A Wise Word

Sometimes I read the lectionary passages and feel that they are quite concerning. Often, they express ideas which are hard to stomach. Today, was a little different, all four readings were quite uplifting — they are talking about beginnings. 

 

I could spend this whole blog talking about beginnings. As I write I am looking out of my window at large amounts of untrodden snow waiting for someone to plant a footprint into it. I get the same feeling when camping at the ocean and go to the beach early in the morning — the newly washed sand is just waiting for the first footprints.

 

These images always speak to me of beginnings — a new start, a path as yet untrodden, anticipation and expectation. Life is full of new beginnings, challenges waiting to be undertaken. Every stage of life, every day is a new beginning. I hope I use all my new beginnings with wisdom and grace.

 

But even as these pleasant and uplifting thoughts were swirling around my head, I couldn’t get away from two words, Wisdom (Chokmah/Sophia) and Word (Logos).

 

In the Old Testament reading about the beginning (Proverbs 8: 1, 22-31) Wisdom is in the beginning with God. Wisdom exists pre-creation, “before the beginning of the earth”. In Gospel (John 1:1-14) it is the Word who was “in the beginning with God”.

 

Did the feminine Wisdom of the Old Testament become the masculine Word of the Gospel? 

 

I think the author of the Gospel was linking Divine Wisdom with the Word. Always worth remembering that the gospels were written many years after Jesus’ death and, in some sense, were offering proof of who Jesus was. Therefore, the connection and language of the Johannine account of the beginning would have been very powerful to the readers of the day. 

 

Here I will pause and recommend a book on the subject Jesus, Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet by Elisabeth Schusser Fiorenza for any who want to delve deeper into this subject. 

 

Fiorenza writes, “It is debated whether according to the Fourth Gospel Jesus is Wisdom Incarnate or whether he replaces her. The narrative characterization of Jesus speaks for the first” (152).

 

I find the subject intriguing. It raises a lot of questions for me about the interplay between Wisdom and Word. I find it an expansive view. In an attempt to uphold a patriarchal understanding of Scripture. Sophia, Wisdom has not been given the prominent place she deserves. 

 

I am glad that the lectionary this morning acknowledges the place of Sophia in creation — it goes a little way towards redressing the gender balance.