“A
capable wife who can find?” Our
first reading from Proverbs seems all at once both timeless and hopelessly out
of date. Men, do we really need a
wife who is a seamstress, merchant, chef, home administrator, property realtor,
and wine maker? Women, how do you warm
to the thought of rising before the sun and staying up after everyone else has
retired; providing for your family and taking care of the poor; keeping
yourself always attractive while being tasked with promoting your husband in
the eyes of others; eschewing idleness whenever a task-free moment arises while
maintaining a perpetual sunny disposition that even your children
acknowledge? And you thought
walking on water was a tough act to follow!
Still,
within these lofty expectations and charmingly outdated duties, there remains
something that is timeless; that rings true even in our day. More precious than jewels is a
relationship that can be characterized by fidelity,
monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the
holy love which enables both to see in each other the image of God. Is there anything more attractive in a
partner than inner strength, a sense of dignity, a light heart, the habit of
speaking words of wisdom and kindness, demonstrating a concern for others, and
possessing a sense of awe related to all that is holy?
If there is a fulcrum verse in this morning’s readings on
which all others rest, it comes from the Letter of James: “Show by your good
life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.” There is something of this behind all the
qualities and characteristics put forward in Proverbs, isn’t there. This gentleness born of wisdom is both
a disposition we cultivate on our own as well as a gift that we receive from
beyond ourselves. James goes on to
say, “the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield,
full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or
hypocrisy.” Yes, these are traits
that we can and should pursue through our own efforts, but they will never find
their fullness in us – be able to establish deep abiding roots and bear
consistent fruit in our lives – unless we seek the nourishment of God’s Spirit
in our souls.
In this morning’s Gospel reading we see Jesus’ disciples in
a mode that is about as far from gentleness as you can get. Some context to the reading is helpful. Jesus has led his followers out of the
region controlled by Herod Antipas after the ruler had ordered the beheading of
Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist.
Jesus has been in seclusion because he fears being arrested, because he
is grieving, and because he needs to rethink his mission in light of this
tragic loss. He emerges from this
period of discernment realizing that he is the Messiah – God’s anointed one –
but also with a new understanding of what this means. At the time, people anticipated God was going to raise up a
Messiah to be a political leader – someone who would rally the people of Israel
to rise up in revolt, overthrown the Roman rule, and reestablish a Jewish
monarchy through David’s lineage.
After John’s death and a period of reflection, Jesus begins to see that
the power of oppression, like the power of sin, can only be conquered through
his death and resurrection.
Do you recall from last week’s reading how Peter confesses
that Jesus is the Messiah and in response Jesus orders his disciples not to
breathe a single word of this? It
is easy to understand his reasoning.
If word spreads that he is the Messiah and if people believe that the
Messiah is sent from God to lead a revolt, then Jesus will find himself at the
forefront of an uprising, not offering himself on a Cross as a demonstration of
God’s love for the world. Jesus
chooses to embody the words James would write some decades later… he will show
the good life through his work done with gentleness born of wisdom.
His new mission only sharpens the irony that, while he is
teaching this message to his disciples, they are arguing privately about whom
among them is the most important.
No doubt they were looking toward their imagined future and pondering
one another’s place in King Jesus’ palace. Jesus responds to this with a teaching and a living
parable. The teaching: “Whoever
wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he shows them what this means in
practical terms by placing a child in the midst and saying that greatness is
demonstrated not through positions of power but through the manner you receive
the powerless. A trait that will
do you no good in welcoming a child is self-importance. A trait that will never fail is
gentleness.
Last May, when a group of us met to evaluate our Sunday
School program, several people mentioned how positive it is that Al Reese comes
out of the church after the sermon and leads the children in a song before they
come in to join us. Our kids love
Al and enjoy their time with him very much. It speaks volumes to us that a person as talented and gifted
as our music director/organist is willing to do this. He is not demeaning himself, but rather is highlighting the
value of children. Al uses his
gifts with great gentleness and wisdom and I am extremely grateful for both his
ministry and his witness.
In early August, David Brooks, an Op-Ed columnist for The
New York Times, wrote a very thoughtful
piece weighing in on the debate about the roots of success – to what degree are
we self made and to what degree do we owe our success to forces beyond
ourselves? Brooks offered the
following insight:
There were many different chefs of the stew that is you:
parents, friends, teachers, ancestors, mentors and, of course, Oprah
Winfrey. It’s very hard to know
how much of your success is owed to those people and how much is owed to
yourself.
Given this, Brooks writes:
You should regard yourself as the sole author of all your
future achievements and as the grateful beneficiary of all your past successes.
It seems to me that if you had this outlook your works
would be done with gentleness born of wisdom. Throughout his column Brooks notes how we approach the
question of credit differently at various stages of our life:
In your 20s…, you should imagine that you have the power to
totally transform yourself… This
sense of possibility will unleash feverish energies that will propel you
forward...
In your 30s and 40s, you will begin to… have
a lower estimation of your own power and a greater estimation of the power of
the institutions you happen to be in.
You’ll still have faith in your own skills, but it will be more the
skills of navigation, not creation...
Then in your 50s and 60s, you will [develop an], understanding
that relationships are more powerful than individuals… You will find yourself in the coaching
phase of life, enjoying the dreams of your underlings. Ambition… is most pleasant when experienced
vicariously... You’ll find
yourself thinking back to your own mentors, newly aware of how much they shaped
your path…
Then in your 70s and 80s,… your mind will bob over the decades
and then back over the centuries, and you’ll realize how deeply you were formed
by the ancient traditions of your people — being Mormon or Jewish or black or
Hispanic. You’ll appreciate how
much power the dead have over the living, since this will one day be your only
power. You’ll be struck by the
astonishing importance of luck — the fact that you took this bus and not
another, met this person and not another.
In short, as maturity develops and the perspectives widen, the
smaller the power of the individual appears, and the greater the power of those
forces flowing through the individual.
Brooks is suggesting that gentleness emerges in us as
time works on us. We are not a
finished product at any point in our lives. Rather we are on a constant journey to grow into what St.
Paul calls the “fullness of Christ.”
Those disciples who argued amongst themselves about their importance
were not rejected because of their misguided self-estimation. Jesus continued to nurture them toward
a good life where their works were done with gentleness born of wisdom. It took time, to be sure, but Jesus
never gave up on them – neither before his death nor after his resurrection –
and Jesus never gives up on us either.
Brooks ended his column with these words:
[You] are right to preserve your pride in your
accomplishments. Great companies,
charities and nations were built by groups of individuals who each vastly
overestimated their own autonomy.
As an ambitious executive, it’s important that you believe that you will
deserve credit for everything you achieve. As a human being, it’s important for you to know that’s
nonsense.
We
who follow Christ give our best in everything we do, knowing that our best – if
laced with pride, arrogance, or selfish ambition – is all for not. Our best, when put in the service of
others, fulfills what Jesus teaches… if you want to be great you must be last
of all and servant of all. I pray
that this life continues to emerge in me as it continues to emerge in each one
of you.
