Sermon: “Wise?
Foolish? You Choose!”
Matthew 7
In the center of the Old City of Jerusalem sits a rock. On top of that rock sits the Dome of the
Rock, the oldest Islamic shrine in the world.
It was from here that the prophet Mohammed is said to have ascended into
heaven. In addition to the Dome shrine
is a mosque.
Under that is said to be the site of Solomon’s great
Temple. All built on a rock. By the time of Herod the Great, who was the
King Herod at Jesus’ birth who ordered the slaying of a great many children,
Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed and Herod took it as the work of his life
to rebuild the Temple on the rock. He
decided to improve on both Solomon’s design and nature’s design. He had constructed four great walls within
which he had the unevenness of the rock smoothed out to a plateau to form the
base of his new temple and a new community. It was sort of a planned urban development. The walls enclosed an area of approximately 37
acres.
In 70 CE, after a failed revolt against Roman possession, the
Roman legions destroyed the Second Temple.
In 135 CE the Emperor Hadrian squashed yet another Jewish revolt and
this time he laid waste to the entire city.
But the rock stood and Herod’s plateau formed the base of a new Roman
city, Aelia Capitolina.
And so it went. Over
the course of history what we call Jerusalem has been destroyed and ruled by
non-Jewish cultures over and over again.
The houses and the Jewish Temple built on the rock have come
and gone. Today there is still a wall
that is partially exposed and fully accessible to Jews who hold it as a sacred
place: the Western Wall, also called the
Wailing Wall. Over the course of time,
weather, wind, and conquests have reshaped and redefined the Rock and the
walls. The Western Wall is estimated to
be 105 feet from base to top but today only approximately 62 feet are visible
above ground. Jewish tradition says that
this portion of the Wall is actually part of Solomon’s Great Temple. The rock is still there, under a great deal
of human history, but the “house” built by Solomon and rebuilt by Herod fell. 1
“The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and
beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall! [Matthew 7:27]”
At the end of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us that we
would be wise to live our lives based on the words of his sermon, the only true
rock. He said these words just as down
the road in Jerusalem the work planned by Herod was continuing, and the Second
Temple was being built upon a rock – of sorts.
Jesus is telling his hearers that his words form the true
rock. His words form the true
religion. His words are the Torah. His words are the summation of God’s will for
His people. His words form the
foundation of God’s kingdom here on earth.
His life is the new Temple, the place where God and earth have come
together. And the people were amazed
because he didn’t rely upon religious experts to footnote his words. He relied on his relationship with God. His life is the revelation of “God with
us.”
Chapter 5 reveals the nature of God’s Kingdom and how we are
to live with one another if we would enter God’s Kingdom. Jesus tells us that this is what it really
means to fulfill the Law and the prophets.
It’s not about ritual observation:
it’s about turning your heart and your life over to God. God commands us to love one another. “Love?”
Look at God’s love for us. Look
at God’s love for all of us who have turned away from God. Look at God’s love for God’s enemies –
us. Look at God’s love in the suffering
Son of God hanging on a cross. In the
constantly patient, constantly forgiving, constantly merciful and suffering love
that God shows us we have the definition of what it means to love one
another. We have the definition of what
it means to live in God’s kingdom.
In chapter 6 we are told how to worship God. We are told how to carry out the Law and the
Prophets. We are taught how to
pray. We are taught that we are not to
use God as a badge of personal accomplishment.
We are taught that prayer is meant to be between God and us, not a
performance for an awe-struck audience.
In Matthew 6 Jesus reminds us that there’s nothing wrong with
rituals like prayer and fasting, but they are disciplines to be held privately
between God and us. In Chapter 6 Jesus
reminds us that God wants us to view our relationship as we might view a
relationship with a loving, patient and forgiving parent. (Some might say that grandparents are a
better model!) Jesus reminds us over and
over that God loves us and that to undervalue that love by undervaluing
ourselves is to deny God’s love.
Then finally we come to chapter 7. Is any of this really possible while we live
in this world? At the heart of Jesus’
words in chapter 7 is an assumption of a community. An acknowledgement that we cannot do it alone
and an assumption that a natural community will form composed of those who want
to follow God’s will.
The beginning of chapter 7 has a warning for us as
individuals and us as members of a community.
Our lives and the life of our community must be marked by the radical
recognition that we are all sinners. We
all fall short. We all NEED to be
forgiven. We are all in the same
boat. The community of those who would
follow God’s will is marked by a level of shared personal knowledge and
gratitude that removes from us the right or the desire to judge any one
else.
This community of believers is rooted in self-awareness of
our own sinful and forgiven nature. Because
of that awareness we gratefully accept God’s love and view one another as
creatures beloved by God. It ceases to
be our job to judge or condemn one another.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t know right from wrong. That doesn’t mean that we don’t want to
nurture and support one another as we grow more into the image of God’s good
creatures. It means that we leave
judgment to God, and we support one another for we all have sinned and fall
short. It means that that awareness of
our sameness, our shared sinfulness, creates between and among us an
environment in which we can help one another grow closer to God.
Then Jesus encouragingly returns to prayer: to our
conversation with God. He’s not really
saying that any shallow or silly thing that we ask for will be given to
us. A loving parent knows better than to
accede to the whims of a child. Jesus is
telling us to keep on praying. To go to
God as you would to a merciful and empathetic parent and share your moments,
your day, your life with God.
I was asked once by someone – a pastor – what I prayed for
when I prayed for myself. I answered
that there were too many other people with needs so much greater than
mine. I didn’t pray for myself. She looked at me. Slowly she asked, “Do you realize what you
just said? If other people have needs
that are greater than yours, does that mean that you think they need God’s help
more than you do?”
Hmmmmm. My arrogance
had never sounded so rationally humble!
My statement that other’s needed God more than I did was just another
way of denying my need for God.
Jesus says, “Ask. Search. Knock.” God is waiting to hear from you. Share your life with God and you will find
some things changing in your life. Even
within the Lord’s Prayer we ask for food and forgiveness for ourselves.
Prayer is a mystery.
It’s not magic. It’s not a way to
manipulate God. It’s not a shopping
list. It’s not a Christmas wish
list. It’s a conversation that leads to
and nurtures a relationship with God. NT
Wright says it’s a way of cooperating with God and participating in God’s plan
rather than resisting God’s plans for us.2
Then as he moves to the conclusion of the Sermon Jesus tells
us that we need to choose wisely; to choose the road that may be fraught with
difficulties and pot holes; to choose the road that may narrow down to only one
lane and when you reach the exit ramp – which is really an entrance ramp –
there are no shoulders and there are steep drop-offs on both sides. Be careful.
Choose wisely.
Satan, as portrayed in all of scripture, is the tempter. That is Satan’s only power. Put another way, Satan’s only power is the
ability to exploit any weaknesses that we have.
I don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about Satan. A few years ago though, I came to this
realization: the closer we come to
completing our walk toward God, the closer we come to the gate, the stronger
and more powerful will be Satan’s temptations.
Then Jesus warns us about false prophets. Some of them may even be hard to identify. Their falsehood won’t necessarily be
obvious. Or worse, they may have come
very close to the real thing and then surrendered to those extra-powerful
temptations that come so close to the end.
They may simply be cynics who know that hurting people will often grab
onto anything that sounds like the hope of God.
Years ago I saw a little cartoon that may have been based on
Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters.” It was an
office scene with a senior devil sitting behind a desk offering final
instructions to a very junior devil who was about to enter into humanity. The final word of advice from the senior
devil was “And make sure you quote plenty of scripture. They fall for that every time!”
Jesus advises us to look beyond the words of any preacher or
prophet. Look at their heart. Look at the fruits of their ministry. And hold fast to your faith. Measure everyone by the ministry of Jesus.
Several times in the Gospels Jesus tells us clearly that
there will be a day of reckoning. He
closes by telling us to build our lives on the words of this Sermon. He tells us here, as he tells us in other
places, that HE is the only true rock.
He tells us that if we live our lives based on the foundation that he
has given to us, then we shall withstand both this life and anything more that
is to come.
And the crowds were amazed.
We could spend a lifetime exploring the words and the fruits
that can come from a life based on the Sermon.
The very best thing that my too short exploration may have produced is a
curiosity in some of you to spend more time reading and re-reading these 3
little chapters in the Gospel of Matthew.
And then look at Luke 6. Where
the sermon is told again but with a slightly more ominous twist.
Jesus says: “Everyone then who
hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like
a wise man…. [Matt. 7:24]” Throw away those “WWJD” bracelets.
The question is not really what would Jesus do? The question really is “What has Jesus told
us to do?” “What will you do today?”
Amen.
_________________________________________________
1.
These facts have been drawn from a variety of articles
in Wikipedia on “Dome of the Rock,” “Herod the Great,” and the “Western Wall.”
2.
P.79, N.T. Wright: “Matthew For Everyone; Part One.”
Westminster/John Knox Press. 2004
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