Finding Our Future, A Sermon
Westminster Presbyterian Church PCUSA // Olympia Washington // March 22, 2008, Fourth Sunday in Lent
Our Congregation’s 115th Celebration
The Rev. Dr. David R. Kegley
The Texts
Proverbs 24:13-14 13 My child, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste. 14 Know that Wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, you will find a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
James 3:13 - 4:1 13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
The Sermon
Our Hebrew ancestors sought wisdom. The sages drilled their students in the way of wisdom. Much of what they taught from memory was recorded and became the Book of Proverbs.
Like mystics sequestering their prized students in the corners of a monastery, they closed their eyes and recited the ancient truths while quizzical and squirmy students nodded.
The wise-ones drilled: “Get wisdom, get insight.” If you get it, you will get life.
While highly prized in ancient times, today these ancient proverbs seem obscure, or arcane. We squirm all the more and wonder when the lesson will end. But this getting… this getting of Wisdom…
This getting is a whole-body experience. It involves walking and hungering. Crying out and listening. It beckons as the day dawns and germinates in a restful sleep.
Wisdom’s ecology is made up of that pure respect we call “the fear of the Lord.” Advise, knowledge, books, and data bases, these all, are only Wisdom’s lesser relations.
It’s nice to have so much knowledge at our finger tips now. Makes you think we could solve all the problems of the world if we could only get it into our heads. But that’s not the answer is it?
Wisdom is more the notes hand-written in the columns of some text we return to after experience has reworked the cool, impersonal words on a page to become something more… alive.
Wisdom is what we say after a whole series of events have turned us upside down, inside out, and changed us forever; it is the one sentence that we can eek out upon re-thinking our assumptions.
Wisdom occurs when our insides increasingly trust the living God to the point where some new conviction renders temptation… impotent.
Wisdom happens when we relinquish our grip on all that we think we know and become open to what we don’t know... as long as it’s source does not betray us.
Wisdom is trust in who is faithful and Wisdom is faithful to trustworthy advisors.
Wisdom is hard won and hard kept. Wisdom is a living presence and as so it requires our embrace and care. While possessions of the material sort can sit on shelves or be parked in a garage, Wisdom must breath, eat, dream, and have a relationship with us.
What was it that Jesus knew about the human heart?
What was it that happened to you two years ago that seems to inform your every day now?
If you want to find a future get Wisdom.
With Wisdom nations have learned how to govern their peoples. They can tell you what the books told them, then how their own experience transformed mere knowledge. We along with all other nations learn as we go.
Wisdom has the power to inform a banker about what loans to approve and how to package those loans in the commercial market—and how not to.
Wisdom has the power to change a mind about how large a loan to accept and how to spend on credit—and about how not to.
Wisdom has the power guide kings, rulers and presidents into decisions about when to go to war, what intelligence to trust—and when not to go to war, and what intelligence to discredit.
With Wisdom a nation can be good to her people and create economic systems where have’s have enough and there are no have-nots. It has the power to conduct a nation toward healthy boundaries and the ability to open those boundaries appropriately.
Wisdom has the power to guide the church through her history. Wisdom can take history and turn it into the promise of the future.
With Wisdom we embrace Wisdom Personified, who is Jesus Christ. He can teach our children and their children’s children, right here in this congregation and wherever they go.
Getting Wisdom means getting the life of Christ, watching what he did as though you walk with him in the gospel story, then letting him live in you as you walk your gospel story.
When a church designs its budget…
When we choose a curriculum…
When we ordain officers…
When we meet and plan…
Our mouths water for that honey.
When a church chooses to build and serves people in that building…
When we support our community in caring for the poor…
When we teach our youngest and all ages…
When we employ pastors and staff…
When we eat and share our food…
When we sing and worship…
When we move…
Always…
The honey of Wisdom can fill us!
Our gospel story’s Guide can live in us.
“My child, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste. Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, you will find a future, and your hope will not be cut off.” (Proverbs 24:13-14)
Wisdom shows up before you do. It lingers in the air after you speak. It waits for people to hear. Yet, its timelessness and its sure fulfillment must be accepted into time by each one of us.
Will we accept the gentle way?
Will we avoid corruption…
assure our words and ways make peace…
give way when tempted to demand our way…
have mercy in our human relations…
do good, constructive, helpful things…
and be true and straight-forward?
Wisdom lives among us.
When you taught 3-year olds to stomp and clap Wisdom was there.
When you shared with the 5-year olds that Jesus loves them, Wisdom was there.
When a 10-year old asked you why Joseph’s brothers were so mad at him and you helped them understand the dangers of the brothers’ jealousy and the downfall of Joseph’s presumption, Wisdom was there.
When a 17-year old questioned why all the fuss about the food bank and you showed them what flooding, and poverty does to a real human being, Wisdom was there.
When young and old alike asked “What can we do?” and you created a child-care center, served food to the hungry, danced with seniors, went to New Orleans and Pe Ell, healed open wounds, and dried the tears of the underemployed, Wisdom was there.
When the cry came out from you or your family about why bad things happen to well-meaning people and you shared not easy platitudes but the yielding comfort of friendship, Wisdom was there.
Our unique time has been so abused with fear, and so imperiled by the god of mammon. But we aren’t those who need to succumb to such fruitless preoccupations. When the world around the church falters, when the knees of mammon-trusting humanity become week, the church has Wisdom.
The church gives money away. The church gives away many of the things that the rest of the world hoards. The church finds its future in the Wisdom of giving itself up so that it may gain its life.
The church is Wisdom’s manger.
The church is where normal human beings huddle to listen
to the voice of Wisdom,
to share the stories of the notes written in the margins,
to be reminded that a way can be made in the wilderness of fear and idolatry,
to describe what happens when the gospel of Christ’s life becomes the gospel of our life.
The church is where every-day people remind each other that difficulty can be contained and we can seek together Wisdom’s companionship.
On our most difficult days, being a congregation can seem like a trial of endurance. We squirm and wonder when the lesson will be over. On our most compelling days being a congregation is a place where Wisdom is alive.
I wonder what makes the wise woman in Proverbs 31 “laugh at the days to come”—in essence, celebrate the future? In her laughter I hear Wisdom.
She prepares. She’s attentive to instruction. She’s confident in God’s presence. She turns difficulty into lessons learned. Her experience has proven that Wisdom will prevail and so she is relieved of stress, clothed like the lilies of the field, and the joy in her laughter becomes contagious.
May Westminster Presbyterian Church find its future…
…and in the same way “laugh at the days to come.”
Amen.
Some Thoughts to Ponder
1. In our teaching ministry do we focus more on obtaining knowledge or getting wisdom? What is the difference between the two?
2. How could the church improve on helping people “abused with fear, and imperiled by the god of mammon?”
3. Can you explain the relationship between laughter and wisdom? Why would it be good for a church to “laugh at the days to come?”
4. What key aspect of wisdom would help us most to find our future?
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