Word to the Wise
Thursday, June 27, 2019 - Thursday in the 12th Week in Ordinary Time
[Gen 16:1-12, 15-16 or 16:6b-12, 15-16 and Matt 7:21-29]"Everyone who listens to 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 wind blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined." [Matthew]
We in Texas, especially those who live on the Gulf Coast from Corpus Christi to Houston, can remember the terrible damage caused by Hurricane Harvey not long ago. Images of flooding in Houston were on the screens of TV's across the nation. Many good people thought they could beat the odds on the weather and built homes in flood zones in Houston. Mother Nature is no prisoner of human calculations and terrible suffering resulted from the decision to build in those zones.
Jesus' image of building on the right foundation speaks to human experience but it includes two very important steps: listening and acting. The Sermon on the Mount, which draws to a close in today's gospel, can be very uncomfortable reading even to devout Christians. The challenges to love our enemies and not to worry about material needs, to mention only two, are very difficult. We may resist being told where we should build the house of our Christian faith. We may choose an easier course and build on sand. Jesus warns us of the consequences if we do that. Listening to the words of the Sermon on the Mount is not enough. We have to act on them. Those two steps will keep us safe when the storms of temptation and illusory promises of a materialist and consumerist and violence-prone culture buffet our house of faith. AMEN