these words

June 1, 2008

Matthew 7:24-29

 

 

We call it the "golden rule". Jesus called it the law and the prophets. This is pretty basic stuff. It is one of the first what I call "sundayschoolwords" I remember right after Jesus loves me." These words are some of many that Jesus must have been referring to in our reading for today when he says, "everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock, a house that will withstand the blows of the universe, of life itself. In fact this is not advice about house-building at all, is it? This is about building a life. One's own life, that precious gift that we have been given to do something with but which sometimes seems to just happen while we were planning what to do with it. As we gain experience of life I think we recognize that life is fragile and there are so many things that can go wrong. It does matter on what ground we stand. That is what these words are telling us. It does matter. These words matter. In fact they will help us to be.

 

Frederick Buechner thought that words were important. He wrote: Words are power, essentially the power of creation. By my words I both discover and create who I am. By my words I elicit a word from you. Though our converse we create each other. And these are just our words. He also points out that in Hebrew the term dabar means both word and deed. What does it mean that John began his gospel with In the beginning was the Word?  Among other things, God spoke life into being. In the words of Buechner: the beginning in time of time. With the Word that is God, God is heard and there are hearers and so we exist. I have often said that we are made for love but first we are made to hear God so that we will know what love is. God is before anything that which speaks a word and once spoken is that which is, speaking God's self and God's creation into being, into a relationship from the very beginning based on words in time.

 

I heard a good one recently on this subject. It goes like this:

 

 

But seriously folks,words are important. When we say 'I hate you,' it hurts the one we say it to. The word itself once spoken is something that exists. It acts on us and on another. It changes what is. We can change our mind and say we didn't mean it but the initial hurt of the word spoken is not erased. It happened and cannot be unhappened. On the other hand, when we say 'I forgive you,' that word also is something that exists, something that acts on us and on another. It changes what is. We change the relationship and we change what will happen next. You have herd me say before that we are what we practice or what we do. Well, it is also true that we are what we say, even if what we say we know is untrue, we become untrue. We cannot change what happened but we can change how we will respond to what happened and in doing so, in a word, we also change our direction and change quite literally ourselves, our actual life as it goes. Often the power of a word like 'I forgive' or even 'I love' will change the speaker before it changes the one to which we speak. When we speak that which we speak is released into time and becomes something, something that changes something else, something that continues to exist in the world.

 

Words are important, more important that we often think, I suspect, and if our words are important the word of God is life itself. These words are instructions for building a life that will overcome the sorrows of this world and know the joy and peace of God yet we do not act on them and we do not act on them because they are difficult and they require more from us than what comes naturally and easily. Even a simple word like doing unto others what we would want done to us requires us to overcome our natural desire to want more than others, to use others to have our way at their expense, to overcome our distrust of each other, to trust at this most basic level the word of God to be true - that indeed kindness and goodwill will bear the fruit of kindness and goodwill.

 

These words have power to change our lives but only if we act upon them. They are not magical, they are demanding. They require a response. Since there is not much evidence that these words have changed our world one might conclude that they are impossible but it is not that they are impossible it is that they are difficult. Peter Maurin, a co-founder of the Catholic worker with Dorothy Day is quoted as having said: Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting, it's been found difficult and not tried.  

 

It is also true I believe that the results of acting on these words are not always evident but that the action itself whether it fails or succeeds has a value of its own. In other words we are not to give up doing what Christ teaches us to do just because we do not see the results for it is in doing these words that we are changed. We are blessed by the doing rather than by the results. The work of the Lord is its' own reward. The results are a gift we may never see. I remember of these words the time Jesus said that the kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow he does not know how. 

 

Neither are we to give up acting on these words because they are difficult or demand us to think about our natural response, to ponder why we do what we do. Sometimes these words ask us to do things we find strange or even unfair. Love your enemy. Judge not. Pray for those who persecute you. Return goodness for evil.

 

Perhaps it is the difficulty of overcoming our natural inclinations, of not being willing to do the work of acting on these words, the work of building a life of faith that Jesus was referring to when he also said: Enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. It has been said that life is just showing up but these words indicate something different. Just showing up will not be enough, we have work to both in the world and in ourselves, soul work, the work of building a life on the rock. The alternative is like when you are standing on the beach and the waves come over your feet and literally move sand from beneath your feet until you have nothing to stand on. Life is hard and a deep personal commitment is required to overcome. It is not impossible but neither is it easy. In another of these words Jesus offers encouragement for us to take the narrow way, the hard way, the way that demands we change our ways from self-centered to God-centered. He said that if we take on the difficult way of discipleship we will find that we will not be alone, that we will have help to do what seems impossible. He said: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for i am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Mt. 11.30)

 

These words are beautiful. These words give us hope. These words give us strength. These words are a promise that when we act on them, we will overcome not simply because we have done what we are supposed to do but because we have we have stopped fighting God, stopped resisting the call of God to have our own way and have joined with God to bring the kingdom of love on earth. We have surrendered to Christ who gave himself up for us. We have opened our hearts to the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, enabling us to do what is difficult and seemingly impossible because these words are God's words and God's words are a presence, they are life to us who hear them and who act upon them, who live them and with God, all things are possible. Even these words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

these words

June 1, 2008

Matthew 7:24-29

 

 

We call it the "golden rule". Jesus called it the law and the prophets. This is pretty basic stuff. It is one of the first what I call "sundayschoolwords" I remember right after Jesus loves me." These words are some of many that Jesus must have been referring to in our reading for today when he says, "everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock, a house that will withstand the blows of the universe, of life itself. In fact this is not advice about house-building at all, is it? This is about building a life. One's own life, that precious gift that we have been given to do something with but which sometimes seems to just happen while we were planning what to do with it. As we gain experience of life I think we recognize that life is fragile and there are so many things that can go wrong. It does matter on what ground we stand. That is what these words are telling us. It does matter. These words matter. In fact they will help us to be.

 

Frederick Buechner thought that words were important. He wrote: Words are power, essentially the power of creation. By my words I both discover and create who I am. By my words I elicit a word from you. Though our converse we create each other. And these are just our words. He also points out that in Hebrew the term dabar means both word and deed. What does it mean that John began his gospel with In the beginning was the Word?  Among other things, God spoke life into being. In the words of Buechner: the beginning in time of time. With the Word that is God, God is heard and there are hearers and so we exist. I have often said that we are made for love but first we are made to hear God so that we will know what love is. God is before anything that which speaks a word and once spoken is that which is, speaking God's self and God's creation into being, into a relationship from the very beginning based on words in time.

 

I heard a good one recently on this subject. It goes like this:

 

 

But seriously folks,words are important. When we say 'I hate you,' it hurts the one we say it to. The word itself once spoken is something that exists. It acts on us and on another. It changes what is. We can change our mind and say we didn't mean it but the initial hurt of the word spoken is not erased. It happened and cannot be unhappened. On the other hand, when we say 'I forgive you,' that word also is something that exists, something that acts on us and on another. It changes what is. We change the relationship and we change what will happen next. You have herd me say before that we are what we practice or what we do. Well, it is also true that we are what we say, even if what we say we know is untrue, we become untrue. We cannot change what happened but we can change how we will respond to what happened and in doing so, in a word, we also change our direction and change quite literally ourselves, our actual life as it goes. Often the power of a word like 'I forgive' or even 'I love' will change the speaker before it changes the one to which we speak. When we speak that which we speak is released into time and becomes something, something that changes something else, something that continues to exist in the world.

 

Words are important, more important that we often think, I suspect, and if our words are important the word of God is life itself. These words are instructions for building a life that will overcome the sorrows of this world and know the joy and peace of God yet we do not act on them and we do not act on them because they are difficult and they require more from us than what comes naturally and easily. Even a simple word like doing unto others what we would want done to us requires us to overcome our natural desire to want more than others, to use others to have our way at their expense, to overcome our distrust of each other, to trust at this most basic level the word of God to be true - that indeed kindness and goodwill will bear the fruit of kindness and goodwill.

 

These words have power to change our lives but only if we act upon them. They are not magical, they are demanding. They require a response. Since there is not much evidence that these words have changed our world one might conclude that they are impossible but it is not that they are impossible it is that they are difficult. Peter Maurin, a co-founder of the Catholic worker with Dorothy Day is quoted as having said: Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting, it's been found difficult and not tried.  

 

It is also true I believe that the results of acting on these words are not always evident but that the action itself whether it fails or succeeds has a value of its own. In other words we are not to give up doing what Christ teaches us to do just because we do not see the results for it is in doing these words that we are changed. We are blessed by the doing rather than by the results. The work of the Lord is its' own reward. The results are a gift we may never see. I remember of these words the time Jesus said that the kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow he does not know how. 

 

Neither are we to give up acting on these words because they are difficult or demand us to think about our natural response, to ponder why we do what we do. Sometimes these words ask us to do things we find strange or even unfair. Love your enemy. Judge not. Pray for those who persecute you. Return goodness for evil.

 

Perhaps it is the difficulty of overcoming our natural inclinations, of not being willing to do the work of acting on these words, the work of building a life of faith that Jesus was referring to when he also said: Enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. It has been said that life is just showing up but these words indicate something different. Just showing up will not be enough, we have work to both in the world and in ourselves, soul work, the work of building a life on the rock. The alternative is like when you are standing on the beach and the waves come over your feet and literally move sand from beneath your feet until you have nothing to stand on. Life is hard and a deep personal commitment is required to overcome. It is not impossible but neither is it easy. In another of these words Jesus offers encouragement for us to take the narrow way, the hard way, the way that demands we change our ways from self-centered to God-centered. He said that if we take on the difficult way of discipleship we will find that we will not be alone, that we will have help to do what seems impossible. He said: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for i am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Mt. 11.30)

 

These words are beautiful. These words give us hope. These words give us strength. These words are a promise that when we act on them, we will overcome not simply because we have done what we are supposed to do but because we have we have stopped fighting God, stopped resisting the call of God to have our own way and have joined with God to bring the kingdom of love on earth. We have surrendered to Christ who gave himself up for us. We have opened our hearts to the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, enabling us to do what is difficult and seemingly impossible because these words are God's words and God's words are a presence, they are life to us who hear them and who act upon them, who live them and with God, all things are possible. Even these words.