The readings are (to read them, click on each link below or go HERE):
So I have to tell you a story about our first reading today, from Proverbs. It’s a famous passage: “A capable wife who can find?” And then it goes on to describe the traits of just such a wife.
This reading, like all our readings, is given to us by the lectionary, the system we use for knowing what to read on Sunday and to help us cover a good part of the Bible in our worship. Because the lectionary is a three-year cycle, we last heard these readings in 2018 and before that in 2015.
Well, back in 2015 I had been here for only a year, and when this reading about a capable wife showed up I wondered how it would be taken. In fact, the other day I looked at what I preached back six years ago and discovered that I had an optional few sentences in my sermon saying that maybe this passage would be controversial. I was coming from the States, where I could think of many women who would not like this passage.
But then, six years ago, it came time for Sunday morning. And I remember being at worship at one of our churches — I won’t say which one — and a woman in the church stood up to read. She stood at the lectern and she read out the passage proudly, and she gave a look to her husband like, “Mind you, buddy, take note that you are married to a capable wife.”
It was eye-opening for me, about the social differences between the United States and where we live in Ireland, because this passage about a capable wife was taken in completely different ways in the two places. But I’ll leave that aside and just say that the experience made me look at this passage all over again.
And as I read it now, I am inspired by it and think, yes, it’s a grand description and yes, I would like to fit this description myself. The capable wife is trustworthy, she is a support to her husband, she can work with her hands to create useful and beautiful things, she cares for those in need, she has a good business sense, and she is known by her strength, dignity, wisdom, kindness, and happiness.
But let’s think about it: one could write such a passage for any role in life. A capable husband who can find? And what would we say? What would be the description? Or a capable parent, or farmer, or priest, or doctor, or nurse, or teacher, or shopkeeper? For any role that you fill, if it is a true and honourable role, could you write a description of the ideal of such a person? I certainly think on a regular basis about what makes for an ideal priest. What would be the ideal of the role you fill?
I’m going to suggest something that needs to be part of such a description. No matter what the role, the description needs to include wisdom. We have been hearing about wisdom for a number of weeks now, as we read from the Book of Proverbs. Wisdom includes a love of the Lord, and knowing and respecting one’s place in relation to God. You can hear this in the passage about the capable wife. It says at the end,
“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain” —
charm and beauty being two traits by which women might be known —
“but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”
No matter what one’s role in life, we have to know that if it is an honourable role, God has given it to us, that we need God’s help to fill it, and that to fill it well, and to be true to God, we have to have wisdom. Wisdom comes from God, and as the Letter of James tells us, wisdom is “pure, … peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”
I learned recently that in our current times, these traits are not always viewed positively. I was reading a book review in an Irish newspaper of a parenting book written by a young woman with two children. She noticed that many people in today’s world are, basically, jerks. I won’t use the word she did, and that she includes in her book title, because I know there are some who would not appreciate hearing it from a church pulpit. So she was trying to figure out how to bring up children so that they don’t turn into arrogant jerks.
But she found that many other parents did not agree with her. These other parents thought that if their children were peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and kindness, that they would just be taken advantage of (I think the Irish term is being a mug), and that they would not go far in life — meaning they would not make as much money — as though that is what is important? But evenso, the book’s author quoted studies showing that those who are taught kindness and being at peace with others actually were doing better in life by their early 20s than those who had become arrogant jerks. And they were happier.
James writes in his letter, “Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.” Envy and ambition and boasting and conflicts and cravings are not of wisdom; they are not of God. Being an arrogant jerk does not make for wisdom.
It also does not make for happiness. Proverbs says of the capable wife,
“Her children rise up and call her happy;
her husband too, and he praises her.”
And when we hear the whole passage, it comes across that this wise and capable woman is happy. She seems to take pleasure in her duties; she accomplishes her deeds in peace and with lovingkindness.
The Psalm says that the same is true for all who are wise. Whether one is a wife, a husband, a a parent, a farmer, a priest, a doctor or nurse, a shopkeeper or teacher — whatever role one fills — one’s delight is in the law of the Lord. One’s delight is in God, who gave us the role to begin with and will give us the strength and the gifts and the ability to fill it. The psalm starts off, “Blessed are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked.” The word here that says “Blessed” could also be translated as “Happy.”
Think about it. To be blessed — to follow in the way of God, to accept God’s grace and guidance — is also to be happy. Isn’t that what we all want? Isn’t happiness what we want for our children? Then follow in the ways of God, no matter what our role in life. Listen to Christ as the source of all wisdom. Know that all we have and all we do come from God.
I close with the Collect for today, one that asks for God’s blessing and guidance in all that we do:
O Lord,
Hear the prayers of your people who call upon you;
and grant that they may both perceive and know
what things they ought to do,
and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil them;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.