There is a story that comes to us from the Middle Ages:
A person came to one of the great cathedrals that was being built and stopped at three stone masons who were carving away. The pilgrim asked them all the same questions: “What are you doing?”
The first mason said, “Chipping stone, as you can see.” The second mason said, “I am making a living. I’m providing food and shelter for my family.” And the third mason said, “I am building a great cathedral!”
The Apostle Paul writing to the followers of Jesus in Corinth said: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit lives in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16). In other words, we are living stones, all of us. We are the temple. We, individually and collectively, are a dwelling place for God. It is sometimes hard to believe that and often it is because we fail to see. It is easy for us to seek the temple somewhere “out there”, away from where we are, in some idealized state, when in reality Paul is saying that we are God’s temple and we are to give some attention and care to what we do with this temple. I am not discounting the reality of a new heaven and new earth and the truth and fullness of God’s presence that is to come that the seer of Revelation tries to describe in his final chapters, but only that here and now we are God’s temple and the question is “What are we doing with that reality?”
In the story above, the three masons had an answer to what they were working on. And the first two were correct in their limited assessment. But it was the final mason who was able to see his work (and life) in a larger context. The same should be true of our lives, of the temple that we are building. How do you view your life’s work: as part of the building up of a great cathedral—the church, the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of God—or simply as a means to making a living? An important Lenten challenge is learning to see, to see our lives and whatever work we do as being part of the great and divine design to re-create, transform the world in a way that glorifies God and enriches the lives of all of God’s creation. Maybe as you make your journey this Lenten season, you will learn to see your life in this way and discover how every twist and turn that is a part of your life can be useful material in the building up of God’s temple.
Blessings.
