Today’s first reading from 1 Kings 3 gives us a snapshot of Solomon, Son of David, as he ascends the throne of Israel. “O Lord, my God,” he prayed, “I am a mere youth, not knowing how to act…Give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.” God was touched by the generosity of Solomon’s request, and it was given to him.
Fast-forward to 2020 – to two recent situations – one here in Rochester and the other in Atlanta. They both have to do with wisdom, i.e., an understanding heart. On Friday, July 17, the front page of the Democrat & Chronicle newspaper in Rochester carried the photo of John Boedicker and Charles Milks, two white men in their 20’s, carrying a statue of Frederick Douglass to be erected in Maplewood Park. The backstory is a lesson in wisdom, for when John and Charles had vandalized a similar statue two years ago, they could have been penalized and no more. But wisdom prevailed in the Center for Dispute Settlement and the Re-energizing the Legacy of Frederick Douglass Committee. These groups created a restorative justice program for John and Charles, who went through a series of experiences that did not punish, but restored these two men to life in a multiracial community. That’s how they got to carry the new statue of Douglass into Maplewood Park.
Calvin Eison, chair of the Douglass Committee, was able to secure from Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley a pledge that prosecutors would try to use this restorative justice program with defendants of color who commit similar crimes.
Wisdom restores, plants understanding in wayward or lost hearts and creates new life.
The day this article was in the newspaper, John Robert Lewis, icon of the civil rights movement and last remaining member of the 1963 March on Washington, died in Atlanta at the age of 80. Lewis was gifted by God with an understanding heart from his youth. Once he realized that, he never wavered, though he was beaten multiple times in his call for justice and could have said, “I have done enough.” The word “enough “was not in his vocabulary. The historian Jon Meacham calls Lewis a saint who shaped his life on the beatitudes.
The life of John Lewis is a thread through our Congregation’s life, for the Sisters of Saint Joseph ran the hospital in Selma, Alabama where John Lewis was brought after the attack on the far side of the Edmund Pettis Bridge. He is one of our heroes.
These stories of recent events give us inspiration to ask God for wisdom if we think we don’t have it. The letter of James offers us this encouragement: “If any of you is without wisdom, let him {her} ask it from the God who gives generously and ungrudgingly to all, and it will be given him {her}” James 1.5.
In today’s Gospel from Matthew, Jesus tells the parables of the buried treasure, the merchant searching for fine pearls and the net thrown into the sea. “Do you understand these things?” Jesus asks his disciples? Given the examples of the restored John and Charles and in the spirit of John Lewis, Jesus asks us the same thing. How will we shape our life going forward?
~Sister Joan Sobala
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