There's this really funny book that I read once that depicts Jesus as a teenager and a young adult. In the story Jesus (like all teenagers and young adults) is trying to figure out who he is. He knows about the unique circumstances of his birth, although it's not at all clear that his neighbors and friends are completely sold on the truthfulness much less the significance of such a tale. Jesus also realizes that he can do things that other people can't. And he believes that he has a purpose - or a mission...he just doesn't quite understand yet what it is.
The story is told from the perspective of Jesus' best friend, Biff whose father is a trade worker like Jesus' father Joseph. The boys tag along with the grown-up men as they travel from Nazareth to the growing Roman city of Sepphoris where there is work for the men. On one occasion the boys are helping Biff's dad lay a foundation for a new house. The elder Biff impresses upon the boys that in order to lay a firm foundation for a building one needs to dig through the sandy dirt on top and expose solid rock. Then on that solid ground a strong and lasting structure can be erected.
Jesus is revealed to hear this bit of wisdom and tuck it away in his mind because he senses that it will come in useful someday. I chuckled when I read that part of the story because I knew that the author was referring to Jesus' parable of the foolish man who built his house on sand and the wise man who built his house on the rock. As a child we used to sing a song in Sunday School that implanted those images in my brain forever. And the message, of course, was that good, wise people are those who build their lives on the Rock which is Jesus, while the endeavors and pursuits of others (people who are not like us, who don't sing songs about Jesus) are foolish and build on sand.
So I was thinking the other day about what it means when we use the word foundation referring to matters of religion and faith. It's really a word that functions better when paired with religion. Religion has doctrine. Religion has structure. Religion is concerned with pieces that fit together to make a strong edifice, and that edifice needs a foundation - principle values and rules. So we get concerned with and possessive of the things we believe in...like the Bible and whether God created the universe in six days and that Mary was a virgin. Or that Jesus walked on water or that God hates homosexuality. We decide what our beliefs are, and we treat those beliefs as foundational to our religion. Nobody better ever rock our foundation (i.e. question our beliefs) because the whole structure might come crashing down.
But faith is different than religion. Faith is not about rules and structure and beliefs. Faith is about letting go of all that and trusting in God. To say that our faith has a foundation would be like saying the wind has a place where it begins and ends. Things like believing in the virgin birth and Noah's ark are not foundational to your faith...rather they are expressions of your faith. Which means that others can have different expressions of their faith without causing you to think that the whole world is going to fall apart. I might speak differently about the "truth" of the Bible and the nature of Jesus' divinity and the expression of God in sacred story's from around the world and through the ages. Faith, yours and mine, is not built on some foundation, rock solid or shifting sand...but faith is the foundation. And it is grounded in God.
News flash: religions will crumble...no matter how strong we we think our foundations of doctrine, rules and values are. Not that religion is unimportant or that we shouldn't maintain the structure. Like a house, it serves us well. But a house is not a home. And faith, like a home, is more than a house. Faith resides in and among us who are a family. Faith transcends religion and rules and doctrines. Faith creates us as one people -all people - of God.
Foundations are good for builders like Biff's dad and for purposes of creating a religion. But Jesus wasn't a house builder, and Jesus wasn't a religion builder. Jesus lived grounded in a faith that was rock solid. He trusted God and Gods love for the world. He didn't worry that different beliefs and doctrines and rules would shift like sand beneath him. I think Jesus would like for us to put aside our fears that religion may not be built on the rock solid foundation we thought it was. Perhaps then, God can build something in us.
It's ok, Biff has trouble figuring Jesus out, too.
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