On Wisdom

The Gospel message this week is clear: stay awake, pay attention and be spiritually prepared. However, underscoring the whole message is the Wisdom Edge. There is more to this scripture than just being ready for any spiritual eventuality, be it the end times or otherwise. There is a call for wisdom. Not knowledge – wisdom.

 

Wisdom is the oil for the flame that lights our way but very often people get confused between knowledge and wisdom. It's good to strive after knowledge because knowledge is valuable and very helpful. It's a great beginning. All the bridesmaids in the Gospel had knowledge, even the ones who ran out of oil. They knew that some night the bridegroom was going to come and 'steal' the bride to take her to the house that he was preparing for her. They knew that he was coming - they just had no idea when he was coming because it could take as long as two years to build a home for his bride. The bride and her attendants had to always be ready to leave suddenly.

This accurate knowledge of the rituals, traditions and the special event the night might bring was what brought all the bridesmaids to the right place at the right time and engaged in the right motions. But five waited with knowledge and wisdom and five waited with just knowledge. The ones who operated just on knowledge of the tradition had no real inner attachment to the possibilities of what the night could bring so they didn't bother to have more than barely enough provisions. They were waiting because that's what you do when you're a bridesmaid. It was the rule. It was the ritual. That was the way it was always done.

Wisdom goes beyond the way things have always been done; it looks for the spirit behind them, seeks the depths, senses the promises, envisions the unseeable and listens for the unheard. Then wisdom waits patiently and hopefully for the consummation of the promise. Wisdom dwells in the spaces between the black and white of knowledge. It's in those spaces that the mystery of God moves and one of the most potent parts of the mystery of God is wisdom. Wisdom is a gift, one that we should all ache to have and seek constantly because it is a light that will keep us ready for the moment the bridegroom comes to sweep us all away to the celebration. We will only receive it if we ask for it.

In the first reading from Wisdom it says: “Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her. She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her. One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate.”

Anyone can seek wisdom and what is so wonderful is that the most illiterate peasant can be full of amazing spiritual wisdom. Conversely, the most knowledgeable person can be very much lacking in spiritual wisdom. Spiritual wisdom is not the same as the natural wisdom that comes with life's experiences. Life experience can contribute to spiritual wisdom but there's a point where experience just can't prepare us to recognize or touch the heart of God and it can't build up the grace to wait in patient hope. This is where we discover that wisdom is sheer gift and grace. Past experience teaches us to wait for something already known so if we experienced Christ in a certain way at one time, natural wisdom leads us to expect him in exactly the same way again. Through spiritual wisdom, the Spirit soaks us in the understanding that God comes in his own timing, sometimes unexpectedly and often in a form we won't recognize if we're depending on what we experienced in the past or on what others have experienced. Wisdom gives us eyes that are ready and waiting to see the fresh unknown.

Wisdom expects the unexpected. Wisdom delights in the fact that God is always the same but always new, always coming, always here, always a surprise and always more than what we thought or imagined. Wisdom teaches us to wait for the only thing worth waiting for: Christ's coming. Whether it's for his coming at the end of the world or for his coming into our present moment, wisdom teaches us how to wait: with the oil of patience, full expectation and joyful hope. Wisdom reminds us of our baptism and whispers, “You are an anointed one waiting for your Beloved. Watch out...he's coming soon. Keep your eyes open.”

Wisdom is also what teaches us how to appropriately apply any knowledge we have gained through experience. It isn't always what we think and it isn't always what knowledge suggests would be reasonable. I love this definition of the difference between knowledge and wisdom:

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

If wisdom's ways were always based on what is reasonable, we would not know the shocking unreasonableness of God's love for all of us. Wisdom goes beyond the rational and the logical into territories we are not always familiar with. Just because we know in our heads that Christ died for us doesn't mean we have explored where this astounding love came from. We can only reach that region with wisdom as our guide.

I am going to end this reflection with one of my favorite scriptures. It's from the book of Wisdom, written by Solomon who cherished wisdom above all else and was greatly blessed by God because of it. I'm including it here because not everyone has a bible that includes the book of Wisdom. 

Read this description of Wisdom and then ponder on the precious mystery that you are called to walk all your days in companionship with her. 

The Nature of Wisdom (Wisdom 7: 22-30)

There is in her (wisdom) a spirit that is intelligent, holy,
unique, manifold, subtle,
mobile, clear, unpolluted,
distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
irresistible, beneficent, humane,
steadfast, sure, free from anxiety,
all-powerful, overseeing all,
and penetrating through all spirits
that are intelligent, pure, and altogether subtle.
For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.
For she is a breath of the power of God,
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;

Although she is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
in every generation she passes into holy souls
and makes them friends of God, and prophets;
for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.
She is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars.
Compared with the light she is found to be superior,
for it is succeeded by the night,
but against wisdom evil does not prevail.

The Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.