“And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So he who swears by the temple, swears by it and by him who dwells in it; and he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”
Matthew 23:18-23
I first felt the call to the priesthood the first day I served in the altar. Wearing a robe, and being in close proximity to the priest in his robes, seeing the ornate vessels and appointments of the church, it made me feel like I was in heaven.
For centuries, a ring has been a sign that one is married. Rings are made of precious medals like gold and silver. We don’t tie a piece of string around our fingers. We don’t wear a piece of plastic. We wear metal that society calls precious and valuable, as a symbol of the precious and valuable relationship that a marriage is.
A ring is not what makes a marriage. There are plenty of people who wear wedding rings who are in bad marriages. A ring is a symbol of identity to ourselves and to the world, and it is also a reminder of marriage and hopefully the things that make for a good marriage—joy, sacrifice, understanding, forgiveness.
The ornate appointments in a church do not make for a great church community. There are plenty of beautiful churches that are virtually empty on Sundays, that can barely afford to keep their doors open, where the budget goes entirely for maintenance. There is no ministry or outreach.
The appointments of an Orthodox Church, however, are important. Why? For the same reason the gold of a wedding ring is important. The ornate appointments of a church are supposed to help us be transported away from the stresses of life into something almost “other-worldly,” a beautiful sanctuary that reflects the majesty of God and the splendor of heaven. We celebrate in the midst of things that have value, that reflect the valuable things we have on earth. The chalice is more ornate than any cup I have ever drank from. But it also contains something more valuable than anything else I have put into my mouth. It contains the most value, so outwardly it reflects value. The Gospel book contains the most important information I will ever hear or read, and so its outward appearance also reflects value. I don’t feel we are doing anything wrong by building and decorating churches that are ornate in appearance.
There are, however, two temptations that we fall prey to as a result of how we have appointed our churches. First, we do not worship the furnishings of the church. They are tools to help us worship. We worship God. One can build a beautiful church or donate a Gospel or censer or chalice and these things are not what makes one a good Christian. While my initial attraction to the priesthood was the splendor of the church sanctuary, I have evolved and grown in my thinking to know that preaching, teaching and pastoral care are just as necessary in the ministry as serving the Divine Liturgy. There needs to be a sense of love and compassion in ministry in addition to the awe of worship. The most important thing that a church community does is gather to worship. But it is not the only thing.
Which brings us to the second temptation, which is that we neglect philanthropy by and large in our parishes. Many churches have organized and carried out capital campaigns totaling millions of dollars in order to build or enhance the church sanctuary and other church facilities. I have never heard of a church organizing a campaign to raise millions of dollars for a philanthropic cause. In fact, in my churches, the amount of charitable giving is a miniscule portion of the overall budget. The glitz and gold of our churches are fine, so long as we don’t forget philanthropy, outreach, evangelism, catechism, pastoral care fellowship and all the other important components of a faithful church.
Jesus often criticized the Jewish leaders and others for hypocritical behavior. He didn’t criticize all of their behavior, but criticized the lack of balance in their behavior. For instance, in the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, told in Luke 18:10-14, Jesus didn’t criticize the Pharisee because he was praying, fasting and tithing. These were ostensibly good things. However, the tax collector went to his home having had his prayer heard because of his humility, the quality that the Pharisee was lacking. Similarly, in Matthew 23:18-23, Jesus was not criticizing the opulence of the temple, or the care in which the leadership was tithing mint and dill and cummin. He called the people hypocrites because they had made the gold and the tithe the pillars of their faith and they forgot justice, mercy and faith.
There is nothing wrong with a church that reflects the glory and majesty of God, that looks like a heaven on earth with beautiful and valuable appointments. There is, however, something wrong with a church community that spends all of its resources to build and maintain the ornate sanctuary but have nothing left over to give to those who are in need. Just because one church has more iconography than another church doesn’t make it’s services more divine or its community more Christ-centered. One thing we have to always remember is that the “church” is the people and what the people do. The most important thing the people do is worship. However, when worship is over, the actual church building is just an empty museum. The people, whether they be gathered as a community, or living their individual lives out in the community, are the church. Because we are not just the church when we are worshipping. We are the church, the Body of Christ, at all times and in all places. And the goal of the church community it not just to perpetuate itself, or be in a continuous building program. It is to be serving God’s people through evangelism, catechism, fellowship and philanthropy, and these cannot be neglected at any time.
Lord, we pray in the Divine Liturgy for You to sanctify those who love the beauty of Your house. We pray that You will sanctify our church, where we worship You, and will bless those who have contributed and who continue to contribute to its majesty and beauty. Lord, kindle our minds and hearts also away from the majesty of the church sanctuary and direct them to thoughts of humility and service. Guide the people of our community, including me, to cultivate a spirit of generosity, which inspires not only gestures of giving to the church community but especially outside of it in the form of charity and philanthropy. Amen.
There is nothing wrong with having a beautiful church sanctuary. We meet the Lord with the best we have, with a majestic temple that reflects His majesty. However, we must also have things that reflect His humility and His philanthropy. This is why an ample and generous amount of time and effort in each church community must be pointed outwardly, manifested as humble and philanthropic service in a church community and far beyond it.
