Wisdom: Tree of Life
Proverbs 1:1-7 and Proverbs 3:13-18
Third Sunday after Pentecost
June 14, 2026
By Pastor Jane Shelton, CRE
In November, I attended a class on “Wisdom” by Dr. Christine Yodor at the FRP annual retreat held at Columbia Theological Seminary.
I was so intrigued by the study that I wanted to share with you the highlights of biblical wisdom that I learned, and so for the next few weeks of summer, we will focus on wisdom.
We talk a lot about discernment, and we pray a lot about seeking discernment in making wise decisions, and wisdom is an important part of the discernment process.
Now, I will honestly share with you that whenever I consider sharing about spiritual wisdom, I am like a kid in a candy store with one hundred choices, and which decision do I make first? What choice do I make, and which is the right choice? Do I want chocolate? Well, yes, of course! But do I want M&Ms or a Snickers bar, or is a 3 Musketeers the best option today? What is the right choice? Do I get all three and eat one now and save the other two? Where do I begin?!
Do you experience the same dilemma when trying to make choices?!
This is the same experience that I had whenever I made the decision to write a sermon series on wisdom. Where do I begin?
The Book of Proverbs has intrigued me since I was a teenager, and if you were to look at my bible from my teenage years, you would see a LOT of Proverbs scriptures underlined.
Looking back, it was where I first began to really discern that decisions I made had consequences that could affect the rest of my life, as well as others, so I wanted to “get it right,” so to speak, and I would pore over scriptures in Proverbs looking for the “right” answers.
What I have learned in my lifetime is that there are some simple answers to what is right and what is wrong, although it didn’t take me long to figure out that everything is not black and white, and this is where we need wisdom to help us discern the path ahead.
Before I get too far ahead of myself, let us look at how wisdom is a Tree of Life. I have provided in the bulletin a Tree of Life diagram for you to take home and consider with me over the next few weeks.
Any gardener or planter knows the most important part of planting is the foundation or the root system, and I love that this Tree of Life begins with communion, connection, and awareness. It is what is garnered from the foundation of the earth. God has provided the nourishment from which we begin.
Without being rooted or grounded, there is no connection, and there is no growing or fruit-bearing that will occur.
If we think of this root system as needing communion with God through the Spirit, we can easily identify how wisdom feeds and nourishes us.
As wisdom is nourished, it helps us to live so that we are not static or fixed on moralism; rather, we learn to be flexible like the leaves on the tree, allowing us to move in the wind with the changes so that we do not break.
With wisdom, we can be responsive to conform or respond to what is going on around us, rather than resist it. We become resilient.
There is a cycle or seasonal movement of life that, left unfed and undernourished, can become dangerous if pushed to the limits. So with each season we return to communion and connection to survive and flourish.
Wisdom, referred to as “her” in the Bible, has ways of pleasantness and paths of peace, and we who hold onto wisdom or the tree of life are happy, fortunate, blessed. It’s what we desire and yet often find elusive because we fail to remain connected to God, forgetting to replenish the nutrients of wisdom.
So why would we not cling to the tree of life? The wisdom of the Lord? Why would we not seek it?
If we go all the way back to Genesis, we will see that even in creation, wisdom was present.
Genesis 2:8-9 “And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”
Wisdom was the original plan that God had for us in the beautiful, peaceful Garden of Eden. However, because of the disobedience of Adam and Eve, we were cut off from the garden.
Disobedient humans were separated from the happy and pleasant paths of peace that God planned for us in the beginning.
There is no going back to the garden; however, we can lay claim to the tree of life and knowledge of wisdom as we are shown in Chapter One of Proverbs, as we learn that wisdom can be taught and learned.
Whew! What a relief that we are not forever cast out or separated from God.
In fact, it is because of God’s faithfulness and grace to humankind that we are given the gift, the ability to learn wisdom.
Yet learning it is not enough; it is putting it into action that brings the life-giving energy we talked about earlier that allows us to sprout and grow closer to know and experience the love of God.
So where do we begin to learn about wisdom?
Proverbs Chapter One tells us. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”
This doesn’t mean we should be afraid of God; rather, the word fear here means we are to revere God. We are to recognize that God is greater than humans, is more powerful than any human, and is always present.
This is known as the three “omnis.”
Omnipotence means that God is in total control as a being and its creation. Omniscience means that God is the ultimate criterion of truth and falsity, so that God’s ideas are always true. Omnipresence means that since God’s power and knowledge extend to all parts of its creation, God is present everywhere. Together these three define God’s divine nature, and yield a rich understanding of creation, providence, and salvation.
So let us begin our journey into wisdom, standing in awe of the mighty
God that showed us through Jesus what it means to be in communion and connect with God and one another, and how we learn to have constant awareness with profound respect and reverence for God that allows us to form a foundation for understanding, humility, and obedience.
And may we find ways of pleasantness and paths of peace along the way.