Twenty years ago the Bishop of London re-consecrated St. Peter's Eaton Square. He went around this building, raised marvellously from the ashes of the fire that had destroyed it, and in every place around the walls where a candle burns today, he inscribed the sign of the cross with the Oil of Chrism. He anointed the walls and thus consecrated this space to God.
It is this anointing that makes this building a church: not the cross hanging over me, not the altar or the font, not the hymn books and Bibles, and not the vestments and candles. The sign of the cross, inscribed in oil around our walls, marks out this plot as a sacred place. It is a place where worship is offered, prayers are said, and where, in the celebration of the sacraments, God is realized for and among his people. It is a piece of the creation given back to its creator.
Of course, worship can be offered anywhere, prayers can be said anywhere, and the sacraments can be celebrated anywhere. And they are, from boardrooms to battlefields. God is not confined to these walls; God is not contained within them; nor, in any sense, is God limited by them. But out of love God's people choose to reserve this small part of the face of the Earth for God, a small part of the face of the Earth reserved for the one who sustains the Earth out of love. Set apart for God, this place is a holy place.
The St. Peter's consecration crosses have formed the backdrop to the logo that we have used for several months in preparation for this celebration. It is on the front of your service sheets today. It ought to be a resonant image for each of us. It is not just our church that is marked with it. Every baptized person is marked with it, marked with the cross, and what is true of a building thus marked is true also of a person thus marked. Of course, any person - any person - can worship God (that is, give worth to God); any person can pray; any person can make God real for another; and many people who are not baptized do all those things and do them effectively and sacrificially. But we who are baptized, we who are inscribed with the sign of the cross, are, like this building, pieces of the creation given back to their creator. We are marked out to be spaces for God, spaces in which and from which God is offered to the world. A 'reserved' sign hangs over each of us as surely as it does over this building. We are made of the same stuff as the dust of the Earth. We are, quite literally, a part of the Earth, a part of the Earth reserved for God's presence and for God's action.
I have said often that the purpose of St Peter's is the formation of disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of God's world, and disciples share a vocation with the buildings in which they worship. Disciples are consecrated to holiness. Twenty years after the re-consecration of the building the vocation to which we who have inherited the building are called is this: the vocation to holiness, conspicuous holiness. That does not mean conspicuous religiosity, for which I have remarkably little time. Holiness implies a discipline of prayer, a habit of worship, and an irresistible tendency to make God and God's love real to and for others. Holiness means a transparency to the love of God. When strangers enter this building for the first time they often gasp in awe. The building speaks of God. We might ask ourselves whether strangers encountering us for the first time have the same response. You can judge a person by his friends. What sort of God do we appear to be the friends of?
Last October we reminded ourselves that the baptized are those who have responded to Christ's offer of love; last February we reminded ourselves that the baptized are those who have been redeemed by Christ; today we remind ourselves that the baptized are those who have been released by Christ: released to carry the God they encounter within these consecrated walls to the world outside them, released to be Christ's presence in that world, released for world-changing holiness. We are released to be pure, to be meek, to be merciful, to seek righteousness, to make peace.
'Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward'. Those words have inspired the generations who have worshipped in this place for nearly two hundred years. We are called forward, to be living stones, to be a consecrated race, to be a holy people. To the One who calls us be glory in the Church and in all creation, now and in all eternity. Amen.
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