Dame Wisdom May 30, 2010, Trinity Sunday Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 Douglas T. King, The Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York Memorial Day Weekend is here! On this weekend, we remember and honor those who have died in war and, on a lighter note, we look forward to the gifts of summer. Soon we will leave behind all of the scurrying to and fro we do here and things will settle down to a nice, contemplative crawl. Soon I will have the time to get my office and my life organized and time to ponder deep and significant things. Welcome to the daydream I have every late spring. Somehow it never quite comes to fruition. Somehow I can never quite separate myself from a multitude of distractions that keep me hop-scotching from one thing to the next. Somehow I never quite get organized well enough to sit quietly and ponder the deep thoughts I believe may be rattling around in my brain somewhere. This morning s text from Proverbs brings hope to those of us who find our heads far too often in a Pavlovian pattern, responding to bleeping blackberries and assorted other intrusions of our lives and minds. How can we ever ponder the deepest questions about who we are and who God is and what any of this all means when we are so distracted, so engaged in the world all the time? Well, lucky for us, God knows us better than we know ourselves. God is fully aware of the many distractions that compete for time in our overtaxed brains. - 1 -
In the section from the book of Proverbs Ann just read, we are overhearing a father offering advice to his son. The father is describing wisdom using the metaphor of a woman calling out to the young man, to all of us. Here is the good news. We do not need to go out looking for dame wisdom. She is already looking for us, already calling out to us. We do not need to retreat from the world to some isolated mountaintop to find Dame Wisdom. She is right here in the midst of us. We do not need to wait for a special time to meet Dame Wisdom. She is hanging around all the time, beckoning us. The author of the book of Proverbs writes, Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads, she takes her stand. Beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals, she cries out: To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. Dame Wisdom is right here on the corner of Park Avenue and 91 st street. Dame Wisdom is wandering around midtown. Dame Wisdom is seeking entrance to our offices. Dame Wisdom is following us home at the end of the day. So who is this wisdom that is ever seeking us out? We learn that Dame Wisdom is no newcomer to the scene. She was present with God at the creation of the world. In the Hebrew, it says that she was poured out into the world at that time. When God brought matter into existence, wisdom was there. When God reigned in the midst of chaos and brought order, wisdom was there, working at the divine s side. God delights in wisdom, and as God delights in Dame Wisdom, Dame Wisdom delights in humanity. The Lord created me at the beginning of his - 2 -
work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water...when he established the heavens, I was there...when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race. The book of Proverbs tends to be less-traversed terrain for most of us. We tend to be more attracted to the powerful stories of the Gospels and of Genesis than to this book which is filled with poetry and countless aphorisms. The text we heard read this morning provides us with some sense as to why we should value the book. Author Ellen Davis explains the value of it in this way: It is a book for unexceptional people trying to live wisely and faithfully in the generally undramatic circumstances of daily life, on the days when water does not pour forth out of rocks and angels do not come to lunch. The Israelite sages are concerned with the same things we worry about, the things people regularly consult their pastors and friends about: how to avoid bitter domestic quarrels, what to tell your kids about sex and about God, what to do when somebody asks you to lend them money, how to handle your own money and your work life, how to cultivate lasting friendships. In short, the sages whose sayings make up Proverbs are interested in the art of living well with others, with ourselves, and with God. (Davis, p. 92) - 3 -
The message we receive in Proverbs is that God cares about the mundane realities of our lives. We do not need to seek out God by removing ourselves from our daily routines; God is right in the midst of them and invested in them. And God is offering us a way in which to improve the manner in which we live our lives. Sometimes people come to believe that the scriptures are all about telling us how to stop pleasing ourselves so we can please God when in reality the scriptures offer us, by a variety of means, insightful wisdom into how to please ourselves, to improve our lives, and thus please God no end. We are told that Dame Wisdom rejoices in the divine as God creates this remarkable world and takes delight in humanity. Dame Wisdom revels in being in the midst of our lives. The writer Kruger Gaudino pushes the image of Dame Wisdom to this interesting place. She writes that Proverbs 8 introduces us to a new version of the creation story that celebrates creation as a wise and delightful process of both play and serious business and to a spirituality that sounds amazingly contemporary. Proverbs 8 reminds me of a story of a parent trying to get some serious work done while a child prances around him or her, pleased to be a part of things, giving a hand here or there, instilling joy and laughter in the whole process. (Gaudino, p. 83) God s wisdom is far from something stiff and unyielding, far from something inaccessible to us. God s wisdom is joyfully engaged with the world. Sophocles called wisdom the supreme part of happiness. It is a gift offered to us - 4 -
by God; a gift that is anxious to be present with us and illumine for us how our lives can be fuller and richer. Ellen Davis describes Dame Wisdom as a teacher the impassioned kind who helps you see that the world is vast and open and worth diving into with everything you ve got. (Davis, p. 147) The church has debated for many years over who exactly the Dame Wisdom portrayed in the proverbs is. Some have suggested it is what we call the Holy Spirit. Some have argued that it is Torah, the Jewish law. I, myself, think of it as the Holy Spirit and, this Trinity Sunday, enjoy envisioning God s Spirit as Dame Wisdom but I do not lose much sleep over the metaphysical intricacies. What is important to me is the nature of the gift being offered to us, even if I cannot quite nail down the mechanism of how God is bringing it to us. I, for one, could certainly use some more wisdom in my life. My friend and colleague, Carla Pratt Keyes discusses our need for wisdom in this way. Whether we live wisely or foolishly can mean the difference between frustration and contentment, ruin and abundance of life. Too often it s the path of foolishness we know best. Who hasn t felt regret of choices poorly made or the fear of consequences you didn t anticipate well enough. The effect of words spoken in haste or in anger. Promises broken. Money squandered, and time wasted away. Love unappreciated, unreturned. But with the gift of wisdom being offered to us, perhaps we have a chance at something better. To be free of shame, of fear, of loss brought by foolishness to be free for joy, for peace, for love gained through - 5 -
wisdom. What would it be worth to you?...to live well. Really, deeply well. (Pratt Keyes, p. 13) Dame Wisdom and her book of proverbs offer us insight into our God and our lives. God delights in us. God is anxious to be present in the midst of not just our Sunday morning sitting-in-church lives, but the reality of our daily lives. God is seeking to give us advice and counsel, not to please Godself but to allow us to live lives of joyful satisfaction which will bring both satisfaction and joy to the divine. The next time you reach for the Bible, bypass the gospels for a moment and take a wander through the book of Proverbs, see what wisdom it might offer you. Proverbs may not tell us a story the way in which the gospels draw a picture of Jesus dramatically stilling the storm or giving sight to the blind, but it does tell a story of its own. Michael Lindvall is fond of saying that there are only two plotlines to all the stories in the world; someone goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town. In this story, the one who comes to town is Dame Wisdom, offering us a joyful journey. Proverbs envisions for us the nature of this remarkable character, a God who does not merely love us, but delights in us, and anxiously seeks us out, calling to us every day, that we might lead lives of joy. Of course, we are still left to ponder how we recognize God s wisdom in our midst. Turning to the Bible and the wisdom of books such as Proverbs with an informed eye and a prayerful heart is - 6 -
always vital. But God does not work solely through scripture. We can be open to receiving God s wisdom from all sorts of places. God can speak to us through the counsel of good friends. Sometimes, even through seemingly random encounters and events, God is nudging us forward in wisdom. And within the deepest parts of our hearts, God can be heard quietly offering us a direction forward. Unfortunately, there is no easy chart by which to sort God s wisdom from less-than-helpful directions. But we can turn to scripture to test what we are being offered. We can ask the community of faith to discern with us. And I believe in our hearts, if we listen to them carefully, we have some innate sense about when the word being offered to us may or may not be from God. Our lives will journey through many twists and turns as we seek to be faithful. But the theme and ending of all the stories is made quite clear in the Book of Proverbs. God s dame wisdom is coming to town and delighting in us and anxiously offering us a journey of joy. Thanks be to God. Amen. Davis, Ellen F., Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament, Cowley Publications, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2001 Kruger Gaudino, Rebecca J., Holy Trinity Sunday: in New Proclamation, Year C, 2007, David B. Lott, ed. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2006, pgs. 82-89 Pratt Keyes, Carla, Trinity Sunday, 2010, Moveable Feast Paper, unpublished - 7 -
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