Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Ararat / Willaura
13 November 2016
Texts: 2 Thess 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19
We are blessed to have such a beautiful building to worship in. Somehow its proportions seem perfect, the
balance of wood and plaster just right, the atmosphere always still and reverent. By contrast, I was down in
Hamilton last week, taking my rostered tour of duty filling in during their long vacancy. I dont know if you
have seen the church down there (Regs daughter Ann has, I know; I bumped into her). If you have you will
know that somehow that church is too high for its depth and width, the bluestone inside looks unfinished, the
roof not as elegantly spaced, theres not enough hammer beams for its size. Here everything seems just
right. At Stawell the church feels too big, massively too big for its congregation. Here the church never
seems too full or too empty. When it was stuffed full of Manchester Unity members celebrating their state
conference a month ago, it still didnt seem too full; theres less people here this morning, but it doesnt feel
empty. Even when the church was first opened for worship, 150 years ago, the Ararat Advertiser declared
that the church was the neatest sacred building outside of the large centres of population. Plain though
imposing, while the softly stained windows bestow to the whole interior that mellowed light so admirably
suited to sacred edifices.
But it has not always been so. I dont know if any one still has a living memory of this Reg? Marj?
Aileen? but on 2 January 1940, this church was burnt to the ground in an afternoon. The Argus, a
Melbourne newspaper, reported that Although the fire brigade was quickly on the scene, the church was in
flames from end to end 10 minutes from when the fire was first noticed. The report continues, A few
minutes later the roof fell in, and the church was a total ruin. Magnificent cedar trees planted in the church
grounds by pioneers were burnt. The church contained beautiful stained glass windows in memory of the
first vicar, Canon Philip Homan; the second vicar, Canon McGeorge, and soldier parishioners who gave
their lives in the last war. Many memorials to former parishioners, including a solid silver cross, were
destroyed. Canon Dewhurst, then the Rector, stood in the ashes the next morning in the midst of scorched
walls open to the sky and melted stained glass. We dont know for sure, but its possible that running
through his head were the words of this mornings gospel: When some were speaking about the temple,
how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, [Jesus] said, As for these things that
you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.
In the midst of all this tragedy, and loving the building just as much as we who come after love it, he was not
dismayed. He gathered up the congregation, bought a hundred wooden chairs for 2/6 each and began
holding services in the church hall, where the Woolworths supermarket now stands, as he began his
campaign to rebuild.

He did not lose heart, because he knew what Jesus knows, what the first Christians

knew, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, God no longer dwells in specific buildings, God dwells in us,
in the midst of the people of God. People in Jesus time would have been particularly shocked by his words
this morning because as everyone knew God was especially present in the sanctuary of the Temple, the
holiest of holiest, which only the priests of the Temple were allowed to enter. They revered the Temple
because God was especially present in Jerusalem, the royal city, in the Temple, in the holiest of holiest,
present in a way that he couldnt be encountered elsewhere. The first Christians knew differently; they had
listened to the teaching of Jesus who told them in Johns Gospel that the true Temple was his own body, a
teaching repeated in the epistle to the Hebrews; they had lived through the destruction of the Temple by the
Romans in AD 70, and knew that God was no less with them after that than before. So it is that St Paul tells
the Corinthians in his first letter: Do you not know that you are Gods temple and that Gods Spirit dwells
in you? If anyone destroys Gods temple, God will destroy that person. For Gods temple is holy, and you
are that temple (1 Cor 3:16-17).
And because this fact can be hard to believe, the liturgy and the architecture of the church teaches it to us
every Sunday, every time we gather for worship. You are sitting in the nave, from the Latin word for boat,
you are sitting in the boat in which Jesus travelled with his disciples in stormy weather and calm. We read
the Gospel from the middle of the nave, and every one turns to face the reader, because thats where Jesus is,
in the middle of his people. If you ever go to the Cathedral, you will see that person wielding the incense,
censes the altar, the gospel book, the ministers, but then in the climax of the censing, he or she censes the
people, the people in the nave, who are made holy by Gods dwelling within them. We say at greeting of the
peace, each Sunday, We are the Body of Christ. His Spirit is with us.
Whether we are gathered for worship in the oddly upward stretched church at Hamilton, the barn at Stawell,
in a beautiful church like this, or in a church hall sitting on chairs that cost 2/6 each, God is just as much
with us, because God is where the people are. The people are the main game for God, not the buildings.
As for this particular building, as you may know, the rebuilding campaign was spectacularly successful.
Canon Dewhurst and the Parish council were able to completely rebuild the church within 11 months,
rededicating it in December of the same year. The rebuild cost 5,000, only 20% more than the building
was insured for, an under-insurance gap that would please any diocese in any age! It has become once again
a beautiful place of worship for us and or those who come after us. But its beauty, and our good fortune to
worship in it, should never blind us to this central, crucial truth: we can draw close to God here, we can draw
close to God in our lounge rooms, in our weekly bible study, in our beds, as we toss and turn in our beds in
the middle of the night, in hospital, on top of Mt William, when distributing food to the hungry in our
emergency relief scheme, at the prison, anywhere we find ourselves. We can draw close to God because
God has drawn close to us, and dwells within us, making us his temple, wherever we are.

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