Image and Word: Reflections on the Stained Glass in the Paul W. Powell Chapel

1. A Sermon on the Chancel Window

1 1 A Sermon on the Chancel Window # The Welcoming Christ Mark 2:13-17 David E. Garland Iwas at a conference last year where devotions were led one morning by a pastor who showed a picture of a famous stained glass window from a church in Germany. It was a picture of Christ being crucified upside down. It looked to me like a young child had colored this picture with really bad crayons, but I am no art connoisseur. As part of the devotion, he asked us to share what we thought it meant. Many in the large group were not shy about sharing , and many opinions were offered, some very moving. Then, at the close, he said, “Now let me tell you what it really means.” He did not exactly come out and say it, but it was clear what he meant: “Well, you got it all wrong; here is the truth.” It really put a damper on things, and I was so glad Image and word 2 I had not put my two cents in, because my interpretation was way off the mark, apparently. I thought, this is not much of a devotion. It also reminded me that I do not do windows. I read texts. I have looked at this window in our chapel every week for some years now, and I must confess that I did not know that it was to represent the welcoming Christ. There is a key to all the details in a little book, which explains all of the symbolism, but I had not read it. So it was to my surprise that I learned that this window represented the welcoming Christ. I had thought just the opposite. It reminded me of my childhood church experiences. My father was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1775, and it had a grand old sanctuary with humongous stained glass windows . My mom sat every Sunday by one window that looked just like this one except Christ was standing on clouds, which, as a little boy, I thought was cool. But the Christ in this window had a stern expression, and I remember staring up at this intimidating, oversized figure during the sermon every Sunday and thinking, “Boy, I better start being a better kid. Jesus looks very upset with me.” I was a traditional pastor’s kid and would get into the kinds of minor trouble that kids who spend all day long in church tend to. I remember one exasperated lady telling me, “David Garland, if you do not start behaving, Jesus is going to come get you.” At the time, I failed to consider the source of the comment, and I thought it would really happen. And the image that popped into my mind was that picture of Christ embalmed in that stained glass window 3 The Welcoming Christ in the sanctuary—not a welcoming Christ, but a fierce, intimidating, judging Christ. In our text from Mark, the evangelist tells us that as Jesus passes along the shore of the Sea of Galilee he again singles out a person and challenges him to follow him, just as he did with the fishermen earlier (Mark 1:16-20). This time he zeroes in on a tax flunky. Levi, son of Alphaeus, was busy with the duties at his tax office just as the fishermen had been busy with their nets. Levi is no tax baron but a drudge stationed at an intersection of trade routes to collect tolls and tariffs for Herod Antipas. He is no prize recruit. Toll collectors were renowned for their dishonesty and extortion as well as for rubbing shoulders with unwashed pagans. They habitually collected more than was due by making false valuations and accusations . The surprise of the suddenness of Jesus’ call of Levi to follow him is magnified by the shock that he would call someone like this. Levi responded to the force of Jesus’ call as promptly as the fishermen did and “rose and followed him.” His obedience marks an even more radical break with his past. They could always go back to fishing if things did not work out; a toll collector who abandons his post could not. He just downsized himself. The next scene finds Levi along with a whole slew of other toll collectors and sinners reclining for a meal, which means it...