Proverbs 2: 20-33

James 3: 1-18

Wisdom Speaks!

September 17, 2006

Rev. Elizabeth Macaulay

Wisdom speaks.

How is it we listen?

There is a story told about a very learned man who felt a stirring in his life. This college professor, greatly lauded for the stuffed-full head of things he knows, was feeling empty.

He had heard of the wisdom of a man who lived in community in a near-by monastery. When people spoke of the wisdom of this man, there was a reverence and shine about them. It seemed that he was a deep well of God spirit.

So the learned man of the world went to visit the wise man of the cloister.

He entered the room where the man was, and introduced himself to the brother. He announced that he wanted to learn the wisdom the man was so legendary for.

“Ah, very good!” said the brother. “Please, sit down and relax. I am glad you are here.” After they were seated, the brother began by speaking aobut the vital importance of ethical living in a life of faith.

“Ah, yes,” interrupted the professor. “Ethics is a fascinating topic, isn’t it. I’ve studied several branches of it. In fact, I actually wrote a book on it,” and he gathered speed and launched into a lecture on the various theories of ethics.

“Ah, I see,” said the brother gently, when at last the professor stopped to draw a breath. “In the life of faith, the correct motivation for saying or doing anything is very important and so we try to say only what is truly helpful.”

“Well, there are several theories which hold that view,” exclaimed the professor. “However, I must say that I find each of them flawed,” and he promptly delivered a long lecture on different theories of motivation.

“Hmmmm, I see,” said the brother, when finally the professor paused for a minute. “Would you like some tea?”

“Why yes, thank you,” replied the professor. The brother smiled and poured until the professor’s cup was full, poured until the tea filled the saucer, and continued pouring while the tea ran over the table. The professor, a man rarely lost for words, was stunned into silence.

When the hot tea started running into his lap, he leapt up yelling.

“Can’t you see the cup is full? It can’t take any more!”

“Why yes, I can see that,” smiled the brother.

“And can’t you see that your mind is completely full of of ideas and so can’t take in new ones? Therefore you can’t possibly learn about how it is faith can be fully lived in life.”

We get confused in life, don’t we?

We are taught by our culture that the more things we can open our heads up and pour into them, the more wisdom we have.

We are, many of us, addicted to books and internet and newspapers and talk shows and CNN because we are near desperate to learn the secrets of what it is that makes life rich and fulsome.

And a head full of knowledge does not a wise person make.

Wisdom speaks.

She speaks, in the reading from Proverbs, right in the midst of civic life. She places herself at the city gates, the place in Israel’s culture where justice was meted out, and she speaks a message she insists we hear:

We must pay heed to her tenets. The richness of her message, the richness of our very lives are found in the teachings of our faith.

We are to walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the just.

So how do we hear her voice when there are so many that clamor around us?

We have to decide to listen. To make the space. To silence the chaos of voices and claims that reach into our lives and bring, not blessing, but burden.

Wisdom, the writer of James would have us to know, bears gentleness. It is peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, and through wisdom, a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

So how do we listen for wisdom?

Roger Walsh is professor of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology at the University of California at Irvine.

He could have been the man seeking wisdom from the monk, a head full of knowledge and an inability to be open to wisdom, except that he discerned an emptiness in his life that he came to know needed tending.

So he has studied the wisdom of the world’s religions and he shares in his book Essential Spirituality four teachings for we who would seek wisdom. These four mind-changers, as he calls them, come from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and are found in some form in all of the great religions.

The four mind changers are a place for us to start in our clearing of clutter.

They create in us an opening to wisdom as we reflect on these four truths.

The first is this:

Life is inconceivably precious.

Playing tennis yesterday with the sun on my face and my people sweating in my company I looked over and caught the wonder of a toddler dancing in the wind and tell me, isn’t life amazing?

Life is inconceivably precious.

As we open to make space for wisdom. Let us open our hearts to that awareness.

The second mind-changer to help us become grounded in wisdom?

Life is short, and death is certain.

We are all dying, my beloveds. A beloved band teacher in Richfield died this past week because of complications she encountered while giving birth. She touched so many lives because she lived her life so fully and please God may we learn from Colleen Fisher that life is short and death is certain and so we MUST live while we can, we must. She did, praise God. And she taught so many how to do so, as well.

Through such living wisdom is given birth.

The third mind-changer is this: Life contains inevitable difficulties.

We struggle and we sweat and we cry out to a God who hears us that life is not fair and we are tired of hurting. And it is a part of it all, this pain. There is no life where pain is not.

There is no way through pain but through it. I’m sorry. But it is true.

The fourth thing to meditate upon as we seek to grow wisdom?

Our ethical choices mold our lives.

All that we say, do, or think affects our lives and creates consequences. We have great power. Great power.

If we use our tongue to set fires as James puts it, we and our world live with the consequences.

If we practice compassion and gentleness and honesty, we and our world live with the consequences.

So these four awarenesses are a way to begin to listen for wisdom:

Life is precious.

Even as we savor life we are dying.

Pain is.

And, we have the power to choose to act ethically. And when we fail, we have the power to make amends and try again. And again. And again.

Wisdom speaks. I pray in the week to come that we will all unplug. Unstuff our heads. Let go of what we don’t know.

And spend time in which we are intentional about being open to what we do know: the love of God, calling us to deeper life. Wisdom speaks. May we seek the ability to hear her voice.

Amen