Where is the Wise One?
Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish? …For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. 1 Corinthians 1:20, 25
Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Matthew 25:13
Piety
The Hasidim tell the story of the disciple who said to the teacher, "Teacher, I have gone completely through the Torah? What must I do now?"
And the teacher said, "Oh, my friend, the question is not, have you gone through the Torah. The question is, has the Torah gone through you?"
Study
Matthew and Paul flip over the common perceptions of the wise and the foolish. The world worships the wise, the rich, and beautiful yet the Christian does not elevate those qualities. The world frowns on the foolish in whom the Christian revels.
Although the standards of the Jews and the Greeks differed, the image of Christ-centered power did not resonate with them. They only saw Christ defeated and destroyed on the cross. “The world did not come to know God through wisdom…” Although humanity had a chance to do come to know Jesus through his preaching, teaching, and healing, we passed up that for the chance to hang Jesus from a tree.
Instead of temporal power and wisdom, “we proclaim Christ crucified.” However, the cross is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles because it was the sign of the most horrible and ignoble death imaginable. However, to “those who are called,” the cross reveals the real Christ-like power of God and the Christ-like wisdom of God.
Matthew also gives us the contrast between wisdom and foolishness. However, in the Gospel, the wise prepare for the future with oil in reserve, to keep their lamp lit and shining to recognize Christ (the bridegroom) when he arrives.
Faithful use of one’s gifts leads to full participation in the kingdom. The wise equip themselves for the task ahead by concentrating on piety, study, and action – the oil in our lamps.
Action
Every major religious tradition calls for us to have a change of heart. Dorothy Day went so far as to use the expression “a revolution of the heart.” Such a call demands nothing less than a change of life. It is not enough to study the Bible. If we do not grow in our spiritual relationship with the Lord, all the study is foolishness. If the Bible does not call us to action, we might as well be diagramming sentences in seventh grade or mounting butterflies in biology class.
Do our piety, study, and action symbolize merely touching the bases on the journey home? Or does our piety, study, and action symbolize our real presence in making a difference in the world?
Let’s not forget that the world and all its jewelers have turned the cross of Christ into gold, silver, and bejeweled ornaments. Earrings. Necklaces. Cufflinks. T-shirts. Bumper stickers. We can find the cross everywhere. Does it retain the shock of its original meaning outside of Palm Sunday and Good Friday services?
Perhaps we should start wearing an electric chair around our necks. Or a symbol of the gurney to which the victims of modern capital punishment are strapped before they are executed. That might look foolish to the world. Isn’t that what Christ intended?
On the last day of April, August, and December, Benedictines read Chapter 73, the last chapter of the Rule of St. Benedict. However, this is not the end of the class in Benedictine spirituality. The next day, January 1, May 1 and September 1, we start at the beginning and read it all over again. There is no graduation. There is no silver cross at the end of the class. But there is a lesson.
The wisdom of the rule demands only one thing: “Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may Christ bring us all together to everlasting life.” No matter what our agenda, may we replace it with this and follow Christ through our love-in-action (service) to each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment