The date on the deed is 1798. It is a deed to the pew numbered 16. Pew number 16 was one of the pews in the first sanctuary built on this site in what was legally referred to then, as the Congregation of Princeton in the Counties of Somerset and Middlesex. The cornerstone for the church was laid in 1762. Though worship began on this site in 1764, worship in the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church most likely began in 1766. Pew number 16 was one of 57. 23 of them were squares that followed the outline of the wall all around. There were three aisles running in one direction, two in another. The pulpit stood on the side of the room and in 1792 John Witherspoon had a canopy built over it and draped it in dark colored festoons.
      Pew 16 was purchased by “David Johnson and Peter Updike and their wives and issue forever”. Peter Updike was an ordained elder in the congregation of First Presbyterian Church. According to the reproduction of the deed that was given to me by Bill Harris, then the archivist at Princeton Seminary, Peter Updike was the great-great-great-great grandfather of John Updike, the novelist, poet, short story writer, and literary critic. John Updike’s grandfather was the Rev. Hartley T. Updike, Princeton Class of 1883, Princeton Seminary class of 1886. (John Updike himself is a Harvard man!) The cost of pew number 16, the Updike/Johnson pew, was seven pounds, ten shillings.
      Just this week I listened to a long interview with John Updike on public radio. Among the many interesting topics he talked about, I was most intrigued by his description of the craft of writing; how he went about it; how he developed his skill, how he learned to manage and sustain his efforts, how the ideas come to him year after year. He works in the same study where he has done all of his writing up there in New England. He still writes with a pad and pencil and only about two pages a day. “The silence of my pen draws me in, any other noise would distract me” he said. Then, he talked about his decision long ago to write in the present tense. He described it as a challenge and rather time consuming, but an essential part of the creative process; getting in the right frame of mind to write in the present tense. He said maybe the toughest part of writing is learning to write in and stick to the present tense. Over and over again, he has to work himself into the present tense. “There is so much less baggage” Updike said, “when you write in the present tense.” John Updike on the importance of the present tense.
      In the fifth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul makes a turn to the present tense; it’s not just a creative turn. It’s a theological turn. The first part of Romans is a rather complex argument and exposition about the work of Christ and justification by faith and the righteousness of God and the example of Abraham in the Old Testament and the relationship of law and faith. Paul’s whole discussion is centered on, focused around, built upon the on the event of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The one, as Paul describes him, “the one whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood.”
      But now in the fifth chapter, with those first few verses, Paul turns his attention toward those of us who “believe in the One who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.” “Since we are justified by faith” Paul writes as he steps toward the present tense, “since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
      God’s love poured in. The Holy Spirit given. Suffering. Endurance. Character. Hope. The peace of God. The grace in which we stand. And our hope of sharing the glory of God. All of it in the present, in the here and now. Not just at the time of Jesus. Not just in the first century. Not just at the Reformation with a rallying cry of being saved by grace. Certainly not just in 1768 from there in pew 16. But right now in the present, since we have been justified by faith. Paul on the present tense of the life of faith. The life of faith here and now and our hope of sharing the glory of God.
      A group of Presbyterian pastors and elders were visiting a brand new charter school in the city of Cleveland. At lunch time, a found myself sitting at the table with a group of six graders. We had a good conversation. They told me about school. I told them about my kids. They told me some of their dreams. I told them what it was like to be a preacher. As we were eating, I realized that the lunch provided for the guests that day was quite a bit fancier than the lunch given to the kids. Part of the difference included the huge chocolate chip cookie that was in my bag. Their dessert was a little-bity tub of jello. Thinking I was doing the right thing, I broke up my cookie and started it handing it around. The kids politely declined at first but I insisted. Soon, all hell broke loose. Pleasant conversation with a stranger at the table turned to an argument about which cookie piece was bigger, who said thank you and who did not. I tried to stem the tide, but nothing was working. A teacher soon arrived and we were all in trouble. One of my new friends even received detention. Lunch had been going do well, but it was the sharing part that got us. The sharing part.
      As in “sharing the glory of God.” Glory. Brilliance. Grandeur. Power. Splendor. Presence. The sheer divineness. I get the glory part. It’s the sharing part that’s harder to understand. It’s not at all clear what on earth does it mean to share the glory of God? Together we look toward our eternal future forever in the kingdom of heaven. A future hope of sharing in God’s glory. Or maybe it has to do with how we sometimes manage to perceive bits and pieces of the beauty of God. Maybe it’s all about aesthetics and those moments in music or art or in creation itself. We hope together to see just a glimmer of the awesomeness of God. Or maybe it is a reference to simply sharing the Gospel message in that traditional sense of evangelism. Jesus is God’s glory and we boast in the privilege we share in telling the world about the Good News of God in Christ.
      But Paul, in all of his “present tenseness” when it comes to sharing the glory of God, he so weaves it together with that litany of life; suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope. That litany of life that plays out far away from these gatherings of divine worship, far away from your religious obligations, far away from the spirituality of it all. Suffering. Endurance. Character. Hope. The peace of God. The grace in which we stand. The Holy Spirit given. God’s love poured in. Sharing the God’s glory in the present tense of it all.
      I went to a virtual church the other day, in my office, on the computer. It is the website of a megachurch that has branches around the country. They call the various congregations, campuses. Now they have established an internet campus. You click on it and you are actually in a video-game like church. There was a link to a lobby/coffee hour chat room that promised “incredible fellowship.” And you could click on the sanctuary and your little character goes to find a seat. The worship service itself is a broadcast from the main campus. They call that the “Live experience” and there is a clock that ticks down to the next “live experience”.
      When it comes to the Apostle Paul and his litany of life and his hope of sharing the glory of God, when it comes to the present tense of it all in the life of faith, you and I don’t have the luxury of waiting for the next live experience. Discerning God’s presence in all of life. Looking for the splendor of God in each and every moment. Yearning for the divine in absolutely everything. Clinging to the promise of God on the darkest of days and longest of nights. And all of it, done together as the community of faith, as the body of Christ, as the children of God, here and now. Because it’s the sharing part that gets us, and Updike was probably right, the present tense isn’t easy. Leaning to live together, and sharing the glory of God, in the here and now, learning to live in and stick to the present tense, it may be the toughest part.
      Leadership in the church would be easier if it was just about reserving your place, buying your pew, sitting there Sunday after Sunday. But you deacons and elders, when it comes to church leadership and ordination (the ordination of a few that equips the ministry of us all), its the sharing part. Don’t forget about the sharing part. Sharing the glory of God.

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