Matthew 7.21-29

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his 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 these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!” Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

We take our text this morning from the end of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount,” a long collection of various sayings of Jesus found in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. The Sermon on the Mount isn’t, of course, a “sermon” like we think of them today. But that’s not to say that it doesn’t have a structure, or coherence, or an overall point. We will keep this in mind as we think about the text for today, the conclusion of the sermon. Our text comes in 2 parts: first we have Jesus’ warning that not all those who say to him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter into the kingdom of heaven; and second, we have the very familiar story of the wise man who built his house on the rock, and his foolish counterpart who built his house on the sand. We will be looking at both parts, but in reverse order.

“The wise man built his house upon the rock.” How many of you inadvertently already have the old VBS song running through your head right now? This was one of my favorite songs as a kid. You just can’t beat the songs with the hand movements. This song also holds a special place for me because it happens to be, surprisingly, one of the favorite songs of the Chinese Christians in Wuhan, China. My first job out of college was teaching English there, 1998-99. I remember singing it first one night because we happened to be talking about this text, and it seemed like a good way to introduce the lesson. It surprised all of us American types when it caught on. The next week I found myself typing up the words and printing them out for Ladies’ Bible Study because it wasn’t in any of our songbooks, Chinese or English. I remember a couple of people volunteering to translate the song. I remember all of us being astonished that so many grown people would like a children’s song that much, but they did. (Their other favorite song was “Paradise Valley”—don’t ask me why.) I think part of the reason they liked the song so much is that it so clearly follows the Bible. These Christians were all new to Christianity, new to the Bible, and I’m sure that a lot of the songs we regularly sang in church didn’t make any sense to them, didn’t seem to have any connection to the Bible. They were always learning, always trying to learn, always trying to suck every little bit of knowledge out of everything... This song must have been a treasure trove to them, finally, a song that they could understand and learn from.

And we know that’s what songs do. Songs teach us. Why else would we sing our ABC’s, instead of reciting them? Why else do we all have this song in our heads still, at 30 years old, 50 years old? And why is it that every child here can tell us the story of the wise man who built his house upon the rock?

So what does this song teach us? Well, it follows the story pretty exactly, for the most part. It does, of course, make an interpretive move from Jesus’ “and great was its fall” to SMASH!, but I think we can agree that’s pretty minor, quite possibly an improvement, and definitely called for in the structure of the song. The really notable thing about the song is its last verse, the third verse. The conclusion of the song tells us: “So build your life on the Lord Jesus Christ…and the blessings come tumbling down; oh, the blessings come down as the prayers go up…”

So today, we have the problem of overcoming this familiarity. Like so many other wonderful passages in the Bible, familiarity can obscure the message sometimes, rather than reveal it. The song not only recounts Jesus’ story of the wise and the foolish man, but it gives us an interpretation as well. It’s not that interpretation is bad. On the contrary, we all know that interpretation is a necessary part of understanding the words that have been handed down to us in the Bible. But sometimes, certain interpretations become so normal, so authoritative, so embedded in our consciousness and our thoughts, that we can’t see where the text ends and the interpretation begins. An interpretation can become so familiar that we just don’t notice it any more, and we start to think that it’s just obvious that this is the right way to understand the text. In a small way, I think the song has interpreted these verses for me nearly my whole life. So now we have a chance to take a step back, look at this interpretation we’ve been given, and see what we think about it.

First, I want to note that some friends of mine have amended the third verse in the following way: “the blessings come down and the praise goes up”—they didn’t like the sort of “health and wealth” gospel in the original. I’m on board with this amendment, although I find it difficult to remember to sing the new version. When we sang this at church a couple of weeks ago I kept missing the changes. But my friends have noticed something profound here. Does the Bible tell us that the wise man had “blessings come tumbling down” because he built his house on the rock, because he built his life on Jesus Christ? It certainly does not. Rains came, floods came, winds came. These aren’t blessings. In fact, water and flood and storm often serve as symbols of chaos in the Bible, representing elements of the universe ranged against human beings and human life. And, you’ll notice if you read on, they’re the exact same thing the foolish man got, too. Rain and flood and wind come to both men in our story; there’s no special “get out of jail free card” that comes floating down from heaven for the wise man. He has to weather the storm and the chaos, too.

But still we tend to think that the point of the story is that the wise man gets something better out of life than the foolish man. And this doesn’t seem to be completely wrong; after all, the wise man still has his house! But we have figure out what this really means. Because it’s pretty clear now that the song oversimplifies things a bit. That’s fine for children. But most of us aren’t children anymore. We need something more, as Paul tells us.

Let me put before you a question to consider: What is a good life? Do we know what would make a life good? Do we know what would make our own lives good?

Earlier we heard Deuteronomy 11:18 and following read. Here, God is telling God’s people to put these words in their heart and soul, to remember them and teach them to their children. And God tells them, if you obey my commandments, you will be blessed; and if you do not obey, you will be cursed. Why? Because God is a hypersensitive and vengeful God, whose feelings get hurt when we don’t obey? I don’t think so. The text says, “See, I am setting before you a blessing and a curse; the blessing, if you obey…and the curse, if you do not…” God sets this before us as a truth about life. I think God is trying to explain to the people that his commandments are intended for their good; they are not arbitrary and set up for God’s sake or satisfaction, but for the people’s sake, to show them how to live a good life. The result of disobeying or ignoring God’s commandments is a curse, not because God gets angry and smites you, but because you are ignoring what makes life good. And that itself is a curse, and brings about disastrous consequences.

I think Jesus is giving us the same message in this story of the wise and the foolish man. In fact, I think this basic message can be seen as the point of the whole Sermon on the Mount. What makes us wise? What counts as foolish? Now we can reconsider this story and ask ourselves, what is it about this man that makes him wise? And what is wisdom?

We don’t talk about wisdom much. Knowledge, yes, intelligence, yes, but not wisdom. But it shows up quite a bit in the Bible. In the proverbs we often encounter descriptions of the wise and the foolish, and wisdom is even personified here and there (interestingly, as a woman). It crops up in the New Testament quite often as well. Clearly the idea of wisdom was central to the ancient worldview in a way that it isn’t for us today. Quite simply, wisdom is about knowing what’s good: what’s good for you, what’s good for others, what’s good for life. It’s about knowing what a good life is and what a good life looks like and requires. It’s knowing the difference between right and wrong, but it’s more than simple ethics or rulekeeping. It’s different from book knowledge or the ability to think abstractly or contemplate abstract concepts. It’s different from cleverness with your hands and knowing how to build or fix things. This kind of wisdom is a whole different kind of knowledge. And it is the glue that holds these other kinds of knowledge together, in the right way. Or perhaps we can call wisdom the bridge between these kinds of knowledge, between contemplative knowledge and technical know-how. The gap between knowing what is good…and doing what is good.

I think it’s this kind of wisdom that we so often miss in our own lives, and it is this kind of wisdom that Jesus is describing in the character of the wise man in the story. What is it that makes this man wise, and the other man foolish? The wise man knows where to build his house: on the rock. The story doesn’t tell us whether he built the house well or not, except for this one detail, that he chose the site of its foundation wisely. What makes this man wise is that he knows to put into action the knowledge he has gained in contemplating life. The wise man knows that rain and flood and storms are bound to come. He knows what is required in order to withstand the chaos. And he goes into action. His knowledge guides and motivates action.

Why is the foolish man foolish? It could be that he has no idea what’s coming; that’s one form of foolishness. But it seems more likely to me that he does know, and perhaps he even knows that a foundation of rock is required for a house to stand through the storm. But he acts otherwise. His knowledge does not inform or motivate his action. There is a disconnect somewhere. His action is guided by something else—perhaps laziness, perhaps cheapness, perhaps indifference or unmerited optimism. And his house does not stand. It fell, Jesus tells us, and great was its fall. It fell with a smash.

What was this story supposed to mean for its hearers, the crowds and the disciples gathered around Jesus? Jesus begins the story by saying, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.” What words? Remember, this is the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has talked for two whole chapters at this point, explaining to people why their religion must be more than simple rulekeeping; why they must transcend “common sense” and love their enemy, walk the second mile, lend their cloak, give to everyone who asks; why it is better to pray a simple prayer in secret, rather than show off on the street corner; why, in everything that they do, they should do to others as they would have them do for them. These words of Jesus are the rock in the story: they are what is required to withstand the chaos that is bound to come. But it is only wisdom for those who hear Jesus’ words, if the hearers act on them—not simply understand them, remember them, or contemplate them. For the essence of wisdom is to bridge the gap between knowing and doing what is good.

It’s not too hard to think of examples of this kind of foolishness today. It’s an easy kind of foolishness, this separation of knowledge of what is good and necessary and beneficial for life, and acting upon that knowledge. Don’t we all know that eating a spinach salad is better than eating a McDonald’s BigMac? So why is MacDonald’s still in business? Don’t we know that recycling our paper and plastics and glass jars and soup cans is better than throwing them away? Why don’t more people do it? Maybe these seem like trivial examples. What does spinach and recycling have to do with God? Well, nothing on the face of it, for sure. But God knows what is good for us, on all levels—socially, physically, emotionally—and God desires that we have a good life, I believe, on all these levels.

Let’s look now at the verses right before Jesus tells the story of the wise man and the foolish man. In Matthew 7, verse 21 Jesus warns his disciples and the crowds, “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” Again, there is an emphasis placed on action, on doing the will of God, on building the house on the rock. But what is the response in verse 22? Jesus tells us, on that day many will say, “but Lord! We did do stuff! Look at all we did! We prophesied in your name, and we cast out demons in your name, and we did all kinds of cool powerful stuff in your name!” And Jesus tells us that he will declare to them, “I never knew you.” Here we have very active people, very busy people. People busy doing the wrong things, or perhaps people doing right things for the wrong reasons. I find it interesting that their protest takes the form of doing deeds “in Jesus’ name.” They did things in Jesus’ name, but not for Jesus himself. His name is a badge, a code for power, a means to accomplish their deeds. But it is unconnected with Jesus himself; for he says, “I never knew you.” These people are also foolish, but their mistake is not the mistake of the foolish man who builds his house on sand, who neglects to put his knowledge of what is good into action. These people lack wisdom because they have neglected to contemplate first what is good; they have sprung into action feverishly, doing whatever they can, assuming that feverish action will be pleasing to God…without first finding out who God is, and what God wants. How can we go about the business of God, without knowing who God is?

This semester I was given the privilege of acting as teaching assistant for the first-year introductory theology course at the seminary. The students read five theologians throughout the semester, each of whom had their own distinctive ways of doing theology. It was, I admit, a pretty rough way to be introduced to the discipline. Most of them seemed to survive relatively unscathed. One of the theologians we read is a Roman Catholic South American theologian by the name of Gustavo Gutierrez. He is famous for his “liberation theology,” a Christian theology that emphasizes the necessity of the love of neighbor and taking action to show this love by helping the poor in concrete ways. For Gutierrez, theology is reflection on practice; it is thinking about, later, what it is that Christians do; why Christians do what they do. Practice, action, is first; reflection, theology, is second. But, astonishingly, he describes the doing, as “contemplation and practice together.” For Gutierrez has learned the wisdom that these supposed followers of Jesus lack; Gutierrez realizes that in order for our actions to be right, in order to do good, first we must truly know what the good is. And this comes from contemplating God, from knowing God, from listening to God. Let me read this short passage from this wise theologian to you:

“Contemplation and practice feed each other; the two together make up the stage of silence before God. In prayer we remain speechless, we simply place ourselves before the Lord. To a degree, we remain silent in our practice as well, for in our involvements, in our daily work, we do not talk about God all the time; we do indeed live in God, but not by discoursing on God…Silence, the time of quiet, is first and the necessary meditation for the time of speaking about the Lord” (On Job, xiv).

How do we know what is good? How do we know what to do? How do we know what to say? First, we must contemplate the Lord. Then, we let this knowledge inform our actions. This is wisdom. Action without knowledge is futile, and leads us nowhere. Perhaps we are greatly impressed with our deeds of power done in Jesus’ name, but that doesn’t mean Jesus will be. And knowledge of the good, if it does not lead us to act, is equally futile. Perhaps we feel that simply knowing the right belief is sufficient to save us from coming chaos, but we will soon find out differently. Learning to know the good by contemplating and listening to God, contemplating and listening to the words of Jesus, and putting this contemplation into action: this is wisdom. This is our house, built on rock.