What do you think of when I say wise person?  When I think wise person, certain images come to mind,. A grandmother sitting in a rocking chair on a porch dispensing advice about love, or recipes. A gray-haired man, perhaps with wire frame glasses and a beard telling me to open a savings account.

When I imagine a wise person, I picture someone with a lot of money or at least someone who should have a lot of money.  After all, it only seems right that wisdom be rewarded with wealth.  How much they have should be in direct proportion to their wisdom.  A wise person should be someone who can make shrewd financial decisions.  Implicit in that idea is its converse, that anyone without money must somehow be foolish, or have made unwise decisions.

Anyone ever watch “Mad Money” with Jim Cramer?  For anyone who hasn’t, it is a real trip.  Cramer gives out stock advice on his show, but he does it with such over-the-top energy and bravado that he is actually able to get a left-brained person like me to watch and be entertained.  Depending on whether his advice has made one money or not, a person might describe him as wise.  He imparts a particular wisdom to his audience, quite simply, if it makes money, it’s a good choice.

A couple of weeks ago, with all his characteristic “boo-yahs” thrown chairs and animated bulls, he recommended a new stock to his audience.   It was a company that owned a chain of pawn shops, sort of a Wal-Mart of hock, that was opening across the South.  The reason this was a growth stock, Cramer advised, is because the South is facing some hard times.  Hurricane Katrina displaced many people and left them jobless, while others were overextending themselves in debt.  That kind of financial pressure leads to desperation and desperation means good business for pawn shops!  “I know this may bother some of you,” he said, “Making money off the misfortune of others.  But I am not here to make you friends.  I am here to make you money.”

As far as stock tips go, that was probably wise advice.  In a world where profit is ultimate arbiter of wisdom, this kind of cold unflinching wisdom makes him a veritable sage.  Yet as I heard it, something in me cringed.  It was like that feeling Luke Skywalker had in “Return of the Jedi” when he looks down at his mechanical hand and wonders what he is becoming. 

What kind of wisdom encourages us to profit off of those who suffer in order to fulfill our ambitions?  The Letter of James calls it “worldly wisdom.”  It will get you ahead in the world.  But it won’t get you ahead with God.  James says it is unspiritual and even demonic.  The hallmarks of this so-called wisdom are two traits that are sadly familiar to all of us ­ envy and selfish ambition.  These twin evils are at the heart of all human conflict, disorder and even murder.

I’m sure Jim Cramer is probably a nice enough guy and doesn’t endorse strife and murder.  He merely reflects the common ­ wisdom - of our time.  So think about it.  The prevailing wisdom of our time, the wisdom of getting, is in fundamental conflict with God’s wisdom.  If you don’t get this, you won’t get the fundamental principle of following Jesus.  If you want to get it, here it is.  Getting it is not about getting.

Now most of us do not see ourselves as envious or self-ambitious people.  Envious people are stereotypical surburbanites who eye their neighbor’s car or lawn tractor with covetous disdain.  Self-ambitious people are those who blatantly step on others to further themselves on the corporate or social ladder.  We comfort ourselves with the notion that the envious and self-ambitious are the kind of people who do evil and flaunt it openly.  And of course, those kind of people are never us.

Another reason, we are hesitant to describe ourselves as envious is that it might imply someone else has something we want, but that we cannot have.  We don’t want to do that because that might imply that we are not as financially well off or self-determining as we would like to be.  We never think of ourselves as self-ambitious since, after all, we just want what is rightfully ours.  We are simply reclaiming the good things that life should have given us in the first place.

Whining, “I want what they have! I deserve it!”  Only spoiled children make such exclamations.  Right?

A few years ago, I had a seemingly impossible goal in mind for my family.  It was a vision I had that would often flash into my head at night, an inspiring dream of what our family life could be.  It was the Holy Grail of exburbian life.  I was determined to get both of our cars into the garage.  That means cleaning out the garage.

Cleaning out your garage can be a voyage of self-discovery.  As I began this bottomless pit of a Saturday chore, I first had to deal with my kids old toys.  Some were Christmas presents from years past.  You know, the ones you have to go from store to store to find.  It was the toy they wanted, the thing they had to have.  It was the toy everyone wanted so you went to Toys R Us where the shelf where it was supposed to be was empty.  But you managed to find one hidden in the wrong aisle. Now that toy sits in the garage, crushed under snow saucers and old newspapers.  Man, kids can be so materialistic.  Give me. Give me. Give me.

I finally got most of the garage cleaned out ­ except for one large item ­ our old couch.  I remembered what a big deal it was when Pam and I bought it.  It was the late eighties or what I like to think of as our seafoam and peach period.  We just got married, bought a condo and set out to furnish it.  We got a department store credit card and probably spent more than we should on this oversized peach couch.  We had to have it.  So we spent the money we didn’t have and put it in our ridiculously small living room.  It took over the place.  Apparently the model unit in Phase IV had miniature furniture. 

The years went by.  The couch went through two dogs and their bladder problems.  Three kids and their associated bodily functions.  Now it sat in my garage.  Mocking me and thwarting my dream of two cars in the garage.  It was like the great peach whale.  Since it was too cold for a garage sale, I was stuck with it.  My big dream would have to wait.  The thing I once wanted so badly was now the thing I hated. The furniture that I thought was going to set the tone for our new home, was now just taking up space.  You don’t have be a kid to say it.  Give me. Give me. Give me.

Sure that was only a couch, but what is it you want most right now?  What is the thing you desire so much? Why do you want it?  What’s your motivation?  Is it because someone else has something just like it?  Why do they have it?  That’s something I should have?  Any chance the thing you want now may one day become the old pee-stained couch in your garage that you just can’t wait to get rid of?

The things that make us envious, the things we crave but cannot obtain, they are not always materialistic.  The insidious thing about envy is that it goes much deeper than that.  It destroys relationships between people, nations, (how many wars have been fought because one country wanted something that belonged to another country) between humans and the Creation.

I have a friend who when she was a little girl, was a talented gymnast.  When she was still in elementary school, the cheerleaders from the middle school in her town asked her to be their mascot.  So she would perform with the older girls in their cheerleading routines. My friend told me she began noticing that the kids in her own school started behaving differently toward her.  They began teasing her and telling inside jokes about her.  Eventually she was so upset by this that she quit performing with the older cheerleaders.  She went to her mother in tears and her mother passed along the kind of wisdom that only mothers can impart.  She said, “Don’t worry honey.  They’re just jealous.”

This is why one of the Ten Commandments is not to covet anything that belongs to someone else.  The wisdom of the Jewish people knew that envy was opening the door to all kinds of maliciousness and hurtful behavior.  The Letter of James, firmly rooted in that Jewish Wisdom tradition, tells us, “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.”

As we get older, it’s no longer cheerleading.  It’s houses, cars, stock portfolios, friends, achievements, money and recognition.  Is there someone in your that you just hate?  You know the kind of person I mean.  Everything about them drives you crazy.  You just can’t stand them.

Any chance they have more money than you?  A better marriage?  Do their kids have more accomplishments than yours?  Is it possible that your anger is rooted in wanting what they have?

Conventional wisdom tells us that desire and ambition are good.  They help us get ahead.  They empower us to get the things we need to be happy.  Oh really? 

If that is true, I have to wonder why as I look around at our immediate community, I don’t see two different communities one wealthy and one broken.  Instead, I look at your life and at mine and I wonder how it is possible to cram so much money and yet so much dysfunction into the same house.  How can there be so much wealth and brokenness existing in the same homes?  How can we have so much junk and yet be carrying around so much ­ junk?  Let me put it bluntly, the reason we have so much crap in our lives is that we have too much crap!  We care more about the health of our stock portfolio than the health of our relationships.  In our desire to have our exquisite luxury home we often end up with exquisite dysfunction.

The wisdom of James, the wisdom of Jesus, the wisdom of God provides us with a way out.  When our lives are all about our needs, what we want, what we desire, somehow we never get what we want and are never happy.  The way of Jesus reorients us to another path. 

In the past few months I have had some disturbing conversations about Vision. I was alarmed to discover that some people have the impression that Vision is all about doing whatever you want.  They think you can do whatever you want in worship, believe whatever you want, live your life in whatever way you want.  Somehow they had the impression that since we encourage questioning and dialogue that anything goes.  Since we have coffee and bagels that it’s not “really” a church and I can just behave any way I want in worship.  It’s such a great place, you don’t even have to go there on Sunday.  Now I have never preached that.  But that’s what they hear.  In short, they perceive this church as giving them what they want.  Nothing can be further from the truth.

As a pastor, my role is not to give you what you want.  This church is not here to give you what you want. Even God is not here to give you what you want.  The purpose of any church, including this one, is not to give you what you want.  The reason we are informal, or have video clips, or a band, or that I don’t speak in church language is not to entertain people or give them what they want.  At Vision, we do those things so that we can remove all the communication barriers that get in the way of you hearing God’s message. Are you all with me?  Do you understand the difference?

The purpose of church is not even for us to give others what they want, or even need.   There are numerous charitable organizations that give us opportunities to put others first. Not that the church should not be doing those things, but charitable organizations can help the needy as well as anyone can. 

So if Vision is not about what I want and it’s not about the wants of others, what is the purpose of the church? At Vision, we are here so that you can discover what God wants.  What God wants for you, for those around you and for the whole world.  God’s desire is for us to at peace with God, with one another and with God’s creation.  God’s desire is for us to live God’s way ­ not our way.

That is the “wisdom from above” of which James speaks when he says, “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”

God’s wisdom is radically different from that of the world.  It is revolutionary and countercultural.  Remember a few weeks ago we explored how James said we can’t be friends with the world and friends with God.  And by friendship with the world James meant adopting its value system.  This is what James was talking about.

The conventional wisdom of the world often spins the demonic forces of envy and selfishness into seemingly harmless and lofty concepts like “discovering yourself,” “having your needs met” or “getting what you deserve.”  But through James, God warns us that when our choices spring from our own desires, our needs and our ambitions, the result is often conflict, chaos and strife.

So we must ask ourselves today, if we find ourselves in a conflict, if we are experiencing broken relationships, isolation and anger, where is it coming from?  If we take some time to quiet our minds in prayer and examine ourselves truthfully, is the source of our problems wanting something we don’t have?  Is our envy the source of our misery?

If it is, I invite us to try the wisdom transplant James suggests.  Replace the world’s wisdom with God’s wisdom.  Why not reframe the questions of our lives and ask not “What do I want in this situation?” but “What does God want?”

How do we know what God wants?  We discover it in our relationship with Christ, as we explore the Bible in our small groups, or hear God’s word preached here on Sunday morning, or worship here and experience God.   That’s why it is important to be here.  We uncover what God wants for us as we share with one another and guide one another in our small groups. That’s why it is important to join one.  We live out what God wants for us when we serve others, not on our own, but through this church and supporting this church.   That’s why it’s important to serve here and get involved.

What God is not always going to be agreeable, easy, comfortable  or convenient.  It’s not “What do I want” but “What does God want?”  Sometimes those can be the same.  But when they are not, the church says, our church says, follow Jesus.  In other words, put aside what you want and instead live the life that God wants for you.