1
God’s Wisdom
Proper 9, Year A, July 6, 2008
ResurrectionLutheranChurch, Indianapolis
Charles W. Allen
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30: Jesus said to the crowd, "To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” We just heard that. Now we’ve heard it again. And it’s probably not the first time you heard it. It’s one of those favorite sayings of Jesus that almost everybody’s heard. It sounds so inviting, and it is. But there’s something just a bit outrageous going on here, and it’s easy for people in our time to miss that.
Bear with me for a minute while I give you some background, and then we’ll listen to this saying again. Maybe you’ll hear it differently.
When Jesus’ first listeners heard this, they heard echoes of another saying. Listen to this one:
Put your feet into [Wisdom’s] fetters, and your neck under her yoke. Stoop your shoulders and carry her and be not irked at her bonds. With all your soul draw close to her; with all your strength keep her ways. Search her out, discover her; seek her and you will find her. Then when you have her, do not let her go; thus will you afterward find rest in her, and she will become your joy.[1] Her yoke is a golden ornament and her bonds a purple cord.[2]
This is from the book of Sirach, a book in the Apocrypha that Protestants don’t usually read. Catholics still read it, and people in Jesus’ day read it too. Anyway, do you hear the echoes here? It’s not a perfect match, but here’s this saying about putting on a yoke and finding rest. Only in this passage the yoke belongs to a mysterious figure Jesus’ first listeners knew as Sophia or Lady Wisdom.
Lady Wisdom was with God from the very beginning. In Proverbs 8, which IS in our Bible, she says, “When there were no depths I was brought forth … When [God] established the heavens, I was there … When he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him like a master worker; and I was daily his delight” (8:24, 27, 29-30). There’s nothing God does that doesn’t involve her. In fact, maybe it’s better to think of her as another way to imagine God. When John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1), he was thinking of Lady Wisdom. He called her “the Word,” but he got the idea from Proverbs and Sirach and other passages like those.
Now pretend you already knew all this, just like Jesus’ first listeners, and hear his words again: “Come to me … Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me … My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Jesus is making just about as outrageous a claim as you can imagine: “I’m Lady Wisdom.” “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds,”says Jesus, and now he claims that she and he are one and the same. He’s really messing with our heads.
For one thing, he seems to be doing a little gender-bending here. He had just finished calling himself God’s Son, but now, practically in the same breath, he’s Lady Wisdom. Both at once. He’s not denying that he’s a male—nobody ever questioned that. But he does seem to be hinting that the activity of God he embodies is not exclusively male. He does want us to think of God as his Father, but that’s not the only way he wants us to think of God. So if you ever find yourself caught up in debates about which pronouns to use, keep this passage in mind. Son of the Father, Word made flesh, Lady Wisdom, God with us, “God from God, light from light, true God from true God”—we use all these words and phrases to speak of Jesus, plus a few more, because he turns all our everyday ideas on their heads. So let’s not obsess too much about pronouns. It’s not biblical.
But you know what? That’s a side issue. Jesus claims, “I’m God’s Wisdom,” and the crowds aren’t buying it, but it’s not because they’re worried about pronouns. They just don’t see much Wisdom in how Jesus lives. To them Jesus looks like “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” It sets people grumbling, especially the ones Jesus calls “the wise and the intelligent.” Doesn’t Jesus realize that Wisdom is all about getting control of your life, about not getting mixed up with the wrong people? I mean, read Proverbs. That’s what it says—stay in control, don’t mix with the wrong people, and your life will prosper. That’s Wisdom. Of course Ecclesiastes and Job say almost the opposite, but the wise and the intelligent didn’t want to remember that just then. They want the wisdom of success manuals. Get control; stay away from the wrong people; above all, succeed.
But apparently Jesus likes partying more than success. He goes out of his way to welcome all sorts of shady characters, and he’s not worried about the people who’d like to see him dead. What kind of wisdom is that? What kind of success is that? What could be more ridiculous than this carefree party animal claiming to be the Wisdom of God? Maybe John the Baptist was way too strict, but let’s not overreact. Use some common sense, for God’s sake. Get control. Stay away from people who’ll drag you down. Protect yourself from those who are out to get you. Get real. That’s the crowd’s reaction to Jesus, and maybe it’s our reaction too. But apparently he isn’t listening.
Now let’s be honest. Self-control is a valuable thing. We can’t make it through a single day without it. If you cut me off in traffic, I’m grateful to have enough control not to say everything that pops into my head, especially if I’m wearing my collar. You might read lips.We’ve been learning to practice self-control ever since we got out of diapers. There’s a lot of wisdom in self-control, and we’re not wrong to want it.
But it’s not the Wisdom of God, not the Wisdom of the God who comes to us in the life, death and risen life of Jesus. This is the God who won’t let us go, no matter what. This is the God who does hang out with the shady characters just as much as the respectable, even shady characters like us. We’ve tried turning our backs on God, running away from God, even murdering God, and nothing works. God is still there, loving us just as much as ever, loving us more than we can ever imagine. God isn’t here to control us; God is here to love us into a common life—a life we share with God and one another—that doesn’t have to be controlled by anybody. We’re not there yet. We can’t even imagine how to get there, but in Jesus life, death and risen life it’s already begun.
We don’t know what to do with that kind of God. A God who keeps score makes more sense; a God who wants to control us makes more sense. But a God who loves us when we’re not ready to be loved—what can we do with a God like that? Where’s the wisdom in following that kind of God?
The history of the Church is mostly a two-thousand-year-old story of people who have heard the Gospel, the Good News, and don’t know what to do with it. We’ve heard the news of the God who comes to us in our very own flesh and blood, who loves us already more than we could ever love back, who invites us to a celebration in a world that’s mostly a big mess, and we’ve said “yes” to that invitation. But then we’ve tried to turn that news into something we can manage. We’ve come up with lists of beliefs and behaviors and used them as standards that have to be met before we can celebrate God’s love. We’ve confused the Wisdom of God’s immeasurable self-giving with our wisdom of measurable self-control. That’s the story of the Church, the story of every Church—Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, you name it. We’ve heard the Good News and don’t know what to do with it.
And it’s the story of our own lives too.It’s been that way from the beginning. “I do not understand my own actions … For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7:15, 19). Those are St. Paul’s words. He’s admitting that he’s heard the Good News and doesn’t know what to do with it. He’d like to start loving the way God loves, but it’s just not happening. He’s still too conflicted. The harder he tries, the more conflicted he gets. And that’s when he remembers the Good News again. It’s not up to him. It’s up to the God who still loves him when he can’t even begin to love back. He’s still just as welcome as he ever was.
It’s not up to us. Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds, not by ours. Part of God’s Wisdom is that we don’t have to make a god out of being in control. We can try to do as well as we can. We can even succeed at lots of important things. That’s fine. But none of these things are admission tickets into the party God is throwing for us. We’ve already been admitted, ready or not. Jesus says, to paraphrase, “Come to me when you’re worn out from trying to succeed, from trying to get control, and I will give you rest.” That’s God’s Wisdom speaking. It’s not up to us.
That Good News is just as hard to hear today as it ever was. The most popular Christian groups I see on our campuses all seem to be saying that you’re bound for Hell unless you pray the right prayers or believe the right things or live the right lifestyle. They’re busy trying to put preconditions on God’s welcome. And it sells. You can always sell something by scaring people. And of course they’re not wrong to think that it matters how we pray and believe and live. All that matters. It’s important. But it matters only after we realize that we’ve already been admitted to the celebration of God’s common life with us in Jesus Christ. That’s the Wisdom of God.
Another name for it is grace. That’s why we call our campus ministry “Grace Unlimited.” A few years ago we decided we needed a name people could pronounce. “Indianapolis Lutheran-Episcopal Campus Ministry” left people out of breath before they got to the end. We wanted a name that told people what was distinctive about our campus ministry, something that told people what mattered to us more than the names of our Churches, and so we finally settled on “Grace Unlimited.” Of course if you know what grace is, you shouldn’t have to add “unlimited,” but some Christians do try to limit God’s love, so we had to add that word. It means that we try to celebrate God’s love on God’s terms, unlimited by ours.
With countless Christians through the centuries, including Martin Luther, we believe that God’s love is already at work in the lives of everyone, moving to the Spirit of God’s common life with us in Jesus Christ. We don’t regard anybody as an outsider. Instead we welcome everyone, and we see our mission as helping one another grow together in awareness and appreciation of where God is leading us today. If others don’t share our core convictions, we entrust them to God’s love and don’t feel that it’s up to us to change them. All we need to do is be honest about who we are and where we are. But God is already at work beyond anything we say or do, maybe sometimes in spite of what we say or do. We don’t have to be in control. God’s love is already here, and it’s without limits.
Okay, that was the plug for campus ministry. You knew it was coming. But it could just as easily have been a plug for your ministry through ResurrectionLutheranChurch: “A welcoming community of faith so deeply rooted in God’s grace that we are freed to boldly live out our faith … joyfully serving others, sharing the love of God, and growing in discipleship together.” I hope you know that comes from your bulletin. Like Grace Unlimited, you’ve tried to be a distinctive voice that reflects the Wisdom of God, a wisdom that doesn’t depend on your own success. And I’ll bet you’ve seen that it’s a message that doesn’t sell as well as a message based on fear. But you’re sticking with it even so.
I’m glad we share a common vision. And of course it’s tempting to congratulate ourselves now for getting things right. But that’s not really the point of today’s lesson, is it? It’s not the point of God’s Good News, the Wisdom of God. We need to take our core convictions seriously, but we don’t have to pretend to have final answers. The final answer is God coming to us before we even know how to ask the questions. We don’t have to get everything right. But we can celebrate the living presence of the God who makes all things right.
Jesus came eating and drinking, inviting all sorts of shady characters to share his table, and he comes to us on the same terms today—on God’s terms, unlimited by ours. We’re already invited. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] Sirach 6:25-29, NAB.
[2] Sirach 6:30, NRSV.