Preaching Biblical Wisdom in a Self-Help Society

200 Pages·2002·1.68 MB·English

by  Alyce McKenzie

PREACHING BIBLICAL WISDOM IN A
SELF-HELP SOCIETY
Alyce M. McKenzie
Abingdon Press -- Nashville
Copyright Information
To my parents, Robert and Beverly Fowler, my first and foremost sages
Introduction--"Wisdom For Monday Mornings"1
“The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom.” (Proverbs 4:7)

Lots of pastors take Mondays off. I prefer Fridays. Some Mondays I have wished
I could go home, climb back into bed and pull the covers over my head. I
remember one such Monday a few years ago when I was serving a local church.
I drive to church, still tired from last night's finance meeting. My arms filled with
briefcase and folders, I struggle to insert the key in the church's front door,
wondering, as I do every morning, why it has to be kept locked when there are
people inside. Trudging down the hall to my office, I reason that at least my office
door will be unlocked as I had left it last night. I turn the knob, and find that it, too,
is locked.
Once inside my office, I set my paraphernalia on my desk and head for the
coffeepot. Technically, I gave up coffee six months ago. But a dull headache is
already humming in my temples. This is what always happens when I skip
breakfast. The phone begins to buzz. First phone call: a church member
complaining that the secretary left her announcement about the spaghetti dinner
out of yesterday's bulletin for the second time this month. “She has some kind of
vendetta against me and my projects.” “Vendetta is an awfully strong word,” I
point out. “I'd call it a sin of omission, but I will draw it to her attention.”
A clergy colleague calls lamenting his inner-city Anglo church's negative reaction
to a Korean house church's request to use its facilities. “Do you think I should just
go over their heads and talk to the bishop?” he asks. “Better make every effort to
work it out with them first, or they'll feel betrayed,” I respond. I massage my
temples with both hands while holding the phone in the crook of my neck. A
trustee calls to get my advice on the gridlock among the worship committee, the
memorials committee, and the trustees over whether to refurbish the existing
organ or buy a new one. “Is there a way to work within our economic limits and
still achieve our musical goals?” I ask.
I open up the local paper, already starting my reading for next Sunday's sermon.
“Children First to Suffer From Program Cuts” says the headline of an article
about the increased demand for food at local food banks and soup kitchens. How
can this congregation best address this issue? I ask myself.
A woman who was a visitor at yesterday's 11:00 service is on line one. “I enjoyed
your service yesterday very much, but I saw something on the way in that upset
me so much I had to call you about it. There was a father who had taken his
daughter out in the parking lot. He was angry with her, out of control, yelling. He
struck her hard on the side of the face.” She goes on to describe them both. “I
wanted you to know this so you could take some kind of action,” she concludes.
“You were right to call me. Thanks for your concern.” I reply. I hang up and begin
running both hands through my hair, debating which clumps to pull out first.
I continue flipping through the rest of the paper. Ann Landers is telling a new
bride not to tolerate her in-laws' tendency to sit on their hands (not the word used
in the letter) while she served them a meal and cleaned up after them. “Dieter's
Wisdom,” the headline on page one of the Lifestyle section, offers advice on
foods to eat that burn fat even if you don't exercise. “Brokers Share Wall Street
Wisdom with Local Merchants” reads a blurb in the community events column
announcing a forum this afternoon at the Township Building.
A thought congeals in my throbbing head. Wisdom! That's what everybody wants
from me this morning. They don't just want the ahhh's and ummm's of reflective
listening, a skill I perfected in seminary counseling classes in the late '70s. They
want wise guidance, perhaps on Mondays more than any other day. A friend of
mine who is a lawyer says Mondays are her worst day, as people who have had
really bad weekends jam her e-mail, voice mail, and fax lines. They send
messages like “I can't take this anymore” and “You've got to get her to comply
with the custody agreement,” and “What are you doing to speed this process
along?” Gym owners watch their parking lots fill up on Mondays with people who
have stepped on the scales earlier in the day and seen the “bottom line”
consequences of their weekend fork-lifting exercises.
On Fridays, we thank God it's Friday. Saturday nights are for romance. Sundays
are, in theory at least, for rest and worship. Mondays, non-romantic Monday
mornings--the day and time of the week you are most likely to have a heart
attack--Mondays are for facing reality. And on Monday mornings many people
face the truth of the contemporary proverb that “reality bites.”
A line from the book of Proverbs pops into my head: “I have taught you the way
of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness. When you walk, your step
will not be hampered; and if you run, you will not stumble” (Proverbs 4:11, 12).
What is wisdom? I sense that it is something I have a measure of now,
something I am seeking, and something I need to define before I can spot it and
seek it more intentionally. Either that, or start taking Mondays off!
1--Wisdom: The Art of Steering
“How Should One Live?”

All pastors have, at one time or another, sat, with head in hands, sunk in the
knowledge that everyone needs wisdom from them and they cannot meet these
needs with their own resources.
On this particular Monday morning my reverie is interrupted by a call from Jean,
a parishioner who, after her mastectomy and bone marrow transplant last year,
has gotten the results of a liver biopsy back this morning. Her liver is riddled with
tumors. A new drug offers only a 30% chance of shrinking them. “Could you
come right over?” she asks with tears in her voice. Seated across from her in her
living room, she tells me, “I'm not angry with God. I know these things happen. I
don't think it's a punishment. But it doesn't seem right that I should die before I've
completed my task of raising Anna--she's only eleven. I guess my task now is to
figure out how best to live out whatever time I have left.”
Jean had defined the question that drives the human search for wisdom, whether
expressed in secular or religious terms--how best to live out the time each of us
has left. Socrates, many centuries before, asked, “How should one live?” In times
of crisis the question is sharpened. Many decisions lie ahead for Jean: how and
when to break the news to her family, what treatment to pursue, and how to
balance the demands of daily life with her body's need for rest.
On a daily basis all of us are faced with the need to make wise choices. Yogi
Berra, baseball catcher and manager of the New York Mets, once said, “When
you come to a fork in the road, take it.” His aphorism brings a smile, but we need
direction. Should I go to the doctor today or wait and see if I feel worse
tomorrow? Should I try to mediate the quarrel my neighbors are having, or stay
out of it? Should I preach about homosexuality my first year in a new church or
wait until I've gained their trust to tackle controversial issues? Not just individuals,
but groups, need guidance.
That's where wisdom comes in. Biblical wisdom in the Old Testament is
concentrated in three books sandwiched between the end of the salvation history
and the beginning of the Prophets: Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. The mighty
acts of God in Israel's history (the exodus, giving of the law at Sinai, crossing of
the Red Sea) are never mentioned in these books. The wisdom writings are
primarily concerned with the regularities of ordinary life.1
They deal with wisdom, an attitude of mind that enables an observer to see
patterns in human experience and an articulation of these observations in forms
that can be taught and learned. Taken together they assert that wisdom is
attainable in part through human effort (Proverbs 4:5-7), and is at the same time
a gift from God (Proverbs 2:6). They also affirm that wisdom in its entirety is
unattainable, except by God (Ecclesiastes 3:11; Job 28:23).
Each book in its own way addresses the question of what is good for human
beings to do as they live out their brief lives under the sun. Their conclusions
vary greatly from one book to another and, at times, from one speaker to another
within a single book. While their conclusions about life vary according to their
experience of it, their method of inquiry is uniform: reflection on patterns in that
experience.2
This literature from the Hebrew Scriptures represents insights that span several
centuries of reflection by the sages or wise ones of Israel. It has counterparts in
the wisdom literatures of other ancient Near Eastern cultures (Sumerian,
Babylonian, Persian, and Egyptian).
The sages' counsel comes from varied contexts: field and king's court, hearth
and home. It represents a pool of advice on how to be successful in the most
important arena of life--not in dieting or investing, but in being faithful to God, the
source of wisdom for living in both the safe harbors and the high gales of our
day-to-day lives.
In the New Testament, wisdom is found primarily in sayings attributed to Jesus in
the Gospels and in Pauline reflection on Jesus' identity in light of his
Resurrection. The book of James, replete with concrete guidance for the works
that should spring from faith, has also been called a wisdom book.
Wisdom in the book of Proverbs is often described as “the Way” (derek) (4:11).
This word suggests an action of treading or trampling and calls to mind a path
worn by constant use. The implication is that wisdom involves patterns of
behavior, not just isolated acts. The purpose of this “way” is the formation of an
interior disposition (2:1f, 10; 3:1, 3, 5; 4:4, 21, 23; 6:21; 7:3).3 Biblical wisdom
affirms that the gift of a discernible path of order in nature and human
relationships is a manifestation of the guiding presence of God.4 Wisdom is also
described as the Way in several Eastern faith systems. By no coincidence, in the
early days of the church, Christians were described as “followers of the Way.”
Wisdom is also described as a “tree of life” (Proverbs 3:18). The concept of life
includes the notion of health, relative prosperity, and a good reputation, but more
deeply, the inward person whose very breath depends on God. At the communal
level, life translates into shalom, peace with justice.5
Wisdom is also described in Proverbs as the art of “steering” (tahbulot). “Let the
wise also hear and gain in learning, and the discerning acquire skill” (tahbulot)
(Proverbs 1:5). This description of wisdom as a set of steering strategies is
based on ancient Egyptian methods of navigating the Nile River by pulling the
ropes on one's boat. Wisdom is “learning the ropes” of life. Navigating a
treacherous river that leads to life is a good metaphor for the Monday mornings
of our future. Biblical wisdom teachings are the provisions the wise person
remembers to bring on the trip of life: the paddle, the map, the food, the
compass, and the life jacket.
The Genres of Wisdom
The sages' wisdom insights come to us via several genres. A genre is a group of
discourses, whether oral or written, that share common characteristics of
substance, style, and situation.6 These similarities in text (thematic content),
texture (language and structure), and context (social setting and function) make a
genre a unique form of cultural communication.7
The Admonition
Two of the most frequent genres in the wisdom literature are the admonition and
the saying. The two are often placed side by side in the book of Proverbs. 8
Biblical admonitions, like those we are familiar with from secular sources, are
expressed as do's and don't's. They are imperative and direct. “Honor the Lord
with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce” (Proverbs 3:9);
“Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate”
(Proverbs 22:22).9
The Saying
Sayings correspond to what we call proverbs, both in biblical and in
contemporary usage.10 The saying or proverb is a “wisdom sentence expressed
in the indicative, based on observation and experience.”11 A good example is,
“Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the
needy honor him” (Proverbs 14:31).
Proverbs are not expressed as direct do's and don't's. They give advice by being
applied to a specific situation by the sage. Proverbs, whether biblical or secular,
are devised by the older and wiser to instill traditional values in the generation to
come. As I write this I am far from lonely. It is a school holiday and the house is
full of children of varying ages. The strains of their music waft under my office
door.
“Just tell your hoodlum friends outside,
you ain't got time to take a ride.
Don't talk back, yakkety yak.”
Not a bad summation of the social function of proverbs!
Proverbs are by definition anonymous and most often teach traditional values like
impulse control, hard work, perseverance, avoidance of evil companions, and
respect for the poor. By contrast, aphorisms, sayings whose author is known,
often go against the grain, operating on the premise that “rules were meant to be
broken,” or at least bent! Many modern Western poets and thinkers have
embraced the aphorism.12 “When the gods choose to punish us, they merely
answer our prayers” (Oscar Wilde).13 “No one can make you feel inferior without
your own consent” (Eleanor Roosevelt).14
Jesus' aphorisms hearken back to traditional religious values. “It is not what goes
into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that
defiles” (Matthew 15:11). “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose
their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). He was no rebel without a
cause, but a subversive sage, crafting a countercultural life based on radical trust
in a God who demands all but, at the same time, gives all.
The Instruction
A third wisdom genre is called instruction. It takes the form of a poem intended to
teach a moral lesson, consisting of several lines within which proverbs and
admonitions often appear (for examples, Job 6:5-6; Proverbs 2:1-21).15 The
setting is often a court school, the speaker a higher courtier advising his student.
The teacher speaks out of experience and tradition, recommending diligence,
honesty, reliability, avoidance of bad companions, kindness to the needy, and
self-control. Commands and prohibitions are frequent.16
The descendants of the ancient instruction genre are alive and well. Roaming the
self-help section at Barnes & Noble, you'll find Peter McWilliams' You Can't
Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought. There you'll find Richard Carlson's
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff . . . and it's all small stuff . . . , a book filled with
admonitions for daily life: 100 of them! After each admonition, the author shares
pertinent lessons he and others have gleaned from daily life.
Sometimes we find ourselves preaching to people who know more about not
sweating the small stuff than they do about the Sermon on the Mount! There's
nothing wrong with advice like “Breathe before you speak,” or “Be happy where
you are,” but they make a shallow substitute for Paul's “Love is patient; love is
kind,” (1 Corinthians 13:4) and “I have learned to be content with whatever I
have” (Philippians 4:11).
The Disputation Speech
Much of the book of Job is in the form of a disputation speech. Job's friends offer
him the whys and wherefores of his affliction, using traditional wisdom's
preconceptions as their guide. Job disputes their assumptions.17 The disputation
or dialogue format is the ancestor of the question-and-answer strategy in
preaching, the dialogue sermon, and the sermon that looks at a controversial
issue from all sides and offers an interpretation in light of scripture and tradition.
We can find disputation formats on political talk shows, group interviews with
representatives of opposing views on morning news shows, and a plethora of
“People's Court” clones on afternoon television.
The Reflection
The “reflection” is another wisdom genre. In Ecclesiastes, Qohelet, the Preacher,
takes up various topics such as the value of wisdom and the futility of toil and
reflects on them in light of his own experience (Ecclesiastes 2:12-26).18 The
reflection is the ancestor of journal and diary entries, pastors' newsletters, and
editorials. The work of Anna Quindlen (Thinking Out Loud), and Robert Fulghum
(All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten) fall within the reflection
genre.
The Memoir
More extended than the reflection is a genre that abounded in ancient Egypt: the
autobiographical narrative. Egyptian kings and prominent officials sought to
memorialize their accomplishments and to pass along their wisdom to posterity.
Judging from tomb inscriptions, ordinary people, too, were lauded for their
exemplary lives. Autobiographical narratives often begin with “I saw . . . and I
have seen.” (Ecclesiastes 4:1-8; Proverbs 24:30-34) The autobiographical
narrative records for posterity life lessons gained by reflection on experience. It is
the ancestor of the memoir and the autobiography.19
Over the past five years, the memoir has exploded in popularity. The New York
Times Best-Seller List regularly includes memoirs in its ranks, and a websearch
using the keyword “memoir” reveals over 2,100 sites related to the topic.
Cable television's Biography Channel features a website (www.biography.com)
where viewers can summon up profiles of 25,000 of the famous and the
infamous. The site includes links to resources on writing biographies and daily
journalling. Another site, (www.amillionlives.com), claims to be the largest guide
to biographies on the Web and includes links to autobiographies, memoirs,
diaries, letters, narratives, and oral histories.20
A Gift and a Search
Both biblical and cultural fields are ripe with wisdom for the discerning preacher.
The task before today's preachers is to glean in these fields alongside our
people. They promise to yield a rich harvest of wisdom for the living of these
days. God's gift of wisdom in the midst of daily life reminds me of the “Can You
Find?” page in children's magazines. This was a picture in which several items
were “hidden.” The child's task was to find the carrot, the shoe, the apple, and
the baseball bat. The implied promise was that if she looked hard enough, she
would find those items.
The Bible's wisdom literature promises that, if we search life thoroughly enough
we will find guidelines for attitudes, speech, and conduct. That search will not be
an autonomous human achievement, although human effort is an indispensable
component. Biblical wisdom affirms that it is God who places the gift of a
discernible order in nature and human relationships.21
A theological expression of this biblical insight is John Wesley's interpretation
that God makes gracious salvific overtures to humankind, but that humans may
regrettably resist them. Grace is resistible, and the process of salvation is co-
operant between God and us.22
Wisdom is not just the effect of God's prior actions, but it is the manifestation of
God's presence. Wisdom is not a force immanent and operative in the world
apart from God. Wisdom is the power or activity of God manifest in a particular
way: namely, as instruction or guidance of the people of God aimed at bringing
them to life.23
Wisdom scholar Kathleen O'Connor sums it up well, “Ultimately, biblical wisdom
is neither innate talent nor disciplined human achievement. It is divine gift.
Wisdom is something, or rather someone, to be sought after, to pursue, to pray
for, but finally, it is Wisdom who finds us.”24
Wisdom is presented in Proverbs as a personification of this guiding activity of
God--Woman Wisdom. She is present at creation as a “master worker” in the
process of creation (Proverbs 8:30). She calls out to passersby to enter onto her
path of life. The task of the one who would be wise is to answer her invitation,
acknowledge God as the source of Wisdom, and then to be alert to patterns of
God's workings in human relationships and nature. The goal and prize of the
wisdom process is personal and community harmony (shalom) and life.
Proverbs depicts God as a revealing God who offers us clues in daily life for right
actions and thought. At the same time, however, biblical wisdom from Proverbs,
Job, and Ecclesiastes insists that God is a concealing God. Proverbs affirms the
limitations of human knowledge and the sovereignty of our Creator God (30:2-4).
Job depicts a God who has no need to justify himself, but does not do a
disappearing act when our smooth road becomes rutted with unjust suffering and
twisted by tragedy. Qohelet portrays a God who is distant, yet the giver of joy in
living.
In the context of the entire canon, biblical wisdom also embraces the subversive
sayings of Jesus. These sayings challenge conventional wisdom's advice to
listen to one's elders, avoid risk, and live so as to secure good health, a good