September 6, 2009 - Ancient Wisdom

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23

A board of directors, feeling it was time for a shake-up, hires a new CEO. This new boss is determined to rid the company of all slackers.

On a tour of the facilities, the CEO notices a guy leaning on a wall. The room is full of workers and he thinks this is his chance to show everyone he means business!

The CEO walks up to the guy and asks, "And how much money do you make a week?"

Undaunted, the young fellow looks at him and replies, "I make $200.00 a week. Why?"

The CEO then hands the guy $200 in cash and screams, "Here's a week's pay, now GET OUT and don't come back!"

Feeling pretty good about his first firing, the CEO looks around the room and asks, "Does anyone want to tell me what that slacker did here?"

With a sheepish grin, one of the other workers mutters.........

"He's the pizza delivery guy!"

We don’t always know the lay of the land, do we?

Sometimes we act before we think … as a friend of mine says: “Ready, fire, aim.”

Been there, done that a few times.

How about you?

The Book of Proverbs understands.

No highfalutin’ ideas here … just the basics!

What does it mean to live a good life?

It’s a question I’ve pondered for the last 40 years … not only for my own life, but what with all the funerals I’ve done – around 800 or so … so many families – all wonderfully different, and some distressed by tragedy and dysfunction.

I always ask the adult children: “What did you learn about life from you father, or your mother?”

I’ve heard it all, of course.

Good and bad, and mostly the good:

I’ve learned how to be compassionate.

I’ve learned courage and fortitude.

I’ve learned the power of forgiveness.

My dad taught me all about God.

My mother taught me how to work hard.

Sometimes it gets a little dark.

My mother hurt me.

My father didn’t love me.

They fought all the time.

I remember one poignant moment – three brothers, all in their mid-30s, preparing for their father’s funeral: I asked, “What did you learn about life from your dad?”

Silence … a heavy silence in the room.

Three young men … hunched over in their chairs, hands tightly folded in front of them … heads down … until the elder brother lifted his head and looked at me with steel in his eyes, with a deep sigh, shaking his head, “Not a damn thing Tom; not a damn thing.”

What does it mean to live a good life?

The Book of Proverbs goes to the heart of the matter – basic things …

God the creator… God the divine … the eternal realities … faith, hope and love … faith in God and faith in one another, and faith in ourselves, too.

Hope for a better day, and a better world.

Hope in the face of hardship and frustration.

Because hope doesn’t give up.

And love …

The hardcore kind of love - commitment and service.

Going the whole way and then some.

Taking up the cross and carrying it as far as you can.

Involvement and compassion.

Bravery and courage.

Kindness and mercy.

Restraint and control.

Long listening and careful speaking.

Speaking your convictions, but doing so with humility.

A tender regard for others, especially the down and the out: “There, but by the grace of God, go I.”

One of my all-time favorite poems by D.H. Lawrence says it well:

As we live, we are transmitters of life.

And when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow through us.

….

And if, as we work, we can transmit life into our work,

Life, still more life, rushes into us to compensate, to be ready

And we ripple with life through the days.

Even if it is a woman making an apple dumpling, or a man a stool,

If life goes into the pudding, good is the pudding,

Good is the stool,

Content is the woman with fresh life rippling in to her,

Content is the man.

Give, and it shall be given unto you

Is still the truth about life.

But giving life is not so easy.

It doesn’t mean handing it out to some mean fool, or letting the living dead eat you up.

It means kindling the life-quality where it was not,

Even if it’s only in the whiteness of a washed pocket handkerchief.

Kindling the life-quality where it was not.

I’ve know some remarkable people – folks who kindle the life-quality …

I remember Jack Bollema from Grand Rapids Christian High School … I was a sophomore or junior in a history class, and Mr. Bollema, full of energy and faith, stepped to the chalk board and boldly wrote in big letters the word “History” … and then wrote again, in every bigger letters: “HIS Story” …

I’ve never forgotten that moment … the life-quality kindled … the secret of life, if you will: His Story - it’s all about God, everything … every bit of it … sweet and sour; weal and woe; light and dark; life and death … the good, the bad and the ugly … me, and everyone else!

Sure, it’s a hodgepodge, and who can figure it out?

But the Bible reminds us:

You can live in the hodgepodge; you can live it well.

Live with faith, hope and love, no matter what … even when we can’t figure it out!

A friend of mine writes:

… it isn't always the endgame we're after in our little worlds. It's the doing. It's the moments. It's that space between managing life and understanding that time is what it is, and that there is joy in knowing what needs to get done will, simply put, get done. [The Blankie Chronicles]

Faith, hope and love.

That’s what counts; not the storm around us, or even the storm inside of us, but the way we live in the midst of the storm … and along the way, giving shelter to others for whom the storm is too much.

“The Shelter of Each Other” as author Mary Pipher puts it … or as Jesus said it, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Love is a powerful, ethical, word.

Love seeks the welfare of the other, as Dr. Scott Peck put it in the book, The Road Less Travelled.

Love rolls up its sleeves and gets its hands dirty.

Love refuses to roll over and play dead.

Love can’t be bought off.

Love can’t be shut off.

Love can’t be killed.

70 years ago, September 1, 1939, German tanks rolled across the frontier into Poland, and so began WW2 – six years later, 45 million people dead, and the horror of all horrors, “the final solution,” the Holocaust - the systematic killing of 6 million Jews, and millions more – Gypsies, gays and lesbians, the mentally and physically challenged … and anyone who dared to raise a question, anyone who followed Jesus rather than Hitler – the real Jesus; not the Jesus of Church and country, but the Jesus of Galilee and Calvary.

The Thousand Year Reich ended in the ashes of Berlin and the suicide of Hitler; the Empire of the Rising Sun ended in a mushroom cloud … the greatest war machine marched too far – the way of all empires, Roman, British, French, Belgian, Dutch, Soviet, or American … guns and bullets and marching soldiers, oh so thrilling, seduce us with a wicked song, until we crash and burn on the rocks of our own power.

This is the way of all empire.

Those who live by the sword die by the sword.

Such is the ancient wisdom.

The powers and principalities that would rule over us cannot win the day …

Justice will have its way …

Love will prevail.

As the hymn puts it: This is my father’s world!

A good and godly man or woman lives by the code of love.

No matter the storm howling around us, we live with an eye on God and a hand outstretched to others.

The Book of Proverbs pulls no punches.

It gets to the core of life.

The deepest values – the way we live.

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,

And favor is better than silver or gold.

The Hebrew word for “favor” is something like compassion or generous living … to be seen by as others as a person of compassion or generosity – to have the favor of others for the goodness and kindness we live.

If we read the whole of the Proverbs, Solomon celebrates and enjoys material success, too.

For Solomon, it’s not an either/or choice – either to have a good name, or to be wealthy, but to make the right beginning.

When we choose to make a good name for ourselves, the other issues get resolved …

Jesus said it well: Choose first the kingdom of God, and all the other things that you need will fall into place.

Putting it candidly, putting it straight,

What happened with Bernie Madoff?

I don’t know, but I do know that he single-handedly caused untold sorrow for thousands of investors who put their money into his hands.

Was he greedy?

Were the investors greedy?

I don’t know …

But could it have been different?

If he had remembered:

Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,

and the rod of anger will fail.

Those who are generous are blessed,

for they share their bread with the poor.

Do not rob the poor because they are poor,

or crush the afflicted at the gate;

for the LORD pleads their cause

What about us?

We’re not dealing in billions or millions (if you are, talk to me after the service, would ya’?)

Most of us deal in thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, even a few million now and then … but whether it be 25 cents or 25 million, we begin with our name; that’s what counts, our name.

And the simple truth: we’re all in this together.

Many who are rich would like us to believe that they are different than everyone else, their problems, their challenges, bigger and greater and categorically unique – Not so! says Solomon, one of the wealthiest men to have ever lived.

Because we all have one thing in common, says Solomon – the LORD has made us all …

No one is self-made.

No one makes their own way through life … not one dime is ours by work – it’s all by grace, all by divine providence – God’s counsel and God’s decision, God’s will and God’s purpose.

That’s a humbling thought - because the ego wants to believe: “It’s mine, all mine; I’ve worked for it.”

Like a child screaming at a playmate about a toy truck, “It’s mine, and you can’t have it.”

Ever watch a child behave that way?

What do you think when you hear that?

Selfishness in a child is disgusting.

But what about an adult?

I wonder … when God looks in upon us, is this the way we’re behaving sometimes?

“It’s mine, and you can’t have it!”

Is anything really ours?

Is not everything given to us?

Given to us by the hand of God?

We’re all born without a dime, and we’ll all die penniless.

In between, we might be blessed, blessed bounteously by God, but we’re all in the same boat - agrand adventure called life … we are all brothers and sisters, and, yes, there are differences, but the point remains: to those to whom much has been given, much is required [Luke 12:48].

This is why faith in God is so vital.

Real faith … not the cheapened version, the cheapened feel-good, yippie-kai ai, cry-your-eyes-out-for Jesus style religion, but the real thing, empowered by compassion and high-ethics and a life-changing love for justice.

God has told you, O mortal, what is good;

and what does the LORD require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God? [Micah 6:8].

Faith in God saves us from putting our faith anywhere else.

Because nothing else will do.

We put our faith in God!

To keep us balanced and sane.

On the right track and doing the right things.

We’re not easily de-centered when we’re centered in God, though all hell should break loose.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,

though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble with its tumult [Psalm 46].

We may be afraid, but we won’t fear.

We may sweat a little, but we won’t cringe in the dark.

We may lose a lot of sleep, but we won’t lose our hope.

Because of our faith in God …

God, at work in all things, for OUR good …

Because God is good all the time, and

All the time God is good.

That’s the ancient wisdom.

Amen and Amen!