Two Voices

Proverbs 9:1-10; 13-18

8/16/09

Albertville, MN

 

Rev. Michael Trask

 

How difficult and complex it can be to make it through childhood and become successful in life. A child born into this world has to cut through a lot of clatter and clutter in order to pass safely through the door of adulthood. Lot of them don’t make it. They get broadsided by drugs, booze, sex, bad company and the like. Even now, our society is overwhelmed by the wreckage of the ruined lives of those who have taken the wrong path.

Again and again we hear in the news that we are running out of prison space and that we are going to have to build more. One out of every 100 Americans is now in prison. While the United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners says Adam Liptak, columnist for the NY Times. Interesting how this land of freedom would have so many who are not free. And those are just the people who broke the law and got caught! There are many who break the law and don’t get caught; there are many others who have not broken any law and yet are in prisons of their own making. Many lives are being ruined by stupid personal choices. What’s more, people of our day show a marked inability to examine themselves and then make the necessary changes to repair their lives. And so they descend into a mire of personal destruction; often times dragging others down with them.

What’s going on? What is happening to our great nation? Solomon, the Ancient King of Israel, who was given by God more wisdom than any person who has ever lived cuts through the clutter for us in Proverbs chapter 9. It may seem like this is a horribly complex issue; it may seem to us that there are many voices calling us in all different directions, but Solomon says no. There are not many voices. There’s just two and only two. It’s always been that way from the very beginning.

The two voices are Wisdom and Folly (which is another word for foolishness). And Solomon, in very creative fashion, puts these two voices in the form of two women in the city. Two women who stand on their doorsteps and urge people who pass by to enter their house to eat. And the question is simple: where’ you going to eat? What are you going to take into yourself? Will you enter the house of Wisdom and eat the food that leads to wisdom or will enter the house of Folly and partake of the food that leads to foolishness? The choice you make determines the direction of your life.

Let’s dig into the text a little bit into this text and examine these two woman and their houses and their food. We’ll start with the woman who is called wisdom.

Her house, it’s built with Seven pillars. Seven is a number of completeness. Her roof is completely secure; it’s never going to fall the Roof of wisdom’s house will give shelter to you for ever and more importantly shelter in the day of wrath and judgment.

The foundation of wisdom’ house is revealed a little later in the text where it says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning (foundation) of Wisdom.” Today it’s more popular to talk about the Love of the Lord than it is the fear of the Lord. Everybody talks about how loving God is. It is true that he is loving. But it is also true that he is to be feared. It’s not a one or the other thing it’s a both/and thing. He is loving and he is also to be feared. For remember this is the God who said that he will will burn up his enemies with an “unquenchable” fire.

I know what you’re thinking: How does a person become his enemy? A person becomes God’s enemy when he violates God’s law. He says “The soul that sins is the one that will die”. And also “I will not leave the guilty unpunished”. Isn’t it clear how the text can say that the foundation of wisdom, the foundation of a wise life is the fear of the Lord. A wise person isn’t going to fool around with a God who has such authority over life and death. A wise person

As my family and I were camping this last two weeks, one of our campsites was a grazing area for bison. On several occasions we were within 10 or 15 yards of these huge beasts as they made their way from one tuft of grass to the next. We feared them. At one point, as is often inevitable in my family we got into humorous discussion about what not to do to to the buffalo. My wife said you wouldn’t go up and grab one of the big beasts by the mane and jiggle his head back and forth and say “wook at the cute whittle Buffalo”. No. You wouldn’t want to do that. Why? Because we knew that those buffalo were frighteningly powerful and quite capable of taking our lives if they were . Needless to say we made it our goal not to offend them in any way. A wise person does the same when it comes to the Lord. Though he is wonderful and loving, we know he has the power of life and death. He has given us his law. He has written it upon our hearts. We have heard it, our god-given conscience has been so kind as to remind us of it. We would do dwell to obey it. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

And then there’s the food in Wisdom’s house. A great feast that she has spent a long time preparing. She says “Let all who are simple come here and eat!” “Leave your simple ways and you will live.” Now don’t get offended that she calls you simple, because you are. All of us are. We weren’t created that way, but we became that way because of the sin that we are born into. We are born with a moron chip already soldered into our motherboard. There’s a part of us that delights in that which is out and out wrong and even just plane stupid. We sin and sin and sin and we think it’s fun. But we fail to see what it’s doing to us. In one place solomon writes “If a man digs a pit he will fall into it.” How true. We are the simple because we are sinners. And before we can even think about getting wise, we’ve got to admit that to ourselves and we’ve got to admit that to the God whom we have offended with our sin.

Only then will we be prepared to eat the food that imparts wisdom. What is this food? Jesus alludes to it in what we read in today’s Gospel lesson. (John 6) His body broken for us. His blood shed for us is what can make us wise. For you see, though we have most certainly offended God with what we have done and said and thought, through Jesus death on the cross, these offenses have been spoken for. So the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom. And Jesus, he’s what makes wisdom come to completeness. For through him, there is hope for us. God forgives us! And not only that, he can help us to get better. Having admitted our sins, having confessed them, having been forgiven, we are given the strength to go on the offensive against foolishness in our lives. He is the Wisdom of God, as st. Paul says.

That’s Wisdom and Her invitation, It’s actually an invitation to new life in Christ Jesus. Now let’s see the contrast with that woman named Folly. Listen to the text’s description of her: “The woman folly is loud; she is undisciplined and without knowledge.” Wow, a perfect description of the rabble that seeks to divert us from the straight and narrow. Loud. Loud like our blaring culture which insists that freedom is the right to do whatever we want no matter how perverted or shameful it might be. Undisciplined. Undisciplined as in having no control over ourselves our feelings our emotions, our wants and desires.. Do what you want to do. Follow your heart, follow your whims, regardless of how many people you might hurt, regardless how you hurt yourself. Without Knowledge. Without any knowledge of how things really are. That there is a God to answer to to that there is a right and wrong. That there is truth and it is knowable.

“The woman of Folly is Loud, she is undisciplined and without knowledge, she sits at the door of her house, on a seat at the highest point of the city, calling out to those who pass by who go straight on their way. ‘Let all who are simple come here!’ she says to those who lack judgement.” Now notice the next part “Stolen water is sweet, food eaten in secret is delicious!” See what she is doing? She’s appealing to the moron chip. Lawless behavior is glorified and made to seem fun. Haven’t you kids noticed this? Haven’t you noticed that what is bad is often portrayed as being more fun and exciting than what is good? Those who stay on the straight and narrow; who study hard, work hard, and keep themselves pure are thought be geeks or nerds. Being bad is thought to be cool and being straight and clean and good is thought to be dorky!

That’s what’s wrong with our nation. That’s why so many people are going to jail. That’s why so many lives are being ruined! People have been listening to that Woman named Folly; they are going into her house; they are eating her food! But listen to the description of the people in that house that Solomon gives us: “little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of the grave.”

Solomon, though he wrote this thousands of years before our country even existed has got us pegged. He explains it to us quiet well. And now we have heard it. You have heard it kids. You have heard it parents and adults. You know what is going on in the world now. You also know what’s at stake. You have been invited to eat at the house of Wisdom. You’ve been invited also to eat at the house of Folly. Choose Wisdom. For there you will find the bread that came down from heaven. There you will will be truly satisfied. AMEN