For those who commute regularly on the East
coast mainline to Kings Cross you will swiftly pass some of England’s great churches. These
spectacular historic buildings look like haunting and majestic apparitions as
their towers and spires emerge out of the thick mist on dark November mornings.
York Minster with its Saxon foundations and Benedictine community now a 15th
century architectural masterpiece; St
George’s, Doncaster rebuilt by George Gilbert Scott in the 19th
century; the parish church of St Mary Magdalene at Newark which has one of the
tallest spires in England; the large medieval 13th century parish
church of St Wulfram, Grantham, built of Lincolnshire limestone and finally to Peterborough
Cathedral, another Benedictine Abbey dedicated to St Peter, St Paul and St
Andrew - the cathedral will shortly be celebrating its 900th anniversary. These historic
and architectural significant buildings with vast spaces, filled with
music reveal the human imagination at work on glass, stone, and other fabrics. The buildings are perfect stages for the contemplation of
the ordered universe and the transcendent beauty of traditional holiness.
The
best church I kept till last. Durham Cathedral, where I work and much admired
by passengers – views from Durham railway viaduct reveal one of the
photographic icons of north-east England. “Grey towers of Durham, how well I love thy mixed and massive piles, half
church of God, half castle 'gainst the Scot, to quote Sir Walter Scott.” But of
course, the view is not just admired by train passengers with Cannon cameras, it
is well-liked by people across the world, many of whom see it as the greatest
Romanesque building in Europe. The celebrated vista of Cathedral and Castle set
on the acropolis of their wooded peninsular is unforgettable, as is the
interior of this wonderful church. For this reason the UNESCO World Heritage
Site, of which the cathedral and its environs are a major part, was one of the
first to be inscribed. Epithets like “Britain’s best loved building” try to
capture what it is that gives the Cathedral its unique place in the affections
of so many. Its beautiful setting and its architectural purity, the
spirituality imparted by the long history of prayer and worship certainly play
a part.
These mainline churches were built as if to
last for ever. They remind me of Ken Follett’s popular novel The Pillars of the Earth, set in the
middle of the 12th century. The novel traces the development of
Gothic design out of the preceding Romanesque architecture and tells the
fortunes of the Kingsbridge priory, Priory Philip and his master builder, Tom. But do these buildings last forever? King
Henry VIII set the administrative and legal processes in the sixteenth century
by which he disbanded England’s monasteries, priories, convents and friaries – only
the local ruins of Fountains Abbey, Finchale and Tynemouth Priories now remain.
Many of our nonconformist chapels have been demolished or converted to
furniture warehouse, carpet shops, antique sale rooms and restaurants. And if
they haven’t been demolished or converted to other uses they may well have been
robbed of their lead - payouts from metal theft from places of worship have
increased by 70% nationally and are expected to reach £5.5 million by the end
of the year. One of the Durham cathedral community members, the widow of the
late Bishop of Peterborough, was in Christ Church Cathedral New Zealand in
February this year when the earthquake destroyed the spire and part of the
tower – and severely damaged the structure of the remaining building. She was
shaken by the event but mercifully not hurt. The Cathedral in New Zealand was
deconsecrated on Wednesday November 9th in an emotional ceremony as it was
returned to secular use while long term options are considered.
It’s as a consequence of this alarming prediction that they question him
further: ‘Lord, when will these things be, and what will be the signs of the
end?’ The warning of this ‘little apocalypse’ is clear: be ready, for you do
not know the day or the hour’. Taken at face value, these Scriptural images in this tense and edgy
gospel with which we begin Advent - traditionally a time that reflects on the
four last things: death, judgment, hell and heaven, make little sense to the 21st
century mind. They are profoundly disturbing ones - signs in the sun and the
moon; stars falling from the sky; the powers of heaven shaken and the Son of
Man coming on clouds with power and glory. For most modern day Christians they
bring us face to face with uncomfortable questions. How do we live with all
this talk of judgement and the second coming? How can we relate to the call of
the prophets that God might tear open the heavens and come down and cause the
nations to tremble at God’s presence?
As we look back over the last Christian year
no-one could accuse 2011 of being a slow news year.
Some of a more radical disposition with end-time thoughts in mind might say it
has been a year of disaster, catastrophe, a day of reckoning, judgement day. We
have had protests and regime change in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya - not to
mention political demonstrations in Jordan, Yemen, Morocco, and Palestine. We
are beset with the on-going massive Eurozone debt crisis, with a bailout in
Ireland, a bailout in Portugal - a second bailout in Greece, which appears to
have been as inadequate as the first – and rumours of bailouts in Spain and
Italy abound.
Turning closer to home we have had - the slow and painful unfolding of a
media phone-hacking scandal that not only beggars moral belief –but also has
heralded the extraordinary spectacle of two of the most powerful media men in
the world appearing before a Parliamentary Select Committee. There has been the
explosion of rioting in numerous UK cities, motivated by little more than
violence and greed. You might want to add to this potent mix - rape charges
made and then dropped against the head of the IMF- a massive tsunami and fears
of a nuclear meltdown in Japan - massive famine in the horn of Africa - a
massacre in Norway- the killing of the world’s most wanted terrorist. And yes
the church in the form of St Paul’s Cathedral has hit the headlines, built as it is on a deep theological fault line where the
two powerful tectonic plates, God and mammon, meet right under Wren's
magnificent baroque masterpiece." If cathedrals are seen as monuments to
transcendent beauty and traditional holiness, then in the life of Jesus,
holiness is redefined as justice. Rowan Williams in a speech to the Lord Mayors
Banquet, London last week drew attention to the “alarming instability being
played out in the cities across the world as the economic crises deepens and
called for repentance as a way to restore trust or credibility.”
But whatever
we think of recent global events and the fear and uncertainty that they provide,
this dark and difficult passage is, let
me remind you, about a building. Even the temple, says Jesus, will not last
forever. When you visit Jerusalem, as I have done, and place your hands in the
crevices of the western wall which is all that is left of Solomon’s magnificent
and beautiful temple, and pray, you cannot help being reminded that man’s
grandest designs are subject to the same law as everything else: earth to
earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Advent is the time
in the Christian year when we come to terms with the facts of our human
condition. Mortality is a fact not only of our personal social and economic lives
but also of our institutions. And that includes church buildings. To take our
Gospel reading literally this morning would imply that one day, inevitably, but
hopefully not soon, not one stone of our great buildings will be left standing
upon another? I think that the monks who put up Durham cathedral 900 years ago
knew that while they built as if forever, it was not forever. They built for
God and his kingdom; they knew from the rule they followed that his kingdom was
not of this world. In this, it stood in sharp contrast to the earthly kingdom
to whose ruthless power this cathedral was also a monument: the Norman
conquerors. Like Herod’s temple, even the buildings that stand most powerfully
for spiritual aspiration can also represent ambition, power and hubris.
I think this
ambivalence is good for us. Listen to the voice of the New Testament. ‘The
things that are seen are transient; the things that are unseen are eternal.’
‘We have here no abiding city, but we seek that which is to come.’ In today’s
passage from St Mark, we are faced with the stark realisation of how
provisional everything is: our possessions, our relationships, our institutions,
our achievements, our lives. All this, says the apocalyptic Jesus, will be
swept away at the coming of God that will wind up history and bring in the
reign of his kingdom. And even if we step back from the imagery and ascribe it,
as we must, to the feverish, end-of-the-world milieu in which 1st century
Christians believed they were living in, we can’t escape the vividness of
Jesus’ teaching, its urgent summons to look afresh at things and consider what
we rate as truly important in this life.
It is very
good and sobering for people like me, a former URC synod Listed Buildings
Advisory officer as well as Methodist property stewards and custodians of
magnificent church buildings to be reminded every so often that there will come
a time when not one stone will be left standing upon another. I pray that you
and I never see it. And yet, doesn’t that prayer betray the possibility that I
might love these stones too much, the symbol rather than what it points to, the
creature rather than the creator?
The coming of
God’s kingdom exposes to his just yet loving scrutiny all our fears and
longings. Advent is our opportunity to cultivate what the gospel calls ‘purity
of heart’. This means willing the one thing necessary for our happiness, for
the salvation of our race, for the healing of our world. That one thing is
God’s kingdom. It is the only hope we have. If we are true to the One who is
not only in all things but above and beyond all things, then we shall have
understood our great building aright, and shall cherish our stones all the more
because of him for whose glory and kingdom they, and we, exist. And if one day
tower and temple fall to dust, it is to make way for something greater, when
death and hell have fled before the presence of Light and Love, and the holy
city, the new Jerusalem has come, of which it is foretold: ‘I saw no temple in
the city, for its temple is the Lord God the almighty and the Lamb. And the
city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its
light.’
Isaiah 64: 1-9; Mark13: 1-8, 24-end
Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working
in St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP, Crook and in the wider West Durham Methodist
Circuit
