Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

Matthew 7:24-29

March 2, 2008

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell - and great was its fall!" Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

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Pam and I had such a good time last week. I wouldn't say it was hard to come back, even with all the ice and snow. But it wasn't too hard being there either. I've been hearing about Caribbean cruises all my life, at least since The Love Boat began airing on TV, but I never really imagined I'd get a chance to actually go on one. Let me tell you, that is some heavy duty pampering. It was wonderful, but one week was about all I could take. I was starting to get used to being waited on hand and foot, and Lord knows that wouldn't be good.

One memorable conversation I had on the trip ties in with this morning's topic quite well. Our bus driver on Grand Cayman Island said he was one of the people who chose to stay put during hurricane Ivan back in September of 2004. It was nearly a fatal decision. Just like in New Orleans with hurricane Katrina, a lot of people on the island had grown complacent with all the warnings that turned out to be false alarms. This time, the alarm was real. The island took a direct hit, and there was no place to hide. The highest point of land on all of Grand Cayman is the mounting pile of garbage at the landfill. Our driver described huddling with his family on the second floor of his house while the ocean poured through the first floor and the high winds blew the roof off. He said they all cowered together, crying their eyes out. Thank God his house had a solid foundation. Fortunately, it held and they all lived. But four years later the island community is still getting things back in order.

Now, Jesus didn't have a hurricane in mind when he talked about the wise and foolish builders. Apparently though, he was describing a common experience. William Barclay, in his commentary, says that in Palestine you have to be pretty careful where you decide to build. "There is many a gulley," he says, "which in summer is a pleasant sandy hollow, but which in winter is a raging torrent of rushing water." It reminds me of my brother, who once got caught in a flash flood in Arizona. He was driving through the desert across a dry stream bed when the car was suddenly in the middle of a river of water and mud that filled his car up to the windows. His insurance company was not amused. That stream bed must have looked like a perfectly reasonable place to build a road, until "the rain fell, and the floods came."

Jesus, of course, wasn't really concerned with where people were going to build their houses. He was talking about whether or not we will have a secure foundation for our lives, and his point was that if we pay attention to what he's been saying we do. If we don't, we don't. The question is, what's he been saying? Well, this morning's passage comes right at the end of what we call "the Sermon on the Mount." Chapters five, six and seven in Matthew make up one long collection of teachings. Beginning with the Beatitudes - blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek and so on - they run right on through some of the greatest wisdom about how to live a good life to be found anywhere.

Don't give free reign to your anger. Be faithful in your relationships. Don't make promises you can't keep. Don't seek revenge. Be generous for the sake of generosity, not to impress other people. Love indiscriminately; both your friends and your enemies. Pray without ceasing. Don't be overly wrapped up in worldly treasures. Don't pass judgment. Don't wallow in anxiety. Know that God's priorities are not the same as the world's priorities. And realize that finally, you will be known not for your good intentions, but for the good fruits those intentions get turned into.

There's a lot of other stuff in the sermon as well, but you get the idea. In the sermon on the mount, Matthew has collected together something like the greatest hits of all Jesus' teaching. There is a wealth of good solid wisdom here, such that, if we knew no more than the Sermon on the Mount, if we lived our lives according to it, that would be enough to lead good, happy, healthy and faithful lives. This is what it takes, Jesus tells us, to have a secure foundation to stand on throughout whatever storms live might decide to throw at us. You'll notice, he doesn't say there won't be storms. But he does say that when the storms come, we won't be washed away.

Now I'm quite sure you already know all this. But did you ever notice how knowing and doing aren't exactly the same thing? We used to tell our kids that all the time. "You need to turn off the lights when you leave a room. You need to not leave your toys on the stairs. You need to wash you hands before you make the salad." And they'd say, "Dad, I know that. You've told me a hundred times." And I'd reply, "Yes my darling daughter, but knowing and doing are not the same thing."

I was thinking about this for myself just this last week. Some of you know that I've been involved in Tai Chi classes for about three years now. The teacher Dr. Johnstone, is always talking about what he calls "body memory." Whenever you try to learn something new, at first it's all in your head. You try to visualize what "White Crane Spreads it's Wings" or "Fair Lady Weaves the Shuttle" looks like. You try to copy the moves, but as long as it's only in your head, you'll always feel awkward and your body isn't going to cooperate very well. Body memory happens when you've practiced something over and over, dozens or hundreds of times, until it just seems to happen all by itself.

For one reason and another, I've been missing classes lately. Honestly, until this week I hadn't been at all since about the beginning of December. It's been long enough for me to start feeling like I'd completely lost it. What we've been working on is pretty complicated. The Tai Chi Yang style long form is a sequence of about 120 movements. Some of the moves are repeated a number of times, but still, it's not easy. After three months away, I was feeling anxious about going back, afraid I'd look like an idiot, stumbling around and bumping into my classmates. What actually happened, is that we started the form and my body flowed right into it like I'd never left. I was a little stiff, but the moves were all there. My mind may have forgotten, but my body remembered.

It seems to me, that this idea of body memory makes a good analogy for what we're trying to accomplish in the church. Jesus says that he wants us to both hear his words and act on them, and if we do that, he says, we'll have a good foundation for our lives. Hearing his words is mostly a head thing. Hearing is about getting something into our minds, into our thinking. And that's important, because virtually all learning starts with getting something into our heads first. But we have to be careful not to make the mistake my kids were always making. Knowing and doing are not the same thing. Ultimately, if our Christian faith is going to have any depth to it, it has to be in our doing, in our acting. It has to become so deeply ingrained in our lives that it becomes part of our body memory. When that happens, there may be times we don't even remember what Jesus said, when, for the life of us we can't bring his actual words to mind. But nonetheless, when it comes to making the right moves, our bodies will just seem to know what to do.

That's what we're after here on Sunday morning. Practice, practice, practice. Worship is not just about hearing something interesting week after week. It's about steeping ourselves in the Spirit of Christ so that we can take it with us when we leave, so that we can come to embody that Spirit in our lives, so that it becomes part of our body memory. As long as we think the faith is only about knowing, we leave ourselves open to not really getting the message at all.

In the movie Godfather III, mafia chief Michael Corleone meets with Cardinal Lamberto. He reports to the Cardinal that executives from the Vatican bank and even an Archbishop, have been involved in a massive case of fraud. After hearing this news Cardinal Lamberto moves to a water fountain, withdraws a stone and says: "Look at this stone. It has been lying in the water for a very long time, but the water has not penetrated it." He breaks the stone in two, shows the inside to Don Michael and continues, "Look. Perfectly dry. The same thing has happened to men in Europe. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity, but Christ has not penetrated. Christ doesn't breathe within them."

Clearly, that's exactly what we don't want. It is not enough to surround ourselves with the things of the Spirit. What we're after, is allowing the Spirit of Christ to breathe within us, to become part of our body memory. When it does, the storms of life will be no match for the foundation upon which we stand.

Amen.