What Ever Happened to Wisdom?
Sermon
Renewal of the New
Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost
Does gray hair bring wisdom or slower reflexes or both? This is the issue over which airline pilots and the Federal Aviation Administration have been arguing for years. The rule has been that pilots cannot fly jetliners after they turn sixty years old. Pilots claim that eligibility after sixty should be determined on a case by case basis. They cite the time when Captain David Cronin, age fifty-nine, brought a jumbo jet back to a safe landing in Hawaii after a huge hole had opened in its fuselage. He maintained that his decades of experience had given him a wisdom for such a crisis not covered in any manuals. Does wisdom come with age?
Where does wisdom come from? This is the question asked in the twenty-eighth chapter of the book of Job, which is part of the so-called wisdom literature of the Old Testament. A renowned commentator, the late Hugh Anderson of Scotland, called this chapter "one of the most magnificent poetical pieces in the whole range of the wisdom literature." Job was a most righteous person who was going through wretched suffering and disastrous loss for no apparent reason. Neither he nor his three "friends" could put their finger on why all this adversity was happening to such a good man. It was contrary to all human reasoning. To explain this deep mystery of why the best of humans would have to suffer this worst of disasters would require a wisdom beyond theirs. So the question at the heart of this chapter of Job is "Whence then, comes wisdom?"
No Wisdom Here
This passage in Job begins by eliminating one possible source of wisdom after another. It's like a game of hide-and-seek. Participants search around and find by the process of elimination that the hidden person is not behind the tree, not hidden by the bush, not behind the great rock, and not behind the garage. So, the writer of Job maintains first that wisdom is not under the earth. You don't dig it up from below. The beginning of this chapter of Job describes how silver and gold, copper and iron can be mined from deep in the earth, but not wisdom. In fact, we have here one of the most elaborate descriptions of how mining was done in ancient times. Today's equivalent would be modem technology. Wisdom is not generated by technology. Ours is the most technologically complex civilization ever to exist. In Texas a super collider, consisting of fifty-three miles of underground tunnel in the shape of a circle, is being built at a cost of over four billion dollars in order to smash atoms into sub-atomic particles. In Seattle seven miles of the most expensive Interstate highway ever built will cost 200 million dollars a mile. In laboratories an X-ray laser has been developed as a new type of microscope capable of revealing the smallest details ever seen inside living cells. In Japan the world's fastest supercomputer can carry out more than twenty billion operations per second. But have these things made us any wiser? To the contrary, our technological advances are outrunning our wisdom to manage them well.
Wisdom can't be dug up from below, but neither can it be found on the surface of the earth, the book of Job says. "The falcon's eye has not seen it," we read in Job 28. The falcon soars at immense heights. It can see from horizon to horizon, and its telescopic eyes can pick out the smallest detail on the ground. Half humorously. Scripture reports that even the falcon's keen eyesight has not detected wisdom on the surface of the earth. Instead, the modern falcon sees a lot of foolishness, like the Wisconsin ex-convict who won the Illinois lottery jackpot of over 380,000 dollars and let it run through his fingers so fast that he started forging checks and soon was back in prison. Even worse, the falcon could see what is called "conspicuous consumption," a phenomenon of well-to-do people spending and wasting money as fast as they can in order to impress others with their wealth, while a fifth of the world starves. What the falcon sees on earth would make a stone statue weep salty tears.
Neither is wisdom found at the bottom of the ocean. We read in Job, "The deep says, 'It is not in me,' and the sea says, 'It is not with me.' " Off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, countless bars of gold and mountains of valuable coins have been discovered in a ship that sank in a hurricane as it sailed home from the California gold rush. Its cargo could be worth 450 million dollars when brought up from a depth of a mile and a half. But this isn't wisdom, and Job says that wisdom is worth more than silver and gold.
Wisdom also cannot be found in the realm of the dead, today's lesson claims, for we read, "Abaddon and Death say, 'We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.' " "Abaddon" stands for the realm of the dead. A rumor is not enough. Only wisdom itself will suffice. Furthermore, if wisdom were to be found in the realm of the dead, that would be far too late. It would not help us in this life. As the old Pennsylvania Dutch saying goes, "Too soon old, too late smart." We need wisdom early in life, so we can live more happily on earth.
What Job is saying so far is that wisdom does not originate with humans -- not the kind of wisdom that brings deep spiritual insights. Instead, as the letter of James reports in today's Second Lesson, there is a lot of bitter jealousy, selfish ambition, and the like. These attitudes are "earthly, unspiritual, devilish." Where such conditions prevail, James says, "there will be disorder and every vile practice." That phrase, "vile practice," sums up much of modern society with its substance addiction, obsession with greed, exploitation of sex, white-collar crime, mud-slinging politics, child abuse, spouse abuse and parent abuse, misuse of public office and church neglect. Where is wisdom in all of this?
All Wisdom Here
Job says that all wisdom must come from God. In his words, "God understands the way to it, and he knows its place." Job goes on to say that when God created the wind and the water, the thunder and the lightning, then he created wisdom also. This means that all wisdom had its origin in God, the Creator. Such wisdom must still come from God. In James' New Testament letter he writes, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting." John Selden, a seventeenth century renowned English scholar, claimed, "Wit and wisdom are born with a man." He could not have been more than half right. Some are born with wit, but none are born with wisdom, at least not the kind of wisdom Job is talking about.
What, then, is the kind of wisdom to which Job referred? God explained the meaning of wisdom in these words in today's lesson, "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom." This requires another explanation, because "fear" does not mean the same thing today as it did then. In the Old Testament the word, "fear," usually meant an awesome reverence for someone. So wisdom would involve an overwhelming reverence for the majesty of God's love and power. This would contrast sharply with a common reference to God these days as "the man upstairs." Rather, the fear of the Lord would come closer to the words of Isaiah when he saw God in a vision, saying, "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple." J. B. Philips wrote a book titled Your God Is Too Small. How true for our day! Our self-estimation is too big, and our God is too small. In the presence of a God of infinite majesty, the gap between what he is and what we are is colossal. Wisdom means to know his place and to know our place.
It is difficult to give content adequately to the majesty of God. Angels cover their eyes from its burning intensity. It is not just a matter of brilliance, but of all the divine qualities that make up the Trinity. In that constellation of attributes are infinite love, infinite power, infinite holiness, infinite truth, infinite faithfulness, infinite justice, all combining with much more to make an infinite majesty. We are simply dumbstruck with awe in the presence of such a divine being of radiant glory. He is light years above us in purity and love, in faithfulness and pardon. Wisdom is to fall to our knees with our face to the ground in the presence of such majesty. He is above all things and in control of all things and gathering all things toward his eternal purpose for creation.
But there's another side to this wisdom. True, "the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom," but then the words of Job go on to say, "and to depart from evil is understanding." The words, "wisdom" and "understanding," are close to meaning the same thing. Therefore, we could paraphrase the words in Job to say, "Wisdom is to depart from evil." This seems so negative, and yet, the best way to depart from evil is to do so much good that there is no room for evil. If you want the best lawn, you plant grass seed so thickly that there is no room for weeds to grow. It is wisdom to crowd our days with good deeds so that there is no room left for evil. To think and do only good is to be in the image of God.
An illustration of how doing so much good can crowd out evil comes from the life of Robert Louis Stevenson. This nineteenth-century author of Treasure Island could not continue to live in England because its damp, cool climate was bad for his health. So he took his family to live in a house on a hill on the beautiful South Pacific island of Samoa. At the foot of the hill two villages of Samoans were constantly at war. They believed that hurricanes happened because angry gods demanded a child sacrifice. Each village wanted to sacrifice the child from the other village, so they fought each other. Stevenson worked hard to teach them that hurricanes didn't result from that cause. At long last he prevailed, but his health weakened until he could no longer walk up and down the rough path on the hill. He could have spent his days with evil, complaining bitterly about his failing health and blaming God, but his ministry of reconciliation to those villages kept him so busy that he didn't have time to complain. Even bedridden, he pointed to the sunlight streaming through his window and said, "I will never allow a row of medicine bottles to block my horizon."
Meanwhile, the Samoans from the two villages below decided to build a smooth road from the house on the hill to their villages below. They called it "The Road of the Loving Heart." At first, when they started working on the road, those from the two villages were still at odds with each other, but as they worked, they began to cooperate with each other, to help each other, to know each other and to love each other. They could have continued the evil of fighting each other, but they were so busy doing good by building the road for Stevenson that they didn't have time or heart for fighting. "The Road of the Loving Heart" not only bound Stevenson and the two villages together, but it also reconciled village to village. Wisdom is to depart from evil by concentrating so much on doing good for others that evil doesn't have room to flourish.
In the letter of James, the passage which is today's Second Lesson amplifies the description of what the wisdom that comes from God is like. James writes, "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity." What a beautiful description of divine wisdom practiced in human life! This kind of living, James summarizes, results in a "harvest of righteousness." Among committed Christians this should be a bumper crop.
It is easy to see that the wisdom that comes from God is not just for the head, but primarily for the heart. Wisdom and knowledge are not the same thing. It is a wise person who said, "Wisdom is knowing what to do with what you know." A manufacturer of theater seats points out that today theater seats are being built larger. Fifteen years ago they ranged from seventeen to nineteen inches across. Now most of them are twenty to twenty-two inches in width. I don't know what this says about our times. But, let us pray for a society in which human hearts are larger, too, stretched to contain the wisdom that comes from above. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay, "Society and Solitude," "Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it ... Luther preaches it." But it is not just the wisdom of the head, but the wisdom of the heart, which comes from above.
Such enlightenment, graciously given by God, can see in the passion of Christ, prophesied by Jesus in today's Gospel, not just a village carpenter's lamentable death, but almighty God's unthinkable sacrifice of himself for humanity's reconciliation from sin to God, something Jesus' disciples could not understand at the time. Such wise persons can also see in Christ's resurrection, to which Jesus also referred in today's Gospel, not just an isolated miracle of God, but the very power that lives within the believing heart today, transforming human life into Christlikeness. The wisdom from above can see in Christ's Ascension to heaven not just a nice way of Jesus exiting the earth, but the glorious triumph of God's suffering servant, opening the gates of heaven for all believers to follow him in victory. Only wisdom from above could inspire this sentence seen on a church bulletin board, "I have a great need for Jesus, and I have a great Jesus for my need."
A beautiful thing about this wisdom is that God gives it to the uneducated and the educated, the poor and the rich, commoners and kings, as they seek it from him. You don't need a college education or a fortune or a high station in life. It is reported that the famous astronomer, Tycho Brahe, left his observatory one night and found himself surrounded by a huge crowd which filled the public square. He asked what brought this crowd together, and they pointed out to him in the constellation of Cygnus, the swan, a brilliant star which he with his best telescopes had never seen. This is similar to Jesus' prayer, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes." Sometimes pride in earthly wisdom keeps us from being humble enough to receive heavenly wisdom through faith.
The wisdom which God has to give is absolutely inexhaustible. The human heart could never contain it all. St. Paul wrote to the church in Rome, "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" When Jesus taught in the synagogue, the people were astounded at his wisdom. They asked each other, "Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him?" Life's great adventure that has no ending is to receive more and more of the wisdom that comes from above so as to understand more deeply in the heart the meaning and purpose of life as well as the wonder and greatness of God.
What ever happened to wisdom? This question is raised in the book of Job in an attempt to penetrate the mystery of suffering. John Bowring has an answer. He is the man who wrote the hymn, "In the Cross of Christ I glory." But he also wrote the hymn, "God is Love: his Mercy Brightens." A stanza in that hymn reads:
E'en the hour that darkest seemeth/Will his changeless goodness prove;/From the gloom his brightness streameth;/God is wisdom, God is love.
This could be reduced to these words: wisdom to understand the meaning of life can only come from the heart of a loving God, through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Job and James would agree on this, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God."
Where does wisdom come from? This is the question asked in the twenty-eighth chapter of the book of Job, which is part of the so-called wisdom literature of the Old Testament. A renowned commentator, the late Hugh Anderson of Scotland, called this chapter "one of the most magnificent poetical pieces in the whole range of the wisdom literature." Job was a most righteous person who was going through wretched suffering and disastrous loss for no apparent reason. Neither he nor his three "friends" could put their finger on why all this adversity was happening to such a good man. It was contrary to all human reasoning. To explain this deep mystery of why the best of humans would have to suffer this worst of disasters would require a wisdom beyond theirs. So the question at the heart of this chapter of Job is "Whence then, comes wisdom?"
No Wisdom Here
This passage in Job begins by eliminating one possible source of wisdom after another. It's like a game of hide-and-seek. Participants search around and find by the process of elimination that the hidden person is not behind the tree, not hidden by the bush, not behind the great rock, and not behind the garage. So, the writer of Job maintains first that wisdom is not under the earth. You don't dig it up from below. The beginning of this chapter of Job describes how silver and gold, copper and iron can be mined from deep in the earth, but not wisdom. In fact, we have here one of the most elaborate descriptions of how mining was done in ancient times. Today's equivalent would be modem technology. Wisdom is not generated by technology. Ours is the most technologically complex civilization ever to exist. In Texas a super collider, consisting of fifty-three miles of underground tunnel in the shape of a circle, is being built at a cost of over four billion dollars in order to smash atoms into sub-atomic particles. In Seattle seven miles of the most expensive Interstate highway ever built will cost 200 million dollars a mile. In laboratories an X-ray laser has been developed as a new type of microscope capable of revealing the smallest details ever seen inside living cells. In Japan the world's fastest supercomputer can carry out more than twenty billion operations per second. But have these things made us any wiser? To the contrary, our technological advances are outrunning our wisdom to manage them well.
Wisdom can't be dug up from below, but neither can it be found on the surface of the earth, the book of Job says. "The falcon's eye has not seen it," we read in Job 28. The falcon soars at immense heights. It can see from horizon to horizon, and its telescopic eyes can pick out the smallest detail on the ground. Half humorously. Scripture reports that even the falcon's keen eyesight has not detected wisdom on the surface of the earth. Instead, the modern falcon sees a lot of foolishness, like the Wisconsin ex-convict who won the Illinois lottery jackpot of over 380,000 dollars and let it run through his fingers so fast that he started forging checks and soon was back in prison. Even worse, the falcon could see what is called "conspicuous consumption," a phenomenon of well-to-do people spending and wasting money as fast as they can in order to impress others with their wealth, while a fifth of the world starves. What the falcon sees on earth would make a stone statue weep salty tears.
Neither is wisdom found at the bottom of the ocean. We read in Job, "The deep says, 'It is not in me,' and the sea says, 'It is not with me.' " Off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, countless bars of gold and mountains of valuable coins have been discovered in a ship that sank in a hurricane as it sailed home from the California gold rush. Its cargo could be worth 450 million dollars when brought up from a depth of a mile and a half. But this isn't wisdom, and Job says that wisdom is worth more than silver and gold.
Wisdom also cannot be found in the realm of the dead, today's lesson claims, for we read, "Abaddon and Death say, 'We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.' " "Abaddon" stands for the realm of the dead. A rumor is not enough. Only wisdom itself will suffice. Furthermore, if wisdom were to be found in the realm of the dead, that would be far too late. It would not help us in this life. As the old Pennsylvania Dutch saying goes, "Too soon old, too late smart." We need wisdom early in life, so we can live more happily on earth.
What Job is saying so far is that wisdom does not originate with humans -- not the kind of wisdom that brings deep spiritual insights. Instead, as the letter of James reports in today's Second Lesson, there is a lot of bitter jealousy, selfish ambition, and the like. These attitudes are "earthly, unspiritual, devilish." Where such conditions prevail, James says, "there will be disorder and every vile practice." That phrase, "vile practice," sums up much of modern society with its substance addiction, obsession with greed, exploitation of sex, white-collar crime, mud-slinging politics, child abuse, spouse abuse and parent abuse, misuse of public office and church neglect. Where is wisdom in all of this?
All Wisdom Here
Job says that all wisdom must come from God. In his words, "God understands the way to it, and he knows its place." Job goes on to say that when God created the wind and the water, the thunder and the lightning, then he created wisdom also. This means that all wisdom had its origin in God, the Creator. Such wisdom must still come from God. In James' New Testament letter he writes, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting." John Selden, a seventeenth century renowned English scholar, claimed, "Wit and wisdom are born with a man." He could not have been more than half right. Some are born with wit, but none are born with wisdom, at least not the kind of wisdom Job is talking about.
What, then, is the kind of wisdom to which Job referred? God explained the meaning of wisdom in these words in today's lesson, "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom." This requires another explanation, because "fear" does not mean the same thing today as it did then. In the Old Testament the word, "fear," usually meant an awesome reverence for someone. So wisdom would involve an overwhelming reverence for the majesty of God's love and power. This would contrast sharply with a common reference to God these days as "the man upstairs." Rather, the fear of the Lord would come closer to the words of Isaiah when he saw God in a vision, saying, "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple." J. B. Philips wrote a book titled Your God Is Too Small. How true for our day! Our self-estimation is too big, and our God is too small. In the presence of a God of infinite majesty, the gap between what he is and what we are is colossal. Wisdom means to know his place and to know our place.
It is difficult to give content adequately to the majesty of God. Angels cover their eyes from its burning intensity. It is not just a matter of brilliance, but of all the divine qualities that make up the Trinity. In that constellation of attributes are infinite love, infinite power, infinite holiness, infinite truth, infinite faithfulness, infinite justice, all combining with much more to make an infinite majesty. We are simply dumbstruck with awe in the presence of such a divine being of radiant glory. He is light years above us in purity and love, in faithfulness and pardon. Wisdom is to fall to our knees with our face to the ground in the presence of such majesty. He is above all things and in control of all things and gathering all things toward his eternal purpose for creation.
But there's another side to this wisdom. True, "the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom," but then the words of Job go on to say, "and to depart from evil is understanding." The words, "wisdom" and "understanding," are close to meaning the same thing. Therefore, we could paraphrase the words in Job to say, "Wisdom is to depart from evil." This seems so negative, and yet, the best way to depart from evil is to do so much good that there is no room for evil. If you want the best lawn, you plant grass seed so thickly that there is no room for weeds to grow. It is wisdom to crowd our days with good deeds so that there is no room left for evil. To think and do only good is to be in the image of God.
An illustration of how doing so much good can crowd out evil comes from the life of Robert Louis Stevenson. This nineteenth-century author of Treasure Island could not continue to live in England because its damp, cool climate was bad for his health. So he took his family to live in a house on a hill on the beautiful South Pacific island of Samoa. At the foot of the hill two villages of Samoans were constantly at war. They believed that hurricanes happened because angry gods demanded a child sacrifice. Each village wanted to sacrifice the child from the other village, so they fought each other. Stevenson worked hard to teach them that hurricanes didn't result from that cause. At long last he prevailed, but his health weakened until he could no longer walk up and down the rough path on the hill. He could have spent his days with evil, complaining bitterly about his failing health and blaming God, but his ministry of reconciliation to those villages kept him so busy that he didn't have time to complain. Even bedridden, he pointed to the sunlight streaming through his window and said, "I will never allow a row of medicine bottles to block my horizon."
Meanwhile, the Samoans from the two villages below decided to build a smooth road from the house on the hill to their villages below. They called it "The Road of the Loving Heart." At first, when they started working on the road, those from the two villages were still at odds with each other, but as they worked, they began to cooperate with each other, to help each other, to know each other and to love each other. They could have continued the evil of fighting each other, but they were so busy doing good by building the road for Stevenson that they didn't have time or heart for fighting. "The Road of the Loving Heart" not only bound Stevenson and the two villages together, but it also reconciled village to village. Wisdom is to depart from evil by concentrating so much on doing good for others that evil doesn't have room to flourish.
In the letter of James, the passage which is today's Second Lesson amplifies the description of what the wisdom that comes from God is like. James writes, "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity." What a beautiful description of divine wisdom practiced in human life! This kind of living, James summarizes, results in a "harvest of righteousness." Among committed Christians this should be a bumper crop.
It is easy to see that the wisdom that comes from God is not just for the head, but primarily for the heart. Wisdom and knowledge are not the same thing. It is a wise person who said, "Wisdom is knowing what to do with what you know." A manufacturer of theater seats points out that today theater seats are being built larger. Fifteen years ago they ranged from seventeen to nineteen inches across. Now most of them are twenty to twenty-two inches in width. I don't know what this says about our times. But, let us pray for a society in which human hearts are larger, too, stretched to contain the wisdom that comes from above. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay, "Society and Solitude," "Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it ... Luther preaches it." But it is not just the wisdom of the head, but the wisdom of the heart, which comes from above.
Such enlightenment, graciously given by God, can see in the passion of Christ, prophesied by Jesus in today's Gospel, not just a village carpenter's lamentable death, but almighty God's unthinkable sacrifice of himself for humanity's reconciliation from sin to God, something Jesus' disciples could not understand at the time. Such wise persons can also see in Christ's resurrection, to which Jesus also referred in today's Gospel, not just an isolated miracle of God, but the very power that lives within the believing heart today, transforming human life into Christlikeness. The wisdom from above can see in Christ's Ascension to heaven not just a nice way of Jesus exiting the earth, but the glorious triumph of God's suffering servant, opening the gates of heaven for all believers to follow him in victory. Only wisdom from above could inspire this sentence seen on a church bulletin board, "I have a great need for Jesus, and I have a great Jesus for my need."
A beautiful thing about this wisdom is that God gives it to the uneducated and the educated, the poor and the rich, commoners and kings, as they seek it from him. You don't need a college education or a fortune or a high station in life. It is reported that the famous astronomer, Tycho Brahe, left his observatory one night and found himself surrounded by a huge crowd which filled the public square. He asked what brought this crowd together, and they pointed out to him in the constellation of Cygnus, the swan, a brilliant star which he with his best telescopes had never seen. This is similar to Jesus' prayer, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes." Sometimes pride in earthly wisdom keeps us from being humble enough to receive heavenly wisdom through faith.
The wisdom which God has to give is absolutely inexhaustible. The human heart could never contain it all. St. Paul wrote to the church in Rome, "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" When Jesus taught in the synagogue, the people were astounded at his wisdom. They asked each other, "Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him?" Life's great adventure that has no ending is to receive more and more of the wisdom that comes from above so as to understand more deeply in the heart the meaning and purpose of life as well as the wonder and greatness of God.
What ever happened to wisdom? This question is raised in the book of Job in an attempt to penetrate the mystery of suffering. John Bowring has an answer. He is the man who wrote the hymn, "In the Cross of Christ I glory." But he also wrote the hymn, "God is Love: his Mercy Brightens." A stanza in that hymn reads:
E'en the hour that darkest seemeth/Will his changeless goodness prove;/From the gloom his brightness streameth;/God is wisdom, God is love.
This could be reduced to these words: wisdom to understand the meaning of life can only come from the heart of a loving God, through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Job and James would agree on this, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God."
