In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
There are many more things I would tell you – but you cannot bear them now.
Often, when Jesus is talking to the disciples, it is clear that they don’t understand what he is saying.
And often, and it must have been frustrating for them, not to say annoying, he doesn’t seem to spell it out clearly for them. They are left confused and bewildered – it is as if he is talking a different language.
We know this feeling too – in our day to day lives – there are so often things that seems beyond us – information we don’t quite have – often to do with technology of one kind or another! We have a bit of an idea of what is going on, but not enough to really make sense of it all.
Sometimes, though, there are flashes of insight, glimpses of something, as it were through the clouds, which part for a moment and suddenly we see clearly.
Last week, at Pentecost, it is one of those moments for the disciples who are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and they are suddenly, miraculously, wondrously, enlightened, lit up, aflame with the Holy Spirit – they are on fire, they, the ones who previously didn’t get it, are now bursting with words that all can understand.
Their own understanding of what is happening to them is not the point – rather they surrender to the power of God at work in them and are granted a wisdom that is from above.
In the beautiful passage from Proverbs which is our first reading today, we meet Wisdom personified.
Most of the book of Proverbs is a helpful, if not exactly exciting, set of instructions about how to live well in the world – living in the way that God intends will make life better for yourself and for others.
But in this passage we see something else – we see the wisdom of God himself – and gain an astounding and delightful insight into what it actually looks and feels like to live as God intended.
We see the person called Wisdom – as a woman – possibly even as a little girl – a figure who is there with God at the very beginning of everything. God, like a loving, generous Father, creates a beautiful place for this little girl to play in, a place of enjoyment, peace, and wonder. She watches, full of excitement, as this incredible act of creation take place and the foundations of the earth, the edges of the seas, the heights of the heavens, the forms of the mountains and hills, soil and earth, springs, streams are established and set out before her very eyes.
She is already there, already herself made, and is also, in herself, the fullest delight of God – she dances before him in joy and helps in this creation – as we hear, ‘she delights in his inhabited world, and in the whole human race.’
What does this picture of God as creator and Wisdom as a little child, do to our often weary, lacklustre and jaundiced view of the world and of our lives?
Human lives so often feel like a daily grind, boring at best, but full of torment and sorrow at worst. Just look around you at the world right now.
But this is not what God intends for us, for whom he has made all things to be good, for our enjoyment together.
The image of God in Proverbs conjures up a loving Father, playfully creating for the delight of his children.
How appropriate today when Trinity Sunday is also Father’s Day.
But as always, God cannot be limited or contained within our own human experience – and that’s helpful – as our own fathers are not always the perfect parents just as our mothers cannot always be perfect, nor for that matter can children, friends or other relations!
God may be Father, and also Mother – but God is, above all, Creator – always looking to make and remake for the enjoyment of those whom God loves.
Early Christians understood the person of Wisdom in Proverbs to be Jesus himself – remember in John’s Gospel – In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God….
The Word then, presented here in Proverbs as Wisdom, a female figure, described at the end of the passage as ‘masterworker’ but a more likely and better translation of the Hebrew is ‘a little child’, dancing in delight as the world was made, is also the one destined from the beginning of all time, who is born as Jesus, the Son of God, our Saviour.
Perhaps, after all, in God’s world, gender does not matter at all, we are simply all made in God’s image, and all beloved children of God.
In Proverbs, at the beginning of the passage, the person of Wisdom does what we, as the beloved children of God, are supposed to do too.
She goes out into the busiest places of the world, the street corners and market places, where the clamouring voices of self interest and self importance are heard loudest– and she shouts – or rather, she sings, of all that she has seen God do as God creates all things – she sings the song that makes the universe dance. It’s the song of the angels in heaven, it’s the song of the people singing Hosanna, Alleluia, and it’s a song for everyone.
A song to teach us how to live with joy as a child of God in the world that God has made.
A song that helps us, the disciples, and everyone who has ever tried to understand who God is and what Jesus was about – suddenly see how it all fits together, how it all makes sense.
It’s a love song, of course, and as Paul, in his letter to the Romans, explains, its all the sweeter for being distilled through the inevitable suffering that will be part of living in the world.
What helps us sing this song now, is the living power of love, the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us.
And as we heard last week, this Spirit both fills the disciples at Pentecost, giving them understanding and insight, and sends them out, laughing and dancing onto the streets, just like Wisdom herself, like Jesus, to share God’s love for his world and to feel his joy in all that he has made!
In all this we see how God is this Three-fold nature that we call the Trinity – each person part of a circle of love, each delighting in the other, and all inviting others to join in this dance, this song of joy.
There are many more things I would tell you, says Jesus to his disciples– but you cannot bear them now. But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.
The Spirit has come, and the truth is now ours to share, to song the love song of creation to heal and bind together a wounded and fractured world.
Amen.
Service: Rev Michelle Dalliston, 15th June 2025. (St John’s Church Peterborough UK)
Reading: Proverbs 8.1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5.1-5; John 16.12-15.