Eternal God, pour out your spirit upon us, that we might be sensitive
to your presence, attentive to your Word, and faithful always in your way.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
I grew up in a story-telling family. My uncle “P.B.” was one of the best
storytellers I have ever known. I remember many times when, as a child, I
listened to his fascinating accounts of incidents and people and their funny
nicknames, such as “Legs” Keiger and “Stretch” Jones. My favorite times as a kid
at camp were the campfires and the stories told there. As a young pastor I
learned camp leadership and campfire stories under two masters, Frank Witman and
Lloyd Saatjian. They are both great storytellers. After their campfires, in the
afterglow time, they would regale us young preachers with even more stories.
When I led church camps I always tried to tell stories that would draw the youth
to a closer relationship with Jesus.
I love stories and I love to tell them. I come by this fondness naturally,
not just from my experience but from my boss as well. Jesus tells stories so we
can see ourselves in new light. He tells a story in the Matthew passage today.
He says there were two people who each build a house, one on sand and one on
rock. This really is a story about us.
Each of us is a builder. We spend a lifetime building our personality,
our character, who we are. Everything we do, everything we say, every thought we
have: all these and more are included in the structures of our lives. Some
houses we build, houses of good choices and habits, are open and airy. They
welcome other people and their ideas and are beautiful because of their openness
to growth, change, and becoming more faithful.
However, there are other houses we build, houses of bad choices and bad
habits. There is a story about a preacher who was talking to a young man who had
cut grass during his high school years to earn money. He was now going away to
college and was selling his lawn mower for $50. The young man told the preacher,
“Sometimes it is hard to crank. So, I just say a few cusswords and it takes
right off.” The preacher responded, “Doing what I do, I have tried to give up
cussing.” The young man responded, “Preacher, if you try to start this mower, it
will come back to you real fast.” Bad habits always seem to come back real fast.
Houses of bad habits have no windows and a little door. They are dark and
unwelcoming because the owner thinks his or her point of view is the only true
or correct way and thus does not accept new ideas, new ways, or new people.
These houses become musty and smell of death and their inhabitants suffocate
from lack of anything new.
In Jesus’ parable one person builds wisely but the other builds foolishly. All
of us, at one time or another, are foolish. In carpenter’s terms we measure once
and end up cutting twice instead of measuring twice and thus only cutting once.
We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. At some point in life we all can
pray, “Dear God, I have a problem. It’s me.”
However, some people continue to make big mistakes in their building. They fall
into habits that harm their bodies, destroy their minds, and afflict others as
well. Their foolishness compounds into disaster. Some of the trendy people
suddenly find choices they have made, have stolen away choices they might have
made in the future.
There are others, the wise builders, whose lives may not have near the
flamboyance of the trendy folk, but their ways of living open future
possibilities for them and others around them.
Not only does each of us build our own house, we also must live in what we
build. There is a great old story that is told in many variations: Two
people work together. The senior and more wealthy of the two says to the junior,
“I must go away for a year, but I want you to build me a house by the lake. Here
are the plans, the specs, and the funds to cover the project. The junior
partner, for whatever reason, decides to profit for himself so he cuts corners
wherever possible. He hires a crooked contractor, employs unskilled labor, uses
inferior materials, and pockets the surplus. When the house is finished, on the
surface it looks first rate. But in truth it is riddled with weakness. When the
senior partner returns he reports he is retiring and dissolving the company, and
the house is the junior partner’s severance gift. The point is piercing.
Whatever we build, even if we think it is for someone else, is really ours. It
reflects us. What keeps psychologists, counselors, and preachers busy is the
number of people who are trying not to live in their own house. The truth is,
each of us lives in the house we build.
Jesus also says that every house will be tested by the tumult. The first
house that Mary Lou and I owned, not a church-provided parsonage, was in
Cucamonga when both of us worked for the seminary in Claremont. We had terrible
Santa Ana winds there. In one storm the wind reached 100 m.p.h. It ripped huge
chunks of our neighbor’s roof right off his house and slammed them into the
bedroom windows of Jon and Becky. Our bedroom was on the other side of the
house, so the kids came running and jumped in bed with us. We also had a golden
Labrador dog in those days. She too was scared. In trying to get under the bed
she managed to collapse the whole thing. All five of us, Mary Lou, the kids, the
dog, and I, ended up in a heap on the floor. It wasn’t funny at the time, but in
retrospect we were so grateful only the bed collapsed and not the house.
There are a lot of tumults in the world today. Some are exterior storms. Among
the most noticeable of these are the war; the economy, including gas and food
prices, foreclosures and layoffs; natural disasters such as the cyclone in
Myanmar, the earthquakes in China, the fires in Florida and here, the tornadoes
in the Midwest; Darfur; and the seemingly endless “assault” politics locally and
nationally. These exterior tumults often cause us great distress and fear. They
are also great symbols of tumults that are interior to many of our lives. While
a hurricane or tornado may hit one town and not another, the tumult Jesus speaks
about hits us all at some time in life. Not one of us is immune.
The tumult warning siren is loud and clear in Jesus’ parable, but so also is
God’s promise. What is most important in building our lives is the foundation.
Both Paul and Jesus speak of the foundation. In the verses from Romans, chapter
one, we have the thesis statement of the letter: “I am not ashamed of the
gospel, for it is the power of God, resulting in salvation to everyone who has
faith, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.”
The foundation is good news, the good news of God’s love for us revealed in
Jesus. God’s love is always with us, even, especially, in the tumults of life.
In the verses in chapter three the phrase “faith in Jesus Christ” probably is
better translated, “faith of Jesus Christ.” Paul is saying that what opens us to
receive God’s love is to have the same kind of faith Jesus had, total trust in
God. It is the confidence that God will guide us through thick and thin, that
God will stand with us in the toughest times, in the tumult of life. We can have
total trust in the midst of the tumult of life because we have seen that God
stood with Jesus even through his death and then gave him new life in the
resurrection. As Jesus had total trust in God so can we … so should we. Total
trust in God is our foundation. Total trust in God is the rock on which we
are called to build our houses.
Jesus was a carpenter. He knew about building, so he put two houses in a
parable. He also knew about the tendencies of human nature. He knew how easy it
is to hear things, listen to them, agree with them, and then not do one thing
about them. So he told a story to show the necessity of doing as well as
hearing. Many will say, “Lord, Lord.” Many will have the word formulas down pat.
Yet what Jesus says in this parable is, what really counts is doing. It is
faithfulness, doing God’s will as revealed through Jesus, to the best of our
ability.
When President Warren G. Harding died in office, Vice President Calvin
Coolidge became President. Mrs. Harding continued to live in the White House for
a time, so the Coolidges remained where they had been living, in the nearby
Willard Hotel. In the middle of one night the new President awoke to see an
intruder going through his clothes. Coolidge calmly spoke up from the darkness,
“I wish you wouldn’t take my watch. It means a great deal to me. Take it near
the window and read what is engraved on the back.” Surprised and shocked the
burglar read, “Presented to Calvin Coolidge, Speaker of the House, by the
Massachusetts General Court.” Now even more surprised, the intruder asked, “Are
you the President?” “Yes, I am. Why are you doing this, Son?”
The young man explained that he and a friend had traveled to Washington
during their college break. They spent all their money and had no way to pay
their hotel bill or train passage back to school. Coolidge asked, “How much will
it take to pay your hotel bill and get the two of you back to school? Sit down
and let’s talk this over.” They added up the figures. The total came to $32.
That’s not much now, but it was a considerable sum then. The President said,
“I’ll give you the $32 as a loan, and I expect you to pay me back.” The youth
thanked him. Coolidge then advised him to leave by the same window he entered
the room, as secret service agents were sure to be patrolling the hallway. As
the young man climbed out, Coolidge said, “Son, you are a good person. You are
better than you are acting. You need to start living your values.” Jesus’
parable tells us exactly the same thing: We need to start living our values.
The young man explained that he and a friend had traveled to Washington
during their college break. They spent all their money and had no way to pay
their hotel bill or train passage back to school. Coolidge asked, “How much will
it take to pay your hotel bill and get the two of you back to school? Sit down
and let’s talk this over.” They added up the figures. The total came to $32.
That’s not much now, but it was a considerable sum then. The President said,
“I’ll give you the $32 as a loan, and I expect you to pay me back.” The youth
thanked him. Coolidge then advised him to leave by the same window he entered
the room, as secret service agents were sure to be patrolling the hallway. As
the young man climbed out, Coolidge said, “Son, you are a good person. You are
better than you are acting. You need to start living your values.” Jesus’
parable tells us exactly the same thing: We need to start living our values.
It wasn’t until after the death of Mrs. Coolidge in 1957 that this story was
allowed to come out. Among the President’s papers was a note which indicated the
young man was better than he acted. He had repaid the loan in full. The faith of
Jesus is total trust in God. May we live such total trust each day. Thanks be to
God.
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[*] Notes: The story of Calvin Coolidge is from Steve Goodier, Life
Support, March 12, 2008.
