Building on the Ruins

 How can we rebuild our society? It's broken, and we all know it. COVID-19, police brutality, political corruption, and ideological polarization -- what do we do about it? Where in the world do we go from here? This sermon offers the beginning of an answer. I hope it will be helpful to you.

I invite you to take a journey with me to the land of Israel, a land rich with history that has been inhabited for thousands of years. As we stand in the countryside, we see that the landscape is dotted with small, flat-topped hills. Each one is silent evidence that a city once flourished at that location. We’re going to explore the interior of one such hill, a large one that sits where two ancient trade routes crossed. During the four thousand years of its existence, that hill has watched civilizations rise and fall.

On the very top of the hill, a the remains of a Roman structure are evidence that a garrison of troops was once quartered there. The remains are businesslike, constructed of sturdy masonry blocks, typical of Roman efficiency. Its military days are long past, though.

Beneath the Roman ruins lies a city from the Iron Age, perhaps one from the glorious days of Solomon. The city is well-planned, and its buildings are large for their day. In the far corner of one such building, we find storage jars, still intact after almost three thousand years. Someone was careful to make sure that provisions were stored well.

Deeper still is a layer that yields very little. We find only a grinding stone, a small oven, some pottery fragments, and a circle of stones that may have braced a tent support. Perhaps this was once the home of wandering nomads like Abraham.

By the time that we reach the lowest level, we have travelled more than four thousand years into the past. We are all the way back in the Bronze Age, before the technology needed to produce iron had been discovered. But even here we find evidence of habitation! We uncover a massive building, at least two stories tall, that might have been a palace or a temple. Built of mud brick on a stone foundation, it was built to last for generations. That building lies in ruins now. All of it has been destroyed: intentionally leveled and then burned. The building blocks of mudbrick have been toppled from their foundations. They rest at odd angles that no builder ever intended. The foundations have been torn apart. The building stones that once were carefully arranged to support the structure are now in disarray, scattered over the whole area like huge grey marbles. In one corner, we find lumps of charcoal among the foundation stones. Was it once furniture that was burned in the fire; or wooden beams that formed the frame of the building? It’s a bit of a surprise! We don’t expect to find a disorganized ruin at the bottom of such a big hill! How can a place that has been occupied for such a long time sit on a foundation like this? And yet, here it is. This place that was inhabited for over four thousand years is built on ruins.

Nowadays, we don’t build on ruins. We aren’t like the people of ancient civilizations who rebuilt on the foundation of what existed before them. We would much rather get rid of the remains of the past. Oh, we might keep a few mementoes – a brick or two from the old schoolhouse where we went to kindergarten – but then we get out the bulldozer and tear everything down. We get rid of all the mess and smooth out the ground so that we can build on a clean site. But we can’t always do that. Sometimes, when parts of our lives have fallen down around our ears, we have to build something new on the ruins that lie around us. And that’s not always a bad thing. The past can provide a very good foundation on which to build as we move into the future.

We are surrounded by ruins right now. We are sitting among the ruins of what we once relied on. Our physical security has fallen down around us as COVID-19 silently invaded our environment without our knowing it. Our emotional security has tumbled down like a house of cards, because our nation has become so polarized that even our own families sometimes condemn us for what we believe. Even the institutions that are supposed to protect us have been unmasked as imperfect. The police departments who are doing their best to maintain civic order have been infiltrated by white racists who treat Black citizens more severely than they do Whites. Where do we go from here? We sit in the ruins and look around us at the jumbled mess of our old ways of life and wonder, “How in the world do we rebuild?” The answer is that we find a good foundation on which to build, and go from there.

But what foundation is that? Is it medical science? That is certainly a part of a good foundation, but it’s not all of it. Medical science can do many things, but it has its limits, as the COVID crisis has shown us so clearly. Is it the stock market? Heavens, no! It bounces up and down like a yo-yo, and sometimes it collapses. That’s not a good foundation, either. Is it unquestioning obedience to authority? Some people say that it is. But that won’t work, either, since the authority in our nation is bitterly divided, and we all know it. Besides, all human authority is sinful and limited. No, that’s not the foundation that we want! Where can we turn for the foundation on which to rebuild wisely?

Our strong foundation is found in the Holy Scriptures, and in the 2000-year-old Christian tradition that has evaluated and reevaluated itself as it has tried to faithfully follow Jesus Christ. How do we build on that foundation, though? We begin with ourselves. We’re all pretty good with our relationships with Jesus. We all know how to pray and meditate; we all seek the guidance of the Spirit in our personal lives; and we all know that Jesus is walking beside us through tough times. But when we talk about rebuilding on the ruins of our society, we have moved beyond a personal relationship with Jesus into the realm of the community. Are Christian voices being heard as we join in doing that?

Let me give you just one example of what I’m talking about. The Bible talks a lot about being not only a community of faith, but a faithful community, too. A faithful community not only cares for itself, it cares for others, too, who are not a part of that community. Deuteronomy, for example, says over and over that God has a special love for “the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant,” people who had no way of supporting themselves in that ancient world. “[God] defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves the immigrant, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are immigrants, for you yourselves were immigrants in Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:18-19) Are we speaking up for the immigrants who have had their children torn away from them, and put into detention centers where they get no medical care? Are we speaking up for the children, who have been torn away from their parents and put into camps that are thinly-disguised prisons? As Christians, our voices should be speaking out on their behalf, and working to build a world where even people who are not citizens of our country are treated fairly. What about young adults in the foster care system who are removed from their foster parents when they turn 18 and are left to fend for themselves. Are we raising our voices about that? And let’s not forget the widow who has to get by on only her monthly Social Security and can’t afford to get her leaky plumbing fixed? Are we raising our voices on her behalf?

Of course, the Bible doesn’t just talk about the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant. The Hebrew prophets condemn the rich who have amassed their money by taking advantage of the poor. (What do you think that Jesus would say about loan sharks masquerading as payday lenders?) Jesus condemns anyone who doesn’t care about other people who are not just like they are. (What do you think the parable of the Good Samaritan is all about?) And from the first chapter of Genesis, the Bible calls us to care for the earth. Jesus even tells us that God cares about sparrows! (What do you think Jesus would say about our abusing the earth in the name of profits?)

The world is in ruins right now; and we Christians can help to rebuild it. But we can only do that if we not only know what the Bible says, but also raise our voices in support of those God cares about: the poor, the oppressed, the immigrant, and even the earth itself. The scripture is our secure foundation for working together to build a world that is full of opportunity and justice for all; one where all men and women – Black, White, Brown, and any other color of the rainbow – will have truly be equal. Jonathan Martin recently wrote: “I am an optimist by nature, and hopeful by choice, because I believe in a God who resurrects the dead. And I hear bright, clear prophetic voices from the margins refusing to let the center ignore them, sons and daughters speaking truth, elders who tell stories of faithful resistance… and people who are waking up for the first time. …I have moments when I can glimpse something of what could and must yet come, and it is beautiful. And yes, I do believe in being the change you want to see in the world… [and] focusing on the small things you can change: all the things I am not only supposed to say, but really do believe.” We can help to build on the ruins by standing on a firm foundation, by raising our voices so that we are part of the conversation, and by holding on to hope so tightly that it becomes a part of us. And may the Spirit guide us as we do it.