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"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. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord,
did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do
many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never
knew you; go
Today is the Sunday in which we couch all of the readings and prayers around the notion of floodwaters. Locally, we might call this Mud Island Sunday. In our reading from Genesis, we hear about the great flood and the faith of Noah to be saved in the midst of that terrible catastrophe by placing his trust in God. Paul tells us about the anchor of life that holds when all else fails, and we have Jesus' story about the house, which is built on rock or sand. I was thinking about this one day when I took our dog out for her morning constitutional. As I looked across to the east, I saw the sun rising and the beautiful colors as the sun made its way over the horizon. I had to engage in a real act of will to remind myself, the sun is not rising; it only appears to rise. For thousands of years we have lived with this kind of illusion of the sunrise, but our mind tells us, assures us, that this is not what's happening. The sun stays perfectly still. The Earth rotates, and it appears to us that the sun is rising. It's called counter-intuitive. It is counter to what we seem to see. The reason I raise this is that we have this story of Jesus that is, in fact, counter-intuitive. Jesus tells us that a wise man builds his house on stone, builds a foundation of rock that will be there no matter what happens. A foolish man builds his house on the sand, and when the rain comes, it's all washed away, and everything is lost. We know that Jesus does not engage in stating the obvious. And yet, here is a story that seems so patently obvious, why bother telling it? Of course, you would build your house on rock. You wouldn't build your house on the sand, where it could be washed away. And we look at that story, and we think, why did the people find that so amazing? To us, it seems like, well, duh. Next story, Jesus. And yet, here in our Gospel it says to us that when Jesus finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching. What's so astonishing about telling people to build your house with rock, not sand? You know, I thought about that a lot until I had a chance to visit what we call the Holy Land. As you walk up and down those dusty streets, you realize something. The whole country is built on a broad alluvial plane--sandy planes that have been formed by centuries of water washing down. These fine particles of sand are now very compacted, so they're hard like sandstone. They're not stone, but it feels like stone. So, if you were going to build a house, the smart way to do it would be simply to dig down deeply into this tightly compacted soil and then throw up the walls, and you've got a house. A really stupid thing to do would be to go and buy rock from way over here, transport it, go through the process of building a foundation, and then build your walls. It would be time-consuming. It would be hard work, and it would be very expensive. Why would you bother doing that when you have it made in the shade? Right there it is. Just dig down. It is hard. It is solid. It even is cool, because it has a natural sort of air-conditioning. The people who were listening to Jesus, take my word for it, thought that this story was counter-intuitive. They were used to building houses in the way that I just described, and Jesus called unwise. The reason they were used to building them that way was that ordinarily, typically, usually this was the best way to do it. Ordinarily, typically, usually that house would stand for generations. But every once in a while, the storm of a lifetime occurred, and if you've ever been in that part of the world, I can tell you, it is amazing when it does rain. It rains and rains, and torrents build up these walls of water that come rushing down, sweeping everything away. Ordinarily, typically, usually that doesn't happen. But what Jesus is saying is, you don't build your life on what is ordinary or typical or usual. You build it against the day when the absolute catastrophe can happen. Then you have something solid that will stand the test and be there when it's over. ... Jesus is talking about the reality. He's not talking about what seems to be the case or what is ordinarily, typically, usually the case. Those of us who take seriously this message of Jesus, those who were astounded at his teaching realized that in every life, sooner or later, the rains fall. The catastrophic moment that nobody thought would happen does happen. The spouse whom you have loved and cared for for 25 years comes home and says, I don't love you anymore. The son who has just gotten a driver's license is wiped out by an 18-wheeler. Your doctor says to you, you have six months to live. Will your house stand in that kind of flood? Is your house built on a rock--slowly, carefully, expensively? Or is it simply thrown together, hoping that usually, typically, ordinarily this will be just fine? Counter-intuitive. Jesus says, unless your house is founded on the rock of the love of Christ and the forgiveness of God, it will not stand. We can apply that to our own lives, just as those examples I've given, but we can also apply it to a church.... Our nation--is it built on a rock that is firm and will withstand and hold the test of time? I pray it is. Is our world as a whole built on that kind of rock in which we care more for God's purposes than we do about where the oil is? This message of Jesus which seems so obvious is, in fact, counter-intuitive. It calls us back from an illusion that these things are simple or easy or that we can take them for granted, and it says, build slowly. Build deeply. Build strongly your life, this church, our nation, our world. Pray that we may hear these words and take them to heart, lest the fall be great.
Excerpted from a sermon preached at Calvary Episcopal Church, Memphis, Tennessee, June 2, 2002. Copyright 2002 Calvary Episcopal Church |
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