BRICKS OR STONES?

When the Cruses built, we chose red brick over rock for the outside of our home.  We're traditional.  But there's something about bricks being oh-so perfect that has always bothered my creative side.  So we chose "tumbled" brick to have a little variation.  

Stones, on the other hand, are unique.  God made individual rocks with their own size and shape and texture and color.  How about those amazing rock formations in the Badlands...or the red rocks out West?  I think my favorites are the big gray Arkansas rocks covered in electric green moss.

I was reading Rabbi Daniel Lapin recently and something he wrote made me think.  He made a correlation between bricks/stones...and political worldviews.  What could that analogy look like?

First consider bricks.  Man makes brick; quality control assures that they are exactly alike. Society can also make people feel less unique and more cookie-cutter by treating them all the same.  We might call that "fairness".  Fairness lives in similar housing, travels mass transit, gets identical medical care, and educates children about equal lifestyles.  Is quality uppermost? The Rabbi points out that it's not quality, but equality that is king.  And while we're at it...give me some of your money because you make too much and I'll give it to someone else who could use it.  If you took one of these citizens out and put another in, everything would remain the same. These citizens of collectivism are all alike and they are more like "bricks".

But stones are different.  Stones are made by God and not by men.  Think the Grand Canyon. People are made by God, too...uniquely in His image...uniquely different in looks and gifting and purpose.  A society must value and encourage that uniqueness so that our common good benefits.  Just think of society's gifts from the creative minds who invented, and the adventurous minds who liked to discover, and the scientific minds who doctor.  We can't flourish without creativity and individuality.

Rabbi Lapin went on to bring God into the analogy.  He talked about the bad connotation that bricks had in Scripture as they represented toil to the Hebrew slaves in Egypt.  Later, man used bricks at the Tower of Babel when they tried to reach up to God.  But God had told them that when they came to worship Him they should build an altar of stones.  Man was using his thinking rather than God's instruction.  That didn't end so well.

In our society it doesn't seem fair that some people have "boo-koos" and others struggle. Perhaps it is well-intentioned for one political party to try and even things out.  Or perhaps that has been tried before in other countries.  Russia comes to mind.  It has even been tried in our country; last month Hawaii quit Universal Child Healthcare after only seven months. Also you may remember your history teaching that 44 years ago LBJ declared war on poverty.  Later President Reagan quipped that we declared war on poverty but poverty won!  That's because while the percentage of the poor went down slightly, the total number of poor is greater than it was in 1964.  Well, that didn't end so well, either.  Well-intentioned or not, some things will work and some things won't. Think subprime mortgages.  Think welfare's destruction of the black family structure.  Perhaps we should look to Scripture for our ideas.  That should make the left tremble.

Jesus said we would have the poor with us always.  Did He mean we should just write off the poor?  Of course not!  But Christ's benevolence can best be extended through His people and His institution, the church.  Rick Warren says it well.  Listen to his words:

"Consider this: the Red Cross noted that 90% of the meals they served to victims of Hurricane Katrina were actually cooked by Southern Baptist churches. Many churches were able to jump into action faster than the governmental agencies or the Red Cross. Why?

The Church is literally everywhere and Christians who could provide help to the Gulf Coast communicated with Christians in need of help so relief could be sent immediately."

In a time when our country is moving away from God's answers to our huge problems, little stones should be running the other way!