Strong and Smart?
Ministerial Meandering
Strong and smart?
In 1978, Dean Friedman released a song that he recorded with Denise Marsa called ‘Lucky Stars’. There is a refrain in it that goes; ‘And we can thank our lucky stars that we aren’t as smart as we’d like to think we are.’
I remember feeling somehow reassured by the words as they allowed me to relax and stop trying so hard. It’s a strange song because the refrain really has nothing to do with the rest of the lyrics, which are about a jealous wife questioning her husband who has just met up with an old flame.
However, being smart or clever isn’t all that wonderful. It gets you into all sorts of trouble, and the cleverer you think you are, the more likely you are to make a fool of yourself. I may have written about this before, but I had a colleague who was on the same residency programme as me; he had a boss who said to him once; ‘The man who knows what he doesn’t know is a man of power.’
Certainly, I find as I grow older that I am more aware of the tiny amount of knowledge I actually have, within the vast expanse that is out there. When Jesus found his disciples asking for more and more information, he would say to them; ‘It is not for you to know the times and the seasons.’
I have known a number of people - some have been good friends at one time or another - who have had a seriously high opinion of themselves. How easy it is to get into that position if we begin to believe what people may say of us! Of course, they may say the complete opposite of what we want to hear, but ‘a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear;’ (1 Tim 4:3,4. NLT)
Most of us don’t go around with a group of toadies and sycophants drooling obsequious flatteries into our ears, but we nevertheless have a pretty elevated estimate of our own intellectual prowess - if we allow it to take root. That would be a big mistake.
As many of you know, I love to disagree with some of the apostle Paul’s writings - and I know that I am far from alone in this exercise. However, there are parts of his epistles that I find remarkably (and unusually) humble. I like, for example, the fact that he says he hasn’t got it all right yet; ‘Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.’
He is at pains to tell his readers that he isn’t there yet; ‘Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize…’
Paul also tells us that he has ‘a thorn in his flesh’, which he has asked the Lord three times to have removed - without relief. In what way this weakens him is not clear, and speculation is ultimately unhelpful, but the admission of what appears to sound like a physical weakness is also helpful to us; ‘But he (the Lord) said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’
In the same way, Paul is at pains to tell us that he is unable to explain all things, and that he is not an orator; ‘For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.’
I am not suggesting that we should deny our achievements, but just be cautious about telling them abroad. There is always someone who knows more than we do, and who is more capable and resilient. I only have to have a moment in my week - as I did this morning - to remind me of my precarious mental powers.
I went to the bakery, and after coming out with Sheila’s muffins, I went to my car and got into it - on the passenger side - and sat there wondering why someone had moved the steering wheel, looking about me, and holding the ignition key impotently in my hand. I can only pray that this was not caught on CCTV.
I also went to a gym - to see if I wanted to join it. In a passageway behind the main exercise rooms lay an enormous dumbbell. No problem, I thought, and bent to lift it - I think it was a compressed elephant; it didn’t budge - I was glad it was dark, so no-one had to see what a fool I had made of myself.
So I’ll settle for being a cross between Clark Kent and Garfield today.
Philip+