I think the fact that we, as humans, have been gifted with the ability to be builders, is one of those things that we just take for granted. And so we often don’t appreciate that without builders, without those who survey and plan, provide the equipment and then do site prep work, then hammer and nail and saw and screw, roof and install heating and air conditioning systems, plumb and wire, tile and carpet and paint and decorate – without all those in the building trades, we would have no homes in which to live, no offices in which to conduct business, no hospitals to treat the ill, no schools where we might educate our children. Without those who would be building, were would we be?

It has been that way since the earliest of days. It mattered not to us whether the times seemed propitious for building, whether the weather was just right, the economy chugging along, and the political climate favorable. We would be building.

From the Book of Genesis, Chapter 6: “And God said to Noah . . . 1Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 1This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks.” (Genesis 6)

As the rain clouds gathered and storms of adversity threatened, Noah and his family gathered together, saying, “We would be building.”

From Jeremiah, Chapter 29: “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel….”

Even as they endured exile in Babylon, a conquered people now aliens in an alien land, the refugees from Jerusalem took up axe and adz, hammer and saw, saying, “We would be building.”

From A New Home in Mattakeese – A Guide to Reverend John Lothropp’s Barnstable, by Helen Lathrop Taber (1995) (p. 9.): “On October 11, 1639 . . . Reverend John and his followers arrived in Barnstable. This surely represented the fruition of his life’s work, for the fourteen years that followed were years of peace for him and of prosperity for this congregation. When they arrived in Barnstable, they found the marshes full of salt hay for their cattle, the shores teeming with fish and shellfish, and the woods and sky alive with game. Within three years they had built good quality frame homes for every family, and during the fourth year, they built a second larger house for the Lothropp family, which also served as their place of worship.”

Exiles in their own time, a community of the faithful forced to sail the stormy Atlantic in search of religious freedom and a new life, a people determined to make a new beginning here on the shores of Cape Cod Bay, Rev. John Lothropp and his small congregation of men and women and children climbed atop Sanctuary Rock here in Barnstable and resolutely proclaimed, “We would be building.”

And again, from Helen Taber’s opus: “Again in the early 1950s the [West Parish] structure was in a state of disrepair. Under the initiative of Elizabeth Crocker Jenkins, a major restoration took place. Fortunately the shell has been left intact. By following old records and photographs, the building was restored to its original condition.” (A New Home in Mattakeese – A Guide to Reverend John Lothropp’s Barnstable, Helen Lathrop Taber (1995) p. 48.)

Over three decades, decades spanning the Great Depression, that great fiscal and economic catastrophe that threatened to bring this nation to its knees, the Second World War, and the beginning of what we now know as the Cold War, in a time before Cape Cod became the successful resort community of recent decades, Elizabeth Crocker Jenkins and a few other faithful members of this church and the wider community banded together, committing themselves and their financial resources towards restoring this Meetinghouse, saying together year after year, through thick and through thin, “We would be building.”

The building trades have been hard hit here on Cape Cod these past years. The national slow-down in the housing market has hit us especially hard here on the Cape, as the tightening of budgets for many has meant that a vacation home at the beach has been an extra that would just have to be postponed if not put off altogether, new construction has all but dried up, expansions and renovations of existing homes have fallen victim to the decreased availability of home-equity lines of credit coupled with the inability of would-be new home buyers to first sell their off-Cape home. Those in the building trades, worried about whether there will be a next job or enough money to put food on the table and oil in the heating fuel tank, are not speaking metaphorically when they raise the cry, “We would be building.”

But it not those in the building trades alone who, I believe, would be building these days. I realize that there is a great pull within many of us urging that we not be building these days, that we hunker down and cover up, that we withdraw from the world and keep close to home, that we closely guard our resources – resources of our time, our talents, and of course of our treasure. I know that many of feel that in these tight times, where so much is uncertain, that prudence requires that we put on hold our building plans – not just in our personal lives, but in our life together in community, and in the church as well. That we provide less support to the church and its outreach, that we learn to make do with less, that just as a turtle, when threatened, pulls in its appendages, so the church should pull back within the shelter of a privatized spirituality, a downsized ministry. To refer to the well-known Parable of the Talents, what we really want to do is just take those talents and bury them under a rock.

And yet I think back on the days and weeks immediately following 9/11, over seven years ago. You remember those times, and you likely remember where everyone went in record numbers during those harrowing and scary days and weeks and even months to follow. They came here, to church, to this church and to churches like this one throughout the country.

The economic and fiscal crisis we find ourselves in right now dwarfs, I would argue, the magnitude of the terrorist acts of 9/11. Notwithstanding the devastating impact of 9/11 on those who lost their lives that day and on their families and loved ones and communities, the reality is that for many in this country 9/11 ended up meaning little more that the inconvenience of longer security check-in lines at the airport, bemused puzzlement over the Homeland Security guidelines telling us that that the threat level was orange or red, and trying to figure out how quickly we could fulfill what we were told was our patriotic duty -- going to the mall.

But the recent economic and fiscal crisis hits almost all of us – millions have lost their jobs, millions more fear that they will be next to face unemployment, retirement accounts have been cut almost in half, foreclosure threatens homeowners in record numbers, retailers are going out of business, housing values have plummeted.

Today, more than at any time since 9/11, perhaps more than any time in memory, people are looking for answers, for safety, for authentic community, for words of comfort and hope. And they are looking up the slopes to this Meetinghouse on a hill, and wondering if the lights will be on, and hoping that the door will be open, and praying that here they will find the “something more” that life out there cannot provide, and listening for a message of hope and the promise of not only a better future, but a better today. They are looking up the hill to this Meetinghouse, straining to hear how God’s gathered people will respond in this fearful time.

And this, I believe, is what they hear: We would be building.

They will hear a Board of Outreach saying, We would be building. We will not pull back, we will not do less, we will do more, we will reach out in new ways, we will journey together up to the City of Boston and the Pine Street Inn and seek to build relationships, if only over an evening meal, with those who have lost almost everything. We will not cut our giving to the wider church, to the schools which prepare our future leaders, to those who are our partners in mission. And we will continue to let the congregation know of ways in which we, in these most difficult of times, can reach out to others.

They will hear Marlene White and Jean Birch and all those who give of themselves week in and week out and then again on November 22nd to make the Rooster Crows Fair a success, a day on which folk might gather for a festive pre-holiday lobster roll meal, find a lovely home-made craft or a treat from the Pocket Lady. Each and every one of them saying, We would be building.

They will hear a choir and bell choir and Music Committee, all naturally affected by the resignation of our long-time Music Director, coming together under the leadership of Donna Murphy, our interim Music Director, welcoming enthusiastically to our music ministries new ringers and singers, and lifting their voices in harmony together, singing out, We would be building.

They will hear the West Parish Memorial Foundation, faithful custodians of this historic structure, stewards of a small endowment in need of support, saying that even though times are hard, our priority is preserving this building through regularly scheduled painting and upkeep, and yes, We would be building.

And if those folk looking up the slopes at this Meetinghouse listen even more closely, perhaps they will hear, with us, these words from the Letter of Jude: “But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 20)

This letter, addressed to a church community, is meant to be read in the collective sense, so when Jude tells them to “build yourselves up”, he is referring to building up the church community. We do that, he says, by praying for one another, by looking out for one another, by committing ourselves to the spiritual welfare of each other. So that:

In a time when the temptation is to withdraw and cocoon, we shall be about building bridges to one another.

In a time when the conventional wisdom says be fearful and wary, we shall be about building courage and hope.

In a time when the financial pundits tell us to horde and look out for Number 1 first, we shall build houses and live in them, and seek the welfare of the city.

In a time when all many see is the crumbling towers of economic excess, we shall build, upon the rock of Christ Jesus, the temple of eternal life.

We would be building. And may our God, Architect Divine, prosper that work. Amen.