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Sermon 371 St. Martin’s 127 (Riverway) 11/10/24
Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
‘To you, O people, I call,
and my cry is to all that live.
O simple ones, learn prudence;
acquire intelligence, you who lack it.
Hear, for I will speak noble things,
and from my lips will come what is right;
for my mouth will utter truth;
wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
All the words of my mouth are righteous;
there is nothing twisted or crooked in them.
They are all straight to one who understands
and right to those who find knowledge.
Take my instruction instead of silver,
and knowledge rather than choice gold;
for wisdom is better than jewels,
and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.
I, wisdom, live with prudence,
and I attain knowledge and discretion.
The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.
Pride and arrogance and the way of evil
and perverted speech I hate.
I have good advice and sound wisdom;
I have insight, I have strength.
By me kings reign,
and rulers decree what is just;
by me rulers rule,
and nobles, all who govern rightly.
I love those who love me,
and those who seek me diligently find me.
Riches and honour are with me,
enduring wealth and prosperity.
My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold,
and my yield than choice silver.
I walk in the way of righteousness,
along the paths of justice,
endowing with wealth those who love me,
and filling their treasuries.
Proverbs 8:1-21
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
John 1:1-5
Antiphon: O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other mightily, and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence. Amen.
Only God Knows Once there was an old man who lived in a small village. Although poor, he was envied by all, because he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king wanted it. A horse like this had never been seen before. People offered large sums to buy it, but the old man always refused.
"This horse is not a horse to me," he would tell them. "It is a person. How could you sell a person? He is a friend, not a possession. How could you sell a friend?" The man was poor and the temptation was great. But he never sold it.
One morning he found that the horse was not in the stable. All the village came to see him. "You old fool," they scoffed, "we told you that someone would steal your horse. We warned you that you would be robbed. You are so poor. How could you ever hope to protect such a valuable animal? You should’ve sold him. You could have gotten whatever price you wanted. Now the horse is gone, and you've been cursed with misfortune."
The old man responded, "Don't speak too quickly. Say only that the horse is not in the stable. That is all we know; the rest is judgment. If I've been cursed or not, how can you know? How can you judge?"
The people shook their heads. The old man spoke again. "All I know is that the stable is empty, and the horse is gone. The rest I don't know. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, I can't say. All we can see is a fragment. Who can say what will come next?"
The people of the village laughed. They had always thought he was a fool; if he wasn't, he would have sold the horse and lived off the money. But instead, he was a poor woodcutter, an old man still cutting firewood and dragging it out of the forest and selling it. He lived hand to mouth in the misery of poverty.
After fifteen days, the horse returned. He hadn't been stolen; he had run away into the forest. Not only had he returned, he brought a dozen wild horses with him. Once again the village people gathered around the old man and said, "You were right and we were wrong. What we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us."
The man responded, "Once again, you go too far. Say only that the horse is back. State only that a dozen horses returned with him, but don't judge. How do you know if this is a blessing or not? You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge? You read only one page of a book. Can you judge the whole book? You read only one word of a phrase. Can you understand the entire phrase? Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. All you have is a fragment! Don't say this is a blessing. No one knows, I am content with what I know. I am not perturbed by what I don't."
"Maybe the old man is right," they said to one another. But down deep, they knew he was wrong. They knew it was a blessing. Twelve wild horses had returned with the one horse. With a little bit of work, the animals could be trained and sold for a lot of money.
The old man had a son. The young man began to break the wild horses. After a few days, he fell from one of the horses and broke both legs. Once again the villagers gathered around the old man and said, "You were right. The dozen horses were not a blessing. They were a curse. Your only son has broken his legs, and now in your old age you have no one to help you. Now you are poorer than before."
The old man spoke again. "You people are obsessed with judging. Don't go so far. Say only that my son broke his legs. Who knows if it is a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment. Life comes in fragments."
A few weeks later the country engaged in war against a neighboring country. All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded, because he was injured.
Once again, the people gathered around the old man, crying because their sons had been taken with little chance that they would return.
"You were right, old man," they wept. "God knows you were right. This proves it. Your son's accident was a blessing. His legs may be broken, but at least he is with you. Our sons are gone forever."
The old man spoke again. "It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. No one knows. Say only this: Your sons have to go to war, and mine does not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows."[I]
Only God knows…or as the Bible says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”[ii]
It seems to me that a part of the human experience is coming to accept the “not knowing,” or the small fragments of knowledge we gather along the way without seeing the full picture.
There is so much to discover, you can spend a lifetime learning all there is and yet there will always be more. Some things we cannot understand or begin to comprehend about our world or why certain things happen the way they do. Life is a baffling journey. It's as if we get to the precipice of what we know, and beyond that, well, God only knows.
The gift of wisdom has been sought after by every culture, in every generation. You could make the case that Adam and Eve’s original sin was their desire for understanding, though they were deceived on how to gain true understanding.
They wanted their eyes to be opened, and the serpent promised that in eating the forbidden fruit they would be like God, knowing good and evil. “Knowing” being the key word there. And yet, here we are all these years later: seeking wisdom and understanding is still a fundamental part of the human experience.
It’s not as highly prized in our culture, maybe because we don’t have the attention span. We value being entertained more than anything else.
But people are still admired for their wisdom. We may label it in different terms: calling someone’s decisions savvy or they had a lot of foresight, but when you boil it down, it’s a form of wisdom: they made the right decisions at the right time in the right manner.
No wonder Solomon asked for wisdom as he ascended to Israel’s throne—leaders need to make the right call at the right time. But wisdom isn’t flashy or entertaining, and we can easily get distracted and off track.
Solomon, unfortunately, had an eye for the ladies—and lots of them—and so he traded a wise and discerning heart for the passions of the flesh. Distractions abound for those seeking wisdom, no matter what age you live in.
Proverbs: Lady Wisdom Our reading from Proverbs—which itself is a collection of wisdom sayings—portrays Wisdom in a semi-divine manner. She is by the city gate inviting all to take heed of her words because they are true and will lead to fulfillment. “Choose my instruction instead of silver,” she says, “knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is more precious than rubies.”
There are portions in the Old Testament—and other Jewish writings that appear right before the time of Jesus—that personifies Wisdom as an angelic woman in God’s court.
Ecclesiasticus, which is in the Apocrypha, says, “In the assembly of the Most High she [Wisdom] opens her mouth, and in the presence of his hosts she tells of her glory: ‘I came forth from the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist.”[iii] The Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus are talking to one another, using similar images and metaphors.
There was a deep longing for wisdom in the hearts of many who lived in the time between the Old Testament and the beginning of the New. God had seemingly been silent for a long time, and there was a desire not only for God’s people to become wise, but that all people would become disciples of Wisdom; that somehow, God’s Wisdom would reign over the earth.
And by this, we don’t simply mean being able to make the right decisions at the right time, but the desire to live a highly principled life according to God’s commands.
Again, wisdom comes from a proper understanding of our relation to God: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” We are finite creatures trying to grapple with an infinite God. Yet this God, shrouded in eternity, has made himself known.
Our Gospel from John 1 is a direct echo of Genesis 1, quoting, “In the beginning.” But John adds a twist that it’s not just, “In the beginning God created,” but, “In the beginning was the [Logos] Word, and the Word was with God and…was God.”
Does this Divine Word sound anything like that passage from Ecclesiasticus? “[Wisdom] came forth from the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist.” Sounds a little like Genesis to me. In fact, the terms Logos [meaning Word] and Wisdom were sometimes used interchangeably. It doesn’t sound that far off, “In the beginning was the Wisdom of God…”
But John is saying that this Divine Wisdom is not created by God, but is who God is. God is Wisdom, and the embodiment of that Wisdom is Jesus.
The gospels portray Jesus as many things—that’s a large part of this sermon series, looking at all the titles given to Jesus in Scripture. And in the gospels, Jesus is wise, he gives sound advice. There are times when the crowds are astonished at his wisdom.[iv]
But he is not just a wise teacher—a guru of sorts—in the same way he is not just a miracle worker. No, the gospels intend for us to see Jesus as Wisdom Incarnate.
As the Old Testament prophets, and many in the years leading up to Jesus, longed for God’s wisdom to rule over the earth and all who dwelt therein, it was finally happening in-and-through the person of Jesus. The metaphor had turned into reality. Wisdom was crying out at the city gate.
What Jesus said was true—not a shadow of doubt—his words were truth. And in that truth he was giving all who heard him the opportunity to live lives of truth.
Jesus is not a relativist: “You have your truth and I’ll have mine.” No, in Jesus we see the Truth of who God is and was and will be for all time. No wonder Paul talked about the scandal of the cross. That to the world it seems foolish, laughable, and yet on the Cross of Christ is all of our hope and salvation. Wisdom is not just some nice sayings to live by, but Wisdom lived, was crucified, and rose again on the third day.
Jesus is God’s saving wisdom. When we are on the precipice of what we know and look out at what we cannot understand: “Why is this or that happening to ourselves or our loved one; when we look out and see chaos and disorder in our world, or try to reckon our existence in the deep vacuum of space, God doesn’t give us more heady knowledge, he gives us himself: Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom.
To grow deeper with Jesus is to grow wiser. And I think that’s because, in a relationship with Jesus, we are first invited, and then commanded, to relinquish our need to control; our need to pick the forbidden fruit from the tree so that we can know all that God knows.
And we learn it is good to be a sheep who has a Shepherd, and he’s got us, even when we don’t have ourselves. It is wise to trust the Shepherd who created all things before the foundations of the earth, and who is all in all; and though we may not be able to comprehend how, he will right all wrongs, heal all wounds, and his knowledge will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
To be wise is to walk with Jesus one day at a time, “to trust him at his word.” Step by step, we are called to focus on our daily bread—as the prayer he taught us says—because the future is not for us to understand in the present—but we can make faithful decisions in the present, trusting that…only God knows what will come next…and that is enough.
[i] Swindoll’s Ultimate Book of Illustrations & Quotes pg. 613. Originally from Max Lucado.
[ii] Proverbs 9:10a, NIV
[iii] Ecclesiasticus 24:2-3, NRSV
[iv] Mark 6:2-3
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