wise understanding and wise action

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, May 26, 2013—Wisdom's Call

Texts: Psalm 8; Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-36; Matthew 7:24-27

Eric Massanari

“wise understanding and wise action”

Do not look for apples under a poplar tree. (Slovakia)

When elephants battle, the ants perish. (Cambodia)

He that goes barefoot must not plant thorns. (England)

A needle hidden in a rag will eventually be found. (Vietnam)

Throughout the world

wisdom is conveyed through

proverbs such as these—

pithy, direct, often colorful sayings

that speak to deeper truths of life.

Sometimes you can find proverbs from two different cultures

created to convey the same bit of wisdom:

Here in the United States we have the well-known proverb:

      The pot calls the kettle black.

In Pakistan there is a similar message:

      The sieve says to the needle: you have a hole in your tail.

Jesus offers yet another version of the same wisdom:

      Why do you point out the sliver in your neighbor's eye

      and ignore the giant log in your own?

When our church small group gathers

at John and Karen McCabe-Juhnke's home

we love to play a game called, Wise and Otherwise.

Everyone in the room is given the first part

of some proverb from around the world,

such as this Yiddish saying:  

     You can't spit on my back....

The challenge is to complete the proverb

in some sort of convincing way so that

when everyone's proverb is read alongside

the real proverb, people might choose yours.

      You can't spit on my back....

How would you complete that statement

to create a wise saying?

The actual proverb is:

      You can't spit on my back

      and make me think it's rain.

People around the world have often used

proverb, parable, poetry and story

to speak of wisdom.

Perhaps that is because wisdom is not

easily spoken of or described directly.

How would you describe Wisdom to someone?

Where does wisdom come from?

How do you know it when you meet it?

I conducted a simple survey this week.

I posed the question on Facebook:

What is wisdom?

There were plenty of wise replies—

some of them probably falling

more under the category of “wise cracks.”

One person cited the sapiential words

of country music legend, Kenny Rogers:

      You've got to know when to hold 'em,

      know when to fold 'em,

      know when to walk away,

      and know when to run.

A number of responders noted

the importance of distinguishing

between knowledge and wisdom,

suggesting that wisdom might

include knowledge about things

but it also includes perspective,

and a deeper insight into life.

One of my friends put it well when he said:

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is knowing not to put tomato in a fruit salad.

The poet, T.S. Eliot suggested a similar distinction

between knowledge and wisdom

when he asked the question:

      Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

A much older Hebrew saying puts it this way:

      A book gives knowledge,

      but it is life that gives understanding.

It struck me how much resonance there was

between these Facebook responses

and biblical insights about wisdom.

One of my friends, who has a strong mystical

and poetic bent, wrote this in response to my question:

      Wisdom is Sophia, God's intimate companion

      who longs for union with us.

      But such a union demands a high price

      to enter into, and sacrifice to maintain!

My friend appeals to an understanding of wisdom

rooted deep in the Hebrew scriptures,

Wisdom as an extension of God's own being

personified in the form of Sophia, or “Woman Wisdom.”

This morning's text from Proverbs speaks of her this way:

Wisdom calls and understanding raises her voice.

On the heights, and beside the way,

at the crossroads she takes her stand;

beside the gates of the town,

and at the entryways she cries out....

This proclamation of wisdom through life

is what I think the psalmist is singing of

in these words of the 19^th psalm:

The heavens themselves are telling the glory of God;

and the skies are proclaiming what God has done.

Day to day pours forth speech,

and night to night declares knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words;

their voice is not heard;

yet their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world.

                                                                Psalm 19:1-4

Wisdom is the Word beyond all words,

the knowledge beneath all knowledge;

it is ever present, and speaks to all.

So, one thing that could clearly be said

about Wisdom from the context of the scriptures,

and perhaps from our own experience of it

is that its source is from some place beyond us.

From the point of view of the biblical texts,

Wisdom's source rests in God,

it is an expression of God's own Spirit,

and wisdom speaks and flows through all life.

Our work is to listen for wisdom's call,

to be open to receiving it

through the flow of our days,

the rhythms of our relationships,

the myriad of our life experiences.

No one can claim not hearing the voice of wisdom,

because she speaks to all.

Part of the insight here is also that

no one can claim to possess the fullness of wisdom.

As Origen described it long ago in the second century:

Travelers on the road to God's wisdom,

find that the further they go

the more the road opens out,

until it stretches to infinity.

This is a second important understanding

of wisdom in the scriptures:

wisdom asks for our humility.

To be grow wise is in some sense to remain a beginner,

to maintain an openness to new understanding.

This, too, I heard echoed it my friends' Facebook replies.

As one friend put it:

      Wisdom is being comfortable with what you don't yet know.

The biblical texts hold many reminders that

we all grow old, but we do not necessarily all grow wise.

Wisdom is a gift we must remain open

to receiving throughout our lives.

To receive it we must sometimes let go

of previously held assumptions, judgments,

and much-treasured answers.

To grow wise usually means letting go of

more prideful and self-centered ways.

Among the scriptures that Protestants

consider non-canonical or apocryphal,

but Catholics and Orthodox include

in their own canon of scriptures,

is “The Book of Wisdom,” sometimes

also referred to as “The Wisdom of Solomon.”

At one point in this text, the author,

in the voice of King Solomon, writes:

I perceived that I would not possess wisdom

unless God gave her to me—and it was

a mark of insight to know whose gift she was—

so I appealed to the Lord

and implored God,

and with my whole heart I prayed...

Wisdom 8:21

And in the prayer that follows in the Book of Wisdom

the author prays for a broader perspective,

for a discerning heart, for righteousness and justice,

for a capacity to act and lead

in according to the will of God.

This points to a third aspect of wisdom

as it is spoken of in the scriptures:

Wisdom, when it is given and received,

is meant to be lived and shared

through word and action.

Wisdom is not an abstraction,

it is not meant to remain

in worlds of words and ideas;

wisdom is a living reality.

Perhaps this is why it is conveyed

so much better through parable and story

and poetry, because through these channels

we more easily go to the depths of life experience.

Jesus tells his parable of the wise person

building a house on rock at the very end

of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's gospel.

He has just finished a lengthy teaching

on what the gospel looks like

when it is lived out in the world.

And with the parable he reminds his friends

that wisdom is not just in hearing this message,

it is found in living it.

Both of the builders in the parable,

the one who built on sand

and the one who built on rock,

may have been smart people.

Both may have known very well

the power of wind and water.

However, it may be that the one builder

was taken in by the allure of a good view

and a beautiful location,

and this trumped common sense.

He lost good sense and built on the sand.

Meanwhile, the other builder was wise

in that she maintained perspective,

and a deeper understanding of things

beyond her immediate needs and desires.

In the same way, Jesus tells his friends,

we are called to wisely build our lives

on the deeper truths of God's life and love

that are speaking in and through the world,

even though they may be obscured

by the conventional wisdom of our human making.

Wisdom's source and speech rises from within us and beyond us.

Wisdom calls us with humility to remain beginners and learners.

Wisdom, when she comes to us, asks to be lived and shared.

As I thought about these aspects of Wisdom this week,

with the help of the scriptures and my Facebook friends,

I thought about this congregation of Shalom

and where we are on the journey together.

For obvious reasons I've been thinking

a lot about this lately, and I've been considering

all that I have learned from you

while serving as a pastor in this community.

There is good wisdom here in this place.

Part of this wisdom is reflected in

the strange and wonderful mix of people

who've gathered and connected here over time.

I have experienced this to be a congregation that is

reluctant to say to anyone: “You do not belong here.”

I remember when I first arrived,

someone shared with me the story of

sitting in one of the local cafes and hearing

someone at the next table who was

talking about the different churches in town.

And he overheard the comment:

“Well, then there's that Shalom place over on First Street.

They'll let anyone in the door over there!”

It may not have been meant as a compliment,

but I heard it as a very high affirmation of this church.

That is not to say that there haven't been times

when we have failed to show hospitality

to the stranger or left someone feel unwelcome.

And there have certainly been occasions when

we have had to struggled to remain open

to different points of view in this community.

However, I believe this congregation

embodies and practices in vital ways

the difficult and joyous wisdom of community,

of committing to journeying together

with and sometimes in celebration of our differences

rather than in spite of our differences.

This congregation has learned together

that we are most transformed by

encounter with people who look at the world

differently than we do.

This is a wisdom conveyed through our name, Shalom,

the "wholeness" and "unity" made possible through God's love.

To use the Apostle Paul's wise metaphor,

this is indeed “one body with many members,”

and rather than being too quick to define

who we are as members of Shalom,

there is wisdom at work here that would

say instead, let's explore who we are becoming.

And I see wisdom at work here that would

say that the next person who walks in the door

has gifts from God to offer us in our becoming.

The community and world around you

needs this wisdom of Shalom.

People seem to be finding every reason

to separate from one another,

and live partisan lives,

especially in the wider church.

There is a great need for this wisdom of

remaining with one another,

and committing to the beautiful mess

and joyful struggle of God's Shalom with friend and stranger.

May God help this congregation

bear witness to the wisdom of Shalom.

As Jesus taught his friends, over and over again,

the very highest wisdom we might learn and practice

is love. 

Amen