Proper 6

June 16, 2024            Proper 6         Proverbs 3:1-12                                       The Rev. John Reese

Being a good dad doesn’t come easily.

Being the kind of dad whose kids will one day remember him with fondness and joy is hard work. Being the kind of dad who, although being far from perfect, still manages to love and lead his children well is no easy task. Being the kind of dad who knows just when to firmly say, ‘Walk it off’ to his son and when to put his pride aside and play princesses with his little girl is tough stuff. Being the kind of father that every little girl wants to one day walk her down the aisle and that every little boy wants to be like when he’s bigger takes a ton of work.

In a book titled, The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man. Brett and Kate McKay, a husband-and-wife team, offer a treasure-trove, a veritable man-cave full of useful, guy-oriented insights that they claim will help men embrace the waning art of the truly masculine existence. It includes everything from long-lost survival skills to insights on developing one’s character, and advice on navigating sticky social situations. The authors contend that each is a tried and tested skill, honed and handed down from true, manly men, like Benjamin Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt.

For example, Brett and Kate believe that many men today are restless, unfulfilled and depressed, living lives, as Thoreau once said, of “quiet desperation.” The reason, they argue, is simple. Men have forgotten how to engage in a sense of adventure via nature. Being outdoors gives men a chance to enjoy unstructured exploration; it invigorates the body and puts a man’s problems into perspective, they say. The authors then go on to instruct and advise on everything from finding a campsite (best to do it online and in advance), setting up a tent (erect it on a tarp and toward the wind), and digging a latrine (they suggest a trench about a foot wide and 3 to 4 feet long).

Now, before you scoff at someone writing a how-to book on being a man, keep in mind that such books are actually part of a long heritage. It’s a heritage of “how-to” wisdom that we even find represented in God’s word.

In fact, today we hear from the Book of Proverbs, arguably the first book of such sage advice. In Chapter 3 the writer, a father himself, is offering his son a lesson in something that applies to each of us, man or not. The father is extolling his son in something deeper than lessons on camping, shaving, and choosing the right cuff links. In Proverbs 3 his son, and we, get a lesson on godliness – the art of walking closely with our Creator.

It’s clear from his words that, like being a great dad, a life of godliness doesn’t come easy. But it does come down to a handful of practices and attitudes that any man or woman can spend their days readily embracing. First, says the father, godliness is grounded in an attitude of unrelenting love. At the heart of the Hebrew faith was a belief in Yahweh’s chesed, often translated as “steadfast love.” It’s the idea that God’s love for his people never gives up or fades away. It’s a belief that the goodness of God, although at times shrouded in seasons of struggle or pain, is always in hot pursuit of the people of God.

The godly person then is one who, having been transformed by such unending love from God, displays a faithful, unrelenting love for others. He writes, “Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them round your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart.”

Godliness, it seems, is first and foremost a God-shaped inner integrity. It’s a divinely inspired attitude that drives you to be quick to forgive and ready to reconcile, as well as to be the kind of husband, wife or friend who refuses to run but instead fights for the future of the relationship.

In verses 5 to 8 the father continues the inward focus on the art of godliness and tells us that a truly godly person will not only have an attitude of unrelenting love for others, but also an intellectual humility about himself or herself. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” he says.

And “do not rely on your own insight.” It may sound simple, but a key skill for the godly is a refusal to believe that he or she already has all the answers. Truly godly people are going to be aware of their limitations and not just submit themselves to the wisdom of others, but first to the will and wisdom of God. This means that the art of godliness is also the art of prayer, where we make our needs known to him.

It’s the art of studying the Scriptures, where we submit ourselves to the truths he has revealed. It’s the art of repentance, where we actively turn from our prideful idolatries in all their forms and lay hold of the unrelenting love and wisdom and goodness of God in Christ.

As he continues, the father now shifts away from inward attitudes and puts his focus on how a godly person approaches one of the stickiest issues we face as human beings: the stewardship of our belongings. Too often we wrongly attach far too much of our identity and personal peace to the accumulation of inanimate objects. We attach far too much worry and worship to seemingly big things, like the amount of money we have in the bank and arguably minor things as well.

The godly, however, are different. The godly are those who have begun, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to reverse the effects of our inborn hoarder mentality. Specifically, the godly have discovered the joy of being generous toward the things of God and worshipfully submitting their stuff to God’s will. “Honor the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce,” writes the father. Doing so, he asserts, unlocks real satisfaction.

The godly person knows this. He or she has realized that when, through the tithe, one consecrates his stuff as having come from God, one is set free from the enslaving, idolatrous attitude that our possessions are God. A life lived in the art of godliness is a life lived in financial generosity toward the work of the kingdom and the needs of others. A life lived in the art of godliness is a life where one’s heart is attached to and anchored in the unshakable, life-giving things of God because one’s stuff is being leveraged for the work of God.

After all, as Jesus once said, “Where your treasure is, there is your heart.”

Lastly, the writer of Proverbs gives us one description of the godly life that seems particularly appropriate on this Father’s Day. The godly realize that God is sovereignly molding and shaping their lives, even to the point of correcting us. The godly embrace, and do not despise, divine discipline, knowing that, “the Lord reproves the one he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights” (Proverbs 3:12).

As much as we’d like to live our lives writing our own rules, devoid of correction or consequence, it simply doesn’t work that way in the family of God. Through faith in Jesus as your forgiver and reconciler, we’ve been brought into the family of God, and as such the Father

in heaven has become, well, our Father. And like any good dad, he gets a say in our lives, and will discipline us – not punish us, there’s a difference – when life gets too far off his intended path. The godly will not hold this against God, but wisely see it as evidence of the love of God.

God is not cruel when God disciplines us. No, God would be cruel if God left us alone. But God doesn’t do that. God is at work in our struggles, using them to refine us through fire and chisel, through brokenness and repentance, to draw us back to his word, his ways, and his Son, Jesus Christ.

As part of God’s family, the godly realize that there is purpose in pain, not punishment, and that very often God will allow us to hit rock bottom so we will realize that God is the Rock at the bottom.

Godliness, like manliness and fatherliness, is no easy task. Thankfully, God grades all three on a curve.

Thank you to all those fathers for embracing the manly ways in which they have loved so well. They deserve a day of doing whatever they like – even if it’s falling asleep on the couch with two remote controls and an empty plate once covered in nachos perfectly balanced on their bellies. Now that’s manly!

Embrace the art of walking closely with the Creator. Pursue the art of godliness. Be a people of unrelenting love and intellectual humility, the kind of people who steward our stuff for God’s purposes and refuse to despise the Lord’s discipline.

That’s a life that will make our Father quite proud.