Based on 1Samuel 16:7-13, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-7
I want you to imagine what “wisdom” might look like…got it? How many of you thought about a bearded older male on the top of a mountain? What other images came to mind – anyone think of the “wise old owl”? The altar symbol for this week is the owl. Owls are linked to wisdom due to their association with Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom; their habits linked to knowledge and observation, and their enlarged eyes that lend them a sense of profound insight. The large eyes of owls see in the dark, and this ability is another characteristic that has long been associated with wisdom – the ability to see and interpret things even if they are obscured.
At some point in most human lives, thoughts turn to exploring what meaning and purpose there is to life. There comes a strong desire to seek wisdom and to find answers to life’s most vexing problems. Many turn to the “self-help” literature sections in book sellers and attend lectures on self-improvement or expand their horizons and travel to distant places to meet interesting and possibly wise people who can provide new insights and point them in the right direction.
Yet how do we know when we have discovered something or someone who is wise? Afterall, there are a huge number of opinionated people in our world today. It is challenging to discern wisdom from personal worldviews and I have encountered the disorienting chaos of too many voices speaking contradictory opinions into my life. I have a mindset that there is always some new information that I can acquire and then apply to improve what I’m doing – but I’m often confronted with the realization that knowledge in and of itself is not wisdom.
In my pursuit of knowledge I also discovered that being “book smart” is not as useful as being able to apply that knowledge in combination with experience and judgment in ways that worked to improve the common good. The folks at Merriam-Webster define wisdom as “…the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment…” As I’ve aged, I’ve begun to imagine that the wise application of knowledge toward the common good is more important than knowledge acquisition or the pursuit of worldly wisdom.
We are reflecting today on using our imaginations to explore how it is that the wisdom of God can inform our lives and our impact our world. Are you aware that the Bible contains “wisdom literature” as a category of inspired writings? Those books are Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and some of the Psalms. This collection of inspired wisdom is centered on the God of Israel and how God’s loving wisdom can overcome all of our uninformed and often unwise decisions. Take just a moment to imagine what the world would be like if there were no wise God constantly at work resolving all of our human errors and self-centered decision making!
Our scriptures today speak to us about imagining how the wisdom of God is always available to enrich our everyday lives. Paul is writing to the believers in Ephesus today. Earlier in the fifth chapter, Paul wrote this bit of wisdom, “…Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you….” In our reading for today, Paul’s wise insight shares that the followers of the Christ should have nothing to do with “the fruitless deeds of darkness” but should seek goodness, righteousness and truth which are the fruit of the light of Jesus.
Many of the healing stories that are contained in the Gospels are examples of how the wisdom and compassion of God are always at work healing human misunderstandings. Case-in-point is our reading for today. Jesus and his students encounter a man born blind. The disciples ask Jesus (based on the erroneous teaching of the Temple) “who sinned…that he was born blind?” Jesus replied that it wasn’t human sin that caused the blindness, but that the blindness was an opportunity to display the wisdom of God’s unconditional love at work in the world. Jesus uses his own bodily secretions and the dust of the earth to make a paste, which he applied it to the man’s eyes. Jesus sent the man off to the Pool of Siloam to wash it off. When the man did this, he could see for the first time in his life.
The final reading for today comes from 1Samuel – the call story of David. Here we come to understand that God’s wisdom is beyond human understanding – even to those that are closest to God as in the prophet Samuel. God asks Samuel to go anoint a new king (even though Saul still sat on the throne of Israel). This makes Samuel very nervous, yet he wisely follows God’s direction. God leads him to the house of Jesse. Samuel believes that Jesse’s oldest son looks quite kingly, yet God knows that Eliab’s heart is not turned toward God. The same is true for each of the next six of Jesse’s sons. It is not until the youngest is called that Samuel is told to rise and anoint the next (and perhaps greatest) King of Israel.
The Bible offers us many scenarios of how God’s wise love is at work healing unwise human decisions and making all things new. These narratives help us to develop trust in God’s abiding love and guidance and to seek those things above worldly wisdom. The wisdom of the Bible also gives us some examples of how to remain humble and faithful in life circumstances that we don’t understand and during those times when God seems to be absent from our lives and world. Importantly, the wisdom narratives in the Bible highlight how to live with joy and purpose even among the ups and downs of life. The Bible’s great benefit to us is that it provides a “one stop shopping” experience for us when we are seeking what life means, how to cope with grief and suffering, how to create healthy relationships; how to seek comfort, strength and support from a wise source outside ourselves.
Imagining that we have at our fingertips a wisdom far greater than our own helps us to reverently submit our minds, hearts and lives to the God of our understanding. When we do this, we find that we are challenged by what we read in the Bible to live our lives with greater honesty, integrity, humility and generosity; to live lives of gratefulness for the grace and mercy of God poured out on us. Reading the stories of God’s wisdom at work in the lives of our spiritual ancestors also helps to put the “wisdom of the world” in its proper place.
Imagine again the wisdom contained in the story from the Gospel of John. The Gospel writer confronts a common teaching of his time that suggested that our loving and faithful God would arbitrarily disable one of God’s children due to their sin or the sin of that person’s parents. Does that make sense – is that the kind of capricious and vengeful God that you are seeking to follow? It points to a god who demands unwavering compliance with all 613 Laws in the First Testament, but honestly, who can remember all of those. It also totally invalidates the biblical narrative that God is unconditionally loving, that God is forgiving, that God is redemptive, that God seeks our flourishing rather than our ruin.
The reality is that when humans confront life mysteries like why bad things happen, they attribute the “meaningless” suffering to the action of God. It’s not just the disciples in our story from some 2000 years ago either, we are beset by those who mirror the counsel of the friends of Job, we hear it in the well-meaning folks who offer platitudes and spiritual cliches when tragedy strikes; we face it when still-births, miscarriages, birth defects or life-limiting diagnoses become reality. Humans just can’t be ok with the truth that sometimes…unforeseen and uncontrollable stuff happens; we often unwisely search for someone or something to scapegoat to try to ease our pain and suffering.
To counteract that all too prevalent narrative, we need to imagine that a wise God is with us – a God who has seen it all and who has experienced all that we experience. We don’t have to climb a mountain to find comfort, peace, compassion, companionship and wisdom for all of life’s slings and arrows. We just have to consistently spend time with God in prayer, worship, study and in relationship with each other and with God’s created world – just like those first disciples did with Jesus.
Spending time with God helps us imagine God guiding us through all of life’s practical challenges and philosophical questions. Imagining God’s wisdom constantly at work in our lives and world brings peace and hope. Thanks be to God for the gift of divine wisdom…amen!