The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, 15 August 2021: Clapham, Eldroth
Wisdom has built her house. She calls us: ‘Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.’
In a rapidly-warming world, Wisdom has built her house.
In these very moments of our receiving the sobering news of the intergovernmental report confirming the widespread and “unprecedented” changes to the climate that are “unequivocally” the result of human actions: Wisdom has built her house. [1]
In those very places where extreme weather is worsening, where temperatures are rising, where storms, heatwaves, droughts and floods increase and sea levels rise - in this very world, right now, Wisdom has built her house.
If you are wondering how we can find a way through these times, to whom can we and the coming generations turn for direction, then scripture reassures us of the offer of the gift of Wisdom.
If we step away from the noise of the news and social media reducing discussion of this most vital of topics to an opposition between the deniers and the doomsters - those who refuse to believe what is plainly before us and those who can see in this nothing but destruction for humankind - if we step away from this in search of a deeper, kinder, hopeful, practical wisdom then we will be assured: that Wisdom can be found. She has made her home among us and she has an open door.
Many seeking wisdom in a time of climate change are finding it in the indigenous peoples of the earth: those who ‘despite centuries of political, social and ecological upheavals, have maintained their deep, ancient relationships with their historic lands and waters’. [2] The conservation biologist Gleb Raygorodetsky, after two decades of work with indigenous peoples worldwide, finds wisdom in these people’s “sort of intimate, spiritual relationship with the land, with the planet… a more holistic way of relating to the land, the animals and our place in this planet.” [3]
Likewise, Christian Aid are finding wisdom in the words of partners and theologians from the global South, publishing a paper on a global theology of climate change featuring voices including that of Uruguayan Guillermo Kerber. He believes that climate change is an urgent question of justice and that it’s about our three-way relationship with God, the vulnerable ones of the earth, and the earth itself.
Together with the cry of the poor, people, and Christians in particular, should listen to the cry, the groaning, of the earth and respond effectively,’ he says. [4]
Wisdom may be found when we open our hearts, minds and ears to God - in prayer and together seeking understanding of the scriptures; to the poor - by listening to what those voices from the South have to say about our world, its patterns and systems, and our relationships within them; and to the earth itself - by understanding the deep web of connections between flora and fauna and our place, our roles, within that.
This brings me to someone closer to home to whom I often turn for practical and spiritual wisdom: Alastair McIntosh, who describes himself as a ‘human ecologist’, studying the ‘relationships between the natural environment and the social environment.’ McIntosh says that ‘To do human ecology, like doing theology, is to pull on a tangled ball of string. You cannot unravel one loop until you've understood the network of connections.’ This requires a deepening of spiritual vision. ‘Science gives outer sight, but spirituality complements this with in-sight,’ he says. [5]
McIntosh’s search for wisdom embraces all kinds of spiritual practices and traditions, but is firmly rooted in his upbringing as a Presbyterian in the traditions and time-honoured ways of life of the Isle of Lewis. In his current book Riders on the Storm he addresses the global themes of climate change by taking a walk along the shore of his home village of Leurbost to closely observe how the relationships between people and nature have shaped that particular landscape and how they are now changing. A deep conversation arises on the Leurbost shore, enriched all the more by the companions he has invited on that walk, a delegation of visitors from Papua New Guinea. [6]
This causes me to think that if we are seeking Wisdom’s house in our place, then our place is the best place to begin. To rightly assume that Wisdom has built her house in our particular patch of land. Whilst we may - and we must - learn a lot from the world’s indigenous peoples and those of the global South, and from the earth itself, we must also be confident that we can find the wisdom we need for this time of climate change in our own ‘indigenous’ ways, in the old ways in which we have related to our own soil and each other, those traditional practices on the land and in the home which may have been eclipsed in recent decades by industrial agricultural practices and all the fripperies and distractions of the consumer boom, but which we still value. Making do and mending as an antidote to consuming and discarding. Collaborating as community as an antidote to ploughing on alone.
Through a fatal misreading of the Genesis story Christianity has often justified the ravaging of the earth by presenting it as God’s gift to humankind for us to dominate and exploit. But within our scriptures there is also the Wisdom tradition, found in the books of Proverbs, Job, the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, which ‘are about everyday life. About how to keep going.’ The Wisdom tradition in scripture ‘focusses on things like misbehaving children and mischievous gossip. It's about chronic illness and how to cope with it. It's about keeping your temper and keeping to time. It's about the perils of making money and the joys of making love. … It is obviously and immediately relevant to the concerns of ordinary people.’ [7]
Where has Wisdom built her house? Here - where our everyday duties meet the life of faith. Wisdom has built her house here - in our world of work and of getting on with other people. Wisdom has built her house here - as we draw on our experiences of life in nature, and our life in this land. Wisdom has built her house here - as we recall the instructions our forebears gave us as to how to live our lives in tandem with nature and its ways. And finally, Wisdom has built her house right here in this very place of worship - as we practice the old religion which is always aligned to the seasons of the year and the ways of people on the earth, as we share in the bread and wine, ‘the ordinary things of the world which Christ makes special’ to us [8], renewing our hearts and minds by allowing ourselves to be reminded of the love God has for us, receiving God’s Wisdom to refresh us in living in the way of that love in our everyday lives.
Here’s a thought. This summer, why not spend time with the Bible's books of wisdom:
'Come, eat of my bread, says Wisdom, and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.'
Notes
[1] Fiona Harvey, Worst polluting countries must make drastic carbon cuts, says Cop26 chief. Guardian, 9 August 2021.
[2] Emily Gertz, How the World’s Oldest Wisdom Is Informing Modern Responses to Climate Change. The Revelator, 8 November 2017.
[3] Emily Gertz, ibid. Raygorodetsky’s work with indigenous peoples is fully described in Gleb Raygorodetsky, The Archipelago of Hope: Wisdom and Resilience from the Edge of Climate Change. See also https://archipelagohope.com.
[4] Susan Durber, Song of the Prophets: a global theology of climate change [PDF]. Christian Aid, November 2014, p.11-12.
[5] Alastair McIntosh's Home Page, http://www.alastairmcintosh.com.
[6] Alastair McIntosh, Riders on the Storm: The Climate Crisis and the Survival of Being. p.1-2.
[7] John Pridmore, ‘What’s right with wisdom’, Church Times, 18 August 2006. See my earlier sermon Proverbs 9 - Wisdom's house, for a fuller discourse on this.
[8] Adapted from Iona Community, Liturgy for Holy Communion B, A Wee Worship Book: Fourth Incarnation, p.96.
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