Stability in life

Jesus concluded the Sermon on the Mount with a picture of two men each building his house.

"Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. And the rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall." Matthew 7:24-27

In each case, the house each man built is assumed to be a solid house. The difference is in the foundations. The man who hears the words of Jesus and does them, has found solid rock to build his life on. What Jesus taught on that hillside was meant to give stability in life.

This is a significant point: what gives stability is not the things we build in life, but on what we build them. We could build a life as part of one culture, and find stability through the challenges of life; we could also build a life as part of another culture, and also find stability through the challenges of life. We could find stability as a Pentecostal, or a Baptist, or an Adventist, or a Catholic. What gives stability is not our culture, but this foundation built on the words of Jesus.

But at the same time, we could be a perfectly good Pentecostal, or Baptist, or Adventist, or Catholic and watch our house collapse in the challenges of life. Our cultures alone cannot give stability in life.

What Jesus taught on that hillside two thousand years ago had a logical structure, though no one would have seen it as they first listened to it. Jesus kept teaching in sets of three; the three things addressed three different levels. But He kept the same order; He kept building on what He had said before.

Jesus kept this order in His teaching: what relates to the Father, what relates to the Spirit, and then what relates to the Son. Giving alms relates to the Father; prayer relates to the Spirit; fasting relates to the Son. Each set of teachings takes an aspect of life, and then expresses what is needed on three levels.

The structure in His teaching emphasizes what is needed for stability. It also suggests why we have trouble finding stability. We tend to emphasize one thing. Some emphasize doing good; some emphasize the life of the Spirit; some emphasize the Lordship of Jesus. But we seldom recognize that we need all three. We seldom take any of them as far as Jesus takes them. But stability requires all three, in the way that Jesus taught.

Doing all three will result in a foundation founded on a rock that will give stability. Without all three we will have sand under our house.

The point that Dallas Willard makes about Jesus is significant. He said that we should think of Jesus as the smartest man who ever lived. He said that because we don't. He said that in that way because we don't even categorize what Jesus said as being relevant to our real life. In our way of thinking, religion is separate from reality. We may agree with what Dallas Willard said, but we still have a problem. The religion we have constructed has left so much out of what Jesus taught that it is not useful for the real issues of life.

More Christians than we know are mentally ill. Religion can be difficult to integrate into life. Our high standards and high expectations can become a rational crisis. Plodders may do fine with religion because they keep their expectations low; but the Bonhoeffer's cannot live with minimal religion.

Many Christians simply quit. They tried it, and failed. Christianity as it has been given to them is not completely functional, at least not for them. There is one universal criteria that religion must meet: it must work. Whether we can figure out why it didn't work or not, we conclude that it didn't work if it doesn't provide stability in the trials of life. Our "Christianity" has not passed this test for many of those around us.

We need something solid to build on. We have in our hands what Jesus says will give a solid rock to build our life on. But it will only work if we do it. This is the problem in front of us: this Sermon on the Mount is not part of the "Christianity" that has been constructed. Everything in it is too difficult, too extreme; who would listen to us if we really taught this.

Isn't the easy way easier?