Sermon – Proverbs - 8:1-4, 22-31 – Wisdom Speaks

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Sermon – Proverbs - 8:1-4, 22-31 – Wisdom Speaks
Beaver Dam and Pitts Creek Presbyterian Churches
May 30, 2010

Listen to this sermon.

Good morning and welcome to Beaver Dam Presbyterian Church. This is Trinity Sunday, the day each year when we remember that we worship one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our belief in the trinity is what distinguishes us as Christians. The great theologian Augustine once was wondering how to explain this concept of the trinity. A story goes this way: he was walking along the beach one day and saw a boy running back and forth into the ocean putting water in a hole that he had dug in the sand. Augustine has him what he was doing. The boy said that he was trying to put the ocean into the hole. Then Augustine realized that he was trying to put an infinite God into his finite mind whenever he tried to think about the Trinity. Let us pray.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

This past week Grace returned from a conference in Chicago. I picked her up at BWI Airport and we had dinner in Annapolis. It has probably been ten years since I was last in Annapolis. It is a beautiful city. While we were there we saw the midshipmen in their sparkling white uniforms for the Naval Academy’s graduation ceremonies. It prompted me to think about my own time in college.

Over thirty years ago now I left home and went to Dickinson College in Carlisle PA. Since I was good at math and science I figured that I would be a physics major. While studying Physics I realized that I was asking bigger questions than science could answer. I was learning how things worked but I wanted to know why thing worked as they did. This led me into the philosophy department where I began taking classes in the philosophy of science, philosophy of religion and ethics. There I learned that we understand our world through something called wisdom. The only way I could find answers to my questions about why things are was by first acquiring wisdom. I learned that a philosopher is literally a “lover of wisdom”. So I decided to study philosophy to find the wisdom I was looking for.

I studied the great philosophers, Plato Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, and many others. And I found a consensus that wisdom could be found in the human mind. Our ability to think, to reason, is what allows us to make sense of the world around us. We construct in our minds the framework we need to understand the world we live in. This is called wisdom. Wisdom as an activity of the human mind is something most of us take for granted today. We assume that we are wise enough to govern ourselves, to grow food, teach children, and to do all the things necessary for a functioning society. And we believe that this wisdom comes from inside us, from our ability to think.

But increasingly we see the limitations of human wisdom. We thought that we were wise enough to safely drill for oil in the Gulf. We thought that we were wise enough to prevent credit bubbles and recessions. But time and again human wisdom falls short.

I once heard a story once about a bank president who was retiring. He and his successor met one day for lunch. The new guy said, “Sir, I have been watching you for years as this bank has grown. I hope to follow in your footsteps. Can you give me some advice? What are the keys to your success?

The retiring president simply said, “Make wise decisions.”
His replacement replied, “How do I make wise decisions.”
The president said, “In one word, ‘experience’”
“And how do you get experience?”
The president said, “In two words, make unwise decisions.”
And so the limitation of human wisdom: we become wise by making unwise mistakes.

The problem is that wisdom is not the product of the human mind. Rather, wisdom is a creation of God that God then used in the creation and ordering of the world. The Book of Proverbs puts it this way.

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 (my translation):
Does not Wisdom proclaim, and the Teacher delivers her voice?
On the heights, by the road, in the house and on the pathways she stands.
“To you, men and women, I call, my voice to the children of Adam:

The LORD acquired me at the beginning of his journey, before his work of times past.

Ages ago I was established, before the beginning of the Earth –
when there were no seas, I was brought forth in birth,
when there were no springs abounding with water
before the mountains were prepared for farming
before the hills, I was born.

God had not yet made the earth, or the beginning of the soil of the land.
when God prepared the heavens I was engraved in it.
when God made firm the clouds above
when God made strong the springs of the deep
when God set the boundary of the sea that the water not encroach the shore.
when God marked off the foundations of the earth

I was beside God as the architect
I was daily God’s delight, dancing before him all the time, rejoicing in the world, God’s earth. And my delight was the children of Adam

Proverbs 8 is a work of Hebrew poetry. It takes an abstract concept, “wisdom” and personifies it as a woman. The work of this woman can be seen everywhere we look in all of God’s creation, in the wise ordering of the world. She is the reason science is possible. Scientists are constantly looking for her, and evidence for what she has done can be found everywhere because she is hollering at us from every street corner.

We are told that Wisdom was the first of God’s creative works. This was necessary so provide for the wise ordering of the world as it was created. Wisdom decided that two atoms of hydrogen should be joined with one atom of oxygen to form a molecule of water, and God said that it was so. Wisdom ordained that every action should have an equal but opposite reaction making rockets possible, and God made it happened. Wisdom established the rules of evolution which has produced the biological diversity of the earth, and God created the plants and animals and the DNA that made this happen. The author of proverbs described God’s creation as dance where God and Wisdom whirl and twirl and rejoice in each other’s arms.

Wisdom’s favorite activity was the creation of all of us because Wisdom could give us many things: the ability to raise chickens and cows, the ability to sing and play instruments, the ability to preach and teach other, the ability to make cloth and grow crops, and the ability to lead others. We can do all of these things because we are wise, not with the wisdom of the world, but with the wisdom of God, sent to us as a gift to joyfully dance, whirl and twirl with us.

As we dance with Wisdom we learn to fear God, to turn from evil and embrace what is good. We seek out and learn from our counselors. We desire knowledge and reproofs that lead us to better lives. We learn to think before we speak and always use gracious words. With Wisdom dancing at our side we can help the poor, and build up the church.

“I was out shopping yesterday, and whom did I run into? Wisdom, yeah, there she was. She called me over and we began talking, Wisdom and I. Then I went down to the courthouse, and there she was again, making a plea for justice in some dingy courtroom where somebody had been unjustly accused. After that I dropped by the school, and she had gotten there before me calling for students and teachers alike always to seek the truth. Then I went for a walk in the woods, moving along the trail in quiet meditation. Wisdom snuck up on me and said, “Now that we are alone, I have something I want to share with you, a present I want you to enjoy. You know, I have been around for a long time, really for the beginning of time. I have been whirling and dancing with God all along. I am God’s delight, laughing and playing. I want you to know the lightness of spirit and gladness that come when you welcome me. Will you set aside those thoughts, words and deeds that make your life heavy and sad for you and others? Will you come and laugh and play with me? Will you come and dance with me? Will you?” (adapted from Feasting on the Word)

Holy Spirit we ask that you deliver to us the give of wisdom so that we may recognize God in the world around us. Help us to learn to dance with Wisdom so that we might whirl and twirl with delight. And join us in this dance with the Father and the Son so that we may delight in the dance of the Trinity whirling and twirling for eternity. Amen.

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