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.
This is Truth.
ReplyDelete