Today, I’d like to focus on three aspects of these readings: first, the role of wisdom, second, the idea of the fool and, third, the idea of food.
Perhaps you have heard the saying that knowing that a tomato is a fruit is knowledge, knowing not to add it to a fruit salad is wisdom. The Bible, however, says way more than this. We hear in numerous places that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We also know from the Bible that whenever holy people do have fear of the Lord, they are always instructed not to be afraid. Holy fear then might be the beginning of wisdom but it is not the end.
A good example of this approach to wisdom again might be parents with a newborn. Holding a newborn is both the best and most terrifying thing. Someone’s life is in your hands. An enormous responsibility. But also one you wouldn’t trade for the world. There is a sense of deep wonder at the fact of a new person having come into the world. But also a need to respond.
So, we see in this idea of wisdom two aspects: first, a profound sense of wonder, a kind of holy fear. Second, we are gripped by a responsibility to this wonder. We are called. We must act. Also, if we do act, we begin to see that this mystery doesn’t disappear: this mystery actually gets deeper. Whatever caused us to wonder actually gets more mysterious as we grow in relation to it. And we become wise to the extent we open ourselves to this dynamic: both a growing sense of wonder and a growing sense of responsibility in the face of this wonder. And this dynamic of wisdom – wonder, responsibility and a deepening of the mystery – points to the other two points I mentioned: foolishness and food.
We hear foolishness mentioned in both our first and second readings. Now, foolishness in the Bible is not the same as being stupid. In the Bible very clever, very well-educated people can be fools. Instead, in the Bible, the fool is the one who says there is no God. Fools are the ones who act like there are no consequences, that there is no truth, no final justice. Nowadays we call people who don’t believe in God atheists, but this doesn’t always match up with the fool. Some people who call themselves atheist in fact act as though God exists in that they believe in justice, they believe in forgiveness, they believe in truth. Likewise, some people who say they believe in God look like Biblical fools because they don’t act this way, they don’t act like God is real.
Another way of describing fools might be to say that they are people who are not wise. They have ceased to wonder. They have ceased to take responsibility. By their lives, they show they believe that life is meaningless. They don’t grow, they shrivel to nothing. It might be the drunken, debauched behaviour that St Paul mentions, or it might be other forms of nihilism or escapism in which one refuses to face up to reality. The fool is the one who is no longer astounded by life, no longer wants to accept God’s invitation to participate more deeply.
The flipside of the fool’s approach takes us to idea of food. If we begin to wonder, if we begin to question and listen, if we begin to open ourselves to the dynamic of wisdom, we begin to realise that life is food. Everything feeds us. Not only is it tasty in the sense that we can savour and marvel at it, but it is also fuel. Life draws us on and feeds us for the journey. Each moment, accepted in love and truth, prepares us for the next. We use our past to understand our present and choose for the future. When we contemplate life, we begin to see that the instinct of children to eat everything is in some sense profound. We are called to eat everything.
There is a lot more we could say about this idea of life as food, like how to understand it when, as St Paul says, so much of our culture is poisonous. However, perhaps the most important thing to say about this perspective is also the one we can miss because it is too obvious. If life is food, then so are we. We are fed that we might feed others. We are fed that we might both cause others to wonder but also to be their fuel.
The best example – because he is not an example but the Truth – is Jesus. In the Eucharist, in his life and in his death and resurrection, he shows us what life is like because he shows us who he is, who God is. Life is like that because He is like that. Creation is like this because creation is God’s love letter to us, God’s invitation to enter into God’s life in Jesus Christ. God is this endless outpouring of love for others, a love that causes us to wonder, causes us to respond, fuels us, and creates and transfigures us.
In our Mass today, then, let us pray that we might truly participate in the life of Christ. Let us pray for Wisdom both to be aware of the infinite ways that God loves us and feeds us, most especially in the Blessed Sacrament, and also for the infinite ways that God calls us to feed others. Let us also pray that we never forget this and never become fools who starve others of God’s love.
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