Isaiah 44:6-8 ; Matthew 13:24-43
Do we have any Donnie Iris fans in the congregation? Or if you’re a
true Yinzer – any DAW-nee ARZ fans?
If you are, you should remember he had three big singles “Ah, Leah,”
“My Girl,” and Love is Like a Rock.” All of those came out while I was
in college. And here’s a safety tip: you don’t want to be anywhere near
my car on the highway when any of those songs come on the radio.
Especially “Love is Like a Rock.” You may remember the lyrics:
You can't depend on your teacher
You can't depend on your preacher
You can't depend on politicians
You can't depend on superstitions
You can't rely on Mother Nature
You can't rely on your paycheck
You can't depend on your doctor
You can't depend on your lawyer
Love can rock you
Never stop you
Ah, ah, ah, ah
Love is like a rock
But is that true? Can we really count on human, romantic love to get
us through everything – as great as being in love feels? Or what about
human goodwill – as self-sacrificing and kind and beautiful as that is?
A counselor friend of mine is fond of saying that our emotions are
always real – but not always accurate. And that is especially true
when we consider how broken we human beings are and how
unreliable our emotions can be.
So love can be like a rock – but rocks erode, boulders break loose,
and even The Old Man in the Mountain – a series of granite ledges on
the side of Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire, which has been the
state symbol since 1945 – came crashing down early in the morning of
May 3, 2003. The damage was done, one raindrop and one freeze
and thaw cycle at a time.
The same thing can happen to human love. How many couples –
thought to be “the perfect couple” by their friends and families – end up
divorcing? I often tell couples who are getting married that very few
divorces happen because someone “blew up” the marriage – rather,
most of them happen because one or both of them neglected the
marriage and allowed it to be “eroded.”
And it can happen to governments and leaders and businesses and
industries and products – and even churches – which were thought to
be dependable or indestructible. How many of those people we voted
for or those indestructible items we bought or “sure fire” investments
failed to live up to the hype.
King Solomon understood that – and wrote about it in the first two
verses of the Book of Ecclesiastes:
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
Countless authors have made Solomon out to be the first existentialist
philosopher – but they misunderstand him. Solomon is saying that
everything is meaningless when we don’t consider everything in the
light of the God who made everything.
If God had not started the earth spinning waaaaaay back in the
beginning, it would be uninhabitable today. But it was tilted at the
perfect angle relative to the Sun: 23.44 degrees – and made one
revolution every 24 hours (give or take). Perfect conditions for life of
all kinds – and that has not changed.
You would almost think God had it all figured out …
Who would ever have thought that the Cathedral of Notre Dame in
Paris – which survived storms and floods, the Protestant Reformation,
the French Revolution, and not one, but two world wars – would come
“this close” to being destroyed by fire? It was only by the Grace of God
and the wisdom of some experienced firefighters that it did not collapse
into a heap of rubble.
Everything that is not the “Rock” is sand. Sand gets blown around by
the wind. But the Good News is that in a world filled with shifting
sands, competing voices, and counterfeit truths, our triune God stands
alone. God is the only Rock we can count on – because God is the
only Rock who can keep His people and His kingdom secure until the
final harvest at the end of time.
And now you know why we’re singing “Come, Ye Thankful People,
Come” in July …
Even the grandest mountains erode, and human structures eventually
fail. What do we lean on when the ground beneath us is unsteady?
I hope we all can answer: “We lean on God. We rely on God.
We trust in God, because only God is eternal, only God is all-knowing,
and only God is all-powerful.”
In our reading this morning from Isaiah 44, we find Israel surrounded
by nations worshipping hand-made idols. God steps forward to ask:
“Is there any other god besides me?”
If the people actually heard God’s voice, they might have cried out in
fear and faith, “No – You are the one true and living God!”
Then, in our Gospel Lesson from Matthew 13, Jesus is preaching to a
crowd struggling to understand why evil exists in the same places as
God's kingdom. He gives them the parables of the weeds, the mustard
seed, and the leaven – all of which tell them to be patient – because
God will sort it all out in the end. And we can trust God with that.
Both passages point us to the inescapable reality that there is no other
Rock than Jesus Christ. He is the One who wrote the history of our
redemption. He is the One who brought it into being. And He is the
One who will hang on tightly to us until the very end.
Or as the old Gospel hymn tells us:
Many things about tomorrow,
I don't seem to understand;
But I know who holds tomorrow,
And I know who holds my hand.
So we should let go of everything we trust for security and hang onto
the One Sure Thing – our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.