At Wisdom's Table--August 19, 2024

At Wisdom's Table--August 19, 2024

 Wisdom has built her house,
  she has hewn her seven pillars.
 She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine,
  she has also set her table.
 She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls
  from the highest places in the town,
 “You that are simple, turn in here!”
  To those without sense she says,
 “Come, eat of my bread
  and drink of the wine I have mixed.
 Lay aside immaturity, and live,
  and walk in the way of insight.” [Proverbs 9:1-6]

God is not running a club for members who meet strict membership requirements. Nope--just the opposite: God is running a free meal service for people who wouldn't get past the gatekeeper of the clubhouse.

These words from the book of Proverbs, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, are a case in point.  Here in this passage, the Wisdom of God is personified like a woman throwing a dinner party, but there's a surprise to it.  Wisdom doesn't have a fixed guest list of the Who's-Who or the elite Big Names in town.  She has gone to all the work of putting on a huge feast, but her invitation goes out to the least-expected and least-impressive.  Wisdom invites, not the CEOs, the Medal of Freedom winners, or the university Board of Trustees, but the drop-outs, the uneducated, the mess-ups, and the unschooled to her banquet.  Her feast isn't a reward for being the brightest or the most prestigious, but a gift for those who hunger for what she has to give. Wisdom's table is a gift of grace, through and through.

The plot twist here is utterly divine comedy.  After listing all the lengths Lady Wisdom has gone to for the sake of throwing this dinner party (butchering the meat, preparing the wine, setting her tables, and getting her servers ready), the invitation goes out, not to an exclusive set of worthy socialites, but to anybody and everybody.  In particular, the invitation is for "the simple" and those "without sense."  That's a polite way of saying that Wisdom is inviting the folks without a lick of common sense.  This is a meal for the ones who have been told they "aren't the sharpest tool in the shed" and are "not the brightest bulb." The meal at Wisdom's table isn't a prize given out to folks who have earned it or shown their worthiness; it's a free gift for people who are in need of what she has to offer.

And to be clear, this is the way God operates.  The figure of Wisdom here is a sort of stand-in for God's ordering of the universe.  She appears in the book of Proverbs almost like the imagery of "the Word" in John's Gospel--the "Logos" of God's Self-Expression through whom all things were created and in whom all things hold together.  In other words, in the Bible, what "Wisdom" does is a glimpse into how God operates.  And therefore, this passage is a glimpse to God's own economy of mercy. God gives good things to the empty-handed because of their need, not as prizes for the perfect peaches.

For a whole world full of us who consistently miss the point, make bad choices, reveal our ignorance, and get stuck in foolish ruts, the Wisdom of God specifically invites us to her table.  She is giving away exactly what we need, precisely what we have been hungering for.  She brings no conditions or prerequisites, because that's not how her meal works.  All we bring are empty hands and hungry bellies, and she will feed us with what we need.  That's how God runs the universe.

All too often we make the assumption that God is running the world like the prize-counter guy at Chuck E. Cheese, doling out cheap plastic trinkets in exchange for however many tickets we have earned playing the games.  We imagine that the Christian life is a matter of racking up points (whether for good behavior, or knowing the right religious facts, or public displays of piety, or voting with the party that has co-opted our faith), and that we get the prizes we want as a reward for getting enough points.  But that's precisely the opposite of what the way of Wisdom does here: she sends her wait-staff out in every direction to the people who don't have it together, who have messed up and made mistakes, and who weren't on any guest list, and these are the ones who are called in to receive a free meal.

Maybe today it's time to stop treating God like a prize-counter and instead to receive the gifts that can only be received by grace.  Maybe it's time to stop treating our faith like a country club and more like an open table.  That's what Wisdom says it always has been.

Lord God, draw us to your table to be filled with wisdom where we are lacking sense.