3 PENTECOST, YEAR A
SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE
THE REV. ANNE G. STANLEY
1 JUNE 2008
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Genesis 6:9-22, 8:14-19; Psalm 46; Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-31; Mt. 7:21-29
”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.” (Mt. 7:25)
There’s a house going up near us. For months it has been going up. And for months it has been only the cellar that’s been under construction. Endless trucks, and diggers, and activity---but not much to show for all that.
In this new house, it’s the cellar that’s been the important thing. Because this house is going to be heated geo-thermally. The foundation is critical. There’s a 440’ deep well into the rock below and a pump to carry water up. A heat exchanger will transfer the rock-warm water’s heat to the air inside the house. The water will be cycled back into the well, all at fifteen gallons a minute. An endless, renewable source of heat. At tremendous annual savings to the family’s energy bill.
This is no house built on sand, just tossed together. The groundwork, literally, is the thing, with careful planning and considerable time to prepare it. A house built on rock. Laying the foundation has been everything.
Laying the foundation. Jesus is saying this, too. In his words today, Jesus is wrapping up his Sermon on the Mount, his long series of rules for living. Two chapters’ worth of specific instructions in Matthew’s Gospel. Now, today, Jesus is wrapping it all up. In sum, he says, How do we live our lives? What is the foundation on which we build our lives? What is the rock of our salvation? (Or are our lives built on sand?)
Jesus is blunt and clear as he concludes his sermon. Beware of glib words and glitzy deeds, he says. Dig deep. Pay attention. On what are your lives founded? What really inspires the words you say and the things you do?
Barbara Brown Taylor tells about a woman who left church one day and encountered a man on the sidewalk. A lost-soul sort of guy. The man looked up at the cross on the church steeple and asked the woman, “What is it that you believe in there?” He pointed to the doors of the church.
The woman didn’t know what to say. She thought maybe she should recite the Nicene Creed to him; but would he have stuck around until she finished reciting it? She could have told him that Jesus is Lord. But what would that have meant to a man on a sidewalk? So she didn’t say anything, and the man walked away. “Sorry I bothered you,” he said.
What would you have said? Has this every happened to you? What would any of us have said?
We all know people who would have spouted pat answers and bumper-sticker sayings to that man. But I don’t think Jesus asks us to have handy little speeches in our pockets, always at the ready. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.” What is the ground of our being? What actually inspires the words that come out of our mouths?
Jesus isn’t asking us to perform fabulous deeds of power, either. Spectacular achievements done in Jesus’ name. Uttering prophesies, casting out demons…
No rote answers, no pious sound bites. No flashy demonstrations of power. What Jesus is demanding is that we attend to the details of building a basic foundation on which whatever we say or do is built. The core of our being from which we live our lives.
And like our neighbor who is bit by bit, step by careful step, detail by detail, creating the foundation of his own dwelling so, too, it will be the details of our lives, all the little details faithfully-lived, that are critical in establishing the foundation of our lives. All the little bits and pieces which we usually have no recollection of because they seem so small but which Jesus thinks are so important that he carefully lays them out for us in the Sermon on the Mount, three long chapters in Matthew’s gospel: instructions on things like Jesus’ call that we be peacemakers, his advice on how to deal with our anger and how not to judge others, ways of giving help to the needy, how to fast, how to handle our wealth, loving our enemies, not worrying, not retaliating, how to pray.
It’s the little things which we do and say day after day after day that matter.
Beginning in our homes. The words we say when we greet one another in the morning and at the end of each day and during the meals we share; the way we treat each other, husbands, wives, partners, children. Life patterns which also spill out into our lives in the community. These are the things that people notice, the things that endure, for better or for worse. These little things shape us and make us who we are. They define our legacy. They build the footing on which we make our way.
The walls are going up now in the house near us, and soon the roof will cover it all, curtains will appear in the windows and furniture will be carried in and the couple will cook and eat and sleep and entertain their grandchildren. And the place will be warm, at low cost, and their lives will be lived on the foundation which they so carefully laid.
The analogy of the house can go just so far, I know. There are tornadoes in our country, and an earthquake in China and the cyclone’s rains in Burma. They have all have destroyed countless houses and lives. Despite foundations which they had thought were secure.
But the rock that is Jesus endures. Despite what threatens our security and shakes our confidence. Jesus remains our fortress and our strength. He it is who guides us in the myriad details he calls us to pay attention to in our lives. It is he who has laid himself down for us as our foundation forever.