For The Someday Book

Highlighted Passage: 1 Corinthians 3:10-23

Construction of the Cathedral in Barcelona

I have always been fascinated by the construction of cathedrals. In the Middle Ages, when the cardinals of Europe were competing with one another to build the most magnificent edifice, craftsmen and laborers used the simplest of tools to build these spectacular buildings. Construction provided employment for hundreds, if not thousands, of workers, most of which would never live to see the fulfillment of their labors. Cathedrals took centuries to build, and the life expectancy of most workers was less than 50 years. The laborers and masons and glasscutters spent their whole lives, from an apprenticeship in their preteens until their old age, working on the project, in the hopes that their great-great grandchildren might someday worship there.

While we may build our church buildings today in a mere year or two, the process of building Christ’s church is still something that happens across centuries and generations. As Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians, the foundation has been laid in Jesus Christ. Paul, himself only one “degree” removed from Jesus and the disciples, builds upon the foundation of Jesus Christ. Each subsequent generation is tasked with continuing to build the church, to spread the good news. Like the cathedral builders of old, we inherit a project that has already been started, and we will not live to see its completion. However, if we do not continue the work that was started by those who came before us, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will not know a place to discover the grace of Jesus Christ.

My church is in the midst of the commitment phase of a capital campaign, with a planned giving period of three years. (I just have to share my glee—last Sunday was our Celebration of Commitment, and we surpassed our $350,000 goal by more than $50,000!) The theme of our campaign is “Foundations: Our Faith, Our Time, Our Future,” and we have been working with the image Paul presents in this passage. Our church was founded in 1860. The building we currently inhabit was built in 1915, and expanded in 1951. We have only one member left who was baptized in the old building prior to 1915. There are a few who were present in the 1951 expansion, but they were young people, not leaders of the church at the time. We are living in a building built by others who came before us. As we plan and imagine renovations for the future, we realize that we are not building for ourselves and our programs—we are building something for the next generation to inherit, a place for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to gather to worship and come to know Jesus Christ. We don’t know what their worship will look like, or what ministries they will launch, or how the Gospel will be made known in their generation—but we want to offer them something, an inheritance, a building where they might find shelter and connection to the holy.

In my church, we are dealing with a literal building right now—but, as it was for Paul, the building is a metaphor for what we really about, which is building the community of Christ, the Kingdom of God. How can we build God’s community, God’s message, our faithfulness so that those who come after us will continue to know the Gospel?

The question Paul’s image provokes is: how’s the building project going? Are you using the best materials available, with prayer and study? Are you dedicated to the work, or are you just throwing it together? Will your efforts to build the community of Christ stand up to the test of fire, or will it crumble under pressure? Who is being glorified by your efforts? Are you building to the glory of God and the spread of the gospel to future generations, or are you building memorials and statues to human heroes today?

One of my favorite quotations from Reinhold Niebuhr reminds me to always take the long view of all our efforts at building, whether we are constructing a church, community or ministry:

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.

Or, as Paul puts it, “all things are yours…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.”