The Old Testament reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, August 15th, Proverbs 9:1-6 says.. Wisdom built her house; she has carved out her seven pillars. She slaughtered her animals, mixed her wine, and set her table. She sends out her female servants; she issues an invitation from the top of the city heights “Whoever is naive turn aside here,” she says to those who lack sense.“Come, eat my food, and drink the wine I have mixed. Abandon your simplistic ways and live; walk in the way of understanding.”
Casey Thornburgh Simon writes, “There is a gap between knowledge (knowing in my mind ideas about God) and wisdom (living and acting from the soul what I know about God in my mind). It is indeed one thing to know something but it is a whole other thing to live out that which we know. That is wisdom. The book of Proverbs, along with the book of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes are the 5 books in the Old Testament that are considered wisdom literature. These books address, often in very practical terms, how to live a wise and faithful life. In many ways, Proverbs is “the” book out of the 5. Proverbs doesn’t deal with a lot of gray areas, but rather offers straight forward counsel on how to live life. For instance, Proverbs tells us:
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”
“A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.”
“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”
“There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
These are just some of the nuggets of wisdom that can be found in the book of Proverbs. Again this book doesn’t get bogged down with details, but rather offers a deep and simple approach. This most famous text has a way of putting things in ways that make them very clear for us to understand. Proverbs is such a gift to us because it reflects in a very profound way the human experience and the divine presence that can be seen and felt and known throughout that experience. It touches on every age group and all relationships.
To be human now is the same as it was thousands of years ago. People were dealing with love and loss and triumph and tragedy, they saw God in nature in acts of mercy and healing, they had to deal with the presence of evil in the world and how to live life when we are all such a mixture of both original sin and grace. Proverbs is a testimony to these things. It is a testimony of how we should live our lives and what it means to follow God in all our ways. “Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” This is the overarching theme of Proverbs, that while there is a lot of useful and practical wisdom that is available to us by simply studying the world and paying attention to the human experience, the place to become truly wise is in a right and true appreciation of God, to quote Proverbs the one who “created me and all that exists.”
In Proverbs 9, Wisdom is hosting a feast and the world is invited. An invitation is offered from the top of the city heights to feast at her table. This table is a metaphor for gaining wisdom and this wisdom isn’t about intellect or knowing facts and figures. Wisdom is all about how we live, how we really implement the nitty gritty of loving God and loving neighbor.
I imagine there’s many ways in which we sit at Wisdom’s table and feast. So often it is in observing how others live out God’s love— seeking out those mentors and witnessing how they live what it means to follow the way of Jesus. As I once heard Rev. Jerry Everley say in Bible study, “I am a fruit inspector.” When we model the wisdom of those mentors in our lives who exemplify how to love, we feast at Wisdom’s table.