Sermon 18 – The End?
Jesus now comes to his final conclusion – it is time for his call for a response to the entire sermon, and then the crowd’s response to the sermon. I’m not sure what I’m going to write after this, or if I will do personal reflections, or what. It may be completely different, or notes only for myself; I haven’t yet crossed the threshold of decision-making. Here’s Jesus’s concluding remarks and Matthew’s epilogue:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.” [Matthew 7:24-29]
The storms are coming. The certainty of them is written across this section quite thoroughly. Regardless of whether you are wise or foolish, you will have to face storms. Except it’s no the men in this parable that are facing the storms – it’s the houses they are building. What are the houses that we build? What are the storms that they face. While it might be theologically nice to look at the house as our souls and the storms as the final judgment (and it would certainly fit in with the preceding context about the end – “that day”), that may not be what Jesus is getting at. Perhaps if he added that the foolish man was squished by the falling of his house (or if we presume that he was inside) we could come to that conclusion – and then it’s not the storm that kills but the house itself.
I think a reasonable explanation is that the house refers to is the legacy of our actions their permanence in this world. Just as possessions were transitory, and perished with time and use, so our actions that are not based on Christ’s teaching will bring decay. I guess in that sense, the storms would need to be interpreted as some sort of final judgment – that measure the worth (endurance) of our houses. If they endure the end, then it was wise for us to build them.
The Apostle Paul uses a similar metaphor in his first letter to the Corinthians [3:10-15]: “According to the grace of God given to me , like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – each one’s work become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”
So in this passage the Day of Judgment is certainly in view, and if I revisit my earlier paragraph, perhaps such a view fits best into the context; Jesus had just finished talking about “that Day” and entering the kingdom of heaven, as well as His judgment of the “lawless”. Perhaps they can be seen as parallel thoughts. And it fits in with his previous statements about following God rather than money, since the treasure of God doesn’t wear out. I suppose that there is an aspect of personal well-being, though, if we go a little deeper. If we look at the house as a place to live – then we want one that will endure the storms. If we enter the kingdom, then there surely will be a place for us, but if we seek our housing elsewhere, we will find ourselves homeless after the storms have broken our house.
In Paul’s metaphor, he is speaking of building up the Church in Corinth. And while he is looking at this in a collective sense, the church is formed of individuals, and so building upon the church involves personal development as well. But as Paul says, “the foundation is Jesus”. Elsewhere, Jesus is referred to as the “cornerstone” (which is the principle part of any foundation at that time). Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians [2:19-22], that they are “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
So in acting according to what is heard in the Sermon, we build on the foundation that Jesus has laid, and if we don’t respond accordingly, then we build elsewhere and our house will crash (or burn). There, I suppose, is a third category of individuals that might be referred to as an “ignorant man”, though Jesus doesn’t speak of these – he only speaks to those who heard the sermon. It leaves a giant question mark for those who haven’t heard his message.
A more temporal interpretation would be to see the house as our current mode of life that we are living, and the storms as the trials of life. In this place also, Jesus assures us that we will have storms – regardless of whether we follow him or someone else. But the difference will be that our mode of life will not be impacted by the weather, whereas others may be greatly impacted. If your desire and life is to get rich or have awesome things, then a little change in the market may bankrupt you. If you are following God instead of money, you will be able to serve him whatever your financial status is. This is definitely a compelling idea as well.
My brain is so done right now – phew, long day! But I will try to write a line or two about Matthew’s line two lines – about the response of the crowds. The first thing that stands out to me is that the crowd’s response, right after speaking of the parable of the houses, is astonishment. Matthew doesn’t denote a desire to follow these teachings, necessarily, but simple astonishment. They could hardly believe what they were hearing. And Jesus continued to astonish people throughout his ministry. He astounded Nicodemus when he told him, “you must be born again”. He astonished the disciples when he told them, “how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven”.
They were astonished because of how different he was from the scribes (the Jewish teachers of the Law). The most notable difference was authority – he taught as one who had it. The scribes had a very different approach – a more ‘academic’ one, though certainly different from a modern academic approach. They cited numerous sources – a vast lineage of rabbis through the centuries – with the difference being that the oldest reference was considered the best and most accurate (whereas we would prefer to cite newer sources), as it was an interpretation of Scripture, which itself was old. So a scribe would cite and quote a number of famous rabbis and then make his own conclusion based on those sources.
Jesus was quite different. He only quoted the scribes to make a distinction between his teaching and theirs: “you have heard it was said, …, but I tell you…”. He quoted the scribes, and then interpreted the text directly. But even that doesn’t bring us to the level of “authority”. Authority has the same root as authorship, and this is what Matthew meant by authority – he spoke as if he had written the Law. He put himself (implicitly) on the same level as God, who gave the Law to Moses. And as a writer, he did more than merely interpret the original source – he plainly described the original intent behind the Laws. He didn’t just stop at the letter of the laws – he gave the purpose of the laws. It was astonishing because if you regarded Jesus as a prophet, then you now had a clear path to follow, if you were going to claim to follow the Law. You could no longer quote your handpicked list of Rabbis.
The other part that is astonishing is the vastness of topics Jesus covered, juxtaposed with the hardness of the message. It was not easy to understand, nor was it easy to follow. Far from it. By all outward appearances, it was impossible. And that is why the crowd wasn’t enthusiastic about following it – they realized the gravity of the situation – if there were self-righteous among the the crowd, there certainly weren’t now. They were astonished at – ‘what can this new teaching mean?’ ‘What does this say about how I have been living my life?’ But what should our response to the Sermon be?
