"God Helps Those Who Help Themselves" (Proverbs 12)

"God Helps Those Who Help Themselves"

Based Loosely on Proverbs 12

Preached by Sam Locke on 8/11/19 at St. Peter's United Church of Christ (Carmel, IN)

Audio File

“God helps those who help themselves.” This section of Proverbs is the closest the Bible gets to saying it, but it never actually says it. For the first time in our series, my assignment isn’t a misinterpretation or a misuse of language, I’m actually able to clearly say: “the Bible doesn’t say that.”

But I have to admit ...I thought it did. Did you? Be honest ...This phrase is so embedded in church culture that a Seminary trained pastor and a congregation full of faithful Christians thought it was there. A recent poll suggested that 75% of Christians named this phrase as the central point of the Bible. Wow, when we get it wrong, we really like to get it wrong.

The Bible just doesn’t say that. So, where do we start? How did this phrase make it into our Christian vernacular, and what do we learn from it being there? Is it something that should be in the Bible or have we created a passage that says more about us than it does about God?

Let’s begin at an odd place for a center-left political junkie like me, with former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld was often ridiculed for a set of phrases that, part of which, ultimately became the title for his autobiography ...Known and Unknown. I’ve always thought this ridicule was unfair, it seems to me one of the more profound elements he has brought to the table during his public service.

Rumsfeld suggested that there were four types of knowledge:

First, there are “known knowns,” the information we understand and are certain we understand. A math formula perhaps or the recipe to the best chocolate chip cookies.

Second, there are “known unknowns,”  this is the stuff we are in the dark on, but where we know we are ignorant. Space ... we know it is enormous but have no idea how enormous. We know we don’t know.

Third, we have “unknown knowns,” there are things in the universe that we know are certainties, we just don’t know them yet. These are glimmers of hope and drive in the eyes of the leaders of tomorrow, yearning to discover all there is to discover. The cure for cancer probably fits in this category.

That leaves us with “unknown unknowns,” the things we are unaware of, but don’t know we are unaware of. To Rumsfeld, this category was the most terrifying of all, as it is outside the capacity of human comprehension. There are things in the world that we just don’t know about and are blissfully or not so blissfully unaware of them … we just don’t know.

Just thinking about all that could be inside this category is enough to make us shiver in fear. We know there are things we don’t know as individuals … but someone else surely does. I know that I couldn’t fix a car if my life depended on it, but some of you can and we like this balance. There is a decency and order that makes us feel safe and comfortable and it is all within the realm of human control.

This fear of the unknown, that there are things outside of our grasp, is such a part of human nature that we want to get rid of it. What better tool than the Bible to help us remove this worry from our minds. We’ve got this all under control. God helps those who help themselves, so as long as we are working hard and advancing our knowledge, we’ve got this … God will make sure that we’ve got this.

We think a phrase like “God helps those who help themselves” is there because we really, really  want it to be. We like known knowns the best of all. We can deal with Rumsefeld’s second and third categories, but we must dispense with the fourth. Every problem comes with a solution and we just need to attain the wisdom to find it. 

But if that were true, we wouldn’t need God. And that’s the real cold truth. We don’t want to need God. Needing God is for other people. Needing God is for the disadvantaged. Needing God is for the other, whatever that means. Needing God is for the sick, the tired, the downtrodden. Not us, we’ve got this all figured out. If people were a little more like God, they’d act a little more like me. If people were a little more like me, they would look a little more like God. Admitting we need God is like admitting there are unknown unknowns. Terrifying.

Do you hear the narcissism in this phrase most of us attribute to the Bible? God favors little old me so much that God believes I have the ability to help myself, all by myself.

This sentiment is clear in writings as far back as our theological, economic and political systems were founded. Adam Smith and Max Weber observed this mindset to be especially strong in reformed Protestants ... that’s us, y’all. Smith said in the Wealth of Nations: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.” God helps those who help themselves, and we call it Christianity … how warped.

If there is anything the Gospel of Jesus Christ is clear about - and sometimes it seems like it isn’t clear about a lot -  it is the absolute opposite of this phrase. 

First, God helps everyone. Period. The people that help themselves. The people that hurt themselves. And the people that haven’t figured out that we are all both of those things sometimes. God is here for us all.

The Bible doesn’t say our phrase this morning, but it says that a lot…

Deuteronomy: God will never forsake you.

Isaiah: God will strengthen us and protect us.

John: I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.

Corinthians: We are pressed but not crushed. Persecuted but not abandoned. Struck down but not destroyed.

Thessalonians: God will protect us from the evil one.

Second, not only is it clear that God is here for us all, it is also clear that God intends us to be in community with another. The times of struggle and strife in Jesus’ life are almost always when he was alone - in the wilderness, facing the cross. In the community of his disciples, however,  he could do anything. He was able to embody God. Only surrounded by others was God able to reach God’s full capacity for love, and we have the audacity to think we can do it all on our own. Who do we think we are? We need each other.

The Bible says that a lot too …

Matthew: Where two or three gather in my name, there I am.

Romans: In Christ, each member belongs to the others.

Corinthians: Let there be no divisions among you.

Galatians: Carry each other’s burdens.

James: Confess your sins to each other and forgive each other.

God helping those who help themselves seems harmless enough, but I would argue that it is a mindset that is killing the church and killing civil society in the country that has allowed the church to freely flourish more than any other in the history of the world. We have to let go of the idea that we can do it all on our own.

Helping ourselves is thinking the next public policy idea, the next charismatic politician, or the next viral movement on Twitter is going to fix everything that ails us.

Relying on God requires the humility to admit that we just don’t know. It requires setting egos aside to listen for the voice of the spirit together.

Helping ourselves is blaming a leader when it is so obvious that we all have fault to share.

Helping ourselves is also letting that same leader off the hook when we know he is wrong.

Relying on God requires grace and accountability working in tandem. We forgive each other often, but we do so as we work to bring about a world of love that God can be proud of.

Helping ourselves, as Adam Smith put it, is when we help someone only because it also helps us.

Relying on God requires us to help one another just because. Supporting a transit system we will never use as an example.

Helping ourselves seems so much easier than relying on God. If we can take care of it, why not?  But it, however well intentioned, elevates us to the level of God. And if we are at that level, how dare someone stand in our way, which becomes a very dangerous proposition.

And I think that’s what the Proverbs were trying to tell us this morning also. Real strength lies in the pursuit of wisdom, not in the attainment of it. Real strength is learning enough to know you need to learn more.We help ourselves, but we don’t stop there, we take it to the next level and the one beyond that.

True wisdom, then, isn’t from playing God. It isn’t from thinking we know all the answers, it’s from surrendering to the idea that we never will. Try as we might. But, God will know. God will know, if we are vulnerable enough to admit that we need to hear that voice. And vulnerable enough to admit we need others to help us determine what God’s voice is saying.

From a literary figure more widely loved than Don Rumsfeld comes this gem from Mark Twain. “It ain’t what we know that gets us into trouble. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”

“God helps those who help themselves” being in the Bible just ain’t so. And that's a reason to rejoice, scary as it may be. Let’s keep ourselves out of trouble, admit we can’t always help ourselves, and work together to listen for instructions from the one voice who can. Amen.