"When Wisdom Stopped Crying Out"
Psalm 8, Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Beth A. Donaldson
June 3, 2007
Added 07/31/07
Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out;
“To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live.”I can see this woman… standing at the crossroads. I see her in ancient Israel at the gates of the village where commerce was localized… where trading of goods and crops was negotiated… where there was often concern about falseness of weights and measures. I can see this woman, Wisdom herself, voicing caution to those in power. Speaking out against deceit and corruption. I can hear her voice ringing out in the midst of the murmur of deals being made – bargains being argued out.
I can see her in the heights, where people of means had settled in their wealth… where the larger estates of the cities would be stationed in proud glory. I can see the woman, walking these streets, chanting her cautions… perhaps singing her concerns. Every once in a while maybe she would stop moving, stop talking, take in the scene and sigh in frustration. But, then she would continue – continue to … preach, I guess. Can you hear her? Can you imagine her?
I can see her by the roadside too. I can see her walking among the day laborers that would be en route to their next jobs, hoping for an opportunity to work. I can hear her talking to them – letting them know that she was there as part of their lives – that she knew their toil and their burdens. I can hear her having first a soft conversation with a younger woman, among a group of laborers, carrying her child on her back, listening to the stories of their travels. And then, after that small group had passed, I can see her stop and turn her focus to the road, where others passed with wagons and carts, and I can hear her begin to proclaim, in a louder voice now, that wisdom is amongst them, and has been since the beginning of time.
I like this woman – wisdom. She is a reassuring presence. She proclaims truth in our midst, and reminds us of our context and creation in God’s wisdom. She is a comfort to those who struggle. She is a caution to those who deceive. She is part of the fabric of every society.
But this past week (May-2007) something very troubling happened. This past week, the woman at the crossroads packed up her signs and went home. This past week, the woman at the gate of the town, who had bought property there in order to be able to fairly stand firm as she proclaimed her wisdom, took down her tent, loaded up the car, and decided she was done. She had no more proclaiming in her. She had, for two years, tried and tried and tried to be heard. And this past week, she went home disappointed and disheartened
I am speaking, of course, of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of the soldier who was killed in Iraq, who had bought some property in Texas in order to be visible to the one person who has the most power on this planet… to be within earshot of this man and his people… in order to share her wisdom with him, perhaps to effect some change. This woman became famous for her bold witness. Hundreds joined her efforts. She became a hero, and she became demonized. People were proud of her, or they called her a crazy radical. But there she camped, day in and day out, at the crossroads, at the gate, along the roadside – proclaiming her WISDOM.
Her wisdom. What was her wisdom, though? Did anyone actually ever stop and listen? I know that those who oppose the war thought her wisdom was opposition to the war. And that may have been part of it. And I know that those that support the war didn’t think she was wise at all. But isn’t there a wisdom that she can claim that is not about an intellectual concept, about this side or that of an argument – but rather is about a personal experience. How about the wisdom of being a person who has suffered such a loss that it changes who you are fundamentally, and gives you such a heart of compassion for others that might be going through the same thing that you can’t help but speak for and to them?
Cindy Sheehan didn’t go to her roadside post until after she had gotten the word that her young son had been killed in the war in Iraq. That was her wisdom. Did we listen to it? Or did we just make decisions about whether we were on the same side of the issue as she was? Did we listen to what her heart and soul had experienced which caused her to form the opinion she had?
What scared me most when I heard the report of Cindy giving up the effort was that she reported that she wasn’t disappointed in the lack of response she had gotten from the President or his people. But rather, she was disappointed in America itself. Even those who profess to be against the war hadn’t, apparently, really heard, because the war rages on even with different people in power.
Cindy is just one woman. She is not God. But, she is a woman with a certain piece of the wisdom that humanity needs, and she has given up. She has stopped trying to be heard.
What if wisdom herself gave up? What if the spirit of truth and knowledge and experience and balance was not part of our lives? What if every person or creature or source of growth and understanding somehow ceased to permeate our lives, and went home? What would happen? Would walls be built again?
According to the spring issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review, I quote, “The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, but the building of walls continues – walls that cannot stop armies, but do stem the flow of people. The United States is building a wall on its boarder with Mexico to restrict immigration from the south; the Israelis are creating a ‘security barrier’ to keep out suicide bombers; India is walling off Kashmir and Bangladesh; the Saudis have announced two walls, one to keep out the conflict in Iraq from overflowing into their country; China wants to get back into the act of building walls to seal off North Korea; Russia is thinking about walling off Chechnya; and the oil-rich United Arab Emirates has decided to put up a barrier along its border with dirt-poor Oman.” This was reported by Mark Ehrman. He continues with this quote from a Mongolian proverb: “Two men in friendship are stronger than walls of stone.”
I never heard whether Cindy got an audience with President Bush in those two years that she tried to share her wisdom. It’s not that I necessarily think she would have convinced him to end the war. But I do believe, without hesitation, that conversations about our truth – listened to deeply, DO CHANGE THE WORLD. It’s just that we don’t listen.
The author of proverbs said, “Happy is the one who listens to me, watching daily at the gates, waiting beside the doors. For whoever finds me, finds life and obtains favor with the Lord.”
We’ve learned, as cultures, as individuals, not only not to listen, but to fear telling our truth. We’ve learned that because people DON’T really listen, we become vulnerable when we try to tell our truths. We’ve learned to keep things to ourselves, to hide our deepest knowings – and worse yet, to doubt our deepest knowings.
But isn’t it possible that our deepest knowings are the part of us that are “a little lower than God?” What humanity has learned to do by using our heads is unthinkable, ironically. (Speaking of being just a little lower than God.) This past week alone I heard of a coffee table computer designed by Microsoft that will only need to be touched to be used, and will be able to read whatever is placed on it, from a camera (it will be able read the pictures on it) to a coffee cup, (it will know to work around it!) And then, I also heard of an invention that consumes carbon dioxide, just like trees, and is in the works to help us reduce our carbon emissions. We, through our inventiveness, perhaps to our demise, have proven ourselves to be in pretty strong competition with our creating God.
But what about our hearts? We can build walls. We can create smart tables. We can even create things that will cover our wasteful greed. But have we learned to listen? Have we learned to speak our truth?
You graduates… I want to talk to you for a minute. Consider these things. We are so proud of you all. We want you to succeed and be happy. We want you to have all the opportunities and freedoms and comforts that progress can afford you. But, we also have to apologize to you. Because the world you are growing into is not an easy or simple one. It’s crowded with dynamics of power and greed that often make us, the older generations, melt and bend in overwhelm. So, if you are feeling overwhelmed now, and if you meet more overwhelm as you go, please know, we understand and know what that’s like and wish it could be different, and want to try to make it so.
But I have one request. It would be so easy for you to find your own kind. Most of us do as we grow. I want to encourage you, however, to look for the people that are not like you. As you move into the world a little more in the next phases of your lives… take courage and look for the ones whom you would have very little in common with, and ask them about their lives, and then, listen to them. And then, share with them some of your truths – your real truths… not the pieces we all use to try to impress one another, but the bits that have made you grow strong and real. Your education in life will not just be from schools you attend or jobs you will have, but will come from your interactions with people and creation itself. Find the people and situations that are most foreign to you, and open your hearts and minds to them. This will be, I believe, part of the healing of the world.
This is for all of us, really, each of us sitting in these pews, singing together today, praying, listening… Wisdom, fortunately, hasn’t gone home and given up. Wisdom continues to speak along the roadside, at the gate, and in the seat next to you. Wisdom is gained not by studying alone, but by experience. And often the most painful of experiences holds the most profound wisdom. It’s our call to begin to listen to one another with our hearts and our minds, so that we might dismantle the walls even of our neat and tidy pleasantness. We must be careful not to worship at the feet of neat and tidy pleasantness.
One of the preachers at the festival told a story of a colleague who had quit ministry after many years of very effective leadership in a number of thriving churches. When this man was asked why he would quit in the midst of such success, the answer he gave was, “It just got so hard to minister when God kept being so difficult.”
Our experiences of life – those that make us wise – do not come in neat and tidy, or even happy packages. They come in many shapes and hues, and they plant themselves, not only in our heads, but in our hearts, and in our guts – in the center of our being, that place that sometimes spills over in tears and fury or those big laughs that make you spit by mistake. This is wisdom! This is what motivated a mother who had lost her son to pitch a tent and try to be heard. This is wisdom! This is what it means to live a human life with a God that is often very difficult. This is wisdom! We need it so badly. We need each other’s wisdom like we need air and water – like we need the trees.
We are not God. We are short of God – very short of God! Thank God. There will never be a machine invented that can proclaim what it feels like to experience the joys and sorrows of our human existence. There will never be a wisdom processing plant. That is, and always will be, our job. And what a glorious job it is. So, let’s not give up. Rather, let’s embrace it. Wisdom, in all her mess and glory, lives within each of us. To the gates and roadways let’s take this truth… each of us.
Amen.
