Luke 6:43-7:10

     What Jesus says here is common sense. Good trees bear wholesome fruit; bad trees don’t. You don’t get good fruit from thorn bushes either. In the same way are people. When a person has a treasure of goodness in the heart, good words and deeds will be produced. In like manner, evil produces evil.
     Was Jesus challenging his followers to produce good and show goodness within? Was he challenging religious leaders of his day, pointing to hypocrisy? Was he simply leading into the story of the house built on sand? Was he doing many things at once?
     A wise debater will sometimes state truisms, truths that everyone can nod and agree with. Jesus goes on to point out that people might call him Lord, but it is pointless unless they are following through on what he taught. A foolish person will hear his words and not act upon them. That person is like one who builds his house upon the sand. In a rainstorm, a flashflood will come and wash their home away. A wise man listens and acts, thereby building his house upon a rock that can stand in the storm.
     It is hard to know for certain whether Jesus spoke these words in this exact sequence. Matthew and Luke show different collections of his teachings, so it is possible that the two comments do not inherently stand together. At the same time, the one can be said to flow one to the next in at least one sense. What Jesus spoke was sane and true and good. Jesus may not have been tooting his own horn, so to speak, but he may have been challenging his listeners to decide for themselves what his nature was like. If they listened and considered his authority to teach as valid, then it was foolish indeed to fail to live what he taught.
     Luke does not give as extended a time of teaching as Matthew. After this, he tells how Jesus went into Capernaum. A Roman Centurion lived there. The Centurion had a servant who he valued, but who was ill and close to death. This soldier had heard about Jesus, but instead of going to him directly, he asked some of the Jewish elders to approach Jesus on his behalf. These leaders did so, telling how the Centurion loved the Jewish people and had done much good for them, including building them a synagogue. This in itself is a remarkable statement. Luke’s book may well have been written at least partially to explain Christianity to the Gentile world, and to hear about this centurion was important. It is possible that the soldier was a god-fearer, a person who worshipped Yahweh, yet did not convert because of circumcision and the dietary laws.
     Whatever the circumstances, Jesus started immediately for the soldier’s home. Someone must have run ahead to tell the Centurion because he sent some of his friends to Jesus saying it wasn’t necessary to come to him. As a man of authority himself, he knew what it was to issue orders and know they would be followed. He trusted that Jesus, man of authority, could do the same.
      Jesus praised the man’s faith in the hearing of everyone around him, and the messengers returned to the Centurion’s home, to find the servant was healed.
      It may not be coincidence that Luke told a story of teaching that dealt with the authority of Jesus, then we hear this story about the nature of authority and the trust a Gentile had in Jesus.  The authority of Jesus remains in question today. Although millions claim they are Christians, they are largely unaware of what he taught. At a church several decades ago, a pastor decided to memorize Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount and give it for his Easter sermon. He didn’t say that’s what it was because he figured everyone would know. Yet after the service, numerous individuals came to him upset – they thought he had the wrong slant on things, needed to get a better idea of Christianity. Obviously, even Jesus' most active of followers don’t always know what he taught, which doesn’t say much for the authority they ascribe to him, or whether houses built upon ignorance can long stand.
      
What would it mean to truly acknowledge the authority of Jesus in one’s daily life?
What are the storms that might do the most damage to your house?
Where is your building program most active?