“The Building Blocks of Eternal Life:

Giving Our Lives Back to God”

Ezra 3:8-11

Isaiah 35:1-10

Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

“And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.”

These joyful words from the book of Ezra – in our first reading today - describe a similar experience to the one we shared last Sunday afternoon with the groundbreaking ceremony for our new Sanctuary. We gave a great shout of praise to the Lord as we turned over the sacred earth where the foundation will soon be laid. And we looked forward to the special day in the not-too-distant future when all the members of our church will have the chance to sign their names and perhaps write their favorite bible verse on the concrete slab.

The time of groundbreaking has been regarded as a sacred moment all the way back to the time of Ezra and even before. It’s as if the Lord wants us to pay special attention to the importance of foundations.

Jesus spoke about this in Matthew 7 when he told about the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And when the rains came and the winds blew, his house could not stand. But the wise man, Jesus said, built his house upon the rock and when the storms of life came, the house stood firm and solid.

Foundations are important.

Now, interestingly enough, neither Ezra nor Jesus were really talking about constructing buildings - either temples or houses. They were both talking about the deeper foundations that must underlie our lives. You can build a church with all the right materials. You can build a house with all the best stuff. But that does not mean the new church will serve God’s purposes. And it does not mean there will be real life in your house. Buildings are inanimate objects.

But you are a living soul. And living souls need a strong foundation.

What are the foundations that make life good, and whole, and purposeful for people like you and me?

Here’s what Ezra said was the true foundation upon which the people of Israel were laying the stone foundation of their Temple. “With praise and thanksgiving, they sang to the Lord: He is good; his love to Israel endures forever!”

There it is! The basic building block of human happiness and wholeness is the reality that God is GOOD, and God’s goodness is shown through a love that never fades or fails.

I once knew a woman like that – not a god or goddess, mind you. But a real life, elderly spinster lady by the name of Beulah Todd. People don’t name their kids “Beulah” too much anymore, but I’m glad she was who she was! Beulah was a truly GOOD person!

She was a lifelong member of the first church I served, and Beulah really bothered me because she messed with my theology which I thought – as a recently graduated seminary student – was pretty high and mighty. Until she began messing with it.

I went to visit her early on in my tenure there and, as we sipped tea together, I asked her the question all us brash, young, zealous Christians ask, “Beulah, are you born again?” She gave me a funny kind of look and said, “Once was enough for me!” I feigned laughter and pressed ahead. “When were you saved?” I asked. “Gee, I think when I was born,” she answered. I sort of smiled and put it this way, “When did you become a Christian?”

“Oh,’ Beulah said, “I’ve always been a Christian!”

Well, this bothered me because my theology held that you had to know the exact year, month, day, and time that you gave your life to Christ and became a Christian. And old Beulah Todd just didn’t have a clue about that! She thought she’d ALWAYS been a Christian! Well, Ms. Todd…let me tell YOU a thing or two!

Trouble was that, though Beulah did not speak or even understand my theological mumbo-jumbo, she turned out to be the most Christian person I knew! Beulah was a genuinely GOOD person, and she expressed it with a kind of love that just wouldn’t quit!

The first Easter sermon I preached was a disaster. Afterwards, one of the couples of the church came and reamed me out, telling me it was the worst Easter sermon they had ever heard! And as they were dressing me down, I heard a familiar voice. It was Beulah’s. “Oh excuse me for interrupting, but I’m in a hurry to Easter dinner and I just wanted to tell you, Marty, how inspired I was by your sermon today. I never really thought about the resurrection being like a lightbulb being turned on. You gave me a lpt to think about. Thank you! Happy Easter, dear!” And with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, she was gone…and so were the critics.

Beulah was a GOOD person, and the love that came out of her found ways of penetrating even the deepest flaws of myself and others. I came to understand that whether Beulah could pinpoint the day or the hour of her becoming a Christian, she was a Christian indeed. Beulah reflected the song of the Israelites: “God is good. His love for his people never fades away!”

I’ll bet you’ve known some people like Beulah – people who live out of a foundation of goodness, and express their lives through unwavering love. There are some people like that right here in our church!

We know God’s goodness when we see it. I think that’s because at the very core of our being, in the very creation of our lives, God immersed us in His goodness. Way back before the beginning of time, when God spoke the words, “Let us create people after our own image,” and God created us, male and female, the very first words that God used to describe us were, “Behold this is very GOOD!”

And God held us within the goodness of His great big loving heart until the moment came when we were to be born into this world. Children of God’s goodness and love.

But then something happened.

Augustine called it “original sin”. Others referred to it as “alienation from God.” But however you name it, it seems that a common experience of human beings is that we start letting go of the goodness and love in which God created us.

Maybe our parents play a role in this when they use God as a tool of discipline for cantankerous kids. Certainly other children have an effect upon us. My parents told me that I was the smartest, handsomest, most wonderful boy in the whole wide world. And I believed them until I went to school! Lots of things play upon us, stripping us of our sense of God-given goodness and love.

The Church – oh, the Church has a lot to account for, so often offering a theology that says, “God is ticked off at you, and you’d better straighten out or you’re going to hell.” And many of us have grown up with that terrible gift of guilt – as Tim Meadows says, “The gift that keeps on giving.” Have you ever noticed how, for many people, faith is all about escaping hell and getting to heaven? That’s a faith that has slipped from it’s foundation.

And even if we are not being reminded of how awful we are, there are others – the intellectual elites – who would have us think there IS no God, and even if there is a God, He is aloof from the world, and it is all up to us!

All of these influences shake us loose from the foundation – that God is GOOD, that God’s love NEVER FAILS. And once set loose from that cornerstone, our lives become capable of great evil, and if not evil, complete insignificance.

Which of the biblical heroes would have set out to do the amazing things they did had they not placed their trust in God’s goodness, and God’s enduring love?

Could there be a Pope John the 23^rd, a Martin Luther King, a Mother Theresa, any of the modern saints without their having an unswerving, unfailing trust in God’s goodness and God’s unswerving, unfailing love?

It is this foundation that causes ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things for God. From this foundation come sacrificial love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. You cannot truly love your neighbor unless you are convinced that God is a good God who, in love, seeks that neighbor’s good.

So as we lay down a new foundation as a church, I want to call you to lay a strong foundation in your own life. Though you may have wandered a long, long way from God’s goodness, though you may have let go of your trust in God’s love for you and others, the time has come to give your life back to God.

Not in some weird way that will send you out in search of the Hale-Bopp comet. But in this simple way: by anchoring your life in the faith that God is GOOD, that God’s love for you and the world is UNFAILING, and that God encourages all of us to test that foundation. The prophet Isaiah told us what happens when people live out their lives in goodness and love:

“The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom…They will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God…the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped…water will gush in the wilderness and streams in the desert…And a highway will appear; it will be called the Way of Holiness…They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”

Such is God’s promise to those who trust in His goodness, and in His unfailing love.