Texts:
Wisdom of Solomon 6: 12-30; Matthew 35: 1-13How often have we looked to someone for an answer to a problem only to discover that the answer lies deep within ourselves? More often than we think. Sometimes that answer is an obvious one. And, when we look to someone else who then gives us a sensible and reasonable solution, we think, “Ah, how wise.” That quality we call wisdom is much more than simply
knowing an answer to a problem we face. It is
understanding the answer.
The ancients had many different approaches to the concept of wisdom. Socrates said that the beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms. Or, as the old Chinese proverb says, calling things by their right names. The Hebrew Scriptures take several approaches to the idea of wisdom. The beginning of wisdom, says the Psalmist, is...
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Texts: Isaiah 25: 1-9; Matthew 22: 1-14
Several weeks ago I officiated at the wedding of one of my paralegals and her long time boyfriend at Shadowbrook. Other than the fact that all she had been talking about for the last month was her wedding, which is understandable, of course, I was struck by the – oh, how can I say it – the elaborateness of the facilities, the food, and the rest of it. What a far cry from my own wedding before which I argued with the minister about the language of the vows, or its fairly simple punchbowl and cookies reception, or even the fact that there was no videographer or fourteen people with cameras wandering all over the place to get photos of the event. Weddings have changed in many ways, to be sure. But I remind myself, for every grand show wedding there is also one in a room next to the kitch...
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Texts:
Ezekiel 34: 1-17; John 10: 1-10 In 1785 Marie Antoinette commissioned her favorite architect Richard Mique and court painter Robert Hubert to build what came to be called
L’Hameau de la Reine, or the Queen’s Hamlet. Nestled within the properties at Versailles near the
Petit Trianon, a special chateau built for Madame de Pompadour thirty years before, this remarkable set of buildings contained a working farm where Marie Antoinette would milk cows into buckets of Sevres porcelain with a specially designed royal seal, have her portrait painted as a shepherdess, and cavort about while the people starved in the slums of Paris. Can anyone who has seen the old Ronald Coleman film
A Tale of Two Cities ever forget that scene where the nobleman throws out a copper coin for having run over a small bo...
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Texts:
1 Kings 21: 1-21; Luke 7: 18-35In his book
Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift has his protagonist travel to a land called Lilliput. Having been washed ashore following a shipwreck, Gulliver collapses on the shore and falls asleep. He wakes up to find himself tied down by hundreds of small ropes and cannot move. In spite of his overwhelming size Gulliver has been subdued and cannot break free. He has discovered the limits of power. What Gulliver decides is that the petty differences between religions, philosophies, and governments are nonsensical and that human beings must find other ways of settling their disagreements.
We human beings have a hard time considering the limits of our ability to control our surroundings, to influence the outcome of events, or to manipulate others. We really beli...
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