A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on September 22, 2024 by Revd Dr Sam Wells
Reading for address: Proverbs 31: 10-31
I remember the scene. The theological college I attended was very small. There were perhaps 30 students. We met every weekday for morning and evening prayer, and worship was led by members of the student body. Part of the training was being ready to lead worship without prior notice, so you wouldn’t know in advance if you were going to read a lesson or lead prayers. Of the 30 students, only two were women. Women could be ordained deacon but not priest in 1989, and the two women at the college had divergent views on the situation. One shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘It’s about the Holy Spirit working through me, so I guess this situation just gives the Holy Spirit more of a challenge, but I think the Holy Spirit will find a way.’ The other woman was more impassioned. She could barely suppress her frustration when she beheld a man presiding at communion, and the rest of us stared intently at the floor when passages came up like women remaining silent or wives submitting to their husbands.
So when the impassioned woman stood up one evening to read, and it turned out the lesson came from Proverbs 31, the whole college caught its breath, and the tension was as taut as when you cook Christmas dinner for your new mother-in-law. The student was aware of the history of the subjection of women in the church, and of the many congregations that would take this account of the good wife as a template for highly traditional and circumscribed gender roles. And here she was, standing before a congregation made up almost entirely of men, reading a passage that appeared to confirm her subordinate status. She felt humiliated and assaulted. Sure enough, she was emotional from the outset, when she read the words, ‘A good wife who can find?’, and her voice continued to quaver through all 22 verses. Her body became contorted. By the end, tears were falling down her cheeks. When she sat down, she put her face in her hands and sobbed. Everyone else learned the pastoral limitations of continuing to stare at the floor.
I’m guessing just a few of these thoughts have gone through the minds of every woman here this morning. Because the church’s record in cultivating the independence, dignity and authority of women hasn’t been a laudable one. But what I want to explore today is how this famous, even notorious, reading isn’t what it at first appears. It may be that my fellow student’s pain and anger, while deeply felt, was not well-directed at this particular passage.
This poem about the wise woman forms the climax to the book of Proverbs. Everything before it builds up to it. It’s an acrostic poem, which means that each verse begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in order. (You might be aware that Psalm 119 is set out in a similar way, with each group of 8 verses beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in order.) It’s like writing a poem in English in which the first line starts with an A, the second with a B, the third with a C, and so on. In other words, every word is carefully chosen and pondered and placed. It’s not inherently about a good wife: a better translation of the opening phrase would say, ‘a woman of valour.’ This isn’t about the subjugation of women to circumscribed domesticity: it’s about a figure who embodies the aspirations of her whole culture.
Here’s the crucial sociological point that governs the interpretation of these verses. When you’re trying to find a polite way to ask someone if their life is primarily centred on their growing family, or if they have a regular job, the current fashionable phrase to use is, ‘Do you work outside the home?’ These words are carefully chosen, but they contribute to the misunderstanding of the Proverbs 31 passage. The reason is that in post-war Britain, the home became the scene of domesticity, a place of leisure, consumption, childcare and internal decoration, of soft furnishings and idle pursuits. An educated middle-class woman today knows she has a mountain to climb if she’s going to justify her existence to a stranger in a casual conversation by describing her life as circumscribed by these characteristics.
But the home in Palestine in the fourth century before Christ, when these words were most probably written, was a very different environment. It was the centre of economic activity. This was a pre-industrial economy. All the places where twenty-first century people go to work – offices, factories, business parks, libraries, schools, coffee shops; none of these existed. Look at the activities the woman of valour performs through these lenses. She seeks wool and flax – not to improve her own home, but to manufacture goods for sale. She rises early to organise the household, especially its considerable staff team. She ‘perceives that her merchandise is profitable.’ That’s not a bourgeois domestic idyll. She ‘considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard.’ We’re talking about a major wheeler-dealer here.
She ‘opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy.’ This is a woman who’s become the centre of public benefaction and welfare for the community. There are three results of her labours: her ‘children rise up and call her happy’ – in other words she’s founded a considerable family business; her ‘husband is known in the city gates, taking his seat among the elders of the land’ – you might ask if he ever lets slip where his wealth and influence truly come from; and she becomes known, not for beauty and charm, those domestic virtues, but for wisdom, strength and dignity, the qualities of a stateswoman. Listen to that last line again, now perhaps in a different frame of mind. It says, ‘Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the city gates.’ In other words, credit where credit is due: this woman is the bedrock of society.
I’d like to take you even deeper into the subtleties of this passage to highlight how subversive it is both to the culture of the fourth century and to assumptions to which we can jump too quickly today. Earlier in the book of Proverbs, in chapter 7, we find another figure, sometimes called Dame Folly, who’s contrasted with the character of Lady Wisdom portrayed in chapter 8 and elsewhere. Whereas the loose and indulgent Folly lounges on her bed, which is adorned with linen coverings, the industrious and conscientious Wisdom manufactures coverings herself – and expensive ones, for crimson and purple were top of the range. Indeed this account of Wisdom refers five times to the valorous woman’s use of her hands: they work eagerly, plant a vineyard, hold spindle and distaff, give alms to the poor, and receive her reward. We’re getting a profound contrast between the lifestyle of the city, based around consumption, and that of the rural areas, rooted in production. We’re also getting a portrayal of a rounded life that’s not just about what makes money but about what constitutes a healthy relationship to society and community.
Even beyond that, the woman of valour takes up a role of prominent authority. She gives tasks to her servants – the word means ‘legislates.’ It’s like she’s a local mayor. And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. This is the most radical statement of all, because the word for teaching is torah, which refers to the central books of the Old Testament, and the word for kindness is the word that refers to God’s disposition toward Israel, loving-kindness. So she’s a political and religious leader.
The notion that underscores this whole description is economics. In Greek the word is oikonomia – which means household management. Today the idea that economics means household management is absurd – it obviously means so much more than that. But when you read this passage it all makes perfect sense. This capable woman is managing the household the way the Chancellor of the Exchequer manages the economy. She’s doing it very well. She’s the engine room of the whole society. It’s time she got the credit she deserves.
We’ve seen the layers of significance in this chapter. But don’t miss the irony in the way reading this passage has changed in the last five years. Not long ago, we’d have been saying in a pre-industrial economy the centre of industry was the home, whereas in an industrial economy work transferred to factory or office and the home became a domestic retreat. So it would be hard to understand how a woman who worked in the home could be a symbol of authority, status and wisdom. But since covid, that’s profoundly changed. Since the beginnings of the internet, the home had begun to reemerge as a location for work in the gig economy or the odd part-time side hustle. But since 2020, there’s been a revolution. Working in the home is no longer a euphemism for bringing up children, supporting one’s spouse and attending to less prestigious affairs. Now you can be a political leader and a religious afficionado from home. This passage has suddenly become more relevant than it’s been for centuries.
But what hasn’t changed is that this is the climax to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs is a book that turns the theological claims and dramatic stories of the Old Testament into practical guidelines for living in turbulent times. It draws together insights from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds, and it seeks renewal both individually and corporately for Israel’s life with God. What’s radical and remarkable is that it portrays God’s perfect partner as a woman. Throughout this description of the woman of valour, the author is holding up this woman as an ideal for Israel as a whole to imitate.
In this passage we’re warned that charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain. But in their place, we’re given here a model for both faithfulness and true happiness: a woman rolling up her sleeves to purchase wool and flax, to produce fine linen and purple, to perceive her merchandise is profitable, to buy and cultivate a vineyard, to become physically and mentally strong, to exercise authority in faith and public life, and to be a benefactor to those who are struggling. It’s a daunting role model – but never let it be said that the Bible damns women with low expectations. This is a woman who inspires us all to our highest ideals, and inspires God’s people to see womanhood as the epitome of what it means to be God’s companion.
My theological college student contemporary was buckling under the burdens of conflicting expectations of culture and church, marriage and career, vocation and reality; but what she couldn’t at that crisis moment see, and, mired in negativity and conflict as we all were at the time, none of us realised, was how positive a picture this ancient text offers. The Bible had words of joy for her, even though she was too burdened in that moment to receive them, and even though social norms at the time inhibited us from reading the Bible’s liberating word correctly. If the church has diminished women for many centuries, and even today, so much the loss for the church, and for many of its members. But let’s read the Bible again with fresh eyes, fresh
faith, and a little bit of sociological insight: and let’s celebrate the wisdom of the woman of valour, and in her see the wisdom of the God of Jesus Christ.
My exegesis of Proverbs 31 draws on Ellen Davis, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press 2000)
