The Wisdom of God

"Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice." Wisdom calls to people to turn away from foolishness and seek her-and promises that she will pour out her thoughts and her words to those who seek her. But she also issues a sharp warning to those who turn aside and refuse to listen to her. When calamity strikes, they will reap what they have sowed. "Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and be sated with their own devices. For waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys them; but those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster."

The book of Proverbs is part of what is called the wisdom tradition-Ecclesiastes, Job and several other books of the Bible are part of the wisdom tradition as well. But the wisdom tradition was not only a part of Judaism. It was a cross current that influenced lots of cultures and religions in the Middle East. And it has similarities to wisdom traditions in other parts of the world too.

Just as the name implies, the wisdom tradition grew out of people's collective experience and was refined by sages at various times and places. A lot of it is common sense-if you look at Proverbs, you will see sayings about not drinking too much, not getting into debt, refraining from gossip and slander. You will also see ethical teachings about not cheating or stealing, treating your employees justly, helping those in need and in general, treating others the way you want to be treated.

But who is this woman Wisdom who personifies this collective knowledge and where does she come from? There are theories that she evolved out of a goddess cult, but no one really knows for sure because her roots are so ancient. But Proverbs tells us that she was at God's side at the creation of the world. "When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race." (Proverbs 8:29b-31).

But wait a minute. If God created the world, and Wisdom was there helping him create the world, then Wisdom must BE God. The clear implication of this poem in Proverbs is that the Divine is feminine as well as masculine. To those of us living in the post-modern, feminist era, that may not sound all that radical. But consider the fact that this image of God as Lady Wisdom is enshrined in OUR Bible-a Bible that was produced in a patriarchal society, which has largely been read and interpreted by patriarchal societies. Imagine that in all the centuries that the Bible has been read and handed down, these passages have never been edited out or lost.

What happened to Lady Wisdom when Christianity came into the picture? You can see the influence of the wisdom tradition in Jesus' teachings. The Gospel of Matthew explicitly identifies Jesus as the personification of wisdom. Does that mean that the image of Wisdom as feminine was scrapped? Not in the Eastern Church. In Eastern Christianity, the image of Wisdom as a woman persisted alongside the image of Christ as the Wisdom of God. There are many icons that portray the woman Wisdom presiding at a banquet-Wisdom offering a feast of knowledge. Many of the great cathedrals in Turkey, Greece and Eastern Europe are dedicated to Holy Wisdom. The most famous is the Hagia Sophia (which means Holy Wisdom in Greek), built by Constantine in the 4th century in what is now Istanbul.

In Western Christianity, the devotion to Holy Wisdom faded. The texts about Lady Wisdom were read at Mary's feasts, so people thought they referred to Mary. So there was surprise and dismay when people dusted them off and began to pray to the feminine divine.

In addition to a resurgence of interest in Sophia as a feminine image of God, there is also renewed interest in the wisdom tradition generally. As we teeter on the brink of ecological disaster, and face the consequences of unbridled greed and materialism, we are witnessing a spiritual hunger and a quest for wisdom to guide us.

The wisdom tradition is a great resource for us, to study and ponder as we seek guidance for our lives. We may learn from it, question it at times, reinterpret it, and add our own nuggets of wisdom, born of our own hard-won experience.

But the wisdom tradition has its limits, because it is human wisdom. We would like the world to be a tidy place where living wisely and doing the right thing keeps us safe. But no matter how wise we are, we can't always stay safe. Wisdom may protect us from experiencing the consequences of foolish choices, but it cannot protect us from being human. To be human is to be vulnerable. We can't always protect ourselves and those whom we love.

There are many belief systems that seem to offer the key to life--how to maximizing happiness and avoiding suffering. In the ancient world, Gnosticism declared that those with secret knowledge could become pure spirit and join the divine, thereby avoiding the pain that material beings endure. In the current era, we are surrounded by self-help books and mystical paths that offer perfect peace and pain-free existence, if you learn the wisdom they are teaching. There is a New Age shop in New Paltz that advertises esoteric knowledge.

But there is no secret handshake, no get out of jail free card, no special knowledge or wisdom that can save us from being human. Our human wisdom can only take us so far, and then we have to trust in God's wisdom for the rest.

I think it is no accident that God's wisdom is personified in the Bible, first as Lady Wisdom and then as Christ. Because the Wisdom of God does not consist in the answers to our questions, or a guaranteed pain-free existence-rather, the Wisdom of God is revealed in God's relationship to us. The Wisdom of God is love, embodied in Jesus Christ.

God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but shall have eternal life. The Wisdom of God took on human flesh, so that we could see and touch him. In God's wisdom, Jesus embraced even the worst parts of being human, in solidarity with us-he suffered and died as we do. And then, in God's wisdom, Jesus' death led to resurrection, and defeat led to victory.

None of this makes sense from a human point of view. God becoming human is not something that we commonly experience. Common sense does not teach that death leads to life-quite the opposite. When Peter rebukes Jesus for predicting that he would be betrayed and killed, Peter is the voice of common sense. I can imagine him saying, "I thought we just agreed that you are the messiah. What do you mean you are going to suffer and die? How are you supposed to save us if you get killed?"

But Jesus says "Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." Peter couldn't wrap his mind around the divine wisdom that Jesus was trying to reveal to him. Salvation does not mean staying safe. Salvation means God is with us, no matter what we go through. Salvation means that in the midst of sorrow, there is joy, in the midst of struggle, there is peace, and in the midst of death there is life. God does not save us from being human-rather, God saves us in and through our humanity. Our messy, fragile, imperfect lives are the locus of God's saving grace.

God's wisdom is strange and paradoxical. "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel will save it." Even if we live wisely, and try to save our lives, we will die. But if we trust God's wisdom, we will find life in the midst of death. Because the Wisdom of God is the power of love-the love that was present at the creation of the world, and the love that was embodied in Jesus Christ. That love is enough and more than enough to carry us through.