Celebrate the Journey: Windows
and Doors
John Wilkinson
Third Presbyterian Church
February 2, 2003
Psalm 122/Matthew 7:7-11
For those of you who
have been clamoring for me to use more props in our Sunday
morning conversations, today is your lucky day. At the last
wedding over which I presided in Chicago, the couple presented
me with a little gift on the night of the rehearsal. Over
the course of our getting to know each other, I learned that
the bride-to-be was from the state of Michigan. Being from
Ohio, I offered appropriate sympathy and pity to her, for
which she was appropriately grateful. On the evening of the
rehearsal, the couple presented me with this little football,
which plays the University of Michigan fight song, a song
that my DNA is programmed to dislike. Very cute and very funny.
The next day, the day of the wedding, the couple presented
me with another little gift, a kind of mea culpa. A replica
of Ohio Stadium. The couple remains happily married, I am
very glad to report.
I tell this story for two reasons, one shameless and one,
I hope, a bit more to the point. The shameless reason is that
it provides me an opportunity for which I have been searching
since the wee hours of the third of January to mention the
national championship efforts of the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Having thus mentioned that, and most likely not for the last
time, I turn to the second, more legitimate reason, that replica
of Ohio Stadium and the power of place. Like any large gathering
place, many wonderful and terrible things have gone on there
that have become embedded in the history and lore of that
particular community. Like any large gathering place, it is,
at least, just a building, a construction designed with some
attention to form and style, but primarily designed to allow
things to happen in it. And like any large gathering place,
it has had to adapt from time to time.
Ohio Stadium, for obvious design reasons, has always been
known as the “horseshoe.” Several years ago, in order to fit
in several thousand more fans, they closed in the end of the
horseshoe. People were a little agitated, but not really.
And though it’s not one anymore, it is still called the “horseshoe,”
and football games are still played there, and thousands upon
thousands of happy Ohioans still congregate there, to watch
the national champions, if I didn’t mention that already.
Last summer on vacation, we drove through Akron, Ohio, and
remembered the power of place once again. We drove past the
two former homes of my grandparents, the homes where my parents
were raised, the homes we visited as children year after year
after year. They are not architectural masterpieces by any
means, and yet extraordinary things happened within their
walls.
And then, we drove by the First Presbyterian Church of Akron.
It is the church where my parents met (and I may have told
this story before), the church where they were married, the
church where my father was ordained to Presbyterian ministry.
It is the church where I was baptized, forty years ago this
month. It is the church from which my grandparents were buried.
Again, just walls and ceilings, floors, doors and windows;
and, again, so much more than that.
In the course of the celebration of our 175 years as Third
Presbyterian Church, today is the day when we will pause and
take a little time to think about these things. Others could
do it much better, and have. William Young’s presentation
on the stained glass windows of the church is wonderful. Bob
Eames’ building tours would show you nooks and crannies of
this place that would otherwise take you decades to discover.
A year ago in January, we started this celebratory series
by thinking of our roots, our forbears. We have, since last
January, celebrated our community, celebrated our long-time
members. We have celebrated our ministers. We will, eventually,
celebrate our music heritage and then, finally in May, celebrate
the future to which God is calling us.
Today’s conversation is about what we in the business call
“bricks and mortar.” It is, of course, about so much more
than that.
Jerusalem is set on a hill. The ancient Israelites composed
songs to help them get from wherever they were to their holy
city; psalms, we call them. They are characterized in many
ways – a certain portion of them are called “psalms of ascent”
by the biblical scholars, songs sung by the Hebrews to prepare
themselves for worship as they approached Jerusalem.
“I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to the house
of the Lord.” Those are perhaps some of the earliest biblical
words you learned, used often in worship to gather the people
together. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to
the house of the Lord.
One can almost imagine the joy in that ancient heart as the
eyes first captured a glimpse of the city, the temple, the
holy place. Such power.
But such power did not then and does not now replace the
power of that more primary relationship, that of people to
God. And so the balance I am trying to strike this morning
would agree, essentially, with the Avery and Marsh song on
the cover of our bulletin, but it would not stop there. The
church is not a building, but the power of place would suggest
that the building that houses the church, this church, any
church, is much more than bricks and mortar.
This is the fourth location for this congregation. The gallery
exhibits and the “Messenger” historical vignettes have laid
out the story well. I am always impressed when a church makes
a decision to build. It is most certainly a leap of faith,
as well as a leap of stewardship. Will the new building do
what it needs to do? Will it capture, somehow, the personality
of the people of God who built it and paid for it? Will it
be welcoming? Will it get the job done in terms of programming?
Well, I for one think that our current iteration, here at
the corner of Meigs Street and East Avenue, does pretty well.
That is not to worship the building, remember, but to place
it within the proper context. I need to tell you that every
time I drive down East Avenue or cut across Meigs Street,
I feel good when I see the strong tower or a crowded parking
lot or people coming and going through many doors. I am glad.
The church is not a building, but this building does a pretty
good job of housing this people of God so that they can do
what they are called to do.
An alternative title to this one, “windows and door,” would
have been something like “angels in the architecture” or “if
these walls could talk.”
Besides the fact that these walls do talk sometimes, especially
late at night, the point would have been to remember everything
wonderful and profound and sacred that has happened in this
place – every anthem sung in chapel or sanctuary that has
touched someone’s heart, every Sunday school lesson taught
in some classroom then or now that has nurtured a child’s
faith, every potluck meal served out of this or prior church
kitchens, every frame that was bowled (ask someone about bowling
sometime), every meeting held at which some important decision
was made, every baby baptized, every marriage celebrated,
every life celebrated and death mourned and spirit commended
to God. If these walls could talk, they would have extraordinary
stories to tell.
Another alternative title to “windows and doors” would have
been “ceilings and walls and floors.” We need these things
to hold this place together, to provide stability, a firm
foundation. They need to be solid and thick, holding the heat
when needed, holding the cool air when needed, keeping the
water out when at all possible, adapting to needs when they
present themselves.
I sometimes think of a church as a home, in both formal and
informal ways. It needs to capture that unique combination
of hospitality and gathering, of getting work done and getting
play done, of style and substance. Ours does a pretty good
job.
Our worship spaces soar. Each in their own way speaks to
the soul and serves as true sanctuary – not as hideout, but
as respite whereby we gather in order to disperse, gather
to worship and depart to serve.
And then every other room flows from the places where we
worship – classrooms and offices, meeting spaces and eating
spaces. And here we do pretty well as well.
This building needs tended to from time to time. Any old
building does, as we all know, and we all know that this has
a cost associated with it. We will talk about that a bit at
this morning’s annual meeting, and various leadership groups
within the church continue to think about these things.
The invitation and challenge for us all is continue to nurture
its character, meeting our program needs, anticipating where
those needs are taking us, much as a group of leaders anticipated
needs now more than 50 years ago in the construction of our
education building and chapel.
I would submit that those themes should continue: enhanced
accessibility, utility, hospitality, for older members, for
younger members, for physically challenged members, for newer
members, for visitors.
Noted scholar James White wrote in his well-known book Protestant
Worship and Church Architecture that church buildings leave
impressions, even on those who never enter them. And then
White says that “architecture can be a means of teaching those
who enter the Church what it is to be one in Christ…proving
the necessary physical conditions for our work done in God’s
service.” (Pages 200-201)
My third prop is a little plaque, which we will mount some
place in the building sometime soon. It tells us that the
Presbyterian Historical Society has determined that we are
to be added to the society’s historic site registry. The application
process, actually, was a bit rigorous. We not only had to
tell them of the historic nature of the building, but also
the nature of the things that had happened inside it. And
so we mentioned Charles Finney and eighteenth century American
revivalism. And we mentioned Lilian Alexander and the journey
to women’s ordination. And we mentioned Louis Comfort Tiffany’s
windows, and gorgeous rock hewn from nearby quarries, and
even a little sanctuary fire several years ago.
And we got a plaque, not because the church is a building,
a museum, or even worse, a mausoleum, but rather the church
is that vehicle by which the work of God can be done, a place
that makes people, all kinds of people, glad when they go
to it.
And so the title of this conversation became “windows and
doors.” The windows are obvious and the easy part. Do yourself
a favor sometime soon; linger a while and let the warmth and
beauty and light of one of our stained glass windows work
on you a bit.
That’s the easy part. But there’s one last thought. One time
Jesus said, “...knock, and the door will be opened to you.”
That simple image is our call to worship, our call to celebration
and our call to action. Doors that let us in sometime ago
and doors that continue to let us in. And doors that let us
out in order to serve God in our living and in our community.
Doors that let in all those whose needs might be met by this
place. Doors that are open even to those who have yet to discover
us.
Windows and doors as symbols of light and hospitality, and
a journey to celebrate. A vision and a promise for every house
of the Lord, even this one. Amen.
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