Proverbs 1: 20-33

 

Fear the Lord and Pursue Wisdom: Reflecting on Proverbs 1: 20-33

When was the last time you heard a sermon or a reflection from the book of Proverbs? As I put forward this question, I am being reminded of at least five instances in my life about the engagement with the book of Proverbs. Firstly, in my childhood, I remember our parents and Sunday school teachers emphasising to us to read one chapter every day from the book of Proverbs as it contains 31 chapters, for on the one hand one can complete reading this book in a month and on the other hand it teaches some ethical and practical values of life. I remember reading the book of Proverbs with great admiration as it contained so many pro-verbs, in a sense so much profound wisdom is found in this book that is helpful for the actions in life. Secondly, I have engaged with the book of Proverbs by reading without fail, this particular verse from Proverbs 9:10 on the day of every school examination that I have written, for it offered me so much hope and confidence in doing my exams well. I want to read that verse aloud for you, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” for this verse was an assurance for me in facing the tests and examinations with all courage and positivity. The third instance I remember was when my aunt suggested that I read Proverbs chapter 3 for every birthday I celebrate, for it speaks about long life and the length of days in life, so Proverbs 3 serves me to be a birthday text which I read and I suggest for others too to read on their birthdays. The fourth instance I remember about the book of Proverbs is when our local preachers in my town in India were prescribing the text of Proverbs chapter 31 to women, for that chapter speaks about the qualities of the virtuous woman. Fifthly, I did remember preaching a text from Proverbs at one of my churches in India, about Wisdom, where she challenges juris-prudence from people.

How do we define Wisdom? Most definitions of wisdom inform us that it is the appropriate application of the knowledge we have learned and experienced from. We all know that wisdom is a good thing. Solomon was its champion. Proverbs sings its praises. Most wisdom literature presents wisdom as a mode of living defined by practical knowledge, ethical integrity, and intergenerational learning. Some of its key traits are moderation, even-headedness, and a concern for justice.

Wisdom in the book of Proverbs is not based on a community’s faith or merit rather is ascribed in human terms given to all people. Ethan Schwartz observes, “On a more abstract level, a crucial feature of wisdom is its universality or cosmopolitanism. Wisdom is accessible to all human beings as human beings, through their own intellectual and moral faculties—not through membership in a particular group that is privy to a particular divine revelation or historical experience. Wisdom literature tends to eschew communal particularities and to speak instead in human generalities. The book of Proverbs, for instance, mentions Israel only in the superscription and doesn’t present God as the covenantal deity of a specific national story. It’s therefore no surprise that wisdom literature from across the ancient world—including the Bible, Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia—often sounds and feels substantially similar. Wisdom was a broad, international discourse.[1]

Now turning to Proverbs 1:20-33, the prescribed lectionary text for this Sunday, it speaks about the woman wisdom, for the writer of this text informs the audience that wisdom is crying out asking people to live out their lives in prudence. The wisdom of God is like the grace of God, offered to all of creation based on God’s graciousness and not on human abilities or merits. God creating human beings in God’s equal image is the principle to understand that the wisdom of God is on all people of God. Unfortunately, in our human frailty, we either neglect or even reject being led by the wisdom of God and seek ways that meet the needs of our own self-interests. The wisdom of God is always life-giving to the entire creation of God and seeks for the renewal of the creation. The call of this text is to invoke the wisdom of God in each of our lives and work towards transforming our society and renewing the creation. In this text, we notice four things which are relevant for our times today.

1. The Publicness of Wisdom:

In verses 20 and 21, we see that wisdom is crying out in the street and in the squares, she raises her voice. This is to say wisdom is out in the public square and is not a matter of private affairs or is limited to any particular religious grouping. Wisdom is crying out in the busiest corners and at the entrance of the city gates, so that wisdom is heard by all people in the public square.

 

2. The Proclamation of Wisdom:

From verse 22-28, we see the woman wisdom’s proclamation of the impending reality, explaining that the public sphere has not taken into account her counsel. Let us read out these verses:

 

22. How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?

How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing

   and fools hate knowledge?

23 Give heed to my reproof;

I will pour out my thoughts to you;

   I will make my words known to you.

24 Because I have called and you refused,

   have stretched out my hand and no one heeded,

25 and because you have ignored all my counsel

   and would have none of my reproof,

26 I also will laugh at your calamity;

   I will mock when panic strikes you,

27 when panic strikes you like a storm,

   and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,

   when distress and anguish come upon you.

28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;

   they will seek me diligently, but will not find me.

 

 

3. The Pathway of Wisdom:

In verse 29, wisdom further proclaims that the people in the public sphere hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. In other words, the pathway for wisdom is the fear of the Lord. We see this in several other verses in the book of Proverbs. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Our fear of the Lord is demonstrated in our prudent judgements in life, which is all about wisdom. Fearing the Lord is to be led by the wisdom of God, and in this process, we confess our human failings for hating knowledge, for not being open to the cries of wisdom in the public sphere. The key to this text is fearing the Lord and to pursue the wisdom of God.

 

4. The Promise of Wisdom:

In verse 33, the woman wisdom offers a promise that those who listen to her will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster. The woman wisdom begins by crying in the public sphere and ends in promising that those who listen to her will be saved and secured. This promise is about listening to the wisdom of God, working with God and community and striving for the new heaven and new earth here in our midst.  

 

Today in the 21st century, the wisdom that is being spoken in our public sphere is about being prudent in the context of the growing climate crisis. As the world leaders will gather at the UN Climate Change Conference CoP26 at Glasgow in November 2021, it will be an opportunity for us a follower of Jesus Christ to listen to the cries of the woman wisdom who is crying out loud in our streets about the impending climate crisis and is challenging each of us to step up, to join in striving for a green world, for wisdom which is the fear of the Lord is inviting us to care for our planet as our faith commitment.

 

Secondly, in the context of refugees and migrants, fearing the Lord and pursuing the wisdom of God is to offer welcome and hospitality without any conditions. The wisdom of God compels us to think that the issue of refugees is about the lives of people, and saving life and protecting life is all that the wisdom of God leads to.

 

Thirdly, in the context of vaccines where several wealthy nations are busy discussing giving booster doses to their citizens, there are several poorer nations who are struggling to get the first jab, fearing God and pursuing wisdom to share the vaccines with people who are not able to afford it.

 

Fourthly, when discrimination of people in name of caste, gender, class, race, religion, sexuality is on the rise, to fear God and to pursue wisdom is to love people of all identities and resist all forms of xenophobia. It is fools who hate the cries of wisdom, and so love is the ultimate public expression of the wisdom of God.

Fifthly, as the World Week of Prayer for Peace in Palestine and Israel begins from 18-25 September, fearing God and to pursue wisdom is striving for peace and justice in this land, so that people can live in freedom from occupations. Our call is to advocate towards peace in this land from our own localities and churches. We are called as churches to witness that we are for peace and justice in this land, and join the solidarity movements towards that goal.

 

The given text from Proverbs is challenging us to respond to the fear of the Lord, listen to the wisdom, strive for the renewal of our creation or reject the fear of the Lord and pursue wealth and self-interests. It is time that we turn to the fear of the Lord, so that the seeds of wisdom will sprout in our lives and we can act on Christ’s ways, who is the power and wisdom of God in and for our world today.

 

Raj Bharat Patta,

11th September 2021

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[1] https://politicaltheology.com/wise-religion/

Church to Re-form as an “Ephphatha community”: Reflecting on Mark 7:31-37

In the gospel according to St. Mark 7:31-37, we find Jesus healing a person who is differently- abled, suffering from hearing and speaking impediments. The interesting part of this healing for me is the role of a community or a group of people who played a very important part in the healing of this person. If we carefully read through this healing, we see that the healing is taken place in an unknown place (no clear place is mentioned), the healing happens to an unknown person (no name or identity of the person is mentioned), the people who bring the sick person to Jesus was an unknown community (it is only mentioned as ‘they, no other clue of who they are), and Jesus uses an unusual way of healing (taking aside the person to a private place, putting his fingers in his ears, touching his tongue with his saliva, looking up to heaven, sighing and saying ‘Ephphatha’), and transforms the person to a known one as his own one.

 The emphasis I make in this episode is on the role of the unknown community, which played a vital role in the whole healing process. Here is where I strongly feel the relevance of this community for the church today. This unknown community, I would like to call them the “Ephphatha Community” and this community was primarily instrumental in making the unknown place to be a known one, for it would remain as a historic place for healing. This community transformed the person, his life and his future. I wonder whether Jesus would have been marvelled by the faith of this community of people and healed the person. By the way, ‘Ephaphatha’ means ‘be open’ and one can decipher the openness of this community to the needs of their neighbour, for they held the needs of their neighbour as top priority to be addressed.  The community’s faith would have been the news headlines in their days, and if the writer of Hebrews would have known about this community, there will be no surprise to see if he/she would have added this community in the heroes and the sheroes of faith mentioned in the 11th Chapter in the book of Hebrews. This community was a group of unsung heroes and sheroes, who did not crave for their name or banner, but rather concentrated on their neighbour and his healing. Kudos ‘Ephphatha Community’, you really are an exemplary one for all generations!

Therefore, today I pray that our church will be inspired to be like the ‘Ephphatha Community’, concerned deeply for their neighbours and be an exemplary one in its journey of mission and witness. To summarise the characters of the ‘Ephphatha Community’ are, which in a way explain their openness.

 

• It was an unknown community – for no identity is mentioned.

• It was a voicing community – for it voiced for this voiceless person.

• It was a faith community – but for their faith, the person was healed.

• It was an open community – no barriers for it, even the sick & weak were members

• It was a proclaiming community – zealously proclaimed the healer & the healing

• It was a loving community – its concern for the neighbour

 

I cannot but find a greater one than this ‘Ephphatha Community’ to be a role model for our church today. How are we as a church becoming the ‘Ephphatha Community’ of our times, addressing the needs of our neighbours? The potential in our congregations needs to be harnessed and used creatively, missionally and contextually to make our church vibrant. ‘Openness’ is one of the key ecclesial characters that define the being and becoming of our churches today. How open are we to the needs of our neighbours? How open are we to the perspectives of our neighbours? Or to put it the other way, if we are closed to the needs, perspectives and ideas of our neighbours, perhaps this text, this unknown community whom I want to celebrate as ‘Ephaphatha’ community challenges us as churches to be open to people’s needs around us. If there is at least one thing this text calls us as people of faith, it is, that we are called to be with open arms receiving all people of God, respecting them, caring for them and attending to their needs and striving towards the healing of our neighbours. Our openness to God, to our neighbour and to our creation determines our faith in Jesus Christ today. I am reminded of the words from the song, “Jesu, Jesu,” where the writer explains this love for the neighbour so well, “Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love, show us how to serve the neighbours we have from you,” for we learn how to serve our neighbours from the life and witness of our saviour Jesus Christ.

 

As we begin the ‘Time for Creation’ during this month of September, as on the 5th of September it is observed as ‘Climate Sunday’ in the UK, and as the international community gears up towards the CoP26 Climate change summit in Glasgow, it is time that we as churches express our solidarity with our creation and strive for climate justice today. For me, creation is our immediate neighbour, who is badly wounded and is on the grave margins, and to her needs we are called to attend to. It is time that we reflect climate justice as a faith issue. With the climate crisis so real today, we are called to address climate justice as a matter of urgency, striving like the ‘Ephphatha community’ for the renewal of our neighbour, the creation.

 

‘Ephphatha community’ had to make immense sacrifices when they brought their neighbour to Jesus Christ, they did not bring their own needs to Jesus rather cared for their neighbour and voiced their need to Jesus. In the context of climate change, we are called to sacrifice our pleasures and are called to care for the resources around us carefully and faithfully. Solidarity with Jesus, solidarity with creation, solidarity with the victims of climate crisis, solidarity with climate activists is the need of the hour today. To respond to the call of solidarity is to affirm life and to learn to live in true solidarity. Daisy L. Machado says, “Solidarity allows us to see the imago dei in the faces of those not like us, and it gives us the strength to reach out to those we consider foreign, to “the other” and to attempt to build community. And it is solidarity that condemns the radical individualism that pervades the lifestyle we find today throughout those nations that enjoy wealth and power, where the value of a person is measured in how much she or he can buy.``[1] Therefore the grace of God calls us to praxis and is calling us to be in solidarity with all those striving for liberation and justice today. If a transformed world in God’s grace is to be possible, firstly transformation needs to take place within us. If a transformed ME is possible, then a transformed world in God’s grace is possible. If a transformed world is to be possible, a transformed and re-formed church has to happen. It is time that we green our minds, green our faith, green our churches, green our pulpits, green our hermeneutics, green our theologies and green our actions so that we as a church can participate in making a difference to our world today. May we as churches dedicate ourselves to re-form as the 21st century ‘Ephaphatha’ community, open and relevant for our times today.

 

Our mother earth bleeds because of our greed,

Justice is when we protect her seeds and care for her needs,

She is our neighbour to whom we proceed,

‘To love is to save’ we live it through our deeds

 

 

Raj Bharat Patta,

2rd September 2021

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[1] Daisy L. Machado, “James 1-5” in By Grace You Have Been Saved (WCC: Geneva, 2005) Pp. 83-84.