Surviving the Flood

Jesus declares (Matthew 7:21-29) that not everyone who appears religious (who says to him, "Lord, Lord...") will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who actually do what God desires. Even though many will boast of the deeds they did "in the name of the Lord," Jesus will declare to them (7:23), "I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers."

In order to clarify the difference between those who are saved and those who are not, Jesus uses the example of where a wise man and a foolish man build their houses. The wise man builds his house on a rock and it is strong enough to survive the rain and the floods and the wind. The foolish man builds his house on the sand, and it is easily destroyed by those same elements of weather.

When we hear such stories again and again and again, we develop a tendency to accept them uncritically. They begin to fall into that category of story that begins something like, "Everyone knows..."

Everyone knows that a house built on rock can withstand a flood - a wonderful saying, except for the fact that it is not true. The reality is that floods are hugely devastating, and while a house built on rock might last a little longer in a flood, it too will eventually fall and be swept away. The biggest advantage to a house built on a rock is that it probably stands on higher ground than the house built on the sand.

If we examine the evidence too closely, then, it seems that the real life example Jesus uses may not be quite as obvious as he suggests. That's okay - just so the point he is making about our life of faith is solid.

If we (7:24) hear the words of Jesus and act on them, we are like the wise man who built his house on the rock. What does that mean? No matter what happens to us in our lives, we will be able to avoid the destructive forces that want to beat against us until we fall? If like the foolish man, on the other hand, we hear the words of Jesus but do not act on them, then our lives will tend to be subject to constant assault?

If only it were that simple. If only we could rest assured that a life lived in faithfulness to God would be immune from the destructive forces of this world that work against life, life would be so much easier. We know from experience, however, that life just doesn't work that way.

Of course, we have to acknowledge even at the start that our testing of such a premise is flawed. Who among us would make the claim that we have perfectly heeded the words of Jesus in the way we have lived our lives? We sometimes wonder why "the good die young." Yet I think we would have to agree with Paul that there is no one who is truly good or truly righteous. There is no one who follows God's ways without exception.

Still, we would think - or we might hope - that the extent to which we are able to follow God's ways would at least increase our chances of knowing a good life. But even that does not seem to hold up in reality. There seems to be no such pattern that applies to who will contract cancer or who will suddenly die in an automobile accident or from a heart attack.

The story of Noah gives us little comfort. Are we really expected to believe that Noah was a perfectly righteous man and that not one other person in the world was as righteous as Noah? And what justice is there in the idea that Noah's family should survive the flood just because they were related to him? Surely there were people who were just as righteous as or even more righteous than Noah's family.

We have long wondered why bad things happen to good people. The story of Job was an attempt to seriously question the widely held assumption that everything that happens to us is somehow deserved. Subconsciously, knowing that we cannot adequately answer such questions, we often revert to ignorance and try to find some level of peace in the idea that God has good reasons why things happen and we just cannot quite penetrate the mystery of it all.

I have never been satisfied, in my own life, to just chalk it up as a mystery we cannot understand or as something we should leave in God's hands. I am much more like Truman in one of the movies that I show the confirmands every year - The Truman Show.

Truman is the unwitting star of a reality tv show from the moment of his birth. His whole world is made up of actors on the most elaborate television set ever built. His daily life and his world are the creation of a man named Christof. Surely that name is not accidental. Christof wants Truman to trust completely in him to provide everything Truman needs. But what Truman discovers he needs most is a reality that is not manipulated.

Early in his life, Truman was set up to fear water by the staged drowning "death" of his father. And of course, his home is surrounded by water. When Truman finally begins to suspect that his surroundings are not real, he manages to devise an escape that is not noticed for some time. When Christof finally locates Truman, he is in a sailboat in the middle of the sea.

Christof tries to appeal to Truman's fear of water by creating a storm that violently tosses the boat and throws Truman into the water. When Truman manages to make it back into the boat, he shakes his fist at whatever power is doing this to him and screams - Is that the best you've got?

In that moment, Truman expresses the defiant attitude of all who have entertained the idea of a manipulative god and found that notion of god wanting. This is not the rejection of the true God. It is a rejection of a capriciously false god who makes promises that are not and, indeed, cannot be kept.

This false god suggests that everything will be just fine as long as you toe the line and obey this god's every whim. This false god doesn't want us to think too much about life's injustices. This false god wants us to find peace in our willingness to be ignorant in the face of life's mysteries.

For the record, I don't believe this is the kind of God that Jesus presents to us. He is not using the example of the houses built on rock or on sand to talk about material benefits for our obedience to his words. This example Jesus uses is about life itself. Our house is our life. And our life is to be found in God's kingdom. The only way to live in God's kingdom is to live with God as our guide and our sovereign.

So we do not obey God's advice in order to please God so that God can then bless us. Our obedience is itself the blessing. What God gives us is not some capricious list of rules that somehow enhance God's being. What God gives us are the basics about what makes life good. So living by the basics of what makes life good, then, makes life good!

Does it guarantee that we will not suffer, that we will not experience loss, that we will live long and healthy lives, and that we will prosper? Of course not. Those are not the things that finally make life good. Those are the kinds of things that a Christof might try to convince us make life good. Those are the kinds of things that the world values and that the world will do anything to secure and to protect.

But what truly makes life good, according to God, are things like love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness. Those are the kinds of things that can make life good even in the midst of the turmoil that life sometimes brings us. Those are the kinds of things that enable us to survive the flood.

Surviving the flood may be the most accurate description of what life in Jesus is meant to be. The way God has made the world, life can be difficult. We can surely make it even more difficult in the ways we live, but no matter how we choose to live, life can be very difficult.

We know that, if we smoke, we have a higher risk of lung cancer, but we may get lung cancer even if we never smoked in our whole life. We know that, if we eat the wrong things, we may increase our chances of a heart attack, but we may have a heart attack even if we maintain the healthiest diet.

We know that, if we are a mean and spiteful person, there will be many people who do not like us. But there may be people who do not like us even if we are genuinely loving people. We know that, if we are impatient with others, we will find life difficult. But life may be difficult for us even if we are patient with other people.

So what, exactly, do we gain by living according to God's ways. We gain a peace that enables us to rise above the challenges and difficulties of life. We gain a satisfaction that is not based on having everything we want. We gain a joy that is not diminished just because life isn't always the way we wish it would be, but which enables us to see the good or the potential for good in all the circumstances we face. We gain a wisdom that enables us to cope with the inequities and the injustices of life.

Life in God's kingdom is not a life of ease and plenty and endless prosperity. Life in God's kingdom is a life of love and peace and joy.

If we want to know how to survive the flood, the chaos that life in this world can inflict upon us we need to hear the words of Jesus and to act on them. It is the only way that we can experience the ups and the downs of life and still, at all times, be able to say with our creator God - life is good!

Thanks be to God. Amen.