Tag: Proverbs 8

Knowing God

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Biblical Text: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

The Sunday is Trinity Sunday, so we recite the Athanasian Creed and the theme of the Sunday is possibly the hardest one in the church year. If you want to know someone what a wise person would do is say look at what they do. And most Sundays follow that advice. We preach about God by what he has done for us or through his saints. But Trinity Sunday tends to be more philosophical, addressing the desire to know God in himself, or in the interior life. That is the normally the realm of the mystic. The rest of us are given solid words in the creeds. But this sermon – thinks about a few places where God has revealed his own inner life. First, God does wish to be known. Folly beckons you into the dark and secret places, but wisdom cries out from the hills, the crossroads, the gates. Wisdom can be found wherever you are. And wisdom is a reliable narrator. The relationship between Father and Son – between God and Wisdom in Proverbs – is this cycle like breathing of delight and rejoicing. And it is that interior life – of delight and rejoicing – through Christ that we are invited to take part in. Our humanity in Christ has been taken into God. Christ delights in the Children of Men, and we return in rejoicing.

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A Wise Son

052216wordle

Biblical Text: Proverbs 8
Full Sermon Draft

This was Trinity Sunday. Traditionally it is the Sunday we bring out the Athanasian Creed. The creeds in general but that creed in particular are statements of doctrine. Also, Trinity or Triune is not a word found in the scriptures, but a church word, a doctrinal word. For that reason, Trinity Sunday is a day to talk a bit about doctrine. We live in a time where the most successful churches, judged by the criteria of numbers, tend to eschew doctrine if not run fleeing from the word. “Deeds, not creeds” is a phrase for a purpose. But historically, and by historically I mean for 1,950 years, the church was a doctrinal body. Doctrine united. It produced creeds and confessions. It argued and debated and sometimes went further over doctrine. You can’t read Paul’s letters or even the Sermon on the Mount and not understand the deeds of Christ and the apostles driven by their creeds.

What this sermon attempts to do is correct the false understanding of doctrine that I think drives much of it becoming a pejorative word. When you picture doctrine and the voice of Mother church, as the voice of Lady Wisdom calling, you get a better idea. It is not a club to end seeking. Doctrine is an invitation to faith. It is an invitation to seek understanding. Armed with that understanding, the wise son when Mom says “because I said so” responds not with sullen anger but “what am I missing?” The person who loves you most is asking “walk with me, even if you don’t quite understand.” The wise son walks with and seeks that understanding.

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