2009-02-15 - "The Wisdom of Love"

"The Wisdom of Love"
Faith enables us to see the mystery of God's love
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Text: 1 Corinthians 2:6-16

In a rather isolated part of northern Nova Scotia along the Bay of Fundy coast, there are some magnificent little islands called the Five Islands. Tradition has it that the Indian Chief, Glooscap, took some stones and threw them into the bay, where they eventually grew and became the islands that one now sees. Right opposite those islands, on the shore itself, lived a lady from one of my congregations whom I had not visited. It was a rather remote house down a long driveway going down to the coast. So, in preparation for going to visit her, I told one of the elders that I was going. He said, “If you are going that far and you are going to visit that lady, I suggest you also go off and see one other person before you get there. He's an artist who also lives in a remote place down at the end of a long driveway. You will never believe what you see - he is magnificent!”

I got in my car one snowy, cold February day, with the sun shining, a bit like today. I went down the path to the painter's house and knocked on the door. I entered this incredible house, and along the back of it was a wall of glass so he could look out on to the Bay of Fundy. He said, “Would you like to see some of my paintings?” He took me to a gallery that he had off to the side. Many of the paintings were of spectacular views of the ocean - in Florida and Massachusetts, even Cape Breton, and on the Northumberland Straits - sea views. They were marvellous! I was in awe! I was envious - I can't paint like that!

Then he asked, “Would you like to see my favourite painting?” which was in another adjacent room. I walked into the room expecting to see something spectacular. There, on a wall, was a painting of a log cabin in Cape Breton. I looked at it. I didn't have the heart to tell him I thought it was just ordinary, but I said, “That's very nice.” I am a polite minister.

He looked at me and said, “Very nice? You mean to tell me you don't get it?”

I said, “It's a log cabin. Is it your log cabin?”

He said, “Yes, it is my log cabin.”

“Okay, it's a nice log cabin,” I said.

He said, “You mean you don't see?”

By this time, I was losing my mind. “I don't see what?” I said to him.

“Look carefully,” he said.

So I went up to it and examined it in detail, and then something dawned on me. In this painting were symbols of the cross. In fact, everything about it was built around the cross. The window panes were in the shape of a cross; the walkway leading up to it was in the shape of a cross; the wood panels on the front of the door were in the shape of a cross. When you stood back and looked at it from a distance you could see that in fact the building, like many great cathedrals, was built like a great chancel with transepts, and that the north, south, east and west had wings to make it in the shape of a cross. Even the lot on which it stood was in the shape of the cross. When I realized that, his face lit up and he said, “Of all people, Reverend, now do you see why this is so special to me? This is where my heart is. This is what I love.”

I thought, in so many ways, we look at God with the same errors that I made. I looked at that painting from two dimensions, but the artist looked at it from a third dimension. I looked at it superficially; he looked at the depths of its meaning and power. The Apostle Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, describes the difference in looking at God in the following ways. He says there is a difference between the “wisdom of the age” and the “wisdom of God.” The wisdom of the age is human wisdom, the wisdom of the time, the zeitgeist, the way in which we look at things now. But the wisdom of God is something different.

Paul says that the wisdom of the age shows only two dimensions. He is right. The two dimensions are objective and subjective. We look at things, and we look at God, objectively. We look through the eyes of reason. We look at what God has created and examine it with the acute intelligence of the mind. We see certain aspects of God when we use our reason and we look objectively at what is before us. A second dimension is to look at things subjectively, from the point of view of our emotions and perceptions. We have a feeling about God. It is like going into the woods. Objectively, we see the trees and we describe the trees and what they are like. Subjectively, though, we say that we find meaning in these trees, that God is somehow revealed in their beauty and our hearts are moved by them. Two dimensions, two aspects of human perception and the understanding of reality.

The Apostle Paul says that there is a third dimension. It is how God reveals himself through his Spirit. We can look at God with the wisdom of the age and we see so much, but when we see how God has revealed himself and how, through the power of the Spirit, he enables us to see that revelation, we see in a third dimension, a more complete one.

For Paul, there were clearly limitations to the wisdom of the age. The first limitation he points out is the fact that it was the wisdom of the age that crucified Christ. People who objectively or subjectively looked at Jesus saw a man who was worthy of death, who was going about doing good things, but nevertheless was perceived as evil, who was seen to be someone who was idolatrous and a threat to the power of the age. Whether it was Herod or Pilate, the Sanhedrin or the Roman officials, they looked at Jesus and saw him as worthy of death. With the wisdom of the age, you cannot perceive that God was at work in Christ; that in Christ the power of God's love was revealed - the mysterious, hidden power of God was revealed.

Paul also suggests that human understanding and reason can only take one so far. People puff themselves up with their knowledge and ideas of God, and they go around espousing ideas about God as if they are absolute, as if somehow they know God. To those in the time of Paul called Gnostics, who believed that they had intellectual wisdom and insight that others didn't have, Paul says that this produces a form of elitism. People, to use his phrase, “puff themselves up” with their knowledge of God. They believe they know more about God than everybody else, because they have construed within their own minds what God is like, and they alone are the ones who know.

Finally, Paul argues that people see God as a mystery - not as a mystery to be revealed by God himself, but a mystery that needs to be figured out. I liken it to people who played with the Rubik's Cube. Do you want to know something? I never solved the Rubik's Cube! I read books on it. I still never did it; I never got all the colours to line up. Now, you are probably saying, “Well, why should we listen to you talking about God if you can't solve even the Rubik's Cube?” Well, fair enough - point made! But people treat God like a Rubik's Cube - a mystery to be solved by their own mind, flexibility, craft, creativity and reason. Paul says that to do that is false, because the only way you can really know God in through love.

Do not misunderstand what Paul is saying and what I am saying. I am not saying that there is no place in human reason to try to understand or know God. Of course there is. I am not suggesting there isn't a subjective element, where we feel and experience the power of God. Of course we do. Oftentimes, throughout the history of the Church, we have actually persecuted people who have used their reason.

I think that it is fitting that it was on Friday, the 13th of February in 1633 that Galileo was condemned by the Church. He was condemned because he adhered to the views of Copernicus. He didn't believe that everything revolved around the earth, so Pope Urban VIII condemned him and had him imprisoned until he died, discredited among the public. Only in 1992, because of Pope John Paul, was Galileo finally reinstated within the Church, which concluded that he was right. It takes the Church a while to figure these things out, doesn't it? But, eventually, it did! You see, it is not as if the Church is against reason or Paul is against reason or the Gospel is against reason, it is just that human reason in and of itself cannot tell you what you need to know about God. Paul says that what is needed is a mature love, wisdom that is borne out of understanding God, not on the basis just of our own reason and thought and experience, but on God's self-revelation. He put this so beautifully in a passage from Corinthians. He wrote,

Then, he quotes from the great prophet Isaiah: “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

This is the ridiculous things about the debate about the ads on the sides of buses. I don't want to deal with this, because this is silly. Why get all upset about this? Of course there are going to be some people who don't believe in God. Paul knew them intimately. The wisdom of this age, no matter how much intellect or reason you apply to it, will never solve the mystery of the hiddeness of God.

You only really know God when you love God, and that is the power of faith. It is like living with somebody. When you live with somebody and you love somebody, you grow with them. You grow in love with someone as you know them, hopefully. You grow, and you love, and you know, deeper and deeper. The person who lives with and loves that person knows them better than anyone else. So it is with God. So it is with the mystery of the hiddeness of God. The more you love God in a mature way, the deeper your appreciation of the love of God for you. If you love God, you see God at work in the person of his Son. You do not see him, as the age does, as someone worthy to be crucified, but rather as the one who loves us so much that he gave himself for us. Only love, only faith born out of that love, allows one to see the hiddeness and the mystery of God. But we do always think we are so wise, we humans! We see log cabins but we do not see the cross. We see the mystery of the glorious creation around - and we still say there is no God. What fools we are! When we love God, we see things in a new way.

Max Lucado tells one of the most glorious stories about a woodcutter who lived in the woods with his son. The woodcutter was poor, but he had one thing of inestimable value - a white horse. This white horse was so magnificent that even the king wanted it. People were willing to pay a lot of money to buy it. But the woodcutter would not sell his horse. When they said to him, “You are a fool for not selling your horse, woodcutter, when you are so poor,” he would reply, “How could I sell something that I love? This horse is like a person to me.”

They said, “The woodcutter is foolish. He could be rich if only he would sell his horse.”

Then, one day, the horse ran away. The people came to him and said, “You foolish woodcutter! If only you had sold the horse when you had him, you would have known what it is like to be wealthy. But now your horse is gone.”

He said, “I do not know that the horse is gone. I only know that the stable is empty. That is all I actually know. I don't know anything more than that.”

They said, “Oh, it is a curse upon you. You have lost the horse of value.”

Fifteen days later, the horse came back with 12 of his friends. The people said, “Maybe the woodcutter was wiser than we thought. Maybe the woodcutter is brilliant - a genius!”

He said, “I am not a genius. All I know is that one horse has come back, and 12 other horses have come with him. I do not know whether I am blessed or cursed.”

“Do not be a fool, man,” they said. “You can break these horses and make an awful lot of money.”

“I do not know that,” he said. “I only know that today there are 12 horses and my original one. That is all I know.”

One day, his son, his only child, in trying to ride one of these horses, fell off the horse and broke both his legs. People came to him and said, “You see, you foolish man, this one son that you have, this son that you love so much, you have let him ride on these horses! See, you are cursed! These horses were not a blessing after all. They were here to destroy the thing that you loved the most, your son.”

The woodcutter said, “I do not know that I am cursed, and I do not know that I am blessed, all I know is that my son has broken both his legs.”

“You are going to live in poverty now, because you have no one to look after you in the years to come, and you will lose these horses eventually. You are a cursed man!” they told him.

Finally, a war broke out, and many of the young men in the town were sent to war and died. But the woodcutter's son could not go to war because his legs were broken and he could not fight, and so he survived. The people said, “You see, woodcutter, you are blessed! God has preserved you. Look at all the wonderful things that have happened to you!”

The woodcutter replied, “I do not know whether I am blessed or cursed. I only know that my son is with me and his legs were broken, and that others have lost their sons, for which I am sorry. That is all I actually know.”

The woodcutter lived with his son and with his horse that he loved so much and with the other 12 horses, and everyone said, “Isn't the woodcutter blessed?”

The woodcutter said, “I do not know whether I am cursed or whether I am blessed, because really all I know is that it is God alone who knows everything. All our wisdom is for naught.”

My friends, only God knows. The only way to let God be known is to love him. This is not an act of reason. It is not an act of emotion. It is a response of faith. Paul knew that faith and love are the greatest wisdom of all. When you have that faith and that love, you see everything differently. And you see then just how much God loves you. What more powerful message can I give you on this Valentine's weekend? The mystery of the love of God!

Amen.

I thought, in so many ways, we look at God with the same errors that I made. I looked at that painting from two dimensions, but the artist looked at it from a third dimension. I looked at it superficially; he looked at the depths of its meaning and power. The Apostle Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, describes the difference in looking at God in the following ways. He says there is a difference between the “wisdom of the age” and the “wisdom of God.” The wisdom of the age is human wisdom, the wisdom of the time, the zeitgeist, the way in which we look at things now. But the wisdom of God is something different.

Paul says that the wisdom of the age shows only two dimensions. He is right. The two dimensions are objective and subjective. We look at things, and we look at God, objectively. We look through the eyes of reason. We look at what God has created and examine it with the acute intelligence of the mind. We see certain aspects of God when we use our reason and we look objectively at what is before us. A second dimension is to look at things subjectively, from the point of view of our emotions and perceptions. We have a feeling about God. It is like going into the woods. Objectively, we see the trees and we describe the trees and what they are like. Subjectively, though, we say that we find meaning in these trees, that God is somehow revealed in their beauty and our hearts are moved by them. Two dimensions, two aspects of human perception and the understanding of reality.

The Apostle Paul says that there is a third dimension. It is how God reveals himself through his Spirit. We can look at God with the wisdom of the age and we see so much, but when we see how God has revealed himself and how, through the power of the Spirit, he enables us to see that revelation, we see in a third dimension, a more complete one.

For Paul, there were clearly limitations to the wisdom of the age. The first limitation he points out is the fact that it was the wisdom of the age that crucified Christ. People who objectively or subjectively looked at Jesus saw a man who was worthy of death, who was going about doing good things, but nevertheless was perceived as evil, who was seen to be someone who was idolatrous and a threat to the power of the age. Whether it was Herod or Pilate, the Sanhedrin or the Roman officials, they looked at Jesus and saw him as worthy of death. With the wisdom of the age, you cannot perceive that God was at work in Christ; that in Christ the power of God's love was revealed - the mysterious, hidden power of God was revealed.

Paul also suggests that human understanding and reason can only take one so far. People puff themselves up with their knowledge and ideas of God, and they go around espousing ideas about God as if they are absolute, as if somehow they know God. To those in the time of Paul called Gnostics, who believed that they had intellectual wisdom and insight that others didn't have, Paul says that this produces a form of elitism. People, to use his phrase, “puff themselves up” with their knowledge of God. They believe they know more about God than everybody else, because they have construed within their own minds what God is like, and they alone are the ones who know.

Finally, Paul argues that people see God as a mystery - not as a mystery to be revealed by God himself, but a mystery that needs to be figured out. I liken it to people who played with the Rubik's Cube. Do you want to know something? I never solved the Rubik's Cube! I read books on it. I still never did it; I never got all the colours to line up. Now, you are probably saying, “Well, why should we listen to you talking about God if you can't solve even the Rubik's Cube?” Well, fair enough - point made! But people treat God like a Rubik's Cube - a mystery to be solved by their own mind, flexibility, craft, creativity and reason. Paul says that to do that is false, because the only way you can really know God in through love.

Do not misunderstand what Paul is saying and what I am saying. I am not saying that there is no place in human reason to try to understand or know God. Of course there is. I am not suggesting there isn't a subjective element, where we feel and experience the power of God. Of course we do. Oftentimes, throughout the history of the Church, we have actually persecuted people who have used their reason.

I think that it is fitting that it was on Friday, the 13th of February in 1633 that Galileo was condemned by the Church. He was condemned because he adhered to the views of Copernicus. He didn't believe that everything revolved around the earth, so Pope Urban VIII condemned him and had him imprisoned until he died, discredited among the public. Only in 1992, because of Pope John Paul, was Galileo finally reinstated within the Church, which concluded that he was right. It takes the Church a while to figure these things out, doesn't it? But, eventually, it did! You see, it is not as if the Church is against reason or Paul is against reason or the Gospel is against reason, it is just that human reason in and of itself cannot tell you what you need to know about God. Paul says that what is needed is a mature love, wisdom that is borne out of understanding God, not on the basis just of our own reason and thought and experience, but on God's self-revelation. He put this so beautifully in a passage from Corinthians. He wrote,

Then, he quotes from the great prophet Isaiah: “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

This is the ridiculous things about the debate about the ads on the sides of buses. I don't want to deal with this, because this is silly. Why get all upset about this? Of course there are going to be some people who don't believe in God. Paul knew them intimately. The wisdom of this age, no matter how much intellect or reason you apply to it, will never solve the mystery of the hiddeness of God.

You only really know God when you love God, and that is the power of faith. It is like living with somebody. When you live with somebody and you love somebody, you grow with them. You grow in love with someone as you know them, hopefully. You grow, and you love, and you know, deeper and deeper. The person who lives with and loves that person knows them better than anyone else. So it is with God. So it is with the mystery of the hiddeness of God. The more you love God in a mature way, the deeper your appreciation of the love of God for you. If you love God, you see God at work in the person of his Son. You do not see him, as the age does, as someone worthy to be crucified, but rather as the one who loves us so much that he gave himself for us. Only love, only faith born out of that love, allows one to see the hiddeness and the mystery of God. But we do always think we are so wise, we humans! We see log cabins but we do not see the cross. We see the mystery of the glorious creation around - and we still say there is no God. What fools we are! When we love God, we see things in a new way.

Max Lucado tells one of the most glorious stories about a woodcutter who lived in the woods with his son. The woodcutter was poor, but he had one thing of inestimable value - a white horse. This white horse was so magnificent that even the king wanted it. People were willing to pay a lot of money to buy it. But the woodcutter would not sell his horse. When they said to him, “You are a fool for not selling your horse, woodcutter, when you are so poor,” he would reply, “How could I sell something that I love? This horse is like a person to me.”

They said, “The woodcutter is foolish. He could be rich if only he would sell his horse.”

Then, one day, the horse ran away. The people came to him and said, “You foolish woodcutter! If only you had sold the horse when you had him, you would have known what it is like to be wealthy. But now your horse is gone.”

He said, “I do not know that the horse is gone. I only know that the stable is empty. That is all I actually know. I don't know anything more than that.”

They said, “Oh, it is a curse upon you. You have lost the horse of value.”

Fifteen days later, the horse came back with 12 of his friends. The people said, “Maybe the woodcutter was wiser than we thought. Maybe the woodcutter is brilliant - a genius!”

He said, “I am not a genius. All I know is that one horse has come back, and 12 other horses have come with him. I do not know whether I am blessed or cursed.”

“Do not be a fool, man,” they said. “You can break these horses and make an awful lot of money.”

“I do not know that,” he said. “I only know that today there are 12 horses and my original one. That is all I know.”

One day, his son, his only child, in trying to ride one of these horses, fell off the horse and broke both his legs. People came to him and said, “You see, you foolish man, this one son that you have, this son that you love so much, you have let him ride on these horses! See, you are cursed! These horses were not a blessing after all. They were here to destroy the thing that you loved the most, your son.”

The woodcutter said, “I do not know that I am cursed, and I do not know that I am blessed, all I know is that my son has broken both his legs.”

“You are going to live in poverty now, because you have no one to look after you in the years to come, and you will lose these horses eventually. You are a cursed man!” they told him.

Finally, a war broke out, and many of the young men in the town were sent to war and died. But the woodcutter's son could not go to war because his legs were broken and he could not fight, and so he survived. The people said, “You see, woodcutter, you are blessed! God has preserved you. Look at all the wonderful things that have happened to you!”

The woodcutter replied, “I do not know whether I am blessed or cursed. I only know that my son is with me and his legs were broken, and that others have lost their sons, for which I am sorry. That is all I actually know.”

The woodcutter lived with his son and with his horse that he loved so much and with the other 12 horses, and everyone said, “Isn't the woodcutter blessed?”

The woodcutter said, “I do not know whether I am cursed or whether I am blessed, because really all I know is that it is God alone who knows everything. All our wisdom is for naught.”

My friends, only God knows. The only way to let God be known is to love him. This is not an act of reason. It is not an act of emotion. It is a response of faith. Paul knew that faith and love are the greatest wisdom of all. When you have that faith and that love, you see everything differently. And you see then just how much God loves you. What more powerful message can I give you on this Valentine's weekend? The mystery of the love of God!

Amen.