Woman Wisdom

homily by Carrie Eikler

John 56-69, Proverbs 9:1-6

(followed with Holy Communion)

I don’t know how many of you heard Axel Anderson’s response in the children’s story last week.  Mary asked the kids what is the difference between being wise and being smart.  And Axel said “Being wise is knowing between right and wrong and how to act.  Being smart is knowing stuff…you know…like math and things.”  The writers of Proverbs probably couldn’t have said it any better.  Today’s scripture reading in Proverbs, is sort of like a sister scripture to last week’s Psalm.  Remember last week?  Come, my children, I will teach you the fear of the Lord.  Well we talked about what the fear of the Lord meant, and can mean for us today.  But we didn’t talk so much about the teaching part.  The learning part.  The getting wise in the way of God.  Getting wisdom.

And wisdom is a big thing in the community that the Proverbs were written for.  Proverbs were these sayings written for and by the Hebrew people to pass down wisdom through the generations.  Wisdom--which is a feminine noun, the same way Spirit is a feminine noun—was not just something you learned in your head.  Wisdom was, what Wil Gafney describes as—a heart-and-hand-and head type of living.  After all, the seat of the soul for the Hebrew people was in the heart.  Wisdom was incorporating the Torah, the law, into oneself.  Making it part of one’s life.  Wisdom was living life by the words of the Law.

But before we do what many Christians do and say, well we live by the words of Christ, not the Law…let me clarify that the Hebrew people, despite our interpretations, weren’t as legalistic as we like to make them out to be.  The law was not merely rules to follow but was, rather, the offer of relationships—a means to provide guidance and strength for life. 

The writer of proverbs creates a character, a personification of wisdom, to offer a winsome invitation to us, so that we may choose the way of God.  That’s basically what it is, this proverb.  It’s an invitation: Wisdom—the heart-and-hand-and-head living—has prepared a table for us.  She’s built a shelter for us.  She has procured sustenance.  And she invites all.  No carefully selected guest list here.  She sends her people to the top of the mountain to shout it to everyone.

I know the liturgical calendar isn’t not planned this way, but what better time to explore Woman Wisdom’s Table as the world celebrates 100 years since the birth of Julia Child.  I mean, if I were to personify the creative passion of Wisdom who chops trees, carves stones, butchers her own fresh meat, mixes her wine, and sets her table” in order to bring both joy and “heart-and-hand-and-head knowledge” to the people…I think Julia would probably be it.  Aside from leaving a lasting culinary legacy among the finest chefs in the world, Julia Child told all housewives (and husbands) that cooking was not just “for fluffies.”

Over the past few years our family have collected a few DVD sets of old French Chef episodes, and other Julia Child cooking shows.  The boys love to watch them—especially the one on how to stuff your own sausages.  It’s a far cry from the popular cooking shows that now have cooking as a competition: who can be top chef? who can be reduced to tears the easiest in the kitchen? Not the type of kitchen Woman Wisdom would be caught dead in.

No I think Julia’s kitchen may be more like what we’re seeing in proverbs.  Bob Spitz the author “Dearie”, the recently released Julia Child biography, reflected that Julia’s genius as a bringer of culinary wisdom as good news to ordinary people lay in her ability to demystify the process, to not be intimidated by it, to be fearless, to plunge right in.  Technique was essential of course, but you had to find the pleasure in.”  Once Julia asked the viewing audience “What makes a great chef?” and she answers “Well, training of technique of course, plus a great love of food, a generous personality and…  the ability to invent hot chocolate truffles…”

What a feast of food—and wisdom--she gave us…As Christians we can certainly relate to the image of the feast.  This feast that Wisdom prepares in Proverbs is a lot like Christ’s invitation in the gospel reading of today.  Although, admittedly, this Eucharistic image is lot “harder to swallow” than other descriptions of communion.  He’s talking about his flesh and blood that they will eat.  Now this is not the public relations savvy Jesus here.  Not the warm, welcoming invitation of Julia Child as Woman Wisdom.  No chocolate truffles to sweeten the bitter taste of sacrifice.

And unlike Julia, Jesus doesn’t clarify much, but he simply invites people into thinking about it: and as we often see today , when we actually invite people to think about these things, or invite them to experience creatively in a physical act that has a spiritual dimension…they started walking away.  Even his own disciples throw up their hands at him, saying this is too hard!

Someone who was really worried about the number in his entourage would have tried to find a way to convince them.  But as Walter Bubar says, “… Jesus let them go! He let them just wander off and made no attempt to stop them. He didn’t say, “Hey, hold on a second! Let me break it down for you.” He didn’t offer a Jesus for Dummies version of things. Instead he made things difficult. He left his followers with their questions unanswered, apparently preferring to let them go off and wrestle with those questions rather than give them easy answers or a user-friendly faith.”

He doesn’t spell it out in a powerpoint lecture for the disciples to learn.  Rather he sort of… slips up next to Woman Wisdom.  And after she dusts the flour off her brow, sends her servant girls up the mountain to call all those skeptics back, she sits down with Jesus and her well-earned glass of homebrewed wine. 

They sit together, not with a lecture, but with an invitation to a feast, where the disciples—and us—can learn wisdom through word, and action, and feasting, and failing, and loving, and experiencing the head-and-heart-and-hand wisdom of the Divine.

 

[For a wonderful remix of Julia Child's philosophy and scrumptous cooking, check out this video]