Two Kinds of Wisdom - Creation 4

Season of Creation: Victoria 2024

Margaret Walters

Two Kinds of Wisdom 

The readings today describe two types of wisdom – the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. The wisdom of the world is rooted in the search for power and self-fulfilment in terms of our basic ego drives. We want to be powerful and in control, the affection and admiration of others and we want to be safe and secure (Keating). We want fame and fortune and the accumulation of possessions so that we do not have to face our own poverty and helplessness. We look to the world to meet our needs instead of letting ourselves sink into God.

The letter of James is very explicit about what worldly wisdom looks like:

Bitter envy and selfish ambition that brings disorder and wickedness of every kind. He asks “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.”  ¹⁵ Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 

In the gospel we see the wisdom of the world manifesting in the disciples arguing about who is the greatest and trying to hide this from Jesus as they knew he would not approve. Jesus had just explained to them what God’s wisdom looks like: He said “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” They did not understand what he was telling them and immediately launched into their discussion about which of them was the greatest.

Jesus’ response is eloquent steering them back into God’s wisdom: Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” He takes a child in his arms and shows them how small they need to be to be part of God’s kingdom.

In this season of creation we are invited to see how God’s wisdom is embedded in creation from the very beginning and how divine wisdom looks like foolishness and weakness in the eyes of the world

When we contemplate the journey of creation and our own journeys within creation we see God has a very foolish plan that would be rejected outright by any canny corporate executive. Imagine instead of building power, you started giving it away for free!

The Good News turns everything upside down and confounds human wisdom.

It all starts with a God who pours out Godself in order to create the world and continues to do so, always pouring forth and seeking the lowest place

In this Season of Creation perhaps we can ponder the creation of all that is by God’s overflowing love. From Jewish mystical tradition, the Kabbalah:

In the beginning there was Ein Sof, God who is all that is, the limitless One.

Ein Sof, Being itself, desired to create a world to love, but how could this be possible when nothing else could exist except Reality itself? The fullness of existence leaves no room for anything else.

Ein Sof decided to contract the divine self, forming an empty space in the centre of All-Being. In Kabbalist language this is called tzimtzum.

The brilliant radiance of Ein Sof surrounded the void on all sides. And into this emptiness Ein Sof poured divine life and light, not in a way that would overwhelm it but in a way that left it free to respond to the source from which it arose. God lovingly withdrew God’s complete presence so that creation was not overwhelmed by the creator and could be separate and free.

Christian theologian Jorgen Moltmann picks up this story from a Christian perspective. We see the familiar theme of Kenosis emerging. In order to create, God chooses to humble the divine self. Kenosis begins before creation emerges. God withdraws his being, which is the source of what mystics have called Isness. Divine creativeness is a continual ongoing process as God faithfully sustains and nurtures the world in its journey of growth and developments. If God forgot about us for a moment, the whole enterprise would disappear. The Christ figure now enters the scene  as the saviour who sacramentalizes the life-saving, life-giving power of God.

Now we can see that the kenosis of Jesus that we are told about in the Philipians hymn is pattern of a pattern of divine self giving that began before time

Kenotic V

This pattern of God’s wisdom is reflected in all of nature, including ourselves as we emerged from the Earth and are surely a part of nature.

As we look through the eyes of God’s wisdom we see that self sacrifice is all around us. Indeed we live within a feast of giving and we need to play our part in it.

Look at the stars above us. We know that our world was created by the death of stars, the explosion of supernovas that sent all the elements needed to promote life onto the Earth. This is the pattern of Kenosis that has existed from the beginning. All part of the feast of giving.

Look at the sun that sacrifices its life at every moment, pouring forth the light and energy needed to create and sustain our world. For 4 million years Earth’s creatures have been feasting on the sun’s energy as each day the sun dies as Sun and is reborn as the vitality of the Earth.

Look at what it takes to sustain your life and mine. Oxygen, light, food energy. We literally exist only through the sacrifice of the Earth

So we too need to take our place in the feast of giving and Jesus clearly shows us the way. We want to hold ourselves above and apart from the sacrificial life that is the essence of God’s wisdom way. But we can only find our lives by losing them. If we unite ourselves to Jesus, he will take us there. It is the path to glory, but it leads first down into the valley of loss.

This is a great time of year to be thinking of the Pascal Mystery imbedded in nature. And as we all get older it is a great season in our lives to be letting ourselves go deeper into the mystery of God’s wisdom way.

 “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

My prayer for you is that you spend your life becoming as foolish as possible and as little as a small child, then the kingdom will have come in you and you will find your way home.