September 6, 2026
Tough Love and Unholy Foolishness
Proverbs 12 (excerpts), Matthew 7: 24-29
Rev. David Germer – FPC Asheville
Proverbs 12
1 Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but those who hate to be rebuked are stupid.
3 No one finds security by wickedness,
but the root of the righteous will never be moved.
7 The wicked are overthrown and are no more,
but the house of the righteous will stand.
12 The wicked covet the proceeds of wickedness,
but the root of the righteous bears fruit.
15 Fools think their own way is right,
but the wise listen to advice.
20 Deceit is in the mind of those who plan evil,
but those who counsel peace have joy.
21 No harm happens to the righteous,
but the wicked are filled with trouble.
28 In the path of righteousness there is life;
in walking its path there is no death.
In that proverb, and in many proverbs, we are cautioned against both wickedness and stupidity or foolishness. All these warnings are worth heeding, as I imagine we all want to avoid being both wicked, and foolish… and I’ll clarify, especially for the youth in the room, who studied Holy Foolishness last year: this is not “holy foolishness” being warned against, here. It is specifically stupidity – careless, unholy foolishness; an almost willful rejection of the wisdom that is out there and available.
Scripture is full of such warnings – in the Psalms and wisdom literature, the prophets, the epistles, the gospels. We’ll turn our attention now, to a warning in the gospels, specifically to Matthew: the closing words of Jesus’ sermon on the Mount.
Listen for God’s word.
Matthew 7:24-29
“‘Everyone, then, who hears 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 beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!’
Now when Jesus had finished saying these words, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes.”
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Please rise in body or in Spirit to sing Hymn #821: My Life Flows On
“Earth’s lamentation;” “all the tumult and the strife;” “though my joys and comforts die;” “though the darkness gather round”…
And in every refrain: life’s storms.
This hymn is realistic about life, in the same way that Jesus is: “The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and beat against that house.”
The storms are going to come – on the righteous and the wicked, the writer of Proverbs would tell us; on the wise and the foolish, both that author and the author of our souls, Jesus, would tell us. There’s no guidance for avoiding the storm. It doesn’t pass over the wise builder. It’s coming.
What is uncertain, is how we respond. The result.
What happens to the house of our soul, when the storm hits.
Will you pray with me?
May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts together, be pleasing to you, O Lord our rock, and our redeemer.
Tell us what we need to hear; show us what we ought to do, in obedience to you, O God. Amen.
Today we are concluding our summer sermon series, “Stories with a Twist: The Unexpected Teaching of Jesus,” looking at many of his parables and seeing and hearing that they are not always safe and cuddly and inviting… but often mysterious and dangerous and even a little confounding or troubling. The good news, as we close the series, is that this passage is not all of those things. It’s not that mysterious or confounding, at all; it’s pretty straightforward. It is dangerous and can be troubling, because it is, to put it plainly, a warning. And it is so vivid.
The image on the front of the bulletin captures something like what I bet your mind pictures, when you hear the passage, or are reminded of it.
A strong, robust structure, in contrast to a structure (or structures) that are destroyed or in shambles or here, in the process of falling over. The piece is clearly not realistic, but metaphoric itself – the colorful and ornate beautiful church is in the center, high and lifted up; the other buildings are plain, dull, imposing, and on their way down, being swept away.
The wise build their house on the rock; the foolish build their house on the sand. We know the outcome for the two.
But let’s look a little more at the setup. How did they get there, and how did Jesus get here, at the conclusion of his sermon?
If you polled 50 committed church going Christians (regardless of denomination), and 50 Bible scholars and theologians, and asked them where in Scripture would one find the heart of what it means to be a Christian? Of all the words in the Bible, which books would you turn to, first, or most… I think they all or almost all would answer: the Gospels. (Don’t you think that would be a good answer?) And if you pressed further and said, ok, but which parts, you’d get some mentions of The Good Samaritan and The Prodigal Son, maybe some of Jesus’ ‘farewell discourse’ in John… but I think 90 or more would point to Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount – this extended section of Jesus’ words to his disciples explicitly teaching them how to live, how to be disciples.
In the sermon, we have the beatitudes – who is blessed in the upside down kingdom of God… and, what does it look like to practically live in this kingdom? How can we be wise in marriage and relationships, how can we and why must we be radically committed to truth-telling, how do we think about anger and lust, judgment and righteousness, wealth and worry, as creatures beloved by the God of the universe, how do we pray, how do we love our enemies? And along the way, Jesus is reframing so much of what these God-fearing people thought they knew. “You’ve heard it said…. But I say to you.”
And his instructions are somehow both incredibly practical and so lofty that they receive the accusation, consistently, of being idealistic. You’ve heard this, right? “If you look at someone with lust, you’ve committed adultery? Turn the other cheek when someone strikes you? Nobody can live up to the Semon on the Mount!” people say. There is grace laced throughout, but also a laser-focused seriousness… almost as though it’s clear that Jesus really wants us to try to live by these words… because doing so would be the most beautiful and exciting way to live.
And he ends it, not as we might assume or like. You know, the Apostle Paul gets a bad rap sometimes, for being harsh and intense, too judgmental or caught up in the details… by people who don’t read Paul very much. Paul is obsessed with grace. With love. He gives us the endings we crave: “the greatest of these is love.” “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” “Peace be to the whole community, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness”… That’s all Paul.
Jesus ends his sermon on the mount, his magnum opus, with three warnings. Our passage is the third, but immediately prior, Jesus says “enter the Narrow Gate to the hard road,” not the wide easy one that leads to destruction. (And most won’t find the narrow gate.) He says” beware of false prophets” – wolves in sheep’s clothing, trees that produce bad fruit. “Not all who say they know me really do.”
THEN, a third warning, our passage: don’t be a fool.
And what is it that makes someone a fool?
Is it not believing in Jesus? Not obeying the 10 commandments? Not remembering that God loves and forgives us?
Jesus can be so tender… but here he is tough, and frankly, what strikes us, if we’re listening carefully, as a little self-important.
“Anyone who hears these words of mine, and does not do them.”
Anyone who has received this new teaching of mine where I reframe what you thought you knew… and goes on living in the old way: they are fools. And… they are going to crash and burn, spectacularly.
Does Jesus say things like this? We sometimes like to think he doesn’t.
Dale Bruner, who wrote what many consider the greatest commentary on Matthew, notes that “Matthew’s gospel is more pervasively insistent than Paul’s that immoral practice removes a person from the way to the kingdom. We see this so consistently on every page of Matthew that it would be redundant to cite texts. Believers need the warnings of Scripture no less than they need the promises. Warnings are not just for other people, for non-Christians, or for bad Christians; they are even perhaps especially for serious Christians who, almost by definition, are in danger of pride or smugness.”
Are you a serious Christian? I hope so. I am… or at least, I want to be. And as soon as I acknowledge that, I start thinking about “unserious Christians,” and their foolishness.
It’s not that they are bad people, or wicked… they just don’t do what Jesus said to do. And there is a natural consequence for that, Jesus is saying.
It’s not that he’s saying (and I think this is so important): the person who built his house on sand, who doesn’t do what I say – God is going to be so angry with them that God is going to come destroy house (and will make sure there’s no collateral damage for the wise builder, because God’s happy with them). Nor does he even say: “the storm is coming for all and it’s going to be rough, and if the foolish builder on the sand happens to make it through, don’t worry, God is going to come kick the stilted-support beams out from under them.”
No. Jesus is saying: “This is the way of things; this is what is going to happen, and I don’t want it to happen! So please, do what I’m saying.”
Just live out The Sermon on the Mount.
Easier said than done.
The author GK Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” These are not small asks.
Another author wrote a short book on the challenges of taking Jesus’ actual words so seriously that we live them out, noting that “especially among Christians in positions of great wealth and power, the idea of reading the Gospels and keeping Jesus’ commandments as stated therein has been replaced by a curious process of logic,” whereby “people first declare themselves to be followers of Christ, and then they assume that whatever they say or do merits the adjective ‘Christian.’”
Now that’s easy to scoff at, and your mind, if it’s like mine, went to a few specific people… but here’s a question for you: how are you doing with living out the sermon on the mount? (And you could ask me: “David, how are you doing with it?”)
With refusing to retaliate. With dealing appropriately with your anger. Praying for the people you like the least. Turning your treasure, your wealth, your worry, all entirely over to God. Focusing on the log in your own eye instead of the speck in your neighbor’s. Living the Golden Rule.
The warnings are not just for others. “Fools think their own way is right,” we heard in the Proverb… but who among us does that not describe?
That short book I mentioned is called Blessed are the Peacemakers, by the author Wendell Berry.
Last week, Patrick noted that it became clear to him over the course of the week that Dolly Parton absolutely would need to be part of his sermon, as he discovered that she was beloved by, perhaps – literally everyone. No person has a higher (and more diverse and broad) approval rating than Dolly.
This week, it became clear to me over the course of the week that Wendell Berry, who died on Monday, would need to be part of my sermon, as he is beloved by… well, not everyone. Unlike Dolly, there are a whole lot of people who don’t even know who he is, and even those who do… some of them don’t particularly care for him. But, I will say that no person has a higher approval rating, by me, personally, than Wendell Berry. (I’m curious, do you know Wendell Berry?)
(If I felt I knew enough about Gloria Steinem to work her in here as well, I would.)
I do want to tell you about Wendell Berry. He was a farmer in Kentucky, and he is the author who has shaped my life more significantly than any other. Our son Titus owes his odd middle name – Wendell – to Mr. Berry, and to our reverence for him.
He wrote novels and short stories, all taking place in a fictional but true rural Kentucky community similar to the real community where Berry lived all but a handful of his 92 years. His novel, Jayber Crow, is, for me, his magnum opus, and I truly cannot commend it to you strongly enough.
He also wrote essays – those were my introduction to Berry, about 22 years ago as an impressionable and passionate college senior who wanted to right the world’s wrongs. I won’t universally commend those to you, in the same way I carefully avoid encouraging you to see the intense movies I sometimes like to talk about. They aren’t for everyone. (But if you’re up for a challenge, go for it.)
And, he wrote poetry – using language that can simultaneously make me weep over the beauties of life and death, and deeply ponder their mysteries. You could do a lot worse than starting every day with a Wendell Berry poem or two.
Berry’s often described as an angry farmer, and it’s true… but his anger was rooted in his Christian faith, and what he saw as the desecration of the gift of life and our planet and our minds and bodies, and our failure to see others as our neighbors.
Every time I finish a poem, or chapter, or essay, I feel that I understand better what it means to be human, what it means and looks like to be part of a community, and what it means and looks like to care about and be rooted deeply in a specific place and piece of land.
His writing took those big ideas, and brought them down into the here and now, by showing that behind each action was a choice to do what the Sermon on the Mount calls us to: to love God and our neighbors.
The article published about Wendell this week by Religion News Service had this title: “Wendell Berry’s radical lesson for Christians: Live What You Believe.” (So radical!) Just like the Sermon on the Mount, Berry is so practical, and easily dismissed as idealistic.
But try dismissing this poem. It’s called: “The Future”
For God’s sake, be done
with this jabber of ‘a better world.’
What blasphemy! No ‘futuristic’
twit [fool] or child thereof ever
in embodied light will see
a better world than this, though they
foretell inevitably a worse.
Do something! Go cut the weeds
beside the oblivious road. Pick up
the cans and bottles, old tires,
and dead predictions. No future
can be stuffed into this presence
except by being dead. The day is
clear and bright, and overhead
the sun not yet half finished
with his daily praise.
Friends, Jesus ends the sermon on the mount, his instructions about living as disciples, with a warning, saying: now you know. You’ve heard. Do it. Don’t be paralyzed by indecision, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Go live it out, in small, insignificant, world-shaping ways. This is not a mysterious teaching, from Jesus.
The warning is not saying: if you fail to live up to any of these things Jesus taught, then you’ve built your house on sand and you’re a fool. It’s a warning against a casualness toward the teaching of Jesus; against hearing Jesus’ words, and going about your day, going on with your life, and saying, “Huh, yeah, those were some pretty good ideas, I’ll keep them in mind…” Instead of treating them as the words of life, which is what they are.
If Jesus is God, if Jesus is Lord, then what else can we call it when someone hears what he said, knows what it is he calls us to do – and to does NOT do it – but foolishness?
Where are you called, today, this week, to live our Jesus’ words and teaching? Maybe it starts with rereading the Sermon on the Mount this afternoon, or finding some Wendell Berry to read and be challenged by, this week. Maybe you know exactly where you are not living it out.
Build your house on the rock. Believe the good news. Receive Jesus as God’s Word… and choose, today, and every day, to go live that Word.
Don’t just hear it, but do it. Amen.