wise understanding and wise action

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, May 26, 2013—Wisdom's Call

Texts: Psalm 8; Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-36; Matthew 7:24-27

Eric Massanari

“wise understanding and wise action”

Do not look for apples under a poplar tree. (Slovakia)

When elephants battle, the ants perish. (Cambodia)

He that goes barefoot must not plant thorns. (England)

A needle hidden in a rag will eventually be found. (Vietnam)

Throughout the world

wisdom is conveyed through

proverbs such as these—

pithy, direct, often colorful sayings

that speak to deeper truths of life.

Sometimes you can find proverbs from two different cultures

created to convey the same bit of wisdom:

Here in the United States we have the well-known proverb:

      The pot calls the kettle black.

In Pakistan there is a similar message:

      The sieve says to the needle: you have a hole in your tail.

Jesus offers yet another version of the same wisdom:

      Why do you point out the sliver in your neighbor's eye

      and ignore the giant log in your own?

When our church small group gathers

at John and Karen McCabe-Juhnke's home

we love to play a game called, Wise and Otherwise.

Everyone in the room is given the first part

of some proverb from around the world,

such as this Yiddish saying:  

     You can't spit on my back....

The challenge is to complete the proverb

in some sort of convincing way so that

when everyone's proverb is read alongside

the real proverb, people might choose yours.

      You can't spit on my back....

How would you complete that statement

to create a wise saying?

The actual proverb is:

      You can't spit on my back

      and make me think it's rain.

People around the world have often used

proverb, parable, poetry and story

to speak of wisdom.

Perhaps that is because wisdom is not

easily spoken of or described directly.

How would you describe Wisdom to someone?

Where does wisdom come from?

How do you know it when you meet it?

I conducted a simple survey this week.

I posed the question on Facebook:

What is wisdom?

There were plenty of wise replies—

some of them probably falling

more under the category of “wise cracks.”

One person cited the sapiential words

of country music legend, Kenny Rogers:

      You've got to know when to hold 'em,

      know when to fold 'em,

      know when to walk away,

      and know when to run.

A number of responders noted

the importance of distinguishing

between knowledge and wisdom,

suggesting that wisdom might

include knowledge about things

but it also includes perspective,

and a deeper insight into life.

One of my friends put it well when he said:

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is knowing not to put tomato in a fruit salad.

The poet, T.S. Eliot suggested a similar distinction

between knowledge and wisdom

when he asked the question:

      Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

A much older Hebrew saying puts it this way:

      A book gives knowledge,

      but it is life that gives understanding.

It struck me how much resonance there was

between these Facebook responses

and biblical insights about wisdom.

One of my friends, who has a strong mystical

and poetic bent, wrote this in response to my question:

      Wisdom is Sophia, God's intimate companion

      who longs for union with us.

      But such a union demands a high price

      to enter into, and sacrifice to maintain!

My friend appeals to an understanding of wisdom

rooted deep in the Hebrew scriptures,

Wisdom as an extension of God's own being

personified in the form of Sophia, or “Woman Wisdom.”

This morning's text from Proverbs speaks of her this way:

Wisdom calls and understanding raises her voice.

On the heights, and beside the way,

at the crossroads she takes her stand;

beside the gates of the town,

and at the entryways she cries out....

This proclamation of wisdom through life

is what I think the psalmist is singing of

in these words of the 19^th psalm:

The heavens themselves are telling the glory of God;

and the skies are proclaiming what God has done.

Day to day pours forth speech,

and night to night declares knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words;

their voice is not heard;

yet their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world.

                                                                Psalm 19:1-4

Wisdom is the Word beyond all words,

the knowledge beneath all knowledge;

it is ever present, and speaks to all.

So, one thing that could clearly be said

about Wisdom from the context of the scriptures,

and perhaps from our own experience of it

is that its source is from some place beyond us.

From the point of view of the biblical texts,

Wisdom's source rests in God,

it is an expression of God's own Spirit,

and wisdom speaks and flows through all life.

Our work is to listen for wisdom's call,

to be open to receiving it

through the flow of our days,

the rhythms of our relationships,

the myriad of our life experiences.

No one can claim not hearing the voice of wisdom,

because she speaks to all.

Part of the insight here is also that

no one can claim to possess the fullness of wisdom.

As Origen described it long ago in the second century:

Travelers on the road to God's wisdom,

find that the further they go

the more the road opens out,

until it stretches to infinity.

This is a second important understanding

of wisdom in the scriptures:

wisdom asks for our humility.

To be grow wise is in some sense to remain a beginner,

to maintain an openness to new understanding.

This, too, I heard echoed it my friends' Facebook replies.

As one friend put it:

      Wisdom is being comfortable with what you don't yet know.

The biblical texts hold many reminders that

we all grow old, but we do not necessarily all grow wise.

Wisdom is a gift we must remain open

to receiving throughout our lives.

To receive it we must sometimes let go

of previously held assumptions, judgments,

and much-treasured answers.

To grow wise usually means letting go of

more prideful and self-centered ways.

Among the scriptures that Protestants

consider non-canonical or apocryphal,

but Catholics and Orthodox include

in their own canon of scriptures,

is “The Book of Wisdom,” sometimes

also referred to as “The Wisdom of Solomon.”

At one point in this text, the author,

in the voice of King Solomon, writes:

I perceived that I would not possess wisdom

unless God gave her to me—and it was

a mark of insight to know whose gift she was—

so I appealed to the Lord

and implored God,

and with my whole heart I prayed...

Wisdom 8:21

And in the prayer that follows in the Book of Wisdom

the author prays for a broader perspective,

for a discerning heart, for righteousness and justice,

for a capacity to act and lead

in according to the will of God.

This points to a third aspect of wisdom

as it is spoken of in the scriptures:

Wisdom, when it is given and received,

is meant to be lived and shared

through word and action.

Wisdom is not an abstraction,

it is not meant to remain

in worlds of words and ideas;

wisdom is a living reality.

Perhaps this is why it is conveyed

so much better through parable and story

and poetry, because through these channels

we more easily go to the depths of life experience.

Jesus tells his parable of the wise person

building a house on rock at the very end

of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's gospel.

He has just finished a lengthy teaching

on what the gospel looks like

when it is lived out in the world.

And with the parable he reminds his friends

that wisdom is not just in hearing this message,

it is found in living it.

Both of the builders in the parable,

the one who built on sand

and the one who built on rock,

may have been smart people.

Both may have known very well

the power of wind and water.

However, it may be that the one builder

was taken in by the allure of a good view

and a beautiful location,

and this trumped common sense.

He lost good sense and built on the sand.

Meanwhile, the other builder was wise

in that she maintained perspective,

and a deeper understanding of things

beyond her immediate needs and desires.

In the same way, Jesus tells his friends,

we are called to wisely build our lives

on the deeper truths of God's life and love

that are speaking in and through the world,

even though they may be obscured

by the conventional wisdom of our human making.

Wisdom's source and speech rises from within us and beyond us.

Wisdom calls us with humility to remain beginners and learners.

Wisdom, when she comes to us, asks to be lived and shared.

As I thought about these aspects of Wisdom this week,

with the help of the scriptures and my Facebook friends,

I thought about this congregation of Shalom

and where we are on the journey together.

For obvious reasons I've been thinking

a lot about this lately, and I've been considering

all that I have learned from you

while serving as a pastor in this community.

There is good wisdom here in this place.

Part of this wisdom is reflected in

the strange and wonderful mix of people

who've gathered and connected here over time.

I have experienced this to be a congregation that is

reluctant to say to anyone: “You do not belong here.”

I remember when I first arrived,

someone shared with me the story of

sitting in one of the local cafes and hearing

someone at the next table who was

talking about the different churches in town.

And he overheard the comment:

“Well, then there's that Shalom place over on First Street.

They'll let anyone in the door over there!”

It may not have been meant as a compliment,

but I heard it as a very high affirmation of this church.

That is not to say that there haven't been times

when we have failed to show hospitality

to the stranger or left someone feel unwelcome.

And there have certainly been occasions when

we have had to struggled to remain open

to different points of view in this community.

However, I believe this congregation

embodies and practices in vital ways

the difficult and joyous wisdom of community,

of committing to journeying together

with and sometimes in celebration of our differences

rather than in spite of our differences.

This congregation has learned together

that we are most transformed by

encounter with people who look at the world

differently than we do.

This is a wisdom conveyed through our name, Shalom,

the "wholeness" and "unity" made possible through God's love.

To use the Apostle Paul's wise metaphor,

this is indeed “one body with many members,”

and rather than being too quick to define

who we are as members of Shalom,

there is wisdom at work here that would

say instead, let's explore who we are becoming.

And I see wisdom at work here that would

say that the next person who walks in the door

has gifts from God to offer us in our becoming.

The community and world around you

needs this wisdom of Shalom.

People seem to be finding every reason

to separate from one another,

and live partisan lives,

especially in the wider church.

There is a great need for this wisdom of

remaining with one another,

and committing to the beautiful mess

and joyful struggle of God's Shalom with friend and stranger.

May God help this congregation

bear witness to the wisdom of Shalom.

As Jesus taught his friends, over and over again,

the very highest wisdom we might learn and practice

is love. 

Amen

iris on memorial day weekend

On this one, green stem:
Iris as bud, as blossom,
with the withered bloom.


Botanical print, "Fragrant Iris No. 59" by Pierre Redout (1759-1840), whose patron was Empress Josephine of France.

fledglings

Photo by: Brian Davies/AP, www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2010/jul/30/week-in-wildlife

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, May 19, 2013 – Pentecost Sunday

God With Us, God Within Us

Texts: Acts 2:1-21 and John 14:8-21

Eric Massanari

"fledglings”

I have grown to appreciate, more and more,

these silent spaces in our worship time together—

moments of resting together,

if for only a minute or two,

in silence and stillness

in the midst of a noisy and busy world.

In such moments I am reminded

that all words coming out of our mouths—

these words I speak in this moment—

emerge from a Ground of Silence.

And, in the end, all of our words return

to that same Ground of Silence.

I'm reminded that all movements and actions—

the waving of my hand and the movement

of our eyes across each other's faces in this moment—

move out from a Deep Stillness.

And, in the end, all our movements and actions return

to that same Deep Stillness.

This Ground of Silence out of which rises all words,

this Deep Stillness from which emerges all action,

is the great Center of Life that

in one sense we carry within us,

and in another sense we dwell in it,

all together.

Some of us name this Center “God” or “Spirit.”

Hopefully we do so remembering that

even these names cannot fully describe

the Truth that is alive within us

and among us.

Just the same,

we need our inadequate names,

we need the reaching, stammering words,

and the imperfect attempts at right action,

because these are ways we step out

and explore the heart of our life in God.

These are the ways we trust

and risk living the life of the Spirit

here and now in this world as it is.

Given the shape of the world as it is,

given what we see in humanity,

it isn't always easy to trust that

this is indeed true, that God does in fact

dwell here within us and among us.

Sometimes it appears a rather foolish

thing to live with such faith.

It is also true that

we are often too distracted

to see this truth which lies

at the heart of Life.

Philip says to Jesus: “Teacher, I will be satisfied

if you just show me God before you leave.” (John 14:8) 

"Philip, have you been with me all this time

and missed what is right here with you?

To see me is to see God,” Jesus replies.

But Jesus does not stop there.

he goes on to add this:

"Believe in me,

believe that I am in God

and God is in me.

Or, if that is too difficult,

believe in the Way I have shown you:

believe in my words and actions,

test them through your own life,

and you will know that the same Spirit of God

dwells with you,

and within you."

  

It seems that as far as Jesus was concerned,

“spirituality” could be described

in some rather clear terms:

The Spirit of God is a gift that is freely given,

an overflow of God's own love into all of life.

We are hosts of the Spirit at the center of our lives,

and the Spirit is present wherever we might go.

Spirituality, then, is learning to pay attention to

and respond to the Presence of God

already with us, within us, and among us.

Over the last few weeks our family

had the pleasure of watching

two robins build a nest

under the eave of our house.

After building it, the two adults spent

furtive days going back and forth,

sitting on the nest, and bringing extra

grass and straw to patch it and enlarge it.

Then one day three tiny beaks could be seen

reaching up just above the edge of the nest,

waiting for the adults to bring the next meal.

Sooner than we thought possible,

we watched as three fledglings piled on top

of one another, vying for space in

a nest that had quickly become too small.

What we missed were those miraculous moments

when each of the fledglings stood

on the edge of the nest,

trusted some deep message

imprinted at the heart of their being,

and stepped off.

Even though the ground was far below,

even thought there was a 60-pound, ever-hungry,

yellow Labrador Retriever standing

down there watching,

even though they knew nothing yet

about the power and joy of flight,

they stepped off,

they chose to fall.

As the poet Ranier Maria Rilke once put it,

those fledglings had to

"patiently trust their own heaviness”

before they could fly.

I have a friend.

Actually, this friend has several

different names because she represents

different people I have met along my journey.

My Friend has suffered greatly.

She has suffered the violent abuse

of men who have not learned how

to live with their own fear,

and pain and anger.

And in their pain and fear

they beat her, and raped her,

and neglected her in her pain.

These same men took my Friend to church, regularly.

And the church always looked the other way.

It was not a sanctuary for her. It was not safe.

Later in her life my Friend tried to go to church on her own,

because she hoped it might just be

a place of healing and hope.

And there in the church, more men

told my Friend that the problem was really

with her, inside of her.

And again she was neglected in her suffering,

and again violence was done to her there, in the church.

Time passed.

And in that passage of time my Friend has done

courageous work in truth-telling,

healing and integrating.

She has had to learn to trust

that deep Center in her own being,

and to trust a small handful of others

who recognize that truthful Center in her,

and who try to live from that place themselves.

She is like that fledgling on the edge of the nest,

venturing out each day into a world

that in her experience has been terribly hurtful.

She, too, has to trust her own heaviness,

trust that Spirit of Life and Love

is indeed at the center of her being

and at the heart of the world.

For me, to see my Friend is to see Christ;

it is to know, deep in my heart,

that the Spirit of the living God is indeed

alive within us and among us.

She reveals to us, the church—

the church that contributed to her suffering—

the very truths that we stammer to proclaim,

and often fail to perceive or practice.

The truth is, being quiet for a few minutes 

on Sunday morning together,

gathering here for an hour or two 

of worship and fellowship,

are not enough to root our lives in the Spirit,

and orient our words, actions, choices

to the Way of God's love.

It just isn't enough. 

 

There are too many other things—other “gods”—

in our daily lives vying for our attention and allegiance.

Spirituality easily becomes one of many compartments of life,

rather than the very Ground of Being.

In this culture hellbent on productivity and efficiency

and information, we even turn spiritual practice

into a commodity and competition.

Jesus called his friends to a whole-life practice

of deepening, centering down and living with

heartfelt attention to the Spirit.

He taught them to pay attention to the Spirit

by learning how to sometimes be still and quiet,

and look and listen.

He taught them to test their sense of the Spirit

within community, including with people

who think, act and believe differently.

He taught them to break silence with words of truth

when that is what the Spirit calls for.

He taught them to boldly enact the call of the Spirit

in their lives when they had sensed it's pull.

And, by example, he taught that

living a life centered in the Spirit

calls us into more honest engagement

with our own selves and with the world.

A Spirit-centered life is not an escape,

it is an entrance into life as it is,

a willingness to risk everything for love.

Jesus said:

This is my body, given for you

This is my blood, shed for you

This is the Spirit of Life given to all.

Amen

Forgiveness Part 3: "through the valley of the shadow"

                                                                "Aspens" by Ansel Adams

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Don't Forgive Too Soon – Part 4: Depression

Texts: Psalm 23 and John 5:1-9

Eric Massanari

"through the valley of the shadow"

This passage in John bears some of the markings

of a more typical gospel healing story:

Jesus heals someone,

it happens on the Sabbath,

it upsets some of the religious leaders,

it inspires faith for some

and rouses animosity for others.

However, there's strangeness here, too:

the ailing man at the pool never asks to be healed,

he doesn't recognize Jesus as teacher or healer—least of all a Messiah,

and Jesus is the initiator from start to finish.

Do you want to be made well?

This is how Jesus greets the man

lying on his mat next to the healing waters

of the Pool of Bethsaida in Jerusalem.

I wonder what this question sounds like

to someone who has been ailing for thirty-eight years?

Do you want to be made well?

What do you mean, 'Do I want to be made well?!'

I'm here by the pool, aren't I?

I'm lying here paralyzed, aren't I?

I've been like this for thirty-eight years!

And let me tell you, this world isn't

a nice place for the likes of me.

I wait here for the Spirit to stir the water of the pool

so I can get in and maybe be healed,

but I never make it in time.

And you'd better believe that no one pauses to help me!

Does he want to be made well?

What do you hear in his response?

Notice how the man answers Jesus with blame,

blaming his condition and his situation on others.

I imagine his tone being one of bitterness and resentment.

After thirty-eight years he has

grown angry, fearful and hopeless.

Perhaps he can no longer imagine himself

as being anything but broken and sick.

Perhaps he can't afford to hope for anything more than this.

Perhaps he realizes that his bitterness

and anger have only deepened his hurt,

but he doesn't know how to let them go any more.

He is paralyzed.

To borrow more contemporary language,

he is depressed.

I want to offer this man by the pool of Bethsaida

as an image for a particular kind of

depression that many of us know from time to time.

Depression takes many different forms,

and depression is widely experienced

by people of all ages in our North American society.

More than 1 in 10 U.S. citizens are

currently taking a prescribed antidepressant.

That figure includes some who may be

taking those medications for some reasons

other than depression, but it does not

include many, many more who suffer

recurring bouts of debilitating depression.

This morning, when I speak of depression,

I am not intending to speak of the deep

and persistent depression that is sometimes

called “clinical depression” because of its more acute nature.

Such debilitating depression can arise

for many different reasons and sometimes

it lays hold of life for no apparent reason at all.

It can be life-threatening, and it often requires

immediate medical and therapeutic intervention

before one can afford to step back and reflect

on its possible root causes.  

This morning, I want to speak more about

the sort of depression that will inevitably arise

in our lives at one time or another

simply because we are human,

and we live in relationships with other humans,

and we care about those relationships.

When we experience hurt in our relationships

we experience pain and suffering.

Often it isn't a simple matter of one

person in the relationship being to blame;

much of the time the pain cuts both ways.

Sometimes we take the pain and hurt

we suffer in relationships and turn it inward.

Our wound, our pain, our anger

gets turned around and directed

at our own selves, and sometimes

we begin to blame ourselves for our hurt.

We harbor our pain as guilt and shame.

As we peer within we may not be 

terribly pleased with what we find there.

Sometimes, upon inner reflection

we realize that we bear some amount of

responsibility for our own hurt,

and we may see how we have

taken out our pain on others,

or welcomed them into our own suffering.

This week I was reading descriptions of varieties of depression

in a very large and weighty book that sits on my office shelf:

The Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling.

I came across a particular description of

depression that felt uncomfortably familiar

to me for the way depression takes shape in my own life:

In many people there is a strong connection between anger and depression. While depressed, they seldom show direct hostility or others...[However] one can notice passive aggression in sulking, forgetting, and self-isolation, for instance, insofar as these behaviors seem calculated to make sure other persons are affected by their suffering. Because of fear, the depressed person may not be able to express his or her anger toward the source of frustration but instead turns it toward the self, engaging in minor or serious self-destructive acts. These persons may not be convinced that anger is a normal part of life, including religious life. 

                                    from The Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling, p.1105 

"These persons may not be convinced

that anger is a normal part of life, including religious life.”

Such depression can be particularly evident

among good religious people,

especially when the religion in question

emphasizes guilt and shame,

and amplifies those feelings that

we can never quite become the people

we would like to be,

the people we think we should be.

This should sound familiar to some of us at least,

because Christianity, in many of its expressions,

has emphasized guilt and shame,

and a sense of fundamental unworthiness.

Alongside great proclamations of God's goodness,

we have made fundamental assumptions of human unworthiness.

This fuels guilt, and fuels our anger

that has been turned inward,

and sometimes our anger at the world.

Sometimes what passes for “good religion”

has often become very bad medicine for the soul.

The man at the pool of Bethsaida

is a good religious man.

He is there in Jerusalem,

at the pool near the temple,

holding the belief that it is

the very Spirit of God who stirs

the waters of the pool and imparts

a healing energy to the water.

He is a “believer” you might say.

He believes in a healing God.

However, it appears that he also believes,

after 38 years, that he will no longer

come to know that healing.

He can no longer say that he wants to be made well.

Perhaps he assumes that

he doesn't even deserve it.

He assumes the world is a mean place,

full of uncaring people.

He believes he is his illness;

he is his bitterness, his anger.

He believes people are the jerks they seem to be,

day after day after interminable day.

He is paralyzed by his beliefs.

Do you want to be made well?

Jesus' question suggests that

the desire for wellness is important.

It is a sign of a living hope within us.

Our deep longing for wholeness

for well-being, for transformation,

is an expression of the image of God

we bear in our very being.

Our desire for healing in the midst

of the wounds of human relationship

is an impulse of God's own Spirit—

a stirring of the waters of our soul.

Our anger-turned-inward,

our depression that comes alongside our hurt,

does have something to teach us.

It can reveal how we may have

taken part in and bear some responsibility for

the pain that has been inflicted.

It may reveal to us the truth that

we, too, are capable of hurting others

and drawing them into our unresolved

pain and suffering.

It can direct our attention to our

own separation from love—our sin.

But, here's the important qualifier:

not sin as a fundamental state of being,

but sin as something we have capacity for,

and can also heal from.

Carl Menninger, the renowned 20^th century

psychologist once described “sinner” this way:

A sinner is one who can accept responsibility

for unloving actions, and who can work toward change,

with the belief and faith that change is possible

for the simple fact that our sin does not define us.

It is the living God who gives

the most basic definition to our being.

We are never unworthy or undeserving of God's love.

In fact, it is sometimes at the heart of our brokenness,
in that gap of realization when we come to terms
with our own capacity to inflict and amplify
pain and suffering in this world,
where we are better able to recognize
the steadfast flow of Love, and Life, and Mercy.     

At the end of the gospel story,

Jesus heals this man by the pool,

even though the man has reached

a depth of pain where he can no

longer articulate his desire for wellness.

Jesus sees this man for who he truly is.

He loves this man.

He heals this man.

“Rise, pick up your mat, and walk,”

Jesus tells him.

And he does.

He walks away carrying the mat

that has been his home

for 38 years.

Notice that he still carries it.

He still carries this sign of what

he has been asked to let go of,

and let die so that he might live

and be made well.

And, funny thing, as the story goes on,

the man runs into some of the good religious leaders

there in the great holy city of Jerusalem,

and they see him carrying his mat,

and they say to him, “Hey, what are you doing?

You're not supposed to carry your mat on the Sabbath!”

What are you doing? Get back on your mat!

We are left to wonder, as the man disappears,

will he keep walking?

Will he stay up off his mat?

Will he want to be made well?