Sunday, September 20, 2015

God's Simple Wisdom

Proper 20, Year B
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez-Hobbs

Our epistle and Gospel readings this morning confront us with the difference between God’s wisdom and human wisdom. In James, we see the contrast between the covetous wisdom of the world, which results in boastfulness, conflicts, and disputes. and God’s simple wisdom, which results in nearness to God. In Mark, we hear how Jesus’ disciples are so busy arguing among themselves about which of them is the greatest, that they fail to understand Jesus’ prediction of his betrayal, death, and resurrection. Both readings are a bit of an adventure in missing the point. That brings us to the question: which form of wisdom is more predominant in your life? God’s wisdom or human wisdom?

We can’t escape from having human wisdom exercise some influence in our lives. We are human, after all. We hear it loud and clear from the culture around us. From an early age, our culture teaches us to envy. We’re bombarded for advertisements that claim, usually falsely, that the latest thing that we don’t have is exactly the thing we need. Of course, things never quite bring us the happiness that they promised, do they? Our whole society operates around envy. We need that new car. We need that new house. We need that promotion, and the next one, and the next one. It’s not called the rat race for nothing. There’s always something else we need. We’re like the eponymous protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, always chasing after something that we can never have.

In contrast, God’s wisdom is deceptively simple. Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you. It can’t be that simple, can it? We’re used to things being more complicated. Perhaps that’s because we make them more needlessly complicated. All that is necessary, James tells us, is to draw near to God. Whoever wants to be first, Jesus tells us, must be last and servant of all, like a little child. Don’t be confused by Jesus’ analogy though. We dote on children today. People in Jesus’ time didn’t, at least not in the ways that we do. Children were property, not people. At best, they were potential-people. You didn’t welcome a child, because a child had nothing to give in return. Instead, you wanted to welcome the child’s father, especially if he was rich and powerful, because showing hospitality to him meant that he would in turn show hospitality to you. God’s wisdom turns all of that on its head, though. God’s wisdom doesn’t have time for questions about who is the greatest. God’s wisdom is about drawing near to God.

It still seems like it should be more complicated, doesn’t it? Important things always are, aren’t they? When I was in seminary, I remember having a conversation with my spiritual director about how frustrating I found contemplative prayer. Whenever I tried to simply focus on God, I would always find my mind wandering. I just couldn’t do it. I was frustrated because, in my mind, I’d create a hierarchy of prayer, and contemplative prayer was at the top. It was what the truly spiritual, the “real Christians” did. And I couldn’t do it. My spiritual director looked me straight in the eye and said, “Josh, that’s nonsense.” (He was Scottish, so he actually used a stronger word for “nonsense.”) “The whole point of the spiritual life is to talk to God and then listen for what God says back. It doesn’t matter how you do it. Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you.”

I think most of us, like Jesus’ disciples,  miss the point of the spiritual life most of the time. It’s deceptively simple. All you have to do is draw near to God. That’s it. It doesn’t matter if your prayers or eloquent or not. It doesn’t matter if your prayers are “spiritual” or not. What matters is that you’re praying. Do you have some hierarchy of the spiritual life in your head? Do you have list of types of prayer that get progressively more spiritual as they get more “difficult?” Or do you think that the clergy are the “real Christians,” while everyone else just muddles along and isn’t nearly as spiritual? In our Gospel, Jesus says to that sort of thinking, upend it! Make the last first and the first last! James says, stop that! That’s what creates disputes and quarrels among you.

Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you. You don’t have to wait until you’re sufficiently good or spiritual. You don’t have to wait until your prayers are eloquent. You don’t have to wait until you can pray for other people before you pray for yourself. All you have to do is pray, and God shows up. All you have to do is invite God into your life. This is the Good News that James and Mark give us this morning: it is not about us; it is about God, and how much God loves us. How much does God love us, you ask? Too much to stay away. Amen.

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