On the ordination of Rachel Twigg
A sermon by John Badertscher on Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 and John 16:12-15
May the seeds of faith, planted in us by the Gospel, be nourished in us now by your Spirit, so that our words, thoughts and prayers may grow into lives of love and service. Amen
While we are here today—now—perhaps somewhere not so far away, a young person, driven to desperation by the emptiness of our consumer civilisation, considers shooting up as a means of escape, however temporary. Another young person, realising that our culture’s stereotypes for sexual identity do not fit, struggles with how to share this insight with family and friends.
Rachel Twigg
A teacher tries to imagine how, with the thinnest of resources, to prepare hungry children to use their gifts in a world which needs them. A police officer has become increasingly aware that police are distrusted by indigenous people, some of the very people the officer has sworn to serve and protect; that this distrust is based on generations of injustice; and that the difficult road to reconciliation cannot be walked alone. An old person tries to understand why the experiences of a lifetime are regarded by most as a liability rather than as a gift, and how to live out a sense of vocation in a world mesmerised by novelty.
A parent tries to balance the demands of work with the demands of parenting, while another parent tries to find a way to provide both food and shelter for children when poverty dictates a choice between them.
And a woman here among us prepares to answer, in our presence, some the most challenging questions she will ever be asked.
All of these situations reveal our need—our real, concrete, immediate, inescapable need—for wisdom. Wisdom...not cleverness or technological aptitude, which can be used to avoid or camouflage the situation as readily as to address it, but wisdom. Not floods of data which try to pass for information, but the life-raft of wisdom. Not conformity to the norms of whatever social group with which we choose to identify, but the relentless dialogue of questioning and listening we call wisdom. Wisdom, giving us the sense of who we are, and whose we are, that will enable us to meet the kinds of situations and challenges we have been imagining.
How are we to find such wisdom? How can such broken, finite creatures as we are find the connection we need to the awesome woman we call Wisdom in English, Sophia in Greek and Hokhma in Hebrew?
The good news, according to the book of Proverbs, is that she is looking for us, calling out, raising her voice so we will hear. She seeks us here, “on the heights,” in places of beauty such as this cathedral, and in outdoor places of beauty and wonder. But she also looks for us “beside the way,” in the busyness of our lives. She confronts us “at the crossroads,” where life-changing decisions are made.
She is precious but also, we might say, promiscuous. Wherever people come and go, Proverbs assures us, there she is; not just waiting passively but crying out, urgently asking to be received into our lives. “To you O people, I call, and my cry—my cry—is to all that live.” She is seeking each one of us, not just those of us here tonight, but those we hold in our imagination, wherever they are. To those who so desperately need wisdom, there she is – here she is!
But make no mistake, she is never our possession. She looks for us, calls out to us, and gives herself to us; but she never belongs to us. She is self-given gift, never possession. It is her initiative that makes the connection. That has implications worth our attention.
For one thing, we never have Wisdom in advance of the situation in which we need her. We cannot drag her around with us like a smart phone or a bundle of university degrees or even a certificate of ordination. And she is not necessarily available when we think we need her. She often makes us wait, even when we are feeling overwhelmed and desperate. She expects us to have some patience, for sometimes she only shows up when we have given up on our own resources and are truly ready to listen. Wisdom is gift, not possession.
Another implication is one I might have hesitated to speak, except for the encouragement I got from Jamie’s sermon yesterday. When I first read the lessons given for our worship today, I could not help but imagine that the message from Proverbs and the message from John’s Gospel were related. Then I recalled the passage from First Corinthians where Paul calls the Risen Christ “the power of God and the Wisdom of God.” And I remembered that Wisdom is named as the first of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Finally I thought: What if the witness of Israel’s sages to the self-giving gift of Wisdom was a pre-Resurrection witness to the Holy Spirit?
Of course I heard, as you did, the verse that said: “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work.” And since we Trinitarians know that the One God is Creator, not created…well, you see the problem. I will just note that Ellen Davis, discussing the passage we heard tonight in her fine commentary on Proverbs, observes the picture of Wisdom playing with human beings in the very act of creation and concludes: “This is a trajectory which reaches its end and fullest expression in the doctrine of the Trinity.” So let’s leave it there and turn to our Gospel lesson.
We are near the end of the long farewell Jesus gives to his companions just before he goes out into the darkness of betrayal, arrest, false accusation, trial and death by public torture. He tells us, as Raymond Brown translates it, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.” Jesus knows what is coming, and how it will devastate his followers. But he sees beyond that, sees beyond cross, resurrection and ascension to the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here Jesus calls that Mysterious Presence “the Spirit of Truth.” This is the Spirit who will enable us eventually to see the Cross as a victory, a judgment upon the powers of this world, and the promise of a New Creation.
“When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth….he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” In Rachel’s Pentecost sermon, she spoke of that gift of communication, when Jesus’ followers, moved by the Spirit, spoke to all present, each in their own language. That sounds to me like the voice of Wisdom: “To you, O people, I call; and my cry is to all that live.”
John Badertscher
The Spirit of Truth is promised as our guide to participation in the life of the Risen Christ, as his Body on earth. Truth can be pretty scary, but those who follow the Crucified King already know that. It involves communication with those who speak other languages, both literally and metaphorically. Hearing the truth—about the world and about ourselves—requires both courage and trust; it means both judgment and redemption; it leads to beholding who we are and becoming what we receive. Hearing that truth opens us—our tongues, our ears and eyes, our hearts—to the gift of Wisdom.
Rachel, you will need wisdom to answer truthfully the questions about to be put to you. You will need to continue answering those questions every day from now on. Sometimes that will be pretty scary. But we have seen and heard you hanging out with Wisdom. You will continue to need her. You will never possess her, but we are here because we believe she continue to call out to you, and you will hear, and she will speak to you and through you, sometimes through the voice of friends, sometimes even when she speaks with the voice of a stranger . . . or a bishop.
Let it be so.
John Badertscher