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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
April 21, 2002"Address for CIRCA 2002 Recognition"
by Edward Curtin
The last time I was on this side of the altar rail I was Pontius Pilate, a role in which I seem to be cast every Palm Sunday by our Rector, for some inexplicable reason. Today, I'd like to wash my hands of that association, and address you as a representative of CIRCA 2002 -- the Church of the Incarnation Restoration and Community Appeal, formed by our parish to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of this beautiful Church.
In preparing my remarks for today, I found myself rummaging through hidden catacombs, crypts and closets of the Church and Parish House know only to our Sexton, and I'd like to share with you some of the things I learned regarding the history of our Church.
"Incarnation came from Grace, for by Grace came the Incarnation."
This theological precept is in fact the basis of our name. In 1804, a few members of Trinity Church purchased a small frame church building on the corner of Broadway and Rector Street, a block or two from where our Deacon Bob Zito and his wife Dana Cole now reside. It came to be known as Grace Church.
In 1850, responding to the northward migration of the city's population, Grace Church built a chapel on 28th Street, and two years later, on April 19, 1852, the parishioners of Grace Chapel met to incorporate themselves as a Religious Society known as The Church of the Incarnation.
Under the inspirational leadership of Rector Edwin Harwood, a brilliant young scholar and theologian, the parishioners named their new church "Incarnation" because, as Rector Harwood put it, "for by Grace came the Incarnation."
At its founding that year, the original vestry had two wardens and eight vestry members, described in the Certificate of Incorporation as "male persons of full age worshipping in the Chapel of Grace."
(Feminists amongst us should not judge our forebears too harshly for their unmitigated male chauvinism - in 1852, women could neither enter contracts nor own property in this state, and it would be yet another 68 years before women would gain the right to vote. In fact, it was in 1852 that Susan B. Anthony joined with her colleagues Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer in Rochester to launch what was to become the women's suffrage movement. I'm sure Ms. Anthony would be pleased to know, 150 years later, that our Church has a female treasurer and seven women vestry members -- three of whom are named "Susan."
Two years after Incarnation's founding, Reverend Harwood had to resign as rector of the parish for health reasons. His remarks to the parishioners on that occasion reflect his obvious disappointment: In his own words:
I had hoped to see the Church of the Incarnation…flourish and become eminent for the zeal, the activity, the enlightened character of its members, but If I shall be permitted to see this result it will be from afar, as a spectator only …"
I'd like to believe that Reverend Harwood is presently observing -- from afar, but with great joy -- the zeal, activity and enlightened character so clearly evident in the members of Incarnation today.
Following Rector Harwood's retirement, the vestry invited the Rev. Henry E. Montgomery to be Rector of the Church for a salary of $1,600 per year. Mr. Montgomery's letter of response to this invitation reflects an interesting mixture of financial savvy and abiding faith in his parishioners-to-be:
I confess that from what I know of city expenses, I doubt whether it will be practicable for me to keep house on the salary proposed…but I will come in faith - not permitting myself, for a moment, to doubt that the friends who have called me to minister unto them in spiritual things, will take care that all the reasonable temporal wants of my family shall be supplied.
In July of 1863, on a day when the city was being overrun by rioters protesting the unfair Civil War draft laws -- which gave men of means the option to buy out of the draft for $300 -- the building committee of Incarnation voted to purchase a lot on the the corner of 35th Street and Madison Avenue for $48,000. The records also reflect that parishioner William Judson, an attorney, privately acquired the adjoining lot on 35th Street and donated it to the Church. His generous gift enabled the Church to be an even grander structure than the one originally conceived by the building committee.
The cornerstone of the new church was laid on March 8, 1864 by the Rt. Rev. Horatio Potter, Bishop of the Diocese of New York. On that day the Rev. Dr. Montgomery told the congregation:
In building this church we have gone down to solid rock foundation, thereby making it a type of the living Church which is founded upon the Rock of Ages.
Incidentally, it was the same Bishop Potter who would, some eight years later, propose the building of the Cathedral of St. John the Devine, to be the world's largest Gothic Cathedral. But unlike the Cathedral, which is still under construction to this day, the Church of the Incarnation was opened for service on December 11, 1864, just nine months after Bishop Potter had laid its cornerstone. At that first service, Rector Montgomery based his sermon on the Second Book of Chronicles, Chapter VIII:
Now all the work of Solomon was prepared unto the day of the foundation of the house of the LORD, and until it was finished. So the house of the LORD was perfected. Without the intermission of a single Sunday service, this House of God is perfected, and today, under the most auspicious conditions, with the sunlight of heaven shedding its genial rays upon us and gentle rain symbolizing the showers of His Grace, the noble temple which our hands have builded, thronged by its friends and familiar worshippers, stands among its sister churches which crown this beautiful height of the metropolis, and begins to echo the glorious strains of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus.
We will continue as of old to 'take sweet counsel together concerning the things that belong to our peace.' We will together strive for the defence of the Gospel as a band of brothers. We will toil for the salvation of souls, and for the consolation of the manifold hurts of poor humanity. We will labor, not to make our church eminent in position, or distinguished by a worldly conformity, but eminent in good works, and conspicuous in the light it sheds on the waste places of the moral wilderness around us. The church is set on a hill. By the blessing of God it shall be like 'a city set on a hill, which cannot be hid.'
A brief synopsis of the history of the undertaking seems to be claimed by this interesting occasion; especially as this church is…the first and only Protestant Episcopal House of God ever built in this city by its own congregation, without receiving, or even asking, pecuniary assistance from the venerable corporation of Trinity Church.
That early spirit of self-sufficiency has been indelibly imprinted on the fabric of this Parish. In 1877, on the occasion of the Church's 25th anniversary, The Rev. Arthur Brooks, who took over as rector of Incarnation after Henry Montgomery passed away in 1874, offered the following thoughts in his sermon:
[The Church of the Incarnation] was a mission planted where the growth of the city overtook it; that growth took hold of it, and in the wisdom of those who presided over it, it knew enough to take hold of that growth. And therefore it has gone on and done its work without any assistance. I like the lesson that such a church speaks to us of encouragement and faith in God for his Church today…Do not disparage our church life of today. It is true; it is doing an immense amount of good just according to the position in which God has placed it. It came from God's hand as much as any church life ever did. Encourage it and help it because God is working by it. Love your parish and its church, because it is His instrument. Work for it while alive; remember in your wills according to your ability and circumstances the church which has ministered to your happiness and sorrow, and has made you strong to bear life's burdens successfully.
As we all know, the strength of the Church and its parishioners to bear life's burdens successfully was severely tested five years later in 1882 when a gas-fitter's negligence in making repairs in the basement led to a fire which ravaged the church building. The challenge of Rector Arthur Brooks to his parishioners on the following Palm Sunday at Temple Emanu-El - remarks which most recently resonated so profoundly from this pulpit through our Senior Warden Ned Crabb's compelling portrayal in CIRCA 2002's Victorian Secrets production - continues to resonate:
During these past seven years we have formed a deep attachment for the place in which we had worshipped so long together. But what we did lives… The visible shell is indeed destroyed , but the invisible life is unchanged… Last Sunday I asked you if you loved your church as you ought to? I did not know that a test was so near at hand. I ask you the same question today.
(It was no surprise, therefore, that the centennial celebration of the 100th anniversary of our Church in 1952 was attended by Rabbi Julius Mark of Temple Emanu-El in recognition of the time following the devastating fire when Incarnation's Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday services were conducted at Temple Emanu-El by gracious invitation of the synogogue.)
At that ceremony, Diocesan Bishop Horace Donegan proclaimed, in words that are certainly applicable 50 years later:
A living church is a unique fellowship. It lives to proclaim the saving grace of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. In this world of conflict only the church is able to reach beyond racial and national barriers. The church must be missionary, reaching out with the loving service to people in the neighborhood and overseas…There was never a time when that message of redemption was more needed than today … The church is concerned about every man because every man is a child of God.
In digging through the dusty documents of the Church's archives, I was unable to locate the text of the sermon given in commemoration of the Church's 125th anniversary in 1977. What I did find, however, is very interesting: John Holt and Anne Ratyca, both of whom I had the pleasure of knowing during their lifetime, were members of the vestry, and Donald Velde, whom I'm sorry I never had the pleasure of knowing except through the loving memory of his wife Edith, was the senior warden. Also that year, a young man and his wife moved from Montreal to New York to assume the duties of Sexton of our Church, and Mihail and Rodica Georgescue have graced Incarnation and its Parish House with their loving presence ever since. And if you don't trust my historical scholarship on this, you can ask Laurie Mygatt, because she had just joined the Church that year, and fondly remembers the 125th anniversary celebration at the upscale Union League Club which was attended not only by the Bishop of the Diocese and other church dignitaries, but several homeless men of the neighborhood who had been invited en route from the Church to the Union League by one of the more gregarious parishioners of Incarnation.
So here we are, 150 years later, and we've established CIRCA 2002 in sesquicentennial celebration, to raise the funds necessary to make our Church more accessible to the neighborhood and the general public through the construction of a barrier free access facility and through our "Open Church" campaign, which will enable us to keep our doors open throughout the day for all to enjoy this beautiful and holy sanctuary. CIRCA 2002 is also raising funds for needed restoration and renovation of the Church and Parish House, such as interior and exterior lighting, restoration of the Church's south wall, garden and iron railing, refurbishing of the assembly hall, restoration of our sonorous Aeolian Skinner organ, and the soon-to-be-installed glass doors in the front of our Church to let our welcoming light shine out into the world, and for the world to look in upon this beautiful house of worship -- which is our legacy.
As you know, many of these projects have already been completed and paid for thanks to your generous contributions, but we have not yet quite reached our goal.
So my address would not be complete without an exhortation to you, who are the life of this living church, this Incarnation given to us by Grace, to show your support and commitment to the good works and preservation of our Church as a living church, open to all as a haven, an island of peace in this hectic city. I know you love this Church as I do, not just for its physical beauty and its wonderful history, but for its spirituality and worship, its welcoming fellowship and its good works in the community. And that is, for all of us, a great and abiding love.
So I echo the question that the Reverend Arthur Brooks posed to his parishioners after this gloriously reborn Church had virtually burned to the ground: "Do you love your church as you ought to?" And if your answer is yes, then I would also echo the words of Saint John the Apostle in his first encyclical letter:
"Let us not love merely in theory or in words - let us love in sincerity and in practice!"
What does that mean to us, especially to those who have already contributed to the CIRCA 2002 campaign? Well, let me leave you with an idea. Three years ago, Jill and I, like many of you, pledged to give a certain amount each week to the CIRCA 2002 campaign in addition to our regular pledge, for a three-year period. And, thank God, we've been able to make these additional weekly contributions without undue financial strain. This year, our three-year pledge is scheduled to end, but we've decided to extend it for another three years, in effect doubling our original commitment. I've mentioned this concept to Father Ousley and the members of the CIRCA 2002 steering committee, and they have enthusiastically endorsed it as an acceptable way for us to get closer to the goals we have set. So I would encourage you to consider this as a way to express your love for this Church "not merely in theory … but in practice." And if you have not yet contributed to CIRCA 2002, now is your chance, by pledge, gift or remembering the Church in your will, to participate in a practical way in the glorious and ongoing history of our Church and its good works.
Thank you very much, and God bless you all.