Ever since I saw the first commercial, I’ve been a fan of Mr. Owl from the Tootsie Pop commercials. Do you remember him? He is depicted in the animated commercial as the wisest of the animals and the one most likely to know how many licks it takes to get through the hard candy coating of a Tootsie Pop to the chewy Tootsie Roll center. The boy who is the main character of the commercial goes first to Mr. Cow who tells him that she can never get to the center without biting so he should ask Mr. Fox because he is far more clever than she. Mr. Fox admits that he too can’t reach the center without biting and he sends the boy along to Mr. Turtle who has been around much longer than he has. Alas, Mr. Turtle is a biter also, so he suggests the boy ask Mr. Owl who is the wisest of all the animals. It is the scene with the boy and Mr. Owl that makes this commercial so iconic.

The boy approaches Mr. Owl and asks his question. Mr. Owl responds, “A good question. Let’s find out.” Mr. Owl decides that using the empirical method to determine the answer is the wisest course of action. He takes the Tootsie Pop from the boy, peels off the wrapper, and begins to lick. “A one, a two, a three.” Crunch! He chomps the candy and hands the boy back an empty stick. “Three!” he says as the answer to the boy’s question. The boy turns around, exasperated, and says as he’s walking away, “If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s a smart owl.”

Wise, that’s how Mr. Turtle described Mr. Owl. So what is wisdom? And how do we know if someone is truly wise? Or perhaps more importantly, how do we become wise ourselves? As the school year begins, many people from children to adults attempt to gain new knowledge. They read, they write, they study, they listen, they explore, they experiment. And by the end of the year, they are smarter than the year before…or so the teachers hope at least. But does more knowledge and experience equate to wisdom? King Solomon is given by God the choice to ask of God anything that he wants. Solomon asks God for “an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil.” This request pleases God, and Solomon becomes known as a wise ruler of Israel. So is that what wisdom is? An understanding and discerning mind?

The Apostle Paul writes to his friends in Ephesus and implores them, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise.” The Greek word Paul uses here is sophia, which is the word most often translated as wise. The word sophia seems to mean using one’s knowledge to act justly. Wisdom is not simply an internal characteristic but an external embodiment of justice. Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.” There are many people in this world that have a whole lot of knowledge of God and the Bible, but they seem to have stopped at knowing it all. They haven’t yet learned how to use that knowledge to act justly.

There’s a story that’s been told of Jesus and Satan having an argument about which of them is better at using a computer. They are bickering endlessly, when God steps in and says, “Quit your arguing. We can solve this easily and determine who is the best. I will set up a test of your skills and after two hours I will judge which of you has done the best job.”

Jesus and Satan agree to this and quickly the test begins. They create spreadsheets, type up documents, send emails with and without attachments, make short videos, research on the internet and make presentations. They download files, scan them, and reupload them. They do every task that God assigns them and seem to be running pretty neck and neck.

Then with just about ten minutes left of the test, a storm rolls in and the power goes out. Satan smacks his computer screen in anger, but Jesus just shrugs his shoulders and sighs. After a few minutes, the power returns and both of them restart their computers. When Satan’s computer loads, he stares at it in dismay. Jesus gets on his and begins to print out the documents he made. After a couple minutes of clicking and grumbling and biting his nails, Satan smacks his computer and shouts in frustration, “It’s gone. It’s all gone. I have none of my documents.” He looks over at the printer and Jesus’ pages coming out of it and then he looks at Jesus and says, “He cheated! All of my documents are gone, but all of his are still there. He had to have done it. How did he do it?” Satan looks at God and God just shrugs and says, “Jesus saves.”

Now, wisdom is not a contest, but this joke does remind us of the true wisdom of Jesus, who gave himself up for all of us so that we might have life in him. If wisdom was about protecting one’s own life, then Jesus did not act very wisely because he went willing to the cross to be crucified. However, wisdom is quite the opposite. Wisdom is about protecting the lives of others, even at great risk to ourselves. Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “A wise man will desire no more than what he may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contently.” Wisdom cannot simply stay put and rest on the knowledge of the past. Wisdom must act. As George Bernard Shaw said, “We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.” Wisdom takes the knowledge we have and looks for ways to apply it that make better the lives of the most people.

So, how do we live wisely? Paul gives us four aspects of living wisely and not foolishly. The first is to make “the most of the time.” You’ve probably heard it said (or even said it yourself), “Use your time wisely.” When we say that phrase, what we are meaning is that the person should make a schedule or a to-do list or a plan and stick to it. I don’t think Jesus is talking about our schedules though. Time had a different meaning in those days. And the word Jesus uses for time is Kairos which is not talking about the time on a clock, but talking about the appointed time for something. And Paul tells the Ephesians to redeem the kairos, the appointed time, because the days are evil. What I see in this is that every day is a chance to make a difference, but we often get too caught up in the minutia, the minute by minute details. Wisdom, for Paul, seems to be the ability to look beyond the minutia to the bigger picture of life.

Second, Paul says, “Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” So wisdom is about discerning the will of God for our lives. Discernment doesn’t just happen though. It takes prayer and stillness and, perhaps most importantly, a community all listening to God together. That community may be your family, the church, a group of close friends, or a team at work. Whoever it is, discernment happens best when we are able to listen to the voices of others (even others who we vehemently disagree with) and act in the best interest of others and within the purview of God.

Third, Paul tells us to “be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to one another, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts.” Being wise begins and ends with God. We have to be attune to the moment so we act at the proper time, we have to spend a bit of time discerning with others about the best options that we have, and then we have to draw near to God in worship. Why, in discussing wisdom, would Paul talk about music? I believe it is because music unites us. It unites us to God and to one another. In order to act justly, wisely, we need to discern that way forward with others and then find some way to work together to make a better world. Musician Edgar Winter once said, “Music is very spiritual, it has the power to bring people together.” In a world as divided as ours seems to be right now, we need all the music we can get.

Finally, Paul says that we should give “thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” One of the books I recently read for my Doctor of Ministry class is called “The Spirituality of Gratitude” by Joshua Choonmin Kang. In this book he talks about the transformative power of gratitude. He says that gratitude shifts our perspective. He writes, “We need the right perspective to approach and respond to a problem, or rather, we need God’s perspective on the problems we face. That is wisdom.” Why does Paul want the Ephesians to give thanks in everything? Because he knows how gratitude changes our perspective on life. Kang later shares a quote from Albert Einstein. Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Then Kang adds, “People of gratitude consider everything to be miraculous.” I think that is the perspective of God. And in that is wisdom and the power to act justly.

Wisdom pulls us away from the minutiae of life that can bog us down and helps us better see the bigger picture. Wisdom helps us discern the will of God through our community. Wisdom is the music that unites us into the Body of Christ. Wisdom is the ability to give thanks to God in all things and, in giving thanks, to have our perspective change to be God’s perspective. “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise.”

With that in mind, I want to end this sermon with some words of wisdom from some great modern philosophers:

• “Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.” —Jack Handey
• “Never follow anyone else’s path. Unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and you see a path. Then by all means follow that path.” —Ellen DeGeneres
• “Live in such a way that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.” —Will Rogers
• “Doing nothing is hard, you never know when you’re done.” – Leslie Nielsen
• “Whatever you do, always give 100%. Unless you’re donating blood” – Bill Murray
• “Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else.”
• “The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”
• “Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.”
• “If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.”
• AND FINALLY…
  “A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.” — Steven Wright

May our joy and gratitude be the beginning of wisdom! And may we begin to see the miracles all around us. Thanks be to God! Amen!