Wisdom

Scripture Lessons: Proverbs 9: 1-6 and 1 Kings 2: 10-12; 3: 3-14 Sermon Title: Wisdom Preached on August 15, 2021 Wisdom. Both today’s scripture lessons are focused on wisdom, which you might say is the opposite of ignorance, and ignorance is a subject that Mark Twain liked to talk about. Here are just a few Mark Twain quotes on the subject: “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” “Few things are more irritating than when someone who is wrong is also very effective in making his point.” “Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.” But this is the best one: “Ignorance is not not knowing. Ignorance is knowing what ain’t so.” As Mark Twain liked to talk about ignorance, many any pages of Scripture are dedicated to the theme of wisdom. In fact, it starts in the very beginning, in Genesis chapter 2 when the serpent tries to get Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Eve resists the serpent says, “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and [if you eat the forbidden fruit] you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” For years I’ve thought about this one phrase and if I could I’d like to offer a slight retranslation. I feel sure that what the snake means here is not that we’ll know good and evil but that we’ll think we will. In other words, the first sin, falling from grace is believing we can decide for ourselves what is good, or to use the words of Mark Twain, the first sin is the ignorance of knowing what ain’t so. Certainly, that’s true about us. We think we know when we don’t. When kids are allowed to eat as much candy as they think they want, often, vomit is the result, not happiness, but they think it will be happiness. Likewise, to some degree or another, I think that I can tell the difference between what will bring me joy and what will make me bored. That given the freedom, I’ll make the best choice for myself. That if I could just decide on my own, I’d make a better choice than anyone else could make for me. Yet, where has that gotten us? If only an upset stomach were the worst result of humanity’s determination to try and choose what is good and what is evil. We don’t know what is good. We think we do, which is the definition of ignorance. “Ignorance is not not knowing. Ignorance is knowing what ain’t so.” What do we think we know? For one, we think that money will bring us happiness, yet think for just a moment about the happiest time of your life. Remember the best year of your marriage. Go back to that day when everything felt perfect. Maybe the sun was shining on your face as someone held you in their arms. Maybe it was raining, but you wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else because you were dry by the comfort of a fire with the only person who mattered. I have this memory of our first apartment. Sara and I were just home from our honeymoon, and we wanted to watch a TV show called Friends. We took the TV my grandparents had bought us as a wedding gift out of the box. Plugged it in, but we couldn’t pick up any channels, because they bought us a new, modern TV that didn’t come with an antenna. Now why didn’t they buy us a TV with an antenna. Probably because they assumed that we’d be able to afford cable. We couldn’t. I was working as a lawn maintenance man getting paid by the hour. Sara didn’t have a job yet. So, we drove to Target and splurged on a $15.00 antenna. I can still see the thing. I remember exactly what it looked like. In the parking lot of Target Sara said, “I’m going to have to get a job quick, because this nearly cleaned us out,” though all I could think was how lucky I was that my life had turned out this way. $15.00 cleared out our checking account yet I felt like I’d won the lottery. Meanwhile, how many of us think that money is going to make us happy? Seriously. How many have made making as much of it as possible the sole priority of their lives? George Morlan, a deacon and great leader in our church, left the early service saying, “Money does sometimes make me very happy. It makes me very happy to give it away.” Now, who told him that? Who told him that it is better to give than to receive? Does it seem strange that the one who knit us together in our mother’s wombs would also know what makes us happy? On the other hand, in the words of Christian author, Anne Lamott, many of us “learn through pain that some of the things we thought were castles turn out to be prisons, and we desperately want out, but even though we built them, we can’t find the door.” Some are boxed in by debt from trying to buy happiness. Others are stuck trying to squeeze joy from entertainment, distraction, pleasure, pain. So, I ask you, have you found what is good? Are you happy? If not, it’s only a matter of asking for help, for just as “ignorance is not not knowing. Ignorance is knowing what ain’t so,” wisdom is knowing what you don’t know and doing something about it. Now, as I talk about wisdom and ignorance know that I don’t claim to be a particularly intelligent man. In fact, in 9th grade at Marietta High School, I failed Spanish. That’s not something that I’m proud of, but it’s true. That’s what happens when you don’t pay attention in class or do any of the homework. In 10th grade I took it again, and I remember my teacher, Senora Smitherman, telling me that the difference between the F that I made the first time and the A that I made in her class, was that in her class I was always the first to ask a question. Look again at King Solomon. “O Lord my God” he prayed, “You have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?” Did you hear all that? It’s a litany of reasons for why he shouldn’t be the king. He’s too young. He can’t even find his way our or his way back in. There are too many people. He has no understanding. And he’s not really sure that anyone is going to be able to govern this nation. But here’s the point: this is where wisdom always begins. Not with having the answers but realizing that you don’t and asking for them. That’s true. I googled “qualities of ignorant people.” That search took me right to an article written in 2018 by journalists Lisa Schonhaar and Gisela Wolf, who interviewed a group of experts on intelligence and found a list of five qualities that most ignorant people possess. 1. ignorant people blame others for their own mistakes. 2. Ignorant people always have to be right. 3. Ignorant people react to conflicts with anger and aggression, rather than with curiosity or careful listening. 4. Ignorant people ignore the needs and feelings of others. 5. Ignorant people think they are better than everyone else. On the other hand, - wise people are willing to admit that they make a mistake and are ready to learn from others. - wise people react to conflicts with curiosity and careful listening because they know that they’re sometimes wrong. - wise people don’t assume they know what’s going on in other peoples’ minds. - Wise people know that they’re not better than everyone else. What’s the common theme? There is foolishness in relying on yourself, insisting on your own way, and there is wisdom in asking other people for help. Therefore, as though she were a person, wisdom calls: “turn in here!” “Don’t think you can do this all on your own. Accept my invitation and listen to someone other than the voice in your own head.” Then there’s the last verse from the chapter we read from Proverbs, so loved by Greer Reeve’s mother, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Did you hear that? Lean not on our own understanding, because sometimes your own understanding is dead wrong. “Ignorance is not not knowing. Ignorance is knowing what ain’t so.” Some people have paid a high price because what they were certain of proved not to be true. Occasionally, families will ask the preacher to pray with the body of their loved one who has died. Most vividly, I remember praying with the body of a man who took his own life. I was with him alone, but when I walked out after praying, Tony Sowell who ran the funeral home was waiting for me. He knew it would be a hard thing to do, and so while he let me pray by myself, he was there waiting for me after I had prayed. Walking out of the morgue Tony said to me, “the most tragic thing in the world is a man who treats a temporary problem with a permanent solution.” According to theologian CS Lewis, this is the devil’s greatest trick, convincing us that our passing pain or sorrow or desperation is not temporary but permanent. So, I say it again: “Ignorance is not not knowing. Ignorance is knowing what ain’t so.” If you are sure your pain is going to last forever, if you are sure there’s no way out, if you’re sure that no one loves you and you’ve ruined everything and there is no hope, you are dead wrong. Today, in this time of isolation, listen not to the voice in your head but to wisdom’s call. Lean not on your own understanding, but accept her invitation: Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight. Some will say that today we suffer from a difference of opinions. That’s not entirely true, for today so many are laying in hospital beds dying, because they have wagered their life on what isn’t so. Wisdom is calling. Please, listen. Amen.