In today’s lesson from Proverbs, Wisdom calls to us, to each one of us, suggesting that we learn discretion and prudence. The Biblical figure of Wisdom, often portrayed as Lady Wisdom, suggests as well that we acquire knowledge and intelligence. She links that knowledge to hatred of evil and defines evil as pride and arrogance. Wisdom identifies herself with justice and claims that she is more valuable than silver, gold, and jewels.

So what does this say to graduating high school seniors going off in search of wisdom at colleges and universities that cost big bucks for their parents? Much to your parent’s disappointment, it may suggest that the wisdom you discover will not come from your classes, and much to your disappointment it probably won’t come from that social life that you so anxiously await either. You may, however, discover the wisdom we are all so desperately seeking in how you respond to that social life and your classes. God’s Wisdom grows as a result of living a life of faith.

Now before I start sounding too much like your mother, I want to share a few stories of wisdom that come to us from our created world. We shouldn’t be surprised by my source, since Wisdom makes it very clear that she was the master worker at God’s side during the time of creation. Her pattern and mark can be seen as we study and explore this wondrous earth and universe.

That really is the first piece of wisdom that we learn form this passage: look to God’s creation for understanding.

A colleague shared a story about being questioned by a woman with regards to the way he was eating a banana. "I’ve never seen anyone peel a banana that way before," the woman remarked.

My colleague must have looked surprised, for she continued, "From the flower end, everyone I know starts at the stem end."

My colleague explained that he had learned this trick from watching monkeys. "Normally, we humans grab the stem end and wrench it back and forth until the tough skin snaps. If it doesn’t snap easily, we crush the fruit underneath." (Rumors Newsletter, downloaded 5/4/04) Monkeys, on the other hand peel from the flower end. It’s much easier and it avoids having to eat the mashed banana.

Now it was my colleague’s turn to be surprised. "I never thought of learning anything from a monkey!" the woman exclaimed after hearing the explanation of this innovative behavior.

But why not, where did we ever get the idea that we could learn only from creatures that are more intelligent than we are? In this generation of technological advance, we often ignore what we can learn from creation. Yet there are many lessons available if we open ourselves to the Wisdom that was with God at the beginning.

Essentially these lessons come from God directly. Even though the scripture lesson talks about the personification of Wisdom, this was just a way of speaking about God that was practiced when Proverbs was developed. The Wisdom that is portrayed here is a part of God’s full self. So in actuality, we can learn a great deal about God from our observations of God’s creation.

Years ago, when I was a young adult in college, I remember studying the economics of the creation. My instructor encouraged us think about the earth as if it were a space ship where everything that is consumed is limited by the boundaries of the ship and all the by products of that consumption had to also be limited by the boundaries of the ship.

This exercise was an excellent way of helping us to see the web of connection that exists in our environment. What we dump into the river has an impact on the people downstream. What we put in the landfill, may effect future generations. The gasses that are released into the air due to the burning of carbon fuels effect our creation in ways that we are just beginning to understand. The excitement about sending forth this new generation is that they may be the ones to move us out of this carbon fuel era.

These new generations of college students may also discover more than their parents and grandparents about the ordered pattern of the creation. They may find in their studies of science new evidence of the guiding hand of God. Mathematical research of the last fifty years has led science in new directions. Fractals, equations that many of our children learn about yet most adults know nothing about, represent a new way of thinking in relation to the dimension of curves. Fractals are equations that explain the movement of dimension that we see in a curve. Mathematicians developed the first fractals, and scientists have come to see that this new way of thinking has application in biology, physics, economics, physiology, and sociology, the study of people. Patterns of fractals are repeated at every magnification level and in every field of study that investigates this wondrous creation. There is more pattern than we ever realized in this wondrous world that God has created. Fractals reveal ordered pattern in what we once thought was chaos.

This morning’s Psalm celebrates the glory of this wondrous, interconnected creation. And the pattern of the Psalm reveals the centrality of humanity within this creation, yet it also represents the center as bounded by God. Look at the Psalm again.

For us, the critical thing is to always hold the boundaries and the center together. God has chosen to share God’s power! To fail to recognize God due to human arrogance or just plain stubbornness would be to risk our God-given responsibility as partners with God in the care of creation. It also risks the destruction of God’s creation. God has placed us at the center of the creation, yet we are bounded by God’s presence.

Earlier in the week, I spent about five minutes watching clouds blow through the sky. White and gray against a blue sky, these high puffy cumulus clouds were very three dimensional, yet I knew that they had no dimension. I was reminded again of the magnificence and glory of God’s creation and stood marveling with the Psalmist that God would bestow upon us this great honor of caring steward. How can we not respond to Wisdom’s call?

A woman once went into a marketplace, looked around, and saw a sign that read, "God’s Fruit Stand." "Thank goodness! It’s about time!" the woman said to herself.

She went over and said, "I would like a perfect banana, a perfect cantaloupe, a perfect strawberry, and a perfect peach."

God who was behind the counter, shrugged and said "I’m sorry. I only sell seeds."

Our mistake is like this woman, looking for perfect fruit. Wisdom is not about perfection and creation is still evolving. There is a divine energy at the heart of the creation moving us forward. So that popular saying of several years ago, "Be patient! God isn’t finished with me yet!" is more true than we ever thought. God calls us forward.

We, all of us, not just our seniors have an opportunity this morning to leave behind all things that encumber us, hold us back from being the stewards of God’s creation. We can say goodbye to the failures of the past. We can let go of feelings of despair and strike out on a new path of love. We can make a new start as we begin this day recognizing that we are bounded by God and cannot leave him out of our lives. We are all like that seed that God wants to sell, ready to blossom into ripeness, a product of God’s fruit stand. Amen.