Sirach 24:1-12

Christmas 2 - Years A, B, C

Where in our exodus or exile do we find a presence of GD, a presence of wisdom?

Images of cloud and tent hearken back to times of traveling powerless through a desert.

Taking root reminds us of the equally difficult time of settlement and power.

There are those of us who find wisdom to be mobile and flexible and those of us who find wisdom to be strongly located and static. There is danger on each pole and anywhere along a continuum when we think we have this gift called wisdom contained in some combination of situation and station.

For whatever reasons we have a great temptation to presume that wisdom rests upon us and within us. Again and again we need to remember this song extends through the valuable verses 28-29:

The first man did not finish discovering about her,
nor has the most recent tracked her down;
for her thoughts are wider than the sea,
and her designs more profound than the abyss. –NJB*

G*D, grant us Wisdom to know the difference between Serenity and Courage. Let us help one another to accept the things we cannot change in the midst of exodus and exile and to change the things we can change in the midst of settlement and resettlement. In these and every situation may we wisely join Mother Julian and know “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Out of this wisdom of wellness let us live boldly.

As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience

Where in our exodus or exile do we find the presence of G*D, the presence of wisdom?

The images of cloud and tent hearken back to times of traveling powerless through a desert.

Taking root reminds us of the equally difficult time of settlement and power.

There are those of us who find wisdom to be mobile and flexible and those of us who find wisdom to be strongly located and static. There is danger on each pole and anywhere along the continuum when we think we have this gift called wisdom contained in some combination of situation and station.

For whatever reasons we have a great temptation to presume that wisdom rests upon us and within us. Again and again we need to remember this portion of song needs to be read all the way to verses 27-29:

"The first man did not finish discovering about her,
nor has the most recent tracked her down;
for her thoughts are wider than the sea,
and her designs more profound than the abyss." [NJB]

God, grant us Wisdom to know the difference between Serenity and Courage. Let us help one another to accept the things we cannot change in the midst of exodus and exile and to change the things we can change in the midst of settlement and resettlement. In these and every situation may we wisely join Mother Julian and know "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." Out of this wisdom of wellness let us live boldly.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/january2003.html

Believe it or not - Wisdom is to be praised in your life. Creator GOD has sent Wisdom to dwell within the beloved - you and the church community.

Wisdom was sent because it was needed here. We have so often gone off on a wild-haired tangent.

Wisdom was sent because it can grow here. We yet have possibilities to attest to the presence of good old Sophia.

If Wisdom can sing her own praises; and if Wisdom is in you: will you not also join in the singing?

Happy New Year! We can yet be Wisdom's voice in our settings.

- - -

Lon (Reader)

Aloha Wesly,

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou, Happy New Year!

I rarely miss a day of your musings, and often use them as grist for bible study and sermons. It has not been that windy in Kalaupapa, but it has been raining since the new year began. The waters of chaos may end up filling my church with unexpected visitors. I will remember your words as I seek to shake off the doom and gloom of hobbled credos and make preparations for a bit of restoration.

Mahalo nui loa, a very big thank you,
Lon A Rycraft, Kana'ana Hou - Siloama UCC

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/january2004.html

Sirach 24:1-12 or Jeremiah 31:7-14

Faultlines in the earth's crust hold much power even though they are hidden far beyond our sight and measurement. Should a time come when we can see and measure them, they will still hold much power that will have to be accounted for. Until then folks will continue to periodically experience longer or shorter times of exile from their desire for the comfort and continuance of their particular way of life. (My own sense is that we will not arrive at a time when all will be predictable. Tsunamis will continue come in all manner of appearances, including Dust Bowls.)

My sense aside, a promise is that those who have been swept away will be brought back with consolations. From there we will use the wisdom given to develop an early warning process based on a traversing the depths of chaotic abysses that will be installed and work to warn folks to back off from their usual routines during Tsunami moments.

Questions abound about our response to warnings, whether geophysical or theological. Will we listen to warnings or return to exile? Our current list of warning issues can go on and on but three quickly coming Tsunamis on the radar screen might be: the consequence of moving toward legitimizing preemptive war, delaying for false economic reasons a response to global warming, and continuing discriminations between us on such minutiae as another's sexual orientation.

A disconnect between the light and praise and wisdom language and our experiences in the world continues at a significantly high level. This may have something to do with the fragility of current religious stability. While I have a yearning to more closely follow a non-regimented Spirit I am aware of a grieving over so many ways in which religious sensibilities are reality denying. All this eternal praise talk seems at some remove from our daily sense of danger, insecurity, and exile. What a way to start a new calendar year (though we are well into the liturgical year).

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/january2005.html

In this passage not often heard in today's church there is a sense of the drilling down of wisdom from the general of creation to the specific of geography known as here, from time immemorial to this present moment. Where and when should wisdom alight? Well, why not here and now! Can you sense wisdom alighting in your honored life? Hooray!
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From the book Where Shall Wisdom Be Found: Wisdom In The Bible, The Church And The Contemporary World, the end of the article "Sirach and Wisdom's Dwelling Place" by C.T.R. Hayward:
"Disaster befell Sirach's beloved Temple when, in the year 70 CE, the Romans put it to the torch. Yet Sirach's Greek translation of his grandfather's book was not forgotten. It was included in the Greek Old Testament and was thus available for Gentile Christians to ponder. For them, the work proved so popular that it was regularly read in worship, and in course of time came to be called Ecclesiasticus, a 'church book' of great distinction. No doubt this process was encouraged because St. Paul, the earliest Christian writer, had dubbed Christ 'the wisdom of God' (1 Cor 1.24, 30; cf. Col 2.3), and because the evangelists had, in their several ways, used Temple imagery to speak of Christ's body (Jn. 2:20-22; Mt 26:61; Mk 14:58). Sirach proved to be a rich quarry from which the Church's teachers could unearth almost inexhaustible theological resources in their explorations of Christ's relationship to God. And since Wisdom, both in Hebrew and Greek, is personified as a woman, the way was open for them to develop their thinking on the role of the Blessed Virgin in the Christian economy of salvation. Reflection on Mary as Wisdom and Mother of God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, is discernible already in the writing of St. Ambrose (De Spiritu Sancto 2.51, PL 16.753), and was destined to bear abundant and nourishing fruit in the liturgies of the Eastern and Western Churches alike."

The Three Wise Guys may be profitably transfigured into Gals. If this, even transfigured into your life. After Henry Van Dyke we can move beyond a fourth Magi to a fifth and further on down the line to you as a receiver and sharer of G*D's Wisdom. As said on Out in Scripture: An honest encounter between LGBT lives and the Bible, "Not only is Jesus Wisdom's Child, but through God's Word/Wisdom so are we. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender believers bear witness that it is not the church who says whether or not we are God's children, nor our sexuality, not even our theology or orthodoxy – but it is our welcome of this one sent from God. The Logos/Sophia does not discriminate based on race, class, gender or sexual orientation."

Resolution 2: To acknowledge the distillation of wisdom found in the set of experiences known as mine – to be one more branch from the root of an honored people.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html

Do those exiled still have honor? It is so easy to discount them. Often we act as though they are dishonorable, lazy, guilty, and sinful even as we mouth that they are of sacred worth.

From Jeremiah, hear that the exiles shall return under the banner of “Together”. This is not just about “them” returning, but that we are also exiled in place without their presence. It is “together” that we find a return, a redemption, and a promise to be together. If this is to come to pass we cannot languish by refusing to honor one another.

From Sirach, hear that G*D takes root in “an honored people”. Wherever you are, ask who is not being honored. There is your work for the moment. It may be to disclose your own worth and to claim it. It may be to advocate for another whose worth has been devalued and to affirm it.

These passages bring light in their enfleshing qualities of “together” and “honor”. When we are not about the business of togethering and honoring, we are slowly and surely dimming hope and abandoning a common-wealth.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/12/jeremiah-317-14-or-sirach-241-12.html