This Sunday on which we award our scholarships is one of my most favorite days of the whole year here at Santa Monica First. It is thrilling to see the people whose lives are so tangibly and generously and lovingly impacted by the gifts of these scholarships. And how grateful and inspired we all are at the generosity and dedication of those who reach out to this generation of students and generations yet to come in support of education, profession and vocation. Thanks be to God!

This support of education is a mark of being Methodist. In this year of celebrating John Wesley's 300th birthday, we remember that the Methodist renewal movement began on a university campus. And during his own ministry, Wesley was instrumental in starting schools all over Britain. Here in the United States, as the early circuit rider preachers traversed hill and vale to bring people the Word of God's amazing grace, they also distributed Bibles and books as they went. Following the model of Jesus' first disciples that we heard about last Sunday, they had virtually no possessions of their own. Instead, their saddlebags were packed with books and with Methodist periodicals, which were the primary reading material of many of the early pioneers.

These early preachers also knew that they needed to be teachers. So, in addition to the gift of God's love, they gave people the gift of literacy and reading. We, the people called Methodist, carry on this legacy, even to this very day. We continue to support Sunday school for children and for adults. Our study groups, Disciple Bible Study and our Book Study, for example, carry on this tradition. Many of our churches, large and small, have libraries, and I hope you all will take a moment to visit ours today and see how great it's looking, and learn how you can contribute to it.

Moreover, through mission projects all across this land, in rural areas, in our cities, and all across the world, Methodist missionaries teach literacy for children and for adults. We also provide schools. Our own FUMC Nursery School and Kindergarten, known as one of the finest in this area, is a product of this very legacy, and since 1948 has nurtured hundreds of children and their families.

From nursery schools all the way through schools, colleges and universities, the Methodist church makes excellent education accessible.

Do you know that, through our apportionment dollars, the money we give through this local church to support the Methodist mission world-wide, we continue to support 700 campus ministries, including the Wesley Foundation at UCLA and United Campus Ministry at USC? We Methodists support 124 co lleges and universities in the U.S. alone, including the University of the Pacific here in the West, and prominent universities such as Duke, Emory, and American University in our nation's capital. Do you know that we support 13 United Methodist seminaries, where men and women are trained and nurtured for the work of ministry, including the School of Theology at Claremont, where our own ministerial candidate, Amy Liggett, will begin her studies this Fall?

We Methodists value learning, and parenthetically, we should be among the loudest voices demanding support for teachers and excellent education for all students at every level here, in this day and age.

But in all of this, remember that the early Methodist teachers-John and Charles Wesley and the circuit riders, like Florence Workman's' grandfather-were preachers first. The learning they promoted was not intended for the mind only, but for the heart and the soul. And to this day, Methodists value not only knowledge, you see, but wisdom, the Wisdom of God.

God's Wisdom gets at the question of not just what we need to know-but rather, how we are to live as people of God. In Proverbs, Wisdom is often described as the Way, meaning a path worn by constant use. A path frequently traveled. A way of living. It was from this understanding that the early Christians were known as the people of the Way, for this is what Jesus meant when he told us: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." This living way is the Wisdom of God.

As you read the Bible, you will find teachings about the Wisdom of God in the Book of Proverbs, as we heard a bit this morning, and in Job, Ecclesiastes, the Psalms, the Gospels, the letters of Paul and the book of James. I invite you to read and ponder those teachings, for there is much fruitful material to hold over/against the popular self-help books of our day, which too often become self-centered and over-simplistic.

There are admonitions in the Book of Proverbs about life lived along this Way. "Do not rob the poor," it tells us. Avoid gluttony, greed, lying, extravagance, arrogance and contention. Instead, Wisdom, the path of God's Way, directs us to live humbly, faithfully, obediently, reputably and securely.

It is through Wisdom that we are taught to pay attention to our relations with God and with one another, to seek harmony and right relationship with all. And it is through Wisdom that we attain what the Psalmist calls "the fear of the Lord," awe of God, the gut awareness that God is the Lord of Life, the Creator of everything, the source of all goodness, beauty and truth, amazing grace.

To our scholarship givers and recipients today, I want to say, "May God's full blessings be upon you as you pursue your studies and expand your minds, but never forget to seek the Wisdom of God as well." The American novelist, Zora Neale Hurston, wrote: "Learning without wisdom is a load of books on a donkey's back."

As you learn, as you grow, as your knowledge increases, may your love of God increase as well. May you live more faithfully and more passionately. May you use your knowledge and the privilege it affords to serve others, and may whatever privilege and status you attain through these pursuits enable you to give back more generously to those still in need.

In conclusion this morning, to our scholarship recipients and to all here today who seek God, who seek the path of life, who seek Christ, our Way, our Truth and our Life, hear these words from the Book of Proverbs:

"Listen carefully to these words. Keep them deep in your heart. For they are life to those who find them and health to all humanity. More than all else, keep watch over your heart, for there are the wellsprings of life. Mark out the path that your feet must take and all your ways will be secure.

Get wisdom. At the cost of all you have, get understanding. Do not forsake her, and she will watch over you. Love her, and she will safeguard you. Cherish her and she will lift you high. Wisdom will bring you honors if you embrace her. She will provide a graceful garland for your head and bestow a crown of honor upon you. . . . She is a tree of life to all those who hold her fast and those who hold her close are called 'blessed.'"

May you be blessed to live in the Way of the Wisdom of God. Amen.

Notes
1. Whalen, Paul. United Methodist News Service Commentary: "John Wesley's Impact Lives On." July 9, 2003.
2. The Living Pulpit. "Wisdom." July-September 2000.

© Patricia E. Farris, 2003. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.