Wisdom

James 3:13-18

James is fairly clear as he teaches his congregation—Wisdom is alignment with God.

Wisdom is understanding who we are. Wisdom is understanding why we exist. Wisdom is understanding what we are supposed to be. We are unique acts of God’s creative will. We exist because God willed us into being. We exist, then, to grow into that will for our lives as the unique acts of God’s creative will.

Alignment with God, then, is acting in accordance with what we know of God.

There are many voices competing for our attention. There are many options for choosing how to act. Many of those choices turn our focus inward. Living solely unto self becomes the conventional wisdom on how we are to be. That is not what we know of God. That seems completely contrary to what we know of God.

What we know of God, from God’s own word, is that God is self-emptying compassion.

God offers an alternative voice to that of conventional wisdom—self is the last thing we should focus on; rather, THE OTHER should be the center of our attention. God is God because God continually and eternally empties God’s own being for the sake of creation. God does so because God is intimately connected to creation—God never ceases to forget that creation flows directly from God’s own being—therefore, God gives all that God is to sustain creation. That is the presence through which we came to be. We encounter it in nearly every experience of a mother and her child in the best of circumstances—she never forgets that her child came from her, so she willingly gives herself for the sake of her child.

Therefore—wisdom is acting with self-emptying compassion.

If God loves us with such love, then our lives should reflect the presence of God with us. It is the source of life, therefore, to be fully alive is to live according to the source of life. Acting with love is more than a nice thing to do, it is the way we fully live. Love, then, is not an extraordinary action above and beyond normal living; it should BE normal living. It is the only means by which we truly nourish our lives. Isn’t that the simplest and most basic definition of wisdom—to do that which keeps you alive?

Faith is the path into wisdom, for in faith we learn of the being and presence of God.

The practice of faith leads us to wisdom because faith first acknowledges and names the source of our lives. Faith is the recognition that God is. It is the recognition that without God, we do not live. Faith is the window through which we see the truth of existence. Faith trusts that this recognition is the promise of life from the God who loves us. It centers us on God, centering us on that which brings us fully alive.

Faith reminds us that God is always present.

Faith keeps God in the room. The truest expression of faith keeps us awake to that presence. It is the recognition that there is no time nor no place where God is not. Sadly, most of us do not realize that presence until all else has failed. We become inured to the eternal presence of God. We take the presence of God for granted. We become far too easily distracted from that presence. We get annoyed when a voice of faith calls us to awareness. Until we realize that this affirmation in no way denigrates us, but rather is the way to our fulfillment. Then, we will welcome it. The key is to keep ourselves in the state of welcoming that awakening, but usually that state does not arise so long as we can maintain the illusion of self-sufficiency.

Therefore—Wisdom is living as if self-sufficiency is the illusion and the presence of God was the truest reality there is.

Wisdom preserves us from the inevitable crash that comes when we live by the delusion that we have all need—that we are all we need. The more we attempt to stand alone, the more unstable we become. We need one another. We are dependent upon one another. This is why and how we were made. Wisdom is accepting this truth, not fighting against it. Accepting it opens us to the wonder of one another. It firms up the ground beneath us. It does so because we are together. We allow mutuality to guide and keep our relationships. We find that the need to protect and preserve all that we assume belongs to us fades because we see how we use all of that to feed one another, assure one another, and keep one another. The most beautiful moment is one found in Acts 2–they had all things in common, and each had enough. We hold one another in place. We keep one another aright.

So, are we wise?

That becomes the final question. How is the ground beneath our feet? Do we feel the steadying presence of God? Do we feel comfortable with other people around us? Do we support one another? Do we keep one another? Or is fear a primary companion? Or its inverse—security—our constant companion? How wise we are determines how we answer these questions. How wise we are affords us the great gift of hope—hope that can see us through whatever is before us.

That is the greatest wisdom of all.