Building Foundations of Integrity, Wisdom and Compassion

AUDIO RECORDING of the Sunday Service

Luke 6:39-49  Building Foundations of Integrity and Compassion

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. That one is like a person building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock…” — Luke 6:46-48

Digging deep… and laying a foundation on rock… 

In this passage from Luke’s Gospel, we find Jesus offering a series of profound, almost poetic images: the blind leading the blind, the speck and the log, and the house built on rock versus sand. These images speak to universal human experiences that go across cultures and different religions, offering us a wisdom which resonates with all people who seek to live with integrity, compassion, and purpose in life. 

In the first image, of the Blind Leading the Blind, Jesus asks, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?”

This image invites us to reflect on the nature of leadership and guidance in our lives. It’s not about physical blindness but about spiritual and moral sight—about insight and the lack of insight. Who do we follow? What values and truths guide us? Are those we follow trust-worthy… 

In our fragile and often chaotic world, it’s easy to follow voices that echo our fears or flatter our egos. But real wisdom, true insight, comes not from superficial understanding but from deep reflection and self-awareness. This is why in many traditions, from Christianity to Buddhism, the call is first to wake up, to become conscious of our inner life so we can see the outer world more clearly.

There is something about this image that I believe also speaks deeply into our Non-Subscribing tradition. In the Constitution of our Church as framed in 1910, we are reminded of the sacred right of private judgement that God has given each of us, and that free enquiry is essential to the extension of religious knowledge.  Ours is a constitution that therefore does not require blind faith. Echoing the warning of Jesus of the dangers of the blind leading the blind, ours is a tradition that invite every person to weigh and test everything for ourselves so that each of us follow the dictates of our own conscience.   When we are asked or pressured to over-ride the dictates of our own conscience and that sacred right of private judgement, then we are in danger of falling into the trap. Now that doesn’t not necessarily mean that the dictates of our conscience are always correct. Our non-subscribing forbears were right to emphasize the fact that God can and does speak through our own consciences, but even this requires discernment… because sometimes our conscience can be informed more by the dictates of the culture we grew up in than the voice of God.  But equally it needs to be said that when we fail to listen to the voice of conscience within, we are in danger of falling into the trap of an empty and a blind faith that leads not to inner integrity of heart but to falling into a pit of meaninglessness out of touch with our own inner sense of what is right and true – out of touch with our own inner sense of meaning and purpose in life. 

Ours is not meant to be a blind faith… where we blindly follow what we are told, even if it is from a minister or someone else we see as an authority.  The faith of a Non-Subscriber should require of us that we be willing to put everything to the test in order to discover for ourselves what we believe with all our hearts to be true. 

The second image that Jesus refers to in this passage is the metaphor of The Speck and the Log when Jesus says to his disciples:  “Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”

This teaching follows on naturally from the point that has just been made, as a counter-balance inviting us to question not just others but also ourselves. It points to the very human tendency to judge others while being blind to our own faults. It’s a universal experience, we spot the flaws in others more easily than in ourselves. And one of the ways we do this is by comparing own own strengths to another persons weaknesses, while being blind to our own weaknesses and failing to acknowledge fully the other persons strengths. But Jesus calls us to a deeper honesty, to look inward before we look outward.

This isn’t about harsh self-criticism but about humility and honesty. It echoes the Buddhist idea of Right View, seeing ourselves and others clearly, without distortion. In the Buddha’s 8-fold path, which is essentially the path to living a noble life, in which we minimise suffering for ourselves and others, the first step on this 8-fold path is what the Buddha called: Right View.  If you have a distorted view of life, filled with misinformation, then it is going to cause all sorts of problems for ourselves and others, causing all sorts of suffering. But if we have a clear view of life, seeing life as it is and not as we think it should be, seeing ourselves as we are, not as we imagine ourselves to be through rose tinted glasses, then we are able to navigate through life much better.  The rest of the Buddha’s 8-fold path in a sense flows from Right View… if we have a right view then from it quite naturally flows Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Attention, and Right Balance of Mind.   

For Jesus in Luke’s Gospel, having a clear view of life requires being deeply aware of our own foibles, our own weaknesses and even the very human tendency towards self-deception. This is about having a deep honesty and self-awareness of both our strengths and weaknesses which enables us to have a clearer sense of the strengths and weaknesses of others.  And to this end, Jesus tells a parable later on in Luke’s Gospel, where he tells of a respectable and self-righteous Pharisee who pats himself on the back for being such a good person, and then contrasts the Pharisee with a despised and morally compromised Tax collector who has become aware of his own failings and simply prays: God be merciful to me a sinner.  It is a parable that suggests that as soon as we start thinking of ourselves as morally superior to another we are on dangerous spiritual territory. As soon as we start wondering why other people are not like me, it might be a warning to look inward once again and see what failing or weakness I may have missed or forgotten about in myself.  

When we acknowledge our own imperfections, we become more compassionate toward the struggles of others. We recognize that we’re all walking this difficult path of being human together.

The words of Rumi speak deeply into this truth: “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

And Bryant Magill writes: “You will be a beautiful person, as long as you see the beauty in others.” 

Finally, Jesus speaks of building a house with strong foundations. It’s a simple but powerful metaphor. Life will bring storms, this is certain. Pain, loss, confusion—these are inevitable. But the strength of our inner life, the depth of our values, determines whether we stand firm or collapse.

To build on rock means to live with integrity, to not just hear the call to compassion, justice, and love, but to live it. It’s about aligning our outer actions with our inner truths.

Building a house with strong foundations is also about building our lives not on things of a temporary and fleeting nature.. what the New Testament calls ‘this world’, in other words, the outward world of form.  If our trust is ultimately in the outward world of form which is constantly shifting and changing then we will ultimately have not real rest for our souls.  To build on a solid foundation, we have to move beyond the world of form, to that which is formless and unchanging, the deeper inner realm of the Spirit. 

Our Non-Subscribing forbears tended to emphasize on deeds over creeds…. 

So, what does it mean to live these teachings today?

It might mean pausing before rushing to judgment, asking: What’s the log in my own eye?

It might mean questioning the voices we follow, whether political, religious, or personal, and asking: Do they lead with wisdom and compassion, or are we blindly following?

And it definitely means returning to our foundations. What are the core values you build your life on? Are they sturdy enough to hold you when life gets hard? What might it mean to trust in the Higher and Deeper Wisdom of God that is not rooted in the world of outward form, but the inner realm of the Spirit? 

May we each take that step today, toward greater awareness, compassion, and a life built on the solid ground of truth and love.