RCL Proper 20B
18 August 2024
Church of the Epiphany
Surrey BC
About fifteen years ago I faced a professional crisis, a moment when I needed to consider what was to come next in my life as a pastor, priest and teacher. To help me discern what those next steps might be, I spent some time with Bishop Jim Cruickshank of blessed memory. By this time Jim was the retired Bishop of Cariboo who had led the Diocese as it faced the financial consequences of the residential school legacy of Lytton. Before becoming bishop, Jim had been the Director of Sorrento Centre, a professor at Vancouver School of Theology and Dean of Christ Church Cathedral. He was also one of the wisest people I have ever known.
Jim’s wisdom sprang from a number of plentiful wells. He was a scholar and a person with a deep spiritual life. Jim was practical but willing to take risks. He loved the Church even as he saw its challenges and failures clearly. Jim had a passion for the good news of God in Christ and for justice and reconciliation. He was unfailingly kind and always spoke the truth in genuine love.
We have a great need for wise people like Jim in our world. So, it is a happy coincidence that all of the Scriptures we have heard today speak about wisdom. Solomon knows that he cannot govern the unruly and unpredictable people of Israel without wisdom. In today’s Psalm we hear the familiar phrase, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111.10 NSRVue). The writer of the Letter to the Ephesians exhorts a mixed community of Jewish and non-Jewish Christians “(to be) careful . . . how you live, not as unwise people but as wise” (Ephesians 5.15 NRSVue).
Although the words ‘wise’ and ‘wisdom’ do not appear in the Gospel reading from John, there is a whiff, a hint of what it means to be wise contained in Jesus’ words to his critics. To be wise, Jesus says to them – and to us – is to be one with Jesus and in that unity to experience the life of God in the here and now of our everyday lives. Such wisdom, such eternal life, Jesus says, comes from ‘eating’ his flesh and ‘drinking’ his blood.
We have come to hear these words primarily as a reference to the consecrated bread and wine of the eucharist. To be sure, we do share in the one bread and the one cup to be one with Christ and with Christians throughout time and space. But I think we need to dig a little deeper into this symbolic language.
Most of us are familiar with the saying, “You are what you eat.” In recent decades scientists have learned how to trace a person’s life history by examining their bones and their teeth. Recently archaeologists discovered the skeleton of a Roman soldier buried in England. By examining his bones and his teeth, they were able to determine that he had been born in the steppes of Russia, spent time in northern Africa and Italy, then came to England. All this information because of the traces of chemicals from the water he drank, the air he breathed and the food he ate.
If it were possible to do a spiritual scan of our bodies, minds and souls, what traces of our relationship with God would it find? Would such a scan discover how we have come to love God and our neighbour more and more? Would it reveal how we have come to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God, with each other and with this ‘fragile earth, our island home’? Before anyone goes to the negative, let me tell you this: I believe that such a scan would show that all of us have more than just traces of our relationship with God within us. Is there room for growth? Certainly. But no one is starting from zero. God has imprinted within each of us the divine image. And that image is the power to love – to be life-giving rather than life-denying.
Our life’s purpose is to grow into the likeness of God; that is to say, to become more and more God-like in our thoughts and actions. To do this we must grow into Christ. That’s what it means to eat his flesh and to drink his blood. We eat Christ’s flesh when we live as Christ lived. We drink Christ’s blood when we seek the unity of life that Christ has with God. It is in this endeavour that we become truly wise, a wisdom that arises from our knowledge of God, our experience of God’s generous love and our intentional practice of Christ-like living.
In the Hebrew Scriptures wisdom is sometimes described as having ‘a listening heart’ (The Jewish Study Bible 2004 re 1 Kings 3.9). Each time we gather for the eucharist, the wise listen to God’s Word among all the words we say and sing. Each time we gather for the eucharist, the wise listen to what their hearts are telling them about the needs and concerns of the world. Each time we gather for the eucharist, the wise listen for Christ’s heartbeat within them as they share in the bread and wine. Each time we gather for the eucharist, the wise listen for what God would have them do as they leave this place and return to the places where they live, work and love.
The wisdom that Jim Cruickshank shared with me fifteen years ago has not yet been fulfilled in my life. I still have much to learn and more to do. But what Jim showed me is that wisdom is not the possession of the few, but God’s life offered for all. It is a wisdom shown to us in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a wisdom that God puts on the table for all of us to eat and to drink.
So let us eat. So let us drink. So let us grow in wisdom.
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