This week’s passage brings back memories of children’s
church songs. “The rains came down and the floods came up and the house
on the rock stood firm.” Not a bad lesson to learn. Jesus’ parable
of the wise and foolish builders is His final illustration in the Sermon on
the Mount. It is the hammer with which He drives His final point home: He
calls His followers to put “these words” into action (7:24, nrsv).
The words to which Jesus refers are the entire Sermon on the
Mount. From the beatitudes to His teaching on violence (turn the other cheek),
from His high standards for sexual purity to the Golden Rule, Jesus expects
His hearers to live life by kingdom standards. To act on His words is to have
a life founded in the strength of God. To fail to act is to court disaster.
Taken in context, this parable poses a significant challenge
to believers because the standards Jesus sets in the Sermon on the Mount are
pretty high. The good news is that as holiness people, we believe God can
and does change our hearts and minds, enabling us to live out His commands.
We then spend our lives learning how to live more faithfully.
Talk is cheap. It is all too easy for Christians to gather for
worship and Bible study, affirm all these wonderful, lofty, moral teachings
of Jesus, pat each other on the back when we get it right, and then go on
with our daily lives living no differently than the world. One term used to
describe this is practical atheism. In our words and minds we are not atheists.
We believe in God, believe in His Son, know the words to the songs, and can
quote a verse or two. But practically—that is, in the way we live our
daily lives—we function as if God does not exist. Our relationship with
God becomes just one area of our compartmented lives, separate from the other
areas.
As Wesleyan-holiness people, we believe in “holiness of
heart and life.” That message couldn’t be any more appropriate
for the postmodern world in which we live. Movements such as the emergent
church have become dissatisfied with compartmentalized Christianity. As a
result, they are taking parables such as this one quite seriously, and are
discovering what holiness folk have believed all along: God wants to redeem
our whole life. The problem is, even holiness people many times don’t
actually live out the claims of the Gospel.
God’s answer comes in the form of a promise and a warning.
The promise is great: If we do these words of His, Jesus will build our lives
on the rock. Nothing this world can throw at us will knock us down. We might
get wet. We might lose some trees in our front yard, but the house will stand.
We can have confidence when we face the challenges of life, because the master
carpenter is the one building our lives.
The warning is equally great: If we do not live out these words
of His, we are headed for a fall, and great will be our fall. The storms of
life are coming. They impact the just and the unjust. For those whose “faith”
is just a mental thing, a game to play on Sunday, the wind and the rain pose
a great threat. “Faith,” like “love,” is an action
word. Faith that is not faith in action is dead.
This parable is a call for authentic action. We must encourage
our people to find ways of living out the teachings of Jesus in their daily
lives. We must have the courage to let this parable speak for itself, with
its promise and warning. Then as pastors we must provide concrete, hands-on
ways for them to respond. We must help them move their faith out of the mental
and emotional realm and into their hands, feet, voices, pocketbooks, workplaces,
schools, and communities. The stakes are high, but so are the rewards.
(For the full manuscript of this sermon
go to www.preachersmagazine.org and click on “Sermons.”)
Having served in central Florida during the hurricanes of 2004,
this parable is easy to illustrate with personal experience. I have pictures,
video, and stories of houses that were literally built on sand. They didn’t
last long against hurricane-force winds. In the midst of this illustration,
it’s important to connect the congregation with the serious consequences
of not living out our faith as well as the blessings of faith in action.
It is important for this passage to give our people a concrete way to respond. Have a community service project ready to go before you preach this one. Donate one of the nights the following week to serving a meal at a homeless shelter. One lady in our congregation knits lap blankets for cancer patients. Be creative! The ways your church can serve your community are as diverse as the people themselves. Help them discover the joy of faith in action.
