“Can You Stand the Rain?”

Matthew 7:21-29

May 29, 2005

Saint Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming

It has been over six years ago since Susie and I went looking for our first house to buy. At the time I was the Associate Pastor at the First United Methodist Church here in Little Rock, a church that gave its two pastors housing allowances instead of houses to live in. When we first moved to Little Rock, we did not know the city well enough to know where we should live. We got a piece of advice here and there, but decided to play it safe by renting an apartment not too far from here at the Pleasant Ridge Apartment Homes complex. We rented an apartment home on the back of the property, secluded by the woods. It was a two bedroom, two storied townhouse that had a wide open space, a large utility bill, and a larger monthly rental payment. When we signed the one year lease, we thought that we would be there for as long as we served the First Methodist Church. But sometime that next spring, when our lease was almost up, we decided that we had lived in an apartment long enough and that we had saved long enough. So we talked with a real estate agent and a mortgage company. Then we began looking for our dream house.

To be honest with you, I did the majority of the searching for our new home. During my lunch hour, while Susie was at work, I would drive through neighborhoods where I knew houses were for sale. If the house was cute on the outside, I would take Susie by it. If she liked it, we would schedule a tour. And, of course, we looked in Sunday’s paper, in the real estate section, for open houses. All the while, with a smile on her face, our real estate agent told us that when we saw the house of our dreams, we would know it.

She was right. We went to several open houses one Sunday afternoon, but the one on Cherry Laurel Drive was our last one. We both walked through the house and loved it. It had a large kitchen with a breakfast area, a large window, and white cabinets. There was a great room. These rooms used to be called living rooms, but now they are called great rooms. The great room was complete with a wood burning fire place and tray ceilings. The master bedroom was a huge room, also with tray ceilings, whose bathroom had a separate room for the toilet. It also had two sinks, two walk-in closets, a bath tub compete with water jets, and a separate shower. Outside, in the back yard, was a patio and a fenced- in, landscaped yard. The front yard was just as great! The house seemed perfect. We made an offer. The home owners made a counter offer. We made another offer and settled on a price. A couple of months later we moved into the first and only house that we have owned.

While we were looking at this house, we asked a lot of questions. We wanted to know certain things, like how old the roof was, and whether the air conditioner was in good shape. We wanted to know if the window treatments stayed and if there were certain things in the house that could be fixed prior to our moving into it. The previous owners had three kids who had left their mark and their marks on the house. Of all the questions that we asked, we never asked one about the house’s foundation. We never asked if the house was built on a concrete slab or if there was a crawl space under it. We never asked how many yards of concrete were poured to make the foundation. We never asked how many steel rods were used to reinforce the strength of the concrete. We never asked what the ground under the foundation was like. We knew that both the back and front yards sloped down a hill. We never asked if the ground under the house had been leveled. We did not ask these questions, quite frankly, because we did not know that we were supposed to. If we had asked them, we would not have been able to speak with any expertise. You see, we were more interested in the fun things of owning our first house. We wanted to know how our furniture would look in the great room. We wondered what color we would paint the walls. If you have only lived in apartments and parsonages, the painting of walls is very important. Susie’s first comment was that one of the rooms would be a deep blue and deep blue it was painted. We did not call that room our guest room, we called it our blue room. We knew that there was a chemistry between us and the house, and we wondered where the Christmas tree might be placed. But the foundation? Well, we just assumed that it had one and that there would be no problems with it.

Jesus, on the other hand, knew the power of firm foundations, especially spiritual ones. Our text for this morning punctuates that. The context is the end of Jesus’ most famous sermon, one that we have come to call The Sermon on the Mount. You can find the sermon in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Matthew’s gospel and another version of it in Luke’s gospel. Matthew’s version, by far, is the more popular of the two.

These words of Jesus probably took less than ten minutes to say. And in them, Jesus wanted those who were listening to know that God cares for us and wants us to have the very best things in life. Jesus speaks of a world that is different from our own and says that it can be this way. He turns our world view around and says that the things that we thought would make us happy in the end probably won’t. The sermon begins with the beatitudes, a series of sayings about the things the people and the situations that can really make us happy. Jesus says that the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the ones who are persecuted are the ones who are really blessed. Jesus’ sermon also doles out practical advice and warnings about the danger of things like anger, adultery, swearing, retaliation, judging, and divorce. He also gives us a model for prayer, one that we will use later in this worship service. You might say that Jesus gives us the chance to see the big picture. He challenges us to thrive for the kingdom of God and righteousness, because if we do, we won’t worry about things like where we’re going for lunch or what clothes we should put on in the morning. If all that was not enough, Jesus also outlined a life that centered on humility where we aren’t supposed to try to impress others with our giving or with our prayers. But he also challenges us to live a life that is so noticeable that others will want it for themselves.

Whew! Wow! I would have liked to have preached that sermon! But how would you end that sermon? How would you draw it all together? What words would you use to end a sermon that covered so much ground? An Amen just isn’t enough. This sermon of Jesus needed an exclamation point! So Jesus used a parable, a story with a point, for his punctuation. The sermon ends with the story of two builders, a wise one who built his house on solid rocks and a foolish one who built his house on the sand.

Now, to be honest with you, at first glance, this story seems so simple, so elementary, so basic that we wonder why Jesus would tell it at all. After all, who would go to the trouble of building a house on the sand knowing that it would eventually collapse? Anyone, even a wet behind the ears builder would know better than that!

Well, apparently it was a little more complicated than that. The ground in Jesus’ world sometimes looked more sturdy than it was. Most likely, Jesus had watched builders who did not take the time to examine what was underneath the surface before construction began. Throughout Palestine, there were river beds that dried up during the summer heat leaving a smooth and inviting place that appeared to be stable. And, of course as long as it was summer, everything was just fine. But when the seasons changed, and the rains came, there was trouble. Besides all of that, building a house on a rock was a lot of hard work. You had to grade the slope and haul materials to the building site. Once the construction was complete, water would have to be carried up and down the hill. And the wind, well, winters there were terrible complete with gusts of wind. Most folks followed the course of less resistance. Most folks were willing to take the chance because the scenery was more pleasant, the water more convenient, and the house was sheltered from the cold winds. And though flooding was always a danger, most of the year, the streams trickled pleasantly by, down the hillside and into the river. But when the rains came, and I am not talking about April showers here. I am talking about rains that lasted for days and days, sometimes, maybe even often, the river overflowed into those river beds and when they did, the houses built in those beds didn’t have a chance!

Jesus tells this story on the heels of the Sermon on the Mount that has instructions for us on everything from adultery and anger to prayer and righteousness. He says that if we build our lives on these things, these teachings, we will be on solid ground. He says that if we will do this, when the weather changes or the circumstances of our lives change, we will have something solid to stand on. I think that it was Aaron Tippin, the country music artist who sang, “You’ve got to stand for something or you will fall for anything.”

What God does for us through Jesus Christ is to offer us the building blocks for firm foundations. Matthew has Jesus saying, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like the wise man who built his house on the rock.” You see, the sun won’t shine forever. Providence has different seasons. Into life, some rain must fall. No one can escape the downpours. But the problem, you see, is that we are fair weathered people. We like sunny days and clear skies. But seasons change. The weather is not predictable. Flash floods come out of nowhere. Blue skies turn gray. We don’t have any trouble handing the sun, but can you stand the rain? Will our foundations hold when the tough times come? Will they stand firm when our marriages don’t? Will they stand firm when loved ones die? Will our foundations crack and fall apart when sickness engulfs us like a flood? There is no guarantee, but a strong spiritual foundation with yards and yards of concrete, reinforced with steel bars, and the Word of God give us the best chance to handle the flood waters.

And the time to work on the foundation is not when it is raining. The time to work on the foundation is not when there is a crisis. The time to work on the foundation is when the skies are blue and all is well. One man gave this advice to his friend, “Do all of your praying before you get sick, because when you are sick, you can’t really pray.” I am not sure about that, but I have talked with people who find praying difficult during difficult times.

I think that I can say this. More and more people these days want a substantial faith. They want something that is strong and sturdy. I do not think that we want fluff these days. I don’t think that we want a faith that washes away at the first sign of trouble. I think that we want a solid experience and a sure faith. We want that, quite honestly, because we are living in a time when anything can happen. If nothing else, September 11, 2001 proved that to us. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of anything happening. I am tired of reading in the news that another child is missing, killed by their father or abducted by a neighbor. Susie and I followed the Scott Peterson trial. Many did. Sometime near the end of it, there was news that another man had killed his pregnant wife. Susie looked over at me and said, “Now that is crazy.” I answered, “I agree. I wanted to kill you after the baby was born!” We laughed, but it is not funny.

What do you do when the rains come? Can you stand the rain? The house that Susie and I moved into now six years ago was ready to go; it had no problems. It’s foundation was sure. Another of our members bought a house not too long ago. It was an older house in a historic part of Little Rock. One of the first things that they had to do was to firm up the foundation. There was a lot of work to be done on their house. Our member said something like this, “Most of the money that we’re going to spend will be on things that you cannot see!” That is right; that is the way that it is with our spiritual foundations.

The good news is that it is never too late to start building the foundation or at least repairing it. So I leave you with these questions: What sort of houses are we building these days in our lives and in our church? Are we ‘doing’ Jesus words, or only reading them, hearing them, and thinking how fine they are? Let us pray.