EpiscopalCenter at Duke University

The Church has a building problem. Not, I’m very happy to report, our building: the Episcopal Center has a brand, spanking new roof and HVAC system and is doing just great!

The building problem I mean has to do with how we baptized members of the Church, also known as the Body of Christ, think of and use our buildings. Our church buildings are first and foremost the places where we come together week after week to give honor and glory to God in our celebration of the Holy Eucharist. They’re the places where we gather as a community and by doing so become a community. And they are also places that become part of our identity. All church buildings have their good points and their . . . quirks . . . but they become part of what we mean when we say, “I go to St. Swithens” or “First Church Durham” or “the Episcopal Center.”

All of those things are well and good. So what’s the problem?  The problem comes when we begin to think our primary job as Christians is to bring other people inside ‘our’ building. We like to say, “The Episcopal Church welcomes all,” and I hope that, with God’s help, that will always be true. I hope that all churches, including the Episcopal Center, do a good job of offering hospitality to every person who finds his or her way to the door.

But here’s the thing–we are, by virtue of our baptism, called to go beyond welcoming people inside our buildings. In fact, most of what we’re called to takes place outside the walls of our beloved church buildings. In the words of our baptismal covenant, we’re called to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourself, and to strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being (Book of Common Prayer, p. 305). At the end of every celebration of the Holy Eucharist we’re sent out into the world in peace to love and serve the Lord. And in the words of the Great Commission Jesus gives in Matthew  28:20, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit . . . .”

We are called to offer radical hospitality, a hospitality that can’t be contained by any walls, not even the walls of our church buildings. It probably feels a lot safer to all of us to welcome people into a familiar setting, but the kind of hospitality Jesus calls us to involves risking ourselves in new and unfamiliar settings. It involves going to places where we aren’t necessarily in charge or in control or in our comfort zones NOT because we have Christ and can take him to others, but because that’s where Christ is and he’s who we’re after.

I tend to fall in love with the places I go to church. And I give thanks that in the Episcopal Center we have a place to worship right in the middle of Duke’s campus. But our buildings are where we start, not finish. I pray that this building will be the place where the seeds of our faith will be planted, nurtured, and encouraged to grow. And I also pray that our faith will always outgrow our space and that the walls of the Episcopal Center will never be able to contain our joy at finding Christ in the world.

In peace,

Sarah+