Building Blocks (1 Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23)

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 2/23/14

There is one movie that is out in theaters now that I cannot wait to go see. It has been the top at the box offices for the past two weeks. The movie that I cannot wait to go see is “The Lego Movie” I don’t know if you’ve seen ads for it but it is an action adventure movie in which all of the characters in the movies are Lego people.  While the movie itself looks funny and there are many great voice actors in it, the reason that I want to go see it so badly is probably because Legos remind me of my childhood.  Legos were a great toy to play with, small little blocks, different sizes and different colors, that you could stack on top of each other in order to create some wonderful structures. I loved playing with Legos except there was one small problem; I was horrible at building with Legos. In my mind I would have pictures of amazing bridges or castles that I was going to build, which then in reality turned into rickety oblong structures that one would really have to use their imagination to see a castle. My problem was that I had no sense of construction, no sense of building. I would want to build a castle but not understand the foundation that first must be laid.  I would want to build a bridge, but just quite couldn’t figure out how to stack rectangle blocks on top of each other in order to make an arch. People would walk by and ask me, “what are you building?”  I got so bad at Legos that eventually I started buying ( or my parents started buying me)  Lego sets that had directions for how to build what was on the cover of the box.  For example you would have step by step instructions for where to put each certain piece in order to make something like a spaceship or a car. Thank goodness, for the folks who put those things together with instructions to help poor little kids like me who knew nothing about building.

            Paul on the other did know a lot about building.  No, he may not have been able to construct a building or a bridge, but Paul certainly understood what it took to build a church, what it took to build up the Body of Christ. While we have seen this at play throughout our sermon series, today as we conclude our series, Paul seems to drive the point home. Paul in fact even uses the analogy of building in order to explain further to the Corinthians what it takes to build up the Body of Christ. Much of what Paul says to the Corinthians is nothing new; in fact much of it in a way recaps what he has been saying from the very beginning.

             While using the analogy of building a structure of some sort,  Paul argues that you much first start with a strong foundation.  It is no surprise then what Paul tells the Corinthians the foundation must be; that is of course Jesus Christ. We have heard this before from Paul.  We are all members of the body of Christ and Jesus Christ is the head. Everything that we have is from God and everything that we are able to do is through the grace of God.  It is nothing new for us to recognize that all life of the church, all life as the body of Christ must center around Christ, but this analogy may really help to drive the point home. There are many who can identify with a step by step approach to addressing an issue, like me and my lego sets a step by step direction for how to build up the body of Christ.  Paul cannot make step one any more clear. Step 1: Lay a foundation with the foundation being Jesus Christ. Any other foundation will eventually end in ruin. Like my Legos I can start with a piece and go from there and for a while it may even look  correct, but you get to a point where you can’t go any further, you get to a point where it all falls apart and that is because you did not start with the proper foundation.  The proper foundation, the only foundation for the Body of Christ, is Jesus Christ.

            Paul moves on in his analogy of building and notes that after the foundation of Jesus Christ is laid, we continue to build upon that foundation, and at the same time we are part of that building, of that structure being built. Paul talks about how he himself helped to lay the groundwork for the church in Corinth, and we have seen him earlier in the chapter acknowledge that Apollos also played a large role in cultivating and developing the church. At the same time the people of Corinth themselves have put a lot of work and heart into the growth of that church. With Jesus Christ as the foundation, these leaders and members of the church have helped it to grow.

            And yet though they helped it to grow, Paul makes the distinction that they are part of it. He says, “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.” Now you may have heard before someone say that your body is a temple and therefore you must take care of your body; though our scripture for today sounds a lot like this; this is not what Paul is saying here, that comes later in chapter 6.  Instead when Paul says do you not know that you are God’s Temple he is using the plural for you.  In my Greek class in seminary we would sometimes joke that southerners have it right when it comes to languages because like Greek, we have a word for the plural of you, that is of course ya’ll. This is what Paul is saying, “Do ya’ll not know that ya’ll are God’s temple and God’s Spirit dwells in ya’ll. For God’s temple is holy and ya’ll are that temple. This changes how we think about how we read this passage. We are not talking about our individual being as being holy (though it is), Paul is telling us that together, collectively we are God’s holy Temple.

            Once again this is nothing new for us, it is just another reiteration of the fact that together we are the Body of Christ. But here Paul uses the metaphor of the Temple to warn them against defiling God’s Temple. “So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours,
whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or 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.”  Paul once again brings up the conflict that has been happening in the church, once again he acknowledges the divide caused by different leaders, and this time he is telling them that it is defiling the Temple of God, for they are the Temple of God. That they are this Temple resting on top of the foundation of Jesus Christ, and instead of being a steady base to further build from, they rip and tear, they go off in their own directions and Paul warns that if they do not stop, if they do not unite then they will crumble back down to the foundation.  We are building and yet we are the building.

            While Paul’s words for the most part simply reiterate what we have already discussed throughout this sermon series as we have discussed becoming the Body of Christ, this analogy of building may give us a couple of insights about the Church that the analogy of the body might not suggest.  This first is that we need to recognize and observe what we are building upon. Recognizing what we are building upon is two-fold. The first aspect is to appreciate that we are not starting from scratch.  We are not building from the ground up because there have been many faithful Christians who have paved the way for us. Sometimes we feel like we have to reinvent the wheel, that we have to come up with something that is totally new and original, but as the old cliché goes, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.  As United Methodists, as Christians we have a rich heritage, a rich tradition that we can learn and grow from. Leaders in the early church have already wrestled with some of the most difficult discussions of our faith, including the trinity, the role of the church, Jesus’s humanity and Jesus’ divinity.  In fact each week we profess these things in worship through our affirmation of faith, but that creed that we say each week took many years of debates and wrestling with scripture for our early church leaders to develop. We now simply have the benefit of learning and understanding the thought, prayer, and work that they have already put into expressing our faith beliefs. It doesn’t just stop with the earliest church but we can look at the founder of Methodism John Wesley and what he has taught us about grace through his own wrestling with scripture and through his sermons. We can appreciate and learn from the call for social justice from Boehm and Otterbein,  leaders of the Evangelical United Brethren, which merged with Methodism in the US  and is where we get the United from in United Methodist.  We can learn from the movement of a few women in Methodism who gathered for the purpose of education and mission and which grew into the powerful organization we now know as the UMW. And we can learn from those members of this very church who have served before us. Who built this church as a mission to the community, who taught Sunday school, who gave generously of their time and gifts. When we gather as the body of Christ we gather in appreciation for those who have faithful served before us. We gather knowing that we do not have to start from scratch but simply build onto the rich tradition that has come before us.

            But when we reflect upon the fact that others have built before us, we must also examine what it is that we are building upon.  As I said earlier there is so much passed down to us through our tradition that can help to shape, and guide us in our own service to God, but we must recognize that not everything passed down to us is helpful.  One of the biggest killers of any church is the phrase “because that’s how we’ve always done it.”  The problem is not that it has always been done that way, there was probably a reason why it was originally done that way. The problem arises when we no longer understand why we do something, but simply do it because that’s the way it’s always been done.  Sometimes what we build upon can lead us off of our foundation.  A church with an unspoken tradition of being exclusive, or a tradition in which the laity of the church have no responsibilities, these are not helpful traditions, these are Legos hanging of the edge of the foundation, that if we continue to build upon will cause  us to topple. We must take time to examine what it is we are building upon. When we do that we may also rediscover the original intention of something that we have always done, and in doing so renew a vigor in our spiritual life. I heard the story of one church that had a tradition of having a monthly meal as something the church had always done. At one of their council meetings the discovered that this meal was costing them a great deal, and someone called into question what was the point, since members just came and ate together. One of the older members of the congregation spoke up and said that when they started, it was a meal for the less fortunate in the community in which they would serve guests and then eat with them, and slowly over the years it has just turned into a members meal. Well this reminder sparked a new fire in the church and they set out to once again make the meal a time of service to the community.

            That leads us to our final point, is that as part of this body, as part of the Holy Temple that Paul tells us we are a part of, we must not only examine what it is it that we are building upon, but also what are we going to leave to be built upon. Just as so many have come before us paving the way for our ability to worship and serve, we must also think about what we are going to leave for the church after us.  Are we going to leave a massive heap for our later generations to have to sort through, or even for them to leave in rubble, or are we going to build upon that strong foundation of Jesus Christ, and the solid work of those who have served before us. And we must also question what it is we are building toward? Are we building toward a guarantee of our own personal salvation and a plot in the graveyard for our bodies when we die, or are we building towards a church, a body,  kingdom in which God’s mercy and justice reigns and we live in peace in love with our brothers and sisters.  Are we building for personal reasons, or are we building in praise and gratitude for the grace we have received through the Lord almighty. Are we building with hope that we can help to build up the Kingdom of God until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.   As we close our sermon series today we close having explored what it means to be the body of Christ. That we are all important members of this body, and that Christ is the head that leads us. That we are called to obtain the mind of Christ and that we can do that through the grace we receive through the power of the Holy Spirit. We have learned that true growth first starts within, with us seeking to be drawn into closer communion with Christ and with each other, but as we close we realize that we do not stop there. That we are part of something built before and that will last far after we are gone. We realize that we are building on a firm foundation, and that we have the ability to build towards something extraordinary. And so as a church, as the body of Christ, reflecting upon all we have learned we must ask ourselves as we go forward, what are we building, and what are we building towards?