Advent 2, Year A
December 6, 2004
Christ Church, Covington

“The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding” (Is. 11:2).

These are tough times for the F.B.I. It’s strong suit has traditionally been the investigation of crime, gathering facts after the event in order to catch the perpetrators. It’s a classic law enforcement method used by police all over the world. “Just the facts, ma’am”: clear, unvarnished, unambiguous. The trouble for the F.B.I. is that it’s also responsible for domestic security, a complex job in the post-September 11th world. Security involves gathering intelligence, a more inclusive and ambiguous activity than investigation. An investigator “is typically interested in the facts of an event. An intelligence agent is… interested in a person’s whole world” (Elsa Walsh, “Learning to Spy”, The New Yorker, November 8, 2004).

If you are gathering intelligence then you need to learn as much about your subject as you can, enter his world so that you can make the connections necessary to do the job. Finding the suspect will require imagination and intuition. With these come some ambiguity. “Just the facts” won’t do.

Now that’s not a bad definition of the biblical notion of wisdom. To be wise goes beyond knowing the facts. When we seek out a wise person, we’re looking for more than the facts; if we were just looking for facts, then an encyclopedia would do just as well. Wisdom is found by making connections between things, using the imagination and the intuition. Like the intelligence agent, we’re not likely to find what we’re looking for clearly spelled out in “facts”.

Wisdom requires that we enter into our subject’s world, and our Subject is God. God’s Spirit is the source of wisdom, as in our first reading this morning. Remember, “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding. The difficulty for us is that the word for Spirit means “breath” or “storm”. In Hebrew, “spirit” does not mean “immaterial”, but an irresistible force. Storms are messy and complex. So to pursue wisdom, we have to enter the storm that is God’s Spirit and be carried away by it; to be blown forward by the breath or wind that comes from God. Some of you may have experienced the storm that is God, and how that whirlwind has taken you places (maybe even here). This storm cannot be investigated; we cannot rely on “facts” about it. To gain wisdom we will have to enter the storm and somehow navigate.

What were those hallmarks of intelligence or wisdom again? It is wisdom alone that will help us navigate in the all-powerful storm of the Spirit. Facts won’t be much help, but connection, intuition, and imagination will be. These are tools that will help us operate wisely in every part of our life.

First, imagination, since the Christian life itself begins with an appeal to the imagination. Everybody knows what it is to have an imaginary friend, but having imagination is something else. Imagine that life doesn’t end with death, but that life comes out of death. Imagine that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Imagine that his new life is shared with you. Then imagine that this is not the act of your imagination, but God’s imagination; the imagination of Jesus Christ. There are all sorts of facts connected with these statements, the testimony of witnesses and so forth, but what is crucial to understanding God’s wisdom is our imagination. We can investigate this all we want, but if our imaginations are stunted we will never see the pattern of God’s way with the world.

Second, connection. Wisdom comes from seeing the connection between the life we live and the lives of others. What does it have to do with us if our neighbor has a place to live, or enough to eat? What concern is it of ours whether the next generation is provided for, with the resources it will need as well as the gift of faith? You might say that making this connection has constituted the ministry of the Church from the beginning. You might say that this has been the entire theme of our Capital Campaign, toward our neighbor and the next generation. Real wisdom comes from seeing the connection, understanding that we are part of a whole.

Third, intuition. This has to do with understanding clues even before they become clues. God’s way with us is concealed, obscure, and not obvious. We have to pay attention, and keep looking to the future. Wisdom’s distinctive mark is being there before the new thing happens, and that’s where I know God is calling you.

The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.

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