Wisdom to Know our Place

Creationtide 2: Sirach 42:15–43:12; Psalm 104; Matthew 11:25-30

There are some passages of Scripture where the preacher has to work hard to find the theme. Today is not one of them.

Sirach looks at the sun, the moon, the stars, the rainbow, and the changing world around us and says, in essence, pay attention. The Psalmist looks at the same creation and says, pay attention. Then Jesus looks at us and says something we might not want to hear. Some things are hidden from the wise and intelligent and revealed to little ones.

That does not mean God has something against intelligence. Thank God for intelligence. Thank God for education. Thank God for science and medicine and scholarship. I spend much of my week these days teaching seventh-grade science. We have been talking about how energy moves through the earth. Radiation. Conduction. Convection. Wind. Water. Ocean currents. And the more I teach science, the less patience I have for the idea that science somehow diminishes God. For me, the opposite keeps happening.

You begin looking closely at how one system affects another. The sun warms the earth. The land and water warm differently. Air begins to move. Water moves through atmosphere, soil, rivers, oceans, plants, animals, and us. Nothing exists by itself. Everything is connected to something else. And somewhere along the way you realize the Psalmist already understood something we keep forgetting. Creation is not a collection of isolated things. Creation is relationship. Psalm 104 looks at springs and mountains, trees and birds, sun and moon, people and animals. Even Leviathan, the great sea creature ancient people feared, has a place. Nothing stands alone. And neither do we.

This is where our readings become uncomfortable because we live in a culture overflowing with information. We have access to more information than any generation before us. We carry devices in our pockets with access to libraries, satellite images, weather models, medical research, theology, history, news from across the planet, and arguments from strangers we will never meet. We know a lot. And yet knowing things has not automatically made us wise.

We know what pollution does. We know what extreme heat does to the human body. We know water is precious. We know consumption has consequences. We know forests matter. We know oceans matter. We know other species matter. We know our choices affect people we will never meet. The question is no longer whether we know. The question is whether we have wisdom.

Scripture makes a distinction. Knowledge tells me what happens. Wisdom asks how I should live because I know it. Knowledge observes the world. Wisdom learns from it. Knowledge gathers facts. Wisdom accepts responsibility. And biblical wisdom carries something else with it. Humility. Wisdom begins when I accept that I am not God.

Living here in the Valley should teach us something about limits. We have just come through another stretch of September heat where walking outside reminds you quickly that human beings do not control everything. We live in a desert. Water matters here. Shade matters here. Trees matter here. The temperature matters here. And those realities are not experienced equally.

Some of us leave an air-conditioned house, get into an air-conditioned car, drive to an air-conditioned building, and complain about the heat during the thirty seconds between them. Others work in it. Some wait for buses in it. Some sleep outside in it. Some elderly people worry about what running the air conditioner will do to the electric bill. Some families are trying to decide which expense gets paid first.

Creation care becomes shallow when it is reduced to feeling bad about plastic bottles. Creation care is about people too. The person suffering outside in dangerous heat is part of creation. The child breathing polluted air is part of creation. The neighborhood without enough shade is part of creation. The family worried about water and electricity is part of creation. The farm worker is part of creation. The unhoused neighbor is part of creation. The birds and insects and desert plants are part of creation. And so are you.

The Christian claim is not that humanity stands outside creation managing everything from above. Genesis says we came from dust. Christianity begins with humility built right into our bodies. We are creatures. Beloved creatures. Image-bearing creatures. Creatures entrusted with responsibility. But creatures still.

A great deal of our trouble begins when stewardship becomes ownership. When gift becomes possession. When creation stops being something we receive from God and becomes something we believe exists solely for our use. The earth becomes property. Water becomes product. Animals become inventory. People become labor. Time becomes money. Even our own bodies become machines that we push until they break.

And then Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

We usually hear those words individually. And there is nothing wrong with that. I have needed those words personally. There have been seasons in my life where I have carried things I did not know how to put down. Many of you know exactly what I mean. Grief. Responsibility. Family. Work. Church. Bills. Fear. The pressure of trying to hold together things you cannot control.

Jesus speaks into that. Come to me.

But during Creationtide, I hear something else in these words too because we have built an entire way of life around the refusal to accept limits. Produce more. Buy more. Build more. Consume more. Work more. Move faster. Sleep less. Throw it away. Replace it. Upgrade it. Keep going. And we wonder why both people and the earth are exhausted. Perhaps those things are connected.

Jesus does not say, “Come to me and you will never have responsibility again.” He says, “Take my yoke upon you.” There is still a yoke. There is still work. There is still discipleship. There is still responsibility. Christian rest is not escape from the world. It is learning to live in the world without trying to become its god.

Jesus says, “Learn from me.” That might be the heart of today's Gospel. Learn from me. Wisdom requires teachability. And Jesus says something else. “I am gentle and humble in heart.”

Gentle. Humble. Those are not qualities our culture normally associates with strength. We celebrate domination. Jesus teaches gentleness. We celebrate winning. Jesus teaches humility. We celebrate accumulation. Jesus teaches surrender. We celebrate being right. Jesus says learn from me.

And he does not say this from a throne surrounded by servants. He says it as one who walks dusty roads. One who touches sick people. One who eats with outsiders. One who notices birds and seeds and lilies and vineyards. One who takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and shares it. Jesus lives as though the world belongs to God. Because it does.

Christianity does not worship creation. We worship the Creator. But that does not mean creation is spiritually meaningless. Sirach looks at the sun and sees glory. The Psalmist looks at the earth and sees wisdom. St. Basil the Great taught Christians to pay attention to creation because creation teaches us something about its Maker. St. Isaac the Syrian said the merciful heart grows so wide that its compassion extends even toward animals and every part of creation. Hildegard of Bingen saw the life of God reflected in the living vitality of the earth. Francis of Assisi could call the sun his brother and the moon his sister because he understood something modern people often miss. To call God Creator means creation is family before it is commodity.

Our Convergent Catholic tradition speaks of creation as a kind of first revelation. Before there was a Bible to read, there was a world to behold. Before anyone wrote theology, human beings stood beneath stars. They heard thunder. They planted seed. They watched children being born. They buried those they loved. They watched the seasons change. And somewhere in all of that, humanity began asking questions. Who made this? Why is there something rather than nothing? What does my life mean inside all of this?

Sirach stands within that ancient wondering. Look at the sun. Look at the moon. Look at the rainbow. Pay attention. Not because the sun is God, but because a person who never learns to wonder will eventually begin believing everything exists merely to be used.

Then comes this strange prayer from Jesus. “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants.” Again, Jesus is not attacking education. He is attacking arrogance. There is a difference.

Some people know so much they have stopped listening. Some people are so convinced of their own wisdom there is nothing left for God to teach them. Religion suffers from this too. Churches suffer from it. Clergy suffer from it. Bishops suffer from it. I suffer from it.

We reach a point where we know how things work. We know what the answer is. We know what the tradition says. We know what everybody else is doing wrong. And the moment we believe we have nothing left to learn, wisdom begins slipping away from us. A child asks questions. A child notices things. A child will stop walking because there is a bug on the sidewalk. Adults say, “Come on, we have somewhere to be.” The child says, “Look.”

Sometimes the child is right. Look. Pay attention. Something is happening here. Wisdom begins there. Part of human sin is our refusal to accept our proper size. We want to be more important than we are. We act like creation cannot continue without us. The earth existed before us. God loved creation before us. And if humanity disappeared tomorrow, God would still love what God has made.

That thought does not make human beings worthless. It puts our worth in the right place. Our worth does not come from domination. Our worth comes from love. We are loved by God. We are entrusted with care. We are invited into communion. And communion is different from control.

Communion means I receive the other as having value beyond what the other provides for me. That applies to people. That applies to creation. A tree is not valuable only because I need lumber. A river is not valuable only because I need water. An animal is not valuable only because I eat it. A human being is not valuable because of how productive they are.

An elderly person has value. A disabled person has value. A child has value. Someone who cannot work has value. Someone who needs help has value. Creation has value because God loves what God has made. That is wisdom.

Creationtide has to involve repentance. Otherwise we are spending several Sundays talking about how pretty nature is. That is not enough. Repentance means turning. We spent an entire season of Metanoia talking about this. Turning toward God. Turning away from the habits that deform us. Creationtide continues that work.

We need to repent of the belief that convenience is always more important than consequence. We need to repent when our comfort depends upon someone else's suffering. We need to repent of waste. We need to repent of indifference. We need to repent of treating abundance as entitlement. We need to repent of believing environmental concern belongs to one political party or another.

The earth was God's before Republicans existed. The earth was God's before Democrats existed. The earth was God's before America existed. “The earth is the Lord's.” That is our starting point. Not ideology. Not party. Not trend. God. And if the earth belongs to God, then the Christian question becomes simple. How do we treat what belongs to someone we love? There is good news here because this is not a sermon asking you to personally save the planet by Tuesday. You cannot. I cannot. And guilt is a terrible foundation for discipleship.

Jesus does not say, “Carry the entire world.” Jesus says, “Take my yoke.” The yoke of Christ teaches us what belongs to us and what does not. We do what faithfulness requires. We release the fantasy of control. We change the choices within our reach. We speak when our voice matters. We organize with others. We support wiser policies. We waste less. We share more. We care for the person in front of us. We protect those most vulnerable. And then we trust God with what exceeds our strength. There is rest in that. Not passivity. Rest. The difference matters. So here is the work I want to give us this week. Pay attention. Practice restraint. Make care concrete.

Before this week is over, stop somewhere and notice creation without trying to accomplish anything. For us in Arizona, perhaps that means early morning or evening when the heat is safer. Look at the desert. Look at the sky. Listen to birds. Watch the clouds gather. Feel the temperature shift when the sun goes down. Remember you belong to this creation.

Then practice restraint. Find one place where enough is enough. Use less water. Waste less food. Buy one thing less. Throw away one thing less. Drive one unnecessary trip less if possible. Not because one small action fixes everything, but because habits form souls.

Finally, make care concrete. Check on somebody during the heat. Give water. Support a cooling center. Help someone with an electric bill. Plant something appropriate for this desert. Support work protecting water. Stand with communities carrying environmental burdens heavier than your own. Care for creation by caring for the creatures standing right in front of you, including the human ones.

Beloved, we are tired. I think many of us are more tired than we admit. Tired from work. Tired from conflict. Tired from politics. Tired from bad news. Tired from trying to keep families together. Tired from trying to keep churches together. Tired from trying to control outcomes we were never given the power to control.

And into all of that Jesus says, come to me. Not come to an argument. Not come to an ideology. Not come prove how much you know. Come to me. Take my yoke. Learn from me. I am gentle. I am humble. You will find rest. Perhaps wisdom begins right there. Knowing we are creatures. Knowing God is God. Knowing the earth is gift. Knowing our neighbor belongs to us and we belong to our neighbor. Knowing enough to take responsibility. Knowing enough to admit our limits. Knowing enough to stop. Knowing enough to listen. Knowing enough to receive.

Sirach looks at creation and marvels. The Psalmist looks at creation and praises. Jesus looks at weary people and invites. And today the Church does all three. We marvel. We praise. And we come. We come to Christ. Not as masters of creation. Not as owners. Not as people who have figured everything out. We come as creatures among creatures. Dust and breath. Beloved and responsible. Still learning. Still repenting. Still becoming wise.

And perhaps that is enough for today. Pay attention. Walk gently. Carry what Christ gives you to carry. Put down what was never yours to bear. And learn again to live as though this beautiful, wounded world belongs to God. Because it does. a