"Wisdom vs. Wisdom"
Sermon Presented July 30, 2006
Psalm 14
I can't believe the other lectionary texts looked so uninviting that I chose this one! I tried to dump it several weeks ago in order to preach on the environment today, but when I shared this with the Vision Team, they convinced me to wait until Laura, our student intern, arrives so she can launch our first venture into Power Point with that topic. That made sense, so I went back to this text - because I had no good alternative.
On Monday when I began meditating on the text and reading the commentaries, I thought: "Jo Ellen, you've blown it! This text won't preach!" But because I have a soft spot in my heart for the psalms, I pressed on. You can judge the results.
As background, Psalm 14 is a lament psalm, and almost a carbon copy of Psalm 53. But it's not like most lament psalms because it isn't addressed to God. It's not a prayer like Psalm 13 which begins: "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?" or Psalm 22 which begins: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" I invite you to listen to Psalm 14, a psalm that is considered to be from the wisdom tradition, rather than a prayer. (Read text.)
This psalm is a pessimistic depiction of the human condition. It says that all people are corrupt - all are bad - all are perverse. It says that no one does what is right! (Paul quotes from this psalm in his letter to the Romans.) Everyone is under the blanket of condemnation. When you hear these words, you come to one of several conclusions: God doesn't care and allows humans to go wild; God can't really do anything about the situation; there is no hope for the world; or there is no God - none of which is a positive statement of faith. However, we hear these comments in our contemporary world. Why should I believe in God when evil runs rampant? Why should I believe in God when God doesn't squash evil - heal my loved one - help me get a job - or end the wars in the Middle East. Either there is no God, or God doesn't care!
At first hearing, our text appears to be a statement of condemnation against the atheist. It sounds like the author is saying that if you don't have a philosophical belief in God, you are a fool and corrupt. It seems to say that atheists are unenlightened and atheism is frivolous. However, we know that this isn't so. Serious, intelligent and honest people deny the existence of God. The fool described in this psalm isn't someone who is stupid or someone who doesn't believe in God's existence. Rather the fool, (a nabal) is a person who decides and acts on a wrong assumption. A nabal is a person who, even though shrewd, powerful and brilliant, makes a mistake about reality.
The psalmist is describing a moral assessment rather than an intellectual one. The fool acts as if there is no God to whom one is accountable. Foolishness is the failure to acknowledge God in faithful obedience, rather than a failure to believe God exists. Foolishness here turns out to be synonymous with wickedness - autonomy - being a law unto oneself.
What is shocking about Psalm 14 is that what the psalmist calls foolishness and what other psalms call wickedness, is essentially what our culture teaches people to be - autonomous, self-directed, independent, and self-sufficient. We may use people, but we don't believe we need people and we don't need God. That understanding is practical atheism and it runs rampant today.
Fools aren't those who say "Get 'In God We Trust' off of our money," or "Drop 'under God' from the pledge of allegiance to the flag." No, the fools that the psalmist describes are those who live life as though there is no moral guide - no God - no one to be accountable to.
If we believe that our enlightened and civilized society has left perversion behind, all we need to do is look around and be reminded of the persistent, daily realities of poverty, hunger, homelessness, political corruption, war and violence. Although our rugged individualism (our autonomy) may lead us to deny the truth of this reality, we are complicit in how it is played out.
In wisdom literature, the precise opposite of fool and folly isn't wise person and wisdom, but loving kindness. That is to say, the fool is defined by the absence of loving kindness, which is the principal characteristic of God's covenant relationship with God's people.
The psalmist doesn't simply reflect on the sad fact that there are fools in the world, but laments on the grief and oppression that such fools cause the righteous. The priorities of fools are completely wrong because fools don't understand the ways of God.
The particular form of "foolishness" here is the refusal to call upon God, which results in the social practice of consuming people, using them up and devouring them with greedy political and economic strategies. In the abuse of the poor, the fool runs directly into the reality of God, who travels in the company of the "righteous" - here equated with the poor.
How are we - individuals, institutions and the government complicit in confounding the plans of the poor? We do it through banking practices, inadequate job training, poor education, health care and transportation, and lack of affordable housing and political representation. What good is a refuge in God if a person can't get out of poverty? What good is a refuge in God, if God's people don't do our part to alleviate the misery? Let's just keep those people in their place! Treat them like a Kopp's Frozen Custard and consume them without a trace of guilt.
Last Thursday, I hosted an informational meeting for Greater Milwaukee Sponsors here at Roundy. This new organization to Milwaukee is building a relationship with pastors and key leaders in a four county area, and I offered our facility to host a meeting for some of the Whitefish Bay pastors. (I had previously attended a meeting at a Jewish Temple on Brown Deer a couple of months ago and was impressed with what I heard.) Because of vacations and sabbaticals, there was a small group in attendance, but that proved to be valuable for the content of this sermon - because people had time to share freely.
The senior pastor of the Whitefish Bay United Methodist Church was on vacation, and sent a layperson to the meeting. This woman mentioned attending a recent community hearing - along with two other lay members of the church - that was sponsored by Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner. Questions had to be submitted before the meeting, so these women submitted a question on the immigration issue and signed their names as members of that church. When the congressman read the question, he prefaced his answer with "you church women" and then failed to address their concerns. The woman said: "I have always voted for him. My son worked for him years ago as a legislative assistant. And yet I was dismissed - we were all dismissed. We were not heard!"
Another minister mentioned that the bishop of her church is Black and whenever this bishop comes to visit her in Shorewood, she plans for delays. It isn't unusual for her to be stopped by a policeman who will say: "We need to check your taillights." When the taillights are shown to be working, she is free to go. The pastor of another church stated that the same thing occurs when an African American minister friend comes to visit his church. The world of the Academy Award winning movie Crash is alive and well in our north shore communities! The evil that the psalmist describes is present!
The intent of Psalm 14 is to counter the temptation that we can manage the world in better ways than God's way. Prideful and controlling people think nothing of benefiting themselves instead of the vulnerable. This is the sad reality of the Church and the Government. This is the sad reality of those who claim to follow Jesus. The psalm asserts that God's will endures. God has made the world with some built-in protections for the weak against the strong, and that must not be mocked.
The good news is that sin doesn't have the final word. The good news is that God is able to gather sinners into the company of the righteous. We remain sinners and also victims of sin, but we know that in Christ, grace abounds. Oh, that people would look to Zion, the dwelling place of God according to the people of Israel, so that God will restore God's people.
We don't find God through our intellect, but in our hearts. We come to God as little children, trusting One we can't see with our eyes, hear with our ears, smell with our noses or touch with our fingers. But how do we trust such an invisible and anonymous God?
I can't really give you a definitive answer to that question because a person's relationship with God is both experiential and individual. I see God most clearly in the faces of the poor, the children, the weak, and the lonely, and I hear God most clearly in the cries of the helpless. There is so much about God and about my relationship with God that I don't understand, but wisdom, for me and for the psalmist, is to turn to God and allow God to lead us in lives of loving kindness. That relationship is something we don't learn in books, but a relationship that we build with the Divine over a lifetime into a maturing level of faith.
The wisdom of God may appear foolish to the world, but Paul said (I Corinthians 1:27) "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise." In this context, according to Paul, being "the fool" is positive. The cross reveals clearly the two realities confronting us in this psalm: the reality of human sin and the reality of God's grace. To live in the company of the righteous is to trust that the reality of God's grace is the ultimate reality - the final word about our sinful human existence. We live by what we believe and what we hope for and not by what is pervasive in our society.
All have sinned! All neglect God - and yet God calls us from our sin and neglect and apathy and invites us to be a part of God's restoration of our lives, our church and our community. God is the refuge for those who know they need God. When we believe we are self-sufficient and no longer need God, we play the fool.
The last two verses of Psalm 14 offer hope. The psalmist believes that God will restore the fortunes of God's people when we become agents for good - when we allow God to lead - when we step out of the shadows and walk in the light of God. That's possible through faith in a God who loves all people.
