Community Church Sermons

The Second Sunday After Pentecost – June 2, 2002

"Rock and Roll Religion”

Matthew 7:21-29

 

You may have been watching television this week when the last few shovelfuls of debris were finally removed from the site of the collapsed towers of the World Trade Center. The ceremony marking the end of this sacred work brought us home once again to the sad and frightening reality of the terrible evil inflicted on that fateful day last September – the tragic loss of innocent human life – the violent assault upon all of us as a nation and as a people – the turning of time from peace to war.

 

Still today, when I see images of the attack, I find myself overcome by a deep and inconsolable sense of hurt and loss. And that powerful emotion is accompanied by a spirit of awesome respect for the countless people – firefighters, policemen, military personnel, civilians – who heroically responded to the developing situation by trying to help and save others. So many lives were given in hopes that others might live.

 

One of the television stories about the closing events at the World Trade Centers had a retrospective look at all the events of that day, including the story about the passengers on Flight 93. They’re the ones who overcame the hijackers and prevented the plane from being crashed into another target -  possibly the White House. The story recounted the now-famous words of Todd Beamer, the 32-year old businessman from Cranberry, New Jersey who simply said, as he and others charged the cockpit, “Let’s roll!”

 

And all that got me to wondering about what quality it is in peoples’ lives that helps them face the truly difficult times of life with a “let’s roll” kind of attitude. Not that everybody is faced with the same kind of life and death situation as Todd Beamer and the others. But all of us do encounter times when the rains fall, and the streams rise, and the winds blow, and the foundations of our lives are severely shaken.

 

It might be a disappointment, or a diagnosis, or a difficult family situation. It could be a tragedy, or a tribulation, or a time of great trial and trouble.

 

What will we do? How will we respond?

 

This is the question Jesus is asking us to consider in Matthew 7.

 

How will you live when the rains fall, and the streams rise, and the winds blow, and the foundations of your life are shaken?

 

You see, Jesus knew there was a problem. Everywhere he went he experienced it. Everyone he met was tempted to fall into it. All around him were people who were quick to believe – to believe in God, to confess the Lordship of Jesus, and say, “Lord, Lord!” But when hard times came, they fell away. Like people who build their houses on the sand, their faith collapses in the face of the storm.

 

We had quite a scare the other day here at the church. We were in the middle of all the things you normally do around a church during the week when a little orange Volkswagen Beetle pulled up into the parking lot. The engine sputtered to a stop, the door creaked opened, and guess who got out?

 

Jesus.

 

I didn’t believe it when Pat told me. But I went and looked out the window, and sure enough, it was Jesus. I mean, how many people drive around in a bright orange Volkswagen Beetle with a bumper sticker on the back that says, “Honk if you love ME!”

 

Pat said, “What should we do?” I said, “I don’t know….ask Steve!” So Pat asked Steve, and he said, “I don’t know…call Puckett!” So we did. I got Bob on the phone and told him that Jesus had just pulled up into the parking lot in a bright orange Volkswagen Beetle and was coming toward the office at full bore. “What should we do?” I asked in a panic.

 

Puckett said, “Look busy!”

 

Religious people are like that, you know. We have the ability to make it appear as though we’re doing something deeply meaningful and spiritual. But we’re not. Not really. We go to church. Pray. Praise. Worship. Read the Bible. Get discipled. Talk a good game. Quote the scripture. Believe a lot of doctrine and theological principles.

 

Many of us are religiously “busy”. But as soon as the whistle blows and the reality of life sets in, we crumble. We have no idea how to have a faith that “rolls.”

 

So Jesus, here at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, tells us how to find such a faith. He says we have to learn to build our lives upon a rock! I guess you might say, Jesus is telling us we have to learn to rock…and roll!

 

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he or she who does the will of my Father who is in heaven…Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house upon a rock.”

 

And you know what happened. The rains fell. The streams rose. The winds blew and beat against that house. But it did not fall.

 

Now Jesus is not talking here about the person who has some tragedy befall them and, as a result, they become angry at God and walk away. No, Jesus is zeroing in here on another problem. And this one has to do with us believers - the ones who say, “Lord, Lord!” You see, we have a deeper problem.

 

For all our belief in Jesus, we often refuse to do what Jesus taught us to do.

 

He has just finished preaching the Sermon on the Mount. In it, Jesus calls us to many challenging behaviors – to bless the poor, and comfort those who mourn – to be merciful toward others, and live as peacemakers. Jesus tells us not only to not murder, but to not hate, and not only to not hate, but to not be angry with another. He instructs us to be faithful in building strong marriages, and to keep our promises. Jesus tells us to not practice “an eye for an eye” kind of judgment, but rather to treat people who do evil redemptively. Turn the other cheek, he says. Love your enemies. Pray for those who hate you. Give generously to the needy. Pray about everything. Forgive those who trespass against you. Don’t judge others. Always ask, seek and knock. And finally, Jesus tells us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This, Jesus says, sums up the Law and the Prophets.

 

Someone once said that the world would be a different place if people just lived by the principles of the Sermon on the Mount. That is so very true! The world would be transformed! The kingdom of heaven would dawn!

 

But most of us don’t live that way. Especially Christians. All it takes is someone who sees things a little differently theologically, and there’ll be a bunch of Christians jumping down his throat. All it takes is someone to hurt us, and we’ll drop that person like a hot potato. If someone assaults us, we’ll launch our version of World War 3 in retaliation. If the poor don’t live the way we want them to live, we’ll withdraw our charity.

 

It really doesn’t take all that much for Christians to find some excuse to not do what Jesus told us to do. And that’s what Jesus meant about building our house on the sand. When the rains come, and the streams rise, and winds blow against our little house of faith, we stop obeying Jesus. Our faith turns out to be a house of cards.

 

Sure, we still go to church, and sing the hymns, and read the Bible. But you know what? Jesus never told us to do any of those things. Oh, it’s not that they’re unimportant, but they just don’t rise up to the level of what Jesus is trying to get us to do – of how Jesus is trying to get us to live - in the Sermon on the Mount.

 

Nope. Instead, Jesus calls us to do some awesome things with our lives - like love our enemies. He does not ask us to sing hymn number 222, or to memorize verses of the Bible, but he does instruct us to pray for those who hate us, and to make peace with our accusers.

 

“Lord, Lord!” we say. But the truth is, when the storms of life arise between us and those we live among, many of us refuse to love our neighbors. It is much easier to judge a homosexual person than it is to love him. It is much easier to throw teenage drug users into jail than it is to transform them. It is much easier to bash the Catholic Church than to heal it. It is much easier to pay off victims of sexual abuse than to do what is truly necessary for healing. It is much easier to stereotype Arabic people than to understand them. It is much easier to make war with another than it is to make peace. It is much easier to ignore the poor and blame them for their situation than it is to address root causes and work to eliminate poverty.

 

You see, a little rain, and many of us stop practicing the real Christian Faith. The one that Jesus taught. The one that can change the world!

 

So Jesus puts it to us today.

 

The only way to a life that rolls is by building it on a rock that stands!

 

And that rock is the Jesus way of living.

 

Tom Long tells the story of a white Presbyterian Church over in South Carolina during the days of segregation. The Civil Rights movement was in full swing, and one of its strategies was to send groups of blacks to attempt to attend worship services in various white churches. Well, this particular church was very prim and proper – they were Presbyterians, after all! And they surely wanted to maintain the Christian nature of their church. They would never turn blacks away.

 

What they would do, instead, was to pass a common-sense rule that anyone could come to that church and be seated….so long as there were seats available! And, of course, the truth was that the little church building was so small that there were never any empty seats.

 

That seemed to have solved that problem very nicely. They could be Christian AND racist at the same time without anybody noticing.

 

But there was one problem with this plan, and the problem came in the form of Miss Minnie Brown, a long-time Sunday School teacher. When the matter came up for vote at the congregational meeting, Miss Brown stood up and said something that went like this:

 

“Yes, it makes sense that we shouldn’t violate the fire code and seat more people than the church can hold. But I just want you to know, that if any of those black people do show up here and there’s no room for them to sit down…they can have MY seat!”

 

That sounds to me like rock and roll religion!

 

Dear friends, as you go into the world this week, the rains will fall. The streams will rise. The winds will blow and beat against the house of your faith.

 

And when that happens, you’ll have a choice. You can say, “Lord, lord” and look religiously busy, and hide your head in the sand…or you can face that storm by putting into practice the words and teachings of Jesus.

 

Those who choose the latter will see the kingdom of heaven! Their houses will truly stand!