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Good morning.

Today marks one week before the start of Christmas: at least according to the church calendar, which is still making its deliberate way through Advent, refusing to be rushed by the frenzied noise of shop tills and Christmas music.

Although it is not a specific part of my own Methodist tradition, I will be joining the many Christians who count down these last seven days of Advent by reflecting on a different name for Jesus each day, drawn from the Hebrew scriptures. These are formally called the ‘O Antiphons,’ and the practice of using them dates from Medieval times. Doing this is meant to heighten both our sense of anticipation, and frankly, our disquiet with how things are now.

Today the cycle begins with the call for God to come as wisdom. ‘O Sapienta,’ in the Latin. I can think of no more timely moment for wisdom - , and not just as a spiritual virtue - and not just in church, though my goodness we need it here too.

Our calling today for wisdom to ‘come quickly’ is an interesting turnaround not least because in the Hebrew scriptures wisdom usually calls to us: and we do not always listen.

Wisdom is part of the creating work of God – there at the foundation of the earth, and present in the justice and integrity of Creation, as the hills are set up and the oceans formed.

But then Proverbs describes wisdom as being like a woman crying out at the gates of the city, literally to anyone who will listen. Here wisdom speaks from the perspective of the ones in the noise and dust - far from places where choices are made about war and peace, economy and politics. Her warnings often get ignored, the text implies. So praying for wisdom to come to us now, today, is praying for disruption in our business as normal.

When God offered Solomon one gift to help him be a good king – land, wealth, armies – Solomon chose wisdom. In a leader wisdom implies more than competence and good intentions: for a leader wisdom implies a mix of insight with courage, integrity. And humility to listen and learn from the margins of power.

There is - here - judgment, and there is also a promise of balance, the restoration of order to help power hear voices that are usually silenced.

Today I think there is value for all of us to pause and slow down just a little to consider what it might mean for Jesus - O Sapienta -to come at Christmas not with trappings of power, but in the form of a human child born into great danger and poverty. What might wisdom say, and what might we need to hear?

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