Sunday 16th August 2009

An opportunity to focus on the Old Testament reading… and allow it to fill out our understanding of the Gospel reading.  The verses from Proverbs take the form of a so-called ‘wisdom instruction’ - a teacher instructs a pupil about ‘wisdom’.  It is a picture which crops up a number of times in Proverbs - Dame Wisdom invites young people to her house where they will find life… and warns them not to listen to the tempting words of Dame Folly whose invitation leads to failure and death.  2.16 ‘You will be saved from the loose / strange woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words’.  Don’t get bogged down with gender issues - these verses simply reflect a way of thinking and talking nearly 3,000 years ago.

In a way, the reading today takes the metaphor back a stage, since Dame Wisdom is building her house, dedicating it with a sacrificial meal, and inviting friends and neighbours to the house-warming party.  Speculation continues about the seven pillars… but seven is an ancient symbol of completeness and perfection, particularly in the Jewish Scriptures: there were six days plus one of creation.  The earth was said to rest on seven pillars.  Wisdom was both fundamental and perfect in God’s scheme of things.  The architectural detail could be a way of saying that Wisdom’s house is luxurious and superior.

We could also debate the nature of those invited to share in the meal, variously and possibly strangely described as ‘simple’, ‘without sense’ and ‘immature’.  Rest assured that the author is not getting at them.  It may be better to say that the invitees are the simplistic rather than simple, because wisdom deals with the complex realities of life - and entering the house of wisdom will bring insight.  These are those who have not yet found the way of life in which they can walk with success and fulfillment - a key picture in wisdom literature.  The alternative path of folly leads to disintegration… and so the repeated appeal in Proverbs 1 - 9 is to choose wisdom and reject folly.

This is a way of writing and thinking which seems strange to us… and it may be that we can root it in relevance by seeing it as a picture of how the Holy Spirit works to invite the simple into the banquet.  The Holy Spirit thus indwells God’s people… so how can we co-operate with this invitation?  Put it another way: if this is a reading focused on an invitation to grow spiritually, how do people respond to an invitation to discuss spiritual things?  We live in an age where people describe themselves as ‘spiritual’ rather than ‘religious’; the trappings of formalized religion and shackled church act as a disincentive to progress further… yet more and more people would describe themselves as deeply spiritual beings.  Here, Wisdom begins by creating a huge entrance: no less than seven pillars are hewn, making six arches.  Do we offer a choice of routes to the table with the ‘living bread’, or do we still periodically fall into the trap of assuming that our way constitutes the only valid way?  Thankfully, I don’t think that we do… but I do think that it is about time that more Christians worked through a reasoned response to the claim that Christianity is an exclusive faith.  It seems odd that a rapidly changing cultural environment sometimes yields to mental and spiritual laziness on the part of people of faith.

Not also that Wisdom, far from being caught up only in abstracts, is highly organized: she has made everything ready to offer people what they need.  Maybe Christian communities should support each person to identify their particular talents so that we can offer gifts appropriately to those who seek.  We are moving away from ‘one-size-fits-all’ experiences of faith – thankfully – but I am not sure that we have reached the stage where we can reconcile the needs of each individual to the range of opportunities provided by this church in its broadest sense.  To put it another way, we tend to assume that if somebody settles into morning worship, this is the most appropriate experience that we can offer them.  It may not be.

Hospitality is frequent metaphor throughout the Hebrew Bible and continues into the New Testament.  Some Jewish commentators find it strange that the Decalogue – the Ten Commandments – make no mention of this responsibility since it featured, and continues to feature so prominently in Jewish life.  In John 6, there is an entire chapter on the bread metaphor.  It is worth noting that in ancient though, bread is always a food to be shared; our word ‘companion’ comes from the Latin con with and panis bread. A companion is someone with whom you share bread…non-negotiable.  The Jesus of John 6 declares himself to be the brad of life: through him we escape starvation in the desert of separation from God, and gain access to eternal life.  So many ideas are used interchangeably, so many pictures are painted with words that we do need to allow time – and sustain effort – if we are to allow them to speak to us as fully as intended.

Interestingly, Wisdom’s invitation is to a meal, not to a sermon.  The task of the hospitable is to welcome entrants as friends and companions, not as audience.  To walk in the way of insight is to travel and explore together, not simply to be on the receiving end of teaching which, effectively, continues to be beyond contradiction.  We are some way on with our own journey of understanding here, but we do have a considerable way to go.  Some recent experiences have brought home renewed appreciation of the centrality and significance of hospitality, but there is more work to be done; most people acknowledge that a fifteen or twenty minute monologue is inadequate to sustain vibrant spirituality, but work on the role of small groups is a work in progress and we continue to be too hidebound by the lectionary, which provides inadequate coverage if Sunday readings alone are used.  Today’s readings are timely – and their lessons are not dispensed with on the basis of this teaching alone.