Year A

John 6:51-58

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Divine Wisdom

The late actor Milton Berle once said, “If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t there more happy people?” We are not all so wise all the time. Sometimes we many want to shout to ourselves and to our world. “Wise up!” We need the basic “smarts” that enable us to act wisely and with discernment. Wisdom is a theme that runs through our texts today and reaches a climax in the gospel lesson. Each text presents us with an interpretation of Wisdom as they raise the question: How might the decision to embrace divine wisdom in our lives change us and the world around us? The word “wisdom,” or Sophia “Lady Wisdom” in the Greek, occurs 318 times in the Hebrew scripture, one half of these times occur in the book of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes.

The essential purpose of wisdom in the Hebrew scripture is learning how to live well in the world according to God’s will. It is both practical as it is theological. In other words, wisdom’s source is sacred, but its prescriptions are relevant to everyday living which is to live in harmony with the order and wonder that God established in creation. At the heart of wisdom lie’s the fear of God one of the foremost of divine gifts. This “fear” has nothing to do with being afraid of God, rather, it describes the sense of reverence, awe, wonder that comes from recognizing the holiness of God as God is revealed in the world, bringing forth a sense of grateful obedience in those who receive and recognize this gift.

Solomon, at the beginning of his career as king, chose the gift of wisdom. Paul, in the text today from Ephesians, pleads for all of us to follow suit and seek wisdom from above. In the words of Jesus today are found the essence of true wisdom-becoming one with heaven through the mystery of the holy sacrament. God made a covenant with the Israelites and then us through Jesus and if we seek out the face of God, the ways of God, and the mind of God, we strive for God’s wisdom.

When David, Solomon’s father dies after a forty-year reign, Solomon about 20 years old succeeds him to the throne. He recognizes his lack of wisdom and asks for wisdom in order to distinguish “good from evil” to do what is right for the people he rules. Of all the things Solomon might have asked for, God commends his request and grants him his wish and much more. However, the gift brings an obligation. Solomon’s part is to live and rule as his father David lived-obedient and faithful; and God’s end of the bargain is to grant Solomon a long life. This understanding throughout the OT or Hebrew scripture between God and the kings of Israel is what is required for wisdom in leading as one of God’s king.

The king is God’s “servant,” one in covenant with God, for the sake of the people. Solomon asked for the wisdom to be able to differentiate between what is God’s will and what is not. This kind of wisdom were we listen, and we try to discern God’s will for our lives is as important today for our walk with God as it was in Solomon’s day for faithful kingship. We are to live not as unwise people but as wise people Paul tells us today in his letter to the Ephesians. He writes his letter with a sense of urgency expecting the community to live the godly and wise life because there is the assumption that they are living in the last times. We too are to live with that same urgency because we are also living in the last days waiting for Christ to return. 

As we wait, we are to live a spirit-intoxicated life in God which is better Paul says, than one that indulges in the pleasures of the world. We are to seek the Spirit to shape our lives so we live with an understanding of what God wants of us. Wisdom as our way of life allows us to know “the will of God” so we are able to discern the good and just and live by a wise pattern of behavior. The mark of the wise is using time wisely and using it to bring about change. It enables those to whom God has given much to be good stewards of what has been entrusted to them and to give thanks for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The good news for us today is that Jesus the living bread that came down from heaven is the wisdom of God.  God gives us wisdom and understanding through his son Jesus and God’s Spirit. We see the wisdom of God In the life of Jesus, in the way he treats people and in his words, his teachings which are the essence of true wisdom. We hear this in the gospel text which continues the teaching he offers in the synagogue in Capernaum after the miraculous feeding of the multitudes. His claim that he is the “bread that comes down from heaven is edgy enough. He then says, they are to eat of his flesh which is the bread that has come down from heaven and to drink his blood.

I can just imagine what it would have been like for faithful Jews that day to hear this. Not only does it smack of cannibalism, but Leviticus commands “You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off.” Shocking but as often happens in John’s gospel Jesus is not speaking literally of eating flesh and drinking blood….as we know. He is offering his followers bread and drink that, once consumed, will give them life forever.

The crowd that followed him that day after his miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes, wanted more, and Jesus invited them and now us today into a deeper knowledge of hunger and feeding—not for literal bread anymore, but for God’s very being. Ordinary bread will not sustain us forever. Even those who ate manna in the wilderness, which was also bread from heaven, finally died. But Jesus promises us in the Lord’s Supper a connection with God that is permanent and sustaining, a connection that will raise us up at the last day. Jesus is the bread of life, the living bread of life from God, and being in the linage of David and Solomon he is the embodiment of wisdom and forgiveness.

If in this hour Jesus, and bread, and life and God all come together, then we must rouse ourselves, and live as the epistle to the Ephesians invites us to.  Wisdom empowers us, shapes us and changes our lives and changes the world. It is a joy and a privilege to be here in the light of the mystery being offered to us. Jesus broke bread and said it was his Body and shared the cup and said it was his blood, and even before John’s gospel was written, the community of disciples knew that the bread and wine of their shared meal is sharing in the Divine life of the Son of God. So let us join in the celebration and embrace the eating and drinking of the bread of life that we may be wiser because of our time spent with God, with each other at the altar to live forever.