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Construction Zone
a sermon based on Matthew 7:21-29
by Rev. Randy Quinn
It often comes as a surprise when
people learn that my undergraduate degree is a Bachelor of Science in Building
Construction.
Yes. Building Construction.
It was and is an interdisciplinary
degree combining elements of Civil Engineering and Architecture with Business.
Most of my classmates became contractors when they graduated or worked in the
management end of large construction firms.
Many of my classmates had been
carpenters, electricians, and plumbers who were looking to move out of the job
site to the office. And almost all of them found themselves on a construction
site during the summer to pay for their education. I was always grateful for
their experiences because they asked the most pertinent and practical questions
of our professors and instructors.
But generally I found myself in a
strange environment. It was a very practical and concrete field to study, but
my lack of experience in it made it seem rather theoretical and abstract. One
of the demands my Navy ROTC Scholarship placed upon me was summer training with
the Navy rather than on a construction site. And in fact, most of my hands on
experience with construction has been on the roofs of churches I’ve served as
pastor!
I probably could have gotten work
in the field of construction when I graduated, but twenty some years later,
there is no way. I might have been able to put my education into practice then,
but today most of what I learned has been forgotten.
Not that my education was wasted,
mind you. The process of learning was important and helped shape my view of the
world. The methods of research and study that I learned continue to affect the
way I look for answers to questions and puzzles.
But whenever I get my alumni
magazine I realize that I could never do what my classmates are doing – and they
probably couldn’t do what I do, either.
We put different aspects of our
education into practice. And today our lives look very different.
Some people do the same thing with
their Sunday School education. They think confirmation is the equivalent of
graduation and think their spiritual formation is complete. So they stop
attending church and stop praying and stop living their lives in response to the
grace of God.
(That’s part of the reason our
gift for this year’s High School graduates is a “Spiritual Formation Bible.” I
know and I want our graduates to remember that the process of spiritual
formation is a life-long process. Hopefully our gift will be used as a good
tool for that process to continue throughout their lives.)
I know someone who left the church
after he graduated from High School, and when he was in his mid-forties blamed
the church for not teaching him what it meant to be a Christian. Today he is
all-too-quick to accuse me of not teaching young people how to live their lives
in response to God’s grace without ever acknowledging his own guilt in not
putting what he had learned into practice.
His spiritual formation was like
my college education. Without putting it into practice, it became outmoded and
outdated. When he finally came to a critical point in his life, a point where
he needed to practice what he had been taught, he found that he needed to
relearn everything he had been taught as a youth.
A pastor friend of mine once told
me that during Lent he memorizes the Sermon on the Mount and then on Palm Sunday
every year he recites this incredible sermon that Jesus preached. It’s long
enough that he has difficulty remembering it from year to year, but each year it
has become easier to memorize what has become familiar.
He told me that each year members
of his congregation are moved to tears by hearing this incredible sermon of
Jesus.
Our text today is the last
illustration from that sermon.
And the irony of my friend’s
practice is that you can memorize the sermon and recite it every day, but if it
doesn’t show up in the way you LIVE your life, the sermon is meaningless. It
has no power until it is practiced.
I think the fact that the crowds
who heard the sermon marveled at the authority of Jesus has more to do with the
way he LIVED the sermon than with the content of the sermon (Mt 7:28-29). They
knew he spoke from his heart and “practiced what he preached.”
It may be that my friend’s life
also reflected his belief and practice, but in the way he told me the story, I
sensed the “crowds” who heard him were amazed at his ability to memorize so much
material as much as they were by the message itself.
When Jesus preached his sermon it
was not just a hollow recitation of words. It was not just a theoretical way of
understanding who God is and who God asks us to be in relationship to him.
One of my college classmates
wanted to start his own house-moving business when we graduated, but Mark’s
business didn’t survive an early mishap.
It was his very first house and so
he very carefully measured the house and poured a new foundation to match. He
was careful to make the new foundation walls as thick as the old ones were. And
he made sure they were level and smooth.
Then he jacked up the old house
little by little before putting it on wheels and rolling it down the street to
its new location. But as he lowered it onto the new foundation, one of the
walls of the house fell and the house collapsed.
Mark learned a hard lesson that
day. The old foundation was crooked and the house was suited for the old
foundation, not for the new one.
Many people will acknowledge that
the life of a Christian is to be built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ. But
not everyone remembers that the house needs to match the foundation, too.
In the minds of most people today,
it’s understood that a High School education is only the starting point in
life. It may feel like the “end of the road” for the students, but most of us
recognize the need for more training before entering the workforce – whether
technical training or earning a college diploma or even entering the military.
High School is not the end of our education; it’s simply the foundation upon
which the rest of our education will rest.
And from that same “foundation”
many different lives can be built.
In the life of a Christian, the
same can be said about our faith. The “foundation” is Jesus. But the life that
we build upon it will be as varied as our fingerprints. The church is not a
place that builds lives all the same like some large suburban development might.
But if we don’t try to build
anything on the foundation, there really is no place to stand when the storms of
life wail upon us.
And make no mistake, the storms
will come. And some of us will weather the storms better than others will.
