Year B
John 6:51-58
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
The Wisdom That Saves
Our Lord and Satan are in the middle of a disagreement. Satan was claiming to be more talented than Jesus. Finally, God decides to intervene. “Okay,” says God, “I want you both to sit down and do a typing test. Sitting at separate computers, let us see who can type the fastest. You have one hour.” They sit at separate stations, Jesus at one computer terminal, Satan at the other. God instructs them both to start. They both type fast: they both type accurately. And everything is going fine, until fifty-seven minutes in, suddenly there is a crack of lightning and the power goes out. Darkness descends on the room, but fortunately the electricity is only out for fifteen seconds or so.
Satan stares at his screen as it comes back. “Oh no,” he gasps, “It has all gone. I’ve lost all my typing.” Meanwhile, Jesus is starting to print out the results of his typing. Pages and pages are coming off the printer. “How come!” screams Satan. “How come, he still has his typing?” God looks down at Satan and simply says, “Come along, we all know why. Jesus saves.” Jesus not only saves but he is wise also! The common thread in the readings today is the importance of wisdom and discernment and they raise the question: How might the decision to embrace divine Wisdom in our life together and alone change our standing in and toward the world?
In our world today, there is much that pretends to be wise, but nothing can match the profound wisdom and strength of true mercy, and the context of the 1 Kings reading today illustrates this. When Solomon prays for wisdom and a listening heart he becomes an established ruler. His enemies have been vanquished and he has inherited the kingdom that his father David spent decades building. While in King David’s story, we hear of battle upon battle as the kingdom was consolidated, Solomon’s great earthly work is the building of the Jerusalem Temple, something that would never have been possible without a rule of relative peace.
Clearly, Solomon was a thinker, one who contemplated carefully. But it is even more important that Solomon sought wisdom as his blessing and gift from God. At a time when power or wealth or even military might may have been the obvious choices, Solomon wanted to be wise and discerning and wisdom serves Solomon well. Wisdom also serves us well. It’s a gift we can all use. But lest we get confused, being wise is not the same thing as being knowledgeable. Confucius once said: “True wisdom is knowing what you don’t know.” American columnist Doug Larson said: Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.
Solomon’s prayer and God’s promise are the perfect example of what Christ called for in the Sermon on the Mount: “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Perhaps we should be as Solomon and pray for wisdom to live a Godly life. Paul, today in his letter to the Ephesians, emphasizes what living a Godly life is, when he says, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise.” There is an urgency to his words as he counsels the Ephesians to live the Godly and wise life because they believed that Jesus would return at any moment and if we too shared the conviction, of which we do, that Christ would return at any moment, it would and should make a significant difference in the way we lived from hour to hour.
Paul goes on to contrast between being “drunk with wine” and “filled with the Spirit” to make the point that the Christian, in a sense is to be drunk –not with wine but with the Spirit, as happened at Pentecost, and instead of singing drinking songs they are to sing songs of thanksgiving to God for his goodness in Jesus. In the New Testament, wisdom is very directly related to the Holy Spirit. While we all have gifts of the Spirit, some have the gift of wisdom as a special gift. James, in his letter, counsels those who lack wisdom to “ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.” I have often prayed to God asking for this gift of wisdom in my life and prayer is one way we get wisdom to help us with life.
The emphasis on being wise in the Spirit continues in John’s presentation of Jesus as the Bread of Life. The theme of eating and drinking, which we have been following for several weeks in the John text, continues today. In these cryptic words of Jesus, which come after the miracle of the five thousand at the beginning of this chapter in John, in these words are found the essence of true wisdom—becoming one with God through the mystery of the holy Eucharist. Inherent, in this long narrative about bread of life, is the idea that the wise person will receive Christ and believe in him.
If we feel a bit squeamish hearing Jesus’ command us to drink his blood and eat his flesh, imagine what it would have been like for faithful Jews to hear this in their holy place of teaching, prayer and study. Not only does it smack of cannibalism, but Leviticus in the OT commands “You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off. To consume blood was to consume the very life of a creature, and to eat flesh…well this was utterly wrong. In next Sunday’s reading we will hear how most of Jesus’ disciples found this teaching so offensive that they left him for good.
The language is radical, but then, John is seeking to communicate a mystery that cannot adequately be put into words; much like the mystery of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And as so often happens in John’s gospel, Jesus is speaking on one level while his audience hears him on another. The eating and drinking that happen here are Eucharistic. Jesus is the living presence of God and we need to partake of the nourishment that comes from his words, his ministry and his life. We need to drink in the compassion, the forgiveness, and the grace Jesus offers to everyone. It’s not easy to love, to care and to pray like Jesus but that is his call to us.
So yes, we share the bread and cup. The very essence of wisdom is consuming Jesus’ presence into our lives. We need that nourishment for our spirits and hearts so we can be the people who love Jesus and follow his ways in our lives. The promise of God is that if we believe and feed on his bread faithfully, we will live forever. Jesus offers us a connection with the eternal. Just as Solomon gets on the right path of making history that would not end in the same way as his unwise father, David, so John also encourages his hearers to embrace the eternal manna (Jesus) who has come down from heaven which makes God’s way possible in life and helps us to be a willing vessel of God for good, indeed a follower receiving directions from God throughout life.
In African American religious tradition, this willingness to be led by God can be heard in a spiritual song titled “Let Jesus Lead You All The Way.” The singers say Jesus is well able to lead them “all the way from earth to heaven” and that Jesus is a “mighty good leader.” May we share the Gospel’s conviction that true Wisdom is to be found precisely in following the way of the “mighty good leader, the crucified one? For it is in the eating of the living bread that came down from heaven that we will live forever. Therefore, let us strive as Paul tells us, to live as wise people giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.