I’m not always very good at listening. I might hear that someone is speaking to me, but I don’t always take in what they are trying to say. Part of that is from a loss of hearing, but part of it is from a loss of interest. I will, at times, tune out a conversation or a speaker I’m listening to because I simply lose interest in what they are telling me. Some of you may already be doing that with this sermon. This is a phenomenon often called selective listening. We choose to hear what interests us and block out what doesn’t. Sometimes that choice may be intentional, but at other times there may be different factors that affect our selective listening.

For me, one of those different factors is my ADHD. Difficulty focusing is one of the hallmark symptoms of ADHD, so struggling to focus on one particular voice can be challenging…especially if there are other competing noises. Another significant reason that we tune out certain things and not others is a phenomenon called unintentional bias (also called implicit bias). This means that we will tune out things that go against our own beliefs without even realizing that we are doing it. Psychologists Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald, first coined the term ‘implicit bias’ in 1995, and they wrote, “Implicit bias refers to attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious way, making them difficult to control.” What I feel is the biggest problem with this is that our beliefs become stagnant because they are not really challenged.

In our passage from Proverbs, the author talks about the call of wisdom and understanding. The author writes, “Does not wisdom call and understanding raise her voice?” Wisdom and understanding are personified and given a voice, and that voice is the voice of God. And it seems to me that the implication here is that people aren’t listening. Now, perhaps raising one’s voice had a different meaning when the author wrote this verse, but I know that when my mom would raise her voice when I was a kid, I knew that (1) I hadn’t been listening and (2) I needed to be listening. So, if understanding is raising her voice, we probably haven’t been listening and we probably need to be.

So where is this call of wisdom and voice of understanding coming from? Is it a voice we hear in our heads? Does it come down to us from the sky like at Jesus’ baptism or Paul’s conversation on the road to Galilee? Does the voice come only from the church? Does it come only from the pastor? Does the voice come only through the reading of Scripture? Can we hear God anywhere? In any conversation? At any time? Or only when we are silent and concentrating? I think the writer of this section of Proverbs gives us a little bit of insight into that, though maybe not as much as we’d like.

The author writes, “On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out: ‘To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all who live.’” So there are several things listed here and I want to go through them one at a time. The author mentions five different places where wisdom and understanding call out to us. There may be others as well, but I want to talk a bit about these.

First, the author says that wisdom calls “on the heights.” I think it’s reasonable to assume that the author is talking about on top of the hill and mountains. Quite often in ancient Israel, mountains were a place where teaching and learning would take place. We know that the Bible tells us numerous stories of Jesus teaching from a mountain or somewhere raised in order that he might be heard better by the crowds.

Next, the author talks about wisdom calling out “beside the way.” The way was likely referencing the road by which people traveled in those days. And as people traveled down the road, they had a great opportunity to chat and learn from one another. Perhaps you remember the story in Luke 23, where Jesus encounters two men on the road. As he is walking along with them, he begins to reveal to them the Scriptures. Then when they finally stop for the night, Jesus breaks bread with them and in the breaking of the bread, the two men recognize Jesus. But it was on the road, beside the way, that Jesus taught them.

Next, the author writes, “at the crossroads, she will take her stand.” A cross road is the point where two roads meet. When you come to the crossroads, you must make a decision. “One day, two elderly women were out driving in a large car – both could barely see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they came to a major crossroad. The stop light was red, but they just went on through. The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself ‘I must be losing it. I could have sworn we just went through a red light.’ After a few more minutes, they came to another major junction and the light was red again. Again, they went right through. The woman in the passenger seat was almost sure that the light had been red but was really concerned that she was losing it. She was getting nervous. At the next junction, sure enough, the light was red and they went on through. So, she turned to the other woman and said, ‘Mildred, did you know that we just ran through three red lights in a row? You could have killed us both!’ Mildred turned to her and said, ‘Oh! Am I driving?’” At a crossroad, we have a decision to make. Which path will we take? Will we listen to the call of wisdom or choose a different path? As we make that decision, it’s important for us to first know who’s driving.

Wisdom calls to us from the mountain, along the road, at a crossroads. Wisdom also calls to us “beside the gate in front of the town.” The gate of the town in ancient Israel was a very important place. It was where public forums were held. It was the place where disputes were decided, arguments were defended, and laws were discussed. In today’s society, that place might be a city council meeting or a town hall or the floor of Congress, or at a peaceful protest. For the church, that could be at a Session or congregational meeting or in a Sunday school room or at a Presbytery meeting. Anywhere that allows groups of people to have a discussion about civil and societal matters, about issues of faith and morality, is the gate to the city. It is the place where change can happen if we all listen to the same voice.

Finally, the author of Proverbs 8 talks about wisdom calling at the entrance of the portals. I’m not really sure why the NRSV translators decided to go with ‘portals’ here as the translation. The word is petach, which means door. Wisdom calls from the entrance of the door. Wisdom speaks to us from the doorway. When I was in high school and community college, I would often take my friend Josh home at night after hanging out somewhere or doing something with youth group or whatever. When we’d get to his house, I would pull into the driveway and shut the car off. Nine times out of ten, we would then either stay seated in the car or get out and stand near the door to the house and talk…for hours. There were times that I’d bring him home at 9 or 10pm and I would not get back to my house until 3am. Those are the kind of doorway conversations where I think wisdom can speak to us.

What all of these places have in common is that they all involve being around other people. They all involve listening and learning. So the question for us then is, “Are we listening to and learning from wisdom?” Are we listening to and learning from God?

“Before refrigerators, people used icehouses to preserve their food. Icehouses had thick walls, no windows and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer. One man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch. Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. ‘I closed the door,’ the boy replied, ‘lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking.’”

We can so easily go through life searching and searching and searching for what feels lost. But perhaps this whole time we should have been closing the door to the noise of the world, laying down in the soil of life, and listening to the voice of wisdom speaking to us. That voice might come from anyone that we meet along our life’s journey. It may come from something we read, in the Bible or elsewhere. On occasion, it may come directly from heaven to our minds. But the truth is that wisdom is always calling out to us and understanding is raising its voice so that we will hear. And that voice will often come through the voice of another. So we be willing to listen to the other.

“In a law class, a professor carefully explained the Latin phrase Audi Alteram Partem, which means ‘Hear the other party.’ After a long and thorough discussion, the professor asked if anyone still didn’t understand the rule. One woman quickly replied, ‘My husband.’” Do we listen to one another or do we have selective hearing that blocks out the voices we don’t want?

Today is Trinity Sunday, on which we celebrate God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is a perfect example of the way we should interact with one another in an ideal world. Our lives should be an intimate dance that ultimately brings us into better relationship and unites us in love and in purpose. May we all hear the voice of wisdom speaking to us today and may we be granted understanding as it raises its voice to push through the noise and speak to our souls. And may we be all bound together in that wisdom and understanding through the love and grace of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen!