A few weeks ago we considered a question – “What is the greatest gift of all?”  What is the gift that underlies all other gifts for people?  We answered life, and for the follower of Christ (or the one who hears the invitation to follow Christ), life lived in relationship or connection with God through the birth/life/death/ascension/return of Christ and mediated by the presence of power of the Holy Spirit.

Anyone does well to consider such a question, and we’re proposing another one today as we consider wisdom.  “What is the most important thing to seek after?”  The thing that leads to a meaningful life.  We all want to live meaningful lives.  We are made this way.  We do well to consider the question no matter where we stand in matters of faith.  These are good conversations to have.  In the news app that I read, I occasionally get an article entitled something like “Top 5 Regrets of the Dying.”  Fun, no?  I don’t know what this says about my algorithm but there it is.  They typically list things like I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.  I wish I didn’t work so hard. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.  I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends  I wish that I had let myself be happier.  Happiness is a choice, one article stated.  Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

I don’t know how helpful that would been to Brother Job.  We’ve been asking questions this whole time, and the question that is asked in our chapter this morning is “But where shall wisdom be found?”  What does it mean to live a meaningful life?  We all, surely, want to live meaningful lives.  This is not just for the end of life when we look back, but for every single day that we wake up.  What is the art of living meaningfully all about?  How wonderful that we get to consider this question together this day before Canada Day 2024!

What does it mean to be wise?  When we’re talking wisdom here we’re not talking about decision making, knowing what choice to make when various choices are laid before us as in a type of “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” situation.  The ability to discern and choose in any given circumstance is part of wisdom and it plays a part in our everyday lives of course, whether we’re talking about what we’re going to eat, where we are going to go to school or where we are going to live or whom we are going to marry etc.  This is part of wisdom and I pray for help with discernment and decision making daily.

When we’re talking about wisdom here in Job 28 we’re talking about something more foundational.  I’ll put it another way - “What is the thing that’s worth basing your life on?”  What is the thing that is worth making the foundation of your life?  What is the art of living meaningfully?

Deep questions I know.  Meaning-of-life type questions.   Where do you find meaning? The type of question you might think you need to search out the answer to.  The type of question one may think one has to go to the wise person on top of the mountain to find out. Is this the case?  Where is wisdom to be found? 

When we get to this point of the story the talking is over for a little while.  Job and his three friends have been cycling through a conversation.  Job’s friends have been trying to tell him that he or his children must be to blame for what has happened.  It’s a case of cause and effect.  All effects have causes and can, therefore, be explained.  We like that because it enables us to make sense of the world.   Job has been wondering about the justice of God vs. his own integrity or uprightness.  How can the two be reconciled given his current situation?  He’s physically afflicted.  He has lost possessions.  He has lost his sons and daughters.  Much talk has occurred, but nothing has been resolved and God has so far remained silent.  God has been silent since chapter 2.  We hear God’s voice again here though. 

Then we get what our NRSV Bibles call an Interlude.  It’s a soliloquy like the one we heard from Job in chapter 3 before the conversation began.  It’s not addressed to anyone.  There is no consensus as to who it is that is giving the soliloquy. Some say a narrator.  Some say Job. I’m ok with thinking it’s Job.  Nothing has been resolved through all the talking.  Throughout though Job is seeking God.  He’s not turned away, even in his despair.  He’s not listened to his friends who are telling him that he must repent and he will then be restored.  He’s continuing to call out to God, wanting to encounter God, and wanting to pose his questions to God.

And we come to this one – ”Where shall wisdom be found?  And where is the place of understanding?” (28:12)

But before we get to it we have these verses describing how we look for precious metal and gemstones.   He’s talking about human ingenuity.  Human know-how.  Human know-how will not get us to wisdom.  That does not mean that we discount it.  It enables people to plumb the depths.  To put an end to darkness and search out to the farthest bound, the ore in gloom and deep darkness.

There are a couple of things going on here.  1)  We’re talking about mining.  About finding treasures stored in the deepest darkest recesses of the earth.  These are paths that no bird of prey knows, and the falcon’s eye has not seen it.  It takes ingenuity to get there.  It takes work.  It brings forth silver and gold and iron and copper and sapphires.

2)  Precious things come out of plumbing the depths.  Precious things come out of plumbing the darkness.  Previous to this chapter in Job we’ve heard about darkness in purely negative terms.  “Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort before I go, never to return, to the land of gloom and deep darkness, the land of gloom and chaos, where light is like darkness.” (Job 10:22)  There has also been an idea of something coming out of darkness – something good potentially “He uncovers the deeps out of darkness, and brings deep darkness to light.” (Job 12:22)

What truth might we take from this talk of mining?  Job is talking about miners bringing light to dark places and in so doing unearthing treasure.  We’ve been talking from the first week of this series how the story of Job gives us the opportunity to ask important questions.  Sitting with Job in his suffering gives us the chance to consider the kinds of truths that can be understood more deeply when we are in the dark depths.  In sitting with Job’s suffering. In sitting with our own suffering and the suffering of those around us, we have the opportunity for deep to cry out to deep.  We have the opportunity to ask the question “Is God worthy of our worship and love and adoration and trust and attention no matter what is going on?”  We have the opportunity to ask the rhetorical question “Why are the righteous pious?”  In other words “Why do you continue to worship and adore and love and venerate God in any circumstance?” We have the opportunity to answer with our voices and with our lives.

When we face suffering we’re no longer staying on the surface the way we may when things are good.  Bread comes from the earth and that’s a good thing we read in v 5, but underneath the earth is turned up as by fire. Miners put an end to darkness and search out to the farthest bound the ore in gloom and deep darkness.  Job has been looking into the darkness of his own life.  He’s been doing, in a way, the very thing of which he speaks here.  Their eyes see every precious thing.  Hidden things are brought to light.   We are confronted with the essentials.  Non-essentials are stripped away.  We have the opportunity, should we wish to take it, to stop and consider and ask the question  “What is important here?”

And so we ask the question along with Job “Where shall wisdom be found?”

It’s not something to be found in human ingenuity or in a volume of words.  It’s not something that can be commodified.  It’s not something we can go looking for.  We don’t need to go searching for it on the top of a mountain.  It can’t be found in the land of the living or the deep.  It cannot be bought – gotten for gold.  The meaningful life cannot be bought, no matter what retailers would have us think, no matter what advertising would have us think.  Wisdom is something that is literally invaluable.  Gold or glass can’t equal it.  It can’t be exchanged for jewels of fine gold.

Wisdom is not something that we have to find.  I’m reminded of a young person who asked once at a dinner here “How do I find my spiritual path?”  How do I find my path as I go along this road of life with all its twists and turns and valleys and switchbacks and peaks and potholes and all things which we encounter on the road of life?

The answer is of course that Jesus has already made the path.  Jesus goes alongside us on our path as we go along together.

This is where God comes into Job’s soliloquy.  The really interesting thing here is that wisdom is not presented here as an attribute of God.  Wisdom is not presented here as something God is. Wisdom is rather something that God has established.  It is something that God understands the way to.  It is not something that we possess any more than truth is something that we possess. It is not so much a destination as a way that we follow in the same way that the Truth is someone we follow.  Wisdom is something that is made known in God's creative action!  “God understands the way to it, and he knows its place.  He looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.” (28:24)  All of creation in other words.  “When he gave to the wind its weight and apportioned out the waters by measure when he made the decree for the rain, and a way for the thunderbolt;” (28:25-26) What happened then?  “then he saw it and declared it, he established it and searched it out.”(28:27)  And when God was creating wisdom delighted and when God creates wisdom delights. Listen to Wisdom speaking from Proverbs 8:29-31:

“when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundation of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”  Wisdom.

1. Proverbs.  They call these wisdom books.  Wisdom is established in the loving and creative acts of God.  The way to receive the gift of wisdom is for us to enter into such acts.  How do we do that? The fear of the Lord.  We hear this in Proverbs too.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Prov 1:7) “Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.” (Prov 3:7)  Listen again to Job 28:28 as God speaks, “And he said to humankind, ‘Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.’”

What is the most important thing to seek after?  What or who is the one thing that give meaning to everything?  We talked last week about how Jesus talked to the two on the road to Emmaus and interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.  How can we consider these questions without hearing Jesus’ voice echo through the ages – “Strive (or seek) first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…” (Matt 7:33a)

Someone has put it like this – “Wisdom is not discovered by knowing everything about the world... Rather, wisdom resides in God, and it is found in relationship with him as a person reveres and obeys God. True wisdom, then, is not total comprehension of how life works but faithful reverence for the Lord, who sovereignly controls the world he has created.”

Do we believe this truth?  Is God worthy of our trust no matter what? 

And he said to humankind, “Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”  When we speak of fearing God we’re not talking terror or a flight or fight situation.  We’re talking about reverence and wonder and awe and thanksgiving and let us never get used to this or take it for granted.

Speaking of which, it’s been said that this might be seen as a rather banal or trite conclusion to this hymn to wisdom in Job 28.  “Truly the fear of the Lord is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”  We may think “Yeah yeah I’ve got that, I’ve heard it a million times before.”    If we are thinking that then let us plead to God to restore to us the joy of our salvation.  Let us never take for granted the creative saving work of God.  Listen to what Paul wrote to the church of Colossae “For I want you to know how much I am struggling for you, and for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face.  I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself.  In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Col 2:1-3)  This is meaningful life.  This is fullness of life.  Paul goes on “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (Col 2:6-7)  Whether we are in the midst of great suffering or great joy (and often we’re in the midst of both aren’t we?) let us in the midst of our individual and collective situations plead with God that we may see what seems like familiar territory with new eyes and new hearts, created in us by our loving God.    Amen.