June 12, 2022 + Holy Trinity Sunday + Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 + Deaconess Claire Schoepp
You can laugh by yourself. Something tickles your fancy and you just chuckle out loud in the office having forgotten that your coworker’s door is open. Or maybe that’s just me.
You can laugh by yourself but I’d hazard a guess that laughter is better among friends and at its best when there’s no contrivance about it. I think there’s something beautifully vulnerable and freeing about that sort of laughter. It’s never at another’s expense and it always stirs up more laughter, more joy, more delight. Confession: I snort when I’m laughing like that. Any other snorters in the room?
I had a friend in middle school and high school who had the most infectious laugh. It was wild and free and would bring others along with it. Maybe you know someone like that. I hope you do. At some point someone made her self conscious about her laugh and she worked to change it. Her ability to rejoice with abandon dimmed. And I can’t decide if that memory makes me more sad or angry. How dare someone convince her to hide her light under a bushel.
Laughter, Rejoicing, Delight is of God, beloved siblings in Christ. Delight is of God.
Among other things, that’s what this beautiful poetry from Proverbs is telling us, friends, and that’s what I want us to explore together because I think it holds a good and wise word for us today on this Trinity Sunday.
Our lectionary doesn’t often give us the chance to have some really juicy feminine imagery for God. So here we go…
Proverbs is from the portion of our scriptures that was written Hebrew. Wisdom is a feminine noun and here she is personified as…well, that’s where I got tripped up.
I was jamming along to this poetic description of how she was with God before the beginning of the earth. I was loving her version of the creation story. She talks about heights and depths and limits and how she was there. And then we get to the phrase where she calls herself a master worker and I’m tickled pink, friends, because here’s this feminine Wisdom building creation alongside God and delighting, rejoicing, and I imagine, laughing. Because creation stirs up laughter.
Master worker. This phrase captured my attention. So, I did a little digging into the Hebrew. My Hebrew is rusty, so that left me with questions and the need to phone a friend. (1)
(By the way, questions that you don’t know the answer to are good when you’re going to be preaching on Holy Trinity Sunday – a day celebrating our Trinitarian God, a theological concept that usually leaves us scratching our heads, questions you don’t know the answer to are excellent, appropriate.)
But back to our text and my nerdy journey with the phrase master worker. Come along with me.
The Hebrew here doesn’t necessarily translate to master worker. Oh no. That word choice comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures and has the sense of “supporter.”
The Hebrew uses a word that isn’t used anywhere else in scripture exactly the same way. It is derived from the same root word that’s often translated “one who nurses” as in “one who nurses an infant.” That word is a feminine word, but here, it’s in the masculine.
Bear with me. There’s more.
This biblical scholar friend I called had this to say:
Depending on how you understand (2) this “unique variant, one could interpret the Hebrew as either a nurse (but is Wisdom nursing God? Or does she nurse on God?)
or a “supporter” (so a builder?),
Or if we’re in the the Greek, she’s “a builder or lover . . ., or one who “kisses” . . . on or for God.”
Well that’s clear as mud, Deaconess Claire, and why does this nerdy tangent matter? Great question. I’m glad you asked.
Well, we’re in the middle of Pride month here in Lakeview and we’re celebrating the Holy Trinity this week. And we just learned that this delightful piece of poetry reminds us that there was feminine energy at work with God in the creation of the world.
Or perhaps we just learned that this lady Wisdom sometimes uses masculine words to describe herself.
Or we just learned that God whose pronouns in this poem are he and him has a daughter that he nursed.
Or we just learned that, in fact, it was lady Wisdom who nursed God but in a masculine way. The text isn’t clear on the direct object.
Or we learned that God’s lover is Wisdom.
Still clear as mud? Good. But perhaps a bit intriguing and challenging and, I think, heartening.
Because no matter the exact details regarding the relationship between God and Wisdom, this much is crystal clear:
God and Wisdom together were at work in creation and delighting and rejoicing in all of the human race. And it’s a big enough deal that Wisdom going to shout it wherever people are passing through, going through transitions, at crossroads, and gathering to hear the news of the day.
Delighting and rejoicing in all of the human race.
That’s you, dear ones. You’re among those God and Wisdom delight in.
That dear theologian Mr. Rogers says it this way:
“There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.”
You in particular and all the other people in particular as well.
Oh sure, sometimes it’s hard to imagine God delighting in all of humanity. I find it particularly hard to imagine Wisdom, to be the one who is doing this delighting. How can it be wise? Or said another way how can a God who is wise rejoice in something so foolish to rejoice and delight in? We’re not always humane or lovely. We try to hide other people’s lights under bushels and much worse besides. Racism. Homophobia. Sexism. Nationalism. Keep on going. Gun violence. What is wise about delighting in humanity? Oh God, how can Wisdom rejoice in us?
You haven’t met Giraffe. Giraffe is my child’s lovey. Every person deserves to be loved the way my toddler loves Giraffe. Per daycare rules, Giraffe gets a bath each weekend when we can finally wrest him away from Lucy’s clutches. Giraffe goes into the basement and into the laundry. When Giraffe comes up, my child laughs and squeezes the bajeezus out of Giraffe. She sorta “yucks.” I can’t quite mimic it, but it’s a fantastic laugh. Her delight is palpable in her laugh.
I imagine that’s what Wisdom’s delight in you and me and our neighbor, especially our hard to love neighbor, is like.
“Oh, I haven’t held you in my arms in all of 2 hours?! I’m so happy you’re here to laugh and play with!”
Wisdom is there genuinely rejoicing in each of us and our particularities.
And here’s the wise part, siblings in Christ. Here’s the wise part:
What if we each knew and believed and trusted that God loved us (and all of our neighbors even the hard to love ones) so very much that it made God laugh with delight to see us, to hold us, to squeeze us tight? I can’t help but think that such a thing would change the world.
And it’s definitely something worth telling each and every person who passes through the crossroads, through the city gate, in the line at Starbucks, in the Zoom meeting.
You are a delight.
Oh, maybe that precise language would freak them out, but you can find subtle and direct ways of communicating this. I have faith in you.
And dear ones, please don’t forget that this is for you too.
And when you forget that. When you forget that God delights in you, I hope and I pray and I trust that someone or some moment helps you you remember your baptism:
Walk by that font over there and make the sign of the cross on your forehead.
Wash your face and look in the mirror to see a beloved child of God.
Watch or listen to or feel the rain fall that nourishes all of creation.
Play in a sprinkler or the lake or a pool. Play and delight and laugh for you are a delight to God.
Let your light so shine before others that they see your good works and give glory to God in heaven.
Amen.
(1) My friend is Dr. Jef Tripp, biblical theologian and instructor of mathematics. You can check out his blog called “My Think My Bible Bit Its Tongue.” His main field of study in scripture is the gospel of John and johannine literature. Anytime I find myself with a question that I’m a bit stuck on, and it’s one that I feel inclined to call Jef about, I have found that he likely has a ready answer because he was studying something related to what I had a question about. I try not to question such mysteries and simply let them be.
(2) This has to do with vocalizations and vowel pointing which was added at a much later date to the Hebrew than the original writings so there’s options regarding meaning and the exact meaning remains a bit of a mystery. Mystery is rather apropos for Trinity Sunday.