Blow Off The Roof

Evan D Garner

Nov 16

November 16, 2025 – The 23rd Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 28C
Isaiah 65:17-25; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19

“What beautiful buildings! What gorgeous walls! What a holy place, where God dwells among God’s people!” the disciples marveled. “You see all this?” Jesus quipped. “Pretty soon, not one brick will be left on top of another. Everything will be thrown down. Anyone want to get some lunch?”

The exchange between Jesus and his disciples about the future of the Jerusalem temple feels absurd, if not comical. This moment is recorded in all three synoptic gospel accounts, and, in each one, Jesus responds to the admiration and wonder of his followers with a cold shot of doom and gloom. It’s as if he wants to be sure that they aren’t putting their hope and trust in the wrong thing. But did he need to be so harsh about it?

I wonder how these gospel words might have sounded to the people of St. Paul’s, Fayetteville, back in the 1870s and ‘80s, when our predecessors gathered here in this place, within these very walls, but in a church that had no roof. On July 2, 1872, the Rev. Thomas May Thorpe arrived as the new minister in charge of St. Paul’s. At the time, the congregation was meeting in the nearby courthouse because our first church building, which once stood at the corner of Meadow St. and College Ave., had been struck by lightning and burned down a decade earlier. Three months after Mr. Thorpe’s arrival, in a ceremony well documented by the local paper, the cornerstone of what is now our church building was laid.

Bids were solicited for the construction project, which included detailed specifications for the roof and the ceiling: “Ceiling for roof 1¼ x 10 dressed on underside and stripped with walnut strips 3 inches wide, all the walls to be ceiled in the same manner as the roof. To be shingled with the best hand-made walnut shingles laid 4½ inches to the weather; all the roof timbers to be dressed and chamfered on under edges.” Despite those lofty plans, however, by the time construction was fully underway, we didn’t have enough money to finish the job.

For years, Mr. Thorpe preached in this church to a congregation seated on a dozen old schoolroom benches pushed close to a small box stove with a ceiling open to the outside air. Yet, as Sue H. Walker recalled in her history of the Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, “Mr. Thorpe was always optimistic and often said, ‘When our church is completed, it will be a dream of beauty crystalized!’” It took sixteen years and a financial appeal to the citizens of Fayetteville irrespective of religion to get the job done, but our church was finally consecrated—roof and all—on April 8, 1888.

I wonder what a sermon on today’s gospel lesson would have sounded like in a church with no roof. When it comes to reminding a congregation not to put their trust in bricks and stones or in shingles and rafters, I bet the rector of this church wouldn’t have needed to be as heavy-handed as Jesus was with his disciples. “As for these things that you see,” Jesus declared, “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” Yeah, Jesus? Tell us something we don’t know.

St. Paul’s is a beautiful church. Its rich, dark wooden walls and roof beams remind us of our history in this place. Its marble altar and brick façade speak of elegance and strength. Its magnificent windows capture the depths of our tradition in an unending conversation between ancient and modern. And yet, as Jesus said, some day all of this will be thrown down. In a way, this is a strange gospel lesson to preach about on the day we kick off our capital campaign, but, in another way, I can think of no better place to start because, here at St. Paul’s, we know that these buildings are worth nothing if they are not a means through which God’s reign of justice, mercy, and peace comes more fully to the earth.

Would we start a capital campaign now if we knew that lightning would strike our church again in a few years? Would we break ground on these planned renovations if we believed that wars and insurrections would render them useless in the coming years? Would we bother paying off our debt and dreaming about our new ministries if we knew that Jesus was coming back someday soon? Absolutely and without a doubt—because waiting for the coming of Christ does not mean hunkering down in a bomb shelter until the elect are raptured away. Waiting and looking for the Day of the Lord means giving everything we have and everything we are in our labor for the glory of God.

In our reading from 2 Thessalonians, Paul chastises those who live in idleness—literally who “walk in disorder.” Taken out of context, this passage has been used to criticize those who depend upon the welfare state and prefer a handout to an honest day’s work. But 2 Thessalonians isn’t a letter about how to live in Christian community. It’s a letter designed to correct some misunderstandings about the coming of Jesus Christ. Contrary to Paul’s own teaching, some people have been spreading rumors that the Day of the Lord has already come and that there’s no reason to keep on working. But Paul reminds us not to grow weary in doing right because living in faithful anticipation of Jesus’ return does not mean throwing our hands up and ignoring the needs around us, waiting for God to sort them out. Instead, we are animated by our belief in the nearness of God’s reign, which gives us the strength to rededicate ourselves to the work that God has given us to do here and now.

The people of St. Paul’s have always loved our church. We love walking through those doors and meeting God in this holy space. We love it when visitors tell us how beautiful this building is and when people admire how long our church has stood in this place. But the people who call St. Paul’s home have never been content to marvel at beautiful buildings and celebrate historic structures. That is the legacy of our predecessors who gathered here for meaningful and transcendent worship even before a roof was erected over their heads.

St. Paul’s church has always been a vessel for God’s work in the world. We come here every Sunday to remember who God is and how God loves us and to seek spiritual nourishment for the work of sharing that good news with others. These walls, this roof, these pews, these windows, and this altar do not exist as a destination for the sanctified but as a gateway for the faithful. We gather in here because we have work to do out there. This capital campaign isn’t just about taking care of our beautiful church. It’s about taking care of this beautiful church because we believe the work which awaits us is beautiful, too.