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August 27, 2006
The Rev. Canon James Richardson
Proper 16 - Year B
Last week I promised you Part II of a two-part sermon on what it means to be
a Cathedral. And that is exactly what you will get in this, my last sermon with
you. I want to reflect a little on what this Cathedral means to me and Lori.
So fasten your seatbelts, settle in, this may take awhile.
I want to start with something really obvious. This is so obvious that you may
have missed it. Have you ever noticed that Jesus did not write anything down?
That really is a curious fact. The founders of the world's great religions generally
wrote things down. Moses had the two tablets with the Ten Commandments, and
then he wrote down what came to be known as the "Mosaic law," a series
of strictures that you can find in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. The laws are painstaking
in detail, right down to which side of the road oxen should walk upon.
But, as far as we know, Jesus didn't write anything down.
The apostle Paul wrote things down. His letters are elaborate treatises on a
variety of topics from dining to marriage. His followers collected his letters
and treasured them, even the letters that amounted to little more than friendly
greetings.
But if Jesus wrote anything down, his followers didn't think it important enough
to keep.
The founders of great religions seemed to want to control their followers from
the grave through the written word. Moses with his laws, Mohammed with the Koran,
Joseph Smith with the Book of Mormon.
I mean no disrespect to these religions. But ! Jesus took a very different approach.
He did not write it down and that is a significant fact.
You might argue that Jesus was the son of a poor carpenter so he couldn't write,
but I think the Son of God was perfectly capable of writing. The reason Jesus
didn't write, I think, has to do with how Jesus taught, and how Jesus lives
with us and still teaches. Jesus wants us to live into his teaching, not mimic
it. And he wants us to listen for his voice living inside us, still teaching,
rather than worshipping words on a page.
The teachings of Jesus can be boiled down into two categories - moral teachings
and mystical teachings.
In the moral teachings, Jesus got his message across primarily with parables
- pithy stories that invite us into the story and push us, if we are paying
attention, to conclusions that may be very unsettling and uncomfortable, for
example the parable of the Good Samaritan, where a person deemed to be religiously
"unclean," someone considered to be the scum of the earth, is the
only one who rescues a robbery victim. The moral teachings are difficult because
they challenge our conventional thinking. You can find most of these in the
gospels of Matthew and Luke.
The mystical teachings are even more difficult; they tend to be riddles, often
with words that have double meanings, such as "born again" and "born
from above." In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells us that he will be with
us "until the end of the age." In Gospel of John, where you will find
most of the mystical teachings, Jesus tells us how he is with us.
For the past several weeks we have heard a series of these mystical teachings.
Today he tells us that living out these teachings will be difficult.
These teachings are not easy to follow. Jesus is pushing us into a different
dimension of time and space and existence - God's dimension - to try to get
us to understand that he is with us and we are with him but not in the ways
we expect. We are not alone, but we need to see the patterns of life with different
eyes and hear the sounds of life with different ears.
Scholars debate whether Jesus said these exact words. I think that the debate
misses a crucial point - Jesus didn't write anything down for good reason. He
didn't write it down because he understood that each of us, in our own language,
in our own time and circumstances, would have to live into his teaching and
he will be present as our guide as we go.
His first followers lived into his teachings and those followers wrote it down.
Those first followers gave us all we need to know for our salvation but they
also knew that Jesus would be with us guiding us as we continue to write the
story of salvation.
More than anything else, for Lori and myself this Cathedral is a place where
we have seen the story of salvation written every day, and where we have felt
this abiding presence of Christ in the words, the music, the prayers and most
especially in all of you. This is a place where the teachings and the presence
of Christ come together in remarkable but very practical ways - it comes together
in our worship and in how we value our children; it comes together in our prayers
and how we welcome homeless people to live here for a week at a time through
Family Promise; and it comes ! together in our sacred music and in how we let
drug addicts use our sacred space in recovery groups. Witnessing this is a joy
for us, and it makes it very hard to leave.
For Lori and I, it has been our joy to accompany our teenagers summer projects
on Indian reservations, and share adult classes on Thursdays; our joy to mentor
EFM groups, and get no sleep at Cursillo. We even taught Kindergarten Sunday
School one year and that was a joy. It has been our joy to cook a lot of meals,
even the jazz brunch where we poached 150 eggs. It was our joy to be with the
choir on its England tour in 2003 and it was our joy to be with you for 18 Christmases
and 18 Easters. We have had a blast.
I must mention the clergy whose shoulders I stand upon in the years of my formation
as a priest: Canon Carey, Canon Gaines, Canon Engblom, Canon Walker, Canon White,
Canon Beisner, Archdeacon Campbell, and especially Dean Brown and Bishop Lamb;
all of them mentored me, and when I faltered, they picked me up, dusted me off
and sent me back out there. They showed me how to be a priest. And Kathleen,
John and Bob, thank you for your love and friendship and support. And you, all
of you, have shown me over and over the embodiment of Christ's teaching and
presence.
This Cathedral is a place where we live into the moral and the mystical teachings
of Christ, where both fit together, where neither can live apart. The mystical
presence - the Holy Spirit - gives us our inner compass and the moral teachings
in Scripture tells us what to do in the world. This is a place where Christ
abides in us, and we in him, and where we live this anew every time we come
together to share in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, and where we go out
to live into the fullness of Christ's presence by the work we do as individuals
and as a Cathedral in the community and the world.
There is one example of this among many examples I want to highlight - and that
is how the Vestry - the Board of Directors - makes decisions in this Cathedral
parish. For nearly 20 years, the Vestry has seen its task primarily as listening
to the Holy Spirit, and the Vestry doesn't make a decision until the members
unanimously agree that they have heard the Holy Spirit in the decision. Every
decision is unanimous or there is no decision. Everything good that has happened
here, I believe, has started with that faith-filled way of decision making.
I know of no other Episcopal Church in the country that has practiced this way
of decision making for this long. That way of decision making is founded in
both the moral and mystical teachings of Jesus.
This Cathedral has stood as beacon of faith to this community for more than
a century. People have come here and found the Christ who was always within
them; and they have gone forward from these walls and done miraculous things.
This building is important, do not underestimate the power of this building.
Many of us, including me, have passed many milestones here - baptisms, marriages,
and saying goodbye to those who have died. I was ordained here, and I've been
incredibly privileged to preside at your weddings and baptisms and the funerals
of those you love. The ashes of some very good friends are right over there.
These bricks echo with memories.
And that brings me to a difficult subject for many of you. This building is
sacred, but it is nearing the end of its life as a tool of ministry. It was
built in 1955 and it was not built for the ages. Go have a look at the window
in the West Transept - it is bending under its own weight; and there are cracks
in the floor all over this building. The roof above you is now 51 years old
and is patched. Every winter patches give way and the roof leaks.
It is true that all of this could be fixed, and you could add air conditioning
and you would be a good deal more comfortable.
But this cathedral's future is not about you or me. This catthedral's future
is not about our own comfort; it is not about what we need. It is about reaching
new people who hunger for healing and wholeness and meaning in their life. It
is about building sacred place for your children and your children's' children
where they can write their story of salvation. It is about the neighborhood
that scarcely knows this place exists because it is hidden beneath these bricks.
This neighborhood is changing dramatically, you only need look outside the door
to see that. This corner of Capitol Avenue will soon be an urban center at the
eastern edge of downtown Sacramento. There will be a huge new hospital and a
theater across the street; there will be new housing and new retails shopping.
Downtown Sacramento is coming this way. Trinity Cathedral could be lost in this
change as a little brick church that is in love with its past. Or Trinity Cathedral
can stand as it always has - as a beacon of hope, salvation and Amazing Grace
at the gateway to California's capital city. You cannot do that in this limited
space or with not-so-cheap fixes.
New people can and will have a sacred experience here if you give them the place
to have that experience. You can do that with the new Cathedral that is on the
drawing boards. To touch new people with words and music, prayers and ministry,
bread and wine, will cost a great deal of money and require sacrifice and commitment.
A new Cathedral may seem impossibly far off, but it really isn't. Some of you
have stepp! ed up in huge ways. Canon Carey does not mind me telling you this:
Canon Carey is giving the proceeds from the sale of his house to the Cathedral
building project, and I fully expect you will name the Cross tower after Canon
Carey, or some other equally significant feature. In fact, you need to name
something after both Canon Carey and Canon Gaines. A few more gifts like Canon
Carey's and you will be breaking ground before you know it - and you better
invite me back for the ceremony.
You have many challenges ahead - and many incredible opportunities. Trinity
Cathedral has everything it needs - everything - right here amongst all of you;
you have the vision and the spiritual gifts; the leadership and resources; and
most of all the faith. Jesus tells you none of this is easy, but Jesus is among
you and will abide with you and guide you always to the end of the age as you
write the story of salvation.
As Paul tells us in Ephesians, "Be strong in the Lord and in the strength
of his power. Put on the whole armor of God…stand firm…proclaim the
gospel of peace…pray in the spirit at all times… and always persevere."
Thank you for listening, thank you for your prayers, your support, your friendship,
your patience, your forgiveness, and for all you have done for Lori and myself
these amazing 18 years in this amazing community of faith.
Amen.
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