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.

Bread for Life

“Syrians flee as rebels plan counter-attack.” “Inequality widens as Indonesia’s economy booms.” “Troops lured to death with dinner invitation” in Afghanistan. These are just some of the headlines from the news of the past week.

And lest we think it’s all out there, here’s a few home-grown ones: “Doctor from ‘Dickensian’ hostel suspended” in Sydney. “Taxi industry putting profits ahead of safety” in Victoria. “States fail to regulate skills training” around Australia.

We’ve come a long way technologically since Jesus was first identified as the “bread of life” for the world. We live in a time of tremendous advances in health and medicine, communications, agriculture… in fact almost any field we might care to name. Yet we still live in a time which has great variations between rich and poor, between safety and threat, between those have what they need and those who do not. We’re a long way from the lifestyle of the people of Capernaum listening to Jesus and yet there is much hunger still… hunger for bread, hunger for safety, hunger for hope.

What does it mean to affirm in our time that Jesus is the “bread of life”?

Bread might be a common food, but it’s just one among many that form our basic diet. Some people lack bread and face starvation; others have plenty of bread, but lack the other food they need for good nutrition. Yet bread in the Gospel of John, and indeed in the sacramental meal of the Lord’s Supper which we will celebrate shortly, is most certainly a symbol of that which is the staple food of life—the thing that fills our bellies and keeps us going; that provides a core part of our diet around which other things can be arranged. For the Gospel of John, bread is life; and life is found in Jesus.

In preparation for the 5^th Assembly of the World Council of Churches held in Vancouver in 1982, people around the world were invited to participate in a series of studies entitled “Images of Life”. The 4^th theme of the study series was “Bread of Life”. In it, participants were invited to consider two stories and what life and the “bread of life” might mean in each situation. Listen to those stories:

A poor family. Mother serves most of the food left over from the previous evening to father, who leaves early in the morning for work in a factory. Mother distributes the remaining rice among the seven children and sends them off to school. Only some rice water remains for her. But she will get lunch at the building site where she works... In the afternoon, the children come home, and await the return of the parents for the evening meal. While mother cooks the food with the help of the older children, the younger ones fall asleep. The children eat and go to bed. Without eating, the mother waits for the father’s return. Late at night, she learns that her husband has been arrested by the police for taking part in a demonstration against the dismissal of a co-worker. She goes to bed hungry.

An affluent family. The children rush past the breakfast table barely stopping to pick up a piece of toast and to complain that the right cereal hasn’t been purchased. Mother and father sit without speaking, tired from the demands of their jobs and of their commitments, their family and their home. There is a mad rush as everyone leaves for school and work. The children say they hate school. They come home grumpy, quarrelling over afternoon tea. Father must work late again. Tea time is no better than breakfast. They go to bed having eaten but still hungry.

For people existing on the very edges of life, struggling to survive physically, life is as urgent as clean water, as simple as a nutritious meal, as significant as the right to human dignity. For people existing on the very edges of live, struggling to survive in the midst of armed conflict, life is as complicated as international conflict resolution, as difficult as finding a safe place to survive, literally life or death. For people existing on the very edges of live, struggling to find meaning in the midst of a world fixated on consumerism, productivity, efficiency and excitement, life is as elusive as the still place in the middle of the cyclone, as fleeting as a few moments of precious shared relationship, as mundane as learning to savour and to share the abundance which is ours.

What does it mean to affirm Jesus as the “Bread of Life” in the midst of all this?

Jesus is the centre of the Christian life and Christian understandings of life. Everything is arranged around the one whom we affirm as fully human and fully divine. It is in Jesus that we understand God to be fully revealed. It is in Jesus that we are confronted by a God who has created us, who loves us, who redeems us, who sustains us. In Jesus, we are confronted by a God who affirms human dignity, the value of the whole of Creation (even the parts that seem most flawed), and the importance of the bonds of relationship that ensure the sharing of resources and the proper flourishing of life. Jesus is the “Bread of Life”.

Recognising this bread, acknowledging this staple of the “good life”, of God’s life, invites us to re-evaluate our lives… invites us to consider whether they are organised around this staple of life, this bread that is so essential to our living and our survival. It invites us to work for the bread that is real food for those who hunger, and real safety for those in peril, and real hope for those in despair. It invites us to fully partake of the life that is offered in Jesus.

And that is the invitation offered to us as we approach the sacrament: to reach out our hands for bread and wine, and to hungry people; to hold the elements in our hands, and the pain of God’s groaning Creation; to receive the body and blood of Christ as the body of Christ, and to embody for the world the hope that is real life, real living.

Let us pray:

Eternal and gracious One,
though we live in a world of need,
here may we taste your goodness and hunger for a world more just.
Though afflicted by brokenness and division,
here may we hear your call to be a people of healing community.
Though daily we touch our limits,
here may we receive the fullness of your grace,
that we might embody your life in our world.
Through Jesus Christ, Bread of Life. Amen.
(Adapted from a prayer after communion by Peter Wyatt, Celebrate God’s Presence, ©1984 the United Church of Canada.)

Love Stands the Test

Temptation… testing… “O God, lead us not into temptation”… “O God, save use from the time of trial”… from the time of testing…

And yet testing, temptation is very much where we discover just what the Christian faith might be all about.

When life choices seem easy and being Christian seems to be about living in the community that we’re living in, it’s very easy for us to miss the depths of the calling which is ours through Jesus Christ.

Imagine yourself as that mother standing before the king forced to choose between losing her child to another woman or losing her child to death—forced to choose between a life for her child from which she will be separated, or certain death for that child. And before we think the decision is easy, we must remember that children for women on their own were life, were the future, were the only superannuation there was for old age. The choice is not just life and death for the child; it is the choice between maintaining a just claim, between being right, between maintaining some sense of who she was as a women, a mother, and losing it all, not just the child—losing everything status, future, hope. It would have been so easy to continue to make a claim for her rights as a mother, rather than to see the possibility of life for her child.

And lest we forget the other woman—this child is a possible future for her. She has nothing to lose. If she cannot have the child, she does not have hope, and if she does not have hope, then hope for another is simply a slap in the face.

Temptation… testing… “O God, lead us not into temptation”… “O God, save use from the time of trial”… from the time of testing…

And yet testing, temptation is very much where we discover just what the Christian faith might be all about.

Temptation and sin—they’re two words that we don’t like very much: perhaps because we’re afraid that the finger is pointed at us; perhaps because it has been and we have found ourselves denigrated and defiled before other people. Certainly, some of us have probably been on the unfortunate receiving end of the kind of evangelism that seems to have to remind us that we are worms, in order to provoke the sort of emotional catharsis that the evangelist is looking for—hardly good news at all.

But if we thought that those experiences meant that we could cast out sin and temptation from our understandings of ourselves and our awareness of ourselves before God, then we would be sadly disappointed. There is no way to tell the human story without speaking of failure and fracture, pride and arrogance, alienation and separation from the God who loves and longs to be in continuous and reciprocal relationship with us, who stands the test of loving us through thick and thin.

Our theological story, our God story, the story of God and everything in relation to God (including us) tells us that God created a good creation; and that something happened to change a good creation into a flawed one; and that something has something to do with the action of humanity. It is we who are the site of the problem.

However we describe what it is about us that gets in the way of relationship with God—it does get in the way. Whether it’s the thinking too much of ourselves called pride, or the thinking too little of ourselves called shame; whether it’s the wanting to be more than we are that is arrogance or the wanting to hide who we are that is fear; whether it is the seeking after many things that is gluttony or the failure to work towards that to which we are called that might be labelled sloth—however we describe it, it’s there; and it does get in the way of our relationship with God and with each other.

So we cannot simply ignore it, we have to face it; and facing up to sin and temptation costs. The story of Jesus in the wilderness speaks to us of that cost.

When tempted to fill his immediate needs without regard for his commitment to seek after the things of God, Jesus affirms the importance of God’s purpose, but he goes hungry.

When tempted to produce displays of power and force God’s protection of his life, Jesus affirms the importance of treating God with respect, but that means the journey that he walks is not an easy one—it is full of suffering.

When tempted to claim a position of power without reference to the purpose of God, Jesus affirms God’s authority over all things and God’s claim on our allegiance and our servanthood, but servanthood for Jesus means the cross.

Facing sin and temptation costs. But how much more does sin and temptation itself cost us—separation from God and from each other. And we find ourselves in a far more amenable position that Jesus. Because the good news is that it is precisely through Jesus’ facing of sin and temptation, through Jesus standing the test, that we find ourselves confronted by God’s grace, more abundant that anything we might ever claim for ourselves by ourselves—the abundance of God’s gracious declaration that we have nothing to answer for; that in God’s eyes, we are still and have always been the much loved children of God; that, because of God in Christ, we are called just, and called to work for God’s justice in our lives and in the life of God’s world.

The grace of God, the love of God, the gifts of God matter because we are a people confronted with sin and temptation—our own, and that of the whole of humanity. The grace of God matters because we can’t fix what’s wrong on our own. The grace of God matters because we are very human—frail, fragile, fractured, faithless—in need of God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s care. And God’s love stands the test!

Perhaps we can only really appreciate the abundant grace of God, when we really face up to the depth of the sin that is ours—not by pointing the finger at others; not by ticking off our good and bad points; not even by obsequiously grovelling before God; but by recognising who we are—human; and remembering who God is—utterly gracious, utterly loving, utterly merciful, utterly forgiving—a God who stands the test!

One Body

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity.

Some of you will have read the installation sermon of the Uniting Church’s current president, Andrew Dutney, in the “Assembly Highlights” brochure. In it, he notes some of the preliminary results from the most recent National Church Life Survey conducted in 2011. In response to the question, “Which of the following aspects do you most like about the Uniting Church as a denomination?”, 71% of nearly 20 000 Uniting Church attenders ticked the “inclusiveness of all types of people”. The next most commonly chosen option with under 25% of the vote was the "provision of community services". The inclusiveness, the diversity of the Uniting Church is a much lauded attribute. As Andrew reminded us, we are one flock with one shepherd, one people of God.

The diversity of the Christian church has been one of its markers since its very beginnings; and one of its challenges. The Pauline epistles, the letters associated with the apostle Paul and the emerging church communities influenced by him, are full of references to it.

In Galatians (Ch. 3), Paul highlights the very significant social differences that existed within the Christian community:

²⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

In the first letter to the Corinthians (Ch. 12), the imagery of the many members of the one body is used:

¹²For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

And again the letter to the Ephesians (Ch. 4),

¹⁵…we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

Interestingly, it is generally not so much the diversity that the Pauline literature is worried about or interested in. It is the challenge of unity within it. And that too has remained a perennial issue for the Christian church—unity within, despite and because of our diversity.

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity. And this is what we have to hold on to when the going gets tough.

But what is it? What is the thing that keeps us together? That keeps us from losing our way in the midst of all our differences and variation and diversity?

Sometimes it’s easier to say what it isn’t.

It isn’t that we just like being together, that we get on well, that we all get along merrily, because we don’t. We do have our differences. We disagree. We argue. We debate. We drive each other up the wall. It certainly isn’t because we just like being together. Sometimes it’s just hard going.

It isn’t that we all interpret the scriptures in the same way, because we don’t. Some of us read them as history and some us read them as literature. Some of us like reading the detail and some of us are more interested in the big picture. We all think that they’re important, but we probably disagree on how and why. Whatever keeps us together, it’s not because we all read the Bible in the same way.

And it’s not even that we all come up with the same set of moral or ethical principles from our understanding of what it is that holds us together. Some of us are very sure of what is proper and correct behaviour; and some of us are equally as certain that there is a whole lot more grey in the world than black and white. No, we do not all share the same moral or ethical approach.

So, just what is it? What is the thing that keeps us together? What is the thing that keeps us from losing our way in the midst of all our differences and variation and diversity?

Whatever it is… it is encapsulated in the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus—the story of a God who creates a world, who loves that world, who wants so much to be in relationship with that world that God enters the world in order to demonstrate that desire, in order to bring us into real relationship with God and with each other; the story of the God who continues to journey with us as the people of God in all our differences, in all variations, in all our diversity; the God who holds us together as one people, one flock with one shepherd; who works within us to maintain a unity within, despite and because of our diversity.

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity.

The classical marks of the church are that it is one, it is holy, it is catholic (or universal), and it is apostolic (it is commissioned or sent on God’s mission). None of these marks is understood as belonging to us as the humans whom we are. All of these marks are understood to be part of the nature of the one in whom we are enfolded, Jesus Christ. As Christ’s body, we discover our apostolicity, our sentness as the people of God, on the mission of God. As Christ’s body, we discover our catholicity, our universality, the applicability of the good news, of the Gospel, for the whole of God’s Creation. As Christ’s body, we discover our holiness, our set-apartness for the sake of God’s mission in the world. And as Christ’s body, we discover our unity within, despite and because of our diversity.

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity. This is who we are and this is whose we are—the whole people of God.