A Sure Foundation

For Friday, 24 June 2005
Proverb 10:25

When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more,
but the righteous is established forever.

I often drive by new construction and wonder where these houses will be in fifty or a hundred years. As someone who grew up in the city, I'm used to stone rowhouses that have stood for a century or more. It's difficult to imagine wood frames sheathed in plywood holding up so long.

Jesus reminds us that we are all involved in building projects, and when we build we do so foolishly or wisely (Mt 7:24-27; Lk 6:47-49). We build careers and reputations, relationships and families, fortunes and debts, and all the other projects that go into making our lives. Moreover, we often find our own projects taken up into a larger edifice, whether constructed by our church or neighborhood, our workplace or nation.

Nevertheless, careers founder, relationships fail, children disappoint, and money gets spent. Businesses go bankrupt, nations fall apart, and even churches are full of fellow sinners who betray and hurt us.

Today's proverb asks us to consider the foundation upon which we build. When the storms of life sweep over us - and they always do sooner or later - will we be left standing or will we be carried away? Where can we find a foundation on which to build that can withstand the vicissitudes of our fallen world?

Jesus called his hearers to build upon the rock, that is, to hear his word and keep it. If only we trust in Christ, will we then know we are loved by God and remain secure in his hand. As the words of the old hymn remind us: "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness...On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand."

Of Dread and Desire

For Thursday, 23 June 2005
Proverb 10:24

What the wicked dreads will come upon him,
but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet Claudius murders his brother, marries the widow, and takes the throne of Denmark. Despite his successful ambitions, Claudius lives in fear - dreading that his deed will be exposed, a growing paranoia, especially once it's clear that Hamlet, the rightful heir, wishes to avenge the crime. Eventually Claudius's worst fears are fulfilled, his own corpse amid the others strewn across the stage by play's end.

As today's proverb reminds us, sin and wrongdoing breed fear, suspicion, and anxiety. When we prove untrustworthy, we come to distrust others. When we are willing to harm others for our own advantage, we fear others will harm us for theirs. When we find our sense of self in seeking and protecting our own good, those who thwart us threaten our very identity.

This fear rooted in sin is well-founded, since it ultimately reflects estrangement from our heavenly Father, from his faithful promises, his love for us, and his gifts to us. Running from the light of God, we plunge ourselves into the darkness and dread of our own shadows. That pathway can only lead to final loss in which our worst fears become eternal reality.

But that is not the only path God offers us. In Christ, every desire of the righteous will be fulfilled, for in him we receive the goal for which we were created - eternal life together in God. As Thomas Aquinas says, "we are moved to believe what God says because we are promised eternal life if we believe" (De Veritate 14.1).

The Gospel does not invite disinterested observers, but appeals to our desires and hopes as creatures made in the image of God: "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints" (Eph 1:18).

Guilty Pleasures

For Wednesday, 22 June 2005
Proverb 10:23

Doing wrong is like a joke to a fool,
but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding.

The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, writes, "excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of pain that we abstain from noble ones" (Nicomachean Ethics II.3). We are people of excellence, Aristotle suggests, when we "delight in and are pained by the things that we should be...for the good man tends to go right and the bad man to go wrong, especially about pleasure." He goes on to add later, "The pleasure proper to a worthy activity is good and that proper to an unworthy activity is bad" (X.5).

Aristotle's philosophical insight resonates with the biblical insight of today's proverb. Whether it's a child sneaking into mischief or a college student getting herself drunk or an adult ingulging in vicious gossip, fallen people tend to see their wrongdoing as a joke, as harmless fun, or, at best, a guilty pleasure. As creatures made in the image of our Creator, however, we cannot help but know that what we find pleasurable is, often enough, neither beneficial nor good. Even the pagan Aristotle saw that.

Augustine, however, in criticizing pagan virtue, unmasked Aristotle's continued problem - no amount of sheer moral effort can free us from the ongoing struggle with those things we know we ought not to do, but nonetheless enjoy (City of God XIX). The life of the moral pagan is still one of spiritual unrest, ongoing conflict, and internal warfare, all of which infect and confuse our relationships with both ourselves and others.

True freedom - the freedom to find joy and pleasure in the very wisdom of God - such freedom comes only by grace, through the death and resurrection of Christ, by which we die to sin and its pleasures and begin to live to God and the enjoyment of new life in Christ. Such enjoyment, found in trusting what God has done for us in Christ, gives us a taste even now of "the peace of heaven." As Augustine notes, this peace "alone can be truly called and esteemed the peace of reasonable creatures, consisting as it does in the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God and of one another in God" (XIX.17).

Wealth without Trouble

For Tuesday, 21 June 2005
Proverbs 10:22

The blessing of Yahweh makes rich,
and he adds no trouble to it.

If you were to ask the executives of Eron or former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers whether riches bring trouble, you can guess what they'd answer. Even when the rich don't end up in prison, wealth brings its own problems, as those of us who have far less in the bank also know. If we don't find ourselves wishing we had more, we worry and fret about what we do have, for moth and rust can destroy and thieves break in and steal (cf. Mt 6:19-21).

While Proverbs 10:4 told us "the hand of the diligent makes them rich," today's proverb gives us another perspective: it is God's blessing that is the source of all genuine wealth. When we recognize that it's God who makes rich, then we will regard all that we have as a gift. Moreover, we will trust God to care for us, receive all he gives with gratitude, and find ourselves less easily troubled by the exigencies of life.

But there is more to the proverb than material wealth.

My brother-in-law served as a lay Anglican missionary in South America for a number of years and observed a growing and healthy church, even in the midst of various material and social needs. In the end, he felt God's call to return to Canada and serve in pastorate. As he notes, the poverty of North America is profound, since "the First World has become the Third World spiritually." We may have mutual funds and nice homes, SUVs and iPods, but if we don't have Christ in whom all the treasures of God have been hidden, we are more poor than the poorest beggar on the streets of Paraguay.

Jesus Christ is our true wealth, a lasting and unfailing inheritance, if only we receive him by faith. Moreover, in Christ, our material needs are secure also. We may lose houses and fields, we may find ourselves in debt or out of work, but Jesus promises us we still have one another (Lk 19:28-30). We share together in the wealth of our brothers and sisters, both now and in eternity.

Lips that Feed

For Monday, 20 June 2005
Proverb 10:21

The lips of the righteous feed many,
but fools die for lack of sense.

We live in a hungry world. While most of us may have full bellies, we nonetheless hunger. We hunger for an identity, a sense of belonging, a larger community and story to be part of.

When God created the world he spoke it into existence through his eternal Word, bringing forth abundance and food and life, all of which, when received in trust and thanksgiving, would lead to a deeper relationship with him. But our sin and ingratitude leaves us estranged from the only Word that can ultimately fill us - the very Wisdom of God - so that even the good things of God's world now leave us hungry.

But Jesus, the righteous Word spoken by Father's lips, came into our hungry world, sharing in our hunger, in order to feed us with himself. And Jesus still fills us with his Word as it is ministered to us in preaching and in his Supper. But once we share in God's abundance we can't keep this Word to ourselves.

Jean Vanier writes, "The Word became flesh, so our flesh becomes word. So that through our flesh, through our eyes and hands, and listening and attention, we reveal Christ to people." Today's proverb points in particular to how our lips might minister Christ to others - an encouraing word, a gentle rebuke, an expression of caring, the promises of the Gospel.

Sadly, the fool has nothing to share, no word than can take the edge off even his own hunger. To refuse God's own Word is to perish for no reason. May our lips be diligent to share the Word that fills, so that even onetime fools may hear and understand and, in turn, feed others.