A Wide and Wonderful View - Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Matthew 22:34-46

With most of the machinery packed up and moved out, and our courtyard, which we call the close, cleared and replanted, we can really see the end of our construction project just around the corner. While I’m delighted to say goodbye to the jackhammers, there are a few things I’ll miss. Without all the workers things are a little less lively around here during the week, and it has been exciting not knowing what new changes to expect when I arrive each day.

But most of all, I’m ready to share our new space with the community. Earlier this week I met a woman who lives in SOMA and works at a law firm closer to the river. She has driven down Scott Street five mornings a week for the last several years, and when she discovered where I work she was thrilled to tell me how much she has enjoyed watching our progress and that passing by our beautiful new space is a highlight of her day. I thanked her and told her that her joyful experience as our neighbor is one of the reasons we launched this whole endeavor.

Her kind words inspired me to take a moment in a busy week to walk across the street to enjoy the full view. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend it. In fact, even our Scriptures have something to say about the holiness of pausing to appreciate a view. This morning, we meet Moses for the final time in this lectionary year, and we meet him in one of his usual haunts: on top of a mountain. This mountain happens to be Mt. Pisgah, which we only hear about once in the Hebrew Bible. It’s whole purpose is to be the place where Moses gets his one and only view of the promised land.

This is a strange story we have to admit. Moses and the Israelites have been without a home, moving from place to place for 40 years. God finally shows Moses a glimpse of the place they’ve been searching for, the view he’s been longing for all this time, and then tells him that he’ll die before he can enter it. It almost feels like God is taunting Moses. But God never taunts, so there must be something important about a wide view from above of something wonderful, even if that view is all we’ll get.

In her stewardship letter this year, Kate reminded us that many Christ Churchers throughout history have laid various cornerstones around this property and embarked on many renovation projects, not knowing who all would benefit from those efforts down the line. And now it’s our turn. We are standing on our own Mt. Pisgah, with a stunning view of a renewed physical plant and the good and holy work that is possible within and because of it. But none of us will get to hang around long enough to see all of that good and holy work. We completed this project for us and for future generations. We took the long and wide view.

I’m starting to understand the significance of the mountaintop vista. Glimpsing the future of the Kingdom of God is important, even if it will belong to those who come later. It gives us hope and encouragement to keep going, and reminds us that the Kingdom is bigger than what we can see right in front of us. It’s bigger than we can even imagine.

On the other side of things, in our Gospel passage today we catch the Pharisees doing what the Pharisees do best: missing the view entirely. Hear me when I say that I do not judge the Pharisees. I am the Pharisees. But that means I have much to learn from their stories. Today, Jesus responds to their usual sneakiness and skepticism with the big whammy, the first and great commandment, the Mt. Pisgah-level view of faithful relationships, that totally breaks open what is possible on earth: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

But the Pharisees cannot comprehend the magnitude, the vast effect of what Jesus has told them. Unlike Moses on the mountaintop looking out as far as he can see, the Pharisees quite literally lower themselves, turn inward, and tilt their heads together. They’re always depicted as grumbling in small groups or whispering among themselves. They try so hard to figure out the mechanics of the views that Jesus offers them, that they lose sight of those views altogether.

Construction projects can bring this out in us all. We can get distracted by the tiny spot of paint that escaped the tape on a window, or the font on a sign that isn’t the one we would have chosen. For that matter, Episcopalians in general can be like this, stewing over whether our Advent candles are blue or purple or how many typos Hannah missed in the bulletin. (Spoiler: she missed several.)

When the truth is that we here at Christ Church are not called merely to grumble about the mechanics of ministry. We have been given the gift of this place and the gift of the Gospel of Christ. We are standing on top of Mt. Pisgah with the whole promised land in front of us, and we are called to stand in awe of it. Standing in awe of God’s handiwork is the antidote to the Pharisees’ shortsightedness.

I fear that our capacity for awe is somewhat diminished these days. We’re so globally connected on the internet that there’s no corner of the earth we haven’t seen. We have every small convenience available for purchase at our finger tips, so we’re no longer impressed by ease or comfort. Algorithms train us on what to consider beautiful, valuable, and worth our time, all of which stays contained in our digital devices, where we tilt our gaze, hunched over like a confused and suspicious Pharisee.

There’s something to be said for good posture it seems, both physically and spiritually. Even though he knew his own death was upon him, Moses stood on top of the mountain and took in the view of the promised land, because he had not lost his sense of awe and wonder at what our God can provide. Can we, too, straighten our necks a little, look up from our screens for just a minute, and rediscover a sense of awe, without worrying about the mechanics and without needing to possess what we see?

I’ve told so many people how proud I am of this congregation for its prophetic vision of the Kingdom of God on the corner of 6th and Scott. And before we know it, we’ll be climbing down the mountain and back into the daily work of ministry in this place. But I hope that we can each take a moment to put criticism and scrutiny aside and just gaze in wonder at what we’ve helped God to create, because neither it nor we will be here forever, and because every once in a while, that wide glimpse of the Kingdom is good for the soul. Amen.