The Wisdom of the Elders in the Credit Crisis
Just received this in the church weekly update:
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The Wisdom of the Elders in the Credit Crisis
Last night I was at Big Hill Lodge - where I take a service once every six weeks or so early Thursday evenings (and thanks Candace for playing the piano for these!).
I read to them from the book of Proverbs and told them told them about the sod. That is the way that ancient Hebrew villages met each evening to deal with current events and pass along the wisdom of the elders.
The sod was the nightly gathering of the “elders” of the village/clan community in the public space of the Hebrew village.
The sod may be translated as the “circle”. That is, following a practice that seems to be consistent with many Mediterranean peoples, the most important meal of the day was taken at the end of the day about two hours before the sun set. The elders of the village would gather in the public area of the village. Here the elders would sit at the centre of the sod. The younger men would be further out. The men might later be joined later by the women of the village.
After the news of the day had been shared, the time would be given over to what might be called “entertainment” (although perhaps not in our sense of the word). That is, songs might be sung and proverbs exchanged, or created.
The sod did a number of important things. It entertained...providing a place for people to be creative. It dealt with practical situations and passed along the wisdom found in the ancient proverbs to the community - as people learned to deal skilfully (the Hebrew for wise also means “skilful”) with their lives. These ancient elders believed that through careful observation - they were able to discern the movements of God’s will in the universe - and to live skilfully. And to live skilfully was to live in harmony with God’s shalom - the unfolding order of the universe.
So last night I said to these folks, 'We have got this apparent financial crisis and some people are worried. You are the elders of our village - you have years of life experience and accumulated wisdom. This is a chance for you to speak it to the rest of us.'
One woman in the front row piped up immediately...“don’t spend what you don’t have”. This now seems like a pretty good piece of advice. I also said to them, maybe you would say things like “this too shall pass”, “when you are on your death bed you will not be thinking about how much money you made”, “if you have food and shelter and people who love you everything else is a bonus”. This seemed to receive some assent. I wish I had had more time to listen the wisdom of that sod - but here I was needing to be too many places to be at one time - that is not good.
In the great scheme of things God’s constant care remains with us. We have infinitely greater resources that most people in the world. God continues to call us to give thanks for what we have. His order and beauty underlie the world. He continues to call us to be faithful and to be generous and if we are He will honour us. And we should take times like this to consider what is truly important. All these insights are found in the wisdom of the ancient sod...the wisdom of the Hebrew elders. And our own elders would agree.
Greg
