Matthew 7:24-27 – The Father’s Eternal Kingdom

I’ve been watching The Godfather the past few weeks while I exercise. Watching something longer than the workout is about the only way I can maintain any sort of regular exercise regimen. I need the anticipation of what comes next to motivate me to get back on the elliptical each day for another 40 minutes. But while my exercise oddities might be interesting, it’s The Godfather that comes to mind when I read this last section of the Sermon on the Mount.

In the days of flannelgraphs, my Sunday school teacher put a house on the pale blue background and a rock underneath it. On the other side of the flannelgraph, she placed another house under which she put an image of sand. We, the brilliant 3rd graders that we were, were asked which house would stand best if a storm came and beat against them. We were in church and knew the answer was probably “Jesus” but we didn’t know if Jesus was the rock or the sand. Eventually, some overachieving child pointed out that it was the rock because “rocks are more stable than sand.” Once the words came out of my mouth I was immediately embarrassed…er…I mean, that child was.

But flannelgraphs aren’t needed to tell us the temporal nature of those things built upon sand. I just finished reading a book titled The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebold. He tells the story of the town of Dunwich built on the coast of the North Sea. During the 13th and 14th century it was mostly washed away into the sea because the ground upon which it stood was sandy soil and constantly was under siege by the ocean waters. It’s a fascinating story that illustrates the truth about sand being a poor foundation.

Like Dunwich and the flannel graphs, The Godfather is another tale of a house built on sand. This story written by Mario Puzo tells of an Italian-American family headed by Don Corleone. He grabs and consolidates power by means of deceit, graft, and murder. By the time Godfather, Part III comes along, the Corleone family, headed by the Don’s son Michael, played by Al Pacino, is worth billions of dollars and helping bail out the Catholic Church who is in debt to the tune of $600 million dollars. All the money the Corleone family had, however, came from illicit activities and each movie illustrates the extremes to which they will go to hold on to their empire. While some find these movies inspiring, I find them quite depressing. The final image seen in The Godfather, Part II, is of Michael Corleone sitting alone in his mansion at Lake Tahoe. He stares out the window thinking about the price he paid to maintain his power. The most despicable act of which was that just moments before he ordered the killing of his own brother Fredo. Finding himself at the top of the underworld, but came face to face with his empty victory. The cost of holding on to his sandcastle was more than he could have imagined just a few years earlier.

While most of us don’t own casinos and pay off the police and politicians, we aren’t really that much different from the Corleone family. Substitute our man caves for their casinos; substitute our expensive houses for their house on Lake Tahoe; substitute the relationships we lost in our pursuit of wealth for his killing of Fredo; substitute everything we hold onto that can, at a moment’s notice, slip through our fingers for anything the Corleones pursued and you will find that Michael Corleone’s empty stare as he sits alone in his sandcastle is not so much different than many of our thoughts about the accomplishments of our lives. It is a sad story.

I think it is for this reason that many find the book of Ecclesiastes so compelling. It is written by someone who built the biggest and best sandcastles in the history of humanity, and he tells us that everything is vanity, vanity, all is vanity. The Hebrew word for “vanity” literally means “vapor” or “breath.” Wealth. The wind. Education. A vapor. Wisdom. A breath. Spouses. A waft. Possessions. A whiff. The sandcastles we build are merely a touch of air, ready to be eroded by the storms of life.

In contrast to these images of temporality, we find Jesus telling us to conclude our prayer with the words, “Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” While I realize some translations don’t include these words, I know there is sufficient manuscript evidence to make it highly likely that Jesus did, in fact, conclude the Lord’s Prayer with these words. And it is a proper conclusion. Given everything that we have found thus far in our exploration of the Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount, it is only fitting that we conclude our prayers by stating that the only eternal kingdom, power, and glory is the solid rock of the Father. His kingdom will never end. His power will never weaken. His glory will never fade. We can try to build for ourselves a kingdom, to consolidate power, or to seek glory, but no matter how large our kingdom, how broad our power, how beautiful our glory, it will all fade away into the dust of history. Rome has fallen, England is now just an island, and no one really cares much about the Kardashians anymore. When it is all said and done, what are we left with? Sand. But even that filters through our fingers quite easily.
When we conclude our prayers with an affirmation of the eternality of the Father’s kingdom, the Father’s power, and the Father’s glory, we either affirm that for which we spend our life or we bring it all into question. Is our work being done for a kingdom, a power, and a glory that will not fade, or has the labor of our souls been poured into something that will inevitably come to nothing?

Finally, if we look back to the entire Lord’s Prayer, we will find that each phrase relies upon an eternal kingdom, power, and glory for its fulfillment. The name of the Lord is to be hallowed because it is unchanging. His kingdom coming to earth is a glimpse into an eternal world in our temporal world. The Father’s moral will paves the way to his kingdom’s gates. His eternal kingdom is the only place that can fulfill every need every day for everyone for all time. Only an eternally forgiving Father can forgive everyone’s debt. Only an infinitely wise Father can lead us along a path so as to avoid temptations. Only an infinitely powerful Father can hope to conquer evil. And only by the infinite power and glory of our Father can we expect to live as his children forever in his eternal kingdom.

Maybe that’s one reason why I like having something to watch while exercising; the anticipation of a certain future encourages me to go on. But I must not forget the lesson learned by watching The Godfather; building my house on the eternal rock of Jesus Christ is much better than building upon the shifting sands of time.

That is why we pray, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

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