Final Video
Jesus, the carpenter, concludes his great sermon by drawing on ideas from his background in construction. His last point references one of those things you know, but you don’t really know you know it until someone points it out to you: that there’s a connection between the place you live and the quality of your life.
He puts it like this:
“Anyone who hears my words and puts them into practice will be like a wise person who built their house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears my words and does not act on them will be like a foolish person who built their house upon sand.”
For most of us this text so familiar that it’s utterly unremarkable. Right? Christ is our ever-present support in times of trial. Rely on him. Build your life on him. The Psalms say it too:
“The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer… in whom I take refuge, my shield and my stronghold” That’s Psalm 18. Or Psalm Psalm 62: “He is my fortress… I will never be shaken.”
All of that is true, of course. It just has nothing to do with what Jesus is talking about here. He isn’t talking about his foundational role in our lives. His point isn’t about him.
It’s about us.
He’s talking about the kind of life we choose to construct for ourselves and whether we construct it in a way that’s suited to weathering life’s hardships and trials.
And for that, everything hangs on how we behave. Whether you fall apart in the face of adversity, he’s saying, depends on putting into place the kind of practices that make your life stable and solid.
As we end this series on Jesus’ teachings about his Kingdom and the happy life, let me make a couple of brief observations.
The first reads straight off the page: your life is built. It is put together, by you. And that constructive process consists of the decisions you make, the effort you put in, the things you prioritize and the disciplines you develop. Not always, of course. Some are passive towards life, allowing circumstance and fortune to determine who they become. That’s a life built on sand. Others find themselves in hard circumstances from the outset, and so never really get started on building their lives. But in the main, your life is constructed. And you are the one responsible for making it.
The second point is equally apparent: that not all ways of constructing your life achieve equally desirable ends. Some lives score high on adventure and pleasure, but maybe lower on relational satisfaction. Others might achieve financial and professional success, but not much in the way of fulfillment or inner peace. Simply to say, if you care about a life that’s able to withstand the really hard moments, of surviving trauma, or failure, or violence, or financial struggle, you need to start with something stable. That stability is found in a way of life. And that way of life follows a sort of rule, a unique way of being human – the features of which, we’ve been examining in this series.
I love the idea that the builder in this metaphor is building his house. Jesus isn’t worried about commenting on construction strategies. The thing he’s thinking about, the value he’s addressing, concerns the kind of life you can be at home in. Because the point of a house is to make a home. So, when he calls us to build our lives around certain practices, he’s trying to help us achieve the sort of life in which you feel you belong, where you have a place, where you can be yourself, to enjoy communion and community with friends and family, where you can be productive but also be at rest. Those are hugely important to our well-being and our flourishing. And to be most secure in possessing that sort of life, we should strive for a life in which that sense of home isn’t vulnerable to the difficulties life brings. We want a house that can endure, unshaken, come what may. And that requires developing a way of life that is secure and resilient.
I love Jesus’ realism here: struggles and challenges, hardships and harms, failures, infirmities, losses and pains – they are inevitable. The question isn’t if you will confront them, only when. And If you’ve ever endured really difficult life circumstances, which I know some of you have, you’ll know stability is nothing to sniff at. You’ll know just how destructive things can be, to the point, sometimes, of shattering your whole world.
What Jesus is saying is that there’s a way to put the practices in place that’ll secure you against the trials of tomorrow, at least in part. Not that you’re immune from those circumstances. Just that there’s a way of living that will ensure you won’t be destroyed.
What are those practices? Well, it’s a long sermon. But we’ve made a brief start on examining some of them already.
You will be stable, you will be at home in the world, if you live in a way that holds to the truth. Don’t indulge fantasy. Don’t embrace falsehood. Those things are unstable. Seek the truth.
In four ways:
one, truth is that you are utterly dependent on God for all that you have and all that you are – that before your maker you are poor. Adopt an outlook that acknowledges as much and keeps it always at the front of your mind. It allows you to be grateful for the big and the small things, and to be secure in knowing that your life is in the hands of an ever-loving God.
Two, the truth requires that you mourn – because mourning is the appropriate emotional response to the truth of suffering. You need to do it. Otherwise you cannot register the truth of your loss, which means you cannot move on. So mourn. Not indulgently. But truthfully. And honestly. Until you can go forward made new.
Third, you need to live in a way that understands the truth about your own power – that you are able to make a tremendous difference in the world, by the way you act and the way you live, by what you say and what you do. You are powerful. And that power is a responsibility. And being productive with it requires being responsive and obedient to the one who’s making all things new.
But to know God, to recognize God’s promptings you also need to be able to see God, which requires avoiding those things that pervert, obscure or skew your vision. That’s the forth thing: avoid those things, both inwardly and outwardly, that blind you to God.
On top of that, your life will be strong if you seek always to act justly, showing to others what they are due, which is, among other things, the same loving regard as you’d show yourself. Because that sort of love is confident; Loving self and neighbour in right measure.
When you fail, acknowledge it and make it right. But when others fail, be understanding and merciful. That’s the way God treats us. It makes for a peaceful life.
All of which points to something important about Christ’s new Kingdom. The culture that he invites us to exhibit, the values and practices he recommends we adopt, make for us a home in the world, both singly and as a community. It makes for a Kingdom, a city on a hill. It is a place constructed by wise action, on the model of Christ, in conformity with his teachings. And it’s a place of safety, of stability, of security and peace.
Interesting that the happy life, beatitude, also turns out to be one that’s maximally secure. That makes sense, I suppose, because it’s hard to be really happy if you’re insecure about whatever may be around the corner.
My prayer is that together, we would rededicate our lives to the practices constituting Christ’s Kingdom, that we’d know the beatitude it offers, be secure in its happiness, and that we would be at home in the world.