After his church in Bethesda, Maryland, caught fire on Sunday, the pastor of that parish offered a stirring sermon to his congregation “We are the Church. We are the living stones.”
Of the three Bethesda churches targeted by vandalism over the weekend, St. Jane Frances de Chantal Parish sustained the most severe damage. Flames can be seen near the church’s tabernacle in a video uploaded to the parish’s YouTube site. The events, according to authorities, are related.
The Washington Post reported that a fire early on Saturday morning at North Bethesda United Methodist Church resulted in minor damage and grave markers at adjacent Wildwood Baptist Church were destroyed.
“Last night our church was vandalized. People broke in. They overturned statues. They tore down the Stations of the Cross. They desecrated the tabernacle, and they tried to set the church on fire,” he said.
“I believe that this is because of the Church’s stand on the issue of life — when it begins and that it should be protected — and that this is one of the manifestations of the deep divisions right now within our country, that there are those who believe that we do not have even the right to practice our faith.”
Giese continued by saying that the church is more than just a building.
“I’m sorry to share this news with you. However, this is the important thing to remember,” he said. “We are the Church. We are the living stones. We are the Body of Christ. We are the ones who have been nourished by God, consecrated by God.
“We are ones called by God to be the light … to the world, and the salt of the earth.” You can watch the pastor’s full statement in the video below. There is footage of the fire in the sanctuary at the beginning of the video.
Giese continued by relating a story of a Bolshevik revolutionary who warned an elderly Christian woman that her church would be demolished and that nothing would remain to serve as a reminder of her God.
She said, “Really? Can you pull down the stars from the sky, too?’” said Giese.
Giese finished by reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans:
“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?
“As it is written: ‘For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”