One of the most memorable travel experiences I’ve had was a train ride from Blackburn, England, to Durham Cathedral. The journey took about three hours and was relatively nondescript. After miles and miles—or kilometers and kilometers, if you wish—of rather uninteresting scenery, the train rounded a bend and suddenly, hovering over the flat landscape was the mammoth hulking mass of the cathedral. Its Norman tower was like a fortress, rising hundreds of feet—or meters, take your pick—above the surrounding town.
When I first saw it, goosebumps pricked my spine and neck. It was as if by looking at the cathedral, I could feel the weight of its thousand-year history. The tower leans slightly, further emphasizing how old it is. Durham Cathedral dominates everything around it. It makes a clear statement of what, indeed who was at the center of life in the 11th century.
I know we should be wary of idealizing the medieval era, but it’s also difficult to get away from the fact that it was a time when God was at the visible center of village and cultural life. Small towns in Europe that would be mere dots on a map of the United States have their own gargantuan cathedrals. In some sense, villages existed because the cathedrals did. To understand medieval music, you must inevitably understand sacred music.
Make no bones about it. Medieval times were pretty raunchy. Corruption was rampant. It’s not that the medieval Church was better than today’s Church, but it did put God more visibly at its center, at least aesthetically if not always in practice. The towering cathedrals with their peals of bells were constant discernible and audible invitations. Come to the Mass. Come and meet God.
Our modern religious landscape might seem flat by comparison. Many eschew the Church for a variety of reasons. On Sundays, the siren calls are often to places that promise fulfillment beyond the Church. There are few cathedrals that dominate the skylines of our towns, and when they do exist, some people don’t even know they are there. I was vividly reminded of this in my first trip to Washington, DC, when I exited a metro station and asked an employee of a CVS store where the National Cathedral was. She had no idea what I was talking about. And the Cathedral was just a stone’s throw down the street.
My train ride to Durham Cathedral over a decade ago was both a stunning sight and a salient reminder of how far removed we are from the days when churches dominated and infused the culture and lives of those around them. Long gone are the days, to quote a friend, when we could ring the Mass bell and the people would come pouring in through the doors.
But in this humbling realization, I think there’s a profound gift. We’re not worse off than a medieval yeoman, and in fact, religiously speaking, maybe we’re better off. And I’m not interested in continuing to spin the nauseating woes of Church decline. I’m interested in the opportunities for grace latent in an age when the Church has been brought to her knees and is still grasping for a vision of her future. If the medieval cathedral was a visible call to God and to hope, then what is it in our own day?
What about Lady Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs? Wisdom, who is associated with femininity in Scripture, has built her sturdy house of seven pillars, most likely symbolizing completion and expansiveness. She has prepared a rich feast with sumptuous wine. She has even set the table. All is ready. All is prepared. Lady Wisdom has done everything possible to establish a setting for nourishment and fellowship.
But she doesn’t stop there, because more is needed. No one will know the feast is ready or how lavish it is. No one will even know that they are welcome at this feast. So, Lady Wisdom goes the extra mile. She sends out her maids to the highest places in the town, towering over the landscape a bit like Durham Cathedral. But Lady Wisdom doesn’t seek to attract by her dominating power. She calls by virtue of her generosity and hospitality. Her maids call out the invitation, “Turn in here!” This isn’t an invitation intended only for the brainy and sophisticated people of the day. It’s for everyone, especially for the simple and naïve. The invitation isn’t to a theological symposium or scholarly debate. It’s to a feast. It’s to something practical, even necessary for human existence. Come, eat some bread and drink some wine. Choose this feast, this relationship with Wisdom, and you will find life.
What we don’t hear in today’s reading is Lady Wisdom’s foil, and we can’t really know Lady Wisdom without understanding her opposite, who is Lady Folly. She appears just a few verses later, and she’s described as noisy, without knowledge. She has no shame and is perhaps even promiscuous. She’s prepared nothing for others, no feast, no set table. She’s far from generous. She simply lounges at the door of her house or at the high places of the town, and she calls to those who pass by, inviting them to partake of stolen water and bread eaten in secret. Her ways are furtive. In short, Lady Folly is lazy and offers nothing of real substance. Her inertia is the exact opposite of Lady Wisdom’s preparedness and proactivity.
What we also might not know from reading Proverbs is the long tradition within the Church of associating Lady Wisdom with Christ. It echoes within the New Testament. Christ is the one who offers us a choice: follow him and find life, or refuse him and encounter death. But it’s even more complicated than this. Some imagine the Christian life as a dichotomous choice between life and death at a single point in time, for good or for ill. Once you’ve decided which way to go, you’re destined either for heaven or for hell.
But the choice Christ offers us is more nuanced, I think. He’s the one who’s built a stable house for us on strong foundations, not on sand. He’s prepared a rich feast for us, of bread and wine. He’s set the table. He’s, indeed, done everything possible to feed and nourish us with his very life at his banquet. He’s even experienced death itself so that we might choose to follow his way and live. He seeks to call not through domination but through the quiet power of his generosity. And no matter how many times we choose the way of death, Christ gives us infinite opportunities to turn aside in our simple-mindedness, to grow into spiritual maturity, and to feast at the banquet of life that he offers us.
In the days of medieval cathedrals towering over their towns and ringing their bells, the buildings and the bells seemed to be enough. They called others to the feast. But there’s something inspiring in the days before those cathedrals asserted their visible claim on the world’s landscape. Before that religiously-privileged time, Christ, our Incarnate Wisdom, pitched his tent among us and prepared the feast, but there were no visible towers and clanging bells to call others to the feast. Christ, our Wisdom, first called people into relationship with him. He changed their lives, and this catalyzed a mission to the ends of the earth. And then, as the incarnation of Lady Wisdom, he sent out his maids—his disciples—into the highest places of towns to issue his constant invitation: “whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” And this is why we’re here today.
There’s an astounding moment of grace in our own lackadaisical day. Our glorious buildings and beautiful bells are gifts to be used and to call out from the highest places that God is among us. But something more is needed to call others to the feast. Those who’ve not yet found their way to the table need us. They need our stories, our retelling of the transformative encounters we’ve had at the table with Jesus, our Lord, our Wisdom. They need us to tell of our own relationship with the one who has done everything—even given of his own life—so that we might turn aside to celebrate at his life-giving banquet. Jesus, our Wisdom, calls not only to the geniuses and brilliant or to the cultured and well-known but particularly to the simple and innocent, to the hurting who have been worn down by the brutality of our own age. He calls to all, not once and forever, but daily, and he invites us to come and sup with him.
The foil of Christ, our true Wisdom, is a lazy, complacent, inert Church, who rests on her laurels and offers nothing but hollow speech, hypocrisy, and cheap tricks, who goes not into the streets to issue an invitation but proudly expects that grand towers, loud bells, and social media are enough to draw others to the feast.
Now is a beautiful moment for the Church. Christ’s command is still valid and true. Go and preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Go and make disciples. See, our loving Wisdom has done it all. He has given his life for us, and he has prepared his feast and set the table. He has promised to be with us always, even unto the end of the age. We are the maids of Lady Wisdom. We are Christ’s messengers. Let us go to the highest places of our town and neighborhoods. Let us issue the invitation, the timeless and eternal one: Come and eat the bread and the wine that give true life. Turn aside and see what Christ is offering you. Come this way, and you will find life.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 18, 2024