June 1, 2008
The Third Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)
Genesis 6:9-22, 7:24, 8:14-19; Psalm 46; Romans 1:16-17, 3:22b-31; Matthew 7:21-29
I know nothing much about construction. Indeed, for one of my first Christmases in Massachusetts one of my good friends gave me a tool kit because he had tried to do some simple thing – I think pound a nail into a wall to hang a picture. I was using a shoe! I didn’t have a hammer. So I am now the proud owner of a tool kit, but no user manual came with it!
So when we have parables based on best practice construction principles, I have to admit I am at a loss. Sand or rock, it would be difficult for me to build anything! That is the gospel story, but the first story we read is the making of a covenant between Noah and God, and we all know what that led to: a flood! No house, on rock or sand, would have survived. So this morning I am going to forgo the metaphors and speak about what I think lies behind there metaphors: the reality of the first and most lasting covenant between God and God’s people, and what it is to build a solid spiritual foundation to live up to and into that covenant.
Until Noah, God had not made covenants with the people of earth, but in total despair God decided to take the one righteous man and his family and his entourage of animals and insects, plop them into a floating basket, and then wash away the sin of the world. No user manual came with Noah’s covenant either. So it is likely this whole story is a metaphor to explain some huge rainy time in the history of the world when it seemed that all human and animal life was drowned. Interestingly almost all cultures have such a story, so it must have been quite a flood that needed to be explained to the people.
But because the bible is the story of God and God’s people, God’s relationship with the people of the earth, our flood story is circled with and embedded in the reality of covenant, the promise that we are God’s beloved and that never again would God allow us to be separated from that love. Never! And when it appeared that we were going to try to drown in sinfulness once again, God repeated the covenant of love in the person of Jesus. There is no escaping it. We are God’s beloved, and no matter what we do, build on sand or rock, God is with us and God loves us. Period! That is our starting point. That is the point from which we cannot fall and certainly cannot drown!
So we come to the story of the person trying to build the solid house, and Jesus tells us it takes time. You can make a house quickly, out of ticky-tacky. Remember that song? “Houses made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same?” Or you can take time to learn the craft, making each stone count. In a spiritual life that is especially true. We might, or might not, have a flash of recognition that we are part of the eternal covenant given to Noah – you know like a blinding flash such as Paul had, or the flash or recognition of Jesus that the disciples had on the road to Emmaus, or our own moment when we suddenly realize that God loves us and is with us, as I did when I gave birth to my first son. Those moments of recognition of God are profound and wonderful, and they come in many assorted building blocks, from new babies to walks on the beach to retreats, silent and organized. Those moments are as varied as humans are, but they are but moments. They are the sand or the rock, but the building must still go on from there. Each step in a spiritual journey must be a building block of the rock solid dwelling place for the body of Christ.
And spiritual health comes after those empowering wonderful moments. It comes after years of life’s storms have been weathered. It comes by building a relationship, one prayer at a time with a living God. It comes by being part of a community of faith, like Good Shepherd. It comes from having trusted friends and spiritual directors and colleagues who can tell you the truth about yourself and our God, affirming what your prayers and reading and own experiences seem to be saying to you. A complete spiritual home is not finished in this life, and none of us gets through life without scars from the storms of life. But the stronger the foundation of prayer, of community, of spiritual guides, such as scripture and spiritual readings, and even novels for that matter, the more able we are to weather the storms.
Now I don’t know how to equate each of these things, prayers, community, spiritual guides, scripture, to building materials in this modern world, but I think you can understand the truth of what I am saying to you this morning. A strong faith is built not by a flash in the pan experience, but by careful, practiced spiritual living – which may have begun with one wonderfully, exciting and unique bolt of lightening!
Or not!
The foundation is not what matters so much, at least not that beginning foundation. It is the lengthy lifetime of building spiritual experiences that builds a dwelling strong in faith and close to God.
But the thing is if we build our house only on the flash-dash of a humdinger experience or if we build our house on the lengthy slow lifelong structure, it doesn’t really matter to God. Not one iota. For God will redeem whatever we do. That is the covenant of Christianity. God gave that first covenant to Noah and God has renewed it in Jesus Christ. When each of us was born into this world, we are God’s own and God loves us, unconditionally and forever. No matter what kind of spiritual house we build. Each baby we baptize is full of the potential of being a house built on the slow rock of an ever deepening faith journey. That is what we pray for and hope for each who is baptized.
And I believe that God hopes that too. For I believe God longs to be in a deep and holy relationship with each and every one of God’s beloved creations. But I don’t think God’s love for us is any less if we opt out. I think God is perhaps sadder for those who do, yearns for those who do. But God’s love is no less.
So why build that spiritual house if God will love us anyway?
Because when we do, we become God’s hands, heart, and voice in making the Kingdom of God closer to reality.
Because when we build that lifelong spiritual dwelling that is our heart, our soul, we are changed and made whole and holy in ways that nourish us and keep us safe in storms and shielded when joyful. Living as a child of God and knowing it, trusting it, believing it, is the very best way to live. It is to lose one’s self and become instead God’s own and as strange and as unbelievable as that is, it is the best way to live.
We are the beloved of God. We are the current keepers of the covenant. We are God’s own forever.
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd