Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
June 12, 2024
Invitatory
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
Ecclesiastes 9:11-18
Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favour to the skilful; but time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them.
I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed important to me. There was a little city with few people in it. A great king came against it and besieged it, building great siege-works against it. Now there was found in it a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. So I said, ‘Wisdom is better than might; yet the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heeded.’
The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
than the shouting of a ruler among fools.
Wisdom is better than weapons of war,
but one bungler destroys much good.
Meditation-Rebecca Northington
“One bungler destroys much good.” What a fabulous statement, and not one that I would have assumed came out of the Bible. We will come back to this line as it feels like a departure to me from the rest of the passage. This passage is soaked in wisdom, words you might hear from one who has lived a long and full life. Cautionary words, humbling words; words that should remind us that we are not entirely in control of our outcomes. There is a higher power at work, and all we can do is our best. As Joel Dorman says “ ‘Plan Hard, Work Harder, and Rest Easy’...resides on a list I call ‘Personal Axioms’. The idea is to plan your work, work the plan, and then rest in the providence of God.”
This is the kind of advice we give to young people. Do your best in all scenarios; plant the seeds for a good life, and harvest the fruits of your labor,(as the psalmists tell us), with the understanding that sometimes bad things happen to good people, all you can do is your best. “For no one can anticipate the time of disaster”, all we can do is mitigate the potential for disaster. We must remember it is not always the smartest, the fastest, or the strongest who find success in their field. Instead, this text is pointing us more towards pursuing wisdom as contributing towards happiness and/or success.
So as hard as we might strive in all fields of our lives, is it truly wisdom that will ultimately deliver us? How do we accumulate wisdom? Where does it come from? This passage seems to suggest it can be in the most unlikely places, not in the great King for example, but in the poor wise man. So are wisdom and humility connected? Can you have wisdom without humility? What is it about humility that creates a fertile landscape for wisdom? Is it simply in being able to say “I do not know” that we open the doors for new knowledge? Is it a willingness to be weak or vulnerable, that we actually express strength?
Back to the last line which opened this meditation, who is the “bungler”, or the “sinner”, who “destroys much good”? I believe this wisdom literature is trying to tell us that the sinner, the bungler, the deceiver, the one who is most dangerous to humanity, is the one who proclaims “I know”, with no humility, and no willingness to learn what wisdom is all about. I believe we all know these people, probably have some in our families, have seen them in the political landscape, and have interacted with them in the classroom. They leave no space for the “I don’t know” statements, thereby taking any opportunity for growth out of the room. They speak in definitive, all knowing, ego forward language and tone, extinguishing any other opinions, any dialogue, and any opportunity for collaboration. They destroy good–like a cancer.
As we finish up another graduation season, we hear again and again from a plethora of speakers to engage in conversation with people of all backgrounds and ideologies, to remain intellectually curious, to explore our strengths and contribute to our communities both locally and globally for the better; and to remain consummate learners, always open to what the world can teach us. All of this advice is also found in scripture, and more particularly in this text from Ecclesiastes. For thousands of years we have only to open the Bible to access commencement advice, and it urges us to remember: “The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
than the shouting of a ruler among fools.
Wisdom is better than weapons of war,
but one bungler destroys much good.” Let us never become the bungler.
Prayer
O heavenly Father, in whom we live and move and have our
being: We humbly pray thee so to guide and govern us by thy
Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life
we may not forget thee, but may remember that we are ever
walking in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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