Lady Wisdom Gives A Dinner Party
In Proverbs 9:1-6 we watch and listen as Lady Wisdom Gives A Dinner Party. The invitation to the party is yours, the menu is divine and the benefits are eternal. August 30, 2009.
Picture what it must have been like a century or two ago when a well-to-do woman threw an elegant dinner party. The dark wood paneling of the dining room in the three-story, twenty-seven room mansion has a fireplace glowing in the corner. Can you see the hostess wearing an expensive gown with yards of fine material flowing along in back, bustled up after greeting her guests and asking them to be seated? The dinnerware shimmers from the glow of the ornate chandelier like water-lilies under a full moon. The chairs have straight, hand-carved backs and delicately upholstered cushions. The silverware is really silver and sparkles from the candles flickering around the dining room. The servers arrive, each course balanced on silver platters with silver covers, and each morsel is delectable – tastes really good – with each bite embedding itself not just in the tummy but in the fond-memory folder of your mind’s memory card.
In the passages before us from Proverbs chapter nine, King Solomon introduces us to an elegant lady of nobility called “Wisdom.” Did you catch the hint that Lady Wisdom is not Solomon’s picture for braininess or intelligence but rather a picture of spiritual wisdom? “Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars.” When the number seven is used in the Bible, it often serves as a little tip-off that spiritual matters are being discussed. The number seven was God’s special number for his desire to connect with people. So, right about now you are probably at the edge of your seat wondering just exactly what spiritual wisdom is. Spiritual wisdom is the result of God’s desire to connect with people. It involves trust that what God has done for us is true and the commitment to live like it. Wouldn’t you like to get more of that and get better at that? Wouldn’t you like to have a stronger faith and a more faith-filled, faithful life, honoring God and serving others? Then watch and listen as Lady Wisdom Gives A Dinner Party.
The invitation is yours
If you lived in a city one hundred fifty years ago with shiny black carriages carrying gowned and tuxedoed guests along a tree-lined lane, up a curving green-hedged driveway, all the way to the magnificent colonnaded entrance of a mansion to enjoy a sumptuous dinner party, wouldn’t you be thinking to yourself, “I wish I could be invited.” Wisdom has sent out her maids, and she calls from the highest point of the city, “Let all who are simple come in here! … Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed.” Notice that the invitation goes out from the highest point of the city. All are within earshot. Lady Wisdom’s invitation goes out to anyone and everyone. Jesus said that same thing, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened”(Matthew 11:28). The invitation is for all.
But we look at what covers us, the dirty rags of sin, and we look at how we’ve been living our lives, and we realize that we don’t deserve the invitation. We’re like naughty teens who had snuck around the night before throwing stones through the mansion’s windows and toilet-papering the trees outside. That’s what our sins do to God who is really the owner of the mansion, Lord Wisdom, Lady Wisdom’s husband. There’s no way we have a right to sit at her banquet table unless our naughtiness is covered by rightness and our naughty deeds are paid for.
But Lady Wisdom invites us anyway. She calls out, “Let all who are simple come in here! That word “simple” refers to a person who has an open mind in a negative sense, one who is easily deceived. “That’s not me,” I’m thinking, “Can’t fool me with false doctrine.” But just when we think we’re strong in one area, the devil blindsides us by pressing his thumb on one of our weak spots. Is it a dirty thought? Is it a rash phrase we throw out that stings someone’s heart? Is it a “My opinions are always right” attitude that cuts off open dialogue? Is it a self-centered “Woe is me” attitude as a backdoor way for getting attention? Is it uncontrolled worry, as if God doesn’t know or care about us? Lady Wisdom invites us anyway. She calls out to those who lack judgment, to those who are worn out and feel like their motor is spurting out of gas, tired of the daily grind, dragging so low that they’ll pop any pill or buy any ticket that they think will be a quick fix. Lady Wisdom invites us anyway. Whether your stomach is full or empty, whether you have a lot of money or a little, whether you are outgoing or introverted, the more you learn about your need for spiritual wisdom, the more you will appreciate Lady Wisdom’s invitation to her dinner party. Jesus put it this way, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”(Matthew 5:6). If you ever feel unworthy to eat at Lady Wisdom’s banquet, good! This dinner party is especially for you. The invitation is yours.
The menu is divine
If you received an invitation to an elegant dinner party, wouldn’t you be wondering long before you arrived and surely as you drove up the driveway, “What’s on the menu?” Wisdom has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table. The Lord Jesus himself gave us the key to discover what’s on this menu. One day on a country hillside, he had miraculously fed a crowd of well over five thousand people. The next day the crowd pursued him in search of free filet-of-fish sandwiches. Our Lord used the opportunity to redirect their thinking. “Do not strive for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you … I am the bread of life”(John 6:27,35). Jesus’ words were clear, “Pursue food for your souls,” and he listed himself as the main menu item. How this fits into Lady Wisdom’s dinner party becomes clear from Paul’s words, “Christ Jesus has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption”(1 Corinthians 1:30). Lady Wisdom’s banquet features a menu that is simply divine. Jesus is on the menu, giving us his righteousness, his holiness, and redeeming payment. We need our dirty sin-stained robes to be covered by the proper dinner party attire. That’s what Jesus gives when he gives us himself, when he gives us his righteousness and holiness. We need to pay our Lord and his Lady Wisdom for the damage we did to the windows of their mansion. That’s what Jesus gives us when he gives us himself, when he gives us redemption, the payment for all our sins.
Before you go to a nice restaurant nowadays, you can often check the menu online so you know what to expect. We can actually find out more and more about the main menu item of Lady Wisdom’s dinner party by checking our Bibles. Jesus Christ is the focal point of all Scripture. The Old Testament books looked ahead to a Savior who would come, and the New Testament books look back on the Savior who has come. That’s why God gave us his Word. It is his message about Jesus’ rightness-giving and redemption-paying. The menu at Lady Wisdom’s dinner party is divine. From top to bottom it offers God’s words which reveal his love for us in Christ Jesus.
The benefits are eternal
When an invitation has been extended to us, we like to know what we will get out of it, what good it will do. Lady Wisdom calls out, “Come, eat my food … and walk in the way of understanding.” The word “understanding” refers to the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Eat at Lady Wisdom’s banquet, believe God’s words, and you’ll enjoy the added benefits of receiving power for living as God would want and direction to keep you on the straight path of thankful living. Would you like to have a stronger faith and a more faith-filled, faithful life, honoring God and serving others? Eat at Lady Wisdom’s dinner party, and you’ll enjoy benefits right now.
But there’s more. Lady Wisdom says, “Leave your simple ways and you will live.” The menu consisting of Jesus is food that gives spiritual strength so we make it not just to Friday. It bolsters us so we make it to forever. Lady Wisdom’s dinner party offers eternal nutrition. The apostle Paul told us, “The Holy Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus”(2 Timothy 3:15). Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If a person eats of this bread, he will live forever”(John 6:51). Eating at Lady Wisdom’s banquet means believing in Jesus’ gift of forgiveness now and one day joining all believers in Christ where we will be eat of eternal food and drink of the river of God’s pleasure forevermore.
Solomon walked along the upper terrace of his palace, surveyed his kingdom as far as his eye could see, began pondering, and here’s what he wrote: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees … I owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me … I amassed silver and gold for myself … I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well … I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me … I denied myself nothing my eyes desired … Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind … Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness (Ecclesiastes 2:1-13). God the Holy Spirit caused him to record those thoughts in the Bible book we know as Ecclesiastes, and the Holy Spirit then led him to record what he learned after eating at Lady Wisdom’s dinner party. Do you have a story to tell? Maybe you’re not going to write a book, but you can tell a friend, “Lady Wisdom’s dinner party saved me, and it will save you, too, because at her dinner party we get to meet with and eat with … Jesus.” Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on August 30, 2009
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