Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commcommons.church for more information.

And on this final Sunday of our forgotten God series, I feel like this is a bit of a looking for life in the face of death message for me. And I realize that sounds a little bit dramatic. But in this series about spirit, we are talking about how we sometimes forget that God isn't just deity or far off mystery or even the ground of our being, but God is relationship. Father with the son, with the holy spirit, with us. But that last one, spirit is hard to picture and our failure of imagination has been to our detriment.

So hold on to your hats, folks. Today, we talk about feminine ways to imagine spirit. Do not leave. Do not leave. I am so excited about this sermon because I have been preaching it to my self for almost twenty years.

And to all my non binary friends out there, I know that simply expanding our language for the divine from primarily masculine to include the feminine isn't the end of the road, and that's why your presence matters so much. You can take what I do further. I await those conversations. But for today, we are going to talk about lady wisdom, women of Jerusalem, and birthing God. But first, let us pray.

Loving God, we take a moment to pay attention to the places in our bodies where we feel some tension, maybe even some resistance. Maybe our shoulders are up around our ears or our jaw is tight or her hands are clenched. And we notice what contributes to that tension. Our worry, our stress, our sadness. Christ who meets us always.

May we sense that we belong to you, that no matter what comes and goes, what lives and dies, what we prevail over or what prevails over us. We can still choose love. You reach past enemy lines and extend a hand of peace. So spirit, teach us grace like that. From the top of our heads to the bottom of our feet, remind us of your nearness.

Amen. Messing about with pronouns is a bit of a hot potato. So let's start with some of my favorite memes on the internet. These all come from the social media account, the unvirtuous abbey, maybe you know it, which is described as digital monks praying for people with first world problems. And I have been saving unvirtuous abbey memes about the Holy Spirit for a while now.

They are pictures of birds with a lot of personality matched with captions of what the Holy Spirit is up to. It's brilliant because the holy spirit has been depicted as a bird in religious art for as long as there has been religious art. This one is a little bird on a very aerodynamic mission, and it reads actual photo of the holy spirit telling you that when the day comes and you're down in a river of trouble and about to drown, hold on, she's coming. It's lovely. This one is a cute baby bird with feathers that have actual designs of perfect little Valentine's hearts all over that baby bird chest, and it reads actual photo of the Holy Spirit who just happens to be looking at you for no particular reason, yet she can't hide her feelings because they are written all over her feathers.

Oh, come on. Do you feel that love? And this one is my favorite. It has been a long time favorite. A small child who looks afraid but determined is wearing a big leather mitt to protect her hand while an owl perches on top of her outstretched arm and it reads, actual photo of the holy spirit empowering you.

We've all been that kid. I have definitely been that kid. God bless us. And honestly, those bird memes are sermons unto themselves like all clever memes. But onto Proverbs, ancient memes if you will.

Here's Proverbs nine one to six, a poem that personifies wisdom as a woman. Wisdom has built her house. She has set up its seven pillars. She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine. She has also set her table.

She has sent out her servants and she calls from the highest point in the city. Let all who are simple come to my house. To those who have no sense, she says, come eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live, walk in the way of insight. In the Hebrew word for wisdom is and is a major concern in Proverbs.

The whole book is a collection of wise sayings meant to make young men wise. Yes, I do mean just the men. Do not, do not, do not forget that the context of the scriptures is patriarchy, meaning men's experiences sit at the center. So when we come across lady wisdom with the house that she built, in the feast she prepares and the servants she sends out and the voice that she raises, the invitation she extends in the life and insight she bestows, we should sit right down and listen. This text is a rare find.

It's like a gem of great value. The personification of the divine in a way you maybe weren't expecting. So where does lady wisdom come from? Well, the word chokmah is a feminine noun. Now honestly, that doesn't always mean much.

Just because a word is assigned a gender in another language doesn't make the person or the place or the thing that gender. And still, chokmah as feminine opens up the possibility in Jewish imagination. Like, Jewish worshipers primarily thought of the divine with male metaphors, but a word could crack open the possibility of something more. Now, nothing in the wisdom tradition is formed in a vacuum. Every image, every urging and commandment, every story interacts with the world around it.

And so with wisdom, we have the interaction of the Jewish people with the gods and goddesses that surround them. We like to think that Jewish monotheism was always really black and white and boundaried and super clear about its identity, but it wasn't. It adopted all kinds of wisdom from the world around it. The book of Proverbs itself is testimony to that fact. The book's wise sayings were secular until the evolution of Proverbs baptized them as sacred.

And there's nothing wrong with that. It's beautiful to borrow wisdom wherever we find it and to even weave it into the fabric of our faith. But let's look at the personification of wisdom more closely. Scholars like Elizabeth Johnson and Rosemary Ruther point out that the language of the feminine figure here is on loan from the goddesses that towered in the ancient world. Proverbs one and chapter eight and chapter nine all have traces of the Egyptian goddesses Ma'at and Isis.

And you might have a bit of a negative feeling about that. Thanks to the prophets, those good prophets of the old testament who were not down with other gods and goddesses when it came to obeying Yahweh. But the Jewish wisdom tradition represented here in Proverbs was skilled at borrowing what resonated in the culture and drawing it into their own text. In fact, it was strategic. All across the ancient world, those with power formed schools of wisdom to teach their young men how to avoid what they believed would pollute the whole community.

And much of that fear was placed on this conception of this idea of the foreign woman. And so to counter the temptation of the foreign woman, the proverb writers took the language of goddesses and found a divine parallel of their own. You see, the Hebrew imagination of spirit was also a feminine noun. Ruwa is the image of spirit hovering over the waters of creation in Genesis. That's what the writers of Proverbs call back to in chapter eight.

Chapter eight has these sayings like, I wisdom was with the Lord when God began to work. I was born before there were oceans or springs overflowing with water. Before the mountains were set in place, I was constantly at God's side. I was filled with delight, rejoicing in the whole world, delighting in human kind. And so their argument is this, don't fall for the foreign woman.

Her way is a trap and it will lead us to death. But look, look over here, look at lady wisdom, her divine way leads to life. And she has always been a part of our story. The question asked of Scripture is okay, what is God like? And Proverbs says, God is like a woman preparing a feast.

Like a woman who stands tall and invites everyone, especially those who feel marginalized into her safe home. Like a woman who is a builder, a motivational speaker, a sommelier, a friend. Lady Wisdom takes her seat at the table and she stays. Her presence reminds us that our lived experiences matter and can be central to how we comprehend divine mystery. So let's take a look at some women in Jerusalem who know about that.

In the late eighth century, pressed by the threat of war and destruction, the prophet Isaiah speaks out over the reign of five kings. In Isaiah 32, we get this picture of a peaceful kingdom where leaders do what is right. And the effect is that the blind will be given sight, the fearful heart will be calmed with knowledge, the stammering tongue made fluent and clear all because those in power are noble and they make noble plans and they stand tall in noble deeds. That sounds good, right? Leaders like that.

However, verses nine to 20 paint a picture of the reversal of this peaceful kingdom. And the prophet says, here's what life will look like if your kings do what is wrong. You women, says the prophet, who are so complacent, rise up and listen to me. You daughters who feel secure, hear what I have to say. In little more than a year, you who feel secure will tremble.

The grape harvest will fail and the harvest of fruit will not come. Tremble, you complacent women, shudder, you daughters who feel secure. Strip off your clothes and wrap yourselves in rags. Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vines, and for the land of my people, a land overgrown with thorns and briars. And the prophet says, mourn like this till the spirit is poured on us from on high.

And the desert becomes a fertile field and the fertile field seems like a forest. The Lord's justice will dwell in the desert. God's righteousness live in the fertile field. The fruit of that righteousness will be peace. Its effects will be quietness and confidence forever.

My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest. Hashtag that is still relevant. Isaiah ends by saying, though our world is flattened, our city unrecognizable, Blessing will come again. You will once again plant seeds by the stream. Your cattle and donkeys will range free.

Now this passage must take up space today because most of the pages of the bible don't take on women's lived experiences. I mean, they're there, but we kind of have to look for them. And you and I know that if we don't see ourselves in the pages of scripture, or in the pulpits of churches, or in the places of government, it feels like those places don't belong to us. But there are these disciplines in Christianity that work to change what feels like exclusion. To name a few, queer theology, womenist theology, and feminist liberation theology.

And all of those theologies mean a lot to me as a Christ follower, keeping in step with the spirit. But let me tell you about the one that brought life to my faith when I felt like it was dying. Back in 2005, I was sitting in a seminary class at the UBC campus in Vancouver. And I had been in the class for at least a couple of months, but rather than feel comfortable with the content, I grew more and more agitated. As I listened to the professor speak, it was like the volume kept peaking in my ears every time he spoke about God as exclusively male.

Every example he gave about ministry was about men, and nothing about that seemed to bother anyone but me. Now, I grew up with all of those male metaphors and pronouns, and I had been quite comfortable with them until I wasn't. And if I had any power over my agitation, I would have silenced it. It would be easier if I didn't care. If the primary metaphors and experiences of the divine as a man framed by men didn't bother me or even cause me harm because of their exclusivity.

But back in 2005, they did. So I waited after class. Don't we just love brave Bobby? Back in 2005, I was a part time student and not known by many people, especially this professor. So I stayed at the back of the small group before he gave me his attention.

And then I said it. I said, hi, I'm Bobby. I just started here and I need to know something. Do you ever speak of God in ways that aren't exclusively male? And he cocked his head and with compassion, but also a clear sense of who he was.

He said, no, I don't. I don't really feel the need to, but let me introduce you to someone I think you should meet. And so this professor left the small group of people waiting to talk to him and to get his attention, and he walked with me into the school's bright and bustling atrium, and he introduced me to a woman named Kendall Cox. Now, she's Doctor. Kendall Cox.

Later that week, Kendall and I had coffee in that atrium, and I remember her giving me permission to find broader metaphors and to find women's voices that would liberate my imagination. And she assured me that they are there. And I have been on this journey ever since, taking up texts like Women and Redemption by Rosemary Ruther, Just Hospitality by Letty Russell, Theology for Skeptics by Dorothy Sowell, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality by Phyllis Tribble, She Who Is by Elizabeth Johnson, Ella Lucha in the struggle by Ada Maria Azazediyez, Womenist Midrash by Will Gaffney. It's important. It is so important to find the voices from the margins that include your experience.

These women have shown me mine and they push me to look past my own for others. So let's go back to Isaiah for a sec. After the king's fall and the wealth of these women is obliterated, they mourn and cry out from the pile of rubble of all that they've lost. And the turning point in the prophecy is that their grief, their grief ushers in spirits arrival, a pouring out of plenty, fertility in a desert place, home so secure that animals roam about in peace. And I love that the women of Jerusalem aren't perfect or pure or simple.

They're real. They get caught up in the wealth of a kingdom and crushed when it falls. But spirit in Hebrew ruah, the breath of God seeks them out like a mother. Maybe you have felt crushed by other people's ways of faith or systems bigger than yourself. Maybe you have felt like you cannot cram your great big heart into a small space because of all the rules.

Maybe you have felt like your lived experience doesn't belong in Christianity. Let me assure you, it does. You fit here with your questions and your intuitions and your wacky spiritual practices. You fit. Spirit has no trouble locating you.

A kingdom might fall around you and you will be found by God. And you will know it is her because of the divine nature to create life, to sustain it, to rescue what is lost, to renew what is damaged, to inspire fresh study and nuance, to wait for you to catch up, to offer you warmth and brightness to crawl in beside you when you're afraid in the dark to shelter you from predators, to offer you peace. If you hear feminine overtones in that list of the verbs of divine presence, good. If you don't, that's totally fine. If you're a man in the room, know that I got you.

I love you. You're good. In fact, your ability to welcome more ways of speaking about God is essential to all of our flourishing. Just because you might hear spirit referred to a she, don't go thinking she's not for you. She is.

Now we have one more quick stop to make today. So let's see what Jesus does with spirit. In a story from the gospel of John, a Pharisee named Nicodemus seeks Jesus out in Jerusalem one night to ask his burning questions. And Nicodemus is looking for a sense of just how much of Jesus's work belongs to Jesus and how much of Jesus's work belongs to God. And in John three eight is a part of Jesus's response.

Jesus says, the wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the spirit. The wind, pneuma in Greek blows freely. It's hard to predict the pattern.

So it is with the work of the spirit, pneuma in Greek, birthing divine presence in our lives. Now the primary metaphor for the work of the spirit here is maternal. Six times Jesus uses language of giving birth to speak of spirit. Jesus speaks of being born again, born first of water via the womb and second of the spirit. The spirit gives birth to our spirit.

I mean, how often have you thought about this familiar text associated with the work of spirit with a woman giving birth? Me neither, but it's beautiful. Nicodemus wants so badly to put everything in its place and Jesus says, look, I get it, but there is a way of spirit here and no matter how hard you try, you can't contain spirit's work. She's going to bring new life to your spirit. I promise you that.

Now historically, the doctrine of pneumatology has been drawn by definitions. Holy Spirit is the third person in the Trinity. Holy Spirit is equal in divinity with the father and the son. Holy Spirit bears witness to our spirit. But just for today, just for a moment, Imagine that the spirit moves in an uncontainable way, and you ride the waves of contractions as she births something new through you.

Spirit is a gateway or a birth canal to the forgotten God. One who makes and remakes the world, one who draws near to all who feel left out, one who urges us to learn from each other when we are brave enough to listen to another's honest questions on any cold, dark night. So come, Holy Spirit, come. Let us pray. Loving God, there really is so much space for our language and our imaginations to evolve.

You aren't nervous about our questions. I really trust that. You aren't annoyed by how much we get wrong. I really trust that. I don't think you're even interested in policing our boundaries.

Instead, you remind us that at the table of divine communion, there's room. There's a place for us all. You assure us that spirit will flow through us when we grieve. You are always present and dancing with us in our confusion and our curiosity. We're so grateful.

We're so in awe. We are open to all of the ways that you will reveal yourself to us. So spirit of the living God, present with us now and to the places of our insecurity, our illnesses, any of our action that disrupts shalom, and heal us of all that harms us for ourselves in the world today. Amen.