Sermon, Sunday 16 August 'Choose wisdom'

READING: 1 Kings 2: 10-12; 3: 3-14 

READING Proverbs 9:1-6

READING Ephesians 5:15-20

SERMON ‘Choose wisdom’

Let’s pray:

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all 

our hearts be acceptable in your sight, 

O lord our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

If God said to you: what shall I give you?’ 

If you could ask for anything – absolutely anything…

What would you ask for?

It’s a tantalising question, isn’t it?

Being very predictable: I’d be fighting the very strong

urge to ask God to install a lake of chocolate in the backyard…

But in the book of Kings, God does ask someone the question. 

Solomon is praying – interestingly, not at Jerusalem

where the Ark of the Covenant is –

but up in the heights at an altar…

And in a dream God comes to him

and asks that ever-so-tantalising question:

what shall I give you?

Solomon, after thinking it through asks for wisdom. 

And God is pleased with the request –

so pleased in fact, that fame and wealth

and the potential for a long life are all thrown in as well.

But what is wisdom?

In the midst of my bookshelves, I have a very small book 

that mostly gathers dust, but it’s very apt when it comes to this theme of wisdom:

it’s called ‘The Wee Book of Calvin’ –

and it’s filled with lots of different Calvinist-inspired home-spun wisdom –

the sorts of things grannies or great aunties would be 

likely to come out with when the occasion merited  -

or perhaps that’s just my gran and great aunty! 

The book has sayings such as:

'Self pity never boiled a haddock.'

'Let the laddie play with the knife.  He’ll learn.'

And the cheering thought:

'For every summer morning, a winter night to come'

And lastly, my own two personal favourites:

'No whip cuts so deep as the lash of guilt'

And:

'Swim in sin and drown in sorrow'

Not particularly ‘sunshiny, put a smile on your face’ stuff…

which is possibly the point,

because underneath all of these

different bits of home-spun wisdom

there’s a deep sense of foreboding:

the understanding that,

life is a serious business,

not to be frittered away by being frivolous. 

One must be circumspect and live wisely.

And, as you’ll have no doubt noticed, our bible readings 

this week all seem focus on wisdom. 

We’ve mentioned Solomon already, 

who prays for wisdom at the beginning of his reign.

In the book of Proverbs, wisdom is portrayed 

as a hostess, who has prepared a banquet of good food and wine,

and invites everyone to the party.

And in the letter to the Ephesians, there are two contrasts:

foolish behaviour and wise behaviour,

and between being filled with wine or filled with the Holy Spirit. 

All of this again begs the question:

what exactly is ‘wisdom’?

While ‘self-pity may never have boiled a haddock’,

can wisdom be boiled down to a bunch of pithy sayings,

or is there more to wisdom than this?

What is wisdom and how do we get it?

If we were to read on, in the book of Proverbs, 

we’d learn that ‘the first step to wisdom is the fear of the Lord, 

and knowledge of the Most Holy One is understanding’

Or to parphrase a little simplistically:

If God is the source of all wisdom, perhaps it’s a good plan 

to get to know God – and in effect, to tap into the source. 

As Paul says to the Ephesians:

Let the Holy Spirit fill you…

Last week, we thought about what it was to be imitators of God…

we talked about being kind or loving to ourselves,

our families, our neighbours,

which reflected God’s love, spilling out into the world...

In a sense, what it is to be a Christian. 

And Paul continues along this theme.

To be filled with God’s love;

to acknowledge God’s love in our lives;

to give thanks every day for every thing;

to make music from our heart to God;...

all of this, is, in Paul’s view the wise way of living.

But there’s more:

If we wander back to Solomon’s request,

we find out about the impact of wisdom:

Solomon’s understanding about wisdom

is centred around being a just ruler –

to be able to discern good from evil. 

If one can’t do that, Solomon says, one can’t rule properly. 

Wisdom here, is about justice,

about ‘just’ living not merely just living!

And, there’s more:

Back to Proverbs:

Wisdom is portrayed as hospitable –

setting out a banquet

and asking even the foolish –

especially the foolish to come:

to eat,

to drink from the table of wisdom

and to live fully. 

It’s a party for everyone:

Wisdom is inclusive and welcoming,

not exclusive and unwelcoming.

And contrary to the notion that

we shouldn’t be enjoying ourselves,

or else we’ll pay for it,

following the path of wisdom leads

to good, filling, tasty food for both body and soul –

and this is reflected in the way that Jesus describes himself as ‘the bread of life’.

If we were to read on further in Proverbs,

we’d see that Lady Wisdom

is contrasted with Lady Stupididity:

this lady offers refreshment too,

but unlike the rich banquet on offer at Wisdom’s house,

here the offer is stolen water and bread…

if you go into Lady Stupidity’s house,

you are ultimately unfilled –

- and going there leads to death. 

Pretty grim stuff.

Wisdom and stupidity are woven throughout

the bible and often in the context of contrasting

worldly wisdom against spiritual wisdom.

To those wise in the world,

the choices that people of faith make,

the way we live,

appears foolish. 

The wisdom of the world is the wisdom of now. 

It’s the wisdom of choosing a sound-byte

over a long-term solution to a difficult problem. 

It’s the wisdom of get all you can,

while you can,

whichever way you can.   

It’s the instant, knee-jerk reaction

to yet another home-spun saying, this from the movie Forrest Gump:

‘life is like a box of chocolates –

you never know what you’re going to get’.

Forrest expresses a sense of life as being utterly random:

And, in the face of this ‘life is random’ attitude,

the wisdom of the world says

‘grab what you can, now!’ 

The focus becomes self-centred, self-absorbed.  

We know that in some places of the world,

that the sense of randomness echoed

in Forrest’s saying is shown quite dramatically:

in acts of violence brought about by war –

being in the wrong place at the wrong time;

or in seemingly random acts of nature –

unexpected earthquake, fire,  or flood.

In our own lives, life can seem like that box of random chocolates:

remember the suddenness of the credit crunch

and subsequent increase in job losses,

in businesses closing?

Those effects still present,

seen in families finding themselves in dire need

and having to resort to food banks to survive?

Or other seemingly random events:

when friends or family unexpectedly fall out,

or decide to move away,

or get ill, or suddenly die …

But...

in the midst of the seemingly random world we live in,

as God’s people,

we can plug into a deeper wisdom –

God’s wisdom –

which teaches us that no matter what life throws at us, 

we are in God’s hands -

his children, his beloved ones,

and that in the midst of it all, He is with us.

And so wisdom is a source of comfort and strength.

But also, as God’s people in the world,

called to be imitators of him - called to be wise…

we follow the path of God’s wisdom -

the path that Jesus walked before us.

The way of love: for love is wisdom in action.

That path takes us to where we

bind the wounds of the broken-hearted –

the one’s suffering the effects of those who've trampled 

heedlessly down the path of foolishness grabbing all they can;

It results in us crying out against injustice;

It is the path of peace in the midst of conflict;

It is the way of restoration and sharing, as

we feed those starving from Lady Stupidity’s banquet

with the bread of life that always fills.

Wisdom is not necessarily about being someone with a giant brain

or having a massive IQ,

nor does it necessarily have anything to do with being older. 

As I pick through the readings on offer today,

I suspect that wisdom is very much tied in 

with understanding what really matters in life;

it’s working out how to live fully. 

It’s understanding that being connected to God

is important and not only that,

it’s working at staying connected to God through life. 

Thinking back to the movie Forrest Gump,

Forrest, we’re told, has an exceptionally low IQ,

and yet, paradoxically, his seeming simplicity

is used as a foil to demonstrate that while those around him 

may be smarter in the IQ department, Forrest is the one who has wisdom:

he is the one who understands at a profound level

what truly matters in life: love –

of God,

of others.

What is wisdom?  Where do we find it?

Perhaps wisdom is found as we look to God –

through understanding and trusting

that although we may not know the future,

we’re on a journey with

the One who is the Fount of all Wisdom,

the One who holds our future in his hands. 

It’s knowing that in God,

there is indeed a future – as well as a present –

which is abundant and life-giving

and that we are called to share God’s abundance,

God’s fullness of life with others.

A disciple once asked his spiritual director a question:

‘Holy One, what is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?’

The holy one answered

‘When you have knowledge, you use a torch to show the way. 

When you are wise, you become the torch.’

Let us go into God’s good world as torches,

shining – and sharing –

God’s abundance,

God’s justice,

And God’s profound wisdom with the world. 

In Jesus’ name, amen.