“What is Good?“ based on Psalm 92:1-5, 12-15 and Matthew 7:15-20

Two weeks ago I preached a sermon entitled “There is No Single Way to Follow Jesus” where I talked about diverse understandings of God and Jesus, multitudes of prayer practices, and not writing people out of the Body of Christ because we disagree with them. It seemed pretty important to me, especially as we baptized a teenager who might have been told along the way that there is one right way to follow Jesus. Others told me that, and I was grateful my church gave me space to disagree.

Afterwards, one of the wise ones around here recommended that I preach a follow up sermon that continued to make space for the multitude of ways to follow Jesus, but helped us all see that is different from saying “everything goes.” I have taken that to be an invitation to talk about “discernment” which is the fancy word for “figuring out what God would have us do.” Or, as apple dictionary puts it (exceptionally well, wow!) “perception in the absence of judgment with a view to obtaining spiritual guidance and understanding.”1

So today we’re talking about discernment, following the warnings of Matthew 7 to beware of false prophets and pay attention to whether or not love is the outcome of teachings, decisions, and leadership. That means we are also talking about how we live our faith values, and how we making decisions while listening to God. But, as an entrance into this conversation I need to tell you about what I am now thinking about as “The Great Toilet Brush Dilemma of 2023.”

Several articles I’ve come across recently have stated that toilet brushes should be replaced every few months, which is faster than I had thought, and I decided perhaps it should be taken seriously (as it didn’t appear to be put out by the toilet brush industry.) However, the toilet brushes I have are made of plastic, and I try to minimize my use of plastic (with limited success), so I searched the internet for “eco toilet brush” and found there were a number of options. However, most of them seemed excessively expensive, which violated that old Wesleyan principle of “earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can” so I ignored those. One seemed reasonably priced and came with decent reviews, but a further look found that the brush didn’t work with chemicals (maybe OK), was hard to get dry (hmmm), and tended to mold (no!). So then I went back and looked at the suggested brushes from my preferred guide to such things and they offered two ideas, both made of plastic, but with REUSABLE brush heads. Which is better than non-reusable brush heads, right? But THEN I looked to make sure I could get the brush heads and I discovered one could, but then one had to decide between getting one brush at a time at nearly the price of the whole thing or getting 4 at a time for a much better rate, that even claimed to be “eco” and CLAIMED to be biodegradable but the number of asterisks around that led to that claim being less than believable, at which point I was needed to do something else and I made absolutely no decision. It is now nearly a week later and every time I think about finishing this decision I throw my hands up in the air and move on to something else while muttering to myself that this is a really trivial thing not worthy of so much of my attention.

Which is to say that in an attempt to balance some values I hold: care for creation (limit plastics!), financial responsibility (spend wisely!), and basic cleanliness (limit bathroom bacteria growth) – I got stumped. And I needed to tell you that so I could enter into this conversation about discernment with the appropriate levels of humility and no one would think I was offering expert opinions.

It really is true that not everything goes. There are better and worse decisions that can be made, sometimes even good versus evil. But those are the EASY choices. Choose good! The harder ones are where it is more difficult to see which is which, and while we are always going to struggle with those, God is here to help us, and to forgive us when we get it wrong. We’re talking about how to make those harder decisions today.

In this church we were given the gift of the phrase “optimize prime values” by a now departed member, Lee Tupper. Lee wrote, “there is a set of higher values (henceforth referred to as prime values in this discussion) that serve as the ultimate standard by which the relative ‘goodness’ of the consequences of human activities is to be judged. This relative ‘goodness’ is a measure of the degree to which the evolving human system tends towards a consistency with the relational type of God assumed. It is reasonably obvious that none of these concepts can be expected to be known or understood with real precision. It is also likely that we will not ever know whether the prime values are absolute and our knowledge of them is evolving, or the values themselves are evolving.”

However, other than suggesting “love” and “justice” as likely candidates, Lee didn’t tell us what the prime values ARE. As a church we’ve spent some time discussing it, and at the moment we lean towards naming that we think love, justice, compassion, inclusion and humility are prime values (although we have made no claim that this is a complete list).

So, if you are looking to figure out where God may be leading you in a decision, and you are needing some structure to use in thinking about things, considering love, justice, compassion, inclusion and humility might be of use. They at least put boundaries around what is important. That said, it doesn’t answer the Great Toilet Brush Dilemma of 2023, other than maybe affirming that the concerns I have are valid, which actually is a great help.

Within Methodist circles, one of the better known means of making decisions is to look at John Wesley’s three simple rules: 1. Do no harm, 2. Do all the good you can, 3. Stay in love with God.2 I have taught courses on Bishop Reuben Job’s short book on these rules, they’re quite lovely. However, my strongest memory of teaching it was the wise lay person who said, “These rules are great, but when I attempt to apply them to anything, I get no more clarity than when I started.” I had no counter. The rules are good, and sometimes they help, but sometimes they don’t.

The truth is that discernment is HARD WORK, and more of an art than a science. Most decisions are really complicated, and if they were simple they wouldn’t be the ones we were struggling with. There is very, very little in the world that is pure good or pure evil, and all decisions involve balancing various values while working with limited data. (Perhaps why the Tupper family motto is “We need more data!”)

I have two means of discernment that tend to work well for me, ones that help me get past the clutter of data and competing values. One I’ve mentioned a few times: the spiritual practice of daily examen. Truthfully, this is the BEST method I know for making big life decisions, and often small ones too. It combines spiritually and data in a way that brings me deep joy. The process is this: every day, take some time to ask for God’s help in reviewing the day and then ask two questions. One question should be along the lines of “what was the best part of my day?” or “where was I most connected to love today?” (I think those are two versions of the same question, you may not.) The second question should be along the lines of “what was the worst part of my day?” or “where was I most disconnected from love today?” After reviewing it all, thank God for the day as a whole – the good the bad and the stuff in the middle. Then, write down the answers. If you have a spiritual partner, it can be great to also share these answers every day. Over time, patterns will emerge in your answers. You will be able to see what is bringing life and what is draining life from you, and hopefully to adapt your life towards what brings life, and away from what drains life. When it comes to decisions about jobs, relationships, housing, or even faith communities, this sort of careful attention to where God’s life-giving energy emerges in you is amazing for guiding decision making.

The second method is one I learned from another church member. I would NOT recommend it for major life decisions, but it may in fact work for me when it comes to the Great Toilet Brush Dilemma of 2023. This one, like the last, involves trusting that God is with me, and that I thus have the wisdom I need to make the best possible decisions. In this case it involves trusting bodily wisdom. It goes like this: Sit on the edge of a stool or a hard chair. Set up two options in different places in front of you (say, to the right and to the left), close your eyes, and then notice if your body sways towards one or the other. That is, your subconscious will guide you to the decision you likely already made but hadn’t noticed yet, and the decision you already made is one that God helped you with.

Ok, there you have it: four methods to help with discernment, which is far fewer than I know, but maybe more than you needed. There is one last thing to say about this: we’re going to get things wrong, a lot. And that’s OK. God works with us where we are, and I think God works to multiply the good in the world, so whatever goodness we end up helping with ends up being far bigger than we might imagine. However, despite it all, I still have no clarity on toilet brushes. Alas. Amen

1Definition 2, accessed March 2, 2023.

2Particular phrasing adapted from Reuben Job. (He says 1 and 3 that way, but makes 2. “do good”).

Rev. Sara E. Baron 
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 
Pronouns: she/her/hers 
http://fumcschenectady.org/ 
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

March 5, 2023