We are all part of a spiritual building project – with no completion date required

VISITORS to Spain will have visited the (as yet still unfinished) Basilica of the Holy Family in Barcelona. Begun by the architect Gaudi almost 140 years ago this magnificent building is expected to be completed in five years’ time.

Few, I suspect, will know of another unfinished building in the suburbs of Madrid. About seven miles from the Spanish capital, in an area called Mejorado del Campo, is a cathedral that was started in 1961 and is being constructed entirely from scrap materials. Justo Gallego Martinez, started the project as a thanksgiving to God for healing him from tuberculosis (in those days a killer disease).

Now 96 years old the former monk rarely comes to see the work others are carrying out on his behalf but he fully expects to be laid to rest in the crypt he built four years ago. Meanwhile people are campaigning for his unique church to be given protected status by UNESCO.

As I mentioned last week Jesus spoke of building his church. Like Martinez he was not planning to use standard construction materials. Instead, the church Jesus builds is put together with broken people.

People who get things wrong. People who break their promises. People do the things they know they shouldn’t and fail to do the things they know they should. People in fact like you and me.

Everyone is welcome to be part of this building project. It doesn’t matter what we have done or how far we feel we have fallen from our own standards let alone the standards of God. Jesus promises that he will never turn away anyone who comes to him which feels like good news for all of us. Even the disciple Peter, who got things wrong so often, was told by Jesus that he would be a foundation stone in this project.

Like the scrap-made cathedral of Martinez there is no completion date for Jesus’ building project: simply the promise that allowing ourselves to be shaped according to his purposes and directed his Spirit we will discover the overwhelming joy of life in all its fullness.