God strengthens us in prayer for mission – Matt 7:24-29

For my last time preaching at the Old College Holy Hour (exams start next week), we finished off the Sermon on the Mount.  Note: I'm not sure what will happen to this blog over the summer (I do have a few homilies from preaching class that I've been holding back to post periodically, but not enough for one per week).  On September 8th, I'll be ordained deacon and then the blog will flower back into life!

[Jesus continued], “Whoever listens to these words of mine and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on rock.

“The rain came down, the rivers went up and the winds blew and buffeted this house, but it did not fall, for it was founded on rock.

“Whoever hears my words but does not act on them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.

“The rain came down, the rivers went up and the winds blew and dashed this house and it fell and its collapse was great.”

When Jesus had finished these words, the crowd was astonished at his teaching.  For he taught them as one who had authority, and not like their scribes.

We have a house to build.  We have papers to write and exams to study for; we have summer travel or ministry to dive into; we have friendships to nurture; we have the hungry to feed, sick and imprisoned to visit, unknowing to educate, dead to bury and mourners to comfort; we have issues to resolve in our own lives, faith the strengthen, wounds to heal, insecurities to overcome; we have a world awaiting our witness; and we have rooms to pack up, farewells to say, miles to drive.  We have a house to build.

And reading through the Sermon on the Mount tells us a lot about how to do that.  I’ve only preached through edited highlights of it this semester and I’d encourage you at some point to take 15 minutes to just read through the whole Sermon, chapters 5, 6 and 7 of Matthew’s gospel.  Now, Fr. Moreau had his novices memorize it, and we heard Fr. Molinaro on Thursday night recommend a continuous reading of ten chapters of Mark’s gospel, so I reckon I’m letting you off pretty easy here.  Three chapters, fifteen minutes to read: but none of us will live it all out in a lifetime.  And if we treated it either as a beautiful but utterly impractical speech, or on the other hand as a to-do list: either way, we’d have missed the point.

To hear these words in which huge crowds, not just a few disciples, rejoiced and do nothing in response is to build a house on sand.  But if we think that the house we build stands on its own merits, because of our hard work alone, we’ve missed the boat.  It’s the rock we’re planted on that secures us, that lets us face the onslaught of storm and flood, that keeps us hopeful at the foot of the cross.  Our Constitutions call us to move “without awkwardness among others who suffer… [to be] men with hope to bring.”

We don’t build the world’s hope; we are stewards of a rock not our own.  At the center of the Sermon on the Mount lies Jesus’ teaching on prayer.  Prayer is what keeps planted whatever we build on the rock.  That’s the only sure foundation for a house that can be a beacon in the storm.  Our Constitutions put it best: 

“Our mission is the Lord’s and so is the strength for it. We turn to Him in prayer that He will clasp us more firmly to Himself and use our hands and wits to do the work that only He can do.”