October 4, 2020: Thrive Intellectually

Proverbs 8:1-11
Rev. Dr. Rhonda Blevins

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.
O simple ones, learn prudence;
    acquire intelligence, you who lack it.
Hear, for I will speak noble things,
    and from my lips will come what is right;
for my mouth will utter truth;
    wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
All the words of my mouth are righteous;
    there is nothing twisted or crooked in them.
They are all straight to one who understands
    and right to those who find knowledge.
Take my instruction instead of silver,
    and knowledge rather than choice gold;
for wisdom is better than jewels,
    and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.

______

Today we are in the fourth week of our Thrive! series that I have preached in conjunction with the Wellness Series on Wednesdays at noon. We started with spiritual wellness, then emotional wellness—last week was physical wellness. Today we find ourselves considering intellectual wellness.

We hear the word “intelligence” quite a bit these days. We hear about the “intelligence community” like the CIA and the FBI. We hear about AI, artificial intelligence, and wonder what implications AI has on the future of the human race. We occasionally hear those who wonder about intelligent life on other planets—maybe you’re looking for intelligent life on this planet. There’s emotional intelligence. Then there’s the IQ test, the “Intelligence Quotient.” I took one of those a while back and got a negative score. That’s good, right? Like golf? The lower the score the better? Here’s what I know about intelligence: it’s like underwear. It is important that you have it, but it is not necessary that you show it off.

Let me pause here for a moment—I probably should have said this at the beginning of the series—just because we can know about a topic, or even, er, preach about a topic—doesn’t mean that we have arrived. For instance, I did my doctoral thesis on the spiritual practice of gratitude. I know a lot about gratitude and its benefits on our wellbeing. That does not mean I’m the utmost practitioner of gratitude. There is still a lot of room for me to grow in that area. Knowing does not equal doing.

So when it comes to intellectual wellness, I don’t stand as one who has arrived at complete and perfect intellectual wellbeing—just a fellow traveler finding my way to wholeness and wellbeing along with everyone else.

What I am attempting to do is to establish the concept of wellness in the biblical tradition. To explore these topics from the theological and faith perspectives.

So today: intellectual wellbeing.

Intelligence is knowing what we need to do to be well; wisdom is doing those things.

Let’s pause here for a few moments and explore a little more fully the difference between intelligence, knowledge and wisdom:

  • Intelligence is capacity for acquiring information.

  • Knowledge is the information.

  • Wisdom is knowing what to do with that information.

In computer language:

  • Intelligence is the hardware—like an empty hard drive.

  • Knowledge is the data, the code, placed on that hard drive.

  • Wisdom is using that software to produce the desired results.

Here’s a human example:

  • Both of my amazing, brilliant sons have had IQ tests, and they got the exact same score—by this measure, the same capacity for learning or “intelligence.”

  • But my 13-year-old has a lot more knowledge—he’s studying algebra while my 6-year-old is learning basic addition and subtraction.

  • Neither of my sons, at this point in their lives, have what I would call wisdom (they must get that from their daddy—just kidding!)

Intelligence is a capacity to learn, knowledge is the information learned, wisdom is the knack for using knowledge in profound ways. You can have knowledge without wisdom; you cannot have wisdom without knowledge.

So when we talk about intellectual wellbeing, we stop short if our ultimate goal is wisdom. Wisdom is useless unless it informs our actions. I don’t care if you qualify for Mensa, the “High IQ Society,” if you don’t use your intelligence and knowledge for the greater good, you are not wise.

These days, we have knowledge at our fingertips. More than any generation of humans that ever lived, the world’s storehouse of facts and data is accessible to us anywhere there’s wifi or a cellphone tower. Never before in the history of the human race have we had so much knowledge. It’s mind-boggling. And that’s exactly what has happened. Our minds have been boggled, overwhelmed with this advancement in technology. Wisdom has not caught up with knowledge. That is why our systems are crumbling. Wisdom has not kept up with the onslaught of information. Because our systems are crumbling, we are deeply divided over how to fix them. Everyone knows there are deep problems—we just can’t agree on the solutions.

Today we live in the “Information Age”—the post-industrial-age world in which the economy is primarily based on information technology. The Information Age began in the early 20th Century:

  • In the Primary Information Age we had newspapers, radio and television.

  • In the Secondary Information Age we saw the advent of the internet and mobile phones (Do you remember your first email account? Do you remember your first mobile phone—that you actually used it to make phone calls?)

  • Now we’re in the Tertiary Information Age, which connects the media from the Primary Information Age with the media of the Secondary Information Age. For example, I read newspapers not in print, but on my cell phone. I listen to music and audio shows, not on the radio, but on my cell phone.

We live in the Information Age. We do NOT live in the Age of Wisdom.

ALL OF THE KNOWLEDGE THE HUMAN RACE HAS EVER KNOWN AT OUR FINGERTIPS! (the inability to use that knowledge for the greater good).

Why does wisdom matter?

The leaders of the Wellness Series (Lurane Worth, Linda Silrum, Joe Creegan) decided to begin each session with part of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer:

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I cannot accept,

And the WISDOM to know the difference.

What if we could pray that prayer once and that kind of wisdom would be ours for a lifetime? How much serenity might we find?

The passage of scripture I read a few moments ago is from Proverbs, part of the “Wisdom Literature” from the Bible. This text was presumably written by King Solomon. At the beginning of King Solomon’s reign, scriptures tell us God approached Solomon and said, “Ask me whatever you want and I will grant it.” Solomon asked for wisdom, which pleased God (1 Kings 3). God went on to say that because Solomon asked for wisdom above anything else, that he would be the wisest person to ever live.

Now, fast forward a while—King Solomon is established as the monarch, and he writes this speech in Proverbs 8—it is a summons to wisdom for all humanity. “Learn prudence,” wisdom beckons. “Acquire intelligence,” she calls (feminist theologians have much to say about wisdom personified as female throughout the scriptures, by the way). If you read further into Proverbs 8, you discover that those who heed wisdom’s call will prosper—they will be “happy” and find “favor with the Lord.” On the other hand, those who do not heed wisdom’s call “injure themselves” and “love death” (v. 36).

Maybe that’s why wisdom matters!

What does wisdom look like? How do we tell the difference between a sage and a charlatan? If we read further in Proverbs, we gain an understanding of what wisdom looks like in the world. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann summarizes it this way:

The more specific, immediate, and practical instruction in the book of Proverbs gives substance to what it means to "be wise." Thus there is the teaching of wisdom concerning respect for the poor, the importance of generative work, the danger of careless speech, the risk of unpayable debt, the hazard of having the wrong kind of friends. These very specific forms of conduct will diminish the wellbeing of the community, whereas good work, good speech, good friends, and respect for the poor—all the counsel of wisdom—will bring wellbeing to the community. Wisdom guarantees it![1]

Now, for just a moment, I want you to think of three people who embody this kind of wisdom:

1.      Someone you have known.

2.      A public figure or someone from history.

3.      A book or movie character.

Now, what do these three people have in common? As I considered my three, all of them:

  • had the ability to rise above the fray, to not get sucked into petty arguments; they were not easily frazzled

  • had a gentle confidence about them, a strong knowing that needed no defense

  • listened more than they spoke; when they spoke, people listened

    These are the sages.

Here’s the deal. We are all called to be sages. That one day, in some room somewhere, someone you know, maybe someone younger, will be asked, “Who embodies wisdom” and that person will think of you, like you’re thinking of others right now. Psychologists tell us that you can’t see a characteristic in another person that doesn’t also reside in you. You have that sage inside of you, but you must nurture it, tend it, exercise it.

To be clear, becoming a sage has little to do with age.

  • I have known plenty of 80-year-olds replete with knowledge but lacking wisdom.

  • I have known a few 20-year-olds “wise beyond their years” though they lacked experience.

You have too.

We are all called to be sages.

We need a few sage men! We need a few sage women! Each of us are called to tap deep within, to the place where wisdom resides and bring her forth for the living of these days.

The good news is, it’s not that hard. We simply need to be like Solomon—desiring wisdom more than anything else.

And here’s what the scriptures tell us:

“Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Matthew 7:7) If more of us would pray for wisdom, how might the world change?

I close with a poem—a vision in which wisdom prevails, written by Wendell Berry:

If we will have the wisdom to survive,
To stand like slow growing trees on a ruined place, 
Renewing, enriching it,
If we will make our seasons welcome here,
Asking not too much of earth or heaven,
Then a long time after we are dead
The lives our lives prepare will live here,
Their houses strongly placed upon the valley sides,
Fields and gardens rich in the windows.
The river will run clear as we never know it,
And over it the birdsong like a canopy.
On the levels of the hills will be green meadows,
Stock bells in noon shade
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down the old forest, 
An old forest will stand, its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music risen out of the ground.
They will take nothing out of the ground they will not return,
Whatever the grief at parting,
Memory, native to this valley, will spread over it like a grove,
And memory will grow into legend,
Legend into song, song into sacrament.
The abundance of this place, the songs of its people and its birds,
Will be health and wisdom and indwelling light.
This is no paradisal dream. Its hardship is its possibility.


[1] Walter Brueggemann, “On Wisdom,” https://day1.org/articles/5d9b820ef71918cdf2003ec2/on_scripture_walter_brueggemann_on_wisdom_proverbs_814_2231

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