A part of me
wishes the 8th chapter of the Book of Proverbs was the first chapter
in the bible. Don’t get me wrong, I like
Genesis 1, with its story of creation in six days, and I like Genesis 2, with
its description of how the first man and woman came to be, but these two
chapters – too often taken literally – now function in a way that puts faith needlessly
at odds with science. A study done two
years ago reported 42% of people in our country hold to a “creationist”
perspective; believing God created everything more or less the way it is “described”
“in the bible” approximately 10,000 years ago.
50% believe in some method of divine creative activity in and through
the evolutionary process while the smallest minority (which is also the fastest
growing) holds to a strictly secular understanding of evolution without divine
involvement.
William Brown, a
Columbia University professor, wrote a book in 2010 titled The Seven Pillars
of Creation. In it he articulates a unique challenge to those who believe
creation came about “just the way it says in the bible” by examining not one,
not two, but seven different creation stories in the Old Testament: Genesis 1,
Genesis 2, Job 38-41, Psalm 104, passages in Isaiah 40-55, passages from
Ecclesiastes, and today’s reading from Proverbs. His examination leads to the conclusion these
different accounts cannot be homogenized into one, single, comprehensive
“biblical” story of creation. To speak
of “the story of creation” is to point to just one account, perhaps try
to melt it in with another, while ignoring the testimony of the rest. It is an approach which is selective at best
and ignores the richness of the bible’s divergent views. Brown wants to help his readers explore what
the bible says about creation so we can engage science and faith in ways that
are constructive rather than confrontational.
Today’s reading
from Proverbs names God’s Spirit as ‘Wisdom’; personifying it and giving it a
feminine identity: “Wisdom… she cries out.”
She, Wisdom, is present with God throughout the acts of creation as boundaries
are established, limits are set, and order wisely infused into all there
is. It is a story about meaning in sharp
contrast to another popular understanding at the time promoted through
Babylonian stories and beliefs. Their
mythology imagined creation as a chaotic struggle between competing gods. Their skirmishes spill over into the human
realm, making our life unpredictable, placing us in constant flux, and
consigning us as pawns to merciless whims beyond our control. The Proverbs account describes life as being
the product of an intentional and unified force. Its members delight in each other and in what
has been created. Far from being
removed, Wisdom herself is in the “inhabited world.” Proverbs teaches there is a harmony and
goodness to creation and invites us to live into its joy.
Few if any people
today hold to anything like the Babylonian view. We are more likely to encounter the
nihilistic perspective: those who reject religion and believe life is meaningless. Nihilism is not science. It is a belief like all other beliefs. It cannot be proved scientifically to be a
better or a worse belief than the Babylonian myths or the teachings of
Proverbs. The question is not which view
is the “right” one, but rather what are the implications and consequences of
each perspective. What fruit does each
produce in its adherents? Does it help
or hinder them from living in accordance with the way things seem to be.
I wonder what our
society’s conversations about science and belief might look like if Proverbs 8
was the first chapter in the bible, rather than being buried somewhere deep in
the middle.
Proverbs 8:30, as
we heard it this morning, reads,
“When he [God]
marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I [Wisdom] was beside him, like a
master worker.”
One possible
meaning of the Hebrew word ‘aman is
‘skilled worker’ or ‘architect’. It
makes sense here. God has stitched
together all of creation with a sense of wisdom and coherence. There is order and predictability. The best way to live in this world is to
understand its wisdom and order your life accordingly. To live at odds with how the Great Architect
has created things to be is to be out of sorts.
Sin is more than just wrong.
Ultimately it makes life miserable because it is not the way things are
supposed to be. You reap the
consequences of what you sow, for good or for ill. This is just one of the meanings we can
deduce about life as it is presented in the Proverbs 8 story of creation.
But allow me to
introduce a little hiccup. In addition
to ‘skilled worker’, that very same Hebrew word can mean ‘little child’ and
ancient manuscripts are split about 50-50 as to which is the intended
translation.
“When he [God]
marked out the foundations of the earth.
then I [Wisdom] was beside him, like a little
child.”
This alternative does not seem to make as much sense as the first
possibility, but look at the verses that follow it:
“I [Wisdom] was daily [God’s] delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.”
In my experience workers work and little
children delight in things. These verses
spawn in my mind the image of a little girl marveling at a doll house her
father is making for her; pure delight, fascination, and joy. One scholar suggests the passage portrays “the image of a
giggling, joyful, little girl who laughs when God shows her God’s new creations
-- the hilarious giraffe and hippopotamus, the monkeys and busy little ants.” And the greatest joy and wonderment of all
comes from us human beings. We are the
most amazing act of God’s creation and we have the potential to “delight” God
in and through the things we do.
Given this alternative interpretation,
the Proverbs 8 story of creation invites us to see the goodness, joy, and
wonder infused in and throughout creation.
It invites us to live with delight and to treat ourselves and others in
a way that is delightful. Terrence
Fretheim, an Old Testament scholar, holds “that pleasure and playfulness are
built into the very structure of things.” Far from what many people assume to be true
about religion – namely it exists to tell us all the things we are not allowed
to do – “Wisdom opens up the world rather than closes it down.”
I don’t believe the images of Wisdom as an architect and as a little
child are mutually exclusive. Perhaps
the writer of the passage intentionally crafted this ambiguity into the text so
we might see both and recognize how each image expresses an important
truth. Either way, it is a refreshing
change from the typical questions about “the story of creation” in the bible:
Gone are these:
Did God really create the world in six days?
Were Adam and Eve really the first humans?
How do I reconcile what the bible ‘teaches’ about
creation with what my brain tells me is true?
In are these:
How should I respond to the wise ordering sewn into
the fabric of creation?
What does it look like to delight in God’s creative
work?
This would be the conversation inspired
by the first chapter of the bible if I was in charge.
