Sermon on 14th Sunday after Trinity - Fr Sam Rossiter

Happy are those who find wisdom. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Please do be seated. There's an old joke that goes, knowledge is understanding that tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

The pursuit of wisdom and the relationship between knowledge and wisdom is one of the oldest questions in human experience. These days, as I was very frequently told as a philosophy undergrad by my friends, those who study philosophy are seen as looking for an excuse to endlessly pontificate about questions no one cares about so that they can avoid getting a proper job. But if we look at the ancient philosophers, those whose name means lover of wisdom, they were the people who were pushing society forwards.

They asked us to consider new ways of experiencing our world, new ways to interact with each other, new ways to act with justice and mercy. Consider Aristotle, one of ancient Greece's most famous philosophers. It's actually hard to find a topic that Aristotle didn't study.

From the mechanics of the movement of the stars, to the makeup of plants and animals, to biology, to law, to ethics, to religion, Aristotle wanted to know more. To philosophers like Aristotle, lovers of wisdom, the idea of dividing our knowledge between the humanities, those useless subjects that people like I did in order to avoid getting a proper job, subjects like law, ethics, sociology, psychology, and the sciences, the proper subjects where people went on and made a lot of money, that distinction would have made no sense. Human beings, the ancient philosophers understood, are part of the universe and the way that we orientate ourselves within that universe is understood, was understood, as directed by and directing the way that the universe operated.

The philosophers understood that the pursuit of knowledge is a good in and of itself and that understanding was the grounding of their wisdom. Consider the words attributed to Socrates by Plato in his Apology of Socrates. Although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is, for he knows nothing and he thinks he knows.

I neither know nor think I know. Socrates' greatest wisdom was that he understood there was a lot he didn't know. He'd spent his life asking questions and he'd only scratched the surface.

Whereas in this apology, the person who stood before him in the courts condemning him imagined himself an expert on all things and never considered how little he actually knew. Socrates was wise because he understood that he knew very little. And so he could dedicate himself to the pursuit of further knowledge.

His unwise opposition, by their presumption of knowledge, didn't have the same drive. If you think you know everything, then what is to cause you wanting to learn more? The Socratic wisdom therefore is this, the wise know that they're in need, the foolish think they have everything already. That of course is a good start on the meaning of wisdom, but the Judeo-Christian tradition goes even deeper.

For us Christians, wisdom isn't only about recognising that you don't know, but it's about reaching beyond yourself to the person of wisdom, God Almighty. The tradition of the Proverbs, which we just heard from, as well as other wisdom literature, like the Song of Solomon, speaks of wisdom as more than a principle. She is a living presence, a person, a tree of life.

And from the earliest centuries, Christians have seen in these passages where wisdom is personified as a foreshadowing of Christ, the pre-incarnate Word of God, divine wisdom, the Word of God, who was with the Father before all ages and through whom all things were made. She, the tree of life, is Jesus Christ. So, when we turn to our Gospel reading in Matthew, we see divine wisdom.

She who made all things as Jesus Christ, walking the dusty roads of Galilee. And he, Jesus, calls to Matthew and then justifies that call by showing that Matthew has wisdom because he recognizes his need for God. Jesus says, those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick.

Matthew was a tax collector. Tax collectors were hated by their Jewish neighbours. They were usually Jews themselves who used their talent for mathematics and logistics to benefit the Roman imperial oversight of Israel.

Taxation was heavy on the people, impressed both by the Romans and by Herod. To a public which was already subsistence living, taxation often meant the loss of life, the loss of means of income, the loss of home. The tax collectors were the neighbours who sided with the oppressors.

On top of that, the tax collectors were rumoured to impose their own charges on top of the fees they were ordered to collect. And we know this because when the tax collectors came to St. John the Baptist after his call to repentance and asked, what are we to do? He told them, collect no more than the amount prescribed for you, which suggests they were doing just that. They were getting the already inflated charges from the Romans and then they were adding a bit for themselves as well.

Of course, we don't know whether St. Matthew was one of those people who imposed his own unjust charges. But we do know that because he was a tax collector, he was living a life in which he had used his God-given talents to earn a comparatively large wage by supporting those who unjustly burdened the life of his impoverished neighbours. But in this gospel reading, Matthew changed.

He came to Jesus. What was it that changed Matthew's heart? Maybe it was seeing a miracle and being convinced that Jesus really was someone to reckon with. Maybe it was hearing the Sermon on the Mount, those convicting words.

And if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Jesus's message bore all the marks of prophetic ministry which called people to be just and merciful, the very things which Matthew was lacking in his life.

Jesus called those who followed him to deny themselves. He told the rich young ruler that to become a disciple, he first had to give away all that he owned. He told parables in which the rich were shown as foolish because they trusted in their riches rather than in God.

Truly I tell you, Jesus said, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. All of those words would have struck like hammer blows to Matthew's life.

He who used what God had given him to make riches rather than justice. Matthew was convicted that his materially comfortable life was not enough. He knew, like Socrates before him, that he did not know.

He had bowed to the wisdom of the Empire, wisdom that said that service and riches are worth more than fealty to God. And he recognized that in that life, he had become sick. And then he encountered a wandering peasant preacher whose words contained the medicine of new life.

And he gave up all of his riches to take hold of the opportunity. And as we're told in our Gospel reading, it wasn't just Matthew. Matthew threw a dinner for Jesus and the other disciples.

And many people attended who were described as sinners. And they came because there was something undeniably attractive about Jesus. Jesus didn't judge people.

He didn't hold them at a distance. It didn't matter what you had done, what you had said, what mistakes you had made, he welcomed and he taught, and he loved. Those sinners knew enough, were wise enough to know that they needed help and that Jesus was the one to give it.

And as always, the religious leaders provided the contrast. They were the ones who thought of themselves as wise. They followed the law and the precepts of their teachers.

To their group and to wider society, they were healthy and righteous before God. Yet towards the end of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus had words for such righteousness, for such wisdom. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint, dill and cumin, but you have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith.

You blind guides, you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. The knowledge and wisdom of the religious leaders was skin-deep because they considered it sufficient. They had not the wisdom of the sinners who knew that they were sick and knew they needed help.

So the question is simply this. Which group do you belong to? Do you consider yourself well or do you know that you're sick? Are you willing to seek a doctor? As Christians, it's so easy for us to fall into the trap of the Pharisees. It's so easy to consider ourselves the righteous ones, the ones with all the answers.

And in that pride, we stop asking, we stop seeking, and we no longer find. There is no one in this room, including me, most especially me, who does not need Jesus, who does not need his guidance, who does not need his leadership, his support to overcome sin. To be a disciple is to be a Christian.

To be a disciple is to be a student. Nobody is done learning. Nobody is done growing.

God our Father, in his infinite majesty, has an eternity of flourishing for us to grow into, but only if we have the humility to acknowledge that we still need to grow. So, I encourage you to ask, what don't I know? How am I sick? Is there a sin in my life which still entangles? Is there a gap in my spiritual life which I need to address? Is there a way to fulfil my calling which I have not honoured? And then remember, these questions aren't meant to drive you to despair. They're meant to bring you to Christ the Physician.

Remember, Christ never judges, but welcomes, loves, heals. He never turns us away. He does not despise our ignorance.

Instead, he welcomes us and says, well done, good and faithful servant, wise one. You recognised your need. Come and be fulfilled.

Amen.