Living Wisely
August 20, 2006
The Very Rev. Harry Pritchett
The Cathedral. of St. Philip
This is a homily about wisdom. The word “wisdom” occurs 318 times in the Bible and one half of those usages occur in the books of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. That’ one of the reasons these books are generally called the “wisdom literature” in biblical circles. Now, if you were training to be a contestant on “Jeopardy”, I’m sure that you would be delighted to learn that information. But alas, it simply is not much food for the soul. This morning it only serves as a way to introduce the biblical idea of wisdom which I, as a preacher, have tended to skip over
The simple and essential meaning of wisdom in the Bible is this: wise persons have learned to live well in the everyday world and are deep and wide in their understanding of God’s will. People who are unwise or foolish live badly and are shallow and narrowing their understanding to God’s will.
Many preachers in past years tended to overlook the concept of wisdom perhaps because the word “Sophia” (wisdom in the Greek) is clearly a feminine reality. So, in all of scripture, wisdom is a “she”, and sometimes as in the Old Testament lesson for today, wisdom is depicted as a personification in female form of a part of God.
It is Lady Wisdom, then, who leads us to live deeply and widely in harmony with the order and the mystery of creation. In a very real way, Lady Wisdom maintains that wholeness of life and holiness of life always go together. And furthermore at Lady Wisdom’s heart lies one of her deepest insights -- and it is this…the fear of God is the very beginning of all wisdom. Now this “fear” of God has little, if anything, to do with being afraid as we usually think of fear. It has nothing to do with our twenty-first century, psychological understanding of the nature of fear. Actually, it is not even the same word in the original languages that the Bible uses when it talks about “fearing no evil” or “perfect love casting out fear”. Rather this kind of fear which is the beginning of all wisdom, describes the sense of reverence that comes from recognizing the utter holiness of God. It is not so much dread or terror, but mysterious awesomeness that indeed, may cause us to tremble with sighs too deep for words and at least symbolically, to fall on our knees.
In the epistle lesson for today, Paul urges us to be careful how we live, and not to live as unwise people who are shallow and narrow, but as wise people who are therefore deep and wide. If we do, Paul says, we will make the most of the time. I want to suggest that the underlying connection between making the most of the time and living wisely is this deep sense of the fear of God as it is called in the Old Testament. It is what perhaps we would call a sense of awe – or even better, a sense of wonder. It seems to me that we make the most of the time we have on this earth as we experience, as we assume, as we live into the wonder and the mystery that is profoundly natural for human beings.
Now when I say “wonder,” I don’t mean curiosity – like the Mad Hatter in Alice’s wonderland singing: ”Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder where you’re at!” And I don’t mean doubt… as in I wonder if life is really worth living. And furthermore I don’t mean uncertainty… like I wonder if the congress will pass any significant legislation in this session. No, when I am grasped by wonder which may lead me to wisdom in making the most of the time, I am amazed, I marvel, I delight, I am enraptured, I tremble in awe. It’s Moses standing before the burning bush taking off his shoes on the holy ground and being afraid to look at God. And it is Mary newly giving birth, who sings, “My spirit exults in God, my Savior.” It is Magdalene just about to touch on Easter morning the risen body of Christ whom she has mistaken for the gardener and mumbling almost to her self, “Master”. It is Theresa of Avila exclaiming she is being ravaged by a rose. It’s doubting Thomas discovering God through his trembling hands in the wounds of Jesus. It is Mother Theresa spying the face of Christ in the tortured person dying of AIDS. It is the newly ordained priest murmuring the first time, “the body of Christ.”....or the collective wonder of America thrilling to human footsteps on the moon… or the thirteen-year-old’s first kiss….or a baby’s first cry….or the mellow pinkness of an early dawn.
So…how do we get this sense of wonder – this fear of the Lord – that leads us to live wisely ,which is to live with depth and breadth.. I am convinced more every day that we are really just born that way, yet as we grow older, most of us lose it. We get blasé and worldly-wise and sophisticated. We take for granted the wisdom of the world rather than the wisdom of God. We no longer run our fingers through water, no longer shout at the stars, no longer make faces at the moon. Water is H2O, the stars have been classified, and the moon has craters, but no face. We have, in effect, grown up. Rabbi Heschel says that our contemporary trap is “believing that everything can be explained, that reality is a simple affair which has only to be organized in order to me mastered.
Now, of course I don’t intend any denunciation of science, technology or progress. But what I am trying to get a handle on is what it means to make the best of the time by living wisely. Increasingly, I don’t believe that human beings will perish because we lack information, but only because we lack appreciation To appreciate not only the new, but the old, not only the miracle that shatters nature, but the wonder that is simply every day.
Sometimes I think I am just a dreamer – unwise in the ways of the real grown up world. I ask myself if the Biblical world is just a dream world, hopelessly naïve. Perhaps it is when you look at the suffering in Lebanon and Israel, or all the discouraging news in Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan or the enlarging gulf between the rich and the poor in the entire world as well as here in Atlanta or the mendacity in ourselves and our government. We need little wisdom to question how Christ can possibly be there… crucified again, with face bloodied almost beyond recognition.
And yet Lady Wisdom points us beyond to a risen Christ who still bears the wounds of the flesh …our flesh, the world’s flesh. This means that wonder is not the same as eyeing the world through rose-tinted glasses; it is not opium for the people; it is not an escape from the grime and the gore and the grave. To wonder in this sense is simply to see the world though the eyes of Christ, through the eyes of God who first fashioned it with a word, then refashioned it in the flesh.
Now I am not advocating foolishness nor naiveté when I commend wonder and awe. (Jesus says for us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.) I am simply insisting that whatever we do, the fruit we bear can be human and therefore Christ-like only if our lives are charged with wonder, only if we are wise to the fear of God, to the things of God – to the people of God. After all, that is our baptismal prayer; that each one of us may be filled with joy and wonder in all God’s works. And my greatest hope for us all ultimately is that we can join the hymn writer in his song: “changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place; till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.”
Thanks be to God. Amen
Comments? Contact Dean Pritchett at: HPritchett@stphilipscathedral.org