FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Sermon by Dr. George Bryant Wirth

 

The Second Sunday in Lent

March 4, 2007

 

CHRIST AT THE CENTER:

THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – WISDOM

 

Scripture:  I Corinthians 12; Matthew 7:24-29

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The season is Lent, and we are focused on the theme “Christ at the Center” of our life together, and “The Gifts of the Spirit” which He promises to us.  The text we have chosen to guide us on our journey is taken from the 12th chapter of I Corinthians, which lists the gifts that the Apostle Paul lifted up for those first century Christians and all of us still today.

 

We have already explored the gifts of hospitality and unity, and this morning we concentrate our attention on the gift of wisdom – which is “hokhma” in the Hebrew Scriptures and “Sophia” in the Greek New Testament.  Down through the centuries, the Biblical definition of wisdom has come through something like this:

 

“wisdom – the human quality of discernment, judgment and understanding concerning spiritual and moral truth…and the mind and the mysterious will of God” (From “The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought,” Oxford University Press, 2000)

 

I

 

This ancient word of wisdom has guided us in our Judeo-Christian Tradition for nearly 4000 years.  But in the English language, some words have changed in their meaning over time.

 

The old Elizabethan word “charity” was familiar to our forbears who read in their King James Version of the Bible from I Corinthians 13: Now faith, hope and charity abide – these three.  But the greatest of these is charity.  The Greek word is “agape,” which we now translate in the Revised and New Revised Standard Version as “love.”  It was “charity” 400 years ago, a word that today is associated with fund raising and organizations like the Red Cross and the American Cancer Society.  So you see, the word charity has changed in its meaning over the centuries. 

 

Another word that doesn’t mean exactly what it used to is “gay.”  Although the word “gay” is never used in the Bible, the 1936 edition of Webster’s Universal Dictionary defines it this way:  “gay – merry, jovial, frolicsome, fine.”  But the most recent edition of Webster’s Dictionary adds this:  “bright and lively…and homosexual.” I don’t need to tell you what a difference that change in meaning has made in our world and in the church today, and we are still trying to discern the depth of what it does mean and God’s will for all of us as we seek future direction.

 

What about the word “web”?  It once described what a spider would spin to catch its prey alive, or a piece of skin or membrane joining together the toes of water birds like ducks and geese that both swim and fly.  But now, the word “web” has been taken to another level – www.com actually stands for “world wide web commercial” and there are web-sites to visit and web masters whom we hire to help us figure out how this emerging new technology works.

 

And so it is with “wisdom.”  For many centuries, the Christian understanding of the Greek word for wisdom – “Sophia” – was positive and universally affirmed.  The wisdom literature of the Bible – Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes and the Psalms – takes us back to ancient days when the Hebrew people revered and respected the will and the mind of God and His mysterious ways, as well as the depth of understanding and spiritual insight which was given to anointed kings like David, his son Solomon, and the prophets and judges who followed after them and discerned God’s plan and purpose for their lives.  As we’ve said, the Hebrew word for wisdom is “hokhma,” and the Greek translation is “Sophia.”

 

In the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., when the center of Christianity moved from Rome in the west to Constantinople in the east, the greatest church in the entire world was built by Eastern Orthodox believers and called “Hagia Sophia” – divine wisdom – and so it was for a thousand years until the Muslim Conquest in 1453.  Today that former church is a museum which some of us visited two summers ago in Istanbul, Turkey, and I was completely overwhelmed by the grand and glorious tradition of Hagia Sophia – an  exquisite and beautiful building constructed by Christians, and also the center of Divine wisdom for more than a millennium.

 

But in the mid 1990’s, when our Presbyterian Denomination got into a fuss about a women’s conference which supposedly lifted up Sophia as a goddess, that ancient word changed from a positive to a negative meaning for many people.  Some folks, in their ambiguity, thought we were talking about Sophia Loren from Italy, but that was not the case.  And all these years later, we are still digging out from under that controversy today.

 

So this morning, I want to say something good about Sophia, the Greek word for wisdom which is found in our text from I Corinthians 12, verse 8:  “Tou pneumatos didotai logos Sophia,” which translates in part from Greek to English this way: “To one is given through the Spirit the utterance (message) of wisdom.”

 

When Paul wrote those words to the Corinthians, having heard about their conflicts and confusion, he was promising that God’s gift of wisdom – “Sophia” – would be given to them if they would open their hearts and minds to receive it.

 

II

 

How did the apostle know what was so?  Well, as a former Pharisee, he had learned and could quote from memory the words of wisdom in the Hebrew Bible:

 

·        “Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days” – Job 12:12

·        “The price of wisdom is above rubies” – Job 28:18

·        “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts and minds unto wisdom” – Psalm 90:12

·        “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” – Proverbs 9:10

·        It is much better to have wisdom and knowledge than gold and silver” – Proverbs 16:16

·        “For to the person who pleases Him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and joy” – Ecclesiastes 2:26

 

There are more than 330 references to wisdom in the Old Testament, and Paul knew what those Biblical verses meant – that God’s wisdom could be and would be given to His people if they would remain faithful and obedient to Him.

 

But what had actually convicted Paul that the Gift of Wisdom was available to all those who desired it, was his own personal encounter with the risen Christ who gave to him spiritual gifts that transformed his life.  And as this apostle began to realize that he was now able to see everything with the spiritual eyes of wisdom and a deeper discernment of the things of the Lord than he had ever known before, Paul wanted the Corinthians to receive that gift for themselves.

 

And so it can be for all of us today.  If we are ready to pay attention to what Paul wrote to those early Christians, then I believe that we can and we will receive the gift of wisdom that each and every one of us seeks and wants to find.

 

Walker Percy once wrote that “It is possible to get all A’s and still flunk life,” which is to say that academic achievement and intellectual accomplishment are important.  But all that knowledge in our minds doesn’t necessarily translate into the wisdom we need to navigate through the good times and the hard times of our lives.

 

Moreover, A. Lawrence Lowell, the former president of Harvard, said in a commencement address, “Just because you graduate from Harvard doesn’t make you wise.  There’s a Harvard man or woman on the wrong side of every question.”  Which means, I think, that education is a good thing also, but it won’t always teach us right from wrong and instill in us the wisdom to know the way God wants us to go.

 

Catherine of Siena described yet another dimension of what we’re talking about with this quotation:  “Where there is a feast of words, there is often a famine of wisdom” …which reminds us that those in the church who tend to dominate the conversation and try to impress us with their particular Biblical or theological point of view, are probably lacking in wisdom and need to be quiet, listen to others and let the Spirit come through.

 

That’s what one poet wanted to convey with these lines that say it so well:

 

          “A wise old owl sat on an oak,

            The more he saw, the less he spoke;

            The less he spoke, the more he heard –

            Why aren’t we like that wise old bird?”

 

-         Edward Hersey Richards

 

CONCLUSION

 

That’s not in the Bible, but it comes ever so close to what Jesus taught His disciples and all those who were willing to listen to Him.  And if that is why we have come here today, to listen to what He has to say, then it’s time to give Him the final word about the gift of wisdom and the way that His Spirit is ready, right here, right now, to begin to instill that gift in us.

 

The parable is found in Matthew, Chapter 7 – let’s listen again:

 

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.  And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell – and great was the fall of it!

 

Andy Stanley helped me begin to understand what this parable actually says.  I listened once as he was preaching on TV.  He said the house on the rock was probably built up around the cliffs and the house on the sand was built down on the beach.  The reason why the one below got wiped out was because it was right on the water line and the other survived the storm because the builder had the wisdom to put it a little bit higher.  I think that’s profound.  The question is: How and where have we built our own houses today?

 

Christian friends – if our house is built upon the sand, counting on our own knowledge and intellectual ability, trusting in our own achievements and accomplishments, trying to impress others that our own opinions about the Bible and spiritual things are right, and relying on our own strength to navigate through the storms of life – then Jesus said that we have built our house upon the sand of our own pride and self-satisfaction, and that house will fall down.

 

But if we give our life to Him, and in humility are willing to trust in His power and rely on His strength to see us through, then our house will be built upon the rock, and we will be given the Gift of Wisdom to discern where He wants us to go and what He wants us to do.

 

Do you believe that today?  Anne Lamott believes it.  She is an incredible Christian woman – pretty much off the wall in many ways, and in her book, “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith” this is what she said:

 

          “When we jump into the darkness of the unknown, faith lets us believe that either we will land on solid ground, or we will be taught how to fly” (page 83).

 

Either way, here on earth or as we look toward heaven, God has promised to give us the Gift of Wisdom if we are willing to open our hearts and our minds to receive it.  The Bible says we can actually have the mind of Christ – wisdom – and that is the gift He offers to all of us today.

 

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

 

 

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