Humility and Wisdom

          There is a hymn in our hymnbook that I don’t like at all.  It is an evangelical hymn that lifts up the sacrifice of Jesus and bids us all to partake of it.  The part that I don’t like is a direct quote from the Gospel of John, which says: unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  John 6: 53  That is certainly what Jesus meant when he was arguing with the Pharisees about his identity, the Pharisees who were so arrogant and self assured that they only included themselves in God’s world; but that isn’t how the singers of our hymn mean it.  They have taken those words and applied them to the Eucharist with the claim that if you don’t take communion, you really aren’t Christian.  This is exactly the arrogance that Jesus was speaking to when that verse from John originated.  This hymn verse is a holdover from those frantic charismatic years that we had in our church when people sang hymns and raised their arms in the air to show to everyone around them their true faith.  It was a judgmental time and one that I don’t want to revisit. 

            We are an inclusive people, a people of community who open our arms who everyone who walks through our doors. The great mark of community is humility; the ability to look at other people and their merits apart from our own, and include them as they come.  Our first job as a people is to listen to those whom we meet, not exclude them with feisty statements that provide harsh rules before they even have a chance to worship with us. 

            Church is hard work and it requires a great deal of wisdom.  The wonder of Solomon is the humility with which he approached God after he became King in the place of his father David.  He asks God only for an understanding mind and the ability to govern his people.  He doesn’t ask for riches or for long life.  Because of this humility, God grants to Solomon wisdom and the ability to govern his people in the way of God’s rule; and Solomon’s kingdom became the wonder of the nations around him.  The people of Israel prospered under Solomon and God’s creation flourished.  Humility is the father of wisdom.  That is the lesson that God gives us through Solomon.

            In the book of Proverbs is a wonderful statement that echoes all of this: 

                      Wisdom has built her house,

            she has hewn her seven pillars.

                   She has slaughtered her animals,

                   she has mixed her wine,

            she has also set her table.

                   She has sent out her servant girls, she calls

            from the highest places in the town,

                 “ You that are simple, turn in here”

            To those without sense she says,

                  "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

                                                --Proverbs 9: 1-6

What a wonderful invitation that is to the whole world to come into our churches and join us in the community life of Christianity.  It isn’t at all judgmental, it is simply an invitation to those “without sense” and “who are simple” to come into the wisdom that God provides for us all with his unabated love.  That love is expressed through the people of God in the church. 

            Sometimes we get too proud of our accomplishments and forget about the wholeness that is provided in the simple Wisdom that God provides through humility.  The best of our theologians have always been known for their humility.  Certainly Dietrich Bonheoffer, who died at the hands of the Nazis was a man of ultimate humility and so was Marcus Borg, who died recently. Borg said that he was an "agnostic about the afterlife".  When I read their works, I am taken in by the beauty of their lives, which is a measure of the humble way that they lived. There was no pretentiousness, they lived lives that exuded humility.  That is why when I read their writings, I see the greatness of their wisdom.   It is certainly the way of the Lord.