"If You Want To Walk On Water..."
Matthew 14:22-31
One time I was fishing with my Uncle Sonny in Puget Sound. This one day we put the boat out from Neah Bay, which is on the tip of the peninsula on the state of Washington. It's the place where Puget Sound, the watery gap between the peninsula of the state and the mainland of the state, meets the Pacific Ocean.
It's a much better ride in the boat if you can get positioned inside the Sound and away from the mouth of the peninsula where the Sound meets the open Pacific Ocean. This day we were just inside the boundary waters of Puget Sound, but not far enough in. We were fishing for King Salmon, fish that were as big as me at that time.
I actually hooked one that trip. It jumped out of the water, full length, and Sonny gave out a shout. I was pulling back on the pole as strongly as a kid could. The pole was bent in a perfect letter C. But it was hard to hold on, and it was hard to play that huge fish for one reason. The swells. The swells are huge rolling waves, and they were as high as a two story house. The little boat would slide up to the top of a swell. It seemed like we were on the top of the world. Then we'd slide down the watery wall of that swell and I was afraid we were going to scrape the ocean bottom.
Up and down, and back and forth we'd go, me trying to hold on to the pole, as well as trying to hold down my breakfast. It didn't take long for me to lose both. The line snapped and I lost my King Salmon. And with one more lurch of the boat on a swell, I hung over the side and lost my breakfast. I drank a lot of ginger ale the rest of the day. And as far as our fishing luck went, we never had another bite the rest of the day.
The disciples in the fishing boat maybe faced swells half the size Sonny and I rode that day. They couldn't put up the sail, or the wind would have ripped it apart. They were rowing. Rowing on swells that were taking them up and down. Rowing on whitecaps that were throwing water into the boat almost faster than they could bail it out. It was not just a scary situation because they were hanging over the side seasick, with a storm blowing. It was scary because they thought they were literally going to die.
Then, Jesus entered the scene. Where had Jesus been? He was at some lonely place praying. When Jesus went into the wilderness of temptation, he prayed and fasted for 40 days, then the temptations started. In the Gospel of Mark story of the healing of the demon possessed boy, the disciples asked why they couldn't force out the demon. Jesus said it can happen only by prayer. (Mark 9:14ff) In this walking-on-the-water story, Jesus prayed and then faced the forces of chaos symbolized in the turbulent lake. Jesus prepared himself to face all forms of chaos and evil in prayer. Pray first, then stand up to the powers.
Harry Emerson Fosdick, one of the great preachers of any time, wrote a letter to a woman in Missouri who had recently had a nervous breakdown. Fosdick himself had suffered such a breakdown. Listen to what he wrote in his letter to this woman:
Just one thing more: There are two techniques for living. One is willpower and drive. The other is inward receptivity and spiritual hospitality toward God. I judge that you have excellent willpower and that you have relied on it, but now you face the baffling fact that in a nervous breakdown your willpower is sick. What you try hard with has gone to pieces and the harder you try the worse off you are. Let go and let God in. You must work on that other technique—receptivity. As all your physical strength comes not by willing it but by absorbing…so your spiritual strength comes by intake of inward hospitality towards God.
Jesus was all about making that inward hospitality towards God his main priority. It was from that absorption of God through prayer that gave him the strength to face all the chaos and evil he did.
This scene that Jesus entered, in this story, is a boat with twelve men scared stiff. The boat was considerable distance from land. Land represented safety, so the boat was nowhere near safety.
The boat and the disciples were probably far enough out on the lake that going back would have been just as far as going forward. But going back would have been with the wind and a quicker journey to land and safety. On land, they could wait until the storm blew by and then sail calmly to the other side. Why did they keep rowing hopelessly, slowly, fearfully against the wind?
The story says the boat was being "pounded" (NIrV). The word in Greek literally means, "tormented." That speaks not to what was just happening to the boat by the wind and the waves, but also what was happening in the boat. Everything about this scene speaks about torment, which describes an underlying chaotic and mindless evil at work. It wasn't just bad weather. It was something much more malevolent.
And the story tells us that when Jesus arrived on the lake it was "the fourth watch." The daytime was split up into four watches, four quarterly segments. The fourth watch was between 2 a.m. to sunrise in the morning. If you are ever up at 3 or 4 a.m. and you're looking out your front window, what does the world look like at that time? What kinds of feelings do you have when you're up alone at 3 a.m.? Add that feeling to the rigors of rowing constantly against the storm and you'll have an inkling as to what the disciples are feeling.
This little detail about the watch lets us know how long the disciples have been in the boat. Six to nine hours. Six to nine hours! On a calmer day they could have been back and forth on the lake at least a couple of times.
Having spent this amount of time on the lake, struggling against a foaming storm, it begs us ask the question, why didn't Jesus come sooner? In the raising of Lazarus story (John 11) when Jesus heard about Lazarus being ill, instead of going immediately, he delayed for two days.
Then Lazarus died. Both Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, said to Jesus, "If you had been here our brother would not have died." Both seem miffed at Jesus' supposed intentional delay. Jesus told the disciples that he delayed so that they "may believe".
Doubting Thomas had to wait a week for the appearance of the Risen Christ. So this part of the story makes us face the fact that Jesus did things according to his own timing—God's timing—when everything would be just right. Even though the timing may not be best according to our own estimation.
It is into this scene that Jesus walked. On the surface of Lake Galilee. To a tormented boat, full of tormented disciples, on a tormented lake surface, Jesus walked. Seeing Jesus, the disciples did what any self-respecting disciple would do—they all screamed like little girls thinking they were seeing a ghost. Real people don't walk on water, especially when that water is one big storm.
But what other options would you have, looking at that figure out on the waves, if you were a disciple in the boat? Is it a ghost or phantom? A hallucination? Or was it really Jesus? We have to decide if the gospel writers knew what they were talking about or not, in writing this story down. Either it happened or it was made up. Those are the only two options open for us.
So if you think the gospel writers were on the up and up, then you have to ask the next question: "Why? Why did Jesus walk on water? Was he just taking a short-cut home hoping the disciples wouldn't spot him? Was he playing a prank on the disciples, hoping to scare them out of their tunics (which he pretty much did)? Is this all just a bit of that Son of God sense of humor ("Ha ha; gotcha! You all have to change your underwear, don't ya?").
Peter isn't sure. Notice what he says to Jesus: “Lord, is it you? If it is… "If." Jesus must be standing still, on top of the water, some little distance from the boat, no longer coming toward the boat. The only way to find out if it's really Jesus, within the bluster of the storm, is to get close to him. The only way to get close to Jesus, to see for sure, is to get out of the boat and go see. Jesus wasn't coming at them; they'd have to go to him.
No one in the boat is evidently rowing the boat toward Jesus either. They want to know, but they don't want to know. "Lord, is it you? If it is, don't come to us; we'll send someone over to you. Peter, go see if it's him!" Because part of what's going on here is that if it really is Jesus then the disciples have to reevaluate who Jesus is in a major way. Before, they may have thought he was a great guy who told fun little stories. Now he's someone who walks on water in the middle of a storm.
Something else that's going on is that if you want to see Jesus, where do you have to go? Not to some monastery where he's sitting in front of his prayer candle chanting scripture. If Peter, or any of the other disciples want to see Jesus, to really see Jesus, they have to get out of the boat and step into the chaos. They have to step out onto the deep, onto some place where they can get way over their heads very quickly. They have to step out on the water, where everything is fluid, everything is moving, everything is not steady or solid. They have to be willing to go into a chaotic world, not stay in the safety of the boat.
And when you realize that, when you ask Jesus if you can step out of the boat, move away from the safety of the church (if the boat represents the church), and you ask Jesus if you can come to him, out there, you better be ready for his answer. To Peter, Jesus said, "Come." Jesus didn't say, "No, no, no; that's OK Peter; I'll come to you and the others. You guys just stay there in the safety of your little boat." No. Jesus said, "Come." "Get out of the boat Peter."
And notice something else. Jesus didn't promise Peter anything. "It'll be fine. Easy peasy. C'mon Peter. No problem." Jesus simply says, "Come," then it's up to Peter to deal with his fears and see what the measure of his faith really is.
Mother Teresa told the story about a young French girl who came to Calcutta to work with the Sisters of Charity. The girl looked worried. She went to work in the home for the dying destitute. Then, after ten days, she came to see Mother Teresa. She hugged Mother Teresa and said, "I've found Jesus!"
Mother Teresa asked, "Where did you find Jesus?"
The girl responded, "In the home for dying destitutes."
"And what did you do after you found Him?"
"I went to confession and Holy Communion for the first time in fifteen years."
Then Mother Teresa asked, "What else did you do?"
"I sent my parents a telegram saying that I found Jesus."
Mother Teresa looked at her and said, "Now, pack up and go home. Go home and give joy, love, and peace to your parents." Then Mother Teresa wrote,
She went home radiating joy, because her heart was filled with joy; and what joy she brought her family! For if we want others to become aware of the presence of Jesus, we must be the first ones convinced of it.
Peter steps out of the boat. What's going through his mind? What would be going through your mind, as you hoisted one foot and then the other over the side of the boat and stepped out on the raging surface. Would you be asking yourself, "Can I do this? Am I convinced of that?"
In order to get to the answer to that question, the only way you are going to find out is if you get out of the boat. And you aren't going to get out of the boat unless you are convinced. When I'm thinking about some huge project or challenge that I'm facing, I assess my own abilities and strengths. I compare those assets to the challenge in front of me. "Can I do it?"
That's what Peter did before and during the point he stepped out on the lake's surface. He heard and felt the wind. He took a bracing gulp as he felt the cold water on his feet. But he also had to be measuring his own faith against the power of the waves. He's being forced not only to see the waves; he's also seeing his answer to the question, "Can I do this?" and his answer is "No." That's when he sinks.
If we're honest, that's most of our answers. Most might risk getting out of the boat, but at the same time that voice in our heads is saying, "I can't do this."
And that's exactly what Jesus wants us to find out. Focusing only on ourselves we are incapable of handling the chaos of the world. We ask ourselves the question, "Can I do this?" No, you can't. But if you asked the right question, "Can WE (me and Jesus) do this?" The answer is, Yes.
When Peter began to sink, the story tells us that "right away" Jesus reached out and grabbed Peter, keeping him from sinking. To his credit, Peter walked out and got close enough to Jesus that Jesus could reach out to him. Jesus' hand is always ready to catch those who risk coming out into the chaos of the world to meet him and do his bidding—even though we may get over our heads.
After Jesus grasps Peter they have a brief conversation. "Why did you doubt?" Jesus asked. The answer is fairly obvious, and Jesus wanted Peter to struggle with the answer. Peter focused on the wrong question: "What can I do?" rather than the right question: "What can WE do?" Peter focused on the storm and decided he wasn't going to measure up to that. Had Peter kept his focus on Jesus, the storm wouldn't have mattered. Peter was so close.
And here's a bit of a twist. What if Jesus didn't ask his question to Peter, but to the disciples still inside the boat? What if Jesus was asking why they doubted, and showed that doubt by not getting out of the boat as Peter did? Then Jesus' question becomes our question—aimed at those who are too afraid or doubting to take their faith outside of the boat, outside the walls of the church, and into the chaos of the world.
Do you want to walk on water? In other words, do you want to express your faith and not your doubt? Do you want to be out there where Jesus is, even if it is a scary place to be? Do you want to be more than yourself, and be that self with Jesus at your side as your strength? If you want to walk on water, then you'll have to step out of the boat.
Monday, August 14, 2017
Monday, August 7, 2017
Chiselers
"Chiselers"
Genesis 32:22-31
Because Jacob's story is written up in the Bible, we make an automatic assumption that he must have been an OK kind of guy. Isn't getting into the Bible better than getting into "Who's Who?"? But the truth of the matter is that Jacob is an out-and-out scoundrel. He is a shyster and chiseler of the first order. He is an unscrupulous rascal who would stoop to any level to get what he wanted. He was a cheat, who took advantage of his own family more than any others.
People in ancient Israel were named according to some personality or physical trait, and Jacob was given the right name. His meant, "a heal", "a cheat", or, "a trickster." It is fabled that the Greek god, Prometheus, was such a trickster that he changed into any person he chose to be. He changed into so many different people, he eventually forgot who he was. Jacob never forgot who he was, but he played out his conniving and manipulating like an expert, double-talking Prometheus.
Reading through Jacob's story, one would be hard put to find any kind of confession of faith on his lips. His story begins in the 25th chapter of Genesis, and the first time he even prays is at chapter 32. In this prayer, he has the sense of himself that he hasn't a leg to stand on before God other than a promise God made to him long ago. That's the thing that makes the whole story of Jacob so odd—in spite of it all, he was blessed by God.
From the very first, Jacob had been wrestling with someone. And I mean from the very first. In chapter 25 of Genesis there is the story of Jacob wrestling with his twin brother Esau in their mother's womb. Mothers who have carried active babies know what Rebecca was going through, maybe only partially.
Rebecca had been unable to have children, so her husband Issac prayed to God on her behalf. With such a violent pregnancy, she probably wished that her husband had kept his prayers to himself. At one point she screams, "Why should something like this happen to me!?" (25:22) It certainly must be a question that has echoed across the ages by most women living through a tough pregnancy. When the twin boys were finally born, Esau came first, but Jacob was holding on to his brother's heal as a close second. (25:22-26)
The sibling rivalry was to continue, as Jacob cunningly wrestled away Esau's rights of the first born. Taking advantage of Esau's hunger after a long hunting trip, Jacob demanded those rights of the first born from his brother for a bowl of red bean soup.
Then, with the less-than-scrupulous help of his mother, Jacob duped his father into thinking he was actually Esau. The ailing and sightless Issac knew none the better, and gave his last will and testament—the fatherly blessing reserved only for the first born—to Jacob.
Esau, once he found out what his no-account brother had done, was livid, and vowed to kill Jacob the moment their father died. When Rebecca heard of Esau's vow, she quickly sent Jacob off to uncle Laban's, nearly 400 miles away. Now you might think Jacob would give up his wrestling ways now that he and Esau had put some miles between each other. Not so. This kind of rivalry must have run in the family. No sooner does Jacob arrive at uncle Laban's then they start making deceitful deals with each other—mostly about Jacob's desire to marry Laban's daughter, Rachel.
Jacob and Laban continued their conniving and contriving ways with each other for over 14 years, until Jacob had, according to Laban's son's telling of it, "got all his wealth from what our father owned" (31:1). Jacob the shyster had taken his own uncle for everything he had. When Jacob saw that the handwriting was on the wall—that his days were AGAIN being numbered—he took all he had accumulated and headed for home.
It does not appear to be a very edifying story. What I mean is, if Jacob, as the result of duping his brother, his blind old father, and his uncle Laban, had fallen on evil times, if he had been ostracized by his family and friends and sent off into the wilderness somewhere to suffer the pangs of a guilty conscience and to repent of his evil ways, then of course the moralists would have an easy time with this story. As a man sows, so shall he reap. Honesty is the best policy. But this is not the way things fell out at all.
On the contrary, far from suffering for his dishonesty, Jacob clearly profited from it. Not only was the blessing his, not to mention the birthright, but now he had tremendous wealth. There are certainly no signs in this story that Jacob's conscience troubled him in the least.
The first Christian emperor was Constantine, who in 311 A.D. stopped the pagan persecutions and granted enormous favors to the Christian church. Yet as a Christian, Constantine ruthlessly suppressed non-Christians, coerced the faithful, and even murdered some of his own family. As if to take no chances on less than a thorough conversion, Constantine postponed baptism until the moment before his death.
Like Constantine, the story of Jacob's life, to this point almost seems to be saying "dishonesty is the best policy." I do not mean extreme dishonesty such as larceny, blackmail, or perjury. I mean Jacob's kind of dishonesty, which is also apt to be your kind and mine. This is a policy that can take a person a long way in this world, if that is our wish.
This is not a very noble truth about life, but I think that it is a truth nonetheless. It has to be faced, just as this ancient cycle of stories faced it. It can be stated quite simply: the shrewd and ambitious person who is strong on guts and weak on conscience, who knows very well what he or she wants, and directs all their energies toward getting it—the Jacobs of this world—all in all, those kinds of people do pretty well. Again, I do not mean the criminal actions of a person, that might break the law to get what they want. I mean the person who stays just within the shadows of the law and who from time-to-time simply manipulates that law a little for their own purposes.
There was a cartoon that showed a guy in prayer. He was saying, "God, can you help me but sort of make it look like I did it all myself?" That was Jacob, only he never took the time to ask God to help him that much. He just went ahead and grabbed what he wanted along the way.
There is no law against taking advantage of somebody else's stupidity, for instance. The world is full of Esaus—suckers, that is—and there is no need to worry about giving a sucker an even break. Chances are that he will never know what hit him anyway.
And the world has its share of people like Issac (Jacob's father), of people who cannot help loving us no matter what we do. The Jacobs of this world will use and abuse that love pretty much as they please, knowing perfectly well they will be loved anyway.
Only, what does it all get Jacob? The Jacobs of our world are not going to be ostracized by too many people, and may not even be too strongly criticized. The world may see him as a "good guy." This policy of dishonesty where necessary can get the Jacobs a great deal: the invitation, or the promotion; the job; the pat on the back, and the admiring wink. But it also gets him something that he does not expect: a confrontation with God.
Jacob was on his way home. He had overstayed his welcome with uncle Laban, his father Issac had died, and it was time to take possession of the land that God promised to Abraham, to Issac, and now to him. When he reached the river Jabbok, which was the last border to cross before entering the land of promise, he, in an act of cowardice, sent his family, servants, and livestock ahead of him to face his brother Esau first; but he remained behind to spend the night safely on the near shore alone.
And then it happens. Out of the deep of the night a stranger leaps. He hurls Himself at Jacob, and their bodies are lashed together in a struggle through the darkness. It is terrible enough not to see your attacker's face, and the stranger's strength is more terrible still, the strength of more than a man. All through the night they struggle until just before morning, when it looks as though Jacob is going to come out on top, again—as he usually does; as he would expect he would. The stranger cries out to be set free before the sun rises.
Then, just as suddenly, all is reversed. The stranger merely touches the hollow of Jacob's thigh, and in a moment Jacob is lying there crippled and helpless. The sense we have, which Jacob must have had, is that the whole struggle was from the beginning fated to end this way. That the stranger had simply held back until now, letting Jacob exert all his strength and almost win so that when he was defeated, he would know that he was truly defeated. That he would know that not all his shrewdness, will, conniving, or brute force he could muster were enough to win this battle.
Only then does a hint of realization of who he is wrestling with begin to dawn in Jacob's mind. At first, Jacob wrestled God as if God were an adversary. When realization came with the light, he clutched to God for a blessing, for forgiveness, for life. Jacob would not release his grip. Only now it is not a grip of violence but of need, like the grip of a drowning man.
After asking—nay, demanding— of God a blessing, God asks Jacob his name. As I mentioned before, the name had to do with the way a person was, what their character was. For Jacob, to tell his name was to reveal to God, and to himself, all that he was, his whole shady nature. Instead of hearing a name of honor, Jacob hears his name, and sees himself for who he really is and has become: a heal, a cheat, a chiseler, and a swindler. By saying his name, God is getting Jacob to make a confession of sin.
But God then takes the next step. His sign of forgiveness is a new name: "Israel" which means, "the man who struggles with God." Something new opens up before Jacob, now Israel, that was not seen before. In each relationship before, he was a struggler. Now that he had been touched by grace, he saw the need for reconciliation. He saw that there was great power in humbly reconciling with his brother. When daylight finally came, the "Stranger" was gone. And so was Jacob. There only remained Israel.
Michelangelo is known, among his other artistic achievements, as a master with marble. He often went directly to the marble quarries to select his own stones. On one occasion he found a huge block of marble that had been discarded. He purchased it at a minor cost and set to work with chisel and mallet. The flawed portions in the block were removed or worked around, and the great sculptor took two years to finish the world-famous statue we know as "David."
Jacob certainly was a chiseler in the negative meaning of the word. Power, success, happiness, as the world knows them, are available to the Jacobs of this world. But little do the Jacobs realize that God is also a chiseler of a different sort—the Michelangelo sort, who takes us with all our flaws, slowly and painfully begins to chip away, until God's work of art is done: a person at peace with God and with his brother. God is the one who chiseled away at Jacob all along, but put the finishing touch on him there by the Jabbok river. God chiseled away all of Jacob's flaws, but then added one of His own, a mark, like some characteristic mark which was part of every piece God the Artist worked on. For Jacob, it was the limp. That way each piece that God works on would know who their Artist was.
Beware of the chiselers. The Jacobs. But also beware of The Chiseler, the great Artist who makes great works of art out of flawed stones, Israels out of Jacobs. And remember the last glimpse we have of Jacob, now Israel, is a humbled figure, silhouetted against the brilliance of dawn, limping home. He bore on his body the proud insignia of the defeat which was in truth victory, the victory of the human soul being chiseled by the touch of God.
Genesis 32:22-31
Because Jacob's story is written up in the Bible, we make an automatic assumption that he must have been an OK kind of guy. Isn't getting into the Bible better than getting into "Who's Who?"? But the truth of the matter is that Jacob is an out-and-out scoundrel. He is a shyster and chiseler of the first order. He is an unscrupulous rascal who would stoop to any level to get what he wanted. He was a cheat, who took advantage of his own family more than any others.
People in ancient Israel were named according to some personality or physical trait, and Jacob was given the right name. His meant, "a heal", "a cheat", or, "a trickster." It is fabled that the Greek god, Prometheus, was such a trickster that he changed into any person he chose to be. He changed into so many different people, he eventually forgot who he was. Jacob never forgot who he was, but he played out his conniving and manipulating like an expert, double-talking Prometheus.
Reading through Jacob's story, one would be hard put to find any kind of confession of faith on his lips. His story begins in the 25th chapter of Genesis, and the first time he even prays is at chapter 32. In this prayer, he has the sense of himself that he hasn't a leg to stand on before God other than a promise God made to him long ago. That's the thing that makes the whole story of Jacob so odd—in spite of it all, he was blessed by God.
From the very first, Jacob had been wrestling with someone. And I mean from the very first. In chapter 25 of Genesis there is the story of Jacob wrestling with his twin brother Esau in their mother's womb. Mothers who have carried active babies know what Rebecca was going through, maybe only partially.
Rebecca had been unable to have children, so her husband Issac prayed to God on her behalf. With such a violent pregnancy, she probably wished that her husband had kept his prayers to himself. At one point she screams, "Why should something like this happen to me!?" (25:22) It certainly must be a question that has echoed across the ages by most women living through a tough pregnancy. When the twin boys were finally born, Esau came first, but Jacob was holding on to his brother's heal as a close second. (25:22-26)
The sibling rivalry was to continue, as Jacob cunningly wrestled away Esau's rights of the first born. Taking advantage of Esau's hunger after a long hunting trip, Jacob demanded those rights of the first born from his brother for a bowl of red bean soup.
Then, with the less-than-scrupulous help of his mother, Jacob duped his father into thinking he was actually Esau. The ailing and sightless Issac knew none the better, and gave his last will and testament—the fatherly blessing reserved only for the first born—to Jacob.
Esau, once he found out what his no-account brother had done, was livid, and vowed to kill Jacob the moment their father died. When Rebecca heard of Esau's vow, she quickly sent Jacob off to uncle Laban's, nearly 400 miles away. Now you might think Jacob would give up his wrestling ways now that he and Esau had put some miles between each other. Not so. This kind of rivalry must have run in the family. No sooner does Jacob arrive at uncle Laban's then they start making deceitful deals with each other—mostly about Jacob's desire to marry Laban's daughter, Rachel.
Jacob and Laban continued their conniving and contriving ways with each other for over 14 years, until Jacob had, according to Laban's son's telling of it, "got all his wealth from what our father owned" (31:1). Jacob the shyster had taken his own uncle for everything he had. When Jacob saw that the handwriting was on the wall—that his days were AGAIN being numbered—he took all he had accumulated and headed for home.
It does not appear to be a very edifying story. What I mean is, if Jacob, as the result of duping his brother, his blind old father, and his uncle Laban, had fallen on evil times, if he had been ostracized by his family and friends and sent off into the wilderness somewhere to suffer the pangs of a guilty conscience and to repent of his evil ways, then of course the moralists would have an easy time with this story. As a man sows, so shall he reap. Honesty is the best policy. But this is not the way things fell out at all.
On the contrary, far from suffering for his dishonesty, Jacob clearly profited from it. Not only was the blessing his, not to mention the birthright, but now he had tremendous wealth. There are certainly no signs in this story that Jacob's conscience troubled him in the least.
The first Christian emperor was Constantine, who in 311 A.D. stopped the pagan persecutions and granted enormous favors to the Christian church. Yet as a Christian, Constantine ruthlessly suppressed non-Christians, coerced the faithful, and even murdered some of his own family. As if to take no chances on less than a thorough conversion, Constantine postponed baptism until the moment before his death.
Like Constantine, the story of Jacob's life, to this point almost seems to be saying "dishonesty is the best policy." I do not mean extreme dishonesty such as larceny, blackmail, or perjury. I mean Jacob's kind of dishonesty, which is also apt to be your kind and mine. This is a policy that can take a person a long way in this world, if that is our wish.
This is not a very noble truth about life, but I think that it is a truth nonetheless. It has to be faced, just as this ancient cycle of stories faced it. It can be stated quite simply: the shrewd and ambitious person who is strong on guts and weak on conscience, who knows very well what he or she wants, and directs all their energies toward getting it—the Jacobs of this world—all in all, those kinds of people do pretty well. Again, I do not mean the criminal actions of a person, that might break the law to get what they want. I mean the person who stays just within the shadows of the law and who from time-to-time simply manipulates that law a little for their own purposes.
There was a cartoon that showed a guy in prayer. He was saying, "God, can you help me but sort of make it look like I did it all myself?" That was Jacob, only he never took the time to ask God to help him that much. He just went ahead and grabbed what he wanted along the way.
There is no law against taking advantage of somebody else's stupidity, for instance. The world is full of Esaus—suckers, that is—and there is no need to worry about giving a sucker an even break. Chances are that he will never know what hit him anyway.
And the world has its share of people like Issac (Jacob's father), of people who cannot help loving us no matter what we do. The Jacobs of this world will use and abuse that love pretty much as they please, knowing perfectly well they will be loved anyway.
Only, what does it all get Jacob? The Jacobs of our world are not going to be ostracized by too many people, and may not even be too strongly criticized. The world may see him as a "good guy." This policy of dishonesty where necessary can get the Jacobs a great deal: the invitation, or the promotion; the job; the pat on the back, and the admiring wink. But it also gets him something that he does not expect: a confrontation with God.
Jacob was on his way home. He had overstayed his welcome with uncle Laban, his father Issac had died, and it was time to take possession of the land that God promised to Abraham, to Issac, and now to him. When he reached the river Jabbok, which was the last border to cross before entering the land of promise, he, in an act of cowardice, sent his family, servants, and livestock ahead of him to face his brother Esau first; but he remained behind to spend the night safely on the near shore alone.
And then it happens. Out of the deep of the night a stranger leaps. He hurls Himself at Jacob, and their bodies are lashed together in a struggle through the darkness. It is terrible enough not to see your attacker's face, and the stranger's strength is more terrible still, the strength of more than a man. All through the night they struggle until just before morning, when it looks as though Jacob is going to come out on top, again—as he usually does; as he would expect he would. The stranger cries out to be set free before the sun rises.
Then, just as suddenly, all is reversed. The stranger merely touches the hollow of Jacob's thigh, and in a moment Jacob is lying there crippled and helpless. The sense we have, which Jacob must have had, is that the whole struggle was from the beginning fated to end this way. That the stranger had simply held back until now, letting Jacob exert all his strength and almost win so that when he was defeated, he would know that he was truly defeated. That he would know that not all his shrewdness, will, conniving, or brute force he could muster were enough to win this battle.
Only then does a hint of realization of who he is wrestling with begin to dawn in Jacob's mind. At first, Jacob wrestled God as if God were an adversary. When realization came with the light, he clutched to God for a blessing, for forgiveness, for life. Jacob would not release his grip. Only now it is not a grip of violence but of need, like the grip of a drowning man.
After asking—nay, demanding— of God a blessing, God asks Jacob his name. As I mentioned before, the name had to do with the way a person was, what their character was. For Jacob, to tell his name was to reveal to God, and to himself, all that he was, his whole shady nature. Instead of hearing a name of honor, Jacob hears his name, and sees himself for who he really is and has become: a heal, a cheat, a chiseler, and a swindler. By saying his name, God is getting Jacob to make a confession of sin.
But God then takes the next step. His sign of forgiveness is a new name: "Israel" which means, "the man who struggles with God." Something new opens up before Jacob, now Israel, that was not seen before. In each relationship before, he was a struggler. Now that he had been touched by grace, he saw the need for reconciliation. He saw that there was great power in humbly reconciling with his brother. When daylight finally came, the "Stranger" was gone. And so was Jacob. There only remained Israel.
Michelangelo is known, among his other artistic achievements, as a master with marble. He often went directly to the marble quarries to select his own stones. On one occasion he found a huge block of marble that had been discarded. He purchased it at a minor cost and set to work with chisel and mallet. The flawed portions in the block were removed or worked around, and the great sculptor took two years to finish the world-famous statue we know as "David."
Jacob certainly was a chiseler in the negative meaning of the word. Power, success, happiness, as the world knows them, are available to the Jacobs of this world. But little do the Jacobs realize that God is also a chiseler of a different sort—the Michelangelo sort, who takes us with all our flaws, slowly and painfully begins to chip away, until God's work of art is done: a person at peace with God and with his brother. God is the one who chiseled away at Jacob all along, but put the finishing touch on him there by the Jabbok river. God chiseled away all of Jacob's flaws, but then added one of His own, a mark, like some characteristic mark which was part of every piece God the Artist worked on. For Jacob, it was the limp. That way each piece that God works on would know who their Artist was.
Beware of the chiselers. The Jacobs. But also beware of The Chiseler, the great Artist who makes great works of art out of flawed stones, Israels out of Jacobs. And remember the last glimpse we have of Jacob, now Israel, is a humbled figure, silhouetted against the brilliance of dawn, limping home. He bore on his body the proud insignia of the defeat which was in truth victory, the victory of the human soul being chiseled by the touch of God.
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Take My Advice
"Take My Advice"
Proverbs 10:17; 12:1; 12:15; 15:12; 15:32; 17:10
A minister was leading worship at his new church. He preached what everyone thought was an excellent sermon. The second Sunday rolled around and the new Pastor preached the same sermon as the previous week. People thought it was a little odd, but rolled with it. But when the minister did the same the following two weeks, people got concerned.
A couple of the Elders visited with the new Pastor and expressed their concern. "That was a great sermon you preached the first Sunday you were here. But then the same sermon the next week and for the following three weeks? What's up with that? When are you going to preach a different sermon?"
The Pastor looked at them and said, "When you do something about the first sermon I preached."
Oooo, snap! (I've always wanted to try that, but never have had the guts to do it.)
Preaching is kind of an odd practice, when you think about it. I get to stand up here Sunday after Sunday and tell you how to live your lives. And Sunday after Sunday, you come and allow me to tell you how I think you should or could live your lives.
If you were listening to a speech or presentation, there might be a question-answer session afterwards, but not with a sermon. You just have to take it or leave it, as far as my advice goes. Usually any evaluation happens over Sunday lunch. It used to be called, "having fried preacher for lunch."
"What'd you think of the sermon today?"
"Meh."
"Yeah, me too."
We preachers don't get to hear what you think about our weekly sterling advice.
Every once in a great while someone will be talking with me and say something like, "Remember that sermon you preached about three months ago? That was such a good message—I've been thinking about it a lot." That's nice to hear (even if I don't remember which sermon they were talking about).
When I'm writing the sermon each week, I believe the Lord has someone in mind to hear my words. I never know who it is. But often someone will be shaking my hand after the worship is over and lean in and say, "That message was just for me this morning," and then I'll know who the Lord wanted to hear my great advice. Hearing someone say that is always nicer than someone saying, "Too bad ol' what's-his-name wasn't here this morning. He needed to hear that sermon!"
So, in a big way, that's what preaching and sermons are: they are 20 minutes of me giving you unsolicited advice. What an honor and privilege it is for me that you come and listen to it. You don't have to. You come voluntarily for my amazing bon mots of spiritual advice about how you should be living. You are trusting me to give you advice! That is a great trust, and I thank you for that trust. If someone were to just walk up to you on the sidewalk, and started giving you advice about your life, I think I know how that would go.
Here's a short list of useless advice people have gotten from others on twitter:
Don't dwell on your failures. Just accept that you are a loser, and move on.
Watering plants only teaches dependence. Letting them die is a valuable lesson for plants learning to look after themselves.
Having a golf handicap does not entitle you to park in disabled spaces.
If at first you don't succeed, maybe skydiving isn't for you.
Red traffic lights are not just a suggestion.
Make the best of a bad situation by blaming someone else.
Make your vegetarian sausages taste even better by wrapping them in bacon.
(Cartoon:)
Think about this past month. I have been doing a series of advice sermons based on the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs is, itself, a long list of advice that fathers are supposed to give to their sons. I started out with a message about what makes a good marriage. Then I talked about the "blowhole" in the middle of our faces called the mouth, and how it can harm or heal. Then I preached to you in an amazingly excellent way about pride and arrogance. I then moved on, in last weeks message, to talk to you about laziness, while I lay on a couch. And this morning, the ultimate advice sermon talking about accepting advice.
As the saying goes, nobody likes correction or criticism. I don't know about you, but for me it started young, in school, when I'd get a paper back and it would be full of red marks, made by the teacher. Maybe some of you weren't lucky enough to get red marks all over you paper, and a smaller number on the top of that paper than most the other students, and that number was written and circled in red.
It got to the point where I didn't even look at my returned papers any more. Each one had the red marks of failure on them. Even though they were just gradings on a particular paper in a particular subject, it seemed bigger than that to a kid like me. It seemed like a criticism of who I was as a person. How could I defend myself against a teacher's red marks on my paper? They were marks of power and authority and criticism and evaluation.
How was I, as a 7, 8, 9, 10 year old supposed to accept that? They don't teach kids that in school—how to accept evaluation and criticism. We're supposed to figure that out on our own. And on top of that, we have to take those red marked papers home and show them to our parents, and hear and experience their critical disappointment as well.
Even the words used in these Proverbs seem harsh: reproof, discipline, corrected, refuted, chastisement, criticism, reprimand, rejection, warning, restraint, brutish, make mouth at. We're supposed to be wise if we can accept these things, but we're fools if we don't. It's no wonder many of us grow up not taking criticism well. Not wanting to listen to advice.
Here are a few things I wish someone would have sat me down and told or taught me about accepting advice or taking criticism.
The first piece of my advice is not to go global but particular. For me, when someone gave me advice, or criticized me, instantly I would go into ego defense mode. I felt like I was having to protect who I was rather than a particular thing I did wrong. I got a few math problems wrong. I'm not a total idiot. There's a huge difference. Getting a few math problems wrong is fixable. Being called a total idiot who would never learn, much less so.
This is advice for both the criticizer and the person being criticized. If you are in the position of having to offer criticism and advice, be as particular as possible. Here's some advice Mark Graber gives out almost weekly: "If you want to operate this computer most effectively, you have to plug it in first." That's particular. That simple. That's fixable. A global criticism is something like this: "You are one heaping serving of moron on the plate of life." That kind of criticism is not particular. It's not simple. It's not fixable.
The later kind of criticism will make the person being criticized immediately throw up the walls of ego defense. That second kind of criticism gives the criticized only two choices: 1) I am not a moron; 2) I am a moron, and I don't know what I can do to fix that. It is demeaning The person being criticized has to evaluate, "Is this criticism particular or global?"
In order to evaluate between the two, it means taking a few minutes and decide which it is so you can work out an appropriate response. Take a deep breath and give it a little thought. That goes for the criticizer and the criticized.
Allow some objectivity, as well as taking the heat out of the emotion you may be feeling. Let your emotions run their course, and then respond.
A second response to criticism or someone giving us advice has to do with our assumptions about what the advice giver is up to. As I think back to those school days as a kid, I must have assumed the teacher was trying to make me feel as bad as possible about myself. Because what would happen more often than not, what followed a marked up paper was isolation. No follow up.
If the teacher had followed up and come to my desk and said something like, "OK, Steve, show me how you are adding these numbers so we can see where you're going wrong. I think it must be something simple, because your answers are close to being right. We can fix this." That way I would assume the teacher has good intentions. But when I was left alone to stare at all the red, with no follow-up, then my assumptions go all over the place.
That goes for the advice giver as well. Follow up on the advice you give after a few days. Let the person you criticized know that you aren't just hitting them with a shotgun blast of advice and leaving them to bleed out, emotionally.
Assumptions about the persons intentions are huge in how well we accept advice or take criticism from another person. We will be much less ego defensive if we assume the other person is just trying to help and have our best interest in mind.
And lastly, yearn to improve. People who are life-long learners live longer. They access more of life. Being a human being is a continual work in progress. As my AA friends say, it's all about progress not perfection. Progress means going forward constantly.
Going forward constantly and being a life long learner means we have to have the attitude that we can learn something from everyone. Everyone's advice has the potential of helping us make progress as a human being. We aren't perfect; we don't know everything. Advice and criticism can keep us going along the way.
This may seem counter intuitive, but maybe what we need to do is ask for criticism on a regular basis. This may be a really tough thing to do, especially if you hate criticism – but by asking for it, you are putting yourself in an empowerment position. Instead of people coming to you to tell you what’s wrong, you can go to them first and ask, even if everyone seems happy with who you are and what you are doing with your life.
Again, I thank you for allowing me to be a weekly advice giver for you, for voluntarily coming to listen to my sermons. I try to be faithful to God during this time of the worship service, and faithful to the Word of God as I put the sermon together each week. I pray that, once in a while, you hear something worthwhile, as I impart my thoughts and advice to you.
Next Sunday, we will depart from our normal Sunday School lesson and have an open session about what you found in the Book of Proverbs, what you learned, and what wisdom you gained as you've been reading Proverbs this past month. Please join in.
Proverbs 10:17; 12:1; 12:15; 15:12; 15:32; 17:10
A minister was leading worship at his new church. He preached what everyone thought was an excellent sermon. The second Sunday rolled around and the new Pastor preached the same sermon as the previous week. People thought it was a little odd, but rolled with it. But when the minister did the same the following two weeks, people got concerned.
A couple of the Elders visited with the new Pastor and expressed their concern. "That was a great sermon you preached the first Sunday you were here. But then the same sermon the next week and for the following three weeks? What's up with that? When are you going to preach a different sermon?"
The Pastor looked at them and said, "When you do something about the first sermon I preached."
Oooo, snap! (I've always wanted to try that, but never have had the guts to do it.)
Preaching is kind of an odd practice, when you think about it. I get to stand up here Sunday after Sunday and tell you how to live your lives. And Sunday after Sunday, you come and allow me to tell you how I think you should or could live your lives.
If you were listening to a speech or presentation, there might be a question-answer session afterwards, but not with a sermon. You just have to take it or leave it, as far as my advice goes. Usually any evaluation happens over Sunday lunch. It used to be called, "having fried preacher for lunch."
"What'd you think of the sermon today?"
"Meh."
"Yeah, me too."
We preachers don't get to hear what you think about our weekly sterling advice.
Every once in a great while someone will be talking with me and say something like, "Remember that sermon you preached about three months ago? That was such a good message—I've been thinking about it a lot." That's nice to hear (even if I don't remember which sermon they were talking about).
When I'm writing the sermon each week, I believe the Lord has someone in mind to hear my words. I never know who it is. But often someone will be shaking my hand after the worship is over and lean in and say, "That message was just for me this morning," and then I'll know who the Lord wanted to hear my great advice. Hearing someone say that is always nicer than someone saying, "Too bad ol' what's-his-name wasn't here this morning. He needed to hear that sermon!"
So, in a big way, that's what preaching and sermons are: they are 20 minutes of me giving you unsolicited advice. What an honor and privilege it is for me that you come and listen to it. You don't have to. You come voluntarily for my amazing bon mots of spiritual advice about how you should be living. You are trusting me to give you advice! That is a great trust, and I thank you for that trust. If someone were to just walk up to you on the sidewalk, and started giving you advice about your life, I think I know how that would go.
Here's a short list of useless advice people have gotten from others on twitter:
Don't dwell on your failures. Just accept that you are a loser, and move on.
Watering plants only teaches dependence. Letting them die is a valuable lesson for plants learning to look after themselves.
Having a golf handicap does not entitle you to park in disabled spaces.
If at first you don't succeed, maybe skydiving isn't for you.
Red traffic lights are not just a suggestion.
Make the best of a bad situation by blaming someone else.
Make your vegetarian sausages taste even better by wrapping them in bacon.
(Cartoon:)
Think about this past month. I have been doing a series of advice sermons based on the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs is, itself, a long list of advice that fathers are supposed to give to their sons. I started out with a message about what makes a good marriage. Then I talked about the "blowhole" in the middle of our faces called the mouth, and how it can harm or heal. Then I preached to you in an amazingly excellent way about pride and arrogance. I then moved on, in last weeks message, to talk to you about laziness, while I lay on a couch. And this morning, the ultimate advice sermon talking about accepting advice.
As the saying goes, nobody likes correction or criticism. I don't know about you, but for me it started young, in school, when I'd get a paper back and it would be full of red marks, made by the teacher. Maybe some of you weren't lucky enough to get red marks all over you paper, and a smaller number on the top of that paper than most the other students, and that number was written and circled in red.
It got to the point where I didn't even look at my returned papers any more. Each one had the red marks of failure on them. Even though they were just gradings on a particular paper in a particular subject, it seemed bigger than that to a kid like me. It seemed like a criticism of who I was as a person. How could I defend myself against a teacher's red marks on my paper? They were marks of power and authority and criticism and evaluation.
How was I, as a 7, 8, 9, 10 year old supposed to accept that? They don't teach kids that in school—how to accept evaluation and criticism. We're supposed to figure that out on our own. And on top of that, we have to take those red marked papers home and show them to our parents, and hear and experience their critical disappointment as well.
Even the words used in these Proverbs seem harsh: reproof, discipline, corrected, refuted, chastisement, criticism, reprimand, rejection, warning, restraint, brutish, make mouth at. We're supposed to be wise if we can accept these things, but we're fools if we don't. It's no wonder many of us grow up not taking criticism well. Not wanting to listen to advice.
Here are a few things I wish someone would have sat me down and told or taught me about accepting advice or taking criticism.
The first piece of my advice is not to go global but particular. For me, when someone gave me advice, or criticized me, instantly I would go into ego defense mode. I felt like I was having to protect who I was rather than a particular thing I did wrong. I got a few math problems wrong. I'm not a total idiot. There's a huge difference. Getting a few math problems wrong is fixable. Being called a total idiot who would never learn, much less so.
This is advice for both the criticizer and the person being criticized. If you are in the position of having to offer criticism and advice, be as particular as possible. Here's some advice Mark Graber gives out almost weekly: "If you want to operate this computer most effectively, you have to plug it in first." That's particular. That simple. That's fixable. A global criticism is something like this: "You are one heaping serving of moron on the plate of life." That kind of criticism is not particular. It's not simple. It's not fixable.
The later kind of criticism will make the person being criticized immediately throw up the walls of ego defense. That second kind of criticism gives the criticized only two choices: 1) I am not a moron; 2) I am a moron, and I don't know what I can do to fix that. It is demeaning The person being criticized has to evaluate, "Is this criticism particular or global?"
In order to evaluate between the two, it means taking a few minutes and decide which it is so you can work out an appropriate response. Take a deep breath and give it a little thought. That goes for the criticizer and the criticized.
Allow some objectivity, as well as taking the heat out of the emotion you may be feeling. Let your emotions run their course, and then respond.
A second response to criticism or someone giving us advice has to do with our assumptions about what the advice giver is up to. As I think back to those school days as a kid, I must have assumed the teacher was trying to make me feel as bad as possible about myself. Because what would happen more often than not, what followed a marked up paper was isolation. No follow up.
If the teacher had followed up and come to my desk and said something like, "OK, Steve, show me how you are adding these numbers so we can see where you're going wrong. I think it must be something simple, because your answers are close to being right. We can fix this." That way I would assume the teacher has good intentions. But when I was left alone to stare at all the red, with no follow-up, then my assumptions go all over the place.
That goes for the advice giver as well. Follow up on the advice you give after a few days. Let the person you criticized know that you aren't just hitting them with a shotgun blast of advice and leaving them to bleed out, emotionally.
Assumptions about the persons intentions are huge in how well we accept advice or take criticism from another person. We will be much less ego defensive if we assume the other person is just trying to help and have our best interest in mind.
And lastly, yearn to improve. People who are life-long learners live longer. They access more of life. Being a human being is a continual work in progress. As my AA friends say, it's all about progress not perfection. Progress means going forward constantly.
Going forward constantly and being a life long learner means we have to have the attitude that we can learn something from everyone. Everyone's advice has the potential of helping us make progress as a human being. We aren't perfect; we don't know everything. Advice and criticism can keep us going along the way.
This may seem counter intuitive, but maybe what we need to do is ask for criticism on a regular basis. This may be a really tough thing to do, especially if you hate criticism – but by asking for it, you are putting yourself in an empowerment position. Instead of people coming to you to tell you what’s wrong, you can go to them first and ask, even if everyone seems happy with who you are and what you are doing with your life.
Again, I thank you for allowing me to be a weekly advice giver for you, for voluntarily coming to listen to my sermons. I try to be faithful to God during this time of the worship service, and faithful to the Word of God as I put the sermon together each week. I pray that, once in a while, you hear something worthwhile, as I impart my thoughts and advice to you.
Next Sunday, we will depart from our normal Sunday School lesson and have an open session about what you found in the Book of Proverbs, what you learned, and what wisdom you gained as you've been reading Proverbs this past month. Please join in.
Monday, July 24, 2017
Do Something
"Do Something"
Proverbs 10:5; 10:26; 13:4;19:15; 19:24
"Do Something!"
Proverbs 10:5; 10:26; 13:4; 19:15;
How many of you have a To-Do list? There are so many apps you can buy for your mobile devices that help you organize your To-Do list. Most of them are very good. If you use them.
That's my problem. I have two of the better To-Do list apps, and I spent the time getting them all organized. I can categorize all the tasks and dreams I have on my to-do list into levels of importance, and put dates and times on all those items as to when I want them done. My life is organized! I'm ready to go! I even put the To-Do app icon down on that bottom row of my iPhone and iPad so it's always visible, to remind me of what needs to get done. But then I don't look at it.
Every single day, my to-do list is a reminder of all the things I haven’t started. They may be things I want to do, or want to set myself up for some future time that I ‘just don’t have time’ to do now. And when I do have time? That familiar friend—laziness—comes knocking at my door. I'm generally not a lazy person. But in looking at my to-do list and keeping it up to date, I can be very lazy.
Bonnie Ware, a nurse who cared for patients in their final weeks of life, published the most common regrets she heard. Not chasing dreams was number one. She wrote:
“When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made."
That's the main issue with to-do lists. Those lists should contain not just every day tasks and work that need to be done—but also our long term goals and dreams in life. Those need just as much work and planning as our every day tasks. Every single day we choose how we spend what few hours we have. Yet, despite the constant warnings to chase after what we believe, we often fall victim to procrastination and laziness and a fear of even just starting. Just starting!
Laziness keeps us from just starting. And not starting has terrible consequences. Most of the Proverbs read this morning had to do with laziness and starving. If you don't start, you don't work; if you don't work, you don't eat. When you don't eat, you die. I love Proverbs 19:24 that describes a person who puts the spoon or fork into the food, but is too lazy to even lift that food to the mouth. Now that's laziness!
To-Do apps and time management only go so far in dealing with our laziness. You can put on all the to-do lists you want, "lift spoon to mouth", but if out of laziness you don't do that, you eventually starve. Laziness isn't simply putting off things until a later date. It's intentionally putting aside important work, knowing there will be negative consequences in the future, but putting them off anyway.
We aren’t just being forgetful, or complacent. We’re purposefully hurting ourselves by focusing on short-term pleasure at the cost of the long-term good. Almost all studies agree that laziness leads to to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and poorer well-being.
Dr. Piers Steel, an organizational behavior professor at the University of Calgary, has proposed a simple formula to determine why we make certain choices.
Expectancy + Value = Motivation
Impulsiveness + Delay
At the top of the equation, expectancy is the odds of an outcome coming from your choice. Value refers to how rewarding that outcome might be. Underneath, impulsiveness is your sensitivity to delays (how easily you get distracted, or how lazy you are), and delay is how long you think you will have to wait to receive the reward. Work out that equation and it will tell you what your motivation level is, or the drive you will have for a course of action.
According to this motivation equation, one of the main factors killing our motivation and bringing on deeper laziness is impulsiveness. There are two aspects of how impulsive we are: locomotion and assessment. Locomotion is the process of setting yourself a goal, deciding what kinds of behavior will best help you meet that goal, and then not allowing any distractions or delays get in the way of you completing that goal. This aspect of impulse control is about the "getting on with it" or "making something happen"—action that keeps you motivated and heading in only one direction.
So, all of our choices come down to the expectation of a good result vs. how long a task is likely to take us. The longer we think the task will take, the lazier we become in getting it done. Seems basic, right? We weigh the potential value against the effort involved. Should I lift my spoon to my mouth in order to get nourishment?
Recent studies into chronically lazy people have uncovered what Dr. Fuschia Sirois, a psychology professor at the University of Sheffield, England, has called “temporal myopia,” or the inability to see into your future.
One of the qualities that makes us human is the ability to gaze into the future, through planning and setting goals, as well as anticipating activities. But for lazy people, that vision is blurry. It’s more abstract and impersonal, and the lazy often feel an emotional disconnect between who they are, and who they could become.
Another problem that started in the 1960's is a marked decrease in the value of delayed gratification. That is, we have become less and less willing to work towards a reward in the future. We want that reward now, so that we value immediate rewards rather than working toward some future goal. Our motivation to start any task depends on us seeing value in it, yet we place more value on what is happening currently over what the future holds and justify this decision by emotionally disconnecting ourselves from our future self. It's easier to get very lazy about future goals, than it is about getting pleasure now.
Keep score. How much of what you are doing is for the present you vs. the future you?
Ancient Greek philosophers developed a word to describe this type of behavior: Akrasia. Simply put, Akrasia is being weak-willed—unable to see long-term value and giving in to instant gratification.
It’s why the ability to delay gratification is such a huge predictor of future success. Success takes hard work. Long hours of concentration with no absolute promise of reward. Yet the world around us and what it’s done to our brains makes it all too easy to just give in and take the low-hanging fruit. Or be totally lazy, and not even reach for the low-hanging fruit from our lay-down posture.
Ironically, the guilt and frustration we feel from not starting is often worse than the pain of actually doing work. In the words of writer and theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky:
“On a moment to moment basis, being in the middle of doing the work is usually less painful than being in the middle of (being lazy).”
It’s that hump of ‘just start’, just do something, that is so hard to get over. Yet once we do, momentum takes over. We see immediate results from the work we’re doing and instead of looking for ways to avoid it, we look at ways to finish.
So, how do we get over the fear of just starting? Are there ways to combat laziness, or even see it coming and adjust course?
Part of the problem is allowing the small losses to accumulate. A great example is Billy in the "Family Circus" cartoon. Several of the cartoons have to do with Billy being given a task, and then getting lost in all the small distractions along the way. Here's one of those cartoons.
All those smaller losses add up, and the larger milestones we are trying to accomplish don't get done. The smaller losses have to do with our laziness more often than not. The more we let the small losses to accumulate through our choices, the more we will feel regret. That is, according the the Proverbs, the less we will eat. The less we will be fed. The less we will be strengthened for the larger task.
The more you keep at a task, there’s a mental process called the Zeigarnik Effect, which kicks in when you are close to finishing, propelling you towards the finish line like you’re running from a hoard of zombies. You feel as though you just cannot stop until you’re done. The writer, Ernest Hemingway would always stop writing for the day in mid-sentence so that when he returned to the typewriter the next day he could pick up where he left off, effectively forcing himself into ‘must finish’ mode.
Just starting is a mental battle, one that we sometimes have to turn into something physical before we can be victorious. One way to do this is by using some strategy that will make it hard for you to continue with negative behaviors. For Victor Hugo, the author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and one of my favorite books, Les Miserables, that meant locking all his clothes in a closet so he wouldn’t be able to go out socializing or entertain and would be forced to write.
Battling laziness most often comes down to this, "just getting started." Just start! The fear of starting is often so much less than the pain of actually working. Yet, our brains can fool us into thinking the opposite is true. And once we’ve engrained those beliefs it’s hard to break out of them. We have to change how we think, in order to break the bonds of laziness. Just remember the greatest achievements don’t happen without starting.
Proverbs 10:5; 10:26; 13:4;19:15; 19:24
"Do Something!"
Proverbs 10:5; 10:26; 13:4; 19:15;
How many of you have a To-Do list? There are so many apps you can buy for your mobile devices that help you organize your To-Do list. Most of them are very good. If you use them.
That's my problem. I have two of the better To-Do list apps, and I spent the time getting them all organized. I can categorize all the tasks and dreams I have on my to-do list into levels of importance, and put dates and times on all those items as to when I want them done. My life is organized! I'm ready to go! I even put the To-Do app icon down on that bottom row of my iPhone and iPad so it's always visible, to remind me of what needs to get done. But then I don't look at it.
Every single day, my to-do list is a reminder of all the things I haven’t started. They may be things I want to do, or want to set myself up for some future time that I ‘just don’t have time’ to do now. And when I do have time? That familiar friend—laziness—comes knocking at my door. I'm generally not a lazy person. But in looking at my to-do list and keeping it up to date, I can be very lazy.
Bonnie Ware, a nurse who cared for patients in their final weeks of life, published the most common regrets she heard. Not chasing dreams was number one. She wrote:
“When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made."
That's the main issue with to-do lists. Those lists should contain not just every day tasks and work that need to be done—but also our long term goals and dreams in life. Those need just as much work and planning as our every day tasks. Every single day we choose how we spend what few hours we have. Yet, despite the constant warnings to chase after what we believe, we often fall victim to procrastination and laziness and a fear of even just starting. Just starting!
Laziness keeps us from just starting. And not starting has terrible consequences. Most of the Proverbs read this morning had to do with laziness and starving. If you don't start, you don't work; if you don't work, you don't eat. When you don't eat, you die. I love Proverbs 19:24 that describes a person who puts the spoon or fork into the food, but is too lazy to even lift that food to the mouth. Now that's laziness!
To-Do apps and time management only go so far in dealing with our laziness. You can put on all the to-do lists you want, "lift spoon to mouth", but if out of laziness you don't do that, you eventually starve. Laziness isn't simply putting off things until a later date. It's intentionally putting aside important work, knowing there will be negative consequences in the future, but putting them off anyway.
We aren’t just being forgetful, or complacent. We’re purposefully hurting ourselves by focusing on short-term pleasure at the cost of the long-term good. Almost all studies agree that laziness leads to to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and poorer well-being.
Dr. Piers Steel, an organizational behavior professor at the University of Calgary, has proposed a simple formula to determine why we make certain choices.
Expectancy + Value = Motivation
Impulsiveness + Delay
At the top of the equation, expectancy is the odds of an outcome coming from your choice. Value refers to how rewarding that outcome might be. Underneath, impulsiveness is your sensitivity to delays (how easily you get distracted, or how lazy you are), and delay is how long you think you will have to wait to receive the reward. Work out that equation and it will tell you what your motivation level is, or the drive you will have for a course of action.
According to this motivation equation, one of the main factors killing our motivation and bringing on deeper laziness is impulsiveness. There are two aspects of how impulsive we are: locomotion and assessment. Locomotion is the process of setting yourself a goal, deciding what kinds of behavior will best help you meet that goal, and then not allowing any distractions or delays get in the way of you completing that goal. This aspect of impulse control is about the "getting on with it" or "making something happen"—action that keeps you motivated and heading in only one direction.
So, all of our choices come down to the expectation of a good result vs. how long a task is likely to take us. The longer we think the task will take, the lazier we become in getting it done. Seems basic, right? We weigh the potential value against the effort involved. Should I lift my spoon to my mouth in order to get nourishment?
Recent studies into chronically lazy people have uncovered what Dr. Fuschia Sirois, a psychology professor at the University of Sheffield, England, has called “temporal myopia,” or the inability to see into your future.
One of the qualities that makes us human is the ability to gaze into the future, through planning and setting goals, as well as anticipating activities. But for lazy people, that vision is blurry. It’s more abstract and impersonal, and the lazy often feel an emotional disconnect between who they are, and who they could become.
Another problem that started in the 1960's is a marked decrease in the value of delayed gratification. That is, we have become less and less willing to work towards a reward in the future. We want that reward now, so that we value immediate rewards rather than working toward some future goal. Our motivation to start any task depends on us seeing value in it, yet we place more value on what is happening currently over what the future holds and justify this decision by emotionally disconnecting ourselves from our future self. It's easier to get very lazy about future goals, than it is about getting pleasure now.
Keep score. How much of what you are doing is for the present you vs. the future you?
Ancient Greek philosophers developed a word to describe this type of behavior: Akrasia. Simply put, Akrasia is being weak-willed—unable to see long-term value and giving in to instant gratification.
It’s why the ability to delay gratification is such a huge predictor of future success. Success takes hard work. Long hours of concentration with no absolute promise of reward. Yet the world around us and what it’s done to our brains makes it all too easy to just give in and take the low-hanging fruit. Or be totally lazy, and not even reach for the low-hanging fruit from our lay-down posture.
Ironically, the guilt and frustration we feel from not starting is often worse than the pain of actually doing work. In the words of writer and theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky:
“On a moment to moment basis, being in the middle of doing the work is usually less painful than being in the middle of (being lazy).”
It’s that hump of ‘just start’, just do something, that is so hard to get over. Yet once we do, momentum takes over. We see immediate results from the work we’re doing and instead of looking for ways to avoid it, we look at ways to finish.
So, how do we get over the fear of just starting? Are there ways to combat laziness, or even see it coming and adjust course?
Part of the problem is allowing the small losses to accumulate. A great example is Billy in the "Family Circus" cartoon. Several of the cartoons have to do with Billy being given a task, and then getting lost in all the small distractions along the way. Here's one of those cartoons.
All those smaller losses add up, and the larger milestones we are trying to accomplish don't get done. The smaller losses have to do with our laziness more often than not. The more we let the small losses to accumulate through our choices, the more we will feel regret. That is, according the the Proverbs, the less we will eat. The less we will be fed. The less we will be strengthened for the larger task.
The more you keep at a task, there’s a mental process called the Zeigarnik Effect, which kicks in when you are close to finishing, propelling you towards the finish line like you’re running from a hoard of zombies. You feel as though you just cannot stop until you’re done. The writer, Ernest Hemingway would always stop writing for the day in mid-sentence so that when he returned to the typewriter the next day he could pick up where he left off, effectively forcing himself into ‘must finish’ mode.
Just starting is a mental battle, one that we sometimes have to turn into something physical before we can be victorious. One way to do this is by using some strategy that will make it hard for you to continue with negative behaviors. For Victor Hugo, the author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and one of my favorite books, Les Miserables, that meant locking all his clothes in a closet so he wouldn’t be able to go out socializing or entertain and would be forced to write.
Battling laziness most often comes down to this, "just getting started." Just start! The fear of starting is often so much less than the pain of actually working. Yet, our brains can fool us into thinking the opposite is true. And once we’ve engrained those beliefs it’s hard to break out of them. We have to change how we think, in order to break the bonds of laziness. Just remember the greatest achievements don’t happen without starting.
Monday, July 17, 2017
Pride Goes Before The Fall
"Pride Goes Before The Fall"
Proverbs 6:16-19; 8:13; 11:2; 16:5, 18; 21:24
The Greeks distrusted arrogance because they believed that to be arrogant about one's gifts or good fortune was to incite the jealousy of the gods. Greek poets and philsophers loved to tell stories of the downfall of powerful, arrogant men whose hubris, or excessive arrogance, tripped them up when they least expected.
There is the story told by the historian Herodatus about a powerful, but tyrannical and arrogant king named Polycrates. Herodatus was a great traveller, and gathered folk wisdom and stories not only from his native Greece, but also from Egypt, Persia, and other countries around the Mediterranean. Herodatus conveyed history in the form of stories because he believed that stories--not logical expositions--most accurately captured the reality of human history and human experience.
King Polycrates was a rich and powerful ruler who seemed to have all that life had to offer. What he did not have, he took. Polycrates' good friend, the king of Egypt, became worried about him. He wrote Polycrates a letter and said that he wished for himself and his friends some failures mixed in with their successes. "I have never heard of anyone," wrote the Egyptian king, "whose good fortune was complete and who did not end up in complete ruin." He then urged his friend to give up something that he cherished.
On reading the letter, Polycrates thought that his friend from Egypt was giving him good advice. He decided to give up an emerald ring made of gold which was very precious to him. Reluctantly, he sailed far out to sea on one of the ships of his formidable navy, and threw the treasured ring overboard. Then he went back to his palace and mourned his loss.
A week later a fisherman in Polycrates' kingdom caught a large and beautiful fish. He decided to make a gift of the fish to the king. When the palace cook cut open the fish, he found inside it the ring that the king had thrown into the sea. Polycrates was joyful to have his ring returned, and wrote to his friend in Egypt to tell him of his good fortune. Polycrates thought he was blessed by the gods, and must have been a much better person than all others, since he got his ring back. His arrogance only increased instead of decrease, as the King of Egypt hoped.
This was enough to scare his friend. The king of Egypt wanted nothing more to do with Polycrates because he knew that his friend was headed for big trouble. He didn't want to suffer in his soul while he watched his friend meet a horrible fate. And so he ended his friendship with Polycrates right then and there. And he was right to do so, because Polycrates had allied himself secretly with the king of Persia to attack and take over Egypt.
Shortly after, during the war, Polycrates was murdered in a horrible way. Polycrates thought he was better than all others, and it was that arrogance that led to his awful death at the hands of those he trusted.
Arrogance is one of the most addressed qualities in the book of Proverbs. It is one of the worst human qualities talked about in the Bible. It is the part of humanity that God detests the most. (I confess I used to be really arrogant, but I fixed that and now I'm perfect.)
A group called the Knowledge and Media Research Center, in Tuebingen, Germany, did a study of arrogance. Their study determined that arrogance reflects an interpersonal quality that desires to over power others. So arrogance is about power, the accumulation of power, and making sure you have power over as many people as possible.
The philosopher Nietzsche said the main drive of human beings was what he called, "the will to power." Looking at the world, especially today and what's going on with our national leaders, it's not hard to disagree. Or, if we are honest with ourselves, none of us likes to feel powerless. None of us likes to feel like we just keep getting stepped on and we don't get to step on anyone back. We want to be sure we have some kind of power over certain situations or people in our life.
But, like the King of Egypt was worried about Polycrates, too much pride and arrogance in the form of power is destructive to self and others. The study I mentioned a moment ago that came out of the German group found that arrogant, power motivated people are drawn to words like affluence, authority, dominance, fortune, money, prestige, reputation, and status.
Arrogant people are driven by a desire to edge out others seen as competitors. It's an over confidence in your own ability to actually win. But it's not just about winning. It's seeing yourself as deserving to win.
Proverbs 11:2 stated,
When arrogance comes, then comes disgrace;
But with the humble is wisdom.
The Hebrew word for arrogance there means presumption. Presumption is an idea you take as true, but you don't know for certain. Even though you don't know for certain, you still use it as a building block for other ideas about self-importance. So if the presumption is that you deserve to win over others, you assume that presumption is true and act as if it is. That is the building block of arrogance.
Arrogant people seek status. But they acquire that status through intimidation and aggression. In Proverbs 8:13, it is God speaking through the writer where it says,
…pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.
The Hebrew word for arrogance here literally means to swell. God hates people who swell themselves up by intimidating and pushing power and being aggressive. It's an arrogance that swells itself up by deflating others.
It's interesting to me that just about every word in the Proverbs for the word arrogance is a different word in Hebrew. They had all kinds of ways of saying "arrogant." Most of them are pictorial words like swelling up, or rising up, or tilting the head back. And all these word pictures have horrible consequences to those who do them: being fractured or broken, tottering, stumbling and falling, being disgusting and morally revulsive, a disgrace, and dishonorable. The problem is, the arrogant, while pushing their arrogance, are totally oblivious to all that.
A captain of a battleship was told there was a light ahead, apparently another ship headed right for them. The captain signaled, "Veer 5 degrees to the starboard." A reply came back saying, "You veer 15 degrees to the port." The captain messaged back, "Steer 5 degrees to the starboard—this is a battle ship!" Then came the return message, "Steer 15 degrees to the port—this is a lighthouse." That's how the arrogant are—steering themselves into the rocks not caring they are heading to ruin, because they are a battleship!
In their study of arrogance, the German research center discovered that the opposite of arrogance is affiliation. That surprised me because I assumed, arrogantly, that the opposite of arrogance is humility. But it is affiliation, which is the desire to build relationships and get along with others.
People who are strong on the affiliation scale are attracted to words like attachment, belonging, closeness, collaboration, community, cooperation, family, harmony, and relationships. Whereas the arrogant are using people or stepping on people to get what they want, the affiliative people are creating closeness and relationship in order to get through life.
Charles Osgood has a podcast called the "Osgood File." He also hosts a television show called "Sunday Morning" on Sunday mornings. Maybe some of you have watched it.
In one of the segments on his "Sunday Morning" show, he told the story of two ladies who lived in a convalescent center. One was named Ruth and the other Margaret. Both of these ladies were accomplished pianists, having performed with famous orchestra's across the United States, as well as in solo performance. Both had reason to be prideful, even arrogant about their own accomplishments. But both these ladies gave up any hope of playing the piano again. Each had suffered an incapacitating stroke. Margaret's stroke left her left side restricted, while Ruth's stroke damaged her right side. For them it was over.
The director of the center had an idea. There just happened to be an upright grand piano in the chapel at the convalescent center. The director had them both brought into the chapel sat them down at the piano. She put a piece of classical music up on the music stand of the piano and encouraged them to play the solo piece together.
Which they did, and a beautiful friendship developed between the two women as they played piece after piece cooperating with each with their good hands.
That is the affiliation side of our Proverbs for today. Certainly there is a part of us that is prideful and arrogant. It is that part of us that only wants power, influence and affluence. All of us have to recognize the presence of that in us. But it is God's desire that we put that arrogance aside and develop relationships through affiliation and cooperation. It is God's constant mention of a frustration, even a hatred, of human arrogance that hopefully motivates us the other way towards cooperation and affiliative relationships.
Proverbs 6:16-19; 8:13; 11:2; 16:5, 18; 21:24
The Greeks distrusted arrogance because they believed that to be arrogant about one's gifts or good fortune was to incite the jealousy of the gods. Greek poets and philsophers loved to tell stories of the downfall of powerful, arrogant men whose hubris, or excessive arrogance, tripped them up when they least expected.
There is the story told by the historian Herodatus about a powerful, but tyrannical and arrogant king named Polycrates. Herodatus was a great traveller, and gathered folk wisdom and stories not only from his native Greece, but also from Egypt, Persia, and other countries around the Mediterranean. Herodatus conveyed history in the form of stories because he believed that stories--not logical expositions--most accurately captured the reality of human history and human experience.
King Polycrates was a rich and powerful ruler who seemed to have all that life had to offer. What he did not have, he took. Polycrates' good friend, the king of Egypt, became worried about him. He wrote Polycrates a letter and said that he wished for himself and his friends some failures mixed in with their successes. "I have never heard of anyone," wrote the Egyptian king, "whose good fortune was complete and who did not end up in complete ruin." He then urged his friend to give up something that he cherished.
On reading the letter, Polycrates thought that his friend from Egypt was giving him good advice. He decided to give up an emerald ring made of gold which was very precious to him. Reluctantly, he sailed far out to sea on one of the ships of his formidable navy, and threw the treasured ring overboard. Then he went back to his palace and mourned his loss.
A week later a fisherman in Polycrates' kingdom caught a large and beautiful fish. He decided to make a gift of the fish to the king. When the palace cook cut open the fish, he found inside it the ring that the king had thrown into the sea. Polycrates was joyful to have his ring returned, and wrote to his friend in Egypt to tell him of his good fortune. Polycrates thought he was blessed by the gods, and must have been a much better person than all others, since he got his ring back. His arrogance only increased instead of decrease, as the King of Egypt hoped.
This was enough to scare his friend. The king of Egypt wanted nothing more to do with Polycrates because he knew that his friend was headed for big trouble. He didn't want to suffer in his soul while he watched his friend meet a horrible fate. And so he ended his friendship with Polycrates right then and there. And he was right to do so, because Polycrates had allied himself secretly with the king of Persia to attack and take over Egypt.
Shortly after, during the war, Polycrates was murdered in a horrible way. Polycrates thought he was better than all others, and it was that arrogance that led to his awful death at the hands of those he trusted.
Arrogance is one of the most addressed qualities in the book of Proverbs. It is one of the worst human qualities talked about in the Bible. It is the part of humanity that God detests the most. (I confess I used to be really arrogant, but I fixed that and now I'm perfect.)
A group called the Knowledge and Media Research Center, in Tuebingen, Germany, did a study of arrogance. Their study determined that arrogance reflects an interpersonal quality that desires to over power others. So arrogance is about power, the accumulation of power, and making sure you have power over as many people as possible.
The philosopher Nietzsche said the main drive of human beings was what he called, "the will to power." Looking at the world, especially today and what's going on with our national leaders, it's not hard to disagree. Or, if we are honest with ourselves, none of us likes to feel powerless. None of us likes to feel like we just keep getting stepped on and we don't get to step on anyone back. We want to be sure we have some kind of power over certain situations or people in our life.
But, like the King of Egypt was worried about Polycrates, too much pride and arrogance in the form of power is destructive to self and others. The study I mentioned a moment ago that came out of the German group found that arrogant, power motivated people are drawn to words like affluence, authority, dominance, fortune, money, prestige, reputation, and status.
Arrogant people are driven by a desire to edge out others seen as competitors. It's an over confidence in your own ability to actually win. But it's not just about winning. It's seeing yourself as deserving to win.
Proverbs 11:2 stated,
When arrogance comes, then comes disgrace;
But with the humble is wisdom.
The Hebrew word for arrogance there means presumption. Presumption is an idea you take as true, but you don't know for certain. Even though you don't know for certain, you still use it as a building block for other ideas about self-importance. So if the presumption is that you deserve to win over others, you assume that presumption is true and act as if it is. That is the building block of arrogance.
Arrogant people seek status. But they acquire that status through intimidation and aggression. In Proverbs 8:13, it is God speaking through the writer where it says,
…pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.
The Hebrew word for arrogance here literally means to swell. God hates people who swell themselves up by intimidating and pushing power and being aggressive. It's an arrogance that swells itself up by deflating others.
It's interesting to me that just about every word in the Proverbs for the word arrogance is a different word in Hebrew. They had all kinds of ways of saying "arrogant." Most of them are pictorial words like swelling up, or rising up, or tilting the head back. And all these word pictures have horrible consequences to those who do them: being fractured or broken, tottering, stumbling and falling, being disgusting and morally revulsive, a disgrace, and dishonorable. The problem is, the arrogant, while pushing their arrogance, are totally oblivious to all that.
A captain of a battleship was told there was a light ahead, apparently another ship headed right for them. The captain signaled, "Veer 5 degrees to the starboard." A reply came back saying, "You veer 15 degrees to the port." The captain messaged back, "Steer 5 degrees to the starboard—this is a battle ship!" Then came the return message, "Steer 15 degrees to the port—this is a lighthouse." That's how the arrogant are—steering themselves into the rocks not caring they are heading to ruin, because they are a battleship!
In their study of arrogance, the German research center discovered that the opposite of arrogance is affiliation. That surprised me because I assumed, arrogantly, that the opposite of arrogance is humility. But it is affiliation, which is the desire to build relationships and get along with others.
People who are strong on the affiliation scale are attracted to words like attachment, belonging, closeness, collaboration, community, cooperation, family, harmony, and relationships. Whereas the arrogant are using people or stepping on people to get what they want, the affiliative people are creating closeness and relationship in order to get through life.
Charles Osgood has a podcast called the "Osgood File." He also hosts a television show called "Sunday Morning" on Sunday mornings. Maybe some of you have watched it.
In one of the segments on his "Sunday Morning" show, he told the story of two ladies who lived in a convalescent center. One was named Ruth and the other Margaret. Both of these ladies were accomplished pianists, having performed with famous orchestra's across the United States, as well as in solo performance. Both had reason to be prideful, even arrogant about their own accomplishments. But both these ladies gave up any hope of playing the piano again. Each had suffered an incapacitating stroke. Margaret's stroke left her left side restricted, while Ruth's stroke damaged her right side. For them it was over.
The director of the center had an idea. There just happened to be an upright grand piano in the chapel at the convalescent center. The director had them both brought into the chapel sat them down at the piano. She put a piece of classical music up on the music stand of the piano and encouraged them to play the solo piece together.
Which they did, and a beautiful friendship developed between the two women as they played piece after piece cooperating with each with their good hands.
That is the affiliation side of our Proverbs for today. Certainly there is a part of us that is prideful and arrogant. It is that part of us that only wants power, influence and affluence. All of us have to recognize the presence of that in us. But it is God's desire that we put that arrogance aside and develop relationships through affiliation and cooperation. It is God's constant mention of a frustration, even a hatred, of human arrogance that hopefully motivates us the other way towards cooperation and affiliative relationships.
Monday, July 10, 2017
Blowhole
"Blowhole"
Proverbs 12:6, 18-19; 14:3; 15:4; 18:7, 21:23
The average person spends one-fifth of his or her life talking. According to research, each of us will open our mouth an average of 700 times a day. In those 700 times, you will use an average of 18,000 words. If all of our words were put into print, a single day's words would fill a 50-page book. In a year's time the average person's words would fill 66 books of 800 pages each. Every year you write with your spoken words 66 volumes. If you lived 70 years, you will have "written" 4,620 books of 800 pages each with your spoken words.
Of course, that's the average. There are some who talk more. And some who talk less. I was telling my daughter, Kristin, this, when I saw her up in Kansas City this past week. She said we should call people who talk a lot, "book fillers." So you could say to a person, "You're one of those 'book fillers,'" and they'd have no idea we just described them as someone who talks too much.
That is a lot of stuff coming out of our mouths. Some people have what's been called, diarrhea of the mouth: too many words. Or as one guy said, who was trying to get his chatty wife to leave church, after worship was over, out to the parking lot so they could go home, "Every time my wife starts talking, all the blood runs to her lips.
The point of this is not about talking too much, or too little, though. The point is, a lot of words come out of our mouths—but what kind of words? With so many words coming out of our mouths, some are bound to be hurtful and destructive. And some are hopefully healing, instructive, and peacemaking.
The Hebrew word for mouth means, literally, the hole you blow through; thus, blowhole. It may be related to fire, in that you have to blow to get the fire started and then rekindled in the morning when the fire has almost gone out. So the words we speak come out of our blow hole—both good and bad words.
That's what our Proverbs are about for this week's message. What kind of words come out of our mouths—our blowholes? That's the wisdom lesson the Proverbs I've chosen for this morning's message are teaching. Let me go through two or three of the Proverbs I've picked, and see what we learn.
First, Proverbs 12:6.
The words of the wicked are a deadly ambush,
but the speech of the upright rescues them. (Holman)
This Proverb is saying that different kinds of words are going to come out of a person depending on whether the person is "wicked" or "upright." Therefore, it's not just the words coming out of your mouth, but your character that determines your vocabulary. This Proverb is calling us not only to assess what kind of words we speak, but check out our very character out of which we speak. Are you wicked, or are you upright? Check out your words—that will give you an indication.
Are you someone who likes to ambush with your words? Usually we think of a person being the ambusher. But here, it is words. When you are ambushed, you did not expect that to happen. You are surprised, caught off guard. Prior to the ambush you may have been confident, feeling safe and unafraid. Just tootling along through your day. Then, BAM! out of the blue, words jump out at you and cause injury.
That's how you know if maybe you lean toward being wicked with your words. You use your words to ambush others, to surprise others with a quick and unexpected attack.
By contrast, the upright use their words to "rescue" others. The word for rescue, in Hebrew means to snatch away. To rescue someone is to snatch them from harm and hurt by the words you speak. Someone's mouth can ambush you, but another person can snatch you out of that ambush with their words.
My daughter and her husband sometimes have a conversation around the question, "If you could have a superpower, what would it be?" And, what if that superpower had to do with our mouth and our words?
There's a new television series coming out called, "Inhumans." It is about people who live on the moon called the "Inhumans." They have superpowers, and have been isolated on the moon because of the powers. Some powers can be both constructive and destructive. Just to be safe, these inhumans have been banished to a moon colony. But they want to be on earth with normal people in the larger population. One of the inhumans never speaks. The reason is, if he even whispers a word, it comes out with such force, it could destroy whole cities. So he keeps his mouth shut and has to decide when he should speak and when not to. It's not that he's evil—he just has a catastrophic superpower.
Imagine having the opposite superpower—to utter a single word and you can rescue people, deliver them from an evil ambush. Which do you use your mouth—your superpower—for? Ambush and destruction, or rescue and saving?
Our second Proverb is chapter 12, verses 18 and 19.
There is one who speaks rashly,
like a piercing sword;
but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
Truthful lips endure forever,
but a lying tongue, only a moment.
The Hebrew word for speaking rashly literally means to babble or speak thoughtlessly. There are people who just go on and on and on and really say nothing. Like politicians. I ran across this "Instant Buzzword Generator." You can make up any kind of amazing sounding phrase by joining a word from column 1 with a word from columns 2 and 3.
Instant Buzzword Generator
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
Integrated Management Options
Total Organizational Flexibility
Systematized Monitored Compatibility
Parallel Reciprocal Mobility
Functional Digital Programming
Responsive Logic Concept
Optical Transitional Time phase
Synchronized Incremental Projection
Compatible Third generation Hardware
Balanced Policy Contingency
I was thinking, on our Vivid Vision statement that our Grow The Church Team put together, we could have thrown in some of these buzzword terms. Like having a "functional policy projection." Or a "synchronized incremental time phase." They are amazing sounding phrases, but what the heck do they mean? Who knows? But that's how some people babble on, saying a lot of stuff that has no meaning.
But as this Proverb states, the darker side of this babbling or thoughtless speaking is to turn words into a piercing sword. Imagine a list of words like the Buzzword Generator, only the three columns have hurtful, destructive, and demeaning words. Words that are "sword thrusts." The destruction of these sword thrusted and thoughtless words is that they are intentionally hurting. If you are thrusting these words at another person, you aren't defending yourself. You are trying to stab another person deeply and intentionally. You are trying to injure someone with your words.
The second part of this verse is about "truthful lips" vs. a "lying tongue." Truthful lips endure forever. The word in Hebrew for endure, literally means to be buried like a post. If you've dug post holes, you know the deeper you put them in the ground the sturdier they will be. That's what truthful lips are like—solid and immovable in their truth telling.
But the main part of this parable has to do with time. Telling the truth, having truthful lips lasts forever. Truth has a forever kind of quality. Whereas lying may get you through a moment, but that's all. Eventually that moment will pass, your lie will be found out, and the timeless truth will be demanded of you.
The last Proverb about our blowhole that I'll highlight is 15:4.
Kind words are good medicine,
but deceitful words can really hurt. (CEV)
Thousands of Tasmanian Devils have died from a rare type of cancer called Devil Facial Tumor Disease. Scientists discovered that the cancer began in the mouth of a single Tasmanian devil and spread through the bites of that animal. Tasmanian Devils bite each other around the mouth very frequently, and this cancer spread through those bites. Over the course of several years, over forty percent of the Tasmanian Devil population has died because of this cancer.
Some people's words are like those Tasmanian Devil bites. It isn't just the one bite that injures. The bite creates a disease which kills the animal. Just so, there are words we utter in a biting way. Those words act like a disease in a person that eats away at them, sometimes, their whole lives. Words that create the cancer of worthlessness, bitterness, guilt, or shame. Words that are spoken out of deceit. Words that are intended to hurt.
On the flip side, there are words that act like good medicine. Words have that amazing healing quality. Words like, "I'm sorry." Or, "I love you." Or, "I am praying for you." Those kinds of words have a way of going right to the location of our pain, and beginning the healing. They are "good medicine" words.
We speak a lot of words, every day. Listen to your own words. Make sure they are words that rescue, words that are truthful, and words that are healing.
Proverbs 12:6, 18-19; 14:3; 15:4; 18:7, 21:23
The average person spends one-fifth of his or her life talking. According to research, each of us will open our mouth an average of 700 times a day. In those 700 times, you will use an average of 18,000 words. If all of our words were put into print, a single day's words would fill a 50-page book. In a year's time the average person's words would fill 66 books of 800 pages each. Every year you write with your spoken words 66 volumes. If you lived 70 years, you will have "written" 4,620 books of 800 pages each with your spoken words.
Of course, that's the average. There are some who talk more. And some who talk less. I was telling my daughter, Kristin, this, when I saw her up in Kansas City this past week. She said we should call people who talk a lot, "book fillers." So you could say to a person, "You're one of those 'book fillers,'" and they'd have no idea we just described them as someone who talks too much.
That is a lot of stuff coming out of our mouths. Some people have what's been called, diarrhea of the mouth: too many words. Or as one guy said, who was trying to get his chatty wife to leave church, after worship was over, out to the parking lot so they could go home, "Every time my wife starts talking, all the blood runs to her lips.
The point of this is not about talking too much, or too little, though. The point is, a lot of words come out of our mouths—but what kind of words? With so many words coming out of our mouths, some are bound to be hurtful and destructive. And some are hopefully healing, instructive, and peacemaking.
The Hebrew word for mouth means, literally, the hole you blow through; thus, blowhole. It may be related to fire, in that you have to blow to get the fire started and then rekindled in the morning when the fire has almost gone out. So the words we speak come out of our blow hole—both good and bad words.
That's what our Proverbs are about for this week's message. What kind of words come out of our mouths—our blowholes? That's the wisdom lesson the Proverbs I've chosen for this morning's message are teaching. Let me go through two or three of the Proverbs I've picked, and see what we learn.
First, Proverbs 12:6.
The words of the wicked are a deadly ambush,
but the speech of the upright rescues them. (Holman)
This Proverb is saying that different kinds of words are going to come out of a person depending on whether the person is "wicked" or "upright." Therefore, it's not just the words coming out of your mouth, but your character that determines your vocabulary. This Proverb is calling us not only to assess what kind of words we speak, but check out our very character out of which we speak. Are you wicked, or are you upright? Check out your words—that will give you an indication.
Are you someone who likes to ambush with your words? Usually we think of a person being the ambusher. But here, it is words. When you are ambushed, you did not expect that to happen. You are surprised, caught off guard. Prior to the ambush you may have been confident, feeling safe and unafraid. Just tootling along through your day. Then, BAM! out of the blue, words jump out at you and cause injury.
That's how you know if maybe you lean toward being wicked with your words. You use your words to ambush others, to surprise others with a quick and unexpected attack.
By contrast, the upright use their words to "rescue" others. The word for rescue, in Hebrew means to snatch away. To rescue someone is to snatch them from harm and hurt by the words you speak. Someone's mouth can ambush you, but another person can snatch you out of that ambush with their words.
My daughter and her husband sometimes have a conversation around the question, "If you could have a superpower, what would it be?" And, what if that superpower had to do with our mouth and our words?
There's a new television series coming out called, "Inhumans." It is about people who live on the moon called the "Inhumans." They have superpowers, and have been isolated on the moon because of the powers. Some powers can be both constructive and destructive. Just to be safe, these inhumans have been banished to a moon colony. But they want to be on earth with normal people in the larger population. One of the inhumans never speaks. The reason is, if he even whispers a word, it comes out with such force, it could destroy whole cities. So he keeps his mouth shut and has to decide when he should speak and when not to. It's not that he's evil—he just has a catastrophic superpower.
Imagine having the opposite superpower—to utter a single word and you can rescue people, deliver them from an evil ambush. Which do you use your mouth—your superpower—for? Ambush and destruction, or rescue and saving?
Our second Proverb is chapter 12, verses 18 and 19.
There is one who speaks rashly,
like a piercing sword;
but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
Truthful lips endure forever,
but a lying tongue, only a moment.
The Hebrew word for speaking rashly literally means to babble or speak thoughtlessly. There are people who just go on and on and on and really say nothing. Like politicians. I ran across this "Instant Buzzword Generator." You can make up any kind of amazing sounding phrase by joining a word from column 1 with a word from columns 2 and 3.
Instant Buzzword Generator
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
Integrated Management Options
Total Organizational Flexibility
Systematized Monitored Compatibility
Parallel Reciprocal Mobility
Functional Digital Programming
Responsive Logic Concept
Optical Transitional Time phase
Synchronized Incremental Projection
Compatible Third generation Hardware
Balanced Policy Contingency
I was thinking, on our Vivid Vision statement that our Grow The Church Team put together, we could have thrown in some of these buzzword terms. Like having a "functional policy projection." Or a "synchronized incremental time phase." They are amazing sounding phrases, but what the heck do they mean? Who knows? But that's how some people babble on, saying a lot of stuff that has no meaning.
But as this Proverb states, the darker side of this babbling or thoughtless speaking is to turn words into a piercing sword. Imagine a list of words like the Buzzword Generator, only the three columns have hurtful, destructive, and demeaning words. Words that are "sword thrusts." The destruction of these sword thrusted and thoughtless words is that they are intentionally hurting. If you are thrusting these words at another person, you aren't defending yourself. You are trying to stab another person deeply and intentionally. You are trying to injure someone with your words.
The second part of this verse is about "truthful lips" vs. a "lying tongue." Truthful lips endure forever. The word in Hebrew for endure, literally means to be buried like a post. If you've dug post holes, you know the deeper you put them in the ground the sturdier they will be. That's what truthful lips are like—solid and immovable in their truth telling.
But the main part of this parable has to do with time. Telling the truth, having truthful lips lasts forever. Truth has a forever kind of quality. Whereas lying may get you through a moment, but that's all. Eventually that moment will pass, your lie will be found out, and the timeless truth will be demanded of you.
The last Proverb about our blowhole that I'll highlight is 15:4.
Kind words are good medicine,
but deceitful words can really hurt. (CEV)
Thousands of Tasmanian Devils have died from a rare type of cancer called Devil Facial Tumor Disease. Scientists discovered that the cancer began in the mouth of a single Tasmanian devil and spread through the bites of that animal. Tasmanian Devils bite each other around the mouth very frequently, and this cancer spread through those bites. Over the course of several years, over forty percent of the Tasmanian Devil population has died because of this cancer.
Some people's words are like those Tasmanian Devil bites. It isn't just the one bite that injures. The bite creates a disease which kills the animal. Just so, there are words we utter in a biting way. Those words act like a disease in a person that eats away at them, sometimes, their whole lives. Words that create the cancer of worthlessness, bitterness, guilt, or shame. Words that are spoken out of deceit. Words that are intended to hurt.
On the flip side, there are words that act like good medicine. Words have that amazing healing quality. Words like, "I'm sorry." Or, "I love you." Or, "I am praying for you." Those kinds of words have a way of going right to the location of our pain, and beginning the healing. They are "good medicine" words.
We speak a lot of words, every day. Listen to your own words. Make sure they are words that rescue, words that are truthful, and words that are healing.
Monday, July 3, 2017
The Dance of Love
"The Dance of Love"
Proverbs 19:13; 21:9, 19; 27:15
OK; the drip, drip, drip of a nagging wife. Ever hear a sermon about nagging wives? That's not what I'm going to preach about. Rest easy, all wives present. There are also many traits of the opposite sex, we men, and if you are a husband, that are probably just as irritating.
I just got through reading a book that we used for our book group that I'm in with my daughter and her husband. The title of the book was, Men: Explain It To Me. It's about a trait that we men evidently have, called "mansplaining." It's how we men/husbands talk down to our wives/women as if they don't know anything, and need us overly intelligent men to explain everything to them, just because they're women.
So, if it's the drip, drip, drip nagging, or the arrogance of mansplaining, there's enough on both sides of the marriage relationship to erode marital bliss.
What is strange to me about the Proverbs that have been read is that they were written by King Solomon, one of King David's sons. Solomon was supposed to be one of the wisest people who has ever lived. But 1 Kings 11 lets us know that Solomon married 700 women. Of course, some of those were marriages of convenience in order to keep the peace with some neighboring tribe or nation. But still, what did he expect having that many wives? One is certainly enough for most men.
But on top of that, Solomon also had 300 concubines. A concubine was basically a kept woman, who had less status than a wife. Solomon, as the story in 1 Kings 11 eludes, had poor impulse control. Every pretty woman he saw, he grabbed for himself. He just couldn't stop himself.
Then he complained about nagging wives in the Proverbs, and how awful that was for him. Well, "hello!" Don't have so many wives! Women, can you imagine having 1000 men around you all the time explaining stuff to you that you don't need explained—how annoying that would be. Whether husband or wife, why get yourself into that mess by having so many spouses!? For all his wisdom, Solomon evidently was not very wise about relationship stuff.
Or was he? As a counterpoint to these "drip, drip, drip" proverbs, Solomon was also the author of another book in the Old Testament, "Song of Songs" or "Song of Solomon." In Proverbs, he writes about nagging wives. In Song of Songs he writes one of the most beautiful love songs between a groom and a bride.
I wonder if Solomon wrote this love song, and then used it 700 times on 700 different women to woo them as wives. Then they all get together in the back room of the harem, and have a conversation. "Wait a minute; he said what!? That's the same song he sang to me!" Then all the other 699 women would chime in saying, "That's what he sang to me, too!" And it's no wonder he wrote the Proverbs about drip, drip, drip nagging. It's would have been his own darn fault!
Sooo, what I want to talk about this morning is neither nagging or mansplaining. What I want to do is transition from the Proverbs to their opposite in the Song of Songs. I want to talk about what love looks like between a man and a woman.
It all started at the beginning, in the Garden of Eden. At first the man is alone. God sees something is not quite right with Adam. The man is alone. We are all alone, essentially. Individual entities with a unique mixture of body, mind and soul. We are all alone, but it is how we handle that aloneness that matters—that makes us who we are.
God watched Adam for a long time. There was something not quite right, God was thinking. Adam is mopey. He is withdrawn. He is not quite as connected to his surroundings as God thought he should be. Finally, God realized Adam was reacting to being alone by being lonely.
So God changed the situation, thinking he was making things better for Adam. God made a woman. But a whole new can of worms would be opened, that I wonder if God anticipated. I always assume God knows what God is doing, and exactly what might come of each action God takes.
When Adam woke up from his rib removing surgery, opening his eyes to find a naked woman standing there, he is inspired to break out into poetry:
At last!
Bone of my bones
Flesh of my flesh!
A woman!
Or, loosely translated: "Va va va voom!" Or, "Hubba hubba hubba." Whichever you choose.
Both the man and woman fly at each other in a fit of mutual attraction and wonder. But despite their innocent love, they would quickly find out that getting along in an ongoing relationship would be much more difficult than they imagined. Certainly the man and woman loved being in each other's arms. But fully understanding each other was going to be another matter all together.
I can't remember if I told the story about the man who was so pleasing to God that God came to him and said, "You are a great guy. I am really proud of the way you have turned out. I want to make one of your dreams come true. Ask me anything, and I will do it for you!"
The guy stood there a minute, a bit overwhelmed, but finally said, "You know, I'd love a bridge between California and Hawaii. I love going to Hawaii, but it is so expensive to fly there all the time. If there was a long bridge, I could just drive there."
God looked at the guy and said, "You have got to be kidding! That would be a bridge across the Pacific Ocean, stretching for hundreds of miles. That would be nearly impossible. Can you not think of another dream you would like fulfilled?"
The guy thought for another minute, then said, "Well, I would really like to understand women. I would like to know exactly how they think and why. I want to know what makes them tick, and how to read their emotions exactly. I would really like to fully know how to figure out women, inside and out."
Then God paused for a long minute and finally said, "Would you like that bridge with two lanes or four?"
I wonder, if by creating a woman, God was creating someone even God would have a hard time figuring out. God created us men as fairly simple creatures. Not much mystery there. In the movement from creating man to creating woman, God was going in the direction from the simple to the complex, the banal to the sublime, the animal to the aesthetic, the blank canvas to a piece of art. And somehow those two would have to come together in a relationship. All of a sudden the man and woman would be asking new questions, like, "What is love?" And, "How do I love this other?"
That is what the Song of Songs is all about. It is a love song. There are three parts in this love song: one sung by the husband, one sung by the wife, and the third sung by a choir who are are watching this love relationship unfold.
The Song of Songs is realistic about love. It recognizes that love can take you to the top of the world, and it can sink you into the valley of sadness and a deeper loneliness than that which comes from being alone. This love poem knows that sometimes a relationship is like a woman's drippy nagging or man's condescending blah blah blah.
I'm just going to hit some highlights in the Song of Songs, hopefully letting them sink in as you think about your love relationship.
In the first chapter, the bride sings, "…the very mention of your name is like spreading perfume." Love and intimacy has to do with personal names. There is nothing abstract or casual about love. Instead, it is personal and familiar. Love with a person who has a name is the corrective to how love, in our day, has become nothing but hook ups and pornographic and lusting, where there are no names. True romantic, and loving intimacy does not treat a person like a thing, but a person with a name, and all that name signifies.
And then comes a string of compliments sung back and forth between the man and woman. It isn't cutting remarks like dripping faucets and denigrating mansplaining. In the Song of Songs, both the man and woman are intent on building each other up. Like true artists and poets, they see the beauty that lies within each other, and they celebrate, out loud, what they see. How much stronger relationships are when lovers look at each other with the artist or poet's eyes, and paint complements on each other rather than smudging each other up with the degrading and demeaning.
In the next movement of the Song of Songs the man sings about the seasons of love:
Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs,
and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. (2:10-13)
Winter is used by poets to describe the time of self-reflection and evaluation. It is during the winter of the soul when a person (or a couple) searches for their identity and meaning in life. Or for a new identity and meaning.
Spring is used by the poets to describe the challenge of finally seeing everything differently. It is the challenge of following the Spirit. It is the time of testing the truth of what you have come to see during your Winter searching. Spring is the time to approve or reject the new that is around you.
Summer is described by the poets as the invitation to live in love and companionship. To feel love's warmth on your face and soul.
And Autumn is described as the time to come face-to-face with big life decisions. It is the time of maturity when you decide to choose love and commit yourself to live life in that love.
These are all the seasons of love that are described here in the Song of Songs. The images of the seasons speak poetically about how love and intimacy are not easily achieved, and don't just automatically come to us. That is one of the fallacies in our modern thinking about love, that we just fall into it, and it is so easy after that.
Instead, the Song of Songs realistically, through the imagery of the seasons, lets us know that love comes with a lot of reflection, searching, and testing. There are times when intimate love, and the one you love seem distant, distracted, aloof, and detached emotionally. Love becomes hard work in constantly defining and redefining what love is at each new season.
The final point I want to make about intimate love in the Song of Songs is in the first seven verses of the 4th chapter. This part of the song is considered the wedding song. Part of the wedding ritual in that culture was that the bride danced before those assembled at the wedding feast. The groom, in turn, sang her beauty. The various movements of the dance made the entire body of the bride an expression of adoration, joy, and enthusiasm before her groom.
It is interesting also, that dance to the ancient Hebrew people was a form of prayer. It was getting caught up in the expression of worship, making the whole body a prayer message of adoration to the glory of God.
In the song sung by the man to his dancing bride, look beyond the descriptions of her body parts to the feelings they invoke: awe, reverence, desire, gratitude. These are the kinds of feelings that fuel a deep and meaningful human love between a man and a woman.
But they also describe well the feelings and sensations evoked in prayer. Both prayer and intimate love have to do with feelings that are evoked by another. Prayer is the language spoken by us when we are captivated by the beauty, passion, and power of God.
Love is dance, a dance not only of intimate romance, but of true relationship. So, dance. I encourage you to move beyond any snippy comments that denigrate each other, and dance, and sing your love for each other.
Proverbs 19:13; 21:9, 19; 27:15
OK; the drip, drip, drip of a nagging wife. Ever hear a sermon about nagging wives? That's not what I'm going to preach about. Rest easy, all wives present. There are also many traits of the opposite sex, we men, and if you are a husband, that are probably just as irritating.
I just got through reading a book that we used for our book group that I'm in with my daughter and her husband. The title of the book was, Men: Explain It To Me. It's about a trait that we men evidently have, called "mansplaining." It's how we men/husbands talk down to our wives/women as if they don't know anything, and need us overly intelligent men to explain everything to them, just because they're women.
So, if it's the drip, drip, drip nagging, or the arrogance of mansplaining, there's enough on both sides of the marriage relationship to erode marital bliss.
What is strange to me about the Proverbs that have been read is that they were written by King Solomon, one of King David's sons. Solomon was supposed to be one of the wisest people who has ever lived. But 1 Kings 11 lets us know that Solomon married 700 women. Of course, some of those were marriages of convenience in order to keep the peace with some neighboring tribe or nation. But still, what did he expect having that many wives? One is certainly enough for most men.
But on top of that, Solomon also had 300 concubines. A concubine was basically a kept woman, who had less status than a wife. Solomon, as the story in 1 Kings 11 eludes, had poor impulse control. Every pretty woman he saw, he grabbed for himself. He just couldn't stop himself.
Then he complained about nagging wives in the Proverbs, and how awful that was for him. Well, "hello!" Don't have so many wives! Women, can you imagine having 1000 men around you all the time explaining stuff to you that you don't need explained—how annoying that would be. Whether husband or wife, why get yourself into that mess by having so many spouses!? For all his wisdom, Solomon evidently was not very wise about relationship stuff.
Or was he? As a counterpoint to these "drip, drip, drip" proverbs, Solomon was also the author of another book in the Old Testament, "Song of Songs" or "Song of Solomon." In Proverbs, he writes about nagging wives. In Song of Songs he writes one of the most beautiful love songs between a groom and a bride.
I wonder if Solomon wrote this love song, and then used it 700 times on 700 different women to woo them as wives. Then they all get together in the back room of the harem, and have a conversation. "Wait a minute; he said what!? That's the same song he sang to me!" Then all the other 699 women would chime in saying, "That's what he sang to me, too!" And it's no wonder he wrote the Proverbs about drip, drip, drip nagging. It's would have been his own darn fault!
Sooo, what I want to talk about this morning is neither nagging or mansplaining. What I want to do is transition from the Proverbs to their opposite in the Song of Songs. I want to talk about what love looks like between a man and a woman.
It all started at the beginning, in the Garden of Eden. At first the man is alone. God sees something is not quite right with Adam. The man is alone. We are all alone, essentially. Individual entities with a unique mixture of body, mind and soul. We are all alone, but it is how we handle that aloneness that matters—that makes us who we are.
God watched Adam for a long time. There was something not quite right, God was thinking. Adam is mopey. He is withdrawn. He is not quite as connected to his surroundings as God thought he should be. Finally, God realized Adam was reacting to being alone by being lonely.
So God changed the situation, thinking he was making things better for Adam. God made a woman. But a whole new can of worms would be opened, that I wonder if God anticipated. I always assume God knows what God is doing, and exactly what might come of each action God takes.
When Adam woke up from his rib removing surgery, opening his eyes to find a naked woman standing there, he is inspired to break out into poetry:
At last!
Bone of my bones
Flesh of my flesh!
A woman!
Or, loosely translated: "Va va va voom!" Or, "Hubba hubba hubba." Whichever you choose.
Both the man and woman fly at each other in a fit of mutual attraction and wonder. But despite their innocent love, they would quickly find out that getting along in an ongoing relationship would be much more difficult than they imagined. Certainly the man and woman loved being in each other's arms. But fully understanding each other was going to be another matter all together.
I can't remember if I told the story about the man who was so pleasing to God that God came to him and said, "You are a great guy. I am really proud of the way you have turned out. I want to make one of your dreams come true. Ask me anything, and I will do it for you!"
The guy stood there a minute, a bit overwhelmed, but finally said, "You know, I'd love a bridge between California and Hawaii. I love going to Hawaii, but it is so expensive to fly there all the time. If there was a long bridge, I could just drive there."
God looked at the guy and said, "You have got to be kidding! That would be a bridge across the Pacific Ocean, stretching for hundreds of miles. That would be nearly impossible. Can you not think of another dream you would like fulfilled?"
The guy thought for another minute, then said, "Well, I would really like to understand women. I would like to know exactly how they think and why. I want to know what makes them tick, and how to read their emotions exactly. I would really like to fully know how to figure out women, inside and out."
Then God paused for a long minute and finally said, "Would you like that bridge with two lanes or four?"
I wonder, if by creating a woman, God was creating someone even God would have a hard time figuring out. God created us men as fairly simple creatures. Not much mystery there. In the movement from creating man to creating woman, God was going in the direction from the simple to the complex, the banal to the sublime, the animal to the aesthetic, the blank canvas to a piece of art. And somehow those two would have to come together in a relationship. All of a sudden the man and woman would be asking new questions, like, "What is love?" And, "How do I love this other?"
That is what the Song of Songs is all about. It is a love song. There are three parts in this love song: one sung by the husband, one sung by the wife, and the third sung by a choir who are are watching this love relationship unfold.
The Song of Songs is realistic about love. It recognizes that love can take you to the top of the world, and it can sink you into the valley of sadness and a deeper loneliness than that which comes from being alone. This love poem knows that sometimes a relationship is like a woman's drippy nagging or man's condescending blah blah blah.
I'm just going to hit some highlights in the Song of Songs, hopefully letting them sink in as you think about your love relationship.
In the first chapter, the bride sings, "…the very mention of your name is like spreading perfume." Love and intimacy has to do with personal names. There is nothing abstract or casual about love. Instead, it is personal and familiar. Love with a person who has a name is the corrective to how love, in our day, has become nothing but hook ups and pornographic and lusting, where there are no names. True romantic, and loving intimacy does not treat a person like a thing, but a person with a name, and all that name signifies.
And then comes a string of compliments sung back and forth between the man and woman. It isn't cutting remarks like dripping faucets and denigrating mansplaining. In the Song of Songs, both the man and woman are intent on building each other up. Like true artists and poets, they see the beauty that lies within each other, and they celebrate, out loud, what they see. How much stronger relationships are when lovers look at each other with the artist or poet's eyes, and paint complements on each other rather than smudging each other up with the degrading and demeaning.
In the next movement of the Song of Songs the man sings about the seasons of love:
Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs,
and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. (2:10-13)
Winter is used by poets to describe the time of self-reflection and evaluation. It is during the winter of the soul when a person (or a couple) searches for their identity and meaning in life. Or for a new identity and meaning.
Spring is used by the poets to describe the challenge of finally seeing everything differently. It is the challenge of following the Spirit. It is the time of testing the truth of what you have come to see during your Winter searching. Spring is the time to approve or reject the new that is around you.
Summer is described by the poets as the invitation to live in love and companionship. To feel love's warmth on your face and soul.
And Autumn is described as the time to come face-to-face with big life decisions. It is the time of maturity when you decide to choose love and commit yourself to live life in that love.
These are all the seasons of love that are described here in the Song of Songs. The images of the seasons speak poetically about how love and intimacy are not easily achieved, and don't just automatically come to us. That is one of the fallacies in our modern thinking about love, that we just fall into it, and it is so easy after that.
Instead, the Song of Songs realistically, through the imagery of the seasons, lets us know that love comes with a lot of reflection, searching, and testing. There are times when intimate love, and the one you love seem distant, distracted, aloof, and detached emotionally. Love becomes hard work in constantly defining and redefining what love is at each new season.
The final point I want to make about intimate love in the Song of Songs is in the first seven verses of the 4th chapter. This part of the song is considered the wedding song. Part of the wedding ritual in that culture was that the bride danced before those assembled at the wedding feast. The groom, in turn, sang her beauty. The various movements of the dance made the entire body of the bride an expression of adoration, joy, and enthusiasm before her groom.
It is interesting also, that dance to the ancient Hebrew people was a form of prayer. It was getting caught up in the expression of worship, making the whole body a prayer message of adoration to the glory of God.
In the song sung by the man to his dancing bride, look beyond the descriptions of her body parts to the feelings they invoke: awe, reverence, desire, gratitude. These are the kinds of feelings that fuel a deep and meaningful human love between a man and a woman.
But they also describe well the feelings and sensations evoked in prayer. Both prayer and intimate love have to do with feelings that are evoked by another. Prayer is the language spoken by us when we are captivated by the beauty, passion, and power of God.
Love is dance, a dance not only of intimate romance, but of true relationship. So, dance. I encourage you to move beyond any snippy comments that denigrate each other, and dance, and sing your love for each other.
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