One of the benefits of having to drive regularly as part of my Episcopal ministry is that I get the opportunity to listen to the radio. Sometimes the journey and the hour coincide affording me the pleasure of listening to the Today programme and catching up on current affairs. Those of you who listen to that programme will know that topics stretch far and wide from concerns over growing obesity levels, to bankers’ bonuses to environmental concerns, to the latest parliamentary concerns or political intrigue. John Humphries and James Naughtie seem to me to be particularly good at asking the penetrating and hard questions of those who come their way. Theirs is the knack of exposing what might be mere rhetoric or political posturing. At the heart of the questioning or debate is a challenge to integrity and right action. In an information saturated age we desire wisdom.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines wisdom as a combination of experience and knowledge with the power of applying them. Euripides a 5th century BC Greek playwright wrote: Cleverness is not wisdom. In a not too dissimilar vein Nelson Mandela is reputed to have said: A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. We live in an age, more than most where information abounds and access to it is speedy if not instant. Knowing what is required is no longer the fundamental concern. The issue instead is whether those who know what is right have the will or strength to do it. Sadly wisdom is often in short supply.
In the Church’s calendar we are entering what is known as the Kingdom season culminating on Christ the King Sunday just before Advent. The gospels are full of wisdom much of which comes through the teaching of Jesus. He, in so many ways, embodies wisdom. It is one thing to say; follow that, it is quite another to do it. We might fairly ask is such wisdom attainable and if so how? The gospels and indeed the Bible suggest that we cannot on our own. Instead we need and are offered God’s life and strength. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1940s, gets to the point using Shakespeare as an illustration: It is no good giving me a play like Hamlet or King Lear and telling me to write a play like that. Shakespeare could do it – I can’t. And it is no good showing me a life like the life of Jesus and telling me to live a life like that. Jesus could do it – I can’t. But if the genius of Shakespeare could come and live in me, then I could write plays like this. And if the Spirit could come into me, then I could live a life like His.
+ Alistair