Today's Sermon

 

“Wisdom for Ordinary Time: Foundational Work"

 

Wisdom for Ordinary Time: Foundational Work

            For a stretch, one of my guilty pleasures was watching bad reality TV (as if there were another kind). One genre was these off the grid shows, among them “Homestead Rescue.” It features well-intended families trying to live off the land who have vastly underestimated what it takes and what they are capable of doing. Then, this experienced family team from Alaska swoops in and in a week bails them out, bringing the property up to a more sustainable state. Invariably, when the team assesses the conditions of the property, they find something built hurriedly or shoddily and has to be significantly repaired or redone altogether. The homesteaders hadn’t taken the time to do it right the first time, to build a solid foundation. Build on a bad foundation and the rest of the structure hardly stands a chance of standing.

            As we continue our series on wisdom for everyday living, it’s a helpful image for how we sometimes operate in our daily lives. Just like those families feel as though they can’t take the time or don’t have the resources to build a solid foundation because so much is calling for our attention, we too take shortcuts. Laying a good foundation, while sometimes more time consuming pays off in the long run. Slow and steady doesn’t just win the race; often it’s the only way to avoid dropping out. To live this way, however, requires us to go against the inertia of our culture, which is more inclined toward quick and disposable than deliberate and lasting. This is rewarded. Our house had been flipped when they bought it and we keep discovering corners they cut: the vent over the range led only into the cabinet above, the overfill on the bathtub isn’t actually connected to the drain, the same tub that was actually held up by a car jack in the crawl space—we caught that one. It paid off for the flippers, less so for us. Wisdom considers the impact on others.

            If we are trying to build a good life, a good home, good communities and nations, we should invest first in seeking wisdom. This increases our chances of doing what is right and doing it right. The payoff comes, but it’s not immediate, and it’s someone else who might well enjoy the fruits of our careful planting. You know the saying about planting trees you won’t yourself enjoy. Wisdom means not only avoiding cutting corners, but measuring twice before cutting at all. It means giving one’s attention to the sustenance of the study of great thinkers rather than the empty calories of 60 second video clips produced by people paid to push products. It means rebalancing the scales toward learning and away from posting or sharing every waking thought.

            And, I should say what I haven’t said explicitly in the series so far, we pursue wisdom not just because it’s practical, though it is, and not just because it leads to the more ethical, faithful life, though it does, we pursue it because it also leads to greater joy. I find little evidence the frenetic corner cutting of our culture yields anything resembling happiness. Yet, how many people that you would call truly wise are not also joyful? Fast food and fast fashion satisfy for a moment but are ultimately unhealthy for us and the world we share.

Here’s how the very first psalm in the Bible puts it,
Psalm 1
1 Happy are those
    who do not follow the advice of the wicked
or take the path that sinners tread
    or sit in the seat of scoffers,
2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law they meditate day and night.
3 They are like trees
    planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
    and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.

4 The wicked are not so
    but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment
    nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous,
6 for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked will perish. 

            Note the time connoted by the imagery. Trees planted by streams of water take years and years to grow. We’re planting fruit trees not weeds. The wicked are like chaff with little substance and no staying power, easily blown by the wind. It’s those who meditate on the law, the great teachings, day and night, who build a fruitful, lasting, some would say “eternal” life. That’s a pretty good return on investment, eternal not only being a quantitative measurement of time, but a qualitative one as well, the experience of heaven already.
            To what are we giving our time? What if we studied wisdom the way we do sports betting or financial markets?
            Jesus tells us how we can avoid being on a Homestead Rescue of sorts:

Matthew 7:24-27
24 “Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. 25 The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”

            If you start the day with the words of Jesus, your life will not get worse. Notice the image he uses: building a house, like the imagery of the psalm, growing a tree, is an active, attentive one. Jesus says, “whoever hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise one who built their house on rock” (Matthew 7:24). It’s not just taking in wisdom, but integrating it into the life one is building. Similarly, meditating on the great teachings for the psalm is the tending and pruning required to grow a healthy tree. In our segmented society, it’s easy to see our faith as another passive task to check off—oh, I went to church and survived the sermon…awake, check! No, faith is weaving the wisdom into the very fabric of life. The wisdom you encounter here and elsewhere is the starting point. Your life, the life we build as communities, is the product, the shared creation. Finding wisdom is like gathering good materials, cultivating the soil. We still have to put it altogether, tend and care for what we want to grow. Everyone who hears and acts on the words of Jesus. Just hearing them isn’t enough.

            So, before you rush off to the next project, as worthwhile as it may be, spend some time inventorying your time. Are you choosing from the best materials, laying out the best plans, learning from the best teachers available to you? If not, what tangible changes will you make? If you fail to, and instead just rush on ahead, you’re destined to end up well-intended, but over your head in danger of losing the life your soul truly wants. A one-week reality show will not fix it. No one is going to swoop in and fix it all for you. Most of those homesteads from those shows come right apart when the cameras leave, because that’s a shortcut too. A good foundation takes time and commitment, but fortunate for us, we have the guidance of a really good carpenter.

            Amen.