October 1, 2023

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32; Matthew 21:23-32

O house of Israel, are my ways unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair?

Ezekiel is sharing the visions that he had from God. And one of the complaints of God against the people was about their idolatrous ways. They allowed other gods to be worshipped on the high places. They perhaps even allowed other gods to be worshipped alongside God in the shrines of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin.

In this period, things were changing. The people in the north stopped going to the Temple in the south. Travel was dangerous and expensive, so they set up their own places of worship at holy sites in the north. But it was not only changes in locations. It was changes to practices and even beliefs.

What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”? As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel.

It was an article of faith that children and even grandchildren would be punished for the sins of their parents or grandparents. It is spelled out clearly in the Ten Commandments that God is a jealous god, jealous meaning “Do not worship other gods.” If you do, God will visit the iniquities of parents upon the third and fourth generation. And yet, that possibility for generational punishment was changing according to Ezekiel. According to Ezekiel, the Ten Commandments, the ones quoted to this day, were changing.

But, of course, things change. We might imagine the Bible as etched on stone tablets, but it is a work of pen and ink. One that has been changed with pen and ink. What Moses had prophesied was changed by words by Ezekiel. Even fundamental aspects of a religion can change. But that does not mean that people will not choose different lines of the Bible to support their divergent views. That they will claim that Moses was right and Ezekiel was wrong.

Or that one group was wrong. Those others somewhere else.

For example, the Northern Kingdom of Israel would be heavily criticized by the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Why? Because the northerners no longer worshipped in Jerusalem. This change in location was considered as if they were worshipping different gods entirely. The fact that the Temple’s loss of income was a concern should not be lost upon us centuries later.

The Temple itself was a major change. If you leaf through the Book of Exodus, there are elaborate descriptions of the Tabernacle, the place in which the Ark of the Covenant would be stored. Tabernacle is a fancy word for a tent, a tent that could be assembled and disassembled for when the Ark of the Covenant was moved around Israel.

Because there was no Temple. Depending on how you look at it, there was never supposed to be a Temple. The people of Israel were originally not city dwellers. They were nomads, they were shepherds and goatherds. Over the centuries they settled down like their neighbors.

According to Biblical accounts, King David conquered Jerusalem and made it his capital. He wanted to build a temple to God, now that they had such a permanent setting, but it was not until the reign of King Solomon when the Temple was first built. And that Temple was just that, a temple in which sacrifices were offered up to God. These took many forms, such as grain or money, but generally the primary versions were animal sacrifices. And because of this focus, there was an altar. I will spare you all the gory details, but that is where the business of sacrifice was performed.

My sermon today is about architecture and specifically about religious buildings. I have described two such structures already, first the elaborate tent in which the Ark of the Covenant was housed as it moved around. And second, the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem that informally marked the settling down of the people of Israel as a kingdom. It was however destroyed by invading Babylonians in the 6^th century.

After they returned from the Babylonian captivity, the people of Jerusalem would cobble together a makeshift temple. It bore little resemblance to the grandeur of the First Temple. It was sacked and repaired a few times, made bigger by King Herod in the first century, only to be destroyed by the Romans in the year 70. The northern shrines that I mentioned had already been destroyed. The places at which the people could enter the presence of God had all disappeared, assuming you think of the presence of God in that way.

There had been buildings known as synagogues before the Temple was destroyed. These were local gathering places for teaching and prayer. You did not make sacrifices there, but the idea of making sacrifices began to fall out of favor among some early teachers known as rabbis before and during the time of Jesus. For example, there is a passage from the Book of Micah stating that God does not seek burnt offerings but acts of loving kindness.

And this shift in emphasis would be magnified by the loss of the Temple. Synagogues became the center of Jewish life as surviving structures for worship in the tradition. You did not make offerings but studied the Torah, continuing the tradition of teaching and prayer.

If you read the New Testament, there are passages about synagogues including many unfortunate anti-Semitic statements. This was a period after the death of Jesus but also after the destruction of the Temple and the banishment of Jews from Jerusalem by the Romans. These people have been displaced and they have been traumatized. And there was little to no practical difference between Jews who followed Jesus and those that did not.

However, one tendency of human beings after a traumatic experience is to fall back on tradition. Jesus was not accepted by everyone as a prophet, and he had died an ignominious death by crucifixion. That is the form of punishment reserved for bandits. And so, when these followers of Jesus tried to speak in the synagogues, they did not find themselves or their new ways to be welcomed.

But this separation took a century or two. In the earlier Gospel of Mark, you do not hear the anti-Semitism that becomes pronounced in the later Gospel of John. These accounts of the life of Jesus were written over 100 years apart. And a lot can change in a century.

The followers of Jesus eventually start calling themselves Christians. That word appears only three times in the New Testament. This newly named group needed a place to gather. And after the destruction of Jerusalem and the rebellion of the people of Judea, neither Jews nor Christians were particularly popular among the Romans.

The Jews could still gather in their synagogues, so the Christians needed a new place. The English word “church” is borrowed from the Greek word “kyriake,” with more than a little linguistic transmutation over time. This term generally meant the house of the Lord and, in the early days, it was literally a house. Someone who owned a house invited everyone to hang out on Sunday to pray and to sing and to eat. Eating was important, though it falls out of religious fashion to be replaced by the sacrament of communion. Holy brunch should really be a thing.

Eventually formal churches were built. These were very simple structures, essentially rooms in which people gathered. There was little to no decoration. No grand paintings or statues, like in Greek and Roman temples. There would have been a simple altar and it would have been located on the eastern wall. Why the east? Because Jesus was expected to return from the east. Actually, Jesus was supposed to return on the Mount of Olives outside of Jerusalem. East is relative.

Early churches were generally very dark because it was expensive to build windows into walls, which were very thick to support a building. That would change after the Crusades when Europeans copied Islamic architecture, allowing wider unsupported roofs and larger windows. Basically, classic European Gothic architecture would have been impossible without Muslim building designs. Go figure.

Early churches were built to be simple and practical. You were there to pray and to hear the scriptures. After the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as its formal religion, all that simplicity got pitched out the window—now that they could afford to build windows. Big domes are constructed. The walls are decorated with murals, telling stories from the Bible because almost no one could actually read the Bible.

Centuries later, stained glass windows were added to further this instructive type of architecture. Glass was fragile and expensive, which suggests that churches were becoming more complicated, more costly, and perhaps more about the building than they were about God. The grand cathedrals of medieval Europe were beautiful, but were they any more suitable for entering into the presence of God?

For that matter, was the Temple of Solomon with all its gold finery more appropriate a setting for the Ark of the Covenant? Please bear in mind that the specifications for the Tabernacle, a tent for the Ark, are spelled out in the Bible. The Temple was described, of course, not as a requirement of God, but as a project of a king.

Architecture is the art and technique of planning and building. Architecture can be practical, building a safe and sound structure for some purpose. But in the case of church architecture, the purpose is not only practical but spiritual. It is to induce a religious effect upon people. The building can teach people, like the murals and stained-glass stories on the walls. It can create a sense of awe through beauty or a feeling of grand scale. It can offer great acoustics for voice and music.

A religious building will often center whatever aspect of religious life is central to the tradition. The Temple of Solomon was built around the Holy of Holies, the location of the Ark of the Covenant that was considered to be the place where God was present on Earth.

Christian churches look different depending upon these focal points of religious life. If you are in a more sacramental church, the central focus will be an altar, a ceremonial table upon which communion is prepared and sanctified. This is common in Catholic and Episcopal churches.

If you are in a more Biblical church, there could be a large Bible on display, like at the Swiss Reformed Cathedral of Saint Peter in Geneva, Switzerland. In a Congregational church, the central element might be the pulpit because teaching and preaching about the word of God is the most important feature of religious life.

What about our own church? The First Church in Chestnut Hill is the sister church to King’s Chapel in Boston, the only Unitarian church that I know of that was first in the Anglican tradition. We seeded off from King’s Chapel in 1861 and carried with us our prayerbook based on the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

Originally, we were called the Chestnut Hill Chapel. “Chapel” can mean several things. It can mean a small alcove area in a larger church. Or, a chapel could imply a worship area in a house or manor. English nobles had chapels for personal devotion and for when they did not want to traipse down the hill to the local church.

Chapels were important in the history of Unitarianism. English Unitarians were considered heretics by the Church of England, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and their close cousins the Puritans. For this reason, Unitarians were forbidden from taking part in various aspects of English society.

There could not attend university, like at Cambridge or Oxford. Many went into business and trade as a result, such as the famous Wedgewood family and their high-end pottery. They could not be barristers, serving in court, or be members of Parliament. Why? Because they could not take an oath to serve in the name of the holy Trinity.

And they were not welcomed in, or likely interested in, attending the local church. And so, Unitarians were referred to as “Chapel people.” They set up their own chapels in houses or barns or similar places, much like the early Christians with their house churches. That early practice has over the centuries been used by many dissident religious groups as a model of returning to the proper form of worship.

Why was the Chestnut Hill Chapel formed? We have two historical accounts of the church, which I will lend you if you are so interested. But I decided yesterday to go back through the minutes of the church’s Standing Committee. I found a long report from Mr. George Dike, the clerk of the committee. The report is an account of their efforts to find a new minister after the death of Rev. Edward Hale, the minister who organized the building of this stone edifice we find ourselves in this morning.

Mr. Dike described why the church, then the chapel, was originally started. “Our church started…some 50 years ago, emanating from the desire of a few families then residing in Chestnut Hill to have some place where they could get together on Sunday for common service.” This neighborhood was created in the 1860s and most came from the King’s Chapel congregation because they were all, for the most part, related. They were cousins and close relations of the Lee family. And, back in that day, there was not yet any subway train out here in the sticks. So, if you wanted to go to church, you needed to build one.

Our church has many elements from an Anglican village church, which was intentional. Rev. Hale had a heavy hand in the design. When it was first built, however, the pulpit was in the center. There is a photograph of it in the parish hall. It was moved over to the side in 1927 and the lectern installed. Rumor has it, the relocation was for a wedding so that everyone could see the bride. I find that hard to believe, but it is in our legends and lore.

Churches change over time and so did ours. Originally there was only the parish hall, kitchen, and my office in the side addition. We expanded the building in 1927 to include the parlor area and later bought the Sunday school building which is an old garage.

What is the purpose of a church? To gather people for the purpose of worshipping God. That can take various forms. We fortunately went with pews, so people could sit down without resorting to the floor. There were kneeling cushions under the pews. There are a few remaining for historical purposes, but they are so rock hard as to be more penitential than worshipful. As Unitarians are not dedicated to suffering for God, we are fine with sitting and standing.

We have a high ceiling with heavy wooden beams. That is an aesthetic choice to increase a sense of reverence. It also improves the acoustics, particularly for the human voice. I am grateful for that. Years ago, our late beloved music director Sam Adams would repeatedly ask me about taking out all the carpeting and pew cushions to improve the acoustics for the pipe organ. And while there were few things that I would have denied Sam, that was not a request I was willing to fulfill.

There are elements in this building that we probably do not notice as much. Originally there were no stained-glass windows, just clear glass intentionally made to look old fashioned. Over time, more stained glass was added bit by bit. We also have a bell tower and there is indeed a Paul Revere bell up there. We do not ring it terribly often though I am thinking about reinstituting that practice.

This church was formed to give people in this neighborhood a place to gather. The first chapel was rather homespun, a simple wooden building that, over time, became too small and too homespun for people’s needs and sensibility. Then this stone church was built. Simpler than it is now with its growing ornamentation. Smaller than it is now as needs changed over the years. Because churches change. Their congregations change. And so, when I think about the church now and the needs of this neighborhood, I wonder what a modern church needs to be.

We expanded to house a Sunday school. We do not have a Sunday school anymore. Some will lament that change. But we are not unique by any means. And the objective of teaching children and people about God, the Bible, and how to live a good life need not be limited to an old garage behind the church between 10:30 and 11:30 am on Sundays. Please bear in mind that Sunday school was originally school, the only school available. Should we perhaps reconsider what it might mean to free religious education from the narrow window of Sunday morning?

What about our building? Originally, New England churches were the primary public buildings in a town. It was the town hall, the public school, the church, and the gathering place. The church bell was the way to communicate, which is why steeples got taller and taller so the sound could carry farther and farther.

We have a building that is mostly unused during the week, except by me. And yet, I suspect, that there are people who might need a place to gather. People looking for a place to have meetings, to teach music lessons, or to do something else I cannot yet imagine.

A church can be defined by an existing understanding of its role and purposes. And yet those change. What was a place of sacrifice became a place of learning. What was a ceremonial chamber became a meetinghouse for an exchange of ideas. Churches were important because they helped fill important needs of a community. If they stop serving such a role, then they may stop being quite so important.

As I was looking through those old church records, I came across a letter from Richard Saltonstall, the name that graces the memorial arch to my right. He was a member of the church’s standing committee when this building was built, and he was its long time chair. If you read the histories of the church, you do not get any sense that there was any contention in the congregation. But Mr. Saltonstall gave some less than glowing remarks about the late Rev. Hale and about the ongoing organizational efforts of the congregation. He essentially said that building a building was only one step in the life of the church. That more needed to be done.

It is good practice to ask that question: what needs to be done? Not what has been done. Not what have we always done. But what is needed now, what is helpful now, what is crucial now.

Our Christian forebears were forced to change many times because they had to. What then do we need to be and what should we become? Those are questions we need to consider. For change is the only certainty in this life. Whether we fight change or embrace, it will come to us regardless. So, we might be better off leaning into what will happen anyway, come what may.

Amen.