\u201cWisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars.\u201d The King James language would have been familiar to Lawrence of Arabia when he titled his long and idiosyncratic memoirs of the Middle East \u201cThe Seven Pillars of Wisdom.\u201d In Proverbs 9, the reference to the seven pillars is probably an allusion to the idea of the earth conceived as a platform resting upon pillars. But what matters here is, of course, the personification and character of Wisdom as God\u2019s \u201cdaily delight\u201d as it says in Proverbs 8, and as master-craftswoman in the work of Creation itself. The first few generations of Christians, attempting to describe Jesus theologically, leaned heavily on this Wisdom tradition and attributed to him many of her characteristics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thematic connection between the reading from Proverbs and the continuing discourse in John\u2019s Gospel, where we are now in about the third week of the \u201cBread of Life\u201d speech from John 6, lies in the offer of God\u2019s life-giving hospitality. The passage from Proverbs 9 shows Wisdom preparing a banquet: animals are slaughtered, the wine is mixed with spices to increase the flavor, and she sends out her servants to invite the \u201csimple people\u201d to her house for the festivities. The purpose of the banquet is to invite and encourage the \u201csimple\u201d to embrace the path of following wisdom, and begin by learning insight. Later in the same chapter a contrast is drawn with the lesser figure of \u201cFolly,\u201d who neither makes preparations nor sends out invitations, but expects passers-by to drop in casually for bread and water. This non-banquet invites and encourages nobody on the road through insight to wisdom; the path of Folly merely goes down to Sheol, the abode of the dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We understand, then, that Wisdom\u2019s hospitality invites us to life, not death, and so we move into the \u201cBread of Life\u201d discourse in John 6. Eating and drinking at Wisdom\u2019s feast is to live and walk in the way of insight. Eating the bread that Jesus is offering is accepting to participate fully in his own flesh and blood. We have to understand both passages metaphorically, though it is always worth pausing to contemplate the horror of Jesus\u2019 words if they are taken literally: eating flesh and drinking blood is the language of cannibalism. Wisdom\u2019s banquet can be taken as a symbol of God\u2019s invitation to enjoy the abundant richness and sustenance of his presence in our lives as we commit ourselves to seeking him by study, prayer, and action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when Jesus talks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he is saying that unless we come to live by his death we shall not find that abundant richness and sustenance. We find our true and eternal life with God only as we take Jesus\u2019 self-offering in dying as characteristic for our own living as his disciples. When he goes on to say in John 6 that \u201cthose who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them,\u201d Jesus is indicating that both life in this world, and life in what we call \u201cthe world to come\u201d are intimately bound up with our relationship to his sacrificial death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u201cBread of Life\u201d discourse is, from end to end, resonant with overtones of both Passover and Eucharist. But the significance of the whole thing lies not only in the promised abundance of abiding, eternal life that God, through Jesus\u2019 life and death, gives for us and to us, but also in the way we appropriate the sacrificial nature of Jesus\u2019 life and death into our own ways of being and thus make our own lives available to others. That deeply inviting hospitality is seen in Lady Wisdom preparing her feast and setting her table. She will make herself available to those who seek insight into her ways and paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The picture awakens memories of Abraham\u2019s hospitality, the feast laid out for his anonymous and angelic visitors in the desert \u201cby the terebinths of Mamre,\u201d when he and Sarah are promised the inheritance of life in the world to come of a son, Isaac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like John 6, the inviting and deeply hospitable banquet of Wisdom haunts us with its allusions to God\u2019s gift of manna in the wilderness. The long journey through such inhospitable places is where the People of God came to terms with their departure from Egypt, their deliverance and the invitation to freedom; the inhospitable desert is where they learned new things about God\u2019s hospitality, and looked forward to life in the world to come of the Promised Land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May all our Eucharists show forth to ourselves and to others the hospitality of our God, and may our lives grow ever deeper into the self-offering of our Savior Jesus, so that we can offer ourselves and the fruits of our lives and labors to others in his name. Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sermon was written by Angela V. Askew.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars.\u201d The King James language would have been familiar to Lawrence of Arabia when he titled his long and idiosyncratic memoirs of the Middle East \u201cThe Seven Pillars of Wisdom.\u201d In Proverbs 9, the reference to the seven pillars is probably an allusion to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43,52,33,3],"tags":[339],"class_list":["post-511690","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-proper-15b"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":339,"label":"Proper 15B"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3472813,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511690\/revisions\/3472813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}