On this rock I stand - the intersection between science and religion

 For Thursday 5 Dec 2024

In today’s Gospel, we hear a familiar image from Jesus: “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.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

 Today’s Gospel is one of Jesus’ more famous parables.  Did some of you learn the Sunday School hymn: ‘the wise man built his house upon the rock’?  I know I did.  This powerful image, of building our life on rock or on sand, seems to invites us to think about our lives in terms of foundation and stability.  Many a preacher has challenged us, over the years, to ponder the strength of our beliefs when the storms of life come. But I think there is more here than meets the eye. What does it really mean to build on the rock? What does Jesus want us to understand about our faith and its foundation?

When we hear the word “rock,” we might immediately think of certainty, of immovable truths. After all, in our world, certainty feels like security. We crave clarity. We want answers—clear, final, and unshakable. This is true in many parts of our lives, whether in science, philosophy, or religion. We seek to have everything figured out, to hold our beliefs firmly and never waver. We often assume that certainty is what makes a faith solid and secure.

But is that really what Jesus meant? Is the rock about knowing everything, about being sure of all the answers? Is it a call to build our lives on unwavering certainty? Or is it something deeper, something more open?

Franciscan writer, Richard Rohr, challenges us to reconsider this idea. He compares the way many of us approach our faith to the scientific method. Scientists, as he points out, are not afraid of not knowing. They are willing to experiment, to test, and to learn, always open to new discoveries and evidence. Yes, science operates in the material world, but its method—its openness to discovery—is something we might learn from. Scientists move forward with a sense of humility, knowing that their understanding is always subject to change. They’re not afraid to fail, to be wrong, and to revise their theories. They build on what they know, but they don’t assume that everything is already known. And that, I think, is where faith and science intersect: in the willingness to live with mystery, in the trust that the journey of discovery is itself valuable.

Now think about this in relation to our faith. So often, we treat belief like a set of facts to be defended rather than a living, evolving practice. We insist on knowing everything about God, everything about the world, and every answer to every question. We want to be certain that we have it all figured out. But too often, when the storms of life crash around us, we find that our certain faith in, say, a God who answers our prayers, or the God who protects and shields us from harm, or who fights for us on the battlefield becomes severely tested….or it crumbles away.  When the foundations of the faith we have built around us are undermined, rock can quickly turn into sand.

To build on the rock is not to possess all the answers but to trust in the God who is the foundation of all things – the ground of our being.  It is to root ourselves in a faith that is open, humble, and alive, like the scientific method itself—always growing, always learning, always ready for new discoveries. Jesus does not call us to build our lives on sand, which shifts with every new breeze, but on the rock of God’s presence in our lives. This rock is not immovable because it is rigid and unchanging; it is immovable because it is the foundation of trust in the one who holds all things together, seen and unseen.

Think of the great scientists and thinkers of history, those who have transformed the world with their discoveries. They did not start with all the answers. Instead, they approached the world with a sense of wonder and curiosity, with a willingness to experiment, to fail, and to grow. They never stopped asking questions. What they built on was not a fortress of certainty but a foundation of humility and openness to the unknown. They trusted that, even in their uncertainty, they were on a path toward greater truth.

This is the spirit Jesus calls us to: a faith that is not afraid of doubt or failure but is rooted in trust in God’s love, God’s grace, and God’s presence. We are called to build our lives not on the shifting sands of certainty but on the solid rock of faith that is alive, always growing, always transforming. This kind of faith does not ignore the storms of life; it faces them with courage and hope, knowing that no matter how fierce the winds or how deep the floods, we are grounded in the love of God.

And yet, even as we build on this rock, we must remember that the rock is not something we possess in its fullness. We cannot hold it in our hands. We cannot define it in the precise, mathematical way we might like to. The rock is God, the eternal foundation of all things, a foundation that invites us to trust even when we do not have all the answers. It is not a foundation of certainty but of love—love that calls us forward, love that transforms us, love that invites us to take the next step, even when we do not know exactly where it will lead.

When the storms come—and they will come, for that is part of life—we will not fall, not because we know everything, but because we trust in the one who holds us. The rains will fall, the winds will blow, and the floods will rise, but our house will stand, not because we have built it perfectly, but because we have built it on the love and grace of God.

So let us ask ourselves today: what kind of foundation are we building on? Are we building on the rock of trust, of love, of openness to God’s presence in our lives? Or are we building on sand—on rigid certainty, on the illusion that we can control everything? If we are to build a life that stands firm in the face of the storms, we must build on the rock—not of certainty, but of humble trust in the God who is with us, who calls us to grow, to experiment, and to trust in the mystery of life itself.

May we have the courage to build on the rock of faith, always open to the unexpected, always grounded in love, and always trusting that God’s presence will guide us through every storm. Amen.