Thursday of the First Week of Advent

Statue of Mary
in St Mary's Church,
New Albany, Indiana

“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. 

The word has been around for a while, but I learned of infrastructure only a few years ago. It was coined in the late 1920’s:

INFRASTRUCTURE: noun

1. the basic, underlying framework or features of a system or organization.

2. the fundamental facilities and systems serving a country, city, or area, as transportation and communication systems, power plants, and schools.

3. the military installations of a country. (Dictionary.com)

When I learned the word it referred to the “hardware” of a city or nation: the roads, bridges, water lines, gas lines, sewers, power lines and so forth. Since then, as I understand, we can also speak of legal infrastructures (laws, codes, jurisprudence, legal societies, treaties, etc); educational infrastructure (schools of every level); financial, social, religious, entertainment infrastructures and so forth.

Infrastructure, I suppose, is everything we have been building for the past million and some years and are apt to take for granted – though that is always unwise. It is expensive and complicated. Discussions about infrastructure are time-consuming, boring and inconclusive.  Though there are many wrong answers, there are no right ones. But infrastructure demands vigilance because, neglected, it disintegrates rapidly.

Jesus alludes to that challenging dimension of human life when he tells us “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. 

The fool likes to take shortcuts. He will build a gorgeous house in a swamp. Until you pick up the newspapers or watch the evening news you might think, “No one is that stupid!” But we read about it all the time. Houses built by beautiful lakes collapse as the wandering, irresistible water moves under them. Entire neighborhoods disappear into sink holes. Homes go up in flames amid the flammable brush that claims arid waste as its own. Inevitably the “developers” who sold the lots and homes in the first place have disappeared with the money.

Fools also suppose well-built institutions can be misused or converted to other means. Louisville is a river city. Without its floodwalls it would be immersed in filthy brown muck every few years. But the public has to be reminded often, “You cannot use these inviting hills for motocross racing.” Someone is bound to say, “But we’ve not seen a serious flood in ten years! Those days are over!” As if!

But I am concerned about the religious/spiritual infrastructures of a society. Marriage, for instance, looks like a solid, dependable institution with prehistoric foundations. We might suppose the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.  Some people who have “come out” and publicly declared they have no desire to contract marriage would like to use the ancient institution for another purpose – to gain respectability. They envy the esteem society holds for married men and women, and want the same honor for their own relationships.

Respectability is a fine thing. We have laws and customs to promote it; our religious traditions insist that every person should be esteemed as the very image of Christ. But to call homosexual friendship marriage disrespects the ancient institution. It is like using an earthen floodwall for motocross racing. We’ll not be surprised when either infrastructure collapses after such misuse.

Today’s gospel reminds us that our lives, including our marriages, are founded on the enduring Word of God. The gates of hell cannot prevail against such an institution. Personally I have every confidence that the Sacrament of Marriage will survive this assault. It has survived divorce, serial polygamy and bridezillas. But I worry about the society that would assail it. Military history indicates that armies that siege a strongly fortified city usually disintegrate during the attempt. The sooner western societies call off the attack the better off we’ll all be.