The Rare Prayer

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
August 20, 2006
The 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Rare Prayer
John 6:51-59
1 Kings 3:3-14

My grandfather, the first Whitworth Ferguson, Whitworth Senior,
grew up in a small town in Iowa
in the early years of the 20th century.
His father owned the local hardware store
that served the needs of the farmers who tilled the soil,
the men and women who planted the corn and soybeans
that stretched as far as the eye could see.
The years following the turn of the century
were filled with magic for a young boy:
the magic of electricity –
electricity that came through wires,
wires to light houses and schools and stores,
wires that would bring the world into living rooms through radios
wires that would make the iceman obsolete.

My grandfather was a bright young boy;
he was fascinated by all things electric.
He raced through school at the speed of light,
in a hurry to learn, to understand.
He graduated from high school at age 16, and
from Iowa State College at age 20.
From there he went to do graduate work at the prestigious
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
where for a short time he considered a career in teaching.
But he felt constrained by the academic world and
so he moved from Boston to Buffalo, New York,
which in the Roaring Twenties was a vibrant growing city
thanks to the inexpensive electricity
that came from the nearby hydroelectric dams at Niagara Falls.
He joined a construction company as an electrical engineer,
and then in the midst of the Depression,
with three young children and a wife at home,
he quit his job to set up his own company.
Over the years, he built a successful electrical contracting business
wiring office buildings and factories.

My grandfather was an exceptional electrical engineer,
and a very smart businessman.
But my grandfather was also a man of great wisdom.
He was a learned man, always reading, always curious,
he wanted to know about anything and everything.
He loved construction because it allowed him
to go into so many different settings:
a steel mill one day, the computer room of a bank the next.
His wisdom came not just from his intelligence, though;
it also came from his heart.
My grandfather was a good man,
a man of faith,
a man who could be found every Sunday in pew 148
at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Buffalo.

He and I were very close, and I learned many things from him.
But the lesson I learned from him that was above all other lessons
was the importance of wisdom.
Even now, more than 20 years after he passed away,
I still learn from him,
learn from his wisdom,
as I try to live my own live not only faithfully,
but also wisely.

Over the years I have met many men and women
of great intelligence;
some I would even describe as brilliant.
But if I counted up those whom I would describe as wise,
women and men of wisdom, my list would be short.

Wisdom is a rare commodity
and it seems to be growing rarer.
Our heroes and role models these days are celebrities,
sports stars,
executives who love to display their wealth,
their possessions, their things.

What is it that makes a person wise?
Wisdom is knowledge, but it is much more than that;
Wisdom is also understanding;
it is depth, but it is also breadth;
it is experience,
it is judgment,
it is character,
it is humility,
it is patience.
The wise man or woman has an open mind
and an open heart.
The wise woman or man connects heart and mind;
balances heart and mind.

Solomon was no doubt a highly intelligent young man.
As one of the sons of King David,
he would have learned at the feet of
the brightest rabbis in Jerusalem.
His mother, Bathsheba, was fiercely protective of him,
and made sure her son was well prepared to succeed his father.
This was not a sure thing:
David had other sons by other wives,
all of whom were older than Solomon.
By right of succession, Solomon had a long line ahead of him.

But, as we heard in our lesson, Solomon became king,
a young man thrust into a position of leadership,
a man uncertain of his ability to rule over a nation --
a nation which had known nothing but warfare
until the last few years of David’s life.
Solomon was to rule over a united kingdom,
the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah
no longer split, but one, the people of God living
together in peace with one another,
and under Solomon’s rule, peace with its neighboring countries.

As the young Solomon took his father’s throne,
the throne of the great King David,
he prayed, prayed to God.
He prayed for wisdom:
a rare prayer then, a rare prayer now:
“give your servant an understanding mind
to govern your people,
able to discern between good and evil,
for who can govern your great people?” (1 Kings 3:9)

This is a prayer of humble man,
a man who knew that without God’s help, God’s guidance,
he was nothing,
a man who understood that the people were not his;
they were God’s.
The land was not his, it was God’s;
even the throne was not his, it came from God.
And we heard how pleased God was with this rare prayer,
and how God answered it by giving Solomon
“a wise and discerning mind.”

My dictionary defines wisdom as
“showing good judgment based on experience.”
Good judgment: a blending of head and heart.
This is very biblical: in the Hebrew language that Solomon spoke
the word for head was the same as the word for heart.
God expects us to use our heads and our hearts
as we think and make decisions;
as we seek to discern;
in our going out and our coming in,
to use the poetic language of the Old Testament.

The Old Testament is filled with references to wisdom.
In Psalm 111 we find this verse:
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (111:10)
Now, the word we translate as “fear”
is not about being frightened;
it is about standing in awe of God,
in reverence of God,
giving honor and glory to God.
Put another way, we might say,
the beginning of wisdom is when we stand in reverence of God,
giving all honor and glory to God
in all that we do, in all that we say.

Proverbs in particular has many passages devoted to wisdom:
“Happy are those who find wisdom,
and those who get understanding
for her income is better than silver
and her revenue better than gold
she is more precious than jewels.”
(Proverbs 3:13-15)

It is interesting to note that in the Hebrew,
the word for wisdom is a feminine noun.
In the Old Testament world that
so often seemed dominated by men,
Wisdom is personified as a woman:
“does not wisdom call, and does not understanding
raise her voice…
‘Hear, for I will speak noble things…
all the words of my mouth are righteous..
By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just;…
The Lord created me at the beginning of his work…
ages ago, I was set up…
And now my children, listen to me;
happy are those who keep my ways.
Hear instruction and be wise,
and do not neglect it…'" (Proverbs 8:1ff)

Who seeks wisdom today?
We seek instant gratification;
We seek success;
in the greater Washington area we seek power.
We are too busy for praying for things other than wisdom.

It was less than five years ago
that the Biblical prayer that even those who
rarely opened the Bible knew,
a prayer that came from a book that
even clergy tend to skip over,
a prayer from a man named “Jabez”.
Do you remember it?
“Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border
and that your hand might be with me,
and that you would keep me from hurt and harm.”
(1 Chronicles 4:9)
This is the kind of prayer that we are more likely to lift up to God:
Bless us, enrich us,
fill our lives with abundance of money and things.
Make our lives secure and comfortable.

The rare prayer is when we seek wisdom for its own sake,
wisdom and understanding:
understanding that life is filled with the good and the bad;
understanding that our faith in God does not guarantee
our success in business, or that we will be popular,
or that we will be wealthy, or even healthy;
that the road in life will have its bumps and potholes.

With wisdom comes the understanding that God will be with us
in both the good times and the bad times,
blessing us with his love,
enriching us not with money,
but with his unwavering presence.
With wisdom comes understanding that
even when our stomachs might ache from hunger,
our souls will always be full with the love that comes to us
from the bread of life: our Lord Jesus the Christ.

Solomon missed this when he prayed for wisdom.
He was wise enough to govern the people well,
but he did not feed his soul on God’s love,
he did not stand in reverence before God.
Do you remember how his story ended?
He strayed from God,
and as a result, when his reign ended,
so too did the years of peace and prosperity
for the people of Israel and Judah.

More than a century ago, the great preacher Henry Van Dyke,
who served as pastor of the Brick Church in New York City,
where I was under care while I was in seminary,
reminded us that we have an advantage over Solomon:
We have our Lord Jesus Christ to feed us,
nourish us, and sustain us as we seek to grow in wisdom.
Van Dyke prayed:
“give us grace to know your Son, and to grow like him;
for that is the true wisdom which leads to eternal life….” 165
A rarer prayer still.

Reverence for God is the beginning of wisdom,
reverence that is grounded in discipleship,
reverence that is grounded in Jesus Christ,
In this wisdom we will be fed; we will be nourished.
When we lift up that rare prayer for wisdom in Christ,
for the wisdom to follow Christ,
for the wisdom to be fed by Christ,
so that we might be – yes, transformed –
to be more and more like Christ,
when we lift up that prayer, that rare prayer
we will have riches that will exceed
even those of Solomon.
AMEN