Knowledge or Wisdom

A friend of mine posted a cute saying the other day, that I thought was worth sharing.  It said, "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.  Wisdom is knowing NOT to use it in a fruit salad."  It occurs to me that there is a bit of a problem in differentiating between knowledge and wisdom in the church today.

As we work our way through the lectionary, we are coming to the end of the king David stories and approaching the King Solomon stories.  When God asked what he could give Solomon, he didn't ask for money or power.  He asked for the wisdom to be a good ruler.  Which to me shows he was already pretty wise to begin with.  How many politicians today if they were told that God would grant them anything, would ask for the wisdom to be a good ruler?  I would hope some would, but I would not hold my breath.

In the New Testament stories the Pharisees studies the Bible backwards and forwards.  They were probably the most knowledgeable people around, but they had a lot of trouble with Jesus.  They lacked the wisdom to see that Jesus was the Messiah that the scripture pointed to.  They could tell you that scripture said that our God was a God of love, compassion, and grace, but could not make the leap to see that meant that we should show love and compassion, too.

They would sit there and complain that the disciples didn't wash their hands before eating (when they were out in the middle of a field somewhere with no running water).  They didn't see that the disciples were serving the people and doing God's will.  They complained when Jesus healed on the Sabbath, completely blind to the fact that it was God doing the healing.

Today we are often just as bad as the Pharisees.  We sit here arguing over the translation of one tiny phrase in the Bible or worse yet in the Book of Order and completely ignore the ministry we should be doing.  We are sure that our "knowledge" is correct and that means that we are wise.  If you look at the Bible through the lens of Jesus' life it is clear that God would rather the 5000 get fed, even if they were served with unwashed hands.  God would rather that the sick be healed even if it meant working on the Sabbath.  The Bible clearly tells us that God's wisdom is foolishness to the world.

Yes, Jesus did teach us what to do.  He did tell people to go and sin no more.  Jesus knew his scripture as well as any Pharisee.  But Jesus always fell on the side of compassion, not on the side of rule mongering.  The Pharisees hated him for it.  Do we?  Would we rather uphold the rules with no regard for who we step on or hurt, or do we err on the side of compassion.

I believe that we will be held accountable for our choices and our actions.  We are all sinners.  But God did the compassionate thing in sending Jesus to die for our sins.  If I am going to err, I would much rather err on the side of compassion than by heartlessly following the rules.  If that is wrong, well, I know that my redeemer lives and that I am forgiven.