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SERMONS Liz Boaze – 20/8/09 Proverbs 31:10-31 & James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Have you ever spent any time looking through the personal ads in the paper – the genuine dating ones that is, not the sleazy escort agency kind. It’s a fascinating exercise in the study of human behaviour, a means of seeing the qualities that people aspire for in their perfect partner. I wonder what qualities you’d be looking for if you had to put you’re ideal partner shopping list together!! Wanted – a good man and an ideal husband. Strong, courageous. Must have a good job, a steady income, good in the garden and handy around the house, willing and able to change nappies and care for the kids, able to work nights and weekends. Must be sensitive to the needs of others, tender, compassionate, wise and caring. Ah I hear you wonder, does such a man exist – and if he did, what a catch he’d be! The passage we read from Proverbs this morning has often been read as the ancient world’s equivalent of a man wants ideal wife list. The description of this woman is given in the form of an acrostic poem – giving the “a to z” – or in Hebrew the aleph to tav of all things ideal sought in the perfect wife. When we read the list we encounter a woman who seems larger than life – she has qualities which we would traditionally expect to be attributed to women in the ancient world – she cares for and provides for her family, she keeps the home fires burning and is the provider of good food, good clothes and a good bit of wise teaching also. She’s the first up in the morning and the last to bed at night. There are a few surprises in the list – she is financially independent, purchasing land and participating in a range of activities beyond the boundaries of the home. Qualities less often attributed to women in the ancient world, although certainly not out of the realm of possibility – at least for the upper elite of society. For centuries, this woman has been viewed as the role model for all good Christian wives and mothers. In seeing this woman as the perfect role model, women have expected themselves to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect business woman, the perfect social justice activist, and the perfect international relations liaison. To top it all off the perfect woman of faith, fearing the LORD and instructing others in the wisdom and love of God. So perfect does this woman seem that there is not one negative comment made about her. You get the impression that she doesn’t ever have bad hair days, wild hormonal swings, smudged mascara or just plain grumpy moments. And that’s the problem – this is an idealised portrait of idealised womanhood, coming at the end of a book which, at best, portrays women in stereotypical ways as object lessons in the shaping of young men to become solid citizens who maintain the patriarchal status quo espoused by their fathers and teachers. So what are we to do with a text such as this, and what, if anything, does it has to say to us as a community of faith living in twenty-first century Australia? I have to confess that I have a love hate relationship with this text, and with the whole book of Proverbs itself. The middle section of the book contains a range of proverbial sayings, each capturing a time honoured teaching about the ways of the world and how to live a good and righteous life. Surrounding these sayings are longer poetic sections, found in chapters 1-9 and 31. The poems contain a series of lectures given in the persona of a father addressing his adolescent son, handing on the traditional teaching that he himself had received from his own father. The lectures aim to distil wisdom to the son, encouraging him to make the right decisions about how he lives his life. It’s important that the intended audience of the lectures are the young sons. The language used to teach is language which appeals to adolescent boys. The imagery is overtly sexual, and the choices faced by the young men are personified in the forms of two women, women wisdom and the strange woman, both of whom seek to allure the young men into their presence. Both women are stereotypical, representing all that is good and all that is evil. The personification of the strange woman represents all that is chaotic and to be avoided, a woman on the margins of society to be avoided at all cost. Woman wisdom is equally liminal, existing on the polar extreme of society – something to be sought but in many ways unattainable. And then there’s the woman of Proverbs 31. She comes at the end of the book, the conclusion to this whole collection of teaching. It raises issues of who the woman is, what she represents, and why she’s even here in the first place. Although she’s a complex figure, I do want to say that is don’t believe that she is there is a role model that all women should seek to emulate – at least not in terms of trying to do all the things that she is reported to do. That’s not to dismiss the possibility of any woman being able to do what she does – if we look around we can probably identify some, or even all these qualities in women we know. And, no doubt, in men we know. But to read her only this way just doesn’t make sense in the context of the book of Proverbs. After all it’s a book about wisdom and how to achieve it, written by men for men. Why finish this teaching on a description of a great woman – it doesn’t fit. Certainly many of the qualities of the woman are the same as the characteristics listed of woman wisdom herself. We can see her as being woman wisdom, but to do so, makes her unattainable, just in a different way. To see her as wisdom, the figure who was with God and beside God through creation – certainly makes her desirable, but also unreachable. So, we’re left with the same question – what are we to do with this text and does it have anything to say to us? In the end, I don’t think I have any clear answers about who or what is the full significance of this woman in the context of the book of Proverbs and the society that produced the book. I don’t have any ready answers about whether she is simply a patriarchal day dream, or a living reality of the lives of real woman, or a subversive feminist statement about what women could do in surpassing the boundaries of gender imposed by the patriarchy. I don’t know. I am fairly sure though, that one of the keys to understanding this woman lies towards the end of the poem. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Whatever else we can say about this woman, her “fear the Lord” places her in high regard in the book of Proverbs. In it’s opening verses, Proverbs 1 describes the intention of the collection of Proverbs 2For learning about wisdom and instruction, And there, I think is our clue, and the heart of a message for us today. Are we called to imitate this woman? Well – no, not if we understand imitation to consist of striving to do all she does, - striving to become super humans who work ourselves to the bone, losing ourselves in a mire of unrealistic expectations. No – that’s not it. The only way, in my mind at least, that this woman becomes a model for us lies in the essence of this statement of faith. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and here, at the book’s end, is one who fears the Lord. A what a woman she is too. And that, and only that, is our model. You see, I think we spend far too much of our time trying to live up to the expectations of unrealistic role models. The super woman, super mum, super dad, super man – super whatever. We strive to do what others do, be what others are, and in the end lose who we ourselves are. We even do it in our quest to become better, or dare I say, ideal Christians. We model our behaviour – the things we do – on the lives of others. And lose ourselves, our call, our own ministry in the process. But is that really what we are called to do? A couple of years ago I took part in a study series called “living the Questions.” One of the contributors to the study series was Bishop Spong, and he made a point in one of his interviews which has really stuck with me. He talks about the notion, quoting the famous work by Tomas a Kempis of “the Imitation of Christ” arguing that we are not called to imitate Christ, at least not in terms of our works and actions. He suggests that what Jesus did and how Jesus did was unique to Jesus, and that we should not try to be Jesus. Rather, what we need to recognise is that Jesus did what he did and achieved what he achieved by being fully open to and alive to the presence and working of God in his life. it is only in this fullness of relationship that Jesus was able to be fully Jesus. For us, and in our faith journey, our quest is not to do what Jesus did, but to be as Jesus was – fully open and alive to with the presence of God in our lives. And in doing so we become the people we are truly meant to be. As I become fully open to God in my life, will I do and achieve what Jesus achieved – no. Will I become the ideal wife of Proverbs 31 – no. But who I will be is the best Liz that I can – living openly and fully in the presence and power of God. As James says in the letter we read today – draw near to God and God will draw near to you. And that, my friends, is the challenge for us to day. How do you become the best that you can be? By working harder, by striving to do more, be more, become more? By emulating the lives of others? No, and again I say – no. It is only when we “fear God” - it is only in drawing near to God, in allowing God to draw near to us that we too become the people we are meant to be – fully open, fully alive and fully present in and with God. May we all draw nearer to God and in doing so become who we are meant to be Amen |
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