Sermon Archive

“… Laud and magnify God, the everlasting Wisdom, the holy, and undivided … Trinity[, worthy of adoration].…” These words, placed on the lips of the Archangel Michael, conclude The Zeal of Thy House, a play written in 1937 by the British author Dorothy L. Sayers (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1937, p. 114). “Laud and magnify God, the everlasting Wisdom, the holy, undivided … Trinity[, worthy of adoration].…” Holy Wisdom, Triune God—whom we in this congregation do laud and magnify each and every Sunday, when we sing together: “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Christ, all creatures here below; Praise Holy Spirit evermore; Praise Triune God, whom we adore.”

The Trinity under the figure of “Wisdom”—it is this image of God, used by Dorothy Sayers and many others, that I want to explore today. So fasten your intellectual seat belts! For this is “mysterious theological doctrine” Sunday.

Now, the biblical words for “wisdom” are: in Hebrew, chokmah; and in Greek, sophia. Both words are grammatically feminine, and in the Bible both words are developed metaphorically, so that they become female personifications symbolic of God’s very own self.

This morning’s First Lesson—from the Book of Proverbs, chapter 8—represents an early stage in this process of personification. Listen again (Prov 8:1, 29b–30a):

“Does not Wisdom call,
and does not Understanding raise her voice? …
[She says:]
‘When [God] marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside the Lord, like a master worker.’”

Here we find the figure Woman Wisdom portraying herself as, you might say, the “intimate companion” of the divine power that orders and sustains the universe. Or to use a different metaphor, she, Wisdom, is the “primary attribute” of the One who creates and protects every living being.

One of the few artistic representations of the Woman-Wisdom figure in Proverbs 8 appears, albeit disputedly, in a Michaelangelo fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, called “The Creation of Adam.” I’ve reproduced this world-renowned painting in a humble black and white format, and you’ll find it in your bulletins this morning.

In this masterpiece, our eye is led to virtually “see” the invisible spark of life that’s being passed from the outstretched arm and finger of God to the extended finger and hand of Adam. Yet what often goes unnoticed in this scene is God’s other arm, the one that remains totally within the heavenly realm, the one that stretches out backward, around the shoulders and neck of a distinctly female figure. Note her strong yet delicate beauty, and note her eyes’ steady focus on the newly created world below and its sole human habitant. Although some art historians believe this female figure to be the as-yet-uncreated Eve, I side with those who believe she is more correctly identified as the figure of “Woman Wisdom,” personified in Proverbs 8 and depicted here as a feminine aspect of the Creator God.

The personification of Woman Wisdom found in Proverbs 8 is further developed in the Jewish wisdom literature written over the next four centuries, between the compilation of Proverbs and the birth of Jesus. I urge you to take the time someday to check out such books as Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon, in what is called “the Apocrypha.” These maintain that it is through God’s feminine aspect as Wisdom that in the first case God becomes present to humankind and in the second case humankind is able to seek and find God. This development of the figure of Woman Wisdom as a personification of God reaches its fullest scope in the book Wisdom of Solomon (Wis 7:25–26), where Sophia is identified in this exalted way:

“For she is a breath of the power of God,
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty.…
For she is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God
and an image of [God’s] goodness.”

The attributes of Woman Wisdom depicted in the Old Testament and Apocrypha can be summarized in this way (see Elizabeth A. Johnson, “Wisdom Was Made Flesh and Pitched Her Tent Among Us,” in Reconstructing the Christ Symbol: Essays in Feminist Christology, ed. Maryanne Stevens [New York: Paulist, 1993], pp. 99–102). Wisdom is transcendent—that is, beyond us—and thus utterly elusive, hidden, and mysterious (Job 28:12–28; Sir 24:4–5); yet she is also immanent—that is, she seeks a dwelling place here on earth, so that she may be revealed to us (Sir 24:8–22; Bar 3:37). This Wisdom is first an agent of creation (Prov 8:27–31; Wisd 7:12, 22a; 8:6), making all things new (Wisd 7:27); and she is secondly an agent of redemption (Wisd 9:18–10:21), offering deliverance to all; and she is thirdly an agent of providential power (Wisd 8:1; Prov 8:15), whose spirit pervades all things (Wisd 7:22b–23) and accompanies persons through good times and bad (Wisd 10:17–18). Thus, “Wisdom … is [quite] simply God: reaching out to the world, forming the beloved community, forever drawing near and passing by. For of whom else can all [of] these things be said?… [Yes,] She personifies divine reality…” (Johnson, p. 102)

Those of us who were borne and reared by strong, kind, loving mothers can easily understand how these ancient Jewish authors were led to use feminine language and imagery for [all of] these attributes of God.

Turning now to this morning’s Second Lesson, we need first to note that Jesus is depicted throughout the Gospel of John as the earthly incarnation of the Word and Wisdom of God. So it is not surprising to find Jesus portrayed in this lesson as one who speaks to his disciples in a first-person, instructional style that’s reminiscent of Woman Wisdom’s style in Proverbs 8. Jesus says to his disciples, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot hear them [all] now.” (John 16:12) The teaching of all this “truth,” or wisdom, whose source, as Jesus goes on to say, is “the Father”—his authoritative teaching of truth, which is wisdom, will be continued on earth after the death of Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, who carries Wisdom forward through all of time and space.

Now our lectionary assigns this lesson for reading on Trinity Sunday because it mentions all three persons of the Trinity, those most frequently referred to as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” the terms that underlie John 16. But the three persons can also be referred to by using many other metaphors—for example, the ones we employed in both this morning’s Call to Worship and Prayer of Dedication.

But back to John 16. Here, John links all three persons of the Triune God with the concept of “Truth.” And “Truth” is a concept that elsewhere in this gospel is identified with God’s “Word” (cf. John 1:14; 17:17), which in this gospel is equivalent to God’s “Wisdom” (John 1; cf. also, Psalm 51:6 [Heb. 8] and Prov 23:23). So here, through the concept of “Truth,” John closely links all three persons of the Trinity with “Wisdom.”

And John 16 plus many other passages in the New Testament led the great Christian thinker Augustine (354–430), Bishop of Hippo, to observe (De trinitate 7.3.6): “And so the Father is wisdom, the Son is wisdom, and the Holy Spirit is wisdom, and together not three wisdoms but one wisdom.” Holy Wisdom, Triune God.

Now, when we Christians speak of God as being “triune,” this word, too, is merely a symbol. True, it’s the symbol that’s come to define Christianity’s unique understanding of God, over against that of such other religions as Judaism and Islam. Nonetheless, it’s important for us to understand that when we speak about God in this way, as being “three persons,” we are using a symbol, a symbol whose basic purpose is to say that the God who is One is profoundly complex, that the God who is One “is like a trinity, like a threefoldness of relation.” (Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is [New York: Crossroad, 1993], p. 204) For our Christian experience of this One God suggests that ours is a “God of inexhaustible mystery,” who is, in the first instance, quite beyond the world and “inexpressibly other.” Yet this One God, who is so transcendent, is also, in the second instance, One who is “with the world in the flesh of history,” through Jesus. And then again this same God, who is both transcendent and immanent, is also, in the third instance, One who is not only “in the world” but, more richly than that, is deeply within us—in fact “closer to us than we are to ourselves.” Thus, our One God exists with us in a mysterious threefoldness of relationship. For “God is beyond, with, and within the world; behind, with, and ahead of us; above, alongside, and around us” (Ibid, p. 191)—in a threefoldness of relationship.

Let me try to further express this deep mystery about the profoundly complex nature of God by sharing some words about each of the “three persons” of the Trinity written by the contemporary Roman Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson. As I read them, you’ll need to remember that the Greek word Sophia means “Wisdom” and is a feminine image for God.

Johnson begins by describing the Third Person of the Trinity: “God is God as Spirit-Sophia, the mobile, pure, people-loving Spirit who pervades every wretched corner [of human existence], wailing at the waste [of so much and then] releasing [the very] power that enables fresh starts. Her energy quickens the earth to life, her beauty shines in the stars, her strength breaks forth in every fragment of [peace] and renewal that transpires in [our earthly] arenas of violence and meaninglessness. From generation to generation she enters into holy souls, and not so holy ones, to make [us] friends of God and prophets, thereby making [us] allies of God’s redeeming purpose. What we can say is this: Sophia-God dwells in the world at its center and at its edges, an active vitality crying out in labor, birthing the new creation. Fire, wind, water, and the color [red] are her signs. (Ibid.) This is Spirit-Sophia, the Third Person of the Trinity, commonly called “the Holy Spirit.”

Johnson continues with the Second Person of the Trinity: “God is God again as Jesus Christ, Sophia’s child and prophet, and yes, [Jesus is] Sophia herself personally pitching her tent in the flesh of humanity to teach [us] the paths of justice. The shape of the historical life of this crucified prophet, risen from the dead, reveals the shape of Holy Wisdom’s love for the world. It is a love that enters in and takes part, [a love] that revels at the feasting of outcasts in [an] inclusive table community, [a love] that suffers relegation to the margins of defeat by dominating power, [a love] that wins a new kind of advance [through] the great ‘nevertheless’ of the resurrection. What we can say is this: Sophia-God is irreversibly connected with [both] the joy and [the] anguish of human history, in the flesh; in the power of Spirit-Sophia Jesus now takes on a new communal identity as the risen Christ, the body of all those women and men who share in the transformation of the world through compassionate, delighting, and suffering love. In solidarity with his memory and empowered by the Same Spirit, the little flock [of Jesus’s followers] is configured into a sacrament of the world’s salvation, empowered to shape communities of freedom and solidarity.” (Ibid, pp. 213–214) This is Jesus-Sophia, the Second Person of the Trinity, commonly called the Son of God, or Savior—the one who dwelt among us from around 6 B.C. to around 30 A.D. and is now risen and wholly alive and present again.

And finally, here is Johnson, on the First Person of the Trinity: “God is God again as [the] unimaginable abyss of [being out of which all life rises], Holy Wisdom unknown and unknowable. She is the matrix of all that exists, mother and fashioner of all things, who herself dwells in light inaccessible. Without this still-point of the turning world there would be no dance …; without this silence there would be no music or word …; without this eclipse the rays of her fiery spirit would consume the world. What we can say is this: Holy Wisdom is a hidden God, absolute holy mystery. And [she] is an absolutely holy mystery of love, bent on the world’s healing and liberation through all of history’s reversals and defeats.… [She is] Unoriginate source, [she is] unknowable mother of all, she forever comes forth from hiddenness [in the form of] her distinct self-expressing Word[, which is to say,] Wisdom…” (Ibid, p. 214) This is Mother-Sophia, the First Person of the Trinity, whom many of us grew up calling “God the Father.”

Thus, Holy Wisdom is a female image for the whole of the “triune” God—for “[the eternal] Mother, her beloved Child, and the Spirit of their mutual love”; she is Wisdom’s transcendent Vitality, Wisdom’s immanent Word, and Wisdom’s radiating Energy. So, Mother-Sophia, Child-Sophia, and Spirit-Sophia; Wisdom’s Transcendent Depth, Wisdom’s Immanent Word, and Wisdom’s Radiating Energy. When spoken of in these ways, the symbol of the “triune” God is depicted in a female metaphor as “a threefold reality [that is] hidden in the fullness of her power, eternally uttering the distinct word of herself, and pouring forth her personal love.” (Ibid., p. 215)

So, People of God! Let us: “Laud and magnify God, the everlasting Wisdom, the holy, undivided … Trinity[, worthy of adoration].…” (Sayers, p. 114)

Let us pray: