Leaving Home

On Easter Sunday in 1997, I entered a place I’d never been before and knew I’d found a home.  At the time, Judi and I had only been in Washington for about four months.  A friend had given me a list of churches to visit and the last one on our list was The Falls Church. Though it was an historic church, predating the American Revolution, I knew little about it nor little of what to expect, but from that first Sunday it was good and right to be there. 

The liturgical worship and the sanctuary were simple, reverent and beautiful.  I felt ushered into the divine presence, directly connected to historic Christian practice and experience.  My first glimpse of the kind of preaching and teaching that came from the pulpit proved to be the pattern year after year:  biblical, relevant, authentic and hopeful.  Our rector, John Yates, understood his calling to require boldness in proclaiming biblical truth but always in a spirit of love and with deep humility.   And it was this love and humility that drew me further in to the truth he was preaching.  

Our oldest two children were with us on that first Sunday.  Abby was 3 and Zach was 8 months old.  We’ve added two more to our family in the intervening years, William and Anna, and all four have grown up in The Falls Church; it’s the only church home they’ve ever known.  They’ve grown in faith and been loved and shaped by devoted nursery workers, Sunday School teachers, youth leaders, and caring members of the congregation.   Week by week, year in and year out, so much of the patterns of our lives has been marked by activities at The Falls Church or with the church family.   Father-Daughter dances, Summers Best Two Weeks, Fusion, Crossroads, Cornerstone, Guys Go Camping, Women’s Bible studies, Shrine Mont and Canaan Valley parish retreats, and Breakaways, have all given shape and rhythm to our lives.  They’ve created community, encouraging, sharpening and challenging us, and they’ve provided places for us to serve each other and the community around us. 

And it has been here that we have also adapted our lives to the rhythm of the historic church calendar, marking the Sundays of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, the 40 days of Lent, Good Friday, Easter and Pentecost. In particular, I love the reverent Ash Wednesday services in the Historic Church, standing to receive the ashes in the sign of the cross on my forehead and feeling connected to the generations before who have stood on those same wooden floors surrounded by those pristine white walls amidst the simple beauty of a traditional colonial Anglican worship space.   And I love the solemn Maundy Thursdays in the Main Sanctuary softly illuminated in the evening light, walking forward on worn brick to receive the Eucharist around the circular altar before the descent of darkness and the stripping of the altar, then departing in silent reverence, as we go to contemplate Jesus’ passion and prepare our hearts for the joyous celebration of Easter. 

It is The Falls Church that has most deeply connected me to ancient practices infused with living faith and fresh experience.  And it is here that I have been nourished by the regular sustenance of the Communion Table.  The Eucharist remains a mystery to me but I know that the bread and wine are as essential to me as food and water.  I am humbled to both take and serve communion in these beautiful places surrounded by other believers, as we all kneel in common humanity and need, while all around us people are singing or silently praying.   

Just as I was making my way to historic and orthodox faith, some in the leadership of the Episcopal Church were leaving it.  By 2006, most at The Falls Church felt that a fidelity to Scripture and the demands of conscience required our congregation to leave the Episcopal Church.  Much effort was devoted to arriving at an equitable agreement with the Diocese of Virginia and an amiable departure, and all proceeded according to this plan until the national Episcopal intervened and forced the Diocese to bring suit against us.  The legal battle that followed was long, filled with twists and turns, and a drain on resources for both parties.  In the end, we lost, and this weekend we will hold our last services in this historic property.   

This Sunday a few thousand of us will gather to say good-bye to sacred space, and even though all the earth is the Lord’s, surely some places are more sacred than others. And yet we know that this space is also sacred for those from within our congregation who could not leave the Episcopal church with us and who will now be returning, few though they are, to a place rich in meaning form them as well.   Our prayers are that this space, hallowed over the past 275 years as faithful people have gathered to encounter the living God, will continue to be a place where Christ is proclaimed and where his transformative and redemptive power breaks free into a broken world. 

Amazingly, the pain of this transition now upon us has not led to bitterness or rancor, and for that we can at least in part thank our good rector for his 30 years of preaching, teaching and living kingdom values, but also for the way in which he has shepherded us these past few months.   A lesser man could have nurtured ill feelings and resentment but John has shown us by word and example that Christ is faithful when we are not, and that He can be trusted no less in difficult times than in seasons of prosperity.  

As we leave the buildings we do not say good-bye to the church, because, of course, the church is more than the space in which it gathers.  So even though most of us will go with sadness and feelings of apprehension, we are also thankful that it is through such trials that we can grow in our understanding of who God is and how we are to live as his people.   I can honestly say I am filled with hope for the future of our church.  We know that the world we live in is often more like Good Friday than Easter Sunday, but you can’t stop Sunday from coming.   And next Sunday when we gather in a middle school in Arlington, we’ll be without our robes and vestments, our prayer books and communion silver, but we will be together as a family worshipping the same faithful God who is both unchanging and continually making all things new.  May the God we serve meet us there.