Wisdom Trumps Intelligence!

Rev. Marcel Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Mary of Assumption Church, Whittier, CA

Sunday, October 11, 2015

I like talking about the distinction between wisdom and intelligence. I believe that there  are so many intelligent and smart people around who have distinguished themselves in various fields of life by the sheer application of their intelligence. Intelligent people are not in short supply. Unfortunately, not every intelligent person is also wise. Catholic theology teaches us that wisdom is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. While intelligence is “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills,” wisdom is “the capacity to love spiritual things more than material things.” The Holy Spirit gives us wisdom to enable us to figure out right from wrong in the world. Wisdom is the gift that inspires, motivates and drives someone to constantly choose God, God’s matters over earthly and fleshy things. It’s a gift that enables us to stand up and stay on the Lord’s side. Whenever there is a choice to make, those with wisdom would always choose to stand with God and everything that pertains to him. Their choices in life would always be in consonance with their faith in the living God. When the choice is between earthly wealth and following Jesus in simplicity, they would choose the later.

Wisdom trumps over intelligence, riches, health, comfort, beauty etc that is why the writer of today’s first reading declared, “I prayed and prudence was given to me; I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her (wisdom) to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her, nor did I liken any priceless gem to her…” (Wisdom 7:7-9). Even the Psalmist acknowledged the great importance of wisdom by praying, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart” (Psalm 90:12). Spending some time in prayer and asking the Holy Spirit for the wonderful gift of wisdom is surely going to be a time well spent. We live in a decision making world. At every given time, there are options before us. We are constantly tempted through these options. Temptation is always a suggestion to choose between God and mammon, between heavenly things and earthly things, between following Jesus and following self, the world, or the devil. In the midst of all these confusions, we need wisdom to choose right, to choose the good, to choose the true and living God, to choose to follow Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith and life. 

Today’s Gospel (Mark 10:17-30) is about an unnamed rich man who was obviously intelligent. I assume he was intelligent because I am yet to see an unintelligent person who is rich. He wanted to be saved. He wanted to be wise. He came to the Wise Man of Nazareth. He came to the Source of Wisdom. He came to the personification of wisdom. He started very well by coming to Jesus and asking, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Some people are lucky to inherit immense wealth from their parents, brothers, sisters or friends by mere chance, without actually doing anything to merit their inheritance. But this rich man was willing to pay a price in order to inherit eternal life. He did not want to inherit it by mere chance, by doing nothing. He wanted to do something that can justify his inheritance of it. So, Jesus turned his attention to the commandments, “You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.” When Jesus was done with the litany of don’ts, the man smiled and said, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.” Then Jesus extended invitation of friendship to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” At this point, the man had a choice to make between clinging to his wealth or detaching from it for the sake of following Jesus. In the end, he chose to cling to his possessions. He did not have the wisdom to choose Jesus, the Lord of life over his earthly possessions. For him, wealth trumps the call of Jesus. 

You know, by all standard, the rich man was a good man. He was indeed an upright man. How many rich people (or even poor people) can stand before the omniscient Jesus and declare that they have not killed before, not committed adultery or fornication before, never stolen before, never bore false witness against anyone, never defrauded anyone before, have always obeyed their parents? How many of us have kept all of those from our youth? When the rich man said he had kept all those commandments from his youth, he meant, he had never broken any of them from the time he reached the age of reasoning and accountability to the time he met Jesus. He made his money without killing or defrauding anyone. He was a good Jew. So, when Jesus looked at him and saw that he was telling the truth, he loved him and immediately invited him to follow him. Unfortunately, his lack of wisdom made it impossible for him. Jesus’ response to his refusal to follow him, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God” should not be taken literally. It does not mean that earthly riches are a curse. The Lord was not saying that there will be no rich person who would be saved. It does not mean that material riches have automatically ruled wealthy folks out of the Kingdom. The Bible tells us that “The Lord makes some poor and others rich; he brings some down and lifts others up” (1 Samuel 2:7). And the book of Haggai 2:8 tells us that “Silver and gold belong to God.” There are rich folks who are investing their money in things like poverty alleviation, research to cure diseases, education, charitable organizations etc. But the truth is that excessive pursuit of wealth, the pursuit to remain wealthy can easily distract someone from God. The stuff that rich folks carry can actually weigh them down. Too many luggage can easily prevent someone from moving ahead towards God. Money can become the new god. It can easily become one’s chief source of happiness. This can equally happen to you and I. Never assume that this Gospel does not concern you because you are not rich. Just the same way a rich person can be distracted by earthly riches, so can you and me. Whatever that distracts us from God is our riches. Whatever we rank higher than having an active and ongoing relationship with God is our riches. Any of these: job, family, business, relationship, sports, entertainment, fame, sinful habits etc can distract us from following the Lord, and therefore become our riches. My late Mother, Mrs. Georgina Okwara used to say to her children, “Don’t give me that which you think is greater and more important than God, I don’t want it.” We are reminded once again today that wisdom trumps all our earthly desires and wishes. We need to pray for wisdom so as to make right choices that will always glorify God’s name and put us on the Lord’s corner. The choices we make determines on whose side we are on.