Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
(2016)
Observing little children, especially those newly born, can be a delightful and instructive endeavor. I do not have the opportunity very often to watch the actions of little kids but when I do, the thing that first captivates my attention is the child’s early-on effort to discover and understand whatever surrounds it: the softness of its mother face, the warmth of her breast. Later, the child will try to explore whatever is within its reach, especially bells that jingle or objects that are colorful. I am going to make a bold assertion now and suggest that all this activity is actually a search for wisdom even though the child may not perceive it as such. Nonetheless, it all seems to be an exploration into the unknown, the mysterious, the mystical, even, I dare say, the holy that surrounds this tiny being.
Obviously, as that child grows into maturity, it will continue to be exposed to many more complicated experiences of learning at a higher level Nonetheless, that basic human instinct of attempting to discover the unknown, occupies much of our time and effort for the remainder of our lives. We never seem satisfied unless we continue to plumb the depths of everything that is understandable in this fascinating universe around us. That instinct seems to be written in our very being, the sense that there is a deep, impenetrable and profound meaning in this planet where we dwell; it is up to us to discover what that is. Again, it is all involved with the human pursuit of wisdom.
Interestingly, our first reading for this Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, coming to us from a Hebrew text called the Book of Wisdom, seems to say that this quest for wisdom is an incomplete and limited endeavor. We do not know the author by name but the moment we begin to read the text we immediately discover that he had thought long and deeply about the difference between human wisdom and the wisdom of God. He points out to us that the human mind is weighed down by the body, the corruptible body that burdens the soul; we are overwhelmed with the infinity of human concerns. “If then the things of earth are hardly within our grasp, how can we expect to understand matters of Spirit?”
When we read the life of Jesus in the gospels we often find that he also faced this same dilemma we just spoke of, the question of how humans can speak of things divine.
Most biblical scholars will insist that Jesus, like most other people of his day, could not read or write; and yet when we hear Jesus speak to the crowds, he seems to be able to convey the sense of the sacred to his listeners by way of human stories, examples, metaphors, even a bit of humor occasionally. He would say, for instance, when speaking of God’s kingdom: “Consider the lilies of the field, the swallows of the air; think about the meaning of the evening sunset; perhaps it is a predictor of rain tomorrow, who knows.”
What Jesus seems to be doing here and in other instances as well, is to suggest that the way of insight into the divine is through the earthly, the natural, the historical, especially the human. There is a certain sense of the sacred contained in whatever is around us on this planet.
Could it be possible, therefore, that each time we try to understand some mystery, when we try to find clarity in some human experience, we are actually on a quest for divine knowledge, the search for divine wisdom? It does not sound too outrageous, does it? After all, God created the human mind for some mysterious (divine) purpose.
Here, finally, are two quotes that may give us a further bit of insight into this matter of wisdom. First, from T.S. Eliot the British-American poet: “We will not cease from exploration; and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
And now from Saint Augustine: “Our hearts are created for thee, O God, and restless are they until they rest in thee.”
In short: The search for wisdom is a search for God.
The scriptures:
Wisdom 9: 13-18
Philemon 9: 10, 12-17
Luke 14: 24-33