Wisdom and Wonder

Wisdom and Wonder from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.


Proverbs 2:1-11
1My child, if you accept my words and treasure up my commandments within you, 
2making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; 
3if you indeed cry out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding; 
4if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures— 
5then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. 
6For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; 
7he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly, 
8guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his faithful ones. 
9Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path; 
10for wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; 
11prudence will watch over you; and understanding will guard you. 

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God.

John 14:1-14
1‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ 5Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ 6Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

8Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ 9Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? 10Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God.

I drove down to Charleston this weekend. Leah’s college roommate got married yesterday, and Leah was a bridesmaid. It’s about a four hour trip from Shelby to Charleston, and I was very cognizant of the connection between those two cities this week.

My heart is troubled by the connection. Wednesday night an angry young man walked into a Bible Study in  Charleston and killed nine people. He fled the city and was arrested a few miles from my house in Shelby. The church at which he opened fire is one of the oldest historically black congregations on this continent. It has been a sanctuary through centuries of racism and violence. This week in Charleston, racism and violence invaded the church again.

I drove down to Charleston this weekend. I was heavy-heartedly heading to a celebration. The news reports that drifted across the radio as I drove down focused on the story of the shooting at the Emmanuel church in Charleston.

My heart is troubled today because when I look at the world through the spectacles of scripture, I am left with few answers. Both of our scripture passages this morning make promises that God will protect us and provide for us. Proverbs tells us that “Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly, guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his faithful ones.” The Gospel of John promises that “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

When I read the world through those passages, my heart is troubled. These promises are reliable and true, yet violence and injustice seem to seep out of every pore of our culture. How long, O LORD, until your truth asserts itself and justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream?

The Gospel of John is not stranger to the tension we feel when we see the promises of God, but do not see how they are being fulfilled. At Lunch Bunch this week, we wrestled with this text. Seeing the distance between God’s promises and the reality in which we live, they said that we have to have faith that this will happen, and the patience to see it in the Father’s time. John’s gospel emerges from a community of outsiders, whose faith and patience were under strain. They longed for comfort and assurance. In this long, final speech of Jesus to his disciples, he is preparing them for when he is most violently rejected by the world. He gives us words of comfort which we will not understand until after he has been crucified and raised again. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

As we are carried along by the Gospel narrative, we are given a moment to float upon these words of assurance before we plunge into the violence and injustice that leads to the cross, and eventually the empty tomb. “I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 

The place where he is going is the cross. From there he will go to the tomb. From the empty tomb is will ascend to the Father. When Jesus prepares a place for us, that’s how he does it. The violence of the cross and the wonder of the resurrection are the centerpiece of Christian belief. But Thomas hasn’t seen those events unfold yet. So he asks, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

I’d like to remind everyone that scripture never calls Thomas “doubter.” That’s a nickname we’ve added, and it brings a truckload of baggage along with it. In this passage, Thomas is asking for clarification, for direction, so that he can be ready to rejoin Jesus when he comes to take us to himself. He is, as Proverbs urges us, “making [his] ear attentive to wisdom and inclining [his] heart to understanding.” Thomas does “indeed cry out for insight and [raises his] voice for understanding;”

Jesus does not give him the answer he expects. Instead of a map, Jesus gives him an identity: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” When he tells the disciples, and us, that we know the way, he is promising that we know him. Our comfort is in the identity of Jesus Christ, whom we know because he made his home among us.

Jesus know where he is going. He knows the way, and the truth, and the life, all lead to the cross. So on his last evening with the disciples, he tells them as clearly as he can who he is. “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Jesus Christ has made the Father known, and we are amazed that this man whom we know is also the Word made flesh, God the only son has made God known.

One of my favorite theologians once wrote that "Revelation yields not the solution to a problem but the unveiling of a mystery.” It’s not difficult to find problems, although solutions sometimes evade us. But the mystery of faith is something more. It gives us a sense of wonder as we walk through God’s creation.

I needed a little wonder as I drove down to Charleston, heavy-heartedly heading to a celebration. Reports came over the news radio. The young man who is accused of entering that Charleston church and opening fire appeared in court this week also. he videoconferenced in from a secure room in the courthouse while the families of the victims gathered in the courtroom. After the young man answered a few questions, the families were given the opportunity to speak.

What followed was the most flabbergastingly powerful display of faith: Every family spoke of their grief, of how hurt they were. Every family also told the young man that they forgave him. That audio clip floated across the radio every ten miles or so, because that kind of radical forgiveness runs against the grain of every human instinct and wounded reflex we’ve got.

The days are coming when we can be guided by God’s gift of wisdom and wrestle with the history of violence and racial injustice which we have all inherited. We will work to “understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path.” But their courtroom forgiveness is a powerful witness to the gospel as expressed in John: A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light. In the face of violent racism, one community of faith, one group of families, stood up to say that the grace of God is stronger than gunfire.

This morning, the people who are the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church gathered to worship. This morning and in the ongoing future to come, they will pray together, they will sing together, they will grieve together. They will proclaim the gospel together, because they have seen the darkness, but they know that a light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.

Thanks be to God for that. Amen.