Brad Sullivan
4th After the Epiphany, Year BSunday, January 29th, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Deuteronomy 18-15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
“The fear of the LORD is the
beginning of wisdom; those who act accordingly have a good understanding...”
(Psalm 111:10) I always thought this meant that if you were
afraid of God, then you’d do what he tells you, and that would be the beginning
of wisdom. By obeying God, you’d
eventually learn that God is good and you’d learn over time, not to fear so
much as to love God. The problem with that is that God’s first commandment is
not “fear me,” followed closely by “love me somewhat.” God’s first commandment is “love me.” Fear me ain’t even a part of the commandments.
The psalmist is not saying, “think of God as you would the boogeyman, for that is the beginning of wisdom.” In Hebrew, the
word fear is more like awe and respect, so thinking of God with love, awe, and respect is the
beginning of wisdom, and those who act accordingly have a good
understanding.
The first nine verses of the Psalm give examples of the
fear of the Lord. If we take fear mean abject
terror, then the last verse of the psalm makes no sense at all. “Hallelujah! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole
heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation. Great are the deeds of the LORD! They are studied by all who delight in them.”
(Psalm 111:1-2) Those are the first two
verses of Psalm 111, and they show love, awe, and respect for God in the praise
they offer to God. Reading or praying
these verses, you catch a glimpse of the heart of the psalmist, a heart so full
of love for God that it must be expressed in song.
I would think that such a heart
would be wise, for such a heart would know full well the joy and richness of
God’s love and the joyful life that comes from following God’s way of
life. We did not hear terror or fear in
the psalmist’s words; we heard love, respect, and awe.
Interestingly, acting out of fear
can sometimes lead to the same conclusion as acting out of love, but in very
different ways. Look at Paul’s letter to
the Corinthians, first, viewing the text with the understanding of God as boogeyman. “I’m
terrified of God, therefore I won’t eat food sacrificed to idols because if I
do, God’s gonna sneak out of my closet at night and kill me.” Ok, so we don’t eat food sacrificed to idols,
but we live in abject terror of God which will eventually lead to anger, hate, rejection and resentment of
God…not something I’d recommend.
So, let’s view Paul’s letter by treating God with love,
awe, and respect as the beginning of wisdom.
“I know idols are fake and so this food sacrifed to them is just fine for me to eat. It is, after all, just food. So,
I can eat this food, but God taught me to love my neighbor. My neighbor doesn’t know that idols are fake
so for his sake, I won’t eat the food sacrificed to idols.” We end up with the same action, not eating food sacrificed to
idols, but one is brought forth from fear, eventually leading to anger,
hate, and
resentment of God. The other action is brought forth from
wisdom, acting according to God’s command, acting out of love of another which
leads to greater love, peace, and joy.
“The love, awe, and respect of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; those
who act accordingly have a good understanding...” (Psalm 111:10) The disciples found this to be true when they
met Jesus, and when they saw the miracles he performed. “They were all amazed, and they
kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching-- with
authority!” (Mark 1:26ish) Believing in
Jesus perhaps because of witnessing his miracles and power, was for the
disciples, the beginning of wisdom, followed by believing in his teachings, his
way of life, and following him, acting accordingly and having a good
understanding.
Now, not everyone who saw,
believed. Some didn’t see Jesus to be
godlike in his power, authority, and teaching, and so they didn’t believe in Jesus. Some, on the other hand needed far less
convincing than others. Nathaniel, as we
heard last week, didn’t need demons cast out, he just needed Jesus to tell him
he saw him under a fig tree, and that was enough for him…although it did take
more than simply believing his friend’s word.
In our lives, we don’t get to see
Jesus casting out demons. We don’t get
to hear him teach in person, or watch him heal folks, multiply food, or calm a
storm with a word. We don’t have that
first hand experience, rather, we have the stories of those who did. We hear about and read about Jesus’ acts, and
what we find in those stories is also the effect Jesus’ actions had on those
around him.
Like looking into the Psalmists’
heart when we read the words of Psalm 111, when we read Mark’s gospel, we see
the hearts of those who had love, awe, and respect for Jesus. We see the hearts of those for whom Jesus’
divine nature was revealed in the power and love of his miracles and
teaching. In hearing and reading the
gospel stories, we see the hearts of folks who found the love, awe, and respect
of Jesus to be the beginning of wisdom.
If only we could have been
there. If only we knew, right? If only we had the first hand experience of
the disciples in the ways Jesus was revealed to them. If only I could see Jesus cast out a demon,
then I’d have no doubt, right? Then, I’d
know. Except, as Paul pointed out in his
letter to the Corinthians, “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” (1
Corinthians 8: 2ish) We can’t know the
truth about God in any scientifically provable way. We can’t know if Jesus really is God. Even if we saw Jesus casting out demons, we
wouldn’t know. We would choose to
believe or not, based on how we chose to interpret reality. Again, remember that some who saw Jesus
casting out demons believed him to be doing so with evil.
And so, we can’t know in a
scientifically provable way, the truth of Jesus. Those who saw Jesus cast out demons didn’t
know, either. They saw, and they
believed.
So, what does it take for us to
believe? Some of us have had our own
experiences of God, ways in which God has revealed himself to us, or
experiences which we have interpreted as such, and so we believe. For some, belief simply makes sense.
On the other hand, some don’t have
their own experiences of God, or haven’t recognized them as such. Some of us have only the stories and
witnesses of those who have gone before us.
Sometimes these stories are from scripture. Sometimes these stories come from our family
and friends. We have the belief of those
before us to guide us into believing. We
have the belief of those who have found the love, awe, and respect of the Lord
to be the beginning of wisdom, and then we can let their belief guide us, until
we have found truth there. For some, belief
has come to make sense over time. For
some belief came automatically.
For some of us, we may still be
struggling, hoping for an epiphany to give us enough certainty to feel ok about
believing. To those, I would say “keep
wrestling. Keep struggling.” If you wait until you know, in order to
believe, then you likely never will. So
keep acting as though you believe.
Worship, pray, study scripture, listen to the stories of your family and
friends. See if, over time, the love,
awe, and respect of God proves to be the beginning of wisdom for you as well.
In this season of Epiphany, of the
continual revealing of Jesus as God, remember that none of us know. Even those with our own epiphanies don’t
know. We believe. Whether we believe because of our own
epiphanies or because of those who have gone before us, the key is that we
believe. We believe in God, and we allow
that belief to be real enough to change our lives.
We believe because we have heard the
story of God’s love for us in becoming human, God’s forgiveness and redemption
of all the world in dying, and God’s life and love which his invites us to
share in his resurrection. We hear that
story and find it beautiful, and so we believe.
We hear that story and we find it to be more compelling than any other
story we have heard, and so we believe. We
believe because we, like the psalmist, have found the love, awe, and respect of
God to be the beginning of wisdom. Amen.
