Jesus said, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who built a 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” (Matthew 7:24-25).
Jesus’ parable came to my mind not long ago when a terrific storm blew through my area: “The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on [our] house.” Oh, it left a mess behind! (The parable came to my mind again this morning when the electrician brought his ladder and tools to finish fixing the wires on the back of our house.)
This little parable about houses and storms comes at the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which starts with Matthew 5. I’m no scripture scholar, but it seems to me that Jesus put it at the end of his Sermon to emphasize to his disciples what he had said. Acting on what Jesus has taught is how we modern-day disciples can make sure that our own houses–our own lives–are built on a rock-solid foundation of faith that will withstand any storm.
rock-solid foundation
Women of the ELCA, our community of women called to discipleship in Jesus Christ, is built on a rock-solid foundation of faith, too–the faith, wisdom, and generosity of the generations of women who have gone before us. Part of their discipleship was passing on the treasures of their faith to future generations–us. And as disciples, we are called to do the same.
But now the storm of the pandemic is blowing and beating on all our houses. Is our foundation strong enough to withstand the storm? We think so, we hope so–but it wouldn’t hurt to reinforce it the best we can. That’s how we can carry out our discipleship and keep faith with the future generations who will need our community of women created in the image of God. Each of us can do our part to reinforce our foundation against the floods and the winds. We can do it. Together.
Audrey Novak Riley is director for stewardship for Women of the ELCA.
Photo by Wilfried Santer on Unsplash
Generous Regular Offerings are a powerful way to help reinforce our foundation
Whenever your congregational women’s group meets, whether in person, by phone, or online, please make a generous Regular Offering. Make your check out to Women of the ELCA and write “Regular Offering” on the memo line. Then mail it to your congregational unit treasurer. (Learn more here.)
Your congregational unit treasurer will set aside part of it for your ministries and will forward the rest to the treasurer of your synodical women’s organization. She, in turn, will set aside part for the ministries of the synodical women’s organization and forward the rest to the churchwide women’s organization. And that will help support the ministries of the churchwide organization, including the communications ministries that keep us connected across the miles. (Learn more here.)
Together–as individuals, congregational women’s groups, synodical women’s organizations, and the churchwide women’s organization–we’ll get through the storm.