Quick Summary:

In the year 1174, Italian architect Bonnano Pisano began laying a foundation for a tower that would take nearly two centuries to complete. Before the first story was completed problems appeared. The saturated ground caused the building to list on its south side, and to compensate Pisano built the columns and arches on the south side one inch taller than those on the north side. the foundation's problem didn't go away; it only became more pronounced. In the decades that followed the tower’s south side sunk ever further and a new generation of architects tried their best to compensate as the tower grew to five stories, six, seven, and finally eight stories. Finally, in 1372, 14,000 tons of white marble later the tower was complete--the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled builder, I laid the foundation,” writes Paul, “and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build.”

Over the past five weeks, while we’ve been hearing sections from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we’ve also heard excerpts from Paul’s first letter to Corinth. We’ve heard about how fractured and cliquish they are; and how hubris and one-upmanship have led to arguments about which of them are “true Christians” and which of them are Christian wannabees.

We’ve heard Paul’s appeal to stop creating personality cults around leaders—whether Apollos or Cephas or Paul—and to strive instead to embody the unity which was their birthright and gift when they were baptized into Christ. In Paul’s Corinthian correspondence we see that the enemies Jesus calls us to love are often enough not nameless or faceless foreigners but the members of our own communities and our own households.

Using Scott Peck's description of the phases of community making as a guide, this sermon leads us to see how the challenging love to which Jesus calls us must begin with relinquishment of our efforts to control, convert, or heal others.