Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
January 4, 2009

Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?
Matthew 2:1-12

Read through the book of Job,
as those of who you who have begun the Year of the Bible
will do later in the year,
and you will read a lot of talk.
Job and his friends talk back and forth,
almost endlessly it seems.
A colleague from Mississippi who has a knack for colorful phrases
would probably describe the scene
as a whole lot of “chin-waggin’”.
Thirty-six chapters of it
before God steps in and silences all
with a voice that says,
“Stop talking for change,
and just listen”.

But there in the midst of the “chin-waggin”,
after 27 chapters of it,
comes chapter 28,
a chapter where the talking stops,
a chapter that seems dropped in;
it seems almost out of place.

Chapter twenty-eight is a Hamlet-like soliloquy
in which Job stops and reflects on the topic of wisdom.
He asks the question, “where shall wisdom be found?”
“Where,” he asks, “is the place of understanding?”

The vacuous talk-radio jabbering
that filled the previous 27 chapters
and resumes in chapter 29, stops abruptly.
It is stopped by the question so rarely asked in Job’s time,
so rarely asked in our time:
“Where shall wisdom be found?
Where is the place of understanding?”

What makes a person wise?
We all know bright people
men and women of great intelligence,
but intelligence is not the same as wisdom.

Matthew calls the the astrologers who followed the star,
“wise men”.
But on the surface, these men don’t seem terribly wise:
What wise person, man or woman,
after seeing a star in the night sky,
no matter how extraordinarily bright,
would decide to follow the star --
follow it to who knows what end,
follow it on a journey of…how long:
a week, a month, a year?

Perhaps we are wrong to call them wise men,
wrong because they don’t seem terribly wise.
Or perhaps we are wrong to call them wise men
because the word “wise” is not a very good translation
of the word Matthew used to describe these men.

The word Matthew used was “magi”,
a Greek word
which referred to someone from the eastern lands
of Media and Persia,
someone who could interpret dreams,
someone who looked to the stars for guidance
and wisdom.
Would we think of someone who sets his life’s course
by the stars as a wise person?

Still, these astrologers saw the star
and set out on their journey,
a journey that probably took them
at least a month,
probably more.
Certainly more than the twelve days
tradition has set aside for Epiphany.

Off they went to Bethlehem,
to see a child,
a child born a king.
A child they knew nothing about,
a child born in a far distant land,
a foreign land.
It all sounds rather fantastic.

And when they finally arrived,
Matthew tells us they went into the house –
no stable or manger in Matthew’s story -
and they knelt down
and they paid the child homage,
and then they gave the child gifts:
gold, frankincense and myrrh,
precious gifts.

And with that they left,
left to return to their own land.
All that time, all that distance,
all for what appears to be just a few minutes
all to leave behind a few gifts,
expensive gifts,
gifts left to a child they did not now
and would likely never see again.
Where is the wisdom in that?

Frederick Buechner suggests that one of the characteristics of wisdom
is curiosity, a hunger to learn,
a hunger to know,
a hunger to understand.
Clearly, these astrologers had this hunger.
They may well have said the same words to one another
the shepherds said,
“Let us go and see this thing that has taken place.”

And Buechner suggests that there is another characteristic
of a wise person, man or woman,
and that is the desire to give, to share,
and these men did just that:
they gave gifts, precious gifts, treasures:
gold, frankincense and myrrh.
But even more than these gifts,
they gave themselves:
they gave themselves in their journey,
an arduous, difficult, dangerous journey.
And they gave of themselves when they entered the house
and dropped down on bended knee,
to pay homage
to a child they knew was king.

And in giving themselves,
these wise men were given a gift in return,
a gift from God, the father of the child,
the gift of joy, inexpressible joy
that comes only from God.

These wise men understood what Job had concluded
as he sought an answer to his question,
“where shall wisdom be found?”
It is to be found in God, found in faith,
found, as Job put it,
in the fear of the Lord.
But this is not the fear we feel
when we say we are afraid.
No, the Hebrew word we translate as fear
can also be translated as “awe” --
that the beginning of wisdom
is standing in awe of the Lord God,
or better yet,
kneeling in awe before the Lord God.

The beginning of wisdom is humbleness,
humility;
it is obedience,
it is a hunger to learn, a hunger to understand,
a realization that we need to do a lot more listening
and a lot less “chin waggin’”.

Ebenezer Scrooge woke up on Christmas morning a wise man,
In his ghostly travels throughout the night
he learned that his business was not business
as he had thought all those years;
his business was mankind, humanity,
the welfare of any and all,
family, friend, and stranger.
He woke up a wise man
for he learned for the first time in his life
the importance of giving
giving his money, yes,
as he bought the prize turkey
for Bob Cratchit and his family,
but just as important,
giving himself.

Where shall wisdom be found?
Wisdom is found in faith,
in maturity,
in growing,
in listening,
in learning,
… in God.

Wisdom is not something that we find
like the proverbial pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow;
it is something we accumulate throughout our lives
throughout our journey,
but only if we work at it.

And there is no better way to begin the journey
or resume the journey as we start a New year
than by coming to this Table.
This Lord’s Table,
to share in this meal our Lord has prepared for us,
this meal to which he invites all who put trust in him.

At this Table, our Lord feeds us,
nourishes us,
renews us and refreshes us for the journey.
At this Table, our Lord gives to us
so we can continue to grow in faith,
grow in wisdom.

So come to this Table and receive the gift
our Lord gives to us in this meal,
and then go out into the world,
a little wiser, a little richer;
Go out and give of yourself
to those who hunger, those who thirst,
those who are filled with loneliness or hopelessness,
those whose lives are filled with fear,
the fear that eats and gnaws at even the strongest.

Where shall wisdom be found,
and where is the place of understanding?
Three men from Media, three astrologers,
they knew:
they knew that wisdom could be found
by kneeling before a baby born in Bethlehem,
kneeling before our Lord Jesus Christ.
Wise men?
Yes, wise men, indeed.
AMEN