When you think of people whom you consider to have “wisdom,” what are the names that come to mind for you?  I think of people like the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hahn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,  the Trappist Monk Thomas Merton,  Francis of Assisi, Episcopal priest Cynthia Bourgeault, and the list goes on and on.  There are people in my family and those whom I play, pray and work with that I consider to be people of wisdom.  I’m sure your list may be different than mine.  People of wisdom are not saints necessarily in terms of “perfection,” but they are “saints” in terms of willingness to go further in perseverance and hope.

What exactly is this thing we call “wisdom?”  Is it a high degree of intellectual knowing or perhaps a deep intuition that flows from a heart-centered spirituality that leaves the door open for everything so to speak?  Could wisdom be seen from the standpoint of the heart and not the mind, or in a sense, “thinking” or “perceiving” from the heart?   In this stance, the openness is not a license to do just anything and everything but a way of perceiving and responding to life and others in a way that transcends expectations and the resulting judgements that flows from a “self” centered standpoint and imposes itself out on “others.”  This type of “wisdom” would simultaneously be a “moving beyond” (a strictly individualized sense of self) and “bringing within” (everything without preference) that somehow allows for inclusion and transformation of me and you precisely through interacting relationship.

When we look out at our world and even into our own lives, we may seem very far from this picture of wisdom.  So, even if we would consider this model of wisdom as valuable, at face value, there appears to be very little evidence of it in our world.  Jesus, perhaps the exemplar of wisdom, in today’s Gospel (LK 7: 31-35) seems to be visually taking in all of the petty and indeed destructive results that come from a lack of wisdom or a misguided sense of it as he speaks to the crowd:

Jesus said to the crowds:
“To what shall I compare the people of this generation?
What are they like?
They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another,

‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance.
We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’

For John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine,
and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’
The Son of Man came eating and drinking and you said,
‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard,
a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’
But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”

When we remain in the model of “wisdom” that flows from rigid expectation, we cannot help but “judge” everything and everyone solely with regard to our own “self.”  Like children, when we have unmet expectations, we “cry” and as “adult children” we blame each other when those expectations are not met without ever questioning where the expectations themselves originate.  All we have to do is look at our political climate in this country right now to see this Gospel scene playing out in reality.  We demonize each other by basing any value or significance of events – or more importantly people – on our own private or even collective sense of what we think should be happening, what we think someone should do, etc.  This ego-centered attitude is layered into the complexities of our culture and society.  And this always leads to exclusion and violence, as we have seen over and over again.

How can the expectations and judgments stop when we hide from the awareness that they are coming from an ego self (individually and collectively) that can only see from the perspective of desires and expectations (moral, social, religious, etc.)?   And the harder question…how can we respond to the violence that we do unto each other in both an accountable and compassionate manner?

The persons of Jesus and John in the Gospel represent perhaps the “wisdom” of the heart that we fail to “see” much less allow in our world many times.  The way both of them were received in their society pointed up the very dualistic nature prevalent in the culture.  Go ahead, take a side.  You either do things my way (or our way), or it is the highway or perhaps more on point – a WALL of exclusion.  We fail to realize that we have been building a wisdom-less “wall” in this country and in our world for a long time.  But, it doesn’t have to remain.  We could stop calling each other demons and drunkards and begin to tear down the “walls” that we have helped to build together.

From a positive standpoint, we can learn a new type of “dance” that is not mandated by old and violent choreography that repeats the same step over and over.  We can learn to sing songs that have a part for everyone, so that dirges of grief can be transformed anthems that celebrate reconciliations in all the forms it may need to take.  The hidden truth is that some of us are already “dancing” and “singing” in these new ways.  It’s catching on, but it needs to grow.

People of “wisdom” can somehow, through work, practice and patience, become “children” as in the closing line of the Gospel, “…wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”  The “vindication” of these children of wisdom lies within a great hope that “grows” when we learn how to and practice “letting go” of old wisdom models and entertaining the possibility that we may need to stop looking for answers to old questions and begin to ask new questions – ones that can transform us into the “children” that Jesus embraces throughout the gospels. These “children” have an innocence that is not characterized by a life free of struggle and suffering, but rather the innocence comes from having learned and lived in the struggle and suffering, and come forth from the experiences with accountable compassion – a truth in love that comes from the divine heart of humanity and not from vengeful vindictiveness, bloated individuality or privileged position.  That’s a different way to look at vindication!

So who is it that is going to be vindicated?  Could it possibly be everyone?  Can we begin (indeed, continue) to call each other into a “wisdom” that is discovered in the very place we fail to look for it – in ourselves and in each other, not one or the other, not in you or in me, or mine or yours, but in the interaction that allows something completely new to emerge that could never have been brought forth by just one, but only from the unity forming in the relationship itself.

Peace,
Thomas