The long-awaited day is finally here! We celebrate the 150th anniversary of St. Peter's Church this Sunday, October 14 at 10:30 a.m. And St. Peter's is excited to welcome the Most Rev. Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, to this Festival Eucharist.

As we have prepared the music for this service over the past month or so, I could not help but notice the abundance of the word “heaven” in the music we are singing.

In the Introit for the service (Terribilis est), the traditional introit for the dedication of the church, we sing words from Genesis chapter 28:

“This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

The Introit concludes with words from Psalm 84: “My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.”

These same words appear in “How lovely is Thy dwelling place” by Brahms, the anthem we will sing during Communion. By the way, it was simply irresistible to sing this anthem this Sunday. It comes from A German Requiem which Brahms completed in 1868 – the same year that St. Peter's was founded!

The words from Genesis chapter 28 come from the story of Jacob going to sleep with a rock for a pillow. Genesis tells us he's going from Beer-sheba toward Haran, and that he stops “in a certain place.” So he's on a journey and is literally in the middle of nowhere. 

While asleep, Jacob has a vivid dream about angels going up and down a giant ladder and the Lord himself.

When Jacob wakes up (probably with a crick in his neck), he is afraid and exclaims “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” He pours oil on his rock pillow and names it Bethel.

If Jacob can have an unexpected encounter with God in the middle of nowhere while sleeping on a rock, how much more should we be afraid of coming to church at St. Peter's? A place where we fully expect to encounter the Risen Lord in our liturgy?

For St. Peter's Church, in St. Louis, the celebration of our dedication aligns with the Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost and its Gospel lesson from Mark chapter 10.

The new anthem that St. Peter's has commissioned from composer Melissa Dunphy is a setting of words from Matthew chapter 19. This passage is another version of the story that we hear in the Gospel lesson for this Sunday. Here too, the word heaven appears repeatedly.

“…thou shalt have treasure in heaven”

“…a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven”

“…it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven”

I hope that all of the music in this service puts us in the frame of mind for two things: first, that we truly expect to encounter God at St. Peter's; and second, that we should be prepared for this encounter to change us and lead us to sacrifice what we have been given.

The Gospel this Sunday concludes with a prompt from our Patron: “Look, we have left everything and followed you.”

At this point in life of our Parish, this Sunday's Festival Eucharist will call us to reaffirm our commitment to the life of Christ — a commitment to being the gate of heaven here on earth for the next 150 years and beyond. We are called to work to bring life everlasting to bear here on this earth, and not just expect it in the hereafter.

I think that's what's meant by the phrase “the kingdom of heaven,” which Melissa Dunphy sets to music so beautifully in our offertory anthem.

In the words of our closing hymn:

“Pray we then, O Lord the Spirit,
on our lives descend in might;
let your flame break out within us,
fire our hearts and clear our sight,
till, white-hot in your possession,
we, too, set the world alight.”

(Hymn 506, st. 5, words by Michael Hewlett)