Sermon preached at Evensong, 2nd Sunday of Easter, April 27, 2025, celebrating the 165th Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church of the Redeemer: Psalm 46, 1 Peter 2:1-5, 9-10
165 years. That’s 8,580 Sundays. Week by week, 8,580 times, the people of God who worship in the tradition of The Episcopal Church have gathered in faith to give thanks and pray, and to be given strength and courage to go into the world “to love and serve the Lord,” “in the Name of Christ,” and “in the power of the Spirit” by serving those whom God calls neighbors and friends.
Take that in for a moment. Savor it. Feel these walls soaked with prayer and thanksgiving, the faith and hope of many generations.
Yet, this moment is not about nostalgia. It is about remembering, but in sacramental traditions like ours, remembering is never solely about the past. When Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me,” he was asking us to do more than not forget him. He was asking us to acknowledge his presence in the moment of remembering, and to allow that encounter with the past, in the present moment, to send us into the future.
So, an anniversary like this one is not an exercise in nostalgia. It is not only a celebration of the past. It is a celebration of the future for the people of God in this place.
But do we dare talk about the future? Do we dare imagine a future for this place and the people who gather here? Do we not have to be honest about how uncertain the future is for a congregation like this one? Do we not have to fear that this place will one day—sooner rather than later—become something other than a place to worship?
Yes, of course we have to be honest about the present moment. We have to acknowledge our anxiety, our fear. But we also have to say, with the writer of Psalm 46,
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
And with that expression of faith, we can dare to hope and continue to serve as if the future is not a threat but a possibility.
The apostle Peter gives us an image that helps put some flesh on the bones of this hope. He says
Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
“Like living stones.” There is nothing more dead than a stone. Yet we heard Jesus use this same image on Palm Sunday. As Jesus enters Jerusalem, the crowd is shouting, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” Some of the Pharisees ask Jesus to make them stop. They sense—quite correctly—that this proclamation is dangerous. Jesus replies,
I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.
For many in the world, the church seems very much like a stone—stuck in an existence it cannot change. Its stone—its buildings—however beautiful, increasingly vacant, lifeless, “for sale,” to be re-purposed for something more useful. If it is living, it seems stuck in time, obsessed about itself and its own survival, uncertainty and anxiety the only signs of life.
How to turn this around? How to become living stones, that shout out the goodness and greatness of God in spite of what looks like a time of despair?
It’s a two step process, at least Psalm 46 would have it so. Step One:
Be still then and know that I am God.
We cannot break out of the cycle of anxiety and self-obsession without learning to be quiet. We can only hear God if we shut up. The writer of the psalm asks us to have faith; “The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our stronghold.” But then she is wise enough to say that this faith requires that we be quiet and listen. “Be still then, and know that I am God.”
We can only gain confidence about the future, church, if we believe that God is still speaking to us, and if we take the time to listen.
Step one: be still. Step two: trust. Assuming we are listening, we can only put into practice what we are hearing when we trust who God is. Again, Psalm 46,
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear …
If we are to be living stones, it will be because we trust the God who is our refuge and strength, and when we embrace that trust (to paraphrase St Augustine) we become the one we trust.
Whatever the particularities of God’s call to this place or any other, it will be a matter of becoming the one we trust. If God is our refuge and strength, then we must become a refuge, a place where strength and courage to love and serve the Lord and his people is given.
I am reminded of a traditional Dutch hymn (not in our hymnal), that begins
What is this place where we are meeting?
Only a house, the earth its floor,
Walls and a roof, sheltering people,
Windows for light, an open door.
Yet it becomes a body that lives
When we are gathered here
And know our God is near.
Our prayer this evening is that this building may continue to house a people who know their God is near, a people who listen and are willing to trust that God is still with us, and to become the one they trust, a refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.