Sandbar Theology

Thanks to the smartest man I know,Michael Jinkins, for inspiring this one.
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Matthew 7:24-27

“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!”

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I enjoy this life as a jester
Seems to keep me movin' around
Like the wind that blows
Tide that flows
Have my ups and downs

All a part of some strange plan I'm sure
Start a new chapter each day
Honey, love gets lost, time gets tossed
'Cause we've both got our own different ways

I feel like I'm stranded on a sandbar
Stuck in my tracks like a street car
Playin' it for all that it's worth
I'm just payin' for my sins on earth

"Stranded on a Sandbar" by Jimmy Buffett from the album "Volcano"

As Michael Jinkins writes, "The gospels don’t have much nice to say about sand." This is the most particular reference, when the storms come there is little sand does that supports a structure. When the tide flows and the wind blows Jimmy Buffett sings of personal ups and downs. As for the walls of your house, well, there are just downs.

I went to Miami Beach for a conference about 20 years ago. As you can well imagine from the name of the town, everything was on the beach, and I mean everything. There were fences on the beach. There were swimming pools on the beach. There were restaurants on the beach. There were 30 story hotels and apartments on the beach. That's when Matthew's warning crossed my mind. How do huge hotels survive in a foundation of sand. So I asked a cabby.

He told me that before the hotels were built, tremendous concrete piers were poured as a foundation. I don't know how many cubic yards of concrete has to be poured to turn a "beach" into a "rock covered with beach," but I'm sure it is both many and as of today enough.

But that's enough about engineering.

The second stanza of the first verse of Stranded on a Sandbar is the lament of a man whose life not really in a good place. His relationship is failing because they both have their own different ways. Evidently she's moving on, but he isn't because he's stranded on the sandbar. He's stuck in his tracks and unable to move. But for some reason, he believes that standing still is a form of atonement and he's playin' it for all it's worth.

Being in a place where being swept away with the rush of life is no form of atonement. It's really not much of a way of life either. Being swept in the tide is little more than a good way to be cast out to sea without the benefit of Jonah's great fish.

We instead are called to seek the rock of ages, the rock of our faith. That is where we build our great foundation. Without a solid foundation, everything we have and everything we do will be for naught as it blows away in the wind with the sand. As Michael Jinkins writes, in the sand what is here today is gone tomorrow. It's better to place our trust in what is here always. The foundation of the Lord our God.