Friends, today’s Gospel is Luke’s conclusion to the Sermon on the Plain.

Someone who comes to me, Jesus says, who “listens to my words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built.”

This is the heart of it: If you are rooted in God, then you can withstand anything, precisely because you are linked to that power that is creating the cosmos. You will be blessed at that deepest place, and nothing can finally touch you.

But the one who does not take Jesus’ words to heart “is like a person who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it collapsed at once and was completely destroyed.” 

When the inevitable trials come, the life built on pleasure, money, power, or fame will give way.

So the question is a simple one: Where do you stand? How goes it with your heart? On what, precisely, is the whole of your life built?