"How to be healthy, wealthy and wise"
August 17, 1997
I Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14/John 6:51-58
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"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy,wealthy and wise," so says Benjamin Franklin's 'PoorRichard.' James Thurber, the wonderful American humorist, wouldtake Poor Richard and twist him around a bit in his "Fablesfor Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated." There in thestory of the "chipmunks and the shrike" (a shrike is apredatory bird) he sets up a situation where an artisticlay-a-bed chipmunk manages to avoid being devoured through hissloppiness. Eventually, his mate convinces him to getout-and-about and they're breakfast for the shrike. The proverbThurber gives? "Early to rise and early to bed makes a malehealthy and wealthy and dead."1
So, who's right? Well, let's put it this way, we're talkingabout a "lifestyle" issue here. Remember when that wordfirst hit the American vocabulary in the 1970s? While it's arelatively neutral term, the advertising media certainly loadedit with the image of the young, "beautiful people,"financially well-off and able to live "the good life."That's worn a bit thin now, though still present, along with"alternative lifestyles." Suffice it to say, theScripture offers a different perspective on the search forhealth, wealth and wisdom which goes far beyond either of theproverbs, the concern for lifestyle or our habits of resting andrising. It's actually a question of understanding and of choice.As Paul tells the Ephesian Christians, "Be careful how youlive." Everything about who we are as Christians rests inthose arenas, especially that of choice. We choose to respond toGod's gracious invitation to share life in Christ. That response,on our part, also carries with it implications -- as do anychoices or decisions (remember the old saw, "you can't haveyour cake and eat it, too"?). As a Christian, we choose anapproach to life -- we declare a "lifestyle," if youwill.
The question before us, then, is how do we become healthy,wealthy and wise in a manner which conforms to the call of God tous?
First, to be healthy. The Oxford English Dictionary tells usthat 'healthy' means: "Possessing or enjoying good health;hale or sound in body, so as to be able to discharge allfunctions efficiently." It's fascinating to realize that theword "health" shares its roots with the words"whole" and "holy." Health implies anintegration -- wholeness -- and this, the Christian faith haslong taught, involves holiness too. To be holy is not to be aplaster saint, or pious beyond belief. The truly holy person isthe one who is in touch with both the vertical and horizontaldimensions of life -- life lived toward God and toward others.
To be at the center of those dimensions, to be healthy we mustbe in touch with who we are. This involves humility -- which isnot the stuff of Dickens's Uriah Heep ("I am so very'umble."), rather it's being grounded, knowing ourselves,our strengths and our weaknesses. Thomas Merton said thathumility consists "in being precisely the person youactually are before God."2 Truly being healthy, then, is notjust the stuff of physicality, how our bodies function or not.Being healthy is becoming an authentic human person -- a personin God.
When Jesus was speaking to the crowd at Capernaum about the"bread of life," he was talking about filling thehunger to be really human. You see, humans aren't human apartfrom the Godward dimension -- we lack something vital when God isnot part of our lives. It's like someone who exercises and doesall the right things and, because they're not eating the rightthings, falls ill. Jesus uses crude language when he says"unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink hisblood, you have no life in you." No doubt the people thoughthe was talking about cannibalism! Certainly, the Romans thoughtthat's what the Christians were up to when they heard this kindof language. But, Jesus does this to make a strong point --strong points need strong language. Unless we're taken up intohis life, we're not really living. The way we get that life is bypartaking of him, the Greek word here is the word for"munch" and is used to bring home the reality of whatwe're supposed to be about. When we come to holy communion, whenwe feast on his Word we have been nourished properly; then we canbe what we're supposed to be, authentic human beings.
So, to be truly healthy we must first rest, abide in Godthrough Jesus Christ, which provides the understanding we need.
Second, to be wealthy. Here the OED tells us that wealthymeans: "Possessing well-being, happy, prosperous." Theword is derived from the word 'weal' which, in turn, is derivedfrom 'well.' To most, wealthy simply means the very last thing:prosperous. Wealth is considered only to be in the realm ofpossessions, though it goes beyond it by far. There are many whohave much and yet are not happy.
Daniel Juniper tells the story of a well- beloved king whogrew gravely ill. All the doctors in the kingdom exhaustedthemselves in trying cure him and couldn't. Finally, a strangelittle man wandered into town and said, "All the king needsto do is to wear the shirt of a happy man and he'll becured." The search was on. First they went to the nobles --surely they had to be happy. But the nobles were obsessed withthe business of government, their children ignored them, theirwives nagged them for more and more wealth, they paid expensivetuition for knight-in-shining-armor school where the kids partiedand, to top it all off, the serfs' union was in an uproar. No onehappy there. The middle class must be happy, the searchersthought, not too much, not too little, just enough. But the timeswere strained -- the recession was recessing and the depressionwas depressing. The stresses of business impacted familylife...no one happy there, either. "Ah, the peasants,"they said, "they have no worries. They must be happy!"Here the searchers found people even more depressed: the trickledown had trickled out and there was barely enough to get by. Thehearty peasants were hardly hearty...and their wives and childrenwere on them for more and more ("Why can't we be like themiddle class?" "Why don't you go to work for someduke?"). Even among the peasants...no one was happy. Gloomsettled over the kingdom. Finally, one day the Crown Prince wasout hunting and he heard: "I've had a bit of bread, a sliceof cheese, a touch of fruit. What more could one want? I'm trulyhappy!" "GET THAT MAN'S SHIRT!," he cried. Rushingto a ramshackle hut his companions broke down the door anddiscovered a ragged little man who smiled and them...and wore noshirt. He was so poor and so happy he hadn't even noticed.
Solomon knew that happiness is not the same as possessions andthe wealth he sought was "an understanding heart." Paultold the new Christians at Ephesus to live in a manner accordingto their call, in other words acting with joy and generosity.
This is not to say that possessions are evil -- they're thingsand as such only have the value we place on them. The Puritansunderstood this well. William Perkins wrote, "These earthlythings are the good gifts of God, which no man can simplycondemn, without injury to God's disposing hand and providence,who had ordained them for natural life."3 He also addressedthe situation of judging the appropriateness of someone'sstandard of living:
We must not make one measure of sufficiency of goods necessary
for all persons, for it varies according to the diverseconditions of
persons, and according to time and place. More things arenecessary
to a public person than to a private; and more to him that hasa charge
than to a single man.4
The issue at stake in learning to be wealthy in the right wayis knowing right use. That is, coming to understand how to havepossessions without being had by them.
So, for the Christian, true wealth is being able to live in aright manner. Again, it's a question of choice and we are calledupon to do the right thing because we have come to be in theright way. Again, our Puritan forebears can teach us somethingabout the ethics of well-being. "We must thereforethink," wrote John Knewstub, "that when we come tobuying and selling, we come to witness our love towards ourneighbor by our well dealing with him in his goods."5 I alsolike what Perkins wrote, "The end of a man's calling is notto gather riches for himself. . . but to serve God in the servingof man, and in the seeking the good of all men."6
I would venture to say that, as a Christian, to be healthy isto be possessed of the knowledge of God, of self, and of othersin a lively way -- to be truly human. To be wealthy is to havethe ability to use what one has, beginning with the threefoldknowledge, in the proper way. To be wise is our third point ofdiscovery.
Again, working from the definition, 'wise' is defined in theOED as: "Having or exercising sound judgment or discernment,capable of judging truly what is right or fitting, and disposedto act accordingly; having the ability to perceive and adopt thebest means for accomplishing an end; characterized by good senseand prudence." It's origins are Old English and Old German,a marvelous word whose denotative meaning has been lost in allthe connotations of being 'wise' (like 'wise guy,' 'worldly wise'or 'street wise'). Our technologically oriented society,unfortunately, doesn't place the emphasis on being wise itshould. I think T.S. Eliot catches this in one of his 'FourQuartets' entitled 'The Dry Salvages':
The moments of happiness -- not the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfillment, security or affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination --
We had the experience, but missed the meaning,
And approach to the meaning restores the experience
In a different form, beyond any meaning
We can assign to happiness.7
"We had the experience, but missed the meaning,"could apply in so many areas of our lives. Look around and theemphasis is on experiences, the more of them the better. Yet,what good is an experience which has no meaning? Wisdom givesmeaning to experience.
Solomon didn't ask for long life, for riches, for the lives ofhis enemies, he asked for an understanding heart, the ability todiscern what was right. When God gave him that gift, the abilityto appreciate the meaning, then he could also receive the gift ofthe experience. Paul's counsel to the Ephesians is the same:"Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but aswise, making the most of the time...So do not be foolish, butunderstand what the will of the Lord is." He's not askingthem just to be decent people or to have common sense, he'scalling them to a whole new perspective on life which comes as aresult of their new experience, new meaning, new life in Godthrough Jesus Christ.
Part of this perspective is taking on new priorities -- God'spriorities. The great temptation we face is "living as ifthere was no tomorrow," that is living in a me-centeredsense of the now. Paul is reminding us that God's priorities arewhat matter, and what give meaning, to how we use the time we'vebeen given. The central priority is doing the will of God --living as he would have us live. How do we discern, or come toknow this will? Well, there are many means at our disposal:Scripture, tradition, history, experience, the example of others,reason, and prayer. The one living wisely will utilize all thesemeans in a manner which makes us "capable of judging what istruly right or fitting, and disposed to act accordingly."
The key to using these means is found where Paul says "befilled with the Spirit." The presence and the power of theHoly Spirit is what makes the Christian wise -- for the Spirit isthe sophia, the wisdom of God. God's Spirit enlivens and enablesthe body of the believers, the Church, and every individualbeliever to be faithful. We can offer worship and thanksgiving toGod in the Spirit, live thankful, wise lives through the Spiritbecause the Spirit continues within us the intimacy of DivinePresence. As one commentary has put it:
The wise life is lived in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.The ability to name the divine in intimate terms, because God hasactually been revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ, givesus a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, which actuallymeans that we live our lives under the lordship of Christ. God'stime, God's will, and God's Spirit can be as real, or more realto us than we are to ourselves, because these matters arepersonal in Jesus Christ. We live wisely as Christians through arelationship with Jesus Christ, who -- more than abstract notionsof the divine and more than the formal requirements of a moralsystem-- is ours as friend and family in all dimensions of life.8
As Jesus said, "those who eat my flesh and drink my bloodabide in me, and I in them."
To be wise, then, gives us the ability to discern that we arehealthy and wealthy. Without wisdom all we have is experience,meaning is lost to us. We become wise by participating in God'swisdom, which is revealed in Jesus and made present through theHoly Spirit and which comes to us when we enter into God'scovenant of grace.
It's a matter of understanding and choice. We come tounderstand what God offers and choose to accept it and liveaccordingly. Governor John Winthrop wrote in his diary:
I made a new covenant with the Lord, which was thus: Of mypart, that I would reform these sins by His grace: pride,covetousness, love of this world, vanity of mind, unthankfulness,sloth, both in His service and in my calling, not preparingmyself with reverence and uprightness to come to His Word. Of theLord's part, that He would give me a new heart, joy in HisSpirit, that He would dwell with me, that He would strengthen meagainst the world, the flesh, and the devil, that He wouldforgive my sins and increase my faith.10
Winthrop was a wise man. He understood: openness of heart andrightness of choice makes a Christian healthy, and wealthy, andwise. Amen.
1James Thurber The Thurber Carnival (New York:Dell, 1962), p. 287.
2Thomas Merton New Seeds of Contemplation (NewYork: New Directions, 1961), p. 99.
3William Perkins Works quoted in Leland RykenWorldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Grand Rapids:Zondervan, 1990), p. 70.
4Perkins in Ryken, p. 70.
5John Knewstub Ninth Lecture on the TwentiethChapter of Exodus in Ryken, p. 69.
6William Perkins Of the Cases of Conscience inRyken, p. 69.
7T.S. Eliot, "The Dry Salvages," inFour Quartets (New York:Harvest/HarcoutBraceJovanovich, 1971), p.39.
8Marion Soards, et. al Preaching the RevisedCommon Lectionary, After P
entecost 'B' (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), p.163.
9John Winthrop Winthrop Papers in Ryken , p. 19