Home Renovations
Matthew 7:21-29

June 1, 2008


This was another one of those texts when the Message translation of the Matthew passage spoke to me more clearly than the NRSV version. Feel free to look up the NRSV version to compare. As you can see from my sermon title, what grabbed me was Eugene Peterson’s metaphor about home renovations.

“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, home-owner improvements to your standard of living.

I suspect that many of you have been through home-renovations. I have, lots of times in my life. A few years ago we undertook a major renovation – we gutted our kitchen and started over from scratch. Any of you know how that is? We waited for almost two years for our carpenter to be available. Then, once the kitchen was sealed off, we camped out in the rest of the house, cooking on our camping stove, in a crock-pot, or on a one-burner element. We had no water downstairs so we rented a water cooler for cooking and hauled our dishes upstairs to wash them in a basin in the bathroom. It was novel at first but after three months we were getting pretty impatient for the renos to be finished. After it was all done though we were so delighted. I think the kitchen is now my favourite room in the house.

Speaking of “solid rock”, I had a rather unsettling experience the other day when I was out puttering in my garden. We have a small pond flanked by flat rocks around its edges. The earth rises in a small hill at the head of the pond from where pumped water dribbles over the rocks into the pond. Soon the pond will be filled with water lilies and pond plants. I am thinking of goldfish this year.

Anyway, there I was kneeling on the rocks above the pond weeding, when all of a sudden the rocks shifted and the largest one slid into the pond with a huge crash and water flying everywhere. As it moved so did the other rocks underneath and soon it was like Humpty-Dumpty’s wall. A mess of rock and soil lay about the pond. As the largest rock – through which the water had flowed – had broken in half, it was obvious that putting it back together was going to be a reconstruction project. You see we live in the Cathedral area on top of Regina gumbo. We have grown accustomed to our walls shifting so that the interior doors will sometimes close, sometimes not. We don’t fuss about it, we are used to that. Our outside gate shifts periodically too. So, obviously what had happened was that the earth beneath the rock had shifted. So, even though the pond was surrounded by rock, it was not nearly as solid a foundation as we had thought.

This was a pretty minor affair for us, but I couldn’t help but think about the undersea earthquake that triggered the devastating tsunamis in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand on Boxing Day, 2004, or just a month ago, cyclone Nargis in Myanmar. Both were devastating: 225,000 people were killed by the tsunamis and 77,000 died with 55,000 missing in Myanmar. The impact of these events is still being felt in the damage to infrastructures, loss of adequate housing, water, food supplies and medical care. For those who survived, their lives were suddenly rearranged. Within hours, minutes even, if they survived, their homes were gone. I cannot even imagine the shock of such an event.

In Jesus day I presume the people did not experience earthquakes. Rock was to them solid, steadfast, reliable. Using the image of a house built on rock made sense to the people of Jesus’ time. But after the earthquakes our world has witnessed – both under the sea and on the ground it would not seem a very apt metaphor today.

Two of my adult children live in places where few houses have basements since they are built on rock. That fact contributed to a very dangerous situation for my son last year. He was out in his outdoor sauna – they live in Finland- when he heard a storm brewing outside. Knowing that his boat was uncovered he went out to cover it. Just as he was returning to the sauna lighting struck the rock which covers much of the yard. When he grabbed the metal handle of the sauna door he received the impact of the lightening strike which had travelled across the yard and up the door. He was badly shaken and now suffers from tinnitus but he could have been killed. I’m not so sure anymore just how safe rock is.

Jesus uses the imagery of the solid rock and the shifting sand to emphasize that his words are not just incidental additions to your life. Neither are they home-owner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. A builder can have piles of construction materials lying about but if he or she never picks them up, never starts to frame in the dwelling then nothing is gained.

Matthew’s gospel passage calls us to account. On this occasion Jesus is not the “meek and mild” saviour of other occasions. `Don’t think you impress me with your empty promises’ he says. `Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.’ And do you know what I am going to say? (Jesus says) `You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don’t impress me one bit. You’re out of here.’

Jesus wanted action - not just righteous words. `How will others know you are followers of The Way? They will know by your actions. When Saint Columba, along with his twelve monks, landed their little coracle on the shores of Iona in 563 C.E. he instructed them not to preach at the residents but simply to `let them see how you live’. And that’s what made Jesus such a big hit with the crowd. Peterson says,

When Jesus concluded his address, the crowd burst into applause. They had never heard teaching like this. It was apparent that he was living everything he was saying – quite a contrast to their religions teachers! This was the best teaching they had ever heard.

Last year John Bell, musician with the Iona Community) was in Regina for the annual worship conference of the Anglican and Lutheran churches in Canada. He was one of the two guest speakers. John gave a public concert here at this church which he called “A Global Concerto”. I found it to be a pretty amazing singing experience. John is also a wonderful preacher. He says:

Jesus Christ never asked those who met him to become a rabbi like himself. He always asked them to do what they could for him, even when it was a simple request like, `give me a drink’. For it is when we use the potentials God has given us to advance the purposes of his kingdom that we become partners with, rather than strangers to, our Lord. I do not know you, I do not know your potentials, I do not know what for you would be the equivalent of Jesus Christ asking the woman at the well for a drink. But I do know that when you give to God and do for God whatever you can, you move from the fringe to the centre, from isolation to belonging, from doubt to understanding, from conversation to conversion.(John Bell)

What is required of us is action. We need to plant our own `spiritual seeds ‘. George MacLeod, the founder of the Iona Community said that: There was little point in just praying that someone who was ill would bet better if we don’t do something about the damp house which has made them ill in the first place. Another worker on global economic issues says, In a similar vein, there can be little point in praying for justice and peace if we do nothing about where it really counts: through our purchasing power. If we continue to buy goods which have been made by companies whose hidden byword is exploitation, then we really are praying pretty hollow prayers. Through the policy of Fair Trading we can be sure that the gifts and goods we buy are helping those whose needs are so often ignored: the people in the poorest parts of the world who make the commodities we take for granted. (Adrian Rennie)*

I know it’s not easy to try to shop “fair trade” but I am pleased that many United Churches are providing fairly traded coffee for our coffee breaks and refusing to supply bottled water at events. These are good steps which support a healthier planet.

So for Jesus empty promises will not cut it. Nor is he recommending quick fixes. But, houses will always need fixing up won’t they? At our house, we’re at it again; we’ve just replaced most of our windows and are having the exterior painted. Often it seems our homes are a ‘money pit’ as the old movie revealed. Does fixing up our homes ever stop? No, not really. Houses deteriorate and need to be kept up.

Our human bodies are not much different. We grow older and we need parts fixed or replaced.

I had a parishioner once who used to say that he had more metal parts in his body than real ones! But in his late eighties he could still crawl up onto his tractor. And that meant life for him. Eventually we need “assists” like walkers and wheel chairs. Thank goodness for these “additions” which allow us to get out of our homes to connect with our communities and relate with those we love.

Likewise, can we ever stop growing spiritually? Well we can, but, again, it’s not what Jesus recommends. He’s not much in for spiritual `lifestyle improvements’. His words, he says, are foundational. We need to read them, hear them, digest them, unpack them and take them to heart. Jesus got rave reviews because his words were not empty. People could see that his actions spoke louder than his words. In the week to come let’s try to live into our words more. Let’s lean into our faith a little deeper. It’s better than quick fixes. Our faith is worth building. It is indeed foundational. Amen.

Preached by Erin Shoemaker
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan