September 20, 2015
Wise Women
- Proverbs 31:10-31
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
Her name was Louise. She had deep set blue eyes and pretty brown hair. She grew up in the town of Shelbyville, Indiana, just a hop, skip and a jump south of Indianapolis. Her mother had bipolar disorder and was institutionalized for decades in Madison, Indiana. One time she locked Louise in a closet for hours to punish her. But Louise was resilient. Her father’s side of the family helped take care of her and encouraged her and she even graduated from college. She was a medical researcher. She was an elementary school teacher. She raised four children. During the depression when men would knock on the back door she would always give them something to eat – even though they didn’t have much either. I remember her darning my grandfather’s socks. She was an excellent bridge player. She loved to drink Old Fashions. She would lovingly cook dinner for Mark and me after we were first married and the portions were so small we would stop at McDonald’s on the way home for a hamburger. She died one day after meeting her first great-granddaughter – our daughter Hadley. I remember her as kind and generous, and hardworking. She opened her hand to the poor, and reached out her hands to the needy.
Her name was Lillian. She was born on the island of Bornholm off the coast of Denmark. Her family emigrated to the United Stated and settled in the Germantown part of Philadelphia. She had 3 older brothers. Her father was a carpenter and we have one of his hand made chairs in our house. Her mother never adjusted to life in American and died when Lillian was 16 years old. Her brother died a year later. Her late teen years were pretty wild. She almost got arrested in a speakeasy but escaped through the bathroom window. She got married at 19 and had her first child, my father, 9 months and 3 days later. She helped her husband run his business and continued to be active in the business when she was widowed at 50. She took me on trips – to Denmark and London and Disneyland. When I would spend the night with her she would scratch my back with her long and immaculately manicured fingernails. She had a great laugh and a positive outlook on life. She loved to drink beer – Miller Highlight to be exact. She hated to cook. I remember her as full of life and fun to be around and I adored her and she adored me. She died when I was pregnant with our youngest daughter Emma. Strength and dignity were her clothing and she laughed at the time to come.
Her name was Martha. She and her twin sister Mary were the youngest of 8 children. She lived up to her biblical name. If Jesus had come to visit she would have provided the food and hospitality and her sister Mary would have sat at Jesus’ feet. She was an excellent student, but her father didn’t believe girls should go to college so she went to work right after high school. She got married and raised 3 boys pretty much on her own because her husband was a truck driver and gone during the week. One year for Easter she made matching sport jackets for her 3 sons. She got up every morning and cooked the boys a hot breakfast – gagging the whole time because food in the morning made her nauseous. She went back to work when her youngest son started 1st grade and she was Lakeland High School’s secretary for the next 30 years. She knew all the kids’ names, she knew when they were having trouble at home and she cut them some slack if they came in late. She loved to drink coffee. She made beautiful doll clothes for her granddaughters’ American Girl dolls. I remember her quick wit and how much she loved her five grandchildren. She was a wonderful and supportive mother in law. She died when Emma was 5. Since her husband had an early morning milk route, she would rise while it was still night and provide food for her household. She was an introvert, but when she opened her mouth she had wise advice and the teaching of kindness was on her tongue.
Her name is Charlotte. She is the oldest of 4 children and likes being the matriarch of her family. She got her nursing degree from IU and used those skills in a hospital, as a visiting nurse and as a director of an older adult day center. She made my Chatty Cathy doll and I matching outfits when I went to kindergarten. She sewed my Halloween customs every year until I got to cool for that. She got her BS degree in sociology when she was in her 50’s. She helped her husband in his business and took care of the books. She was an excellent cook – best friend chicken I have ever had. But the worst egg foo young! She kept an immaculate home and encouraged me to be my best self. She drove me to cello lessons every week, encouraged my brother in all his eccentric hobbies, allowed my father to have season tickets to the Eagle’s games with his guy friends, and entertained beautifully. She used to love to drink Southern Comfort, but now it is just a beer or a glass or wine now and then. She is intelligent, caring, aware of others struggles, and thinks her grandchildren are the best ever. She was a capable wife and looked well to the ways of her household and she has never eaten the bread of idleness.
My two grandmothers, my mother in law and my mother. And of course I could add scores of other wise and strong and capable women – my daughters, my pastoral colleagues like Teri, the women in the Tuesday morning bible study and of course all the women for whom I have read the Proverbs 31 passage at their funerals. I see many wise women and men in the pews in front of me and I am blessed and grateful for your examples of what it means to live a wise and God-centered life.
The capable wife in Proverbs is more accurately translated as a “women of strength.” Just like in most of Proverbs, wisdom is personified as a woman – sorry guys – and she is a person of integrity, energy, industry, creativity, and compassion. The sustaining good news that is embedded in this passage are values for our lives, our minds, our bodies, our souls: – trust and integrity in personal relationships, sacrifice, going the extra mile, providing for our children, opening our hands to the poor, doing whatever needs to be done – and doing it with a sense of humor, because really, what is the alternative?
And while this passage sounds patriarchal to our more modern ears and hopefully enlightened lives, we have to remember that when Proverbs was written women were property and not much more. Their entire lives and identities revolved around their service to the men and children in their lives. As least this woman of wisdom could make money and wore the color purple suggesting she was an important member of society.
Some women could read this passage and its requirements and feel like it is an impossible job description, or an overwhelming ideal – sort of like a portrayal of a spiritual Martha Stewart. Who has the time or energy to make your own clothes, get up in the middle of the night to get everyone going, take care of the family business, work into the night, give something to the poor, have something profound to say but also laugh a little and don’t take yourself so seriously? And if you do all this your children will affirm you (good luck with that one!) and your husband will appreciate you. And of course this must all be done with a reverence for God.
But what if you can’t do all of these things? (And seriously who could?) Or what if you’re not married or you don’t have children – can you not be wise women? Is the only way to self-esteem for women that of being industrious, wise and respected household managers? Is the only way to self-worth that of being wonderful mothers and supportive wives? Can’t men do some of these things and don’t many of them of them already do them? But this is a proverb where wisdom is personified as a woman, so the male attributes and ideals are not included. And I worry that this proverb could be read as a confirmation of our culture’s pressure for all of us to over function. No woman or man can have all of these attributes or skills – we are not Superman or Wonderwoman.
So I would like to suggest that this proverb is a composite of some of the ways that women have and still do make a difference. Maybe this is a blueprint for all of us for how we can work together for the common good. Maybe this proverb is a call for us to consider, together, what the tasks of a family, church or community are, and help us to consider the ways we can all share in those tasks together.
Nurturing families can be stressful, lonely work. It is work not limited to one gender. It is work for women and men to take on together. Envisioning and working for the future can be stressful, lonely work. It is work not limited to one gender. It is work for women and men to take on together. Making wise use of the resources available to us can be stressful, lonely work. It is work not limited to one gender. It is work for women and men to take on together. Caring for the hurting and broken of the world can be stressful, lonely work. It is work not limited to one gender. It is work for women and men to take on together.
Proverbs 31 not only praises women, but it also encourages all of us to think about partnerships between men and women in the work of the community. Wisdom is a life well lived, a life that matters, no matter your gender. Wisdom is a way of life that includes justice, righteousness, humility, compassion and fairness. As James reminds us, “wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.” (James 3:17) For James and for Proverbs, wisdom is not in the head but in the behavior. It is a way of life, not a way of thinking or believing.
I have been blessed with many wise and loving and industrious and nurturing women in my life. I have been blessed with many wise and loving and industrious and nurturing men in my life. When I reflect on the purpose of life and those who give us life, I am so grateful for those who have sacrificed for me and I am amazed at how they have held everything together in spite of life’s challenges. Surely at the heart of all of this is wisdom.
As Teri told us last Sunday, the first chapter in Proverbs says that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; those that have no wisdom – it is because they chose not to fear the Lord. “ (Prov 1:7) The last chapter of Proverbs ends with “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” (Prov 31:30)
The reverence in Proverbs 31 is not just for women – as much as we love and respect the wise women in our lives. Women don’t need to be placed on pedestals. The expectations there are exhausting and the fall from grace is destructive. The reverence, the awe, the fear of the Lord is for God. This is the beginning, or the better part of wisdom. To fear the Lord, to be wise, to be a wise woman or a wise man, means we do not live in hopeless worry but instead in awe, wonder, gratitude and reverent humility before God. May it be so. Amen
Resources: Words, sentences and themes freely taken from –
Feasting on the Word – Year B, Volume 4, Proper 20.