prudence

by Rev. Mark J.T. Caggiano, February 7, 2010

Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11

With just two weeks remaining before the beginning of Lent, there are only two more sermons in my series on virtue. I have enjoyed the intellectual discipline of seeking out virtuous meaning within the scriptures. But I must confess a certain measure of anxiety as I approached this particular Sunday. This mild dread did not arise because of the difficulty of the subject matter or the thorny areas of theology I would need to traverse. No, it was for an entirely different reason. The virtue we will examine today is Prudence and it is at first glance perhaps the most boring virtue of all.

Prudence is the exercise of sound judgment in practical affairs. It is the capacity to assess situations and to discern the proper and virtuous conduct that should be brought to bear. Still sounds boring.

To use a sports analogy, prudence appears upon the field of play to be sure. But it is not embodied in the players or even the coaches on the sidelines. Prudence is the referee, the one who watches carefully for foul play; the one who whistles activity to a stop and at times issues penalties for improper conduct. Sometimes, we get angry with the referee because he or she is slowing things down. Are you blind?! That was perfectly okay, especially because it helped my favorite team. Why would you slow down a great moment with such a petty criticism? Why would you put the brakes on when the game is going so well for me?

Remember the role of the referee. It is one of neutrality and fairness. It requires an understanding of the rules of play and a sense of justice in their application. Fans, players and coaches are often upset at the officials because they decide against them, against their team. But teams are not inherently good. Coaches and players are not always interested in fair play, but in winning at any cost. An entire era of baseball has been marked with an asterisk. It is unclear who played fairly and who succumbed to steroid use to gain the upper hand on the way to the Hall of Fame.

The Winter Olympics will be starting up very soon. Historically these games have been a hallmark of international sport and peaceful coexistence. But they have also be the excuse for ingenious forms of cheating. In order to lift up a nation’s pride, generations of young men and women have been subjected to harsh training and dangerous drugs. Children, some very young, are spirited away to training facilities, far from parents and siblings. Steroids and human growth hormones and even alleged gene alteration are used to give advantage to people on the field of play. Are these referees, these judges bad people because they spoil the plans for cheating? We need fairness. We need people watching to make sure things are as they should be based on the agreed set of rules. In this same way, we need prudence.

Our first reading was from the Book of Isaiah.

"Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out."

Isaiah is recounting his revelation of standing before the very throne of the Lord God. In the presence of this magnificence, this manifestation of all that is good and right, Isaiah finds that he is lacking. He does not consider himself worthy to go forth as a prophet of the Lord. He does not think he could possibly be worthy to speak the word of God to the people of God. The seraph, or six-winged angel, comes down with a red hot coal from the altar brazier and touches Isaiah’s lips, burning away the weight of his sin and his sense of inadequacy.

The reading from the Gospel of Luke is quite similar. Jesus is teaching to the multitudes and to be heard goes out into the boat of the Apostles James, John and Simon Peter. After Jesus is done preaching, he tells the men to cast their nets again, even after a day of fruitless effort. Their nets come up full to bursting. Simon Peter falls to the ground, proclaiming that he was unworthy to even stand in the presence of Jesus. Jesus ignores these pronouncements and calls the three men to follow, instead of fishing for fish they would be catching people. In an aside, for any purists out there who recall the words as “fishers of men,” that phrasing is in the Gospel of Matthew rather than Luke.

Both Isaiah and Peter wondered about their fitness for the Lord’s service. Their assessment of their selves was in the negative. We do not know what caused them to worry. We do not know what lurked in the pasts of Isaiah and Peter to give them such pause. It is interesting because Isaiah became a prophet of some significance and Simon Peter became the metaphoric rock upon which the early Christian Church was built. From these stones that the builders rejected would be built something greater.

Isaiah cautioned the kings of his time not to enter into the dangerous world of geopolitical power politics. The northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah were in a tough spot. The Assyrian Empire was growing in power and had begun to look south. Judah and the kingdom of Aram, now Lebanon, asked Israel to join forces to prevent the imperial incursion. Israel refused. Judah and Aram attacked Israel to place a more sympathetic king upon the throne. Israel asked Assyria for help, who obligingly took over Israel as a vassal state. This was the first step in the Assyrian conquest and of the subsequent and disastrous Babylonian Captivity.

Isaiah had advised against foreign alliances. Neither Israel nor Judah should rely upon outsiders. When Assyria became the conqueror, Judah and Aram sought the help of Egypt. Isaiah advised against that as well, perhaps recalling the time of Moses when the Hebrew slaves escaped from Egypt to the Promised Land. The Prophet Isaiah counseled the Jewish people to have faith in the Lord and not in the foreign kings of this world.

Historians believe that the Book of Isaiah was written over the course of several centuries. From that perspective, it is unlikely that all of its texts came from one prophet. This is not that unusual. In the New Testament, for example, many letters ascribed to Paul were in fact written in his name by his followers. This is much like the painters of a school of art acting on behalf of a master. But in the case of scripture, it can be complicated. Over the span of centuries, one realizes which predictions stood the test of time. In the case of prophecy, hindsight is certainly 20/20.

But the message of Isaiah makes sense. Judah reacted out of fear of Assyria and attacked Israel, a seemingly incomprehensible act of violence against one’s own people. The king of Israel in response sought the protection of a bigger empire, subjugating his land to the Assyrians in order to remain on the throne. The South was violent against is brethren, the North shortsighted in its self-preservation. Neither acted wisely, neither acted with prudence.

Isaiah would have had these two kingdoms rely solely upon God for their deliverance. That may not have been practical in the moment for either group, but prudence is not about expediency. Prudence often takes the longer view.

Consider Simon Peter, kneeling before Jesus. Like Isaiah, Peter questions his suitability based upon his own understanding of his character and past behavior. Jesus brushed away these concerns and calls for the three fishermen to put down their nets and follow Jesus. Was that a prudent thing to do? Peter was married and presumably had a family to support – we know this because Jesus actually healed Peter’s mother-in-law in the Gospel of Matthew. It is highly likely that all of the Apostles were married, each being asked to cast aside their jobs and lives to follow Jesus. Was this wise? Again, prudence sometimes takes the longer view.

Jesus was creating a new way of thinking, a different model of moral behavior. Courage and temperance were familiar terms even under the Greeks and Romans. Justice may not always have been forthcoming, but it was an understandable concept. And then there were faith, hope and love. Jesus shifted the focus of faith into a new direction. He created a sense of hope in this new life, this new way of thinking. And he placed love squarely at the center of it all.

Jesus changed the rules of the game, returning to the metaphors of sport. Yet it was not merely a new set of rules to play by. It was a different mode of thinking altogether. What may have been prudent under the old way was not prudent under the new.

At first, the New Testament shatters prudence to pieces. Prudence requires one to examine a situation based upon memory and tradition, reason and intelligence, caution and care. Prudence requires a point of comparison. At the time, there was little within the Roman Empire with which to compare this rather odd philosophy. There were some similarities to certain sects within mystical Judaism. Some rabbinic scholars had even said similar things in the recent past.

But Jesus went beyond all of this. His commandment to love had been heard before, from China to Mesopotamia, but the scope of his message and the radical departure from the norm was breathtaking. In fact, it seemed rather imprudent.

So, why are there not just Six Virtues? Because, virtue is impossible without prudence. We need to assess our behavior in light of our sense of right and wrong, our sense of what is virtuous. Without prudence, we would become victims of excess. Courage becomes timidity or recklessness. Temperance seeks moderation and justice fairness, but each requires prudence to examine what is put upon those balancing scales. Faith, hope and even love would devolve and deform without limits, for each can be sublime but each can also be taken to excess. Prudence does not suffer fools lightly and therefore prevents the suffering of fools. It may even seem at times that something that seems foolish is in fact the prudent course of action. This is because prudence is not about playing it safe, but about playing it right.

A few years ago, I was involved in a neighborhood project as a town Selectman. The plan was to change the zoning for parts of town to allow for more commercial construction. The idea was to increase the amount of tax revenue in the town so that we could pay for schools, public safety and roadwork. We looked at five different areas. One group of neighbors quite firmly and loudly said, not in my backyard. I recall being at a meeting at which fifty people showed up apparently for the primary purpose of yelling at the town employees. So I explained that it was my idea. Of course this turned me into the meeting’s piñata.

Most of those fifty people took turns saying what an incredibly stupid idea it was. I explained to each one of them why the plan was a good one. This went on for over three hours. They yelled; I spoke. They complained, I explained. Eventually, people talked and I talked. No one miraculously began to agree with me. They still did not want a Jiffy Lube or a McDonalds near to their neighborhood. But they did understand why it might make sense to have these businesses in the town.

This particular effort failed. But it achieved two goals. The people in the town realized that something good might come out of the larger project, even if it was a mile down the road. The town staff realized that I was never going to allow them to be the punching bag, and they worked extremely hard on the remaining effort. Of the five originally planned sites, four were ultimately changed. The people of that neighborhood in fact often stood up in support because they had come to understand that something was needed. Winning a particular “battle” is not always important, as long as the effort helps to reduce the overall conflict. Prudence takes the longer view.

I recall a few years ago visiting with an older gentleman in a hospital room. He explained that he had an aggressive form of cancer. The doctors had advised an aggressive form of treatment involving surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. The man asked how long he had and how long he would have with the treatment. Without treatment, he would live a few months at most. With it, he could have a year or more. He then asked how long it would take to recover from the surgery, the radiation and the chemotherapy. The doctor explained it would be over a series of months. The man declined the treatments.

I asked him why. The patient explained that he did not want to spend the last of his days in hospitals. He did not want his adult sons to have to deal with the expenses and he did not want them to have any false hopes about his situation. Life for a few more months on his own terms was better than a year or more under those of someone else. The doctors were going to release him and he was going to be made comfortable. And he was going to die. He was a religious man and realized that, while we all die, he had hope in what was to come. He had lived a full life, even if it was shorter than he might have preferred. He said there was a larger picture to consider. Or, as I have said, prudence takes the longer view.

Life is not measured by its duration but by its depth. The prudent man or women looks at the choices in life to determine what is good and right. Prudence is not about what is most advantageous or how to prolong one’s existence. It is the wise judgment of life’s course in keeping with the values that one holds dear. It is reason and discernment, not hesitation or self-absorption. Prudence answers the question, “Am I being virtuous?” And that question extends both to the moment and to the longer view.

Am I courageous in the face of danger and disapproval? Am I just even when I must make a decision against my friends and family? Should I temper my actions even if they will bring me wealth or pleasure? Will my actions strengthen my faith, kindle my hope and press me to love widely and well? For prudence, like all of the virtues, has very little to do with me and ultimately everything to do with us.

We live a virtuous life among our friends and neighbors, amidst enemies and dangers. How we respond to life in keeping with the Seven Virtues reflects how wisely we can negotiate the difficulties of having free will. For we can do almost anything, but should we? And when? And how? Prudence is the mental and spiritual faculty of our minds, bodies and souls that affords us the power to decide. And how I decide will be based upon many factors beyond what is best for me.

In all honesty, our day-to-day decisions will not always be for the greater good or even for the glory of God. But hopefully, on balance, we will do the right things in our lives. Hopefully we will choose to help others, to make the world a better place for all concerned. Virtue is not about being perfect. Isaiah was not perfect. Simon Peter was not perfect. Virtue is about cultivating a habit of doing the right thing at the right time. For human beings, always doing the right thing is the definition of impossible.

We may not always be shining examples of virtue each and every moment of the day. But this is not the end of the world. For prudence takes the longer view.

Our sermon is ended.