In today's first reading, we are given an instruction about the process of attaining wisdom, and in the Gospel reading, we see wisdom in action, Jesus, reprimanding his disciples for their failure to act wisely.

Sirach clearly recognizes that wisdom is not easily acquired, because it depends upon human experience.  It cannot be learned only from books.  The lines of a song by John Denver come to mind:  "What a friend we have in time/ Gives us children, makes us wise/ Tells us what to take or leave behind."  The kind of wisdom that tells us how to live and how to do God's will has to be grown into, slowly and carefully, until it becomes totally ourselves.  No wonder we generally recognize that wise persons are usually elderly!  And the further words of the same song tell us:  "And the gift of growing old/ All the stories to be told/ Of the feelings more precious than gold."  The kind of wisdom that comes with growing older while living well is open and relaxed toward others.  It is not jealous or fearful, as are the disciples in today's Gospel.  It is not threatened by differences or the success of others.  The response of Jesus to the man who is expelling demons in His name is totally different from that of the disciples.  It is totally relaxed, totally free of fear or jealousy, with nothing to lose.  It reflects the deep peace of a man who has walked the path of wisdom all his life, not as a stranger, but familiarly as a friend.  And so Jesus is able to be always open, generous, trustful.

The chorus of the above-mentioned song goes like this:  "Friends, I will remember you, think of you, pray for you/ And when another day is through, I'll still remember you."  This is the kind of relationship we are always invited into by God, Who, through Jesus calls us friends and asks us to befriend the stranger, the alien, even our enemies.  "Anyone who is not against us is with us," the words of Jesus should be our motto, too.  Why?  Because the God we have come to know and love is precisely "Immanuel," God with us, and He/She has invited every human being, without any exception, into the circle of His/Her friendship.  To be a disciple of Jesus, God's ambassador, is to be one who extends the hand of that Divine friendship to everyone.

So maybe the readings today are a call to us to examine our openness to others, our willingness to befriend everyone, our readiness to forgive, our responsiveness to strangers, and, finally, our commitment to sharing the good news with the whole world.