The Getting of Wisdom

In The Getting of Wisdom, Henry Handel (Ethel Florence Lindesay) Richardson’s great Australian novel, Laura Rambotham leaves the sheltered world of her mother’s home and tutelage and of her younger sister’s company. She enters a boarding school which is intended to extend her education and prepare her for the remainder of her life. Finding herself a little fish in a big pond (in contrast to being a big fish in a little pond at home), Laura struggles to gain a position and recognition in the academic and social life of the school. Some of the strategies to which she resorts don’t help her cause at all. She learns that she must work in order to succeed in her studies. Where up until now, she has excelled in music with little effort, she now finds she must practice extensively in order to keep up. Trying to earn her place in student social life, she pretends to have a grown-up beau, a married clergyman no less. When her ruse is discovered, she is “sent to Coventry”, ostracised, considered persona non grata by her classmates. Laura’s trip into wisdom is not an easy road. The path is bumpy and the wheels occasionally come off her buggy altogether. By the end of the novel, you are left wondering what is the wisdom that Laura has acquired?

The closing chapter of the book reflects on this question:

She went out from school with the uncomfortable sense of being a square peg, which fitted into none of the round holes of her world; the wisdom she had got, the experience she was richer by, had, in the process of equipping her for life, merely seemed to disclose her unfitness. She could not then know that, even for the squarest peg, the right hole may ultimately be found; seeming unfitness prove to be only another aspect of a peculiar and special fitness.

Quotations from the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures or the Old Testament accompany Laura on her journey. The epitaph of the book is a quote from Proverbs: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. (Proverbs, iv, 7)”. Other wisdom literature in the Old Testament includes some Psalms, Ecclesiastes and the book of Job.

The journey of the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures has a particular shape. The quest for wisdom, for understanding the ways of God and the ways of God’s world inevitably leads the questor through a series of discoveries of which the first is: The world is not as God wills it to be. The world is not what I expected. The world is not what I hoped it to be. It is out of whack!

There are long dialogues of complaint, lament and even angry accusation towards God for injustice, conflict, physical pain and the state of the world generally. These dialogues are graphic and powerfully truthful conversations with God where humans say exactly what they think and God receives it all.

Inevitably these powerful truthful conversations are exhausted in the second of the series of discoveries: that God is still God despite the state of the world; and that indeed, the God who has been on the receiving end of the diatribes is wholly trustworthy of such authentic disclosure of the depths of people’s hearts and souls. God offers real relationship in the midst of the apparent mess.

The third discovery follows closely on the second: a profound sense that life, however messy and painful, is still a gift from God; and that that gift includes the freedom given to God’s creatures, a freedom enjoyed most authentically in the bonds of relationship with God and the responsibilities that implies.

Those 3 discoveries are again: the world is not as God wills it; God is still God despite the state of the world and utterly trustworthy in relationship with the creation and us as God’s creatures; life, however painful and messy, is still a gift from God and that gift includes the freedom and the responsibility given to us, God’s creatures.

We might put that in the terms of the closing chapter in The Getting of Wisdom. The world is full of square pegs and round holes. Despite this apparent incongruity, God is still God and wholly trustworthy in relationship with us and the whole of Creation; life is a gift and sometimes maybe square pegs are meant for round holes, or at least square pegs in round holes may just fit in a funny kind of way; or when everyone is a square peg and there are only round holes, we’re all in the same boat.

What on earth does this have to do with our scripture readings for today?

Solomon has become king. According to the story, he wasn’t originally the first in line for David’s throne after his death, but one by one his various rivals have died or been found unfit. So, it’s down to Solomon. In a dream, God asks Solomon what he wishes. Now, at this point, you’d think that Solomon should be asking for things that kings can use: like a good military force (it’s one battle after another in Kings); or maybe wealth and power in order to control his country and keep the surrounding nations at bay; perhaps even the chance to step down from the throne if the going was really going to be so bad. But Solomon chooses none of these. Solomon chooses wisdom: “Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?” Okay God throws in a few extra trinkets, but in the story, Solomon asks for wisdom. It’s not what you would’ve expected of a king. You would’ve expected him to ask for things that would set him apart without a doubt: establish a clear position and possession of authority. But wisdom, that’s okay if you want to be a square peg in a round hole. But like as not, it’s bound to get you into some interesting situations, like wanting to divide a baby between two mothers. Wisdom has never really been a selling point for anyone wanting to make good in the ways of the world.

The wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures informs a good deal of the writing about Jesus in the New Testament. In particular, Jesus is the Logos, the Wisdom-Word of God in the Gospel of John. A good deal of the wisdom influence in the New Testament is also bound up with the imagery of bread; and yet again in the last months series of Gospel readings, we have been reminded of just how fond of bread, the writer of the Gospel of John is. Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus is the living bread. But this bread is not the bread that you would have expected. Firstly, this bread is not the miraculous manna of old; it’s a human being; an ordinary vulnerable human being. The world is not as we would have expected. Secondly, this ordinary vulnerable human being is intimately connected with the nature of God: with who God is and who we are in relationship with God. God is still God. Thirdly, this bread is a profound gift of life involving freedom and responsibility. Life is a gift from God. Are there enough square pegs in round holes for you? It doesn’t quite seem to fit together… and yet it does. This is the wisdom of God.

The place where it makes most sense for us is when we as the people of God, the body of Christ, gather around God’s table. Here in this place, we are able to affirm these things: The world is not as God wills. God’s response to that is not as we would have expected. There are no great lightning bolts, just authentic and deep relationship. God is still God and life is certainly a gift from God. Here in this place, we celebrate the life God gives, we proclaim that life in God and we commit ourselves to serve God’s life in a world which is not yet as God wills.

Here in this place, we are able to acknowledge that we are all in the same boat—the church—and that in this boat we are fed on the very nature of Christ. This feeding is a gift from God. This is the place where life is found. And that life brings freedom. It may not be what the world expects us to be. It doesn’t guarantee us wealth or fame or even infamy for that matter. We will feel like square pegs in round holes, but God is God and God’s wisdom is not the wisdom of the world. God’s wisdom is discerned around the table in the body of Christ by the power of the Spirit, remembering that Christ has lived, died and been raised and calls us into a future of justice and peace in which we are involved already now. Here in this place: “seeming unfitness [certainly] prove[s] to be only another aspect of a peculiar and special fitness” in the life of God. Surely, it is only God who has the wisdom to “govern this … [God’s] great people?”

“Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, …giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:15,20 NRSV) Amen.