Sermons
"Groom Insurance"Pastor Ken Hilston |
Today's gospel talks about a type of faith insurance, building our lives on the rock of our Lord, the sure and solid foundation. If you want protection from the storms of life, build on our Lord. What's smart to do to protect yourself in life?
This sermon all goes back to when I was sitting on a bench in St. Andrew's New Brunswick last summer, just enjoying the beautiful sea side community. I happened to look up, and there was the sign, "Groom Insurance." It just struck me most odd. Puzzled, like I was dreaming, I first wondered, in a vacation daze, why not bride insurance? Then, how could you insure a groom, or what would you insure the groom for, or from? Was this like a strange pre nuptial? Then it dawned on me, with a slap to the head, "Groom" was the name of the owner of the insurance company, there was nothing marital about it.
It did start me to think about how much we want to insure different parts of our lives from all kinds of uncertainties. Where do we seek security and safety in life? How do we get it? Usually what we do is buy the insurance policy, so someone else takes care of the big loss for us if worse comes to worse. Insurance is investing in ourselves, protection for ourselves, from the insecurities of life. It helps to smooth out the rough edges, so no major changes overtake us, nothing totally upsets the applecart! We want to insure that things can go on, as close to usual as possible.
Then always not that far from thinking about the church, I thought, but what about people who want a type of faith insurance? We also want insurance in the faith as well. Not only at times is life uncertain, so are the faith expectations.
Unlike normal insurance with Prudential, or others, we can't buy it and let someone take care of us. Also our faith insurance only helps face, not protect us from facing many of the hardships of life. Our faith insurance as the gospel tells us, is what we do ahead of time to be ready for problems, hearing and doing God's word. Of course, we want more insurance than that. We need insurance from ourselves when we are deaf to God's word, and too lazy to carry it out!
We want some kind of assurance to protect self and family from the hard-nosed challenges of the faith: turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, love your enemies, and understand we are blessed by our Lord when we mourn (all daunting faith expectations gleaned from the two previous chapters in Matthew).
We crave more protection, insurance against what the faith expects, so when life in the faith gets dicey, we can scramble back to where we set the rules, where we have control.
We see from the gospel today, a recommendation for a type of insurance, what to do to protect us from some of the stings of the vagaries of life. Partly what the parable from Matthew shines a light on, is building our lives on what it is truly solid and what is a firm foundation, rather than what only seems secure by our definition. Matt 7:24-27 "Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; 25 and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; 27 and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it."
RSV (Luke's version emphasizes how we build the house, while Matthew makes us look closely at the foundation placement.)
Both builders had well built houses, where one built impressively, but where it could not stand. We are to build our lives on the rock of our Lord, not just anyplace. As in real estate, the motto always is, "location, location, location." The same is with the faith.
For Matthew, the marvelous looking house, well built to meet any condition, when built on sand, is only deceptively protective. There are two ways we try to deceive ourselves on location in the faith.
First we think about multiple locations, one house of our lives built on Sunday, a vacation type home, and one house built for the rest of the week. What seems reasonable on Sunday in the faith, looks a little shaky living it out during the rest of the week. We want a more restrictive set of rules and more control for the week. Could you really treat people at work, at school, in the neighborhood, the same way you treat those you meet on Sunday? Aren't they really two different worlds? Does not our work week demand a higher level of insurance from life to protect us from the REAL WORLD? Isn't it like car insurance where if you live in a more dangerous neighborhood, you are a greater insurance risk, and the policy costs more because it is a riskier place to live?
Do we try to trust in our Lord AND yet try to put limits on what our Lord can ask of us in the real world? Sunday really is more like a vacation which is nice but we always go back to our regular home.
It is our regular home we build that has all the safeguards, protected from the challenges of the faith. It is ok to take that Sunday vacation where the faith has control of our lives with our permission. But when it becomes too challenging, we can return quickly back where it is safe, where it is controlled by us, where all of our safeguards are in place. Of course it only looks safe, but without our Lord as the foundation, it will fall.
In many ways we look at Christian education the same way. Somehow we think that is on a much lower level from "real education." It is almost like it is a luxury that if necessary, we can do without. Our teachers work hard each week to help prepare us not just for religious life, but real life, since the faith is to help guide us in the real world, in all of life.
Our second look at location, foundation, comes from the upcoming Bible School program. Vacation Bible School will emphasize those places in life that truly are in God's big back yard, and that is where our whole life should reside, not just our Sunday life, even though it appears to offer less security and insurance, the way we usually look at it.
The foundation we build on is not in concrete, stone, not a place per se, or even on a hard rock, but on service, as the Bible School program helps us to investigate- service to family, friends, neighbors, community and Jesus. We dig down deep into life serving, much like our Lord.
Serving will take us to places in need, which seems like they would be unstable, shaky or threatening locations according to our world's standards, yet it is in service where we find our Lord working with us. Since we were created to serve, that is where we are to put our efforts and foundation. And in serving, we are truly where we need to be, with our Lord, our only firm foundation. However we would rather look out for us first, what seems a sturdier foundation.
Most of the time we want our homestead, our foundation built where it is impregnable from all the strangeness of life, far from pain, hurt, hunger, homelessness and fear, and even at times, far from faith's expectations. But it is in serving where real life, real faith is found.
Obviously any of the insurance policies we have trying to protect us from the vagaries of life only take care of some things, and never really puts things back together as they were. Obviously, there is no real groom, or bride, insurance. **There can be no insurance policy that can prevent the hurt of any relationship gone sour.
What we deep down try to insure in our lives is almost as silly as that "groom insurance." All we get is a false sense of protection. We build a marvelous protective wall around our lives, that is not supported by the foundation. How risky is that? How silly, since we already have a Lord who is the foundation of our lives, the solid rock and firm foundation, while all other ground is sinking sand. And where do we find Him? Serving! Therefore, where should we be, but serving, serving family, friends, congregation, neighborhood and community? AMEN