Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 (NRSV)
Read Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 on biblegateway.com
Verse 22The Lord created me at the beginning
Verse 2On the heights, beside the way,
Verse 3beside the gates in front of the town,
Verse 4"To you, O people, I call,
Verse 23Ages ago I was set up,
Verse 24When there were no depths I was brought forth,
Verse 25Before the mountains had been shaped,
Verse 26when he had not yet made earth and fields,
Verse 27When he established the heavens, I was there,
Verse 28when he made firm the skies above,
Verse 29when he assigned to the sea its limit,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
Verse 30then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his
Verse 31rejoicing in his inhabited world
Devotion
The book of Proverbs has been described as advice given from a father to a son, a mother to a daughter, a parent to a child. When you think of the advice passed on to you while growing up, what comes to your mind?
My father, a chemist, worked in the early days of the development of plastics, never realizing what harm they could cause the world. So, one of my favorite movie lines was that spoken to Dustin Hoffman in the movie The Graduate. While giving advice for the future his neighbor said, “One word, Plastics.”
In Proverbs 8, Wisdom speaks as agent of God’s creation: “Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth.” (Verse 25)
Who would ever imagine a half century ago that this year, one of our Lenten themes would have been the need to use less plastic? While this wisdom might be particular and temporal, Proverbs reminds us of God’s eternal wisdom in creation.
Prayer
Lord, have mercy on our ignorance. Lord, have mercy on your creation. Lord, have mercy of us and how we care for that creation. Amen.