Right and Wrong v Wise, Not So Wise

Life is difficult. It’s even more difficult when you are stupid.
John Wayne

Whose Choice Is It?
God: Adam. I want you to make this garden more beautiful: all the animals are yours, as well as the fish and birds--rule over them. You’re free to eat from any tree you want, except that tree over there. Eat the fruit of that tree and you will die. Do you understand?

Adam: Got it, Lord. You want me to be fruitful and to multiply, make the garden more beautiful, tend to it, eat what I want, but not from that tree over there. Any other no-no’s that I should be aware of?

God: Nope, that’s it, just the one. Okay. The garden is yours. Do what you think best. I suggest you start with naming the animals.

Adam: (Walking over to long necked animal, looking back over his shoulder at God) Most Holy Creator God, please tell me what to name this animal.

God: No. I told YOU to name them.

Adam: Can you give me a hint?

God: (Silence)

Adam: (After naming some of the animals) Er, Lord … I am feeling kinda funny: I think it has something to do with wanting to be fruitful? How does that work?

God places Adam and Eve in the garden. He gives them some directions for life, and one commandment regarding the Tree. Other than this, they were totally free to do what they wanted, as they wanted, how they wanted. In other words, they were to use their God-given capacities for decision-making. Whether it was naming the animals or precious stones, what bush to trim, or which to leave alone, whatever, there was no right or wrong decision: only wise, or not so wise.

Come on now: if God wanted to literally tell us what to do in every decision we face, why then did he give us the book of Proverbs? I think too many people ask God for directions, while what he wants us to learn is wisdom.

Consider the freedom we have been given … and then reject. “Don’t eat that fruit” turns into “Don’t touch that tree” which then becomes, “We don’t want to accidentally touch that tree so let’s build a fence around it.” The next generation finds that some of the children keep kicking their footballs over the fence, so they build a fence around the fence … “just in case.” Next thing you know, there are so many fences (man-made rules) that it is now impossible for anyone to even get into the garden, much less enjoy its (permissible) fruit! I don't know about you, but this doesn't appear all that wise a way for living life!

Seeking God for Direction
Saul: Yowzer, what just hit me?

Christ: I did

Saul: Who are you?

Christ: I am the one you have been persecuting, Jesus Christ.

Saul: You gotta be kidding me. So you actually did come back to life? Shiii …

Christ: Quick witted. I can use that. I want you to go down to the city where I will give you further instructions.

Saul: A little help? I can’t see!

Christ: Ananias, Saul will be showing up. Pray for his healing and baptize him. I am sending him to the Gentiles.

Ananias: Saul, Christ told me to tell you to go the Gentiles.

Saul: I knew it. He wants me dead. The Gentiles? Is this a joke?

Ananias: No, he says you are to go witness to them.

Saul: Got it. Okay. Where do I go?

Ananias: Toooo the Gentiiiiles. Funny, he didn’t mention your deafness …

Saul: Cute. Which Gentiles?

Ananias: That’s your choice.

Saul (now Paul): Knock, Knock

Gentiles: Who’s there?

Paul: Paul

Gentiles: Paul who?

Paul: Paul-I-use-to-be-known-as-Saul. You might remember me from …

Gentiles: Go away

Paul: (Next door) Knock, Knock

Gentiles: Who’s there?

Paul: Paul

Gentiles: Paul who?

Paul: Sigh

Gentiles: Just messing with you man, come on in.

We have a tendency to think of Paul as having this on-going conversation with the Almighty, who told him where to go, what to say and to whom, every moment of the day. He did not. Go back and read the story: he only “heard from God” a handful of times. The rest of the time he was on his own, so to speak, using his God given capacities for decision-making. There was no Right or Wrong door to knock on, no Right or Wrong Gentiles to go speak with. He was told to go: how, when and where were pretty much up to him.

When Being Right is Wrong
Osh to Gosh: (Two Israeli Spies in Canaan) I know, let’s go over to that prostitute’s house!

Rahab: Come in, my little chickadees!

Gosh: You sure this is okay?

Osh: Come on dude, don’t be a legalist: there was nothing on the Stone Tablets about this … was there? We’re not married, she’s not married … Crikey, I knew I shouldn’t have skipped those catechism classes. Alright, just in case, we’ll only hide here for the night.

Rahab: Wake up, boys: Ya got trouble right here in River City. The cops are looking for you, but I know who you are, and I want to join up. I know your God is the True God.

Gosh: What did you tell them?

Rahab: That I had no idea what they were talking about.

Osh: You LIED?

Rahab: Of course I lied. It was either that or your heads would be on a spear before sunup.

Gosh: I think that goes against one of the Big Ten, Osh.

Osh: Well yeah … what are we supposed to do now?

Gosh: According to my catechism class, the penalty for bearing false witness to the Powers That Be is that whatever would have happened to us--should she had told the truth about us--should happen to her.

Osh: She’s toast? We’re going to whack her because she risked her life in saving us? I don’t think so. I think Joshua is going to want to have the sisters choreograph a victory dance to honor her. No way is she in trouble. These yahoos do not deserve the truth.

Gosh: Or kick us out of the army for failure to live up to The Code. What’s the deal then with soldiers who go along with someone who bears false witness? You heard Jethro’s message, Crossing Every T: Dotting Every I. “Obedience is all that matters. It doesn’t matter how you feeeeeeeel, it is all about doing what you are told.”

Osh: Get a grip man. This is not that … this situation wasn’t covered by that commandment. This is something different. I am not sure how, but I know I am right. In fact, I am so sure that I believe one day li'l Rahab here will be considered one of the heroes of the faith!

Rahab: I don’t care about the Faith Hall of Fame. Just promise me that when the fighting begins your guys will not smack me. Here … I use these flyers for advertising. Pass ‘em around to your officers and let them know that this is a drawing of the one who protected the spies … by lying for them.

Life is all about making choices, and most of those choices are rarely about being Right or Wrong, but about being Wise or Not So Wise. And when it turns out your choice may have been not so wise? You do not repent for it, you don’t feel guilty about it, you learn from it.

But what about when it appears to be a question between Right and This Can’t Be Right, Can It?

There is an old Chinese definition of wisdom: wisdom being the destruction of idealism. For years and years after hearing this, it plagued me, it worried me, it harassed me. After all, I am an idealist. Here is the Universal, the Mark, the Standard, the Good, whatever, and it is to be lived up to. And this is true … up to a point. However, just as we applaud piety while eschewing pietism, seek to honor individuality while standing against individualism, and hold to the concept of reality while rejecting realism, so should we seek to live according to our ideals without falling into idealism. (For Jesus’ take on Idealism, consider his comment: Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man.)

Life does not always come to us with easy choices, especially when the choice is between what is Ideal and what is Real. In WW II, Russia was our enemy, yet we entered into an agreement with Stalin to help us rid the world of Hitler and the Nazis. Living in the tension between the Ideal and the Real requires wisdom, which, in turn, destroys, not our ideals, but ideal-ism.

Or so I believe.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2008