Dear Bearcreekians,

In my career I have been a part of several building projects. They are painful in process and should be avoided when at all possible. One of my favorite books to give to pastors approaching a building project is “When Not To Build.” The advice is to build only when you must.

Building for Our Next Generation is a must building project. It is not a must because we need more money to help balance the budget or because we want more folks sitting in worship on Sunday. Nor do I believe that we must build because we like the looks of more children and youth around. These are not reasons to build. So what are the reasons to build for our next generation? I answer by telling you of two meetings I had today.

The first meeting was with a candidate for our Program Manager position. His current job is at a church in Arlington, VA  In order to be a Bearcreekian he would have to leave friends, a satisfying job as youth pastor, take a significant pay cut and move his four-year-old daughter and pregnant wife clear across the country. Two things motivate him to come this way. One is that he and his wife are from this area and they want to raise their children near grandparents.  The second is that, having carefully looked at us on the web, through contacts, and hours of conversation with me and members of the Selection Committee and SPRC, he very much wants to be with us in ministry at Bear Creek. He has caught the vision of a faith community built on the love of God and the discipleship of Jesus.  The love of God is in his heart and he wants to be a part of growing that love in others.

The second meeting was with a man who, with his wife, is desperately poor. A summary is that his wife is severally diabetic and is now in jail for unpaid fines in 2002 (the consequences of wracking poverty for a decade), their children are in the care of his sister-in-law because they cannot afford to keep them, and they are living in a house that is about to be sold. For the privilege of living there he does remodel and cleaning work in preparation for the sale, but there is no wage, just a place to live. They have no money for food and he takes whatever odd job he can get. We have helped them through the Helping Hand Fund with food cards at Safeway. And today I gave him a phone card so he and his wife could talk for the next two weeks while she is in jail.

We must Build for Our Next Generation so that the love of God is stronger in us and in our community for this is the answer to the spiritual depression that can be in us and does surround us. We must Build for Our Next Generation because God calls us to love our neighbor as our selves. We must Build for Our Next Generation because the poor need more Christians like Bearcreekian Christians who answer poverty with counsel and care.

So when your envelope comes, prayerfully consider your discipleship, our need for a program manager, and the stability of our finances while we pay off the final three years of the mortgage as a challenge to grow in faith and to grow faith in others. What we have is a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), but I am confident that together we will more than meet this goal and that Bear Creek will again be witness to the power of the Holy Spirit to inspire and lead us.

Shalom, Dave O

Dear Bearcreekians,
My brother is in town for the weekend to run in the USTAF Cross Country Nationals race at Jefferson Golf Course. He is a remarkable person, my brother Michael. He currently is the National X-terra (a triathlon in the mountains) champion in his age group, second in the National Triathlon (Olympic length, solid ground and water) for his age and last year was third in world. He is a remarkable athlete.

Michael has a humility that amazes me. At lunch he said to me, “I am not really a runner, I am just here for the experience.” He is competing with the best in the nation and hopes he can finish at least in the middle of the pack. But that doesn’t matter, he is thrilled to be in the same race as the best.

If only all of us could be thrilled to just be in the race. For it is an honor and a privilege to simply be alive.

So as you get busy with your day, busy with preparations for Christmas, busy with the challenges of life, remember how good it is to be in the race.

Shalom, Dave O

 

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From the time I was a small child I have considered buttermilk something very nasty. I don’t like the smell of it. I don’t like the feel of it in my mouth. I don’t like its taste or after taste. Buttermilk gets five stars for being very yucky.

Then I met Vickie and her family. On Saturdays Vickie’s dad, Jerry, would make buttermilk pancakes. It seemed impossible to me that buttermilk pancakes were something I would ever eat. They told me, “Try it, you’ll like it.” I’ve been down that road before. I didn’t want to try buttermilk pancakes. However, there were mitigating circumstances. I was engaged but not yet married to Vickie. My love for Vickie and my desire to be a part of her family overcame buttermilk and I tried buttermilk pancakes and I was converted. Jerry’s buttermilk pancakes were good, in fact, they were superb. I now have the recipe and have learned to make buttermilk pancakes whenever a Saturday permits.

The proof was in the pudding. Or more accurate to the original statement from Cervantes in his 1615 book Don Quixote, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Our preconceived ideas can only be validated (or invalidated) by our experience. Though I thought buttermilk pancakes would be awful, my experience of a family in love taught me they were good.

That the proof of the pudding is in the eating is exactly what Jesus meant when he said, “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” Wisdom is one of God’s names and is featured in the Book of Proverbs which is attributed to Solomon. Proverbs opens with the statement that it was written “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.”[1]

Solomon saw Wisdom everywhere, writing a few verses later, “Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks…[2]

But what is this wisdom that is proved right by her deeds? How do we define it? The Greek word we translate as wisdom is “sophia.” The cognitive meanings of sofia are “cleverness, skill, common sense, and knowledge.” Dictionary.com gives as its first definition for wisdom “the quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.” So, to be wise is to both know what to do and how to do it.

More Godly wisdom is what we need in our world. We need to know both what to do and how to do it in our relationships, our parenting, our jobs, our politics, in all our lives. Wisdom is the remarkable ability to know what is the right question or action. Wisdom is the characteristic of those we seek and trust for counsel. Wisdom is what will save us from the foolishness that inevitably leads to our destruction. So how do we get the wisdom we need?

In her book The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain, Barbara Strauch investigates, among other things about the brain, wisdom. Strauch notes that many of those who study the brain believe that wisdom is the product of knowledge, empathy and experience; and that, in fact, as the brain structure develops, it becomes wise, hence the association of wisdom with age.

Strauch quotes Elkhonon Goldberg, a professor of neurology who has long studied wisdom as a function of brain development. In his book The Wisdom Paradox he wrote (at the ripe age of 57): “Something rather intriguing is happening in my mind that did not happen in the past. Frequently, when I am faced with what would appear from the outside to be a challenging problem, the grinding mental computation is somehow circumvented, rendered, as if by magic, unnecessary. The solution comes effortlessly, seamlessly, seemingly by itself… I seem to have gained in my capacity for instantaneous, almost unfairly easy insight… Is it perchance that coveted attribute…wisdom?”[3]

Wisdom is not inborn. As beautiful as babies are, they don’t know to stay out of the fire. Wisdom develops as we age. It is the product of mind, heart and experience. None of the three alone can create wisdom, but by joining them together, wisdom sometimes “comes effortlessly, seamlessly, seemingly by itself,” and is ours. And what is truly wise will be proved in the eating of the pudding and justified by her deeds. That is, what is truly wisdom is vindicated in our experience of life.

Besides getting old, what can we do to nurture Wisdom in us? Strauch, looking at brain research, gives four suggestions:

1. Hang out with wise people
2. Study life
3. Exercise our bodies

We can expedite the development of wisdom in our hearts and minds by learning from the wise. And for me, there is none wiser than Jesus. I became a Christian because my heart and mind wanted to love like Jesus. I have remained a Christian because my experience in Christian worship (praising God with wise people), study (learning of God and life from wise people) and service (exercising wisdom for the salvation of the world) has been the best pudding I have ever eaten. If I have moments of “instantaneous insight or sudden discernment,” it is because God’s wisdom has chosen to teach and lead me. By worshipping the Wisdom of God, by studying Wisdom in scripture and life, and by serving wisdom with a compassionate heart, I am led to Wisdom. And Wisdom leads me to right thoughts and right action. She leads me to understanding, joy and peace. She leads me to servant love. She leads me back to Jesus.

As I look around the cosmos with the eyes of Jesus, Wisdom is everywhere. She is in the stars that somehow know how to become the stuff of earth and life. She is in molecules that somehow almost always know the right action to become life. She is in most every mother for her baby and most every father for his child. She can be found even in the chaos of politics. She is named in a prayer that is a staple of my life: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. But most fundamentally I find Wisdom in the flesh of Jesus; the way he taught, loved and lived.

But not everyone sees Wisdom. Like children who will not sing the song of joy because they think we eat too little or too much, they cannot see the wisdom in both John and Jesus, so they slowly die a cynic’s death, unable to know what is right, what is good, what is just and true, what they should do or how to do it, even though Wisdom’s grace is before them.

If you want to be wise, this is my advice: grow in the love of God and neighbor through worship, study and service. Hang out with those wise enough to worship God. for God is Wisdom. Study with those wise enough to study the word of God, particularly the words of Jesus, for Jesus is Wisdom made flesh. And give your life for servant love, for servant love is Wisdom in action. Practice worship, study and service and God will grow your brain to be wise.

Jesus is the Wisdom the world seeks and needs. I invite the world to taste this very fine pudding. It is as good as buttermilk pancakes.

Shalom and Amen.

[2] Proverbs 1:20-21

[3] quoted by Barbara Strauch in The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain, Viking Penguin, 2010, page 47