Sermon preached at the Sung Eucharist on the feast of the Dedication of Westminster Abbey 2024

When I was training for the priesthood a small group of us had a session on preaching.  We were given a local parish priest as a mentor.  It was a rather particular kind of Vicar.  For two years only Richard Holloway was the incumbent at St Mary Mags in Oxford, he left in 1986 to become Bishop of Edinburgh.  He became, he still is, one of the most controversial figures in the British church.  He is radical, outspoken, plain speaking.  All those years ago he was more of a conformist than he is now but he could be witheringly blunt.  He is tall, spare, a bit dour.  He puts me in mind of one of those Scottish sea stacks, like the Old Man of Hoy, weather-beaten, craggy.   My sermon for him made whimsical reference to a famous teddy bear.  Unforced error.  In front of the rest of the group he handed it back to me and said, ‘I looked for the wildness of grace’.  ‘I looked for the wildness of grace and what did I get?  Winnie-the-bloody-Pooh’.

After that, I preached no more sermons about Pooh.  There were no references to programmes I have seen on television and no sermon illustrations from football.  The gospel is not like soap opera.   The gospel is not a game.  But, as it happens, I like rugby and I was watching rugby this week.  So, I am now about to break the habit of a lifetime and tell you about a game of rugby.  If it makes no sense and you need it explaining afterwards, please find Canon Stanton, he will probably be able to help.

In the game of rugby I watched, a player was running for the line, a try looked certain, but he was first tackled and then overwhelmed in a crush of bone and muscle.  As he fell, however, he managed to position himself so that he could twist and release the ball to his team.  The next moments of the game depended on this one, sure movement, on the way he held his ground.  His side scored.  A moment of strength, focus and brilliance.  Even the commentators were impressed.  And I was reminded again that I was never very good at rugby.

I am telling you this because it is a glimpse of why position matters so much.  That person in that very particular place changed the story, everything arranged itself around him.  And that is the image we need to have in our heads when today’s passage from Ephesians is read,

you are …  built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. Ephesians 2:19-20  

Christ Jesus is the cornerstone.  There are quite a few cornerstones in scripture.  It is an important word, but I am not sure we have always got the right picture in our heads.  It is rather too easy to think of a foundation stone.  The first building block, or the one with the fancy inscription.  That is not what is meant.  The cornerstone is the thing that sets the building in this place, and then makes it hold its shape, anchors it on that axis, means that it forever hunkers down here with a door there.  It gives us direction and a line of sight that runs this way not that.  The cornerstone means the building can never lose its shape, it defines what follows.

When you build a house, you might want the view of the sea that is over there, you might want the morning sun, you probably do not want to look at the rubbish incinerator.  The cornerstone fixes that.  It is orientation.  It is the direction of travel.  In William Golding’s  novel, The Spire, as the great cathedral spire is completed suddenly travellers to the city start to make new paths because they can find their place from a greater distance.  They become aligned.

On this day, the Dedication Festival of our Abbey church we have to think about the cornerstone that set us here, near the Palace of Westminster, made us royal.  Our cornerstone plunged us into nation and a conversation with parliament, gave us this history, made us speak in this place.  This church faces that way.

But… more than that of course, much more than that, our cornerstone doesn’t just put us here not there.  .Our cornerstone is Christ himself.  So, our cornerstone tells a story, our cornerstone is a story.  Our cornerstone is the life of Christ, that gospel.  We are, as Ephesians tells us,

members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.  Ephesians 2:19-20 

Set here, squared off just here, grounded in Christ.  There is location and direction and there is to be no wandering off. 

Everything that follows from having that cornerstone, being this church, follows from our being the household of Christ just here.  We do not come to this church to acquire a little Christian polish, so that we can go home to our lunch slightly better versions of ourselves - a little kinder perhaps, slightly better informed, or a touch more hopeful.  We come here and stay because this is the lie of the land, we are orientated, and we are home.  Here, Ephesians tells us, and it says it urgently and emphatically, Christ dwells in our hearts so that we are rooted and grounded in love.  We do not come here to listen to a bit of the Christian story, we come here to be the story.  Rooted and grounded.  Too often it is suggested that the church is a place, like a school, where you might go to learn, or a museum where you remember something half forgotten.  Too often church seems like a place you visit, coming and going while life that ranges far and wide.  But church has a cornerstone, it is the direction of travel.  Church roots you in Christ and the only way you will ever leave is by being up-rooted.  You are on this ground, or you are all at sea.

There will be shifting light in this church and seasons of the year, of course there will.  You will encounter it differently, feel differently, think differently, of course you will.  Yet, if you have ever understood what it is to come here and feel the earth beneath your feet, then you should know that this church is life in its fulness, Christ is what living looks like and, in this space, and in that life, is all seriousness, all hope, all meaning, and all our future.  You see, church is not a mere lesson in living and faith is not just an action.  Church is past and future, church demands that we pay attention to the presence of Christ, today and for ever.   When you have a cornerstone, you look this way, not that, breathe this air and know that you are grounded.  Michael Ramsey, once Archbishop of Canterbury, explained that it is not that ‘the church has apprehended the truth’.  What has happened is that ‘Truth has apprehended the church’.  The church whose cornerstone is Christ, is our polestar and the light at the end of a tunnel; it is compass and the sum of all our longing.  The church does not believe in Christ, it is apprehended by Christ.  That is what we mean when we say we are ‘rooted and grounded’.

I have seen the crown jewels on the altar of Westminster Abbey at a Coronation.  I have seen a Lifeboat crew walk up the choir in full seagoing kit, I have seen the Late Queen’s coffin carried into the Abbey.  I have stood on the roof with Tom Cruise and I have watched Sporty Spice sing from the sacrarium.  I have been here for Christmas and Easter again and again.  I have cried here and I have laughed.  I tell people that our history is too long and our experience is too rich for us to ever find all the words we need.  And I do believe that to be true, but today, at our dedication festival, when I think of all those people who describe us as old, or famous, or historic, or royal, or peaceful.  I want to add one word of my own.  This church, whose cornerstone is Christ, is sure.  It is sure in its foundation, its sure in its hope, its sure in being rooted and grounded in love.  Not a ‘peaceful’ church, but sure.

This might all feel a bit breathless, a rush of words.  We are nearly done.  Just one more thing.  Ephesians tells us that Christ our cornerstone, sets us here and gives himself as the ground beneath our feet.   And it says something else as well.   Ephesians tells us that we are

built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets - with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.

Christ is the cornerstone, but the foundation is the apostles and prophets.  What does that mean?  Ephesians is telling us that Christ gives us identity and life, but it is not the idea of Christ that is our cornerstone.  It is not the picture of Christ that we have in our heads that fixes us and makes us sure.  It is not what we think about Christ, it is not how we imagine Christ, it is not what the shouty man on the street corner says about Christ.  Who is this Christ, the one that is our cornerstone?  He is only and surely the Christ of the prophets and evangelists.  He is the preached Christ, the known Christ, the Christ that has been proclaimed.  He is the same Christ that prophets proclaimed and evangelists described.  He is the Christ that the great witnesses, including scripture give to us.  He is the Christ of our teaching.  He is the Christ we have to go on teaching.

A thousand years ago Edward, king and saint, built this church placed right next to his own royal palace.  That grounding for Abbey  and the Palace of Westminster has determined a conversation about faith and nation that continues to this day.  The setting matters.  But what matters more is that this church - and that means all of us - you and me with feet on this earth, breathing this air - are rooted and grounded in Christ.  And it is the Christ preached, the one who must be preached and proclaimed still.  In this place, on this axis of faith and nation the preaching and the life of Christ must go on - the words must be said, the life must be lived.  The truth that has apprehended us, seized us, made us sure,  that truth must be put back into words for here and fit for now.  The preaching must go on in you and in me.  We have to find the words that can teach and persuade, the words that can encourage and explain, the words that can console and sustain, the words that can spark imagination and summon up love and mercy.  Rooted in the preached Christ, we preach still and forever.  We are

built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone

And so, now, we in turn must speak.