Here is the sermon from the Broughton Civic Service 2015
(Readings: 1 Kings 3:5–14; John 8:12-20)
Those of you who are on social
media may have come across a picture that says this: “Knowledge is
knowing that Frankenstein was not the monster. Wisdom is
understanding that Frankenstein was
the monster”. Or perhaps the quote attributed to Miles Kington:
“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not
putting it in a fruit salad”.
In
our first reading we see King Solomon being offered anything he
wants. And rather than going for power or wealth, popularity or good
looks, he asks for a discerning heart – for wisdom. God commends
Solomon for his wise choice and says that he will give it to him, and
on top of wisdom he will also give Solomon wealth and status.
Solomon goes on to be one of the main contributors to the book of
Proverbs in the Bible, a book crammed full of wise words and sayings,
written mainly as instructions to the young, but valuable for
everyone. The basic theme of the book is that we have a choice
between being wise and being foolish.
“Wisdom is like honey for you” it says “if you
find it, there is a future hope for you” (24:14).
Elsewhere it says, “How much better to get wisdom than
gold, to get insight rather than silver!” (16:16), and famously
“wisdom is more precious than rubies” (8:11).
I'm
sure we'd all agree that wisdom is a good thing, and that we would
all like to be wiser, and we would certainly like our government,
parliament and other authorities to make wise decisions but the
question is: how do we become wise? Happily, our readings give
us the answer.
Firstly, wisdom comes from God.
St James in his letter which we have in the New Testament says, “If
any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God...and it will be given to
you” (1:5). The first stage in being wise is knowing that we don't
have, and can never have, all the answers on our own. We can never
truly understand ourselves, other people or our world because we
can't step outside of them to see the big picture. Our own thoughts
and opinions are always coloured by our experiences, our
environments, our prejudices – we can never be truly objective and
so can never be truly wise. This is why truth cannot be decided by a
majority vote. However, the good news is that God is truly objective
and he wants to share his wisdom with us! God reveals himself to us
through his word in the Bible, so the more we read it the better we
know him, and the better we can know ourselves, others and the world,
so we can act in a wiser way.
The
concept of wisdom can be quite abstract so the second answer our
readings give us to the question of how we become wise is concrete
and practical. In our reading from the Gospel of John Jesus says, “I
am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in
darkness, but will have the light of life” (8:12). The New
Testament tells us that Jesus is, literally and metaphorically, the
personification of wisdom, of God himself, so if we want to know what
wisdom looks like in real terms, in the flesh, we can look at Jesus.
He is the light of wisdom in the darkness of our human ignorance. If
we want to be wise we need to imitate him, we need to follow him, but
inevitably we will fail. We will act foolishly and selfishly, we
will want to be rich or powerful, or popular or good looking rather
than wanting to be wise and Christ-like. But the good news is that
our weaknesses, whether they are unintentional or deliberate, can be
forgiven and more than that God will give us his power, his Holy
Spirit, to help us to be like him. Our failings die with Jesus on
the cross so that we can rise to a new, wiser life with him.
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