Creation as Neighbor
CREATION AS NEIGHBOR
By: The Rev. Brenda Sol
In a previous career, I provided counseling, facilitated workshops, offered seminars, and did inspirational speaking. In many ways, what I was doing then wasn’t that much different than what I do now, but my focus was narrower. My primary audience was women, and my offerings were designed to encourage empowerment. One of my favorites was a series called: "Superwoman Doesn't Live Here Anymore". The emphasis was on helping women realize—but the idea applies to you men, too—that there really is no such thing as a “balanced life.”
At least in terms of a pie graph—where we have equal parts fun, work, rest, family, exercise and spiritual practice—there’s seldom a true balance of all the areas. Especially during particular chapters of our lives, like when your children are young, and a huge portion of your time has to be devoted to their well-being. Or when we’re intent on establishing ourselves in our career. There’s just no way to spend equal amounts of time in all the areas.
In complete contrast, this morning’s passage from Proverbs seems to indicate that, not only will we do equal amounts of cleaning, caring, giving, feeding, running a business, etc., the message seems to be the ideal woman even skips sleep to get it all done! But, like so much of Scripture, we can’t take it at face value. We have to dig down, and around, to better understand what’s going on.
As we find in most of the book of Proverbs, this is a metaphor for how to achieve righteous living, or how to live from a place of true wisdom. So, in these verses, Wisdom is personified. Not only is wisdom personified as a human, Wisdom is specifically personified as a woman. The opinion of most theologians is that personifying Wisdom as a woman is done purposefully to grab the attention of people in the ancient world (when it was written).
Since it was men who held all the power and were most likely to be the only ones with education, Proverbs flips things around, as so often happens when describing the world through God's eyes. In this teaching, it’s not just that Wisdom is getting all these things done, but that she’s doing so for the greater purpose of benefiting the surrounding community. Equally significant is that the surrounding community recognizes and appreciates her for doing so.
In a time when women were little more than property, and were simply expected to do all of the household chores, such appreciation is one of the many clues alerting us to the fact that this passage is not really about how to attain the sainthood of Super Woman. Another clue is that Wisdom's work isn’t limited to the home. Wisdom is also involved in business. Another is that she is apparently in an egalitarian partnership with her spouse.
Wisdom and her partner seem to operate with a high-level of mutual respect and support. They have different roles, but all the tasks are necessary and valued. Rather than limiting access to certain roles based on gender, the partnership is designed to benefit the world around them.
This view of wisdom is paired with the question we find in our reading from James this morning. We are asked, “Who is wise and understanding among you?” Then we’re given a description of what a wisdom-filled life looks like from James’s perspective. He explains that true wisdom is “peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy…without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy,” and “sown in peace.” Like the list from Proverbs, these seem to be ideals impossible to live up to, but they are more about the qualities of being that we bring to what we do, instead of what it is we get done.
As Lindsey mentioned last week, in her sermon, we’re in the midst of honoring the season of creation. And it's not as much a celebration of the beauty of God's creation, as it is a lament of all that we have done to harm the very planet that sustains us. The way that’s explained from the Book of James is that our conflicts, disputes, and, we might add, our destruction of the planet, “come from…cravings that are at war within” us.
James insists that our wise self often loses to our ego-based desires. We want to eat less beef, because we know that’s better for the environment, but we crave the tender juiciness of a nice thick Filet. We want to invest in companies that contribute to sustainable farming, but we opt for the less expensive brand instead. James says true wisdom is rooted in divine spiritual ways.
In contrast, in our Gospel reading, we encounter a couple of disciples giving in to their earthly ways, letting their cravings of power take over. As they walk along, Jesus overhears their conversation. And, what I love is that rather than just cutting off their nonsense, Jesus models for us a sense of curiosity, that leads to deeper relationship.
Although they’re hesitant to admit that they were arguing about who is the greatest, Jesus doesn't admonish them. Rather, our reading says he sits down with them, then gently explains the wisdom of God’s ways—that "whoever wants to be first must be last…and [a] servant of all." Jesus continues by saying, "Whoever welcomes [a] child in my name welcomes me.” In other words, in God’s world, the most vulnerable is the one to be held up for appreciation, love and care.
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to apply this idea to our planet. None of us is greater than another, nor is humanity greater than the rest of God’s creation. We have other scripture that helps us understand we’re not to have power over creation, instead, we’re to be good stewards of our earthly home. Still, as Lindsey mentioned last week, it can be overwhelming to think we, as an individual, can make any difference in this global crisis. Yet, living from a place of true wisdom requires us to remember we do this for the good of all.
Which is why I found such solace in a daily meditation I read recently by the Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr. In his blog post, he quoted the novelist Marilynne Robinson. When she was asked by an interviewer, “What single thing would make the world, in general, a better place?”, she replied, “Loving it more.”
Rohr further explained that by describing the ideas of Lydia Wylie-Kellermann. In her book This Sweet Earth: Walking with Our Children in the Age of Climate Collapse, she suggests that when we learn about a place, that land holds us. Being in relationship with that place leads us to fall in love with it, and, ultimately, that love leads to climate justice.
The Jesuit peace activist, Daniel Berrigan, said it another way (as found on your bulletin cover): “Don’t just do something. Stand there.” In that meditation, Richard Rohr suggests that “standing in one place and not moving is a part of the work,” and encourages us to remember that “resistance to climate destruction can be [the] slow work of being present to a place in the face of a transient, fast-paced world.”
So, let’s use our divinely-based Wisdom, and fall in love with a place, treating it as if we are welcoming God into our midst. “Don’t just do something. Stand there.”
-AMEN
