Text: Proverbs 8:1-4; 22-31
Speaker: Joel Miller
Good morning. Happy new year. Happy Epiphany. ‘Tis the season….for movie prequels.
As the name suggests, a prequel is the story before the story, at least in the imagination of a group of writers who usually did not write the original story. The prequel is the younger sibling of the sequel. Prequels give a backstory on popular characters. It’s how Annakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. How Cruella de Vil met her accomplices and got her thing for Dalmatian-themed fashion. It’s how the young Coriolanus Snow rose to power and remade the Hunger Games. It’s how Mufasa became King of the Pride Lands. It’s how the Wicked Witch of the West, in this telling, had wickedness thrust on her by a weak Wizard of Oz in need of an enemy.
A good prequel is full of little aha moments in which the elements of the story you already know get placed on the stage, one by one, in ways you hadn’t previously imagined. A good prequel adds depth and texture to that original story.
The cynical side of me, and this is admittedly my main attitude these days toward much of pop culture –the cynical side of me is pretty sure Hollywood has no new ideas, so they bank on old stories, or franchises as they’re called, to milk past success for all its worth. As Ecclesiastes prophesied about studio films: “There’s nothing new under the sun.” I’m eagerly waiting for all live-action prequels to be re-released in their cartoon versions.
Be that as it may, there’s something kind of intriguing about the most recent telling of a story being set before the older story. There’s something enchanting about a story we know, a familiar story, gaining new meaning through a pre-story.
I’m not sure if the editors of Proverbs thought of themselves as a prequel writing team, but this is effectively what they’ve done in chapter 8:
The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth (vv. 22-23).
These are the words of Wisdom, spoken in the first person, the narrator of her own story. She is speaking to those who have heard the creation accounts of Genesis. Her audience knows the familiar story of the visible world coming into being in seven poetic stanzas, seven days. Hers is a story, told later, about something before the opening chapters of scripture, before existence itself. In case we don’t get the picture, Wisdom continues, referencing the imagery of Genesis:
When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth – when he had not yet made earth and the fields, or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there (vv. 24-27).
It’s not quite as dramatic as Episodes 1, 2, and 3 setting the stage for A New Hope in the Star Wars universe, but it is a full-blown, pre-creation, pre-modern prequel.
For everyone familiar with the old, original story, the one about God creating the world by declaring “Let there be light,” this introduces a new character into the drama, one we hadn’t been aware of before. Just behind the veil of the material world, even as it is busting into being, is a reality known simply as Wisdom.
And what is Wisdom doing? What does she add to the story?
Proverbs 8:29-31 – When God marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily God’s delight, and rejoicing before God always, rejoicing in the inhabited world and delighting in the human race.
Interestingly “master worker,” can also be translated as “a little child.”
What is Wisdom doing? She’s working, she’s playing. Wisdom rejoices. Wisdom delights.
Taking a step back, the portions of the Hebrew Bible that focus on Wisdom are relative late-comers on the scene. These writings are thought to be post-exilic, meaning they were written after the Judeans returned to Jerusalem, after their exile in Babylon. Along with Proverbs – Job, the Song of Songs, and the already-mentioned, always-cheery Ecclesiastes are considered biblical wisdom literature.
And there are plenty of wisdom writings that didn’t make it into the Bible. The book of Sirach includes Wisdom again speaking for herself :
Before the ages, in the beginning, God created me, and for all ages I shall not cease to be (24:9).
In the Wisdom of Solomon, the author, who definitely wasn’t Solomon, looks back on the history of Israel, imagining Wisdom as a primary actor in each episode: All the way from Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Sarah, through Moses and the wilderness, into the land of Canaan. In retrospect, Wisdom was the main character all along. Wisdom, this author claims:
is more mobile than any motion; because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things….Although she is but one, she can do all things, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God and prophets.
These words are certainly Bible-worthy, but they, like Sirach, were written too late, in Greek and not Hebrew, so they missed the cut. Instead they’re part of the collection known as the Apocrypha.
What’s important to know here is that at the end of the Old Testament period, and beyond, there is this flowering of writings about Wisdom. And why not? After encounters with the Babylonian world, then the Persians, then the Greeks, Jews would have encountered whole new thought systems. Their sages would have recognized the good in each and sought to incorporate these insights into their own tradition. This Wisdom, not confined to any single tradition or location, more mobile than any motion, penetrating and pervading all things, wasn’t just a new discovery, a novelty. It was, they came to believe, the oldest, most original thing ever. It was the source of everything, as if Wisdom was the first of God’s creations, all things coming into being through her. Wisdom is the story before the story.
In what is now our Old Testament, it’s the most recent material, set before the older parts of the story. It’s a pre-story that gives the story we thought we knew new life and meaning.
Although she is but one, she can do all things, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God and prophets.
What if, as the Jewish sages, the Greek philosophers, and some very intelligent contemporary philosophers of mind suggest, the material world, the visible world, is preceded by consciousness, intentionality, and Wisdom. What if there is this creative force at work, and at play, among us and within us? What if this is more than just religious poetry? What if everywhere we looked, within every encounter we have, there is the presence of Wisdom, which is and always has been the prequel to our own story?
Hypothetically speaking, if this were the case, what might this mean for us?
Well for starters, we could relax a little bit. Yeah, we could relax, relax into Wisdom.
Maybe you’ve noticed that ours is a highly individualized culture. Each person is encouraged to have a self-created, highly curated persona. We could even say each person is their own brand, and their own marketing department. Do you feel this a little bit? Essentially, we’re each an actor playing ourselves in the movie of our lives. Or at least the self we think we should be. Or more frequently, the self we think others think we should be – whatever script the cultural writing team hands us. And that gets a little tiring and confusing and frustrating and unfulfilling.
But then along comes this prequel that tells a different part of the story. An older part. A part that gives new meaning to the story we thought we knew. In the prequel, we are a minor character. We’re in there, but it’s about way more than just us. It’s about everyone. It’s about everything. The main character is Wisdom. Wisdom was around long before us. Before anything. Wisdom is the source of everything. It’s what holds the story together. Wisdom is all over the place. It’s mobile. It’s everywhere.
Wisdom isn’t just a work horse. Wisdom is playful. Wisdom rejoices and delights and is just generally pretty pumped about this thing called existence that she helps happen. Wisdom is the main character in this story and we are important but minor characters.
Nothing in existence is self-created. Not even those lonely 21st century humans. Everything and everyone is Wisdom-created. And we, like Wisdom, have the remarkable capacity to remain in ourselves, and renew – maybe not all things – but at least be part of the renewal of things around us. That’s what Wisdom is doing in this story. And that’s our story, or at least the prequel to our story.
Is it possible or even good to relax into this when the world is on fire? There’s much to do and not much time to do it. Well, relaxing into Wisdom might be the only way for us to be of much use in such a world – less anxious, more grounded in an old story.
Wisdom isn’t just some abstract, philosophical, theological idea. It’s actually creating us. The wisdom of ancestors that gets passed down creates us. The wisdom of the plant and animal world sustains our bodies and delights our minds. The wisdom of community creates and fulfills us.
These next few weeks we’re going to be talking about, thinking about, singing about Wisdom. That’s how we’re starting the new year. Wisdom is an old presence. Older than dirt, Proverbs says, more or less. And we’re pretty new at all this. Wisdom is a gift from God, and it’s everywhere. It’s right here, delighting in you, and us. It’s already creating the next set of possibilities. Thanks be to God.
