Partners
in Proverbs
This is a tough passage to preach on because it hits so close to home. I like watching movies. Laura and I rent videos on a regular basis. And then I read Paul's words: whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable--if anything is excellent--think about such things. I hear the word "pure" and I think back to a Sharon Stone movie I was watching a while back. If you don't know who Sharon Stone is, that's good because I don't want you to think less of me. If you do know who Sharon Stone is, that’s ok also because you’re right there with me. Anyway, I was watching this movie and I remember thinking, "I don't need to be watching this." It isn't that I didn't like the movie, I did. It is that I was finally, after many, many years of denial, admitting that in the eyes of God what I was setting my mind to was not pure. I have chosen one example from popular culture, but there are others. Are slasher movies noble? Are trashy romance novels admirable? Is Cosmo lovely? Do I need to be seeing this?
Contrast
the above with what Paul actually says. He gives us what amounts to an ancient
laundry list of virtue. This list would have been familiar to any of Paul's
readers because it comes straight out of the Greek philosophy of the day. Paul
isn't arguing about what is and what is not virtuous. Essentially Paul is
saying, "We all know what virtue is and what it is not. The debate is not
about definition, the difficulty is about putting into practice the practice of
virtue." And Paul goes on to tell us how we put virtue into practice: he
says, "Think on such things." The nuance of the word used for think
is no mere taking an idea and allowing it to flit about in the brain. Rather it
has the connotation of thinking richly, thinking deeply. It is conjugated in a
form that expresses continual, habitual action. Paul understood that whatever
one allows to occupy his or her mind will sooner or later determine their
desires, their speech, their action, their being. Paul understood the truth
expressed in the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that has the boy Calvin saying to
his pet tiger Hobbes, "Know what's weird? Day by Day nothing seems to
change. But pretty soon, everything is different. You just go about your business
and one day you realize you're not the same person you used to be. People
change whether they decide to or not!" Hobbes takes this in and as he
walks away says, "Thank heaven for small favors."
Paul
understood the truth expressed in the poem that says, "If a child lives
with criticism, he learns to condemn. If a child lives with hostility, she
learns to fight. If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy. If a
child lives with shame, she learns to feel guilty. If a child lives with
tolerance, he learns to be patient. If a child lives with encouragement, she
learns confidence. If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate. If a
child lives with fairness, she learns justice. If a child lives with security,
he learns to have faith. If a child lives with approval, she learns to like
herself. If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to find
love in the world." The virtue with which we embrace our children, create
the children who embrace us with virtue.
The
question, it seems, that this passage sets before us is this: how are we as
Christians today going to relate to the world? What will be the nature of our
relationship? Where will the boundaries be placed between ourselves and the
world's influence upon us? Where are the boundaries between the world and our
influence on it? Simply put: what can be done to live as a Christian and to
think about virtuous things in a world that does not always surround us with
virtue?
There
are a number of ways Christians have sought to meet the challenge Paul sets
before us. We can think of these ways as villages along a road. On one end of
the road are those Christians that have lived in the desert during the early
centuries of the faith or in monasteries during the middle ages. This village
is called the monastic movement and the inhabitants of Monastic Manor sought to
surround themselves with virtue by completely isolating themselves from the
world, not in the world, not of the world. What they discovered is that one can
never flee from temptation; it is within us all.
On
the opposite end of the road are those Christians that have lived in every age
both in the world and of the world. Paul calls the inhabitants of this village
the enemies of the cross. Jesus says they are like dry ground upon which seed
is thrown; birds snap up the seed which never has opportunity to take root. The
people of this village, Worldly Way, surrender to the temptations set before
them and give up the battle for virtue. These first two villages, Monastic
Manor and Worldly Way, are extremes. They are on one end of the horizon and the
other, and they don't apply to us. We wouldn't be here in a local church
community if they did. Folks who live in Monastic Manor don't attend the
neighborhood church. Neither do folks who live in Worldly Way attend the
neighborhood church, unless of course they are invited by a Christian friend.
Moving
toward the center we find villages we can live in. In from the side of Monastic
Manor is Puritan Place, the spirit of Puritanism lives here. Did you know that
modern Presbyterians are related by religious heritage to the Puritans who
founded much of our country? Generally speaking, the Puritans have received a
bad rap. They were folks persecuted for their religious beliefs, appalled by
the pomp and pretension of the royal court, who desired to create a society
dedicated to the glory of God. They did not want to leave the world; they
wanted to change it. Much of what is good in this country is the fruit of their
labor. Their commitment to prayer, hard work, charity and self-sufficiency are
hallmarks of some of the best in the American spirit. In their zeal to live for
God, however, the Puritans forgot the frailty of human nature; they forgot the
ease with which people can justify their own failures while condemning the
faults of others; they forgot the spirit of compassion that expresses the
Spirit of Christ, and so we remember them for their judgmentalism and
self-righteousness. We could live in Puritan Place. We could throwaway all
things derived from the secular culture. We could devote ourselves only and
exclusively to things sacred. We could live in the world but quite rigidly not
of the world. Some Presbyterian Christians live here and, like the Puritans
before them, they express a zeal for God's glory but, perhaps also, a certain
tendency to overlook grace.
In
from the side of Worldly Way is Modernism Mansion. Modernism Mansion is another
village some Presbyterians occupy. It is the church come of age since the
'60's. It is that place that passively submits to the world's edict that we
should not be pushy, while the world is walking all over us. Modernism tells us
we should not push our faith-based proposals and ideas in the public forum
because they are our own personal, private agenda. Keep religion behind closed
doors; only non-religious discussion is allowed out here. Modernism allows us
our worship on Sunday morning so long as there are no other disturbances during
the week and no external means to discern between those who belong to Christ and
those who do not. We could live in Modernism Mansion. We could allow the veil
between ourselves and the world to be paper-thin. We could live in the world
and pretty much of the world. We would not be intolerant. We would not be
judgmental. Yet we might also fall far short of the holiness God desires for us
within and the justice God calls us to without.
In
the middle of the way, between Puritanism and Modernism, is Center Point.
Center Point is that place where people seek a healthy balance between engagement
in the world of work and play versus retreat into the solace and sustenance of
God. Center Point assumes we will journey outward to experience the culture in
all its good and therefore in some of its bad. If we are in the world of work
and play we will be present among some who need the Great Physician. But we
will balance every journey outward with its own journey inward to visit the
same Great Physician for ourselves. We could live here in Center Point. We
could allow ourselves to get our hands dirty in the work for justice and
compassion and evangelism, knowing that in such places our hearts may get a
little dirt on them as well. We could accept that challenge to be tolerant of
others but steadfast in our own commitment, to be open to all opinions but
willing to speak our own. In Center Point we would be in the world but,
hopefully, not of the world.
Each
of us must choose where we live. My job is only to be your realtor, to show you
the different communities that are available in your price range. However, as
your realtor let me offer you my opinion. We live in a time when the promise of
modernism has proven empty. Ours is a time when we have drunk deeply from the
well-spring of the best of modern science, culture and philosophy...and we are
still thirsty. We have fed at its trough and we are still hungry! Yet we live
in a time when the return to Puritanism is neither plausible, nor, I think,
desirable. Yet we also live in a time when the path of the middle way, the road
that leads to Center Point, is becoming more and more accessible. Ours is a
time when we recognize the need for heroes and heroines, when we recognize the
need to name the good and not only the bad, when we recognize the power of
“whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is admirable
– if anything is excellent or praiseworthy.”
God is calling us to that balanced place between engagement and retreat,
between the journey outward and the journey inward, where we can be truly in
the world but also truly not of the world. God is gifting us with
opportunities to think on virtuous things.
Nowhere
can we think on things more virtuous than Holy Scripture. Proverbs says,
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." If we want wisdom,
if we want to know the path that leads beyond all villages and into the Kingdom
of God, then we must seek the wisdom that endures, the wisdom of God. The
return to virtue through a return to the Bible is not a retreat into seeing
only the nice things of the world. True Bible reading is not about seeking a
1950's Ozzie and Harriet vision of the world that overlooks significant
problems in society such as the growing discrepancy between rich and poor, the
continuing enmity between black and white, or the disintegration of basic human
values. Let it never be said that the Bible is escapist literature. After all,
to take just one modern social example, the Bible is full of dysfunctional
families. Adam and Eve were evicted from their first home because they wouldn't
abide by the deed restrictions. Their son Cain murdered his brother Abel.
Abraham abandoned one son and twice lied to the courts about a domestic dispute
with his wife Sarah. Esau tried to murder his brother Jacob over an inheritance
dispute. Joseph's brothers sold Joseph into slavery and then lied about what
they did to their father...And this is all just in the first book of the Bible.
I'm not even out of Genesis yet! No, the Bible is not escapist literature. The
dysfunctional families of modern times have nothing on the families of the
Bible. But the virtue of Scripture is this: in all the stories of the Bible, we
see God with the people. In our retreat into Scripture we see God's engagement
in the world.
Let me end this sermon with a proverb of my own. This, then, is virtue: not that we look only at the nice, but that we see God at work in the good, in the bad, and in the ugly. To see God at work and to think about such things is the path to virtue.