Sermon for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, 4:00pm Choral Evensong

admin | 20 October 2013

“For wisdom is known through speech,
and education through the words of the tongue”

Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach is not to be confused with either The Book of Ecclesiastes or The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon. Like the latter, however, it belongs to a collection of books known as the Apocrypha written in the inter-testamental period, between the time of the Jewish or Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament, and the New Testament. An interesting collection of writings, they have had a fascinating history of reception and rejection in the history of the Christian Churches. Nonetheless, they are an important collection and for Anglicans they belong to what is received as the Scriptures, albeit in a peculiar fashion, not “to establish any doctrine,” essential or creedal doctrine, that is to say, but “for example of life and instruction of manners.” Passages from the books of the Apocrypha are appointed to be read at the Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer on the last Sundays of the Trinity Season beginning on the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity.

These books embrace a number of different forms of literature but the most outstanding form is known as ‘wisdom literature’. Bearing the imprint of the philosophical culture of ancient Greece, these texts provide an important way of thinking about the revealed Word of God and about living a holy way of life based upon wisdom. Tonight’s lesson is a marvelous encomium or song of praise to wisdom personified as a woman, at once the source, perhaps, of Lady Philosophy and/or of Mary, the mother of God, sometimes referred to as the Seat of Wisdom. But more theologically, properly speaking, wisdom is understood to be the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus the Word and Son of the Father. Word and wisdom are inescapably united.

The lesson offers a set of instructions about living life in accord with wisdom. It suggests the necessity of learning and teaching and the importance of acting upon the things that are taught and learned. The perspective is perfectly clear; happiness ultimately is to be found in the pursuit of wisdom and understanding and not simply in the pursuit of sensual pleasures. But how is wisdom known?

Through speech, through the words of the tongue, it seems. Words articulated and expressed make visible the thoughts and ideas of the mind. The high things of God, too, are communicated to us “through speech” and “through the words of the tongue” which come to be written, to be sure, but which are also proclaimed and read in the worshipping life of the Church.

Our services are about the power of the divine word shaping us into an understanding of the things of God which belong to human perfection and to the pursuit of holiness. There are, to be sure, a lot of words, and not just preacher’s words! The point is that words matter because ideas matter, because the thoughts of our hearts and souls matter. There is the wonderful intersection of God’s word and our words in the Church’s liturgy. Here our words are redeemed from the clash and clutter of clichés and empty talk to become words of meaning, words addressed to God that reveal the dignity of our humanity. In the ordered prayers and praises of our worship we are well-dressed and in our rightful mind, God’s words to us becoming God’s words in us. Words are the visible utterance of thoughts and ideas.

We are too often and too easily dismissive of words especially in a culture saturated with images. We easily forget the great power and importance of words as the dress of thought. And so we need these lessons from the wisdom literature of the Apocrypha to recall us to wisdom, to a prayerful reflection upon the wisdom of God in whom we find the truth of ourselves. There is an intentional power to our worship; words with meaning and purpose are sounded forth that they might have their resonance in us, that we might become the living words of God ourselves. For whoever loves wisdom loves life. It happens in what we are doing in prayer and praise.