On the Death of the Church

When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments were stationed to praise the Lord with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, according to the directions of King David of Israel; and they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, ‘For he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever towards Israel.’

And all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

But many, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping.

-Ezra 3:12–13

Why did they weep, those faithful elders? Returning to Judah with their families after decades of exile in Babylon, did they weep from fear of building their lives over again from scratch, again? Did they mourn their relatives who had chosen not to return, or those who died before the chance was given? Did they weep for Israel’s loss of sovereignty, for the fact that this new temple was built on the sufferance of a far away emperor and this restored worship was done in fear of their neighbors? Or did they simply weep because this new temple was strange and makeshift and not the temple they had carried in their hearts all down those long years of exile?

The church is dying, I am told. People for some reason love to tell me this when they first find out I’m in training to become a priest. And they love to tell me how good things used to be. Remember how full the pews used to be. Remember how much more money we used to have. Remember when presidents and scientists and judges used to go to our churches and listen to our sermons. Remember when we were important.

It is clear to me that God has not abandoned us. The passion and faithfulness of the young religious leaders in my life are witness to this. But it is also true, I feel certain, that we will serve a church one day whose dimensions we do not yet know. Its stones will be rough and unfamiliar. We may serve a church far removed from the centers of political power; we may seem to be a strange and makeshift little bunch.

The church will persist so long as one voice is lifted to proclaim God’s faithfulness. But many things within the church will die, and that may include many things we love, much of what we now recognize, as well as many things which have been holding us apart from God for a long time.

I think that, for those of us called to ministry within the church, we will need to become very good at hospice care for what is dying. But I also think that our primary job, the thing that if we do not do this we will have failed, is to midwife what is being born. We cannot stay in Babylon; we must start again. God is at work right now, today, if we have eyes to see it. Blessed be the Lord, who shows the wonders of his love in a besieged city.

Remember that resurrection comes through death, not instead of death. Remember that God is faithful. Remember that the good news of Jesus is always being translated into every new language and in every generation. Remember that the Kingdom of God has come very near to us. Let our shouts of joy be heard far away.

(Preached in St Luke’s Chapel, Berkeley Divinity School, October 2019)