Last summer, I witnessed the secularization of the chapel at my seminary, which had been closed the year before following the graduation of my class. It was a very poignant occasion for generations of alumnae and faculty because St. John’s chapel was beloved and the focal point of our community of disciples in formation.
We worshipped in that chapel every day. It was the place each new student signed the matriculation book in a special liturgy of welcome, the place where we prayed and learned and answered the call of the Holy Spirit as individuals and as a community. It was the place where we went to seek the comfort of worship when things went wrong and we needed healing. We could count on the great cloud of witnesses to hold us up when we entered into that sacred space.
A couple hundred people steeled themselves for the liturgy of secularization. The bishop began, “We who are gathered here know that this building, which has been consecrated and set apart for the ministry of God’s Holy Word and Sacraments, will no longer be used in this way, but will be taken down…”, and he paused as his voice broke. The bishop had also been formed at that seminary, and he loved St. John’s chapel as much as any of us.
I tried to think about other things so I wouldn’t cry, like whether or not my return flight would be on time. All I could think about was the Christie’s auction that had taken place the previous month in which strangers had bid on the artwork that had adorned the walls of our holy space. The sound-track paying in my head was “They divide my garments among them; they cast lots for my clothing.”
Somehow, I made it through the liturgy, but the ceremony became intolerable when the recessional began and emeritus faculty members, alumni themselves, carried out our most sacred artifacts from the walls and the altar as we stripped a building that was now no longer our church.
As we stood together on the lawn in front of the chapel in the June evening, nearly all of us shed many tears and held each other up. We knew that what we had shared in deep support of one another over generations of seminarians could not be deconsecrated like a building. We knew that you can strip the altar, you can strip the whole building, but a community of disciples formed by love and shared service cannot be stripped of its identity because that shared service to and for one another is the real church, not the building where we met, however symbolic of the experience we shared inside of it.
If we embrace and follow the new commandment that Jesus gave to his disciples to love one another as he had loved them, it forms a deep and unshakable bond between us as disciples. That bond is life sustaining. And it’s necessary to do the work of being Christ’s hands and feet in the world.
When we serve one another by tender ministration the way Jesus taught his disciples to do with the foot washing, we are inoculated against grief and doubt. And that’s why the Maundy Thursday liturgy of many churches memorializes Christ washing the feet of his disciples by offering the congregation the opportunity to wash one another’s feet.
This year, I invite you to look at the chair and the wash basin and the towel. Consider what opportunities you have taken in the last year to serve one another and what opportunities you let pass you by.
Some of you will not be here next year for any number of reasons, and there’s no reliable way of knowing who it will be. If tonight turns out to be your last opportunity to serve each other as Jesus served his disciples, will you sleep tonight, knowing you gave each other your all in the responsibility we affirm as Christians?
If tonight were the last celebration of the Holy Eucharist ever to be had in our church—if the stripping of the altar were to be permanent, would your heart be torn in two like the Temple Curtain when Jesus was executed?
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Love is not some sanitized “thoughts and prayers.” It’s often uncomfortable and up close, maybe for people you don’t even like. The love of a disciple is the work of building relationship. It’s the kind of love that serves tenderly with a wash basin and a towel. It’s the act of feeding one another with material and spiritual food. And it’s a time limited opportunity for each relationship you have, because you don’t always get tomorrow.
God willing, our stripping of the altar tonight will be symbolic and temporary. You owe it to yourselves as a disciple AND to the people you love to think about what your lives might be like, if tonight were the last time you will come to this altar for the holy food and drink.
Who would you be if you never see each other again? John tells us that “Having loved his own who were in the world, he [meaning Jesus] loved them to the end.”
Please dear God, and beloved disciples… can we commit to doing likewise?