God's Delight

Scripture: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

In the book of Proverbs, wisdom is personified as a woman who calls out to people on the street to follow her way – the way that leads to life. And in the passage that we read today, we learn the reason that wisdom is the key to abundant life. Wisdom has existed before the world was created. She was by God’s side as the sky was nailed into place, and she worked beside God as an artisan as the sea was set in place and living things were brought into being. If anyone can understand human life, it is wisdom.

But the verses that stand out to me most from our reading today are the ones that describe God’s delight in creation. “Day after day I was there,” reads one translation, “with my joyful applause, always enjoying God’s company, Delighted with the world of things and creatures, happily celebrating the human family.” God’s delight is in the creation. God’s delight is in us.

Our psalm today asks the question, “what are humans that you are mindful of them?” and it is a good question. Sometimes it is very hard to believe that God is delighted with humanity. War and greed keep us at each others’ throats. Apathy and selfishness weigh us down and keep us from treating each other as we should. Generosity and kindness are hard to find.

And yet, God is delighted with us. So maybe God’s delight is less about what we do and more about who we are. The organization I work for, the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, gives young adults the opportunity to serve others for a year while receiving a small living stipend. Another part of the program is that they live together in intentional community. Intentional community is a little different from just living in a house with housemates. We expect volunteers to spend time developing relationships with each other during weekly community nights, as well as in other ways. I was a volunteer several years ago, and I remember that by the time I finished my year, I knew my housemates very well. I knew their likes and dislikes, and their strange little habits. And it was really fun – a source of delight, if you will – to spend time with people I knew so well, and to catch each other just thoroughly being ourselves.

God’s delight could also be compared to an artist who thoroughly enjoys her creation. Although to be fair, many of the artists I know – musicians, actors, that kind of thing – tend to be very focused on always getting better. But still, imagine the joy a child takes in drawing a house. There is always a sense of balance in these drawings. Two windows on top, a door in the middle, a chimney with smoke coming out of the roof, a yellow sun in the sky. There is something joyful about the careful ordering and balance, and the beauty of making a new thing. And there is something joyful, too, about the details that go into that creation. Imagine God’s delight, then, in such complicated and varied creations as us!

In many Christian traditions, today is celebrated as Trinity Sunday. I know because I’ve been hanging around with a lot of Lutherans lately. The trinity, as a theological idea, tends to be something difficult to explain, and, as a result, even harder to preach. So I’m not going to spend too much time trying to explain it. Part of wisdom is being aware of your limitations. Not that we shouldn’t try to know and understand things, but it reminds me of an unanswered question I read recently that someone had sent in to a website, asking for an answer. The person wrote, “Can you explain how big infinity is? Because I’ve been trying and trying to wrap my mind around how big that would be, and I just can’t do it.” Similarly, the trinity is one God in three persons. Not one God with three faces, or three gods with a good homeowners’ association, but one God in essence and three persons we experience. How big, again, is infinity?

But there is an idea about the trinity that really appeals to me, and comes out of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, which is that God is, essentially, three persons engaged in a dance of joy and delight and love. Or, to think of it another way, relationship is essential to who God is. God is not alone, God is together, like a beating heart at the center of creation.

And the creation, while we’re at it, was created out of an overflowing of God’s delight. God’s love for us is written in the stars, and rumbled beneath the ocean’s depths. The trinity of God is ready to open and share that love, that relationship, that is essential to God’s being.

Abstract, I know. Fortunately, today is communion Sunday, so we’ll have the chance to experience concretely this good news of God, which is that God so loved the world that Jesus came to earth to be among us, and to draw us into that holy dance of love, joy, and delight. God’s delight. And so, with that in mind, I’d like to close with a story.

There was once a young man who wanted to know the Truth with a capital T. “The Truth is out there,” he said to himself, and he started on a long journey.

First he came to a renowned and well-respected teacher. “Respected teacher,” he asked, “what is the Truth?”

“Truth,” the teacher answered, “is what can be measured, recorded, and described.”

The young man went away, sad in his heart.

Next, the young man came to a wealthy and powerful ruler. “Great and honorable ruler,” he asked, “what is the Truth?”

“Truth,” the ruler answered, “is what I say it is. No more, no less.”

The young man went away, sad in his heart.

But as he was walking away from the ruler’s palace, through the streets of the city, the young man came upon an old, old woman sitting in front of a small stone house. “Can you tell me,” he asked, “who I should ask to find out what the Truth is?”

The woman looked deep into his eyes, and he saw that while her face was carved with lines, it was compellingly beautiful.

“I was born,” she said, “before a single ocean wave had washed over a single grain of sand. My hands have shaped the deep pillars of the earth. I have soared over mountain heights, and I have woven the delicate fibers of a tiny moth’s cocoon. I am God’s beloved child, and I am the artisan of God’s delight. Come inside, traveler, and I will give you what you seek.”

And when he came inside, the young man saw a meal laid out for him. It was a simple meal of bread and wine.