November 22, 2009 – Reign of Christ and Thanksgiving Sunday
Rev. Jeffrey L. Phillips, pastor
Proverbs 1:1-19
Conventional wisdom
Everyday examples (“Common Sense”) – ask people for examples
The Bible has “conventional wisdom,” too. “This is how the world works.”
Prov. 11:15: “To guarantee loans to a stranger brings trouble, but there is safety in refusing to do so.”
Prov. 10:4: “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.”
Payment/reward system.
Prov. 10:27: “Fear of the LORD prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short.”
Prov. 11:25: “A generous person will be enriched, and one who gives water will get water.”
If I’m good and follow all the rules, I’ll get rewarded.
Coin in, gumball out.
Works righteousness.
Unconventional wisdom
Sometimes the generous do not get rewarded. Sometimes the one who gives water simply goes thirsty.
Sometimes the wicked get ahead while all the righteous get is the short end of the stick.
Sometimes nice guys just finish last. Sometimes believers lose their jobs and get cancer, or die a premature death, and people who aren’t too nice end up living long lives.
Sometimes, as in the current recession, hard work, buying a house, and investing in the stock market (“conventional wisdom”) only result in no job and no assets. All the wealth and equity has been wiped out in the last two years.
Job
Today’s passage somewhat conventional (explain passage)
We all know that “you don’t get something for nothing.”
“All that glitters is not gold.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear.”
Get rich schemes: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
“Avoid temptation.”
But it’s unconventional in that many of us don’t actually believe it or live that way.
This is a warning against riches, but we all want stuff – and more stuff.
We’re never satisfied, are we?
We forget that our possessions can end up possessing us (v.19).
Like the tempted youth, we tend to blur means and ends (“I have to make a living”) in terms of what job we take to earn income.
Like the tempted youth, we all excuse a little oppression of the poor for the sake of our comfort and bottom line.
If the products we buy are made by children in poor countries, at least they’re cheap, and that’s all that matters, right?
Like the “sinners” in Prov. 1, we’re often pay no attention to the consequences of our actions – filling up our cars with imported fossil fuels, despite the damage this does to our national security and the environment. “We have to get around, don’t we?”
To that conventional thinking, this passage offers a simple alternative: just say No.
Don’t go there.
Don’t get enticed by stuff.
Don’t believe those who offer security in exchange for a little violence.
Instead, believe this proverb of unconventional wisdom: “Those who live by the sword die by the sword.”
(And we all live by the sword to some extent since we believe in armed police and military).
Conventional wisdom and unconventional wisdom
On this Reign of Christ Sunday and Thanksgiving Sunday, we give thanks for Jesus Christ: God’s wisdom (God’s unconventional wisdom).
Like Job, he did not believe in the payment-reward system (story of the man born blind in John).
Like the parent in today’s passage, he didn’t take moral short cuts to benefit himself or his cause. He didn’t comprise moral principles as we do.
When tempted by the devil….
When given a chance to flee on the night of his arrest…
Unlike us, he didn’t worry about his own safety and welfare.
Jesus Christ is God’s wisdom (God’s unconventional wisdom)
In a world where might makes right and that you had better defend yourself when you need to, he taught and lived a different way: “Love your enemies…”
In a world that teaches you had better get all you can get for yourself while you can, he was born in poverty, lived in poverty, and died in poverty.
And he taught people not to get rich or even seek riches, but to give their riches away because riches are spiritually dangerous.
In a world where some people are in and cool while others are feared, excluded, and laughed at, he loved the most unlovable, eating with everybody, breaking the rules, coloring outside the lines, making himself unacceptable in proper society.
In a world where it would have been wiser to avoid conflict and its consequences, he verbally attacked the priests and other religious authorities, knowing it would cost him his life.
This is not wise, but it is God’s wisdom.
And his death on the cross – not at all wise by the standards of human wisdom. How could someone’s death on a cross, a sign of rejection and failure, help anybody?
But by God’s standards of wisdom, this foolish death is the wisest thing of all – for by it God has redeemed the world and shown us how to live and how to die.
You see, people expected God’s Messiah – God’s anointed king - to enter the world with shock and awe, slashing and burning all opponents of God’s rule.
But this Messiah king did not kill, but was killed. Instead of wiping them out, he was wiped out. He saved the world not through the power of the sword, but through the power of love – expressed by his own sad death on the cross.
This is really unconventional wisdom.
Instead of protecting his life, he gave his life away!
Instead of killing for God, he lived for God and was killed for God’s purposes of healing and restoring the world to the way it should be.
But we shouldn’t be surprised that this is the way Jesus’ life ended because, after all, he was the one who, before he died, taught:
“Those who want to save their life must lose it; and those who lose their life for the sake of the gospel will save it.”
This is not conventional wisdom! It’s more like a Buddhist koan.
Losing your life in order to save it?
Dying on the cross to save the world?
Paul called the cross a “stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those of us who are called, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom….” (1 Co. 1:23-25)
We seek benefits and rewards, but Christ gave all that away. The only crown he got in this life was a crown of thorns.
We seek comfort and security, but he gave all that away – and got a cross instead.
We seek to be first all the time, but he said, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”
We seek to be served, but he said, “Whoever would be great among you must first become a servant of all.”
What does that tell us about how we should live and Thanksgiving?
We are Christian – followers of Christ.
Our lives should be cruciform – shaped by the cross.
Do we live cross-shaped lives – lives concerned not with getting but giving, not with our safety, security, and comfort, but the safety, security, and comfort of others? Lives concerned not with attaining ease and plenty for us, but enough for all?
Do we live cross-shaped lives – lives given away to God as Jesus gave his life away, lives that do not count the cost, but willingly and eagerly seek not to get anything in return, but only to give, give, and give?
Prayer from UCC Book of Worship wedding service: “You have sent Jesus Christ to come among us…and make the way of the cross into the way of life.”
“To make the way of the cross into the way of life.” Good advice for couples getting married!
Is the way of the cross your way of life?
Is your life about more than you? Is your life about you, or is it first and foremost about God?
The cross-shaped life is not about you; it’s about God. Is your life about you? If so, that’s no way to live! It leads to disappointment and sorry – heartbreak every time you don’t get your way (which is often!).
If your life is just about you, that is conventional wisdom.
But if your life is about the goodness and glory of God, then that is an unconventional way of living.
But a wonderful way of living! Which finally bring us to…
Thanksgiving!
What are we giving thanks for this week?
Is it what we have?
That’s OK, but for most people, “conventional” people, that is the beginning and end of Thanksgiving – an inventory of life’s tangibles, including family – (the only problem with that being that all those things, family included can be taken away at any moment!).
What’s really worth giving thanks for is that God is good!
And we have an opportunity as long as we live to give ourselves away as Jesus did in service, worship, and absolute obedience to God.
What’s worth giving thanks for is God’s unconditional love for us – which is worth much more than having a job, having good health, a family, or even a roof over your head or turkey on the table.
Now, we don’t love God to get something in return – that’s the old payment-reward system.
But when we do love God so much that we give our lives away in service to God, we do get a wonderful reward – the profound joy of living for God (an intrinsic reward if ever there was one).
I’m thankful for King Jesus today for revealing this secret of life, and for revealing the unconventional wisdom of God – the only wisdom that can save.
Jesus rules and reigns not because of his power to do miracles, but because of his absolute obedience to God, even unto death on a humiliating and painful cross.
Jesus rules and reigns because he taught us – by word and example – the most important lesson for living life to its fullest: love is costly. Love is not a feeling, or something we “get” for being good, but a decision, a commitment to live for something beyond our own small lives.
This is the way of life of those who call themselves “Christians.” It is the way of thanksgiving and praise.
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