I Kings 3:3-15
Matthew 7:21-29

William Willimon told about meeting a college student who did a graduate thesis on college and university mission statements. He noted that well into the early 20th century college mission statements claimed that the purpose of the college was the installation of wisdom in the students, the building of character. By the 1950s, colleges talked less about their ability to inculcate wisdom and more about knowledge. By the 1980s, colleges never mentioned so noble a purpose as wisdom and now talked about information. He predicted that the day would come when colleges would boast merely, "Come and study with us, and we'll give you a lot of data."  We may be living in that day.  To these high school graduates and to all of us, as valuable as data is, that is not what we really need.  As important as information is, there is something more basic than information.  While we all can benefit from the breadth and depth of knowledge that we may be able to attain through a broad based education and/or continually being enrolled in the School of Hard Knocks, there is something more basic and essential than knowledge. 
           
As old fashioned as it may seem to many of us to consider that people of antiquity may have been on to something, I lift up for us the approach of Solomon as he began the awesome task of following his father David as the King of Israel.  Solomon experienced what occasionally does happen to us.  When we are faced with awesome responsibility and it seems there is no way that our particular skill set in any way matches the needs of the task before us, we may, like Solomon, recognize that the gift that is essential is wisdom.  The one gift Solomon sought from God was wisdom.  The fact that he recognized his need for wisdom disclosed his inclination toward wisdom.
           
I know of no way to calculate how many decisions we have to make in a lifetime.  Certainly many of them are miniscule in importance-whether to have a Big Mac or a Fish Sandwich.  Others are life altering decisions whose gravity and importance we may not recognize until much later and then only upon reflection.  Those who are graduating this commencement season have already made many decisions in their lives and are now embarking on a terrific journey that will require them to make many choices and decisions.  The options for them and for us in decision-making are not between right and wrong decisions but rather between wise and foolish decisions.  As it was for Solomon so it is for these seniors and for the rest of us, the gift that is essential for each of us is wisdom.  But how do we make wise decisions? Here are some ingredients for wise decision-making 1. Gather as much information as possible 2. Resist impulse decisions 3. Identify the logical consequences of the decision you are considering 4. Who does this decision benefit and how? 5. Is this the most loving and just decision I can make regarding this situation?
           
Applicable to our search and desire for wisdom is the parable of the two builders with which Jesus concludes his Sermon on the Mount.  Matthew stresses the wise and foolish choices by the builders regarding the sites they chose for their construction.  The foolish builder builds his house in a dry river bed.  This choice makes for easy, quick construction.  Chances are very good that the foolish builder was able to complete his construction much quicker than the wise builder.  I’m reminded of the fable about the tortoise and the hare.  I wonder what the dry river bed will be like when the spring rains come.  While the choice of the sandy building site is quick and easy at the time of construction, it proves to be a disastrous decision. The wise builder took longer to construct his house but essential in his decision making was the foundation for his house. Although Jesus makes no reference to Solomon as he tells the story of the wise and foolish builders, certainly the importance and value of wisdom is woven through the story and is what distinguishes the wise man from the foolish man.  
           
Of course, Jesus isn't talking about constructing a house. He is talking about building a life. Hearing these words which are Jesus' moral instruction, and acting on them, making them part of our lives, is the rock, the solid foundation upon which to build our lives. No storm can shake such a basis for a life.
           
There has been lots of talk in recent years that our culture needs more or better values. In schools we have values education, values clarification, values-centered teaching. On a college campus, if you propose a program for "values and . . ." you are likely to get a big grant. There are people who want to put lists of core values on the walls of every schoolroom in the country.
           
Often these discussions of values are fairly thin. This listing of universal values or core values may be little more than innocuous shopping lists of vague attributes like fairness or respect.  Fairness and respect are worthy attributes but if they don’t come from people with character the temptation is great to give up the attributes when life becomes difficult or the next fad offers more excitement or pizzazz. 
           
People don't have values. What people have are dependable, predictable traits identified as character that make them congruent people who behave in certain coherent ways.  We need to move these values discussions from shopping lists of desirable preferences, generic abstractions, and focus on how human beings are built to be the people we are.
           
In the last two verses of our Scripture from Matthew there is a question about Jesus' authority. Issues of Jesus' authority arise frequently in this gospel (8:9; 9:6; 10:1; 21:23). "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (28:18) says Jesus at the end of this gospel. Jesus is not simply the wise teacher of the Sermon on the Mount; he is the one who teaches with ultimate authority. What good is an authoritative teacher if his teachings are not obeyed? Authority is an empty claim if there are not those who form their lives in accord with the authority.
           
Unfortunately, we seem to have reduced ethics to a list of values that leads to a set of procedures which, when applied to life, will yield good deeds when done by anyone regardless of that person's character, wisdom, parents, or tradition. Such thinking has led to what some have called the "procedural society." This has no connection with character and the development of wisdom.
           
I heard of a distinguished doctor who went in the hospital for surgery. A clergy friend of his stopped in to visit him.  However, by the time the minister got to the hospital to visit him, he had already checked himself out and was recuperating at home. When the minister asked why he had fled the hospital so soon he replied, "They could kill you in there. There's nobody with any sense. The night after my surgery, a nurse came in every hour on the hour to wake me up and ask how I was doing. About 3:00 a.m. I told her,         'Not that well, actually. Why do you keep waking me up?'
           
"The nurse replied, 'Because people with high blood pressure tend to have strokes after surgery.'
           
"I asked, 'So what would you do if I had a stroke?'
            "The nurse said, 'Write it down on this chart.' "
           
We have acted as if it were possible to have wise, prudent behavior by simply teaching everyone good values and good procedures without that tough foundational task of creating wise and prudent people.  As Martin Luther once said, "You don't get apples from a thorn bush. You get apples from apple trees." You get good deeds from good people.
           
Our values-centered, procedural approach is a quite odd way of conceiving ethics. Aristotle said that if you wanted a canon or rule in ethics, you ought to measure yourself by a good person. Thus Aristotle's chief analogy for learning how to do good deeds is learning how to ride a horse. You can't learn equestrianship by reading books about it. You must actually get on a horse. No, you must first submit to the wisdom of a master, someone who has given his or her life to equestrianship. The master will help you get to know a horse, to learn to differentiate between the temperament of one horse and another, to get the feel of the reins in the hand, to know yourself, the ways that you are good with certain horses, and can't be trusted alone with others. Becoming moral is much like that, said Aristotle.
           
Imitation, submission to the wisdom of a master, is the way we become better people than we would be if left to our own devices. I read about a student who signed on with a famous violin teacher. First lesson, she hardly touched the violin. The teacher examined her hands, pulled on her arms, told her things like, "From now on, I own you. I will tell you what to eat, how to sleep." And all she wanted to do was learn to play the violin.
           
 The Talmud, that great collection of Jewish words, notes that the Torah cannot be read alone but only by sitting at the feet of a good rabbi. If we want a better society, there is no way around that hard, time consuming, risky, and laborious task of having better people. Observe what the master does and go thou and do likewise.
           
The trouble is, too many people think of ethics as a rational matter of thinking through toward the right thing to do, rather than a character matter of being a good person. The attempt to order behavior primarily through information and through the selection of popular ethical imperatives (values) tends to over rationalize moral life. The wellsprings of moral activity lie deeper in the area of imitation, imagination, and affections. People who have good characters, who are living a good life, become themselves, imperatives in a way that values can never be.
           
Character rather than values ought to be the center of this debate. Character is an affirmation that some of the most ethical things you do are done, as we say, "out of second nature," without having to think about it, not because of the list of values that we affirm but rather because of the sort of people that we have become.
           
Jesus taught "as one with authority." They were astonished at his mastery, his demand that they move from words to deeds, his casting of the ethical life, not as a matter of listing some good values, but rather as a matter of discipleship submission to the master, letting the master's life be the foundation upon which we build our lives.  Jesus was a great teacher, but the values he talked about are not as decisive as the life he lived, the death he died.
           
As Thomas Aquinas said, "We imitate whom we adore." That means the chief Christian ethical task is to be more adoring, and thus more imitative, of Christ. The most ethically significant thing we Christians do is to gather on a weekly basis. So we gather on Sunday, listen to some stories, sing some songs. Thereby we become considerably better people than we would have been if we had never fallen in love with Jesus. We need more than mere values.
           
In Matthew’s story of the two builders, these two houses did just fine until the wind blew and the rains came. The storm demonstrated, tested the foundation of each house, and the collapse of one was great.
           
A man told about an acquaintance he had. He said, “He was part of our gang growing up. We were all buddies through the seventh or eighth grade. I lost touch with him after high school. I heard he made it big in business, made a bundle in real estate.
           
“Then I heard that he died, but not unexpectedly. ‘Drank himself to death,’ they said. ‘There was the real estate slump in the '80s, and when business got bad, he cut corners, deceived clients, eventually was charged, convicted, jailed for a time.’
           
A friend's verdict on him was this: "When it got tough, he showed what he was made of, down deep. Not much, unfortunately. His fall was swift." Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
           
I really value McAfee Brown’s insight about reading the Bible. The fatal error is to read the Bible as a spectator rather than as a participant, to make the faulty assumption that we can sit in a box seat watching the drama when actually we are on the stage taking part in the drama. (McAfee Brown, The Bible Speaks to You, Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1940, p. 21)
           
Here is a thoughtful, challenging conversation.
           
One student said, "Well, I'm not so sure about religion, but you are a Catholic. Whatever works best for you, right?"
           
The other student responded, "You don't know much about Catholics, do you? It's not working for me. It's working on me! It's hard being a Catholic. The church makes you change, become a different person than you once were. It's working on me."
           
What a great statement of Christian formation. We're not working this faith for our personal advantage. It's working us. It’s foolishness to try to work the faith.  Wisdom is recognizing that faith works us, changes us, molds and shapes character and we become more and more like the master teacher whose name we claim. 
           
Those who are graduating this commencement season have already made many decisions in their lives and are now embarking on a terrific journey that will require them to make many more choices and decisions.  The options for them and for us in decision-making are not between right and wrong decisions but rather between wise and foolish decisions. 
           
As it was for Solomon so it is for us, the gift that is essential for each of us is wisdom.  Wisdom is recognizing that faith works us, changes us, molds and shapes character and we become more and more like the master teacher whose name we claim.