St Gabriel’s, Toxteth, Trinity 21, 20/10/2013
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” Matthew 7:24-27
Workers receiving their pay; ......................; a father reunited with his wayward son: and now a story about two builders going about their work. Have you noticed how the parables of Jesus are about everyday people doing everyday things in everyday sorts of ways?
As I’m sure you know by now, from the sermons you’ve had in the past few weeks, the reason that Jesus told these stories, these parables, was to awaken people to the Kingdom of God, to get people talking about the Kingdom of God. It’s the the central idea of Jesus' teaching, the Kingdom of God. It simply means, the place where God rules, the situations where people allow God to take charge.
And where is this place? What sort of situations?
My message to you, in the middle of this teaching series on the parables, is simply this: the Kingdom of God is in everyday places, it takes shape in ordinary situations. Jesus’ parables are stories deeply rooted in ordinary life:
- stories of the mustard seed and the yeast and the fishing net, which illustrate to us that the Kingdom of God starts very modestly but expands excitingly;
- stories of the wedding banquet and many other meals which Jesus either talked about or enjoyed taking part in, not least that one we now knowingly call The Last Supper, all of which illustrate to us that the Kingdom of God is a festive, joyful and communal event, something which people do happily together;
- a story about a vineyard owner who pays equal wages to all his staff regardless of the hours they worked, which illustrates to us that the Kingdom of God is a scandal of grace;
- other stories about employers settling accounts with their workers which tell us that in the Kingdom of God certain obligations should be met;
- and stories about lost sheep and lost coins and treasure hidden in a field, which help us to know that in the Kingdom of God small things are valued highly, and ought to be sought out.
The Kingdom of God is 'in your midst', Jesus told his disciples in Luke 17.9-10, or translated another way, The Kingdom of God is 'within your grasp'. It’s here. And now. [1]
Sometimes the parables illustrate what God is like; sometimes the parables illustrate what we human beings are like. Always the parables illustrate what happens when we and God come together. What happens when we and God come together? The Kingdom of God happens. And it always happens in places we recognise, in situations we are always in, every day.
Have you noticed how, in the parables, people are asking the very same sorts of questions we have to ask day by day?
Questions like, ‘What am I to do about my son who has taken all the money I gave him and wasted it?’
Questions like, ‘Can I risk complaining to my employer who is paying me less an hour than these workers who he has only just hired?’
Questions like, ‘What am I going to do if I can’t find that precious ring I’ve lost?’
And we very easily recognise the situation described in today’s parable. A story about two builders. The decent builder and the cowboy builder. The one who did his homework on the structure, prodded and dug and found the solid rock which he knew would fix those foundations firmly. And the one who did a quick job, dumped his structure on the cheapest bit of ground he could find, took his money and ran before the people who bought the house from him noticed the cracks in the plaster and the wobbling brickwork and the shifting eaves.
Of all the parables of Jesus this is one of the plainest. It tells us very clearly that those who hear the words of Jesus and put them into practice are like a good builder, solid, secure, like a rock, and those who don’t are like the cowboy builder, shaky, insecure, liable to spend life looking over their shoulder, running away from their mistakes.
There is an expression I’ve heard recently which describes the good builder in a different way: the whole-life disciple. The whole-life disciple is someone who embraces the idea that Christianity is far more than attending church; it’s about me and God coming together to let the Kingdom of God happen - everywhere, all the time.
The whole life disciple hears the words of Jesus and puts them into practice. The whole life disciple takes what Jesus teaches them the scriptures, and from worship, and from prayer, and with God’s help applies them in the ordinary places they go, in the common or garden situations they encounter every day.
Looking around here I suspect I’m looking at a room of people who are already whole-life disciples, perhaps without realising it. If you take God seriously then you take God outside of church and you let what you know of God affect the way you live, in the family home, in the workplace, on the bus and in the Post office queue. And when you do this you expand the Kingdom of God. You let the Kingdom of God enter the place where you spend much of your time; you let the Kingdom of God grow in the place where you meet people who don’t know Jesus.
It’s sometimes about talking about God to those who don’t know him. It’s sometimes about being a good listener. Or a friend to a lonely person. It’s not rocket science, it’s simply loving people just as God loves you. Because you know that God loves them too.
Whole-life disciples are people like Isabelle, who is a quiet Christian who wouldn’t normally think of herself as a disciple. She says about herself, ‘I just clean the house, go to the shops and look after the grandchildren from time to time.’ But if you ask her some more about her grandchildren she says that she picks some of them up from school quite often, and that her eldest granddaughter comes to see her for Sunday lunch most weeks. That granddaughter knows that Isabelle goes to church on a Sunday morning, and often asks Isabelle, about the service, the sermon, the people. It turns out that Isabelle’s granddaughter is 22 years old. And that quite simply, quite naturally, Isabelle is every week giving her the gospel, if you like, telling her about Jesus. Quite simply, quite naturally putting Jesus’ words into practice: this is what it means to be a whole-life disciple. [2]
The Kingdom of God is the place God has called you. And it is exactly where you are today. The Kingdom of God is the place of possibility and potential for you, and it is the place where your faithfulness to God, your response to what you read in scripture, enables you to share God with others. [3]
And those questions you have - about family difficulties, about challenging situations in work, about those things you fear you’ve lost - if you take them to God, he will help you answer them, right here, right now. Where it matters, and where it counts.
Like another person whose story I’ll share with you, Peter, who works for an engineering company. His workmates know that he goes to church and they joke around with him about it. On a Monday morning they’ll say, ‘Have you prayed for me this week?’ And, Peter says, in all seriousness, ‘Yes, I have’. Peter struggles with his boss; he says, ‘Sometimes i feel like throwing the towel in or not giving 100% as a Christian. But I realise that if I’m going to take the words of Jesus seriously and put them into practice then I’ve got to do my bit, and just think, ‘You might not appreciate me, and sometimes I don’t like you, but I’m going to give it my 100% anyway because this is where God has called me to be.’’ [4]
So my message to you this week, in the middle of this teaching series on the parables, is a simple encouragement: keep on being a whole-life disciple; keep on trying to take the words of Jesus seriously and put them into practice in those everyday places where you live: your workplace, school, your home or neighbourhood, every place where you are aware of people that God loves and of situations where God could use you to make a difference. The Kingdom of God is built by people like us in places like these.
Through today’s parable Jesus says: you are a construction worker for me. You can create wonderful things for me. Let my stories guide you. Build on your faith, in everyday life. Don’t be a cowboy builder, be a good builder.
Notes
[1] This ‘Kingdom of God’ section lifted from my Greenbelt 2007 talk, Heaven in Ordinary. Matthew usually uses 'The Kingdom of Heaven' so strictly speaking I ought to use it here, but Kingdom of God (which is interchangeable) seemed to fit better for this sermon...
[2] Whole-life discipleship is a key concept in Neil Hudson: Imagine Church, which is behind much of this sermon and from which I have lifted Isabel’s story (p.27-29).
[3] See Life on the Frontline (London Institute for Contemporary Christianity). I replaced their term ‘the frontline’ with ‘the Kingdom of God’ here.
[4] Imagine Church, p.32.
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