GROWTH

IN WISDOM, AGE AND GRACE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Monday - December 30th - is, “Growth in Wisdom, Age and Grace.”

I like the old translation of the gospel for this day - Luke 2:36-40 - that says Jesus grew “in wisdom, age and grace.”

Let me say a few words about each - knowing it’s easy to measure Age, but difficult to measure Wisdom and Grace.

AGE

We can measure age by the birth certificate. That’s easy. It’s also on our driver’s license, our wedding license and what have you.

Yet we age differently. Class reunions can be a great or a horrendous moment. We ask, “Who’s that!” Or we say, “You haven’t changed at all. I’d recognize you from a mile away.” And haven’t we all said, better, haven’t we all whispered, “What the heck happened to her or him?”

So too obituary columns - or funerals - we wonder about the age of the person who died. And sometimes we notice the person is much younger than we are and say, “Uh oh!”

So like the circles of a cut down tree, we can measure age.

WISDOM

Next comes Wisdom.

This is difficult to measure. It’s tricky.

For starters, I have learned that there is a big difference between wisdom and information.

A person can have a Ph.D. as you know - in philosophy or quantum physics - and be a total jerk.

We go to school for education - but mainly it’s in information: reading, writing and arithmetic.

This doesn’t mean kids don’t learn wisdom in school. We can learn from mistakes, fights, to volunteer. We can learn how to interact, how to ask questions, how to deal with rejections, how to deal with perceived unfairness - in making teams, in how we are marked, in whom a teacher likes or dislikes.

I notice that the scriptures - our Bible - often gives wisdom stuff - but it seems it’s mainly for young men - as in today’s first reading from 1 John 12-17. It uses the word children and fathers and then young men - but as in most societies and cultures the mothers raise the girls - and the boys till they start to become young men.

Wisdom: what have I learned about life?

Just last week, I visited my niece Patty and her husband George for Christmas dinner. While in the bathroom on the first floor, just off the kitchen area, I spotted a bathroom book. It was one of three books in a basket. It was for bathroom reading. One book - I just read the cover - I didn’t pick it up or open it - had the title - something like: Life Lessons - What I Learned Is The Most Important Thing In Life. Then it added something like, “from 78 famous people.”

Driving home that night I asked myself, “If I was asked to answer my #1 life lesson, what would it be?”

I gave myself several answers like: Step by step, inch by inch, page by page, moment by moment, life is lived.

I learned that from the time I was putting together a boardwalk - that was ripped up by a Nor’easter Storm - when I lived on the Atlantic Ocean in New Jersey. As I rebuilding that boardwalk, as I hammered each board, I found myself saying, “Board by board the boardwalk is built.”

That’s a basic wisdom leaning. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

You take the jigsaw puzzle out of the box, turn all the pieces face up, start sorting out the flat edged pieces for the frame, and then piece by piece the puzzle is put together. So too life.

I jotted down a quote somewhere along the line - without listing who the author was. I make that mistake often. In reality, the quote is more important than the author - but I like to give credit where credit is due. Here’s the quote - which was in my shirt pocket before I put it in the washer. “Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about himself and his destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.”

What were the experiences in that person’s life for her or him to come up with that wisdom statement?

So to wisdom. That’s how we learn life. I’ve learned that we learn more from suffering than from successes, hurts more than helps, etc. etc. etc. We learn more from dumb moves than smart moves.

What would be your # 1 life learning.

GRACE

Lastly a few words about grace. I didn’t go into what the Greek word here in Luke is. I simply thought about being graceful.

I think figure skaters are the quintessential image or icon for whom the graceful person is.

We have the Winter Olympics coming up soon. Check out the figure skaters. They are going along beautifully and ooops they fall or slip and all go, “Oooh!” They fall on their behinds, but they get up off their butts - forget what is behind, what just happened, and skate on.

I assume getting up and starting again comes from practice, practice, practice.

Who are the graceful folks in the rooms of our lives? We know who the sandpaper people are. They walk into a room and start to rub people the wrong way.

The graceful person - has learned not to put her foot in her mouth - but to become smooth as silk and satin.

They are those who have learned to make life smooth.

CONCLUSION

Take some time today to examine ourselves on these three gifts Jesus grows in: wisdom, age and grace. Amen.