Homily for 9th Sunday of the Year: Rock and Sand

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’s parable draws on an image that the people of the Holy Land would have known well – the winter rains, which are followed by flash floods. But I would like to transpose the central image of building on sand or rock to a more recent event. Almost a fortnight ago when the earthquake tragically struck Christchurch, New Zealand, we also witnessed a frightening natural phenomenon called soil liquefaction, which contributed to the devastation of the city. This only occurs with saturated sandy soil. Under immense stress during an earthquake, the sand is compacted, and the water between the soil particles is forced up, seeping out of the ground, so that the earth behaves more like a liquid than a solid. In comparison, rocky ground lessens the intensity of an earthquake, so that buildings have a greater chance of survival. One feature of soil liquefaction struck me especially: the sandy soil does have strength, and it is firm enough to support buildings. It truly appears solid. But under pressure, it turns to liquid, and loses its strength.

So the challenge that Jesus lays down in today’s Gospel is to ask us to consider what kind of ground we build our lives on: rock or sand? In psalm 18, the Lord is called “my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge”. And of course, we’re all familiar with St Peter’s confession of faith – he recognizes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And Jesus says to him: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it”. So, the rock is an image of Jesus, our God and Saviour, and of our faith in Christ as the one who alone will save us, and who is our refuge. Why is it wise to base our lives on Christ, and to trust in his teaching? Because Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. And the wise person, the philosopher, i.e., the lover of wisdom, seeks truth, and finds it in God, and in the community of believers who witness to his truth, in the Church.

We had an inspiring witness to this recently. Last Wednesday, Shahbaz Bhatti, who was a Catholic, and the only Christian minister in the Pakistani cabinet, was brutally killed. Just months before his death, despite having received death threats, he said: “I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ, who has given his own life for us. I know what is the meaning of [the] Cross and I’m following the Cross, and I’m ready to die for a cause. I’m living for my community and suffering people and I will die to defend their rights”. It is significant that he grounded his resoluteness on the person of Jesus Christ. In following the Cross for the sake of justice, goodness, and truth, he showed himself to be a steadfast disciple of Christ. And the source of such fortitude, I believe, is his trust in God, his rock, and his refuge.

Many of us here today are unlikely to face physical threats for the sake of our faith, unlike Christians all over the world, from Iraq to Egypt to Indonesia. But there are still many important ways in which we’re called to show courage and strength in the face of enormous social pressures. We pray for the grace to stand firm on the rock of Christ, and to be brave and truly wise.

There is the sandy ground which appears solid before its liquefaction under pressure, and we must be careful not to have built our lives on this. What do I mean? Some opinions of popular culture, and the views of the media may often seem like ‘common sense’. And the reasoning and skeptical thought of experts, celebrities, and many respectable people – even judges and academic philosophers – may seem reasonable and sound. But in psalm 14, we read that “the fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’”. So, in Biblical language, the one who rejects God is called the fool. So, if seemingly solid ideas lead someone to foolish conclusions, or are founded on false assumptions and shaky premises that deny the truth of God, then these ideas are more like sandy ground than rock. They’re not a sound foundation on which to build our lives. The wise person, even with just the light of natural reason, will find truth where it is to be found: in and from God, who is wisdom and truth itself. We live in a society which is growing in intolerance for our Christian beliefs, especially when what we hold to be true concerning God, the world, and our very nature as human beings impinge on various issues of public morality. Influenced by secular and relativist ideas, it may be tempting, perhaps, to think that the Church’s moral teaching is mere opinion. Or that Christianity is just one lifestyle choice among others which are somehow equally true. But that is incoherent. Either Christ is truth, and his Body, the Church, is given a corresponding authority and the guidance of his Spirit to teach truth in matters of faith and morals, or … we’re just gambling our time away.

But a real love of study, the quest for wisdom and understanding is not an intellectual game. So, from the beginning, Dominican study consisted in digging down into the bedrock of truth found in the Scriptures, the Word of God. In a vision received by St Catherine of Siena, God speaks to her about Dominican friars who have forgotten the importance of seeking truth, and so, in “chasing after a multiplicity of books” never taste the “marrow of Scripture”. So, even Dominicans were warned that mere academia and scholarship does not guarantee a rock-solid grasp of truth, any more than sandy ground can guarantee the survival of a building under the pressure of an earthquake. No, one’s life has to be built on the solid rock of Christ, with deep foundations in truth gradually attained through the proper use of reason, and through prayer.

It is evident that without this basis, as the Gospel (and our second reading) suggests, many of us can still do good things. But Christianity is not primarily about doing good, or being nice. Justice and charity must come from our faith in Christ, and love of his Word. Because if we don’t have the mind of Christ, seeking truth in humility, but rather have the pride of the world; if we trust in scholarship or our own learning over and above the teaching of his Church … then, in effect, we may not know him, and so, he might say to us: “I never knew you; depart from me”.

So today’s parable invites us to re-examine our faith in Christ, and to trust that he is the truth in which we live, and move, and have our being. We show we’re capable of this kind of trust when we build skyscrapers, and live and move in them … even when they’re built on fault lines! So it shouldn’t be much more difficult to trust in Jesus Christ who is without fault. For he is the rock of ages; God, our refuge, against whom the powers of death can never prevail.