Don Friesen
There is an old story of a jester who often had wise things to say. One day, however, he said something so foolish that the king handed him a staff and said to him, "Take this, and keep it till you find a bigger fool than yourself."
Some years later, the king was very ill and lay on his deathbed. His courtiers were called; his family and his servants were also called, and all stood round his bedside. The king, addressing them, said, "I am about to leave you. I am going on a very long journey, and I shall not return again to this place, so I have called you all to say goodbye."
Then his jester stepped forward, and, addressing the king, said, "Your Majesty, may I ask a question? When you journeyed abroad visiting your people, staying with your nobles, or paying diplomatic visits to other courts, your heralds and servants always went before you, making preparations for you. May I ask what preparations your Majesty has made for this long journey that he is about to take?"
"Alas!" replied the king, "I have made no preparations."
"Then," said the jester, "take this staff with you, for now I have found a bigger fool than myself." (adapted from Stories for Sharing, by Charles Arcodia)
"Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come," advised the wise Old Testament philosopher. (Ecclesiastes 12:1)
W is for Wisdom, not for Folly
I have chosen the word, "wisdom, as the biblical word for the letter, "W," though there are other, strong contenders words like "worship," "work," "witness," and the word, "word" itself. There are also a number of important negative W-words. The letter, "W," by my own decision to choose positive biblical concepts, is not for "waywardness," "war," or "wickedness".
Wisdom is one of the most important topics in biblical literature, but it is very difficult to define, for it has an enigmatic character. Wisdom, some say, is the art of succeeding in life. Wisdom, others say, is a practical knowledge of the laws that govern our world. Wisdom is the sum of our experiences. Wisdom is encapsulated in the spiritual testament bequeathed us. Wisdom is the right deed or word for the moment.
The sixth-century author of the Consolation of Philosophy (Boethius) held that biblical wisdom has five goals: it is there to teach us how to believe rightly; how to live properly; how to perceive others truthfully; how to give sound direction to the intentions of our hearts; and how to identify objectives worthy of our life's work. (David Lyle Jeffrey, A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature, page 833)
The letter, "W," is not for "war," "waywardness," or "wickedness," but mostly it is not for foolishness or folly. The Scriptures often portray wisdom by contrasting it with its antithesis. "The wise of heart will heed commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin," says an Old Testament proverb. (Proverbs 10:8) "Doing wrong is like sport to a fool, but wise conduct is pleasure to a person of understanding." (10:23) "Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to advice." (12:15) "The wise are cautious, ...but the fool throws off restraint and is careless." (14:16) "A fool gives full vent to anger, but the wise quietly holds it back." (29:11)
The Scriptures hint at the meaning of wisdom by portraying the familiar foibles of the foolish, but they also warn us that folly may masquerade as wisdom. The Old Testament pleads with us to "answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes." (Proverbs 26:5) "Do you see persons wise in their own eyes?" asks Proverbs, "There is more hope for fools than for them." (26:12) I recently read an essay (Chittester) on wisdom that contained some of the following nuggets:
"It is wisdom that is the internal force that drives us to become the fullness of ourselves."
"Wisdom leads us from one point to another in life until we learn what we're supposed to learn, until we do what we're supposed to do, until we each become what we're supposed to become with who and what we are."
The New Testament writer, James, distinguishes between wisdom "from above" and wisdom which is "earthly, unspiritual, (and) devilish". The difficulty of defining biblical wisdom is compounded by the various forms of biblical wisdom. Rabbinic tradition recognized this by ascribing the raunchy Song of Songs to Solomon's youth, the aphorisms found in Proverbs to Solomon's mature years, and the cynical reflections in Ecclesiastes to Solomon in his old age. A convenient way to combine them, I suppose, though I know many a young person whose wisdom is remarkable, and I also know many persons my age who see their lives as an endless series of opportunities to persist in folly.
There was an interesting question in yesterday's Ottawa Citizen, asking the religious panel, "What is more important, love or wisdom, and why?" A curious question, but I was disappointed by one of the sharper religious minds on that page, who answered that a world without wisdom would be a world without aeroplanes, televisions or computers! (Ottawa Citizen, June 17, 2006, page E12) Wisdom is not knowledge, and though it may make use of knowledge, wisdom is much more than knowledge.
My mother was fond of quoting a verse from the New Testament, attributing it to the Apostle Paul and saying, Much learning has made you mad! The actual phrase was spoken by Governor Porcius Festus as an accusation against Paul. (Acts 26:24) I'd like to think that my mother's warning kept me from pursuing higher education, but I really have only my intellectual laziness to blame for that. Although my mother quit school after the fourth grade, none of her children could match her quick wit! Some of us were handicapped by tact, but nonetheless, she left me with a sceptical attitude toward educated fools, and to this day our family takes more than necessary delight in knowledgeable people receiving their comeuppance! It's one of the reasons I love the Old Testament proverbs, for their condensed wisdom have both feet on the ground and are simple enough for even fools to understand!
Wisdom Is a Corpus of Literature
What has biblical wisdom bequeathed us? Well, for one thing, it has given us a large body of literature. We have the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, some of the Psalms, the New Testament book of James, and several books in the Apocrypha. Additionally, many other biblical books show strong influences of the wisdom tradition.
What is interesting about biblical wisdom is its rather loose association with revelation. Early Jewish commentators tried to limit the notion to wisdom associated with Torah, but books like Ecclesiastes were included in the biblical canon despite having no references to Torah or revelation!
Wisdom has a prominent place in our biblical and spiritual tradition. Judaism sponsored wisdom schools, and considered wisdom the chief means of studying the law of the "most high". (Sirach 39:1-6) Other influences began creep in by New Testament times, though Paul was suspicious of the worldly wisdom of the Greeks (1 Corinthians 1; Acts 17), a more philosophical and less earthy, less pithy form of wisdom.
Biblical wisdom is at times optimistic, telling us that if we do the right thing and don't get derailed by foolish distractions, we will prosper (e.g., Proverbs 19:8), but at other times it can be quite pessimistic, as in Ecclesiastes, where the writer gives his "heart up to despair" (Ecclesiastes 2:20) and asks what we "get from all (our) toil and strain.... For all (our) days are full of pain, and (our) work is a vexation (and) ...vanity." (2:22-23) A little like the Haitian proverb, "Behind the mountains, ...more mountains!" This tension between optimism and pessimism, however, is what gives wisdom literature the ring of authenticity and why books like Job are such profound and enduring literature.
The wisdom literature of the Bible is also prominent in Western literature, most notably in Chaucer, who quotes more from Proverbs than from any other biblical book. (Jeffrey, page 832) Biblical wisdom also strides across the pages of Dante, Samuel Johnston, Leo Tolstoy, and many others, including Erasmus, in the time of the Reformation. How I wish one of our own forebears had written his satiric Praise of Folly instead of those pedantic tracts they churned out, but... ...behind folly, more folly!
Western literature reveals a blending of Greek ideas with Hebrew wisdom over centuries, but the Enlightenment, interestingly, swung the balance in favour of classical biblical wisdom. One poet wrote:
(William Cowper, The Task, cited by Jeffrey, page 836)
Wisdom, in Judeo-Christian tradition, is a way of thinking; someone has described it as a radical questioning of the foundations upon which knowledge rests, combined with a conservative attitude toward tradition. (J.N. Crenshaw, Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible) In biblical times the wise person the sage had an established place in his or her community. Any radical questioning was firmly anchored in tradition and paid deference to the discerning mind of the sage, who knew well the limits and incompleteness of knowledge. Today, of course, we pay little mind to tradition, and issues that have bedevilled the Church for centuries can be answered easily by an opinion we formed just yesterday!
The wise feel humble in the face of mystery, the hidden dimensions of human existence. Biblical wisdom encourages an arduous search for reasoned explanations of things, but is also content to come to that point where one simply shrugs one's shoulders and asks, as the Old Testament philosopher is fond of asking, "Who knows?" (Ecclesiastes 2:19; 3:21; 6:12; 8:1; 10:14)
We may think of biblical wisdom as primarily an Old Testament tradition, but the New Testament tells us that even as a child, Jesus "grew and became strong, filled with wisdom...." (Luke 2:40) We catch another glimpse of Jesus at the age of twelve, engaging the temple scholars, who were "amazed at his understanding and his answers" (2:47), and we are told that "Jesus increased in wisdom and in years...." (2:52)
As a mature teacher himself, Jesus turned our minds to the simplicity of wisdom, telling those baffled by his teaching, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from ...the intelligent and have revealed them to infants...." (Matthew 11:25) When he took his teaching to his own hometown, the people "were astounded and said, Where did (he) get this wisdom and these deeds of power?'" (Matthew 13:54)
Jesus spoke of the wisdom of those who build their spiritual houses, not on sand, but on rock, concluding that those who hear his words and act on them, walk the way of wisdom. (Matthew 7:24) He spoke of wise and foolish virgins (Matthew 25), encouraging us to re-fuel our spiritual lamps. When a learned teacher came to Jesus to test Jesus' knowledge of the commandments, the man went away impressed with Jesus' answer. Jesus, in turn, noticed how wise the man's own answer was and said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." (Mark 12:34) And Jesus told his own disciples, in case they were fearful of similar interrogations, to relax; "I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict," he told them. (Luke 21:15)
The New Testament clinches the place of wisdom in our tradition, naming it one of the spiritual gifts. (1 Corinthians 12:8) Paul also wrote that "God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom" (1 Corinthians 1:25), prompting Saint Augustine to encourage his readers to move away from pagan wisdom to the wisdom of Christ. Thomas Aquinas, another sage of old, wrote that it is only the wisdom of imitating Christ (imitatio Christi) that can confront the folly and evil of the world, emphasizing the wisdom of the Scriptures as the pattern for our lives.
Wisdom, in the biblical tradition, is concerned with both theory and practise (theoria; praktika), but this is one of those sermons, paradoxically, that does not have an immediate application except, perhaps, to encourage us to put a stop to our foolishness!
Sometimes we're like the two fellows who tried to pull the front off a bank machine by running a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup truck. The bank machine, however, proved to be of hardier material than their truck, and when the two parted ways the bumper stayed with the bank machine! Scared, the fools left the scene and drove home with the chain still attached to the machine and their bumper still attached to the chain and the vehicle's license plate still attached to the bumper!
Wisdom, Proverbs assures us, stands by and laughs (Proverbs 1:26) at our foolish ways. It may seem unusual to think of holy derision as a service to us, but it may be necessary for some of us to wise up!
The Scriptures also encourage us to "tune (our) ears to wisdom...." (Proverbs 2:2, NLT) Just as the subtleties of music and the nuances of learning another language require a tuning of our ears, so it takes some effort on our part to tune our ear to wisdom's sweet strains and unique accents.
May we grow in wisdom, as we search the Scriptures, as we listen to God's Holy Spirit, and to each other, and to the wise men and women of our fine Christian tradition. AMEN
"It is wisdom that calls each of us to be everything we have the capacity to be."
So... ...now you know the meaning of wisdom! It's to be full of ourselves!
Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools?
Wisdom Is a Way of Thinking
If Christ, then why resort at ev'ry turn
To Athens or to Rome, for wisdom short
Of man's occasions, when in him reside
Grace, knowledge, comfort an unfathom'd store?
How oft, when Paul has served us with a text,
Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preached!
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.