Sermons : Old Testament Texts Every Christian Should Know: 8
By Anna Pinckney Straight on July 25, 2010 | News by the same author
8) "Trust and Understanding"
Proverbs
a sermon Preached for
University Presbyterian Church
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
by Anna Pinckney Straight
Today, rather than starting with our scripture reading, I thought we might start with a short Bible[1] quiz.
Which of the following quotes comes from the book of Proverbs?
A) I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when panic strikes you, (Proverbs 1:26)
B) Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise. (Proverbs 6:6)
C) Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who reverts to his folly. (Proverbs 26:11)
D) A friend loves at all times, and kinsfolk are born to share adversity. (Proverbs 17:17)
E) Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life. (Proverbs 16:31)
F) All of the above
G) None of the above
If you guessed F) All of the Above, you are right. They all come from the book of Proverbs.
Maybe this comes as a surprise to you. Maybe it does not. Either way, in our summer sermon series, “Old Testament Texts Every Christian Should Know,” the topic for this week was, simply, Proverbs. It was left to me to select one or a few to share with you today. But, this week, as I read and lived with these 31 chapters, selecting a few verses to share with you was easier said than done.
For Proverbs isn’t like Genesis or Exodus, containing some of the great narratives of our common story. There are some longer sections of Proverbs which are connected verse to verse, but mostly, Proverbs individual sayings, snippets, teachings, each one able to stand on its own. They are held together by their common focus, wisdom, offered up for our consideration and our learning.
There are sections like Proverbs3:13 – 18
13 Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding,
14 for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold.
15 She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.
16 Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor.
17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
18 She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy.
But mostly, Proverbs is more like what you find in 15:16 – 20.
16 ¶ Better is a little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble with it.
17¶ Better is a dinner of vegetables where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it.
18 ¶ Those who are hot-tempered stir up strife, but those who are slow to anger calm contention.
19 ¶ The way of the lazy is overgrown with thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway.
20 ¶ A wise child makes a glad father, but the foolish despise their mothers.
So what is the Book of Proverbs? Where did it come from and what does it mean?
In the chapter on Proverbs prepared for the New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Raymond Van Leeuwen writes[2]:
Every human needs wisdom for living, and every healthy society hands its wisdom on to the next generation. Proverbs is a literary anthology of Israel’s traditional wisdom, gathered from diverse spheres of life. The book’s purpose is to help people become wise and godly (1:2-7). Yet its writers were aware of a hermeneutical circle of living and reading, in which one needs godly wisdom to get wisdom (2P1-6, 8:9). The book’s entry into this circle of life and learning is generational. In traditional oral cultures, mothers and fathers, teachers and leaders pass on their own life experience and ancestral wisdom to their “children,” both real and figurative (1:8, 4:3-4, 6:20, 31:1). Proverbs is a literary gathering of such diverse wisdom. Its readers are invited to walk the path of wisdom and “the fear of the Lord.”
Proverbs. 31 chapters, 915 verses.
Its authorship is credited, Chapter 1, verse 1, to Solomon. That makes sense, because Solomon was considered to be the wisest of the kings, but this is more likely smart attribution than literary fact. For similarly to they way that Moses is credited with writing a book that contains an account of his own funeral, so there are proverbs which reference other eras, other kings, and other authors within.
Who wrote Proverbs? The truth is, more than just about any other book in the Bible, we don’t know. And it is likely more than one author, and more than one tradition, culture, and era that have contributed to this text that was likely begun in the 6th century BCE and completed within 50 years of the birth of Christ.
Who writes the things that we say and believe and accept as common wisdom, common knowledge?
Consider these words: “Better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”
Who wrote them? These words have been credited to Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, and
others[3] . And maybe they did write them and say them. But did they create them?
Or did they take them from Proverbs 17:28 “Even fools who keep silent are considered wise; when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent.”
Who said that? Who wrote that? Do they have one author? One source? The Book of Proverbs isn’t about the wisdom of an author, it is about all of the ways in which wisdom with a little “w” points to Wisdom with a capital “W”
The book of Proverbs is for the ordinary of days. Proverb after proverb, page after page, it invites us into an ancient and ongoing conversation about what is good and wise and true in life. How can we discern right from wrong in a world of fiercely competing claims? What values do we treasure and why? What makes for strong families and just communities? What characterizes a good neighbor, loving partner, or trusted friend? How do we understand money, the role of integrity, and the power of speech? And how do we teach it all to our children?
The book of Proverbs is for the ordinary of days.
And that’s how I have encountered Proverbs. As the place where the rubber hits the road on the journey of faith.
Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”
This verse entered my life not through a Bible study, sermon, or Sunday School class, but through a t-shirt. A t-shirt my mother saw sometime early in 1991 when she was in line at the Harris Teeter, buying groceries before going to get an MRI as a part of the diagnostic process for her first dance with breast cancer. My mother has claustrophobic tendencies, and as she stood in line at the Harris Teeter she was trying to think of where she could go or what she could do to get OUT of having that MRI, when she saw those words from Proverbs on the t-shirt of the woman in line in front of her.
Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”
These words became her mantra. Her breath prayer. That verse carried her through the MRI, the months ahead, and much more that was to come.
Because it was important to her, it was important to me, too, and so for Christmas the next year I had one of her favorite artists, Nancy Wilds, create an illuminated manuscript of those words.[5]
Two years later, in honor of my graduation from Agnes Scott College, as I prepared to enter seminary in New York City, my mother had the second half of that couplet made into another illuminated manuscript to hang on my wall.[6]
Proverbs 3:6 “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make your path straight.”[7]
That was seventeen years ago, and what you should probably know about me from that time in my life was that I had a plan. A definite plan.
Seminary. Solo Pastor. Small Town. I knew that’s where God wanted me to go, and I also knew that given what I was going to be doing and where I was going to be do it, dating, marriage, and children were not likely to be in my future. And I was okay with that. I didn’t think that was to be, and so I embraced what I did see and think God was calling me to be, a radical rural feminist preacher. My name was Anna Pinckney Crotts.
So, “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make your path straight .” went up on the wall and I didn’t think too much about it. I was too busy being that pastor in West Virginia.
Even though I walked past it ever day, I didn’t pay too much attention to it, until one day when I walked past it and stopped. And read. And actually paid attention.
One day. About seven years ago. I was no longer single, but married and pregnant. Still feminist, but no longer rural. And no longer Anna Pinckney Crotts. I had become, three years before, Anna Pinckney Straight.
“In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make your path straight .”
For my mom, it was the deep rootedness of the verse that had given it its place in her life. For me, this truth was in its place for quite some time before I learned to recognize it.
I had to learn the hard way what it says in Proverbs 16: 9 “The human mind plans the way, but the LORD directs the steps.” God did call me to West Virginia, but God’s plans for my life didn’t end there. God was still walking and asking me to follow.
So it is with Proverbs. If you go and spend some time there, you will find some proverbs that will seem like old friends. Other will be new acquaintances. Still others will be verses we aren’t sure we want to welcome.
They all have something to teach us. Even the ones that we do not understand and we may not want to invite into our hearts.
Not all of Proverbs is Trust and Understanding.
There are large portions of Proverbs which describe women as accessories, impediments, or rewards.
Proverbs contains many references which not only allow for parents physically striking their children in the name of disciples, they encourage such behavior.
Proverbs 11: 22 Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without good sense.
Proverbs 12:4 A good wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.
Proverbs 23:13 Do not withhold discipline from your children; if you beat them with a rod, they will not die.
But ,like last week, with Psalm 139, we can’t read only the fun parts of Proverbs, the affirming parts, and leave the unpleasant parts alone.
We must engage them too, and consider them, as is our reformed way[8], in light of the entire Bible, and even Proverbs itself.
For alongside the passages about disciplining children, we must also here these words:
Pr 10:11 ¶ The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
Pr 24:1 ¶ Do not envy the wicked, nor desire to be with them; 2 for their minds devise violence, and their lips talk of mischief.
And wisdom? In Proverbs Wisdom is described as a woman, and the foundation for many of our references to God as female come from Proverbs.
Proverbs 8:2 ¶ The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. 23 Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
This context does not take away the hurt or destruction wrought by violence, towards women and children, something we should and do find to be contrary to the will of God, but it does help us place it in a proper perspective, and to know that violence, in Proverbs and in the Bible, does not have the last word.
Christine Yoder reminds us that it is important for us to consider Proverbs as a whole[9]:
It is significant, I think, that a book devoted to teaching wisdom, which takes up such everyday matters as relationships, faith, business, money, sex, and alcohol, does so not with a series of recommended “to-do lists,” innovative strategies, slogans, or clichés, but with poetry exquisite, crafted speech that has been polished and pertinent for centuries. Perhaps the sages appreciate the power of poetry to illumine the crags and crevices of the human situation, to convey honestly and gracefully its ambiguities and wonder, and, as a result, to be remembered.
The Book of Proverbs reminds us of many things we already know. We are supposed to seek God and God’s way. We are created to keep our vows, to be loyal and true to relationships, to honor the love that created us all, whether we are rich or poor (Proverbs 22:2), and we are to care for one another. Life is rarely consistent, and no one proverb will be relevant in all situations.
Proverbs 27:14 Whoever blesses a neighbor with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing.
Proverbs 14:31 Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him.
Proverbs 18:24 Some friends play at friendship but a true friend sticks closer than one's nearest kin.
Proverbs 18: 2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion.
Proverbs 29:8 Scoffers set a city aflame, but the wise turn away wrath.[10]
The Book of Proverbs is a reminder. It is also a challenge. What blind spots do we have? Where are we participants in a violence that does not carry God’s name? Where do we seek profit over wisdom, production over faith?
Proverbs, finally, invites us. Invites us to a new way. Invites us to let go of human expectation and limitation and embrace a wisdom that is greater than words on the page. God’s Wisdom.
And that is our prayer, is it not?
Lord, use our minds, we pray. Use our bodies. Use our understanding. Send us Your wisdom, and direct our steps.
The Book of Proverbs.
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
[1] Unless noted, all Bible quotes come from the New Revised Standard Version.
[2] Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” in New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, , Volume V (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997), page 19,
[3] http://ask.yahoo.com/20010115.html
[4] Christine Roy Yoder, Proverbs, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009), page xxi.
[5] Nancy Wilds Art, Aiken, South Carolina
[6] To show you what age can do to the mind, at the 8:30 service I mixed up the years and preached that it was a gift in honor of my graduation from seminary.
On 7/25 both of these illustrations/manuscripts (pictured on page 1) were on the retable of the sanctuary at UPC.
[7] The NRSV translation of Proverbs 3:5 - 6
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.
In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
I’m not sure what translation is the basis for the verses as we have come to know them in our family.
[8] Page 12 of “Presbyterian Use and Understanding of Holy Scripture,” published by the Office of the General Assembly, 1999. http://oga.pcusa.org/publications/scripture-use.pdf
The observance of this principle involves searching the whole of Scripture for all texts bearing on the question under consideration and using particular texts or groups of texts in the light of the whole. Identifying all the texts relevant to an issue under consideration is both a topical and theological matter. Thus all the particular texts in which the question is explicitly addressed are to be used. However, the general witness of Scripture to the larger theme or subject of which the particular question is a part should be employed to determine the right use of texts that explicitly address the question. Thus texts should not be selected arbitrarily to support a position in disregard of other texts that qualify or contradict the position; neither should one text or group of texts be used to authorize a theological decision without consideration of their relation to the whole of Scripture and its unfolding movement.
[9] Christine Roy Yoder, Proverbs, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009), page xxvi.
[10] If you didn’t hear it and haven’t read it, you should….
OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS EVERY CHRISTIAN SHOULD KNOW: 5. NO SCOFFING!
Psalm 1, A Sermon by Robert E. Dunham, University Presbyterian Church, July 4, 2010. http://www.upcch.org/modules/tinycontent0/index.php?id=268
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