Flattened Houses and Strong Foundations

The fall of 2004 was, shall we say, interesting. Stefanie and I had just started a new assignment in Central Florida, near Orlando. We had been there 2 weeks when we went to Nashville to attend a denominational pastors’ and leaders’ conference. When we returned we discovered a storm was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico; threatening to hit Tampa.

I remember driving down Alafaya boulevard, listening to the radio, when the word came: Hurricane Charlie had turned and was heading for Orlando. Immediately, almost every car on the road turned into the nearest gas station. After filling up, many of them headed for the nearest home improvement store. It’s as if they understood one very important thing: houses built on sand don’t stand up well to hurricane-force winds.

The soil in Florida is mostly sand. Basements don’t exist, because after digging only a few feet, one usually hits the water table, especially near the coast. It’s hard to have a deep foundation in sandy, shifting soil. When Hurricane Charlie made landfall, it left a wide path of destruction. Most of the houses that were destroyed were built on . . . you guessed it: sand. Report after report showed beautiful houses, restaurants, and resort hotels falling into the ocean as their sandy foundation was eroded by the storm surge.

Weeks after the hurricanes of 2004, the evening news reported sinkholes appearing all over Central Florida. A sinkhole happens when the sandy soil shifts, creating a pocket of air beneath the surface, which collapses and swallows anything above it. The sinkholes did not discriminate: we saw everything from mobile homes to million-dollar mansions falling into the ground, all because they were built on sand.

It turns out that building on sand is not a good thing.

And Jesus agrees.

The passage of scripture we’re looking at today is a parable Jesus tells to make a particular point. He says, “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” (v. 26, NRSV). If my experience with hurricanes in Florida taught me anything (besides how to sharpen chainsaw blades), it taught me that building on sand is bad. This means, according to Jesus, hearing “these words” and yet not acting on them is a very bad thing. If this is true, discovering what “these words” are takes on a whole new importance!

It turns out the words of which Jesus is speaking include the entire Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5-7. The parable of the two houses is the closing illustration for the sermon that includes such teachings as “turn the other cheek,” “love your enemies,” “lust is the same as adultery,” and “blessed are the peacemakers.” Some of the hardest teachings of Jesus can be found in the Sermon on the Mount, and in His closing illustration, Jesus says very clearly He expects His disciples to put those words into action. Not acting on these words, not embodying them in our communities, schools, and workplaces, is like building a house on sand. Bad things happen during a hurricane to houses built on sand.

This parable is calling us out of a faith that resides only in our head or in our heart. During the storms, you want to have a house that has a solid foundation built on rock. Jesus says the way to ensure that kind of stability is to put His words into action. This means that the word “faith,” like the word “love,” is a verb, not a noun. It’s an action word, not a thing. The book of James says “faith without works is dead.” James gets that thought directly from the words of Jesus. We must be people whose faith is lived out in our daily lives.

Now, in order for us to actually put “these words” of Jesus into action, we need a miracle of God’s grace in our lives. In order to live out our faith, we need the power and presence of God living within us. If we try to act in our own strength, we will only fail, and the storm will have us for lunch. Only when we yield our lives every day to the will and empowering of the Lord can we hope to embody the Sermon on the Mount.

Upon which kind of foundation is your house built? The storm is coming. If it hasn’t hit you yet, hold on: it will. The question is whether or not you will be left standing after it passes. If this parable is true, being a “Sunday only” Christian won’t cut it. Our relationship with Jesus must find its way into action in every aspect of our lives, not just the “church” aspect. We must turn God loose on our whole lives with nothing held back. Only then will we be built upon the Rock. Good things happen to houses built on rock.

	Pentecost Sunday May 11, 2008
	Trinity Sunday May 18, 2008
	May 25, 2008
	June 1, 2008
	June 8, 2008
	June 15, 2008
	June 22, 2008
	June 29, 2008
	July 6, 2008
	July 13, 2008
	July 20, 2008
	July 27, 2008
	August 3, 2008
	August 10, 2008
	August 17, 2008
	August 24, 2008
	August 31, 2008
	September 7, 2008
	September 14, 2008
	September 21, 2008
	September 28, 2008
	October 5, 2008
	October 12, 2008
	October 19, 2008
	October 26, 2008
	November 2, 2008
	November 9, 2008
	November 16, 2008
	November 23, 2008