The Wisdom of Light: Sunday Reflection

This morning’s Gospel reading is Matthew 5:13–16:

Jesus said to his disciples:

“You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”

Where does data end and knowledge begin? At what point does intellect transform into wisdom?

Earlier today, I had a conversation with a good friend while on a somewhat lengthy drive. We had a rather light conversation until we drew closer to the destination, when we began discussing the concept of wisdom in a theological sense. The context for this focused mainly on how to serve others with and through wisdom, which prompted the question: what, exactly, is wisdom? 

Having raised the question, we realized that it was not easy to answer directly. Too often, we confuse wisdom with intellect, and we also confuse data with knowledge. Knowledge and intellect are components of wisdom, but even together, they do not equal wisdom. Wisdom has a distinct quality that partially incorporates both, but suggests more about the application of knowledge and intellect. 

This dynamic plays out nearly every day, all around us. We see highly educated people make foolish, self-defeating, and even malicious choices. Knowledgeable people put their intellects to activities that do nothing to improve themselves or the world around them. Even armed with extraordinary knowledge, some people lack the foresight to grasp the consequences of their actions, their ideologies, and their policies. Smart people fall into bad relationships; otherwise successful businesspeople make bad investments and take foolish risks. Even people credited with "common sense" exhibit a lack of wisdom, such as Mark Twain, one of the most insightful American writers ever, who nonetheless lost everything he had in a bad business partnership. (Twain rebuilt his fortune by launching a world speaking tour.) 

Wisdom does not easily correlate to knowledge or intellect. Knowledge also does not correlate to data, either, although data is a component of it. We live in a world of data, where all of man's intellectual achievements can be found in a few clicks. Access to data does not imply knowledge in an effective sense, however, for all the reasons I noted above. 

So what is wisdom, and how necessary is wisdom for our salvation? Interestingly, our reading from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians argues against wisdom for a disciple, at least in a personal sense (1 Cor 2:1-5):

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of Spirit and power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

This passage is astounding, considering the source. Paul is considered one of the wisest fathers of the Church, its first true theologian other than Christ Himself, and perhaps the man most responsible for the spread of Christianity apart from the Gospel authors. Paul, however, disclaims all wisdom in his ministry, writing as though wisdom would interfere with the Word. 

And that is correct – in the sense of human wisdom. Human wisdom relies on human nature, experience, suffering, and learning from all of the above, but human wisdom mainly manifests through a tension of engagement and caution. We learn that fire is hot by observation, but that it is dangerous and injurious by putting our finger in it for the first time. When we take that experience and use it with proper caution and care, usually by careful containment and distance from the flame, that is wisdom.

However, Christ does not call us to Him through the filter of human wisdom. We are intended to embrace Christ's salvation with utter abandon, relying on Him and His love rather than our own intellects, knowledge, and will. This is what Paul does with his own ministries, and why he disclaims his own wisdom in favor of the Word of God. This takes an act of will on Paul's part, who clearly has a massive intellect and gifts for evangelization. He resolved, however, to "know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified."  

That does not make wisdom useless, but instead points us to the true core of faith. When it comes to Jesus, we must set aside our own sense of wisdom to place all of our trust in His. We must live our lives not within the bounds of our own cautious natures, but with complete embrace of what faith in the Lord means. It does not mean mere data, or knowledge, or intellect, although again all of these are components. We must hear the Word to know Him, and we must gain knowledge to apply it, but we must be wise enough to know that we are fools in comparison to Christ's plan of salvation for us and the whole world. 

In today's Gospel, Jesus parallels our first reading from Isaiah 58:7-10, in which the prophet calls on the Israelites to put the Word into action. When we do that, we rely on His wisdom rather than our own, and the Lord will embrace us in His own will to guide and protect us on our long road back to Him:

Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them, and do not turn your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed; your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am! If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday. 

What does Jesus tell us in today's Gospel? We are the light of the world, but that light only shines when we allow it to come through unfiltered and unhindered by our own "wisdom." It is the Light that is wise, and Jesus is the Light of the world; we bear it, but it is not ours. It is His, freely given, and He calls us to share it with others, unfiltered and unshaded. 

Only when we realize that will our wisdom and our will align with the Lord's.

Previous reflections on these readings:

• The Salt commission: Sunday reflection (2023)
• The Giver, not the gift: Sunday reflection (2020)
• Sunday reflection: Matthew 5:13-16 (2017)

The front page image is "The Sermon on the Mount" by Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1598. On display at the Getty Center. Via Wikimedia Commons. 

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature that looks at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections can be found here.  

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