The Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona, Spain is one of the most recognizable buildings on earth, and among the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. Its spires rise 558 feet toward the heavens, leaving it just 40 feet shy of the U.S. Bank building in downtown Milwaukee. Yet its towers seem to be made out of sand castle drippings from some otherworldy beach.

Construction began in 1882 – 127 years ago. But it is nowhere near finished.

The architect, Antoni Gaudi, predicted that more than 200 years would be needed to complete the vast, ornate structure. Nowadays, however, computer-guided machines carve the huge rocks to achieve in mere hours what skilled stonemasons once did in months. So there is great optimism that the project might be wrapped up in another 17 years … a hundred and forty-some years all together since the work began, and a full century after the famed architect died.

Someone once asked Gaudi, “Why such a long timeline for your building?”

He replied, “My client is not in a hurry” … presumably referring to God.

The great cathedral in Florence, Italy took a similar amount of time – roughly 140 years to build. Astoundingly, much of the work was undertaken before anyone had a clue how to put a dome on the top. They always knew it should be there. But for 50 or 70 years of construction, they didn’t know how. The early artisans and laborers simply trusted that later architects and engineers would figure out a way.

The cathedral at Chartres, by comparison, was done in the blink of an eye – only 66 years. If you think that rather hasty, remember that it would have amounted to two or three generations at the time. No one expected that such a magnificent testimony to God would be built in a single lifetime.

Notre Dame, in Paris, took three times as long as Chartres – 180 years.

But when it comes to church building, Cologne, Germany takes the cake … after cake, after birthday cake. Counting breaks and interruptions, the construction of that majestic cathedral covered 600 years.

The Temple in Jerusalem wasn’t built overnight either. After Solomon’s temple was destroyed, King Herod was determined to build another, grander than ever … though his goal was not so much to honor God as to cement his own place in history.

It would be grandiose in every detail, with imported marble and countless gold adornments. Massive too, in overall scope – with a footprint measuring 169,000 square feet, big enough, I figure, to fit this sanctuary inside it … 300 times!

No doubt, the cost was equally vast, which explains the money changers and vendors of sacrificial animals in the outer courts. Surely the temple treasury could rake in a sizable cut of the profits, like the Brewers do with beer sales at Miller Park.

After 46 years, work on the Temple was ongoing. No wonder Jewish authorities doubted it could be torn down and Jesus rebuild it in three days.

It was a bold claim he made, the kind of thing that just doesn’t happen … even if you know he’s talking about his own death and resurrection.

I mean, dying and rising from the grave is pretty tough too.

The reality is, the Body of Christ is always under construction. What Jesus accomplished in three days the Christian Church has been working on for 2000 years.

We, for instance, are approaching the eighty-third birthday of this congregation, and our own construction is far from complete. (The Gray Panthers know what I mean. They’ll never run out of Monday morning projects.)

But, like Jesus, I’m not talking bricks and mortar, or paint, or electrical outlets.

For us, the work of construction also entails ministries of worship and music, Christian education, fellowship, hospitality that helps strangers and guests feel at home, leader development (“equipping the saints for work of ministry”), serving the poor, the unemployed, the sick and people with financial emergencies, maintaining healthy connections to other Presbyterian congregations (and other traditions), and practicing good stewardship of resources entrusted to us.

Just as European cathedrals grew over many generations into “living stones” that offered a God-centered life, so it is with this congregation we’ve inherited.

Others built it in their lifetimes, and handed it over to us. Now we continue to build, create, and develop … so that the next generation will inherit it in turn from us. (That’s what stewardship is all about.)

Whether it was Antoni Gaudi, or an anonymous stonemason, someone had to lay the foundation for each and every church, trusting that future believers like us would continue what they started. Then those who built the walls, flying buttresses and spires also had to trust that previous generations had done work that was solid and true … so that it would not collapse when the next brick was added.

Trust flowed forward from one generation to the next, and back to the one before. And it was all reinforced by a greater assurance that God would “show steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Ex. 20:6).

You and I won’t live to see the end of construction at WPC. At least, let’s hope not. Because when a church’s work is done, its doors close and goes out of business. Besides, the goal isn’t for us to see the end product, but for us to keep building, knowing that our “client is not in a hurry.”

God’s work will be done in God’s time.

That’s not an excuse to do nothing, or to do the wrong thing. Quite the contrary, it’s an incentive to keep plugging, even when progress seems slow.

Countless prophets did that long before the days of Jesus Christ, thundering for justice when it seemed no one was listening. Martyrs too, in the early church, held fast to the faith instead of recanting, even if it meant the flame or the sword for them. Likewise, reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin weren’t concerned about finishing the work in their lifetimes … just being faithful.

So too with musicians and visual artists who glorified God with their creations … and ordinary folks, whose compassion and kindness, generosity and caring in secular settings also helped build the church.

Tom Troeger, a theologian in Colorado, says that all those people left an “inheritance” for us. And our task, he goes on to say, is not to hide that inheritance, but to spend it “on hope” – using all that we have received to continue building a better, stronger, more obedient community of faith … for our children and grandchildren to inherit from us.

So I invite you to think of people from a prior generation who passed on this inheritance to you – a parent, aunt, grandparent, or spiritual friend maybe.

Think too of the people whose names you’ve heard in this church, even if you didn’t know them in person: Estelle Steinbach, for instance, who gave the pew cushions and air conditioning for this church. Where would we be without her? Jean Burnett and Dorothy Rusk, who did so much for the Sunday School programs. Don Sorenson, who pressed on until an elevator was installed – and fully paid for! Mrs. George Reich, who first petitioned the Presbytery of Milwaukee to start a church here in Wauwatosa. The women who cooked and sold “Presbyterian Noodles” during the Great Depression for 25 cents a plate to pay the mortgage on our first building. And yes, all the Gray Panthers!

What about Richard Evans (the founding pastor), Gilbert Boyd, Don Parkinson and Bob Anderson – pastors who taught and led and called forth the leadership of others? Miss Sarah Dickson, the first woman elected as an elder in the whole denomination – right here in this church. What an example to the young girls of our congregation today!

Not to mention the Yoder family, Mergenthalers, Schulbes, Hayes family, Besteman and Meyer clans and others who were here 60 or 70 years ago, and whose second and third generation continues to be active in the congregation.

All counted 4215 people have been members here in less than 83 years. And all of them have helped build this church through their personal dedication, involvement, stewardship, and prayers into a strong congregation – so that it could be passed along to us …

… And through us, to infants and toddlers, preschoolers, children and teens among us right now.

… As well as adults and families who might walk in our door any day now.

Whatever faith you have, whatever joy leaps in your heart at receiving Communion, whatever inspiration you feel as an infant is baptized, whatever music you hear that says far more than words alone … this is all part of your inheritance … and the church’s upbuilding.

And, hopefully, it inspires you to say with me what the author of Psalm 78 declared. (I invite you to repeat after me each phrase I say):

I will open my mouth in a parable and utter dark sayings from of old …

things our ancestors have told us.

To do that (as we just declared) is to spend our inheritance on hope – “not hiding it from our children.”

There’s still one thing I haven’t talked about yet: Why did Jesus cast out the money changers? My hunch is that those money changers changed more than money in the temple. They changed the tone of spiritual life there, and not for the better. They were concerned only with what they could get for themselves (as a self-made inheritance), not what they could leave behind at the end of their days. They were trying to freeze things in the present, without any sight toward the future.

But Jesus made it clear that God’s work isn’t yet done. The Body of Christ is still under construction.