Who is She, and how do we know Her?: A sermon for Trinity Sunday
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
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.
The LORD created me at the beginning of his 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.
Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth--
when he had not yet made earth and fields,
or the world's first bits of soil.
When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
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 before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.
I know a lot of smart people. Really, really smart people. People who intimidate me with their wit, their vocabularies, their incredible breadth of knowledge. I’ve sat with them in class, I’ve learned from their lectures, I’ve read their blogs, Igo to church with them. But wise people? I don’t even know if I know anyone I would call “wise.”
The thing is, we don’t really talk about wisdom much so to tell the truth I don’t really know exactly what it is, or at least, I don’t really know exactly what it is we mean we say wisdom nowadays. I have a vague idea that wisdom is a special kind of knowledge, different from ordinary knowledge, or book-learning, or just being smart or quick-witted. When I think of a wise person, I think of somebody old: wisdom being something acquired through years of first-hand experience of the trials of life—something that, therefore, is undefinable, personal, non-transferable, and cannot be hurried, or achieved simply through effort or desire, or even anticipated. It’s sort of a compensation, maybe, for the wrinkles and the gray hair and the achy joints, and perhaps the reason why old people generally think the world—now being run by the upstart youngsters in their 20’s and 30’s and 40’s and 50’s—is going to hell in a handbasket. But that’s it—that’s all I can really say about wisdom. It’s something vague and undefinable that sometimes old people get, if they’re lucky, if they live well and long and pay attention to stuff, and process their life’s experiences in the right way.
That isn’t what “wisdom” means in our text for today.
To begin with, unlike us, the Israelites thought a lot about wisdom. In fact, there’s a whole genre of OT literature called “wisdom literature.” Proverbs is “wisdom literature” along with Job, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations.
But that’s not all. We think of wisdom generically, as just a sort of way of thinking or living that is attained by a few people by living well. But wisdom in the wisdom literature of the OT is altogether different. It is not something that human beings achieve by living a long time, or even by living well. The wisdom of the wisdom literature in the OT is not human at all. It is God’s wisdom.
But even in saying this we may be tempted to think of this as simply a way of saying that God is really wise: God knows a lot more stuff than we do and even knows a lot more than we do about what is good for us. Sure, God knows a lot of stuff. Maybe even everything. But this isn’t what God’s wisdom is, either. It is not an attribute of God, like omniscience, or a way of saying what God is like. The wisdom of God is itself divine. The wisdom of God is God.
This is why Wisdom is personified in our text today, because to talk about Wisdom is to talk about God. Wisdom in this sense is one of God’s ways of being present and active in the world.
And Wisdom is a woman: divine Sophia.
In our text today, Wisdom speaks directly to us. She makes a lot of claims for herself, as divine Sophia, God’s own wisdom. She claims that she was there at the very beginning, at God’s side during the very act of Creation itself. She is “the first of God’s acts,” and witnessed the establishment of the heavens and the seas and the foundation of the earth. She was, she says, “beside God like a master-worker,” suggesting that perhaps she even participated in God’s act of creation.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was there from the beginning, and through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
Of course, John's prologue is a lot more familiar to us than Wisdom’s speech in Proverbs 8. We have all heard it before, many times. Probably a lot of us could recite it from memory without ever having tried to really memorize it. And of course we all know who it is about, right?
But the amazing parallels between Wisdom’s speech in Proverbs and the prologue of the gospel of John are not accidental. They are, rather, extremely deliberate. Wisdom, divine Sophia, is used as a way of describing God’s action and presence in the world. And of course, nowhere is God more present than in Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate. As articulated by John’s gospel, then, Jesus, like Sophia, is God’s presence and action with us in the world: there from the beginning, involved intimately in the act of creation. The claims made by Sophia in Wisdom’s speech in Proverbs become, in John’s gospel, Christological claims.
But Wisdom is a woman.
Perhaps the fact that God can be seen and spoken of not only with masculine images and metaphor like Father and Son but also with female images and metaphors is not surprising. We're familiar with Jesus' statement about Jerusalem, how he longed to gather her home like a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings. We know that God is not male, or female. Perhaps both, or neither, or more than, or utterly other than; but never simply, only, male, or female. Nevertheless, I was told once during an especially vulnerable period of my Christian faith, “isn’t God a man?” Unable to respond at the time—unsure if my instinct to yell, “no!” was even faithful—I kept silent. Is God a man? I wondered...Jesus was a man. And Jesus was God incarnate. Does this mean God is a man?
Since then, my question has been not “is God a man,” but “how could anyone believe God is a man?” Of course this is a complicated matter. But on one level, this belief is possible because the Christian tradition, on the whole, speaks of God almost entirely in masculine language. Nowhere is this more evident than in Trinitarian language, which has been so sanctified over the years that it has become really the way to talk about who God is. Who God is in God’s self, and who God is to us. We theologian types call these the immanent and economic trinities. We talk about God in three persons, triunity, the one-in-three, perichoresis, aseity. We talk about social trinitarianism and discuss what works belong to which person, or if all three persons are present whenever God acts. Believe me, it’s complicated and wearying, and it’s been going on for nearly two thousand years.
Today is Trinity Sunday, a.k.a., "the first Sunday after Pentecost." Pentecost, of course, is a day with which we are all reasonably familiar, though sadly none of us remembered to wear the traditional red. But Trinity Sunday I would bet most of us have never heard of. Perhaps you, like me, did not even hear the word “trinity” in church growing up. Those of us from the Church of Christ don’t use that word much; Alexander Campbell, one of our founding fathers, didn’t like it: it isn’t biblical. "Bible things by Bible names!" So while we talk comfortably about God the Father, and Jesus the Son of God, and rather uncomfortably (I mean, let’s be honest) about the Spirit, we do accept the idea of God in three persons…we just don’t call them a trinity.
But the amazing parallels between Wisdom’s speech in Proverbs and the prologue of the gospel of John are not accidental. They are, rather, extremely deliberate. Wisdom, divine Sophia, is used as a way of describing God’s action and presence in the world. And of course, nowhere is God more present than in Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate. As articulated by John’s gospel, then, Jesus, like Sophia, is God’s presence and action with us in the world: there from the beginning, involved intimately in the act of creation. The claims made by Sophia in Wisdom’s speech in Proverbs become, in John’s gospel, Christological claims.
But Wisdom is a woman.
Perhaps the fact that God can be seen and spoken of not only with masculine images and metaphor like Father and Son but also with female images and metaphors is not surprising. We're familiar with Jesus' statement about Jerusalem, how he longed to gather her home like a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings. We know that God is not male, or female. Perhaps both, or neither, or more than, or utterly other than; but never simply, only, male, or female. Nevertheless, I was told once during an especially vulnerable period of my Christian faith, “isn’t God a man?” Unable to respond at the time—unsure if my instinct to yell, “no!” was even faithful—I kept silent. Is God a man? I wondered...Jesus was a man. And Jesus was God incarnate. Does this mean God is a man?
Since then, my question has been not “is God a man,” but “how could anyone believe God is a man?” Of course this is a complicated matter. But on one level, this belief is possible because the Christian tradition, on the whole, speaks of God almost entirely in masculine language. Nowhere is this more evident than in Trinitarian language, which has been so sanctified over the years that it has become really the way to talk about who God is. Who God is in God’s self, and who God is to us. We theologian types call these the immanent and economic trinities. We talk about God in three persons, triunity, the one-in-three, perichoresis, aseity. We talk about social trinitarianism and discuss what works belong to which person, or if all three persons are present whenever God acts. Believe me, it’s complicated and wearying, and it’s been going on for nearly two thousand years.
Today is Trinity Sunday, a.k.a., "the first Sunday after Pentecost." Pentecost, of course, is a day with which we are all reasonably familiar, though sadly none of us remembered to wear the traditional red. But Trinity Sunday I would bet most of us have never heard of. Perhaps you, like me, did not even hear the word “trinity” in church growing up. Those of us from the Church of Christ don’t use that word much; Alexander Campbell, one of our founding fathers, didn’t like it: it isn’t biblical. "Bible things by Bible names!" So while we talk comfortably about God the Father, and Jesus the Son of God, and rather uncomfortably (I mean, let’s be honest) about the Spirit, we do accept the idea of God in three persons…we just don’t call them a trinity.
Why bother with the Trinity? Basically, Trinitarian talk is just our attempt to hold together two essential affirmations about the God we believe in: that God became human, and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus Christ; and that God is, and has been, and will be the same God who has acted in the history of the people of Israel, and who moves among us today as Holy Spirit. How do we talk about a God who is so diversely present to us, and yet the same? The best solution the theologians of the third and fourth centuries could come up with was to talk about Father, Son and Holy Spirit: the three-in-one.
So on this Trinity Sunday, when we celebrate God the Father, who sent the Son, who sent the Spirit, our Comforter—what does it mean to talk about Wisdom, the female symbol of God’s presence and action in the world, divine Sophia, and Christ the Son as the new manifestation of Sophia?
I don’t really want to advocate straight up heresy. Not really. Not here, anyway…if you want heresy, go read my blog. So I’m not suggesting that the doctrine of the Trinity is a bad doctrine, that we need to dump it or revise it or ignore it. I’m certainly not trying to add a fourth member to the Trinity. No, what I'm saying is radical--but radically orthodox: We must be careful about assuming that any human formulation—no matter how old, how venerable, how traditional, how carefully worked out—captures the essence of God, definitively. God is so much more than any human way of naming or describing can capture. God cannot be captured. C.S. Lewis told us this: he’s not a tame lion. (And he’s not really a lion, either.)
God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is Wisdom, divine Sophia. God is Mother, a jilted lover, a fire, a wind. God is all these and none of these. God is Mystery that cannot be contained in any one image, any one metaphor.
Each way of imaging God and speaking of God teaches us something unique, and something new, I believe. The triune God of traditional Christian Trinitarian doctrine teaches us that God so loved the world that he sent his only son; a son who died for the sake of God’s beloved creation, and who promised us the Spirit in his absence. But this does not exhaust what can be said of God. So the question to ask, as we read this text on Trinity Sunday, is, what unique and new thing does Proverbs teach us about God through the voice of divine Wisdom?
Let’s look at our text again with this question in mind. It begins with Wisdom telling us that she cries out to us, and that she cries “to all that live.” This inclusive mission does not take heed of boundaries like nationality or gender or class or ability, or require that one be faithful before she’ll call. Her call is to us and to all that live. That’s everyone.
But that’s not all. When God, as Wisdom, calls out to all who live, it means not just that God wants everyone to hear but that everyone can hear Wisdom’s call. These days, I hear a lot about how Reason is untrustworthy, compromised because of the Fall, and how we have to be suspicious of human wisdom in order to be faithful to God’s Wisdom. Some of this I think is true. Obviously human knowledge is limited—we don’t know everything, and can’t know everything. Often we don’t even know or want what is good for us.
But if Wisdom’s call goes out to all who live then it reaches everyone, even those who do not know God as Father, Son and Spirit; and if Wisdom’s call is meant for all who live, then it means even those who do not know God as Father, Son and Spirit can hear Wisdom’s call. And unless Wisdom calls in vain, it means that all who live can respond to her. Human beings are not “ruined” when it comes to Wisdom; instead, we were created to be able to respond to Wisdom’s call when he hear it.
And now it makes sense that Wisdom’s speech turns into a poetic description of Creation itself: Wisdom was there from the beginning, observing and celebrating and participating in the creation of all things, including human beings; and thus we are in some sense creatures of Wisdom. We can hear her call and know Wisdom for who She is. Not just some of us; but all who live.
And so our text ends with God’s Wisdom “rejoicing in the inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” People, God loves us. And not just like a disappointed father loves a wayward and prodigal son. God delights in the human race! God beams down at us, smiles, laughs, rejoices in us humans very much, I think, the way I watch Clare as she laughs, eats, says “Hi Da!” and “CAT!” while maniacally giggling at our poor patient cat, as she takes her wobbly first steps and grows those funny looking front teeth. I’m shameless—she has her own blog now just because one blog couldn’t contain the immensity of maternal delight! God is rejoicing in this inhabited world and delighting in the human race—children of God, children of Wisdom!
Yes, Wisdom is a woman. And what we see in this text is that Wisdom is God present and active in this world: God loving and delighting in his creation, God calling out to us and to all who live. God the Father sent his Son and his Holy Spirit to us; and God as divine Sophia calls us all home, delighting in us as a woman does her child. God is all these, and none of these. God is mystery that cannot be contained, contained in all things, in the Wisdom that created all.
So on this Trinity Sunday, when we celebrate God the Father, who sent the Son, who sent the Spirit, our Comforter—what does it mean to talk about Wisdom, the female symbol of God’s presence and action in the world, divine Sophia, and Christ the Son as the new manifestation of Sophia?
I don’t really want to advocate straight up heresy. Not really. Not here, anyway…if you want heresy, go read my blog. So I’m not suggesting that the doctrine of the Trinity is a bad doctrine, that we need to dump it or revise it or ignore it. I’m certainly not trying to add a fourth member to the Trinity. No, what I'm saying is radical--but radically orthodox: We must be careful about assuming that any human formulation—no matter how old, how venerable, how traditional, how carefully worked out—captures the essence of God, definitively. God is so much more than any human way of naming or describing can capture. God cannot be captured. C.S. Lewis told us this: he’s not a tame lion. (And he’s not really a lion, either.)
God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is Wisdom, divine Sophia. God is Mother, a jilted lover, a fire, a wind. God is all these and none of these. God is Mystery that cannot be contained in any one image, any one metaphor.
Each way of imaging God and speaking of God teaches us something unique, and something new, I believe. The triune God of traditional Christian Trinitarian doctrine teaches us that God so loved the world that he sent his only son; a son who died for the sake of God’s beloved creation, and who promised us the Spirit in his absence. But this does not exhaust what can be said of God. So the question to ask, as we read this text on Trinity Sunday, is, what unique and new thing does Proverbs teach us about God through the voice of divine Wisdom?
Let’s look at our text again with this question in mind. It begins with Wisdom telling us that she cries out to us, and that she cries “to all that live.” This inclusive mission does not take heed of boundaries like nationality or gender or class or ability, or require that one be faithful before she’ll call. Her call is to us and to all that live. That’s everyone.
But that’s not all. When God, as Wisdom, calls out to all who live, it means not just that God wants everyone to hear but that everyone can hear Wisdom’s call. These days, I hear a lot about how Reason is untrustworthy, compromised because of the Fall, and how we have to be suspicious of human wisdom in order to be faithful to God’s Wisdom. Some of this I think is true. Obviously human knowledge is limited—we don’t know everything, and can’t know everything. Often we don’t even know or want what is good for us.
But if Wisdom’s call goes out to all who live then it reaches everyone, even those who do not know God as Father, Son and Spirit; and if Wisdom’s call is meant for all who live, then it means even those who do not know God as Father, Son and Spirit can hear Wisdom’s call. And unless Wisdom calls in vain, it means that all who live can respond to her. Human beings are not “ruined” when it comes to Wisdom; instead, we were created to be able to respond to Wisdom’s call when he hear it.
And now it makes sense that Wisdom’s speech turns into a poetic description of Creation itself: Wisdom was there from the beginning, observing and celebrating and participating in the creation of all things, including human beings; and thus we are in some sense creatures of Wisdom. We can hear her call and know Wisdom for who She is. Not just some of us; but all who live.
And so our text ends with God’s Wisdom “rejoicing in the inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” People, God loves us. And not just like a disappointed father loves a wayward and prodigal son. God delights in the human race! God beams down at us, smiles, laughs, rejoices in us humans very much, I think, the way I watch Clare as she laughs, eats, says “Hi Da!” and “CAT!” while maniacally giggling at our poor patient cat, as she takes her wobbly first steps and grows those funny looking front teeth. I’m shameless—she has her own blog now just because one blog couldn’t contain the immensity of maternal delight! God is rejoicing in this inhabited world and delighting in the human race—children of God, children of Wisdom!
Yes, Wisdom is a woman. And what we see in this text is that Wisdom is God present and active in this world: God loving and delighting in his creation, God calling out to us and to all who live. God the Father sent his Son and his Holy Spirit to us; and God as divine Sophia calls us all home, delighting in us as a woman does her child. God is all these, and none of these. God is mystery that cannot be contained, contained in all things, in the Wisdom that created all.
