Proverbs 1:20-33 – “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.”
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Psalm 19:1-14 To the leader. A Psalm of David
The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. 2 Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; 4 yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun, 5 which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. 6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat. 7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple; 8 the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is clear, enlightening the eyes; 9 the fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb. 11 Moreover by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. 12 But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults. 13 Keep back your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. 14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
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Mark 9:30-37 – They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
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Each of our scripture readings for today talks about wisdom, but each reading takes a different approach, so we’ll spend some time with all three. Taken together, they help us understand how wisdom fits into a believer’s life – and, sadly, how often wisdom has been lacking in human history.
For so many of us, as we look back over our lives, the wisdom we learned as children from our parents somehow seems to have become outdated. The world has changed; it seems like things we once valued are no longer considered as important as they were. Respect for others, for example, is now sort of quaint and old-fashioned; and honesty is often seen as impractical.
The fact is, God’s truth and mercy and standards have never changed, because God never changes. Some people might think that that makes God backwards – but God is actually waaaaaaay ahead of us, and is calling us to catch up and catch on.
Let me give a real-world example. This story is not accurate in every detail, but it’s based on something that happened a few decades ago. There was a mid-level executive in a corporation who became aware that the company he worked for was considering a plan, a course of action, that would most likely lead to legal or financial trouble if it was approved. This person also knew that the person suggesting the plan was his boss’s boss. So this guy was in a Catch-22. If he spoke up and pointed out the weaknesses of the plan, he might lose his job. But if he stayed silent – protected himself and his job – what would happen to the company?
In a situation like this, what’s the wise thing to do?
Life presents us with questions like this all the time. This is why it’s so important to talk with God every day; to have a time each day that’s just for us and God and nobody else. This is also why we need to pray for wisdom – and not just pray, but actively seek wisdom.
So what exactly is wisdom? It’s not just ‘smarts’. Education is a good thing, but it can’t give us wisdom. It’s like the old saying says: education tells us a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom tells us not to put the tomato in the fruit salad.
So is wisdom power? Not exactly. Wisdom is a powerful thing, but many people who have power don’t have wisdom, and many people who are wise don’t have power.
The dictionary says that wisdom is having a combination of experience, knowledge, and good judgement. Experience takes time to gain; knowledge takes effort; and good judgement, I believe, is mostly a gift from God – which is why we need to talk to God every day.
Today’s scriptures give us some clues and point us in some good directions. Let’s start with Proverbs…
Our reading from Proverbs today comes from the first chapter of the book of Proverbs. It’s interesting to note that, while the book of Proverbs was used back in the day mostly as a textbook for young men in ancient Israel, the first and last chapters of Proverbs are written in the voice of a woman.
The Bible doesn’t give this woman a name, so for today I’ll call her Lady Wisdom, because she comes from royalty, from the courts of God’s kingdom. She’s not a goddess, but she’s not exactly human either. It might be best to think of her as something like the voice of the Holy Spirit – not the Holy Spirit himself but the Spirit’s voice. Her words are words that God wants us to hear and act on.
As Proverbs chapter one opens, Lady Wisdom is crying out in the streets. Something has gone wrong in her beloved city! She is angry, and aggravated, and she is speaking a prophetic message.
Lady Wisdom calls out to the young, the naive, the simple… and to people who are just not listening… people who know what’s right but refuse to do it… people who know what’s best but refuse to choose it.
Let me give a modern-day illustration of the message she was sharing: It’s as if the people of her city have been given a choice between a filet mignon for dinner or a Big Mac. Why would anyone even need to think about this decision? Why would anyone choose a Big Mac, with its lack of flavor (and tiny size these days) – why would anyone even pull up to the drive-in, knowing there’s this beautiful steak, perfectly prepared, with sides of a salad and mashed potatoes and gravy, all waiting at home, where you can sit in your favorite chair and eat with the people you love?
And yet… there’s a line of cars down at the golden arches…
Lady Wisdom makes fun of them! She says: “How long are you gonna love being simple? How long are you gonna mouth off and sing that stupid song about ‘two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun’? How long are you going to hate what’s good and choose what’s worthless?”
Lady Wisdom then starts describing three different kinds of fools! There’s the Simple – people who in theory could learn, who are capable of learning, but refuse to. Then there’s the Mockers and Scoffers – people who are just downright rude, arrogant, and cynical. And then there are the Fools – people who refuse to act wisely or do what God says to do.
Through the voice of Lady Wisdom, God calls all three kinds of fools to repentance.
But still the fools don’t listen.
So Lady Wisdom says: OK. You ignored me. My words were not threats, they were warnings to change course before it’s too late. But you didn’t listen, and now it’s too late. Trouble is on the way, like a whirlwind, she says: distress and anguish and panic, but when you call on me I won’t be there.
That’s the thing about ignoring Wisdom: people can get away with it for a while; but if we insist on continuing to be unwise, eventually it catches up to us. All the ignorance, all the sarcasm, all the cynicism, all the abusing of the powerless – going against what God has taught us – we have sown the wind and we will reap the whirlwind.
“Therefore,” Lady Wisdom says,
“they shall eat the fruit of what they have done… and I, Lady Wisdom, will not be found; because waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys them; but anyone who listens to me will be secure…”
Those who listen to Lady Wisdom, even when other people don’t, will live in strength, not in fear. They may see a little trouble here and there, but they will be able to endure and thrive.
The remaining two scriptures for today assume that we, the listeners, are seeking wisdom and are listening to God. These two scriptures teach us how to listen and what to listen for as we listen to God.
Starting with Psalm 19: BTW this Psalm has been called “one of the greatest lyrics in the world”[1]. It has been set to music by Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Haydn, and many others. In the Jewish faith, this psalm is also said or sung every Sabbath and on every holiday. It is a bringer of joy as well as a bringer of wisdom.
Psalm 19 can be broken down into three sections: (1) Creation praising God; (2) the glory of God’s law; and (3) a prayer to God – a prayer of thanks for the goodness of God’s word.
As New Testament believers, we may find it difficult to get excited about the Old Testament law, the Ten Commandments, and the book of Deuteronomy. But think what life was like back then. What we have in our Bibles describes one of the most well-defined and well-developed codes of laws in the ancient world. God’s words were the foundation of a nation that lived in peace and prospered. This was back in the time of the judges, when people owned their own land, lived their own lives, and worshipped God on the Sabbath. Other than the tithe, there was nothing in terms of taxes because there was no central government.
This BTW is why, when the people asked God for a king – essentially wanting to trash the whole system that God had set up – the prophet Samuel gave the people a whole list of things that a royal government would do: it would tax them for the king’s palace and the king’s army; it would take their daughters as perfumers and their sons as warriors – Samuel goes on. By contrast, God’s way of organizing society was both wise and almost burden-free. But the people weren’t wise enough to keep it; they demanded a king like everybody else had.
So the Old Testament law was amazingly wise and amazingly good… if it could be lived. If it could be kept. The psalmist prays that God would keep us away from insolence and mistakes and rebellion and other hidden faults.
And the psalmist asks, and we also ask, that God would forgive us, and help us to see and turn away from the sins that we can’t see right now; that God would not let sin win out over us. The psalm then ends with a prayer we’ve heard many times; it’s often used to start a sermon: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” It’s a good prayer for preachers to pray, but it’s not just for preachers.
Finally in our reading from the gospel of Mark, Jesus talks about wisdom as it relates to power and greatness. The conversation in this passage takes place immediately after Jesus broke the news to the disciples that he was about to be betrayed and killed. The disciples are confused, and they’re afraid to ask questions. Once they’re out of earshot of Jesus, they start arguing over which one of them is the greatest.
I’m sad to say this arguing over who’s the greatest is still a problem among some Christians, as we learned a few decades ago with the scandals surrounding Jimmy Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart and other celebrity preachers. (These kinds of preachers are still with us today, still deceiving people and still trying to make themselves rich and powerful by misusing God’s word.)
But Jesus turns the concept of greatness upside down – because human values are not heaven’s values. Do we really think money means anything in the kingdom of God? In heaven, gold bars are used for paving-stones, like bricks, to build roads with. The apostle John describes this in Revelation 21:21. He says:
“21 And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold…”.
What God values is kindness and a generous spirit, and that we listen to God. To follow the way of Jesus is to value the marginalized and to minister to “the least of these”.
To illustrate this, Jesus takes a little child and sets him on his lap. Back in Bible times, children were on the lowest rung of society. They had no rights; they had no standing. In fact in that society – at least in ancient Rome – if a baby or a child wasn’t wanted, he or she would be dropped off in the town square and left there, presumably to die. (The early Christians BTW objected to this practice and adopted quite a few of those children – the early church became famous for it.)
So here is this child, the lowest of the low in that society, resting in the arms of Jesus. And Jesus says to the disciples: “whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me.”
As a side note, this is one of the many reasons I like working with refugees. It’s not a political thing for me; it’s doing what Jesus said to do, and it is always a joy.
Anyway, generosity to the ‘least of these’ is the wisdom of heaven. It’s the same wisdom God exercises when God looks at us. It’s God’s mercy and God’s generosity that saves us – it’s a generosity that extends all the way to the cross, which is what Jesus is trying to explain to the disciples.
Jesus will not be dying on the Cross in order for God to be gracious and merciful; Jesus will be dying because God is gracious and merciful. Because God wants us to live and not die.
Jesus also dies because the powers-that-be, religious or otherwise, can’t grasp the radical grace and generosity of God. In the wisdom of God, greatness is not measured by status, wealth, achievement, reputation, or hard work. It’s measured instead by things like mercy and generosity of spirit. It’s much easier to be great in the eyes of the world than it is to be great in the eyes of God; but in the end, only one opinion matters.
As an example: I was on a Zoom call this past week with a classmate who is currently serving in South Sudan in Africa. (In Sudan, the Christians live in South Sudan, and the Muslims in the north, in Sudan and Darfur.) He lives near the border, and he’s in the process of building a school where both Christian and Muslim children can learn together. It’s not a safe place for him to be; and it’s certainly not a place where he’s going to build a career or become famous. But my classmate isn’t thinking about those things; he’s there to do God’s work, and to teach children how to care for each other across religious differences. This is wisdom: not as the world defines it, but as God defines it.
Greatness on Jesus’ terms is risky. It might mean setting aside comfortable lives. It might mean welcoming the vulnerable, or feeding the hungry, or clothing the naked, to visiting the sick and imprisoned. God’s wisdom calls us to express our relationship with God, and our love for God, in the way we treat others – especially those in need.
This is the wisdom that Jesus teaches, and the wisdom that Lady Wisdom recommends. Do we have the courage to follow?
Let me encourage each one of us to keep on searching for God’s wisdom, and keep on praying for wisdom. It’s not always easy to recognize, but it is always worth the cost of looking. God’s wisdom is literally the foundation of the earth, and of the heavenly kingdom where we will all live someday.
So let’s pray:
“Lord Jesus, help us to see where we lack wisdom, and help us to turn to you for guidance. Help us to turn away even from the sins we can’t see; and don’t let sin win out over us. We want to live into the beauty and grace of Your wisdom. We ask this for your Name’s sake, and for the sake of Your people. AMEN.”
[1] CS Lewis
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