WISDOM IS MORE THAN APPROPRIATE DISILLUSIONMENT

July 27, 2008                                                                                          I Kings 3:5-12

          He was said to be the smartest person in history.  While the average person has an intelligence quotient, or “I.Q.” of 100, and you’re considered a genius if your I.Q. is 175, scholars estimate his I.Q. was over 220.   And he used that intelligence to master all that his 18^th century knew about math and science and the arts.  We remember Johann Wolfgang Goethe mostly as a writer.   In Dr. Faust, his classic book-length poem Goethe speaks of the pitfalls of intelligence.  The character Dr. Faust is Goethe’s alter-ego – a man of awesome intellect and learning.  But like his creator he is disillusioned.

           Sitting before his great library and staring at his many diplomas on the wall Goethe ponders (through the mutterings of Faust): “What worth is found in great learning?”   He concludes: “And here, poor fool, with all my lore, ‘I stand no wiser than before.”

           What Goethe bemoans, of course, is that wisdom and knowledge are two very different gifts.  And though Goethe, like his character Faust, possessed great knowledge, he was tormented throughout life with the feeling of emptiness, a feeling that his knowledge was wasted because it had no direction.   He realized that being intelligent is different than being wise and knowing best how to use your intelligence. 

           Today we are haunted by the problem of too much knowledge and too little wisdom.   The world’s scientific knowledge doubles ever 10 years, and estimates call for it doubling every two years by 2050.   Yet are we any wiser?

           In the Bible, too, the hunger for wisdom is a common topic, and nowhere is it expressed more eloquently than in today’s first lesson.   Solomon has just been proclaimed king to succeed his father, David.   But Solomon is only in his early teens, he has no leadership experience, and he’s scared to death.   In a dream God offers him anything he wants.  Solomon chooses wisdom.

           Now, the Bible reports many forms of wisdom.  Some are nobler than others.

           There’s craftiness.  That’s what Jacob had when he gained his nickname “tricky Jacob” by cheating his brother out of his inheritance.  Remember?   He bought the birthright from the starving Esau for a bowl of porridge.  Devious, but legal and very successful.

           And then there’s sagacity, shrewdness.  That’s an attribute Jewish scholars give God, for in an ancient world where punishment was usually an eye for an eye, God was generously creative.  When Cain killed Able God did not execute the culprit.  He marked him so that everyone who saw him would curse him – a living death, but still with a chance for repentance.  When the people of Babel impudently tried to build a tower to heaven so they could climb up and stare at God eyeball to eyeball, God did not knock down the tower as a child might do with building blocks.  God merely confused the language of the builders so they couldn’t work together.  Shrewdness.   Wisdom is balancing creativity with justice.  

           A third form is the wisdom of the nimble mind.  Solomon himself displayed this when confronted with the two women who claimed the same baby.   “Cut the child in two and give each woman half,” he ordered, knowing full well that only the real mother would rather give up the child than see it hurt.  Quick thinking.

          So with all of these forms of wisdom in the Bible, what exactly is it that Solomon wants from God?  The Lord himself defines it.  “[You] have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right; behold, I now do according to your word.  Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind….”

           “Discernment – that’s the key to real wisdom.   To be able to tell what’s right and wrong, what’s important and what’s trivial, is to be blessed with more than craftiness, nimble-mindedness or shrewdness.   And certainly, good judgment in using our intellect is more important than the abundance of our intellect. 

           But notice, it is more than just discernment between right and wrong that Solomon wants and that God gives.  This is wisdom meant to serve the public good.   “Give thy servant an understanding mind to govern thy people,” the young king prays.

           So often today we ask God for wisdom to make decisions about personal morality –sex, forgiveness, abortion, drinking.   While they are important, let’s not think they are the only arenas in which God – and God’s Church – should be active.   The corporate wisdom of a people – the laws and policies which govern all humanity – are not so complex that they cannot be tackled by the Church, and not so inappropriate to be addressed by God.  It was precisely in making such broad public policies that Solomon asked for wisdom. 

This wisdom of discernment is displayed every time we confront a problem that affects all people – and in the name of our faith make a corporate decision.

           A corporate discernment can be in the form of laws.   Do we have courage to do that?   Each year over 10,000 Americans die from handguns.   In Canada and England combined (two nations with strict handgun laws) there are only 100 such deaths.   Most handgun deaths are committed by friends or relatives in accidents or fits of rage or passion so we can’t simply blame criminals.  Can’t wisdom lead to laws that lead to sanity?   And what about tougher laws on gasoline mileage in cars and carbon emissions and decent minimum wages?  Heaven knows this church has rattled the bars of city hall for signage laws.  Salvation is not only what God offers the soul; it is what we together offer society. 

           A corporate discernment can also be in the form of lifestyle changes on a mass scale.   Because of your intelligence, you are often able to have great jobs with incomes allowing you to buy larges homes and SUVs.   But is that the wise thing to do in a world in which America, with 5% of the population, uses 26% of the world’s energy?   When the average American uses 9 times the amount of electricity of the world’s average person is the solution only in making more electricity or is there wisdom in simplicity and sharing?   And what about the lifestyle change of all of us using our (put on screen –www.VolunterMatch.com – find the volunteer opportunity right for you) retirement years in volunteer service, from tutoring a child, to building a Habitat House to joining the Peace Corps.   When we hit retirement age we’ve accumulated a lifetime of wisdom.   Sharing is the best remedy for disillusionment that I know. 

       Oh, I would love to have the intelligence of Goethe.   But without a tender heart and a discerning mind, a great brain is only a burden.   There is no genius without generosity.  

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