St David's Episcopal Church
  • Welcome
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our History >
      • 100 years
    • Our Beliefs
    • Our Facility >
      • Our Library
    • Building Rental
    • Testimonials
    • Leadership
    • Member Directory
    • Safe Church Policy
    • Episcopal Diocese of W Mass
    • Back to Basics
    • Vision for our Parish
  • Worship
    • Services
    • Services on YouTube >
      • June 2025
      • May 2025
      • April 2025
      • March 2025
      • February 2025
      • January 2025
      • 2024 Services >
        • December 2024
        • November 2024
        • October 2024
        • September 2024
        • August 2024
        • July 2024
        • June 2024
        • May 2024
        • April 2024
        • March 2024
        • February 2024
        • January 2024
      • 2023 Services >
        • December 2023
        • November 2023
        • October 2023
        • September 2023
        • August 2023
        • July 2023
        • June 2023
        • May 2023
        • April 2023
        • March 2023
        • February 2023
        • January 2023
      • 2022 Services >
        • December 2022
        • November 2022
        • October 2022
        • September 2022
        • August 2022
        • July 2022
        • June 2022
        • May 2022
        • April 2022
        • March 2022
        • February 2022
        • January 2022
      • 2021 Services >
        • December 2021
        • November 2021
        • October 2021
        • September 2021
        • August 2021
        • July 2021
        • June 2021
        • May 2021
        • April 2021
        • March 2021
        • February 2021
        • January 2021
      • 2020 Services >
        • December 2020
        • November 2020
        • October 2020
        • September 2020
        • August 2020
        • July 2020
        • June 2020
        • May 2020
        • April 2020
    • Sermons
    • Holy Sacraments
    • Walk the Labyrinth
    • Parish Prayer Cycle
    • Country Prayer List
    • Bishop's Word
  • Events
    • Dove Tale Newsletter
    • Community Suppers
    • Episcopal Relief & Development
    • Fun & Fellowship
    • Photos
  • Ministries
    • Adult Education
    • Caregivers Ministry
    • Community Outreach
    • Creation Care Ministry
    • Healing Ministry
    • Veterans Ministry
    • Music Ministry
    • Prayer Shawl Ministry
    • Wine Ministry
    • Women's Ministry
    • Youth Ministry
  • Calendar
  • Contact

God's Altar

8/14/2022

3 Comments

 
Picture
​As many of you know, Carrie and I are just back from a really wonderful vacation to England and Wales. One of the great highlights of the trip for me was seeing Saint David’s Cathedral. 
 
The Cathedral was built in the 1100s on the site where Saint David himself had established a monastery six hundred years before that. People have been worshipping in that spot, and commemorating our patron saint, for nearly fifteen centuries!
 
As you can see in the picture on the screen, Saint David’s Cathedral is impressive. You can also see me in the foreground wearing my spiffy Saint David’s tee-shirt.
 
If anything, the inside of the building is even more impressive than the outside. There’s a picture looking up the central aisle towards the main altar. Not too shabby! But this is just a small part of the building. What you can’t see are aisles on either side or the whole series of chapels behind the main altar.
 
Standing inside this beautiful, massive, ancient building, where people have been praying for more than eight hundred years, was both humbling and exalting at the same time. It reminded me that I am a very small part of very, very big religion.
 
But as I walked around the Cathedral, I saw something else. As you might guess, things happened over eight hundred years, a LOT of things.
 
One example. A century or so after the Cathedral was first built, a Bishop decided he wanted more light in the building. Electric lights were not an option in the Middle Ages, so he had the ceiling raised and new windows installed.
 
But he didn’t do a great job. Or at any rate, he left traces of his work. Here’s a picture of one of the windows. The lower semi-circle was the bottom of the original window. They didn’t bother to remove it, so you have this odd looking double-rim.
 
Age has taken a toll as well. I assume the new rim used to go all the way around, a complete circle, but part broke off. You can definitely see missing stones on the left of the picture. And at the top, you can see a bit of crumbling stone. From a different angle, the damaged stone up there is quite visible.
 
They need Bob Rendrick as their Junior Warden. Bob would get all that taken care of.
 
But in Bob’s absence, I love what they’ve done. They don’t hide the “flaws.” In signs along the outer wall giving information about the Cathedral, they emphasize the imperfect construction and the signs of wear and tear.
 
For them, things like the strange window and the damaged stone are layers of history that give the building its character. The mismatched, broken stones remind us that the building has been standing for a long time, and that people have been using it for that whole time. It would be weird if an ancient building didn’t have a few oddities or signs of age.
 
So, in my first few minutes in Saint David’s Cathedral, I had two impressions that may seem inconsistent. I was overwhelmed by the beauty and grandeur of the building. And I was struck by its flaws.
 
That’s a pretty good metaphor for the Church. which is also both beautiful and flawed.
 
The Church is impressive. It has been around for two thousand years. Indeed, according to our reading from Hebrews, it’s even older than that. It’s built on promises made to Old Testament heroes going all the way back to Abraham something like four thousand years ago. The Church literally spans the globe. It is easily the biggest and arguably the most ancient human institution there is.
 
And, when we look a little more closely, flaws in the Church are easy to see. Mistakes have been made. The Cathedral of Saint David’s was built during the age of the Crusades. They were a bad idea! In our own time, revelations of clergy sexual abuse have rightly humbled us. In our own denomination, we have engaged in some embarrassing squabbling. That wouldn’t surprise Jesus, who predicts divisions in our Gospel reading.
 
Some people delight in pointing out the all-too-real failures of the Church. They are right, of course. But they run the risk of missing the Church’s genuine beauty. The Church as a whole is like Saint David’s Cathedral. It is glorious. And it is flawed.
 
We can be more personal, too. We, whom Paul calls “the temple of the Holy Spirit within” (1 Corinthians 6:19), are also like the Cathedral of Saint David’s. The details are different for each of us, but we’re all in the same boat. We present our best face to the world. And, if you scratch the surface, we are fragile, flawed, wounded creatures in need of healing and love and grace.
 
Certainly that’s true of me. There are things in my life that I am proud of, but there is plenty of brokenness, too. Just this week, I woke up one morning, remembering my high school semi-girlfriend. I have no idea where that came from! I say “semi” because I didn’t know how to be a boyfriend, and I didn’t treat her well. That failure is one of my many wounds, some of which were quite painful at the time and all of which have shaped the person I am today—good in some ways; flawed and broken in others.
 
But I want to go back to beautiful, flawed, partially broken Saint David’s Cathedral one more time. My single favorite spot in the entire building was the 16th century altar in the Trinity Chapel. It’s my last picture. (I had to get this one out of a book because I didn’t think to take a picture of it when I was there.)
 
I didn’t notice the Trinity altar at first. But once again, an explanatory sign pointed me to it. If you look at the lower part of the altar, you can see that it is made out of what were already old stones, some of them centuries old, when the altar was constructed in the sixteenth century. Like so much in the Cathedral, the stones don’t exactly fit together. The carved images are fragmentary and don’t match.
 
The altar-builders didn’t have to do it that way. They could have carved new stones. They could have re-carved these stones. They could have turned the stones around so the mismatched images didn’t show. Instead, they used old stones with the different carvings facing out. And in the contemporary sign, they draw attention to the mismatched stones of the altar.
 
There is something beautiful and deeply faithful in this. The builders used old broken bits to construct something new and holy and beautiful in its way.
 
That’s what God does with us. That’s what the Church as a whole is. That is who we are. Beautiful in our way. Broken in places. And, thankfully, held together, and renewed, and reshaped, by the Holy Spirit into the very body of Christ.
 
Saint David’s Cathedral reminds us that we cannot escape our brokenness. The good news is, we don’t have to. God meets us where we are. God loves us as we are. And God uses us, in our brokenness, as vessels of God’s grace and love.
 
I enjoyed my time off. But it is good to be back with you, my beautiful, imperfect, holy brothers and sisters in Christ. I thank God for the many ways God works on and with us, creating holiness out of our brokenness. And I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. Amen.

 

 
 


 


3 Comments
Mary Moore
8/16/2022 11:36:26 am

I agree; the flawed and broken pieces of carved stone being reused in the new altar is a great metaphor for us and the church. Thank you for reminding us that, imperfect as we may be, God still loves us.

Reply
Elizabeth Whitcomb
8/17/2022 05:41:09 pm

The entire sermon was an incredibly apt analogy. Thank you.
I am reminded of a quote from a Leonard Cohen song. “There is a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in.”

Reply
Mary Moore
8/17/2022 05:56:14 pm

What a perfect quote to go with this sermon!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Rev. Harvey Hill
    Rector
    Rev. Dr. Harvey Hill
    Third Order Franciscan

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

We Would Love to Have You Visit Soon!

Picture
Donate
EMAIL: [email protected]

Hours

M-F: 11:00am - 1:00pm

Telephone

413-786-6133
ADDRESS                 
​699 Springfield Street,
Feeding Hills MA 01030
  • Welcome
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our History >
      • 100 years
    • Our Beliefs
    • Our Facility >
      • Our Library
    • Building Rental
    • Testimonials
    • Leadership
    • Member Directory
    • Safe Church Policy
    • Episcopal Diocese of W Mass
    • Back to Basics
    • Vision for our Parish
  • Worship
    • Services
    • Services on YouTube >
      • June 2025
      • May 2025
      • April 2025
      • March 2025
      • February 2025
      • January 2025
      • 2024 Services >
        • December 2024
        • November 2024
        • October 2024
        • September 2024
        • August 2024
        • July 2024
        • June 2024
        • May 2024
        • April 2024
        • March 2024
        • February 2024
        • January 2024
      • 2023 Services >
        • December 2023
        • November 2023
        • October 2023
        • September 2023
        • August 2023
        • July 2023
        • June 2023
        • May 2023
        • April 2023
        • March 2023
        • February 2023
        • January 2023
      • 2022 Services >
        • December 2022
        • November 2022
        • October 2022
        • September 2022
        • August 2022
        • July 2022
        • June 2022
        • May 2022
        • April 2022
        • March 2022
        • February 2022
        • January 2022
      • 2021 Services >
        • December 2021
        • November 2021
        • October 2021
        • September 2021
        • August 2021
        • July 2021
        • June 2021
        • May 2021
        • April 2021
        • March 2021
        • February 2021
        • January 2021
      • 2020 Services >
        • December 2020
        • November 2020
        • October 2020
        • September 2020
        • August 2020
        • July 2020
        • June 2020
        • May 2020
        • April 2020
    • Sermons
    • Holy Sacraments
    • Walk the Labyrinth
    • Parish Prayer Cycle
    • Country Prayer List
    • Bishop's Word
  • Events
    • Dove Tale Newsletter
    • Community Suppers
    • Episcopal Relief & Development
    • Fun & Fellowship
    • Photos
  • Ministries
    • Adult Education
    • Caregivers Ministry
    • Community Outreach
    • Creation Care Ministry
    • Healing Ministry
    • Veterans Ministry
    • Music Ministry
    • Prayer Shawl Ministry
    • Wine Ministry
    • Women's Ministry
    • Youth Ministry
  • Calendar
  • Contact