Matthew 7:24-29
My Bank is Slumping
June 1,2008
Patrick Preheim
I did not know about slumping banks until I moved to Saskatoon, but my bank is slumping. I am not describing my Bear Sterns stock. Rather, I am talking about the river bank which has slid down the hill covering my walking path in Gabriel DuMont Park. A “slumping bank” is the official term for the erosion of a bluff into a water way. I thought the term rather catchy and applicable to today’s scripture. A number of years ago I asked a friend of mine who is a water resource engineer about this parable. I asked him why people choose to live near slumping banks or in a flood way. He ticked off numerous reasons.
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The sand in a flood way usually is flat. It is quicker and easier to build on flat surfaces than on a bumpy surface. It takes more time to build on a rock.
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It is closer to all the resources water can provide: fishing, washing, water for cooking, transportation. Who wants to climb down from a rock every time you need water?
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Water is attractive. People like water, and living close to water is a pleasant environment for most.
Just think about how nice it would be to have a home down in Gabriel DuMont Park: fishing right off the deck, an easy canoe ride downtown, an unencumbered view of the sunset. Never mind the slumping river bank which can send your house careening into the river. Never mind the high water that comes from snow melt or flash floods. Never mind that unpredictable swift current that can make sand bars disappear overnight and quickly erode the shoreline. Engineers have always known that the reasons for building in the flood way do not outweigh the long term likelihood of slumping banks and eroding foundations. Jesus knows this as well. Knowing whose construction plan to trust is one problem we face in deciding where and how to build. Jesus introduces the parable of the wise and foolish builders with two guidelines for assessing spiritual blue prints.
In Matthew 7:24 we find Jesus saying, “Everyone then who hears these words of MINE and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock”. Jesus emphasizes attention to HIS words, as opposed to the words of tradition or the plain words of Torah. The Jesus of Matthew’s gospel spends a lot of time challenging the architectural plan of the Scribes and Pharisees. All throughout the Sermon on the Mount, for example, Jesus routinely claims a higher authority in Torah interpretation than the religious leaders. Six times in the Sermon on the Mount we hear Jesus intone “you have heard that it was said…But I say to you”. Four times in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus labels the Scribes and Pharisees with the dubious term hypocrite. Religious leadership is regularly cut down with phrases like, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (5.20), or the concluding phrase of today’s scripture (7:29). It is the words of Jesus—not the Torah or these who claim authority to interpret the Torah-- which guide a person to a spiritually secure acreage on which to build.
On this point I cannot resist a brief excursion into Mennonite history. The spiritual ancestors of this congregation approached the New Testament with certain views of the Bible that distinguished them from other reformers. “With other Christians they held to the centrality of Christ in understanding the Bible.…However, the writings of the Anabaptists speak often of the greater status of the New Testament in relation to the Old. The two testaments were not on the same level of authority even though all Scripture is the Word of God. This principle became a key defence of their absolute nonviolence against the appeal of others to the practice of warfare described in the Old Testament. (Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online; New Testament entry) All counsel, biblical or otherwise, had to be viewed through the lens of Christ and measured against the Jesus of scriptures. In many ways it reflects the type of biblical interpretation we find Jesus doing in the Sermon on the Mount. Why might this style of interpretation be important to us?
Well, the reality of life in the 1st century, 16th century and our streets is that there are a lot of people claiming to know what is right for us. They have all sorts of thoughts about a proper body shape, or a proper retirement, or a proper political policy, or a proper vehicle, or a proper way of business, or a proper expression of faith. Among all the clamoring voices which will we heed? How do we avoid building our lives on a slumping bank? Our greatest measure in discerning a good building plan is found in the second clause which precedes the parable. DOING the words of Jesus is as important as hearing them. We assess the words of Pharisees, Prime Minister, and Preacher by the way they encourage us to act. The litmus test for any Word of truth is the way it makes us behave. “You will know them by their fruits” Jesus says earlier in chapter 7. Good fruit, simply put, is love of God and love of neighbor (22:37). I want to spend just a bit of time unpacking what it means to “do” the words of Jesus.
Doing the words of Jesus is not easy. Being generous, non-anxious, forgiving, loving, tenacious (the kind of people the Sermon on the Mount describes) requires great spiritual fortitude. I am convinced that external acts of spiritual greatness usually emerge from internal spiritual strength. I think the Sermon on the Mount supports this claim. While the Sermon on the Mount is full of ethical imperatives, it is constructed in such a way that the Lord’s Prayer is at the very center. It is as if the text is saying that the Lord’s Prayer is at the heart of Christian ethics. If we are to love our enemies, if we are to let our lights shine, if we are to challenge authorities, if we are to be non-anxious, if we are to be doers of God’s word, then we need to be spiritually grounded.
At a Pastors’ Retreat some years back Allan and Eleanor Kreider of the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary presented on the Lord’s Prayer (April 11-13, 2007 at the Benedictine Monastary outside Schyler, NE). Allan has done much research and writing on the early Christian Church, and the Lord’s Prayer played an important role for them. The early church prayed the Lord’s Prayer together at each worship service. It was one prayer that every church member knew and a prayer that people in membership training were permitted to share (unlike communion). The Didache (one of the oldest Christian instruction manuals predating the gospels some would say) instructs that the prayer “the Lord commanded” to be recited three times a day (8:3). Early Church scholar Aaron Milovec comments on this directive in the Didache: “The use of the plural in both the instruction and the prayer itself probably indicates that a group recitation was implied. This would not necessarily mean that the entire community would gather three times each day; rather, those working in the same shop or those in the same household would gather and pray” (The Didache: Text, Translation, Analysis, and Commentary, edited by Aaron Milavec, p. 65). Personal and communal piety is essential to live the good news. According to Matthew’s Gospel and the early Church it is the Lord’s Prayer which can give us the strength to do what we have heard. May be this is one reason this congregation has a practice of praying the Lord’s Prayer together nearly every Sunday.
Clearly the Lord’s Prayer is not the only devotional avenue to “doing” the words of Jesus. Like the Sermon on the Mount, the passage we read from Deuteronomy links meditation on God’s word with doing God’s word. Deuteronomy 11 counsels talking about the words of God while we are sitting in our houses and walking by the way, before bed time and first thing in the morning. What would happen if our first topic of conversation at the family meal followed an ancient Christian practice (Jesuit tradition of Examin) of reflecting on two spiritual questions: when did you feel closest to God this day and when did you feel most challenged this day. “The first question leads to a greater awareness of our experience and relationship with God, and the second sensitizes us to opportunities for growth.” (Maxie Dunnam, “Cultivating Closeness” in Leadership (fall 93), p. 65). Or what would happen if we devoted the first cup of coffee to a prayer for the people and events of the day ahead- a type of praying through the calendar? There are many ways to infuse our lives with an awareness of God which propel us to do the words of Jesus.
Jesus chooses to build on and preach from a rock, but his gaze was ever toward people who find themselves in high water. Extending ourselves from the rock could easily be applied to the need of Christian ethics in the business sphere, as Grant Unrua did quite ably in the MEDA gathering this past Wednesday. Or it could be applied to the conversation of ethical intervention in world crises, as the Adult Ed series has done this Spring. Instead, I want to apply this parable at a personal level. Lara Ens’ sudden death, Stella’s cancer, and the unpublicized struggles with which many of us deal give a name to the flood of our story. Sometimes in our lives we truly are people securely built upon a rock. We are solid. We are centered. We are spiritually strong. We are above the deluge. At other times, however, the waters of difficulty rise higher than we expected and we find our lives threatened in a flood of disease, accidents, bad luck or poor choices. When we feel the foundation giving way remember that there is hope amidst the flood. Christ is the rock of our faith and the body of Christ (the church) reaches from that rock to those in trouble. A children’s book on this parable rightly catches the relationship between those on the rock and those caught in the flood. In the midst of the flood Zeb sees John and his family floating in the water. Zeb “suddenly sees his neighbors’ plight, he rushes down from his safe height, and pulls Zeb’s family on their log straight in to shore—all four, with dog!” (Arch Books Bible Stories, Concordia Publishing House). This is not true to the text of Matthew 7:24-29, but I do think it captures the essence of the way Jesus lived his life. It is what we see him doing in chapters 8-28 of Matthew’s Gospel. If we find ourselves securely on the rock, we have an opportunity, nay an obligation, to reach out to hurting people. Reaching from the rock, however, does not necessarily mean calling, baking, or dropping by. Sometimes “doing” the words of Jesus means praying or writing from a distance-- offering support without smothering. And if we find ourselves being overwhelmed by the floods of life sometimes there is not a lot of action we can take. At these moments it is important to remember that the Lord’s Prayer is at the heart of Christian faithfulness. This prayer saw Jesus safely to the cross and from the tomb. Christians through the centuries have lived and died faithfully with these words in heart and mind.
Let us ground ourselves, our homes, our families on the rock. The rock of Christ will not spare us from floods, but it will be a foundation amidst the storm. God give us the strength and courage to not only build on the rock, but go from the rock to be physically and spiritually present with those people of our world whose foundations are giving way. Amen.
Patrick Preheim, Co-pastor, Nutana Park Mennonite Church