Sometimes, I forward my published columns to a random assortment of friends. For example, after “Quarantine,” 4/25/20, I sent one to a man, 39, whom I’ve not seen for years.
4/26/20, he replied: “As for me, I’m grateful to be employed in these uncertain times. My “house” would appear to be in order for the outside observer; not on disability anymore, employed at a rapidly growing company, seemingly fine.
“Yet I’ve been in a spiritual desert. Only this past week has the Lord been in my thoughts, much less my prayers.
“I was in despair a week ago with my bipolar depression, job stress, and general Covid-19 loneliness. It seemed like life wasn’t worth living anymore.
“Then, somehow, after coming dangerously close to the edge, I started feeling the pull of the Spirit back to communing with the Lord. In the darkness, I asked for a sign.
“Then, Steve, your column arrived- what an answered prayer. Thank you for reaching out. Please continue to pray that I may find my way back into regular worship.”
I replied promptly – grateful God used my column to build the hope of real love.
Love and roofs
And, reader/friend, how is your “house,” especially your roof?
You ask: “My roof?”
Yes, in 1 Corinthians 13, when Paul gives us an extensive list of love’s characteristics, he registers “roofing” as a necessary quality of God’s love.
Picture love as a house. First, twin great porch lights, “patience and kindness,” welcome us. Even in the darkness, we see to approach love’s household by their humble and tender beacons. To keep us heading in the right direction, we find handrails up the steps and a rail around the porch. These are eight ways God-conscious love does not behave. We need such warning/protection/boundaries.
Since “love rejoices in the truth,” we find four ways true love “always” conducts itself.
First, among the four, we find our focus for this column. “It always ‘protects'” (“stego”). Resiliently merciful, “stego” covers over, holds out, endures.”Stego” roofs over a matter, keeping out resentment as a roof keeps out rain.
Inferior roofing
Friend, substandard materials attempt to impersonate “stego.” These fakes lead to impaired relationships.
Consider the ancient home of Archibald Rutledge (1883–1973). In 1937, Rutledge, economically exiled for over 30 years, finally returned to his home place in SC. Since the 1700s, his family had called this place home.
Surveying needed restoration work, he wrote: “I put a slate roof on this house. This roof has done more to preserve our home than anything else. In removing the old roof, we took off seven roofs. It seems every time the house leaked, a new roof of cypress shingles was put on, right on top of those already there” (Archibald Rutledge, “Home by the River” 1941, p.55). Before the slate, leaking water weakened plaster that could fall on unsuspecting inhabitants – at any time!
Our “house”
Where do we find “slate” for our “roofs?”
First, such “slate” connects with the welcoming lights of patience and kindness. A firm foundation for cherishing life undergirds the house. “The value of human life extends from the dawn of life when we can see only the dark of the womb, to the shadows of life when we lean on the solidarity and support of our neighbors, to the twilight of life when we may depend the most on those we rely on” (Catherine Glenn Foster, President & CEO, Americans United for Life – building on a quote from Hubert Humphrey).
Constructed on such a foundation, love’s home helps us remember what Rutledge’s friends taught him: “Those whom we love have the most power to hurt us. We lay our sleeping lives within their arms.” Rutledge comments: “In a real sense, I laid my sleeping life in these friends’ arms. They cradled it with that sagacious and unselfish tenderness we call true love.” Tender – but, nonetheless, “slate.”
In 1977, when Via and I first moved to SC, my salary as an associate pastor was $11,500. The following year, one of the church’s leaders, Lanny, said: “Steve, we have underpaid you. Therefore, I’m suggesting we raise your salary to $16,500.” Wow!
The first of many, Lanny literally put a “roof” over our heads. While other leaders looked at apparently an uncooperative “bottom-line,” Lanny chose to live by faith and love. “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love” (Gal 5:6). Slate.
Questions:
Do we develop a sense of those who will “stego” us and others?
Who has “stego” – ed” you?
To whom have you continued to return the favor?
Better than slate
Let’s turn to Jesus. We wonder: “Why would he leave a place where no roofs are needed to come to a war-ravaged/tornadoed/hurricaned/weather-impaired world where all roofs are damaged?”
The Bible shows us that the Father, Son, and Spirit conspired in love.
But for them to re-roof many houses, the Son had his “roof” ripped off on the cross.
Astonished, we recognize the limitations of other roofing contractors and ask Jesus to do his work.
When he re-roofs sinners like us with his slate, we become like four men in Capernaum whose paralytic friend had no hope of getting through a packed crowd to be healed by Jesus. So these buddies got their friend up on the roof, made a hole, then lowered him down on a mat.
Mark 2:5ff “When Jesus saw “their” (!) “faith” (what slate!), “He said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home.” Immediately the man got up, picked up his mat, and walked out in front of them all.”
Friend, Jesus is better than slate!
Counting the cost
But who paid for the Capernaum roof repair? Most likely/most happily, the former paralytic, his family, friends, people in the crowd, and townspeople.
Friend, let’s also “stego” those who give us the good news of True Slate, Jesus.
