Curious

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Does not wisdom call
    and understanding raise her voice?
On the heights, beside the way,
    at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
    at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
“To you, O people, I call,
    and my cry is to all who live.

“The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
    the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up,
    at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
    when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped,
    before the hills, I was brought forth,
when he had not yet made earth and fields
    or the world’s first bits of soil.
When he established the heavens, I was there;
    when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
    when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
    so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
    then I was beside him, like a master worker,
and I was daily his delight,
    playing before him always,
playing in his inhabited world
    and delighting in the human race.

This passage that Emmett just beautifully read for us is what inspired me to do a Summer sermon series on the Book of Proverbs, with today’s passage as a jumping-off point. Proverbs doesn’t show up often in our yearly lectionary options; likely because it’s actually not an especially religious or spiritual book, aside from today’s beautiful, cosmological passage, putting Woman Wisdom alongside God and the creation of the universe. The authorship of Proverbs is unknown, though it’s attributed to the Solomon’s wisdom; but it’s really just an anthology of poems and sayings from the educated people of the time—scribes, priests, counselors to royalty. The audience it was geared to was probably that of young men finished with the schooling or training and about to venture out into the real world. Ultimately, the purpose of the book is teach one how to acquire wisdom and how to avoid folly—how to live a good and ethical life.

 But before we get into all the sayings and instructions for living said ethical life, we have today’s poem—about Wisdom’s relationship to God, creation, and of course, to us. When we think the concept wisdom, and when we think of instruction for living a good, faithful, and ethical life, it can all feel very serious, right? But the thing that stood out to me in reading this passage was the end, verses 30 and 31— “…I was beside [God], like a master worker, / and I was daily his delight, playing always before him / playing in his inhabited world / and delighting in the human race.” There’s such a playfulness to this, isn’t there? And there’s an excitement about being part of creation, about helping God create all this beauty and wonder. “…and delighting in the human race.”

Here is Wisdom, watching humanity learn from her, embrace her, grow and evolve, and she delights in it, in watching how we learn, how we change, how we love and live. It strikes me that this is an excitement and a curiosity. It reminds me of the feelings of utter joy I have watching Frankie grow and learn, hearing new words, seeing her master new skills. I’m curious and excited about what she will do next, she’s curious and excited about this still-new world she’s continuing to discover.  

And of course she’s excited and curious. There’s so much available to her! There’s so much to learn and to do and to see! At the beginning of our passage today, Wisdom says, “To you, O people, I call, / and my cry is to all who live.” Wisdom is available to all! Accessible to all! Inclusive to all! What a beautiful thing! But Church— we have to want it.

Now, I don’t know if any of you are as freaked out about the rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence as I am, but it’s been on my mind a lot lately. I asked some teacher friends, and my professor husband, if they’ve noticed a decline in curiosity since AI became so readily available. My friends said it’s really been a slow and steady decline, really, even since we could just Google something and know the answer in seconds… no additional research, no interest in looking further… just typing something into their phones, getting the answer, and moving on with their day. One friend said what scares her more is AI-algorithms on platforms, especially TikTok, feeding kids false information and full-on lies, and those students just taking it all as fact. She sees this more than anything.

But I think this goes hand-in-hand with declining curiosity. It’s easy to just assume everything we hear or read or see on the internet is real. It takes a lot of mental energy to wonder if maybe you’re being deceived. And no one wants to believe they’ve been deceived. No one wants to believe they’ve been taken advantage of, that they’ve been bamboozled, or tricked. So they take what the hear as fact, and then, further embarrassed to admit they’re wrong, they double-down. It’s a vicious and depressing cycle, really. Our pride and arrogance gets in the way of pure curiosity, of open-mindedness and growth.

Wisdom is accessible, available, and inclusive to all. So why so do so many people dismiss it? Why are so many people incurious about the world and what could make it better? Why do so many people consciously or unconsciously subscribe to an “ignorance is bliss” way of life? Well, when there’s so much work to do to make the world a safe and comfortable place for all, when the task at hand seems so daunting, when there’s a figurative or, sadly, in today’s case, literal army of people standing in the way of progress and love, it’s easier to stay incurious. It’s easier to assume there’s nothing to be done, to stop trying to think of creative ways to improve society, to fight back against the powerful.

It's really interesting when I hear pro-AI arguments, because they often try to defend AI as just a tool the common person can use to be more efficient, to enhance their lives. But we aren’t talking about the printing press and the Gutenberg Bible. This isn’t about giving tools of progress and knowledge to better the lives of the common folk. Because the people in power are behind AI. They create the algorithms, they code and engineer how it interacts with us. I know I sound like a dystopian conspiracy theorist right now, but bear with me—the CEO of OpenAI/ChaptGPT is over here making billion dollar deals Saudi kings and other oppressive regimes. The bill that congress is desperately trying to push through right now, in addition to cutting billions of this country’s social safety nets, also completely guts any regulation of AI, which will make deepfakes and deceptive videos all the more rampant, creating more distrust and chaos. Because the more confused, scared, and divided we are, the more power the unethical people in power can hoard. In fact, there’s been a troubling proliferation of either misleading, or completely fake photos and videos circulating in regards to the LA protests, making it seem that the entire city is engulfed in flames and violence, when the protests have been predominantly peaceful, and any violence can be pinpointed to just a couple small pockets. The less curiosity we have, the less critical thinking we do, the more outrageous claims we’ll believe, and we will continue to fall deeper into chaos and violence.

“My cry is to all who live,” calls Wisdom. Wisdom, who has been with God since the beginning of the cosmos, who has watched and assisted with utter glee and love, humanity evolve and learn and create. Wisdom, who saw God establish the heavens, and then saw humanity make constellations and navigate the waters with those heavens; Wisdom, who has been with God since the mountains were shaped, who has watched human and animal alike climb and explore; Wisdom, who saw humanity learn about the soil, and plans, saw them sustain themselves thanks to the gifts of God’s nature— she has always been with us, always been available to us, as we learn and grow, as we acquire more and more of her, more and more wisdom. Woman Wisdom, in our passage today, full of joy, playfulness, and delight, watching humanity embrace her… is surely in tears watching us today.

I’m going to repeat myself, but there’s a lyric from a song by one of my favorite singer-songwriters Bonnie “Prince” Billy song, writing about his toddler daughter, “Watch what we will do now / Able to see it all through someone smaller.” I feel this so deeply now, being able to experience such new joy and hope through Frankie now, learning things I’ve known for decades all over again. I hope, Church, that we can all continue to be curious. That we can continue to keep trying to learn and grow, that we won’t give into rage bait, that we won’t give into anger that misleading videos and photos are designed to create. I hope That we can be not just curious about the world, but curious about each other, about our fellow humans. I hope we can delight in one another, mirroring the relationship between God and Wisdom—helping each other, exciting each other, encouraging each other.  

I was finishing this sermon yesterday just after I saw that two democratic state senators in Minnesota were shot, one of them and her husband assassinated in act of political violence. It was hard to write about curiosity and joy and delight while I was thinking about so many people in our community, in our own congregation here who were out at various protests yesterday, knowing deep down that here in Vermont they’d be safe, that they would be out there proudly protesting, rightly not giving into fear, but it was hard to keep writing a sermon with a positive, light message, with these worries in the back of my mind. It was hard to continue to write about curiosity and joy and delight with so much violence and uncertainty unfolding across our country, and continued violence and deeply unnecessary acts of war abroad.

Because there’s such an innocence to Wisdom’s words at the end of our passage. There’s so much hope and excitement in her poetry, reminiscing about the beginning of creation, filled with so much possibility for what humanity will do, what we would produce, what we would create ourselves. It’s hard to reconcile that love and that hope with the heaviness that’s in the air right now.

But I can’t help but believe that this love and delight that Wisdom has for humanity, for us, can be recaptured. I can’t help but have faith that we will get through this harrowing time. And I believe, I really do believe we do that by being curious. We take a step back and delight in what is possible again. We take a step back and see people for who they really are. We take a step back from the inflammatory and sometimes all-out false narratives that flood our TVs and our phones and think about the good and loving people, the interesting and ridiculous characters in our lives, in this community. We listen to each other, really listen, really hear each other, listen to their ideas, their stories, and we learn and we grow.

“Able to see it through the eyes of someone smaller.” Able to see it through the eyes of someone, of something full of hope and possibility. Able to deny the temptations of easy answers and engineered for us by the powerful, and instead continue to wonder and question and create. Able to stay curious about our world, to stay curious about each other, to be out in the world connecting with people, rather than machines and algorithms, rather than stuck behind screens, doom-scrolling and falling into pits of despair. Able to “…play in [God’s] inhabited world, / delighting in the human race.”

Delight in each other. Find joy and hope and love in the midst of the chaos and cruelty. Don’t give into fear that is being fed to you be algorithms, that’s being fed to you by the powerful who control those algorithms. Play in the world. Delight in the world. Be out in the world, be curious, be joyful, because that is a part of being wise; embracing wisdom doesn’t just mean solitary, serious discernment; it means joy, it means love, in means connection. Be curious. Be hopeful. Know that the love of God, the love of Wisdom, is available to you, is available to all. It cries out to all who live.  Amen.