Matthew 7:21-29
May 29, 2005
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
It started with Bob Vila in This Old House on PBS. Tim Taylor, the Tool Man in the sit-com series, Home Improvement made building things funny. Now we have 24-hour TV channels that show us how to improve our homes. We identify with these shows because one way or another, we are fortunate to live in homes whether they are single family houses, townhouses, apartments or condos.
Many people are buying homes and properties to live in as well as to invest in particularly in California. We go to Home Depot to improve on our homes and investments. Shows on HGTV and TLC channels are telling us that no project is too big to tackle. It seems like everyone wants to remodel their kitchen and bath! And when the TV shows last for only 30 minutes, we get the impression that building is quick and easy. Just follow the simple easy steps.
Today’s Scriptures appears at the end of his Sermon on the Mount when Jesus talked about parables. He has given his congregation some challenging words, words about how to behave when someone strikes you on the cheek, or when someone asks you to bear a burden for them. He taught them the Beatitudes when it is more blessed to be merciful and make peace. He told them to not worry about what to wear and what to eat when God even takes care of the birds in the air and the lilies in the valley. Then he tells them that “everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be a wise man who built his house on rock.” Neither rain nor flood nor howling wind could shake that house that was built on a rock.
But there was another builder; someone like a Tim Taylor, a foolish man who built his house upon sand. This was probably a wadi, a Palestinian river bed that is dry most of the year. The land there was flat, easy to form into a foundation. But the foundation turned out to be illusory. When the rain came, a flood rushing down the wadi would wash the foundation of the house to fall down. And when it happens, it was a great fall.
Matthews says that, upon hearing the sermon end this way, the crowds were astonished because Jesus taught them “as one having authority.”
Those of us who attended Sunday school as children probably learned the little ditty, “The wise man built his house upon the rock.” We loved to sing it, even if we did not fully understand it, because at the end, when we sang, “And the foolish man’s house fell flat!” we got to clap our hands as hard as we could.
We didn’t fully understand that this little song that we know or that this parable that Jesus taught were not talking about building a house at all. Jesus is talking about building a life.
The horrible fate of the foolish builder is the result of not listening to Jesus. We giggled and laughed at the sound of our loud clap reverberated in the classroom, but we now see as we have matured that the fate of the foolish builder is that it was anything but funny. “And great was its fall” is probably one of the saddest observations in the Bible.
A List of Rules for Life
In our society today, there’s been lots of talk lately that our culture needs better values. In schools, some parents and community leaders have proposed that we teach core values by posting them up on the wall for everyone to see and follow. They think that these rules would prevent their houses from falling down. It almost sounds like these people believe that just the mere act of posting rules and values that somehow, these things will end up in the heads of the students. Are values learned simply by following such easy steps as in redecorating your house?
Some people believe that the Ten Commandments should be in our courthouses thinking that this list of dos and don’ts will somehow teach violators to become responsible citizens. In many ways, we all desire a list of rules and things to follow for our lives so that when we do these things, we would be okay people. “Make it simple to read and follow because my life is too complicated already!” we say.
We all know that having a list of values doesn’t make a person. We know very well that just because you wear fancy and expensive clothes that you become a person who’s rich and sophisticated.
But all of us can testify that when we do meet up with a person who seems to have his/her life all-together, it wasn’t because we saw a list of rules that the person follows. Values and rules don’t make a person. Character does. We look for people who are dependable with traits and qualities that make them faithful persons who behave in certain coherent ways. We know these kinds of people when we meet them.
After preaching and teaching the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus turns to his congregation and say, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock.” He is talking about building a life. After hearing these teachings, Jesus’ moral instruction is that you act upon these words. You make it a part of your life. These words and teachings is the rock, the solid foundation upon which to build. If you do this, no storm can shake you off such a basis for a life.
As modern people, we like to make up our own set of ethics. Some of us think that we can reason for ourselves what to do and decide what is right. The philosopher, Immanuel Kant called it the “categorical imperative!” He believed that moral living is possible for anyone regardless of what the person’s abilities are, from whom he came from or upbringing he had. Kant believed that everyone has this ability to come up with a list of values and a set of procedures that by doing good deeds, one has a moral life. But Jesus is telling us that only when you hear these words that I have taught you and act upon them will you be like the wise builder who built his house on the rock.
There’s a story of a distinguished doctor who went in the hospital for surgery. By the time his pastor got over to the hospital to visit him, he had already checked himself out and was recuperating at home. When the pastor asked him why he had fled the hospital so soon he replied, “They could kill you there. There’s nobody with any sense. The night after my surgery, a nurse came in every hour on the hour to wake me up and ask how I was doing. About 3:00 AM, I told her, ‘Not that well, actually. Why do you keep waking me up?”
The nurse replied, “Because people with high blood pressure tend to have strokes after surgery.”
I asked, “So what would you do if I had a stroke?”
The nurse said, “Write it down on this chart.”
We tend to believe that when we follow clear rules, good values or good procedures that we are wise. To have wise and prudent people, they need to build their lives on a tough foundation built on rock. As Martin Luther once said, “You don’t get apples from a thorn bush. You get apples from an apple tree.” In other words, you don’t get good apples until you prune and fertilize an apple tree. You don’t get people with wisdom and character by just following rules and procedures; you get people with character from people who hear Jesus’ words and act upon them for life.
Did you know that in the early 20th century, colleges claimed that the purpose of their schools was the installation of wisdom in the students, the building of character? By the 1950s, colleges talked less about their ability to inculcate wisdom and more about knowledge. By the 1980s, colleges never mentioned so noble a purpose as wisdom and now talked about information. Some day, colleges might boast, “Come and study with us, and we’ll give you a lot of data.” Since colleges have stopped installing wisdom, it is now up to us in the church to do so.
Imitating Christ
To become wise; to build a life with character, we need to imitate what the master does. We need to submit to what the master says if we want to become better people than we would be if left to our own devices.
Most of the time, we don’t listen to mentors and wise people that we should. Instead, we think that we can come up with answers on our own that would fit into our particular worldview. My Old Testament professor, Phyllis Trible tells of a time when she taught her students that God doesn’t weep. No where in the Bible records the occurrence that God wept? Jesus wept; but not God. Her students were irate because they wanted to identify with a God who wept. Dr. Trible said you can have any kind of God you want and you may even remember that Jesus wept for Lazarus, but if you want a God who wept, you will have to make that affirmation on the basis of something other than the words of the Bible. The words, “God wept” are not in the Bible. We have such trouble hearing the text.
A student signed on with a famous violin teacher. First lesson, she hardly touched the violin. The teacher examined her hands, pulled on her arms, told her things like, “From now on, I own you. I will tell you what to eat, how to sleep.” And all she wanted to do was to learn to play the violin.
We may find meaning and inspiration reading the Bible on our own. But why to this day do so many of us still remember Mrs. J.S. Chu sitting on her little stool teaching the Bible stories to us? Only by sitting at the feet of a good rabbi/teacher can we read the Bible with greater meaning. If we want a better society, there is no way around that hard, time consuming, risky, and laborious task of making better people. Observe what the master does and go thou and do likewise. It’s harder work than a 30-minute home improvement show!
Trouble is, too many people think of ethics as a rational matter of thinking through toward the right thing to do, rather than a character matter of being a good person. The attempt to order behavior primarily through information and through the selection of popular ethical values tends to over-rationalize moral life. The well-springs of moral activity lie deeper—in the area of imitation and affection for the master. People who have good characters, who are living a good life, become themselves, mentors and models that no list of values can ever match.
Building a life of character means that “out of our second nature,” without having to think about it, we are the sort of persons that we have become not because of the list of values that we post.
At the end of Jesus’ sermon, Matthew records, “the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority.” Jesus demands that we move from words to deeds. Jesus is saying that an ethical life is not a matter of listing some good values, but rather as a matter of discipleship—submission to the master, letting the master’s life be the foundation upon which we build our lives.
Jesus was a great teacher, but the values he talked about are not as decisive and confronting as the life he lived, the death he died.
We know that if we want to build a house on rock, it’s not going to be easy or economical. We will need jack hammers, heavy machinery and perhaps some explosives to put down strong posts before beginning to frame the building. Building a good life is not as easy as building on soft and shifting sand only to be swept away from the first trouble that comes along. Building a good life means hard work of a lifetime of imitating the master and if necessary to give our lives in the cost of discipleship.
Building on the Master
Jesus says we can build on something that is solid or we can build on foundations that are weak, porous and shifting. From the first time human beings tried to build they discovered two things. They need a firm foundation and it had to be plumb. You can build whatever you want if you have a foundation that is solid and you keep it plumbed.
Jesus makes the shocking claim that his words are more foundational than Moses. You will build a stronger, more secure, more enduring life by building a life in the direction of his words than you will upon the laws of Moses. You will build a disappointing, fragile and an easily blown away life if you do not build under the directions of his words. Jesus is the new plumb line!
The Bible says that the crowds were astonished at Jesus’ teachings because he taught with such authority that they were even truer than their scribes. His words had more substance and made a better foundation than the Law of Moses. That was a shocking claim. They were astonished at what he said because he said that the very source and springs of blessedness were the very things that most of us try to avoid in life.
Jesus’ words are the best foundation for building our lives. But Jesus also claims that blessings in life do come from the conditions which are not popular. Blessed are the poor, blessed are those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst, those who make peace, those who are persecuted. A life that will be able to endure and survive the storms of life, a life that will be experienced as blessed, is built by living in the direction of the very things which our culture tries to avoid like a plague.
It’s not following rules or even clearly written down procedures that builds a life with character, it’s a life that hears Jesus’ words and acts on them that builds a life on solid ground. It’s not following what may be the easiest or simplest approach to life, it’s always been facing life fully that produce better people. It’s never been building a house by cutting corners in bad construction; it’s always been to become honest builders who give everything its finest attention.
Let you and I build our lives on the strong foundation in the words and deeds of Jesus that will lead us to become faithful persons doing coherent things. Let us in this troubled and conflicted world become better people with a deep sense of character that others can see so that when we endure the sufferings of being his disciple, we may also share in the goodness of the Kingdom of God.
Let us pray.
Lord, as we live our lives, give us the wisdom to live our lives well. Give us the grace to build our lives upon the solid foundation of your truth. Give us the courage to walk your way, that narrow way that leads to life abundantly. Keep restoring your image in us. Keep guiding us in your way. Help us to build our lives upon the rock. Amen.