Proverbs 9:1-6

Wisdom has built her house,
she has hewn her seven pillars.
She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine,
she has also set her table.
She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls
from the highest places in the town,
“You that are simple, turn in here!”
To those without sense she says,
“Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.”

Wisdom is always making a way for us. Everything she does is in preparation for us. Wisdom is always inviting us to come and see and taste that she is good. But for some reason we resist. We don’t see wisdom as being much fun.

Wisdom requires being able to do what is boring. The mundane. Chores. Building a life of routine. Not being tempted by just not being around temptation. There is always the temptation of laziness. Hard work, day after day, building a home, a career, simple food: bread and wine.

Is immaturity a choice? Immaturity says no to work, routine, building a life. Immaturity is always looking for the easy way, handouts, fun. It seems that wisdom is saying that is not living.

Every translation uses the word “live” in verse 6. I don’t think that the writer is saying that you will die if you don’t leave immaturity. At least not physically. I think that being created in the image of God, there is a pattern and rhythm or lifestyle that when we live that way we come alive. But when we are controlled by our desires we are dead inside. Our imagination and talents and senses go dormant because we are just slaves to our appetites.

But when we are able to see life as God sees it, we come alive and live. This is the “born again” that Jesus is trying to discuss with Nicodemus. A point in our life when we feel like we have woken up. Like we have been asleep the whole time and now we are awake and living our life.

Often I have heard that the persona of Wisdom in the proverbs is really Jesus. John starts his gospel by telling us that in the beginning was the “Word” using the greek word “Logos”. It is a word that doesn’t carry a simple translation. It is a word that is just as comfortable in the mouths of philosophers and mathematicians as it is in in theologians. I’ve heard it summed up more than once as the founding truths and unbreakable laws upon which the world we live in runs.

So it would make sense that Jesus – the Word – Wisdom came to show us how to live in harmony with the laws and reveal the truths upon which the world was founded. That to follow him is to stop resisting and going against the way this world is. Unfortunately we have to first see through the Devil – The Great Lie – The Realm Of Maya. There is a sort of test in place. The world looks like one thing but Jesus calls us to see through the glitter and promise of wealth and power and humble ourselves to just loving our neighbor.