Fear not to build

"And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine."

His lord answered and said unto him, "Thou wicked and slothful servant!"

-- Matt. 25:25-26

I recently read this passage in Roger Hathaway's The Mystic Passion.

Now, entertain in your imagination for a moment, a world of diverse spiritual people who have such confidence in their own spiritual truths that they can permit others to differ and grant truths might be understood differently by other persons. Since the Spirit of God motivates within a seeker such insights for the purpose of that person's path of enlightenment, is it not incumbent upon us to stand aside and permit the God to do His own work? In such a world of loving and communing and worshiping of our eternal Father, there might be many differing opinions, many discussions, sincere arguments, formulations of defenses (apologies), and intense studies. 

So what if one person believes the Holy Spirit of God to be a separate person from the Father while another believes it to be the extension of the essence and power of the Eternal Father himself? So what if one person believes Jesus to be co-eternal with the Father for a three-person-God while another person believes him to be begotten as a Word spoken in time? So what if one person believes Baptism should be by immersion and another by anointing? Spiritual fellowship need not be endangered but could be enhanced as the sharing of speculations and discussions! 

There would be no hatred or anger, no insistence upon agreement, no condemnations of fellow seekers, no inquisitions, no organizations claiming exclusive rights of salvation. What there would be: implicit confidence that God is great enough to guide His own children to Himself in His own way. This God of all-that-is has never been so emotionally sensitive that He cannot tolerate the stumbling of his children while they learn to walk. As any mother reaches down to help a baby who has stumbled, so does God pull into His heart with special love a child who sincerely reaches toward him. It is hardly comprehensible to my mind that the so-called church of a loving God could fail to recognize the simple love that a mother knows instinctively.

Shortly thereafter, as part of my project of listening to the entire Bible read aloud, I listened to the following passage in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (3:10-16).

According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.

If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 

Christ never intended that we should take his teachings as some finished and inviolable Temple, complete in every way, to be passively received, codified in creeds, and propagated. The Sower has sown his Word, and we who receive are to bring forth fruit -- new Word -- some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.

Some are hesitant to build on the foundation that is Christ, hesitant to think "beyond what has been revealed." Yes, much of what we build will turn out to be stubble and straw -- are we better builders than the incomparable Thomas Aquinas? -- but that is a finite loss, a risk well worth taking. We ourselves will be saved, and who knows if some of what we have built will survive as a precious stones in the Temple of God. In John's vision of the New Jerusalem descending from heaven, he notes that "the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones" (Rev. 21:19) and goes on to list specific stones which his readers would have recognized as symbols of the twelve tribes of Israel -- that is, of God's people scattered throughout the nations. We -- we mere mortals -- are to be the precious stones garnishing the foundations.

The only danger is in becoming too attached to one's thoughts, in identifying with them, and thus being unwilling to part with them when the time comes. (See "No mercy for sin.") That is to say, the danger is in pride. Paul speaks of the day that will test every man's work and burn up all that can be burned of it. The structures of stubble we have built will be consumed, but we ourselves will be saved. What of the proud, though, those who have become so attached to their structures that they feel as if they are that stubble? Malachi has the answer.

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall (4:1-2).

That final clause is ambiguous in the Hebrew; another possible reading is "and ye shall go forth leaping like calves released from the stall." To those whose hearts are rightly centered, the burning of all that burns will bring only freedom release.

Aquinas was, by a happy coincidence, nicknamed the Dumb Ox. When he was granted his heavenly vision, when he saw that great Sun of righteousness that burns as an oven and tries every man's work, when he was moved to say of his own life's work, "All that I have written is as straw," I like to think that, saint that he was, he left it all behind lightly and went gamboling forth as a calf released from the stall. And it was not all straw, far from it. Surely some of the glittering gems in the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem are his.

As Malachi says elsewhere, "And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him" (3:17).