Wiscdom 101

How many of you know how to play basketball? Not how many are good at it, but know more or less how it works: one ball, five players on a team, two nets, one at either end of the field. When you go out there to play, you have a rough idea of what’s going on, right?

How would you feel if you went out on the court to play basketball - but instead of one ball there were ten - each one a different color, with a number on it, except for one blank white one which is “IT.” Somehow, instead of playing by basketball rules, you’re playing pool. Except you don’t know how it works. Kind of disorienting, don’t you think? Imagine thinking you were going to play baseball and picking up the bat only to find out that the goal isn’t to just to hit the ball, but to get it to land in a hole at the far end of the field, you know, the one with a flag sticking up out of it. Golf. Sort of. But the bat isn’t designed for that purpose, and anyway you’ve never practiced it, and you’re about to make an absolute idiot of yourself in front of absolutely everybody.

That’s pretty much the way I felt about life, back in the dark ages when I was a kid, and even later on as I grew up and went out into the world. The rules kept changing on me. In the first game, the way to win was to guess what the rules were before anybody got mad. In the second game, the way to win was to get all the answers right. In the next game, getting all the answers right cost you points because the boys didn’t like girls who got all the answers right. In one world, dressing right was the key; in another one, being entertaining and outrageous worked better. But every time I turned around it seemed the rules changed.

There’s a psych experiment that measures how dogs respond to punishment and rewards: if you praise a dog consistently, for the same things, she’ll learn and be a responsive, reliable pet. If you punish a dog consistently, she’ll learn and be a dependable, vicious fighter. But if you punish him on one day and reward him on the next, eventually the dog will stop responding at all and will just sit in a corner and shiver and whine. By the time I was in my mid-30's, that’s how I was beginning to feel.

I wasn’t a rebel; I wanted to be good. I wanted to be approved of, and to earn a place. But how could I do that, I wondered, when the rules kept changing? I finally thought I had it right - I had a well-paying, professional level job, all the yuppie paraphernalia from power suits to sports car to condo. I was clearly playing that game right. But there was still something wrong.

So when I finally got up the courage to enter a church, on a cold January Sunday over 16 years ago, my burning question wasn’t, “Who is God?” or “Who is Jesus Christ?” it was “How am I supposed to live? How do I go about ‘being good’?”

The first sermon I heard hit another question - one I never expected to have answered - but that’s a topic for another Sunday. Maybe. But on the second Sunday the pastor started a sermon series on the book of Proverbs, and it was all right there. “Trust in YHWH with all your heart,” said Pastor John, “do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” [3:5-6]

Now, I’m not expecting you to be where I was that long-ago winter - although some of you might be - but have you ever heard the proverb “a stitch in time saves nine”? Or maybe, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”? If you wise up early, you’ll never mess up as badly as I did. And it’s never too late, either. God’s mercy gives us a new start at any point in our lives when we decide to start trusting him. And listening. And obeying.

And even for you lucky ones who’ve known God since babyhood and made pretty good choices most of the time, this is also for you. This book is “For learning about wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight, for gaining instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity; to teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young - Let the wise also hear and gain in learning, and the discerning acquire skill...” [1:2-5]

I have a pastor friend who reads one chapter of Proverbs every day. That way he reads through the whole book once a month, and he has never yet gotten tired of it. The sermon series John Vawter started 16 years ago lasted about 20 weeks. I have 20 minutes, so I can only hit the high spots.