Pentecost 2 Matt. 7:21-29 5/29/05
“The House Where You Live”
There was a good bit of discussion between my colleagues this week on why the one man might have chosen to build his house on the sand. I found their discussion so interesting that I thought I’d compile a list (ala Jay Leno) , so...
THE TOP TEN REASONS THE MAN MIGHT HAVE BUILT HIS HOUSE ON SAND
10. He didn’t know it was a flood plain. (Actually rivers in the middle east dry up so thoroughly sometimes that you can’t tell it is a river)
9. Land was precious and the lower classes always got less desirable building sites.
8 It was built to be a temporary dwelling.
7 It was a get rich quick scheme and the builder didn’t intend to live there.
6. He was looking for fame and knew someone would write a parable about him.
5. He was lazy and building on sand is a lot easier than on rock
4. He was new at house building and too proud to ask questions.
3. He wanted a house right now and was willing to take long term risks for short term rewards.
2. The land salesman was “one heck of a good salesman”.
1. He wanted beach front property, no matter what.
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Of course, it really doesn’t matter what the reasoning was. The point of the parable is that a wise person builds on a solid foundation and a foolish person builds on an unstable foundation. Jesus was not giving a lesson on carpentry or construction, but on grace and discipleship.
These
are the concluding verses of the Sermon On The Mount.
Jesus has been instructing the people about life in the
So, what do you do? You build a house. But, you don’t just build it any which way. You build it on a firm foundation that will withstand the storms of life. You build it on Jesus Christ and through a relationship with Him a life is developed whereby we learn to do the will of God.
Some people may go to church every Sunday (and days in between) and may do all kinds of good works, but they neglect their spiritual life. They don’t realize that what they hear is meant to be the foundation for all their other activities. They don’t appreciate that God wants to be a part of everything they do. For whatever reason though they may be ‘doing’ all the time, they never connect with God so that their doing is based in God’s will. They may even in the back of their minds begin to expect that their works will save them or at least improve their position in heaven somehow. Over time they may even come to resent it when their hard work is not properly recognized and rewarded. They may say they are doing their work for God, but their motives have become corrupted. So, their work is not pleasing to God.
The
sand at the other end of some people’s religious system is a belief that “if
I’m saved by grace, I don’t have to do anything”.
Such people don’t necessarily become terrible sinners, but they risk
becoming lukewarm Christians – something Jesus warns about too.
They fail to understand that while we are saved by grace, we are also
saved for a purpose.
We are received into the kingdom at baptism, and that is just the beginning of our lives in God’s kingdom. At baptism we enter into discipleship. We begin a life of learning about God’s love for us in Jesus and how we can best respond to that love. As we always tell confirmands, a ritual doesn’t mean the end of your learning.
As we mature in other ways, we need to also mature in our faith, become better able to apply the lessons of Scripture to our everyday lives, grow in our relationship with our Lord and increasingly understand what God’s will is us. This maintains the foundation of our faith.
With this firm foundation we are ready for the time when the winds blow, the rain comes and the water rises. The tough times will come ( they will, because that’s just life), and if we have that firm foundation built on the rock of faith in Christ, we discover that since we didn’t stake our lives on having “water-front property” (or an unguided life centered on pleasure), we are able to weather the storms.
If we don’t allow a slick salesman (our culture that makes “fast and easy” the priority of life) to sell us a place where we can’t find security in God in hard times, we will find that we are safe in the house of faith all our lives.
I expect you’ve all noticed the little house or cabin across the road that has become tip-tilted. It’s foundation was poor and was built on insecure ground. I would imagine that when it was constructed the builder had many hopes and dreams. He would come there to get away from the stress of life. Perhaps he would go fishing or at least take long walks along the creek. This house he built would someday be an inheritance for his children. I’m sure many dreams went into every board of that little house.
Now, because it was not built on solid ground and because it was not maintained, that little house is falling down. It has no hope. It’s dreams are shattered.
Life is like that. We begin building our lives when we are young – teenagers, first jobbers, young family folks. We make choices, choices that will later show whether our lives are built on rock or sand. We build and then we may be scrupulous in taking care of what we built, regularly doing those things that help to strengthen our faith. If we do this, then we are ready for whatever comes. Oh, it will be just about as unpleasant us as for the person who was lackadaisical about his/her faith life, but knowing God is there to hold us up, we are freed to rise above the flood. We may struggle, but because we are firmly anchored in the rock of faith, we are not lost and our lives do not fall apart.
The Good News is that even if we made some wrong choices about building the house of faith we call our lives, even if we lacked the maturity to choose the most solid ground or fell prey to a slick sales pitch about seeking pleasure first rather than the kingdom, we can be rehab’ed or even rebuilt so long as we live. If we allow it, God will move us to the solid ground of an active faith life, so that we can withstand whatever else may come. You get to choose the house where you live. Amen.