SERMON PREACHED BY
THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR
CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
AT THE CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCE OF THE
LAYING OF THE CORNERSTONE OF CALVARY CHURCH
SUNDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 2006
"Even heaven and the highest heaven
cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!"
(I Kings 8:27)
Today's Old Testament lesson tells the story
of an event that took place some three thousand years ago ---
the construction of the first permanent structure of worship
for the Jews who had come to inhabit the promised land after
their long period of bondage in Egypt. It was, therefore, a monument
to their freedom, and an acknowledgement of God's blessings upon
them, that God had led them through the Red Sea, and later through
the wilderness. The erection of the Temple at Jerusalem fell
to King Solomon. In the wisdom for which he was justly famous,
Solomon knew that although the Temple would contain the Ark of
the Covenant, the symbol of God's presence among God's people,
that Temple could not actually contain God. Although that Temple
was called the House of the Lord, it was, believed Solomon, a
sign of God's love for God's people and the people's love for
their God. This is why Solomon prayed "Even heaven and the
highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that
I have built!"
Today's Gospel lesson tells of an event that
happened some two thousand years ago. Jesus went into the Temple
(the successor to the one that Solomon had built) and scandalized
those around him by doing two things. First he overturned the
tables of the moneychangers who were making a killing by charging
exorbitant prices for the animals used for sacrifice. But the
greater scandal in the eyes of his shocked spectators was that
he welcomed the outcast into that house of worship --- the blind,
the lame, and the young, and declared that this house of God
would be a house for all people.
Today, we gather to give thanks for an event
in modern history, a mere one hundred years ago, when the seventh
rector of Calvary Church and his wardens and vestrymen invited
the second bishop of Pittsburgh to lay the cornerstone of this
magnificent edifice which is still our church home. And listen
to what Bishop Whitehead prayed on that occasion (words which
you will hear again from the lips of the curate later on): "O
God, who buildest for thy Majesty an eternal habitation out of
living and elect stones; Assist thy suppliant people, that as
thy Church increaseth in outward strength, it may also be enlarged
by spiritual increase."
Do you see a pattern here? Neither Solomon,
nor Jesus nor Bishop Whitehead really focused on the building.
They were all concerned with the people who in those buildings
offered praise and worship to Almighty God. This is why today's
collect reads: "Almighty God, to whose glory we celebrate
the dedication of this house of prayer, We give you thanks for
the fellowship of those who have worshipped in this place, and
we pray that all who seek you here may find you, and be filled
with your joy and peace." This church, every church, is
but an outward and visible sign of the love that the people who
worship in it have for God. But signs and symbols are not unimportant.
Given our finite capacities, they are all we have to point us
toward God. We rely on water to symbolize our spiritual regeneration
in the sacrament of Baptism. We rely on bread and wine to be
a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. And until that day when
we can see our Lord face to face, when we worship in that "temple
not made with hands," we must make do with our man-made
houses of worship to suffice as a glimpse of the heavenly Jerusalem.
So since it is this man-made house of prayer
which for the past century has been the outward and visible sign
of this community of faith, the place where the faithful have
come to be hatched, matched and dispatched, to hear the word
of God and be nurtured by the sacraments, the fifteenth rector
conceived the brilliant idea (he thought) of returning to the
church's cornerstone, peeking inside to see what our forebears
had enshrined there, and then adding some artifacts of our own.
So a few weeks ago, I issued a decree that, God and the masons
willing, we would do just that. The masons were quite willing,
but after a day of chipping away at the mortar surrounding that
stone, it became abundantly clear to us that the good Lord was
not willing to have his cornerstone tampered with. How foolish
of us to have thought that the cornerstone was but a thin slab
of limestone behind which there would be a large cavity full
of hundred-year-old goodies. Au contraire! The depth of
that stone was discovered to a solid 22 inches, and its weight
all of 1,800 pounds! No faux cornerstone this! It is not for
naught that we have just sung "On Christ the solid rock
I stand." So secure was that ton of limestone in its resting
place of one hundred years, that we deemed that it would be nothing
short of an act of sacrilege to remove it. I felt like Indiana
Jones and had visions of being punished by the gods by a crumbling
edifice and the release of evil spirits. So the plan was aborted.
But Guy Edwards, whom we honor today for
fifteen years of faithful service to this community, was not
to be outdone in the execution of his last official act as Head
Sexton. In his inimitable style, he came up with a Plan B. A
surrogate stone was discovered nearby, which was indeed a thin
slab with a cavity behind it, and it will be into that place
that we shall soon insert our twenty-first century artifacts.
And alas! --- the contents of Stone A will remain a mystery.
I believe there is a lesson in this for all
of us. Our cornerstone, our solid rock, reminds us that the
faith of the people of this parish is strong and enduring.
It began with the bedrock faith of Mathilda Dallas Wilkins, who,
weary of her long carriage ride to Trinity Church, asked the
bishop of Pennsylvania to found a parish in East Liberty. When
the bishop refused, she gathered a dozen of her closest friends
who founded Calvary Church anyhow. It would appear that with
a few variations, history has indeed repeated itself in recent
years!
Our cornerstone, our solid rock, reminds
us that we have never been a parish "tossed to and fro with
every vain blast of doctrine." It
reminds us of the faith and vision of the Vestry, who in 1894,
refused to allow the congregation to follow the third rector
into the Reformed Episcopal Church. The Vestry, refusing to violate
its charter as an Episcopal Church, voted to place itself directly
under the spiritual charge of the bishop. Again, it would appear
that with a few variations, history has indeed repeated itself
in recent years!
Our cornerstone, our solid rock, reminds
us that decades before "church planting" became a household
word, Calvary founded ten other congregations in this diocese. Even when it was not blessed with an abundance of
resources, this great evangelical parish saw as its duty to "fling
out the banner," to "publish glad tidings, tidings
of peace."
Our cornerstone, our solid rock, reminds
us of the evangelical zeal of Samuel Shoemaker, twelfth rector of this parish, who preached the
Gospel without apology, who taught people how to work, pray and
give for the spread of Christ's Kingdom, and who entreated his
fellow Christians to make Pittsburgh as famous for God as it
was for steel.
Finally, our cornerstone, our solid rock,
"laid in its place, and tested by plumb, level and square"
one hundred years ago, reminds us that like Jesus, we have declared
that this temple is one that is a house of prayer for all people. Like Jesus, who summoned the halt, the lame and the
blind to share in temple fellowship, we have long maintained
that this is God's house, to which we welcome the least, the
lost, and the last of society. Like Jesus, we have give no quarter
to those who make his house a den of thieves, and we are not
afraid of turning over the tables of those who pervert the church
for their own purposes, and who have the presumption of describing
as pagans and aliens those who carry out our Lord's ministry
of radical hospitality.
So we, one hundred years after that stone
was laid in its place, and our children's children one hundred
years from now, can proclaim
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus, blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus, name.
On Christ, the Solid Rock, I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand. AMEN.
[Edward Mote, "My hope is built on nothing
less", LEVAS II, 99]