You’ve got to start somewhere. Everything has a beginning point and usually that thing or that project or that idea builds upward and outward from there. Having been involved with home renovation, Habitat builds as a coach and builder, and professional pipe organ building as a woodworker, I know for a fact how important a beginning is. When I was in seminary I went to my first Habitat build and got to work side by side with a very wise contractor who was also an excellent coach. He shared some very important advice with me. If you begin working on the jobs that fall at the end of a project you will develop an understanding and an appreciation for the steps that proceed it. Example. We were hanging sheetrock on the studs of a townhouse. Some of the boards were difficult to get to hang correctly and we had to do weird angle cuts to get it to work and make a pretty room. This didn’t “fix” the underlying problem, just cover it over. The problem was that the folks that had built the stud walls had not kept their pieces square and even. We were able to cover over so many might be tempted to say, “So what, why does it really matter?” For that answer I would love for you to see my bathroom shower. That sounds sort of creepy, but we are talking construction here not showers.
My shower doors look odd and will not shut properly. It appears as though they are hanging crooked, as they slide closed on the bottom and not at the top. I thought maybe a hanger needs adjusting. Not so. After really looking at all the aspects of the doors I realized that one of the walls of the apartment was not plumb and perpendicular or square. Those doors can’t ever be right. So even though the drywall makes it appear all good, the construction is flawed and will always pose a problem. That contractor was so right and what a fantastic lesson to learn in life, as it helps me each and every day, even outside of construction. Another lesson that I learned is that a problem or mistake can transmit way on down the line. If the span of a truss or support under the ground floor of a house is wrong or changes it affects the engineering and integrity of the roof. So the further back in the process a mistake is made or that someone was careless or that a material failed the more impact it has on the overall project. The easiest example I can give is that of cutting paper from a pattern. You never want to cut from a pattern and use the new piece as the pattern. If you do, and repeat this process over and over your pattern will grow and the pieces will not fit. This is the rule of compounding errors. If you continue to transmit errors one on top of another, they will grow. You have to keep to the original pattern.
One last story. We had a cinder block building with a wood burning cookstove in it. We need a counter and a cold water sink so that it would be easier to cook out there. The floor was not poured with that in mind. It was poured so that the room could be sprayed out and the water would run out a hole in one corner. Fantastic idea for mice and snakes by the way. Step one plug hole. So this floor was irregular and not level. I was trying to get this counter and sink to be level on it. I kept cutting legs because I didn’t want it to be sitting on a bunch of shims and blocks which would make it unstable and prone to falling. I got really frustrated until I remembered that my neighbor had shown me the trick for just such a thing. I couldn’t remember exactly how to do it so he came over and walked me through it. You make the counter or whatever level in the exact place it’s going to sit using blocks, shims or whatever and you find the corner with the highest pile of shims. That becomes your perfect corner. You get a block that is tall enough to fill the gap between the floor and the bottom of the leg and lay a pencil on top of it. You then use that block and pencil to mark the bottom of each leg from the floor of the sitting level and shimmed-up counter. You then flip the counter and saw at the marks. When you flip it back over and sit it in place it’s like magic. No wobble. Remember, find the right corner and start from there. That’s how houses and buildings are still laid out.
Buildings are built up from the foundation. Remember the compounding errors? The foundation is the beginning and that corner? That corner is the beginning of the beginning and the foundation of the foundation and it is the most critical piece to get right. Errors there affect everything. Peter points back to psalm 118 where it states that, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” The early makers of cornerstones worked diligently to perfect and square that stone, the first one laid, so that their foundation would come out square, plumb and true and humanity does not always acknowledge God’s metrics for righteousness. We tend to square our stones with rules, bias, prejudice, self-interest, greed etc. So the true stone, that living stone, as Peter put it is Jesus who is the beginning of the beginning and the foundation of the foundation.
The very first thing written in the book of John tells us this. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” He goes on to tell us that even though the world came into being through him that world did not know him or accept him. He was rejected because he did not live up to our squaring metrics, yet God established the Kingdom not on our metrics or our desires but on God’s love for us, so he sent us a stone that was square by the metrics of Grace and Truth, Justice and Love. Here is our cornerstone, our perfect corner, our starting place on which our faith and our hope is built. Remember that great hymn? I wonder if you are already humming it. My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. No merit of my own I claim But wholly lean on Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand All other ground is sinking sand. When darkness veils his lovely face I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale My anchor holds within the veil. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. His oath, his covenant, his blood Supports me in the ‘whelming flood When all around my soul gives way He then is all my hope and stay On Christ the solid rock I stand All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.
So we are called to build the kingdom upon this foundation. We will make errors, we will sin, we will mess up, but with a perfect and solid foundation our misteps can be corrected through love and forgiveness and that compounding error of a faulty foundation, and poor cornerstone will not follow and plague us. During this COVID time let’s think about this rock, this cornerstone, because this surely is a storming gale and a whelming flood. God came to earth in Jesus and experienced the gales and storms of life. The sadness, the pain, the loss, the rejection. Even his closest friends deserted him, betrayed him and denied him and he died alone but for two criminals, one who derided him, on the cross because he would not abandon us. He did not give up on us, nor did he quit or take the easy way out. He met the overwhelming floods and gales with overwhelming Grace and love.
So let us meet this challenge, this virus, this pandemic, this life of gales and floods of sadness, adversity and woe with overwhelming love, forgiveness, generosity, compassion and care for one another. In building, if you follow the straight line dictated by the cornerstone you can see where to go and how to build without compounding error upon error. If we follow this line of grace, if we follow his example, if we build upon the cornerstone we will lift one another up from this sinking sand. We will build the kingdom of God stone by stone, child of God by child of God, never giving up on one another.
Martin Luther points out in “A Mighty Fortress” that we will face mountains of adversity and evils. He wrote, “And though this world, with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us. The Prince of Darkness grim,— We tremble not for him; His rage we can endure, For lo! His doom is sure,— One little word shall fell him. During the Reformation they wanted Luther to give up, to give in to say one little word “Revoco” I recant, I take it back, I give up, I quit. But despite threats of being burned at the stake he held on to his one little word. Is that word “Grace”? Is it “Faith”? I haven’t found Luther’s explanation, but I like Reed Nelson’s observation. Jesus was the Word made flesh and hanging on a cross of shame he appeared small, weak and little, but through the cross of Christ, that little word, we have been granted the power to be children of God and inheritors of God’s kingdom.
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