Rector's Sermon - Sunday, 2 April 2006

First Reading	Psalm	Epistle	Gospel
Jeremiah 31:31–34	Psalm 51:1–13	Hebrews 5:5–10	John 12:20–33

         If you begin driving up the eastern coast of the Bay of Fundy, from Yarmouth at the southern tip of Nova Scotia, you pass expansive sand beaches, before coming to the very modest fishing villages with hardly a structure over one story tall, besides an occasional barn. The one exception in these hamlets is the parish church whose steeple seems to soar so as to be seen for miles over the bay. Often the exterior of these churches is plain white clapboard, although some are a simple, but substantial gray cut stone. However, you need to stop and go inside to appreciate them. It would seem like every adult in the village, the fishermen, boat builders and small farmers, spent a great part of the long winters finishing the interiors with light and brilliance in virtual defiance of the gloomy weather outside. The naves and sanctuaries are decorated with intricate painted borders, uncountable filigrees of every design, and even some astounding murals.    

       This architectural phenomenon is not unique to rural Nova Scotia, but is repeated in many of the coastal towns of the Maritime Provinces. It was clear that the labor of love and generous gift of resources from people who had to work very hard for what they had, was to make a statement that when they entered their parish church to worship, and to rejoice and mourn the regular cycles of life, they had left their drab fishing village far behind and had entered another world, a world of abundance, of light, of peace, calm seas, freedom from worry, and safety for all.

       Actually you don’t have to drive or take the ferry to the Maritimes. You may get in your car and take a drive fifteen miles north to the village of Moravia and in the center of town, turn right off the main street onto Church Street. A few doors to your right is St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, quite unpretentiously dressed in white clap and batten board. It gives no hint of what is inside. When you enter your eyes will take a moment to become adjusted, as you find yourself not in the southern tier of New York State, but in a Biblical forest of wood carvings of myriad saints and symbols. St. Matthew’s might remind you of small churches in Eastern Europe that have suffered centuries of war and instability, but somehow have preserved and protected artistic treasures of amazing beauty and skillful execution.

       The foolish tourist, either to Moravia, NY, the Maritimes of Canada, or to Eastern Europe sees the interior of these churches as completely out of touch and even ironic illusions compared with the harshness and cruelty of the so-called real world outside. A thoughtful person of faith perceives something else.

       These churches beckon to us, saying, stop, come inside, look, smell, feel the presence of the eternal. Leave the outside world far behind, the world of turmoil and war, of nobles and nobodies, of oppressor and oppressed. Enter into God’s world, where no one is sent away hungry while others feast; where children are protected and valued; where rank doesn’t count; where everyone, even the humblest are portrayed as royalty and dressed in fine garments. Indeed gold and diamonds are as common as paving stone and lumber. The dramatic contrast between these churches on the outside and on the inside is a good analogy between the domination and corruption of worldly power and the intensions of the heart of God. It is up to us never to confuse the world’s myopic vision filled with put downs and repression with God’s genuine goodwill and hope for humanity. .

      I suspect Jesus wasn’t so much feared and opposed because of his teaching per se, his barbs at the religious establishment, or his choice of disciples, as much as he was bitterly resented for eating with people of no taste, of not paying attention to the people with the proper credentials, of going after strangers and outsiders rather than sticking to his own extended family, of believing that everyone counted. In effect Jesus was accused of acting like God’s world was the real world, the eternally and universally abundant world of artistic imagination and longing where everyone was treated as a princess or prince belonging to the loving God of the universe, rather than caught in the segmented and selfish society of worldly status quo.

       In today’s first lesson, the prophet Jeremiah offers us the vision of a new order, when everyone will know of God’s love in their hearts, and there will be no need to remind people again and again, no need to uncover what has been covered up or lost. This vision is picked up centuries later by the writer of the Book of Revelation whose picture of the New Jerusalem does not include a great temple in the city, because reconciliation among us or between humanity to God will no longer be necessary. 

       The point, of course, is not that we should hide the Gospel in a shabby exterior or that we should seek to escape from our responsibilities and the unpleasantness of the world by coming to church, but that the Biblical vision of humanity at peace and a world without exploitation is the real vision not a delusion. People of faith have a calling to flesh out that vision, to uncover what the world wants to bury and repress, and to acknowledge the signs of God’s redemptive love right here and now. A parish community is called to serve, not only as a sign of the coming victory of God, but also as a sign of the reality of God’s presence. We don’t have to travel far to look for a revelation of the persistent presence of God’s grace. As we approach Holy Week and reflect on the great sign of Jesus being lifted up of the cross for humanity, the spirit of drama calls to us to ponder what it means for us to be a sign of God’s presence on earth today? When travelers and sojourners from the Canadian Maritimes or anywhere else encounter us here in Ithaca, what sign of encouragement from the real world of God’s reality would we wish them to perceive and remember?     

    And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.