KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE September 17, 2006 John W. Vest Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church Proverbs 1:20-33   When I was a young child, I lived for Saturday morning cartoons. Saturday was the one morning out of the week when I actually wanted to get up early so that I wouldn’t miss my favorite shows. In its own way, it was a special time all to myself, a time before my parents or sister began their days, when it was just me, a bowl of sugary cereal, and my imagination. Bugs Bunny and Popeye were there, Spider-Man and his amazing friends, too. In the innocence of my childhood, before I learned to be critical of war and cynical about the messages conveyed during those Saturday morning hours of cultural indoctrination, one of my favorite cartoons was G.I. Joe. G.I. Joe has changed a great deal over the years, going way back before my time. When I was a child in the mid-eighties, G.I. Joe had become an elite counterterrorist team of military specialists who were locked in a perpetual battle with an evil organization called COBRA. The soldiers of G.I. Joe were caricatures of patriotic valor and virtue, not unlike the heroes of Greek mythology who embodied what the Greeks called arete—goodness, excellence, virtue. The soldiers were personifications of the skills and characteristics that each excelled at—leadership, intelligence, stealth, the healing arts, engineering, and various forms of combat. And don’t forget, they each had their own cool action figure that you could collect and play with on endless missions of your own. At the end of each G.I. Joe episode, one or more of the characters would host a little vignette that was something like a public service announcement for kids, teaching us valuable life lessons. From Roadblock I learned not to tell a stranger where I lived; from Barbeque, what to do if my house was on fire; from Gung-Ho, that girls can skateboard too and that we shouldn’t judge people; and from Leatherneck, to always wear sunscreen. These and many other important words of wisdom were delivered each week, without fail, from one of my cartoon heroes. And you can bet that I paid much more attention to them than to my parents, who were, of course, telling me the exact same things. My favorite part was at the very end. Each vignette closed with the same catchphrase, an expression that I think I will remember my entire life: “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.” Even saying it now, I can still hear the G.I. Joe theme song that would always follow. Seemingly far removed from Saturday morning cartoons, the biblical book of Proverbs is a literary depository of the wisdom traditions of ancient Israel. Most of this wisdom is delivered in the form of short, pithy sayings, the kinds of things your grandmother might pass on to you as you grow up: “A wise child makes a glad father, but a foolish child is a mother’s grief” (Proverbs 10:1). Others sound like something Benjamin Franklin might have said: “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (Proverbs 10:4). Yet in the passage we read this evening, wisdom is conveyed by a personification, not of the various virtues of American patriotism like those heroes from G.I. Joe, but a personification of wisdom itself—Hochma in the original Hebrew, or Sophia as she is better known in Greek. What an interesting device this is, personifying wisdom as a woman crying out in the street, longing to be heard and listened to. I wonder what her action figure was like? “Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice.” The book of Proverbs is about wisdom; it isn’t about knowledge, if you can appreciate the distinction. Proverbs isn’t a textbook of accumulated facts and information. You see, there is a significant difference between wisdom and intelligence. Lots of people are incredibly smart, but lack wisdom. I’m sure you know some of those people. For many of us, all it takes is a look in the mirror. One of my best friends is named Daniel, and our friendship goes back to our freshmen year of college, where they taught us to be smart. And between the two of us, we represent a number of degrees and a lot of formal education. Daniel is a surgeon, and one of these days I will complete my PhD in biblical studies. Yet when we get together, especially when we get together to enjoy our shared passion for hiking and camping, we always manage to do something that belies our basic intelligence. One time on a trip in college we decided that it was a lovely night to sleep under the stars, so we didn’t bother to put up the tent. I’m sure you know what comes next. We were rudely awakened by raindrops splashing on our faces as the stars that we enjoyed sleeping under somehow managed to disappear behind dark rain clouds. It was awfully cold that evening as we were forced to assemble the tent in the rain—without shoes or rain gear. And then there was the time, just a year and a half ago, after we had supposedly become responsible adults, that we found ourselves lost on a remote trail in the middle of the night with nothing but headlamps to help us find our way. As another friend of mine is fond of saying, Daniel and I are probably too much college and not enough high school. Wisdom can’t be learned from reading a book or achieved through careful study. Wisdom takes time and experience. The film Good Will Hunting is a wonderful parable about this very observation. The title character, played by Matt Damon, is a genius with an iron-clad memory; he retains pretty much everything that he reads. Will Hunting possesses a great deal of intelligence but is seriously deficient in wisdom. In this film he slowly realizes that true wisdom comes from actually living life, not just reading about it. Yet I believe that wisdom takes even more than just time or experience. I believe that this scene from the book of Proverbs is telling us that wisdom is a gift from God. “Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice.” The wisdom traditions of Proverbs and other similar books are unique in the Bible. Here it is not about law; it is not about prophecy; it is not about careful interpretation of biblical texts; it is not about worship. It is about life. Most of Jesus’ teachings came in the form of parables, simple stories drawn from real life. Wisdom doesn’t cry out in a classroom; she doesn’t cry out in a court of law; she doesn’t cry out in a city hall or a house of representatives; she doesn’t even cry out in a sanctuary or a temple. “Wisdom cries out in the street.” Go through those doors and you’ll find her. Indeed, if you pay attention, you can’t miss her. Yet her teaching doesn’t come by books of theology, philosophy, or science. You must slow down and listen, for her teaching is oral. “Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice.” Like other aspects of God’s loving grace, wisdom is a free gift from God that doesn’t require anything more than to be open to it. You have to know what to listen for. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” it is said earlier in the book of Proverbs (1:7). Wisdom is heard by ears attuned to the language of God. Not everyone will hear this voice we hear. Yet how often even we who hear her ignore her, and how great is the cost when we do? “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?” Wisdom’s words sting in their directness but ring true in their accuracy. The picture Wisdom paints is not a pretty one: calamity . . . panic . . . distress . . . anguish. Left to our own devices, ignorant of Wisdom’s cries and pleas, our lives quickly spiral out of control. And in the end, more often than not, there is no one we can blame but ourselves. I believe that God has set up the world in such a way that every action or inaction has a consequence. We reap what we sow, the saying goes. Or as Wisdom says here, we eat the fruit of our ways. This is one of the mysteries of God’s providence: we are left to follow the path that we choose, but every step along that path will bring consequences, both good and bad. If we would only listen to Wisdom when she cries, we would surely find peace and happiness. But when we ignore her voice, disaster is just as sure to follow. In its purest form, Israelite wisdom is very black and white. There are two paths that you can choose, one that leads to prosperity and life, and one that leads to destruction and death. How lucky we would be if life were actually that easy. But we all know that life is not that simple. Thank God that Wisdom still speaks. In books like Job, Wisdom explores the shades of gray that exist between the black and the white. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the wicked prosper? Why isn’t the world the way it should be? The passage from Proverbs we read this evening doesn’t have answers to these questions. “Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice.” I can’t tell you exactly what wisdom is saying to you. I can’t convince you of her truth. As a teacher or as a preacher, I can only bring you up to a certain point. You must seek her out. You must open your ears, and your minds, and your hearts. “Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice.” Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. Amen.