Sermon Preached by The Reverend Dr. Harold T. Lewis

"THE RECTOR'S CHARGE" SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSGBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA ON THE OCCASION OF THE 150TH ANNUAL PARISH MEETING TRINITY SUNDAY 22 MAY 2005




"Put things in order, agree with one another, live in peace. Greet one another with a holy kiss." (II Corinthians 13:11-12)


As we continue to celebrate the Sesquicentennial of Calvary Church, I could rehearse for you highlights of our illustrious history, starting with the "real" patron saint of Calvary, Mathilda Dallas Wilkins, who, in 1855, asked the bishop if he would found a parish in East Liberty, since it was a long carriage ride to Trinity Church. The bishop said "No," and boarded his train to Philadelphia. While he was en route, Mathilda called a meeting of about a dozen of her closest and most influential friends, and founded our beloved parish anyhow! (There is something about the spirit of our founding which has characterized our very existence ever since!) I could raise up the legacy of Dr. James McIlvaine, who during his distinguished rectorship, not only built this glorious church, and according to legend, placed the Cross atop its spire, but who also helped found the Church Pension Fund, for which the church's reverend clergy are extremely grateful. (Until the establishment of the Fund, clergy who neither inherited nor married money had little choice but to drop dead at the altar!) But I choose instead to ask you to focus for a moment on the ministry of Calvary's twelfth and arguably most famous rector, Samuel Moor Shoemaker. Dr. Shoemaker has been on my mind a lot lately, because his daughter, Sally, will be here in a few weeks, and because we have recently learned that an important collection of Shoemaker papers will be given to the parish. In 1955, Calvary's centennial year, Dr. Shoemaker was named by Newsweek as one of the ten greatest preachers in the United States, in the distinguished company of such men as Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale. He is known as one of the founders of A.A., as a distinguished lecturer and author, and as the founder of the Pittsburgh Experiment. He is often quoted as saying that it was his hope that Pittsburgh would be as well known for God as for steel. But it is to Shoemaker the poet that I call your attention this morning. Inspired by a verse from the Book the Revelation of St. John the Divine (3:20), he penned these words: I stay near the door. I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out, The door is the most important door in the world It is the door through which men walk when they find God. There's no use my going way inside, and staying there, When so many are still outside, and they, as much as I, Crave to know where the door is. And all that so many ever find Is only the wall where a door ought to be. They creep along the wall like blind men. With outstretched, groping hands, Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door, Yet they never find it . . . So I stay near the door.
I would like to suggest that in his poem Dr. Shoemaker has described the mission and ministry of Calvary Church in this our 150th year. First, he has described our mission of radical hospitality --- not just in the sense of throwing a party --- which we certainly do well ---- but in the sense of providing a hospital, a place of respite, of healing, the kind of hospitality described in the Epistle to the Hebrews, whose author reminds us that we should "always practice hospitality, for thereby we may entertain angels unawares" (13:2). Notice that Dr. Shoemaker says that in order to practice hospitality, we must stand by the door. If we go too far into the church, too comfortably ensconcing ourselves in our pews, with our backs to the door, there will be no one at the entrance to welcome those who come seeking. "There's no use my going way inside, and staying there," writes Sam, "when so many are still outside, and they, as much as I, crave to know where the door is." In these words, Sam echoes the words of Jesus himself who proclaimed "Those who are well do not need a physician, but those who are sick." (Lk. 5:31). In these words, he reminds us of a saying attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo: "The Church is not a hotel for saints, but a hospital for sinners." In these words, he makes us recall the words of Archbishop William Temple: "The Church is the only institution that exists for the benefit of those not its members."

I have been teaching homiletics for several years, and one of my lectures is presumptuously entitled "Lewis, Ten Commandments for Good Preaching." And one of them is "Thou shalt condemn no one in the pulpit, except the devil." I do not think I run the risk of breaking my own commandment if I express my concern that one of my colleagues is leaving the ministry of this church, according to yesterday's Post-Gazette, because the Episcopal Church practices "radical inclusiveness." It has long been my understanding that that is precisely what the Gospel is all about!
If we read on a little further in the poem, we see that Sam describes another important aspect of our mission and ministry, and that is outreach. He speaks of those who die on the church's steps for want of the church's ministry, dying "for want of what is within their grasp." But unlike some who define outreach as "keeping others out of our reach," notice the hands-on approach that Sam commends to us: The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for men to find that door - the door to God.
The most important thing that any man can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands
And put it on the latch - the latch that only clicks
And opens to the man's own touch.
In other words, outreach is neither writing a check nor sending people to get help; it is taking their hands in ours, and helping them to unlock the doors to the church, a church which is neither ours nor theirs, but God.
But although Dr. Shoemaker could probably not have foreseen the "unhappy divisions" in which the Episcopal Church now finds herself, his poem, I believe, describes what is today the most important aspect of our ministry, and that is a ministry of refuge. Listen to Poet Sam's prophetic words: And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where the door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind men,
With outstretched, groping hands,
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door.
Yet they never find it. So I stand by the door.

My sisters and brothers in Christ, more and more, people are coming to the Episcopal Church and finding a wall where a door ought to be. And this is hardly a new phenomenon. In the 1960s, there were wardens of Episcopal parishes in the South who also stood at the doors of their churches. But they stood in the doorways, to prevent people of color from going through. And lest we forget, the then Bishop of Alabama, who decried the civil rights movement as "a form of lawlessness" and incompatible with the Gospel of Christ, was one of the clergymen to whom Martin Luther King wrote his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." For decades -- nay centuries, others stood at the communion rails of our churches, declaring that women should not be seen to the east of them. And we know all too well the church's history, still being written, of discrimination against homosexual persons.

But the walls that some in the church are erecting today are far more insidious. They are walls of ideology. They are walls that separate self-proclaimed "orthodox" sheep from "revisionist" goats. They are walls used to enclose and protect those who claim to be guided solely by a new sense of Biblical inerrancy, shutting out those who have the temerity to suggest that Anglican tradition has long maintained that tradition and reason, together with Scripture, are the foundations of Anglican theology. There are walls being erected to keep out intellectual inquiry in a church which daily prays that we love the Lord God with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind. This brings to mind the editor of America, the national publication of the Jesuits, who was recently fired for saying, among other things, that churches which are not willing to at least discuss the issues facing society today run the risk of retreating into a spiritual ghetto!
The future of the Episcopal Church is in the balance. The Primate of Canada has opined that Anglicanism is already in a state of schism. In these uncertain times, Calvary, who has long believed that "new occasions teach new duties," rising to the occasion to meet the needs of each new day, now faces its most challenging task --- to preserve the integrity of this church, to stay the course, but above all, to be here, standing at the door, to receive openly and warmly those who with groping hands feel for a door, "knowing there must be a door." It is our duty to assure them that there is indeed a door, and to guide them to it.

These are our marching orders as our 150th annual parish meeting coincides with Trinity Sunday, when Jesus bids us to take our faith to the uttermost parts of the earth. But Paul reminds us to straighten up our own affairs first: "Put things in order, agree with one another, live in peace. Greet one another with a holy kiss." A tall order, indeed, at a time when it is no exaggeration to say that the church is "by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed." But it is the ideal to which we aspire, and we believe that nourished by the Sacraments, and trusting in the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth, we may be equal to the task.
Let us pray: Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land; I am weak, but thou art mighty, hold me with thy powerful hand; Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me now and ever more, Feed me now and evermore. (The Hymnal 1940, 690)
AMEN.