A Desperate Plea for Open Churches
A sermon preached at St. Thomas Anglican Church in Toronto
A few years ago I began to catch myself doing something that I was initially embarrassed about: touching buildings. A gentle pat, even a caress, the running of my hands across stone, almost to assure myself I had been there. I certainly did it at the mount of Olives, touching the imprint of Christ’s foot at the stone of the Ascension. I did it at Vadstena in Sweden, the home of the monastery once presided over by the great visionary abbess Birgitta, a shrine which is now tended by Lutherans. Pilgrims are encouraged, on their arrival, to place their fingers in the holes at the doorway before they enter.
I’ve never been to Santiago de Compostela, but in the film about that pilgrimage, The Way, pilgrims similarly touch the trumeau of the portal of glory before they enter. I wonder if they do so for the very same reasons Thomas touches Jesus in this evening’s gospel passage, for the church represents the Body of Christ. I discussed this in an art history class this semester, and a student told me that on his pilgrimage to Santiago, the non-Christians he was traveling with did touch the trumeau, but they were turned off by something about the pilgrimage, almost offended. They were not offended by the tactile dimensions of the pilgrimage’s conclusion. No, what offended them was the fact that so many of the church buildings they had passed on the way had been locked. If buildings represent Jesus open body presented to Thomas, a locked building seems to suggest Jesus is not available to us the way he was so scandalously available to Thomas in this passage.
Last year, some of us convened not far from this church for a conference on sacred space. I was then moved by the suggestion of the one of the presenters about the accessibility of churches. Do our sacred spaces, she seemed to ask, exemplify the openness of Christ’s side wound to Thomas? I was moved by that presentation enough to subject the city of Toronto to a merciless multi-day randomly chosen pop quiz from an international visitor. I aimed to simply test how many of this city’s churches were open, the way Jesus is in open this passage. The grades are in, so let me report the results.
Spoiler alert: Toronto did not entirely ace the test. But to show some clemency, I will only report the names of the churches that got As, keeping the lower grades anonymous. My aim is not shame, but reform. I remember the days before COVID, when churches were more traditionally open. This has changed dramatically in recent years, around the world since the pandemic, and it’s not an improvement. There is a Quiet Revival afoot in urban spaces and a locked door, in effect, can say that this church is not a part of it. A locked church may signal to visitors that God is not available right now.
I know full well the challenges of keeping space open. Yes, there are those who vandalize. Yes, it is difficult to pay staff to keep a welcoming space welcoming not just with signage but with a human faces. But my pop quiz was not unfair. I visited in the daylight, during working weekday hours (9am-5pm) in accessible downtown spaces. First came Trinity College Chapel. I approached to a locked door, but before I could issue a harsh grade, I saw a sign that kindly told me to come around through the main campus entrance. I expected not to be let in as I’m not a student, but I was. I walked down the hall, and entered in as Thomas did, and lingered in the space freely. That open door was a prophecy of that door opening last night at about midnight when Fr. Geoffrey Ready banged on it and burst in while singing “Christ is risen from the dead” with his congregation during the Orthodox Paschal liturgy.
What about Wycliffe College Chapel? Same results. I strolled across the street and let myself in, down the hall to the chapel, which I had all to myself. Trinity and Wycliffe both get As. But other college chapels at the University of Toronto were sealed shut, even if I could get in the building. They got Ds. Over the course of three days I tried to get into another prominent campus ministry center three times, until finally on my fourth attempt, a door was open and someone was inside silently praying, so I joined him. That campus ministry earned a C+. I proceeded to downtown churches: St. Michael’s Basilica to an A+. Wide and warmly open at 9am on a Friday. The atmosphere was thick with reverence as it always is.
But this is not to say all the Roman Catholic churches did well. Several other Roman Churches were firmly shut, earning an F. One large Catholic church even had chains all around the gates, but it avoided an F, because a kind at least priest who told me to come back of 4pm when it would be open. They get a B. In the same neighborhood, Pentecostal street churches certainly had welcoming exterior signage, but you just cannot get in. As residents from the homeless shelter lingered nearby, I was sorry to have to fail these churches.
One church downtown was particularly interesting. Chains, and menacing surveillance cameras and warning signs obstructed beautiful carved exterior memorials, announcing to me that I was being watched, but not in a good way. I understand the need for this, but ponder with me for a moment the irony of a massive flag that says “All are welcome here” juxtaposed with a locked door and a surveillance sign that effectively says, “but not really.” Fortunately though, I saw that a tour of this building was just beginning. I asked if I could join, “Private tour,” I was curtly told. “Come back at 10am.” At that point I was permitted access, so, B-.
One beautiful Orthodox church was sealed tight, even though it was Nov. 21, the Feast Day of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, when – according to tradition – she was given access to the Holy of Holies itself. I admit I’m no Virgin Mary, but I could not get into that Orthodox church on that great feast day that celebrates God’s accessibility. I issued another reluctant F. St. George’s Orthodox Cathedral also almost failed. As I approached the church, a construction worker announced to me that it would be locked. Don’t bother, he said. I almost turned away, but I tried the door anyway, I got in, and the construction worker looked surprised. The sexton gave me an impromptu tour and a prayerbook, earning his church an A.
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church got one too. On the outside is a sculpture of a homeless person by Timothy Schmalz inspired by Hebrews 13:1, “Be welcoming to strangers, many have entertained angels unawares.” If you walk around the sculpture, the back morphs into wings. That sculpture exemplified that church’s approach to this visitor. Even though a daycare facility was being hosted there—they had good reason to refuse me entry—I was welcomed in. A+. My last stops were Redeemer Anglican and St. Thomas Anglican, and you’ll be glad to know you both aced the quiz. They were wide open in the middle of the day. Accessible as Jesus is in this passage.
My point is this: Open buildings are an invitation to enter Christ’s mystical body, expressed architecturally. We should be able to enter, not just with our fingers but with our whole selves. The twelfth century mystic William of St. Thiery, put it this way:
Now we do not only place the finger of our hand in his side like Thomas did. We enter through the open gate, all the way into the shrine of your soul where all the fullness of God dwells.
The discipline of architectural history, important as it may be, may be too constrict to grasp that mystical insight. In one of her visions, God the Father says this to Catherine of Siena, “Let your place of refuge be Christ crucified, my only-begotten son; dwell and hide yourselves in the cavern of his side.”
It was this particular understanding of camping out in the wounds of Christ that was so effectively deployed Moravian missionaries among the Leni Lenape on this continent, the same Christianized Leni Lenape that my country chased into yours. Mystical abiding in the wound, communicated by Moravian illustrations, spoke to Indigenous people in ways that comparatively cold Presbyterian theology could not. I neglected to report in my grading that the Chapel Royal so beautifully painted by the Indigenous artist Philip Cote got an A. It too was mystically accessible to this visitor.
If you’d like a Lutheran witness to this understanding, here is Jacob Boehme, who thanks to William Law has been infused into the Anglican tradition. Yes, Boehme condemned the steinkirche, the merely stone churches. But mystical Christianity needs its sacred stone buildings as well. Boehme says,
Lead my soul’s hunger into Your wounds, from which you poured your holy blood and extinguished the wrath in the soul.… Your wounded side, [I] throw myself completely into it.
And yet, when many today, wish to throw themselves into a the side of Christ through a graciously open building, that church is locked.
But, here is the good news of the Gospel. Even IF churches must stay locked for legitimate reasons, God remains permanently open. Surely you will have noticed in the passage tonight that Thomas’ encounter with the wounded, yet healed Christ happened, chapter 20 verse 26, “although the doors were shut.” A sealed entrance was no obstacle to Thomas great confession.
We do well to keep our sacred spaces welcoming and open, but even if a church cannot manage that—as I admit my small suburban Anglican church cannot—Christ still finds a way to access encounter those for whom he died. Even if the church fails; I am tempted to say even WHEN the church fails, people will continue to come to Thomas’ conclusion, “My Lord and My God,” nonetheless.
Those words, from a one time doubter, those words that have been called the “most escalated of all the confessions in all the Gospels,” those words permeate even a church doorway that is unnecessarily or even irresponsibly sealed. I cannot say those words for you, and you cannot say them for me. But every time someone says (as I hope you do) “My Lord and my God,” the church of Christ, which exceeds our buildings but is still expressed by them, endures.
Easy to say, Matthew. Especially in places away from urban blight. Much harder to be so keen and principled after multiple incidents of vandalism, theft, and intense bleach interventions in washrooms. Though, maybe janitors, administrators, and volunteers would be more keen to spend entire afternoons resolving issues like this in addition to the work they already have with the prospect of a “A” grade.
We had two vandalisms recently in Milwaukee at Marquette University's historic Church of the Gesu which resulted in shattered statues, a broken door, smashed kneelers. The men who committed these acts were experiencing significant mental health distress. And yet, I can't help but think the church should never be closed. Who and what else are these buildings for?