Thursday of the First Week of Advent, 2018

“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them…” (Mt 7:24). In today’s parable Jesus contrasts a man building a house on a rock foundation with a man who builds on sand, but what exactly is the foundation of which He speaks? Christ Himself? Christ’s words? No, in each case the man listens to the words of Christ. The difference is between the one who puts them into action and the one who does not. The foundation of the house is the actions of the individual, the only thing we can truly claim as our own. This parable of Jesus takes into account the Hebrew concept of word, “dabar,” with its understanding that a word is meant to be effective. In our age of constant noise and claptrap, this notion can seem foreign, yet we despise hypocrisy, lying, the breach of contracts or vows—all of which are cases where people do not conform to what they say or profess to believe. Jesus’ message is very challenging for a preacher and explains why it is hardest to preach to one’s own community or kin—they know whether we live in conformity to what we say. Nothing undermines the truth of what is preached so strongly as contradictory actions.

Today the Church celebrates a man who did build on rock: the original Santa Claus, St. Nicholas. We associate St. Nicholas with the giving of secret gifts because, according to legend, he threw gold into an impoverished neighbor’s window at night when the neighbor was planning to sell his three daughters into prostitution since he had no money to provide dowries for them. St. Nicholas’s gold saved them from this fate. Nicholas heard the words of Christ and put them into action so much so that his actions still speak to us 1675 years after his death. Like St. Nicholas may we be doers of the word and not just hearers.