The foundation is exposed in the sanctuary, the concrete solid beneath your feet as you walk on it. The impression you get when you stand there is that this is substantial, that all the things that happen in the space are grounded in something that cannot be moved.
It is an illusion, of course. I mean the concrete is real, and it is substantial and well-built. But one day, it will be gone, the concrete itself turned back into the sand and water from which it came. That’s one of the reasons we are writing on that solid foundation today, because we believe that even more substantial than the concrete floor is what happens on it, and that has been symbolized today in a real way by those of you who have taken the time to walk in there and write on the concrete, and those of you who will.
Forever on those floors will be words that commemorate the day when two people were joined in marriage, or a baby was baptized, or the names and ages of a family with the words below from Jeremiah, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans for a hope and a future.”
What the words signify is a foundation that goes far beyond bricks and mortar. Indeed, what they signify is what makes that concrete foundation even possible are lives lived in response to God’s grace, following Christ.
The words Jesus speaks today are words that conjure up two types of foundations – one of rock and one of sand. Two homes are built. The buildings themselves might not look very different on the outside. But when the rains come and the winds blow and the flood waters rise, whether the house stands or falls has everything to do with the foundation. And the foundation that will stand is one that is made up of those who have heard the words of Jesus and lived by them – done them.
The “these words of mine” referenced is the Sermon on the Mount, which Jesus has just concluded. Delivered from a mountain, the sermon should make us reflect on Moses and the giving of the Law from Mt. Sinai. Jesus preaches this sermon in a way that astounds the listeners, because he doesn’t use footnotes. “He teaches on the basis of his own authority.” He doesn’t quote Rabbi so-and-so, like the scribes. Indeed, he seems to go beneath the surface of scripture to the heart of God’s will. “You have heard it was once said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”
“You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
The whole sermon, three chapter’s worth, is Jesus’ insistence that there is another way to live in the world, a way that radically redefines achievement and worth, a way that if followed would transform the world. The Sermon on the Mount reads like the law of God, but with all the words and regulations peeled back to reveal the very beating heart of God. This, says Jesus, this is what God intends, not just for the church, but for the nation, for the world.
All of this makes me think of Alexander Hamilton. I mean, who knew that he could be single-handedly resurrected by a Broadway show? Chandler Belle gave me a copy of the book that serves as the inspiration for the show for my birthday and said she wanted to read it after me.
“Alexander Hamilton? Really?”
So I have been reading it and getting drawn into the story of this man, who is unfortunately most known for his duel with Aaron Burr (don’t worry, no spoilers here, so that’s all I’ll say about that). He was a fascinating and passionate person, which worked itself out in some constructive and some destructive ways. I probably heard in a history class somewhere what I am re-learning reading this book – that Hamilton attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787 in Philadelphia, but did not participate much in its drafting because he thought there should be a much stronger central government. He was labeled an extremist by many of his colleagues there. Ultimately, though, he signed the new Constitution, as a show of unity, and because he believed it was a foundation on which to build.
As we gather here, our nation prepares to celebrate its independence tomorrow. In the end, independence was about an idea – that a nation could be ruled not by a monarch, but by words on a page, a document that would ground a nation of laws and not kings, a foundation not on a golden throne, but on parchment.
And we’ve been growing into it ever since. When it was written, women could not vote, slavery was legal, and a whole host of rights were denied to persons for a variety of reasons. But even in the midst of those realities, the words were there in the Constitution, grounded by that Declaration of Independence we will celebrate tomorrow: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…”
These words, and the Constitution to which they gave birth, is a foundation on which to write, on which to build.
When President Abraham Lincoln stood on the blood-soaked fields of Gettysburg and said, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” he was returning to the foundation and building on it.
When Susan B. Anthony was convicted of voting in the 1872 presidential election, she defended herself by saying, “The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution all alike propose to protect the people in the exercise of their God-given rights. Not one of them pretends to bestow rights.” She was returning to the foundation and building on it.
When Martin Luther King, Jr. stood at the mall in Washington in front of the Lincoln Memorial, he returned to a foundation much more solid than the marble and stone behind him, and said, “When the architects of our Great Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.”
And you remember the end of that speech, “I still have a dream. It is deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
And each generation of Americans – liberal or conservative or moderate , Republican or Democratic, red state or blue state, of all religions and races – each generation has its opportunity to build on the dynamic foundation, made up of nothing but words. Perhaps Benjamin Franklin understood the real task better than most when he emerged from the secret deliberations of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and an anxious citizen waiting outside, a Ms. Powell, asked him, “Well doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” It is said that with no hesitation, Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Joan Chittister in the book many of us are reading this summer, makes the point that it is easy for us to define ourselves by our achievements, by the outward appearance of things, to confuse the nature of a position, or a status, or a success, with what it means to be a person. We must be grounded in something beyond these trappings, or it is easy to be blown to and fro by the winds and the waves.
“The last lines of the Sermon on the Mount warn those who have heard the sermon that they must not just listen to Jesus’ words and then forget them, or even listen to Jesus’ words and cherish them as lovely ideas,” or even be astounded by them and their authority, but they must put Jesus’ words into action.
The sermon serves as a kind of Constitution for the church, a living foundation which serves as a rule of life. And as Thomas Long reminds us, “The sermon expresses God’s will not just for the church but also for the world. The commands of the sermon describe what it means to be fully human, and not just religious.”
In many ways they serve as the backdrop of our own Constitution and the inspiration for those who have built on it.
“Only a life based on the vision embodied in the sermon can stand firm and true when all the storms of life have done their worst. There are many houses in the human community. The houses of greed wash away when the rains of economic crisis come. The house of power collapses when the political climate changes. The house of pragmatic living-for-the-moment slips off the foundation when life opens up with a mystery like birth, deep suffering, or death. Only those who ‘strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness’ build a dwelling that tempests cannot shake and the gates of hell cannot destroy.”
It’s right there, in these words. A living foundation. But we cannot build on it alone. We cannot walk in this way alone. Ask the high school youth who just returned from New Orleans, where together they built on the foundation. Ask the Stephen Ministers who walk alongside those in need of spiritual friendship, building on the foundation. Ask the Sunday school class that this morning wrestles with these words together, building on the foundation. We build by responding to God’s grace, together.
Or go in the sanctuary and read the words written on the foundation, words of scripture and prayer and remembrances, all testifying that we build on, we write on, the foundation together, testifying to a foundation much deeper and more real than that concrete.
I like to imagine an older woman standing off to the side, and when Jesus finished the Sermon on the Mount and was walking down, asked him, “So, teacher, what have we got – a monarchy or a rebellion, and Jesus replying, “A life, real and true, if you can keep it.”
By God’s grace alone, let us embrace and keep the life he offers, together. Amen.