Does not wisdom call?
Evensong, Sunday 12th February 2023
Revd Catherine Edenborough
Proverbs 8.1, 22-31
As some of you know, when I am not here at the Cathedral, in my other job I work with women who are moving up into a more senior roles, helping them to make a smooth transition through what can be both an exciting and a scary time. I have only done this for a few years and before that I had a regular job in communications, where I got paid every month. When I made the switch to running my own business, I found there was lots of advice out there about how to market your services. You know how it goes, as soon as you Google something, you start receiving messages and adverts on social media connected with that thing. It feels a bit creepy. All of a sudden, I was being bombarded by adverts for ‘the proven way to make six figures in six months’, ‘unlock thousands of pounds’ worth of sales through our proven marketing strategies’. Part of me was curious to learn more about what they were proposing. As a beginner in running a business, it was tempting to see that as perceived wisdom about what it means to be an entrepreneur. These people must know how to do it, I thought. It’s worked for them – why wouldn’t it work for me?
Over time, I discovered that much of the so-called advice and wisdom did not sit well with me. It didn’t fit my personality. After experimenting with a number of different marketing approaches that didn’t really come to anything, I realised that I had only been looking to these business gurus and experts - everywhere outside myself. I wasn’t really looking to God for this. I had a lot of knowledge, but I wasn’t listening to the source of all wisdom. It was as if I felt that I had to do it on my own, with the help of these business experts. It is only since then that I have begun to tune in to what I sense God wants for this part of my life. While it’s good to have knowledge about various ways to market a business, what really matters is where God is in it, and how God is leading me. I needed to know what God’s wisdom was. It sounds so very obvious now. Like ‘Duh!!’ But sometimes we can be blind to what is going on.
Wisdom calls to us, we heard in our first reading this evening. And understanding raises her voice. From that Proverbs passage, there is a clear sense that wisdom is always available to us and has always been there. “When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker,” it says, “rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”
So what does this wisdom of God actually look like? And how do we find it for ourselves?
I want to suggest that one paradox about wisdom that we see in this passage seems to be that it is both all around us and available, and yet requires seeking out at the same time. On the one hand the wisdom of God can be revealed to us through creation: in a sunrise, in a lyrical piece of music or poetry, in a serendipitous bringing together of events or people, and supremely wisdom is embodied in the person of Christ. And on the other, it calls to us and we have to pay attention. Wisdom is not forced upon us. A few verses further on in the passage we read: “Whoever finds me finds life and obtains favour from the Lord.” So God does not impose his wisdom on us; he invites us and we have to make ourselves available to it. I think there’s something here about the power of discovering meaning for ourselves. When I am coaching someone, it is always far more powerful for the person to come to their own conclusions about something than it is for me to point out a possible solution to them.
The second point about wisdom comes in the next chapter of Proverbs. It says: “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And fear here does not mean the terror type of fear, but an awe, a reverence and worship. So wisdom has an element of relationship to it. The Anglican priest, Sam Wells puts it well: “All wisdom is, in the end, a form of worship. As we pursue knowledge, refine perspective and cultivate relationship, we’re seeking and recognising truth: and when we find truth, our celebration of that truth is what we call worship. Wisdom is what enables us truly to worship the one from whom all blessings flow.”
Later in the New Testament, in the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul refers to Christ as ‘the power and wisdom of God’ and says, ‘God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength’. In God’s economy, we gradually say goodbye to the world’s norms and embrace a new perspective in which we let go of the control we want to have in life and make ourselves available to this life-giving wisdom of God, which will lead us on a sure, if unpredictable path, which at times might seem like pure folly. In our own way we follow Christ’s journey as we in turn give ourselves up to God’s purposes and trust him more fully.
And staying in that place can be a challenge. Instead of relying on the apparent securities of the world, we come to dwell in the midst of a mystery, to live into that, and to find ourselves deeply loved as we do so. In my case, I am learning that I don’t need to do 50,000 marketing activities; I need to do a few selected things and trust God’s leading me in them. The 50,000 things feel far more secure somehow, but I know I have to let them go. It feels scary and fabulously exciting at the same time!
And where does all this wisdom lead us? The wonderful reality is that the more we seek God’s wisdom in our lives, the more life we find. The more freedom we discover. The more we can be our true selves because we know our identity and value does not depend on our outward success. The more we radiate God’s love to others because we have experienced it for ourselves. On this Racial Justice Sunday, the more we can embrace those we see as ‘other’ and break down barriers and divisions.
In God’s grace all of this is available to us and God, delighting in us, longs that we should experience it. Going after God’s wisdom is not a straightforward formula to success, but it IS the road to life and freedom, it IS the answer to all our insecurities and doubts, it IS the way to fulfilment and to be the person we were created to be.
‘Does not wisdom call?’ How can we not go after it?
Amen.