Proper 7A God is our Foundation

Jimmy and I tend to watch a lot of architecturally themed shows,

you know, house building, ancient ruins, that kind of thing.

We like seeing the combination of function and design, we like seeing how things work together, and the diversity of how humans live.

While many of these shows are very different,

one of the things these shows have in common is that they always mention the foundations. The foundations are never the prettiest things. They tend to end up hidden in dirt and rock. But they are what keeps the rest of the building standing up and together.  So they are always mentioned, at least briefly. 

When it comes to ancient ruins, usually the foundations are the parts still standing when other, more decorative, parts of the building have fallen down. When I have gone to visit ancient places, I always have a tendency to look at the sewer and road systems, they are part of the foundational system of how the town works. Good foundations and sewers means the town has a higher survival and longevity rate. Bad systems tend to lead to lower survival and longevity rates... you can imagine why.

When it comes to the church, every so often we stop to examine our foundations.

These last few months have really pushed the Church to stop and look at our foundations,

to take strength in the real foundations of what it means to be the Church. 

The foundations of our Christian life together needs to be God.

Now, you'd think that would be obvious, but it isn't.

Some churches and Christian groups are based on other ideas or slogans or ideologies.

However, living into our calling as the beloved community of Jesus means

we set our foundation on God.

Our foundation in God is what will continue to hold us together in the midst of all the upheavals of the world. 

Just as the community foundations need to be strong to keep the community together,

our personal spiritual foundations need to be strong in order to keep us grounded. 

True discipleship means being grounded in God, which leads to the behavior of putting God first. Following Jesus' teachings means trying to put what Jesus put first as what you put first. And Jesus put his relationship with God first, always. He grounded everything he did in God. His foundation was God.

This is one of the ways Jesus was so radical in his teaching.

In ancient culture, family was everyone's first priority. Your family, clan, tribe, however your culture defined your closest relative group, that was the first priority in life. You worked with family, ate with family, gave to family, thought about the legacy of your family. The foundation of society and the core element of societal movement was the family. Your familial connections and status determined where, how, and what you could do in society.

Jesus was trying to be a reformer in the Jewish tradition, at least at first. He did eventually take on a larger mission, but especially in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was trying to reform the Jewish tradition. Part of what had happened in the Jewish tradition at that time was a solidifying of the tradition around the family structure, and an emphasis on religious roles and rituals which went beyond the original emphasis on God as Savior. 

Yet Jesus was teaching his disciples to put God first,

as we see in the Gospel passage from Matthew today. 

While one could argue that God is Jesus' family,

Jesus knows that putting God first, making God the foundation of life

could tear apart families in the ancient world.

We see this so often in today's world,

families are sadly regularly torn apart by different ideologies, theologies, or opinions.

The Good News of Jesus can split people apart, especially when one person decides to listen and another doesn't.

Thankfully, the life we lose because of Jesus is nowhere as amazing as the life we gain with God as our foundation. 

The invitation for us today is to examine our foundations.

As part of our work of living into our discipleship,

we can examine our foundations and see if we are grounded in God.

What is at our core, our foundation? 

We know the swirling storms are all around us. We can all feel their presence, their pressure, their wind, so in light of those storms, what holds us together? 

I hope and pray your examination will lead to the answer, yes, I am grounded in God.

But perhaps, we have become slightly off-kilter, 

perhaps we aren't fully living into our foundation in God right now.

What does it look like to have God as our foundation?

Being grounded in God means taking time with God. Time to pray or do spiritual reading or simply listening to what God might be saying to you.  It means grounding all our decisions in prayer and discernment.  It looks like couples praying together about situations and decisions before talking about them. It looks like people staying in touch with the scriptures. It looks like the whole community working together in discernment for the mission of the gospel. It looks like talking with children and teens and family members and friends about what God is doing in our lives. It looks like people taking perspective on issues and looking at them from God's perspective or trying to find out what God is doing before reacting to them. It looks like speaking in a public sphere from a place of God's love and abundance, instead of scarcity or fear. It looks like looking for healthy and personal ways to reach out to community in order to share God's love and mission in the world. 

As a community, I think it is good to take this opportunity to recommit ourselves to being grounded in God. To remember our baptismal vows (and we just reaffirmed them two weeks ago!) and to find ways to remember them daily in our lives. 

A strong foundation in God will hold us together throughout all the storms and stresses of our lives. 

As God said to Isaiah in promise of the goodness to come, (28:16)

See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: 'One who trusts will not panic.'"

Jesus Christ is our sure foundation.

Amen.