“WHEN ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE”
Job 1:1, 13-22, 2:1-10
Faith United
October 8, 2006
Everybody knows Job
Even people who don’t read the Bible
and who aren’t religious people… know Job
Job is the name of suffering
of really horrible, hit-the-bottom, lost everything kind of suffering
We say about people, “she has the patience of Job”
saying that someone has an never ending supply of patience
I’ve never preached on Job
where do you begin?
You can’t preach on a little bit of Job
without preaching on the whole story
And this whole image of God and Satan sitting at a poker table
wagering bets on Job’s endurance and integrity
playing with his life just to prove a point
I don’t know about you, but I’m uncomfortable with that!
Job becomes a character in some tragic novel,
his life at the mercy of the sadistic whims of the writer’s pen
and so I’ve not preached on Job
but now seems to be a good time to preach on Job
with the school shootings in Amish country
the lockdowns of schools,
when I got home this week I heard my friends
son lost his 15 month battle with cancer
Bad news around the community
lost jobs, people in the hospital,
my sister-in-law on the up and down rollercoaster
of dying and rallying, back and forth
it goes on and on and on…
It seems like a good time to preach on Job
Job was the cream of the crop
he was the poster child for integrity
he’d do anything for you,
he was one of those rare individuals
who was just a good guy
Everybody could agree on that,
there was no denying that Job was an exceptional human being
But then it all falls apart….
enemies came and plundered Job’s livestock,
killed his servants,
a fire destroyed sheep and servants
other enemies came and killed
and plundered,
and then a tornado came and destroyed the house
where all of Job’s children were having a party
That would be enough to destroy anyone
but then Job was afflicted with sores all over his body
causing him great physical pain and suffering
and still Job persisted in his faith
MRS. Job came to him and said,
“what is it with you? When will you give up?
Curse God and die!”
Mrs. Job has gotten a terrible reputation in this story
as someone who was trying to tempt Job away from God
It may not surprise you that I want to stick up for the woman…
Consider Mrs. Job…
She has just lost 500 oxen, 70,000 sheep, 3000 camels
all her servants, 7 sons and 3 daughters…
it’s a wonder the woman is still standing upright
and on top of that, her husband is suddenly afflicted
with terrible physical suffering
and ugly boils on his skin
that she can do nothing about
Give her a break
The woman has a right to lose it, I’d say
She can’t stand to see her husband suffering
on top of everything else she’s lost
She says, “Curse God and die.”
It sounds harsh, but in the Hebrew, the word that is translated “curse”
literally means “bless”
so she’s really saying, “bless God and die!”
So maybe she’s tired of the endless suffering
maybe she sees her husband undergoing a slow death
maybe she just wants to end the misery
turn off the machines, you might say
Bless God and die, give it up, Job, just go to sleep and don’t wake up
Have you ever known Mrs. Job?
The person who has suffered an immeasurable amount
and just loses it?
I’ve met her many times
You just can’t blame her for going over the edge
for being weary of the pain
of thinking death would be a welcome blessing
for the one she loves who has suffered so much, too much already
Job is sitting among the ashes
It’s a painful image
a man sitting among the ashes…
Have you ever been there?
After a loss? After some indescribable pain?
All you can do is sit in the ashes and feel the weight of it
for the time being
Yet even in the ashes, Job says, “Shall we receive the good
at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”
Good question
When life hits us hard in the stomach
our first inclination is to blame God
or say, what have I done to deserve this?
Many people immediately blame God
seek a reason for the pain
there HAS to be a reason
It’s human nature
The story of Job is considered an Old Testament parable
it’s part of the Wisdom literature of the Bible
which includes Proverbs and Ecclesiastes
Literature that examines the nature of the world and life
and the meaning of it all
The story of Job looks at human suffering
and at faith in the midst of suffering
“There once was a man in the land of Uz
whose name was Job…
one who feared God and turned away from evil….”
At first Job seems too good to be true
but after he rebukes Mrs. Job about giving up
Job himself does give up
He curses the day he was born
he starts to really feel sorry for himself
he starts to rail against the universe
and the unfairness of his demise
In the midst of this, comes three friends
and if you read the book of Job
you’ll see that these are friends that
no one wants to have when the chips are down
But they are also very familiar people
we know them in our own time
They start off fine, they simply come and sit with Job
for 7 days and 7 nights,
and they don’t say a word,
because there is nothing to say
they just sit with him
And that’s the last good thing they really did for Job
Then they opened their mouths…
In a way, having to listen to his friend’s speeches
is probably more painful to him
than all the sores on his body
But we understand his friends, too, I think
We need to make sense of everything that happens to us
I heard someone say this week
about the Amish girls who died,
‘well, it must have been their time,
and if it was their time, then what could be done?’
I don’t mind saying that that kind of talk makes me physically sick
The belief that God would will the murder of innocent little girls
who live in a peaceful community
where they believe nothing bad can happen
That is not God’s will
But we have to make sense of the senseless, don’t we?
It was no different in Job’s day
The image of God was one of a God who rewards the faithful
if you’re good, you prosper
you get rich; you have servants, livestock,
many children, you have everything
The belief in Job’s day
was that wealth was a sign of God’s favor
and poverty and suffering were a sign of God’s punishment
Is it so different today?
There are books and DVDs sold,
tickets sold in coliseums to hear so-called Christian speakers
speak about what is known as the Prosperity Gospel
The belief that God wants you to be rich
and that if you are right with God, you will prosper greatly
and avoid unnecessary suffering
Well, as my seminary professor used to say,
that’s just BOVINE EXCREMENT
What about Jesus?
Jesus, the center of our Gospel, our faith?
Jesus was born into a poor family,
lived as a homeless man his short life
and then died an excruciating death
for crimes he did not commit?
Doesn’t sound like Jesus was the epitome of success!
And Jesus preached that things weren’t as important as people
that things weren’t as important as the Kingdom of God
that as Christians we are to serve the poor,
reach out to the least of these wherever they are
and serve the Kingdom on this earth
often at the expense of our reputations,
our success by the world’s standards,
and sometimes even at the risk of our lives…
No where in Jesus’ teachings or in his life and ministry
do I see him leading us to look out for ourselves,
pad our own bank accounts
and pursue wealth for the sake of wealth
But that was the belief in Job’s day, too
If you’re good, you’ll do well
If you suffer, you’ve made God mad
So Job’s so-called friends
spend many, many chapters trying to get him to repent of sins
he hasn’t committed
they are torturing him with words,
trying to get him to acknowledge what a faithless
scumbag he must be
to have suffered this much …
And Job gets mad
Even Job
Job is faithful and upright and resists evil
but when he’s sitting in the ashes
he starts to get bitter, frustrated and hostile
He rails against his suffering
He wants an audience with God
to ask, what are you doing to me??
What have I done to deserve this?
Have you ever been there?
I have
Either for myself or for someone I love
Maybe I’ve told you about Larry’s father’s funeral
Larry’s father died suddenly after a three-month battle
with cancer
At the viewing, one of Larry’s crazy Aunts came through the line
and said to Larry’s Mom, who was devastated at her loss,
“Oh Bea, you should be rejoicing! Jim is dancing in heaven
and it is glorious!
Why, I’ve been to heaven three times, and I tell you it’s beautiful!
You should be rejoicing for Jim, not weeping!”
Not helpful,
and Larry commented later that he wondered why
if she was so faithful, why heaven turned her away three times
that that’s not something to brag about….
The thing we see in Job’s story
is that he suffered for no good reason
his suffering was NOT just at all
He was a good man, a man of incredible integrity
He didn’t deserve such evil and pain
There was no good reason for Job’s suffering
Suffering happens
We live in a world so bent out of shape by evil
No matter how good we are, we will be touched by that evil
It’s everywhere, all around us
The evil that others commit,
the things that have gone wrong with our world
all have an effect on us
the drunk driver, the poisons in the air and water,
the insanity of some people who have gone over the edge
and have access to weapons
the greed for power, the hunger for violence
the disregard for the stranger across the world
All of it adds up
all of it touches us
The story of Job doesn’t ever answer the question
why do bad things happen to good people?
There is no definitive answer
And what would we do if there was?
In her novel, “The Kitchen God’s Wife”,
Amy Tan’s fictional character says,
“my father had died of stomach cancer when I was 14
and for years my mother would search in her mind
for the causes, as if she could still undo the disaster
by finding the reason why it occurred
in the first place.”
Sometimes, we just have to say,
it is what it is.
And it hurts, and we can’t imagine that hell could feel any worse
than what we’ve experienced
Grief is not a simple thing
it’s an ongoing thing, a journey of sorts
You never get rid of grief completely,
when you’ve suffered terrible loss
At first, Job is confident, then he gets really bitter and angry
he curses the day he was born
and begs God to just kill him
rather than let him suffer
But in the end, despite everything, Job finds peace
He never gets an answer as to why he ever had to suffer at all
Suffering happens
especially in this world
In his book, “Farewell to Arms,” Ernest Hemingway writes:
“The world breaks everyone, and then some become strong
in the broken places.”
It’s a tough world to live in
It always has been
So what’s the good news?
Where’s the hope?
In Chapter 38, after all this long-suffering
and really annoying speeches by Job’s so-called friends,
God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind
God speaks to Job of creation
of the complexities of the world
the very mysteries of the universe
that are beyond human comprehension
God asks Job impossible questions
and therefore draws him deeper and deeper
into mystery and awe
and through that, despite everything,
or maybe because of everything,
Job is drawn into a deeper communion with this awesome God
the very author of the universes
Job is not a speck of worthless dust to God
but God cares so much for Job
that he reveals himself personally to Job
and shares with him the great vastness of all creation
God was angry at Job’s pious friends
for saying things about God that are not true
for making God out to be some sadistic force in the heavens
ready to lash out and destroy Job for petty sins
But in the end, Job prayed for God to show mercy on their friends
perhaps he said to God,
“forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
We don’t have all the answers,
and apparently God’s not going to give them to us in this life
as we struggle through this imperfect world
seeking glimpses of God’s eternity
We live in a very painful world
Unfortunately, we know what happens every minute of every day
24 hours a day
and that’s just too much for any human being to take
The truth is, the world has always been painful
life has always been unjust
and I believe God weeps with us
over the lives of those little girls in Lancaster, PA
as God weeps over the lives lost every day in
Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan, the United States
those who suffer incredible loss and injustice
What can we possibly do? It’s too much,
there’s always too much
that sometimes we just shut down
for the sake of our hearts
Yet we know our hope is in Jesus
who cares so much that he came here himself
to suffer our pain, to be a victim of our injustice
and to die our death
In the worst of times, when we sit in the ashes ourselves
we can know that Jesus is there with us
and will be with us always
And we can be there for each other
to be God with skin on for others who are sitting in the ashes
and offering the hope that life comes after death
and that joy comes in the morning…
Together we can help each other see that day ahead
when there will be no more tears, no more death
no more senseless suffering
but only the glory of God all around….
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Sermon: The Way of Wisdom
“THE WAY OF WISDOM”
Proverbs 1:22-33
Faith United
September 17, 2006
The voice of Wisdom speaks,
in Chapter 8 of Proverbs, verses 22-36:
“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 his daily delight
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race
And now, my children, listen to me:
Happy are those who keep my ways
hear instruction and be wise,
and do not neglect it,
Happy is the one who listens to me
watching daily at my gates
waiting beside my doors.
For whoever finds me finds life
and obtains favor from the Lord
but those who miss me injure themselves
all who hate me love death.”
Does any of that sound familiar?
It reminded me of the Gospel of John, ch. 1:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God
And the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him
And without him not one thing came into being
What has come into being in him was life,
the life was the light of all people
The light shines in the darkness
and the darkness did not overcome it.”
The Word was in the beginning with God. alll things came into being through that Word . and what came into being was life. Wisdom, according to Proverbs, was also in the beginning with God, there at creation. The creation of Wisdom was the first of God’s acts;
before there were springs of water, before there were depths --no earth, no fields, no soil --
Wisdom was there, when the heavens were made, when the skies were formed and the seas given its boundaries….
There Wisdom was beside God,
like a master worker
daily God’s delight,
dancing and rejoicing….
So, who is Wisdom?
Well, when I decided to preach on this passage, I don’t think I realized what I was getting into.
This is too huge a subject for just one sermon, so consider this only a brief introduction.
Another reason I felt intimidated by this passage is because of its connotations.
Wisdom is the English translation of the Hebrew word, “Chokmah,” or the Greek word, Sophia….
Some of you may remember, back in 1993, there was huge, nasty controversy over a women’s conference in Minnesota that focused a lot on Wisdom, or Sophia. Some national officers of the United Methodist Women were there, some Presbyertians-- many from other mainline churches were there-- and they returned homefrom that conference to a firestorm. I wasn't there, so I don't know the particulars of what happened, but I saw the fallout. The media got ahold of this conference and made it out to be some sort of pagan festival that people were worshipping a goddess named Sophia. It was plastered all over the papers and the news. Churches threatened to pull their support of United Methodist Women and their Presbyterian sisters, just because these women attended this conference.
I was in my first year of full-time ministry out of seminary serving way out in the middle of nowhere in Guide Rock, Nebraska. At the time, I'd only heard about this controversy via the media, and it was far removed from life in a little town of just 200 people…
You know how the media can crucify people and events …
So to many in the Church, the very word “Sophia” is a frightening thing and conjures up only the madness of that time in the mainline church. But Sophia is the Greek word for Wisdom, which if you start looking, is everywhere in the Bible. In Proverbs 1, she is crying out in the streets, at the gates of the city where prophets speak, where prostitutes call to potential customers. In other words, she is where the action is, where all of life is. Wisdom is in the center of life, in the everyday-ness, calling out for people to listen. Nobody can claim that he or she has not heard Wisdom’s voice or that they did not know, for she is everywhere, calling to all God’s people.
Wisdom, or Sophia, is anything but new…but she hasn’t been talked about much for a long time and lately that is changing…Wisdom literature in the Bible began this feminine reference to Sophia between 33 B.C. and 4 A.D. --within the decades leading up to Jesus’ birth. Joyce Rupp, who is a Christian spirituality author writes that there are only 4 other figures who are mentioned more than Sophia in the Old Testament: and those are Yahweh, Moses, David and Job.
That’s all..
So how come we’ve never heard of her?? How come she’s been so well-hidden?
Looking further into the subject, I learned that Sophia was a key figure in the early church --the church during the first two centuries after Jesus’ death and resurrection. At the same time, there were many Greek and Egyptian cults that prayed to pagan goddesses. The early church was afraid that people would get Sophia mixed up with the goddesses of the pagans. Also, there were other religions that were considered heresy at the time, and the church didn’t want to be confused with those heresies.
The Jewish philosopher named Philo, who lived during the first century, wrote a lot about Sophia… he wrote that Yahweh created Sophia first and then God created Logos, The Word, as a balancing companion to Sophia. In other words, God created male and female manifestations
of spirit, of word… and Philo envisioned those two working together in shaping creation:
Sophia, the feminine manifestation of God, and the Logos, or Word, the masculine manifestation of God, whom we believe came into physical incarnation in the person of Jesus
So, essentially, Sophia or Wisdom was hidden, or thrown out because as the Early Church was forming in those first few centuries, it was trying to distinguish itself from the pagan cults around it, and leaders of the Church were afraid that the teachings about Sophia would make them resemble some elements of pagan heresies. As such fears grew through Church history, good things were thrown out, or buried away in the attic of history. It is nothing short of miraculous that the writings in the voice of Wisdom were saved in the books of Proverbs, because much of Proverbs has a negative attitude toward women. But the voice of Wisdom promises true life for all those who seek her and follow her ways. Chapter 3 of Proverbs says:
“My child, do not forget my teaching
but let your heart keep my commandments
for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare
they will give you.”
Verse 15 of chapter 3:
“She is more precious than jewels
and nothing you desire can compare with her.”
Those are words that have been used in reference to Jesus…
Verse 18: “she is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her,
those who hold her fast are called happy.”
In my Bible, the Oxford Study Bible in the New Revised Standard Version, it has books in the middle of the Testaments called the Apocrapha, which means “things that are hidden.”
These books are still a part of the Roman Catholic Bible . Many of them were written during the same time as the books of the Bible that we’re more familiar with. For the first 1500 years, they were a part of the whole Bible, until the Protestant Reformation when these books were taken out of the Protestant bibles. There are still other books that are resurfacing, that were literally buried by monks centuries ago to keep them safe from those who would burn them, and are only in the past few decades coming to our attention. Books like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Thomas ...
But in the Apocrapha, which is still an accepted group of books in the Roman Catholic Church, there is still more about Wisdom or Sophia. In Chapter 10 of the Wisdom of Solomon,
Wisdom is described as being there at the creation; in the beginning, when man and woman was first formed. When the first murder was committed. At the tower of Babel. Wisdom was with all those whom we know about --Abraham, Jacob, the Israelites, Moses, and the people wandering in the wilderness. She gave guidance, it says. She gave life and protection and commandments. She was there with Joseph, She was in the burning bush that spoke to Moses.
She guided the people in a flame by night and a cloud by day….
So who is She?
Who is Wisdom?
Like I said, I can’t possibly do justice to the subject in one sermon, but once you start digging, you find many, many treasures; as is true any time you start digging deeper into the vast abundance of God.
Why does Sophia make people so nervous? Is it because we’re so used to images of God as an old white headed, long bearded man in a tunic? Think of the people in your life that you think of as wise. People whom you trust to guide you in life, give you help in finding your way.
Perhaps it was a grandfather or grandmother, or aunt or uncle or family friend. The people whom I trust the most as wise are people who have been there, been through it, who know what pain and struggle is and yet have come out the other side knowing a whole lot more about hope and God. Some of them are male, and some of them are female. I am a woman, but I am a lot like my father. I share a lot of characteristics with my Dad (and trust me, I didn’t always want to acknowledge that!) I’ve taken the best of both of my parents , male and female, mother and father, and together they made me. They are a huge part of who I am, for better and worse.
Girls need strong women in their lives to help them on their way, and we also benefit from the perspective of men. Boys need strong and good male role models in their lives, but they also need the influence of a strong female presence. We all need both in order to be whole and healthy, and obviously we don’t always get it from our parents, but from the many people God puts in our lives to help shape us into who we are. So why would God be any less?
I am not in any way saying that God is not Father but that God is more than Father. And the introduction of Holy Wisdom or Sophia reveals some of that to us. Jesus-- according to Paul in Corinthians-- Jesus is the Wisdom of God. So many people believe that the Word in John and Wisdom in Proverbs are two parts of the same thing, working together, balancing each other. Because God created us all in God’s image. God created us male and female.
Someone once asked me, if God created us male and female, and God created us in God’s image, how can God just be male? Or, this woman asked, if God is male, how can I be made in God’s image?
And it’s true that for many centuries, people believed that only men were made in the image of God, since God was believed to be male. What we believe about God powerfully impacts what we believe about each other, after all…. and how we see the world.
Some of us know the hard way that talking about God can be a very dangerous thing
Wars are fought over it. Churches can be split over it, the media can destroy people’s lives over the subject. But Wisdom in Proverbs 1 cries out in the midst of life, in the midst of real life, everyday life,
“How long, o simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing?
And fools hate knowledge?
I will pour out my thoughts to you
I will make my words known to you…”
In Chapter 8, Wisdom calls on the heights, beside the way at the crossroads….
Have you ever been at a crossroads? That place where you know you can’t keep going the way you’ve been going or it’ll kill you, and yet there are still so many possibilities in front of you, how do you know where to go? How do you know which turn to take? How do you keep from making another mistake?
Wisdom, a mouthpiece for God, a voice for God, stands at the crossroads, calling to us, seeking to guide us in the way that God wants us to go; luring, loving, inviting, seeking, and calling.... but if we keep shutting the voice of wisdom out, we’ll only have ourselves to blame. If we choose to not seek knowledge, to not look diligently for God, and trust God to direct our paths, than we will not find life… the life that comes in seeking out Wisdom with everything we’ve got,
like the treasure hidden in a field,
like the pearl of great price.
Wisdom calls us to seek God, to risk everything in that search, to risk being changed and redeemed, to risk growing beyond what we can imagine, to discover the treasures of life that God keeps on revealing to us if only we’ll listen….
If you read much of the literature that speaks of Sophia or Wisdom, you can hear the echoes of Jesus. You can see the influence of this mysterious Wisdom on the one we call the Word of God in the flesh. God is so much more than we can imagine -- it helps to have a poet’s heart when speaking of the things of God. We will never get anywhere near the end of the riches of God and all there is to know and discover of God. Documents written at the same time as the Gospels are still being unearthed, revealing to us simply that there is always so much more … when it comes to God’s wisdom.
The Wisdom of Solomon Chapter 7: 24-30:
“For wisdom is more mobile than any motion
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates
all things.
For she is a breath of the power of God
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
For she is a reflection of eternal light
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.
Although she is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
in every generation she passes into holy souls
and makes them friends of God and prophets;
for God loves nothing so much as
the person who lives with wisdom.
She is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars.
Compared with the light she is found to be superior
for it is succeeded by the night,
but against wisdom evil does not prevail….”
And I would add… Thanks be to God.
Proverbs 1:22-33
Faith United
September 17, 2006
The voice of Wisdom speaks,
in Chapter 8 of Proverbs, verses 22-36:
“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 his daily delight
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race
And now, my children, listen to me:
Happy are those who keep my ways
hear instruction and be wise,
and do not neglect it,
Happy is the one who listens to me
watching daily at my gates
waiting beside my doors.
For whoever finds me finds life
and obtains favor from the Lord
but those who miss me injure themselves
all who hate me love death.”
Does any of that sound familiar?
It reminded me of the Gospel of John, ch. 1:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God
And the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him
And without him not one thing came into being
What has come into being in him was life,
the life was the light of all people
The light shines in the darkness
and the darkness did not overcome it.”
The Word was in the beginning with God. alll things came into being through that Word . and what came into being was life. Wisdom, according to Proverbs, was also in the beginning with God, there at creation. The creation of Wisdom was the first of God’s acts;
before there were springs of water, before there were depths --no earth, no fields, no soil --
Wisdom was there, when the heavens were made, when the skies were formed and the seas given its boundaries….
There Wisdom was beside God,
like a master worker
daily God’s delight,
dancing and rejoicing….
So, who is Wisdom?
Well, when I decided to preach on this passage, I don’t think I realized what I was getting into.
This is too huge a subject for just one sermon, so consider this only a brief introduction.
Another reason I felt intimidated by this passage is because of its connotations.
Wisdom is the English translation of the Hebrew word, “Chokmah,” or the Greek word, Sophia….
Some of you may remember, back in 1993, there was huge, nasty controversy over a women’s conference in Minnesota that focused a lot on Wisdom, or Sophia. Some national officers of the United Methodist Women were there, some Presbyertians-- many from other mainline churches were there-- and they returned homefrom that conference to a firestorm. I wasn't there, so I don't know the particulars of what happened, but I saw the fallout. The media got ahold of this conference and made it out to be some sort of pagan festival that people were worshipping a goddess named Sophia. It was plastered all over the papers and the news. Churches threatened to pull their support of United Methodist Women and their Presbyterian sisters, just because these women attended this conference.
I was in my first year of full-time ministry out of seminary serving way out in the middle of nowhere in Guide Rock, Nebraska. At the time, I'd only heard about this controversy via the media, and it was far removed from life in a little town of just 200 people…
You know how the media can crucify people and events …
So to many in the Church, the very word “Sophia” is a frightening thing and conjures up only the madness of that time in the mainline church. But Sophia is the Greek word for Wisdom, which if you start looking, is everywhere in the Bible. In Proverbs 1, she is crying out in the streets, at the gates of the city where prophets speak, where prostitutes call to potential customers. In other words, she is where the action is, where all of life is. Wisdom is in the center of life, in the everyday-ness, calling out for people to listen. Nobody can claim that he or she has not heard Wisdom’s voice or that they did not know, for she is everywhere, calling to all God’s people.
Wisdom, or Sophia, is anything but new…but she hasn’t been talked about much for a long time and lately that is changing…Wisdom literature in the Bible began this feminine reference to Sophia between 33 B.C. and 4 A.D. --within the decades leading up to Jesus’ birth. Joyce Rupp, who is a Christian spirituality author writes that there are only 4 other figures who are mentioned more than Sophia in the Old Testament: and those are Yahweh, Moses, David and Job.
That’s all..
So how come we’ve never heard of her?? How come she’s been so well-hidden?
Looking further into the subject, I learned that Sophia was a key figure in the early church --the church during the first two centuries after Jesus’ death and resurrection. At the same time, there were many Greek and Egyptian cults that prayed to pagan goddesses. The early church was afraid that people would get Sophia mixed up with the goddesses of the pagans. Also, there were other religions that were considered heresy at the time, and the church didn’t want to be confused with those heresies.
The Jewish philosopher named Philo, who lived during the first century, wrote a lot about Sophia… he wrote that Yahweh created Sophia first and then God created Logos, The Word, as a balancing companion to Sophia. In other words, God created male and female manifestations
of spirit, of word… and Philo envisioned those two working together in shaping creation:
Sophia, the feminine manifestation of God, and the Logos, or Word, the masculine manifestation of God, whom we believe came into physical incarnation in the person of Jesus
So, essentially, Sophia or Wisdom was hidden, or thrown out because as the Early Church was forming in those first few centuries, it was trying to distinguish itself from the pagan cults around it, and leaders of the Church were afraid that the teachings about Sophia would make them resemble some elements of pagan heresies. As such fears grew through Church history, good things were thrown out, or buried away in the attic of history. It is nothing short of miraculous that the writings in the voice of Wisdom were saved in the books of Proverbs, because much of Proverbs has a negative attitude toward women. But the voice of Wisdom promises true life for all those who seek her and follow her ways. Chapter 3 of Proverbs says:
“My child, do not forget my teaching
but let your heart keep my commandments
for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare
they will give you.”
Verse 15 of chapter 3:
“She is more precious than jewels
and nothing you desire can compare with her.”
Those are words that have been used in reference to Jesus…
Verse 18: “she is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her,
those who hold her fast are called happy.”
In my Bible, the Oxford Study Bible in the New Revised Standard Version, it has books in the middle of the Testaments called the Apocrapha, which means “things that are hidden.”
These books are still a part of the Roman Catholic Bible . Many of them were written during the same time as the books of the Bible that we’re more familiar with. For the first 1500 years, they were a part of the whole Bible, until the Protestant Reformation when these books were taken out of the Protestant bibles. There are still other books that are resurfacing, that were literally buried by monks centuries ago to keep them safe from those who would burn them, and are only in the past few decades coming to our attention. Books like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Thomas ...
But in the Apocrapha, which is still an accepted group of books in the Roman Catholic Church, there is still more about Wisdom or Sophia. In Chapter 10 of the Wisdom of Solomon,
Wisdom is described as being there at the creation; in the beginning, when man and woman was first formed. When the first murder was committed. At the tower of Babel. Wisdom was with all those whom we know about --Abraham, Jacob, the Israelites, Moses, and the people wandering in the wilderness. She gave guidance, it says. She gave life and protection and commandments. She was there with Joseph, She was in the burning bush that spoke to Moses.
She guided the people in a flame by night and a cloud by day….
So who is She?
Who is Wisdom?
Like I said, I can’t possibly do justice to the subject in one sermon, but once you start digging, you find many, many treasures; as is true any time you start digging deeper into the vast abundance of God.
Why does Sophia make people so nervous? Is it because we’re so used to images of God as an old white headed, long bearded man in a tunic? Think of the people in your life that you think of as wise. People whom you trust to guide you in life, give you help in finding your way.
Perhaps it was a grandfather or grandmother, or aunt or uncle or family friend. The people whom I trust the most as wise are people who have been there, been through it, who know what pain and struggle is and yet have come out the other side knowing a whole lot more about hope and God. Some of them are male, and some of them are female. I am a woman, but I am a lot like my father. I share a lot of characteristics with my Dad (and trust me, I didn’t always want to acknowledge that!) I’ve taken the best of both of my parents , male and female, mother and father, and together they made me. They are a huge part of who I am, for better and worse.
Girls need strong women in their lives to help them on their way, and we also benefit from the perspective of men. Boys need strong and good male role models in their lives, but they also need the influence of a strong female presence. We all need both in order to be whole and healthy, and obviously we don’t always get it from our parents, but from the many people God puts in our lives to help shape us into who we are. So why would God be any less?
I am not in any way saying that God is not Father but that God is more than Father. And the introduction of Holy Wisdom or Sophia reveals some of that to us. Jesus-- according to Paul in Corinthians-- Jesus is the Wisdom of God. So many people believe that the Word in John and Wisdom in Proverbs are two parts of the same thing, working together, balancing each other. Because God created us all in God’s image. God created us male and female.
Someone once asked me, if God created us male and female, and God created us in God’s image, how can God just be male? Or, this woman asked, if God is male, how can I be made in God’s image?
And it’s true that for many centuries, people believed that only men were made in the image of God, since God was believed to be male. What we believe about God powerfully impacts what we believe about each other, after all…. and how we see the world.
Some of us know the hard way that talking about God can be a very dangerous thing
Wars are fought over it. Churches can be split over it, the media can destroy people’s lives over the subject. But Wisdom in Proverbs 1 cries out in the midst of life, in the midst of real life, everyday life,
“How long, o simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing?
And fools hate knowledge?
I will pour out my thoughts to you
I will make my words known to you…”
In Chapter 8, Wisdom calls on the heights, beside the way at the crossroads….
Have you ever been at a crossroads? That place where you know you can’t keep going the way you’ve been going or it’ll kill you, and yet there are still so many possibilities in front of you, how do you know where to go? How do you know which turn to take? How do you keep from making another mistake?
Wisdom, a mouthpiece for God, a voice for God, stands at the crossroads, calling to us, seeking to guide us in the way that God wants us to go; luring, loving, inviting, seeking, and calling.... but if we keep shutting the voice of wisdom out, we’ll only have ourselves to blame. If we choose to not seek knowledge, to not look diligently for God, and trust God to direct our paths, than we will not find life… the life that comes in seeking out Wisdom with everything we’ve got,
like the treasure hidden in a field,
like the pearl of great price.
Wisdom calls us to seek God, to risk everything in that search, to risk being changed and redeemed, to risk growing beyond what we can imagine, to discover the treasures of life that God keeps on revealing to us if only we’ll listen….
If you read much of the literature that speaks of Sophia or Wisdom, you can hear the echoes of Jesus. You can see the influence of this mysterious Wisdom on the one we call the Word of God in the flesh. God is so much more than we can imagine -- it helps to have a poet’s heart when speaking of the things of God. We will never get anywhere near the end of the riches of God and all there is to know and discover of God. Documents written at the same time as the Gospels are still being unearthed, revealing to us simply that there is always so much more … when it comes to God’s wisdom.
The Wisdom of Solomon Chapter 7: 24-30:
“For wisdom is more mobile than any motion
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates
all things.
For she is a breath of the power of God
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
For she is a reflection of eternal light
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.
Although she is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
in every generation she passes into holy souls
and makes them friends of God and prophets;
for God loves nothing so much as
the person who lives with wisdom.
She is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars.
Compared with the light she is found to be superior
for it is succeeded by the night,
but against wisdom evil does not prevail….”
And I would add… Thanks be to God.
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