The Fermented Life
Proper 15B-24
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago
The University of Chicago launched the Center for Practical Wisdom in 2016 to deepen scientific understanding of wisdom in everyday life. They found seven components of wisdom, including three they say are the most important: compassion, emotional regulation, and self-reflection. Wise people and wise communities are more stable, happy, trusting, decisive, and healthy. Researchers are excited because while intelligence does not usually increase with age, there are ways we can grow in wisdom.
Science confirms wisdom is good. Something the bible has been saying for 2,000 years. Sophia, or Lady Wisdom, is a master builder working beside God throughout creation. The author of Proverbs writes, “Wisdom has built her house” (Proverbs 9:1). When the house is ready, she throws a party for everyone. “Come, eat my food and drink the wine,” she invites the whole neighborhood to her feast (9:5). Eucharist is an extension of this party. When we meet Jesus at this humble banquet table we partake of his body and blood to dwell in the shelter of the Lord, and to become living stones that adding to the house that Wisdom is building now.
Who comes to mind when you think of people who are wise? Researchers report King Solomon still ranks high on people’s list as an example of a wise person—along with Jesus, Socrates, Lincoln, Gandhi, Mandela, and Churchill. On the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, we pray to God for wisdom. What can King Solomon teach us about how to be wise? The answer may depend on how far we’re willing to go in separating the man from the myth.
The myth of Solomon reads like a fairy tale. As the story goes, King Solomon asked God for wisdom and God granted his wish and more. Visited by God in a dream, Solomon refused to ask for wealth, power, or long life. Instead, Solomon said, “I am only a child. Therefore, give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, and to discern between good and evil.” God was so pleased with the king’s request; he promised not only to grant it — to make him the wisest in history — but to grant him every other measure of greatness as well. Untold wealth, matchless honor, and long life.
Solomon’s reputation for brilliance spread across the land. He made strategic political and economic alliances; maintained fleets of ships; built gorgeous temples and palaces; traded in luxuries such as gold, silver, and ivory; penned the greatest wisdom literature of his time; presided over the Golden Age of his kingdom; and finally handed over the throne to his son after a peaceable reign of forty years.
This is the Solomon story many of us know best—and is probably the reason his reputation for wisdom still ranks high in people’s minds today. But this story doesn’t offer much we can learn from or emulate. We are just plain out of luck unless God comes to offer us the same deal. Fortunately for us, there’s more to Solomon’s story that offers insight about where wisdom comes from and is also a cautionary tale about how easily we mess it up.
The bible gets real. We learn more about the man behind the myth. As this story goes there once was a shrewd prince named Solomon. Following the death of the king, the prince ordered the murder of his older brother — the rightful heir — and assumed his father’s throne with blood on his hands. He spent the earliest days of his reign carrying out the vengeance killings his father had requested before his death. Then, believing himself to have divine wisdom and a divine mandate, he set out to build the kingdom of his dreams — a kingdom of wealth, prestige, and power.
The king’s appetites were beyond excessive. He levied taxes his subjects could not bear. He conscripted thousands of people into forced labor. He assembled a harem of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. He constructed pagan shrines and offered worship to gods who demanded child sacrifice. When he died a civil war ultimately split the kingdom in two. The famed king’s once-golden dream dissolved into chaos.
Solomon the myth is a happy story. But Solomon the man is the one who can teach us most about wisdom. Yes. For good or for ill, the story of God’s work in the world unfolds in and through the lives of ordinary human beings. But notice, Solomon demonstrated his greatest wisdom before God granted him his wish. He was humble, compassionate, and self-reflective. Solomon said to God, “I am only a child.” True wisdom begins with knowing our limits. Respect, reverence, and awe before God is the tap root of wisdom. Accepting criticism. Being open to learning/growing. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (Psalm 111:10). This example of Solomon’s wisdom is an example we can all learn to emulate.
Solomon’s story is also a cautionary tale about how easily we can lose God’s dream in our own. His great wealth proved to be, not a blessing, but an obstacle. Too often, money creates a moral vacuum. Solomon remained wealthy while he sacrificed babies to Molech. Solomon’s dreams of acquisition and power very quickly left God’s dreams in the dust.
Walter Brueggemann puts it this way: “The wisdom that Solomon does not learn is attentiveness to those for whom God has special attentiveness. There are all kinds of dreams — of power and money and prestige and control. But the dream of justice for widows, orphans, and immigrants is the deep wisdom of Torah obedience.” And that’s the dream — God’s dream for the least and most vulnerable of his children — that Solomon never fulfills. (Debi Thomas, “The Beginning of Wisdom,” Journey with Jesus, 8/12/18)
At the Center for Practical Wisdom, one component they identify with wisdom remains controversial: spirituality. They define spirituality as feeling constantly connected with something or someone that we do not see, hear or feel. People can call it spirit, soul, consciousness, or God.
God. Yes, God is the beginning of wisdom. Look, here is spiritual food. Here is wisdom interwoven with bread and wine. Here is a poetic feast of spiritual maturity and a way of life that begets more life. Wine and bread are both fermented foods. They are each the result of a process of transformation that cannot be rushed and is often delicate. Bread must be worked, kneaded, left to rise, reworked, and baked. Wine is the result of weeks or months or even years of yeasts breaking down sugar and slowly turning fruit into alcohol. The incarnation of Spirit is God’s yeasty gift to us. Dwelling in the Spirit, our lives become fermented and fragrant as we slowly grow in wisdom. (Diana Butler Bass, “The Fermented Life,” Sunday Musings, 8/17/24) Immanuel’s mission is rooted in this. Our vision and our prayer is to be a living sanctuary of hope and grace.
