Wisdom Is Vindicated by Her Deeds

6 Pentecost, A p 9, July 9, 2023

Zechariah 9:9-12 Psalm 145:8-15
Romans 7:15-25a Matt. 11:25-30

Lectionary Link

One might define wisdom as applied knowledge within the changing times of our lives.  Wisdom is the ability to act appropriate to the situation.

Wisdom in time means that there are endless strategies, and while endless strategies might signify a tolerance of inconsistency, wisdom is in fact, having the ability to negotiate in a world of differences in our lives.

The Matthean community responsible for the generating of the Gospel which came to have the name of Matthew, may well have been comprised of former members of the community of John the Baptist, but also of former tax collectors and other non-practicing Jews, as well as Gentiles who were received by Paul,Peter and others into the fellowship of Christ.

People from diverse backgrounds, probably brought with them their own baggage of piety and lifestyle practices.  Such differences can be the fodder for community discord, and the writer of Matthew, a wisdom leader in the community was writing some wise words on community living.

John the Baptist had been an ascetic.  His lifestyle was an important witness to accompany his rather demanding lesson on repentance.  John would not require of anyone an austerity which he himself would not embrace.  And so for some, John would have been a model for leadership, and his lifestyle was an important part of his leadership.  Having nothing and wanting nothing left him being an unbribed and unbribable soul.  There, perhaps, were members of the early Christ communities who thought that ascetic austerity should be the requirement for leaders and members.  One can certainly find hints of a rather spartan and itinerant lifestyle in the writings of St. Paul.

On the other hand, the community of the Gospel of Matthew were people who were living around 45 years after Jesus, and there was no end of the world, which meant they had to come to grips with getting more settled into community life with a duration within the cities of the Roman Empire.  A settled lifestyle with marriage, family, and children, households and work would mean the followers of Jesus had to adapt themselves to a variety of life situations which would require a variety of lifestyle options.

The writer of Matthew contrasted John the Baptist and Jesus as a wisdom comparison for the community.  John the Baptist neither ate or drank the common urban diet, and people criticized him as being demon possessed.  Jesus ate and drank with publicans and sinners, and people said that he was a glutton and a drunkard.  But don't get caught up in stereotyping lifestyle behaviors of these two people, John and Jesus.  Wisdom is the ability to know that there are different lifestyle strategies for living winsomely the good news of God for the people whom we are meant to meet in our lives.   So, be wise and discerning and don't get hung up on petty differences of lifestyle as it pertains to strategies of living the good news of our lives.

St. Paul was a proponent of learning to be all things to all people, so as to be winsomely present to them with the good news that he had for them.  To be all things to all people requires wisdom, with a sensitive receptivity to the common ground places of where to meet people.

To attain this wisdom, Paul's own spiritual transformation involved achieving impulse control.  Paul writes about an inner struggle to attain the good use of the energies of his life, and get himself free from the many forms of self-gratification.  Becoming free from self-gratification allows the freedom of how to be involved in the gratification of others in showing them the release of the experience of joy within their lives.

In the spiritual method of the early Christ community, this experience was known as finding an interior rest for the soul, because one could realize that one was not "pulling" alone in life; rather one was yoked with a the Risen Christ as a higher power to achieve a mobility toward excellence in one's life.

The Gospel for us is that wisdom has many strategies and lifestyle options because Wisdom involves the application of knowledge to the many and different life situation with many and different people to achieve the kind of justice and love which allows people to know the interior rest of the peace of Christ.   Amen.