Reflection - Foundations

By Steve Hall

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091121.cfm
1 Timothy 1:15-17
Luke 6:43-49

I was eight years old when the local river crested the dikes that contained it as it passed through our town. Our home was one of many visited by the floodwaters. During most of that three month period our family stayed with an uncle’s family in a higher part of the city.

Their neighbor had children, some of whom were close in age to that of myself and my siblings. They had a large, well supplied sandbox. For days on end we would build sandcastles, complete with fortress walls, a draw gate of sorts and plastic army men to guard from any and all invaders. Then we would provide our own catastrophic event. Gathering buckets of water, we would empty them quickly and sequentially into the castle moat. If the initial buckets were insufficient we would bring more. Slowly but surely the castle walls were weakened and would collapse; they could not stand up to the bucket-flood we provided. Our plastic army could do nothing to prevent the disaster and all efforts to reinforce the protective barriers went for naught. It was a great summer — until our parents found out what we were up to.

Since I grew up in the middle of the country, beaches were unknown to me. That privation was not overcome until I was in my late 20’s. I recall standing barefoot on a beach in Southern California. The waves would quickly, though not unexpectedly, break yards away and then the water would slide smoothly across the sand. If you stood in one spot, the waters would gently, but steadily, wash the sand from the perimeter of your feet. Slowly but surely you would sink a fraction of an inch — maybe a bit more. Rocks, medium size or more, left after the previous tide, suggested that the displacement of the sand around my feet had a limit and I would not sink very far. Nevertheless, stability was difficult to maintain when the very ground you stood on shifted grain by grain beneath you.

The parents of a friend had a house in southern Mississippi at the time of hurricane Katrina. The house was made of wood sitting on concrete. After the storm went through, only the foundation remained. In Jesus day, most of what was built was made of stone. The material was readily available in Israel. It stood well against the wind, the rains and even potential thieves. But, water would still be the nemesis of stability if the ground below was as inconstant as the grains of sand on the beach.

Obviously, sand is a poor material on which to build. Whether from rains or floods, sand will readily succumb to the force of water. Solid ground may be adequate for a structure if it’s location is carefully selected — remember the real estate mantra: location, location, location. Jesus suggests that the best foundation would be bedrock, or at least rock. Planted, as it were, in the earth itself, the structure is more likely to survive whatever forces are thrown at it. In our modern day such foundations are frequently found in footings, pillars of concrete that penetrate the soil to an appropriate depth.

Our Scripture selections for today talk about foundations; but these foundations are for our lives rather than for buildings. In writing to Timothy, Paul states his foundation right up front: “This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

The dictionary describes foundation in the following words:

A basis (such as a tenet, principle, or axiom) upon which something stands or is supported
An underlying base or support
A body or ground upon which something is built up or overlaid

It is clear from the teaching that the foundation image is directed toward the underlying pinning for our lives. It challenges us to explore the very basics of who and what we are. The teaching itself encourages us to choose something immovable. The words of Paul offer a foundation worthy of that to which we aspire.

Human beings are complex. Our existence is multi-dimensional. Correspondingly, it is not surprising that our foundations would be varied. We may have one set of principals when it comes to family and another set which guides us in our business ventures. Still another may direct our actions toward those who have injured us, and yet another when it comes to social interaction. 

None of these are particularly difficult to identify within ourselves if we honestly search for them. It would not be surprising to find that one or more are foundation-ally unstable, built at a time when our constructs were guided from a child’s perspective, or formed from anger or despair. We may even find the fundamental principles that guide one aspect of our lives to be incompatible with those that guide another. 

To be fully integrated persons it would seem that we must fully integrate all the varied foundations of our lives. We are told that there is only one foundation firmly set on solid rock. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” To that foundation all other foundations must ultimately conform.