There is a story about a individual who was approached by a traveling evangelist who earnestly asked if the person had found Jesus. The person answered with all sincerity, “No. I didn’t know he was lost.”
Our theology is filled with the struggle to answer the question about relating to God. Do we seek and find God or does God seek and find us? In truth it is probably both. The psalmist says, “I raise my eyes toward the mountains. / Where will my help come from?” The psalmist answers his own question by saying that his help “comes from the Lord” (Psalm 121:1), and apparently not the hills. In another psalm, the psalmist can’t run away from God. “Where could I go to get away from your spirit? / Where could I go to escape your presence?” And the answer is: nowhere (Psalm 139:7-12).
On other occasions, God seeks. After Adam and Eve discover that they have a wardrobe malfunction, they hide from God. God calls out, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). After Cain kills his brother Abel, God asks Cain, “Where is your brother?” (Genesis 4:9). Jesus sought our Peter and Andrew and James and John as he was collecting disciples. He invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house for lunch. And he sought out the Pharisee Saul on the road outside Damascus.
The reality is that sometimes God is looking for us and sometimes we are looking for God. But as the psalmist suggested, if we can’t get away from God, then what is absent is not God but our awareness of God.
This is Trinity Sunday, our annual attempt to think equally about the three persons of the Godhead: Father, Son, and Spirit. It’s hard to do, for most of us have an affinity for one of the three faces, as it were, of God. Most all of us drift into a heavier relationship with the Father or with the Son or with the Spirit. It’s hard not to. After all, we see creation, but not the Creator. Jesus said that no one has seen the Father except the Son. And the Son is the Word made flesh and blood. Jesus also told us that no one sees the wind, only the effects of it. That’s how the Spirit operates. Believers with a mystical bent understand the Trinity as a dance among the three persons. And it’s one of those dances where the dancers are whirling so fast that it is a blur. None of the three are identifiable at any given point. Yet the dance is a magnificent spectacle for the senses.
This dance is really an invitation. Not a fancy engraved invitation requiring an equally formal response, but a heartfelt, passionate beckoning, like the once romantic scene of a lover standing in the doorway of departing train car beckoning her lover to join her while there is still time for him to catch the train. She calls out, “Come away with me!”
We may not know that poignant love scene, but we are all to familiar with voices calling out to us. After all, this is an election year. And while the fields have narrowed, the voices beckoning our attention, our curiosity, our support, our votes are not getting softer and more coaxing. They are becoming more strident, more caustic, more bull-hornish. And we still have more than five months to endure it before the vote is taken and the next four-year cycle begins its crescendo.
On a more friendly note, a circus midway comes to mind. There are the all the amusement booths with their barkers: “See the tallest man on earth.” “See the bearded lady,” “Step this way to the greatest show of exotic flora and fauna under one tent.” “Throw the ball and knock the milk bottles over; win a prize.” “See the masked bamboozler swallow not one, not two, but five flaming swords.” And so on and so on.
That is the image the collector of Proverbs has given us. The reading begins with the image of Lady (or Teacher) Wisdom standing up and hollering an invitation for us to come to her, just like the circus barkers or politicians do. Madam Wisdom cries out “atop the heights along the path, at the crossroads...by the gate before the city.” Like the ever-present prescription medication or political ads, Wisdom seems to show up everywhere, expected or not. What is she doing? She is beckoning us to something infinitely better than the seductive invitation which was offered in the previous chapter.
If you haven’t read Proverbs 7 recently, do so, knowing that it is at least “R-rated.” The invitation there is that of a vamp, a hooker, a street walker. And it doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to know where that liaison will take a person.
While the invitation of the seductress may have its thrill and immediate and short-lived gratification, the blessing that Wisdom offers is for the long-term.
In the verses that were omitted in the reading, Wisdom admonishes her hearers to acquire for themselves prudence, intelligence, instruction, and wisdom. Those are lasting blessings for any person. When we pick up the reading again, Wisdom is again speaking out to the crowds, enticing them to listen to her. She is establishing her credentials. Wisdom isn’t ashamed to admit how old she is. She literally is “older than dirt” to borrow a popular expression. She came into being before everything else.
The Lord created me at the beginning of his way, before his deeds long in the past. I was formed in ancient times, at the beginning, before the earth was. When there were no watery depths, I was brought forth, when there were no springs flowing with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth; before God made the earth and the fields or the first of the dry land.The Hebrew verb for “brought forth” may also be translated as “whirl, dance, or writhe.” We are back to the image I suggested earlier to describe the interaction of the Trinity. If that isn’t enough, in verse 30 Wisdom says of her time with God at creation, “I was beside him as a master of crafts.” In essence, Wisdom says, “I am not a Jill-Come-Lately. You can trust me. After all, I have been with God from the very beginning. In fact, I was God’s helper, working right beside the Creator. My references are impeccable. Listen when I speak.”(1)
So Wisdom was part of creation’s architectural team, just as John described Jesus in the gospel prologue: “The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being” (John 1:2-3).
At the close of the passage, Wisdom shouts one more claim that knocks our socks off:
“I was having fun, smiling before him all the time, frolicking with his inhabited earth and delighting in the human race.”That’s not the picture of Wisdom that usually comes to mind. When we say the word “wisdom,” don’t we often imagine a stern, pursed-lipped person, a killjoy, or a solemn judge in black robe? That definitely is not the picture of wisdom here. Wisdom is not dour drudgery; Wisdom is joyous laughter, dance, and play.(2) And what’s more, Wisdom rejoices in us, in humanity – you, me, all of us, the ones who have long since come and gone and the ones yet to come.
Wisdom sounds like the kind of person you would want to hang out with, stop in to Starbucks for a cocoa double latte, extra cinnamon. And Wisdom might appreciate it if we followed her on Twitter and retweeted her posts.
Imagine this scenario:
I was out shopping yesterday, and whom did I run into? Wisdom. Yeah, there she was. She called me over and we began talking, Wisdom and I. Then, I went down to the courthouse, and there she was again, making a plea for justice in a courtroom where somebody had been unjustly accused. After that, I dropped by the school, and she had gotten there before me, She was calling for students and teachers alike always to seek truth. Then I went for a walk in the woods, moving along the trail in quiet meditation. Wisdom snuck up on me and said, “Now that we are alone, I have something I want to share with you, a present I want you to enjoy. You know, I have been around a long time, really before the beginning of time. I have been whirling and dancing with God all along. I am God's delight, laughing and playing. I want you to know the lightness of spirit and gladness that come when you welcome me. Will you set aside those thoughts, words, and deeds that make life heavy and sad for you and others? Will you come and laugh and play with me? Will you come and dance with me? Will you?”(3)Don’t you think we need to lighten up and stop making our God into something that God isn’t. We do not worship a stingy God who grudgingly gives gifts and who grants forgiveness as a divine grump. Not at all. The triune God – God in Community, Holy in One – is a joyous, dancing God who pours out overflowing gifts to humanity with gladness.
With all her beauty and grace, Wisdom invites us all to walk, laugh, play, and dance into the light of God’s new day. Let’s not be wallflowers. Let’s accept the invitation to God’s dance.
Alleluia!
(1) Jeff Paschal, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year C, vol. 3, 27.
(2) Ibid., 29.
(3) Ibid.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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