Herod the Great

Walking through yet another French Gothic Cathedral, walking amidst fantastic stained glass, sitting in a transept conveying both transcendent mystery and the mundane, following the riot of rib vaults and pointed arches ending in bosses or colonnades, I had a Protestant moment.  Aren't you on the team, part of the people rejecting this? What're you doing here?

              Fair question. 

Protestant Reformers smashed stained glass, removed all the statuary, took out the altars, replacing them with wooden tables so no one confused the Lord’s Supper with a eucharistic mass. Worship was the word and the people not the priest and the crucifix.  The irony didn’t elude me when I stayed for different services and caught different bits and pieces of French.  This is what it must have been like for the laity in the 16^th century listening to the Mass in Latin.  Aren’t you supposed to be protesting this?

Again fair question.

For many years I listened to the grumbles of an elder, friend who hated everything he considered waste.  Anything smacking of art, embellishment, pageantry, beauty; this was waste.  If my friend had his way the church would be meeting in the cheapest rented space, no staff, folks would bring their own bible and hymnal.  He took “led by Elders” seriously.  Led by elders meant this was completely a volunteer effort.  Don’t pay for anything, don’t build anything, don’t hire anyone.

Sometimes he said these things to be contrary, telling the organist if he had his way there would be no salary for music staff.  I know he said this to get a rise out of the organist. But other times he spoke from the heart.  The church should be free of charge, done as cheaply as possible.

There is, in the Reformed Protestant Presbyterian tradition, not only an iconoclastic distrust of beauty, there is also a kind of minimalism, do-it-yourself mentality, frugality most obvious in the Dutch. Dutch treat is a great example.  No one is “treated” in a Dutch treat.  Don't pay for more than your share, and don't eat at fancy restaurants.  Frugality is a deep vein carrying the blood of the Reformed.  Frugality and spartan furnishings for centuries.

To make this point to the confirmands I will walk them through various stages of church architecture beginning with the Romanesque, then Gothic, and Baroque.  Then I will show them early meeting houses in the British colonies.  The early churches of Massachusetts.  Usually one of the confirmands will say something like, wow, that is really basic, little rough.  They are right.  When Puritans and Pilgrims made their way to Massachusetts and constructed their own houses of worship, they went for the barn motif most often, the barn motif with a goodly amount of white paint. This drab aesthetic lasted for two centuries.

Color and stained glass and geometry didn’t really factor into our worship space until after the Civil War when neo-Gothic/Victorian sensibilities were all a rage in the U.S.  I love to see the images of pre-Civil war sanctuaries and then see what happened shortly after.  Clear glass was replaced with stained glass; square windows now had pointed arches; there were balconies and colonnades; pipe organs were installed. Art made its way into Protestant worship space as if centuries of rejection was simply forgotten. 

When the neo-Gothic began to fade after World War II, a new sensibility emerged, the Greek temple and the ark.  Newer churches could embody an inverted Noah’s ark.  If you have been in a church whose side walls are wood and rise upward with a steep pitch, whose windows are stained glass but without icon or design, just random colors, you visited a sanctuary meant to embody Noah’s ark, this is a place of rescue, the church will save you from destruction. Come on in; get out of the rain.

As for the Greek temple, simply step outside and behold four Corinthian columns all supporting a triangle in harmonized proportion.  This is a place of godly reflection, ancient wisdom, philosophy and theology living as one. The early church was a profound marriage of Rome and Jerusalem, Athens and Galilee.  Here beauty is more an ideal than an expression, the sublime nature of truth visible to the enlightened. Give it a glance.

No matter the era or style, Reformed theology balks at beauty.  If we have a chance to error on the side practicality and utility we sacrifice adornment every time.  Why have elaborate trim when a simple row of dentals will do?  Why have a marble floor when carpet is a fraction of the cost?  Why commission stained glass windows when Anderson keeps the wind out just fine?  If I wore the embroidered vestments of a Roman Catholic priest, there would be swift complaint.  Imagine if my robe were Joseph-like, filled with color.  I too would be sold to Egypt.

Hence when we read our brief lesson today from Luke, Jesus’ seeming dismissal of beauty, when we read this, we could easily say, “here, see!  Jesus is on the side of the iconoclast.  Everything will come down.  Jesus is a practical guide, a defender of the simple, mundane, and meek.”  We could say this.  But we would be wrong. 

True, Jesus is warning the crowd to seek glory in what is eternal, not in what is transitory; better to revel in the transcendent creation than in the house made of hands.  This could be argued.  But then we must consider how much Jesus says of what is good and beautiful and true, how it finds a poor fit in frugality, an awkward silence in the unadorned.

The gospel of Jesus is extravagant grace.  Jesus lifts up the prodigal as an image of salvation and offers a gentle rebuke to the older brother, his lack of joy, his unwillingness to enter the celebration of life.  The disciples balk at the anointing at Bethany, the waste, what could have been given to the poor.  Jesus says, leave her alone, she did a beautiful thing.  Wherever the gospel is preached it will be done in memory of her.

All will come down can be read as a caution against putting too much trust in adornment (it will soon be gone) or all must come down could be a recognition every generation, every soul has their time, live it to the fullest.  Build, create, adorn, but trust it is only for a time.  The latter sounds more like Jesus don’t you think?

The latter is true of us.  This sanctuary is layered with the attempts of generation after generation trying to create beauty, simple, spartan yes, without extravagance, yes, but still a seeking after beauty nonetheless. We look for the sublime more in thoughts than color, the transcendent in music more than woodworking.  What is most important here, and this is the key to our reading, what is most important here is how this space is a continuous expression of our faith, our prayer, our song.  It is Protestant, a bit neo-classical, and a bit American, but no matter the ingredients the soup is us.  I know this because of Herod the Great.

Some scholars read the warning of Jesus as a prophetic claim about Jerusalem's coming destruction.  The Roman general later emperor Titus leveled the city and tore down the temple leaving not one stone on top of another. While I do believe Jesus is speaking prophetically, I don't believe it had anything to do with the Romans.  This was a warning about Herod the Great.

Herod the Great was king of Palestine for 40 years.  During his time he became known as great because of vast building enterprises.  Palestine had no natural harbor, so Herod built one, constructed a harbor at Caesarea.  Wanting a palace near Bethlehem he first built a mountain.  At the Dead Sea he didn't need to build a mountain, there were many at hand.  He did though construct massive cisterns making his Winter palace an engineering masterpiece.  The list goes on and on.  He was truly a great builder.

The jewel of his constructive endeavors, though, was the temple.  Herod restored the temple in Jerusalem, he rebuilt it, and then went beyond Solomon's glory, doubling its size and constructing one of the greatest buildings of antiquity. Shocking accomplishment.  Hence the claims of the crowd look at this!

Herod's temple was massive, opulent, wonderful, amazing feat.  All the other accomplishments pale in comparison.  Yet, and here is the prophetic warning, his temple should have lasted for centuries, maybe even unto today.  Herod's Temple was built to last forever. But Herod's temple lasted only 40, 50 years.  It barely lasted longer than the time it took to build it. Herein lies the warning all must come down.

Herod's Temple was not divine inspiration; it was not a prayer of the people; it wasn't even about them.  This was the plan, design and determination of one man.  We know of Herod the Great because of the Magi's visit and his terrible, tragic call for the deaths of the Innocents.  Yet, what we should remember is his temple and its brief life.  History is filled with tyrants who brought violence.  This is not a useful example.  What is helpful is to remember: what you build should give glory to God, what you build should be an act of beauty born of the people.  The creation of beauty is a gift to God offered with love, devotion, sacrifice, extravagant generosity.  This is not what Herod built.  It was his temple, not God's. Hence, all came down.

In 2005 I met Rev. Gondwe of New Bandawe in Malawi.  This man was a force of nature.  He was always going, always building.  If there was any lull in conversation, Gondwe would detail his many projects.  He had a lovely habit of saying, "that, that is only phase one."  With this you were treated to as many more phases as you were willing to receive.  Gondwe was great.

We renamed him.  We said, "you my friend are no longer Gondwe, you are Nehemiah."  It took him a moment and then he burst with excitement.  We called him Nehemiah, the great builder of the bible, who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, who led the people to lift the temple from ruin to a place worthy of praise.  Nehemiah.  The name was electricity for him.  He nodded and said, "yes.  I like that.  I am Nehemiah." 

Twenty years later if you walk New Bandawe you find many projects of Nehemiah Gondwe.  Clinics, school blocks, and a new sanctuary, a massive sanctuary.  Where Gondwe built what the people needed, you can find it's growing today.  Where he overbuilt, the sanctuary, you find a cautionary tale of impatience, unbridled confidence.  The massive sanctuary he built was his vision, his dream, he built it.  The people not so much.  And well no engineers either. 

Please don't take these words as critique.  I admire even Gondwe's faults.  I wish I had half his tenacity.  His mistake is a much softer warning than Jesus' all will come down. Gondwe's much too large sanctuary is still there; it just leaks a lot and is really hot in the summer because it was designed without ventilation in mind.

As we begin the capital campaign for the renovation of the sanctuary I can tell you we are free from the mistakes of Gondwe.  This renovation is of the people and for the people; this is not my vision, nor the force of one person bullying others.  This is our faith, our hope for ages to come.  Mostly I believe it is what God is calling us to do. 

This renovation is so far from Herod, so far from pride, arrogance, vanity.  This is common hope, humble offering, joyful moment: a Protestant attempt offering beauty without extravagance.  We do this work for the fourth century of First Presbyterian Church of Metuchen. Fourth. Our fourth century. Not forty years; four hundred.  God is calling us to do this.  Let's begin.  Amen.