Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor Sermon Podcast
Introducing Wisdom (#1): Her Breadth, Depth and Appeal (Ken Wilson)
Introducing Wisdom (#1): Her Breadth, Depth and Appeal (Ken Wilson) :: August 5-6, 2006
You know the Bible that Jesus knew consisted of three parts, Torah or the law, the first five books of Moses, Naveem or the Prophet, if you've heard of names like Isaiah or Jeremiah, they are the prophets, and Ketavim or the writings, including prominently in the writings are a subcategory called the Wisdom Literature, books like Psalms, Proverbs, and Job are Wisdom Literature. Now, Wisdom Literature is very important because Jesus seems to have drawn an understanding of his identity from the Hebrew tradition of wisdom. It's much underplayed in modern thinking, but it's very important if you value Jesus responding, for example, to some of his early critics. Jesus said he was trying to say, "Watch me, and watch what I do, and watch what comes out of my ministry, and his way of saying that poetically was wisdom will be proved right by her children." You see, in the Hebrew Bible, wisdom is a personified feminine figure. We talked about that when we were looking at Gnosticism and the DaVinci Code series a while back. Jesus may well have understood himself as the literal embodiment, the incarnation of wisdom. Saint Paul says that Jesus became for us wisdom from God, and that in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom. So if we treasure Jesus of Nazareth, we will want to tune in to this figure in the book of Proverbs, especially called Lady Wisdom, called Lady Wisdom because she is a personified feminine figure in the Proverbs, the Hebrew word for wisdom is a feminine, and the Greek Sophia is also feminine. So we'll be having a series on wisdom in the Hebrew Bible today, Proverbs in particular. Today we'll be introducing wisdom, her breath, depth, and appeal. You know, the contemporary view of wisdom is very anemic. The English definition of wisdom is the knowledge and experience needed to make sensible decisions and judgments. That's real sexy, isn't it? You know, we think of wisdom in our culture as perhaps the only advantage of advancing age. You know, those in the digital generation, they can harness awesome amounts of information through their Internet, through Google, through flights through the blogosphere, but the digitalis generation, we've got wisdom. Wisdom, in other words, ain't too sexy. It's what you get when you run out of steam. That's why I'm using this term. Lady wisdom, because there's more to wisdom in biblical understanding than meets the eye. Wisdom's breadth, for example. You know, sometimes those who value, as I do, the work of the Holy Spirit, the in-breaking God, sometimes people who really value the work of the Holy Spirit in our culture also have like a low view of wisdom, as though somehow good sense is incompatible with spirituality. I love the punchline of one of Jesus' parables, where he says, you know, the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own than are the children of light, and it wasn't a compliment to the children of light when he said that. But the wisdom of Proverbs, lady wisdom, encompasses all of life. There is no sacred secular divide when it comes to wisdom. The Proverbs are filled, for example, with what we would think of as spiritual or sacred wisdom, things like the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I mean, you just don't get that on your Lipton tea bag, do you? Or in your fortune cookie that a posture of humble awe, not just admiration or a kind of a respect, but knee-knocking awe is what puts us most in touch with reality. But there are many other Proverbs in the book of Proverbs that have a real, just a pragmatic, almost like a business savvy kind of ring. I love this one as vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes is the slugger to those who use them as a messenger. Certainly if you're in business or if you're a supervisor or you have employees, and some of them are tasked to do things that represent you and you give them tasks and they don't follow through with them in a timely fashion, you know exactly what that Proverb is all about. I love this other one. It's too late to lock the stable door when the horse is already stolen. I mean, come on, get a life. So you have this whole mix, you know, ladies wisdom, wisdom is a broad wisdom, so to speak. And this is very important. You know, we live in a fragmented age that values separation. Church and state are strictly separate. I'm very glad for that as a Christian. We keep our life at work, in our personal life, separate as much as possible. If someone's turned into tuned on to spirituality, then we think automatically they won't be much good at business or practicality because we are so influenced by this sacred secular divide in our thinking. Well, lady wisdom is no respecter of the sacred secular divide. There's only one cosmos and it's God's cosmos. There's only one truth and it's God's truth. There's no science and God is God's truth as much as good religion. Truth is truth wherever it's found. Lady wisdom is a friend to all. Lady wisdom is a friend to those in business, in the law, in medicine, to telemarketers, and infoteckeys, and salespeople, and mothers, and fathers, and lovers, and athletes, and gardeners, even pastors, maybe, because it's all her beeswax. It's all the business of wisdom, wisdom's breadth. Wisdom also has some mystical depths. You know, we think of wisdom as primarily like moral perspective, how to make good moral choices, and it's true there are many proverbs about right living. But there's also a mystical depth to wisdom who was presented in proverbs with God in the beginning, the agent of his creation, the agent of his creative influence. We read a classic text of this from Proverbs 8. This is just one of several examples in the Proverbs. You know, there's talk about the creative power of God all through the Bible, not just in the beginning of Genesis. The Lord begot me, this is wisdom speaking, the firstborn of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago. From of old I was poured forth at the first before the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no fountains or springs of water, before the mountains were settled into place. I love that, settled into place. Before the hills I was brought forth, while as yet the earth and the fields were not made nor the first clods of the world, when he established the heavens I was there. When he marked out the vault or the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth. When he set for the sea its limits so that the water should not transgress his command, then I was beside him as his craftsmen, and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth, and I found delight in the sons of men. So before wisdom is guiding us to make good moral choices, she's doing the tango with the Creator. I was beside him as his craftsmen, playing before him all the while. This picture's creation unfolding in a kind of joyous, spontaneous freedom. Creation doesn't unfold in the Bible mechanically, as if God has a blueprint, he builds it to spax, and it's done. No, it's an artistic undertaking, an unfolding, and it's still unfolding in biblical and in scientific perspective. You know the scientists speak about the birth of the universe in the language of the Big Bang theory. I just, you know, those in a culture war with science for religious reasons just miss so much cause for wonder and awe and worship. But to me, the Big Bang theory is just, I mean, this really floats. This floats my boat, and it floats my boat as a believer, as a lover of God, this idea that all mass and time were, what, 16 billion years ago, compressed in an infinitely small potentiality called the singularity. I don't understand it either. And then there was this unpredicted, completely unpredicted, glorious, explosive outpouring of energy and matter to result in what we call space-time. This is roiling and broiling ferment. We, the first very simple particles form in that era as the universe expands, these simple particles gather into swirling pockets of gravity. These localized concentrations of matter draw more matter to themselves through gravity. They generate intense gravitational pressure. They heat rises until there's nuclear fusion in localized places in the universe called the supernova, the starburst. And out of that, the higher elements like calcium are given to birth. All the calcium in our bone is literally starburst. And it's still unfolding, the Big Bang. It's still expanding the scientists tell us wisdom still at play in the fields of the lore. You know, the scientists tell us this is fairly recent, the last couple of decades that the universe, it turns out, is fine-tuned to an incredible degree to release this wondrous unfolding that allows for life. If gravity, if the gravitational force had been just infinitesimally weaker or stronger, we couldn't have existed. If the forces within the atom itself, the nuclear strong force and the nuclear weak force had been ever so slightly elevated, or any one of them ever so slightly diminished, the universe would have been a sterile inhospitable place for anything like organic life. This is wisdom at play in the fields of the Lord. And if you meditate on it, it's awe-inducing mystical stuff. You know, I was praying in preparation for the weekend on Friday early in the morning. I opened my eyes to the bird feeder attached to my office window. You know, you just catch it sometimes. The morning sun is just coming at that wonderful angle, laying down these golden streamers, the light playing off the bushes, the leaves, the bushes just outside the window and then the trees beyond them. So, you know, you see that light sometimes through the green leaves. It's almost like you can see photosynthesis itself happening before your eyes. And at that moment, a red-finch lands in my little bird feeder, feeding on sunflower seeds of all things, isn't that poetic? You know, this intricate little bird. You know, those fine bones in the wing of a bird that think of it composed of the calcium that was born in the fusion reaction of some distant early supernova. Oh, the depths and the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How inscrutable are His judgments and how unsearchable His ways were from Him. And through Him and for Him are all things. They Him be the glory forever. Amen. Said St. Paul. You know, what we call science has roots in what the Bible calls wisdom because, of course, there was no such thing as science in the era in which the Bible was written, many of the proverbs are ascribed to King Solomon, the great king, the son of David. It says in 1 Kings of Solomon, this is chapter 5, he spoke 3,000 proverbs. He was the head of a wisdom school in Israel. He founded one. Furthermore, he was a botanist and a zoologist. From the text itself, he described plant life. From the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles, and fish. So you see the breadth and the depth of wisdom. Wisdom, you can think of wisdom in biblical understanding. One of those actors that plays several roles in a production. She comes as common sense wisdom does. She comes as moral conscience, but she also comes as a dancer, swirls, whirling dervish in the magical mystery tour of creation. Wisdom is all of that, her breadth and her depth. And then wisdom's appeal. Now, a fascinating thing about wisdom in the book of Proverbs. How wisdom is approached in Proverbs tells us so much about God. You know, at first, especially in the first eight or nine chapters of Proverbs, there seem to be as many Proverbs about wisdom's appeal about her allure as there are Proverbs of Wisdom's counsel. For example, Proverbs 3, the 13th verse, "Happy the one who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding, for her profit is better than profit and silver, and better than gold is her revenue." She is more precious than chorals, and none of your choice possessions can compare to her. I love this in Proverbs 4, "Get wisdom, get understanding. Do not forget or turn aside from the words I utter. First take her not, and she will preserve you. Love her, and she will safeguard you." The beginning of wisdom is get wisdom. At the cost of all you have, get understanding, extolar, and she will exalt you. She will bring you honors if you embrace her. She will put on your head a graceful diadem, which is something you want, though you may not know that now. A glorious crown will she bestow on you. You know, I didn't know Nancy, now my wife, all that well. She was a 17-year-old pup when I began to fall for her. I wasn't capable of knowing anyone with any depth at that age. I don't think what I fell in love with was just now looking back, the surface, but having fallen. I gained access to enormous benefits that at that time were completely unanticipated. It's like that with wisdom. The beginning of wisdom is get wisdom. I thought you loved that. The beginning of wisdom is get wisdom at the cost of everything, and then embrace her. Now, she's an expensive date wisdom, but wisdom delivers far beyond anything you could ask or think or imagine. You know, some of the councils of wisdom really are just tough love. Wisdom often comes like an old, wise, and 40-year sober alcoholic in AA. You know, those guys, oh man, you know, voice is always very deep from the cigarettes. You know, the diet. Letting heavy coffee without cream and no sugar are these guys. You know, when they talk to you and your recovery, you know, just dealing with your addiction. I mean, they're giving you the straight scoop, and it's, you know, there's no sugar coating at all. Sometimes wisdom speaks in that voice to the man falling in love with his neighbor's wife. Wisdom says, "Can a man take fire to his bosom and his garments not be burned?" I love the other translations that say, "Can a man take fire to his lap?" That's a little bit more vivid in context, don't you think? And his garments not be burned? What a spoil sport wisdom can be? You know, if you're hot to trot with your neighbor's wife, that's the last thing you want to hear. You want to hear, "The more we get together, together, together, the more we get together, the happier we'll be." If it feels good, we want to hear, it would be a crime against the universe, not to do it. You know, if we try to gain wisdom without letting ourselves fall for her, and fall for her early on, will most of us ditch her when her councils get tough and they do get tough? So the beginning of wisdom is not gird yourself for self-discipline and moral vigor. The beginning of wisdom is gat wisdom. Consider her words, consider her charms, her value, what she can do for you. You know, thank God, God doesn't expect us to do the hard things just because they happen to be right end of story. Well, that's all very noble, and God is certainly within his rights to leave it at that, but we're not all that noble when push comes to shove. Thank God that God knows we need to pair bond. Do you hear what I'm saying? We need to pair bond with wisdom sometimes before we're able to heed all her councils. You know, this is one of the things that really surprised me about my early conscious encounters with Jesus of Nazareth. Well, as an atheist, I thought that devout Christian people were individuals with some weird proclivity, some weird appetite for religious self-discipline and moral rectitude. That's what I thought about Christian must be. They came from that personality stripe, and so they joined that club. Well, I found instead that as I read the Gospels themselves firsthand, you know, you can grow up in American culture and think you know all about Christianity, but you don't know squat. Until you've read the Gospel accounts firsthand, and when I first read the Gospels, I realized that the figure of the Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth, had something that you can only call as adaptive quality. That this was an attractive and appealing figure, someone you wanted to be around, whether or not you happened to agree with him. You know, does it make sense to your experience? It makes sense to mine to say, first I fell for him, and then I followed him. And if I hadn't fallen, I don't know if I'd been able to follow. St. Bernard, the saint, not the dog, wrote this a thousand years ago, wrote this him a thousand years ago. Oh, Jesus, thou the beauty art of angel worlds above. Thy name is music to the heart, enchanting with its love. Oh, my sweet Jesus, hear the sighs, which unto thee I send, to thee my inmost cries, my being's hope and end. That's a man who's fallen for Jesus of Nazareth. And that's one of the reasons that you would connect Biblical wisdom, Lady Wisdom and the Proverbs with Jesus of Nazareth. They both have this kind of quality to them. It tells us a lot about God, that he presents wisdom to us first as this attractive dame to fall in love with, speaking to men, as the book of Proverbs, the audience that is understood in that ancient culture is primarily men, but it applies, of course, to men and women. Why do you think this world, this created and creating realm, this profligate orb throbbing with life presents to us? So often, you know what I'm talking about, when the creation just like winks at you sometimes. The creation just like, I mean, we're going through life and it's kind of ordinary and it's a grey day and it's, you know, it's like the creation just seems like it seems like your old junior high school kind of worn out and dull, but then not again. I mean, the creation, if you have eyes to see, oh, just this wink at you now and again, and why is it that the creation does this? Life presents to us so often as beautiful, as breathtaking beauty. Don't you think this is God showing us, as it were, a little ankle? So here's what we'll be looking at in the weeks to come. I hope this gets your attention first. Lady wisdom and dame folly intersecting sexuality. I like that. Second topic will be business savvy wisdom, the wise tongue planning and use of wealth. And then our next topic will be placing ourselves under wisdom's mentoring, under wisdom's tutelage. I would suggest, if you'd like to follow along with this series, that you read a chapter of Proverbs every day. There are 31 days in a month and there's 31 chapters in Proverbs, so a chapter a day keeps the folly away. So you might begin to just read a chapter a day of Proverbs as we go through this series over the next month. I would say to begin before you try to digest her tough love and you'll run into it in the book of Proverbs. First, catch the scent of her perfume. First, let her turn your head. First, allow yourself to be drawn to wisdom as she makes those appeals to us in the book of Proverbs. Okay, we're going to have the Lord's Supper here now to close. I just wanted to mention, I don't know if this is for 9.30 or 11, but in prayer this morning, I got a sense that there was really someone going to be at church today with a fire in their lap. Name begins with R, the person that you're interested in. Name begins with an L, was the senses. That was praying. So I just mentioned that in case it applies to anyone. Just I encourage you to come forward and maybe receive some prayer or to make some, you know, some tough choices in your own heart this morning. There's grace and power from God for you to do that. But communion, if we can have the communion elements come forward here. You know, wisdom in Proverbs lays out a banquet feast. We'll be talking about that next week. She mixes wine and she invites us into her house and this is very much something that you see in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, especially with the communion meal. This from, I believe, Matthew's Gospel. Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed and broke it and said, "Take, eat, this is my body." And he took a cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, "Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." I tell you, Jesus said, "I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until the day I drink it with you in the Father's kingdom." So let us stand and pray. This ancient prayer, "Bread of the world and mercy broken, wine of the soul and mercy shed by whom the words of life were spoken and whose death our sins are dead." Look on the heart by sorrow broken. Look on the tears by sinner shed and be your face to us, the token, that by your grace our souls are fed. And now we're bold to pray as the Lord taught us, our Father.