Jesus states that he is the way that leads to life. What is this way of Jesus? Among other things, it is the way of wisdom and pondering. The way of Jesus is the way of standing amid all delight, joy, contradiction, ambiguity, division, and complexity with a heart and a faith big enough to hold it all somehow. Jesus’ way is the way of holding things. Part of this can be understood by looking at its opposite. The opposite of the way of wisdom, the way of holding things, scripture tells us, is the way of amazement. Time and time again, the crowds following Jesus are described as being amazed at what he says and does. Invariably, they are chided for it: “Don’t be amazed!” Jesus says. Amazement is not what Jesus wants, and it is never something that does us good. Why? Is it not good to be amazed? The same persons who were amazed at Jesus and who tried to make him King would, not long afterwards, shout: “Crucify him!” What we are amazed at we will eventually try to crucify, as every celebrity soon learns. Amazement is the opposite of wisdom. If amazement is bad, and the opposite of wisdom, what is good and what is wisdom? Pondering and helplessness are wisdom. We see an example of this in Mary, Jesus’ mother. She is never amazed. When others are amazed, she goes off and silently ponders things in her heart instead. In amazement, we fall prey to every kind of superficiality, novelty, trick, and one-sided ideology. Amazement is the unrecognized face of fundamentalism, the antithesis of wisdom. The way of amazement is the way of fundamentalism, the way of letting one piece, or person, be the whole. And the way of amazement is everywhere. The way of wisdom is the way of pondering, the way of holding every kind of pain, suffering, delight, and contradiction long enough until it transforms you, gestates compassion within you and brings you to your knees in a thousand surrenders. You and I are wise, and we walk the way of Jesus, when we are so stunned by it all that, in wonder, we ask: “If that is the case, who then can be saved?”[1]
[1] Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s reflection: “Jesus’ Way of Wisdom,” April 1997.