“LIVING
WISELY”
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A sermon preached Readings Ephesians
5:15-20, John 6:51-58 |
Ephesians
5:15-16 Be
very careful, then, how you live--
not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity,
because the days are evil.
So what does it mean to live wisely?
1. WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE
The
A level results are out and we can congratulate
95% of the candidates on passing their exams.
So
is that a definition of being wise – passing your A levels?
Well
we are delighted for those who have passed –
but let’s not claim too much here -
passing your a levels certainly means you have the skill to pass exams,
it normally says something or other about your memory,
your knowledge and your intelligence –
but all that falls a tad short of wisdom.
If
you’ve ever heard someone say
“I
know I should give up smoking, but I’ll start next week”
you will know that intellectual knowledge is no guarantee of wise living.
And
those of you involved in criminal justice will know
that
you can seek to rehabilitate an offender through education –
and
sometimes the result is a truly reformed character.
But sometimes it simply
a more knowledgeable skilled and hence dangerous criminal.
And
in a week when we have heard of advances in heart surgery
and
the death of Idi Amin and
Diana Mosley,
we recall that skill and intellect can so easily be
the basis of either wise or foolish living.
Knowledge
may be a part of wisdom but it is no guarantee of it.
2. WISDOM AND LOVE
There
have always been those who have seen the Christian life
as a variation on the Telegraph Crossword puzzle –
a purely intellectual exercise.
The Bible is a code to be cracked,
the Church is Bletchley Park,
and all you have to do is to sit and think and study until enlightenment dawns.
But
the Gospel can never disentangle the light of truth from the warmth of love.
Indeed significantly, the Hebrew word for “know” is also a word for ”love”
To
be truly wise is to attend to others with loving attention and understanding.
You
recall Paul in 1 Cor 13 says that
“though I have the power … to penetrate all mysteries and
knowledge, …..
if I am without
love, I am nothing.”
Jimi
Hendrix once said
“Knowledge
speaks but wisdom listens”
or,
put slightly differently by Nobel Novelist Mahfouz Naguib,
”You
can tell if a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell if a man is wise by his questions.”
Mind
you, the questions of the wise are always asked in loving concern –
Policy
for the homeless has been in the news this week.
It reminded me of a telling story recounted in a recent book by Duncan
Forrester:
Some years ago a Scottish city needed to respond
to a large increase in homelessness on its streets.
They decided that the answer to the problem
was to built more night shelters and homeless
shelters.
They thought they should check this strategy out with the users,
so they sent a young woman sociologist out with a clip board and questionnaire
to elicit the views of those on the streets to the proposed additional
facilities.
The woman in question found that the homeless agreed with the proposals
outlined.
Indeed they even seemed determined to give her the answers she wanted,
maybe to get her more quickly out of their hair.
Then one day in the course of an interview a homeless man
“became agitated and talkative.
He spoke to the young sociologist about how he had been treated the week before
in the social security office, how he had felt humiliated and cheated,
his dignity taken away, and the almost visible label ‘scrounger’ pinned on
him.
As she listened, the young sociologist grew angry herself.
At the end of his story, she took the old man by the hand,
took him back to the social security office
and acted there as his advocate and representative.
Unlike the previous week, this time he got the benefits to which he was
entitled.
Word spread quickly among the homeless people:
this woman is not just a bothersome interrogator; she is on our side!
She understands!
Then she began to get quite different information, because they trusted
her.
Now, almost universally, they told her that they felt they could,
with a little support, establish themselves in a two bedroom council flat.
They wanted to settle down and return to normality.
They felt it was possible,
especially if the support they received was understanding
sensitive and unpatronising.
Because many homeless men had shared their inner feelings with her,
the young sociologist could now, and only now,
write sensitively and faithfully of the human meaning of homelessness.
For she had taken the crucial step from academic detachment
to fellow feeling.”
[“On
Human Worth” by Duncan Forrester, SCM 2001, p.16]
Really
to know someone, you have to start to love them.
When you start to love someone you get to know them in a new and deeper way.
36
of us from the Mint went this week to see
“The Two Gentlemen of Verona” this week –
and perhaps this is the time for the commercial –
if you would like to join the Mint Theatre Group, see Janet Robb today.
One
of the themes of the play is around the phrase “Love is blind”
Actually, of course true love is not blind –
Infatuation may be foolish and blind – blind to the failings of the loved
one.
But true deep love is wise and knows the failings of the beloved
and loves in spite of or even because of them.
3.
WISDOM AND SUFFERING
And
now we get deeper – for there is an inexorable logic about all this –
if you would really know someone you need to love them,
and if you would really love someone and share with them,
you find yourself learning of and sharing not only their joys but also their
sorrows.
The Hasidic rabbi, Levi
Yitzhak was once sitting in a Polish tavern.
There he saw two peasants at a table.
Both were gloriously in their cups.
Arms around each other, they were protesting how much each loved the other.
Suddenly Ivan said to Peter: 'Peter, tell me, what hurts me?'
Bleary-eyed, Peter looked at Ivan: 'How do I know what hurts you?'
Ivan's answer was swift:
'If you don't know what hurts me, how can you say you love me?"'
Walter Burghardt,
Still Proclaiming Your Wonders
(New York: Paulist Press, 1984), 111.
To
be truly wise is to know and to love –
to share in the suffering of the one I love – to know and experience their
hurt.
So the writer of Ephesians
says “These are evil times – so act wisely”
Maybe he means
“The world is evil so the end of the world will come
soon,
so act wisely to be prepared.”
Or
perhaps he means,
”the world is an evil
place,
and it needs compassionate, listening,
loving understanding which is wise living.”
We
don’t know when the world will end –
but we know it remains a evil place –
and we are called to live wisely.
4. CHOOSING WISELY
Toward the end of the film Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade (1989),
Indie meets the ancient Knight Templar who guards the
"Holy Grail",
but there are many choices, gold cups, platinum, silver, terra cotta and wood.
The knight says "you must choose, but choose wisely,
for as the real grail brings eternal life, the false grail brings death".
The bad guy comes in and chooses a glittering golden cup. "
Truly the cup of a king", he says and drinks from it.
Shortly later, with several horrific transformations,
he deteriorates and turns to dust.
The
knight looks at them and simply says "He choose poorly".
Jones
selects a wooden cup "The cup of a Gallilean
carpenter" he says,
and with much fear, having seen the results before, drinks from it.
"You choose wisely" says the knight.
Of
course it is just a story –
the Holy Grail is a mediaeval Legend worked over as only Hollywood can.
But
it was no legend for Jesus –
On the mount of temptation
he was offered the wood of the cross or the gold of the palace.
In the Garden of Gethsemane he was offered a cup to
drink –
and he chose wisely -
he chose the simple cup of suffering alongside the needy of the world.
And
so in answer to the question
”What is it to live wisely?”, the answer is simply this -
to live like Jesus, who is nothing less than divine wisdom incarnate.
Jesus
is the one who knows us totally and loves us totally,
the one who combines perfect love and perfect understanding into perfect
wisdom.
So
here is the final Gospel word:
We
are known through and through by Christ for what we are (that is our judgement)
We are loved by Christ in spite of what we are (that is our salvation).
So
let us thank God
for his all seeing, all loving wisdom -
And may we commit ourselves
to live wisely
as we have been wisely loved.