Discernment

Susannah, my daughter, just finished middle school at Sudlow. For the eighth grade graduation ceremony, each student prepared a slide. Susannah’s slide was sparkly and pink, with pictures of friends, show choir, and musical theater. For her future plans, she wrote “graduate and go to college.” 

Over Pentecost / Memorial Day weekend, our family went camping. Around the campfire, I asked Susannah about her future plans. Where did she want to go to college? What did she want to study? As I listened, I encouraged her to consider this or that and shared a bit about my college choices and experiences. All of this, gently, because it’s early, and she is her own person, and the world has changed.

Discernment is the art of wise decision-making. Not many of us are discerning about college, but probably all of us are discerning about something. Life is about decisions; some we don’t even realize we’re making.

Making wise decisions is more than making the right choices. For example, any number of schools might be the “right" school for Susannah. And there is plenty to learn even from the “wrong” school. Mistakes are our teachers, not our enemies. For colleges, “right” and “wrong” are about fit and quality and making a worthy investment of time and money, not ethics. But even when our decisions are about ethics, our decision-making process matters as much as the outcome. Fear of getting it wrong can trip us up as easily as overconfidence.

The Holy Spirit makes us wise discerners. And that involves pushing us beyond the surface toward a deeper, more liberating way. Consider Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. After reading it, the Wednesday morning bible study wondered: what problem was Jesus trying to solve? Scholar Warren Carter suggests it wasn’t a lack of knowledge of God’s will and what God requires or a lack of willingness to do it – as if Jesus intended to either scare or woo. The problem was a lack of discernment.

God’s ways are love for enemies and generosity toward all. God’s purpose is giving God’s life away in Jesus to usher in a kingdom for those whose spirits are crushed by poverty, those who hunger and thirst for justice and healing. Now go, live in that kingdom. Choose God’s loving purposes in every choice. Such is the Sermon on the Mount, and the foundation for discernment Jesus offers.

May you and Susannah ground your decision-making in your very personal experience of knowing God. That’s how the Gospel of John would say it, meaning not a mere head-trip or academic exercise. Knowing God in your soul, in your bones, is life, John says; life abundant and eternal. And you do know God, because Jesus lives and dwells among you.

Our hope of making wise decisions is rooted here, in Jesus the vine. We are the branches. So dwell deeply in Jesus’s love and mercy and cosmic safety, forgiveness, healing, and joy. Then wisdom will arise.

Thanks be to God.

Pastor Clark Olson-Smith