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When it comes to the words that inspire us, we can all think of quotes by writers, rappers, and filmmakers. Words are important, powerful, and help us construct meaning in our lives. It’s one of the best feelings in the world to read a quote that makes you think “Yes, that is how I feel!” and “Yes, that’s what I think too!”
The Book of Proverbs is a collection of ancient quotations. It belongs to the category of biblical books we call the wisdom literature. It’s found right in the middle of the bible, but we rarely think of the words in this collection as central to the wisdom in our everyday lives. Proverbs is often overlooked, can seem pretty dusty, and when read too quickly is a blur of cliches.
Let’s take another look at Proverbs. Let’s trust that there’s something here for us in our big life questions about how to be wise in relationship with our families, our bodies, our resources, and our power. Proverbs hands us a way to find wisdom in the ordinary. It’s about the art of living and seeing the beauty of God in the grit of everyday life.
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
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 commons.church for more information.
Speaker 2:If we haven't yet met, my name is Bobbie, and I serve as one of the pastors here at Commons. It's so good having you here in this space with us today on Trinity Sunday where we remember our baptisms and celebrate the baptisms of others. That's happening after the noon service and after the seven service today. Here at Commons, we celebrate both infant baptisms and adult baptisms. So if you wanna get in on any of that, we do baptisms fairly frequently around here, and it's super easy to take the next step.
Speaker 2:You can head to commons.life to let us know that you're interested in the conversation, and we're so happy and honored to explore what baptism can mean for you and for your kids. Earlier this month, I was on vacation in Portugal. Did you miss me? Little bit? Thanks.
Speaker 2:I was on vacation for my fortieth birthday, and I'm sure you'll agree that I look much, much, much more distinguished and wise now that I'm 40. Some of you tracked with our trip on Instagram and Facebook, and it was actually really fun to stay a bit connected in that way. Portugal was everything I wanted it to be. It was beautiful. It was fun and full of stunning sacred spaces, which I'm always on the hunt for like these.
Speaker 2:This one and this one and this one. Oh, and this one. That last picture is Jonathan and I, and we're just putting our faces in the sunlight through a stained glass like you do. Right? That's what you do.
Speaker 2:You find it and just put your face in it. Bless that man, though. I dragged him to a lot, a lot of churches and monasteries. He is a good dude. And at the beginning and at the end of this birthday trip to Portugal, I did this thing that I always do before I fly.
Speaker 2:I made plans for how I'd spend all of those hours on the airplane. I planned to write out goals for my fortieth year and to listen to at least seven of my favorite podcasts that I had gotten behind on and to read probably four books for this wisdom series. I know at one point I even said to Jonathan, on this flight, I'm going to read all of Proverbs two times in the Jewish study bible. Confession, I read maybe one chapter of 31 and maybe a few verses of another because on all of our flights, I gave into the effortlessness of in flight entertainment. And I watched movie after movie after movie.
Speaker 2:It's the new releases. I just can't resist. Even when I was sleeping, I was really just watching movies. One of the movies that I watched was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Maybe some of you have seen the film.
Speaker 2:And in the film, the characters follow paths of wisdom and folly, but honestly, it's mostly folly. If you're into feel good films, this one might not be for you. The story centers around the work of a mother played brilliantly by Frances McDermott to keep the unsolved case of her daughter's rape and murder in the public eye and before the police department. Now I know it's not that much fun to listen to someone tell you about a movie that you can just watch for yourself, but when I watch three billboards, I see the book of Proverbs. The characters in the movie personify wisdom and foolishness.
Speaker 2:In some way, all of them are quite isolated. They're isolated in their pain, in their anger, and in their loneliness. And in this town, which is full of human folly, the words of wisdom come in the form of a letter written by a sergeant to one of his police officers. And the sergeant is played by Woody Harrelson, and the officer is played by Sam Rockwell. And in the letter, the sergeant attempts to steer his officer off of the path of hate and violence and onto a path of love.
Speaker 2:And my favorite part of the movie is this letter, and part of it goes like this. As long as you hold on to so much hate, then I don't think you'll become what you wanna become, a detective. Because what you need is love. Because through love comes calm, and through calm comes thought, And you need thought to detect stuff. It's a wise saying directed at a young man on a foolish path, which is exactly how the wisdom book of Proverbs begins, with the wise sayings of an elder passed on to a young man on his own path.
Speaker 2:So for the next three weeks, we are going to explore Proverbs through this framework of three movements. We're gonna look at wisdom versus isolation, that's today, then wisdom versus decision making, and wisdom versus domination. So let's pray together and then jump into the wisdom literature together. God, you are creator, redeemer, holy spirit. Today on this Trinity Sunday, we open ourselves to you.
Speaker 2:God, you are our relational God in perfect relationship with yourself and always always drawing us into life with you and into life with one another. For those of us feeling isolated, will you meet us here? For those whom we know who feel so isolated, will you send your perfect care? For any of the ways that we can serve to meet the isolation in the world, will you equip us in every good way? For all of the ways, God, that you move in and through us, we give you thanks.
Speaker 2:You are so loving. Amen. So the wisdom literature in the bible is about the art of living well, and I'm gonna say that phrase again. The art of living well. Our new three week series in wisdom is in Proverbs as we already established, and Proverbs is situated between Job and Ecclesiastes in our Bibles.
Speaker 2:Now you turn to Job if you are suffering, especially if people are coming at you in your hard time with cliches and tidy explanations and theories of what causes your pain. If suffering is in your life, then Job is your ally. But life is not suffering all the time, is it? So you turn to Ecclesiastes. When you look around your life and you realize and you wonder, okay.
Speaker 2:Wow. Life really is not making much sense for me right now and all of this stuff, all of these experiences, all of the efforts are futile in the quest for meaning in life. But we don't feel like life is futile all the time, do we? The bible makes space for suffering and the bible makes space for futility. But life is not suffering and futility all the time.
Speaker 2:So we turn to Proverbs when life is well pretty ordinary. In fact, from now until December, we're in the season of ordinary time in the church calendar. Theologian Ellen Davis says this about the book of Proverbs. This 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.
Speaker 2:So Proverbs offers practical, psychological, and ethical advice for ordinary time. So let's begin with Proverbs one verses one to two and then eight to nine. The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, for gaining wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight. Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.
Speaker 2:So we're gonna start with three questions. They're really basic. What are proverbs? Did Solomon write them? And who is the son?
Speaker 2:So first, what is a proverb? The Hebrew word for proverb is Mashal. It's a pithy poetic saying holding a truism about life. Most often, it's done in two lines using parallelism. And parallelism can be either a fancy way of stating restating something or a fancy way of restating the opposite of something.
Speaker 2:And so to us, proverbs can sound a little echoey, like, why do you keep repeating the same thing? But the point of all this parallelism is to lodge an idea, this general guideline in life into your heart and into your mind. Proverbs is also more than two line poetry. It includes longer poems and creative metaphors and surprising reversal and even sayings that totally contradict each other. Something to remember is that a proverb is a proverb.
Speaker 2:It's not a promise. Proverbs aren't meant to be claimed. They instruct. You live proverbs. Okay.
Speaker 2:So who's the teacher? Is it Solomon? The opening verse tells us Solomon is behind these words. But remember, we don't read the bible literally. We read it literarily because there's so much more going on here than one guy just sitting down at his desk and hammering out a stack of fortune cookie sayings all by himself.
Speaker 2:Proverbs preserves the oldest and most time tested wisdom of ancient Israel. Sure. Solomon may have composed a proverb or two himself, but Old Testament scholar Catherine Dell says, the consensus of opinion is that the attribution is both honorific and a matter of authority. Meaning, Solomon is the archetype for the wise teacher. His name is dropped in at the start of sections to give proverbs gravitas.
Speaker 2:So many proverbs are in the spirit of the wisdom of Solomon. The spirit of Solomon signals to the community that these sayings, they can be trusted, they should be learned, and they can be lived. But as you read Proverbs, it helps to picture a group of sages across the centuries. These sages who gather up these memorable sayings of the wise and the best quotes and ideas from the culture and put it together in one collection. Okay.
Speaker 2:Who is the sun? As much as the proverbs are directed at the sun, they expand to include all people and have been read like that for centuries. The sun stands in in for anyone on a path who's learning how to live. So I just turned 40. I'm still on that path.
Speaker 2:I imagine so are you. We're all kinda learning how to live, this thing called humanity together. And the lack of specific detail about particular families or cities or rulers or borders, it make they make proverbs more general than particular. And I love everything about the way that proverbs can't be locked in to one time, into one place. It speaks of the sacred ways that we gather up wisdom in our own time and in our own place.
Speaker 2:Just as the sages, they took a little bit of this and a little bit of that to shape mostly timeless pieces of wisdom. We also gather what guides us from the contours of our own lives. Maybe for you, the best thing that you've gathered lately was from a novel that you read about a character that learned to love again. Maybe for you, the turning point arrived when you reflect on how a person made you feel in your body and you say to yourself, I never wanna be treated like that again. Or maybe for you, a friend was just telling a story and one little line, a simple line really, stood out to you with like a big t truth and you cannot shake it.
Speaker 2:It feels like that little line means everything to you. You gather up the wisdom that's around you. It is sacred work to collect, to distill, and to integrate wisdom into your life, maybe even sharing it when you're ready with somebody who needs to know what you know. So what do these sages know about life? The wisdom of ancient Israel takes the shape of two distinct paths.
Speaker 2:So on one path, have foolishness, strangeness, folly, that's one. And then we have wisdom, life skill, in Hebrew. That's the other. We're gonna trace these two paths with two longer poetic sections in the text. So this is your deep dive into wisdom and folly.
Speaker 2:Who's pumped? You're pumped. I know it. So first, we meet a figure known as the strange woman five times in Proverbs one to nine. She represents the path of unwise choices.
Speaker 2:Granted, in this ancient culture, women were mostly seen as either completely virtuous like a mother or foreign and sinful like a temptress. Here, the strange woman represents a path that is not female, it's human. As in you can't blame women for your poor behavior. And that is worth saying because subcultures like INCELL claim that women are to blame for everything that's wrong in a man's life or the world. And a poor reading of Proverbs could almost justify that kind of resentment.
Speaker 2:But hear me here, poetry is louder than patriarchy. Proverbs seven is the most detailed description of this mesmerizing folly figure and her actions. So I'm gonna read sections from chapter seven verses six to 27. It's a vivid scene spoken by the father, and we're just gonna go a little bit at a time. So the father begins.
Speaker 2:At the window of my house, I looked down through the lattice. I saw among the simple. I noticed among the young men, a youth who had no sense. This young man left the company of those being taught wisdom and set out on a path by himself. He's isolating himself from healthy connection and healthy community.
Speaker 2:And the Hebrew describes him as pethy, meaning naive. He's capable of learning, but without teaching, he'll remain a fool. He was going down the street near the corner, walking along in the direction of her house at twilight as the day was fading, as the dark of night set in. So the young man, he walks with determination into a part of the city that makes him vulnerable. The Hebrew word is sorry, tsad, meaning he marches, he strides, then he picks up the pace as he's headed for the dark.
Speaker 2:Then out came a woman to meet him, dressed like a prostitute with crafty intent. She is unruly and defiant. Her feet never stay at home. Now in the street, now in the squares, at every corner she lurks. So the Hebrew is a little risque here.
Speaker 2:Her feet can also be a euphemism for her genitalia. It is a pun, a playful way to teach this lesson. She took hold of him and kissed him. And with a brazen face, she said, today, I fulfill my vows, and I have food from my fellowship offering at home. So the strange woman, she presents herself as a pious person who fulfills temple obligations.
Speaker 2:She insists that she has fresh meat after making an offering only, and this is so clever. The young man has become her fresh meat. Now notice the pronouns directed at the young man. The diversion to an unwise path is intoxicating. So I came out to meet you.
Speaker 2:I looked for you and I found you. I have covered my bed with colored linens from Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come let's drink deeply of love till morning. Let's enjoy ourselves with love.
Speaker 2:So the rest of the night holds sexual exploits. But in the end, the young man is again the offering. His path is death dealing. All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose and it keeps going till an arrow pierces his liver like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life. And here's the conclusion of the father.
Speaker 2:Now then my sons, listen to me. Pay attention to what I say. Her house is a highway to the grave leading down to the chambers of death. Oh, poetry. So a number of years ago, I did some online dating.
Speaker 2:That get your attention a little bit? Now I this may be one of the best stories from my life, and I'm just gonna give it away to you for free today. So lucky you. So I was doing some online dating, and I got this message that was unlike all the other, what's up? You're cute messages that fly around online.
Speaker 2:This one was different because I actually knew the man. It turns out I had a real crush on this guy for maybe, like, two or three years. I mean, who's counting? Right? Anyway, this guy just so happened to be online on this dating web site, and I just so happened to be on this dating website.
Speaker 2:And after noticing my profile, he decided to say hello. As if that wasn't enough, it just got better. He soon revealed that all while I had been crushing on him, he had also noticed me. And that kind of thing had never happened to me before. I got so excited.
Speaker 2:I got way ahead of myself excited. And at the start, my crush and I, we emailed these romantic emails to each other about our favorite things like this Josh Ritter song called monster ballads. It just made me swoon. And we started hanging out a bit, and it felt like the start of something perfect. And I'm sure you can see where this might go.
Speaker 2:It did not end perfectly. My crush was sorting out his life as you do and I wanted to move so quickly and I think I just freaked him out. I eventually got an email from him that read, I'm sorry, Bobby, that we can't keep hanging out. And I said, come over here and say that to my face. I wasn't exactly great at dating, you guys.
Speaker 2:But honestly, it did break my little heart. In no time at all, I had lost myself in something that I thought would finally fill up every lonely lonely crack in my life. This encounter, it made me needy and anxious and a stranger to myself. So maybe your story isn't one of online dating or getting crushed by your crush, but we all take paths in life that lead us further away from from ourselves, from where we're meant to be. A folly can look like wanting more from a person than they're meant to give you.
Speaker 2:And folly can mean trying to take a shortcut when you know there is real work to do to get where you want to go. And folly can mean just numbing out on your life when life just wants to wake you up to get your attention at what's staring you in the face, your needs, your longing, your own isolation. The point of Proverbs is that we always have a choice and there's nowhere that you can go where a wise voice can't speak to you and guide you back to a path that's life giving, back to being better connected in relationships and better connected with yourself and better connected to the divine. So let's hear from the figure of lady wisdom herself. Proverbs eight gives us the mirror opposite of Proverbs seven.
Speaker 2:So we read the father say, does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? And watch here how wisdom is on the move. She's at the highest point in the city. She's at the lowest place in the city.
Speaker 2:At the highest point along the way where the paths meet, she takes her stand. Beside the gate leading into the city, at the entrance, she cries out, to you, oh people, I call out. I raise my voice to all humankind. Wisdom stands in the middle of community. She's at the center of everyday life and the voice of wisdom is for everyone.
Speaker 2:You who are simple, gain prudence. You who are foolish, set your hearts on it. Listen for I have trustworthy things to say. I open my lips to speak what is right. And wisdom knows the value of her own voice.
Speaker 2:She insists she's worth paying attention to. She says, choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold for wisdom is more precious than rubies and nothing you desire can compare with her. Here, the Hebrew for choose translates take as in learn as in do the work as in be disciplined. My podcast hero, Krista Tippett says it like this, what we practice we become. We're gonna finish with the poem within the poem in Proverbs eight.
Speaker 2:The poem has cosmic scope and large imagination answering the question, okay. So where does this wisdom come from? Scholar Catherine Hayes introduces this section in her commentary like this. Wisdom's origins are with God. She was formed by God and brought forth at the very beginning of creation.
Speaker 2:Before the earth was fashioned, she was present with God. When sorry. She was present when God marked out and set in place the heavens, the seas, and the earth's foundation. So listen. The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works.
Speaker 2:Before his deeds of old, I was formed long ages ago at the very beginning when the world came to be. When there was no watery depths, I was given birth. When there were no springs overflowing with water, before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before he made the world or its fields or any of the dust of the earth. And the Hebrew word for brought forth is kana, and it means to acquire, but it can also mean to create or give birth, when god is the subject. Now I have not given birth to anything, not really.
Speaker 2:I don't have children, but I like the language of spiritual midwifery when it comes to the work that I do as a pastor and the work that we as a community do as we pastor one another. A general definition of midwife is one who helps bring forth something new, and I love to see when something new is birthed in your life, a new idea about God, a new love for someone close by, a new sense of your own calling. Because wisdom doesn't usually come out of nowhere. It is birthed in the spaces between us. We help new wisdom surface in each other's lives.
Speaker 2:You tell your story and it changes me. I study, I write, I share it with you and it changes you. Wherever wisdom originates, God weaves together something new and sets it into the fabric of the world for us to enjoy. And that's how chapter eight ends with wisdom's effusive joy. Then I was constantly at his side.
Speaker 2:I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world, and delighting in humankind. The Hebrew word for wisdom is chukma, and chukma is your growing competence in building your own happy life. And chokmah is what you know deep inside you and how you live it out. Chokmah is the truth behind the art of living. And scholars agree that early Christians drew on this idea of to describe the work of Christ.
Speaker 2:Luke's gospel records Jesus explaining his action to eat and drink with drunks and sinners like this. Jesus said, wisdom is proved right by her children. Meaning, you can know a lot about a lot of stuff like the teachers of the law and still miss out on God's presence in the world. So maybe it's time for you to check-in with yourself and with Hukma this week. I wanna offer you a simple journal exercise.
Speaker 2:In her book Journaling as Sacred Practice, Helen Sapero says, it is here in journaling that God wants to surprise you with the beauty of your own life, growing and alive, filled with movement, light, and shadow. And in a practice, Sapparo calls writing your first thought. She says, to start with a moment of silence or even a bit of movement in your body, and then put your pen in your hand and begin to write. Write for ten minutes without stopping. Don't censor.
Speaker 2:Don't critique. If something scares you about what you write, dive in. Let your life surface. And when you let what is inside of you come out, wisdom will be present with you there. Sappero says, simply writing seems to clear away the debris so that we can more clearly discern our lives and the world around us.
Speaker 2:That's a path to wisdom. Jesus said, wisdom can be found around a table keeping company with the least likely to be chosen, and wisdom can find you 35,000 feet in the air watching a movie when you thought you should be reading your bible. And wisdom finds you when you're sitting in a chair with your journal surveying the landscape of your own soul. Wisdom meets you where you are in the ordinary details of your everyday life. Wisdom meets you there.
Speaker 2:Let's pray together. God of wisdom, will you help us to take a long look at the ordinary details of our everyday lives? If we have kept company with folly on a path that has led to isolation, shadows, confusion, Will you meet us and show us the way back to you? Your grace meets us in these honest spaces. And if we are in the flow of your wisdom on a path that is lively and joyful and deeply good, will you show us how to enjoy and how to be generous with your sage wisdom in ways that are gentle and kind and transformative?
Speaker 2:Jesus, you show us the way. Spirit, you teach us all that we need to know. And God, our maker, make us wise in your company, we pray. Amen.