Dear Beloved Community –
“Over the past seven years, St. Gabriel’s has been a pilgrim congregation…”
Just a few days ago, I was given a copy of the St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church Master Plan & Concept Design prepared by J. David Richen, Architect in 1993. It is one of
the founding documents, if you will, of the creation of the church we worship in.
The above quote is the beginning of the first sentence of a section in that document called, “Theological Considerations in the Mast Plan Design Process for St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church.” It is a statement of the theological underpinnings of the design of the building.
That first sentence goes on to state that in the first seven years of the congregation’s existence, they worshiped in four different locations. There are still members who remember those years. I know that two of the locations were a school all-purpose room and the conference room of a medical office building.
The next two sentences read, “This experience has shaped the parishioner’s understanding of the meaning and purpose of corporate worship. In each location, we have had to create a worship space that provided a sense of holiness and mystery.”
A pilgrim congregation creating holiness and mystery in each new location. How many stories from our Scripture – both Old and New – tell of groups or individuals – wandering from location to location carrying holiness and mystery to each place they went? Abraham and the patriarchs & matriarchs, Moses and the Israelites, the exiles in Babylon, Jesus and his disciples, Paul the great missionary, the apostles who spread across the Roman Empire. The children of God are pilgrims. I love that the congregation of St. Gabriel has pilgrimage in its DNA spiritually and literally.
I realize that “a pilgrim congregation” was probably meant to describe the literal moving from one physical location to another but I think it has that deeper, more lasting meaning for us as a community of faith.
It defines us as a congregation that is always seeking, always exploring, always wandering, and always wondering, not from a sense of dissatisfaction or dislocation from the place we find ourselves but because we are always being called by God to keep going deeper, to keep growing, to keep desiring to draw closer. We are pilgrims not of location but of spirit. The mystery of God is beyond our comprehension but that doesn’t mean that we should stop trying to experience that mystery.
Several paragraphs later, it reads: “At St. Gabriel’s parishioners have had the advantage of developing a ‘hands on’ style of planning worship.” One constant in the feedback I hear about why people who visit St. Gabriel come back to St. Gabriel is how we worship. It has been pointed out to me that people don’t always laugh during services at other churches. Also, that not all churches have an Exchanging of the Peace that resembles Grand Central Station at rush hour. And I have to think, “Why not?” Honestly, I can’t imagine a congregation that doesn’t find joy in worship. That doesn’t laugh, and hug, and have to touch the hand of almost every person in the sanctuary offering them the Peace of Christ. And these aren’t the only things about our worship “style” that people make note of.
The next paragraph of this section I am quoting from begins: “Our altar is a table altar, which symbolizes the fact that St. Gabriel’s is a community which gathers around the altar, as a family gathers for a festive meal. Worship, for us, is not simply a matter of a relationship between an individual and God. It takes into account other people. Where two or three are gathered Christ has promised to be present. In the history of St. Gabriel’s, there have never been any physical barriers between the altar and the people.”
What was true then, remains true now. We are a family that gathers together to make and receive the Eucharist. That is one of our calls as a congregation, to remain a family but a family that grows and welcomes new members all the time. We must always remind ourselves that one of the signs of our vitality as a congregation is the way in which we help visitors become friends who then become a part of our family of faith. We gather together greeting those we know, those we have just met, and those we have yet to meet with the same welcome and love of Christ.
The last sentence I want to quote is: “Intimacy and accessibility are two words which summarize our experience of the Eucharist.”
There is so much living in those words, intimacy and accessibility.
People often ask me what the mission of St. Gabriel is – and we have many versions that can be found. Based on what I have shared with you from the parish’s original master plan, we might say this about St. Gabriel:
We are a congregation of pilgrims, who seek to create through our worship as a family, a space that provides a sense of holiness and mystery for an intimate and accessible experience of God’s festive meal, the Eucharist.
In the peace and love of Christ,
Everett+
