Community Christian Church of Springfield, MO
Dr. David Trobisch
Proverbs 9:1-6
1 Wisdom has built her house,
She has hewn her seven pillars.
2 She has slaughtered her animals,
She has mixed her wine,
She has also set her table.
3 She has sent out her servant girls,
She calls from the highest places in the town, 4 "You that are simple, turn in here!"
To those without sense she says, 5 "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. 6 Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight."
Did you know that according to some Biblical writings in the beginning when the world was created God had a wife? She was there from the very first moment, even before light, earth, heaven and time existed.
The name of this woman was Chokmah in Hebrew, or Sophia in Greek, or as we call her in English: Wisdom.
I am not saying this to annoy Bible loving Christians, I am simply repeating what anyone can read, let me quote:
8:27 When God established the heavens,When the world was created, Sophia, Wisdom, was there. God had a companion in creation, a woman who stood at his side "like a master worker" (Proverbs 8:30).
I, Wisdom, was there,
When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, 28
When he made firm the skies above,
When he established the fountains of the deep, 29
When he assigned to the sea its limit, (...)
When he marked out the foundations of the earth, 30
I was beside him,
Like a master worker;
Proverbs, chapter 8, verses 27-30.
The Bible doesn't always say what we expect. Does it?
For 12 years I taught at a small seminary in Maine. I am not an ordained minister, but I never turned down an invitation to preach. My first invitation came from a small community church in Smithfield, close to Waterville.
After the service a lawyer shook my hand and said, "This was good. You gave us food for thought." And then he added, "And I am so glad that you don't come every Sunday!"
I am a Bible scholar. I do not baptize children, I do not marry couples, I do not have to visit people in the hospital, and do not do funerals. I do not tell people what to believe or who to vote for. And I am skeptical of those who do. I am skeptical of those who know so much about God that they always seem to know what is right and what is wrong.
My role is different. I confuse people. My trade - Bible scholarship - is not faith based. When I go to conferences, I don't know if my fellow scholars are Catholic or Mormons or Jews or Muslims or atheists. Like Sophia-Wisdom I and tens of thousands of other Bible scholars in America and all over the world, we minister to the public. We serve not only those who sit in the pews, we serve everyone.
And believe me, there are people out there who are tired of being treated as if they were stupid. They feel that organized religion has all too often insulted their intelligence. They are told to believe what they do not understand and to do what they are told. But they want to understand! They want to do what they think is right!
Believe me, there are people who have seen that God does the good and the bad. And they ask: Why? What is the point? They are not afraid to ask the hard questions.
These people run our hospitals, they work in our courtrooms, they engineer our bridges, airplanes, and cars. We trust them with our lives every single day. They want to know more: About the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and they will even sit down with a scholar for two and a half hours on their evening off and read Josephus.
They have heard the call of Sophia--Wisdom who is shouting from the high places in the city: Grow up! Use your intelligence! There is life before death! Follow your own insight!
I often wish I had a little camera with me and I could show you what I see when I go and do my lectures, seminars or workshops. Often participants react surprised, when they hear me talk about what is common knowledge in Bible scholarship. But rarely are they shocked, and almost never do they turn away. Their interest is sparked, eyes light up, they want to know more, when they hear, for example, that in some books of the Bible God has a female consort at his side.
They understand the difference between history and stories. Remember - these people run our hospitals, work in our courtrooms, and engineer our cars. They deal with complicated matters every day.
They understand that story tellers take liberties, that stories in and outside of the Bible work with humor, imagination and irony. They understand that the experience of God differs from faith community to faith community; that the experience of God differs from individual to individual. They realize that God says different things to different people.
I also know that many of us experience God as a tiny voice that commands us to do certain things and not to do others. Like a GPS device this voice always seems to know where we are, where we are supposed to go, and what the fastest way is to get there.
And when we veer off the narrow path, we will hear the voice loud and clear: Recalculating. Recalculating. Make a U-turn!
Like in the story of Adam and Eve in Paradise. God said: Don't eat from this tree - or you will be punished.
Do you remember the name of the tree? It was called the tree of wisdom, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
So, when the woman saw that the tree would make her wise (Genesis 3:6), she took from its fruit and ate and also gave some to her husband.
But didn't we hear in today's scripture reading wisdom shouting out: "Come, eat of the bread I made, drink of the wine I mixed, and lay aside your immaturity"?
Grow up! There is life before death! Trust your own judgment!
Follow the path of your own insight!
How could both be correct? How could it be right to blindly follow God's rules and commands and at the same time could it be right to trust your own intelligence?
How can both go together?
I don't know. Remember: I am a scholar. My role is to confuse. And I am not going to lie to you about the Bible.
But I suspect that both positions to follow God's commands and to follow your own insight I suspect that both positions are true.
I will end with a Midrash, the old Jewish practice to comment on a problem in the Biblical text with the help of a story.
A Story, A Story!
(Response:) Let it come, let it go!
...
End of the story. Amen.
