The Other Side of the Sermon

Chapter 60

He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

Matthew 13:33

Character, like yeast, permeates; its presence is evident in the whole.

Western Christianity is often a situational appendage. There are times when we acknowledge our faith and times when we do not; our religion goes somewhere but not everywhere. It is here displayed and there concealed. Yet Christ said that the kingdom of heaven was to be like yeast: an invisible, yet visibly evident influence that permeates life.

The practical life has its yeast as well; we call it “character.” Character is a commitment to propriety that does not come from a humble willingness to keep, or from a nervous fear of not keeping, rules. It is an amalgam of traits that are not easily taught, and that cannot be transferred from one person to another. It permeates; it is evident but not overwhelming. If it is not this, it is something else—it is not character.

Its absence permits evangelists to consort with whores; its presence keeps even the casually religious faithful to their mates. Without it, the famous are driven to suicide; with it the common person endures the worst that life has to offer. It enables one person to take a long-term view while another, without it, can only comprehend the present and that not very well.

It is never found in high-pressure persuasion, in get-rich-quick schemes, or in appeal-to-the-ego advertising. It cannot coexist with veiled intent.

When a word is spoken to it in confidence, that word is never heard again. It is more binding than any contract and more sacred than the flag. It has no price.

It is the facilitator of right decisions, the support for unpopular viewpoints. It is the guarantor of performance, and the unseen factor that maintains perspective in strange and difficult circumstances.

Character is a quality severable from religion. In fact, the spiritual baggage of mainstream denominations contains little of the essence of character. Naïve, impractical, shortsighted platitudes, yes. Prescriptions and proscriptions that qualify a person in his own eyes and in the eyes of the like-minded, yes. But that intangible virtue that promotes hard work and sacrifice and dedication, no. That which enables right choices to be made in solitude, no. There are those who are well-grounded in religious doctrine who do not have it, while many who are its very saints seldom go near a church.

This is not to say that Christianity does not encourage character. It did so at its founding, and in some quarters it still does. But much of what is currently taught and preached cannot find that target, and Christianity is losing its influence with every missed shot. The world’s problems require practical solutions that an “everything is beautiful” faith cannot offer. Those solutions are found in that saturating toughness called character.

Chapter 89

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“ ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.”

Matthew 21:42-43

Lives are less for lack of rejected stones.

Life begins in a field of stones, an expanse covered with natural construction pieces of every shape and size. We reject most of them as unsuitable for our preconceived dwelling. But from those same stones could have been built a structure of lasting beauty. A mansion compelling to the viewer; a castle to the resident.

A satisfying life must be built of stones and not of bricks. The materials cannot be selected from a catalog, purchased in a single order from one source, delivered in a day, and quickly assembled in orderly rows, held together with a dull mortar.

Rather, the construction is gradual, combining components both chosen and imposed. Their origins and their characteristics are diverse; they come from fields and rivers and quarries and hillsides. From mountaintops and valleys. Bleached by the sun, or moss-covered from the shade. Turned smooth by the flow of tradition or blasted out in random size and shape by explosive reality.

To accept one stone too early for its beauty or ease of acquisition, or to reject another for its size and inaccessibility poorly prepares the structure to endure. To slight one because it appeared unexpectedly, or to discard another because there is no immediate place for it leaves gaps in the foundation. To ignore even a single one because it was thought to be too small to be meaningful subtracts edifice-completing beauty. And to dismiss any for fear of disapproval by critics, or out of an unwillingness to confront its complexity, or from an uneasiness with its origin is to diminish the whole.

One brick looks pretty much like another. Build a life out of bricks and the difficult choices are reduced. The result may be a secure and stable retreat, but it is easily bulldozed and forgotten when its occupants pass from the scene. But build a life of stones, considering each one for its fit into a grand plan, and the result lives on into the ages. The builder has set in place that which serves his purposes and which endures for the benefit of generations yet to come.

“Stones” abound, as do people who reject them.