DEUTERONOMY 11:19-21,26-28

PSALM 31:1-5,19-24

ROMANS 3:21-25a,28

MATTHEW 7:21-27

Sermon – 6/2/02

“We hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” This sentence from St. Paul’s Letter to the Church at Rome is one of the foundation stones of Christian Theology. St. Paul grew up as a Jew, like all the other apostles, but he also grew up as a Pharisee – the sect of highly-educated First Century Jews who put the greatest emphasis of all Jews on the meticulous observance of all 613 commandments in the Hebrew Scriptures, plus all the footnotes human religious traditions has added to them.

The Pharisees’ approach to faith viewed salvation as “the ultimate merit badge”, to use an analogy from Scouting. People earned righteousness, Pharisees believed, by obeying all the rules, no matter how obscure or precise, even if it meant honoring the letter of a lesser rule instead of the spirit of a more important rule. The Pharisees got incensed when Jesus healed the sick on a Sabbath Day, for example, while Jesus believed that liberating people from illness and disability was in accordance with God’s will and shouldn’t have to wait an hour, never mind a day. Jesus gave priority to the greater rule of “love your neighbor” over the rule “do no work on the Sabbath.”

There were other issues in that controversy – notably Jesus’ breath-taking pronouncement that he was the Lord of the Sabbath, not the traditional religious leaders. But Jesus was also very upset that the legalistic mind-set led people to believe that people had to earn God’s love by their works – and that some people could (by their meticulous obedience) while others were considered “hopeless cases” by the Pharisees.

Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees, brilliant and zealous in his devotion to the rules and earning God’s favor. His confidence – indeed arrogance – exploded when he came to know Christ, for he came to realize that his very zeal had led him to go “80 m.p.h. in the wrong direction.” He was persecuting followers of Jesus, and by doing so, was persecuting the Son of God himself. This recognition shook Paul to the core, and he not only came to believe in Jesus as the Savior of the world and his personal Savior, but recognized that faith was the route to righteousness, not legalism.

And Paul realized there was (and is) no room for the spiritual arrogance and smugness he had displayed. As he says in this morning’s excerpt from his Epistle, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.”

Since all have sinned, no one should feel stuck up and superior to others – nor should anyone give up on someone as “hopeless” because all have been justified by God’s grace as a gift. We all need – and get – a second chance. We need it because all have sinned, we get it because God loves us when we need it most and deserve it least. That’s grace. All this we receive through faith, faith in Christ’s crucial act to “take the rap” for all our sins by dying on the cross, faith in Christ’s resurrection and the new life he thereby offers to us, faith in the Holy Spirit’s willingness to coach us and strengthen us through all the challenges of our lives.

Faith is fundamental. BUT – faith is not just words. Jesus underlines this in today’s Gospel. Jesus wasn’t – and isn’t – interested in “one hour a week” followers, in people who “make nice” on Sunday morning and ignore him and his commandments the rest of the week. Jesus wanted – and wants – “24/7” followers. Because without at least trying to be “24/7” followers of Christ, we’re not really followers at all.

Even people who do mighty deeds in his name will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven if they don’t live his commandments. In the meantime, Jesus said, those who do act on his words will be like a man who built his house on a rock, where the house stood strong when floods came, while the foolish person who did not act on Jesus’ words was like a man who built his house on sand, where it was swept away by the floods.

Speaking as I am in a church which is built literally, on Sand Hill, I approach this passage with some trepidation. I’m glad Jesus is using rock and sand as an analogy and not literally! What he is saying could be put in more contemporary terms like this: “We have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.” Faith is displayed not just in our words but especially in our deeds.

This episode in Matthew’s Gospel comes at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, so Jesus has a lot of his words in mind when he tells us to act on them. But let’s just take one sentence from the Sermon on the Mount for starters, the Golden Rule, Matthew 7:12. “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

And now let’s pursue Jesus’ analogy (you know how much I love analogies). If acting on Jesus’ words is like building your house on a rock, which might the wind, rain and flood be?

Well, let me cite four examples. In our lives, our spiritual foundations might be assaulted by a flood of pain and suffering. Pain and suffering are part of life – but some people react to their pain and suffering by inflicting some on someone else, or by having an endless self-centered “pity party” and expecting people to be sorry for them forever – while others manage to try and ease the pain and suffering of others. Which behavior is acting on Jesus’ words to do to others as you would have them do to you – and which behavior is more likely to increase, or reduce one’s own pain and suffering at the same time?

In our lives, our spiritual foundations might be assaulted by a flood of hurt and disappointment. It’s o.k. to be upset, to express hurt and disappointment, just like it’s o.k. to complain about one’s own pain and suffering – as long as that’s not all the person does. And if we are hurt and disappointed, do we respond by making sure someone else is too – or by making sure someone else isn’t?

In our spiritual lives, we may get assaulted by a flood of anger and hatred. Do we fight fire with fire – or with water? This is hard, “fighting (emotional) fire with water” – but it’s part of “walking the walk”, acting on Jesus’ words.

And, in our spiritual lives, we might get assaulted by a flood of achievement! Ever say of someone, “He was a great guy until,” or “She really let her success go to her head” – compared with those of whom it is said “He remembers where he came from” or “You’d never guess what she’s doing now just by meeting her.” Great achievement can be as much of a potential spiritual trap as failure – like the Pharisees, we are tempted with arrogance and the notion that we did it all ourselves. Instead, if we are blessed with success (however you might define success) – help someone else to become a success. That’s walking the walk, treating others the way we want to be treated.

So, we are justified before God by faith apart from works of the law – and we are also called to give thanks to God for God’s grace by our behavior every day. Whether our physical homes are built on rock or sand, let’s all build our spiritual homes on the rock which is the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, by walking the walk as well as talking the talk.

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church