Sermon Title: "Not Only to Hear, But to Do"
Date: June 1, 2008
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Matthew 7:21-29

About fifteen years ago, at one of the many neighborhood meetings I’ve attended regarding the piece of property formerly known as the Bay Shore Church parking lot, a man in the audience at the Lowell School auditorium introduced himself to me and told me he was a member of “my” church.

In the first place, it’s not “my” church; it’s your church, or more properly, it’s Jesus’ church.  Secondly, I had never seen the man before, in or out of “my” church.  Back in the church office the next day, I looked through the membership records and did not find his name listed either there, nor on the mailing list.

I haven’t thought about that incident in at least a dozen years, but when I first read the gospel lesson for today, it was the first thing that popped into my mind.  Now that gentleman might have been a very nice man who did many good things for people, but in light of the gospel, I couldn’t help but compare him to one who hears the word, but does not become a doer of it.

In today’s lesson, Jesus rebuffs those who think they can slide into the kingdom of God by mere name-dropping.  “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.”  As usual, Jesus’ audience is left to wonder who, then, can get into the kingdom?  He doesn’t answer this question specifically in this reading.  Matthew has Jesus saying that whoever hears his words and acts on them will be like the wise man who built his house on a rock.  The corollary is also true:  Everyone who hears these words and does not act on them is like a foolish man who built his home on what was likely the sandy stream bed.

So what is going to get any of us into the kingdom of heaven?  Belief is important.  Profession of faith is important.  But character and genuine righteousness are more important.  Being in the kingdom of God is not about the grand gesture, mighty works, exercising prominent gifts of the Spirit.  It is about being faithful doers of the word. 

An example is one used two weeks ago at the annual meeting of our congregation by both Nominating chair David Westerfield and myself.  The back page of the report, duplicated on today’s yellow bulletin insert, names all the church officers, present and new commission members, and committee members.  You saw our new officers stand a little while ago.  Named among our seven commissions are 62 persons who do the work of the church.  On the backside are five committees, comprising 32 members, some of whom also serve on commissions.  It is quite remarkable to me, and indicative of the caliber of doers of the word we have in this church, that eight of our past moderators, our highest lay position, have gone back and now serve on commissions.  Worship Commission alone has five of its twelve members as past moderators!  Not only that, but our commissions include four high school students who were confirmed in recent years.

This Sunday’s Gospel reminds us that Jesus is not only welcoming, affirming, and loving, but he is also demanding.  To be a follower of Jesus is to be willing to come to church on a pleasant early June Sunday like this one and to be confronted by the scathing demands of Jesus.  The church rests, not on the mushy sand of warm and fuzzy affirmation, but on the rock:  the tough-as-nails demands of a righteous and holy God who meets us in Jesus and his teaching.  The church rests on all the people named throughout these Annual Reports, and lots of you who aren’t named, who didn’t just hear God’s word, but then proceeded forth to do it.

In Matthew, Jesus is demanding and disturbing.  At first glance, Jesus sounds ready to tell you what you need to have a better life.  But then he tells his parable of the house built on the sand, saying that the only foundation that endures is the life that is built upon obedience to him and his word.  He doesn’t offer some snappy, memorable slogans to make us healthy, wealthy, and wise.  He does not give some principles that are alleged to be the key to life.  His is not a “prosperity gospel.”  He gives us himself and his words, words that confront and challenge and say that this is the only way to live.  And he even threatens us if we fail to obey him.  This is clearly a Jesus who means to be in authority over us.

So you come to church on Sunday not to get encouragement to try harder to be more positive and to think better about yourself.  You come to church to listen to Jesus, to hear his words no matter how challenging and demanding his words.  And the purpose of preaching, at least as the church has historically defined it, is not to give you some snappy, sure-fire principles for success and prosperity, but rather to give you Jesus, to enable an encounter between you and a living, commanding, life-giving Lord.  It is to challenge you to be not only hearers of his word, but doers.

(Portions of the final three paragraphs include some sentences from a sermon by

William H. Willimon, entitled “God Has a Plan for Your Life—And It’s Difficult!”)