“Wisdom Under Construction: Hard Hat Zone” by Rev. Sharon MacArthur for CCH - 061619 Page 1 of 11

Wisdom Under Construction: Hard Hat Zone By Rev. Sharon Lee MacArthur

For Community Church of Honolulu June 16, 2019

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out: “To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth— when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race."

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Today let’s start by being a fly on a wall - we’re at a faculty meeting at an anonymous university!

We see an angel whoosh in and tell the dean that the Lord has noticed his unselfish and exemplary behavior and will reward him with his choice of infinite wealth, infinite wisdom or infinite beauty. Without hesitating, the dean said, “infinite wisdom.” "Done!" said the angel, and disappeared in a cloud of smoke and a bolt of lightning.

All heads turn toward the dean, who is sitting in the same seat as before the angel’s appearance, but now surrounded by a faint halo of light. Nobody said a word but no one could handle the long silence. Finally, one of his colleagues whispered to the dean, "Say something." He looked at the faculty around the table and said, "I should have taken the money."

Wisdom! Sr. Joan Chichester tells this story about wisdom - Soon after the death of the greatest rabbi in the region, a traveler said to one of his disciples, “Your rabbi was renowned for his wisdom. What did he give greatest attention to in life?”

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The disciple thought a minute and said: “To whatever he happened to be doing at the moment.” Both of these stories about wisdom bring to life something I’ve heard time and again – knowledge is something one learns from books and facts and data; but wisdom? That’s something one learns through the experiences in one’s life. Someone once said, “Wisdom is the gift of living the present to the hilt and learning from the now whatever we will need to respond with integrity to whatever our future brings.”

So, if that’s true, finding our way to wisdom is going to give most of us nothing but trouble. That’s what I hear from wise counsels out there - the world is full of wisdom about wisdom. When I googled Wisdom Quotes, I got 30,200,000 hits! here are some of the most memorable ones: “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” That was Abraham Lincoln “One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.” Georg C. Lichtenberg, German scientist, satirist, and contemporary of Kant and Goethe. Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'” Charles M.

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Schultz “By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the most bitter.” Confucius

It strikes me that these varied thinkers are really talking about three points: first, that wisdom comes only with personal experience; second, that whatever we have learned in the past never fails to enrich the present; and, third, that wisdom comes when we realize that the now is a call to figure out what has brought us to this point and then what will take us beyond. If we put those insights from the intellectuals of the ages next to the ageless scripture of Proverbs 8 - we have something really interesting! Wisdom is not a passive virtue—it’s not just something we soak up if we live long enough; Wisdom is something we have to work at for a fuller life…

I was intrigued – how often do I get to preach from the Book of Proverbs – Someone asked me some time ago, “if you grew up “Chinese”, what was the “Bible” you grew up with – what were the principles of life, what were the beliefs? That was waaay before I knew I would wind up an ordained Christian minister….I thought about it and from my then very limited knowledge of the Bible, I said, “It was as if I lived life according to the Book of Proverbs” So – I am right at home.

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So today – my mother is right here with me – she’s the one who still sits on my shoulder and nags me to be mindful of the future that will happen if I do or say what I’m thinking of doing or saying. May 17 would have been her 120th birthday! Little did I know that the way my mother raised me was a way of living life guided by Lady Wisdom!

It does not escape me that the Book of Proverbs begins like an intro to an instruction manual – The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: 2For learning about wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight, 3for gaining instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity; 4to teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young— 5let the wise also hear and gain in learning, and the discerning acquire skill, 6to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles. 7The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. 8Hear, my child, your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s teaching;

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Proverbs 1! HMmm – “Your father” in that text – is that God? “Your mother” – is that Wisdom? And I wonder, are we able open ourselves to life and the wisdom we work at finding? Are we able to pay attention to all of life? Are we able to take note of the life while we are living it to the hilt? The thing is - wisdom is not apathy masquerading as patience. Wisdom comes with the obligation to deal with life - head up, shoulders straight, eyes open with an honest and courageous heart…Wisdom is about truth, Wisdom is about duty, Wisdom is about justice.

- The Bible tells me so – as the children’s song puts it – in the part of

Proverbs we didn’t read… - “The truth, my mouth recounts; wickedness, my lips abhor…on the way of

duty, I walk along the paths of justice” - Wisdom calls us to know ourselves, to squeeze out of every moment in life

whatever lessons it holds for us, - It’s hard work to get to know ourselves. We have to question ourselves and

accept answers...that we might not like if we’re honest! - Illusions we have about ourselves may come crashing down! See what I

mean about needing hard hats? We might get hurt in this process of wisdom making!

- - And what was the next thing? “to squeeze out of every moment in life

whatever lessons it holds for us,” - we don’t even have the luxury of going through life and enjoying it. - We are called to stop and think about what just happened...about the part we

played in it…to consider if there was a lesson of life in it!

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- Was what happened the best for all involved as tomorrow unfolds? Why?

Or why not? - What could we have done to improve the outcome? - What should we do the next time we find ourselves in the same situation? - That’s a lot of thinking and considering and reflecting, folks! But that’s the kind of hard work that wisdom calls each of us to do in order to be everything we have the capacity to be… Wisdom is not the product of easy living, folks. It is, instead, life lived at its most demanding and most challenging…So, if you’re ready to work, to seek wisdom – beware – we need hardhats for our very souls.

Scripture defines wisdom as that which it defines in another place as “fear of the lord”!

You know - that phrase used to push a few buttons for me – “fear of the Lord” sounds like being afraid of the Lord! And I would wonder why am I supposed to be afraid of the Lord? This is the same Lord who loves us all unconditionally, who as Jesus died on the cross for love, who forgives us even before we realize we have done anything wrong! This does not compute!

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A little research helped me understand more fully the phrase that was so bothersome for me for so long! It turns out the Hebrew word for “fear” in these passages (yirah)

sometimes means the fear we have when we anticipate danger or pain;

but it has another meaning: awe or reverence which includes wonder, amazement, mystery, astonishment, gratitude, admiration and even worship. - Now THAT definition of “fear” is totally in synch with the God of Hope, Peace, Love and Joy that I know! - “Wisdom” and “Fear of The Lord” – reconciled – yay! - Turns out “Wisdom” is the first thing God created, “The first of God’s acts long ago,” Scripture says. It is important beyond all telling, in other words. - It is basic to life, - fundamental to holiness, and - full of unrelenting challenge.

Hmmmm - To have wisdom, says Proverbs, - we must want, seek, & allow, “Knowledge and instruction,” - To have wisdom, we must speak truth and sincerity,

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- Sounds like we’ll need to open ourselves to our experiences – all of them…good and not so good…and to counsel…and to advice. - We need to be both strong and understanding. - We need to do justice and we must honor duty. - Wisdom, this scripture insists, is a first priority in life, - Wisdom is an essential element of happiness, - Without wisdom nothing else matters —not success, not money, not long life. Scripture tells us to understand Wisdom as the craft of taking all the learnings of our past and our present and be willing to be guided by them into the future. Wisdom is, simply and directly, a commitment to go on, always open, always learning what life is really about for us now, if everything we are meant to be has a chance to be developed before we die. The real point of the reading as I understand it lies in the fact that wisdom, if we seek it, is that which simply does not let us alone. It will pester us, follow us, tap us on our shoulder even when we don’t want to be interrupted! Like my boisterous grandkids, Wisdom doesn’t settle down nor does it allow us to settle down. Wisdom leads us from one point in life to another and says, “Learn from this!” - 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. If we respond to the voice of wisdom around us and in us, - we will need to change, grow, develop, deepen, and come to new meanings, new learnings, new moments, new ways of being alive… - something in our past challenged us and - something in our present changed us and - something within us still prods us toward whatever our unknown futures are.

WHOA – hold it – did you notice something extraordinary happening here?

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Just when we think we’re talking about each of us – as God’s child growing in and working on wisdom - all of a sudden – it might be that we’re talking about something else entirely – yes – it’s about each of us – but maybe it’s also about all of us –

all of us as in this Community Church of Honolulu! Think about it - All the work we’ve been doing together – all those conversations – the ones that we’ve never had before – prodded by our New Beginnings process, by our ET2 folks – the green questionnaire asking about our experiences and memories of Community Church….what our search committee has been about and their questionnaires and their work completing our church profile and asking for input…all that is wisdom in the making right here! What we have here is another God sighting folks – another chicken skin convergence! And what a convergence – listen up!… • It’s Father’s day – and we are celebrating this – as brother Art so beautifully reminded us… • Our founding fathers had this vision of community to be and to serve that is radically diverse and open – a vision that we are now 85 years later rediscovering as God’s calling… • Today’s scripture reading is about wisdom and how wisdom weaves together past and present to point to the future…

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• just at a time when the church profile is just about done…at a time when we are just about ready to articulate what God is calling this Community Church to be and do! Like it or not, ready or not – Wisdom is among us – and it’s under construction right now as we live and breathe…as we remember the past and savor the present and allow all this to point to the future.

It’s a good thing to remember and feel that God is definitely here in the mix, that the holy spirit is here, and that wisdom is under construction as we approach the threshold of the future of CCH. “So now, O people, listen to me,” the Scripture pleads, “instruction and wisdom do not reject ... for the one who finds me finds life...” “Holy One, what is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?” the disciple asked. And the Holy One answered: “When you have knowledge, you use a torch to show the way. When you are wise, you become the torch.”

Friends, we are called to become the torch to show the way…Come, let us put on our hard hats and heed Wisdom’s call! Amen!