Scripture Text: Mark 8:27-38 and Proverbs 1:20-33

If someone were to ask you, "Which would you sooner have, wisdom or knowledge?"... what would you say? Both are important. Both are helpful. Both are necessary. As I've been thinking about this, however, I've come to realize that both are not created equal.

I've been thinking a bit this week about knowledge and wisdom. Both the Mark passage and the Proverbs passage raise questions about wisdom and knowledge and challenge us, I think, to consider more closely wisdom.

We need knowledge; we need to know things about life and the world around us. We need to know about ourselves. Knowledge is important. But acquiring knowledge can also lead to dominance and power-over. It can lead to arrogance and a lack of humility. It can lead to an elitism that is destructive and hurtful.

I need look no further for an example than my own life. My mother bought a book for me some years ago called The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs — my own mother!? I have a tendency to pretend that I know something even when I don't. I like to read and know a lot of things about a lot of things. But I can be aloof and arrogant sometimes, especially with those that I love, and act superior because I know things that others don't.

I can tell you that being a know-it-all has got me into trouble sometimes. I can come across in a patronizing way, especially when I'm in unfamiliar places and don't know everyone and especially if it is something that I know something about. I've put my foot in my mouth so many times because I haven't thought through the implications of what I'm about to say. I've said some hurtful things because I know what I'm talking about. I haven't been particularly wise in these situations.

Remember Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary under George W. Bush, when talking about what the government knew about the increasingly unstable situation in Afghanistan. He said back in 2002, "There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know that we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns; there are things that we do not know that we don't know."¹ The reporters laughed when Rumsfeld made this statement; what was so troubling about this statement was that it symbolised the arrogance of the Bush administration and the inability to admit to mistakes and come clean about misleading the world about Iraq and Afghanistan. Actually, Rumsfeld was paraphrasing Henry David Thoreau who said, "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge." While I don't think that Rumsfeld was honest in claiming knowledge, Thoreau knew what he was talking about. Alistair Sim, when he played Scrooge in the classic movie "A Christmas Carol," when he'd come to his senses about his life and all life, danced a jig, stood on his head and said he now knew that he didn't know all there is to know, or something like that. He scared Mrs. Dilber and had to catch her up on the stairs and tell her that he hadn't lost his senses but had come to them. What Thoreau and Charles Dickens were getting at is wisdom. I believe that Dickens had heard Socrates and was parphrasing him when Socrates said, "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." Knowledge is important, but it can lead us into dangerous waters; wisdom is a life-giving and sacred thing.

The problem identified by the writer of Proverbs, who could be writing today as well as 2800 years ago, is that we are tempted to desire knowledge rather than wisdom. We hear in Wisdom's assertions that she is ignored and forgotten. She stands in the busy places of life and offers herself to all who would stop to listen and be open, but people are busy and active and don't stop. It was ever thus. Our world and culture, as worlds and cultures have done for thousands of years, seems to value knowledge over wisdom, or at least doesn't value wisdom very highly.

I'm not suggesting that it is an either or situation. We need both wisdom and knowledge. We need to have the wisdom to know when, where and how to apply the knowledge that we have. We need to have the wisdom to know how to involve others when our own knowledge is limited. We need to have the wisdom to step aside and let others do their work because of their expertise. We need to have the wisdom to know when to speak and when to be quiet. We need to have the wisdom of how to make it through life with grace, courage and hope. I know that I need to be constantly learning these things and I also know that I'm not alone. Peter, in the Gospel story from Mark this morning, had knowledge but not so much wisdom. "Who do people say that I am?" asked Jesus. The disciples responded with various answers about what people had been saying and then Jesus asked, "But who do YOU say that I am?" It was here that Peter blurted out—I think with a sense of wisdom rather than knowledge—"You are the Messiah." Then, when Jesus spoke about the future with some knowledge, knowledge which the disciples and especially Peter didn't have, it threatened them and Peter began to rebuke Jesus, basically telling him to stop speaking nonsense!

One of the things that this story teaches us is the importance of wisdom but also the importance of self-knowledge. We need to know ourselves, our limitations, our hopes and dreams and aspirations. It is wisdom to know ourselves.

And I think that part of the reason why cultures and worldly power aren't so interested in wisdom has to do with values, that is to say, what we value. We think that knowledge is neutral and so we apply what we know in the things we do as governments, institutions, and so on; but knowledge isn't neutral. It comes with a bias and from a certain perspective. I believe that the beginning of wisdom is the recognition that knowledge has a value and is not neutral. And wisdom becomes mature when we learn to value life, ideas, hope, love, new beginnings, inclusivity, hospitality, visioning, and the like. One might ask where Jesus would be if he didn't have wisdom to value life and the people around him; he had knowledge, but that knowledge wouldn't have stood him in good stead without wisdom.

The other thing that wisdom brings is perspective. In proverbs, at the end of the lesson for today, we hear the words from Wisdom, "those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster." Do we believe that we will smile our way through disaster and life will be easy and secure? Of course not. We all live in the world and know what happens. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people—that's just a truism. But wisdom gives us is perspective.

It gives us a perspective that is broad and expansive. Wisdom enables us to see the bigger picture, to know that tragedy strikes, to know that complete control of our lives is an illusion. Wisdom enables us to know that we are part of a bigger community, a bigger picture where we can find comfort and companions on the journey; we learn that we don't have to face our struggles by ourselves and that we can learn from each other and experience the richness of community. Wisdom won't save us from struggle and loss, but it can lead us to face these challenges with a deeper sense of the wonder and power of life.

Wisdom also connects and grounds us in God more fully. Wisdom acknowledges that there is a power beyond our own. Wisdom seeks to open us to the Spirit of God and that mysterious power that animates all of life. Through wisdom we experience the transforming power of God's love and the grace of Christ. Wisdom leads us to be in touch with the Source of all life.

All of what I've said is part of the reason why Wisdom is often expressed through poetry and stories rather than prose. And so I'll leave you with a poem by Denise Levertov. It is called "I learned that her name was Proverb." In this poem, Denise ends by saying that we are drawn forward in time towards an unknown place where we shall know what it is to arrive. Wisdom leads us into an unknown future with the confidence that we are not alone, that God is with us and that we walk arm in arm with one another and share our collective wisdom; then we will know what it is to arrive.

And the secret names
of all we meet who lead us deeper
into our labyrinth
of valleys and mountains, twisting valleys
and steeper mountains—
their hidden names are always,
like Proverb, promises:
Rune, Omen,. Fable, Parable,
those we meet for only
one crucial moment, gaze to gaze,
or for years know and don't recognize

but of whom later a word
sings back to us
as if from high among leaves,
still near but beyond sight

drawing us from tree to tree
towards the time and the unknown place
where we shall know
what it is to arrive. ²