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January 27, 2008 David Beebe SERMON:
"Seven Windows” SEVEN WINDOWS Lessons:
1 Corinthians 10:1-4, John 6:35-40 Usually
I preach from limited notes. But today I plan to read the sermon, in order
to be sure to cover everything I want to say. Usually
I preach from the scripture passages. Today I am preaching from the
windows -- specifically the seven windows which are in the side walls of this
sanctuary. They are set in such a way that the congregation seldom sees
them. But the choir and the worship leaders see them and they are rich
with beauty and meaning. As
for beauty: They are most unusual. The artist has made the people
look like contemporary people and yet timeless. Some of them even wear
glasses – a hard thing to portray in stained glass. And they are in
delicate pastel colors. Since
you cannot see them just now, we have copied them onto our bulletin covers. You
may need to fold your bulletins open to see them. Even then, they are missing
some of the finer details. And none of them have the lower panel of each
window with its signature symbol. Later
you may want to look at the windows or look them up on our website, www.evucc.org.
Our
radio audience, of course, cannot see them at all – this isn’t, after all,
television. But I will try to describe them. These
seven windows describe the different acts of worship and service which frame a
Christian way of life. In some ways they are parallel to the seven
sacraments as they are understood by our Catholic neighbors. We
Protestants do not usually think of seven sacraments, but only two: Baptism and
the Lord’s Supper. That is because we generally speak of sacraments as
having been instituted by Jesus. And Jesus, of course, did not institute
marriage. People were being married, long before he came to us. And
yet marriage has a certain sacramental – or we might say sacred – character
to it. In
speaking of baptism, we often say it is “an outward sign of an inward grace”
or “it is a visible sign of an invisible event.” In this sense
marriage is sacramental. We will return to that thought as we arrive at
that window. _____ To
say that a sacrament is “an outward sign of an inward grace” may not express
fully all that this means. The great philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead,
said once that ninety nine percent of our
experience is below the neck. There are dimensions of our lives that we do
not so much sort out in our heads as in our hearts – and sometimes in our
senses and in our muscles. It is one thing to analyze the composition of
water. It is another thing to be immersed in it, or drenched in it, or to
splash in it, or be washed in it. -- or to drown in it. All these
experiences cluster around the sacrament of baptism. _____ In
some ways the sacraments – and the symbols in our windows – frame the events
of our lives. They mark the major changes in our lives. As
you look at these seven windows you will see how they mark these events: birth,
coming of age, Christian community, marriage, seeking for meaning in life,
vocation, and burial -- cradle to grave. One
of my favorite poets, the New England Quaker, John Greenleaf Whittier, wrote
these words which are now found in a familiar hymn:
The healing of Christ’s seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain
We touch Him in life's throng and press
And we are whole again
Through Him the first fond prayers are said
Our lips of childhood frame
The last low whispers of our dead
Are burdened with His name ____ Now,
at last, to the windows:
The
Baptism Window This
window, of course, expresses the practice in our churches of infant baptism.
There is a young couple holding a baby, with a robed arm reaching out and a hand
placed on the child’s head. It does not express the practice of adult
believer baptism, which is an option in our churches and indeed the earliest
form of baptism. We
have understood that baptism is a mark of entrance into the Christian community,
the Body of Christ, just as centuries ago (and as I mentioned two weeks ago) it
was a sign of each of John the Baptist’s converts entering again into the
Promised Land. And we believe that our children should be included in that
community. But we also believe that when they come of age they should be
invited to accept that choice for themselves. This we call confirmation.
It is an extended part of baptism. When
I was nine years old, my father, then a Baptist minister in But
before we go on further to confirmation, there is one more thing to say about
that baptism window: There
is in the lower panel a sea shell with drops of water falling. It
symbolizes of course our practice of using an actual sea shell to pour the water
of baptism. Did
you ever wonder why the sea shell? It is because it is the sign of a
pilgrim. In earlier days when pilgrims went on holy journeys they carried
at their waists a sea shell. It was for them a combined alms bowl, scoop,
cup, and soup bowl. It has become the symbol of a pilgrim on a journey.
And that is who we are, as Christians.
The
Confirmation Window We
have already spoken of the meaning of confirmation. It means to confirm
the promise of your baptism. And it means to be confirmed, that is,
strengthened, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. This is why in
the lower panel there is a Bible, the source of our knowledge of the faith and
above it a flame for the Holy Spirit’s presence. You will notice in the
young woman’s arms, as she kneels to receive the blessing of the pastor, a
Bible – from which she has learned the things that teach us faith. Confirmation,
let me say clearly, is not only a sign of coming of age, as it is often treated
in our culture, but it is a sign of our coming to Christ. That is why we
understand confirmation as the making of disciples of Jesus Christ. I
said that a sacrament, a sacred sign, is an outward sign of an inward grace.
What is the outward sign in confirmation? In baptism, it is of course,
water. In confirmation it is the sign of touch – and the touch of a
hand. Such a sign in ordinary life often means comfort or approval.
It is here the passing on of a gift – as it is so also in the touch of healing
and in the touch of ordination, the making of a pastor.
The
Communion Window In
the third window we come again to the usual practice of this congregation:
Sometimes we invite people to come forward to the altar or to stations to
receive communion, but usually members of the congregation take the sacred
elements and pass them to the people in the pews, as though they were at table
with Jesus – that is the historical reason why it is done this way. In
the lower window is a cluster of wheat and grapes, recalling the words of the
earliest recorded Christian liturgy about the gathering of the wheat into the
one loaf and the gathering of the grapes to make the wine. But
what does this mean? It means to be gathered in the name of Christ, for he
said: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
It means Christian community, that little bit of tearing back the curtain of
time and letting us taste of the banquet of heaven. Once
years ago I watched that wonderful motion picture, “Places in the Heart.” In
it, in the early Twentieth Century American South, a white man was killed by a
black man, who was then hung. At the end of the film a congregation is
gathered for Holy Communion. I watched the tray of cups being passed from
one to
another and then noticed that a white man passed it to a black man – something
that in our segregated South would not have happened. And then I suddenly
realized that the white man was the murdered man and the black man was the
lynched man. This was not But
what are the outward signs? They are food and drink, bread and wine, the
body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are bread, the staff of
life, the daily bread that the breadwinner brings home. And they are the
wine which is a sign of the joys of life.
The
Marriage Window Now,
to the marriage window. There in the window, above the symbol of the
Bible, upon which we often take our vows -- even in court – there stands
a couple, she with the wedding veil and he in simple clothes, joining hands
while the pastor’s hand is placed upon them, the usual form of blessing
at a wedding. But
what is the outward sign, the visible event? It is what we call
“Intimacy.” And that is often misunderstood. We use the word,
“intimacy” sometimes to represent merely sexual engagement -- and then it
becomes a mere physical pleasure without its sacred character. But
the word “intimate” means to intimate, to reveal your inmost self to
another. And that is what a true marriage is. It may sound
old-fashioned but the old song is right: “Love and marriage go together
like a horse and carriage.” You have not known the joy of intimacy until
you have known the sheer bliss of being together with one whom you have grown to
love through joy and sorrow. But
marriage, as I often say at weddings, is not just an event, it is a growing life
together which begins when you are willing to stand before others and before God
and make promises which you will keep. The
lower panel holds a cross with two rings intertwined, representing the sacred
unity of a Christian marriage.
Prayer
and Penitence And
now we come to the windows in the west wall. They are not so clear and on
our website they are not labeled. They have more than one meaning. The
one to the rear of the nave has a man bowing, obviously in thoughtful prayer.
And in the lower panel there is a censer with incense rising, the classic symbol
in the Bible for prayer. But
it may be that the man there in solitude is not only praying but also penitent.
And so this window speaks not only of prayer but also of what our Catholic
neighbors call the sacrament of reconciliation, or penance. And
what is the outward sign: It is the posture of humility. You may not
think that physical postures are sacramental, but if you ever lift your hands in
praise in worship, or bow the knee, or bow the head, you will discover that your
body as well as your heart is worshipping. The
great early father of the Puritan movement, a movement that came to discount
posture because it was afraid kneeling at communion meant worshipping the bread
and wine – that great leader, I say, named Paul Bayne, said once that posture
in prayer is important, for it is like rubbing the limbs to stimulate them.
He said, and I quote: “Kneeling in prayer of lying prostrate are
helpful gestures, but as for sitting, it is an unfit gesture and were more
excusable if our case were like that of Jacob on his death-bed, who could scarce
rare him up to sit.” That
posture in Now,
I would not quibble about sitting for prayer, but I note that “knee-bent and
body-bowed” have their place. Did you not kneel beside your bed as a
child to say your evening prayers?
Ministry
of the Word and Ordination The
next window has to do with preaching and with clergy. One might expand its
meaning to include any vocation which is understood to be a calling from God --
which is almost every vocation if you understand it as God’s service.
But here the window signifies what it shows: the pulpit, the pastor, and the
Word. What
is the outward sign? It is the preaching of the Word, which, as Paul Bayne
said again, is like cooking up a delicious meal with spices. The
Apostle Paul asked: “how are they to believe in one of whom they have never
heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are
they to proclaim him unless they are sent?” Romans
10:14-15 To
be sent means that the Church, under God’s guidance, has chosen certain people
to go tell the Good News. We call that ordination. Once again, we
ask someone, as we did in confirmation, to kneel, to have hands placed on the
head, and to be blessed with the gift and task of telling the Story, as they
have learned it well. And here, of course, the
outward signs are the touch, the training, and the Book.
Caring
for Others, Grief and funerals And
now we come to the final window. It obviously portrays a child bringing a
bouquet of flowers to a woman in a shawl, usually a symbol of a widow. It
is at once a sign of the end of life, the burial and the grief, and at the same
time a picture of that most important sacred act of Christians, the act of
charity. And here the outward sign and the inward grace become one, for as
the Apostle Paul also said: “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
and the greatest of these is love.” Beneath
this window, the lower panel has a seven petaled columbine flower nested in its
leaves, a symbol not only of charity but of unfolding life. _____ Now
these are the seven windows. There are more: the Good Shepherd window in
our chapel with its thirteen sheep, the window of Christ the giver of life in
our narthex alcove and the Great Commission “benediction window” which we
face at the close of each worship service as we sing the three fold blessing. Take
the time to tour these windows and let them speak to you. Rev. Dr. Evangelical United
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