The Beauty of the Lord (Architecture)
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Our texts go from the first Temple to no Temple or all Temple. The use of the Revelation images of heaven are so influential in our sanctuary I had to go back to them. Our question is, why should this people of God renovate this sanctuary, as the Capital Campaign proposes? Beyond needs to re-finish floors and redo wiring, we need theological reasons. So to Old Testament first.
The first scripture comes from the prayer of dedication for the first Temple of the Jews in Jerusalem. Previously, the God of Israel was related to an ark which was placed in a tabernatcle or tent of meeting. Solomon knew God would not be contained in the Temple he had made by Hiram of Tyre, a Syrian or Philistine. There was no statue or graven image inside the sanctuary, as in pagan temples. Yet Solomon believed that the acts in the Temple, particularly the prayers and acts of reverence, would be heard up in heaven. Heaven, presumably, is the original of which the Temple is a copy, sometimes imagined as a divine throne room.
The Book of Revelation has more direct images of heaven, though they are images of a gloried earth where God is everywhere present as light. The Temple that was built and re-built is no more. There is instead this immensity of richness and beauty and freedom. The source of light was the Lamb, as is true, in a way, here in our sanctuary. The clearest celestial blue in our sanctuary is around the heads of all six figures at the tops of our windows, especially those Lambs in the center. The windows in our sanctuary are a bit like the gates of the new Jerusalem-not just in their pearly glass but in the doorlike arches over each window which match the central arch over the communion table and pulpit. Our windows are doors through which stream the heavenly host.
For the early church, the simple point of worship was to gather together around the table. Everyone was a priest, people spoke up, read letters, sang and prayed for each other. Baptism was a major deal, but often done as we do it, by various forms of immersion, not submersion (like the Baptists). Elizabeth Hoffman's class has looked at the evolution of church buildings that came with the Peace of the Church in 313 with Constantine and the use of the basilica public assembly hall and law court. What was in front of rectangular buildings of this type was not necessarily a throne, but it was often an apse where a judge and perhaps some kind of jury and clerks would sit. In the medieval church, as the hierarchy of the church began to do all liturgical functions, the choir contains monks and other clerics where in Roman times the lawyers sat, close to the bench. But what was once a table had become again an altar, often covering reliquaries of saints' bones, and the pattern of ancient religion's sacrifices had returned. You, the lay people, were basically secondary and anonymous, you could come and go as you wished (step out for a smoke), you might get the bread at communion but rarely the wine. But your visual senses were inspired with glimpses of what was claimed for heaven.
With the Reformation, the church tried to become again the people of God gathered around the table and pulpit. The sacred space was in the body of believers, and each of our bodies was to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. Circular churches came back in, barriers between ministers and members were eliminated. (Most of those circular churches in France were destroyed by the Catholic authorities). Sometimes Protestants destroyed beautiful but distracting things. Most Protestantism was not iconoclastic, but all images were secondary to the body of believers. Our Protestant ancestors feared aesthetics taking over from ethics. Their direct worship helped revive the diaconate and lay leadership. We are gathered to see each other face to face and to seek God's presence with as much directness. The Word of God preached spoke of heaven, but the building did not represent much of heaven.
At Scarborough Presbyterian, however, we have a structure that is basically the archetypal Western combination of the (reading) synagogue and the (visual, pagan-Jewish) temple, with more of the Temple, despite our Reformed heritage. In a way, we are as poised as anywhere to be the truly ecumenical church of the future. We even have Eastern Orthodox elements in the mosaics and use of gold, and our frame is neo-classical, going back before Gothic, Romanesque, and other medieval styles. Gold still speaks the language of glory, and only comes down in this sanctuary on the choir loft.
Our sanctuary is beautiful, and even if the floor and wiring need restoration, why re-paint and put in new lighting? Why not be scrupulously faithful to the past? Why not put our money where it may seem more obvious to help people come and good works be done, as in parking, work space and meeting space? Ain't broke, why fix? Are we asking the building to do what we as members and a community can not?
When I have spoken about colors and lighting before now, I have asked people what values they had, what feelings they have in the sanctuary. Some are dwarfed and intimidated, others feel Vanderbilt upper class formality, others feel the yellow is bright, others that it is too bright. What spiritual effects does the building create-God's transcendence, mystery, immensity, majesty, distance, isolation, inability to speak or sing loudly enough to match the organ, inflexible seating, overpowering elegance...how much warmth and intimacy? (The pews do not easily move, for example, though we did move the front ones sideways to create a central square for Lindsay and Jim's wedding-but they are quite heavy).
However we slice it, a church building built and maintained with this kind of love, time, talent and treasure, speaks to where God lives. This is the image that we carry in our minds, that we point to when we pray, as King Solomon recognized.
We may decide to change this sanctuary for pragmatic reasons, including the inadequacy of those side lights breaking up the pilasters (inbuilt columns) and even the "turtles" (hanging lights over chancel) added in the 1930's or '40's. But I feel that any significant change needs theological justification: will it up-build the congregation as God's people? Will it amplify the complementary work of the pulpit and the table? Will it give us both majesty and intimacy-not just for warm feelings, but for mutual support and a strengthened service to the world? In other words, how much can paint and lighting assist a new reformation among us? How much can we be re-oriented to see the Beauty of the Lord, not just in the heavenly gold, but in the earthly people around us-who are also in God's image? It is not just about transcendence and immanence, it is not about spiritualizing conventionally pretty architectural fashions of our day, but about incarnating God's Spirit in this body of believers. This space is to be expressive, not just impressive. It is to be declarative, not just decorative.
Now I can make small points, about how we need to make this baptismal font more present, which it never has been, and how the almost grim narthex could be perhaps transformed into a baptistry (Though when Bob Montgomery tried putting the font near the entrance, the elders moved it back the next week). We could not how the symbols on the back of this apse- painstakingly stenciled by Michele Croft-do not in fact match the archetypal symbols on the ceiling or the floor or the windows. I can give you quotes about the need for mystery and different levels that move that imagination, the heart, the gut, and the eyes of contemplation. But the big symbol is the cross that must always also be resurrection joy. The cross is not the only Christian symbol by far, but keeps us anchored in even dark experiences so that our spirituality is not vague escapism. This church itself is in the shape of the cross, of course, and there are matching crosses carved in ceiling center and pulpit. But the new Protestant work is always to see the in-breaking power of God re-shaping, re-forming the people, us. The Reformation gives us daring and boldness for change within history, while affirming the deep recurring patterns of life.
The issue is always how to link heaven and earth, the wood of nature, the artifice of glass, the colors of the rainbow, the realities of death, suffering, doubt, emptiness, the stronger realities of faith, hope and love.
We have a gift and a challenge in a ceiling that is dark like deepest heaven. The challenge is not to be borne down by its heaviness. But in this past century, as the Spirit has been put more inside as a dimension of depth, this whole inside sanctuary can be the dove and the cross coming down to us, as much as our steeple and height are our hand and fingers upstretched, pointing to heaven. Paul Tillich, above all 20th century theologians, was sensitive to God's common grace in all culture and art, and the need for a supernaturalism that is not a place apart. Resurrection is freedom and liberation, as shown in the bulletin cover cross floating in the air toward us, but also steady and linked to the heavenly apse and incoming Spirit.
The cross in resurrection space is integration for us, but not automatic. We are not exactly in our own homes here: this is God's house. And it is not just the gate heaven: Christ is the way, the truth and the life. Will any of the proposed changes, colors, chandeliers, make us a stronger, warmer congregation? Let us pray so. This place is not always to be a foretaste of heaven-that is communion; but it is to be a taste of redemption, and a reinforcement of our calling to be in the world but not of it. It is to give substance to the spiritual world, and that substance above all is Christ, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
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