How to Shine a Little God-Light: The Power of Wisdom in Your Everyday
by Ken Wilson

 

Wisdom. Can't live well without it.  An influence to which Bible bears multiple witness. The dancing-agent of creation in Jewish thought.  Represented in Proverbs as a woman to be desired more than gold. (NT GK, Sophia) Desire of David's Son, Solomon, who was given gobs of it in many realms: governance, problem solving, a curious love of nature.  And Jesus, "in whom is found all the treasures of wisdom." 

Which brings us to a powerful voice in early Jesus movement, Saul of Tarsus, or Paul. Jesus-wisdom is sprinkled throughout his letters. He speaks of a gift of Spirit called "word of wisdom," that lights your way forward in a particular situation. Today: first in a 4 part series, based on Ro. 12: 9-21, where Paul, influenced by Jesus, offers practical wisdom: how to shine a little God-light in your everyday.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not think you are superior.  Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Ro. 12: 9-21)

Wisdom is love in action [subhead of NIV]. Love, practically expressed in everyday life.  

Rabbis did something called, "stringing pearls." Pearls of wisdom, one gem next to another, strung into a  necklace. What you have here.

Each pearl stands alone as thing of beauty, but the greater beauty is the necklace--how the pearls hang together.

The "love must be sincere" necklace. Notice, love must. Love, contrary to popular opinion makes demands….first of all, of itself.

So, "love must be sincere": without hypocrisy.  No play-acting love, please.  Not love that is actually something else like control, politics,  greed, or piety dressed up as love.

Love rooted in a different-than-the-usual order: a kingdom of God kind of love, a Jesus of Nazareth kind of love.  Evil-hating, enemy-loving, good-clinging, spiritually fervent, God-centered and serving, hospitable, harmonious, restrained-in-the-face-of-provocation, other-honoring Love.  Faithful praying love.  Each pearl a gem in it's own right, but the beauty is the string of 'em together, the necklace.

Pull one of pearls out for inspection today, remembering it's a pearl with a little hole drilled through it to signify it's place on a neck-lace: "Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn."

What a pearl! The simplicity, subtlety, sheer beauty of this thought.

Take this from the receiving end.  How wonderful to have a friend, a co-worker, colleague, a family member, a roommate, another human being who rejoices with you, when you are happy over something.  

After my father died, I found myself sad when something good would happen, because he always enjoyed it when good things happened to me. No matter what it was, he got a kick out of it too.

Doesn't this reveal how deeply important other people are to us?  We need other people to share our joys, in order to have them ourselves!

What an art to do this for others, though! To rejoice with someone else.  Left to our own devices we only rejoice in the narrow range of things that make us happy. Your friend is a bird lover, tells you about that rare-in-Michigan blue-bird sighting, and you're like, next?  

It takes an actual turning of the heart toward them, to rejoice with them over that little acquired taste of theirs.  

It's worth the effort.  Because it blesses them, and it expands your capacity to rejoice in a wider range of things.

Do you really want to be limited by the few things that happen to make you happy?  Or do you want to be able to rejoice in the happiness of others, to expand your capacity for happiness?

Thank God I married a rejoicing woman!  When we met, I was Mr. Cynical and Nancy was Miss Enthusiasm.  Enthusiastic about her family, classes, her dogs and flowers.  Flowers!  A young man who values being cool-detatched-cynical--what does such a young man make of a flower?  But Nancy's enthusiasm wore me down, and now, I don't mind saying "Flowers make me happy." I gasped out loud the first time I saw that white orchid that Kirk Donaldson shot and Mike turned into a slide that he slipped in between songs.

"Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn."We've been equipped with specialized brain cells to do this: "mirror neurons." When I look at your face smiling, my mirror neurons start firing in smile part of brain, whether or not I'm happy at the moment. And--here's where it gets interesting--as I smile back, I feel happier. It's as though you have capacity to infect me with your happiness, thanks to my mirror neurons. Of course, I can override my mirror neurons when you smile at me and blunt the effect.

Maybe you smiled, because you saw a rare-in-Michigan blue-bird, so you rejoiced. As I'm listening to you tell me about this blue-bird, I picture it in my mind, while my mirror-neurons get me to smile back at you if I don't override them by thinking blue birds are dumb, and I begin to associate bluebirds with happiness.  

Is this floating your boat like it's floating my boat!?
Do you understand what the mirror neurons are trying tell us?

ALL LIFE IS SHARED LIFE!  ALL GOOD, SHARED GOOD! ALL BAD, SHARED BAD! EVERYTHING THAT IS, IS, BECAUSE IT'S RELATIONAL! HAPPINESS INCLUDED! ALL HAPPINESS IS SHARED HAPPINESS!

I used to have the dumbest idea about worship.  It was this: If I didn't invent it, it wasn't authentic. So, if I'm in a group, and the group is singing a song, and I join in?  That's not authentic.  Me, alone in my car bursting into song, that's authentic.

I recall my self-consciousness when I first saw people get a little bit into worship with their--er--bodies.  Such things as clapping hands, swaying, even such over the top displays as the lifting of hands.

But tortured soul that I was, even though my mirror neurons were urging me to do the same, I overrode them, thinking, "I'm not going to do that just because they are doing it! No, I'm not going to drink that worship Kool-Aid!"  And I felt very fiercely individual and noble.

But then, I thought, "That's not so odd after all.  We do have bodies. Maybe it's acceptable to move them."  But I wanted it to be authentic. So I waited until no one else was doing it, and then I lifted my hands.
You're not going to catch me joining in!

I'm sure no one in this room has been afflicted with this kind of tortured thinking.

Worship, as love itself does, demands the willingness to step outside of yourself. The word "ecstasy" means, "to stand outside of." 

All worship requires this: willingness to take a step beyond confines of personal preference. To join with others in joining with "the other."

"Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn."
The Hebrews had a more wholistic approach to feelings. We think of feelings as primarily inner-private phenomena. They viewed feelings as inner-outer, private-public phenomena.  So mourning happened alone and inside, but also had communal expressions: mourning clothes (sackcloth); mourning gestures (spreading ashes, beatin breast, fasting).  If you were having a hard time expressing yourself, call those skilled at wailing: "Call for the wailing women to come; send for the most skilled of them. Let them come quickly and wail over us till our eyes overflow with tears." (Jeremiah 9: 17-18)

We've lost most of this, haven't we?  Sub-contracted our mourning to the professionals at the funeral parlors.  Thank God for them, or we'd have little left to express mourning outwardly, with others.                  

We're culturally impoverished when it comes to "mourn with those who mourn."  So we have to be patient with each other….                 

"Mourn with those who mourn" Not an engineering problem. When it can't be fixed, love isn't done loving. Love mourns with….

"Mourn with those who mourn" Don't think it's your job to make a sad person happy. It's not your duty to give them the perspective that will lift them out of their vale of tears… 

Let your mirror neurons do their thing. If they look sad, look sad back….and you will have a small part of you feeling sad with them….

Difference between feelings & mood.  Feelings are measured in seconds & minutes. Moods are measured in hours & days. 

It's in the nature of feelings to be fleeting, to pass through your body, like a shiver. It's in nature of moods to settle, to camp out for a while

To mourn with someone who mourns is to share the feeling with them. Their feelings may be more intense, and may settle into mood state. You don't have to replicate their mood. But you can share their feeling of sadness & loss. Those moments of shared feeling help….

Simple gestures matter: a card, a word, a visit, a conversation, a hug, an acknowledgement….and above all, to remember. Nancy and I light a candle on the deceased parents birthday & death anniversary.

The task of mourning is to transition from a relationship of flesh and blood to a relationship of memory.

Mourn with those who mourn by exchanging memories of the loved one. Be an audience for their memories, and offer yours if you have the. The only thing more painful than a memory is forgetting.

These memorial candles up here are a public gesture. Reminder that we all suffer losses.  A way of saying to ourselves, God, and our church, "I'm remembering a loss today…"

A word about the loss of miscarriage. One of those hidden losses.
Example of how we respond differently to loss. 
We measure the loss differently. 
Women and men may feel the loss differently. 
The loss means different things to different people.

The pearl: "mourn with those who mourn"
When Nancy miscarried, I coped by minimizing the loss, as I sometimes do. But that didn't help Nancy, who felt it differently.

I had to come out of myself, my own response, to share her response with her: mourn with those who mourn.

And she had to realize my sense of the loss was different than hers.

A tendency with mourning to want people to strike just right note!
To not overdo it, not underdo it.  That's a load of boo-honkey.

It's not our job to adjust each other's approach to mourning.
It's not our job to say, "time's up!"

[This applies to mourning more broadly: any loss, of a job, a relationship, a hometown; all change involves some loss….]

It's our job to mourn with those who mourn.
Whatever it is that is, is what it is.

Take your cues from the mourner and mourn with them.
If they wish to handle it more privately, give them their space.
If they acknowledge it more openly, consider yourself invited…

(Friends who planted a tree to acknowledge their miscarriage.)

"Rejoice with those who rejoice, Mourn with those who mourn"

An invitation to live your life with more feeling, rather than less.   
More things to rejoice over, more things to mourn.

If you're afraid of feelings in general, that may not appeal to you.
But feelings are an expression of life.  

[Psalms are training to have your feelings with God…more bearable that way]

Jesus said, "I came that you may have life, and have it to the full"
[More life, not less…]

Connecting with others--rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn--is part of the more, not less….the full, not the empty….