Go Team Jesus--June 15, 2022

Go Team Jesus--June 15, 2022

"So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future--all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God." [1 Corinthians 3:21-23]

I say the following as someone who cares deeply about good theology, who is committed to living out my discipleship in the intentional community of congregations, and who openly owns the tradition, the Lutheran one, in which I have grown up in the faith:  in the end, it's not about me holding the right membership or set of beliefs about God, but rather about God holding onto us.

That change, that flipping of polarities so to speak, between my grip on God and God's grip on me, makes all the difference in understanding the gospel as Good News, rather than just being another failed self-help scheme.  It all comes down to God's claim on us--a claim that comes to us through Christ, and yes, then through a whole host of different individual people who have shaped us, grown our faith, and pointed us toward Jesus.  But it's God's pull and power I rest in, not my ability to have chosen the "best" denominational structure to belong to, or to attend the "trendiest" congregation in my area, or even have learned the most "correct" theology, that matters in the end.  It is God who makes me belong--through Christ--and not a matter of how strong, smart, or sanctified I make myself.

Something else changes, too, when I follow Paul's train of thought here.  When I realize that it's God's grip on me that really matters in the end, I can see other followers of Jesus, and even other groupings of Christians, not as competition or enemies, but all part of one great movement initiated and sustained by Christ himself.  We are collectively "Team Jesus," so to speak.  And that makes a huge impact on how we see our life and work together as real people living our faith out day by day, because it means we don't have to waste our energy trying to "outdo" the church down the street or across the state, but can see that Christ is present and working through them as well as through us--and that Christ reserves the right to correct, grow, and stretch both "them" and "us."

In the first century, Paul was dealing with people who were aligning with the particular names who had first brought them to faith, whether Paul himself, or a popular and eloquent speaker like Apollos, or even Simon Peter himself (here referenced by his nickname in Aramaic, "Cephas,").  And it's worth noting that these three did not always agree on everything or get it all right all of the time.  Paul makes mention in others of his letters about a time he had to call Peter out for discriminating against Gentile (non-Jewish) Christians when there were other Jewish Christians from Jerusalem around.  Or there were times when Paul and Apollos butted heads.  And even Paul himself could be something of a stinker--there was a time when he couldn't work things out with his good friend Barnabas over their intern Mark, and it broke up their partnership to go their own separate ways.  All of this is to say that when Paul says that all these different names--Apollos, Cephas, and Paul himself--all belong to God in Christ, he's not saying that they are all in total agreement about everything all the time.  They had clashes of personality, differences of opinion, and even different theological takes at different times.  Paul doesn't see their "belonging" as dependent on their sameness, or even on their "rightness," but rather on God's grip on them through Christ.

That's a really powerful--and maybe provocative--thing to realize in our day and age.  It is so easy in this time and place for Christian groups not only to split from one another, but to treat the "out" group as though they are damned to hell and irredeemably lost heretics.  And it is really easy to assume that our being "in" with God depends on our being "right" about whichever set of theological positions we think are the deal breakers.  I went to an undergraduate college where the mindset tended to be (sometimes implicitly and somes explicitly), "We're not saying that only Calvinists can be saved, because you know, if someone in the Middle Ages, centuries before John Calvin was born, came to the same conclusions as Calvin and believed them in defiance of Roman Catholic teaching at the time, they, too could have been saved."  In other words, "You can be saved by explicitly being in our group, or by unofficially being in our group, but we are still the group you have to have a connection with in order to be saved... but we're still technically saying you're saved by grace."  That's not what Paul is saying here--that still puts the focus on our rightness, rather than on God's claim on us that we belong.

We also have a tendency in this era of polarization to ratchet up the urgency of our differences--it's really easy to say, "That group of Christians believes differently from what we believe on this hot-button issue, and we have decided that THIS issue is really the test of whether you love Jesus or not!"  And with that we end up casting out people whom Jesus still claims.  There is a really big difference, I would say, between being able to say, "On this question here, we do not agree, and we need to be honest about that," on the one hand, and, "Not only do I not agree with THOSE people, but I won't be in fellowship with anyone else who is willing to be in fellowship with THOSE people!" on the other.  It's worth paying attention to where folks are drawing those kinds of lines.  And before we decide that some group is "out," we should see what happens if we put their name in the sentence Paul gave us--to they still belong to Christ?  And if so, can we dare to say they do not belong to God?  

The market-driven culture in which we live has infected the American church in particular to make us see everybody else's church group (whether at the congregational or denominational level) as competition for business in a zero-sum-game environment, rather than all being a part of Team Jesus.  And if I accept that damnable logic, I'm going to see every other church out there as a threat to mine, or deficient in some way, or an enemy to be defeated.  The lingering effects of COVID on the church has only made that worse--when so many congregations feel their own health threatened with lower attendance, limited giving, aging membership, and depleted energy, we can so easily see the church down the road as a threat to be stopped rather than partners on the same team.  If in the end our greatest allegiance is to our own little sub-group, sure, then, I guess we have to see everyone else as competition, and we'll see the world as a dog-eat-dog contest for survival.  But if we see ourselves--as Paul surely does--as part of Team Jesus, then the people around us are still claimed by the One who claims us, whether or not we are always in agreement or get along or would choose the same color carpet for our sanctuary.  

It's ok--more than that, it's healthy and honest--to be real about the differences between different ways of following Jesus.  But it is a huge mistake to assume that the ones who don't agree with me are outside the grip of Jesus' grace.  They're not.  I'm not, either.  And Jesus doesn't need any of our permission to hold onto people in a wide and strong embrace.

Go Team Jesus.

Lord Jesus, hold us, and allow us to see the ways you are holding others.

Choosing Oh-So Pleasant--June 14, 2022

Choosing Oh-So Pleasant--June 14, 2022

"Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their craftiness,' and again, 'The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile'." [1 Corinthians 3:18-20]

One of my favorite movie lines of all time comes from the great Jimmy Steward classic, Harvey, when his character, Elwood P. Dowd, says, "In this life, you can either by oh-so smart, or oh-so pleasant.  Well, for years, I was smart... and I recommend pleasant."

That has always struck me as solid advice, but there is a cost to accepting it and living by it.  After all, in the story of Harvey, Stewart's character is the one everyone else thinks is crazy for being able to see a six-foot-tall rabbit who wears clothes like a human (and who goes at least some of the time by the name Harvey).  All the other characters are dead-certain they are the sane ones, but they are also largely miserable, incapable of wonder, and playing different versions of the same game of trying to impress people.  Whether they're trying to climb the social ladder into high society, vying for respect and accolades in their profession, or just want to look respectable to their neighbors, they're all pretty dour people who can't seem to get out of their own little worlds to look around at what kind of spectacular things might be going on all around them.  In other words, all the other "sane" characters are following the conventional wisdom for how to be successful in life:  get ahead in your career, impress your peers, and make a name for yourself in your field.  They are all "smart" as the world sees smart, and they are also, by and large, pretty unpleasant.

Sometimes the cost of being "oh-so pleasant"--or perhaps to give it a little more bite, of being "the ones who love well"--is that everyone else stares at you like you are a fool for doing it, for seeing the world differently, and for not playing the game like everyone else.  Sometimes, to be the presence of kindness and compassion means everyone else thinks you are crazy, and sometimes telling people such kindness for all comes from your faith in God will sound as absurd to them as saying you see a six-foot-tall rabbit at your side.

Of course, the big punch-line by the end of the story (seventy-year-old movie spoiler alert here) is that Harvey turns out to be very much real, even though his existence sounds like utter nonsense.  There is just a touch of magic by the end of the story, when one or two other characters come to meet Harvey and discover that he has been real all along.  Not everyone will be able to accept that such miracles have been leaning on lamposts at the corner of 18th and Fairfax, but enough people come to see Harvey by the end that the audience is left discovering that Elwood P. Dowd has been the only sensible one all along... exactly because he has been willing to look and act out of touch with what everyone else considers "smart."

In a way, to be the people of Jesus in this world full of rat-racing, image-obssessed self-absorption is to be like Jimmy Stewart's character Elwood.  We are people convinced we see Jesus--not just in churches, but alive and well and moving in the world around us--and who have made the decision (even if we are not great at living it sometimes) to be "oh-so pleasant" rather than making ourselves "oh-so smart" on the world's terms.  That is to say, we have made the choice to love as Jesus embodies it for us, even if it looks foolish to others.  We have made the choice--and we keep choosing it again every day--to look out for the interests of others rather than just our own, to give our time and energy to others even if it won't get us anything, to take the time to listen and look around at the world in front of us even if we don't make a dime from doing it it.  We keep choosing to love even when that costs us bigger profits and it doesn't make "good financial sense," and even when the loud voices around us shout how we have to look out for "Me and My Group First."  And we don't have to get all fussy or have a persecution complex when others look at us like we are out of our minds, because we understand--of course, choosing to love in a world full of self-interest sounds foolish.  We are just prepared to risk looking foolish by the world's terms, because we are done playing the games of trying to impress anybody.

And when you are done with that old rat race, not only are you truly free, but you discover you are freed for loving others, and discovering the goodness to be found in listening to them where they are at, sharing their stories, and seeing Christ present in the conversation.  You discover, in a manner of speaking, that it is far better to be oh-so pleasant than oh-so smart on the world's terms.

Today, what will it look like for us to make that same choice--the choice to love rather than to impress?  I suspect it will be something amazing.

Lord God, give us the courage to live in ways that look out of step to the world's kind of logic, so that we can be in step with your way of love.

 

Honoring Image-Bearers--June 13, 2022

Honoring Image-Bearers--June 13, 2022

"If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple." [1 Corinthians 3:17]

Consider this one more friendly reminder from the Scriptures that God so fiercely loves humanity and regards us as precious that God will not stand for the ways we dehumanize each other and treat one another as disposable.  That isn't of God.

If that's the conclusion to be drawn from this statement of Paul's, let me go back and show my work to make it clear how we arrive there.  At first, we might think this verse is just God getting territorial about turf--as if Paul is merely saying on God's behalf, "You don't mess with God's stuff, or God's property, or God's house!" possibly followed up with, "And you kids better get off God's lawn, too!" with some angry fist-shaking.  We might be tempted to read this just as a matter of protecting God's ego, like God is so insecure as to feel threatened over puny human actions.  But of course, this isn't really about brick-and-mortar buildings needing to be protected--it's about people.  And when it comes to the well-being of people (all of whom are made in the image of God, mind you), the living God does have a way of going all Mama Bear and protecting those who are endangered.

This is an important point: God turns out to be a lot less worried about religious buildings (even if it's called "The Temple") than about the way human beings (who are made in God's image and meant to be living temples for God) are treated with dignity and respect.  The actual Jerusalem Temple was destroyed--twice--and both times, the Scriptures record God warning the people it would happen and then letting foreign empires raze it to the ground to shake the people awake from their complacency.  In the sixth century before Christ, God had been warning the people that the Babylonians would come knocking, and the prophets insisted that God had in fact allowed their armies to destroy the temple.  Ezekiel even saw a vision of God's glory getting up and moving out of the Temple in advance, as if to say God was shaking the dust off the divine sandals and getting out of there before it happened, so that it was clear God wasn't going to be hurt, affected, or injured by the demolition of a building.  Jesus, too, warned the people of his day that their current trajectory was going to lead to the Second Temple being destroyed, and he lamented that he longed to gather them from their wayward path to his care like a mother hen.  And again, what do you know, but a few years after Paul wrote this letter, the Romans besieged Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple once again.  Jesus himself was the one enacting a symbolic "destruction" of the Temple when he drove out the moneychangers and overturned the tables in the Temple, bringing business to an end for at least a short while.  All of this is to say that the Bible's actual witness is that God is not nearly so territorial about the physical building of the Temple than we might have thought at first blush.

But on the other hand, when it comes to human beings, the Scriptures show that God takes a much harder line.  Human beings, after all, are the original "temple" of God--the meeting place between God and creation, the bearers of the divine image like a temple was supposed to be in the ancient world.  So Paul takes the idea of a Temple as most people thought of it and says that really it's us--the people of God--where God has chosen to dwell. And yeah, God is protective about people.  God will not let harm of other people go unaddressed.  God does not shrug with indifference when image-bearers are treated like they are disposable--especially when other image-bearers are the ones causing the harm.  Now, it doesn't mean that the moment someone hurts someone else, a divinely-sent lightning bolt zaps the offender for causing damage to a person who is a "living temple."  God's kind of restoration and justice will come in God's way, in God's time, and by God's choice of agency--so that rules out you or me appointing ourselves God's instruments of vengeance.  But like Dr. King was fond of reminding us, "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."  In other words, God does care about putting things right, defending those who are harmed or dehumanize, and God will not let that abuse be the last word.

What that means for us is two-fold. For one, when we are the ones suffering harm, hurt, or dehumanizing treatment from others, God sees, God knows, and God will not let those wrongs go uncorrected before all is said and done.  We are not authorized to deputize ourselves into pursuing vendettas and revenge or returning evil for evil (much less pre-emptively seeking to "get them before they get us"), but we can be confident that God does not want us to continue to suffer abuse.  But it is also vital to say the same about the other side of the coin--when someone else is being hurt, or being treated like they are disposable, or belittled, threatened, or endangered, God takes a side there, too--and God summons us to care for the vulnerable in those situations.  We are called to be advocates, allies, and accompanying presences when other human beings--who are bearers of God's image simply in the fact of their humanity--are harmed or regarded as less-than.  We can walk with those having stones thrown at them.  Our presence can shield them and suffer with them.  We can offer our bodies in solidarity and our voices to amplify their own cries for justice.  And we will respond that way when others are endangered because we have learned here from the Scriptures just how fiercely God cares about those who would harm the human temples and image-bearers of God.

Instead of taking pot-shots about how "easily offended other people are," maybe the question we should be asking is why instead it is so easy for us to dismiss other people's hurt, or the ways they are treated as less-than.  Maybe then God's own fierce love for other image-bearers will become our own... and stir us to walk with the vulnerable.

Lord God, train our vision to see your people around us as your own living temples, and to recognize in all human beings your own image--and to treat all people with the reverence due to your dwelling place.

 

Present Without the Flags--June 10, 2022

Present Without the Flags--June 10, 2022

"Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" [1 Corinthians 3:16]

So there's a long-standing tradition in the United Kingdom that the "royal standard," the official flag of the royal family, only flies at Buckingham when the Queen is in residence there.  If she is somewhere else--say, on a trip, or at another royal estate, there's no royal standard flag flying.  As the current queen of England has advanced in years, she has had fewer and fewer public appearances, and that has also meant there were fewer and fewer chances people might have actually to see the Queen.  No flag at the palace means she's not there at the time, and if she's not there, you're not going to catch a glimpse of her. Pretty straightforward, right?

Of course, the other thing about being the Queen of England is that if you aren't in the royal palace where the public can at least make a tourist visit, you aren't going to be reachable anywhere else, either--it's not like the Queen would saunter out the front gate of Buckingham Palace to go shopping alone in the local market to pick up some potatoes to cook up for dinner and some new light bulbs to replace the one that's gone out in the hallway.  Buckingham Palace was the best chance you had of seeing Queen Elizabeth, and even at that, you knew the odds were slim.  

To be very honest, I think a lot of Respectable Religion assumes that God is basically just a cosmic version of the Queen of England--generally distant, and the only chance you really have of catching a glimpse will be at the proper street address, and only at times when the flag is flying.  That is to say, we often act like God is bound to a particular location, and visitable only during posted office hours.  Call it a temple, a church, a shrine, or a "thin place" (as the old Celtic tradition conceived of those locations that were closer to the unseen and the divine), but basically they are all variations on the same assumption that God is tied to particular locations, and if you want to encounter the divine, you show up there. Ancient Israel flirted with this thinking from time to time, occasionally telling the people that was only to be found in this ONE Temple in this ONE city, Jerusalem, which just happened to be controlled by the king and his forces.  And certainly Christians have carried the same thinking forward over the centuries, too, building special churches on the sites where special events happened (or were rumored to have happened), and making a big deal about our buildings as "sacred" space.  We still get all fussy about what you're allowed to do inside a church building, or who is allowed to touch the altar, or not swearing once you're inside the main church doors and underneath a steeple, as though it's the street address that makes the difference.  We still operate in so many ways like meeting God is a "where" question, akin to catching a glimpse of the Queen when you notice the flag is flying at the palace, rather than as a "who" question--as in, God choosing to be present and dwelling within the gathered community of people.

This is Paul's point here, even though it blows up an awful lot of conventional wisdom about encountering the divine.  The standard thinking for many, both in ancient Israel and in the Roman and Greek pantheons, was that you met the god or goddess of your choice by going to the right temple, and at that location you were more apt to get in touch with the deity you were seeking.  It was about getting to the right place at the right time--akin to getting to the palace when the royal flag is flying--because the assumption was that the gods were somehow tethered to their temples and holy places.

Paul lights a match and sets all that thinking on fire here, because he insists that God isn't primarily interested in a "where" so much as in a "who"--that God chooses to dwell, not at a certain street address, but among people... who are like you and me.  Paul's way of cutting to the chase is to say, "You are God's temple, and God's Spirit dwells in you." That blows apart the old conventional wisdom that meeting God is about getting to the right place at the right time, and instead insists that God chooses to be present especially among the gathered people, rather than inside a temple, sanctuary, or shrine.  

That doesn't mean that it's bad or sinful for congregations to have buildings, but it does dramatically change our understanding of their importance.  Buildings are tools--they can be useful for particular things, but they are not where God is confined.  At our best, our corporate worship recognizes that, too--we can worship together in the park or in the town square, or in the church yard, or at the hospital, or in the woods, and the thing that assures us of God's presence isn't whether the space has been properly blessed, but simply the fact of God's blessing on the people of God wherever we go.  

So what would happen if today we saw our actions, our words, and our thoughts as always happening in the very temple of God--the meeting place between God and humanity?  What would happen, what would change, and what would we be more daring to try if we saw our daily ordinary human existence as the place to meet God, rather than assuming God only meets people for an appointed hour on Sundays underneath steeples?

That's what we so often get wrong in Respectable Religious Circles--we are still struggling with the old logic that our buildings are what make us holy, rather than the exact opposite as James sees it: it is our presence as God's holy people that makes any street address holy as a secondary echo.  It's not the real estate--it's the real presence of Christ with us, among us, and within us. 

Lord Jesus, help us to see your presence among your people.

The Good Underground--June 9, 2022

The Good Underground--June 9, 2022

"If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward.  If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire." [1 Corinthians 3:14-15]

So... true story.  A few years ago, one of the congregations where I serve was having problems with water leaking in a corner of our church basement.  The corner where we happen to have our elevator... the same corner which supposedly also has an underground spring of water... the same corner where we have had problems with joints in the gutters up on the roof.  We had any number of complicating factors we thought could be contributing to the water problem.  And in the process of investigating it, some professionals took a look at the poured concrete walls underground at the corner of the building, and they found that the concrete itself had not been properly mixed and poured in the first place when the building's footers were being set, well over a century before.  

As you might imagine, that was a pretty scary prospect for the leaders of the congregation--we were wondering if the corner of the building was in danger of collapse, or whether the whole underground support structure of the building would have to be excavated.  And along with that, we were worried whether the costs of fixing this problem that had sat waiting to reveal itself would consume the church's savings, as well as whether the congregation would support the decision pay whatever those costs would be.  It is easier, after all, to mobilize people's support for a project they can see and understand the value of--like an addition of rooms, or the installation of a new organ or piano, or a renovated kitchen.  But replacing concrete that's hidden underground where nobody would ever notice a difference?  That is decidedly less glamorous.

Blessedly, the congregation and its leaders had the wisdom of Saint Paul at the time.  They knew that it was worth doing the hidden work of repairing the walls, having fresh concrete properly poured, and keeping the building on a solid footing for the generations to come.  We told ourselves in those days, "This is our gift to future disciples and members of this congregation in the future--they will not have to deal with a catastrophe in the future because we were able to catch this now, before it has become a crisis, and to deal with it now."  Of course, those future saints in this place decades from now won't know our names or likely even realize what we did for them.  They won't know because there won't be a disaster, and they won't have to see their building sink into the ground, or start to lean.  They won't have to face an astronomical repair bill because this generation of their church family took the time, the treasure, and the thought to make things right in our time.  

And to be honest, just knowing that the children, grandchildren, and future disciples yet to come to faith in this place will have a building in which to do ministry, that was all we needed.  Nobody wanted a parade or a plaque on the wall to commemorate the great basement-wall-repair-project of 2019, and nobody needed a cash reward or framed certificate.  The thought of helping our future congregation to thrive because we had made the effort now to do the job right was enough.  That's all we really needed, and it wouldn't matter that nobody in the distant future would know what had been done to fix things.

I think that's the logic we're called to as the people of God as well, even when we're not talking about physical buildings.  We're called to use the time, treasure, energy, and resources we have to build well even if our work isn't glamorous, or even noticeable.  We are called to see the worth of our work in helping things to stand strong, rather than to collapse because we didn't want to put in the effort for something nobody would notice.  We are called to care enough about those who will come after us in faith to do our work well.  And when you do something for the sake of love like that, the hope of making their lives better, even if they never know what you've done for them, is enough.  You don't need a paycheck, a statue, a medal, or a ceremony to reward you.  The good done for those you care about is the reward, because love has its own logic that the world of deal-making and attention-seeking just cannot understand.

Now, none of this is to say that the church folks a hundred years ago, give or take, weren't genuine Christians, or that they weren't truly saved, because they let a church basement wall get constructed without properly set concrete. We don't strike their names from the membership list just because it was in their time a century ago that somebody didn't mix cement the right way. It just means that the work our predecessors oversaw didn't last--so we in this moment had to deal with it.  Those who went before us are indeed beloved of God, and we will one day laugh and joke and tell stories around the table with them at God's Great Resurrection Feast.  You can't lose your salvation over a matter of poorly mixed concrete, after all.  But the work done in that earlier time just didn't last--we had to tear out the bad wall and put in a new one.

So, too, we need to be clear that Paul isn't threatening anyone with hellfire or losing their salvation if the work they do has some poorly mixed concrete in it.  He isn't warning us that if our accomplishments in life don't last, then we'll be cast into some outer darkness.  Rather, he's reminding us that while God's grip on us in grace is sure and unshakable, our actions and choices still do matter.  And we do have the opportunity to use our time, treasure, talent, and thought either to contribute to things that last... or they'll crumble and will have to be ripped out so that something solid can be built instead.  

As far as the apostle Paul is concerned, nobody is going to find themselves at the gates of heaven and turned away because their work wasn't up to code or their labor didn't hold up.  It's not about your work, your goodness, your badness, or your religiosity anyway.  We're all saved by grace, completely from beginning to end, every day of the week, and that not just a six-month trial offer for new customers.  All our lives long, our works, accomplishments, achievements, and list of infractions do not enter the equation as far as God's view of us.  God loves us, claims us, and redeems us by grace and grace alone... end of story.  And yet at the same time, what we do with our lives does make a difference--and either our life's work can be a gift to others around us or who come after us... or it can be a hidden mess waiting to become a disaster, like malformed church basement walls.  The question, then, for every day is simply this:  what will you and I do with this day, this opportunity, this life for as long as we have it, to do lasting good in the world?  And we can ask that question simply for the sake of what is really worth doing with our lives, not with the constant fear of whether we are doing "enough" or being "good" enough to get into some post-mortem country club.  When we know we are secure in God's hands, then we are free to do good for others regardless of whether we get noticed, praised, or honored for it.  We can be the ones who take the time and effort to rebuild the basement walls for future generations, just as an act of love and care for those who will come after us.  And we don't need to worry about whether anybody else sees what we've done, or whether God is taking notice and giving us the appropriate "heaven points" for it, either--there are no points to worry about, and this isn't about getting ourselves "saved."  It's just the opposite--it's about how we are freed to live looking out for the interests of others because we are finally done worrying about whether we've done "enough." 

So... with this day in front of us, what will we do that is worth doing... whether someone else sees it, or even your dedication and care for others remains good but is hidden underground?  What can we do in this day now that we know we are freed from worrying about being "good enough"?

Lord God, enable us to use our freedom and assurance in you to do good with the time and energy we have been given in this day.

Built to Last--June 8, 2022

Built to Last--June 8, 2022

"Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw--the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and fire will test what sort of work each has done." [1 Corinthians 3:12-13]

Forgive me for sounding childish, but these verses sound a bit like a religious version of the story of The Three Little Pigs.  Instead of a Big Bad Wolf, you have the threat of fire, of course; and you've got a slightly different list of possible building materials beyond the pigs' options of straw, sticks, and bricks.  But the basic underlying idea sure seems to run parallel between the two, doesn't it?  In life you will have the opportunity to build something sturdy and solid that will last... or you can choose to slap together the fastest and cheapest thing you can and cross your fingers that it doesn't collapse with anybody inside. 

Now maybe at first, to the untrained eye or the casual observer, both the well-made house and the thrown-together shanty look comparable. You might not be able to tell which is which from the outside. They may both have a roof, a door, and windows--maybe the cheaply built one can even afford to have more trim and decorative flourishes, because the contractor didn't have to sink as much money into doing things well behind the scenes where no one thinks to look.  But there is a difference between building something cheap... and building something to last.  And Paul is here to remind us that it is worth making the effort to build things well, so that they can endure.

If you're in the real-estate business just to make a buck for yourself, you don't really care about building high-quality, long-lasting houses, so much as you care about making a quick return on your investment.  You'll be more tempted to cut corners to maximize profits, and you'll want to push construction to move along as fast as possible, so you can sell one and move onto the next before anything has time to go wrong.  And, truth be told, in this day when so much of our economy is driven by the need to have things wear out so that consumers will throw away the old one and buy a new item all over again, that's a sure-fire way to make a buck.  Build fast and cheap and get out of town fast enough to be selling lots in your next development in the next county over.  If your reason for building is personal profit at the expense of everything else, there's little reason not to be like the first or second piggy in the story and build on the cheap with straw or sticks.

But what if you are a builder who cares about the people who will live in the house you are constructing?  What if you take pride in your work beyond what you get paid for it?  What if you are thinking, not of your bottom line at the end of the fiscal quarter, but of the well-being of the people who live in this house in fifty years who haven't even been born yet?  What if you care about doing things well, simply because they are worth doing well?  Ah, that's an entirely different kind of logic, isn't it?  If you are concerned about the house standing sturdy and strong for generations of people to live in it, then you are going to take the time to do things right. You'll measure twice and cut once.  You won't skimp on the construction materials, and you'll make sure the house is built to code, and that the walls are standing square.  You will do this even if it eats into your profits, because you are more invested in building something with quality, worthy of the solid foundation it is on, rather than being seen as a real estate mogul.  These are the brick-building piggies, who are willing to take the extra time to do something right so it will last, even if it means more sweat equity is sunk into the project.

In all honesty, Saint Paul doesn't have much time for folks who are only interested in the quick buck and the slapdash construction.  You can build out of straw and sticks if you insist on it, Paul says, but don't be surprised if what you build just doesn't last.  Paul is trying to get us to spend our lives taking the additional effort to do it right, even if it takes more time, we get less credit, and there are slimmer paychecks.  He wants us to be the kind of people who spend our lives building something good and true on the foundation of Christ, not so that we can blow out of town on the next train and sell lots to the next city's worth of suckers for more money, but because we believe that building things well is simply worth doing.

Maybe that's the question to start with in this day: why do we do what we do?  Not just our jobs, whatever field they may be in. Not just for our immediate families, or in the things we'll get an immediate profit from. And not just our churchy activities done underneath steeples.   But in the parts of our lives where no one will notice that we've taken the additional time to do something well... in the interactions with strangers who will never know our names or pay us back... in the times of our lives when it would be easier (or more lucrative) to do a half-baked job and pocket the savings... are we doing what we do just for the payback we'll get in return, or because we are committed to doing things well, and building with good materials?  Will we take the extra time with someone who needs us, just because they need us?  Will we make the additional effort regardless of whether we get thanks or applause?  Will we love when it would be easier to be indifferent?  Will we give the best of ourselves because we care about how we spend our days? If we can say, honestly, that we will dare these kinds of things, it's a sign we are on the same page with Paul, who dares us to reject the quick-buck-making mindset of the stick-and-straw swine, and instead to be the kind of builders who take the time and make the effort to do things well.

The real-estate moguls who just want their names on buildings in big gold letters have missed the point.  We are called to be people who give our lives to building what will last, apart from what it will profit us--because we believe that the act of building well is itself worthwhile.  And I've got to tell you: if I get to the end of my life and I haven't made a dime but have built something that was useful for someone else to find shelter and be at home in, that seems like a life well spent.

How will you and I each spend our lives, and what will we do with this day we have been given that will be worth the sweat and energy we pour into it?

Lord God, enable us to use this day you have given us well, for the sake of building something that will last.

The Unchangeable Foundation--June 7, 2022

The Unchangeable Foundation--June 7, 2022

"For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ." [1 Corinthians 3:11]

There's an important difference between "can't" and "shouldn't."  

There are an awful lot of things in the world that are possible, but not advisable--things you can do, technically, but which you should not do.  You "can" drink and drive--in the sense that it is physically possible to consume alcohol and then get behind the steering wheel of a car--but you shouldn't do that, for the sake of your health as well as your neighbors.  You could spread misleading, incorrect, or outright deceptive misinformation and conspiracy theories on your social media feed, but it's a bad idea to do it (so please don't--please check your facts).  Even the basic premise of the classic Jurassic Park got the memo: just because you CAN clone dinosaurs in a lab and bring them back to life doesn't mean it's a wise idea to do so.  And while I hope it is obvious that we shouldn't give into hatred of other people--not because of their race or their gender, not because of their language or culture, not even when you strongly disagree with their politics or taste in music--we all know it is quite possible still to be consumed by hate.  You shouldn't, but you can.

All of that is to say that as much as "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" might have some good counsel to give us, those words don't have the power we might wish them to have.  It feels terribly hollow to say, "You shouldn't go shoot up a school" in a society where anybody still "can," after all.  All the pearl-clutching, finger-wagging, or passive wishing will not stop what people can do, even if it might be clear what they should or should not do.  The word "should" is basically offering free advice--and anybody who has made a boneheaded decision after ignoring good advice will tell you we don't always do what we "should" do.

And oddly enough, it's that difference--the difference between "cannot" and "should not"--that gives me deep hope from this statement of Paul's.  It's exactly because Paul doesn't leave things in the realm of advice, morality plays, or stern scolding that there is good news to be heard here.  Paul notably does NOT say, "Now, listen here--I don't want anybody else laying a foundation other than Jesus. You shouldn't do that, please."  He doesn't speak as though this is a question of should and should not, but rather one of what can or cannot be done.  And to hear Paul tell it, you simply CANNOT lay any other foundation than Jesus Christ at the heart of our faith.  It simply can't happen.  It's not merely that it is not recommended, or strongly discouraged, or heavily frowned upon.  It's that you can't.  

That's really important in at least two different ways.  For one, it means you can't lay a foundation other than Jesus and still have Christianity.  That is to say, when the folks in the Respectable Religious Crowd sneak something else into the center--even if it's "alongside" Jesus of Nazareth--we've lost Christianity. Even if you think you're putting something else good right alongside Jesus, you've lost Christianity. So, if you put Jesus AND your particular interpretation of the Bible as the foundation for everything, you're already on shaky ground.  Try and put Jesus AND the free market together as your foundation for everything, and get ready for the house to fall.  Jesus-plus-your-list-of-rules-for-good-behavior?  Nope--our ability to follow rules just can't bear the weight, and it buckles under the pressure.  Jesus-AND-Getting-Your-Political-Party-In-Power?  That's headed for disaster, too.  Jesus-AND-America, or Jesus-AND-The-Constitution, or Jesus-AND-My-Rights as your foundation? These are all headed for disaster, not because Jesus can't hold the weight, but because the other things we might try to add into the mix just can't hold up. So please, let us once and for all be done with trying to co-opt Jesus by tacking our own pet agendas, causes, theological systems, political ideologies, or religious rules for good behavior onto him.  He's the foundation, and nothing else--because nothing else can endure carrying everything else.  It's got to be Jesus in all of his table-turning, expectation-exploding, overflowing graciousness, without any filler or cheap cement substitutes, or the house won't stand.

But even more deeply I think Paul is also insisting something even stronger.  He's not just saying, "Don't put something else alongside of Jesus as your foundation in life, or it will be bad."  Because honestly, that's still just Paul telling us what we "should not" do--but which we all know very well that folks try to do anyway.  All sorts of counterfeit Christianities abound, each with their own extra ingredients to add to Jesus, like they're trying to invent a new cocktail and can't stand to drink the strong stuff neat.  It's not advisable, perhaps--and every so often, you'll get a brave and wise theologian calling us out for the ways we want to add more to the recipe than just Jesus and his reckless love (I'm thinking, for one, of that brilliant line of Robert Farrar Capon, who says, "Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case."

Still, I think Paul is saying something even more solid.  This is a true case of "cannot" and not merely "should not."  You literally CANNOT lay any foundation other than Jesus Christ, because Jesus himself is already the foundation of all things--the Word by which all things were created, the Beloved in who we all find our own belovedness to God, the One in whom all things hold together already.  Jesus Christ is the foundation, not just of a religion, or of the Bible, or of a theological system--Christ is the beating heart of love that resounds throughout all the universe at every moment in every possible place.  When Paul says, "You cannot build any foundation other than Jesus Christ," he's not just warning us not to make a bad substitution, like saying, "Don't switch the salt in the recipe for sugar, or confuse baking soda for baking powder."  It's more like saying, "You can't have matter without Higgs bosons--because matter literally cannot exist without the Higgs field."  It's not a warning about what we shouldn't do--it's a confident assertation about what cannot replace Christ, because he is already the very ground of being for all things.

That also means that Jesus is already the foundation and center of all creation already, and he does not need our help getting "put back" anywhere.  He cannot be "taken out" of anywhere--not a school, not a city hall, not a public square, and for that matter, not at the bottom of the Marianas trench or the ice geysers of Jupiter's moon Europa.  Jesus is already the foundation of all things, and he needs our help to "take things back" for him just as much as a lion needs our help to "take back the savannah"--which is to say, not at all.  Jesus is already immediately present to every inch of creation and every instant of time.  He doesn't need our help getting put "back" as the foundation of things, because he is already the very bedrock of all existence.

So sure, to each of us and all of us, if we have been trying to sneak some other lesser substitute or extra ingredient into the scheme of things, we should stop wasting our time.  Let's be done with Jesus-plus-religiosity, Jesus-plus-partisan-political-power, Jesus-plus-country, and absolutely Jesus-plus-more-guns.  But don't for a second think that all Paul offers us is a warning not to do something foolish like that.  He isn't just giving us advice--he is declaring that we simply CANNOT remove Jesus from his place as the foundation of all existence, the Logos that orders all the cosmos, and the Word by which all things were made.  That's good news that is solid enough to build a life on, and certainly solid enough to face the day standing on.

Lord Jesus, help us today simply to trust that you are already the foundation of all things, and to walk forward confidently and courageously, knowing you bear us up.