November 24, 2013 | 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 a.m.

From Wonder to Wisdom

Joyce Shin
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 104:1–24a
Proverbs 8:22–36
Job 38—42 (selected verses)

“O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all.”
Psalm 104:24a (NRSV)

Some say that the origin of life
Brings order out of chaos—
but I say,
“Order out of order out of order!”

Günter Wächtershäuser

As different as they are from each other, the book of Job and the book of Proverbs share a certain family resemblance, so much so that biblical scholars have grouped them together, along with Ecclesiastes, into the category of wisdom literature. The most simple and superficial reason for this grouping is that more than half of the occurrences of the word wisdom in the Hebrew Bible are found in these books (John Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age, p. 1). Beyond this obvious observation, however, is a resemblance that runs more deeply through these books. Each of them, in its own way, grounds wisdom in creation.

Let’s take a closer look.

In the verses leading up to the passage that we read from the book of Proverbs, wisdom is personified as Lady Wisdom. Trying to attract attention, she situates herself in the most traversed places. From the city gates and in the marketplace, Lady Wisdom calls out to all who want to live and to live well. To all the passersby, she says,

Hear, for I will speak noble things,
and from my lips will come what is right,
for my mouth will utter truth. . . .
Take my instruction instead of silver,
and knowledge rather than choice gold;
for wisdom is better than jewels,
and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.
(Proverbs 8:6–7a, 10–11)

The wisdom she offers is for the good life. It is more valuable than silver, gold, and jewels. It can neither be spent nor run out. It is age-old and time-tested, for even before the world was created, wisdom existed. Asserting her original status, she says about herself,

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. . . . When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit. . . . When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker. (Proverbs 8:22–30)

Time alone tells of her indispensability. Wisdom was God’s preeminent master builder, and ever since she has been the indispensable sustainer, the domestic manager, of God’s cosmic household. That wisdom has been with God from the time God made the world establishes wisdom so essentially in connection with creation and the sustaining of it that it is unlikely that the world can continue to exist without wisdom.

In a radio broadcast of American Public Media, journalist Krista Tippett—who, as some of you may remember, was a guest speaker at Fourth Church—recorded perhaps one of my favorite radio interviews when she interviewed Wendell Berry and Ellen Davis. Many of you may know the works of Wendell Berry; years ago he too spoke here for a Michigan Avenue Forum. He is a poet, a novelist, an essayist, and an environmental activist. He is a farmer from Kentucky whose awe and respect of land is at the heart of his writings. Interviewed with Ellen Davis, a scholar of the Hebrew Bible from Duke University, the two of them spoke with Krista Tippett of the intimate connection between humanity, homo sapiens, and the natural world. Drawing on the wisdom literature of the Bible, Professor Davis corrected those interpretations of biblical texts that highlight human mastery over nature. She offered instead alternative agrarian readings of scripture in which human beings are called to be sages, not masters, in relation to the natural world. More than anything else, Berry and Davis asserted, what we need is wisdom. We need wisdom to see how the land, water, soil, and air upon which we depend are impacted by how we sow our land, get food to our tables, and treat those who work the land. Everything, even survival, may well depend upon our reasserting a preeminent role for wisdom in our lives. How, then, are we to acquire the wisdom we need? Where are we to look for wisdom?

In 1831, at the young age of twenty-two, Charles Darwin obtained passage on the H.M.S. Beagle to travel around the world. He traveled to regions that even today seem quite remote, places of which I have never heard. He traveled to St. Paul’s Rocks, an isolated group of barren islets on the mid-Atlantic ridge that supports one of the densest shark populations in the Atlantic; the Cocos Keeling Islands, halfway between Australia and Sri Lanka; and most famously the Galapagos Archipelago. In his diary published in 1845, which he entitled The Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin recorded detailed descriptions of what he encountered. He wrote of cuttlefish with “chameleon-like power”; of musical frogs; of a giant water hog, which he described as “the largest gnawing animal in the world.” He wrote of the noisy habits of jaguars; of flying spiders; of a hail storm that had “murderous force”; of “snowing butterflies” on the Patagonia coast; of marine lizards that were at the same time “hideous” and “graceful”; and of giant tortoises on whose backs he rode (William P. Brown, The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder, p.132). Detailing all that his senses of sight, smell, ear, taste, and touch encountered, Darwin’s diary was truly a “field book of wonder” (Brown, p. 132).

I couldn’t help but recall Darwin’s diary entries when I read chapters 38 through 41 of the book of Job. Though not as long and taxonomically extensive as Darwin’s diary, these chapters of Job provide the most panoramic view of creation in all of the Bible. It makes sense that some biblical scholars have called the book of Job “The Creation Story: Part Two.”

In chapters 38 through 41, God finally responds to Job’s complaint. Job has suffered, and his complaint has been long—more than thirty chapters long—and is bitter. Out of a whirlwind, God answers Job with a rebuke, and God’s rebuke is essentially a passionate recitation of creation. God throws Job one rhetorical question after another. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? . . . Who determined its measurements? . . . Who stretched the line upon it? . . . Who laid its cornerstone? . . . Have you entered the storehouses of snow, or have you seen the storehouses of hail? . . . Can you send forth lightning? . . . Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? . . . Do you give the horse its might? . . . Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars? . . .” For 129 verses, God goes on and on. God takes Job on a terrifying virtual tour, setting him on a course of cosmic discovery so stunning that Job is jerked out of his lament and is left speechless.

Job is speechless. He cannot answer any of God’s questions. All he can do—all any of us can do—is be struck with wonder. So astonishing is God’s creation that even God seems to marvel at its vitality, its majesty, its myriad diversity, its order, complexity, and interconnectivity. As a result, Job’s lament turns into wonder, and his wonder turns into wisdom. We can note the transformation in the final chapter of the book of Job. With newly gained wisdom, Job finally responds to God. Very simply he says, “Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. . . . I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:3b–5).

Developmental psychology has shown that emotion plays a critical role in how we see the world. Emotions shape our perceptions of the world. They do this by selecting what we will perceive and then by coloring our perceptions. For example, “fear finds the world filled with threat; depression can overlook the good things in life; and bliss tends to neglect the storm clouds on the horizon” (William P. Brown, p. 174). If particular emotions have the power to select and color our perceptions of the world in this or that way, which emotion must we experience in order to perceive a vast picture, the myriad diversity of things in the world, and the interconnectedness of all things? In other words, which emotion must we experience in order to gain wisdom?

In the wisdom literature of the Bible, all arrows point to the emotion of wonder. Wonder is the appropriate emotional response to creation, and in turn, it is what is needed to gain the wisdom we need to live and to live well. The experience of wonder is what will motivate us to act in ecologically wise, life-saving ways. It is what will lead us to make good decisions for the long-term, not just the short-term. It is what will help us to consider the myriad perspectives on any situation we are in.

When is the last time you were struck with wonder? Did you have to travel miles away to some remote area? The last time I remember feeling so struck was last summer, when my husband, daughter, and I traveled 2,255 miles to be among the giant redwoods of California. The time before that was when we drove 1,850 miles to the glaciers of the Canadian Rockies. Is it necessary for urban dwellers like you and me to leave the city where we live in order to experience wonder? Is it necessary to be in remote natural environments in order to behold and be struck by the majesty, diversity, order, design, and interconnectedness of all things? I hope not.

The Bible assures us that wisdom is everywhere available. In the city, at its gates and crossroads, Lady Wisdom calls out to all of humanity, asking everyone to pay attention to her. If wisdom is everywhere available, perhaps the wonder that leads to wisdom can also be experienced everywhere.

I have a hunch that it was not the miles I drove, but the time I took that enabled me to experience wonder. Wonder is an emotion that is less available to us when we are rushed with routines and weary from work. It requires slowing down, even standing still. We do not have to look far. We just have to take the time to look. And when we do slow down in order to pay attention and marvel at the order, design, and interconnectedness of all things, we will find ourselves wiser for it.

We might find ourselves, like Job, virtually transported from the ruggedness of rocks to the highest treetops, through storms of snow and hardened hail, from the dark depths of oceans to aerial sources of light. And though we cannot walk around in permanent states of wonder, these moments, as fleeting as they are, are transformed into wisdom for our daily lives. Such moments of wonder can color the world we wake up each day to see and can guide the choices we make. If we want to live and live well, we’ll need a wisdom born out of wonder.

Would you please pray with me?

Almighty God, we give you heart-felt thanks for your amazing creation, for the wonder it inspires and the wisdom it engenders. Make us a wise people who today and every day sing of your wonderful works. That the world may live and live well we pray. Amen.