Those who are kind reward themselves, but the cruel do themselves harm. Proverbs 11:17 NRSV
Another way to say the same thing: kindness is its own reward and cruelty is its own punishment. Perhaps it’s because kindness is fostering whatever lives and moves in this time and place and cruelty is putting every effort into maiming or killing it. Either way, it is sure to rebound on the person who is its source.
The first nine chapters of Proverbs are concerned with showing the difference between Wisdom and Foolishness – and an exhortation to a child to follow the first and avoid the second. After that, there are hundreds of pithy one-liners, practical advice offered in catchy phrases. Some of them still apply to life, even a couple of thousand years after they were written. Let’s take a look at a few in the coming posts…
Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. Proverbs 10:12, NRSV
Words that demean and embarrass are everywhere, so much so that it’s barely noticeable when they fill the comments of judges in any number of reality shows. Getting a negative reaction or bringing someone to tears makes for good ratings, or so it seems. I have to wonder: is an imperfectly prepared omelet really an insult to the judge’s delicate palate, or is it a common mistake made by someone doing their best? Verbal attacks may not be hateful in intent, but they are hurtful enough to elicit an equally damaging response that begins an ongoing exchange that damages and divides. Harsh judgement and verbal punishment don’t lead to positive and sustained growth – they lead to ongoing judgement and punishment.
Love isn’t a warm emotion in this proverb, it’s the willingness to work for the good of others in an honest and intentional manner. It’s possible to tell a cook that the omelet wasn’t perfect by teaching the technique to fix it. Honesty that transforms the world honors everyone involved, leading to better relationships and improved performance. No offense offered means no offence taken. Everyone walks away better for the exchange.
Go to the ant, you lazybones, consider its ways and be wise. Without having any chief or officer or ruler, it prepares its food in summer, and gathers its sustenance in harvest. How long will you lie there, O lazybones? When will you rise from sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want, like an armed warrior. Proverbs 6:6-11 NRSV
There’s a big difference between being a good worker and a workaholic, and that seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle these days. Either work all the time to further a career and amass wealth or be a shiftless weight on society. If a few biblical words are thrown into the mix to encourage hard work to avoid the fires of eternal damnation, this either/or reality has a lot more power. Suddenly, God’s love and personal worth are tied to unceasing work.
There’s a space somewhere between spending every waking minute working or thinking about work and spending all day sitting on the couch in a bathrobe binge watching movies and playing online Scrabble. The mind, heart, and soul need free time and the chance to work hard. After all, who says ants don’t stop long enough to see the beauty of the world on their way to work?
Hear, my child, your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s teaching. Proverbs 1:8 NRSV
Listen, children, to a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight; for I give you good precepts: do not forsake my teaching. When I was a son with my father, tender, and my mother’s favorite, he taught me, and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments and live. Get wisdom and insight: do not forget, nor turn away, from the words of my mouth. Proverbs 4:1-5 NRSV
If you want to see good parenting, look in the grocery store or the public library; if you want to see atrocious parenting, do the same. In any number of shops or schools you will see parents ignoring their children, or speaking to them in ways that demean and humiliate. You will also see loving glances between parents and their children, and hear patient and respectful dialogue even in difficult situations. The power these words have to foster or maim the spirit isn’t immediately visible most times – it’s five, ten, twenty, forty years down the line that it’s revealed in the beauty and the ugliness, the soundness and the brokenness that mark the men and women the children grew into.
What happens when a parent says to a child: listen to me! What happens when a mother or father tells a son and a daughter that life and wisdom comes from listening to what is said? I think the answer depends not so much on the exact words as much as the actions of their source. If love and respect are offered to a child, parental mistakes and shortcomings will be forgiven and advice will be experienced as an offering of love. If fear and insulting judgement are offered, parents will be unable to admit mistakes and faults, foisting whatever is imperfect upon their child’s narrow shoulders – a burden rather than a blessing. It doesn’t matter how good and true the words used might be – they are weaponized, harming the child and even the child’s child.
The source and the message are never truly separate either way. For this reason alone, it should make us think very carefully and deeply before we say these three words: listen to me! Because our children will…
Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy. Proverbs 3:13-18 NRSV
Once the basics of food, clothing, and shelter are met, happiness doesn’t have much at all to do with wealth or possessions. That’s why wisdom is better than a pile of precious metal: gold and silver can’t make an unhappy person happy in anything more than a momentary sense, and a happy person will be happy with or without them. Wise people know this vital truth.
I don’t know if wise and happy people live longer in terms of years, but they live more in the days given them. Whether they are monetarily richer or recipients of more accolades, I can’t say – but they consider what they have more than enough and do not take offense at the slights (intentional or unintentional) that come their way.
The wise walk down the street, seeing in the world around them life, love, and infinite possibility. Could the street have been straighter and the weather better? Perhaps. Could it have been worse? Sure. But isn’t it enough to be alive in this God-given world, in this time and this place? Isn’t what life offers marvelous? How we answer those questions reveal our wisdom or folly, our abiding happiness or impatient discontent.
[Wisdom] will save you from the way of evil, from those who speak perversely, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil; those whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.
You will be saved from the loose woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, who forsakes the partner of her youth and forgets her sacred covenant; for her way leads down to death, and her paths to the shades; those who go to her never come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.
Therefore walk in the way of the good, and keep to the paths of the just. For the upright will abide in the land, and the innocent will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. Proverbs 2:12-22, NRSV
[NRSV, The Discipleship Study Bible, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008]
In a footnote on this passage, Kathleen Farmer makes the case that the path leading to wrongdoing is personified as “the loose woman,” the counterpart to the path of Wisdom also personified as a woman. The path to life and the path to death are both depicted as beautiful women who do their best to influence the hearts and minds of young men. Choosing one of these women is really choosing a lifestyle, a direction for life; it’s temptation in a larger sense, not just in an immediate wow-is-she-good-looking sense.
Things being personified as women is not a new thing: ships, airplanes, cars, countries, and bodies of water are often “shes,” and the allure they hold is sensual and strong. The Muses are the various Art pursuits embodied as women and portrayed on countless buildings, in untold paintings, and dancing through both poetry and prose. Ideals as well as objects are often identified as gendered, and very often that gender is female. Things that attract and lure, fostering or jeopardizing life, have feminine pronouns; things that rule (e.g. Zeus) or hold direct power (Lord, King, etc) are very often personified as male. Why is that?
There are university departments dedicated to this question, and in the past few decades gender has become a major factor in public dialogue and in political life. Some feel the whole thing has been blown out of proportion, some feel that there isn’t nearly enough attention paid to it. Strong emotions are involved either way. One thing is very clear: the language we use and the images we associate with them are powerful. Deep levels are involved, some running below conscious thought.
Wisdom as a virtuous woman and Folly as a loose one may be appealing or offensive personifications, but I do think they get at an important truth: there’s a lot more to choosing a life path than reasoned assent. Where the feet go commits body as well as mind and soul. Choose well.
WISDOM SPEAKS TO THOSE WHO REFUSE HER COUNSEL:
“Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord.
They would have none of my counsel and despised my every rebuke. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies.
For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them: But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.” Proverbs 1:29-33
[I can’t tell you what translation of scripture this is, only that I found it in the desk drawer of my guest room at Princeton Seminary. It’s from a pocket size New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs provided by the Gideon’s. Alongside the English version were two others: Spanish and Korean. Sitting in one of the world’s best centers for theological education, whose staff and former staff have provided translations for the RSV and NRSV Bibles, it was a welcome surprise to find the same little scripture book here that can be found in hotel drawers throughout the world – free offerings with no strings and no sermon attached.]
Wisdom speaks as a woman in Proverbs, offering advice and pointing the way to a better life for all who desire it. But that better life isn’t one at the expense of others, and it doesn’t promise fame or immense wealth. There is a cost to it, just as there is a cost to every life choice. Perhaps that’s the take-away from Proverbs: choices have consequences, for the one who does the choosing and the ones who are affected by the choices.
In a surface reading of this book, it looks like Wisdom offers safety and security to those who follow her – those who accept that wisdom begins with choosing God first (the fear of the Lord). But wise men and women who choose God first don’t seem to have lives of security and safety any more than the ones who make a different choice. In fact, it seems like they are more likely to suffer or die young: Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, MLK, Mother Theresa, and Rosa Parks to name a few. So what does it mean when Wisdom says that those who follow her will “dwell safely and will be secure, without fear of evil?” I don’t think there’s an answer to this question that can be typed out or memorized. The best I can articulate is something like this:
Choosing God first is choosing to live in the largest reality that this universe has to offer. It is seeing everyone and everything as God-related and God-created. Nothing can ever remove us from the embrace of God – even those things that harm the body and shorten life. We may lose our way, but we are never lost to God.
My child, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, “Come with us; let us lie in wait for blood; let us wantonly ambush the innocent; like Sheol let us swallow them alive and whole, like those who go down to the Pit. We shall find all kinds of costly things; we shall fill our houses with booty. Throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse” –
My child, do not walk in their way, keep your foot from their paths; for their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed blood. For in vain is the net baited while the bird is looking on; yet they lie in wait – to kill themselves! and set an ambush – for their own lives!
Such is the end for all who are greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.
Proverbs 1:10-19 NRSV
When you grab all you can get, that’s what happens: the more you get, the less you are. Proverbs 1:19, The Message
Years ago, I watched a biography of Michael Douglas. Most of it, I’ve forgotten, but one part stands out still. When asked about one of his most famous lines – “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good” (Gordon Gekko, Wall Street)- he said with some astonishment: “I was amazed how many people adopted that as a creed. They missed the whole point.”
Gordon Gekko the character has a Wikipedia page; he was the archetype for many a Wall Street player who contributed to the destabilization of the financial market and the disappearance of untold retirement fund millions a decade ago. Many were never prosecuted and it seems that most paid very little if any cost for the devastation they caused. They robbed others to live a life of luxury, and they got away with it…or so it seems.
The older I get, the more I am convinced that there is no such thing as “getting away with it.” There’s a spiritual and emotional cost to the damage a greedy person inflicts on others. The bill that comes due may not be a prison sentence or a revoking of civil liberties. For a short period of time, a thief may even think himself or herself fortunate for dodging consequences. But the harm we do others for material gain we don’t even need is real and it’s deadly. The Ferrari may still be in the garage, the ocean view stunning, and a continued life of luxury guaranteed. Yet, such an opulent stage won’t bring happiness, peace, or the ability to escape the spiritual cannibalism that is no less deadly for being self-inflicted.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. Proverbs 1:7
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. Proverbs 3:5
Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. Proverbs 3:7
NRSV
Fear is not a good translation in this modern age because it’s understood as an emotional response rather than a philosophical or religious perspective. For most of us, fear is the same as terror, fright, dismay, or anxiety. Fear understood this way leaves no room for trust, much less a whole-hearted trust!
A more accurate definition of Fear in these verses would be something like this: 1)awareness of both our own mortality and limitations and 2) of God’s eternal, infinite, and loving nature, and 3) respect for the difference.
I favor Eugene Peterson’s translation, found in The Message:
Start with God – the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.
Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Don’t assume you know it all. Run to God! Run from Evil!
The Message (NavPress, 2016 – online at Bible Gateway)
The world did not begin with us, and it will not end when we die. Life managed to exist before us and will continue on after us. There are untold marvels that came before us and countless miracles that we won’t live to see. Everything begins with God, even you and even me. The wise experience this truth as a blessing; the foolish reject it for the curse they assume it to be.
The proverbs of Solomon son of David, King of Israel:
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,
to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles.
Proverbs 1:1-6 NRSV
Grocery bags are cut to cover the new chemistry book. A pencil is sharpened. A turkey wrap joins some grapes and pretzels to fill up the gecko covered insulated lunch box. Such are the simple, ordinary things that mark the beginning of a new school year. Studying and acquiring knowledge happen in the larger context of a gracious life, and this context contains so much that isn’t often noticed or appreciated (until or unless something goes awry!).
The book of Proverbs is advice on this larger context, a pithy poetic essay on how to live a good life. Much of it is practical – be honest in your negotiations, find good friends, keep your word. Some of it is “advice to a child,” and some just general advice to no one in particular. The questions it answers: what does a life well lived look like? What is a wasted life? Will you choose the path of the wise or will you stray into foolishness?
It’s been some time since I reflected on the wisdom of Proverbs. With the yellow school buses soon on their way, it seems like a good to crack it open…I hope you join me.
