The Eighth Sunday after Trinity (26th July
2026)
1 Kings 3.5–12; Psalm
119.129–136; Romans 8.26–end; Matthew 13.31–33, 44–52
It looks as
though we are being prompted to reflect on Wisdom today. The Lectionary has
dished up a series of readings that steer us clearly in that direction.
In the OT
reading we are given an episode in the private, devotional life of the wisest
of all the Kings, Solomon, the son of Israel’s greatest king, David.
It’s a
rather beautiful, and intriguing story. God appears to Solomon in a dream and
pretty well says, “Ask me for anything you want, and I will give it to you”. Solomon’s
only request is that the Lord gives him the gift of wisdom, so that he can
discern right from wrong and govern the Lord’s people as a righteous king.
It reminds
of some words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew (6:33): But seek
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things (all
the other stuff!) will be added to you.
One of the
common experiences in the Christian life is the conversation with the atheist
or agnostic (well-meaning or otherwise) that goes something like this: “If
there is a God why is there suffering and evil in the world?” Or, “There’s no
scientific proof for God so why believe in Him?” Or, even better, “If God made
everything, who or what made God?”
Well I have
learned over the years not to get embroiled in conversations like that because
they never really go anywhere.
I am not
denying the importance of thinking. Neither am I denigrating the value of
logical, or scientific thinking. But wisdom is something different.
Intelligence
(the IQ type) deals rather more with academic knowledge and logical, sequential
thinking whereas wisdom trades more in experience and insight and discernment.
There’s a
sense in which God always eludes our IQ kind of thinking. To ask for proof of
God using these kinds of cognitive processes is sometimes called a category
error.
A good
example goes something like this: The Universe is like a physical box containing all matter, time, and
space; God is the creator of the box, existing outside of space and time; so
it’s a mistake to search inside the physical universe for a non-physical
creator. It is like tearing open a television set looking for the actors, or
reading a book and asking, "On which page is the author hiding?"
I know those
are humorous examples but there’s a kind of foolishness (or a kind of
‘limitedness’) about clever people insisting that we explain what’s outside-the-box
using inside-the-box thinking.
Now wisdom
is something else; it’s more like outside-the-box thinking, and in our readings
today we are given a couple of examples of how it works. The word actually means
something like ‘the condition of seeing’, so to be wise is to see something
that might not be available to ordinary powers of observation.
To start
with it sometimes comes in dreams, as it did with Solomon. The Bible is full of
examples of wisdom coming to people through dreams and I’ll bet that some of
you here might be able to speak of your own experiences of dreaming given half
a chance.
It also
comes to us in Scripture. There’s a whole section of the Bible called Wisdom Literature and it’s often
a collection of proverbs and sayings. Here’s an example: The fear of
the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise
wisdom and instruction (Proverbs 1:7).
And then
there’s Jesus, who seems to use Parables to give us a glimpse of the ways of
God and his Kingdom. So today we given a buffet of Parables!
In the first
one about a mustard seed we are given to see that when the Kingdom takes root
in us it starts small but grows into something substantial that gives shelter and
sustenance to those around us.
In the
second we see that once it’s taken root in us, like yeast in dough it’ll work
its way through us and into every nook and cranny of our lives, into every cell
so our whole being radiates the love and righteousness of God’s Kingdom.
The third
and the fourth tell us that when we really see the value of the Kingdom; when
we get a glimpse of the unutterable beauty of God and the indescribable joy of
living in his presence it’ll be like finding a treasure, or a gem so precious
that we will trade everything we have just to keep it.
In the fifth
we are given a glimpse of what happens at the end. We are promised a reckoning,
but it’s a reckoning that in some sense need not concern us as long as we
attend to our own souls and seek first the Kingdom of God. It’s not our job to
sort out good from evil because the angels will be doing that. Judgement is
never ours to exercise.
Our job is
to follow Jesus and love God and neighbour as well as we can.
And where
does all this wisdom, all these dreams and scriptures and parables lead us?
Well today
St Paul gives us the answer in our second reading. His are some of the most
sublime words in all of scripture: I am convinced that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be
able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans
8:38-39).
Wisdom takes
us to a place that rational thinking and cleverness can never get us to. You
can’t calculate your way to the love of God.
You can’t
think your way to a rock solid conviction that you are safe and loved, and that
even in your suffering and your difficulties God is at work in your life to turn
all things around so that they work for your good.
This kind of
knowing is given, it is not grasped. It’s not available to the clever because you
can’t get to it by some form of computation. In fact, in some ways God seems to
delight in frustrating those of us who think we are more sophisticated in our
thinking.
Jesus
himself said that unless we change and become like little children, we will
never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3), and Saint Paul says a whole
lot about the impotence of rational thinking when it comes to the mystery of
God’s love. I am paraphrasing a little but this is the gist of what he said.
The message
of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being
saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the cleverness
of the clever; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’ Where is the clever person?...Where is
the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the intelligence of the
world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its idea of wisdom
did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached
to save those who believe (from 1 Corinthians 1).
Ok. So we’ve
effectively been told this morning that our own human ways of thinking are
somewhat useless when it comes to the mysteries of God’s Kingdom and we have also
been told that what is needed is a special kind of seeing; a kind of insight
called wisdom and that’s a gift that we can’t grasp of our own accord.
So what do
we do? Well, surprise, surprise the answer is always the same: we pray.
But St Paul gives us some reassurance here because he says this:
The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we
ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God,
who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the
Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
I hope you will take heart from his words. The Spirit lives
in us and in some sense the Spirit prays in us and for us when we can’t find
the words and when we feel we can’t do it.
I love it that he says the Spirit prays in us with sighs
too deep for words because I resonate with that. Sometimes, when I am
praying, it feels as though all I am doing is bringing all my longings to God
and asking him to do something with them, because I can’t.
God sees the sighs and the longings of our hearts and in many
ways those very sighs and longings ARE the prayers that delight him the most.
Let us pray.
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