September 6, 2009 Des Moines
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
First in the “Getting Started in
the Right Direction” Series
In the Direction of Caring
What does it mean to “make a name for yourself” –
especially a good name?
Wrapped up in that phrase is the notion of reputation – what people
think of when your name is brought to mind.
Think about it this way: your
first reaction to the name that appears on your caller ID is at least some
measure of the “name” the caller has made with you. Do you answer, or do you immediately send the
call to voicemail?
While
we may be among the first to have a handheld tool with which to vote on the
names people have made for themselves, we are hardly the first to be concerned
about reputation. According to historians,
“Israel was an honor-and-shame culture, and one's name meant personal identity
as it was recognized and respected (or not) in the community.”[1]
So, what kind of name have you made for
yourself? Are you kind, or are you the
relational equivalent of a porcupine?
Are you trustworthy, or are you always over-promising and
under-delivering? Are you perceived to
be a “taker” or a “giver”; a helper or a demander? Are you the kind that collaborates to find
the best possible outcome, or is it always “your way or the highway”?
I
suppose that people have been sizing up each other in these ways since the
Garden of Eden. Interesting, then, that
the group of Proverbs before us begins with a desire to make not simply a name
for ourselves, but to make a good one. And the sage behind these morsels of wisdom
has some content to add to the criteria.
What,
according to the sage, are the kinds of behaviors and attributes that build one
of those good names? I need to warn you
that some of what he has to say isn't likely to go over very well. For starters, he seems pretty sold on this
notion of community and shared responsibility – that we aren't just individuals
looking out for our own happiness and well-being, but members of a common
household. That will sound a little
counter-cultural to an audience like us that finds its rhythm in the
celebration and near deification of the “Rugged Individualist.”
But
this guy seems snagged on the notion that God is less interested in our
individual triumphs than how those triumphant steps forward add to the blessing
of the whole in recognition of the connections between us.
We
“rugged individualists” grew up reading appropriately individualistic
translations of scripture, such as Jesus' observation in Luke 17:21 that “the
Kingdom of God is within you.” More recent and neutral scholarship suggests that
a more accurate translation of Jesus’ words is “the Kingdom of God is among
you.” Within vs. among. Do you hear the difference?
Tammy
Wynette popularized what might be the “national anthem” of “Rugged Individual
Spirituality” :
Well me
and Jesus we got our own things going
me and
Jesus we got it all worked out
Me and
Jesus we got our own things going
We
don't need anybody to tell us what it's all about
But
if the sage of the Proverbs is correct – and if Jesus was correct in his
observation – we experience the reign of God not in the private experiences of
our inner selves, but in the spaces between us, shared in community.
And
as if that weren't a big enough pill to swallow, the sage goes on to assert the
rather disorienting notion that rich and poor have this in common: that the Lord is the Maker of them all. The implication seems to be that one is no
more valuable than the other. They may
look quite different, smell quite different, shop at different stores and have
different hobbies, but they are members of the same family. One no better than the other; both equally
important.
I
described this is a “disorienting” notion because, despite what we routinely
say in church, and despite what we might wish for deep down in our soul, we by
and large don't believe it. Somewhere,
apparently twisted into our DNA is the rarely named but tenacious sensibility
that there is a divine selection that makes rich people rich, and that
therefore they are more important – likely smarter, probably wiser, and
generally more useful contributors to and participants in the common good; that
for whatever reason known to God but invisible to us, God seems to have
discerned some element of superiority in these few and financially blessed them
accordingly. Sometimes – though by no
means always – a few of those rich people even believe it about themselves.
In
his fascinating book titled The Big
Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest
Texas Oil Fortunes, author Bryan
Burrough notes that Texas oil millionaires were already getting considerable
national attention by the late 1940’s and 1950’s – people like Clint Murcheson
and H.L. Hunt who lived in Dallas, Sid Richardson who grew up in East Texas but
who tended to live virtually everywhere, and Houston’s Roy Cullen. But by the time Roy Cullen had published an
authorized biography of himself, some of that press was becoming a bit negative
– even hostile. Consider Stanley
Walker’s less-than-flattering opinion in his review of Cullen’s book for the
magazine, The Nation. His article was headlined
“Troglodyte: Genus Texana,” and observed
that “There is a dangerous ailment in Texas which has been named ‘Cullen’s
Syndrome,’ after the subject of this book.
Its concurrent symptoms are these:
·
The patient is
almost always an oilman – not a cotton man or a banker or a cowman or a
merchant;
·
He believes his
riches were in no way the result of luck, but of his own foresight, initiative
and courage…;
Walker went on to list a number of other such
symptoms, but my favorite was this one:
·
Although he may
not have gotten as far as high school, he is an authority on textbooks, the
tariff and winning football formations, the Constitution, geophysics, currency
inflation, and how to get rid of warts;
So if it isn't about money, and it
isn't about blazing one's own trail, how are we to develop that “good name” the
sage says is so important? The Proverbs
talk in terms of the blessing of sharing with those who have less, and
defending the fair treatment of all. I
would simply call it “caring”:
living with these neighbors in the human community as if they and what
happens to them matters. Churches, I
think, rather routinely work at this.
But after more than a year of careful and prayerful conversation and
discernment, our congregation has lifted this up as one of four key
ministries of concentration for our life moving forward: to be a
Caring Community
that builds and nurtures active relationships that respond
to human concerns, joys, and needs. As
I suggested, it's not that we haven't been doing any of that. Expressions of care have been part and parcel
of this congregation for decades. In the
context of worship we voice our particular and personal joys and concerns where
they are taken into the prayers offered by us all. But while prayer is certainly the first way
we can think of to respond, calling it “first” already suggests that there will
be a second and third and fourth – at least.
Some of us already take that second step of seeking out after the
service those who have shared and making more individual responses of
care.
But
the focus of our caring isn't really defined by these walls, or this
address. We aren't the only ones God
calls us to care about. What we are
doing in our worship and around our congregational life is “rehearsing” caring
skills – engaging in “caring calisthenics” that build up our relational muscles
so that we can apply them out in the community – muscles like the awareness and
celebration of diversity; like curiosity in the face of a world that seems to
have a toxic surplus of certitude and a starving lack of humility; like
creativity in a culture numbed by rote imitation; like active listening in a
culture that seems far more interested in talking.
If
we could get really good at this – if with practice and exercise those muscles
of caring grew strong and sustainable and in every way habitual – I believe the
world would begin to change. I can tell
by the look in your eyes that you don't believe me. But hey, if a butterfly flapping its wings in
South America can affect the weather in New York's Central Park, as Chaos
Theorists believe, then surely the relational air stirred by the caring
behaviors of a few central Iowa Christians can bring rain to drought-stricken
relationships on a larger scale.
And
even if I'm wrong, we would at least be moving in the right direction; but more
than that, the very least we can say is that the result will be blessing.
Blessing,
and of course a good name. And those
alone, says Wisdom, are better than silver and gold.