(Prv 1:20-33, Ps 19, Jm 3:1-12) J G White

10:30 am, Sun, Sept 15, 2024, FBC Amherst

Whence wisdom? Whence cometh wisdom? Where, how, when do we find answers, truth, the best ways to live this life?

I almost named this sermon ‘Wise / Dumb,’ a play on ‘wisdom,’ but at the end of the week, I did not want to home in on the contrast between wisdom and being dumb or foolish. Even though we hear that contrast in the opening scene of the book of Proverbs in the Bible. Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice… “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?”

Do we ever hear true wisdom offered up on street corners? In our community? Three Sundays ago, at the corner of Ratchford and Havelock, a street preacher, with amplification, was calling out the local church and minister, giving an incessant warning. I don’t think that was wisdom - at least, not much. No great fount of it.

Think about where you find wisdom today. Where you go for life coaching, for personal guidance, for help in understanding your world. What teachings attract you? What spiritual guides do you end up paying attention to, these days? There are many, many sources claiming to be an ‘answer.’

In God’s world, much of the wisdom does come to us through people. Some wise Jew of the ancient world was inspired to put these proverbs down on papyrus. We have people we know in our own lives who are wise ones, elders - some of them - whom we go to, to whom we listen, when they speak.

Last week one person I spent some time with is elderly: in her nineties. She is experienced in life. Though she has suffered vision loss, and is hard of hearing, her mind and heart are still keen. We got talking - she and her daughter and I - about time, and age, previous generations and the younger ones around us now. This woman’s memory is keen. And I think she is still learning things. Learning things about her family. Learning things about how to live life when you can’t see much anymore, and everyone has a new phone number, and you must simply memorise them all, for instance. She keeps up a skill so many of us have lost.

She might not claim to be a wise elder. She might even have days when she wonders why she is still here, still alive. We who know her are grateful for her. She remains a touchstone of wisdom, a gift from God among us, as every person is, to tell some truth. I think the biblical Woman, Wisdom, calls out to those who will listen: when I meet up with this elder, here in our town. And many others.

We did not quite read Psalm 19 today: we read a poem inspired by it. Don’t you just love Psalm 19? The heavens are telling the glory of God. The days and the nights speak, but there are no words. It is a communicating Cosmos we live in. The first half of the Psalm is all about the sky, which I enjoy immensely. And does it speak? Is there wisdom? Yes, yes there is. Holiness grows as we are silent before it.

Having lived so much of my life near the Bay of Fundy and the Minas Basin, I am a tide watcher. The Biblical people did not have tides to view, so none of their stories and poetry are tidal. The closest they come is when the Hebrews crossed the ‘Reed Sea,’ and forty years later, the Jordan River. The stormy sea is so often a threat, a danger in their imagination.

For me, the steady, somewhat predictable, tidal cycle is so powerful, so sure, so beautiful, so dangerous, so amazing. I can wander for hours at Five Islands, Economy Point, Kingsport or Cape Split and watch the water flow in, relentlessly. This summer I was hiking one morning with friends along the beach from Fox River to Diligent River. It was sunny, and perfectly calm. Barely a ripple on the water. The water was moving, the tide flowing in the channel to fill the Minas Basin. At one point, looking across to Cape Split, about 6 kms away, I could hear a sound: a gentle roar in the distance. No plane, no car to be heard, not a boat in sight. It was the water. It was the water ripping and rushing and foaming over at Cape Split. We could hear it roaring, kilometres away.

It gets called the Voice of the Moon, that roaring water of the Split. Because the Moon (with the Sun’s help) is sloshing all this water around the earth, and speaking with that roaring salt water. As Regina Coupar’s Psalm 19 says, we look to the sea

and feel

your strength in the waves

Or as an old hymn says:

All nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.

You, you may seek and find wisdom - and the voice of God - in other elements of nature. The birds in your yard. The flowers and fruit growing. The animals of your life. Hand in hand with the words of scripture are the words of the whole world.

And, we look for wisdom in those who teach and train and write and guide. But we have warnings, in the New Testament, in James. A retired teacher read aloud, Not many of you should become teachers, my siblings, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make mistakes. And a preacher repeats the words.

There are so many teachers and preachers among us: in books, in lecture halls, in pulpits; in blogs and podcasts, TV and internet; the influencers and activists and authors. They are inside Christianity, and on the fringe, and outside it completely. Could not our loving, powerful Master make use of most of them? So it was in Bible days.

I thought I should listen to some local voices of leadership and life coaching and motivational speaking. More than one resident of Amherst is a guide, with podcasts and books and seminars on offer. Perhaps you know some. Perhaps you have found some wise counsel and encouragement and correction and guidance. I found it quite interesting - and encouraging- this week, to listen to Stephanie Allen on podcasts, and Patrick Manifold.

Bless God for the gifts of good advice and wonderful thinking. Bless God for the gifts of powerful storytelling and wise counsel. Bless God for the gifts of beautiful artistry and inspiring creativity. These all speak - sometimes beyond words - to the soul and body and society. Bless us when we do long for and hunger for wisdom…

Let me close with wise words from a wise person. Christian author, Frederick Buechner, said this about ‘Wishful Thinking,’ which was also the title of one of his delightful books.

Christianity is mainly wishful thinking. Even the part about Judgment and Hell reflects the wish that somewhere the score is being kept.

Dreams are wishful thinking. Children playing at being grown-up is wishful thinking. Interplanetary travel is wishful thinking.

Sometimes wishing is the wings the truth comes true on.

Sometimes the truth is what sets us wishing for it.

[1973, p. 96]