A sermon preached by The Reverend Canon Dr. David Anderson at St. Jude’s Anglican Church, Oakville, on the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Sunday, September 15, 2024.
I speak to you in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
We live in a noisy world. It is hard to avoid the noise. This summer, more than others, I have really been enjoying my patio at home. For the most part it is a peaceful place. I wrote this sermon sitting on the patio. It is not that the patio is silent, but the gentle sounds are peaceful enough: singing bird, the occasional rustle of squirrels, the indistinct voices of neighbours a few houses away, a car going by the front of the house. Sometimes the noises are louder: the next-door neighbour talking in their yard, or their baby crying. But the sounds of everyday life are not disturbing. Every once in a while, there is a more disturbing sound. Sirens from the trucks leaving fire station a few blocks away, or a plane flying overhead, but these are infrequent enough to be easily tolerated and not disturb the peace for long.
As much as I enjoy my peace, for some reason I find that often I am attracted to the noise. I go inside the house and I’m tempted to turn on the TV. I like to listen to the news. For some reason that I can’t completely understand, I find myself fascinated by the state of American politics. It is, as they say, like watching a train wreck—you don’t really want to witness it, but you can’t look away. I do enjoy watching my sports: baseball, hockey, and football mostly. But the commercials seem to be increasingly disturbing, especially those that invite us to what they sell as the fun and easy money of the sports book.
The fact is that in our culture we are surrounded by a cacophony of voices that are constantly calling to us, inviting us to listen to the options, choices, and advice they have for us. They sell the products that promise us a better life. Whether it is the reverse mortgage that will deliver a happy life in old age, the hair product that will make us attractive again, the weight loss program or pharmaceutical that will restore your health and vigor, we are always being sold something that promises us ‘the good life.’ Political leaders no longer speak of policies that will promote the common good, but appeal to our baser instincts, selling us grievances and telling us who is to blame. In the midst of all the noise it can be hard to know who to listen to, and increasingly hard to make good choices.
As we gather as the church Sunday by Sunday one of our fundamental preoccupations should be our attention to God’s voice. This morning’s readings cause us to ask, “How do the claims of God find a hearing when we live in a culture that bombards us with so many messages that promise us the world.
Making matters worse is the state of public discourse. At a time when disinformation is rampant, when respect, collaboration, and cooperation in the public realm seem have gone out the window, when basic civility is in short supply, any exasperation on the part of Lady Wisdom seems very understandable.
The author of our First Reading would have understood our predicament. It is written, “Wisdom cries out in the street, in the squares she raises her voice” (Proverbs 1:20). Wisdom here is personified as a woman. Many commentators believe she represents the ever-searching, ever-calling, ever-present Spirit of God. Lady Wisdom raises her voice, just as a mother might raise her voice with a resistant teenager. Wisdom has shown up. She shows up in the places where people live. She shows up in the busy streets. She shows up in the public square. She shows up in the bustling intersection of life. She shows up with a challenging question: “Is anyone listening to me?” And she shows up with a stern warning: that to ignore wisdom is to choose destruction. And she shows up with a compelling invitation: “Those who listen to me will be blessed.”
This is not merely advice of a loving mother to her child, or of a collaborative partner telling us how to live a prosperous life; this is a woman with something to say—her words have import, urgency, and seriousness. Her voice is prophetic and what she has to say to us has an imperativeness that is hard to ignore. In her own words, we cannot wait any longer to heed her wisdom; we can’t go on the way we are.
Lady Wisdom is one of the features of that part of our scriptures that we describe as the Wisdom Literature. The personification of wisdom was one of the ways that the biblical authors sought to legitimize and promote wisdom as sacred and to point to ways of living that were appropriate for the faithful living as the people of God. We learn from other passages that Lady Wisdom was present with God at creation as a partner. Her ways are woven into the fabric of the universe. Here, in the very first chapter of Proverbs, she bursts onto the scene and breaks through the cultural expectations of women in that historical context. In the ancient world of the Hebrew people women were pictured—especially in biblical material—as reticent and retiring in public even if there were assertive in private. But Lady Wisdom speaks assertively to us in the most public of places. What she says shows that she speaks with authority.
Wisdom does not mince her words; she comes to us with a clear and stern warning. She gets right to the point. “Because I have called and you refused, have stretched out my hand and no one heeded, and because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when panic strikes you” (vv. 24-26).
Some of us will perhaps struggle with this side of Wisdom. She comes across with an almost swaggering self-assurance. “I would listen to me if I were you,” wagging her finger. Perhaps the poet who penned these words overstated the case a bit. Does God actually laugh at the calamities that we bring upon ourselves. I think his tears are more likely. This reference to a sense of pleasure in another’s misfortune) is meant, I believe, to highlight the fact that when we forget the ways of God we often get ourselves into some terrible predicaments. It is hard to argue with the truth of Wisdom’s warning. When we think that we are beyond the basic lessons of loving justice, doing kindness, and walking humbly with God, we often do and say things that we come to regret. When loving our neighbour becomes a mere platitude for us, it seems disaster often finds us. It will always be true that bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. But it also will always be true that we have some responsibility for what happens to our families, our communities, our world, and ourselves. We need to pay attention to this brash woman named Wisdom and her insistence that the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (v. 7a).
I think that it is important for us to lift up this morning some of the ways we see the way of Wisdom lived out in this community. Increasingly we see that our vulnerable neighbours and fellow citizens are struggling. Many are homeless. The affordable housing crisis not only means that our own children and grandchildren’s hopes of home ownership some day are severely compromised, but it also means that those who live in poverty, including the working poor, increasingly find themselves unable to meet their rent or find a place to rent in the first place. Increasingly, people are living on the streets and in encampments. Conventional wisdom tells us that people are responsible for their own sad situation, and therefore are not our responsibility. If we blame them for their lot we feel better about washing our hands.
Here at St. Jude’s, we don’t just wash our hands of our vulnerable neighbours. What we do tend to do is feed them. We bring dinners to their doors. We provide meals in homeless shelters. We produce hundreds of meals every month that are distributed either by ourselves or through our partners who are on the front lines of the poverty-related crises in our community.
I mentioned that I like to watch the news and pay some attention to American politics. I will also admit that I taped and later watched most of the Presidential Debate between candidate Trump and Harris. The low light of that event was most certainly the former President’s repetition of the baseless and completely debunked claim that Haitian migrants were eating the pets of the residents of Springfield, Ohio. We all know that Trump as an estranged relationship with truth. His point seemed not so much intended to highlight the challenges of cities coping with large numbers of migrants, but to increase the malice and hatred of migrants. It would be one thing to highlight the challenges of cities such as Springfield and others like it. But shouldn’t the question be—if the lie had been true that people were resorting to eating pets—how do we feed these hungry people? If the lie were true, we would feel sorry for the pet owners and their pets, but wouldn’t the profound human tragedy be that people were forced to such act by their hunger. Wouldn’t the tragedy be the failure of the community to feed the hungry? Wisdom would tell us that blaming the hungry for being hungry is not the way. Wisdom points us to a better way: the way of compassion, love, and justice.
In today’s Gospel Reading Jesus talks about the way of Wisdom. He describes it as the way of the cross. “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). We must be cautious in our understanding of Lady Wisdom’s promise. She says, “but those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster” (v. 33). Jesus calls us to the cross, but Lady Wisdom promises us peace; how does that work? The cross and peace seem at odds with one another. How does Jesus invitation to the way of the cross jive with Lady Wisdom’s promise of peace.
Again, to examine our own lives, I think we can see how Wisdom’s peace and Jesus’ cross can be held together. When we take the time to listen to people we disagree with, we often find ways to move beyond conflict and tension without letting it consume and destroy. When people find ways to honour God—simple time-tested ways such as saying a prayer or gathering with the community for worship—they find that there is a cadence and rhythm that feels right. When people recognize their need for forgiveness and to forgive others, they find peace that is good for the body, mind, and spirit.
To walk in the ways of Wisdom is demanding. Her promise needs to be understood in terms of Jesus’ demanding way of discipleship. Ultimately, both Lady Wisdom and Jesus are inviting us to the same thing: to life, to eternal life, . Both want the best, not only for us, but for the world. May we always heed Wisdom’s call and know her blessings.
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