Wisdom and the Trinity

 

No Kings demonstration at the Florida Capitol June 14, 2025. Photo by Bob O'Lary

This was the sermon that finally came to me...knowing that I would be preaching the day after the country had...once again...been in a position of having to choose sides. Were we going to celebrate the birthday of our current Commander-in-Chief who decided to make a celebration of the Army's 250th year all about him...even though he has never served in any branch of the military and avoided Vietnam by getting a medical excuse (he said he had bone spurs).

Or were we going to see more people turn out in protest of this leader who has had the audacity to put out images of himself as King Donald?

All this while his regime has stepped up arrests and harassments of Latinas/os going to their jobs at Home Depot and such in Los Angeles. Against the wishes of the Governor of California and the mayor of LA, the president has federalized the CA National Guard and sent thousands of troops to this major metropolitan city to do what? They're not really sure except to stand guard outside a federal building. His Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, actually had the gall to say that they were there to "liberate" LA from "socialism." And when CA U.S. Senator Alex Padilla attempted to ask her a question at her press conference, ICE officers grabbed him, shoved him out the door into the hallway, forced him to his knees and handcuffed him. 

All for attempting to ask a question while not wearing a suit.

We're in horrifying times.

And we need Wisdom to come...and come quickly. 

Texts: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Rom. 5:1-5

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I want us to hear these words again…

Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?

On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;

beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out:

"To you, O people, I call,and my cry is to all that live.”—(Proverbs 8:1-4)

 

We call this day “Trinity Sunday”….a time to rejoice and celebrate those three ways in which we understand and experience the Holy One: God the Father…God the Son…God the Holy Spirit.

In the New Zealand Prayer Book…the Trinity is described as “Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, and Life-giver.”

Our former presiding bishop…Michael Curry…often invoked the “loving, liberating, and life-giving God.”

All of these are accurate ways in which we find words to express our understanding of God that was put together by fourth-century theologians as they grappled with how to talk about the experience of God…and the way God shows up in our lives.

God as the nurturing Father.

God as the Son who lived and died as one of us.

God as the Holy Spirit that keeps us moving forward in that Love that comes from the Father and through the example of the Son.

But there is that special element that makes these three truly One.

It’s that common thread…knitting and weaving them all together.

And that is Sophia: Wisdom.

We heard in our passage today from Proverbs that this Wisdom has been with our Trinity from the very outset of all time…manner…and place.

She was at play…working alongside the Creator…rejoicing in all that was being formed out of the depths of the oceans and the rocks of the mountains.

She took great pleasure in being part of the breath of creation that brought forth the human race.

She is the drumbeat…the bass note…to everything we seek when we turn to God for blessing and assurance as we make our way through this world.

Wisdom…we often pray…will be the guide for anyone who takes on the mantle of leadership…whether its in the church…or in secular society.

Because Wisdom has a way of keeping us balanced without malice or a need for dominance…and cool under the pressures that always seem to come at us.

Our biblical ancestor Solomon…who is credited with many of the sayings in the Book of Proverbs…prayed for wisdom when he became the king upon the death of his father David.

Indeed…he needed Wisdom when he had to settle the dispute between two women warring over who was the true mother of a baby (1 Kings 3:16-28).

Wisdom was there with Jesus in every moment that he faced tests of his ministry…and attempts to trap him into betraying his mission of bringing people back into closer relationship with the God and Father of Love.

And Wisdom was with the apostles as they began their journeys to take the Gospel out…beyond Jerusalem…building this movement that would then become the fire in the belly of so many others throughout the centuries. She was that element…that Spirit of Truth… that Jesus says will guide his followers into all truth (John 16:13).

She is the very essence of God the Holy Spirit…our sustainer in the midst of the challenges we face.

Wisdom is still with us today….making herself a presence in our lives in subtle ways…from the heights…to the crossroads…and at the borders of our lives.

The professor and theologian Robert Alter looked at this passage about Wisdom and remarked…”this is a celebration of her powers: her gift of plain and accessible discourse, the preciousness of her words, her indispensability as a guide to all who govern and the material benefits she conveys to her followers.”

Thanks be to God for that Wisdom…that basic necessity…as one of the cornerstones of our faith!

We need her presence now as much as the early followers of Jesus needed her in their time of social upheaval and uncertainty.

That brings me to the reading we heard this morning from Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

The reading we have as translated by the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible talks about us “boasting in our sufferings” and that through our “sufferings” we gain endurance.

The Common English Bible translates the Greek a little differently.

Instead of “boasting in our suffering”…the C-E-B talks of us taking “pride in our problems.”

And this isn’t “pride” in that sense of feeling “good” or even “joyful” about having problems.

Instead…what Paul is telling this new church in Rome…a church in the heart of the very Empire that is attempting to crush the Jesus movement…is to see their oppressor…and this resistance to love for the reality that it is.

Yes…the Empire is against you.

Yes…the Empire is denying you the dignity and respect that you deserve.

But Paul wanted the church to then dig deeper…and realize that for every attempt the Empire makes to disrupt and destroy this Jesus movement…they will rise.

The spirit of truth…which is the spirit of Love…poured into their hearts…beating with that Wisdom…will be with them…lighting their way through the fog that wants to frighten them into silence.

The trouble created by those who oppose the work of Love will not win.

It won’t win because Love does not give up or surrender.

No bullies or tyrants can defeat them as long as they remain fueled by the Wisdom of Love.

What a message for us to be hearing now in the 21^st century America!

These words of Paul are still true today.

The troubles we are facing in this country are real…fueled by those who desire to keep us divided when God’s call is for us to be united. 

But even as we see this reality…these efforts to make us afraid…we can tap into our faith because “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5:4-5).

That is the alternative reality and the promise made to us through God the Father…the Son…and the Holy Spirit.

That is the Wisdom that runs through all our being as we look for ways to continue serving our neighbors here in Lowndes County and throughout this region.

Carry that hope…that love…into this week.

Stay the course… and meet the challenges before us with wisdom and love.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.