‘Some of you are probably sitting there with bated breath waiting for me to wax eloquent about that “capable wife” you heard about in the first reading from Proverbs! Well if you are, I’m going to disappoint you! But I will say in that description of the “capable wife,”
there are qualities of Wisdom that all of us should be glad to have! And it is Wisdom I will talk about in today’s homily.
For the past 14 months, we’ve been in the process of “data collection” here at St. James.
We’ve had a lot to find out about our building, our insurance and the costs associated with these. Now that we’ve gotten most of that information, we are starting a discernment process in which we will, over time, deal with the hard truths and discern our way forward as a parish.
The Discernment Process will require time, thought, more research, and much prayer.
Ultimately, I think the thing we’ll be praying for (or praying for most) is Wisdom. Now Wisdom is a quality of God…in fact it’s the way some describe or even personify God.
Wisdom is also a gift from God’s Spirit that we mortals may actually have in varying degrees—if we are so blessed.
In the Letter of James, we’re reminded that true Wisdom comes “from above.” We don’t manufacture it! The qualities of true Wisdom are gentleness, peacefulness, willingness to yield, and mercifulness. The wise person yields good fruits and isn’t partial or hypocritical. My hunch is if all of us could receive this gift of true Wisdom then we’d have really smooth sailing in the days ahead as we discern.
James reminds us, however, that things don’t always go so smoothly, especially when human beings act out of their own wills and not out of God’s Wisdom. Instead of being wise, folks often fall into “bitter envy and selfish ambition.” James says this leads to “disorder and wickedness of every kind.” James says the cause of these is our cravings and desires to have our personal pleasures. So we wrongly ask to have these desires satisfied. Then we get unfocused, and we forget that part about “willingness to yield” and “mercifulness.”
My hope of course, is that we could stay in God’s true Wisdom and avoid these other things! But my hunch is, being human beings, we at St. James will see a mixture of God’s true and gracious Wisdom mixed with our personal agendas, which sometimes won’t be the same thing!
Remember in the Gospel today even the disciples, those closest to Jesus, didn’t want to focus on the hard truth that Jesus had to suffer and die before he was raised. So they denied the real truth and got into an argument about who was the greatest. With the cravings and desires of their personal pleasures run riot, they got unfocused. But then Jesus brings them back in an amazing way.
He sets a Child—someone from the fringes of society, someone with no status or power—right in the center of them. He tells them to focus on the powerless Child; and that if they did that, they would, in fact, be focusing on God’s Truth, God’s Wisdom, even God’s very self!
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Well, I’m not sure if the disciples really “got it”—the example of the Child in the center.
Maybe they just stayed in their bickering about who was the greatest, whose ideas were most important. Maybe they did not have the pure Wisdom to understand the Truth Jesus tried to convey. Maybe that’s just human nature. Maybe that’s what’s ahead for us at St. James.
But perhaps this isn’t inevitable.
The Letter of James tells us, “You do not have because you do not ask.” As the ordained spiritual leader of this congregation, I suggest we ask…ask for the gift of true Wisdom.
As James says, let’s “Submit ourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and know he will flee from us. Let’s draw near to God, and God will draw near to us.” What comforting words! What words of assurance that God is with us and wants to be near us!
And surely if God is near us then we will have that gift of true Wisdom, and all the other gifts we will need as we move forward into God’s preferred future…All we have to do is ask!
Let us pray. God of Grace and God of Glory, grant us Wisdom, grant us Courage for the facing of this hour…for the facing of this hour. Amen.
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