Loving God, you call us to found both our lives and our hope upon Jesus Christ. Strengthen us today in our faith as we gather together, and fill us with the love and the desire to live as you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

There were two people in very similar life situations. Both attended church regularly and did what they could to help out in the community. Both treasured their family and friends and did their best to live a good life. However, both started to run into problems. Each person lost a loved one due to illness. One lost their spouse, and the other lost a child. Both started to experience health problems and ended up having to have extended treatments and surgery. Then both lost a very good friend, all of this happening very close together. However, these two people responded very differently to the tragedy that had come into their lives.

For one of the two, the Scriptures that talk about Jesus’ own experience of suffering and sorrow took on new meaning, and it seemed that Jesus was right there, sharing all of his grief. The more difficulties that entered into his life, the more he knew that he needed the inner strength of God’s healing presence – he just couldn’t do it on his own. As he reached the end of his rope, time after time, he learned that only God’s strength is reliable and only God is everlasting. It seemed that his faith became stronger every time he faced a new trial and conquered it through the power of God.

However, for the other person, all of these trials were simply too much. She didn’t understand how God could do this to her. After all, she had tried to live a good life and deserved better. She didn’t want to worship a God who would take away her loved ones and send her illness. She couldn’t believe all of those terrible people who didn’t seem to have any troubles at all. And so she never went back to church, and abandoned the God whom she felt had abandoned her.

Two people – almost identical situations – and yet one loses their faith and one grows stronger in their faith. How come? It would seem that one had built their house on the rock, and the other had built it on sand. When the same storms came and hit both of their lives, the house built on the rock stood firm, and the one on the sand collapsed.

Now, as you might have guessed, Jesus was using building houses in order to teach about something else. What our gospel today invites us to do is to think about the foundations of our faith. Has our faith been established on solid rock, or on sand? And if our faith is sitting precariously on the sand, what do we need to do to move it to the rock?

In today’s gospel, Jesus says that those who hear his words and do them are the ones who will have a rock-solid faith, but those who hear his words and don’t do them will have a faith that collapses easily and gets washed away. Anybody who has truly loved and trusted God in order to be able to love and serve others will understand why this is true. It is through actually living out our faith that our faith grows stronger. Every time we experience answers to prayer; every time we minister to somebody using strength that we know is not our own; every time we allow God’s Spirit to work through us, our faith is strengthened through seeing what the power of God can do. On the other hand, if we go through the motions but never really strengthen our faith through living it out, our faith will remain weak, as if it were built upon the sand.

So both hearing and doing what Jesus teaches and commands is important, but that is not the only thing that contributes to a rock-solid faith. In today’s gospel, we also hear about some people who seem to be doing lots of good things. They are doing miracles in Jesus’ name. They are sharing the Word of God with people and prophesying in the name of Jesus. They are even casting out demons in the name of Jesus. Yet, when it comes to the judgment day, Jesus says to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers” (Mt. 7:23). Somehow, these people have been doing what seem to be good things, but have never had any real connection with Jesus. It seems as if there is no relationship there – they don’t know Jesus, and Jesus doesn’t know them.

Now, we might be led to ask the question as to why they were doing these great things in Jesus’ name if they didn’t really know him. It would seem that perhaps they were doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Somehow their inner attitude doesn’t match their outward actions. They are not a good tree bearing good fruit (Mt. 7:15-20). This is the image that is used right before today’s gospel in Matthew 7. It talks about how a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bears bad fruit. In other words, what is inside of us will come out in how we act.

If you think about a tree bearing fruit, it does so simply because it is its nature to do so. The threat of punishment or the promise of reward doesn’t make much difference to a tree. It bears fruit because the inside of the tree is good and healthy. Now some people might obey Jesus either out of a fear of punishment or out of a hope for reward. However, God wants a living relationship with us, where we allow God to transform our inner nature so that doing as Jesus commands comes from inside us and is done out of love. Certainly we could tell people that this is how you’ve got to live or else you’re going to hell. However, God would much rather that we live in love – in response to the love that God has first shown us – for perfect loves casts out fear (1 Jn. 4:18).

So it would seem that a rock-solid faith involves not only hearing Jesus but doing as he commands – “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn. 15:12). It also involves allowing God to change our hearts by the power of his Spirit, in order that in all things we act out of love for God and for the people around us. Finally, we need to realize that building a rock-solid faith can be hard work.

I don’t know how many of you would have ever built houses on rock or on sand, but I’m certain that it’s not an easy task to attach a house to rock. At the very least, you would need way more tools than you would to build a structure on a beach. Actually, building on the sand was illustrated quite well on the Australian version of Survivor which aired a few years ago. One group did build their shelter on the sand – in fact, they built on a dry creek bed because it was comfortable and required less labour – there was a big tree there that assisted them in putting together a shelter. However, they didn’t take into account any torrential rainstorms that might happen, and when the rain did come, the water rushed down that dry creek bed and washed away their shelter and most of their food and belongings. It was almost like a page taken right out of Jesus’ teachings! It was comfortable and easy to build on the sand, but it was of little use in a storm.

On the other hand, it takes more effort to build on rock. In order to have any kind of a relationship with God, it means time spent in prayer and reading the Scriptures and living out our faith with others. In order to be strengthened, faith needs to be put to work in our day to day lives, and living according to our faith is never guaranteed to be easy. However, Jesus does promise us the gift of the Holy Spirit, who gives to us the strength and the means to do everything that God has in mind.

Now, if you think back for just a moment to the person who lost her faith in God, perhaps she wouldn’t have come to the same conclusions if she had a strong relationship with God to begin with. For, to know God is to know God’s love and compassion for us as it has been revealed in Jesus, the Christ. To know God is to know that we rightly deserve death, but Jesus died for us instead. To know God is to know that death and illness are simply a part of life, and that God does not sit down and sadistically decide to send trials to people. As Job once said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

May this same God – the God who gives all life and health and salvation – keep our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus, that our faith might grow stronger day by day, and lead us into everlasting life. Amen.

Lectionary 9(A) Matthew 7:21-29
June 1, 2008
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison Moore

© 2008 Lynne Hutchison Moore All Rights Reserved