Gentleness Born of Wisdom

Sermon for Proper 20 B (RCL), Offered by Nathan Ferrell at HS, Bellmawr & St. Luke’s, Westville

Texts: Proverbs 31:10-31; Psalm 1; James 3:13-4:3,7-8a; Mark 9:30-37
Themes: the virtuous woman, a life of wisdom,
Purpose: to teach, to inspire
Title: Gentleness Born of Wisdom

My friends in Christ: we cannot pass up on the opportunity to reflect together upon this famous passage from the Book of Proverbs. This is an alphabetical Hebrew poem, meaning that each verse begins with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In our Bibles, this passage is sometimes given the title of “The Perfect Housewife”.

It’s difficult to know what to think about this passage from Proverbs. “A capable wife who can find?” Look at this list of activities that this capable wife undertakes.

She wakes up before dawn and prepares food for her family. She stays up late at night. She buys land and manages the farming of it. She makes sure that her family has warm clothing for the winter. She is generous in sharing with the poor. She makes fine clothing for her family and for retail sale to others. She teaches with wisdom, and she speaks with kindness. She does not eat the bread of idleness.

Wow! She is quite an active woman. But notice, please, the subtle detail which makes the biggest difference of all: she has servants! Servants who actually DO most of the labor required by her many tasks. The capable wife imagined here is a wealthy woman who is efficient at managing the activities of her servants.

We have had friends who lived overseas in Africa and South America while working for the US State Dept. In those places, they lived in nice compounds and they had servants. They had a cook to make the meals, a gardener to manage the exterior grounds and a nanny to handle the children. They had a driver who maintained the car and drove them around. It is quite common, in fact, for all people of means in the developing world to have household help like this. Now, I cannot imagine such an arrangement. For us, in our society, things are quite different. In my household, Erin and I have to do everything! And if we try to get some help just from our children, then it actually takes MORE work just to cajole them into action and to keep them motivated. It’s easier – usually – just to do it all ourselves.

So what can we learn from this poem on the perfect wife? To think in practical terms, the Bible teaches us that it is good to be efficient, to manage well the affairs of one’s household. The wisdom of this godly woman is just the opposite of the quarreling trouble-makers that the letter of James speaks against:

“For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind” (James 3:16). There is no chaos, no disorder, no waste, no wickedness in the house of this virtuous woman. She clearly shows by her good life that her works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.

There was once the wife of a priest who was so efficient and diligent, particularly at conserving food, so that she rarely ever threw away any food at all. For one dinner, she served her priest-husband nothing but leftovers which he regarded with great disappointment and disdain. He began to pick at the food, which caused his careful wife to say, “Dear, you forgot the blessing.”

“Listen, sweetheart,” he replied, “if you can show me one piece of this food that hasn’t been blessed already at least two times, then I can’t see what another prayer can do for it!”

Now, if we had the servants available for all of these many tasks, I suppose that it would be quite wonderful to live in such a well-ordered and managed household as this one envisioned by the writer of Proverbs.

But, here is the problem that I see: in the final analysis, who really wants to live with a capable, virtuous, efficient partner? What each of us truly desires, and needs, is love and intimacy.

Efficiency is good, but love is better. When we strip everything else away, we find that each one of us needs to be loved, to be understood, to be accepted, and to be cared about. But not cared about in the sense that we have enough warm sweaters and hats and gloves for the coming winter.

We need to be cared for as a person, to be taken seriously as a unique individual, to have our own thoughts and feelings respected and held in confidence. We need to be trusted. We need to know that our companion will be there for us when times are tough, that we will not be left forsaken when we fall and need a hand to get back up.

If one is able to find this kind of love and commitment and deep emotional care, then I think one can put up with a little sloppiness around the house. Efficiency and cleanliness may make my life easier and more comfortable, but they cannot satiate the longing of my heart for true and lasting companionship.

I do believe that our Lord Jesus, during his years of earthly ministry, understood and felt this longing. This dynamic is part of what is going on in our gospel reading this morning.

Our Lord was true man, fully human, and here he was speaking with his friends about his upcoming suffering and death. He was making himself vulnerable to them, and I feel certain that what he desired most from them at that moment was to be understood. To have them truly understand what this means for him directly at the deepest levels.

And yet, they respond by thinking only in practical terms. Who is the greatest of his friends? As if, when their dearest friend tells them of his impending death, they immediately start to discuss his will, to plan out the line of inheritance and who will be next in line to take over once he is gone! How could they so foolishly misunderstand?

We adults are so practical. We have to be efficient to succeed and thrive. We have to plan ahead. But it is not the same with children. Children play, and they long to be with their friends, to share time and experiences with their friends. Children tend to be much more attuned to emotional needs than we adults who have been dulled by years of struggle and labor.

And at that moment of unease at what was to come, mixed with disappointment in his friends, and frustration, our Lord Jesus took the little child in his arms. Think about it. He hugged that child, as if what he needed most at that moment was simply the touch of a friend’s hand on his shoulder.

I can’t say this for sure, but we do know how our Lord feels about displays of affection. Remember when Mary came and used the entire jar of costly perfume to anoint him? And the very practical disciples complained that those resources could have been better used in other ways! And our Lord defended this act of love, this moment of caring which displayed her understanding. And remember the widow’s mite, when the widow gave to the temple treasury all that she had, how he praised her for her generosity and devotion?

Practical efficiency is good, but love is far, far better, my friends! It is love which God longs to see in us and to share with us.

The writer of Proverbs closes his poem with the famous line: “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30).

And I cannot help but think that, in light of the New Testament and what we learn from our Lord Jesus, we could go on to add: “Waste is harmful, and disorder is ungodly, but the one who loves is to be praised.”