“Wisdom and Her Deeds”
A sermon by Carol Howard Merritt, Pastor
Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, DC

Text: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

I’m not sure why friendship seems to grow stronger and sweeter as I get older. Perhaps it is just purely the passing of time that makes some relationships grow, or it has something to do with going through so many life events together, you know each other’s stories and secrets. When you begin to rely on someone during every death, birth, hospitalization, celebration, and sorrow, then you realize after a few years that your lives have become tangled up.

I realized that again this week. I was leading a workshop for a conference in Montreat, North Carolina, and I also had a chance to get caught up with some close friends. And one of them, Beth, gave my daughter, Calla, a little burlap sack. Upon opening the bag, Calla pulled out some crumpled brown paper, and then three small rabbits made from terra cotta nesting inside.

Beth turned to Calla and said, “I just love rabbits.” And I smiled, knowing that there was much, much more to talk about those little gifts. And I was wondering if I should tell my daughter why she received the mysterious gift.

Calla didn’t think the gift was mysterious at all. She carefully lined up the three animals, assigned them each a gender and a name. So I decide not to tell her now. Someday, I suppose I’ll tell her if Beth doesn’t. But I will tell you about the rabbits.

It was twenty years ago, when Beth was having her first child. Because of the time and particular place, her husband was not encouraged to be anywhere near the delivery room. And so Beth was left alone within those white hospital walls.

I won’t go into all of the gory details, but I will tell you that suddenly something went horribly wrong. She quickly lost a lot of blood, and she began calling out from her adjustable bed, but she couldn’t get any medical attention. I don’t know how long it actually was, but for her, she needed help that instant, so she got up from her bed, and the room quickly started swirling.

Realizing that she was too weak to stand on her own, she moved to the wall, and placed both hands on it, as if she were crawling sideways. She called out again and again, but no one came. She was in a terrible panic and it occurred to her that she wasn’t sure if her baby was going to survive. And somehow in that moment of fear and pain, Beth began to see a vision of some sorts. There were three rabbits in a circle, moving and playing. And with that, suddenly, even though she had no idea what the rabbits meant, she knew that she was going to be okay. She realized that her son was going to survive.

Finally she got someone’s attention, they came in and quickly saw that the situation was dire. And they put Beth back into her bed.

I don’t know if there was some pain medication involved somehow in the visionary process. I just know that out of nowhere, she was relieved of her anxiety, and for some strange reason, she found comfort in the thought of those three rabbits.

They said that it was a close call. She did survive, and with some good medical attention, so did her son.

It’s strange, sometimes wisdom is like that. It visits us, from out of nowhere, whispering to us exactly what we need to hear at the most crucial times. Wisdom is often personified in the Scriptures. And the Bible says that she was there, in the midst of creation. She is given her own voice in Proverbs when she explains it:

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago…
27When God established the heavens, I was there,
when God drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when God made firm the skies above,
when God established the fountains of the deep,
29when God assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when God marked out the foundations of the earth,
30then I was beside God, like a master worker;
and I was daily God’s delight,
rejoicing before God always,
31rejoicing in God’s inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

Many theologians have read this and thought that wisdom might be a feminine metaphor for God. Or they have identified wisdom as a person of the Trinity. And wisdom is not only there at the beginning of creation. More often, wisdom is in the most mundane places, trying to get our attention:

Wisdom cries out in the street; (Proverbs says)
in the squares she raises her voice.
21At the busiest corner she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks…
23Give heed to my reproof;
I will pour out my thoughts to you;

I will make my words known to you.

And that’s pretty much how it happens. In the streets. In the midst of the messiness of life, wisdom suddenly calls out. A part of the Christian life is to open ourselves up to wisdom, in whatever form it comes. It’s hard to explain how it happens, but I’ll try. We can pray for wisdom, and then we need to set aside a time to listen. I usually practice listening three ways: by journaling, by walking, or by sitting in silence. It’s a matter of taking the time, of tuning ourselves to hear these things.

And when we are open, sometimes, things occur to us. A friend will give us advice and his words ring true with something deep within us. Or we find just the right book that we needed to read at that moment. Usually we don’t even know what’s happened until we look back and realize that she somehow called out to us, above the din of the crowds.

Jesus talks about wisdom too. In our passage this morning, he seems to be annoyed with all of the complaints surrounding him.

You see, his cousin, John the Baptist, preached on the edge of town. And crowds went out to see him. He was quite a character. He didn’t wear a robe. Instead, he wore this animal skin with a belt. He ate locusts and wild honey, and told everyone that they needed to change their ways. John stayed on the outskirts of town literally and figuratively. He didn’t socialize with people, he criticized the way that religious and political leaders did things. He called people hypocrites.

It seems that Jesus was the opposite in many ways. Jesus was always walking into town, in the midst of people. Speaking to women that he should have stayed away from. Touching men who were unclean. Eating and drinking with outcasts.

Eventually, John went too far in his accusations. He offended Herod and was thrown in jail. Jesus, of course, was angered by this. And we find him in our passage this morning defending his cousin. He’s frustrated by the crowds of people that have surrounded both of them. John did not drink or dance or eat with people, and the crowds didn’t like that. But Jesus did eat and drink with people… and they didn’t like that either.

And so, it is as if Jesus throws up his hands and says, “Wisdom will be vindicated by her deeds.” In other words, whatever they did, they would be criticized by people. But among the crowds, there was something else that was calling out. Wisdom. It didn’t always make sense to the people surrounding them. But, in the end, the intentional actions of wisdom would prove to be right.

How many times has this happened? Think about your life. How many times did you know in your gut that you were supposed to take the job that didn’t pay as much money, but you also realized that it would give you more time at home with your kids? Or how many times did a person seem like she was perfect, but something deep within you was warning you that something was wrong? Or, how many times have you chosen one school over another, even though it didn’t make sense to anyone else? How many times have we heard wisdom, or our intuition, calling out, telling us that this was the wrong move, or the right move for us? And for some odd reason, some reason that may not have made any sense to anyone else. We heard her voice, and we decided to follow it.

The prominent writings on wisdom come from Hildegard of Bingen, who was a mystic from 1098 to 1179. She was about five years old when she began to see visions. She joined a monastery, where both monks and nuns lived, but then she broke off from the place so that there could be a convent, a place where only holy women met together. She was amazing, especially for that time and her religious tradition. She never cowered under the authority of men, she was quick to let them know when they made a mistake. And she was a preacher, and went on extensive tours, preaching all over the region. Which, of course, was very rare for women. I read all that she has done, and I wonder what made her so strong?

When she was in her forties, she had a terrible sickness, followed by a series of visions. And in one of these visions, she was told that she should be writing them down. And so now, eight hundred years later, we have books and drawings of what she would see.

In one illumination, she saw the universe as a cosmic egg. Just as in an egg everything is connected, she saw the Holy Spirit and wisdom as “the mighty way in which everything that is in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.” The egg is a symbol of life, and for Hildegard the Universe was living, renewing, and creating. The drawing shows an egg, surrounded by flames, which represents God burning everywhere. In the center of the egg, there’s air and water, giving moisture to the entire egg. The colors speak of a vibrant universe pulsating with life. Hildegard understood wisdom as a life-giving force.

Which brings me back to my friend, Beth. Beth never saw the rabbits again, until her son turned sixteen. Then she walked into a chapel, and embroidered on a piece of tapestry that hung from the pulpit was the delicate and beautiful handiwork of three playful rabbits, again in a circle. She stopped, shocked at what she saw, and the comforting vision from so many years ago came into her mind.

All that time, she had thought that it was a figment of her imagination, some strange thing that her mind had cooked up so that she might begin breathing again. And here, she saw them in front of the pulpit.

After a quick afternoon of research, she found out that the rabbits were actually an ancient and playful symbol for God’s fecundity, God’s creative and reproductive power. It was a life-giving symbol of hope. It was like wisdom was wooing her in her hospital room, telling her it was going to be okay.

I have never seen a vision. And I’m not sure what I would do if I ever did. But I do know that wisdom so often calls out to us. Even when crowds around us may not understand our choices and our decisions, many times we can tune our ear to something else. We can begin hearing that ancient, life-giving voice of wisdom, which is constantly trying to get our attention. That voice that does not always make sense at the time, but as you look back, you realize that it is vindicated by its deeds.

May we hear that voice this morning, calling out to us in the strangest places. Giving us strength and hope and courage.

To the glory of God, our Creator,
God, our Liberator,
And God, our Sustainer.  Amen.