Holy Wisdom

Sermon by: Rev Mary Alice Mulligan, Ph.D.

Scripture: Proverbs 8:1-4,22-3, John 16:12-15

Sermons often look at the teachings of Jesus; or the faithfulness of LORD Yahweh. Last Sunday, Pentecost, we saw the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit bringing divine life into the very being of the Church. But today the church calendar widens our vision to celebrate the Trinity, the various ways we experience the divine.

In the fourth and fifth centuries, universal church councils argued about God as two persons, three persons, (1) only one. And what do we mean by “persons” of God, anyway? Fortunately, we aren’t here to argue about the Trinity or to fix limits on our understandings of God. Instead, as we honor the Trinity, scripture invites us to consider an array of experiences of the Divine to expand how our finite minds might know the Holy Infinite. Our lectionary passage shows us one of the numerous places in the Bible where God is referred to in the feminine. The Book of Proverbs shows us a manifestation of the divine as Holy Wisdom, which is the feminine Sophia. Those of us used to “Father” language may be stretched when God is called Sophia, “Lady Wisdom.” After 21 centuries of patriarchal hierarchy our ears are used to He-god language, but in Jewish scripture, the manifestation of Holy Lady Wisdom, Sophia, made perfect sense. She is co-creator in all God’s works. The Creator and Sophia together establish the earth, the seas, the sky, and all creatures. We’ll hear a charming picture of Sophia beside the Creator as they lay the foundations of Earth. She labors with God as a fellow master worker. The passage shows God’s delighting in Wisdom’s companionship and assistance in creation. Stop here and read Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31.

Sophia shows us more God. Wisdom scriptures enlarge our experience of God. For some of us, feminine imagery for God may already be very familiar. For others, Sophia may stretch our comfort zone a bit, but who doesn’t want to know more God? Some thinkers want to set up 3 male boxes (that’s m-a-l-e) for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each in his own box, then put together into one big box. But that means parts of scripture don’t fit, like the feminine Sophia, God’s Wisdom who is related to, yet expands our understanding of Divine Word and Spirit. Lady Wisdom invites us to let our understanding of God out of the box.

Different aspects of the divine are revealed through scripture, calling us to enlarge our comprehension. Theologian Douglas Meeks in fact claims: “The biblical traditions, however, render God as a community of persons dwelling (making a home) among the creation and the people who are called into being by God’s power of righteousness…” (2) How intriguing to consider the persons of God as a divine community. We may each have one aspect of God we relate to best, like comfort in having a little talk with Jesus or feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit in prayer, which is fine. But we actually benefit by becoming familiar with new aspects of who God is, so our connection with God grows. This might be especially the case when scripture uses feminine references for God; for there, scriptures invite us to let our imaginations pluck up the courage to broaden our experiences of God. Stretching our comprehension of God means our little finite selves grasp more and more of the infinite. In other words, welcoming Sophia shows us more God.

So, let’s embrace Her. The writer of Proverbs directs us to, “Get Sophia, wisdom,” so we try. We listen to Divine Wisdom, standing on Main Street, describing her participation in the creation of the world. Sophia was with the Creator from the very beginning, as master co-worker, thus establishing her participation in all God’s handiwork. Which means the Wisdom of God is woven into the fabric of creation. Her touch is left all over the created order, for those able to see it. God created through divine Wisdom, so as we investigate the world we find wisdom, a holy consistency and order throughout.

But even as we seek wisdom, we realize wisdom is a difficult notion to grasp. Being wise doesn’t mean having a lot of information, like someone who could win at Jeopardy because they have so much knowledge. Haven’t we all met people who knew lots of information, but we wouldn’t call them wise? What we mean by wisdom is the ability to understand deeper than surface knowledge. The Wisdom which comes from God involves gaining the ability to make the right use of knowledge. Holy Wisdom, Sophia, enables people to be more than skillful and perceptive; they become able to judge rightly, to make decisions from God’s perspective; to see the world as God intends it to be.

A few years ago, a program started at the Indiana Women’s Prison in Indianapolis, where inmates, who often had never taken significant responsibility before, were entrusted with raising service dogs. Each young dog was assigned a keeper, on whom they depended for food, training, and exercise. Amazingly (or perhaps not), not only did service dogs get trained, women learned responsibility, mutual affection, and perseverance. In such a program, we see the fingerprints of Sophia. Beyond mere knowledge, this program is infused with wisdom.

Holy Wisdom is an aspect of God that permeates all of creation. As people gain Holy Wisdom, they find she guides and supports them, even assists them in living fulfilling lives, bringing wholeness all around them. Who wouldn’t want that? So we can throw open our hearts to seek God’s wisdom. Let’s embrace the Sophia of God.

Then we experience God’s delight. Here is the most amazing part. Just as Sophia claims she is the delight of the Creator, at the same time, she delights in humanity. She rejoices in us; invites us to join the Holy dance with God. Some of the commentators practically explode with the effervescence of Sophia’s joy. They claim the Hebrew words describing the Creator and Sophia in Proverbs 8 could have been translated as whirling, twirling, dancing with joy through creation. Apparently, in the reciprocity between Creator and Lady Wisdom there is laughter and dancing and overflowing playfulness as they put together the universe. Wisdom and therefore Yahweh God together are eternally rejoicing in each other and their shared work. They revel in creation, especially in the human race. How amazing: Her delight is in us.

However, I know every one of us also feels pain from mass shootings, threats to American democracy, and the war in Ukraine. Knowing that, how can God expect us to feel delight? The truth is, God expects us to experience joy, even when other forces challenge our joy.

A few decades ago, an American Christian group traveled in war-torn Nicaragua to document violence. They hoped to be a peaceful presence, discouraging American-funded contras from attacking villages. One village threw them a fiesta, even as gunfire echoed through the surrounding jungle. Musicians brought out instruments; people made food; everyone began to dance. It felt very bizarre to the North Americans, but the oddest moments came when about 6 soldiers rushed in. They leaned their rifles against the wall and asked people to dance. They ate; they laughed; danced and told stories; they laughed some more. And after about an hour, they got the signal to leave, so off they went, back out onto patrol; back to the terrible responsibility of war. How could they? The villagers explained, everyone deserves a fiesta. And the joy reminds the soldiers why they do the terrible work of protecting the people they love.

So with us. We work against the brokenness, but we are also allowed to feel the joy. Together we can share how God’s wisdom is co-creating among us, like when more people join the movement for sensible gun control, or when people step up to tell the truth in the face of big lies, or when we support our denomination in working to bring aid to Ukraine, to support struggling church projects in this country, and to care for hungry people around the world. In other words, as we join God’s fiesta, we can experience joy because we know God’s Holy Wisdom will have her full way eventually. So, feel God’s Holy delight among us. The Creator and Holy Sophia are twirling with joy in bringing about wholeness among us and through us. Feel it? God’s Sophia is delighting in us. What a holy gift. We can experience God’s delight.

1) Importantly the early church debates helped to establish not an identity or full understanding of Jesu.s as Christ, but to establish the appropriate terms to use. Of the Council of Chalcedon (451 CE), for instance, Richard A. Norris, Jr. claims: “Its formula dictates not a Christology but formal outlines of an adequate christological language.” The Christological Controversy Sources of Early Christian Thought series (Fortress Press, 1980, 1984), 31.

2) M. Douglas Meeks, God the Economist: The Doctrine of God and Political Economy (Augsburg Fortress, 1989), 9.  On page 11 he goes on to say: A proper understanding [or doctrine] of God “…should show that God is not a radical individual but rather a community of diverse persons that finds unity in self-giving love...”