Surprise Ending!

“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. 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. 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. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

I think there is a tendency to look past exactly what Jesus is saying here.  “These words of mine” - the rock to build our house on - means having a humble and contrite heart, turning the other cheek, walking a second mile, loving our enemies.  These are not weaknesses but strengths.  This extraordinary type of love and forgiveness will see you through life’s storms.

I get the sense that many church-goers today don’t believe this.  A friend of mine says, “That’s nice, Dave, but in real life, people on the other side have guns.”  He served in combat so he knows firsthand.  Among soldiers, I think of someone like Dick Winters, of Band of Brothers fame, Sgt. Alvin York, a would-be conscientious objector, or Desmond Doss, a “conscientious collaborator” who served as a medic but refused to carry a gun.  The latter two were Congressional Medal of Honor winners.  It is possible to serve in combat and keep your faith. But Christ did more than that and so must we.

Legally, a Roman soldier could force a non-Roman to carry their gear for one mile along the Roman roads (which were marked for distance).  Now imagine someone being bullied into doing this, turning to the soldier and saying, “I will carry your load two miles, not one.”  Who has the power at that point?  How does that change the perspective of the soldier?  Turning the other cheek is for when someone insults you, slaps your face, not for when someone beats you.  Again, imagine if someone says to me, “hey baldy!”  I could insult them back, I could take it up a notch, or I could reverse things by insulting myself even further.  “Baldy?  What about my broken nose?”  The first two reactions would clearly inflame the situation.  The third?  

Humility.  The last shall be first and the first shall be last.  God has made an upside-down kingdom.  Jesus was born to poor parents, laid in a manger, not a palace.  He grew up the son of a carpenter, thus presumably a carpenter himself.  In those days, that usually meant he was a day-laborer, digging ditches, building mud-brick homes.  He was not a land-owner, and thus had to work for his food.  All that is guesswork, but reasonable.  This God turned man changed everything forevermore by starting his preaching in the most remote parts of the long-lost kingdom of Israel.  Does anything good come from Nazareth?  Yes.  Yes it does.

As Paul summarized in Philippians 2, "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!"