Architectural Christianity

By Pastor Bill

Lately I bumped into these rhetorical words by the great church father, Augustine of Hippo (354-430 B.C.):

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending.
You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds?
Lay first the foundation of humility.

This is truly the stuff of radical Christianity, radical because at root these sentiments are counter-cultural. They remind me of Jesus’ visual aid when he openly stooped to wash the disciple’s 24 dirty feet because oneupmanship had quenched their initiative to serve. Words fitly spoken followed:

“Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

So Augustine, as a follower of Jesus, knew that the way up is down. But upon second glance it occurs to me that in Augustine’s probing rhetoric he is not bashing the ambition of rising to a challenge for success. His architectural allusion to the Tower of Babel reminds us that the crime was not in the Tower itself but in the unabashed pride that drove it to the clouds.

Lord, grant us Towers to build for Your glory, Your name and fame, but establish us with footings of humility informed and arranged within by our cornerstone who is Jesus Christ the Lord.

Pastor Bill