Readings Psalm 1; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37
“Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.”[1]
All our readings this morning point us towards two very different forms of wisdom – the general and often unexamined wisdom of our culture and the contrasting wisdom of God, described by the letter writer James as “pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”[2]
I wonder what the writer of the letter of James would have had to say about the story on the front page of the newspaper last Monday – the one about the Invercargill company executive who told a potential employee, whose ethnic origin was Syrian, that “he should change his name to something more Kiwi because conservative southerners would think twice about working with him. – ‘Unfortunately, [the executive’s email said] any southern NZer client in business would possibly think twice about dealing with anyone with a Middle Eastern name.’”[3]
It’s a story grounded in the general wisdoms of our day and marketplace – one example of many news stories in our world today – writ large in the United States presidential election campaign, on the battlefields of Syria, Afghanistan, and Libya, in the debating chambers of the Beehive … and also experienced in our day to day living in our own homes and workplaces. The general wisdoms of the world seep into our being, so that sometimes without even recognising it, we claim our experience, our circumstances and our very selves as the centre, from which all else should be measured and understood. We expect others to see the world as we see it – to become like us, for we know best; we claim entitlement for our way, which is the best way of course; and we throw our tantrums, seeking revenge, making others pay when they have hurt us.
There are two ways of living, the Psalmist, reminds us – those who follow the way of God “are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season”. Those who choose not to follow God’s way are “like chaff that the wind blows away”.[4]
American farmer and poet Wendell Berry[5] has had enough of so called wisdoms of our day.
He argues that the many guises of the modern world separate us from nature and place; he contrasts the "world made without hands" to "industrial humanity," which he considers an "alien species" with a death wish. Berry wants to deconstruct the deathly wisdom of the world in favour of new life-giving narratives. “He deplores our "idiot luxury," "our economy of greed," "fantasy capitalism," "fashionable lies," the destruction of mountains to mine coal, idiot politicians, the violence of war, and the imperative of technology….. “He’s searching for "a language that can make us whole" and that can help us live as "true human beings."[6]
In his poem Look Out, Berry invites us to stand at the window of our world to see what is actually there before us – both the beauty of this amazing creation and the shadow, cast upon its splendour.
Come to the window, look out, and see
the valley turning green in remembrance
of all springs past and to come, the woods
perfecting with immortal patience
the leaves that are the work of all of time,
the sycamore whose white limbs shed
the history of a man's life with their old bark,
the river quivering under the morning's breath
like the touched skin of a horse, and you will see
also the shadow cast upon it by fire, the war
that lights its way by burning the earth.
Of course, if we stay within our own comforts and don’t go to the windows of our world, we will never see what Berry invites us to see: we will never see how, what James describes as the wisdoms of ‘envy and selfish ambition’, have created “disorder and wickedness of every kind.”[7]
Come to your windows, people of the world,
look out at whatever you see wherever you are,
and you will see dancing upon it that shadow.
You will see that your place, wherever it is,
your house, your garden, your shop, your forest, your farm,
bears the shadow of its destruction by war
which is the economy of greed which is plunder
which is the economy of wrath which is fire.
The Lords of War sell the earth to buy fire,
they sell the water and air of life to buy fire.
They are little men grown great by willingness
to drive whatever exists into its perfect absence.
Their intention to destroy any place is solidly founded
upon their willingness to destroy every place.
Every household of the world is at their mercy,
the households of the farmer and the otter and the owl
are at their mercy. They have no mercy.
Having hate, they can have no mercy.
Their greed is the hatred of mercy.
Their pockets jingle with the small change of the poor.
Their power is the willingness to destroy
everything for knowledge which is money
which is power which is victory
which is ashes sown by the wind.
Like the writers of our readings for this morning, Wendell Berry urges us to the window of our world so that we will recognise and "say no" to the deathly wisdoms which surround us. And in that time of recognition– despite all that we see – we who follow the way of life-giving wisdom are strengthened to move from our place at the window, to go into the world and "say yes" to all that is good and true.
Leave your windows and go out, people of the world,
go into the streets, go into the fields, go into the woods
and along the streams. Go together, go alone.
Say no to the Lords of War which is Money
which is Fire. Say no by saying yes
to the air, to the earth, to the trees,
yes to the grasses, to the rivers, to the birds
and the animals and every living thing, yes
to the small houses, yes to the children. Yes.
A simple message, and yet, like our faith ancestors, Jesus’ disciples, we often miss the point. In today’s gospel reading we find a further example of the misunderstandings we addressed last Sunday – here the two wisdom ways are spelt out. Jesus is predicting his betrayal and death, while his disciples argue about who is the greatest. In response to their misunderstanding, Jesus offers a word of Wisdom: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all”. He quickly illustrates his teaching with a piece of dramatic street theatre – taking a little child out of the crowd, he says “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
It’s another life-giving message which provides us with new scripts to write better stories about our world and ourselves.My illustration isn’t quite as immediate as Jesus – it will happen during the notices -and the one to be placed in our midst is not quite a child – although most of us would not recognise a fourteen year old as adult. But I have invited Mhairi later in the service to take her vantage point at the window of the world and offer her vision in saying ‘yes’ to the children. I invite you to hear Mhairi’s words, along with the words of Jesus, James, the Psalmist and Wendell Berry calling us into a way of being in which we look out on the world and go out into the world, where we say ‘yes’ to life-giving Holy Wisdom – and ‘no’ to the wisdoms of death which surround us.
“Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.”[8]
[1] James 3:13b
[2] James 3:17
[3] ODT “Syrian job applicant advised to change name” ODT Monday 17 Sept 2012, p.1
[4] Psalm 1:3-4
[5] See Wendell Berry, New Collected Poems (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2012),
[6] This paragraph and the material which follows, including the Wendell Berry poem quotes from and uses the material of Dan Clendenin “Saying Yes to Women and Children: Contrarian Wisdom for a Fallen World” essay for September 23, 2012 http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml
[7] James 3:16
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