A sermon preached by the Revd Dr Trevor Jamison at Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church, North Shields, on 15 September, 2024
Proverbs 1:20-33; Mark 8:27-38
For technical reasons, there is no streamed version of this service
‘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: How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?’ (1:20-22)
We all like think that we are wise, or if not wise, then not unwise; at least, not most of the time. It’s often said that wisdom comes with age and experience, and in some cases that’s true, but it’s not true all of the time. If it were then my mother would never have been the habit of remarking, “there’s no fool like an auld fool.” After all, if wisdom always increased with chronological age some church congregations would be at near-genius level!
More than anything it’s change that undermines the perception that older persons are the wise ones. In less technologically-oriented societies, where the pace of change is slow, little is perceived to change: what’s happening now has happened before and it’s the ones who can remember how things were before, and can share that knowledge, who are the wise ones. Those who have been around the longest know the most, therefore they are looked to for wisdom, for guidance, when something comes along that the youngsters have never experienced before.
That’s not how things are in our twenty-first century western society, however, because our society is characterised much more by change than by continuity; and the driving force for much of this change is technological. When I was a secondary school some of my more technically minded fellow pupils were grappling with a new O-level in something called “computer studies.” This seemed in some to be connected with those chunky desktop calculator things that had recently begun to appear on the school desks of those who could afford them.
When I was at university I joined a tour of the room which contained the University computer (singular), and we were introduced to punch cards. By the time I started work a couple of years later not only were there computer stations at desks, but stand-alone computers were on offer from a company named after a type of fruit. Neither the university computer nor the early desktop models were as powerful, however, as the laptop currently on my ministerial desk, or even the phone located in my ministerial back pocket.
I’m not a technophobe, nor am I a technophile. I’ve been in at the introduction of computers to the workplace, but I am increasingly left behind as technological pace picks up just as my personal intellectual processing unit has been slowing down. Like many a person of my generation or older, when I am confronted with a technical problem I look to the younger generations for a solution. Such in-house technical support often comes along with a roll of the eyes and an audible sigh at my ignorance and ineptitude in connection with something that (apparently) “everyone knows.”
Technical knowledge and wisdom are not the same things, but it’s very hard to be wise about something if you do not understand it. And given how our society is built upon and dependent upon technology, which is ever changing and developing, then it is very hard for me to appear wise, or to offer wisdom to those (usually younger) persons who have a stronger grasp upon what’s going on in the metaverse.
And that brings me to the question about environmental challenges which face us and the rest of the world. Many of the significant environmental challenges that we face arise out of technologically connected causes. Many of the solutions which are offered have a similarly significant up to date technical component.
Climate change, for example, is happening. The pace of changes in the world’s climate is unprecedented. They have been caused by the use of technologies which arose in a previous era – the large scale industrial burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) for the purposes manufacturing, travel, and the generation of heat and light. All of these things we have experienced as good, but until recently we did not know the damage this would cause to the fabric of the planet with accompanying malign effects, which fall most heavily on those who possess least in the first place.
I notice, for example, that there is now a developing banana wine industry in Malawi. I’m not sure that I like the sound of banana wine, but maybe I’m just an old fogey. More seriously, farmers in Malawi have started producing banana wine because their banana crop, which previously they sold for eating, is ripening too quickly in the increasingly warm climate. They have been confronted with mountains of rotting bananas which they have been unable to get to the market in time. Fruit which rots, of course, is part of the way on the process to alcohol; hence banana wine,
The saying goes that if your life serves up lemons you should make lemonade. So I salute the farmers in a very poor country making the best of a challenging situation which has been brought about by a technologically caused climate crisis. Still, bananas into wine, food into alcohol? It’s less than perfect.
How then are we, many of us technologically challenged, to offer wisdom in a technologically run world? How can we offer a wisdom to the world so that, as it says in Proverbs, that although ‘waywardness kills the simple, and complacency of fools destroys them … those who listen [to divinely inspired wisdom] … will be secure and will live at ease without dread of disaster.’ (1:32, 33)
Yet there is a place in all of this for sharing a story which is about more than the technology. Frustrated scientists have discovered that there is a need for such storytelling, for a sharing of something that is recognised as wisdom. When it became apparent to scientists that there was a problem with the world’s climate and the causes lay with human activity they thought that the solution would be simple: share the data and show what was needed in terms of technical response. They soon found things that do not work that way, or at least that things were not as simple. People who were confronted with the facts became quite adept at ignoring them or even denying them. These responses were neither rational nor wise, but they were real for all of that.
Something more was needed in order to help human beings respond positively to a crisis. They needed to be told things in story form, not just in charts and equations. Hearing about actual farmers having to make wine rather than food has a lot more traction in the minds of many. And here’s where I think that our Christian story can also be helpful, offering a perspective upon the world and upon humankind that encourages us to respect this world and use our many wondrous technological powers with discipline and for the wider good.
And the story we have to offer is not about the Church – a relatively old institution in the eyes of a world full of youngsters – but about Jesus. That’s the focus of our Gospel reading this Sunday.
Jesus asks his disciples, ‘Who do people say that that I am?’ (8:27) Their initial response is to report how people try to fit Jesus into their religion as it has been experienced up to now – he’s John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the other prophets. (8:28) That sort of response does not satisfy Jesus: ‘But who do you say that I am?’ That brings Peter to the point of declaring him to be the Messiah, the Christ, the one sent by God for the salvation of the nation and the world. (8:29)
But Jesus’s conception of messiahship is not what Peter and the others have been expecting: ‘Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man (Jesus’s title for himself] must undergo great suffering and be rejected … and be killed, and after three days rise again.’ (8:31) Peter tries to talk Jesus out of what he sees as foolishness, but Jesus is absolutely determined that this how his story will work out, and he gives Peter a tremendous telling off: ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ (8:33)
Another way of putting that might have been that Peter was relying solely upon human wisdom for the way forward, rejecting divine wisdom in the process: ‘you have ignored all my counsel’ and now you will experience ‘my reproof’ as the divine Lady Wisdom from the Book of Proverbs might have put it. (1:25) Let’s consider this part of the story of Jesus, focusing on what he said about how God in God’s wisdom was choosing to work through his life, suffering, death and resurrection, and see what that says about the huge environmental challenges the world faces today.
The Jesus story tells us to be realistic about the human component in the challenges that face the world. Often, people will not react to situations in the best way. Jesus comes from God for the sake of the world and those with responsibility for leadership in the small part of the world where he lived, taught and ministered reacted negatively; they made him suffer and they killed him. We would be wise to recognise that there are powerful human forces in the world which do not care about the future of the planet just as long as their status is secure.
But the Jesus story also encourages us not to give up for God does not give up on the world, or upon humankind like you and me. Instead God intervenes, though not initially in some great work of power which would dwarf any power that technological humankind could achieve, either today or in the future. Instead, God chooses to work in and through a single human being whose words and actions transform the world.
This in turn reminds us to be hopeful. The Apostle Peter could not conceive of anything more awful than Jesus submitting to death. He even began to rebuke Jesus for suggesting it. But Peter had not been paying attention to the whole story that Jesus shared with the disciples. Yes, he would suffer, and be rejected, and be killed, but also ‘after three days rise again.’ (8:31) As far as God was concerned death was not going to be the last word in the story of Jesus; God’s ability to give life is greater than humankind’s to bring about death.
The environmental challenges that this world faces are great ones, They are tied up with technological issues, and technological changes make it hard for many of us to be seen as wise when we are perceived (perhaps with reason) as technical duffers.
But the last word does not lie with technology. It is found in the story of God’s love for the world. It’s a story that keeps us realistic about the challenges that human flaws pose to our very existence. It’s a story, though that also encourages us to action in imitation of a God who is active in Jesus Christ. It’s also a story that gives us ultimate hope because God’s love and life is greater than anything else in this world. So, as you enjoy and care for the planet be realistic, be active, and be hopeful – it’s the wise thing to do.