Here’s the first sermon in my fall sermon series: "What Matters Most Now: Life, Love, and Liberty in these Uncertain Times."
We’re facing a number of crises crashing in upon us. They threaten our wellbeing, personally and communally. We feel these threats in our bodies, minds, and souls. At the same time, we’re being summoned by God to engage this urgent moral reckoning as a nation.
The series aims to draw on ancient wisdom, freshly imagined, to help people recover habits and patterns for living in these times.
The series focuses on the universal feelings and experiences that unite all human beings. Charlie MacKesy’s book, "The Boy, The Mole, the Fox, and the Horse," does this beautifully, especially the way he brings together the four characters (boy=curiosity, mole=enthusiasm, fox=suffering, horse=wisdom). We will pair five of Charlie’s best sayings and joins them to biblical wisdom says to help ground us in these uncertain times.
This sermon was based on Proverbs 24.30-34 and a saying from Charlie MacKesy’s book, in which the mole says to the boy: “I wonder if there’s a school of unlearning.”
1.
Despite the fact that it’s in the Bible, this saying from the book of Proverbs isn’t a nice saying. The sage who wrote it thousands of years ago calls a person “lazy,” “stupid.” We teach our children not to call people names. But here the Bible does just that. There’s too much name-calling going on right now around us. Why should we listen to this so-called wisdom saying that resorts to name-calling and shaming to make its point?
Proverbs is a collection of wisdom sayings. They represent a Middle-Eastern culture’s expression of the perennial wisdom that’s part of human culture everywhere. Every culture has wisdom sayings. Among every people throughout time, there’s a practical form of wisdom we could call “common sense”—practical advice for ways to live well, govern well, do business well, and relate well to each other and to the world.
This particular Proverb is at its most literal level a warning against indolence—what’s translated here from the Hebrew as “laziness” or “stupidity.” And it makes some sense, though it does so in a rather nasty way. Procrastination, negligence, inactivity, and avoidance of responsibility can really mess up your life. It’s not a bad thing to be warned against them.
The trouble is, taking this Proverb literally right now feels unfair. Lots of us are unable to work as we once did. Or we’re caged up in our homes or apartments against our will. Or the relationships and activities that once gave us meaning are out of reach or shut down. Or we’re living inside chaos—kids and schoolwork and housework and jobs and life crammed all into a small space with no buffers or breaks.
Some us of feel guilty because we can’t work or do things like we once did. Others feel so stressed we’d like to be lazy for a change and not be scolded by the Bible. Some of us are just plain depressed.
And none of us wants to be called “stupid.”
And so, why read this text now?
Because, I sense that if we can look more deeply and spiritually into a text like this we might find some ancient wisdom that could help us live better today.
2.
Over the last two months, I’ve heard a recurring theme from many of you. It goes something like this:
“I feel like I did pretty well with the short term adjustments under quarantine. I’ve flexed. I’ve sacrificed. I’ve done my part. And I’m soooo over this. But I know it’s far from over. I’ve pretty much put things on hold, waiting for this to end so I can get back to the way things were. I’ve flexed but I haven’t adjusted. I haven’t truly adapted to the new realities. And there’s no real end in sight. Now I realize that in order to live well I’m gonna have to adapt my life; I can’t put my life on hold any longer.”
I wonder if you find yourself in any of that. Most of us are not doing well, despite what we tell ourselves and others. “How you doin’?” “Fine. Fine,” we say. But we’re not “fine.” We want to return to what was. But none of us are going back there.
The Proverb, read more spiritually and discerningly, invites us to consider what could happen if we don’t take action to adapt our lives. The Proverb’s not about being too lazy to repair the wall around our garden, or too stupid to keep the weeds down in our vineyard. It’s purpose is not to scold us for feeling exhausted by unending Zoom meetings or from doing all the right things when going to the store or when we have to tutor our kids while trying to squeeze in time to do the job we’re paid to do.
This wisdom saying is inviting us to pay attention to the ways we can stop waiting for this to get back to normal and make even the smallest adjustments now that could help us live better here and now. The ancient sages who treasured this saying are saying that we can and need to take charge now of creating a new normal; if we don’t, we may not be well.
“I saw and considered what was going on around me,” writes the sage, “I looked and received instruction.”
It’s sage advice. The question is, will we take it?
3.
I’ll speak for myself. I need to. Here’s what I’m coming to realize—
I’m working almost entirely from home. From my garage. When it’s hot, I migrate to the dining room table. I pull my HDMI cord here and there. I try to find backdrops for videos and Zoom that don’t make it look like my life is often the mess it is. My garden’s a wreck. There’s ash and soot still covering the decking and the furniture. My fruit trees still have bird netting on them even though we’ve picked all the fruit. I’ve even got cobwebs by the front door that look like they’ve been there for a century, they’re laden with ash.
But that’s not all. Once I start working I rarely stop for lunch, and come dinner time, it’s often a quick something to eat then back to work. And that simply means opening my laptop. There’s no boundary, no buffer. I keep telling myself “just one more thing and then I’ll rest.” I don’t. I collapse late. Books I love lie around unread. TV shows that could mean a little levity and escape go unwatched. Meals aren’t fully enjoyed. Chores go undone.
I’m not very skillful right now. My habits are unwise; the biblical sage would label them “lazy,” maybe even “stupid.”
I need to be more skillful, more wise. And that’s what this Proverb wants me to be.
“I saw and considered all this; I looked and received instruction,” says Proverbs.
Skillful. Wise. That’s also what the saying from Charlie MacKesy’s wildly popular new book, The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and the Horse wants for me:
The Mole says to the Boy, “I wonder if there’s a school of unlearning.”
4.
Often to learn something new we have to unlearn something that’s brought us to this point of crisis.
It was true for Isaac Newton when he began to learn about gravity. It is true for us now as we learn what must be done to address the climate crisis or the crisis of race in our country or the crisis of economic injustice here and around the world.
“Unlearning” in order to learn something new—that’s true for me now. I’ve got a pretty strong feeling it’s true for you too.
For me, skillful living means I’ve got to stop putting things on hold, waiting to go back to things the way they were.
Here’s one small thing I think I need to do:
I have very few boundaries and buffers now between work and home life, between performance and pleasure. Not the ones I’ve taken for granted all these years. For example, I don’t commute to work, I just open my laptop. And the smoke made everything worse. Couldn’t even go into the garden.
I need better boundaries and buffers. I need to create better separation between work and home life, between performance and pleasure. But I don’t yet know how to do that. I just know I must . . . if I’m going to live well, to live skillfully in this new setting.
5.
Last week one of you told me you were becoming aware of the same need to live more skillfully. You’re a teaching-assistant for our online children’s ministry. What I love about what you told me (and I’m telling this with your permission) is how profound your realization was, and how ordinary is the adjustment you realize you need to make.
Here’s what you told me:
“I sat in the Zoom Sunday school for 4th-6th graders last Sunday, and our activity for the day was simply to listen to ocean waves. For two minutes, the kids and I were to listen to the sounds of nature and reflect on the Bible story of creation and to make some journal notes. Being the rebel that I am, I just wrote down whatever came to mind: ‘Calm,’ I wrote. Then: ’I don’t really know what to write, but I’d love to be close to nature. (It was smoky outside.) I feel like I need a shower and exercise and some food.’
You went on to say: “Even though that exercise only lasted for two minutes, I was surprised by how different I felt when I wrote those words and realized that I needed to take better care of myself. Those two minutes were calm and peaceful. This was supposed to be for the kids, but it worked on me. Just a little spiritual exercise: two minutes, a pen and paper, and a YouTube video of ocean waves. And I realized one way I could adjust my life to take better care of my life.”
That’s wise. That’s skillful. You’re taking instruction from yourself. You’re willing to unlearn something in order to learn how to better live in the future.
6.
So, you who are listening:
What’s coming to you now?
Maybe you’re retired or you're a student or an essential worker . . . or you’re a teacher, truck driver or something else. How do you sense you need to adjust your way of life now to live better though all this?
You can’t just put things on hold and wait for things to return to normal. There is no going back. Going forward requires some skillful reflection, some intentional action—even the smallest adjustment will help.
“I saw and considered all this,” says the ancient sage. “I looked and received instruction.”
Waking up is the beginning of wisdom and of a more skillful way of living.
The Mole says to the Boy, “I wonder if there’s a school of unlearning.”
Let us grow silent and listen for God’s whisper . . .