PROPER 4A 2008
Text: Matthew 7:21-27
The story of the wise builder and
the foolish builder seem very appropriate today in light of the shaking of the
world that has gone on these last few weeks. Life has a way of all of a sudden
shaking that which once seemed so secure to us. I know that I feel a little
shaken when I drive by the gas station and see a price of $4.21 a gallon. I wonder what that will mean for my life and
our society if it keeps on going up. I can’t imagine what people in
In the story that Jesus told, the house faced: rain, then a flood, and then to make the story more dramatic, the winds “beat” on the house. This is the way we sometimes feel in life – the floods rise up to our neck and the rain keeps on coming and the winds beat us down.
But Jesus says in this little parable that we can withstand these life trials. The key is what we build our lives upon – sand, or a rock. And if we have families, then we also are teaching our children what to build their lives upon. This is the emphasis of our OT lesson. How we live and what we value is picked up by our children.
So Jesus says that if we hear his words and then act on them we will be building our lives upon a solid foundation. But if we hear his words and then don’t act upon them, then we are like a man who builds his house on sand.
There are two parts then to building our lives upon a rock – hearing and then acting upon what we hear.
Lets talk for a few moments about hearing. Jesus often said as he was teaching something like this: “those who have ears, let them hear.” Whey some pay attention to the words of Jesus and some don’t I don’t really have any idea. Many of us can come and sit here and listen to all the word in the liturgy and the scriptures and leave and they make little difference in our day to day lives. In a real sense, we are not hearing them. But sometimes something happens in our lives and all of a sudden we begin to hear. Our hearts and our souls are open and we listen. I can remember very well when this happened to me. I had heard the words of Jesus my whole life, but I had not heard them with my heart and soul. Now I was listening. There was a desire to hear. I wanted to know what Jesus was saying and what it meant for me.
Now this was just the beginning. The desire to know and to hear was the beginning of a life long seeking and struggling to understand. As St. Anselm says: faith seeks understanding” But you know what, hearing what Jesus is saying, and then trying to understand what that means for our day to day life is not easy. This parable of Jesus that we heard today comes at the end of what is called the sermon on the mount.. Well, have you every tried to life out the sermon on the mount?
If you are angry with another person and think they are a fool, you are in danger of the fire of hell. If you lust after another person you have already committed adultery. If anyone hits you, offer the other cheek. If anyone asks for money, give it to them. Love your enemies and pray for them. Always pray and do not expect to be noticed by others. Store up treasures in heaven, not on the earth. You can’t serve God and wealth. Don’t judge others or you will be judged. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Enter through the narrow gate.. don’t take the wide gate, because it leads to destruction. Not everyone who says Lord will enter the kingdom, but only those who do the will of the father in heaven.
In these three chapters we have laid out a standard for us that is so radical that many of us simply ignore it and rationalize away how unrealistic the teachings of Jesus are. How are the poor in spirit and those who mourn blessed … I would rather be rich and happy…. How are the meek blessed, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness bless… I would rather be strong and full. How are the persecuted happy… I would rather be safe and secure.
And yet I believe that Jesus meant what he said. In the teachings of Jesus we have the standard for God-like human behavior. These standards only seem so unrealistic because of the depth of human sin. Our human nature has become so self centered and sinful, and our societies have been built with this reality, that when we hear how we were created to be, it seems totally unreachable. So we have a huge dilemma, one that Christians have been struggling with since the beginning. What do we do with the teachings of Jesus? Do we simply ignore them as being unrealistic, and read them in church because they sound good and make us feel good, and then go out and live as if they have no relationship to real life? Or do we try and live them and realize who impossible it is to really live them and feel guilty and full of failure constantly?
Well, let me give you my way of dealing with these teachings of Jesus. Now I don’t know if those who put together our lectionary thought like I do, but it seems to me not an accident that we read that great passage of Paul’s from Romans chapter 3. For me, I interpret the teachings of Jesus through Paul. I believe that Paul’s understanding of grace and justification give us the key to striving to live the teachings of Jesus without being overwhelmed by guilt and a sense of total failure.
In verse 23 or chapter 3, Paul writes:
……all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
In a real sense, this is the summation of what he has been saying in the first three chapters. Every human being, whether religious or not, has not been able to live up to the standard of God. God’s standard is reflected in the teachings of Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount reflects the way we should live. But the truth is, we all fail at living it. In Paul’s words, we could say that none of us can really keep the law of God. But, Paul argues, God forgives us our failures and accepts us as we are when we put our faith in Jesus. This is the way Paul puts it:
21But now, apart from law, the
righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the
prophets, 22the righteousness of God through faith
in Jesus Christ£ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a sacrifice of
atonement£ by his blood, effective through faith
Now in
seminary we would spend months on this passage trying to understand the details
of Paul’s thought, but lets simply say
that Paul is saying that in Jesus God has accepted us as we are through our
faith. We can’t, and we don’t have to
earn God’s love or favor through works or our good deeds. We don’t have to keep
the Sermon on the Mount to earn God’s love. We call this grace.
Grace
becomes the foundation upon which we build our lives. And once we experience
God’s grace, and our lives are
changed, we then want to strive to live
as God wants us to live, not to earn
God’s love, but out of love and thankfulness. Grace then gives us the courage
and the strength to go back to the Sermon on the Mount and strive to live it
out as best we can. We don’t simply ignore the teaching of Jesus. We let his teaching guide us and challenge us
every day. Thus, when we are on the streets, and we are asked for money, we don’t
just ignore them as rabble, but
we struggle with what to do. We might not give, or we might give, but we don’t
just ignore them. When we are hurt by others, we strive to understand, when we find ourselves judging others, we
strive not to.. when we find ourselves lusting… we strive not to… when we find
ourselves building up treasures on the earth,,
we strive to seek the real treasures….
Even
though in many areas we fall far short of Jesus’ teaching, we still try. And we can do so knowing that
God’s grace is surrounding us and undergirding us. There have been times in my
life when I have tried to do what I thought God wanted, and terrible
failed, and have felt like giving up. If
it is all so hard, why bother? How many of us have things about ourselves
that we know are not good, but we can’t change or stop doing one thing or
another. We can become really discouraged. But another way to look at this is
to see our weaknesses and our sins as leading us to the cross and the grace of
God. In a real sense, as Paul pointed
out, our sin magnifies the grace and
love of God. If we can accept this grace and love, our failures will not always slay us with
guilt and discouragement. On the contrary,
our failures in the light of God’s grace actually give us the courage
and the desire to live more holy lives.
The image
that Jesus uses in the parable for what we build our lives upon is very
powerful. And so each one of us must ask the question, upon what foundation are we building our
lives. If we tear way the roof and the walls, what will we find? I thought about what sand could be for our
lives – money, health, jobs, power, even family and relationships. Any of these can be taken away in the storms
of life. These are all good things, but they don’t work as a foundation. If the storms come, and our wealth or health
or family or job is blown away, what do
we have left?
As I say
often, this Christian stuff does relate
to our real lives. A life built upon
grace and love, and thus upon
Jesus, will be different in the long run
than a life that is not. One commentator wrote:
“True
religion is not easily distinguished from a pretence to it, until it comes to
the test.” Calvin Matthew, Mark
Luke vol. 1 pg. 242
When
things are good, we all can enjoy life, and if we have a weak foundation it is
not observable. But when things change,
our weak foundation will be made known.
So my challenge to all of us today is to think about what it is that we
are building our life, and the life of our children on. If we have children, helping them to
understand the difference between a weak foundation and a solid one is our job.
Just as with us, one day they too will
face loss, failure, divorce, illness, natural disaster and maybe social
upheaval. What are we teaching them
about life? What are we talking about with them as we go about our lives? What foundation are we building in their
lives?
The
parable of Jesus is simple, yet very
powerful. It challenges us to the core. But it is worth listening
to! AMEN!