In the parable of the wise and foolish builders, Jesus says, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash” (Matthew 7:24-27, New International Version of the Bible (NIV).

The rock is a key biblical metaphor. St. Peter’s name means “the rock,” and Jesus plays off it by saying, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” Regarded as the successor of Peter, the Pope continues this rocklike tradition. As result, neither doctrine nor liturgy is supposed to change; they too are rocks.

In a project called Building with Nature the Dutch, however, are learning to build houses on sand using a Sand Motor:

Unlike rock and its synthetic descendant, concrete, water passes through sand. What would Jesus do? He was a creative storyteller, so what else? Adapt the story: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise person who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because the rain passed through the sand.  But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like those foolish persons who build their houses on concrete foundations.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash, its basement full of water.”

The problem with theologies and theories of religion that use rocks as models is that they are based on a false premise, that invariant institutions and rituals can orient you in a flowing, changing universe. As surely as the hour hand on a clock moves, religions evolve; they are “edited.” There is no such thing as stasis, not for clock hands, not for rocks, and not for liturgies (even “divine” ones). There is no unchanging ground either inside religion or outside it. All is flow, all is flux; there are only differing rates of change. The tectonic plates of the earth move by subduction; they shift and float. Not only is the universe variant and imperfect, so are the religions and rituals by which people negotiate it and orient to it.