I’m Too Old

Charlie Skinner is a character on a TV series called “Newsroom.”  He is played by Sam Waterston, one of my favorite actors.  Skinner is a bit crusty and rather heavy-drinking.  But he also has vision and a heart for adventure, and he knows when he’s getting sabotaged.  He is willing to take risks to pursue that vision, even in the face of resistance, and that’s what I admire most about him.

It is in the face of such resistance that he delivers a line to which I have already referred back many times.  “I’m too old to be governed by fear of dumb people.”

It’s a little bit shocking at first.  One should be careful about dismissing people who see things differently as dumb, of course.

Still, I wonder if Jesus wouldn’t have liked Charlie Skinner.  He himself once told a parable about a rich man and his property manager (Lk. 16:1-8).  It’s a little bit shocking, too.

The rich man was displeased that the manager was squandering his property, and so he called for an accounting.  The manager, realizing he was about to be discovered, quickly called in his employer’s debtors and used his authority while he still had it to reduce their debts to the rich man so that they would owe the manager a favor after he had been dismissed.

The rich man found out about it.  You would think he would have been furious.  Instead, he commended the manager’s ingenuity.  “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”  (v. 8)

It turns out smart really is the new rich.  It was the old rich, too.

The church is ambivalent about smart, I think.  Sometimes we find smart people too “in their heads” and not enough “in their hearts.”  The church has a significant anti-intellectual streak from time to time.  Jesus also said, after all, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.”  (Mt. 11:25)  There are times when smart gets very much in the way of seeing as Jesus might. 

Still, I think Jesus may have had an appreciation for smart people, at least that they had their usefulness.  Maybe he didn’t want them to get too big for their britches, but a little smart in the service of the reign of God isn’t such a bad thing either, because the reign of God is something there is always going to be resisted by “the children of this age.”  And not just by dumb people.   

But here’s where Charlie Skinner certainly has it right.  Life is way too short to be governed by fear of just about anything.  Smart sometimes helps us get beyond it.  In fact, the more fearful we get, smart turns out to be just about the only way out.

Peace,