| Be careful then how you live,
not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of
the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish,
but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get
drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled
with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to
the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father
at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ. |
|
| Ephesians 5:15-20 |
| Into the world fell a truth that broke into two on its way
down. So begins the Children’s story Old
Turtle and the Broken Truth. (1) One day a human found
one portion of the broken truth which said “You Are Loved.” He
kept the broken truth. It felt like it was for him alone. He
was happy and proud. In fact, he clung to the broken truth
so tightly that he never questioned it or searched for a match
to the jagged edge which showed it was truly broken. Eventually,
he shared his broken truth with people who lived with him and
it became their most important possession. Over time they forgot
that there were other ways of discerning small truths as well,
such as listening to one another and opening their eyes to
nature. They began to call the broken truth “The Truth.” |
| Then, they started to feel angry and fearful towards other
people that did not share their truth. With time the other
people said “We must have this Great Truth for ourselves,
for with it comes happiness and power.” It was war, war,
war. Everyone wanted the broken truth, to possess the words “You
Are Loved.” The broken truth went back and forth, and
back and forth in war. No one ever doubted it was the truth—though
everyone was suffering. |
| Then a Little Girl went to find Old Turtle. She set off across
the world and became fascinated by she saw and by Old Turtle
when she finally met him. She asked Old Turtle: Has it always
been this way? Could suffering end? “Can it change, Old
Turtle? Can we make it change?” |
| Old Turtle told her that the world had been different before
the people became enamored with the broken truth. Old Turtle
said, “It is because it is so close to a great, whole
truth that it has such beauty, and that the people love it
so. It is the lost portion of that broken truth that the people
need, if the world is to be made whole again.” The Little
Girl decided to follow Old Turtle’s guidance to seek
the lost portion of the broken truth. She tried to remember
other truths she had experienced besides “You Are Loved.” |
| The Little Girl remembered her journey and the wonderful
things she had seen and she realized she had been made for
the world and the world for her. The world was loved too! Old
Turtle told her “The broken truth, and life itself, will
be mended only when one person meets another who is very different…and
sees and hears…herself.” |
| The Little Girl saw in her heart people different from her
own, but still somehow, “The People”. Old Turtle
said go home and share what you have learned about the world
and other people, “Take this with you.” He placed
something bright in her hand. She cherished the bright stone
she carried back. |
| She finally reached her home, “But it had been a long
journey, and those who take great journeys of the heart are
changed. The people did not recognize her.” She told
them “The Truth” was the Broken Truth and it needed
to be made whole. They didn’t get it. So the Little Girl
climbed up the high place where the Broken Truth was kept.
She took out her stone and added the missing piece to the old,
broken one. It now read, “You are loved; and so are they.” |
| “The people looked. And looked. And looked. Some frowned.
Some smiled. Some even laughed. And some cried. And they began
to understand.” They understood that they stopped searching
for the whole truth and had clung instead to a destructive
chard of the fullness of life offered to them. |
| One of the things that struck me in this story is that the
Little Girl went seeking wisdom during a time of turmoil. She
sought another way in the midst of conflict, prejudice and
strife. We aren’t told much about her personal life but
if she grew up in the middle of many wars, she must have been
shaped by the rhetoric of hate all around her. Yet she chose
to believe, to seek and yearn for the whole truth—for
knowledge that had the power to change the world starting with
her own heart. |
| “My life is a listening, God’s is a speaking,” Thomas
Merton wrote in Thoughts in Solitude. (2) We, like
the Little Girl, are to be on a journey of seeking truth because
God is still speaking to us through the Spirit. Wisdom for
the Christian is found in discerning the mind of God over time.
Our journey takes us deeper into not only the scriptures for
guidance, but into a growing, evolving relationship with the
living, moving God. If our relationship with God has not evolved
or changed, if our views on theology and life are the same
as they were when we were 18 and we are now 50, there is a
good chance we have not been listening to God call these past
32 years. |
| In the scriptures we encounter wisdom in moral theology or
ethics, wise sayings, practical advice and commandments. The
wisdom tradition prods us farther than following commands though.
Another branch emphasizes that wisdom is discerning the will
of God. In our Ephesians text seeking God’s wisdom is
contrasted with following our own desires. Do not be foolish,
the writer tells us, but understand what the will of the Lord
is! Live as the wise do—be filled with the Spirit instead
of things that cause a stupor. “…[We] are cautioned
not to wander aimlessly through life’s maze or become
victims of a moral stupor. Rather, wisdom’s call is to
leave folly and to follow the path of sobriety…, based
on a conscious effort to discover the divine mind.” (3) We are never too young or never too old to deepen the way we
listen for God through prayer, discernment and the reading
of the scriptures. It is our call to continually deepen our
life of faith so we can witness to the Spirit’s movement
in new ways in the world. |
| In Old Turtle and the Broken Truth the
Little Girl knew there
was something more to life than what she had been told by her
people. Something was out there that could bring peace. Our
story of the good news, of the whole truth, deviates from the
Little Girl’s story at this point. The Way, the Truth
and the Life has been revealed, and we have been given the
peace of Jesus Christ as a gift already. Discerning its impact
on our lives and following Christ’s radical call to live
in the knowledge of the peace of God seems to be what we stumble
and falter on. Instead of allowing room for different expressions
of wisdom, we want to narrow the mysteries of God down to what
is comfortable for me, what I think the truth is. |
| The historic principles of the Presbyterian Church are built
on the sovereignty of God and the belief God is at work in
one another. This is why we declare, “God alone is Lord
of the conscience.” Although we are tied together by
Reformed theology and our polity, we leave room for theological
dissention. The southern Presbyterian church has a long history
of letting its candidates for ordination declare a “scruple” or “scruples” that
deviate from the majority but aren’t essential tenets
of a profession of faith. The attitude with which we approach
our work and life together either stifles or encourages the
Spirit’s movement within or midst. Will we have an attitude
toward life, honoring God’s love for us and for “them” too? |
| Like the Little Girl we are to look with awe at the world
and seek the Truth that will help the world to live in peace.
Biblical wisdom, you see, is an attitude toward life—not
death. The beginning of wisdom is the worship and adoration
of God, what we do here and in our daily lives. Wisdom begins
with knowledge of God and then it must broaden to engage other
truths God has enabled us to discover in the world. We seek
to comprehend the deep things of God in all situations and
contexts. Otherwise we are like the humans in the story who
clung so tightly to one sentence of truth that they forgot
the truth was revealed all around them as well. |
| Each week we gather to give thanks for what God has revealed
to us in our various lives, professions, schools, families,
friendships and travels. “The hymns we sing in church
praise a…love which is never fickle, which never fails,
and which is totally unselfish. The overwhelming expression
of God’s love which saves us now and eternally.” Wisdom
is “that outlook which enables the believer to face life,
to make sense of its enigmas, and to surmount its problems.” (4) Let us together give “thanks to God…at all times
and for everything.” |
| Amen |
| Beth E. Godfrey - August 20, 2006 |
| Central Presbyterian Church, Geneseo, New
York |
| (1) Douglas Wood, Old Turtle and the Broken Truth (Scholastic
Press: NY, 2003), direct quotes and paraphrasing. |
| (2) John Dear, Living Peace (Image Books Doubleday: NY,
2001)33. |
| (3) 63. |
| (4) Reconciled in Christ: Ministry in Light of Ephesians,
Wendell W. Frerichs, Word & World Texts in Context, Luther
Northwestern Theological Seminary, 1988. |
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