Don Friesen
I have learned, the hard way, that it's best to hire someone to build things for me. In fact, in the last several years I have had to hire people to build things that I built previously, but built shoddily! It's not that I want to build thing poorly – I'm doing the very best I can – and that's okay for birdhouses and garden sheds, but a house is only devalued by any enhancements I make to it.
One person built a home for his family on what he considered a prime location. Their lot was right on a creek. They fell in love with the property the first time they saw it – large trees, a place for a tree house for the kids, and a gentle stream as one of the property boundaries. A terrific place for a home, so they built there. Later that year they had 21 inches of rain in seven days, and the gentle stream grew in minutes to a roaring giant 500 feet wide and ten feet deep! A neighbour had 40 tons of rock deposited in his yard to staunch the creek's flow. The creek kept rising and rising until they were just about to abandon the place! They moved the next year.
The Case for Building on Sand
Jesus told a story about two builders, and it's not a particularly complex story. It goes something like this:
I was thinking about it, and I started to play devil's advocate, asking myself: Might there be good reasons to build on sand? If you build on sand, for example, you regularly get a new house. It also means you have access to the beach. Sitting on the beach, basking in the sun, your feet on the warm sand, brings to mind all sorts of scriptural allusions, like God's promise to Abraham and Sarah: "I will ...bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore." (Genesis 22:17) It calls to mind Solomon's wisdom; the Scriptures say that his "understanding (was) as vast as the sand on the seashore...." (1 Kings 4:29) Then there is Isaiah's promise that "the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water...." (Isaiah 35:7) And sand produces pearls, calling to mind Jesus' pearl of great price! (Matthew 13:46)
Building on sand provides many opportunities for new beginnings. If the rain and wind wash away your home every now and then, you get a new start! That sounds biblical: new life! (Romans 7:6) A new start! These sand-lessons are also applicable to life; for example, if you build a relationship on sand, you get a new relationship quite often! In our modern culture the notion of permanence is just that, a notion! Permanent relationships are a relic of the past. We should adapt to changing times and impermanence.
As I got carried away with these arguments I remembered a sermon I preached several years ago on ten reasons not to tithe your income. Unfortunately some people went away with the wrong idea and gave me ten additional reasons not to tithe. By the time I left church that day I had enough material for a second sermon on not tithing! This, despite the warning that I was preaching that sermon in the spirit of C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters (1942). I have not learned much carpentry over the years, but I have learned to use irony sparingly.
The Case for Building on a Solid Foundation
Jesus' story about the two builders is not rocket science, and even I understand that it's important to build anything on a solid foundation. However, there is no shortage of people who build homes in precarious locations. There is no shortage of homes enjoying wonderful views while the hills holding them up are eroding right beneath them.
Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, the aftermath of which has focussed no little criticism on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who built the flood-walls in soggy soils. Time magazine reported that they built levees "in soils with the stability of oatmeal". (Michael Grunwald, "The Threatening Storm," Time, August 20, 2007) Their mistakes were inexcusable, and lethal. The damage was overwhelming, despite the fact that Katrina was not even a Category 5 hurricane; it was Category 3 or less! Building a city, a home, a church, or a relationship on something with the stability of oatmeal is not recommended!
Sometimes we build the things of the spirit on questionable foundations. An American colleague (John Buchanan) tells of growing up during the days when fear of the Soviet Union was so intense that his fifth-grade teacher had the class practice "Duck and Cover," an exercise in which the Grade five students hid under their desks several times a day. The teacher described to them what was going to happen when the Soviet bombs hit their community – in such gruesome detail – that the entire class went home crying, convinced that it was all over, and expecting to find their homes and parents incinerated.
It's tempting to build intangible things on the basis of fear because fear is a powerful motivator, but it is a false foundation upon which to build anything. It is particularly antithetical to our existence as a community of faith, which is built on a foundation of love. "There is no fear in love," say the Scriptures, "...perfect love casts out fear...." (1 John 4:18)
Where Shall We Build the Church?
It's important to build the Church, like a home, on a solid foundation. Jesus told Peter, "You are Peter" – a Aramaic name meaning rock-like – "and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18) I like to think that Jesus had his tongue in his cheek when he said that, because Peter's personality also had the stability of oatmeal. On the other hand, Peter grew in faith and turned out to be a very strong and faithful Christian witness on whose work the Church rests. Paul, in fact, refers to Peter as one of the "pillars" of the Church (Galatians 2:9), one of those rock-solid people whose support for the Church is without question. Peter, in turn, referred to Jesus as the "cornerstone" of the Church (1 Peter 2:6-7) – that stone which holds everything together, which gives the walls their true line, and to which all the other stones are fitted.
I think that the Apostle Paul aptly summarized Jesus' story of the two builders when he wrote, "No one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 3:11)
It's one thing when building houses to make a mistake on cosmetic matters, like the colour of a wall; it's quite another to build a house on a faulty foundation. The same goes for personal, marital, familial, congregational or spiritual matters. The Scriptures assume we will experience numerous stress points in life. Therefore it is important that we build our life on a strong, spiritual foundation. Jesus concluded his seminal Sermon on the Mount with this counsel:
This is not rocket science! In fact, it's hard to build an entire sermon on it – even a short one! Maybe there's a hidden meaning to the story. Maybe the story's too clever by a half and I'm just don't get it. Maybe it takes someone with more construction skills than I have to appreciate the nuances of this story.
"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock." (verse 24)
Quotations of Scripture are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.