A wise talk on Wisdom Literature in the Bible

LOUISVILLE — Wisdom was in plentiful supply Wednesday during the Synod of the Covenant’s monthly Equipping Preachers webinar, which focused on preaching the Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible — Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job. Watch the webinar here.

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The presenter of the engaging 90-minute webinar was the Rev. Dr. Sara Koenig, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Seattle Pacific University. “If you’ve preached on Wisdom Literature, you are in a rare group of people,” she told the preachers gathered online. Scripture from the three books comes up about 10 times in three years of lectionary passages.

Proverbs, the ‘art of living well’

Scholar Dr. Ellen Davis of the Duke Divinity School calls Proverbs “a book for unexceptional people trying to live wisely and faithfully in the generally undramatic circumstances of daily life,” Koenig pointed out. Davis added, “The Israelite sages are concerned with the same things we worry about, the things people regularly consult their pastor and friends about,” including what to tell your kids about sex and God, how to handle your money and your work life, and how to cultivate lasting friendships.

Since Proverbs is a series of aphorisms, Koenig shared a few a friend has compiled: Drums aren’t too loud for the percussionist; If you make a mess, make amends; Not everything true is written down; and Wisdom is earned uphill and enjoyed downhill.

Proverbs is replete with “if, then” statements, but some people push back on that. Maybe it’s better to say there is truth in biblical proverbs, Koenig said, not the proverbs are always and in every circumstance true.

Ecclesiastes

Central to this text is the Hebrew word “hevel,” which often gets translated “vanity” or “meaningless,” but is closer to smoke, Koenig said, as when you can see your breath on a cold day.  Another translation could be “ephemeral,” although others render it “absurd” or “nonsensical,” as in Ecclesiastes 8:14. “It doesn’t make sense that good people are treated badly and bad people are treated well,” Koenig said. We may say today, “It is what it is.”

Koenig wondered: “How much wisdom is there accepting what does not make sense?”

If “all is hevel,” we ought to seize the day, she said. Or better, “receive the gift” from God, which comes up in Ecclesiastes 28 times. Qoheleth would have us enjoy our relationships and our work as well. “There are times we work hard and we see the benefits of that,” Koenig said. “Good work is an aspect of our joy.”

Mexican Theologian Dr. Elsa Támez places Ecclesiastes in the 3^rd century BCE, “a time of unprecedented structural changes and new economic structures” requiring “more administration and bureaucracy, innovation in commerce and military techniques and technology, maintenance of imperial power and dehumanizing hegemony, slave labor” and the displacement of independent artisans and domestic manufacturing. “See connections with our world today?” Koenig asked, quoting Támez once again: “Ecclesiastes is a book to be read in times of profound disillusionment.”

Job, a ‘Mount Everest of a biblical book’

Unlike Everest, Job’s summit “will remain forever unscaled by mere commentators,” according to one theologian, Dr. J. Gerald Janzen.

Among Job’s purposes is what the poet Robert Frost said is “to stultify the Deuteronomist,” Koenig noted. “How good is God? How powerful? How just?” Some commentators make God into a bully, one who’s capricious.

Another theme is disinterested righteousness, says Dr. James Crenshaw.  A key is a question the accuser asks: Does Job fear God for nothing? “Why follow God unless you get something out of it?” Koenig asked. “Why follow God if we’re persecuted or martyred for it?”

Job is in incredible physical and emotional pain, having lost all 10 of his children at once. “Job gives us a theology of the sufferer,” Koenig said. “When we are not the people who are suffering, we are tempted to be the theological resource for the person suffering. Job flips that: the person who is suffering is the one we ought to listen to and have respect for their experience.”

One theologian says it this way: Trying to vindicate God to a person in agonizing pain is like explaining to a crying infant that mommy is a well-intentioned person. “You just can’t hear that,” Koenig said.

Job “wants his day in court with God,” Koenig noted. “He believes God is just, but he doesn’t see God’s justice.”

“I know you are the judge and the defendant,” Job is saying to God, “but I want my day in court with you.” God’s response is, “your view of me in the world of justice is a little bit limited,” summed up in one of the most powerful verses in Wisdom Literature.

At the end, Job “gets back some of his stuff,” has 10 more children and twice as many cattle and donkeys, Koenig said. “But some things can’t be restored in the same way,” first and foremost the loss of Job’s 10 original children.

Some ideas Koenig has for preaching on Wisdom Literature include:

• “Maybe we can preach from our scars, but not our wounds,” Koenig said. “If it’s not fully healed yet, there is something painful about preaching from that place.”
• Describe the worldview in the three books.
• What does Proverbs have to say about family? Money? Friendship?
• Explore Job as “a theologian of the cross.”
• Examine God’s speeches and their ecological implications, especially in Job.
• Take Proverbs and Ecclesiastes together. What does it mean to live a good life? How do we appreciate the ordinary? What can we control, and what is beyond our control?

The next of the Synod of the Covenant’s webinars on equipping preachers will be from 10 a.m. through 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Aug. 6. It will feature Carlos Perkins, Associate Director of Engagement in the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at the Lake Institute of Faith and Giving. Perkins will speak on “Preaching Generosity: Reflecting on Theologies and Distinctive Cultures Around Giving and Generosity.” Learn more and register here.