Proverbs 31 Women, Revisited

Last year at about this time I wrote a blog post called "A Proverbs 31 Woman." Here it is.

Recently on Facebook that post received renewed attention. It was discussed by someone who blocked me from the discussion and who further refused to allow a link to the post to be included on the thread. That same person alluded to my post on his blog here. I am the writer who is said to have "virtually laugh[ed] off Proverbs 31 . . . saying that text does not really apply to individuals but is really about Christ and the Church."

Since I could not participate in the discussion on Facebook and since I am not allowed to comment on the above writer's blog (or at least have been rejected enough times in the past that I no longer wish to try), I must defend myself here. Please notice that the author quoted above says that I "virtually" laughed off Proverbs 31. That is an interesting qualifier, providing the writer an out. But the truth is that while yes, there was humor in the post, it was self-deprecating humor, laughing at myself. I do not laugh at God's Word. I am a poor, miserable sinner and I neglect it and daily fail to follow it perfectly. But it is my only hope in this world. So I take seriously this accusation and hereby refute it. "I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." (Romans 1:16)

The blogger includes me in a group of examples of what he says illustrate an "aversion to sanctification caused by phobic allergic reaction to any talk about good works." I fail to see how my blog post illustrates that phenomenon. The point of the blog post was not to discount good works. As I have been catechized by several dear, faithful Lutheran pastors over the past 25 years, I believe that good works flow from the new man (or woman) in Christ. I am called to keep God's Law perfectly, but because I was dead in my sin and unable to do so God sent His Son to live the perfect life for me and then to go to the cross to pay the price for my sins. I look to Christ Crucified and see that my sin put Him there, and I am devastated, crushed by guilt. But then my Saviour extends to me forgiveness and the gift of faith, and as His love is poured into me it flows right back out again in the form of good works--not of my doing, but of His. "I can do all things through Him Who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13)

Regarding the charge that I claimed the passage did not apply to individuals: that is nowhere stated. To state that I see one thing (a picture of Christ and His church) in the blog post is not to discount other things that may be there. In fact, as I go line by line through the passage, showing how I fail to measure up, what am I doing if not applying it to myself? Am I not an individual?

A year has passed since I wrote that post and if I were to write it today I would probably change one thing. I concluded in the post that Proverbs 31 is gospel. But as illustrated by the examples of all the ways I do not succeed at being a Proverbs 31 woman, it is also law. So I should have said it is both. And isn't that pretty much the case with all of God's Word? It kills us with Law and then brings us back to life with Gospel. And in our new life in Christ, we go forth in joy, sharing His love by proclaiming what He has done and gladly serving those He places before us.

As I wrote last year, I sometimes hear women, Christian friends of mine, despairing of their ability to be Proverbs 31 women. They want to be, but they are beaten down by their sin and overwhelmed by life and they are tired, so very tired. The purpose of the blog post was nothing else but to encourage those dear ladies, to tell them that far from being discouraged by the passage they should find comfort in it because while they might not feel like Proverbs 31 women, they are. In Christ they are! And what else would they want to be? They are clothed in the spotless robe of Christ, adorned by the beautiful jewels of His righteousness, equipped to do excellently while their works praise them in the gates.

Getting Out of the Box

One of the more enjoyable aspects of our family's homeschooling routine is the family "readaloud"--a book that I select for its literary, cultural, or historical value and then spend time reading to and discussing with my children. Whereas in some families the practice of reading together wanes as the children learn to read on their own, we are similar to many other homeschooling families I know in that we have continued reading together even as our oldest children have become teenagers. Lately, though, I must admit that we have been struggling more and more to find time for this most cherished activity. It seems that in the face of overloaded schedules and tired minds and bodies, the readaloud, with its more abstract benefits, has often been neglected in favor of more obviously necessary pursuits such as math lessons and piano practicing. So for months now we have been on the same book--Marjorie Rawlings' The Yearling--trying to finish it not for lack of interest but for lack of time. And now with two chapters remaining (of 33 total--it's a long book!), I think I can finally say the end is in sight.

For anyone who is not familiar with the story, it relates one year in the life of a farming family in the backwoods of Florida during the early 20th century. The main character is Jody Baxter, a 12-year-old boy who turns an orphaned fawn into a pet. As the fawn--named Flag--grows, it begins to threaten the Baxters' crops, and in spite of the family's efforts to thwart its mischief it repeatedly causes damage to the young plants that are to provide the Baxters' sustenance and livelihood in the coming year. Jody, faced with telling his father that Flag has destroyed the young corn shoots that were just beginning to break through the soil, finds himself panicking because he knows that the family is running out of options for dealing with this problem. Yet he knows he has no choice but to go to his father with the bad news. As I read this passage to my children a few days ago, these words resonated with me in a way I didn't expect:

Jody was frightened. He dawdled about the field, hoping to have a miracle happen and the corn appear again when his back was turned. Perhaps he was having a nightmare in which Flag had eaten the corn crop, and when he awakened he would go out and find it growing, green and tender. He pushed a stick into one arm to make sure. The dull misery he felt was that of a bad dream, but the pain in his arm was as real as the destruction of the corn. He dragged back to the house with slow and heavy feet. He sat down in the kitchen and did not go to his father. Penny called him. He went to the bedroom.

"Well, boy? How's the crops?"

"The cotton's up. Hit looks like okry, don't it?" His enthusiasm was spurious. "The cow-peas is breakin' the ground."

He spread the toes of his bare feet and wriggled them. He was absorbed in them, as though they had developed an interesting new function.

"And the corn, Jody?"

His heart beat as fast as a humming-bird's wings. He swallowed and took the plunge.

"Somethin's et off most of it."

So--to the point of this post. A few weeks ago I became convicted of the need to see my pastor for personal confession & absolution. I take part in corporate confession every week as part of the liturgy, but due to certain circumstances in my own life of late I have found myself desperately needing to hear those words of absolution spoken not just to the assembly but personally to me. Having been confirmed Roman Catholic, I went to confession years ago as a teenager, but since joining the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in my young adulthood have not found individual confession encouraged to the same degree, although that is changing in some congregations (and I should clarify that in the Catholic church it is not merely encouraged but required at certain times in the believer's life).

So having made the decision to see my pastor and having called him to set up an appointment, I found myself having to wait for several days due to our conflicting schedules. And oh, the waiting--it was awful. I was desperate to go to confession--to speak to my pastor the truth of my sin--and yet I was dreading it. Could I really say those words out loud? And what was he--not just my pastor, but my friend--going to think of me? I felt just like Jody in the above excerpt from The Yearling, looking for ways to avoid the inevitable, hoping it was all just a dream, heart beating "fast as a humming-bird's wings."

But sin is very real, as are the deadly consequences it has on one's life and soul. And it was eating away at me in the same way Jody's fawn was eating away at those corn plants. And similar to Jody's father calling him to report on the plants, my Father had been calling me, and calling me, and calling me again, and finally I went to Him in the person of my pastor, took a big deep breath, and laid it all out there:

"I, a poor sinner, plead gulty before God of all sins.
I have lived as if God did not matter and as if I mattered most.
My Lord's name I have not honored as I should; my worship and prayers have faltered.
I have not let His love have its way with me, and so my love for others has failed.
There are those whom I have hurt, and those whom I have failed to help.
My thoughts and desires have been soiled with sin." (Lutheran Service Book, p. 292)

And Pastor's words came back to me, as he placed his hand on my head:

"In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

And suddenly it was clear that it mattered not what Pastor thought of me but only what my Lord thought of me, and He had known all along--and still knows--my sinful condition and yet for the sake of His Son and my Saviour had forgiven me all those sins and made me new in Christ.

In The Yearling, after Jody informs his father of Flag's devastating action, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter confer to decide what to do. Mrs. Baxter has long been "down" on Flag and Jody fears this most recent event might be the last straw. But when his parents call him to share their verdict, it turns out that Mr. Baxter--full of sympathy and compassion for his son--has prevailed upon his wife and talked her into trying one more time to manage the misbehaving fawn. A reprieve is granted: Jody will be allowed to attempt the building of a fence to keep Flag away from the vulnerable plants. At this news, Jody feels as though he has gotten his very life back:

It seemed to Jody that he had been shut up in a small black box and now the lid was off, and the sun and light and air came in across him, and he was free.

I can think of no better words to describe the way I felt after hearing my pastor's granting of my Lord's absolution. It was indeed like being let out of a tiny, suffocating black box--a tomb of condemnation--and finding myself once again able to live and breathe again.

As I mentioned earlier, I was confirmed in the Roman Catholic church and so have some memory of personal confession and absolution. But as a Catholic the experience was somewhat different: once the penitent has confessed, he or she is instructed to perform some sort of "penance"--perhaps an act of prayer, fasting, or good works--to demonstrate his remorse and make up for the harm that his sin has done. Now, I don't mean to argue against any of these things--they each have value, and prayer in particular seems to me a natural outgrowth of true repentance. But to have a priest prescribe that I say three "Our Father's" or two "Hail Mary's" or that I engage in some specific act to make up for my sin seems to me to fly in the face of true forgiveness, which is granted without any strings attached. For if the penitent is truly sorry, the joy and gratitude that are experienced upon receiving absolution will doubtless lead to prayers of thanksgiving and acts of Gospel joy.

If you are finding yourself weighed down by sin, I encourage you this Lenten season to see a pastor, preferably a confessional Lutheran one with a Biblical understanding of Law and Gospel, and relieve yourself of that burden. Then find yourself a Lutheran Service Book, turn to hymn #611, and sing or speak these words, not as an act of penance but as a celebration of the absolution that has just been granted you by your Father and of the reconciliation you now have with Him--a reconciliation that was obtained not by any work of yours but rather once and for all by Jesus on the cross:

Oh, the height of Jesus' love,

Higher than the heav'ns above,

Deeper than the depths of sea,

Lasting as eternity!

Love that found me--wondrous thought!

Found me when I sought Him not.

(Stanza 2, "Chief of Sinners Though I Be")

Master of the Table

Some years ago a former pastor and his wife shared with us their approach to family meals. We found great wisdom in their ideas and have tried ever since to incorporate them into our own family mealtimes. We find that when we follow these principles, listed below, our meals together take on an orderliness they would otherwise not have:

1) The meal is to begin and end with prayer. Prayer is led by the Table Master (see #2) unless the Table Master assigns someone else to do so.

2) Father is the Table Master. If Father is not present, Mother is the Table Master. If the Table Master desires, he or she can designate someone else as Table Master for the meal.

3) Once the meal has begun, no one leaves the table without requesting and receiving permission from the Table Master.

4) The Table Master designates one of those dining to be the Server. The Server has permission to come and go from the table as needed to meet the needs of those dining.

5) No one leaves the table until all have eaten, the closing prayer has been said, and the Table Master has dismissed the table.

Our older two children have grown up with these practices, and now we are trying to teach them to our youngest. (Truth be told, we have relaxed on numbers three and four a bit over the years but with a young and active three-year-old in the house are now trying to return to them in earnest.)

Recently we were sitting down to our evening meal when Evan, the aforementioned three-year-old, initiated the opening prayer by singing a song that he had learned in Sunday School:

"Oh, the Lord is good to me, and so I praise the Lord

For giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the apple seed,

The Lord is good to me. Amen!"

Because Evan delights so in this song, we have taken to using it as one of our mealtime prayers. But Evan's fondness for the song is such that he would like to use it as our opening and closing prayer at every single meal, and of late he has taken to initiating the prayer so that he can sing his song. Our response has been to try to help him understand that it is the Table Master who decides who is to lead the prayer and that therefore Evan can do so only when the Table Master asks. On this particular evening when Evan launched into his song, the Table Master gently informed him that he, not Evan, would be leading the prayer that evening. Evan promptly started to cry. The Table Master went on to explain to Evan that he, not Evan, is the Table Master and is therefore the one who makes these decisions, to which Evan (crying even harder) replied, "But I want to be the Table Master." He seemed at the time to be not merely angry or frustrated at having his will usurped but truly heartbroken at the full realization of his proper place at the table.

Poor Evan. Don't we all know exactly how he feels? For don't we all in our own way want to be the Table Master? Our first parents in the garden certainly did. Their Father gave them their very life and placed them in the most perfect possible home, asking only that they trust in Him to provide for all their needs as they sat at His table. But their greater desire was to become like the Table Master--to decide for themselves when they would approach the table and what they would eat when they got there. And we are no different in our own stubborn insistence that we know how best to govern our own lives.

Yet in spite of our repeated and failed efforts at self-determination, our Lord continues to patiently call us through the power of the Holy Spirit to fix our eyes on Him, the one true Table Master, trusting the nourishment He provides, speaking the prayers He gives us, and relishing our time at the table until He pronounces that the meal is done. For "in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Ephesians 1: 7-10).