“Live for Greatness”

“Live for greatness.”     So reads the boldface ad copy on an advertisement from last week’s New Yorker magazine. In the background, a softly-focused photo of the talented and fetching jazz musician Diana Krall; in the foreground, an Oyster Perpetual Datejust Special Edition Rolex watch. “Live for greatness.”

    You may have heard the story of three masons who were working at chipping chunks of granite from large blocks. The first seemed unhappy at his job, chipping away but looking frequently at his watch. When asked what it was that he was doing, he responded, rather curtly, “I'm hammering this stupid rock, and I can't wait ‘til 5 when I can go home.”

A second mason, seemingly more interested in his work, hammered diligently, and, when asked what he was doing, he answered, “Well, I'm molding this block of rock so that it can be used with others to construct a wall. It's not bad work, but I'll sure be glad when it's done.”

The third mason hammered fervently at his block, taking time to stand back and admire his work. He chipped off small pieces until he was satisfied that it was the best he could do. When questioned about his work, he stopped, gazed skyward, and proudly proclaimed, “I am building a cathedral.”

In  the Bible (Haggai 1:1-15), it seems that what God is concerned with, as Haggai brings God’s message to the people, is a building – the Temple. The message is clear, the goal clearly stated: you people have rebuilt your homes, and in a grand style, paneled walls and all; but you have left my home, the Temple, in ruins; so call the contractor, line up the subs, hie thee to Home Depot, and get to work chez moi!

            But a closer reading reveals that it is not just about a building, it is also about the building. It is not just about a noun (a building), but about a verb (rebuilding). And what it is that needs rebuilding is not just a structure, but a Spirit-filled, outwardly focused community which lives as if it were an outpost of the promised kingdom of God.

            For the problem in Jerusalem ran much deeper than a structure which lay in ruins –there was a community which lay in ruins as well. The first was emblematic of the second. God had brought the exiles out of two generations of captivity in Babylon, had restored the people to their former home, had blessed them in abundance. But what is their response?

The wealthy construct for themselves the ancient equivalents of present-day McMansions, homes luxuriously appointed with fine paneling. The powerful, the religious and political leaders, refuse to provide the funds for the reconstruction of the Temple – an expense which would have cut into their pocketbooks. Once this had been a people keenly aware of and dependent on their God, a God who stood with them in time of trial, who had comforted them when they were afflicted, who brought them out of captivity into new life; once they had cherished their covenant with their God, a covenant which called for them to live in response to the blessings they had known – to love God and neighbor, to look after the poor and the widow, to live lives of thanksgiving to God and blessing to others. But no longer.

            And so Haggai’s message to them—and to us – is that it is not just about the building, it is also about the need to be building. It is about the Temple, because the Temple is more than a building – it is the site of God’s life-giving, community-sustaining presence. The call to rebuild the Temple is a call to rebuild the Spirit-filled, caring community as well.

            They were called to live for greatness – to harken back to the story of the three masons, to not just chip away at a rock, not just build a wall, but to construct a cathedral.

             And how can we not remember, on this Founders’ Day at West Parish of Barnstable, Henry Jacob and John Lothrop? Two men who lived for greatness in their day, who despite persecution, imprisonment, and loss responded to God’s call to form the first congregational church, and then brought it over the stormy sea to safety here on Cape Cod.

And how can we not remember, on this Founders’ Day, Elizabeth Crocker Jenkins? That same Elizabeth Crocker Jenkins who lived for greatness in her time, who  over the course of three decades, laboring not to build a cathedral, but to restore this Meetinghouse to its original glory – not just for its own sake, although that would have been enough, but as the keystone towards the revitalization of the West Parish Congregational Church.

            I’m not so sure that many of us find it in ourselves to live for greatness these days. Maybe it has a lot to do with the tough economic times we have known over the past decade. Maybe it has something to do with the entertainment-saturated culture we live in, when the media glues its attention on trifles like cable celebrity Kim Kardashian and her shocking (!) decision to end her 72-day long marriage. Maybe it has something to do with our culture’s move away from that foundational understanding on which this nation was founded, the idea of community and covenant and being in this together, and towards the sort of radical individualism which constricts our view of the good life to what is good for me, period.

            Mary Oliver’s poem (Magellan) is a call to live for greatness, lest, she warns, “we go down in comfort and despair.” Thank God that in the time of the prophet Haggai, at a time when the community was going down in comfort and despair, God’s call came to the people to live for greatness, to work together and give together and sacrifice together for the good of the entire community – and that, as they together risked the wildest places, they experienced a community reborn. And thank God for God’s call to us in this day as well, a call for us to live for greatness; thank God for the gracious invitation to us to be partners with God in that most holy of tasks, that of building, one person and one heart and one community at a time, the kingdom of God.

            Come, Lord Jesus, and be with us, for we would be a-building; we would risk the wildest places, and live for greatness. Amen.