Becoming Wise

Proverbs 8:22-31

My 7^th grade teacher, Mrs. Pierson, called me the “Village Idiot,” one day in class after I’d done something…and I can’t for life of me remember what. I do know it wasn’t one of my prouder moments and I’m quite certain I deserved her labeling. I told you a few weeks ago that my sister locked me out of the house one time and I threatened to break the glass to get back in. She called my bluff and I broke the glass. Not one of my prouder moments either. In 1983, the year I graduated from high school, we Seniors decided to have a Senior skip day…a day when we wouldn’t show up at school. The principal caught wind of it and told all fifteen of us that if we missed school just because we wanted to skip, we’d get a day of in-school suspension. I chose to ignore his warnings and skipped anyway and went to the farm. As much as I enjoyed myself on the farm, it wasn’t worth the day I spent later in the Principal’s office. I purposely only included my juvenile moments of foolishness, though there are plenty adult examples to choose from as well.

Foolishness is the opposite of wisdom. If you’re wise, you have fewer moments of foolishness. Though some of the moments I’ve described have taught me lessons, I’d just as soon have skipped these teachable moments. Maybe that only further makes the case for me being a fool. If you’re foolish, we think up clever little sayings about you:

He’s a few fries short of a happy meal.
For her, the wheel’s spinning, but the hampster’s dead.
The cheese slid off his cracker.
She’s as smart as bait.
His chimney’s clogged.
Her sewing machine is out of thread.
There’s no grain in his silo.
Her belt doesn’t go through all the loops.[1]

You’ve heard these, probably used these, and perhaps made up a few of your own. The truth is, these expressions have all been true of all of us at times in life. We each could show our own home movies of when we’ve been Dumb and Dumber.

One of the appealing draws of Proverbs is that it’s the book of wisdom. Herein lies part of the secret in becoming wise. My youth pastor in high school asked, “Gregg, how many chapters does Proverbs have?” I felt pretty smart when I answered, “Thirty-one!” My youth pastor then said, “Gregg, you need to read one of these chapters every day of the month…every month of the year…every year of your life.” Now, he may have been speaking in general terms but somehow I think he was also speaking specifically to me. I had some room to grow in the wisdom area. But don’t we all!?

Like many things in life, wisdom is more of a journey than a destination. The closer we think we’re getting to the Promised Land of wisdom, the further away we realize we are. But this realization should not cause us to stop the trip.

This is Trinity Sunday on the Church calendar. It’s the day when we purposely stop and focus on essence of God. How do we make sense of the threeness and oneness of God? There’s no doubt that there’s a wisdom void when we stumble over the theological rock of the Trinity. And if contemplating the Trinity isn’t hard enough with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, our passage today has led some to conclude there are others involved too.

Here in this passage, wisdom is personified. Wisdom is speaking as if a co-creator with God. So are there now four essences…or more...to God!? Daniel H. Williams begins an article on this passage by saying, “Of all the passages in the collection known as the Book of Proverbs, none have been so controversial and have had such a far-reaching influence on later Christian theology as 8:22-31.”[2] Williams goes on to say that this passage has, “…a colorful hermeneutical history,”[3] which I guess is his way of saying we don’t always know what to do with this passage.

Oprah Winfrey often asks the question on her show and in her magazine, “What do you know for sure?”[4] While I’m not a huge Oprah fan, her question seems relevant for our search for wisdom today. What do you know about God? For sure? A range of answers would surely come up including: God’s love, God’s grace, God’s forgiveness, and God’s judgment. Since this is Trinity Sunday, what do you know for sure about the Trinity? When we start to press people about what we know for sure about God, wisdom does not always prevail. Too often, narrow and confining parameters box God in. We recite with comfort the verse from Hebrews where it says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,”[5] and forget that Paul wrote to Timothy, “Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great.”[6] So how do wisdom and God fit together in this text today?

At the risk of over-simplifying our text today into a single sound byte, I believe you could make this statement about our text: Wisdom has been a part of God’s character from the word go. As long as God has been, God has been wise. Throughout our passage, the writer uses the personification of wisdom to describe a wise God who made everything that is. That makes good sense to most of us. But we can’t stop there. The mysterious side of this passage conveys a deeper meaning, an elusive meaning. Wisdom literature doesn’t fit cleanly into our 21^st century western thinking. We’d like the writer of Proverbs to just come out plainly and say it clearly without all this literary device mumbo jumbo. But to do that, would miss the essence of wisdom – wisdom is something that must be continually pursued. Joan Chittister writes, “Wisdom is not just something we soak up if we live long enough. We have to work at getting wisdom or we will live a very shallow life.”[7]

If wisdom is something that we pursue in life, if it is in deed a journey, then how do we take the next step forward from where we’re standing today? Two things are important for this journey.

When God said to Solomon in a dream, “Ask what I should give you,”[8] Solomon didn’t ask for riches and power, but an “understanding mind.”[9] He asked for wisdom. This wasn’t just a noble request from Solomon, but it was a request that grew out of his pursuit of God. Earlier in this chapter from 1^st Kings, it says simply, “Solomon loved the Lord.”[10] Our first step toward being wise is placing ourselves continually before God in work, in family life, and in devotion. When we do that, we’re a step closer to being wise. How will you pursue God this week?

Secondly, we need to keep the company of godly people. For all of Solomon’s greatness, he had huge bouts of foolishness. One wife was not enough for Solomon. He had a harem. While this may have been culturally common in his day, the big problem was these women brought other gods into Solomon’s life that distracted him. Who distracts you from your devotion to God? If you want to be wise, you’re going to have to deal with this.

When we seek God, we find wisdom. See 1^st Kings 3; 11.

The priest in the movie, Rudy says, “I know there is a God; I know I’m not him.”

[1] “Smart Bricks,” Homiletics, June 6, 2004.

[2] Daniel H. Williams, “Between Text and Sermon: Proverbs 8:22-31,” Interpretation, Volume 48, July 1994, p. 275.

[3] Daniel H. Williams, “Between Text and Sermon: Proverbs 8:22-31,” Interpretation, Volume 48, July 1994, p. 276.

[4] Awaken, Pentecost 1, 2007, Year C, June 3, 2007, p. 7.

[7] Sr. Joan Chittister, “Wisdom: A Gift or a Task,” 30 Good Minutes, Chicago Sunday Evening Club, 1996.