Dwelling in the House of God: Wisdom

Sermon for The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15

Saint Peter's | Arlington, VA

1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14

On the northern coast of Ireland is a place called “Corrymeela.” In Irish the word translates roughly to “the hill of harmony.” It’s an appropriate name, not just because it overlooks the small town and the Irish Sea below from its perch on the side of a cliff, but because this place was instrumental through many years of conflict.

In 1965, amid rising sectarianism and political violence that spilled out onto streets, Corrymeela was founded as an ecumenical Christian community committed to peacebuilding and reconciliation. People of all faiths, political persuasions, and social backgrounds gather to listen and learn.

And through the simple acts of storytelling and deep listening, something transformative takes place: curiosity slowly breaks down the barriers of polarization and meaningful relationships take shape. Even to this day, groups from from across the world—including places like South Africa, Palestine, and my small liberal arts school in Chicago—visit to learn from the wisdom of this place and the people that form it.

This morning, as we continue our sermons series on “Dwelling in the Household of God,” I can’t think of a better image than this place.

At the center of Corrymeela there is a building known as “The Croí”—or, in Irish, “the heart.” After entering its front doors, you pass through a corridor that gently slopes downward and inward. Moving through this long artery-like passageway is a physical reorientation that prepared a different kind of inward posture. And at the end of this spiral, you enter into a chamber filled with natural light, with colors that dance on the wall from stained glass, and with a profound silence. It’s a circular room lined with inward facing benches facing. And it was here in the Croí, at the height of the Troubles, that critical mediations were facilitated between paramilitary groups; just picture for a moment people deeply entrenched in war against one another, seated on those benches, gazing across that sacred silence into one another’s eyes, perhaps for the very first time.

Not every moment is quite so dramatic, though. Once a week the folks at Corrymeela also gather to discuss the practical matters of being in community: which mostly sounds like complaining and patiently listening to the complaining of others. What is required to maintain functional relationship though comes from that collective discernment that unfolds in the Croí. And what emerges from that heart tells us much about the key to wisdom.

In 1 Kings, after a long and successful reign during which a great and mighty kingdom has been established, King David has died. Solomon now takes the throne. But as a young child, how is he possibly to govern the people as his father did? We can almost hear him fretting over the impossibility of maintaining peace between so many different people—of holding together a household that is intended to be a light of God’s love to all

nations. With a trembling fear of the task at hand, Solomon prayers: “O Lord my God...Give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?”

Because Solomon’s humility and servant heart pleases God, he is granted with “a wise and discerning mind,” unlike anyone before or after we are told.

Even in his youth, Solomon senses there is more to wisdom than knowledge. He recognizes there’s something about his father’s character that made him fit for the task at hand—about the way King David walked “in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward God.” As we look at the whole of David’s life, wee see a

display of the words from the Psalmist today, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Solomon surely does not know many things but what he does grasp is absolutely critical: knowledge is not the key to wisdom.

Wisdom is about who we are and what we are. Wisdom is about how we live. To be wise is to seek after the ingredients of what makes for a full life and in discovering them to not let it go to waste. Instead, it is to consume the gift of life like bread from heaven and be reshaped into the kind of flourishing God intends for us. Now, we’ve heard quite a lot of about “eternal life” and “living bread” these recent weeks; it is a concern very much related to how we enter into the household of God and dwell on it’s secure foundation.

But lest we get lost in lofty ideals, the epistle to the Ephesians lays out some practicalities fort us... “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.”

What do “evil days” look like? You tell me... Maybe they look like a polarized campaign season and a palpable threat of political violence. Perhaps they look like lives cut short: whether of Palestinians fleeing destruction or of a beloved family member.

What the writer of Ephesians has in mind is days full of expectation. It is what we call “kairos time:” when at any moment God will break into and transform the reality of our lives. Days like this bring a sense of urgency, so it matters a great deal how we live within them. So, lest we miss out on the thing God’s Spirit is about to do, we best get ourselves ready to receive it.

But the wisdom Ephesians would guide us toward is perhaps not what we might expect... There are indeed many demands in these days, Ephesians writes and grabs our attention. So, be careful how you live: with singing and melody making. Guard your hearts in with thanksgiving. Practice praise even in dark days. Consume the goodness of life. Govern your life and our shared life together with an unbridled joy—and in doing so be filled with the Spirit.

This is much the same as the wisdom Ephesians guides us toward.

Because it is the within the marrow of life that God dwells. And as will be later declared in the Gospel of John, Christ meets us in our lives that we might know the abundance surrounding us—and by fully embracing all of it as a gift allow the joy of God to be made complete within us.

Those seeking the sure foundation of God’s household need only listen to what is spoken in the croí. Friends, may we let its gentle wisdom lead us to an eternal joy that unfolds in us even in this present.

Amen