What does it mean to be “wise”?
I have a priest
friend who regularly sends emails that always address me as “O Wise One”. You can hear in that greeting just the tiniest
bite of irony. Yet I think of him and
his slight smirk whenever I hear the story of Solomon asking for an
understanding mind. Hearing this story, I cannot help but think that Solomon manipulated
God pretty well. Because Solomon asked
for wisdom and not for long life or riches, God gave him all three. Solomon was not only wise but canny. He
played the big guy. With good reason, the phrase, “the wisdom of Solomon”, is
proverbial to this day.
Anyone
who has read Mark Twain’s Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn will never forget the colloquy between Huck and the
runaway slave Jim about this proverbial Solomonic wisdom. As they travel down the Mississippi on a
raft, Huck and Jim get into an argument about the claim that Solomon was the
wisest man who ever lived. Huck affirms it, but Jim is not so sure. He remembers the story of the two women who
came to Solomon both claiming to be the mother of the same baby. Solomon solved the dilemma by ordering that
the child be cut in half. The true
mother, of course, objected to the plan, thereby proving her authenticity and
gaining custody of the child. Perhaps
she played Solomon the same way Solomon played God.
Nevertheless,
Jim will have none of it. He says,
I don’t care
what the widow says, he wasn’t no wise man neither. He had some of the dad-fetchetest ways I’ve
ever seen. Do you know about the child he was going to chop in two? . . . What
use is half a child? I wouldn’t give a
darn for a million of ‘em.” [Mark Twain, Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 14]
Huck
is scandalized by Jim’s seeming inability to understand Solomon’s judgment.
"But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point—blame it, you've missed
it a thousand mile." But has Jim
missed the point? To Jim, a runaway
slave separated from his family, children are precious. Threatening to cut a child in two is about the
stupidest thing he can imagine. If he could imagine such a thing, Solomon couldn’t
have been all that wise.
We
tend to think of “wisdom” as a depth of character that comes from a long or
virtuous life. Jim seems to understand
wisdom as an empathic ability to feel the joys and pains of others. The Bible seems to use the word “wisdom” in
an entirely different sense. What’s with all these different meanings?
Let’s
start with the conversation between Solomon and God. Over the past several weeks we have been
reading the story of King David’s rule—his ascension to power, his sin
regarding Uriah and Bathsheba, the revolt of his son Absolom against him. In today’s Old Testament reading, David has
died and his son Solomon ascends the throne.
Solomon shows himself to be a pretty canny politician by travelling
around the country, offering sacrifice at all the local sanctuaries, a kind of
Bronze Age campaign road trip. When God
asks Solomon what he wants, Solomon is already smart enough to know not to ask
for a long life or riches but for wisdom.
God responds by praising the request and granting him all three.
The
term used both by Solomon and God in this dialogue is chokmah, the Hebrew word for wisdom. There are two words used in the Bible that we
translate into English as “wisdom”: one Hebrew, the other Greek. The Greek word
is sophia—the root of our word “philosopher”--
and it comes to us from the world of Western philosophy. But the wisdom that
Solomon and God are talking about is Near-Eastern pragmatic, not Western,
philosophical wisdom. It is not sophia.
It is Jewish wisdom, chokmah,
and Jewish wisdom is a much more practical affair. Here is how one Old Testament scholar
describes it:
The Hebrew word
for wisdom (chokmah) carries no
theoretical or abstract connotations; nor is it the equivalent of “thought” or
“philosophy”. . . Chokmah is used
often to denote technical skill, and in other contexts “experience or
shrewdness” in practical and political affairs.
[Harvey H. Guthrie, Jr., Israel’s
Sacred Songs, p. 171]
Remember
that Solomon has just become a king, and the first thing he’s done in his new
role is make strategically important appearances at the holy places in his new
realm. He doesn’t particularly want philosophical, reflective wisdom. What he wants is the skills to do his job, to
run his country. So when Solomon asks
for wisdom, and when God grants it to him, what they’re talking about is chokmah, practical shrewdness in
managing human affairs. He wants to be
able to navigate the rapids of human relationships, politics, and
motivations. He wants to be able to hold
his own in his dealings with other people.
In
this as in so many other ways, the Bible and the faith made real in it are
essentially pragmatic. The Bible is a
book about God being known in the stuff of human life and relationships. It is not idealistic or particularly pious
about how human beings behave. Again and
again, God’s work gets done through the complex human matrix of double dealing,
bad faith, and aggression. The
miraculous aspect of biblical faith, if there is one, consists in God’s
consistent ability to bring love out of hate, goodness out of evil, life out of
death. Today, when people describe
themselves as “spiritual but not religious”, I know what they’re saying but I
think they’ve got it exactly backwards. The Bible—and biblical faith—is religious but
not particularly spiritual. It understands that there is a decorum to the relationship
of people with God, but it is not at all Romantic about it. Solomon and God
read each other like a couple of old men playing gin rummy. Each knows what the
other is up to. But they find a way to
go forward together because they’re not at all deluded about what’s really
going on.
This
morning we said, in Psalm 111, one of the most familiar sayings in scripture:
The fear of the
LORD is the beginning of wisdom [chokmah];
*
those who act accordingly have a good understanding. [Psalm 111:10]
those who act accordingly have a good understanding. [Psalm 111:10]
From the Bible’s
point of view, from Christianity’s point of view, real wisdom begins in an orientation
toward God. Because wisdom is finally
about relationship, it appropriately starts with a stance toward God. You cannot be wise relative to your fellow
human beings if you are not first wise toward God. And you cannot get wise with God
casually. Just as a human relationship
takes care and nurture, so a relationship with God needs continual
attention. That’s why people like me
talk so much from pulpits like this urging coming to church. Sure, I want you here so that our numbers
look good. But more than that, I want
you here because this is a focused way for God to get your attention. I don’t doubt that you can meet God on the
golf course. But I know that, on the golf course, you’re thinking more about
your swing than about the Deity. And while that may be prayerful thinking—God
help me not to slice or hook here!—in the moment the ball’s flight and not God
are at the center of your attention. If
you want a relationship with God you’ve got to plan to spend some time
together. And the long experience of
Christians, Jews, and Muslims is that regular corporate and individual prayer
is the only reliable way to do that.
I think that the
connection between wisdom and developing a relationship with God is what Jesus
is talking about in the Gospel this morning:
"I am the
living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live
forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my
flesh." [John 6:51]
This “bread of
life” discourse takes up several weeks of our Gospel readings this summer, and
because it’s a complex passage there are many smart, ingenious, sophisticated things
to be said about it. But in the terms
we’ve been thinking in this morning, Jesus’s talk about the bread of life says
something profound to each of us about where real wisdom—real chokmah, real skill in navigating the
rapids of life—can be found.
Jesus is the bread
of life. That is true both literally and
figuratively. Jesus is the bread of life
literally because the Eucharist, the bread and wine of thanksgiving, is the
ongoing sustenance we need for the work of relating to each other and the
world. If you want to get to know
someone, have a meal with them. When we
gather together to share the bread and wine of communion, we are dining not only
with each other but with Jesus and God.
Over the course of a lifetime, we become familiar with each other. Jesus is the bread of life literally
because as we eat this bread we become more sensitive and attuned to what God
is up to. We can read God just as
Solomon could when he asked for wisdom.
And Jesus is the
bread of life figuratively. Think about
how he lived. He gathered people
uncritically and generously around his table.
He healed and taught, blessed and forgave. Living as Jesus lived—simply and
courageously, with grace and compassion—this is real living as God intended
it. Living as Jesus lived is finally
what human life and human wisdom are all about.
If you want to be wise in the Bible’s sense of that word, you don’t need
to read more books or live to be 150.
All you need to do is to come to church, say your prayers, and keep your
eyes on Jesus. He is the bread of life,
and the nourishment of this bread is real wisdom. And as Solomon knew, once you have that you really
have everything else, as well. Amen.
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