Scripture Matthew 7:24-29
“Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded 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. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”
Now when Jesus had finished saying these words, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes.
Meditation
Tonight, we come to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and here’s one thing you should probably know about it: most scholars don’t think Jesus ever preached this exact sermon. If you read through the gospel of Matthew, you may get the idea that Jesus preached all new material every time he was in front of a crowd, but that’s probably not how it worked. Most likely Jesus had a set of themes he preached about, often sharing the same ones as he traveled from place to place, even as he expanded his repertoire of parables and pithy sayings. The author of this gospel probably collected a bunch of Jesus’s “greatest hits” into this one collection, Matthew chapters 5 through 7. This final chapter certainly sounds that way. Jesus goes, in quick succession, from the famous “do not judge, lest you be judged” passage, to the one on not casting your pearls before swine, to the portion we read last week: ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Then he covers the Golden Rule, the Narrow Gate, and the Tree and its Fruit, before coming to the last topic he covers: Don’t just be hearers of the word. Be doers.
That’s where we find ourselves this evening, in this passage that is a little tricky for Protestants, we who believe that it’s all about God’s grace. In the short passage immediately before our final word, Jesus says,
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” A few verses later we come to this parable driving home that same point: build your house on the rock, not on the sand.
I grew up on the sand, more or less. I certainly spent a lot of time on the Ventnor City and Ocean City beaches, year-round. On the beach every day of every summer from age 2 until 10, I have memories of building castles, not just on the sand, but made of sand, simple ones of hand-poured sandy mud, elaborate ones with turrets and moats and seashell décor. And of course I learned the bittersweet lessons of how fragile they were, in the end. Even though I haven’t lived there since I left for college, I maintain that the ocean is my home. I go there as often as I can. For years I nursed a dream of one day living by the ocean in retirement.
But recent years have shown the disastrous outcome of so many people building their houses, for all intents and purposes, on the sand. Waterfront properties have flooded, again and again… the footage from Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall in Ventnor, my hometown, haunts me. Homes in my town were swept away entirely by that mammoth storm, and the more recent storms that seem as if they are here to stay.
Jesus preaches and teaches, everywhere he goes. If this is indeed a single sermon he preached at one time, he has been speaking for, by my calculations, about 45 minutes. And his conclusion is this: Don’t just ponder the things I’ve said. Take them into yourself. Let them motivate you. Let them activate you. Don’t just hear. Do. Anything else is a castle on—or, maybe, of—the sand.
We had a conversation at Session last night about something called “The Ministry of Members.” Every time we confirm our young people, or welcome new adult members to our congregation, we remind them that they are now a part of the church’s ministry. I’m going to read that excerpt from our PCUSA Book of Order. Hold on to your hats:
A faithful member bears witness to God’s love and grace and promises to be involved responsibly in the ministry of Christ’s Church. Such involvement includes:
· proclaiming the good news in word and deed,
· taking part in the common life and worship of a congregation,
· lifting one another up in prayer, mutual concern, and active support,
· studying Scripture and the issues of Christian faith and life,
· supporting the ministry of the church through the giving of money, time, and
talents,
· demonstrating a new quality of life within and through the church,
· responding to God’s activity in the world through service to others,
· living responsibly in the personal, family, vocational, political, cultural, and social
relationships of life,
· working in the world for peace, justice, freedom, and human fulfillment,
· caring for God’s creation,
· participating in the governing responsibilities of the church, and
· reviewing and evaluating regularly the integrity of one’s membership, and considering ways in which one’s participation in the worship and service of the
church may be increased and made more meaningful.
Session members are, by definition, doers, but I will confess this list made all of us take a deep breath. I think I mumbled something like, well, no one person is expected to do all of that…are they?
But it’s the expansive nature of this list that is the beautiful thing here. There are activities that none of us expected to find on this list. There are activities listed that I concede may not ever be the thing I personally will view as the primary way I live out my faith, my membership of Christ’s church. There are also some things on this list that are my passion, just as there are some things that are not. But they are somebody’s passion, and that means that you—that everyone—can find some way to join in the ministry of the church that may never have occurred to them before.
Be doers of the Word, not simply hearers. Being a doer of the Word gives you a tangible foundation for your faith—one that won’t easily be washed away by the next storm. Being doers of the word takes you out of the doors of the church and into God’s beautiful, broken world, where you may—you will, absolutely—see then face of Christ shining back at you. Be doers of the Word, and the rain will fall, and the floods will come, and the winds will blow, and beat on the house that is your faith, but it will not fall because it has been founded on rock.
Thanks be to God. Amen.