... to be Ignorant

“It pays to be ignorant, to be dense, to be dumb, to be ignorant. It pays to be ignorant just like me.” Humor changes but ignorance reigns eternally supreme, ignorance and folly. Episodes are available online of “It Pays To Be Ignorant” - an evening radio show of the nineteen-forties to fifties. The vaudeville style humor was a favorite, lying on the living room floor before the tall radio

that was then as much the centerpiece of family life as the television set is today.

It does pay to be ignorant, witness our heroes in Congress, which God help us says even more about our ignorance than his/theirs. Ignorance is unsatisfying though, so I try to keep it at bay at least in areas that interest me, including noticing what people think who differ greatly from me. I have a friend whose politics could hardly be farther out from mine, but who is sharper, quicker and wittier than I, and in whom I appreciate that everyone who differs from me is not a dimbulb. A devotional article of an evangelical fundamentalist bent waits for me daily in the email: I don’t always read it, but the writers are scholars in Hebrew and Greek; and Folly, who is the foe throughout the Book of Proverbs, includes knowingly being ignorant and unappreciative of what other people know and think; so I scan the title and click to open if it’s intriguing, as is this morning’s.

The writer attributes the personified Wisdom figure of Proverbs 8:22f to Jesus Christ. That’s often legitimate. Lots of folks, including the Gospel evangelists, especially Matthew, find Jesus throughout the Old Testament. But seeing the OT as ancient Hebrew understanding of the relationship between Adonai Elohim and his people Israel, I don’t necessarily agree, and often scoff, yet try to scoff knowledgeably, not in ignorance. So, check out this morning’s attribution of Wisdom as Word, Sophia as Logos.

Proverbs 8:22 and following.

At the very first step, this morning's proposition fails. Wisdom says, “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.” (8:22 NRSV). “Created”?! Heresy, Arianism. Maybe the translation is bad, check another. “Yahweh possessed me -- the beginning of His way, Before His works since then. From the age I was anointed, from the first, From former states of the earth. (8:22,23 YLT). Seems better, especially “anointed” in verse 23, “anointed” is messiah, christ, is that you, Jesus? Check my Hebrew English interlinear. It’s not messiah, it says nekthi, “I was inaugurated from the beginning.” That won’t work, it has a starting point, draws a line at the beginning, what about before the beginning, from all eternity? How about the NRSV “created” though? The Hebrew is קָנָנִי qnni, “he (Yahweh) acquired me.” That won’t work either, it means there was a time before the acquisition, a time before which he didn’t have me, “there was a time when he was not,” the ancient slogan of Arian heresy. Nevertheless, look at the context of Proverbs 8:22f. It says that I חָכְמָה chkme, wisdom was present in the creation; but wisdom does not claim to have been an active participant in the creation. The active participant was Logos, Word, “God said.” Wisdom may have been in seeing that it was good, but Wisdom, Sophia, is not "saying," wisdom is not doing, wisdom is not making it so. Word alone makes so, Sophia sees. Understands -- appraises.

Thirty years ago, summer 1993, as part of the decade long World Council of Churches focus on women and women’s ministry, a feminist assembly of Presbyterian, Methodist and Episcopal women gathered in Brazil for what was called variously “reimaging” or “reimagining” -- it still isn’t clear which, but “reimaging” sticks in my mind from my memory of the event as a parish priest at the time. I was directly involved and affected, having helped pay for the travel, lodging and board of a lovely young girl in my parish, committing to giving her my sermon time to brief our congregation the Sunday after she returned from Brazil. At the conference they reimagined, reimaged, renamed God “Sophia,” celebrated a milk and honey Eucharist; pointedly (not to say “hostilely” though I recall that it was that) deliberately avoided any mention of the Son throughout the conference. Stunned, I felt blindsided by the briefing that was given from my pulpit. Churchwide, the outrage cost several feminist clergy and laity their positions in Methodist and Presbyterian churches.

Summer 1994, do you remember it, Tass? You would have been home, just graduated from R-MWC. We probably would have seen opposite sides.

Though my view of the feminist movement is different now two decades later, my response is still that there is no human authority to rename Yahweh [Exodus 3:14f, God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations] God who named God’s self. No authority to rename Yahweh “Sophia,” and unorthodox heresy to equate the created Wisdom of Proverbs 32 with the Word of Genesis 1, the Eternal Logos of John 1.

The learned author of my fundamentalist evangelical morning email devotional is, at least this once, dead wrong.

TW+