Sermon preached at the "Unbound!" Conference 1999

THE MOST REVEREND FRANK T. GRISWOLD PRESIDING BISHOP AND PRIMATE

Wisdom of Solomon 7:7-14

1 Corinthians 2:6-10, 13-16

John 17:18-23

"I prayed and the spirit of wisdom came upon me," Solomon tells us in the first reading. It is important to note that his pursuit of wisdom begins not with an effort to acquire information, to amass knowledge or to satisfy a rapacious intellect, but with prayer: a welcoming of sacred mystery in all its fullness in the depths of his heart: "my heart is ready, O God" (Ps. 57).

Prayer is "an openness to love on every level ot our being," as a great teacher of prayer observes with all the simplicity of one who has prayed deeply. Here also the wisdom of another great prayer, A. J. Heschel, comes to mind. "The purpose of prayer is not the same as the purpose of speech ... the purpose of speech is to inform-the purpose of prayer is to partake."

To partake is not of "a wisdom of this age or that of its rulers" but a secret and hidden wisdom "taught by the Spirit" which, in being received and given a home within us, makes us "friends of God." For wisdom, as it is set before us in today's readings, is profoundly relational-opening us to God and to one another, and over time working in us "the mind of Christ."

Jesus' prayer for his disciples in John's gospel is that they be consecrated in truth, and thereby be made one in the relationship of mutual love and self-devotion which exists between himself and the Father. This prayer once again underscores the relational quality of wisdom or, in this case, truth. The fact, too, that Jesus in the same gospel proclaims himself (and not a body of information or collection of laws) to be the Truth, reveals the personal character of truth which is too much for some to bear just as it was for some of Jesus' hearers to bear when he said, "Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you" (John 6:53), that ultimate declaration of intimacy and abiding relatedness to which we give assent every time we celebrate and receive the Eucharist.

To pray "is dangerous: it gives the Spirit the freedom to blow where it wills; it unleashes within us the Divine imagination, which passes all understanding; to pray binds us in webs of relationship not of our own making or designing; it brings us the 'uncounted wealth' of being able to find God in all things, particularly the paradoxical, the ambiguous, and what scripture calls the 'crooked."' "Consider the work of God. Who can make straight," Ecclesiastes asks, "what God has made crooked?" (Eccles 7:13). Prayer delivers us from the need to straighten, fix and purify out of our own urgency rather than God's desire; it delivers us out of the accusing rectitude of the evil one who, as Paul tells us, masquerades as an angel of light, as a greater good, a more noble cause, as some abstraction of virtue which can only blame and condemn and knows nothing of mercy.

Prayer is also, and foremost, not our work, but the activity of the Spirit who prays within us "with sighs too deep for words," as we are told in Romans 8. Here I am put in mind of Psalm 27 in which the Psalmist cries out, "You [O God] speak in my heart and say, 'Seek my face.' Your face, Lord, will I seek." Our prayer is our "yes" to the voice of the Spirit within that fills us with wordless desire and yearning. For what? Wisdom, truth, righteousness, justice, mercy, intimacy.

Why have I spent so much time on prayer? Quite simply because as Evagrius Ponticus many centuries ago declared, "A theologian is one who prays." Without prayer the theological task can become arrogant, self-serving and altogether disconnected from the mystery it seeks to name and serve. Theology, before all else, is a contemplative exercise: speak, Lord, for your servant is listening--listening with unstopped ears to whatever the Spirit is saying to the Churches both from within and from without.

"I prayed and the spirit of wisdom came upon me...." One of the characteristics of wisdom as recorded in Proverbs 8:30 is playfulness--rejoicing before him always playing continually before God. Which brings me to liturgical prayer-the encounter with Christ, the wisdom of God in signs, symbols, and sacraments which both point to and convey what they signify. "You have shown yourself to me, O Christ, face to face. I have met you in your sacraments," exclaims St. Ambrose in his Apologia Prophetae David. And that showing, that meeting occurs as one enters undefendedly into the liturgical action which is itself a form of sacred play: festive baths and festive meals, not to mention dressing up and wearing fantastical hats (and I should know), processions into make-believe cities. All these are ways in which wisdom beguiles us, fascinates us and draws us out of ourselves and through Baptism into the body of Christ and invites us to partake of her feast at the table of the Eucharist: "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed" (Prov. 9:5).

Wisdom and truth meet us in wonderfully wry and ironic ways in other sacramental rites as well: "Welcome to the human condition," said a confessor of mine with a wink and a smile after a particularly turgid and self-castigating confession. I was shocked but also set free as absolution took the form of self-welcoming and grace-impelled laughter.