Hearing and Doing
Hearing and Doing by Rev. L. John Gable
October 23, 2022
Every good public speaker knows that beginnings and endings are very important. Beginnings need to reach out and grab the listeners in order to bring them, as quickly as possible, from where they are to where you want them to be, in order to hear the message. Beginnings need to be engaging, thought-provoking, and attention grabbing; endings, on the other hand, need to inspire and motivate the hearers to go out and do something, to make some decision, to take some action to change the world, or at least make some improvement in themselves. Every good public speaker knows, if you’ve got a good beginning and a good ending people tend to forget much of the mush in the middle.
Jesus, being the master teacher He was, seemed to understand this; yet admittedly He didn’t have any mush in the middle. Remember the way He began what we call the Sermon on the Mount? Gathering His disciples around Him, He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…blessed are the meek…blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”, and so on. This posture and attitude before God becomes the foundation for all of the teaching that follows, teaching that we have found to be so engaging and challenging, so radical, so helpful. Jesus calls us, as His followers, to live by a different standard, a different value system, than the kingdoms of this world, and He calls us to begin living that way now as we will one day live then when God finally has His way with us in the Kingdom of Heaven. As we have seen, what we have in the Sermon on the Mount is the Gospel in its purest and most concentrated form.
So how does one end such a message? Does He simply say, “Time’s up. That’s all. Stay tuned. See you all next week.” No, Jesus the master teacher is also Jesus the master story teller, so He ends this sermon with a parable, a story to engage His listeners, then and now, and calls them, calls us, to make a decision about what we will do with all He has taught. But most importantly, He calls us to make a decision about what we will do with Him. This teaching cannot be separated from the Teacher. To accept the one is to accept the other. To reject the one is to reject the other, and there is great consequence to our decision.
Jesus’ closing parable is a familiar one to us and it paints a vivid, immediately recognizable picture. It is about two men, could be women, even children, who build houses for themselves, one on rock and the other on sand. The houses represent the lives we have built for ourselves, that which other people can see when they look at us – our actions, our demeanors, our professions, our interests and investments and so on. From the exterior, the houses look very much the same. The difference between them, however, is determined not by their facades, but by what they are built on, the unseen foundation which under girds them, be it sand or rock. But that unseen part of our lives is not discovered when the sun is shining and life is all good. It is known only when the rains fall and the flood come and the winds blow and beat upon that house, as surely it will, or has, in each of our lives. It is the storm not the sunshine that uncovers our foundations.
It is not often that a parable is played out in such a timely manner as this one. During the past several weeks we have watched and witnessed the devastation caused by the blowing winds and raging waters of Hurricane Ian. Surely our hearts, and hopefully our help, go out to the victims of these disasters, and others like them, at home and abroad. Yet surely we have to wonder, what is it that causes one house to stand and the other to fall? Some would say it is pure luck, the path of the storm, the way the wind is blowing, which side of the street you live on and there may be some truth to that. Jesus challenges that notion, by saying it is not luck or chance or even the structure of the shell that determines the strength of the house, but the foundation on which it is built, on stable rock or shifting sand.
Jesus closes this magnificent teaching by asking us to reflect and consider: how firm is the foundation on which we have built our lives? The only difference between the wise and the foolish here lies purely in the place on which they stand, the foundation on which they have built.
Remember, Jesus is talking here to His disciples, to His followers, to those who HEAR His teaching. Hearing is the necessary first step in discipleship. As Paul writes to the Romans, “How are they to call on One in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in One of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim Him? And how are they to proclaim Him unless they are sent? So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ” (10:14-16). Hearing the Good News, and really listening to it, taking it to heart, is the necessary first step to believing the Good News.
But isn’t it interesting that Jesus doesn’t distinguish between those who have heard and those who have not heard, namely between the Christians and the non-Christians. The distinction here is between those who “hear and do” and those who “hear and do not do.” It is not enough for us simply to hear the message. He is not asking for our agreement with His Word, but our obedience to it. He is calling us to decision, to response, to action, and we are rendered fools if we hear it, but fail to do it.
Dale Bruner puts it this way, “The Father’s will is that His Son’s word will be heard in such a way that it is done. The Word penetrates the ears to reach the heart and so the hands, the lips, the feet.”
This concluding parable is not a “feel good, have a nice day” kind of ending, is it? It is a warning shot off the bow. It is a word of caution sternly spoken to us, because we are the ones who “hear” the Word of God, in worship, in Bible studies, in the books and magazines that we read. Perhaps unlike others who have never heard the Gospel message, we have no excuse when our behaviors do not match up to its demands. We cannot claim ignorance. And quite candidly, it is the disconnect between our words and our actions that those who do not believe as we believe find most hypocritical. We are not given the option of simply sitting back and nodding our heads in agreement with this teaching, but then doing nothing about it. For to do so would be to spend a life building a house that will not stand when the storms come, and come they will to every life. Where these words are heard, taken seriously and done, there is rock. But where these words are heard, but not taken seriously and so not done, there is nothing but sand and the consequences are tragic.
We all know the story of the Titanic, that most magnificent ocean going vessel of its day, which sank on its maiden voyage in 1912. But what is lesser known about that tragedy is that as the ship traveled at its maximum speed the operator in the wireless room received a radio message from another vessel that there were icebergs in the immediate vicinity. The operator wrote the message down on a slip of paper, placed it under a weight on the desk and went about his other duties. This critical bit of information never made it to captain, and the result, over 1500 lives were lost. Information without action is useless, and ultimately can be tragic.
When we say “yes” to following Jesus, we are saying “yes” not simply to agreeing with, or even commending His teachings, but to actually living by the new standards He lays out for us. We are saying “yes” to humbling ourselves before God; to being distinct and set apart from the world as salt and light; to fulfilling the law and the prophets by refusing anger, revenge and resentment. When we say “yes” to Jesus we are saying “yes” to forgiving our neighbors, loving our enemies, and praying for those who persecute us; to forsaking earthly treasures for those which are eternal; to living according to the narrow way of God rather than the wide way of the world. When we say “yes” to Jesus we are committing ourselves to living for God’s ends and purposes, rather than for our own.
As we have seen, this teaching is radical and revolutionary, and demanding; yet we know instinctively, the very first time we hear it, that it is the right way to live. We know that life would be so much better for us and for our neighbors and for the world, if only we could live this way, but as much as we may agree with it and desire to follow it, we also know that we can’t do it on our own. The standard is too high, the way is too difficult. We know that try as we may we can’t live that way on our own, and that may well be the whole point of the sermon. Here at the very end of His sermon we are called to make a decision: either we shrug our shoulders, turn our backs and walk away, or we fall down on our knees, confess our need and invite God to come into our lives, and He promises to do so. All we need do is “ask, seek, knock” and He will answer.
At the conclusion of this teaching, Matthew records that the crowds were amazed, astonished, dumbfounded by Jesus and His teaching. Unlike the cartoon which depicts the minister at the end of his sermon saying, “Then again what do I know”, Jesus speaks with authority. The crowds had never heard anyone speak like this before. Why? Because no one had ever spoken like this before, no one had ever dared to make the kind of claims that Jesus makes. Unlike any who went before Him, or any who would follow after, Jesus speaks with the authority of God, because He is God, in human flesh. So, His words must be taken seriously because they are God’s Word. And for that reason, this word cannot be lived out apart from a living relationship with its Speaker. The truth of the message is grounded firmly on the truth of the Messenger. Jesus Himself is the foundation on which we must build our lives, all other ground is sinking sand.
Raymond Calkins puts it this way, “He offered the world not a doctrine or a plan or an organization for the solution of its problems, or the saving of its life. He offered Himself. When one asks, ‘What is the Christian faith according to Christ Himself?’ the answer is, it is Christ Himself. And if this is where Christ laid the foundation of His faith, then this is where the Apostles laid it. The faith, which the New Testament offers to the world, is faith in a Person. The preaching of the New Testament is the preaching of a Person. They preached Jesus: that in Him is the resurrection of the dead; that He has given us all things pertaining to life; that His is the Name above every name. And because they were sure of the fact of this Person, they were sure that when they based their hope and their faith on that Fact, that there was a foundation that could not be moved; there was a Kingdom that could not be shaken.”
And so we come to the end of our study of the Sermon on the Mount with the laying of this foundation, both the message and the Messenger, and it concludes with the call for us to receive it, believe it and live, both to HEAR it and to DO it. May it be so with us. Amen.
Prayer: Almighty God, give us the grace to be not hearers only, but doers of Your Word; not only to admire but to obey Your truth; not only to profess but to practice Your faith; not only to love but to live Your Gospel. So grant that what we learn of Your glory we may receive into our hearts and show forth in our lives, through Christ our Lord we pray, now and in the silence of our hearts. (Adapted from a prayer composed for the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops, 1948)
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN