3A Pentecost Matthew 7:21-29 June 1, 2008
Last week in the aftermath of the tornado that wiped out more than 50 homes in the community of Hugo, Jason DeRusha from WCCO News had one of his Good Question reports entitled; Are Homes Built Tough Enough?
In his report DeRusha points out that all of the homes were built in the past ten years and he raises the question as to whether some of the standards have changed when it comes to building homes?
As I listened to the resident expert they brought in I got the impression he was dodging the question a bit and didn’t really answer the question to the extent that I would have liked.
But what did catch my attention were his comments about how the roofs of so many of the homes were lifted up just like the top of a cupcake and once you loose the roof, then there isn’t much you can do with the walls.
This led to a question about the anchoring techniques used on roofs and how some builders might have tried to save money by using nails as opposed the stronger and I assume more expensive “hurricane ties” that might have prevented the extensive damage.
Between DeRusha and the resident expert it was also pointed out the sheer size of so many new homes and the walkout basements also make them greater targets for disaster.
So maybe there is something to the old adages that maybe bigger is not always better.
Maybe better is better.
Well, in today’s Gospel reading we have Jesus offering a parable about building homes and he talks about the importance of having a solid foundation before you begin building.
More specifically, he talks about the difference between the wise man who built his home on rock and the foolish man who built his home on sand.
According to the parable, when the rains came the wise man survived the storms because of the solid foundation while the foolish man lost everything because the rains washed away his home.
Like most of Jesus’ parables, one of those earthly stories with a heavenly meaning, this one is no exception.
In today’s parable Jesus is not really talking about construction, not in the sense of wood, and brick and concrete.
Instead Jesus has something deeper in mind; he is talking about the foundations of our lives.
Specifically, he’s talking about our life-houses and four truths we would all benefit from hearing and applying to our lives.
The first thing Jesus is saying in this parable is that all of us are builders.
Every one of us is building a life-house.
It’s a lifetime job building a house of personality and character.
Everything we do, every word we speak, every thought goes in to the structure and becomes part of the life we build.
We may think our deeds, actions and experiences are scattered and unrelated but they are uniquely fitted, nailed, cemented together.
We are all building a life, and in the parable, Jesus said that some are building wisely and some foolishly.
In an effort to help build lives worthy of the life given to us, God provides a blueprint, a master plan to help us and guide us in all that we do.
The question for each of us is to what extent are we following this blueprint?
Are we being wise and building on a solid foundation or are we acting foolishly and ignoring the wisdom of a Master builder?
I believe how we answer this question demonstrates the difference between our willingness to exercise some wisdom or our tendency to act foolishly.
I say this because each of us hears and knows the same words, but only the wise makes a concerted, life-long effort to put them into practice.
But the fools that we sometimes are-- hears, knows, and understand Jesus’ words but then we turn right around and forget all about them as we go about our business in the ordinary hustle and bustle of everyday life.
But that will never do, Jesus says.
That’s as foolish as getting a bottle of antibiotics from the doctor but never taking a single pill.
Just putting the drugs in your medicine cabinet will not heal your infection!
Buying books but never reading them will not make you smart.
No one will ever judge your intelligence merely by scanning the books on your shelves.
So when Jesus says, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like the wise man who built his house on rock.”
He is making it clear that we have go to do more than offer lip service, we need to strive to do these things and consistently live this way or as Jesus’ words are as useless and untaken drugs or unread books.
But more than mere foolishness, a supposed faith that hears but does not act--is a faith that will one day be abandoned.
The storms of live will come, push will come to shove, and those fools who have not woven Jesus and his ways into the very fabric of their lives, those who have not made living like Jesus second nature, they will crash mightily, thus revealing to themselves and to all that their magnificently outward faith never really meant that much to begin with.
This is a hard thing to hear, but I suspect most of us know that it is true.
The second truth found in this parable is that not only does everyone build his or her own house, everyone must live if the house he or she builds.
Simple enough.
How often we hear it said this way that every person must live with the decisions we make -- for better or worse.
There’s a story that tells of wealthy man who owned a construction business and one day he pulls aside his best foreman, a man who has worked for him faithfully for years and he said to the foreman, “ I have a project I want you to work on. Here is a set of blueprints for a house. I’m leaving on an extended vacation and I want you to build the house for me and you have my permission to sped what ever you need to get the job done.”
With that the owner left the foreman to accomplish the task.
For whatever reasons, the astute foreman saw this as an opportunity to feather his own nest.
He hired the work out to the cheapest bidder, employed unskilled labor whenever possible, and put cheap, inferior material into the building.
When it was finished, it had the appearance of magnificence, but was really a poorly constructed, insubstantial shell.
When the wealthy man returned he went to look at the home and from the outside it was beautiful as it sat overlooking a pristine lake and the wealthy man asked the foreman, “Well, what do you think of it?’
And the foreman had to say, “I think it looks wonderful.”
To which the wealthy man smiled and said, “I’m glad you like it. I’m retiring from business; I won’t need your services much longer and I want you to have a nice house in your retirement. This house is yours.”
In is never a good idea to cut corners when we are building our own house.
It is never a good idea to cheat on those things that are supposedly of utmost importance to us.
For example: you never want to cheat on the foundations of your marriage.
You never want to cut corners on the love you extend to your spouse.
You never want to skimp when it comes to forgiveness and grace.
It is sheer foolishness to take advantage of the trust that comes with a solid marriage.
Likewise it is foolishness to cheat on your children’s faith foundations.
If you want your children to be able to stand up to the hurricanes and storms of life, they need that good foundation inside their souls.
So, parents don’t cheat on the foundations that you give on your children.
If you are wondering what those foundations might be, revisit the promises you made at your child’s baptism when you promised to:
+ To live with them among God’s faithful people;
+ To bring them to the word of God and the holy supper;
+ To teach them the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments;
+ To place in their hands the Holy Scripture;
+ To nurture them in faith and prayer; so that your child may learn to trust God and proclaim Christ in word and deed.
These are the foundations you don’t want to cheat on or skimp on.
It’s one thing to cheat on your golf score or to cheat on your diet, or in a game of Solitaire—the eternal ramifications are not all that life altering.
Cheating on your child’s faith foundations however is a whole differently ballgame.
The foolish man builds and cheat and cuts corners on the foundations and in the end the structure is weak and it will not stand the test of time or tempest.
All of us are builders.
You live in the house you build.
And thirdly—another truth which this simple parable makes crystal clear, that every house will some day be tested by the storms of life.
I remember back when Hurricane Andrew was brewing out in the ocean and making its way toward Miami the local news stations were warning people of the coming storm and offering suggestions and precautions that folk would need to take.
What stands out in my mind were the sideline stories that showed people having hurricane parties with drinking and minimizing the danger.
They were assuming the storm would not hit them and the all of this would blow over.
Well it did blow over, but not in the sense they were anticipating, it blew buildings over and ripping up infrastructure and causing great chaos and calamity.
In the aftermath, nobody was dancing and feeling very festive.
You don’t have to live in those parts of the world where hurricanes are a way of life, or you don’t have to live in parts of the Midwest where tornadoes are not uncommon, or where earthquakes routinely shake things up or mudslides creates a mess…none of us immune to the storms of life.
In today’s Gospel Jesus wants us to hear and act upon his words, to build our lives and our families on these words.
He wants us to be ready for the storms of life whether they are economic downturns, pension defaults, war, depression both mental and economic, relationships that fade, death of those who love us and whom we love, devastating illness, protracted diseases, doors shut to advancement, being so foolish as to end up in serious trouble of any and every sort.
Yes, even weather related events—hurricane, earthquake, tornado, drought, and famine—they all may come.
Jesus wants us to be ready, prepared, well founded, able to claim as our hymn earlier so aptly stated: “On Christ the solid rock I stand: all other ground is sinking sand.”
And this bring us to the last truth, that being that the difference is in the foundation.
The difference between standing and falling is not in the house, not in the storm, but in the foundation.
Jesus presents two different foundations, two groups of people who have been blessed with an understanding of divine truth.
One group not only hears his sayings, but also does them, another group of folks hears, but also does them not.
We all have had or will have storms that will test out life-houses to the utmost.
Because of this we need to watch with the greatest of care how we build.
We should dig deep and lay our foundations sure, making sure that our foundation is solid rock, Jesus being that rock.
For while it is true, this passage carries an admonition about building on sand.
The greater truth is, it conveys an assurance about building on the rock.
Yes, the Master tells us the storm is coming, and he gives us the storm warning of a Divine Doppler.
But more than that, He gives us storm assurance:
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. (Matt. 7:25)
Going back to the Jason DeRusha story on the tornado that hit Hugo recently; according to Minnesota code, builders have to make a house’s roof strong enough to handle a 90 mile per hour updraft in three second bursts and the commercial code is stronger.
When asked if it would be possible to make the code for homes the same as commercial, that being 150 miles per hour, the response was one of, “Yes you could, but it’s going to cost you more.”
What is so often true in one aspect of life is often also true in other aspect of life.
We are all builders and what we put into our life homes is what we are going to get.
We are all going to have to live in the life-houses we build and if we cheat and cut corners, we are only hurting our selves and those near and dear to us.
At some point in our lives every life-house will be tested by the storms of life, no one is immune.
And lastly, no matter how swiftly, suddenly, unexpectedly the storms of life come up, we have his assurance that if we build on the rock—if we hear His word, if we will do them—the life-house will not fall.
Building on the rock does not prevent the storm.
The rains fell, the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house.
Building on the rock does not prevent the storm.
It prepares for it.
And Jesus said: Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built on the rock—and it did not fall.
Amen.
