Advent Lutheran Church

"The Wisdom of God: Take and Eat"

Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus.  Amen.

            Early this morning Pastor Susan left for Minneapolis to attend the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  Every two years representatives of the whole church gather to conduct the business of our denomination, and this year there are significant issues and opportunities to tend to.  Voting members will consider whether to enter into full relationship with the United Methodist Church, an arrangement we already enjoy with the Presbyterians, Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ.  They will decide on funding for the initiative against HIV and AIDS, which would have worldwide impact; and on something called the Lutheran Malaria Initiative, which would have tremendous significance for Africa.

            But the loudest issue to come before the assembly this year will be the Statement on Human Sexuality.  For some time now voting members have been receiving a generous number of letters and emails from a variety of sources, all arguing for their positions, all trying to persuade the decision-makers that theirs is the “correct” perspective.  As a voting member at the 2005 Churchwide Assembly, I can assure you that when our presiding bishop, Mark Hanson, gavels the assembly to order at 7:30 tomorrow night, those voting members will begin to feel the tremendous weight of responsibility settle upon their shoulders.  And they will be seeking one precious commodity above all others: Wisdom.

            Wisdom.  Not the dictionary version of wisdom, mind you.  The dictionary defines wisdom as “following the most knowledgeable course of action.”  Biblical wisdom is very different; in fact, Biblical wisdom is at the heart of each of our Scripture lessons this morning.

            The primary passage I’d like to focus on this morning is our First Lesson, from the book of Proverbs.  Up to now, I’ve never really thought much about Proverbs.  It had always seemed to me to be just a collection of conventional advice about stable living.  You know, “pick up your socks, don’t drink too much, eat all your vegetables, get plenty of sleep.”  I’ve heard Proverbs described this way: It’s like being on a long road trip with your mother; the advice just never stops.

            But actually, the book of Proverbs contains wisdom, the invitation to a journey into a unique life that is both pleasing to God and deeply satisfying to us.

            In Proverbs, Wisdom is portrayed as a woman, and she begins her invitation from scratch; she builds a beautiful, comfortable house; she prepares an elaborate feast of fine foods and wine; she sends out her servants into all the areas of town in order to increase the breadth of her invitation.

            And who does she invite?  The naïve, the open-minded, those who acknowledge that they don’t have complete understanding, those who are willing to be taught.

            And what does she offer?  She offers a banquet of perception of the truly Good Life; she offers discernment, discernment that reveals itself over time to those who are open to it and who seek it, those who hunger for a closer relationship with God.

            Wisdom has a counterpart, of course.  In the book of Proverbs, the opposite of Wisdom is Folly.  Folly also is portrayed as a woman, and she also extends her invitation to the naïve, those who are without understanding.  But what Folly offers is that which endangers and destroys life; and those who accept her invitation and who seek to satisfy themselves at her table soon discover that they have begun a journey unto death.

            A couple of weeks ago I was on vacation, and I was playing golf on a course that was set in the middle of the desert.  I was intrigued by two types of birds that coursed over the desert sands.  One was the vulture, the other the hummingbird.  As the vulture soared over the desert, it sought out what was dead and decaying, rotting in the sun.  That was its feast.  The hummingbird, in contrast, went after the flowers that were in bloom in the desert; it wanted what was colorful and fresh and alive.  That was its banquet.  Neither bird seemed to be interested or distracted by the feast of the other; in fact, each bird found precisely what it was looking for.

            It’s the same with you and me, is it not?  We find what we’re looking for.  Which begs the obvious question: How intentionally are you living your life?  Are you intentionally seeking God’s wisdom, or are you simply drifting; do you find that you’re spending your life for that which does not, cannot, deeply satisfy?

            It’s a good question, not only for us as individuals; but it seems to be at the heart of something that’s happening these days within American Christianity.  For some time now we’ve been hearing some pretty dismal reports about the state of faith in our country.  The Gallup Organization, the Pew Research Council and others have been telling us that there has been for several decades a steady decline in the number of members of mainline religious denominations in the United States.  Right now about 75 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians.  Seventy-five percent.  That’s a big number.  But it’s a 10-point drop from 1990, and it leads some observers of the religion scene to talk about the demise of faith in America.  And that is certainly one way to look at the numbers.

            But there is growing support for a very different interpretation of the data. 

A number of analysts contend that the decline in church membership represents not a decline of Christianity but a shift.  People seem to be less interested in maintaining the national structure of a church and less interested in using their religion to prepare themselves for heaven, and more and more interested in using the foundation of their faith in order to make life in this world better. 

            There are some numbers that bear this out.  While there has been a decline in the number of church members in all the major denominations, there has been a corresponding rise in the number of people who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”  Have you heard that term?  The number of Americans who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” has increased steadily; now, about 20.4 million Americans see themselves in that way.

            The key point here is that a growing number of Christians have a great interest in applying the basics of their faith to making life in this world better.  It’s not a new idea; in fact, it’s what our Second Lesson is all about, when the apostle Paul encourages the Christians at Ephesus to be “careful how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time … .”        

            I’ve seen that interest here at Advent.  In our Men’s Ministry, we’ve galvanized around a very specific question: “How can I live as a distinctly Christian man in this culture?  In the various roles I occupy – in my family, at work, in my community – how can I occupy those roles as a uniquely Christian man?”  Engaging that question means engaging the journey into Biblical wisdom – seeking that which truly satisfies our souls.

            But what does it actually look like, what Proverbs calls “walking in the way of insight?” 

            Some time back a friend of mine, a sales manager for a national corporation headquartered in Wisconsin, came back from a business trip and said, “I’ve got to tell you about this sales meeting last Monday; it’s the most incredible meeting I’ve been to.”  He went on to explain that his company has five sales managers, four of whom were at the meeting, one of whom was absent, as he almost always was.  This fifth manager was a real pain: sarcastic, cynical, bad-tempered, no one liked him – but he was effective, very productive, and that’s how he kept his position.  But he wasn’t at the meeting my friend described, so they took the opportunity to criticize him, bad-mouth him, tell jokes about him.

            However, he said, the managers who were there were all members of mainline churches – he was a Lutheran, others were Presbyterian and Episcopalian – and all had heard the same Gospel lesson the day before.  One of them said, “You know, I just remembered the Gospel lesson from yesterday.”

            Someone else said, “Oh yeah, the one where someone asked Jesus how many times he was supposed to forgive someone.”

            Someone else chimed in: “And what did Jesus say?  ‘Seventy times seven?’  I guess that means that we’re supposed to forgive this guy 490 times?”

            After a long pause, someone else said, “Well, that’s not really what it means, is it?”  And the others said that, no, it really meant an unlimited number of times. 

And that’s when they decided that they would stop sniping at their colleague, and that they would do what they could in the days and weeks ahead to rebuild healthy relationships with him.

What’s remarkable about that story is that it didn’t happen in a Bible study in a church somewhere; it happened in a boardroom in corporate America.  Four tough-minded businessmen made the conscious decision to conduct themselves in their business roles as distinctly Christian.

What would it mean for you to pursue a life of Wisdom in the various roles that you occupy: in your family, your community, your school, your workplace?  It’s a hard question.  And it’s a hard question because we live in a culture that tells us that there is no objective Truth to which we’re all accountable; that Truth is simply whatever is true for me, which might be different from what is true for you, which might be different from what’s true for you.  And that outlook reduces human life to a series of arbitrary choices among a variety of lifestyle options.

How differently does the Bible look at life!  According to Scripture, there is a structure of divine Wisdom that is woven into the very fabric of creation; that there is a right and a wrong, a good and an evil, and that we live every day at the intersection of Wisdom and Folly.

The truth is: those who seek Wisdom, who seek God’s way, need help in navigating that intersection.  And that’s precisely why Jesus came.  In a world of all-you-can-eat buffets and endless varieties of junk food, Jesus comes to us as the only Bread of Life; he comes to us as the Wisdom of God, offering us the grace of God, which invites us into eternal life.

The language Jesus uses in this Gospel lesson is stark, brutal, as he talks about consuming his flesh and his blood.  The imagery is confrontational.  But a confrontation with Jesus is a confrontation with divine love itself, a love that does for us what we cannot do for ourselves: it brings us into full, right relationship with God our Creator.

When you come to the table this morning, seek the Wisdom that already seeks you; take the very presence of Christ into yourself, and trust that in God’s own time and in God’s own way God will grow his wisdom in you.  Come to the table, taste the Wisdom of God, and live!

Amen.