matt’s parade last year was kind of abbreviated. He was by himself. He didn’t march. He just stood there and waved. And smiled. Because he has a warm sense of humor and an endearing connection to his church folk. He was inviting us, the worshipping congregation at home in recliners, drinking coffee or tea, maybe still in PJs, but nonetheless eager for the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to be re-told — he was inviting us to virtually gather around the Word, listen for new understanding, and say our prayers. The church’s cantor sang the hymn, a puppet asked the questions the church’s youngsters might have asked about the palms, Matt sat casually in the front pew and spoke with us what he had discerned about the celebration from his study of the Book. (He didn’t actually preach. “Preaching” assumes a group to whom a sermon is projected, loudly enough to reach the back of the room and the wandering mind. Matt as much as conversed with us, though that verb infers an exchange of words between two parties. Still, as he informally shared his thoughts, we did nod, hum an affirmation, maybe even mutter an amen.)

Hosanna in the highest heaven! Hosanna is one of those words reserved for church. It’s not part of normal speech or common vocabulary. I have yet to hear someone shout the word upon seeing the new Corvette or Lady Gaga video. (Though “Halleluia” is far more common, and though I’m not allowed to utter it during Lent, I didn’t; I typed it. Gee, I hope you’re not reading this aloud.) But on Palm Sunday, virtual or not, the hosannas echo through the centuries, and the joyous acclamation shouted and sung at Jesus’ arrival in the holy city is repeated by the global community of faith. If Jesus were coming to town today, we might wave our lighted cellphones, or giant foam pointy fingers (“You’re number one!) or pom poms. There’d be some entrepreneurs selling light sticks and glow rings, too. But back then, the custom was plucking palm branches from trees and laying them before the entering dignitary or waving them overhead.

Hosanna in the highest heaven! The highest heaven! The gospel writers see Jesus as the one who joins earth and heaven, the lowest earth (the meek, the poor, the hungry, the humblest child) and the highest heaven (that would be Godself). Hurrah! Hooray! How soon, within days, the shouts would be, “Crucify him!” Like the turn of a card.

Before I end here, a note about that empty (except for Matt) sanctuary. It doesn’t indicate at all that Matt’s church is empty. Its mission continues, and it is ambitious under the guidance of Matt’s beloved, The Rev. Rachel Matthews, the church’s Mission Coordinator. A praise band often joins the organist and cantor in leading music for streamed worship. The multicultural congregation hears the scriptures read in French as well as English each week, and that Word is proclaimed orally and actively, with FPC Champaign’s church life continuing to reflect a living and breathing faith through these challenging times. Social justice, the arts, campus ministry — those are part of the outreach of a vital church. Matt even sends a daily email to each church member and friend, offering news, pastoral concerns, mission invitations, prayers and poetry, and just awful humor. (Insert smiley face here! Or one that grimmaces.)

Hosanna, then, to the Jesus who is alive and well in that congregation! If I had a palm, I’d wave it!

{A sanctuary visit each day in Lent 2021…photos from my files, writings off-the-cuff.}

Just spend a couple of minutes gazing at that glimpse of spectacular art work. One would think such art would be found in a museum, not a church. One would be right. It is indeed a museum. But it wasn’t always. It is still known as “The Church on Spilled Blood.” To be clear, a former church.

We might assume the reference to “spilled blood” would refer to Jesus and his crucifixion. But it doesn’t. Here’s the Wikipedia description:

The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (Russian: Церковь Спаса на Крови, Tserkovʹ Spasa na Krovi) is a former Russian Orthodox church in Saint Petersburg, Russia which currently functions as a secular museum. The structure was constructed between 1883 and 1907. It is one of Saint Petersburg’s major attractions. The church was erected on the site where political nihilists assassinated Emperor Alexander II in March 1881. The church was funded by the Romanov imperial family in honor of Alexander II, and the suffix “on [Spilled] Blood” refers to his assassination.

Unlike some of the awe-inspiring sanctuaries we’ve been in, because this is a tourist attraction there were no people sitting quietly in pews as parading visitors gaped at architecture or sculpture or other artworks intended to draw worshippers toward God. First, there were no pews. Second, the crowd within that once-sacred space was huge. Many of us were on guided tours and we were forced to keep moving lest we lose our guides in the masses. The din of the throng was like the sound of the wind, constant, and in that space, annoying. Really annoying. Pausing for prayer in that atmosphere was almost impossible.

When I think of the artists who were commissioned to depict the whole story of “salvation history” on every surface of that church, and when I imagine their pride in their work, the joy of creativity mixed with the practical labors of mixing paints, applying plaster, cleaning brushes, cutting and setting mosaic tiles in place — how devastated they would be that we today are only allowed to walk briskly through the halls merely glancing at the still-brilliant colors as light pours in from above. We only skim the testament they offer.

Were those artists well-compensated for their work, or was this forced labor? Were they believers, devoted to the faith their efforts would serve to inspire? Or, was this just a job that would lead to the next one, perhaps painting the bedroom of a Saint Petersburg merchant? Were the artists aware of the theological meaning behind each image, or…? I wonder. Perhaps no matter their motivation or vocation, they might have assumed their work would last for a century or more. Not many of us can say that of our labors.

This space was once a sanctuary, height, width, and depth set apart for divine worship. I can imagine the deep voices of Russian men chanting the liturgy. I can see the vested priests lifting the chalice high and saying the ancient words, echos of Jesus’ voice in the upper room on his last night. I imagine worshippers standing there watching it all, the shining beauty of the walls and pillars transporting them high above their daily cares, some moved to tears when awe pierces the heart. [That experience of being transported by elegance beyond one’s routine or, worse, daily drudgery reminds me of the grand movie palaces in the age of the Great Depression in the U.S. where the “show” began as one entered the theater itself. The intention was to transport the public into a fantastic grandeur, maybe a Moorish garden with twinkling stars overhead, marble columns and stained glass, rich fabrics and garish colors. The films were one thing, but the greatest escape was in the auditorium’s architecture.]

Certainly such churches as this one will never be built again. It is both impractical, and unethical. If we expect such magnificence in our modern (and modest) places of worship, the day is coming when the church usher will hand us our virtual reality headsets. We’ll put them over our eyes, adjust the earbuds, and stare ahead as 8K images take us away to heaven’s gates with angelic surround sound. Will God be waiting? I suppose that depends on the programmers.

One lesson I take away from my own ruminations on all this: when I see the overwhelming power of such beauty in that former church, I am newly aware that experiences of worship must speak to the senses, to the heart, as well as to the mind. Eyes, ears, taste, and smell. Iconology, music, the wine and the incense — and let us not forget the touch. Even in this day when touching is risky, appropriate occasions for embracing, the laying on of hands, the simple handshake…all celebrate the joy and wonder of being human, the glory of God in humanity fully alive.

Next week, on Maundy Thursday, I’ll show you something profound in its stark simplicity, and that image will awaken the senses as well. Different strokes, you see.

But tomorrow in this series, a man stands alone in the back of his church, waving something…something green.

{We are touring forty sanctuaries in these forty days of Lent 2021, and today I offer a church that has some personal history. Admittedly, this reflection will be of far more interest to my kin than to the casual reader. My paternal grandmother was a Stanton, and my middle name is her “maiden name.” Some genealogical research connects us to Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Yes, she married a Stanton, but already was in the Stanton line! That bit of pride aside, we humbly go on to England.}

It’s common to speak of a church family. But today, I write about a family church.

In 2018 Joan and I visited some family heritage sites in England. This small village church is in Staunton-in-the Vale, Nottinghamshire, and has been for some time. It stands on the grounds of the Staunton Hall residence and was the family chapel. It is now the parish church for Staunton and Flawborough. The 1086 Domesday Book records a church and a priest in the village, but it is unclear if it was on the present site. Certain church features have been dated as far back as the 12th century.

One description I read on line calls this a “Village church with rare Crusader tombs, Norman font and armorial hatchments.” As is the case with many or most churches this old, the building has some very old features, but has been severely modified over the centuries. One account complained about such modifications, questioning their necessity. Sounds familiar.  Here is what I found from one source focusing on Staunton history:

“The nave and chancel were rebuilt in 1859, and the north aisle and chancel are 14th century. The church contains tombs of the Staunton family who have lived next to the church since 1066. On the inside walls are hatchments with the coat of arms of ancestors who lived and died here, mainly in 18th century. The Rood screen [dates from] from 1530.” Even earlier, circa 1172, there is the ancient font, and restored south doorway, suggesting a 12th century rebuilding.

Speaking of the Staunton family, further research provided this gem: the local Staunton family, which has resided in the area since the Norman Conquest and possibly before, [makes] them one of the oldest families in the country continuously living on its own estate. (Another sidebar: the name Staunton was originally Stanton.] Further, the pages of “The Heart of Midlothian,” written while Sir Walter Scott was a guest at Staunton Hall, contain pen pictures of Staunton-in-the-Vale, under the pseudonym of Willingham. [And there’s this fun fact: Joan and I once lived in Midlothian…but the one in Virginia!]

The first parish churches were not built by the ecclesiastical hierarchies, but by the local lords. A website called “Britain Express” explains:

“It is speculated by historians that parish boundaries were originally those of Saxon manors. The extent to which the church parish and the local lord’s authority overlapped is apparent when you consider that before the Norman invasion one of the accepted ways of becoming a thegn [thane] was to build a church, especially one with a tower (the tower was a defensive measure against the threat of Danish invaders).”

All that is very interesting, but more to the point here, for me, is the very idea of walking the same aisle that my ancesters walked toward baptisms, weddings, coffins, and that altar with its sacramental meal. I stood in the pulpit there, just to pose, where some Stanton clergyman stood to preach. (I pause each time I type those male terms, but there sure weren’t any women in that pulpit back then…the church’s loss.) In the U.S. we may sit in the same pew a grandparent occupied, or be married where our parents wed. But our country is still relatively young and those sanctuaries in Europe that we visited held such deep traditions within ancient walls. We went into many churches we were able to connect with our family history and each time we wanted to linger longer than time allowed.

I took few photos of this sanctuary itself, centering more on the coats of arms, hatchments, and the organ. The church is still used, but I didn’t see signs of life beyond worship. That is not unlike some of the churches in our own cities and towns, some of them once large congregations where nurture, mission, and outreach were hallmarks of thriving faith at work. When I retired, I was on the local “supply list,” filling in for pastors on vacation or study leave, or just filling an empty space on a dying church’s Sunday calendar. Most don’t want to admit they are dying, though their members admit their glory days are way behnd them. Empty bulletin boards and vacant nurseries, inactive committees and few active members — signs that such churches are sick unto death. A church that has little to celebrate but its place in history will sing more songs of lament than praise.

As we tourists enter such chapels and churches, we may use words like “quaint” or “awesome” to describe such houses of worship. But when the psalmist sang, “How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord,” the word had more to do with the activity of God and God’s people than nostalgia. (Imagine the psalm saying, “How quaint is your dwelling place…!) The 84th Psalm sings of the joy, of exhuberant anticipation of entering into the presence of God. One of my teachers, James Luther Mays, notes that one’s yearning for the presence of God indicates that faith must take the form of movement. A thriving faith is a driving faith! (That last line is mine; don’t blame it on Jim Mays!) Old buildings just sit there. The faithful church must push its adherants to action. Service. Courage. Justice. And love. Love as an active verb.

All this is not to criticize this family church of mine. I just have to remember that amid the coats of arms and entombed forbears there, the font, altar, and pulpit must energize the community to not simply believe in Jesus, but believe him, trusting in his words and living into his call to extend grace and welcome and service to all.

{We are so very grateful to the current Staunton family that lives in the hall and provides stewardship of the property, thankful for their welcoming us to that touch of “home” in Nottinghamshire.}

{Lent 2021 brings visits to various church sanctuaries through photographs I’ve taken and the reflections I share in daily writings. There’s no grand scheme here; just what occurs as I survey some sacred spaces from our journeys.}

The sign on this church reads “Santuario de San Pedro Claver.” The church is in Cartagena, Colombia.

Four hundred years ago Jesuits established a post in Cartagena and founded a school and a church its downtown. During the 17th century a priest called Pedro Claver (26 June 1580 – 8 September 1654) dedicated his life to the protection of the African slaves there, and was named a Saint three hundred years later, the first to be canonized in the New World. He is popularly known as the Patron Saint of slaves. (The edifice now bearing his name was built in 1602 in Spanish Colonial style.) 

While there is obviously a lot to gaze at in the impressive sanctuary, I was particularly struck by the statue of Father Claver. I had not heard of him prior to our encounter in the transcept of the church, assuming him to be a general representative of the Jesuit presence in Colombia. But I discovered that his compassionate servanthood toward the “least of these,” that is, African slaves, made him the Father Damien or Mother Teresa of his time and place. Such is the church’s reverence toward him, his robed remains are encased in the altar, partially viewable through glass windows. I have spared you the view.

I understand the more cynical view that his may be another case of the “great white savior” coming to the aid of the oppressed. Yet, according to all-knowing, sometimes on-the-money Wikipedia, “He is considered a heroic example of what should be the Christian praxis of love and of the exercise of human rights. The Congress of the Republic of Colombia declared September 9 as the Human Rights National Day in his honor.” I read elsewhere that he himself expressed the determination to be “a slave to the Blacks.” Like St. Francis (and in legend at least, Gautama Buddha) he was born into a fairly prosperous family, but his life and ministry took Jesus’ beatitude to heart: blessed are the poor. It is said that many black descendants of slaves make the pilgrimage to Cartagena to honor him.

How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 1 John 3:17

Again, not knowing his story, I looked at that statue and saw the mission of the church, of every church, carved in stone (as it were). The loving embrace of the smallest child and the offering of bread to the one with an outstretched hand –there is the gospel in a graven image. (Though I wonder why the light skin on the children? Sigh.)

When I was a young teen, the word from suspicious Protestants my age was that those Catholics prayed to statues. I’m sure some kids had heard that from their parents (though my own parents were far more enlightened). We knew two things: the Catholic churches had lots of statuary; and we Presbyterians and Baptists and Lutherans didn’t. Therefore, the statues of Mary and Peter and all those saints we’d never heard of must be there to be prayed to. Look how people kneel there. We had our images too, but they were two-dimensional, and that was OK. Stained glass Jesus was one thing, but a statue of St. Francis was something else. From masterpiece paintings to flannelgraphs (you don’t know about flannel Jesus?!), visual illustrations were teaching aids in our churches. But never granite, marble, or some modern 3-D composite erected in the church worship space.

And yet. Though the memory is fading, I can still recall standing on a “moving sidewalk” at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, and just in time for my eyes to adjust to the subdued lighting, I viewed Michelangelo’s masterpiece “La Pieta.” I was in awe. Like his “David,” the sculptor’s work was God’s hands shaping the biblical story from, well, stone.

Similarly, a carpenter carves his/her art from trees. In Montreat, NC I saw a Presbyterian minister’s handiwork on view, with the life and ministry of Jesus himself, as well as characters from the parables, fashioned with carving tools with intricate detail. John Mack Walker certainly didn’t worry about whether we might bow down to his images, but no one would be surprised if someone uttered a prayer of gratitude for his story-telling in walnut and cherry.

Next week, Holy Week, I will share some images of the traditional “stations of the cross” created in three dimensions from blocks of steel. We found them in a sanctuary in England. We admired them, but didn’t pray to them (he typed with a gentle smile.) For now, just look again at the children in the Claver statuary. And then look beyond the sanctuary to the world’s children, afflicted by the pandemic, held at the U.S.-Mexico border, or asking for bread on your city street.

Be a saint to them all.

And think about these words from Arthur Schopenhauer, from his The Basis of Morality:

Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct, and needs no casuistry. Whoever is filled with it will assuredly injure no one, do harm to no one, encroach on no [one’s] rights; he will rather have regard for everyone, forgive everyone, help everyone as far as he can, and all his actions will bear the stamp of justice and loving-kindness.

 

 

 

{Lent 2021 brings this series of inages of sanctuaries and my written (admittedly off-the-cuff) reflections. With so many sanctuaries being off-limits to us, I turn to these reminders of places where people of faith have found their spiritual homes.}

St John’s College Chapel, Cambridge. We were on a guided tour of the Cambridge University campus, one we thought would be more comprehensive than it turned out. We walked quickly from site to site with barely time to lift the camera and frame our pictures. But the beauty of the space is such that one can hardly not take a good photo.

What speaks to me in this view is that Bible. Of all the art, the stained glass, the altar, the candles…even with the aural art of organ and voices providing a soundtrack for worship…at the heart of what we do in those spaces is that book. 

As I’ve written of sanctuaries over the past 30 days in Lent, I’ve focused on the interiors of church buildings. Of course, there are different kinds of sancatuaries. There are grottos and glens, quiet corners of one’s own home, and any place of peace and serenity that welcomes worshippers, pilgrims, seekers, and refugees. (The refugee may be someone so overwhelmed by fear or frenzy that huddling under a heavy quilt creates sanctuary. Or, the immigrant refugee could be fleeing violence or oppression, finding safe harbor in a church building for an extended time, and the church kitchen and Sunday School rooms become sanctuary!)

Yet, I’ve been remembering those places set apart for worship in buildings designed to provide a home for a church family. “God’s house” used to be the term we used to describe such places. In that Bible so central to the photo, we find in Hebrews 3 that “God’s house” refers not to a building, but to the whole community of faith. And that community historically and presently finds its home within welcoming walls of wood, stone, and grace.

To be sure, the church is the people, not the bulding. (How often we hear that message when the buildings fall to fire or storm.) Yet, the people do find their strength being together in one place, most usually on the Sabbath and in the gathering place of the sanctuary. Their primary reason for being there is worship. The Quakers or Friends may meet in relative silence, the Pentecostals in a pandemonium of praise, and those once called the “mainline” Protestants closely follow the choreography of their printed texts: the bulletins, hymnals, and Bibles. Oh, there are the study groups and classes and circles and committees. But it is at Sabbath worship when the whole community is gathered in one holy place, its sanctuary, to celebrate the Good News by focusing on the “Word made flesh” and the word made fresh (on the best days!).

For those of us in the Reformed Tradition, we have begun at the Font, we break bread at the Table, we sing our songs and say our prayers, but the point of it all, the source of it all, is that book and the One of whom so much is written there. I know. We do experience God outside or beyond the Book, but the Scriptures help us interpret those faith experiences so we better understand the authenticity of our encounters with the Holy. “A Declaration of Faith,” a favorite creedal statement of mine that was as much as lost when the two major Presbyterian denominations merged in the early 1980s, says:

We must test any word that comes to us

from church, world, or inner experience

by the Word of God in Scripture.

I am old-fashioned enough to still believe that.

Returning again to my main premise (yes, I did have one), what we do together in worship as Reformed Christians centers on the Book. Many hymns quote scripture or ideas drawn from it, our liturgy, our sacramental language, and, one would hope, our sermons, homilies, meditations — all spring from what we pray is the voice of the Spirit speaking through the pages of the Old and New Testaments. And then, and this is critical, the individual interprets the Word thoughtfully, heartily, and gratefully. And then tries one’s best to live it out.

What was the word of God through the Prophets? What did Jesus teach? What is the Church for?

I’ve written too much as usual. So, I’ll conclude with this paragraph from the aforementioned “A Decalaration of Faith.”

The Bible is the written Word of God.

Led by the Spirit of God

the people of Israel and of the early church

preserved and handed on the story

of what God had said and done in their midst and how they had responded to him.

These traditions were often shaped and reshaped

     by the uses to which the community put them.

They were cherished, written down, and collected

     as the holy literature of the people of God.

…

Relying on the Holy Spirit,

who opens our eyes and hearts,

we affirm our freedom to interpret Scripture responsibly.

{ As I count the days of Lent 2021, and list the numbers in the sub-title of this Peace, Grace, and Jazz blog, I realize the numbers are not as much fun as finding the right words to invite readers into the posts. I copped out. Maybe next year my Lenten Discipline will be to simply go back to this year’s posts and rewrite the titles. But for now, we move on to the next of our forty sanctuary visits, a unique one at that.}

I am careful about using the word “unique.” It’s used inappropriately so often that I think thrice about applying it to some of the images I’ve selected for this series. I think I used that word to describe Helsinki’s “Rock Church,” the one literally (there’s another word to use cautiously) carved in stone. And then there is this sanctuary: unique because it is like that breath mint– “Is it a candy mint or a breath mint? Wait! [click, click] It’s two mints rolled into one!” (You have to be of a certain age to remember that commercial.)

Here are two churches in one sanctuary. That’s not the unique thing. A number of churches share space these days. The church I served in Richmond, VA welcomed to its facilities a Korean congregation that was being organized in its neighborhood. We met at different times, shared some limited fellowship, but pretty much stayed out of each other’s way. As the Korean church grew, it eventually moved into its own building. When the Koreans met in our sanctuary for worship, no modifications were made to the space. We were all Presbyterians and had font, table, and pulpit in common.

But look at the chancel area in this photograph. Two distinct worship centers. And it’s been this way for over fifty years. The first church to occupy the 180 year-old building is still known as St. Dunstan’s-in-the-West, an Anglican Guild Church in the City of London, on Fleet Street. The church was organized around 1000 A. D. It was in that original church that John Warfield married Rachel Clarke on July 2, 1640. Chances are that you’ve never heard of John Warfield. I have. He was my maternal 9th Great-Grandfather. That family connection is what led us to this present church. I have to admit some disappointment that I wasn’t able to stand right where their wedding took place. That building is gone. Thus, a visit to the church’s present home.

When we entered and found that unique sanctuary design, we quickly learned that the Anglicans share the church with La Biserica Ortodoxã Românã din Londra – Parohía Românã Sf Gheorghe/St Dunstan — or, more simply, The Romanian Orthodox Church. If one is merely cynical about such things, one could say the arrangement is a good way to share the expense of a nearly two hundred year old building used by a typically dwindling British congregation. I prefer to see this through my rosy glasses, and affirm a welcoming ecumenism, Christians “one in the Spirit, one in the Lord” engaging in active grace and warm hospitality.

How this union came to be I do not know. The churches’ websites might have some historical details. But I can imagine the debate when it was suggested that the architecture of the sanctuary be radically altered (altared might work too, he typed with a smile) to accommodate the Romanian immigrant congregation and its rich symbolic ornamentation. Historic sanctuaries undergo renovations through the decades, but this change was something else!

We can assume that there are occasions when the individual congregations’ schedules hit a bump or conflict. But they’ve had fifty years to get used to one another, and to appreciate one another, and to show that people of faith, even those with different creeds, can share sacred space, participate in common witness, and work together in unified mission. My rosy glasses may influence my best guesses about these two churches in one building, but when I pray, “Thy Kingdom come…” that’s what I’m talkin’ about!

{Each day in Lent 2021, I am writing about sanctuaries, the ones in which I served as pastor, or the churches I’ve visited near and far. Today, we’re in Vermont, in the church I served for ten years.}

I remember vividly my first visit to the sanctuary of the East Craftsbury, VT church. I was about to be interviewed for the position of pastor. I was new to rural ministry, having been in a newer suburban church for many years. I had expected this small church to have that musty sensation…well, odor to be honest. I was relieved that it didn’t; in fact, this church, surrounded by family farms and Vermont hills, was at no risk of growing mildew! It was an active, even vibrant congregation whose dedication to their church and “living and breathing faith” made it a shining light in the regional presbytery. 

[My “Peace, Grace, and Jazz” blog goes back many years, and my stories of this church are recorded here many times. At risk of being redundant, I highlight one specific ministry in the sanctuary theme I’ve chosen for this Lenten writing discipline.]

If I imagine myself in that sanctuary as I write, I hear music. For a small church, there was a very large choir, and more men than women donned robes on Sunday mornings. I was delighted to find that the men so enjoyed singing harmonies that they also had their own choir, singing once each month in church. The pipe organ was lovingly maintained by one of the farmers; he had in fact made the wood-crafted case for the pipes. (When necessary, a professional organ technician came in to look after the instrument, but those visits were rare.) During some weeks each summer, the world-renowned (I’m not kidding…look it up) church and concert organist John Weaver played each Sunday and directed the choir. His vacations from his posts at New York’s Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church and the Curtis Institute led him and his family to their summer home in our neighborhood. What a gift to have him as our “summer organist.” 

In addition, this sanctuary was filled with “classical” music on occasion when the Craftsbury Chamber Players offered concerts for children and individual performers provided music for worship services. Please note that this was not an emsemble of amateur musicians eager to play for an audience (not that that is a bad thing!). These were professors and alums from Julliard. Really. A long-time Julliard professor commuted to NYC from Craftsbury and drew her colleagues to a summer season of chamber music, performing in Burlington, a nearby town hall, and as I said, in this church. 

John Weaver once told me that the reason music sounded so good in this sanctuary had to do with the shape of the church and its high ceiling. “It’s like the inside of a giant cello,” he said. In my first years there, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the summer congregation swelled with seasonal residents and vacationers. The choir didn’t take the summer off; they grew in number. And one summer Sunday after worship, everyone stayed around for a dish-to-pass or potluck dinner, and then, with some additional folks from the neighborhood, regathered in the sanctuary and digitally recorded two CDs worth of music. That was at the request of an audio guy who had fond memories of the congregation’s four-part singing. “We need to preserve this sound, before it disappears,” he told me. “I’ll produce the CDs and the church can sell them as a fund-raiser. The congregation was surveyed to find “Our Favorite Hymns” and “Our Favorite Christmas Carols.” And they sang them, all afternoon. The whole experience was a great success, and that wonderful sound was indeed preserved, with those favorites going far and wide beyond Vermont.

[If you want a copy of either CD, leave a comment here. They may still be available, depending on when this entry is read.]

There is another impressive story I want to share about this church, but I’ll save it. Maybe it will show up in these Lenten meanderings; maybe later. It has to do with accessibility. So, stay tuned.