Sermon at West Grimstead St. John’s Parish Church, Trinity Sunday – Sunday 12th June 2022
Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31; Romans 5:1-5;
John 16:12-15
Trinity
Sunday is always a difficult one for the preacher – I think this is often the
reason that sermons on this day are often given to the more junior members of a
ministry team and today is no exception.
Each of the
readings sets up a challenge. When I
first saw the reading from Proverbs, I had just completed reading Professor Jo
Dunkley’s account of the current hypothesis for the creation of the Universe
with its complicated explanations of quarks, bosons, dark matter, dark energy,
gravitational lensing and so on. Here, in Proverbs we are told that Wisdom was
created before all else – before the creation of the Universe and all it
contains! Was this the answer? Well, no,
and it certainly contradicted the scientists’ current view of how the Universe
came into existence.
The writer
of Proverbs, believed to be that great monarch who was famed for his wisdom,
King Solomon, is using prose and poetry to express his idea of the importance
of wisdom in our daily lives. Proverbs is regarded by biblical scholars as not
being one of historic or autobiographical fact but a book of wise sayings which
still, in my view, provide an important tool for world today.
In our
modern technological age we are obsessed with obtaining knowledge. Every day we look at our computers and smart
phones or televisions to find out what is going on and we are constantly fed
with the opinions of others as they seek to persuade us of their own thoughts
and ideas – this is one of the dangers of social media and the easy way in
which ideas, both good and bad, can be communicated to millions. Knowledge
often is no longer turned into wisdom but the new thirst is for “information”
often whether true or not. Instead of
looking at original sources we are tempted to read accounts by self-publishers
often without verification. It is an
easy option. I can scarcely believe that
when I was at university there were neither calculators nor computers and that
my research had to rely on learned books, pens and paper. No getting the laptop
out and searching Google or Wikipedia for that important law case to
support my essay – I had to go to a text book and then the library to thumb
through endless law reports to find the original text. How much easier, and
better grades I would have received, perhaps, if I had been able to sit at my
computer and churn out the essays more easily. However, it did mean that I had
to use my own brain and resources to find answers to my tutor’s requirements.
As an interesting experiment, I have written this sermon today without the use
of my computer other than as a typewriter.
Knowledge,
as opposed to simple information, is certainly useful in trying to understand
what is going on in the world but it should never be confused with wisdom. Wisdom is, essentially, the gift of knowing
what to do with the knowledge obtained. It is, in my view, a far greater gift than a
massive reserve of knowledge. As the writer of Proverbs so beautifully puts it
– “I was daily [God’s] delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in
his inhabited world and delighted in the human race”.
I have been
fortunate to have been brought up in a country where education is relatively
good and free. I have been fortunate enough to attend good schools and
universities with support from my parents and family. I was also brought up in
a house of books where the pursuit of knowledge was encouraged. My parents were not themselves professionals
or academics but they had wisdom – wisdom to encourage and assist both my
sister and myself to pursue better careers than themselves.
Wisdom is
about knowing what the right thing to do in any given circumstance and to know
that it is necessary to have sound knowledge of the circumstance first and
apply it. I sometimes feel that I know
quite a lot more than I actually need for life – lots of useless facts and
figures – be it football or cricket scores, steam locomotive numbers or the
registration numbers of Grimsby buses – yes I do know those! My knowledge has been useful in helping my
teams win pub quizzes on occasions and people may describe me as clever, but in
my opinion the cleverest people are not those with such knowledge but those who
we would describe as being wise. During
times of prayer I nearly always include one for wisdom and not knowledge. Let
me give you a personal example.
You will all
know, I have no doubt, that in recent months I have had to undergo some intense
treatment for a chronic condition and this is the reason I have had to step
back to some extent with my ministry. In the months leading up to my treatment
I was bombarded with facts about my condition but, ultimately, I had to make a
decision based upon those same facts as to which treatment it was best to have.
I prayed a lot about it – asking for wisdom to choose what was best for
me. Following that I felt able to be
humble enough to ask the right questions which resulted in a clear decision
being made – a decision for which I shall be eternally grateful. I was also grateful to have the prayers and
thoughts of those around me and I am convinced that they contributed, in a
large measure, to the “stupendous success” as reported by my consultant on
Thursday. In my mind, wisdom is the
greatest gift which God can give us but it does require us to have a certain
humility and great Faith too.
Our second
reading, containing one of my favourite quotes from St. Paul, encapsulates this
perfectly. He says, and it is worth repeating it again here, “Since we are
justified by Faith” – in other words since we, as Christians, have been
saved through our firm and unshaken belief in Jesus Christ – “we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to
this grace in which we stand…” – here Paul’s saying that we have access to
the support God can supply by his grace through sending us his son, Jesus as
our Saviour – “… and we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering
produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces
hope and hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our
hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us”. In other words, although things can get
tough, yes especially for Christians it often seems, such sufferings can be the
making of us and we can continue to live in hope. This message was further illustrated in a real
historic drama when Ernest Shackleton’s aptly named ship “Endurance” was
trapped and crushed in the Antarctic ice and although he and his crew suffered
the most ghastly of deprivations they showed the character which produced hope
and a safe return for every crew member to their home country.
Finally let
us leave the final word to Jesus himself. In our reading from John’s gospel
Jesus tells his disciples that they will be blessed with the Holy Spirit – “the
Spirit of Truth” - as he calls it. “When the Spirit of Truth comes he will
guide you into the truth” promises Jesus. Here he is telling his disciples
– and don’t ever forget that us Christians today are his modern day disciples
that the Holy Spirit will provide the wisdom we need being what God gave to
Jesus in order to save the world.
Although the
Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is never fully explained in the Bible
these passages are especially important for us to use the wisdom we have been
given to understand the concept better. Proverbs tells us that Wisdom was with
God right at the beginning, Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is Wisdom and
John tells us that Jesus (“the Word”) was also with God at the beginning and
Genesis tells us that God was at the beginning. In other words Father, Son and
Holy Spirit were all three at the beginning and therefore are the Three in One
Trinity.
This is the
inevitable universal conclusion we must reach. Before quarks, bosons, and the
like we had the Trinity; and that is what we celebrate this Sunday.
Amen MFB/171/10062022
