My dear sisters and brothers, we gather this evening, as God’s People, the Church, for this very special and solemn ceremony to dedicate this new church building to God. From very early times the building in which the Christian community gathers to hear the Word of God, to pray together, to celebrate the sacraments and to participate in the Eucharist has been given the name “church.”

This very special and beautiful building gets its name from us; for we are the church, the Body of Christ in our world. Because we come together in this building we bestow upon it our name: Church. We call it the house of God, because we, who are the temples in whom God dwells, come together here. So this holy ceremony not only dedicates this building, it allows us to celebrate the wondrous gifts that have been bestowed upon us by God, the Father who loves us, and who has called us to be part of the mission of his Son to the world in which we live.

The reading from the Letter to the Hebrews that we heard in the second reading, I think, echoes the specialness of what we are a part of today. It says: you have come … to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, ²³and to the assembly^* of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.

Why do we dedicate this new building to God? Because we come here to encounter the person of Jesus who is our Saviour. Here we enter into the presence of God and so here already we approach the heavenly Jerusalem and take part in the Banquet of the Lamb that is spoken about in the Book of Revelation. 

We come to this church building as the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven; because, by our baptism, we have become a new creation, we have been born into the life of God, and our homeland now is in heaven sharing in the life of God forever. We have great hope! Here we are surrounded by the communion of Saints and the angels of heaven. Here we encounter Jesus, risen from the dead, who draws us into a unity of love with him. We become one body with him in the one bread that we share. And so here our lives are raised above the ordinary and we see our future and our hope, for we will be raised to the very heights of heaven for all eternity.

So this church building is a reminder to us as to how we need to act in our lives. God has done wonderful things for each of us. We need to thank God for all of this; really we can never thank God enough for his love and kindness to us; and so in thanksgiving we need to show that love and kindness to others. God has made his house is our house, for God has welcomed all of us to be at home here in this sacred place. We too then must welcome all who need to be here. Jesus says: invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. ¹⁴And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you,

We know that we can never repay God for his love and his kindness and the way he protects us. So this building reminds us that we must make sure that we bring in all those who could never repay us for the love, kindness and protection that God wants us to give to them.

When we are reminded of God’s great love and mercy and generosity for us we realize that we indeed must be humble, for all of this is not our doing but the work of God’s love. In the face of such love our humility urges us to go out and make sure that everyone who comes to this building is welcome here, everyone is loved here, everyone is valued here.

Let us pray today that this new church building will be continually filled with what is truly the Church: with people who are grateful to God and who show that gratitude by being a parish that reaches out and welcomes those who come, especially those who come with nothing but their need, and welcome them with love.