listening for the holy in Ecclesiastes...

Yesterday I spent the better part of the morning in Bible study. That was one of the great privileges of being a pastor: every week for nearly four decades I had the time to sit with, listen to, and wrestle with the Word of God as shared in Scripture. These days I still have the opportunity to do this but without the constraints of time or obligation. It is a lovely gift. So, making the most of it, I lost myself in Psalm 37, a wisdom song from ancient Israel, and cherished every moment.

One of the biases I uncovered in myself while considering the wisdom tradition

again was my one dimensional assessment of this rich and complex world view.  Sometime ago, while early in ministry, I read about the wisdom tradition while leading a Bible study in the book of Proverbs. As one scholar put it, the soul of Proverbs "is conservative, practical, didactic, optimistic, and worldly wise." In my busyness and arrogance, I mistakenly let that insight define the second wisdom perspective, too. In truth, as I have since learned, while Proverbs is essentially a collection of conservative aphorisms designed to guide young men into stability, the books of Job and Ecclesiastes (as well as some Psalms) explore very different concerns. Proverbs seems to be influenced by the Egyptian school of wisdom with its wise father-to-son, top-down moral instruction. The second tradition clearly comes from the Sumerian/Babylonian realm. Job offers a mystical critique of one-dimensional morality as filtered through the lens of personal suffering and corporate exile; while Ecclesiastes suggests a rational existentialism beyond the confines of religious ethics. (For a lively and informative summary, please see: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/biblical-wisdom-literature/)

Yesterday's time in study helped me take off some intellectual blinders. It also reminded me that my affinity is with the second wisdom tradition - the mystical and existential school - that is sacramental, too. (NOTE: I am indebted to the musical genius of U2 for new ways of embracing Ecclesiastes and Stephen Mitchell's Jewish/Buddhist commentary on Job.) Funny how one seemingly unrelated day of study can open new places in my head and heart - and that is what I experienced today with a reading from Ecclesiastes 11: 

Do not praise individuals for their good looks, or loathe anyone because of appearance alone. The bee is small among flying creatures, but what it produces is the best of sweet things. Do not boast about wearing fine clothes, and do not exalt yourself when you are honored; for the works of the Lord are wonderful, and his works are concealed from humankind. Many kings have had to sit on the ground, but one who was never thought of has worn a crown. Many rulers have been utterly disgraced, and the honored have been handed over to others. Do not find fault before you investigate; examine first, and then criticize. Do not answer before you listen, and do not interrupt when another is speaking. Do not argue about a matter that does not concern you, and do not sit with sinners when they judge a case. My child, do not busy yourself with many matters; if you multiply activities, you will not be held blameless. If you pursue, you will not overtake, and by fleeing you will not escape. There are those who work and struggle and hurry, but are so much the more in want. There are others who are slow and need help, who lack strength and abound in poverty; but the eyes of the Lord look kindly upon them; he lifts them out of their lowly condition and raises up their heads to the amazement of the many. Good things and bad, life and death, poverty and wealth, come from the Lord.

+ First, I cannot help but notice the upside-down analysis that Kohelet, the old preacher in this text, shares with those who have eyes to see and ears to hear: Look at the bee and the sweetness created in its smallness; look at the nobility of the humble who are blessed well-beyond the grandeur of many kings; look at those who have learned to do a few things well and their inner peace and compare them to those who are overly busy and stressed. To be sure, my time with L'Arche Ottawa and study of Jean Vanier have inclined my eyes to take notice of the "small is holy" upside-down kingdom insights of this text. It is a mystical inversion of another tradition in ancient Israel, one guided by a narrow reading of Deuteronomy, and celebrates the unexpected grace of the holy beyond the obvious and expected. To my heart, it sounds a lot like Jesus at his best. A meme on Facebook from NakedPreacher entitled "Love versus Scripture," put it like this:  

NOTE: Often we Christians take a harsh, judgmental and one-dimensional approach to the way Jesus challenged some within his own tradition. Indeed, we are guilty of misreading the context - and advancing antisemitism. We must be on guard for this deadly blind spot in our spirituality and oppose it clearly with love. At the same time, however, every spiritual tradition knows teachers who are harsh and fundamentalist as well as those who are guided by compassion and mercy. In Christianity today this very cartoon rings all too true for us. I am guided by the words of Jesus here: Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7: 3-5)

+ Second, this text counsels living as allies to those who are most vulnerable:  "There are those who work and struggle and hurry, but are so much the more in want. There are others who are slow and need help, who lack strength and abound in poverty; but the eyes of the Lord look kindly upon them; he lifts them out of their lowly condition and raises up their heads to the amazement of the many." Again, Vanier has been instructive to me about this insight. Not only are the vulnerable in need of allies and assistance, but we, too, are in need of their very being that opens our hard hearts to tenderness and shows us our own wounds. In Richard Rohr's mediation for today, something similar is articulated:

Only people who have suffered in some way can usually save anybody else—exactly as the Twelve-Step program illustrates. They alone have the space and the capacity for the other. Deep communion and compassion are formed much more by shared pain than by shared pleasure. Jesus told Peter, “You must be ground like wheat, and once you have recovered, then you can turn and help the brothers” (see Luke 22:31-32). In general, you can lead people on the spiritual journey as far as you have gone. Transformed people transform people. When you can be healed yourself and not just talk about healing, you are, as Henri Nouwen said, a “wounded healer”—which is probably the only kind of healer!

+ And third, the good as well as the bad - the light as well as the dark, the joy as well as the sorrow, the celebrations alongside the suffering, and the wisdom as well as the mystery - are all a part of God's created order. I have written before about how I used to think God was only present in the good times. My wise soul friend, Adolfo Quezada, said: That's really limited - and naive - to believe God is only in what you like. What about Jesus on the Cross? Wasn't God there with him?  Another Facebook meme I saw recently from Rumi put it like this:

James Finley speaks to this non-dualistic view of life with great insight:

What is it that allows Jesus to face all kinds of suffering, including his own, and how can we follow him? In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus sweat blood because he was afraid (Luke 22:44). It is possible that he was infinitely more afraid than we could ever be. But the difference is: Jesus was not afraid of being afraid, because he knew it was just fear. So why are we so afraid of fear? We are afraid of fear because we believe that it has the power to name who we are, and it fills us with shame. We feel ashamed that we're going around as a fearful person, and so we pretend that we're not afraid. We try our best to find our own way out of feeling afraid, but this is our dilemma, our stuck place, that Jesus wants us to be liberated from. But we cannot do it on our own.

When we start on our path, our hope is that we will be liberated from

fear in light of the mystery of Christ. Certainly, this includes doing our best to be as safe as we can be and to help others do the same. And when scary things are happening, it always includes doing our best to find our way to safer places and to help others do the same. But as for the fear that remains, Jesus invites us to discover that our fear is woven into God’s own life, whose life is mysteriously woven into all the scary things that can and do happen to us as human beings together on this earth. This is liberation from fear in the midst of a fearful situation.

Winter is coming to these parts soon. It would be foolish to ignore the clues. A cataclysmic change is coming to this country, too - one that will lead us through and beyond our current cruelties - but will demand facing our hatred of women, people of color and strangers first. We will have to confess and repent before the time of healing emerges. But it will come. The wisdom tradition speaks to this moment with clarity: let those who have ears to hear, hear.