When
one of our priests, Fr. Vince O’Neil,
was in the second grade, his teacher
was a nun.
She
would make little Vince stand at his desk
and grill him on his catechism.
“Vince,”
she would say, “Why did God make you?”
And
Vince would answer “To know, love, and serve him.”
She
would say, “That is correct. Now notice what comes first.
Knowledge. Knowledge is the basis.
So study, Vince, study."
Sometimes
in the Eucharist we recite the summary of the law.
It
comes from an exchange between Jesus and a lawyer.
The
lawyer asks Jesus the greatest commandment.
Jesus
answers,
“You
shall love the Lord your God with all your mind,
with all your heart, and all your strength,
and . . . you shall
love your neighbor as yourself.”
The
same summary of the law is in the teachings
of Jesus’ contemporary, Rabbi Hillel.
Someone
challenged Hillel to sum up
the entire law while standing on one
foot.
The Rabbi
said, “Love the Lord your God with all your mind,
all your soul, and all your strength.
And love your neighbor as yourself.
The rest is commentary. Go study.”
Rabbi
Hillel said the central point is simple.
But how
we live it in a complex world is complicated.
That’s
why we have to start with the mind.
Jews
don’t just have the summary of the law.
They
don’t just have the 10 Commandments
They
have 613 commandments
which amount to a lot of commentary.
The
applications of those commandments
in the Mishna and the
interpretations in the Talmud
are further
commentary.
So to
be a good Jew, you have to study.
It is
the same for Christians.
There
is a lot to know.
And it
all adds up to Wisdom.
The
lectionary actually gives us a choice
of three Old Testament lessons for
today.
One is
from Isaiah, “the Lord has given me the tongue
of a teacher.”
Jesus
was a teacher too. The apostles were teachers.
The
first two spiritual gifts Paul listed in 1st Corinthians
were the gifts of teaching wisdom and
knowledge.
The
Lord sends us teachers
because he expects us to be students.
Another
possible lessons for today
is from Proverbs.
It says,
“Wisdom cries out in the street;
In the squares she raises her voice.
At the busiest corner she cries out . .
.
‘How long, O simple ones, will you love
being simple? . . .
I will pour out my thoughts to you.
I will make my words known to you.”
In our
third choice, the Wisdom of Solomon, we read,
“for wisdom is a reflection of eternal
light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God
. . . .”
The
Jewish folk idea of Wisdom, hachma,
in the Hebrew,
evolved into a philosophy of God.
At
first hachma meant knowing how to do
your craft well.
There
was a wisdom of the farmer,
a wisdom of the basket weaver,
a wisdom of the camel trader.
We
might say there is a wisdom of the gambler,
that is “to know when to hold ‘em,
know when to fold ‘em,
know when to walk away,
know when to run.”
The
writers of Scripture eventually realized
what Wisdom teacher Kenny Rogers makes
so clear.
The
ways of a craft can be expanded into a way of life.
Just as
a basket can be woven well or badly,
a life can be lived well or badly.
Just as
you must know certain things
to be a good farmer, camel trader, or
gambler,
you must know certain things in order
to be a good human being.
By the
time today’s lessons were written,
Wisdom had come to mean a very part of
God.
Wisdom is the order of things, the pattern of
the cosmos.
Wisdom
is the mind of God expressed in the world.
We
learn Wisdom by keeping alert to the world.
But we
also learn Wisdom from the past.
Scripture
and Tradition
– the lives of the saints
– the teachings of theologians
– the insights of mystics
all
these together are a rich storehouse of Wisdom.
We
can’t learn all that in Vacation Bible School
as children.
It’s a
lifelong project.
That’s
why the Episcopal Church has adopted
the Charter for Lifelong Christian
Formation
calling on each diocese to keep
educating our people
all their lives long.
That’s
why Nevada has created
the Frensdorff School for Christian
Formation
to teach the teachers.
A
church is a worshiping community,
a praying community,
and a caring community.
But it
is also a learning community.
This is
a wonderful diocese.
We do
lots of good ministry here.
But the
adult education programs
of all but a few of our congregations
are woefully behind.
We have
to change that,
and we need a few strong parishes to
lead the way.
All
Saints has the critical mass of people
for a first rate adult formation
program.
All
Saints has people with the gift and the passion to teach.
That
brings us to the point.
“Wisdom
cries out in the street;
In the squares she raises her voice.
At the busiest corner she cries out . .
. “
God
invites us to learn Wisdom’s ways
so that we can live better, fuller
lives.
In our
Baptismal vows we promise
“to
continue in the Apostle’s teaching.”
There
are two ways we can do that.
We can
teach or we can study.
We need
to know the Bible.
We need
to know that fundamentalism
is not the old way of reading the
Bible.
It was
invented between 1910 and 1915.
The
first theologians taught that each text
must be read on four different levels –
not literally.
Fundamentalism
is neither orthodox nor mainstream.
Did you
know that the idea that whatever happens
is part of God’s plan is a highly
debated point
in Christianity?
Do you
know why we bring the bread and wine
from the back of the Church to the
altar?
It
means something – something profoundly important.
Most of
the divisions in the Church today
come from the failure to study and to
think.
So,
study, brothers and sisters.
It is
fascinating stuff we have to teach.
It will
touch your hearts as well as your minds.
It will
change your life.
Wisdom’s
ways are the Way of Christ.
Thanks
be to God.
