Good morning. I am guessing everyone is really discombobulated this morning. I see those nods. If the change to Lent did not get you, or our observance of The Great Litany, or the unexpected readings that have nothing to do with Christ’s Temptations in the Wilderness, maybe you just are not paying attention. As the calendar has it this year, we started Lent this past Wednesday. But Friday was the Feast Day of Charles Todd Quintard, our second rector and the second bishop of Tennessee. I'll let y’all decide which role was more glorious in God’s eyes. I certainly think I know which one involves more work! Good, we are all laughing nervously. We wanted both to mark Quintard’s life and witness and the beginning of Lent. Some on the Liturgy & worship Committee asked about a return of The Great Litany, which differs from the Penitential Order we have all come to love and expect during Lent, right? For my part, I was a bit annoyed that it was phrased, “Can we use it like we used to before you got here?” I asked everyone when I got here to leave things unchanged. It was easier for me and my family to adapt to the way Advent worshipped than for y’all to adapt to my preferences for worship. Yet here we are, nine years into this, and I am just hearing about something you miss. UGH!
It’s good you are laughing. It sounds like Carola† put an end to the use of The Great Litany during her interim period here. Adventers apparently could not tell her why it was used, and she rightly slaughtered what she thought was sacred cow at Advent, something done for no reason than “we’ve always done it this way.” But it makes for a memorable event today, as we gather in worship on the first Sunday in Lent. Make no mistake, given the number of us who did not make it to church on Ash Wednesday, neither I nor the members of the Liturgy & Worship committee had any false expectation that Adventers would turn out for a second weekday service on Friday. I will not ask if our assumption was correct.
For those newer to the parish and wondering about what I am talking, we have an Adventer who is recognized by our wider church as a saint. Charles Todd Quintard is his name. It is understandable that you have never heard of him. I did not hear of Quintard until my second February here. But once we finish today, I expect few of us will ever forget him. On the Wednesday noonday Eucharists we hold each week, I had inherited the custom of celebrating the lives of the saints who have come before us. I simply look up the saint and readings and we learn a bit about their service to God and their neighbors. One particular Wednesday years ago, I sat I my desk reading about Charles Todd Quintard. The blurb about him in the sancitorial calendar began with the words, “Charles Todd Quintard was the second rector of the Episcopal Church of the Advent.” I made it a few more sentences before it hit me. He was the second rector of the parish in which I serve as rector. To double check what I read, I went down the stairs there where we keep the portraits and pictures of former rectors and bishops. Sure enough, guess whose portrait is hanging there. Since then, we have celebrated his day as a patronal feast day of sorts, and I do some digging to be able to teach us all more about him.
Some of you gathered today might think it inappropriate to celebrate the life of a saint in the church during Lent. Don’t worry, we will not be singing alleluias nor focusing on the manifestation of God’s grace in his life this year. We will learn about him in the context of Lent.
Quintard was born in the northeast between NYC and Hartford. He trained to be a doctor, and upon graduation from Columbia’s Medical College, he moved to coastal Georgia to hang out his shingle. Now, y’all know doctors could not stay single for too long in the South during the 19th Century, right? It did not take too long before an industrialist in the Savannah area took a liking to Quintard, noticed his bachelorhood, and made designs to marry a daughter off to this young doctor. After some time they decided to move west, and they settled here in Nashville where, once again, Quintard opened a doctor’s office.
Life seemed to be going well for them until Bishop Otey came to know young Quintard. Bishop Otey was absolutely convinced that Quintard was called by God to be a priest. I suppose we would say that Bishop Otey’s discernment was proved correct. That is not to say that Quintard was easily convinced. Quintard liked taking care of people as a surgeon. Eventually, though, we would say God and Bishop Otey won out. Quintard submitted and was eventually ordained a priest by Bishop Otey. His first call was to serve as rector of Church of the Advent at our Church Street address.
Those of you unaware of our history may be interested to learn that Advent is one of a handful of churches that have survived two moves. Our spiritual ancestors left what is now Christ Church Cathedral over a fight about Pew Rents. Our predecessors disagreed with making people pay to sit in a box at the back of services, but most in the congregation could not conceive of any other way to budget. Quintard inherited that bunch of what some in the church labelled as financially ignorant or worse.
Quintard went to work and set about implementing this new strategy of why you and I think of as pledges, tithes, and offerings and living within a budget. It was, though, the 1850’s and there were other pressing concerns. Chief among those concerns was whether God cared about the souls of slaves. Under the leadership and encouragement of now Rector Quintard, Advent’s Vestry voted to allow their own slaves to come worship with them. In a perfect world, we know they would sit side by side and serve one another and worship God. Nashville and Church of the Advent in the 1850’s was not perfect. Yes, the slaves sat upstairs in the balcony or stood at the far back. There was no intermingling. Adventers in the 1850’s were very much into decorum. Make no mistake, though, how counter-cultural allowing slaves to come and worship. Adventers were whispered about in Nashville. Most were called “Yankee Sympathizers” by those in the diocese and in the city. The ringleader of those Yankee Sympathizers, of course, was Rector Quintard. Now, you and I might not think that Yankee Sympathizer was horrible name-calling by today’s standards, but place yourself in the 1850’s and 60’s. Even in 21st Century Nashville, the name Yankee is spoken with scorn. Think of the division that existed in the country that would lead to us killing one another. There were only a few worse nicknames, and those were not fit to print in newspapers and other documents. And our forebears carried all that name calling in the daily life and work. Why? Because they thought their slaves were loved by God. What a terrible notion, right? But our forebears bore that cross in obedience to God and encouraged by Rector Quintard.
Eventually, of course, war broke out. Men flocked to join the Confederate Army and to defend the South from Northern Aggression. Adventer men and their rector tried to join the local regiments. Quintard, as you might expect, offered his services as both a chaplain and a surgeon. I see the nods of “that makes sense.” Because of their “known Yankee sympathies” Adventers were denied the opportunity to serve. . . at first. Yes, even Quintard’s offer of service was declined. As gathering and training of the 1st Regiment continued, though, those serving became more and more discontented that their commanding officers had denied them a surgeon and a chaplain. While there was no mutiny, there was grumbling and complaining. A lot. And the commanders eventually figured out that they needed to allow Quintar, and other men of the parish, to serve.
Those men were soon in battle in and around our area. Perhaps the most famous battle might be the one up in Versailles, KY. I will leave it to our military historians to help us discern which were the most important or most vicious. But Quintard found himself crazy busy tending to the medical and spiritual needs of wounded or dying soldiers. Perhaps the most nutty behavior in the eyes of some was his determined willingness to treat Union POW’s. Some grumbled that he was clearly a Yankee Sympathizer, since he offered his services and counsel to the captured enemy, but few were willing to call him names to his face, for fear that they might one day need his expertise or counsel.
Eventually, the war ended, and the veterans headed home to rebuild their lives, their communities, and their churches. Those who know diocesan history pretty well might remember that Bishop Otey, beloved by most in the diocese, had died. Now that the war was over, Episcopalians needed a bishop. And in a bittersweet part of our history, Rector Quintard was elected to be Bishop Quintard, the second bishop in the diocese of Tennessee.
Those who know Episcopal Church history better might remember that our General Convention continued to meet during the Civil War. Famously, the northern delegates kept the seats of their southern brethren empty but set up. The hope in the church was that after the war, the northern and southern diocese would reunite. The work of reconciliation, though, as many of us know, is challenging, hard, cross-bearing work. Some northern bishops refused to participate in the consecration of a man who had served faithfully in a Confederate regiment. It makes sense. All they knew was that Quintard was a rebel or confederate. Then a curious thing happened. Northern bishops began to receive letters from Union soldiers who were wounded and/or captured during the war. The soldiers wrote their bishop recounting how Quintard had ministered to their souls, even as he worked to repair their bodies. Some of those bishops were moved by the letters of their soldiers and decided to go. And that’s when a strange and glorious thing happened. For the only time in the history of the Episcopal Church, we made page three of The New York Times. You know, open the first page and we were on the right side. No one had to go far to read about the consecration of Quintard as a bishop in The Episcopal Church. Better still, an author added the observation that, if The Episcopal Church’s deep divisions could be healed, perhaps there was hope for our tattered and frayed country. Think of that! The Episcopal Church gave hope to our nation at its darkest time.
Were the story of Quintard to end there, most of us would be impressed and proud, right? God, though, often does more than we can ask or imagine. Bishop Quintard’s first work was the rebuilding of Sewanee. Sherman had visited it and burned it to the ground. Quintard thought it absolutely essential that the school be rebuilt. Education was necessary for personal growth, necessary skills, and any number of reasons. Adventers gave the initial money for the construction of his bishopric on the Holy Mountain, as we locals like to think of Sewanee. Though faced with privation, and serving in an area ravaged by war and carpetbaggers, Quintard was able to raise incredible sums of money. You and I can see proof of his ingenuity and dedication by taking a drive for an hour or so to our SE.
Quintard was also assigned by the House of Bishops to stem the flow of freed slaves out of The Episcopal Church. Though the AME was not yet formed nor recognized, many freed slaves and their families were leaving The Episcopal Church which, in the South, had supported slavery in most locations. Agin, with his mitre out, Quintard set about raising funds to build what you and I consider the great historic black churches in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Out of breath yet, considering the work of our forebears and our former rector? Too bad, we are not done.
In his conversations with freed slaves, Quintard came to the pastoral understanding that the freed slaves could not be expected to worship with the sons of the plantation owners who had raped the women in their lives, split their families, and whipped them like dogs. Though he lamented the need, Quintard built the first black seminary here in Nashville on the campus of Meharry and Fisk, where some of our modern Advent brothers and sisters work during the week. Those paying attention to Rick Britton† and I on Facebook this weekend may have seen him mentioning that it did not last too long. Rick is correct, but Quintard did not found it to last forever. His heart was at Sewanee, the school he had rebuilt! He wanted all his priests to have the same experience of attending the glorious institution some of us might say he saved. He envisioned a time when the sons of plantation owners and slaves could be reconciled in Christ and so lead the world in works of reconciliation.
Those paying attention to geography might have noticed I have left out the western end of the diocese. That famous Adventer Bishop Bill Sanders would not come around for more than a century. Quintard discerned he needed to pay closer attention to the other end of his diocese. He wrote the Sisters of Humility in NY state and offered them his bishopric, the one our forebears helped build. The sisters accepted his offer, and some moved south. The most famous of those who lived there was a nun named Constance. She had some companions who died a martyr’s death, and who are remembered annual by our wider church, because they came to Bishop Quintard’s aid during the Yellow Fever in Memphis.
Imagine the God-incident at play in this! Quintard moves to Memphis. He is a bishop, and he is a surgeon. When the fever started scaring the rich and powerful to leave town, he had the heart to care for the “left behind” of Memphis. At times he treated, but his more significant work was keeping hospitals, schools, and orphanages functioning. He wrote the convent at Sewanee; he published pleas for assistance in many norther newspapers. Amazingly, some of those former soldiers whom he had saved or shepherded during the war, from both the North and the South came at his call. For some, they ultimate cross they bore was their lives. But we, the wider church, and those who have called Memphis their home never forget their work and their sacrifice.
There are, of course, lots of little stories to share. There are some failures and successes that may be suitable for other occasions. Today, though, we ceelbrate the First Sunday of Lent. We are in that intentional season when we focus on our sins, both individually and corporately, and of our need for a Savior. Today I have highlighted a time in our collective history when racism and slavery plagued our nation and our community, a time when wars and rumors of wars were destroying our citizens and our lands, a time when there seemed never to be enough money to do the work it was obvious to which God was calling His people to do, a time when a pandemic killed thousands and scared however many more, a time when the rich and the powerful fled to their country castles rather than face the dangers afflicting those whom they had sworn to lead and serve, a time when privation seem to have the upper hand. But more importantly, I have descried a time in which God called Adventers, men and women just like you and me, to fight evil in His Name, trusting that they would share in His glory because of their simple act of obedience. I see no writings in our Archives that they expected to end slavery. I see no writings in our Archives that they expected they could stop the War. But they trusted in God that He would give meaning to their work, a value that would span the centuries!
Were I not to mention the Civil War, all those other evils I just mention exist today. We watch and read of wars in Ukraine at the hand of Russian aggression; we see Hamas and Israel trying to justify their brutal oppression of each other’s citizens with that gussied up phrase we all knew as children, “well, he/she hit me first!” We are working through the latest version of the pandemic. We are dealing with issues of economic privation. In short, the evils to which our forebears were called still exist today. And like all those who came before us at this place we call Advent, we understand that our call is to labor faithfully and diligently until His return! We understand that we can answer His call on our lives to confront impossible evil in His Name, to remind people in our communities that this is not all that there is, that their loving father has entrusted us to bear the glorious hope and promise of His redemptive grace in our lives!
My friends, we will not end food insecurity or modern slavery or economic privation or racism or any other of those evils we tackle in His Name and to His glory. We are not equipped. But because He is, and it is His Will to empower us and to share His glory with us, we know that we can tackle what the world thinks is impossible. We can labor like Adventers who came before us, and trust that if we do not end the evil, He will One Glorious Day. But even in our failures, we know His redemptive power will be at work. And just as Adventers who came before us were recognized as lights in their generation, God just might call the world around us to see Him in us.
If Adventers can be instrumental in changing the workings of the Church, the attitudes of races to other races, to faithful service in times of conflict, to any number of the evils I discussed today, what can’t our Lord do with you and with me!
In His Redemptive Power,
Brian†
No comments:
Post a Comment