7 - EVERY BUILDER AS ADAM and CHRIST AS NEW ADAM

Each person in Building can be looked upon as an adam in whose life there are links with special projects such as Windsor, social issues such as housing, systems such as Latham and with professional practice and education. Christ, the new Adam, is the fulfillment of the ideas of temple, prophecy, law and Wisdom. Connections are exemplified in buildings and in the sacraments.

7.1 Building Materials: Every Builder as adam

Sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 have been concerned with four aspects of the practice of Building - significant projects, the social dimension and concomitant responsibility. the procurement and contractual system, and individual professional growth and learning. From the perspective of Scripture, each person in Building is an adam, a human being. It seems reasonable to suppose that in the course of a career each will experience these four facets of Building in some way and thus be able to identify with them. The writer will use his own experience as illustration.

Significant projects

Windsor was a significant and special building project. Those who participated in it experienced 'the Windsor factor' - the sense of being identified with a project of the highest quality and having a high profile. Experience of the special can come in many ways, of which the following are examples. In the centre of Norwich there was a large, classical style bank building. It was awesome to enter. It symbolized wealth and power. The project was to insert a mezzanine floor in a small part of the entrance area. It was the awesomeness that impressed. A market town in central Norfolk was proud of its grammar school and enthusiastic about the education of its children. New commemorative gates had been bought; piers were required to be built and the gates hung. Perfection was needed. The young bricklayer chosen to do the work had his local experience of the Windsor-type factor. The parish church in Brentwood was located away from the High Street but the ruins of the Chapel of Thomas of Canterbury were in the High Street. A notice-board with oak posts, gold lettering and a symbol of the martyr was wanted. The carpenter was nearly of an age to retire. Most of his work had been in London and impersonal. For him, this job was different; it was something he could take his grandchildren to see; it had meaning, as well as usefulness.

Social issues

University teachers are able to obtain insights into situations through the work of their students. A particular Building Management student was undertaking a placement in East London. Three high-rise blocks of flats were being refurbished. The logistics were complex, some tenants moving permanently to other flats and some temporarily. This was not excessively bad housing but it was bad enough to make its mark on the -visitor and on the student working there ever<­day. On another occasion, a group of part-time Housing Management students were discussing in a management seminar some of the problems they encountered in their work. One was the Homelessness Officer for her local authority. Her problem was that she had to relate to people in great difficulty whom she was powerless to help.

Writing the script: constructing the system

The Latham Report and the legislation and guidance deriving from it constitute part of the script by which Building can be expected to order its life for a considerable number of years to come. The process of negotiating what is to be said and drafting it so that it is readily comprehensible is a responsible and in some ways frightening task. In the 1970's there were some 20000 house-builders building in the private sector and achieving some 150000 house completions a year. Almost all were subject to the warranted design and constructional standards of the National House-Building Council. The standards were the outcome of collaborative deliberations by government, consumer, builder, architectural, insurance and legal interests. The negotiations were about risks, costs, fairness and feasibility. Decisions were finely balanced. One was acutely aware that in one's work as Secretary to the Standards Committee and editor of the Standards documents one was writing the script, and so to some extent constructing the system, which would regulate the whole private housebuilding industry for some years.

Personal doubt and uncertainty

Professional lives can include times of great doubt, difficulty and uncertainty, from the first week at university or in training until late in one's career. Banks, gates and noticeboards were one side of an abyss and national house-building standards on the other. Between them was the crisis of realizing one was not a business person, being told by the church that one could not run away and become a theologian, and finding through working for a professional institution that there was much more intellectually and spiritually to Building than most practitioners needed to realise. At that time professional institution Council members were a mix of people from families with very deep roots in Building and others coming in as professional managers. Both groups included people having great insights into business, design, construction, and education. Here were people who not only took great responsibilities in their organisations but worked for the good of their profession and industry, and for the public good. These were lives that made sense to a young onlooker. A profession is a community and continuity of people in whose company meaning and wisdom can be found.

7.2 Scriptural Materials: The New Adam

Each of the Old Testament scriptural themes considered in Sections 3-6 is continued in the New Testament and relates to the person and work of Christ, the new Adam (eg 1 Cor 15:22). These continuities are now outlined.

Temple and city

Jesus' life is closely bound up with the temple and the city of Jerusalem. He is presented there (Lk 2:22-4) and later comes to his Father's house (Lk 2:49). He relates to it as the house of God (Mt 12:4) and as a house of prayer for all the nations (Mk 11:17). He is angry at its being turned into a den of robbers (Mk 11:17) and a market-place (Jn 2:16). He announces the coming destruction of the temple (Mk 13:2) and of the city (Mt 23:37-39). Jesus is greater than the temple (Mt 12:6) and will supersede its sacrificial work. He claims authority over it (Mk 11:27-33). His death destroys it and it will be replaced by a temple not made with hands. (Mk 14:58). Paul views the people of Christ as the new temple, Christ himself being its cornerstone. (Eph 2:19-22). The temple will be tested by fire, in which the quality of the work of each builder will be revealed. (1 Cor 3:10-7). Ultimately there will be no need for a temple in the heavenly city, for the Lord God and the Lamb will be its temple (Rev 21:22-3). The celebration of creation and the sacrifice as atonement for sin have moved away from the particular location of Mount Zion to wherever Christ is. From the Christian perspective, to rebuild the temple after its destruction in 70 CE would have been a reversal and contradiction. In Heb 12:22-3 Mount Zion becomes a heavenly city but, as Caird (1994) says,:

`Although it is a heavenly and eternal city, it is also a place which is related in a very intimate and special way to the world of earth and time. The citv is but another name for the new order which has already broken in upon the old, not by way of negation or contradiction, but by gathering up the past with all its shadowy anticipations into the final perfect consummation'.                                                (Caird 1994 p277)

Through many vicissitudes and two major rebuildings, Solomon's vision lasted in stones and mortar for 1000 years. Finally, it becomes a metaphor for the worship-full life that Christ makes possible for every adam, in the community of every place.

Kingdom of God

Jesus inaugurates a new kingdom: 'The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near'. (Mk 1:1>). The arrival of the kingdom is immediately preceded by the return of prophecy which had been dormant since the time of Ezra: `.... the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah.........'. (Lk 3:3-4). People must judge for themselves the veracity of what Jesus says about himself, his prophetic standing and his kingdom: 'And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?' (Lk 12a7). This is a kingdom marked by its moral quality : '... the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.' (Rom 14:17).

New law and new body

The fact that the kingdom of God has arrived, means that the Mosaic law can now be seen in clear perspective. Far from being abolished, it is fulfilled (Mt 5:17). It requires a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees (Mt 5:20) and it frees people to do good on the sabbath (Mt 12:12). The law, particularly as set out in Deuteronomy, is not uniformly important; some matters are major and some minor. We need to penetrate behind the letter of the law to discover its true, divine intention. Similarly, one needs to penetrate behind what people actually do to discover what their character is. To love is in itself to fulfil the law. (Caird 1994 p390). Whether the law in question is about parapets or contracts, we need to establish its relative importance, the reasons for it, and the intentions of people who made it, or comply with it, or neglect it, or decide not to comply with it. Such a rigorous interpretation and application constitutes commitment to Jesus:

'Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock......... And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand ..... (Mt 7:24-7). 

In contexts such as the implementation of Latham, obedience to the law, or  compliance with the spirit of the system, necessitates cooperative working and mutual respect. Such working is a mark of the community that is governed by the law as endorsed by Jesus:

'Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many... the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable and the members of the body we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect......... But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body. If one member suffers. a11 suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.'      (1Cor 12:14,22-6).

Not to be open to the life that is in the law, is to be bound by `the ministry of death chiselled in letters on stone tablets' (2 Cor 3:7) and to be blind to the built-in obsolescence of the ministry of Moses. (Hooker 1990 p149).

Wisdom

Wisdom is the counterpart of the torah; each is a code of human conduct, a design for living which had the merit of being identical with the design of the whole universe. `Israel, by obeying the torah was fulfilling not only God's purpose for the human race but for the whole creation. It was God's good pleasure that in human beings His wisdom should find a dwelling.' (Caird 1994 p337). It is the purpose of the body that is the church `to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden forages in God who created all things...' (Eph 3:9-10). With Christ, wisdom no longer lies merely and only in obedience to sets of rules but in the gift of an attitude of mind, which is the mind of Christ, the new Adam, the new image of God. Caird explains this with great clarity:

`What Paul's argument requires is that Christ should be accepted as the true image, and therefore the true revelation of the unseen God, precisely because he is "adam " as God always intended "adam " to be (Gen 1:26). He is the human race, in whom the divine wisdom has taken up permanent residence........ Christ is himself God's whole secret plan; for "in him lie hidden all God's treasures of wisdom and knowledge".' (Col 2:2) (Caird 1994 p335).

Job's searching in the mines for the key to the mvstery of the universe is over, as is Ecclesiastes' wrestling with doubt! The answer is in Christ.

7.3 Comparison of Materials

Both sets of materials work with the concept of `Adam'.

Everyone in Building is an adam, a human being, with a unique experience of projects, social issues, industry systems and professional life. The course of that life may be viewed as the working out of destiny, chance or prudent response to opportunities. Each such adam is a being, composed of the dust of the earth and the breath of spirit (Gen 2:7), who has encountered desire for the wrong sort of wisdom, or wisdom not yet attainable (Gen 3:6), has experienced the conflicts that can arise between brothers or colleagues or associates when one is a roving, free-spirited shepherd and the other a settled farmer and builder (Gen 4:1-16). Each has known situations where there has been the unanimity of one language and the same words (Gen 11: l ) and how large, ambitious enterprises, whether building a building or a company, or an organisation, can lead to tragedy, confusion, diversity of language and breakdown of communication and community (Gen 11:2-9).

To such each adam comes the new Adam saying that a new time has come, a time to repent for there is good news to be heard (Mk 1:14-5). Caird has him tell a `parable of the Apprenticed Son'.

`A son can do nothing by himself; he does only what he sees his father doing: what the father does, the son does. For the father loves the son and shows him all that he is doing (Jn 5:19-20). Here is a picture of a human father instructing his son in his own trade and sharing with him all his professional secrets, and through the lens of this picture from daily life may be seen the relation between Jesus and God. So complete is the mutual understanding of this partnership that everything Jesus says or does is at the same time the word and deed of God. It is a partnership of mutual love (Jn 15:9-10) and mutual indwelling (Jn 10:38. 14:11)          (Caird 1994 p297)

The human apprenticeship was in carpentry: the divine apprenticeship was in uniting in himself temple and city, prophecy and kingdom, law and wisdom, all of which are facets of the Word of God We customarily connect `Word' with the logos (Greek 'word') of Jn l: l. Caird (1994 p332) suggests we think of it as 'purpose' and so say 'In the beginning was the purpose, the purpose in the mind of God the purpose which was God's own being'. The son completed the work the father gave him to do (Jn 17:4) so gathering the whole human race into the same purpose.

Thus, on the one hand. we have our individual Building-oriented adamic experiences and, on the other, we have the purpose of God for humanity in the new Adam.

7.4 Historical Continuities

Church building

The most direct and obvious link between the New Testament and contemporary Building is the history of church building. The church building is the place where Scripture is publicly read and preached. It is in the process of building, adapting and maintaining church buildings that the building industry enters most directly into relationships with the Christian community. The point of origin was Jerusalem and the upper room in which Jesus commended his finished work to the Father. `A room in a house large enough for the assembly of the faithful: a table as a place of offering and distribution: a designated seat for the president - these were the essentials and remained such until the fourth century AD and the beginning of the Church's great expansion'. (Dillistone 1973 p100).

In the case of Essex, that great expansion is symbolized by the Saxon chapel of St Cedd on the sea edge at Bradwell, built in the eighth century. There is a geographical unity between this ancient building and the newly-built Othona retreat centre a few minutes walk away, and with the engineering of the sea wall and of the power station across the estuary. In Chelmsford 'There was a church on the bishop's manor [the bishop of London] by the early 13th century. It stood at the top of the hill leading down to the bridges and the ford.......' In the early fifteenth century work began on what since 1914 has been Chelmsford cathedral. (Grieve 1988 pp5-6). In 1993, Building Management undergraduates at Anglia Polytechnic University participated in a conference and exhibition at the cathedral on 'Building and Society'. One of the student papers considered, topically at the time, whether Windsor Castle should have been insured against fire and an exhibit of photographs and diaries revealed how two students felt after they had spent 24 hours 'homeless' in London. Others were on various subjects; the whole linked together current concerns of young professionals within the ethos of the place of Christian worship.

The architectural expression of the centrality of Scripture and 'word' is most pronounced in the buildings of the nonconformist traditions. Binfield (1992) discusses the work of the architect James Cubitt - originating from Norfolk - in the design of Union Chapel Islington during the period 1874-9. Cubitt, Binfield says, met the prime architectural test, a building that worked. His design achieved a direct contact between the preacher, and therefore Scripture, and every individual:

'This very Protestant place for listeners to Word (or music) is no place for those who prefer the sidelines. The moment you are seated in it you are on the preacher's sight-line. Wherever you sit there is nothing between you and the preacher, you alone and the preacher alone........ Even at the back of the tower you are your own centre, with the pulpit still the focal point, you and the preacher in it.......... from the tower the whole church space has become a chancel, the priests' part wherein all are priests, people's Gothic for a Protestant people.' (Binfield 1992 p444)

The building holds together preacher, hearers and music, their bodies, souls and voices, making them one. 'This individualizing, Protestant, space is thus also a very gathering, Catholic space. It is truly Congregational.' (Binfield 1992 p444).

This kind of connection is universal. Writing for the Christian Conference of Asia, Takenaka (1995) says:

'Architectural work demands the joint activity of many disciplines. Building the church requires joint consolidation and cooperation of many trades and professional specialists such as artists, musicians, social workers, builders, painters, engineers, lawyers, nursery school teachers, designers, managers and, of course, the architect and minister. The task of building the body of Christ requires teamwork by gifted people who work together and bring their varied gifts in a spirit of unity.'                                                      (Takenaka 1995 p26)

Evolving technologies of 'Building

It is too restricting to think of continuities only through church buildings. Others must also be considered.

St Paul's Cathedral, the seat of the bishops of London, and Union Chapel Islington are located in an area where today Building Technology is of an advanced nature. The structures and services of office and hospital buildings are complex engineering entities designed to create controlled internal environments which are healthy, secure. comfortable and economic to operate. Building Technology today is a far more complex subject than it was, for example, in

1945. Groak (1994 p15) argues that the buildings of today need to be viewed as `unstable systems in dynamic environments'. They are inevitably subject to degradation by the elements, and by wear and tear including fluctuations caused by use of energy. They are subject to flows such as rain, air, energy, chemicals, water, light, radiation, human activity, information and industry. These flows are regulated by complex and sensitive control systems. Alongside the increasing complexity of the flows is advancement in materials development and engineering skill. All is movement. change and fluidity.

The ways in which technologies develop is profoundly important. Monsma et al (1986) look, as prophets might look, for a network of concerned people whose dialogue is capable of developing insights into technological responsibility, who can counter-balance misdirected professional outlooks when they occur and ensure a full consideration of goals:

'Goal-setting left in the hands of government decision makers and corporate officers often gets reduced to short-term objectives. Christians guided by a biblical vision of ideals and normative principles have a natural basis on which to develop worthwhile goals in a world dominated by means, averages and consensus. By God's grace, generating goals worthy of biblical teaching can have a cathartic and uplifting impact on the technological enterprise.'        (Monsma et al 1986 p231)

7.5 Ethical Discussion/ the Sacrament of Baptism

Technology and the significance of baptism

Church buildings are marked by various forms of baptistery. The baptistery is a potent, built link with New Testament times. It is moving to stand today on the Kentish coast at Richborough and see the extensive remains of the Roman fort. There is evidence on the site of a Christian church of the fifth century. The baptistery was a separate building; the hexagonal masonry cistern is still substantially complete, although the wooden superstructure has disappeared. The whole building was some 7ft 6in x 6ft 6in and the cistern 3ft 2in x 2ft. An octagonal baptistery exists at Witham Essex. The hexagon recalls the crucifixion on Friday, the sixth day of the week, and the octagon, the resurrection on the eighth day. Thus the baptistery design is a concrete enactment of the sacrament. (Thomas 1981 pp216-219).

At least in urban environments. Building technology is likely to be evolving all around the church building. There is a relationship. In Christian Worship and Technological Change, White (1994) explores this relationship. Her conclusion is that in the technological age, in spite of the 'flow' of Christian hope, worship is in danger of becoming irrelevant, of succumbing to the destructive values of technology, of being locked into a religious or cultural ghetto, and even of disappearing altogether. The whole idea of the sanctification of the whole world, not least of technology, is at risk. What is in danger of being lost is the fact that 'Technology can become sacramental, it can become a bearer of the self-giving love of God to a broken world.......'.

(White 1994 p129). Buildings, whether for worship or other purposes, exemplify technology. White's point is that all technology, if it is not to be the cause of disaster, must become life-bearing. That is to say it must be brought within the scope and influence of baptism.

John the Baptist proclaimed baptism and repentance (Mk 1:4). The full significance is apparent when, at Jerusalem, on the day of Pentecost, 'Peter said to them "Repent, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven..."... So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.' (Acts 2: 38-41). This is not only individuals taking a personal step; it is the creation of a new humanity. 'Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life' (Rom 6:3-4). What is put to death includes 'greed (which is idolatry)......, anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive language...... [Moreover] do not lie to one another' and 'In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian. Scythian slave and free..' (Col 3:5,8-9,11).

This new company of the baptized lived in a world in which much travel was undertaken.- in fact, the community itself came into existence in its extended form, from Jerusalem to Rome, because people travelled as part of their business: `Paul was able to achieve the near self-sufficiency of which he was so proud because it was not unusual for artisans to move from place to place, carrying their tools with them and seeking out, say, the leatherworkers' street or quarters of whatever town they came to.' (Meeks 1983 p17). Their travel was facilitated by the civil engineering of the Roman road system. The Christian communities thus brought into being were households of faith in which post-baptismal morality could be carefully nurtured and, at the same time, new cultural movements in society, the whole of which was potentially within the scope of renewed life, because `through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross' (Col 1:20). The communities that struggled to articulate the meaning and significance of these concepts, which were either ridiculous or momentous, were growing and baptizing communities. As Meeks (1993 p95) puts it 'Every new baptism reenacted for all believers who were present their own original experience, re-presenting to them the passage from death to new life and reminding them of the obligations undertaken under those solemn circumstances'. When we baptize and reenact our own baptism, we join the earliest communities in their search for a morality that is relevant to the present but aware of the past

While the administration of baptism is to the individual, its implications are for the household, the city and the cosmos. What is taken into the death and resurrection of Christ, is the person and the whole of his/her life, relationships, roles, profession and responsibilities. In the case of those in building  this includes that which is built. together with the social and systems aspects of the work. There has to be a re-uniting of baptismal profession of faith with the professing of Building , thereby recovering the early position adduced by Grimball (1992 p19).

Liturgies

Baptismal liturgies need to make the wide implications of the sacrament clear. The following prayer from the Church of Scotland makes the biblical connections well in societal terms but veers off to much too personalized a conclusion:

`In the beginning, you moved over the waters

and brought light and life to formless waste. By the waters of the flood,  

you cleansed the world,

and made with Noah and his family

a new beginning for all people.

In the time of Moses, you led your people,

out of slavery through the waters of the sea, making covenant with them in a new land.

At the appointed time,  

in the waters of the Jordan

when Jesus was baptized by John

you sent your Spirit upon him.

And now, by the baptism  

of his death and resurrection,

Christ sets us free from sin and death and opens the way to eternal life.'

(Common Order 1994 p100-1)

'Eternal life' with its connotation of life after death has, arguably, been used in place of the 'newness of life' of Rom 6:4. The consequence of that is that the full extent of the practical import of baptism is lost. Such personalizing of the sacrament that inaugurates the moral order means that we fail to enact fully the work and meaning of Christ who is the new temple, the new city, the new prophet, the giver of the new law. and who is the new wisdom. The implication of that is the connection between Scripture and, in our case. Building is not fully enacted and demonstrated.

Timing of baptism

This discussion has been in terms of the adult baptized. When people are baptized as infants. the adult nuances, such as those considered here, are carried forward to a service of Confirmation (or admittance to Church Membership). That is an ideal time to draw out the wide implications of baptism/confirmation for not only all aspects of the life of the candidates but for the life of the world, or society, as a whole.

Traditionally. baptism and confirmation precede participation in the Lord's Supper/ Eucharist. Gorringe (1997 p24) sees the matter the other way round. People, he suggests. are first drawn in to the open Supper table and then commit themselves in baptism/ confirmation. This dissertation has followed the traditional order because its structure requires it to deal with ethics before metaphor but Gorringe's approach is viewed as entirely valid.

7.6 Metaphorical Interplay - the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper/Eucharist

The Lord's Supper/Eucharist can be viewed as an unfolding drama. Building also can be viewed as drama. The two dramas are parallel to, and metaphors for, each other.

The drama of the Lord's Supper l Eucharist

The drama of the Lord's Supper/Eucharist can be viewed as scenes depicting welcome, offering, word, action, remembrance and sign.

The first scene is that of the prepared table to which the people are welcomed. `From east and west. from north and south, people will come and take their places in the kingdom of God'. (Common Order 1994 p128 and Lk 13:29).

They bring with them offerings of bread and wine, the products of nature and of human work:

'Blessed are you Lord God of all creation,

Through your goodness we have this bread to offer,

which earth has given and human hands have made.

...........................................

Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands.

....................................................

(Common Order 1994 p191)

It is possible to associate the work involved in creating the worship building (and all buildings) with this offering.

The central words in the sacrament are those of the Thanksgiving /Eucharistic prayer in which the scriptural story is recalled. The following example resonates with professional work and responsibilities in Building:

'You brought forth the human race and blessed us with memory, reason and skill. You made us the stewards of creation, but we turned against you. and betrayed your trust. Yet your mercy is like the spring that never fails. You, yourself in Christ your Son come to deliver us: you redeem us in your love and pity: you create new heavens and a new earth where the cry of distress is heard no more.'

(Common Order 1994 p136)

Memory, reason, skill, breakdown in trust, the creation of new things and the alleviation of suffering are readily identifiable with Building as it has been comprehensively considered in this dissertation.

The central action is the breaking of the bread. Stacey in Hooker (1997) is concerned with things Jesus did. which he views as prophetic. Up to the moment of the Last Supper, the body of Christ was the fleshly body of Jesus. That was too limited to achieve its purposes. Therefore the symbol, the bread, was broken and shared among the disciples so that they became the organ through which the purposes of God would be exercised. Today, when the bread is broken and shared, those who receive it become prophetic actors. `This' continues Stacey_ `is the simple and self-evident meaning of the dramatic action........... It was a brilliant symbol of corporate being' (Stacey in Hooker 1997 p93). Both church and Building can be regarded as corporate beings metaphorically related in this dramatic action.

The action of breaking the bread recalls, is a remembrance of, the sacrifice of Christ who embodies new temple, new kingdom of justice, new law and new wisdom. For Bradley (1995) the Eucharist, the thanksgiving, is for what God has himself sacrificed, the sacrificial action that he has taken. Bradley identifies himself with the 1982 Lima liturgy of the World Council of Churches which explains that the Eucharist is the great sacrifice of praise by which the Church speaks on behalf of the whole creation. Coupled with the offering of the praise of the whole world is the offering of its suffering. As we do that, we remember that `what he asks of us who come to his holy table, is not that we simply recall his sacrifice but that we engage in the infinitely costly and painful task of remembering his shattered, broken body. That body incorporates our fragile and troubled world.......' (Bradley 1995 p280) and includes the world of Building.

The whole sequence of welcome, offering, listening to words and engaging in action, is a sign. Gorringe (1997) suggests that it is firstly a .sign of welcome. It was characteristic of Jesus that he ate and drank with people of many kinds and in many situations. He continued this practice of welcome and hospitality at the last supper. (Gorringe 1997 pp16-19).

Second, this sacrament, particularly the offering and the recalling words, can properly be interpreted as a sign of the link between the economic aspects of life and worship:

'...... to produce the bread of the Eucharist at least eight operations are necessary, from ploughing, to marketing, to baking. Each of these operations has a global economic, social, and political dimension. Somebody pays somebody else to do the work. The work is done in competition or in cooperation. In the global economy the production of grain is part of the balance of payments and the relation between nations. The bread of the eucharist is the bread of the economy. The liturgy is inescapably enmeshed in the "real world' of the world economy.'   (Gorringe 1997 p36).

The combined effect of welcome at table and the eucharistic bread being 'the bread of the economy' is to make this 'the sacrament of the beauty, depth and mystery of the trivial and ordinary'. (Gorringe 1997 p87). Nothing can be more ordinary than Building.

Building as drama

Building can be viewed as drama, as action which tells a story and, by means of images, carries a meaning.

The first scene or image is one of wonder. The Windsor restoration, the successive temples at Jerusalem and the technologically inventive projects of Peter Rice evoke wonder that the human race has evolved the aesthetic and mathematical skills to achieve this kind of work. It is equally to be wondered at that so much of our housebuilding is excellent in landscape and estate layout and in the careful and appropriate design of dwellings for families or for the elderly or the disabled. A lovingly crafted Asian church is totally different from a medieval European cathedral, yet each in its own way is excellent. This sense of wonder has to be developed. As Day (1990a) puts it, we have to hear and join the singing:

'Yet architecture, although built of matter, need not be dead: it can be life-filled. Its constituent elements and relationships can sing - and the human heart can resonate with them.'   (Day, 1990a p10)

Not only the finished building but the process by which it comes about can be a matter for wonder. This gives a second scene or dramatic image. Day (1990b) tells a story which is the reverse of Babel (Gen 11:1-9). In 1981, he had led an international group of architectural students in the design and building of a structure on a playground for handicapped children in Liverpool. They were a team of ten from seven nations and they had a week in which to complete the task. Reflecting on the experience. he wrote:

'Looking back over the week, it became clear that through working with our hands, we had overridden any difficulties in communication due to our different languages. and without even thinking of it, had built a strong, mutually supportive group. We had created a "real building " . ....... We had engaged thought and aesthetic sensitivity. together with the skill of our hands. And we had given something to the children.'                   (Day 1990b p67)).

For every good experience in building there is a bad one. Appleyard (1994) presents major.

Babel-like failure dramatically. This is a third scene or image:

`Then there was nothing, a pause of beautiful, fragile intensity; then there was a series of echoing cracks: then nothing; then there was a terrible, slow, rolling detonation; then a shudder ran through the ground and the people on the platform clutched at each other in shock. I looked up to the topmost stage and spire of the central tower, rising above the gable of the facade. Miraculously it appeared to be stable, yet I knew that all strength had now gone from its supporting structure. I felt it was held there by a kind of disbelief, a refusal to accept the horror, the sudden engineering void below. Lionel had risen to his feet and was now shading his eyes, gazing like me at the central tower. Still the robot was screaming and moving down the nave, but now the crowd were shouting and pointing instead of jeering at his cries of anguish. Some had begun to clamber down the front of the platform in terror, and a few children were crying. "It was too much". I heard one man shout. "We tried to do too much, too big...... too much...'.      (Appleyard 1994 p264).

Fourthly, wonder and failure can overlay one another with joy and tears. Sometimes, as with Day. Building work succeeds in bringing joy to some children. Sometimes, as in Appleyard's apocalyptic scene, Building makes some children cry. The story of all individual adam 's is that of sometimes bringing joy and sometimes causing tears. Weaving their way in and out of all the personal stories are stories such as Latham of how institutions design collective systems and formulate approaches to professional practice, which at heart are about maximising joy and minimising the tears.

For the final image in the drama, the scene reverts to the poignant simplicity of Day (1990b):

`To build a house the pre-industrial peasant took of the earth, stones. trees and straw around him. With these materials, together with his brothers, cousins, uncles and friends, he constructed a building, the design of which was imprinted over many generations with but slow evolution into their image of "house". In the process, the products of his daily work and surroundings - his complete experienced world - were combined and raised to make a home. The surroundings, social community and archetypal idea were combined into one whole....' (Day 1990b p90)

Here is the strength that comes from focusing on the most basic building artifact, the house; here is the sense that the best things evolve very slowly; here is the sense that life's whole experience can be given body and effect through what one does with earth, stone, trees and straw.

The two dramas

These two dramas have resonance with each other. We have viewed a eucharistic sequence of welcome, offertory, words of recall and thanksgiving, the action of breaking bread and remembrance of suffering, all of which constitute a sign All of that is to be wondered at. Our Building drama has begun with wonder at creativity and at the creative process. It has moved on to view failure and the complete breaking and collapse of a building. It has overlain that failure with the joys of simple tasks completed at great cost to patience by ordinary people and children. It would have been possible, but unnatural in relation to the materials from which they are made, to have structured these two dramatic sequences as direct parallels of each other. That would have been too mechanistic. What we in fact have is two different dramatic sequences which, notwithstanding, strike the same notes and resonate with each other, uniting Building with enacted Scripture.

7. 7 Emergent Axiology

Inclusive care

This Section has suggested that people engaged in Building may experience significant projects. encounter either directly or indirectly some of the social issues associated with housing, be affected by the legislation and collective practices that create the ethos of the industry, and wrestle with some of the questions found in Wisdom. It has shown that the Old Testament concepts of temple, prophecy, law and Wisdom are fulfilled in Christ. It has traced a connecting path through church and other buildings, noted the significance of baptism as the sacrament of ethical re-structuring relating to all life, and drawn parallel and mutually metaphorical dramatic images out of Building and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper/Eucharist.

This makes it manifestly clear that Building is not an aspect of life that is merely economic or merely technological. Equally, it is clear that the New Testament, as both Word and sacrament. is not a remote or privatized religious manual. Both have deep meaning and both matter, not only for what each itself is, but because of the high value that each gives to the other. Oppenheimer (1995 p61), in a discussion of `mattering', says `What we are called upon to do is enter into one another's mattering. That is what `'love" means.'

It is inappropriate to talk of 'love' in the context of professional Building but it is appropriate to substitute `care'. Scripture and Building enter into one another's mattering by means of care for and about each other's significance and contribution. CHRISM (1995) suggests that ministry in the context of work is about care for the work. The value statement is that `I, or we, care' for the work that is being done. The discussion in this Section has suggested that Building matters and is therefore to be cared about. Reciprocally, the understanding, interpretation and relating of

New Testament Scripture is something that matters and which is to be cared about.

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