Smart Stuff -- FPC sermon excerpt

When you are driving around the DC area, it is good to do a lot of praying. It is also advisable, while you are praying, to keep your eyes open.

I know a man who works downtown, and who prays as he commutes. He doesn’t pray for safe travels, or for deliverance from detours and accidents. He prays for an open parking spot, right front of his destination.

He claims it works. At least some of the time.

Well, guess what? The day is coming when he won’t have to pray for a parking spot. He’ll be able to find one with his cell phone.

According to Kevin Maney in USA TODAY (February 10, 2006), we will soon see smart, networked parking meters — meters that can talk to each other and report information to a website. If you drive into an area and want to know where an open space is, you simply use your cell phone to access the website and find an unused spot.

Even better, you will soon be able to punch a button and make a reservation. The parking meter will flash a reserved sign and hold the space for you for five minutes.

Smart stuff.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that these high-tech meters will make people any smarter. I heard about a meter maid who was walking up the block writing tickets when she noticed a student staring at a parking meter.

“Young man, is there something I can help you with?”

“No,” he said, “I’m just waiting for my gumball. I’ve still got 5 minutes left.”

In a variety of ways, everyday gadgets are now wising up, talking to one another, and making life a little easier for us. Sewing machines can now download images and embroider them on your clothes. Shipping crates are calling their owners for help if they get lost. And some gas pumps are running Microsoft Windows, allowing you to order coffee, download music, and check traffic while you fill your tank.

These advances all come from improved communication and networking. A system called Home Heartbeat connects sensors on appliances, doors, and other fixtures. You can program the system to tell you — by text message — every time the front door opens and the TV turns on.

My kids would not be happy at all if they were being monitored by Home Heartbeat.

God has always wanted us to be a part of his network, so he sends us a message in Proverbs chapter 1 about staying connected to wisdom. What’s so innovative about this passage is that Wisdom is portrayed as a woman, a flesh-and-blood character who walks into the middle of human life and delivers a powerful message from the Lord.

Wisdom “cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice,” says the writer of Proverbs (1:20). At the busiest corner she calls out, speaking her message at the chaotic entrance to the city. Wisdom does not hide in the safety of a church sanctuary, or in the calm and quiet of a Bible study classroom, but moves confidently into the raucous world of high-tech parking meters and Windows-running gas pumps.

“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?” Wisdom speaks directly to us today, criticizing our tendency to grab hold of easy answers and simple solutions. “How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing,” she asks, “and fools hate knowledge?” (v. 22).

Lady Wisdom challenges us to embrace the full complexity of this world that God has created. She pushes us to plug into a network of Christians who are exploring what it means to be people of faith in fast-paced, high-tech, multicultural community. Our problem with becoming wise is not due to a lack of knowledge — we can find all the information we want on the Internet. Instead, our failure to gain wisdom has more to do with our being unwilling to follow the guidance of wise people — mentors, friends, parents, teachers. It is so important that we remain connected to a church community in which people are sharing their wisdom with one another.