Word to the Wise
Sunday, September 20, 2015 - 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - B
[Wis 2:12, 17-20; Jas 3:16-4:3; Mark 9:30-37]"With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience. Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him."
What is wisdom? I was once invited to speak to a group of third-graders about "wisdom." I thought I'd see what they knew so I could, of course, correct it. So I called on one little kid in the front row and asked, "Okay! What is wisdom?" And he piped up with: "Knowledge gained from experience!" That took the wind out of MY sails! Indeed, in the gospel passage from Mark today, Jesus places a child at the center of the conversation as an example of wisdom, i.e. the least shall be the greatest. This theme would be played out, however, in what would happen to Jesus later on. He warns his disciples about it, but they could not understand, and were afraid to ask!
Later on, when the Christian community tried to make sense of what happened to Jesus, they turned to the scriptures that were available (remember that the New Testament came later) and found passages like the one from the Book of Wisdom which seems to describe exactly what would happen to Jesus! St. Paul speaks of this as God's "hidden wisdom" in 1 Cor. 1:18-25.
The second scripture for today speaks of Wisdom in glowing terms: "pure, peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity!" But Wisdom can be startling and challenging as well. The death and resurrection of Jesus is Exhibit A! It is this wisdom that we are called to preach. Perhaps we might spend a little time today thinking about "wisdom" of the kind that we use everyday which comes from being a Christian. But we should also look at the wisdom that we see on the cross. AMEN
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