Holding onto Wisdom

Proverbs 1:20-33, NRSVue

20 Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. 21 At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: 22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?23 Give heed to my reproof; I will pour out my thoughts to you; I will make my words known to you. 24 Because I have called and you refused, have stretched out my hand and no one heeded, 25 and because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when panic strikes you, 27 when panic strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. 28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. 29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord,30 would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, 31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and be sated with their own devices. 32 For waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys them; 33 but those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease without dread of disaster.”

INTRO

This week we continue our “uncommon wisdom” sermon series. The scripture lessons over the these weeks invite us to less popular and under-appreciated passages of scripture to inform the ways we look at the world around us. So often, individuals desire to live a good life. While the world has different expectations, these verses of uncommon wisdom will show us a different path to a good life. Two weeks ago we named that the goal of wisdom literature is to look at the world differently, it does not view God through articulate doctrines and, moralistic codes, nor does it offer the dos and don’t of spiritual growth but rather it gives us a lens through which to view God in an embodied, relational and humanistic way. Last week, we named our need to decide how we will live. Will we live for God and God’s ways or will we live into the ways of the world.

We might be surprised for the second time in our sermon series as the authoritative figure of the text, its main speaker, and the personification of wisdom is that of a woman. This week we find the personification of wisdom as a woman crying out in the streets. If that weren’t surprising enough, woman wisdom speaks like a prophet, she demands that her listeners heed her words and follow them…she names that the consequences of tuning her out will lead to a spiritual crisis.

Wisdom demands attention in the streets, in the squares, in the busyness of life, in busiest corners of the market to the city gate. The places named in our scripture lesson for this morning are the spaces of communal life, the spaces of relationships born out of daily interactions. She demands to be heard, and even proclaimed among public places. Not in the privacies of homes, sacred temples, in times of meditation, or even morning devotionals. Wisdom calls for us to hear her in the thick of work, play, relationships, in the gathering of go people, where legal and commercial deals take place, where ordinary life happens, where social changes with all its joys, hopes, disappointments, and disrepair take place. Wisdom wants to be heard in the mundane parts of human life.

What is it that she is trying to proclaim? In order to answer that question, we must revisit one of our questions from last week: What is wisdom? We named that Biblical wisdom is rooted in a wise community that grounds itself in justice and peace. It is about discernment and coming together. It is about putting oneself on the back burner for the sake of others not just at the surface level, but in every aspect of life. How are we living our lives for the sake of others?

Which brings us back to wisdom’s proclamation. What is she saying? Wisdom is calling us to a new way of being. “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?” If we are honest with ourselves, our answer to the charge is guilty. We love being simple. We are simple ones who like simple answers. We prefer a black and white faith. This is right that is wrong, and we certainly struggle with the idea of taking risks. We prefer a simple faith that only call us into the playful shallow waters. We prefer being simple because it stops us from truly opening ourselves up to God.

Yet, wisdom beckons us deeper into relationship with God as she calls us to be attune to her message. As one theologian reminds us, “There is a certain freedom that comes to Christian discipleship when we let down our guards enough to be honest with God and ourselves…When we dare to be honest with God and ourselves, we recognize that our actions have consequences, but grace has the last word. But even better than this, wisdom and grace together make possible our sanctification.”

Which begs the question: why do we resist wisdom? Maybe, its because we struggle with all the voices around us that call us to “take control.” We prefer knowledge over wisdom…what’s that saying? Knowledge is power? Knowledge is a form of power whereby we use it to lord over the other. Yet, to have wisdom is to discern, to look for how one’s actions affect the other, it draws others into knowledge with the hopes of gaining more insight rather than using knowledge as a weapon.

One commentary says it this way “Listening in the Proverbs is always linked to obedience, and obedience is participation in the practices that lead to wisdom: hearing and reading Scripture, prayers of confession and intercession, humility before others and God. This wisdom has very little to do with knowledge in service of power, and more to do with insight that is in service of God and neighbor. In an insecure world, this wisdom is grounded in the voice of God, calling us into the way that leads to life. This wisdom is present among those who live in communion with God’s people and, at times, in resistance to the persistent refrains of the culture. Wisdom is finally possible as we participate in the practices of the God who is wisdom.”

If our call is to hold onto wisdom, we begin to see that wisdom is different from knowledge in that wisdom is a gift from God, an invitation to join in living to God’s will and God’s ways. When we participate in God’s ways of wisdom, we begin to see that wisdom leads to the flourishing of all of God’s children. Wisdom seeks and embraces the truth. It allows for differing interpretations of reality to come to the surface without ruling one as right or wrong. True Godly wisdom is the foundation on which true holy living is built. And when we hold onto this wisdom and live in these ways, we truly begin to care for others.

If we forget about this Godly Wisdom, we can end up in terrible places. As one theologian reminds us, “When we think we are beyond the basic lessons of loving justice, doing kindness, and walking humbly with God, we often end up doing things and saying things we regret. When loving God and loving neighbor as we love ourselves are mere platitudes for us, it seems that disaster often finds us.” On the other hand, if we hold onto God’s wisdom, we begin to truly listen to others. As we hear others perspectives, we begin to move past conflict and division. We embrace one another. We offer and seek forgiveness. And in this space, we find true peace. A wise person is one that is aware that they are not all knowing, and therefore, they are in need of guidance. To be wise then is to have a teachable spirit. To be willing to see, hear, receive, internalize, and be transformed by others is to glean not just knowledge but wisdom as your capacity for compassion grows.

The world tries to tell us that it can’t be this way. If we look around the world we live in, it appears that wisdom is dead. Everything is black and white. Partisan groups, both political and otherwise, each have their own story and narrative about the world. None of the groups seem willing or even interested in trying to come together and listen to one another or to compromise. If our society does not embrace true wisdom, we will continue down a path to this place where no one listens to each other, where no one compromises, where no one looks to the betterment of the other. Perhaps we even ask ourselves if it is even possible to return to the path of wisdom.

Yet our call as Christians, is to use God’s wisdom as our foundation. One commentary uses the analogy of navigation to help us understand this. Using wisdom as a foundation is like knowing the location of north and south. If you know north from south, it will help you navigate on a journey. You might still need your GPS or printed directions to get from point a to point b, but if you know north from south it will help you as your drive. If you’re going south to get to Lynchburg, you know you’re headed in the wrong direction. Wisdom, then, is meant to act like our compass or our internal knowledge of north and south. It is meant to equip us to keep going in the right direction. When we hold onto wisdom, we may still need the GPS, we might still need guidance from God and the scriptures, but we are equipped for a life that guides us along the way.

We must accept Wisdom’s invitation to see God at work, to listen to the others around us, to reay, study, and meditate on God’s word as we prayerfully engage one another, learn from each other, and discern the heart of God. Wisdom’s invitation is an invitation to live into the means of grace, to seek God with all that we are, to be counseled and even rebuked when we fail consider the needs of our community. For it is only through this intensive study and discernment that wisdom’s value is made known as we move through life with an eye towards the God who is at work rather than all the things that can and will go wrong.

It means we are able to keep trusting, keep hoping, and keep working to bring about God’s justice in the world…it all begins with having a teachable spirit. So hold onto wisdom, that God may move in and through us that we might care for all of God’s children.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.