COMMUNION MEDITATION - Matt, 7:24-27 March 6, 1966

Have you turred the othe cheek recently? “Ha ve you been persecuted for

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your faith recantly? Have you besn/angry with someone’ or have you put your

Christian io a Bip before everything else in yptr Nre during the
last week? |

My text this morning is the parable of the wise and foolish builders,
one of whom bullt &@ house on rock, 2 house which withstood the wind and

rain; [and the other of whom built on sand and watched his house collapse

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in a torrential —s This particular parable, however, is not an

entity in and of ee it werg interpreting and applying it to life

would be 4 rather simple

atter.\| It seems to be saying that everyman must

chose 2 foundation for his life, and that there are available only two

shoises.\ Os the one hand a man can build his life off firm and lasting

principles and because of this he wili @e able to withstand any of the
storms that might come his way.\ om the other_hand a man can ilve ou F
the a ntex of arbitrary and weak principles, with the result that his
life will come crashing down as soon as the going gets tough. | That's

simple enough; we'd like to haveit that way. We'd like to Heltave that if
we live good lives--if we aremen of strong character, God will bless us

and our lives will be smooth, comfortable and afffluent\\ But unfortunately
Jesus wasn 't saying that at a1, \ the parable doesn't exist as a general
principle; a guide to better living. \ Tt is, wasdt stands in the Gospel
record, the conclusion to the Sermon on the Mt.

You will remember that the Sermon on the Mt., is a collection of
Jesus' sayings and teachings, delivered to the twelve disciples in the
presence of a vast throng of people. \ To read the Sermon carefully, to
take it seriously as a guide to Christian living is an uncomfortable
experience; for in it we hear that it is just as immoral to be angry as

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it is to kill; \we hear that the poor in spirit--the peacemakers, the

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4wretched, humble people are blessed; jwe hear that revengbe is no longer
a valid principle ;\ we hear that the task of a Christian is to be the sabt
of the earth, the light of the world, the leaven in the Loaf .\ And then, if
we have the courage to read on we discover that to hear these words and to do
them is to build on rock; Vas to hear them and ignore them is to court the
disaster of a superficial, meaningless life; a flimsy existence that ig,
in fact vulnerable to all kinds of environmental threats.

This is really what Jesus was saying; not that life will be rosy if
we live right; but that to follow him is to do his words; and that to
hear his words puts a man in the precarious position of having to either
do them or reject them,

In our day the parable defines the nature of being a Christian.! It
is a push out the door’ an@ abrupt shove out into life--an admonition to
believe in Jesus Christ by obeying him, by doing something other than
listening to him--or talk about him.

Now this is precisely where it would be more comfortable not to take
the Bible seriously. _ it is at this point thatthe words of Mark Twain
become meaningful hen he remarked that he wasn't particulary bothered
about the parts of the Bible that he couldn't undepstand;\ but that he was
deeply distrubed by what he could understand. Clearly, the N.T. here and
throughout, is calling for a kind of Christian activism, a sacrificial
commitment that we don't even like to talk about.

In fact, in our day the issue might be presented in terms of buiding
a house at all--or digging a hole and crawling in. \One of the emerging
characteristics of our culture is a general antipathy, a sense ofyiinvolve-
ment, a tendency to ignore the meri and concentrate only on the @problems
of our own lie€2 /Georgraphically, we do wll in our power to escape the

problems of thecity. | When blight and poverty come, we turn tail and run,

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And from the comfort of suburbia insulate ourse}ves from the restof life.
When we come to the Church, we come looking for more of the same . | We

want a comfortable religion, one which isolates us from everything and
everyone else; we want to walk in the garden, alone with Jesus, walled off
from the rest of the World. \ Theologically, we like to feel respectable
and so we'll listen to doctrinal sermons; after all it doesn't hurt to talk
about incarnation, the nature of God, redemptionand saivation..\ But we
don't want the Church to involve us in anything else;| we resent it when
the church remin& us that the Gospel of Jesus Christ ts a hollow, changing
cymbol--when it remains within thses four walls .\ We want our religion to
Support us, comfort us, even to help insulate us. \and to us the parabée
might sound like this. }

"Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a man
who built his house in the middle of a storm; and when the rains and floods
came he remained; his was a strong house, he was a strong man because
he was doing the work of God. | But everyone who hears these words of mine
and does not do them is like a foolish man--who dug his home in the side 1
of the hill, to escape the storm, his neighbors, the brigh! light of day--the
whole world. But the hole collapsed, and the man died, never having lived.’

During the Lenten seduce aus thoughts are directed to the passion of
our Lord Jesus Christ. \ It ought to be a time when we are made humblg un-
comfortable. \ As we follow his direct march to Calvary we ought to sense
that he didn' t have to do it; \ehat he could have savdd himself a lot of
miseryif he just would have hawad it safe. \ He souls have been a little
more Qiplomatic with the scribes and pharisees’ he didn't have to come to
Jerusalem so conspicuously;) he certainly could have done without that
display of inches in the tenple when the ejected the money changerrs; he

could have been a little more discriminating inhis choice of frietis and

associates,

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inv Jes, contrary to the way we would have arranged his life, sought out

the sbrm centers of life; he looked for the problems; he said and did what

he knew he ought to say and do--without flinching.

Lenten thinking. For in his passion, 7 was teaching that the Christian

\ aiiiancoat

life is one of doing as well as bearing. \ zt is a time when we all might

hear again the promises We made as we joined the church--promises to which

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several persons answered in the affirmative this morning; hee you promise

to make diligent use of the means of grace, to continue in the peace and
fellowship of the people of God, and with the aid of the Holy Spirit to
be Christ's faithful disciple to your life's end?" )
To say "I do" to this question; to follow Jesus Christ, you see, is
to build a house in the middle of the storm, \ze is not to guarantee trangquilj

and well being; jin fact it ig to gurantee a constant confrontation with the

complexities | ambiguities of life. \ze is to actively follow him--by

hearing his words and then wing them.

It is not to find the easy life--but it is to live — and

fully; | + is to become the kind of men God intended us to be..\ iG is to live

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in the | assurance that we are part of that Kingdom our Lord heralded;) the

kingdom which is present whenever we obey snim;\ the kingdom that extends

beyond time--into eternity. Amen