Thought for the day, 7th October 2025. What large stones!

 Last month I was privileged to spend 3 days in Rome with the Precentors’ conference – and was struck once again by a city built to impress, - from the Coliseum’s celebration of Imperial power and imperial cruelty, through the majesty of St Peter’s Basilica and Square to the wild excess of the wedding cake, the Victor Emmanuel II monument, celebrating Italy’s graduation from a “geographical expression” to a fully fledged country in its own right. Through the ages, Roman architects have understood the power of their projects to wow pilgrims and citizens alike. To walk through St Peter’s, in all its baroque splendour is to find yourself bombarded on every side by a supreme confidence that is frankly enviable…Here the Church militant seems to have confused itself with the church triumphant – built to impress, yes of course – but also built to last.

I’m sure that through the centuries the walls have heard many many variations on “What large stones and what large buildings…” and even in this age of growing secularism when the kind of unshakeable faith represented in marble and mosaic seems to be in short supply, we can’t help but wonder. Did they have it right, those whom we have largely forgotten, but whose visions and endeavours still stand for all to see? Were they on the right track, and we with our doubts and questionings simply rather feeble in our lack of confidence.

Not, I think, if we read this morning’s gospel. Yesterday Dean Mark reminded us that his namesake evangelist places Jesus “opposite the treasury” – in opposition to its demands and practices in every way. Today Jesus is sitting opposite the Temple, his presence outside the sacred space presenting a challenge to all that it represents. More, he speaks into the uncertainty of an age that was every bit as troubled and troubling as our own, keying into the apocalyptic tradition in his anticipation of wars and rumours of wars, alarm and despondency. That’s the whole point of apocalyptic. As Nadia BW puts it

Apocalyptic literature existed to proclaim a big, hope-filled idea that dominant powers are not ultimate powers. Empires fall. Tyrants fade. Systems die. God is still around.” You get that? Jesus says, “Do not be alarmed.”

God is still around. Those who endure to the end will be saved…saved, no matter what happens to them physically, because they understand at the core of their beings that the large stones and large buildings are ultimately as transient as our own brief lives. I found it easy to preach on these words when I was working in Coventry Cathedral, with its graphic reminder that even the most splendid buildings are liable to be thrown down, victims of their own success in representing a power that is rooted in the physical world . The ruined medieval cathedral of St Michael prevented us from ever putting too much faith in the solidity of any human construction> It reminded us, too, of the scars that we all gather as we travel through life…and encourages us, always, to place our faith and our security somewhere else.

Listen, then, to Richard Rohr: “The necessary detachment from this ugly and injurious present political climate depends upon our inner attachment to the mystery of God’s unbounded grace and divine, creative love. That is the foundation from which we can witness to truth, nurture community, and build essential bonds of solidarity with those who suffer.

As we look into the eye of a political and philosophical storm in which we are encouraged to put our faith in a distorted version of national solidarity, and to confuse strength and integrity with bluster and deceit, that’s a good reminder for all of us. Yes, it’s going to be a truly ungodly mess…but our God has always been willing to wade into the thick of those messes we create by our own sinful intransigence, and it is from there, in the midst of our broken lives and broken dreams, that God’s power is most actively at work.So hold on. It’s not about large stones and large buildings. It never has been.

All our hope on God is founded.

Hold on to that, remembering that there, and there alone, is the door to salvation.