When I think of the book of Proverbs, I think of those throw pillows you see on Instagram. Ones like “Trust in the Lord”; “Her children will call her blessed”; “A cheerful heart is good medicine”. It is almost always the sayings that make us feel warm and fuzzy. But Proverbs does not let us get away with warm and fuzzy. It also shows us a God who is as much feminine as masculine in character.
Proverbs has several words of Wisdom for treatment of the poor. “If a person stops his ears to the cries of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered” (21:13); “The one who oppresses the poor shows contempt for the One who made him, but the one who is generous to the needy honors (God)” (14:31); The one who despises his neighbor sins, but the one who is kind to the needy is blessed” (14:21). We cannot turn away from those in need.[1] But it made me think further about how we have been formed to think of this view of neighbor “privately” instead of “publicly”. Robert Lupton reflects on this in his book Theirs is the Kingdom:
Preserve and maintain. Conserve and protect. They are the words of an ethic that has served us well. Over time these values have subtly filtered into our theology. It is increasingly difficult to separate the values of capitalism from the values of the kingdom. Stewardship has become confused with insurance coverage, with certificates of deposit, and protective coverings for our stained glass. It is an offering, a tithe dropped into a plate to be used on ourselves and our buildings. Somewhere on the way to becoming rich we picked up the idea that preserving our property is preferable to expending it for people.
Why should it be so difficult to decide which is wiser: to open the church for the homeless to rest or to install an electronic alarm system to preserve its beauty?[2]
It is one of the greatest deceptions ever successfully foisted upon the church to think about the land in terms of private property. Then we have the audacity to say to the poor, “Pick yourself up by your bootstraps! Work hard!”, all the while upholding a system that keeps them in their place. Howard Thurman has his own proverb for this in his book Jesus and the Disinherited, “It ill behooves the man who is not forced to live in a ghetto to tell those who must how to transcend its limitations.”[3] When we open our eyes to see the wise words in Proverbs outside of the systems we inhabit, it calls us to radical living for others.
One of the most profound shifts in my theology occurred when someone gave me permission to think of God as Mother. It opened new ways of seeing the divine. Naomi Franklin in her essay in The Africana Bible rightly points out that Lady Wisdom is part of God, and has built her house on seven pillars, all feminine: instruction, understanding, knowledge, shrewdness, prudence/sound judgment, skill, and a saying.[4] God is our Mother guiding us in these pillars of Wisdom.
What would the church look like if it embraced these views of the poor and the divine? I would like to think it would have far less toxic theology, abuse, neglect, and fear. I know communities that inhabit these traits, and I am thankful for them, but we need a wholesale reformation. Lord, in your mercy, hear this prayer.
[1] Elaine A. Phillips, An Introduction to Reading Biblical Wisdom Texts (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2017), 118.
[2] Robert D. Lupton, Theirs Is the Kingdom: Celebrating the Gospel in Urban America, 1st edition (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2011), 9.
[3] Howard Thurman and Vincent Harding, Jesus and the Disinherited, Reprint edition (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1996), 45.
[4] Crystal Downing and Rodney S. Sadler Jr, The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora (Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 2009), 245.
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