Profiles in righteousness
Commentary
Object:
In 1956, then Senator John F. Kennedy published a book titled, Profiles in
Courage. In it, Kennedy highlighted significant moments of integrity and conviction
on the part of eight senators over the course of US history.
The spotlight of our attention -- whether our individual attention or the popular attention of a whole congregation, a community, or a culture -- determines our direction. For as long as we focus our attention on figures who are tragic, deviant, or buffoonish, we lower ourselves and diminish our culture. When we raise our sights, however, to focus on those who are or who have been exemplary, we elevate ourselves, our standards, our expectations, and our performance. Kennedy's book, no doubt, sought to promote personal and political courage in America by raising the profile of these men who had exhibited such courage.
So, too, with our preaching. For twenty minutes a week (give or take) we train the potent spotlight of the pulpit on some subject, and the subjects we choose will contribute, more or less, to the edification of our people. Certainly we must avoid the pop-culture trap of fixating on the same pathetic figures and events that so often preoccupy cable news coverage and tabloid publications. Instead, we must remain true to our calling and our prescribed subject matter: namely, the truths of the gospel, and the people and events of scripture.
And so, this week, we are invited to turn our attention -- and our people's attention -- to a certain category of people in the Bible. Call them "the righteous." The writer of Genesis, the apostle Paul, and the evangelist Matthew all encourage us to present these profiles in righteousness to our people this Sunday.
Genesis 6:9-22; 7:24; 8:14-19
I'm afraid that Noah's reputation has suffered in recent decades, at least in America. In earlier centuries, artists depicted the horrors that must have surrounded the deluge. And yet, even though the flood was an unrivaled catastrophe, causing a degree of death and destruction that dwarfs any plague, hurricane, volcano, or bomb since, we have turned it into a popular children's story.
We have not taken the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah and made it the subject of children's artwork, puzzles, and toys. But we have let Noah become almost exclusively associated with a very cheerful vision of the ark. He is seen as the kindly, old proprietor of a kind of zoo-boat. He is a Dr. Doolittle with a long, white beard and a great big ship. In short, Noah has become a plush toy.
But the Bible paints a much more powerful picture of this unique man.
First, the writer of Genesis calls Noah "a righteous man." That is high praise, and it is not often accorded by the biblical narrators. Search for the phrase in scripture, and you will find it applied sparingly: Jesus' father Joseph (Matthew 1:19), John the Baptist (Mark 6:20), Simeon (Luke 2:25), and Joseph of Arimathea (Luke 23:50). Indeed, the only other Old Testament character referred to in those terms is Peter's posthumous reference to Lot (2 Peter 2:7).
Then scripture goes a step further, calling Noah "blameless in his generation." The underlying Hebrew word for "blameless" is used most frequently in the Old Testament to apply to acceptable offerings. "Without blemish" is usually the translation when referring to the sort of sheep or goat that must be brought as an offering to God. And in the Septuagint's translation of Genesis 6:9, the Greek word teleios is employed, which is typically rendered "complete" or "perfect" in English.
And then, to sum up the quality of Noah, the author reports, "Noah walked with God." That is said of only one other individual: the mysterious Enoch, who "walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him" (Genesis 5:24). Generations later, that image of walking with God embodies the simplest distillation of God's will (see Micah 6:8).
That important similarity between Enoch and Noah raises an interesting point. Here are two men who, perhaps like no one before or since, "walked with God." Yet, while their fellowship with their maker was of similar quality, their fates were so very different.
Enoch's walk with God seems to have qualified him for a special sort of salvation: God took him, the only man in scripture besides Elijah who did not die. Enoch's premature and miraculous departure seems to be a kind of deliverance: as though God was sparing this special saint from any more years in the tragically fallen world.
In contrast, Noah's walk with God did not qualify him for an escape from this world; rather, it seems to have qualified him for a terrible task within this world. He, like Enoch, is delivered, to be sure. But what a much more demanding and terrifying assignment Noah had.
In the end, we see that Noah was a genuine instrument of God. Not, interestingly, an instrument of his judgment, even though the story of the flood is undeniably a story of God's judgment. But while other human beings are sometimes employed as instruments of God's judgment, that is not Noah's role here. Rather, he is an instrument of God's deliverance -- for judgment is never the final word with God; he always has a redemptive plan on the other side. Indeed, so often that redemptive plan is a part of the rationale for the judgment.
By the end of the story, we have God establishing a covenant with all of creation, and we are given a glimpse of his lovely will for that creation: "So that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth." "Abound," "fruitful," and "multiply" all stand in dramatic contrast to the context of desolation. And Noah is the instrumental link from that devastation to that beauty and bounty. All of which makes him so much more impressive, more powerful, and more exemplary than just a plush toy.
Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28 (29-31)
There are so many different ways to preach. Each of us probably has our own natural tendency -- a kind of homiletic default setting. But I'm sure that we do our congregations a favor -- and likely benefit ourselves, as well -- when we provide some variety in the kind of preaching that we do. If my people enjoy everything from sports to news to comedy to drama during the other six days, then I do the gospel a disservice by making Sunday morning the most plain and predictable experience of their week.
These selected verses from Romans -- perhaps like a majority of epistle passages -- beg for expository preaching. They lend themselves so well to a verse-by-verse examination - - and exegesis, if we are so equipped. But let us step aside from the obvious treatment, stretch ourselves, and consider some other options.
First, Paul invites us to do a little doctrinal preaching this Sunday. We might preach on the doctrine of justification by faith. Few doctrines are so central to Christian theology, daily life, and personal experience, and yet it is a gospel truth that must be reclaimed in each generation from the insidious alternatives. How many self-satisfied people in our pews -- and not in our pews -- have bought into a "good person" understanding of salvation and heaven? How many other souls, tortured by a sense of guilt and unworthiness, struggle for a sense of acceptance by God that eludes them so long as they think the matter turns on their merit? And so we do well to preach the doctrine of justification by faith this week.
Second, we might do a little thematic preaching. "Faith" is the great recurring theme here, being mentioned nine different times in so few verses. Not far behind is the theme of righteousness. We might explore, for example, something under the title of "The prepositions of faith," as we see Paul variously refer to "through faith," "for faith," "by faith," and "of faith." Or the subject of righteousness might be developed in terms of the relationship suggested between God's righteousness and ours. And, specifically, the counterintuitive effect of God's righteousness: namely, that it does not judge and condemn us, but rather justifies us.
Third, we might easily take this passage and preach it devotionally. Taking one truth of this gospel message, we develop it to be applied personally to the individual believer. I might, for example, preach about "Paul's alls." Specifically, I would explore the truth contained in Paul's use of the word "all." In 3:23, he recognizes that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." But just before that, he proclaims that the righteousness of God is "for all who believe." And so we observe the breadth of God's gracious invitation. The cure is as broad as the sickness, the salvation as comprehensive as the sin. We are reminded of Isaac Watts' gospel truth in verse in the hymn "Joy To The World": "He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found."
Finally, we might put flesh and blood on an otherwise didactic text by preaching it with a narrative flair. See Paul a few years earlier, when he was still known as Saul of Tarsus. He is a Pharisee, but without the hypocrisy that we have come to associate with the term. He is zealous in his devotion to God, and he believes that that devotion is best expressed by a careful obedience to the law of God.
This is not a malady to be cured, a condition from which to be saved. He is not a caricature of piety. Rather, he is genuinely earnest and commendable. As Paul reflects back on his earlier righteousness (Philippians 3:3-6), we do not perceive in him a sense of either emptiness or defeat. Yet here is this Pharisee, zealous and blameless, concluding: "We hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law."
More than the immoral woman who wiped Jesus' feet with her hair, or the tortured demoniac among the tombs, or the famously skeptical Thomas, Paul's may be the story that resonates most with the people in our congregations. For this is the story of a man who looks a lot like us. This is the conversion of a man who was religious, and the salvation of a man who was righteous.
Matthew 7:21-29
This passage of Jesus' teaching begins with an implicit contrast of two verbs: "says" and "does." It is the differentiation between lip service and real service, and Jesus indicates that that distinction makes all the difference eternally.
Added to that exceedingly practical emphasis, there is the juxtaposition of the "many deeds of power" with the larger immediate context of the Sermon on the Mount. References to miraculous works and powerful deeds are notably absent from the surrounding teachings of Jesus. Rather, as we review the preceding chapters and verses, we see instead an emphasis on deeds of love and self-sacrifice. Personal piety, not power, is valued. Practical charity, not miracles, is endorsed. And so the "Lord, Lord" crowd, with their boasted "deeds of power," is conspicuously out of tune with the immediate context of Jesus' teaching.
The contrast of people calling Jesus "Lord, Lord" with Jesus saying that he never knew them is an unsettling one. We would be much more comfortable with an end-time picture of other people hearing this word from Christ: people who had denied his existence or his deity; people whose lives had been a repudiation of him and his word; people who had largely neglected God. But this group that Jesus portrays in his teaching appears to be a group of believers -- and a rather spiritual group, at that.
What to do with this improbable scene? There is no comfort in it; only challenge. And the challenge is this: the dichotomy between "says" and "does." Which leads quite naturally to the illustration with which Jesus concludes his teaching.
This particular passage -- and, indeed, the entire Sermon on the Mount -- is brought to an end with a brief, memorable similitude. It is the parable of the two house builders. They are well known for their different choices of foundation: rock vs. sand.
Before moving to what differentiates the two, however, we do well to consider what the two have in common. The text is explicit on this point. The teaching of Jesus is verbatim the same for both house builder in two key areas: "Everyone who hears these words of mine" and "the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house."
It may be our instinct to focus our attention immediately at how the two houses -- or the two builders -- are different. But their differences are most dramatically seen against the backdrop of their similarities.
The first similarity is that they both heard "these words of mine." The first difference is in their response to those words: "and acts on them" versus "and does not act on them."
The second similarity is that both houses face the same, potentially calamitous storm. The second difference is that the one house "did not fall," while the other "fell -- and great was its fall!"
The juxtaposition of the builders' similarities and differences will be significant to our congregations, for they are immediately identified with the first commonality: namely, that both house builders, like all of us, have heard the teachings of Jesus. The matter-of- fact assumption, meanwhile, is that, like both house builders, all of us will encounter potentially devastating storms in life. With those two givens in place, we turn our attention more carefully to the point at which the builders' paths diverge: the degree to which they (and we) "act on" the teachings of Jesus. And that is a suitable reminder for us to attach to every sermon, every Bible study, every Sunday school lesson, and every page of scripture we read on our own.
Application
A key element in Kennedy's "courage" paradigm was the idea of standing alone or swimming upstream. To do what is right when that is the direction of the strong current in which you swim may be commendable, but it is not necessarily courageous. But to be the one person in your group to stand up for a certain principle, to go against the flow for the sake of conscience, to turn the tide of events by an act of individual conviction: This is the stuff of courage.
And this, too, is the nature of Noah's righteousness. The biblical author tells us that he was "blameless in his generation." He might have said "blameless," and that would have been impressive enough. But the "in his generation" phrase adds a special layer of insight. For Noah was not blameless in a vacuum. He managed to be blameless within a certain context. And look at that context: "The earth was corrupt in God's sight ... filled with violence ... for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth."
Noah's generation was not an era of altar boys. He was not living in Mayberry. Rather, his was a sort of freestanding righteousness. Without the benefit of support from the world around him -- in fact, contrary to the prevailing winds of the generation in which he lived -- Noah remained blameless and pleasing to God. Indeed, he was so conspicuously righteous that, when the whole world was sentenced to destruction, he and his family alone were saved.
Meanwhile, in our excerpt of Jesus' teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, he does not use the word "righteous," but he offers two more profiles in righteousness. First, there is the pragmatic delineation between those who offer lip service and those who live obediently. Then there is the juxtaposition of the two house builders. The parable recalls Noah, for we are presented again with a kind of person who survives the rain and the floods, on the one hand, and the kind of person who does not.
In both parts of Jesus' teaching, the central issue in righteousness is an adherence to God's word: doing what he said. That brings back to mind another telling summary of Noah offered in Genesis: "He did all that God commanded him."
Finally, there is the profile in righteousness offered by Paul. It is nothing less than "the righteousness of God." Interestingly, it bears this in common with the other samples of righteousness: it saves; it delivers. For God, in his righteousness, saves us. Then he gives us a righteousness, not of our own, but his.
Alternative Application
Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28 (29-31). "Something To Be Proud Of." We know that there's a difference. Not all pride is equal. There is good pride, and there is bad pride.
The good pride -- let us imagine a father who is healthily proud of his child -- is marked by love and satisfaction. It is unselfish, and it takes delight in the happiness and accomplishments of others. Good pride is not reflexive: It does not shine its beam on itself, but on someone or something else.
The bad pride, by contrast, is generally more malicious -- perhaps in intent or perhaps only in effect. It tends to be more self-interested and self-promoting. Ego is more central to it than love. It may be marked by arrogance and by a resulting diminishment of others.
The thing we are proud of is the thing we are inclined to exalt. Whether it is the child you want to hug and congratulate, the team you want to applaud, the purchase you want to show off, or the accomplishment you want to brag about -- the things we are proud of are the things we are inclined to exalt.
In the epistle lection we are considering this week, Paul frames the larger discussion of justification by faith with two images of pride. In the beginning, he reports that he is "not ashamed of the gospel." And at the end, he asks, "What becomes of boasting?"
"Ashamed" and "boasting," you see, both come from the central issue of pride. To be ashamed of something is the antithesis of being proud of that thing. While boasting is one form of exalting the thing of which we are proud.
We are presented with something to be proud of. It is not the self-aggrandizing pride in one's works or personal merit. It is not self-righteousness. Rather, it is a marvelous pride in the gospel: "The power of God for salvation" of which we are not ashamed, but of which we are proud, and which we both embrace and proclaim.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 46
There is a growing and dangerous form of Christian faith spreading around the land. It goes by a number of names, and it is both insidious and unhelpful. One name for it is the "Gospel of Prosperity." The "Gospel of Prosperity" is based on a fundamental understanding of faith as transactional. That is, if you are good and if you believe in God, then God will reward you. The reward, in many cases, is monetary, but it includes general well-being. If you're good, if you believe, then God will take care of you and bad things won't happen.
This is a shallow faith. It is shallow because it serves only as long as luck lasts. Sooner or later, something less than pleasant happens to everyone. A parent dies, a spouse cheats, a friend betrays; everyone experiences these things sooner or later. And if your faith in God is tied to how well God treats you, then poof! Faith evaporates when suffering begins.
A deep faith knows, as does this psalm, that faith in God is not an insurance policy against suffering or a guarantee of a successful life. "God is a very present help in trouble," not a get out of jail free card.
It is precisely in the midst of our troubles that God comes most wonderfully and most fiercely. It is that presence that finds us in our sorrow and says, "Be still, and know that I am God." It is that presence that walks with us through our grief and through the dangers and toils we will face. It is that presence that pulls us into the future tense of glory.
There is also a deeper and more mystical truth that involves the ways in which suffering actually deepens us. Like metals refined in the fire, we, too, are often strengthened by trials though which we walk. A parishioner going through a painful and nasty divorce had no way of seeing what might come in the years ahead. Yet meeting with him some years later, it was striking to note the depth and power this man's life had assumed. Moreover, it was moving to see how healing had indeed come to him.
"The Gospel of Prosperity" is easy. It's appealing. It sells lots of books. But in the end it simply does not serve. Instead, we are called to a God who is more than an insurance policy. We are called by a God who accompanies us on every step of the journey. Through it all, God is with us.
The spotlight of our attention -- whether our individual attention or the popular attention of a whole congregation, a community, or a culture -- determines our direction. For as long as we focus our attention on figures who are tragic, deviant, or buffoonish, we lower ourselves and diminish our culture. When we raise our sights, however, to focus on those who are or who have been exemplary, we elevate ourselves, our standards, our expectations, and our performance. Kennedy's book, no doubt, sought to promote personal and political courage in America by raising the profile of these men who had exhibited such courage.
So, too, with our preaching. For twenty minutes a week (give or take) we train the potent spotlight of the pulpit on some subject, and the subjects we choose will contribute, more or less, to the edification of our people. Certainly we must avoid the pop-culture trap of fixating on the same pathetic figures and events that so often preoccupy cable news coverage and tabloid publications. Instead, we must remain true to our calling and our prescribed subject matter: namely, the truths of the gospel, and the people and events of scripture.
And so, this week, we are invited to turn our attention -- and our people's attention -- to a certain category of people in the Bible. Call them "the righteous." The writer of Genesis, the apostle Paul, and the evangelist Matthew all encourage us to present these profiles in righteousness to our people this Sunday.
Genesis 6:9-22; 7:24; 8:14-19
I'm afraid that Noah's reputation has suffered in recent decades, at least in America. In earlier centuries, artists depicted the horrors that must have surrounded the deluge. And yet, even though the flood was an unrivaled catastrophe, causing a degree of death and destruction that dwarfs any plague, hurricane, volcano, or bomb since, we have turned it into a popular children's story.
We have not taken the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah and made it the subject of children's artwork, puzzles, and toys. But we have let Noah become almost exclusively associated with a very cheerful vision of the ark. He is seen as the kindly, old proprietor of a kind of zoo-boat. He is a Dr. Doolittle with a long, white beard and a great big ship. In short, Noah has become a plush toy.
But the Bible paints a much more powerful picture of this unique man.
First, the writer of Genesis calls Noah "a righteous man." That is high praise, and it is not often accorded by the biblical narrators. Search for the phrase in scripture, and you will find it applied sparingly: Jesus' father Joseph (Matthew 1:19), John the Baptist (Mark 6:20), Simeon (Luke 2:25), and Joseph of Arimathea (Luke 23:50). Indeed, the only other Old Testament character referred to in those terms is Peter's posthumous reference to Lot (2 Peter 2:7).
Then scripture goes a step further, calling Noah "blameless in his generation." The underlying Hebrew word for "blameless" is used most frequently in the Old Testament to apply to acceptable offerings. "Without blemish" is usually the translation when referring to the sort of sheep or goat that must be brought as an offering to God. And in the Septuagint's translation of Genesis 6:9, the Greek word teleios is employed, which is typically rendered "complete" or "perfect" in English.
And then, to sum up the quality of Noah, the author reports, "Noah walked with God." That is said of only one other individual: the mysterious Enoch, who "walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him" (Genesis 5:24). Generations later, that image of walking with God embodies the simplest distillation of God's will (see Micah 6:8).
That important similarity between Enoch and Noah raises an interesting point. Here are two men who, perhaps like no one before or since, "walked with God." Yet, while their fellowship with their maker was of similar quality, their fates were so very different.
Enoch's walk with God seems to have qualified him for a special sort of salvation: God took him, the only man in scripture besides Elijah who did not die. Enoch's premature and miraculous departure seems to be a kind of deliverance: as though God was sparing this special saint from any more years in the tragically fallen world.
In contrast, Noah's walk with God did not qualify him for an escape from this world; rather, it seems to have qualified him for a terrible task within this world. He, like Enoch, is delivered, to be sure. But what a much more demanding and terrifying assignment Noah had.
In the end, we see that Noah was a genuine instrument of God. Not, interestingly, an instrument of his judgment, even though the story of the flood is undeniably a story of God's judgment. But while other human beings are sometimes employed as instruments of God's judgment, that is not Noah's role here. Rather, he is an instrument of God's deliverance -- for judgment is never the final word with God; he always has a redemptive plan on the other side. Indeed, so often that redemptive plan is a part of the rationale for the judgment.
By the end of the story, we have God establishing a covenant with all of creation, and we are given a glimpse of his lovely will for that creation: "So that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth." "Abound," "fruitful," and "multiply" all stand in dramatic contrast to the context of desolation. And Noah is the instrumental link from that devastation to that beauty and bounty. All of which makes him so much more impressive, more powerful, and more exemplary than just a plush toy.
Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28 (29-31)
There are so many different ways to preach. Each of us probably has our own natural tendency -- a kind of homiletic default setting. But I'm sure that we do our congregations a favor -- and likely benefit ourselves, as well -- when we provide some variety in the kind of preaching that we do. If my people enjoy everything from sports to news to comedy to drama during the other six days, then I do the gospel a disservice by making Sunday morning the most plain and predictable experience of their week.
These selected verses from Romans -- perhaps like a majority of epistle passages -- beg for expository preaching. They lend themselves so well to a verse-by-verse examination - - and exegesis, if we are so equipped. But let us step aside from the obvious treatment, stretch ourselves, and consider some other options.
First, Paul invites us to do a little doctrinal preaching this Sunday. We might preach on the doctrine of justification by faith. Few doctrines are so central to Christian theology, daily life, and personal experience, and yet it is a gospel truth that must be reclaimed in each generation from the insidious alternatives. How many self-satisfied people in our pews -- and not in our pews -- have bought into a "good person" understanding of salvation and heaven? How many other souls, tortured by a sense of guilt and unworthiness, struggle for a sense of acceptance by God that eludes them so long as they think the matter turns on their merit? And so we do well to preach the doctrine of justification by faith this week.
Second, we might do a little thematic preaching. "Faith" is the great recurring theme here, being mentioned nine different times in so few verses. Not far behind is the theme of righteousness. We might explore, for example, something under the title of "The prepositions of faith," as we see Paul variously refer to "through faith," "for faith," "by faith," and "of faith." Or the subject of righteousness might be developed in terms of the relationship suggested between God's righteousness and ours. And, specifically, the counterintuitive effect of God's righteousness: namely, that it does not judge and condemn us, but rather justifies us.
Third, we might easily take this passage and preach it devotionally. Taking one truth of this gospel message, we develop it to be applied personally to the individual believer. I might, for example, preach about "Paul's alls." Specifically, I would explore the truth contained in Paul's use of the word "all." In 3:23, he recognizes that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." But just before that, he proclaims that the righteousness of God is "for all who believe." And so we observe the breadth of God's gracious invitation. The cure is as broad as the sickness, the salvation as comprehensive as the sin. We are reminded of Isaac Watts' gospel truth in verse in the hymn "Joy To The World": "He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found."
Finally, we might put flesh and blood on an otherwise didactic text by preaching it with a narrative flair. See Paul a few years earlier, when he was still known as Saul of Tarsus. He is a Pharisee, but without the hypocrisy that we have come to associate with the term. He is zealous in his devotion to God, and he believes that that devotion is best expressed by a careful obedience to the law of God.
This is not a malady to be cured, a condition from which to be saved. He is not a caricature of piety. Rather, he is genuinely earnest and commendable. As Paul reflects back on his earlier righteousness (Philippians 3:3-6), we do not perceive in him a sense of either emptiness or defeat. Yet here is this Pharisee, zealous and blameless, concluding: "We hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law."
More than the immoral woman who wiped Jesus' feet with her hair, or the tortured demoniac among the tombs, or the famously skeptical Thomas, Paul's may be the story that resonates most with the people in our congregations. For this is the story of a man who looks a lot like us. This is the conversion of a man who was religious, and the salvation of a man who was righteous.
Matthew 7:21-29
This passage of Jesus' teaching begins with an implicit contrast of two verbs: "says" and "does." It is the differentiation between lip service and real service, and Jesus indicates that that distinction makes all the difference eternally.
Added to that exceedingly practical emphasis, there is the juxtaposition of the "many deeds of power" with the larger immediate context of the Sermon on the Mount. References to miraculous works and powerful deeds are notably absent from the surrounding teachings of Jesus. Rather, as we review the preceding chapters and verses, we see instead an emphasis on deeds of love and self-sacrifice. Personal piety, not power, is valued. Practical charity, not miracles, is endorsed. And so the "Lord, Lord" crowd, with their boasted "deeds of power," is conspicuously out of tune with the immediate context of Jesus' teaching.
The contrast of people calling Jesus "Lord, Lord" with Jesus saying that he never knew them is an unsettling one. We would be much more comfortable with an end-time picture of other people hearing this word from Christ: people who had denied his existence or his deity; people whose lives had been a repudiation of him and his word; people who had largely neglected God. But this group that Jesus portrays in his teaching appears to be a group of believers -- and a rather spiritual group, at that.
What to do with this improbable scene? There is no comfort in it; only challenge. And the challenge is this: the dichotomy between "says" and "does." Which leads quite naturally to the illustration with which Jesus concludes his teaching.
This particular passage -- and, indeed, the entire Sermon on the Mount -- is brought to an end with a brief, memorable similitude. It is the parable of the two house builders. They are well known for their different choices of foundation: rock vs. sand.
Before moving to what differentiates the two, however, we do well to consider what the two have in common. The text is explicit on this point. The teaching of Jesus is verbatim the same for both house builder in two key areas: "Everyone who hears these words of mine" and "the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house."
It may be our instinct to focus our attention immediately at how the two houses -- or the two builders -- are different. But their differences are most dramatically seen against the backdrop of their similarities.
The first similarity is that they both heard "these words of mine." The first difference is in their response to those words: "and acts on them" versus "and does not act on them."
The second similarity is that both houses face the same, potentially calamitous storm. The second difference is that the one house "did not fall," while the other "fell -- and great was its fall!"
The juxtaposition of the builders' similarities and differences will be significant to our congregations, for they are immediately identified with the first commonality: namely, that both house builders, like all of us, have heard the teachings of Jesus. The matter-of- fact assumption, meanwhile, is that, like both house builders, all of us will encounter potentially devastating storms in life. With those two givens in place, we turn our attention more carefully to the point at which the builders' paths diverge: the degree to which they (and we) "act on" the teachings of Jesus. And that is a suitable reminder for us to attach to every sermon, every Bible study, every Sunday school lesson, and every page of scripture we read on our own.
Application
A key element in Kennedy's "courage" paradigm was the idea of standing alone or swimming upstream. To do what is right when that is the direction of the strong current in which you swim may be commendable, but it is not necessarily courageous. But to be the one person in your group to stand up for a certain principle, to go against the flow for the sake of conscience, to turn the tide of events by an act of individual conviction: This is the stuff of courage.
And this, too, is the nature of Noah's righteousness. The biblical author tells us that he was "blameless in his generation." He might have said "blameless," and that would have been impressive enough. But the "in his generation" phrase adds a special layer of insight. For Noah was not blameless in a vacuum. He managed to be blameless within a certain context. And look at that context: "The earth was corrupt in God's sight ... filled with violence ... for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth."
Noah's generation was not an era of altar boys. He was not living in Mayberry. Rather, his was a sort of freestanding righteousness. Without the benefit of support from the world around him -- in fact, contrary to the prevailing winds of the generation in which he lived -- Noah remained blameless and pleasing to God. Indeed, he was so conspicuously righteous that, when the whole world was sentenced to destruction, he and his family alone were saved.
Meanwhile, in our excerpt of Jesus' teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, he does not use the word "righteous," but he offers two more profiles in righteousness. First, there is the pragmatic delineation between those who offer lip service and those who live obediently. Then there is the juxtaposition of the two house builders. The parable recalls Noah, for we are presented again with a kind of person who survives the rain and the floods, on the one hand, and the kind of person who does not.
In both parts of Jesus' teaching, the central issue in righteousness is an adherence to God's word: doing what he said. That brings back to mind another telling summary of Noah offered in Genesis: "He did all that God commanded him."
Finally, there is the profile in righteousness offered by Paul. It is nothing less than "the righteousness of God." Interestingly, it bears this in common with the other samples of righteousness: it saves; it delivers. For God, in his righteousness, saves us. Then he gives us a righteousness, not of our own, but his.
Alternative Application
Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28 (29-31). "Something To Be Proud Of." We know that there's a difference. Not all pride is equal. There is good pride, and there is bad pride.
The good pride -- let us imagine a father who is healthily proud of his child -- is marked by love and satisfaction. It is unselfish, and it takes delight in the happiness and accomplishments of others. Good pride is not reflexive: It does not shine its beam on itself, but on someone or something else.
The bad pride, by contrast, is generally more malicious -- perhaps in intent or perhaps only in effect. It tends to be more self-interested and self-promoting. Ego is more central to it than love. It may be marked by arrogance and by a resulting diminishment of others.
The thing we are proud of is the thing we are inclined to exalt. Whether it is the child you want to hug and congratulate, the team you want to applaud, the purchase you want to show off, or the accomplishment you want to brag about -- the things we are proud of are the things we are inclined to exalt.
In the epistle lection we are considering this week, Paul frames the larger discussion of justification by faith with two images of pride. In the beginning, he reports that he is "not ashamed of the gospel." And at the end, he asks, "What becomes of boasting?"
"Ashamed" and "boasting," you see, both come from the central issue of pride. To be ashamed of something is the antithesis of being proud of that thing. While boasting is one form of exalting the thing of which we are proud.
We are presented with something to be proud of. It is not the self-aggrandizing pride in one's works or personal merit. It is not self-righteousness. Rather, it is a marvelous pride in the gospel: "The power of God for salvation" of which we are not ashamed, but of which we are proud, and which we both embrace and proclaim.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 46
There is a growing and dangerous form of Christian faith spreading around the land. It goes by a number of names, and it is both insidious and unhelpful. One name for it is the "Gospel of Prosperity." The "Gospel of Prosperity" is based on a fundamental understanding of faith as transactional. That is, if you are good and if you believe in God, then God will reward you. The reward, in many cases, is monetary, but it includes general well-being. If you're good, if you believe, then God will take care of you and bad things won't happen.
This is a shallow faith. It is shallow because it serves only as long as luck lasts. Sooner or later, something less than pleasant happens to everyone. A parent dies, a spouse cheats, a friend betrays; everyone experiences these things sooner or later. And if your faith in God is tied to how well God treats you, then poof! Faith evaporates when suffering begins.
A deep faith knows, as does this psalm, that faith in God is not an insurance policy against suffering or a guarantee of a successful life. "God is a very present help in trouble," not a get out of jail free card.
It is precisely in the midst of our troubles that God comes most wonderfully and most fiercely. It is that presence that finds us in our sorrow and says, "Be still, and know that I am God." It is that presence that walks with us through our grief and through the dangers and toils we will face. It is that presence that pulls us into the future tense of glory.
There is also a deeper and more mystical truth that involves the ways in which suffering actually deepens us. Like metals refined in the fire, we, too, are often strengthened by trials though which we walk. A parishioner going through a painful and nasty divorce had no way of seeing what might come in the years ahead. Yet meeting with him some years later, it was striking to note the depth and power this man's life had assumed. Moreover, it was moving to see how healing had indeed come to him.
"The Gospel of Prosperity" is easy. It's appealing. It sells lots of books. But in the end it simply does not serve. Instead, we are called to a God who is more than an insurance policy. We are called by a God who accompanies us on every step of the journey. Through it all, God is with us.
