What are we building upon?

Arid regions such as Israel tend to have no shortage of sandy places.

Indeed, in areas that are both arid and mountainous (which describes many locations in Israel), sandy places tend to be the flatter ones and therefore the easiest upon which to build.

In time, however, it becomes apparent that these nice, flat, sandy locations are not the safest on which to build a place to live. Disaster inevitably follows.

The image of such disaster, which our Lord uses in today's Gospel (Matthew 7:21, 24-27), would have been very familiar to his listeners in that time and place:

(A fool) built his house on sand.

The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.

And it collapsed and was completely ruined

You and I today live in a world of sand: the shifting sands of popular opinion, culture, and pseudo-scientific fads.

It is upon these sands that many people today build their lives and base their views of reality. It is the easiest way to go and the most effortless place to live.

Until the deluge.

And the deluge will always come, sweeping the people of sand to utter disaster.

The shifting sands of conventional, popular wisdom offer no security against deceptions of evil men, the rush of human passions, the infinite complexities of the universe, or the utter blackness of death.

Hear the words of the Lord, our Savior Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God who is the way of everlasting life:

Everyone who listens to these words of mine
and acts on them
will be like a wise man
who built his house on rock.

The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.

But it did not collapse;
it had been set solidly on rock.

And everyone who listens to these words of mine
but does not act on them
will be like a fool
who built his house on sand.

The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and buffeted the house.

And it collapsed
and was completely ruined.

What are we building upon?