What is Wisdom?

Delivered 9/23/2012

James 3:13-4:8

I proudly possess the 11 volume “Story of Civilization” by American historians and philosophers Will and Ariel Durant. It is an impressive set of big volumes with colorful slipcovers that fills up a whole shelf of your bookshelf and makes you look smart. Several times I set out to read the whole set, thinking that if I could get through it all I could consider myself knowledgeable in world history. I have never made it through. I have read certain volumes – Caesar and Christ, the Age of Faith, The Reformation, and the Age of Reason, and sections of some others, but I never made it through the whole set and I never will. I did read Will Durant’s single volume Story of Philosophy, which is very good. Will Durant has an article entitled “What is wisdom?” he starts off the article saying: “What is wisdom? I feel like a droplet of spray which proudly poised for a moment on the crest of a wave, undertakes to analyze the sea.” If Durant, one of the most learned historians and philosophers of the 20^th century feels that way, what hope is there for me, a far less knowledgeable and intelligent person, to answer this question in a 20 minute sermon? But I am vain enough to try.

People mean different things by wisdom. I am examining it from a biblical perspective and therefore I will be talking mostly about spiritual wisdom. There are other types of wisdom. Wisdom is often seen as a sort of common sense about how the real world works. It is also understood as the product of experience. We all know people who have lots of book knowledge but not much practical sense. Geniuses with PhD’s may be really smart, but they can also be not very wise. Wisdom is not intelligence. Some of the wisest persons I have ever known never made it beyond eighth grade, but they have a wisdom that I respect greatly. The Greek philosopher Euripides said, “Cleverness is not wisdom.” Creativity is not wisdom. Certainly celebrity isn’t wisdom. I am always astounded how TV reporters or talk show hosts will ask celebrities their opinions on all sorts of social, political, or ethical issues of the day. Why? Just because they can act or sing does not make them wise or knowledgeable. The same is true of wealth.  Just because someone found a way to make a billion dollars does not mean they are wiser than other people. They just know how to make money. You might want to ask Warren Buffet about investing in the stock market, or Mark Zuckerberg about social media, but they are not necessarily wiser than anyone here. The same with politicians; it is especially true of politicians. Just because they can get elected doesn’t make them wise. So what is wisdom? Today I am going to look at what the apostle James has to say about the subject, since his words are found in the Bible, which billions of people have agreed contains some wisdom.

I. First, James says that wisdom is from above. In our passage he contrasts two different types of wisdom – one which he calls wisdom from below and the other wisdom from above. He says in the opening verses of our passage saying: “¹³ Who is wise and understanding among you?” And then he says, “if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. ¹⁵ This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly….” Then he contrasts it with “ the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.”

There are two types of wisdom – a worldly wisdom and a spiritual wisdom. A worldly wisdom might tell you how to make it in this world, even how to get rich, how to become powerful, how to win friends and influence people, as Dale Carnegie said. There is a lot of practical worldly wisdom. The self-help book and seminar industry thrives on this type of wisdom. Then there is the homespun wisdom of Ann Landers and Heloise and advice columnists. This is not bad. In fact a lot of the Book of Proverbs has wisdom like this. Some of the earthly wisdom that people possess is helpful. But some of it is not so good – especially when it is purely self-seeking. James describes some of this worldly wisdom saying, “This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.” That is strong language. There is a worldly wisdom that has nothing to do with God, morality or spiritual things, and can even be against God and the Spirit.

James says that there is another type of wisdom, which is from above. He means it is from God. James says earlier in this same letter: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”  Spiritual wisdom – the kind that the Bible talks about and not the type generally mistaken for wisdom in our world today – comes from God. Jesus had it. When Jesus was only twelve years old the teachers in the temple were amazed at his answers to their questions and the wisdom that came from the mouth of one so young. When Jesus began his ministry at age thirty, the Pharisees mocked him because he was so young. When I was thirty I thought I knew a lot. I was thirty-one when I first came here to Sandwich as your pastor in March of 1982. I don’t know how you put up with me! I thought I knew everything, and in fact I knew nothing. But you were patient with me and some of the older folks and retired ministers in the congregation at the time tolerated me and helped me and I appreciate it. When we are thirty years old – fresh out of our twenties - we think we are mature and wise, but we aren’t. We are just getting started. But when Jesus was thirty he was wise beyond his years. They said of Jesus, “Where did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him….”

The key phrase here is that it was “given to him.” Wisdom is given to us. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” Worldly wisdom is gained from years of experience. The longer we live the wiser we can become in many ways. Of course that is not always true. Some octogenarians  have 80 years of experience and are wise. Others stopping learning when they were young; they have one year of experience repeated 80 times. Worldly wisdom is of some use, but especially when combined with spiritual wisdom. Spiritual wisdom is not earned in the school of hard knocks. It is given from above. Solomon was known as the wisest man of his generation. He was wise as a young man because he asked for wisdom from God, and God gave it to him. The book of I Kings says of Solomon, “Now all the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.” You want wisdom? Ask God. Seek it from above, not below here on earth. Seek spiritual wisdom and not just worldly wisdom.

II. Second, Wisdom – spiritual wisdom - is Egoless. James spends a lot of time in this passage listing the characteristics of spiritual wisdom in verse 17  ¹⁷ But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.”  I could spend a whole sermon going through each of these characteristics, and it would be time well spent. But in this message today I just want to sum it up by saying that the wisdom from below is full of ego. True spiritual wisdom from above is egoless. What do I mean by this?

By ego I mean pride, self-centeredness and arrogance. The old word is hubris. You don’t hear that word much, but I have heard it several times recently regarding the myth of Niobe in reference to the restored statue of Niobe that has been replaced on the Great Wall at lower corner here in Sandwich. That word is used in the Sandwich Historical Society Excursion booklet. It says that Niobe was punished by the gods Apollo and Artemis for her hubris. It is a good Greek word which means pride or arrogance. I will use the word ego instead, but hubris is what I mean by it. Spiritual wisdom is free of that quality of hubris or ego. Wisdom is egoless.

Wisdom is seeing the bigger picture – the picture beyond ourselves and our tiny concerns. In the article “What is Wisdom” by Will Durant that I quoted earlier, he says, “Ideally, wisdom is total perspective -- seeing an object, event, or idea in all its pertinent relationships. Spinoza defined wisdom as seeing things sub specie eternitatis, in view of eternity; I suggest defining it as seeing things sub specie totius, in view of the whole. Obviously we can only approach such total perspective; to possess it would be to be God. ” That is a good definition. Wisdom is seeing things from the perspective of God. We naturally see things only how they affect us. We are naturally self-centered. Wisdom is God-centered. We judge things as good or bad from our perspective. But wisdom sees things from a higher perspective. This total perspective is unique to God and we can share in it only insofar as it is given to us by God.

III. Third, wisdom is demonstrated in action. Our passage starts off: “¹³ Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom.” Wisdom is not just saying clever things or thinking profound thoughts. Wisdom acts. Next month we are going to be exploring the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a special service and as part of a broader series of evening studies. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor in Germany during WWII. He was an outspoken opponent of the Nazis from their rise to power in the 1930’s when he was only in his twenties; he died when he was still in his thirties, yet he was wise beyond his years. He was a scholar and a theologian, but most importantly he put his faith into action when it counted. Wisdom does not sit cross-legged on a mountaintop spouting proverbs. Wisdom is in the cities and valleys getting its hands dirty in the messy affairs of human life.

IV. Fourth, Wisdom produces peace. Verse 18 of our passage says, “¹⁸ Now the fruit of righteousness [another translation says “the harvest of righteousness] is sown in peace by those who make peace.” Then James goes on to talk about wars and fighting and covetousness that are so much a part of the human condition. “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? ² You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet^[a] you do not have because you do not ask. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. ⁴ Adulterers and^[b] adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

You can tell true spiritual wisdom by its fruits – by its harvest. By its uncompromising, honest, single-minded devotion to peace and the things that make for peace - peace in churches, peace in denominations, peace in nations, peace in international relations, peace on earth. Peacemakers sowing the seeds of peace, which might not blossom in that generation, but eventually they will srpout and produce a harvest of peace. This is not a Pollyannaish, hide your head in the sand and think happy thoughts type of peace. This is not the naïveté of some political peace movements. This wisdom flows from a deep selfless inner peace which elicits that same peace in others. This is the only way to true peace. People can hold hands and sing “Imagine” by John Lennon all they want, but true peace comes from the peace of God and the God of peace.

V. Lastly, wisdom submits to God. Our passage ends with these words: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” ⁷ Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. ⁸ Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” Wisdom comes from God, and therefore the only way to have this wisdom is to submit to God. Again let me illustrate this with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp and executed just two weeks before Allied troops liberated the camp. The camp doctor who witnessed his execution wrote: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

This is spiritual wisdom. It gives us the courage to face life and death. Wisdom is to know your priorities. When one sees the world from the viewpoint of eternity and lives life in that light – that is wisdom. As another young man, missionary Jim Elliot, who died early in life, wrote: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." He is talking of eternal life. Wisdom is knowing that we cannot keep our lives. They are God’s and to give them back to God is the wisest thing we can do. “⁷ Therefore submit to God…. ⁸ Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” 

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones…

James 3:1-12

Remember the old children’s rhyme: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” (or “names will never hurt me.”) Well, it isn't true. As a culture we are starting to realize that words can seriously hurt people. A more accurate ditty would be: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can hurt more deeply.” We are very aware these days of things like hate speech, verbal abuse, and bullying. We know that words can be used as weapons and can incite acts of violence, as well as lead to depression and suicide. New forms of social media such as YouTube, cell phone texting and Facebook publicize and amplify words with devastating effects. Then there is political speech. Maybe words and name-calling cannot break our bones, but some people think they can win elections.

Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, had planned to host a civil forum between Barak Obama and Mitt Romney this fall like the one he hosted between Obama and McCain four years ago. But last month he announced that he was canceling it. He explained his decision in these words: “We created the civil forums to promote civility and personal respect between people with major differences. The forums are meant to be a place where people of goodwill can seriously disagree on significant issues without being disagreeable or resorting to personal attack and name-calling. But that is not the climate of today’s campaign. I’ve never seen more irresponsible personal attacks, mean-spirited slander, and flat-out dishonest attack ads, and I don’t expect that tone to change before the election…. It would be hypocritical to pretend civility for one evening only to have the name-calling return the next day.” It is sad when the verbal behavior of a sitting president and a presidential candidate who prides himself on his religious faith are so bad that the nation’s most well-known pastor has to scold them and give them a “time out” as if they were misbehaving children.

But we should not be too surprised that people from teenagers to politicians cannot control their tongues. The apostle James Bible tells us in our passage: “The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell….  No man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”  Today I am going to talk about our speech. It is easy to point fingers and talk about others; let’s do some introspective finger-pointing this morning. Even though summer is over, this was also a Summer Sermon suggestion, and I wanted to honor this idea submitted by a member of the congregation. The suggestion was actually more specifically on gossip, but I want to expand it to include other misuses of our tongue. James spends quite a bit of time talking about the dangers of misspeaking. As I read him he says three things.

I. First he introduces the topic by saying that we all do it; we all make mistakes. Our passage starts off in the first two verses: “My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. ² For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.” The NRSV renders it: “For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect...” None of us are perfect, folks. That is where we need to start this discussion.  In fact I have observed that those who most readily accuse others of “hate speech” are often themselves guilty of the same thing. A recent example of this is the shooting by a gay rights activist at the Washington office of the Family Research Council in Washington D.C. last month. He came to the office to kill some people because he disagreed with their stance on same-sex marriage. Gay rights groups rightly condemned the shooting, but the Southern Poverty Law Center continued to call the Family Research Council a hate group. By no stretch of the imagination is the Family Research Council a hate group! It is just has a conservative stance on this issue. By using a term like “hate group” the the Southern Poverty Law Center is ratcheting up the rhetoric, and may themselves be guilty of spreading the seeds of more acts of violence against organizations like this, while purportedly condemning hate. Do you see how insidious this cycle of name-calling is?

No one is sinless here. That is James’ point in his letter. I am not sinless. I say things like this about the presidential campaigns and the Southern Poverty Law Center, but I am no better. And if you think you are better than me or them, then you are also deceiving yourself. Don’t get into the trap of thinking, “Okay, maybe I do it some, but I am not as bad as ….” “My (religious group, political party, or social agenda group) is not as bad as …. So-and-so.”  Don’t go there. We need to start off the examination of this topic by looking at ourselves. That is what James does. 

Appropriately he starts off talking directly to religious leaders like me. He addresses teachers, by which he means religious teachers – preachers and pastors – and says, “My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.” He says that I am going to be judged by God more harshly than you on this matter, because of my position as a religious leader. Religious leaders are held to a higher standard, and he lets me know that right away. If I say something publicly or privately that is harmful, then it will have much more of an effect on this church than if a regular member of this congregation says it. Whether I like it or not, what I say – whether I am saying it officially or not – will reflect on the reputation of this congregation, my denomination and more generally on the Christian church. And my words are recorded and put on our church website through YouTube so I can’t say, “I didn’t say that!” To a lesser extent this is also true of everyone here. People will judge this church by what we say and do. And unfortunately we will all make mistakes. That is James’ first point.

II. Second, Do not underestimate the power of words. Words might seem like little things – fleeting utterances that disappear as soon as they are voiced -  but they can have big consequences that last for a long time. We say something in the heat of anger to our husband or wife, our mom or dad, our son or daughter, or grandson or granddaughter, and they may never forget it. So we must choose our words wisely; you can’t take them back. Words are like toothpaste, once out it is out of the tube you cannot put it back in. Scripture says, “Reckless words pierce like a sword."  Proverbs 12:18  “He who holds his tongue is wise.”  Proverbs 10:19 

James uses three metaphors to get across this point that the tongue is little but can have big effects.  First uses the example of a bit in a horse’s mouth, “If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. ³ Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body.” A little word can change the whole direction of your life. Look at that careless comment that Representative Todd Akin made about rape in an interview last month. He could have been a US senator. Now that seems very unlikely. Something small can have big effects for bad or good. A small bit can turn a horse’s direction, so does a small word change the direction of our lives.

He also uses the metaphor of a ship’s rudder. “⁴ Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. ⁵ Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.”  I have an old boat, over twenty years old that I inherited from my mother. It is not in very good shape, and I rarely use it, and I really should get rid of it. For years I shared it with my brother and sister. Well, a family member took it out one day and promptly ran it aground onto some rocks and broke off the propeller and the skeg, which is the bottom part underneath the propeller that acts like a rudder. I didn’t have insurance at the time, so I only got a new propeller, but did not want to put the money into repairing the skeg. So now it basically I have a boat that does not have a rudder, and consequently it does not steer very well at slow speeds, which makes it very hard to dock. So now I have good boat insurance. But I don’t think you can buy tongue insurance. So I am very careful what I say.

The third metaphor is that of a forest fire. “See how great a forest a little fire kindles! ⁶ And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.” We have heard a lot about forest fires this year. Fires raged in the western states all summer long. Some have burned thousands of acres and consumed homes. Some of those forest fires were started by a careless match or campfire. Words are like these fires. Great harm can be started by a careless word which destroys lives, reputations, families and churches. Here we are talking about gossip, slander, rumors, and backbiting. Scriptures says that Christians are to "speak evil of no one." “Titus 3:1,2  and Peter 2:1 - "Lay aside ... all evil speaking."  Colossians 4:6 – “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”  Psalms 141:3 – We need to pray with David, "Set a guard, O lord, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips."

III. The third major point that James makes in this passage is the need to tame the tongue. Here he uses the analogy of taming animals. “⁷ For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. ⁸ But no man can tame the tongue.” Trying to tame the tongue is like trying to tame a wild animal. There was an incident this summer concerning a American student from Saint Louis who working in South Africa. He was a graduate student leading a tour of the Jane Goodall Institute Chimpanzee Eden, a sanctuary for abused animals. He was trained in the dangers of these chimpanzees, and was supposed to keep others safe. But he made the mistake of getting too close and was grabbed and mauled by two chimps. He has had multiple surgeries and almost lost his life. We might think chimps are cute pets and harmless, but they can be vicious. Likewise we hear other reports all the time of people who have wild animals for pets and they turn on their owners. People think that they can tame wild animals, but it can cost them their lives or health. James says that the tongue is worse than such a wild animal. “⁷ For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. ⁸ But no man can tame the tongue.”

I don’t know if you have ever had the experience of saying something you didn’t mean to say, but I have. I had that experience at the Bible study on Ecclesiastes this summer. I said something, and then thought, “Did I really say that out loud?”  Sometime we speak before we think. That is why I like to preach from a manuscript. It cuts down the likelihood that I am going to put my foot in my mouth and regret something I said. I take James words to heart that a preacher has to be especially careful about what he/she says. That comes to doctrine and ethics, as well as lesser matters. When it comes to truth or falsehood, I could spout some theological fad and a few years later change my mind and see how wrong I was. But the damage is done, and I may have sent some person down the wrong spiritual road. Preachers need to take preaching seriously. So I am careful. I know that ultimately the tongue cannot be tamed. It can only be leashed and caged. You might remember in 2003 what happened with the Siegfried & Roy magic act in Las Vegas. A Bengal tiger mauled Roy Horn.  He had been working with those animals for years, but one day the tiger turned on him. James says that you can tame the tongue even less than you can tame wild animals.

So what do we do? James gives us some guidance in the final verses of our passage. He says, “With it [the tongue] we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. ¹¹ Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?¹² Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.”

Here he uses a couple of other metaphors - one of a spring and one of a tree. He says that a spring does not produce both fresh water and bitter water from the same source. Neither does a tree produce two different kinds of fruits – a fig tree bearing olives or a grapevine bearing figs. With these analogies James is trying to make the point that you can tell a tree by its fruit and a spring by its taste.  A fresh spring will produce fresh water. If it is a fig tree it will produce figs. So if our hearts are good, then good words will come from our mouths. James’ older brother Jesus made the same point, using similar language. Jesus said, “For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. ⁴⁴ For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. ⁴⁵ A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6) 

Both James and Jesus are pointing to the fact that what is really needed to change our speech is a change of heart. You can’t tame the tongue, but God can transform the heart. And if God transforms the heart then the tongue will follow. That inner transformation comes through the grace of God through faith in Christ. God takes out the heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh; he gives us a heart after God’s heart. That is our only hope. Sticks and stones can break bones and words can break hearts, but God can give us a new heart and place a new spirit within us. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.”  Psalm 19:14.

Living Inside Out

Mark 7:1-23

A couple of months ago our three-year old grandson Noah was sitting at the dinner table with us at our home Sunday noon. He looked at me and said, “Grandpa, you’re funny.” He has a difficult time pronouncing F’s so it came out sounding more like “You’re hunny,” but I knew what he meant to say. I had not intentionally said or done anything I considered funny so I didn’t know why he was saying this until my wife pointed at my shirt. I had changed out of my Sunday dress clothes and come down to the dinner table so quickly that I had put my T shirt on inside out and backwards. This funny grandpa didn’t realize it until a three year old pointed it out. I read about a six-year old girl who after Sunday School said to her mom, "Mommy, I think Jesus lived his life inside out!" That is where I got the title for my message this morning. I am going to talk about living inside out. Our text for today is from Mark 7. In this scene Jesus is having one of his many verbal bouts with his nemeses the Pharisees. As I read this passage all Jesus’ criticisms of the Pharisees can be seen in terms of inside or outside. Jesus encourages his listeners to live from the inside out.

I. First Jesus encourages fault-confessing rather than fault-finding – not looking outside at other people’s faults, but inside at one’s own. Our gospel lesson starts off with these words: “Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him, having come from Jerusalem.² Now when they saw some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault.” The Pharisees were expert fault-finders. They were notorious for finding fault with everyone except themselves. They could spot a sin a mile away, but couldn’t see their own sin staring them in the face. That made Jesus furious. He said to them, “You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” He regularly called them hypocrites – a topic I will get to in a later point. But for now I want to concentrate on fault-finding.

Fault-finding is epidemic in American society. If something bad happens, we assume it has to be someone’s fault. Someone has to pay – financially, politically, legally, emotionally. Politics has become a big blame game. Congress is one big blamefest. In presidential election years it is in full gear. Democrats and Republicans finding fault with each other nonstop. The political ads are depressing. This is true of both liberals and conservatives. It is true of Christians and atheists. Even when we Christians try not to judge, it comes out wrong. A good example is the “Hate the sin, love the sinner” motto that has become popular in Christian circles. This is the attempt of Christians to affirm moral standards while not appearing judgmental toward those who fall short of those standards. We think we are being clever, but it fails miserably.

Mark Lowry is a Christian comedian and songwriter, best known for his moving Christmas song entitled “Mary, Did You Know?”  He said something about this attitude that deserves repeating. “Love the sinner, hate the sin? How about love the sinner, hate your own sin? I don’t have time to hate your sin. There are too many of you. Hating my sin is a full time job. How about you hate your sin, and I’ll hate my sin, and let’s just love each other.” Good advice! We should be confessing our own sins, not identifying the sins of others. James says, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” Jesus says, “ And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? ⁵ Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Let us be fault-confessors rather than fault-finders. It is fine if you want to spend your time looking for sin, but look on the inside rather than the outside.

II. Second, encourages us to be commandment-following rather than tradition-keeping.  Jesus says to the Pharisees in our passage Verses 8-9 “⁸ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men —the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”⁹ He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.” Our passage gives us specific examples of how the Pharisees did this. The Pharisees were obsessed with the fact that Jesus and his disciples did not wash their hands in the ritually prescribed manner. “³ For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders. ⁴ When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.⁵ Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?”

Jesus then mentioned another example of how the Pharisees ignored the care of their elderly parents by appealing to tradition. ⁹ He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. ¹⁰ For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’;^[d] and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’^[e] 11 But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), ¹² then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, ¹³ making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

I am not going to get into the specifics of these Jewish legal matters because they do not concern us today. What is more important is how we imitate the Pharisees by following human laws and tradition rather than God’s commandments. We might not follow religious law any longer, but we certainly are very conscious of secular laws. It seems to me tht Amerivans are obsessed with laws. We really think that every social and moral problem in our nation can be solved by passing a new law or enforcing already existing laws. And on top of the laws are the rules and regulations. We might scoff at the legalism of the Pharisees, but I think that Americans are more legalistic then they ever were. Law has become the substitute for ethics in our nation. Many people think that if something is legal than it is moral. As long as we are not breaking the law, then it is all right to do whatever we want. That is not true. That is legalism. We are a nation of legalists. And the Law is a very low standard of morality.

Jesus told his disciples to exceed the legalistic righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” The same is true for us. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it is permissible for a Christian to do – when it comes to business or financial dealings, or personal morality, or sexual ethics, or politics, or foreign policy. We are to be a God-honoring, God obeying people, not a just a law-abiding, tradition-keeping people. Traditions are fine. Laws are good. Just don’t let them get in the way of obeying God.

III. Third, Jesus encourages Heart Worship not Lip-service. Verses 6-7 “He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” Jesus is talking about the difference between inner worship and outer worship - worshiping from inside out or merely in an outer form. True religion has to do with the heart. Is our heart in right relationship to God? This is what it always boils down to. Where is your heart this morning? And more important where is your heart tomorrow morning? Where was it yesterday morning?

Many people these days distinguish between religion and spirituality. They say that religion is external and spirituality is internal, with suggestion that religion is bad and spirituality is good. My experience is that a lot of the spirituality people are less spiritual than the religious people. And my experience is that the spirituality people are more judgmental toward religious people than vice versa. There are a lot of people these days who want nothing to do with church as organized religion; they speak with disdain of the institutional church, and they say that it is what is in their hearts that is important. Yes, it is true that what is in the heart is important, but if it is in the heart - on the inside - it will be expressed on the outside.

I think the age of purely outward religious observance is mostly gone. I am sure there are vestiges of it in today’s society, but not so much up here in New England. You know that New England is one of the least churched areas of the country. A smaller percentage of people go to worship here in New England – especially Vermont and New Hampshire -  than anywhere else in the nation. But I perceive that the ones who do attend worship are doing so for good reasons. They genuinely want to connect with God. They are not doing it for cultural or social reasons. They don’t care what people think and are not doing it to look good to others. They are doing it for inner spiritual reasons. There may be some parts of the country where outward religion is still a strong part of the culture like in the South, but no longer here. Most people who are outwardly religious here in New England are inwardly spiritually-minded; they are genuinely seeking something real on the inside. They are not perfect by a long shot, but they are sincere people.

But our religious sincerity is not enough. There needs to be a real commitment to a transformation of the inner life. This is where I want to challenge us. That is what Jesus is speaking about in the last verses of our passage. He says, “15 There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. … Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, 19 because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?”20 And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

Jesus is very concerned with the inner cleansing of his followers – what theologians call sanctification. It is easy to make religion or spirituality about what doctrines you believe, what type of theology you accept, what type of spiritual experience you have had, what words you use to describe your relationship with God, or what set of ethical standards you hold. But Jesus does not talk about any of those here. He talks about inner defilement and inner purification. That is the work of God inside a person. God cleanses us from the inside out. This happens by the grace of God through faith in Christ.

IV. Lastly, Jesus encourages Mask Removal not Mask Wearing. Here we get back to the word hypocrite, which Jesus uses in our passage and often uses when addressing the Pharisees. The original Greek word used in the text is the word refers to a stage actor in ancient Greek plays. In ancient theatre one player could play many roles by wearing different masks, and they would speak through the masks. This is the word that Jesus uses in this passage. He is saying that the Pharisees were wearing masks what hid their true nature. The problem was that they came to identify with their roles and even believe that they really were the characters they portrayed with their masks. Jesus confronted them and tried to get them to remove their masks and reveal who they really were. To look in a mirror and see their real faces. Only with such radical honesty with oneself, God,  and others is true spirituality possible.

Let’s take Jesus’ medicine. Let’s apply this to ourselves. We create personae for ourselves. Ppersona is a Latin word that refers to these masks; it means “to sound through” and refers to the masks that were spoken through. We get the word person and personality from it. We develop elaborate personalities over our lifetimes and we attach our names to them and own them. We really believe that we are our personalities and invest a lot of emotional energy into maintaining these egos. Most of us have even convinced ourselves that these personages are our real selves. But they aren’t. They are elaborate socially and psychologically constructed fictions which we have created to cope with life and protect us from perceived harms. Mental illness occurs when these psychological constructions begin to fail and the masks begin to slip.

The truth is that we are not who we think we are, not who we pretend to be. We are not who we have convinced ourselves we are. Who we really are is not the social or psychological roles we play; it is who we are in relation to God. We do not know who we truly are until we stand psychologically open and naked before God. That is what the story of the Fall of Man in the early chapters of Genesis is all about. When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge they hid themselves from God in the bushes and hid themselves from each other with clothing. This story is not about sex and physical nakedness. It is about hiding from God, others and ourselves. It is about the masks we wear to hide from the truth of who we really are.

We are creatures created by God in the image of God made to represent God and be in fellowship with God and glorify God. It is not about the dramas of our lives. It is not about us. Most of what we think is important in our lives is really just fabrication. We do not even know who we are until we gaze unashamed upon God. When we know God then who we are doesn’t matter anymore. Because it is not about us; it is all about God and about others. That is what Jesus taught are the two greatest commandments which sum up all the commandments – Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and then our neighbors as ourselves. When the masks fall away, that is when life in Christ begins. Then we can begin to live from the inside out.

To Be or Not to Be

Delivered September 2, 2012

Exodus 3:1-14; John 8:48-59

This is the last Sunday of August and I am still preaching on the Summer Sermon Suggestions that I have received from you. Someone asked me to speak on the famous words that God spoke to Moses at the burning bush: “I am who I am.” The scene is normally understood as Moses’ call to ministry. It is his own personal encounter with God on the side of Mount Horeb, the mountain of God. Moses had fled from Egypt decades earlier and made a life for himself in Midian. He had gotten married and had a son. He had settled down into the life of a shepherd. He was not looking for a change in his life. He was not even looking for God. But God was looking for him.

One day when Moses was minding his own business, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro in the “backside of the wilderness,” (which is a great phrase) our text says, “² And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. ³ Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” As he approached the burning bush, God spoke to him from the midst of it. A conversation ensued. God instructed Moses to return to Egypt to lead the Hebrew people out of bondage. Moses was not interested. His life was fine just the way it was. They argued back and forth for a while. Moses had several reasons why this was not a good idea and why he was not the right person for the job. One of his objections is that he did not even know God’s name. He couldn’t very well go to the Hebrews and say that their God had called him to lead them to the Promised Land if he could not even tell them God’s name. “And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” I want to explore this verse today under three headings.

I. The first is Who God is. Why did God use these words to identify himself? The OT was not lacking in names for God. There are many names for God in the Hebrew Scriptures. There were the basic names like El and Elohim. There was El Shaddai (God Almighty) and El Elyon (God Most high) and many others. God was known as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yet here in this passage replies cryptically “I am Who I am.” What was God trying to say to Moses? I think that God was trying to say that he was beyond a name. The names of deities in the ancient world were treated like handles for God. If you knew a god’s name then you had a handle on him or her; you had certain amount of control over that god or goddess. You could invoke that god’s name, and he or she would be obligated to appear. Names were used like a magical incantations. Here the true God was not giving Moses a regular name and therefore not giving Moses any control over him. It was God’s way of saying to Moses, “You are not in control. I am in control. You want my name? Sorry, I am not giving you my name.” People have tried to take God’s words here and turn them into a name – Yahweh or Jehovah, but I think that approach misses the point.

What God’s answer to Moses means for us today is that God cannot be labeled. We love to label things, and we think that if we have a name for something then we know it. But do we really? I don’t think so. We can’t label God. The label will not stick. It is like those decals that garages put on your windshield to tell you when your next oil change is. I don’t know about yours, but mine won’t stick; they keep coming off. The same with our labels for God. Labels don’t stick to God. You can’t define God.

Muslims say there are 99 names for God. They think that they and only they know the real God Allah and others don’t. They think we Christians are idolaters and heretics. Jews think that they know God and that they alone are God’s chosen people and understand the Torah correctly. We Christians think the same thing, don’t we? That we know God and others don’t – at least not as well as we do - because we know the name of His Son: Jesus. We label God with a brand name, and we think that is all there is to it - we have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But do we? Maybe God is more than a Christian label. I have to be careful here when making this point. As Christians we believe that Jesus is the name of God’s only begotten Son. But that does not mean that we have a handle on God - the magic words, “in Jesus’ name, Amen” that gives us control of God or a monopoly on the knowledge of God.

Hindus have thousands of names for God and believe that they are all valid avenues to God. Are they? Then there are those tolerant, inclusive open-minded folks who say that all names for God in all religions are equally valid. All roads lead up the same mountain. Do they? Is that not just another way of labeling God? I think that when God spoke these words to Moses, God was saying that he cannot be labeled, he will not be labeled, even by his people, even by the greatest prophet of Israel Moses. God is beyond labels.

That means that God is beyond our understandings of God. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts,” says the book of the prophet Isaiah. This does not bode well for people like me who spend our lives trying to communicate thoughts about God to people. The Christian gospel is all about the good news, proclaiming truths about God. I spend my life saying things like “God is our Father and Jesus is his Son.’ Are those thoughts meaningless? No, they are not meaningless. I believe that they are true. But I also know that I can turn those ideas into idols. I can turn Christian theology into a cage in which I try to confine God in my system of doctrines about God. At the most our labels, names, ideas and words for God are no more than signs pointing to the Divine Reality who is above all names and beyond all labels – a God who cannot be conceived with our minds much less contained in our words.

When God says, “I am who I am” God is saying that he is beyond the confines and categories of existence. God is not an object that exists alongside of other objects in the universe, which can be proven or disproven with the scientific method. That is why the current debate about whether or not God exists is beside the point. God is. “I am who I am,” God says. That is what the New Atheists of this past decade with all their bestselling books, don’t get. God does not exist in that objective sense. God is more fundamental than existence. God is what makes existence of everything possible. God is the Ground from which existence springs. Christian philosopher Paul Tillich spoke about God as the Ground of Being or Being Itself. That is the best I can do about who God is.

II. My second point this morning is about who we are. That profound phrase “I am who I am” says something about us as well as about God. Only when we know who God is as the great “I am” can we know who we are. God did not speak these words into a vacuum. God spoke these words “I am who I am” to a person – to Moses. And it changed his life. And knowing God changes our lives. It changes our understanding of who we are. For one thing, it reminds us that we are more than our physical existence. In other words, we are more than our bodies. We all know that these physical bodies are temporary. We only this flesh and blood form for a few decades. What were we before we were our bodies? What are we after our bodies have returned to dust or ashes? The answer is found in the One who is I AM.

In the New Testament reading for today, Jesus got into an argument with the Pharisees. They ask him “Who do You make Yourself out to be?” He answered, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Jesus was echoing the words from the burning bush. He was identifying himself with the God of Moses. This might not be so clear to us modern readers, but these Jewish teachers knew exactly what Jesus was saying, for it says in the next verse, “Then they took up stones to throw at Him.”  They saw his words about himself as blasphemous.

Jesus clearly understood himself and proclaimed himself as God – “I am who I am.” This comes across clearly in the Gospel of John in a whole series of  “I am” sayings. I am the Bread of Life; I am the Good Shepherd; I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. What about us? Who are we? Some spiritual teachers these days say that we are divine like Christ was divine – that we are by nature God and that we just have to wake up to that reality. But that is not the Christian or biblical understanding of human nature. We are not God in the way that Jesus was God; we are not divine. But through faith in God we can be united with God. Through faith in Christ we share in Christ’s eternal life. We are not God, but we are united with God through Christ. This is who we are. Who we are spiritually is much more than who we are physically. We are not our bodies. We are not our minds. Our minds are nothing more than the products of our brains, which are simply a part of our bodies which will pass away.

What we really are is spirit. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” We cannot even conceive of who we really are and who we will be once we have set aside this mortal frame. As the apostle John wrote: “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Those words of Scripture are the closest I can come to communicate who we are as children of God united by faith in Jesus Christ, who is the I Am.

III. There is a third point I want to make this morning. My first point dealt with who God is. The second point dealt with who we are. The third point is that we are to live who we really are. We are to be in our lives who we really are in God. In his book "The Hero’s Journey” Joseph Campbell quotes an epitaph on an unmarked grave in a Kansas cemetery. It reads: “Be who you is, cuz if you be what you ain't, then you ain't what you is."  Dr. Suess said, “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”  That may also be the meaning of Shakespeare’s line, from which I have borrowed the title of this message: “To be or not to be.” I am not a Shakespeare scholar. In fact I admit I have a hard time undertstanding Shakespeare. I do not pretend to know the meaning of Hamlet’s soliloquy which starts off with these famous words. One thing for sure: it is about life and death, which he calls “The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn No Traveller returns.” 

It seems to me that for those of us who spend time thinking about our human condition, then life is a process of trying to become who we truly are. I believe that we find out who we truly are in relationship to Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ, who is the I am, connects us to God who is “I am who I am.” Union with Christ through faith connects us to God. We are caught up into his divine life. This is salvation. This is eternal life. This is the kingdom of God. This is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of the spiritual search and the spiritual life.

The Christian life is a faithful, courageous living out of that reality for as many years as God gives us. One of the earliest spiritual books I read when I about 19 years old was “The Courage To Be” by Christian philosopher Paul Tillich. It is the book I keep coming back to throughout my life. You know how you have some books that resonate with your soul and you read and reread throughout your life? This is one of those books for me. It has a depth that I have found in few other Christian works. It is not an easy read, but it speaks to my soul. His basic message is that the spiritual life is having the courage to be. For Tillich as a Christian philosopher that means to be in Christ, who is the incarnation of Being Itself. Christ was the embodiment of God’s words to Moses “I am who I am.” Christ was and is that Truth and lived that Truth. And when we live in Christ, we live in that same Reality. We live in this truth “I am who I am.” The Christian life is having the courage to be faithful to Christ in the face of death and anxiety and worry and doubt.  To have the courage to be. To be or not to be is the question and the answer is to be – in Christ.