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Built on the Rock
Matthew 7: 21 – 29 |
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Built on the Rock In one of the great cities of our land, there was a church. A world-famous architect designed it, and it was glorious: beautiful stone, classic Gothic design, lovely stained glass, a truly worshipful space. Over time, that sanctuary became the site of many a baptism, many a wedding, many a funeral — not to mention the week-in, week-out hallowing of its stones by the patient feet of worshipers. The people of this church loved their building. They loved it so much that, when things got rough in the urban neighborhood where the church was located, and people “like them” began moving out to the suburbs, the congregation made an extraordinary decision. They decided to move. And move they did: but not in the usual sense. This church decided to move their building. Stone by stone, they picked their church up, labeled each individual piece, loaded it onto trucks and moved it to the suburbs. They had the money to do it, so why not, they asked themselves? Why not re-create their beloved church, just as it had always been? Out near a university campus, on the fringes of the city, there was a fashionable new area. Expensive new homes were under construction. Young families were moving in. There were broad streets, and lovely parks — a promising location! So there it was that the people reassembled their church. (They did have a small crisis along the way, when some of the pieces fell off a truck and got lost. But they ran newspaper ads, and offered high rewards, and the lost pieces were found and returned.) At long last, the people could breathe a sigh of relief. No longer were they a church in the city — surrounded by crime and heartache and urban decay — but a church by the university: a safe and respectable location. The people loved their church. They loved it so much they didn’t want a thing to happen to it. So, even though they were located just a stone’s throw from the university, they refused to permit student groups to use it. They drafted strict policies for outside groups, so strict, that most of those who applied gave up and went elsewhere. Those people loved their church so much, and they’d worked so hard to move it; they didn’t want it to get dirty or broken or messed up. The people of the new neighborhood got the message. Not many of them joined. The old members continued to travel there, but in time their numbers dwindled. Finally, there was simply no one left to love that church. The denomination dissolved the congregation. They sold the building to a nearby hospital that wanted the land for expansion. A huge crane appeared in the churchyard, and a wrecking ball smashed, again and again, into the walls of the church. It was the second time those stones had been separated, one from another — and the final one. Foundations It’s a heartbreaking and warning story. Sometimes congregations can lose track of their essential mission. Sometimes they can lose their outward focus on mission, and look inward only, attending to the needs of their people but neglecting the Great Commission. This church had a problem, you see. It was built on a bad foundation. There was nothing wrong with the bricks and mortar. That’s not the sort of foundation I’m talking about. It was built on the wrong spiritual foundation. Churches that lose track of their mission can be said to be built on sand, and, like the house build on sand in today’s reading, a sad fall can follow. As Jesus put it, “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell — and great was its fall!” It is better, by far, to build upon a rock. Yet, what is this rock of which Jesus speaks? Should we not build our churches as we construct other great institutions in our society, sinking their foundations deep into our own hopes and dreams, our prejudices and our pride? No. Our Lord has a better idea. Jesus wants us to build our spiritual lives — and, by implication, our churches as well — on one foundation, and one foundation alone. We are to build them on the solid rock of a living experience of God. Throughout the scriptures, God is referred to as “rock.” The psalmist writes: The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge. And again, in another psalm: [God] alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken. Valuable rock Now, “rock” may seem like a strange title for God. After all, rock does not rank high, for most of us, on our list of things of value. But consider the people who first coined the phrase. The Hebrews began as desert wanderers — shepherds, hunters, gatherers of wild berries and edible plants. They lived a hand-to-mouth existence, dependent on the goodness of the earth to sustain them. Sometimes conditions around them were not favorable to comfort and safety. Often the desert sun pounded down hot and pitiless. In such a time, a large rock could provide welcome shade. Sometimes there were wild animals or other enemies around, and a rock could be a position of defense. Sometimes there was flash-flooding: a terrifying, rushing flood of muddy water that threatened to carry away shepherd and sheep alike; then, a rock provided for firm footing and a place to wait out the natural disaster. Sometimes a traveler was lost in the wilderness; the only landmark, then, might well be a rock — either a natural formation or the type of stone set upright in the ground by someone who’d gone before (a little shrine to the God who comes to shepherds in the gloom of darkest night, and reminds them that all will be well). All these values, and more, are encompassed in this little word “rock.” To call God rock, as the scripture so often does, is to mean the eternal strength and unchangeableness of our Creator, and it is this rock that Jesus advises should be the foundation for a life of faith. The Rock that is God C.S. Lewis was once asked to speak to a company of the Royal Air Force about Christianity. At the end of the lecture, a tough old officer stood up and said, “I’ve got no use for all that stuff. But mind you, I’m a religious man, too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt him out alone in the desert at night. That’s why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about him. To anyone who’s met the real thing, they all seem so petty and obscure and unreal.” Lewis agreed that a vital, personal experience makes a mere discussion about God seem pale indeed, but he argued that doctrines are maps that can help direct us to God. Actually, both Lewis and the old officer were right. The officer was speaking of the experience of being confronted by the Rock who is God, and Lewis was speaking of the things people who have built their lives on the Rock have recorded about the experience. The point is, wherever the Rock that is God finds us — and it is he that finds us and not the other way around — is a place upon which to lay a foundation for building our lives. For some of us, the meeting is an unexpected experience, like that of the officer. For others, the meeting is in scripture, or a book of theology or in church, where we are consciously looking for God. And when he confronts us, we can sing with the psalmist, [God] drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. Meeting the Rock in Christ The way you and I most truly experience God is through the one we call God’s Son, Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul, in fact, says that “the rock was Christ.” Jesus is the one who opens the way to God, who knew this human life that we know, in all its imperfections, yet who triumphed — even over a cross. If you’re feeling the need for solid footing in your life right now, then why not try turning to him; to trust him with your very life; to commit yourself to being his disciple. You may not find that life will suddenly become wonderful, that all your problems will vanish or even that you will attain your heart’s desire. But you will find that life is no longer the lonely place it once was, and that beneath the turbulent rush of wild waters there is a place of solid footing — a Rock, on which you can feel secure. Once there was a little boy named Ryan, who went into his mother’s bedroom during a thunderstorm, and snuggled up with her. Immediately he went back to sleep. While his mother lay there, feeling his soft and gentle breathing, a thought occurred to her, that she expressed this way: “As I lay there with him, I realized Ryan hadn’t asked me to make the storm go away, but to stay with him. ‘How many times,’ I wondered, ‘have I asked God to take away the storms of life, when instead, I need to ask God to stay with me and help me weather the storms more peacefully!’” That’s how the Rock that does not change, the Rock that is God, shelters and steadies us. It is God, and God alone, on which we are meant to build the foundation of our lives, as well as our churches. |
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