The Challenge of Bricks and Mortar
A Sermon by Brent J. Eelman
Abington Presbyterian Church
October 15, 2006

Nehemiah 2: 11-20
     So I came to Jerusalem and was there for three days. ¹²Then I got up during the night, I and a few men with me; I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. The only animal I took was the animal I rode. ¹³I went out by night by the Valley Gate past the Dragon’s Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that had been broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire. ¹⁴Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool; but there was no place for the animal I was riding to continue. ¹⁵So I went up by way of the valley by night and inspected the wall. Then I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate, and so returned. ¹⁶The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing; I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest that were to do the work.
    17 Then I said to them, ‘You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burnt. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no longer suffer disgrace.’ ¹⁸I told them that the hand of my God had been gracious upon me, and also the words that the king had spoken to me. Then they said, ‘Let us start building!’ So they committed themselves to the common good. ¹⁹But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they mocked and ridiculed us, saying, ‘What is this that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?’ ²⁰Then I replied to them, ‘The God of heaven is the one who will give us success, and we his servants are going to start building; but you have no share or claim or historic right in Jerusalem.’*
 

Human beings are builders. From the small child at the beach building sand-castles, to the engineers and architects creating sky scrapers, we are builders. Building is important to who we are and our buildings reflect our values, our hopes and dreams. The ancient Egyptians designed and built amazing pyramids on a scale that was unimaginably large. The Greeks and Romans built temples, shrines to their gods. They also built stadiums for sports and other buildings that housed their institutions of democracy and rule. Think about the importance of buildings in our own lives. We travel to observe and study buildings. Some of us have visited the homes that were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. If you are ever out in Big Sur, on the California Coast, one of the things to see is the tower built by the great American Poet, Robinson Jeffers . He built it by himself and created it like poem, making “stone love stone,” just as words are put together to creat a poem.

I remember when I moved to Houston, one of the things that I wanted to see first was the Astrodome, which was an amazing building for its time. A few years ago, on a trip to New York, my wife insisted that we visit the Empire State building. I, of course, wanted to visit Yankee Stadium: “the home that Ruth built.” Buildings are important and vital to who we are as a people. 9-11 brought this home in so many ways. The attack on the World Trade Center was not merely a murderous attack on the people in that building; it was an attack on a symbol for our culture and who we are. Buildings say something about who we are: our hopes, our dreams, our tragedies, and our beliefs. Are they only bricks and mortar? No… much more.

To the Hebrew people, the building that symbolized their hopes, dreams, and desires was the Temple. The Temple was built as the dwelling place for God. God, who ruled over all things, and was one not many, was symbolized by this temple. Their greatest King, David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, and his son, Solomon, a generation later built the amazing temple to house the ark. Even today, people gather at the wall of the ancient temple to offer prayers. The temple was made of bricks, mortar, wood and stone, but it was so much more than that.

The text for today is from Nehemiah. It begins many years after King Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem. Following Solomon’s reign the kingdom of Israel split into two kingdoms… and then these two kingdoms were conquered by other nations. The northern kingdom went first, and then the Southern Kingdom, Judah fell. Judah was the home of Jerusalem. When Jerusalem fell the Babylonians removed the leadership, the teachers, the artisans, and the scholars. They did this so that there would be no leadership in Jerusalem to start a rebellion. The captives were taken to Bablyon where they lived in captivity for two generations. The captivity ended when Cyrus conquered Babylon and allowed the Hebrew people to return to Jerusalem. That is when the story of Nehemiah began. When the captives got back to Jerusalem, they discovered that the center of their faith, the holiest place in their lives, was in ruins. For two generations, the Temple was not cared for and it fell into disrepair. The elements took their toll on that building and it was in ruins. Nehemiah wrote: “I went out by night by the Valley Gate past the Dragon’s Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that had been broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire.” It must have been very upsetting to see. For two generations they lived, nurtured by the stories of the glory of Solomon’s temple. They heard the stories and the legends of its magnificence, and now they only beheld ruins. Only bricks and mortar? No, much more!

One of the things about our society is that we are obsessed with the “new”. The church that I served in Texas was built about ten years before I went there and people referred to it as “an old building”. We bought a home there that was 20 years old and the realtor called it an “older home.” Often when something gets old, it does not receive the loving care and attention that it needs. Here is the challenge of bricks and mortar: Abington Presbyterian Church is an old congregation, with old buildings. They are not shiny and new and modern. They are old. In some ways, their age is their appeal. They are unique and beautiful representations of their time… and in some ways their age is their bane. They are expensive to maintain, especially if they have been neglected for a long period of time. The challenge of bricks and mortar is not merely caring for that which we have received, the challenge is this: What does the condition of our buildings say about the spiritual condition of our congregation? I will give you a partial answer now: I believe they reflect where we have been as a congregation, but they do not reflect where we are now. Nor where we wish to go. Like Nehemiah, returning from captivity, our challenge is to rebuild our facilities here to reflect the hopes, dreams and visions that we have as a people of God. I love the words of Nehemiah: “‘You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burnt. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no longer suffer disgrace.’ I told them that the hand of my God had been gracious upon me, and also the words that the king had spoken to me. Then the people said, ‘Let us start building!’ “

But when we build with bricks and mortar, let’s not fool ourselves. We will build something much more important. If you are ever traveling in Northern Wisconsin, one of the favorite vacationing areas is called Door County. One of the sights that people often visit is a little Norwegian chapel that was built on the Boynton family estate. The story behind that chapel was written by Winifred Boynton in a book entitled Faith Builds a Chapel. In that book she tells the story of building that chapel, but also the story of her family and all the tragedies and problems that befell them. The chapel is finally built, and she concludes her story with these words: “For nine years, (we) have worked together to build this little Sanctuary of Peace. Somewhere along that span of time, I cannot tell just when it was, we became aware that in reality the Chapel was building us. As day by day we built with physical tools, patiently and painstakingly the Chapel was building us with spiritual tools. We have come to see what was unseen before, to hear what was unheard; and to understand things not understood before. … The Chapel has shown us, and it will show others, that to work with love and to find joy in the doing is to love life and find joy in living… Through the building of this little chapel, (we) know this to be true.”

I believe that as we go about our task of raising funds and rebuilding this structure… we are not merely putting bricks upon bricks… something else will be built. And that something else is a community of faith. Just as those bricks and boards and stones will be fastened and tied together, so our lives will be tied together in a powerful and joyful way. Through rebuilding our faith will be rebuilt. This is the promise of Bricks and mortar. Our challenge is to respond as the returning captives from Babylon did: Let us join them and shout with joy: “Let us start building!"

 
*The New Revised Standard Version Bible, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1989.

Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania,  www.apcusa.org