Leithart
Proverbs 9:1-6, 13-18:
Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn out her seven pillars; she has prepared her food, she has mixed her wine; she has also set her table; she has sent out her maidens, she calls from the tops of the heights of the city: ?Whoever is na?Ee, let him turn in here!?ETo him who lacks understanding she says, ?Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed. Forsake your folly and live, and proceed in the way of understanding?E?E
The woman folly is boisterous; she is na?Ee and knows nothing. And she sits by the doorway of her house, on a seat by the high places of the city, calling to those who pass by, who are making their paths straight: ?Whoever is na?Ee, let me turn in here,?Eand to him to lacks understanding she says, ?Stolen water is sweet; and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.?E But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.
The Word of the Lord. Amen.
Let us Pray
Almighty God, our Father, we give you thanks that you have offered a place at the banquet of Wisdom: Fill us with Your Spirit of Wisdom and Grace, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, who is the Wisdom of God, so that we may eat and drink only from Wisdom?s table. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
?Look how far we’ve come. It’s been a long, bumpy road. We can’t turn back now. We’re at a crossroads. We may have to go our separate ways. The relationship isn’t going anywhere. We’re spinning our wheels. Our relationship is off the track. The marriage is on the rocks. We may have to bail out of this relationship.?E
All these expressions and many more like them assume the same picture of love and marriage: Love is a journey. ?The lovers are travelers on a journey together, with their common life goals seen as destinations to be reached. The relationship is their vehicle, and it allows them to pursue those common goals together. The relationship is seen as fulfilling its purpose as long as it allows them to make progress toward their common goals. The journey isn’t easy. There are impediments, and there are places (crossroads) where a decision has to be made about which direction to go in and whether to keep traveling together?E(from a web site).
Metaphors such as ?Love is a journey?Eare often dismissed as unnecessary window dressing. When we want to communicate clearly, we speak literally. But when we want to write poetry, compose a speech, or prepare a wedding sermon, we reach for analogies, images, and metaphors. Metaphor is sauce to tasteless food; it adds flavor, but the food is food regardless. But that view is completely wrong. Our language is shot through with metaphor, even when ?Eespecially when ?Ewe think we are speaking literally. Metaphor is an irreducible element in our language.
And not only in our language: Metaphors and images are an irreducible element in our thoughts, plans, and actions. Metaphors motivate us and shape our lives. Images provoke and discipline our desires because they fuel and energize imagination. When we say, ?Love is a journey,?Ewe are not merely drawing an analogy between two realms of life. We are identifying certain important features of love: Love takes time, love develops and moves, love seeks certain ends or goals. This metaphor tells us what to expect in marriage: Not every road is equally smooth; at times we will have to slog uphill, and at other times we can coast; some marriages run out of gas or crash and burn before reaching their destination.
As you enter into a marriage covenant today, it is worth pondering this question: What metaphors and images should shape your expectations, hopes, dreams, and actions in your marriage?
For some today, especially women, marriage is bondage, subjection to a brutish sex and slavery to patriarchal, capitalist oppression. For others, marriage is indispensable to a healthy society. Throughout recent debates about same-sex marriage, conservatives have argued that heterosexual marriage is the ?foundation?Eof our society, assuming the metaphor, ?Society is a house.?E At other times, we talk about ?repairing?Ea marriage, as if it were a dilapidated house, or ?restoring?Ea marriage, as if it were a worn-out piece of furniture.
According to Scripture, marriage is fundamentally metaphorical. The very essence of marriage is to be a picture of something else, of the union of Jesus Christ and His church. Scripture gives us a variety of other images of love and marriage as well. Solomon says in the Song of Songs that love is like ?flames of fire, a most vehement flame?E(8:6), and we continue to use that metaphor ourselves. A marriage fails when the ?fire goes out,?Eor because a husband or wife has failed to ?fuel?Ethe flame of love. Love smolders when a husband or wife constantly ?pours cold water?Eon the relationship. In that same verse, Solomon uses the striking analogy, ?Love is as strong as death,?Esuggesting that love is as relentless, as all-consuming, perhaps as inevitable as death.
Proverbs 9 uses one of the most common biblical metaphors for love and marriage, the image of the banquet, the analogy of food. This is not the first time Solomon uses this metaphor in the book of Proverbs. Throughout the first eight chapters, Solomon teaches his son about two women, Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly, both of whom seek the attention of the young prince. And throughout these chapters, Solomon frequently describes sex in terms of food, equates hunger with sexual desire, and renders an invitation to bed as an invitation to a table. Warning against the adulterous woman, he tells his son ?Drink water from your own cistern, and fresh water from your own well?E(Proverbs 5). In Proverbs 7, the seductress entices the foolish young man with promises of spices and drink: ?I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us drink our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with caresses?E(Proverbs 7). The young man goes off like an ?ox to the slaughter,?Eand in her house of death the seductress ?devours?Ehim.
This combination of marital and food imagery is common in Scripture. ?Your love is better than wine,?Esays the Bride of the Song of Songs, and later she describes her lover as an apple tree loaded with fruit: ?Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. In his shade I took great delight and sat down, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He has brought me to his banquet hall, and his banner over me is love. Sustain me with raisin cakes, refresh me with apples, because I am lovesick.?E And the man responds in kind: ?Your lips, my bride, drip honey; honey and milk are under your tongue?Eand he speaks of his bride as a garden full of ?choice fruits?Efor her husband to taste and ?eat.?E
But how is marriage, how is love, like a banquet? What kind of life does this metaphor imply? What does this metaphor teach us about marriage?
First, in Scripture the deep connection between food and marital love is the covenant. A covenant is a life-long union between two persons. In marriage, this union is symbolized in many ways: By the fact that both husband and wife share a common name. That union is symbolized in Scripture with a common robe: ?spread the wing of your garment over your maid,?ERuth says to Boaz on the threshing floor. That union is symbolized in the physical act of sex, uniting a man and woman quite unmetaphorically as one flesh. Food is also a symbol of union: Here is an animal slaughtered for sacrifice; when we all eat from it, we become one. Here is one loaf of bread; and we are all one body because we partake of the one loaf. Food, like marriage, binds two into one flesh and by one flesh. If marriage is a banquet, that means that yo have become one flesh, and are called to pursue an increasingly intimate union.
Second, for humans at least, food is never simply for sustenance, never mer
ely fuel for a biological machine. Food is also for delight; it brings pleasure. Scripture celebrates the abundance and variety of food that God has created. He offers every tree bearing fruit to Adam and Eve, and promises figs, grapes, pomegranates, and raisins to Israel. The Lord gives Israel a land flowing with milk and honey, and He requires that every sacrifice be seasoned with salt. At the temple, Israel feasts on bulls, goats, lamb, and bread, all washed down with strong drink. Since your marriage is a meal, you are called to take delight in one another, and to give delight to one another; celebrate your distinct flavors; never lose your taste for one another.
Third, in Scripture, there are clean and unclean meats, foods permitted and forbidden. For Israel, unclean animals symbolized idolatrous nations, and avoiding unclean food reinforced Israel?s separateness and her exclusive devotion to Yahweh. By the vows you take today, you declaring that you have chosen to feast only on each other, and that means every other table, every other banquet, is off-limits. You are committing to sit at the same table together until death, and you must resist any enticements to share in another feast. Here there is a difference between marriage and a banquet: Banquets are public and communal, while the feast of marriage is private and intimate. It is a table reserved for two.
Finally, at a banquet, food is shared. Bread is broken and passed from hand to hand, forming a circle of table ?companions.?E Only barbarians gorge themselves without concern for anyone else; civilized people restrain themselves and leave something for others. In the banquet of marriage, you are committing to share selflessly all that you are and all that you have with each other. Your gifts and talents, your time and energies, your wealth and goods are food, which each of you freely puts at the other?s disposal. Strive to turn everything the Lord places in your hands into food to nourish and sustain and give pleasure to one another. Feast on one another; and prepare a feast for one another.
Today you begin the banquet of your marriage. May your marriage be an abundant banquet, full of variety and spice and surprise. Above all, strive to make your marriage banquet a banquet of wisdom, a marriage banquet founded on the true wisdom that comes from the fear of God. And, as the Lord blesses, may your table be like the table of Psalm 128: ?You wife shall be a fruitful vine within your house; your children like olive plants round about your table. Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed you fears Yahweh.?E
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